He grinned. “Yeah, but not my design. I just made this year’s batch. My great-great-great…a bunch more greats-grandfather was one of the founders of Dracona. He was a great metal mage, and since then, our family has always been led by the strongest metal mage of each generation.”
Jade studied him curiously. “So are you the next family head, since you’re the metal magic teacher?”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Nope. My older brother Declan has that title, and I’m more than happy enough that it’s him and not me. I was thrilled to be able to read and explore metal magic, rather than go into the crafting weapons and armor side of things.”
Jade grinned at him. “I can understand that.” Wasn’t that what she wanted? Rather than weapons of destruction, she wanted to create beautiful things that made life better.
It seemed like fate might be pushing her down a different path though, if what the guy in the church said had any truth to it. It wasn’t that she wanted to fight, to go on a holy crusade against the mesmer or anything like that. She wanted to be able to live a peaceful, happy life, but sometimes you had to fight for what you believed in.
If she thought about it, it made sense. Most peaceful eras on Earth had happened because someone was bigger and badder than everyone else, and they made everyone else back down because of their strength. That, in turn, led to times of peace. For every era, there was a battlefield. Whether it was guns or information, there were people who constantly worked hard to keep others safe. So maybe Jade would have to take up the role for a while.
And maybe, just maybe, her role would be different than the other travelers, although she still wasn’t positive yet on just what they’d done either. Maybe she could do both, or her inventions would be what led to a change in the tides. Maybe it was the little things like mesmer traps that would make the difference. Only time would tell.
Smiling at Eric, she proposed, “Okay, I’m going to head up to my room and do some reading. You wanna get dinner with me later?” She had begun to like eating with other people, even if they were always amazed by how much she ate. It was way more fun than eating tasteless mush alone in her hospital bed or being spoon fed that stupid mush when she didn’t have the energy to lift her fingers.
“Yeah, I’d like that. Have fun reading, and let me know if you need anything.” Grinning, she nodded in acknowledgment and then headed off into the library, lighting up her hand to throw back the darkness.
She had been transported to a world filled with monsters to fight. Sure, it had darkness, but there was also magic and light! There were people like Eric and Stephen, whom she’d started to think of as awesome older brothers. She had friends like Jessica, Kaylee, Raphael, Camille, Tisha, Lucas, Damian, Sharon and little Tina, Mike and Elisa, Will, and maybe even Jackson, Evan, and Adam. There were people like Christopher, Ammon, and Marcelle who were giving all they had to make people safe. There was King Derrick, Queen Ashanna, Victor, Hayden, and Hunter: the rest of a royal family who seemed super nice, though she didn’t really have much of an idea of what they actually did. There was even Jarom, whom she hadn’t seen since she met him. Absently, she wondered where he’d disappeared to.
Still. As much as she might need to fight monsters, there was nothing that said she couldn’t work up to it or that that was all she had to do. Whatever happened, she’d make her own path. There was a whole world to explore!
So Jade went to her room at the library. She read, she played with magic, and she made herself some new and improved sunglasses. She had a fun dinner with Eric where he told her stories of his childhood with Declan. She read some more and Lucas came to escort her home again. When she got back, Jessica, Kaylee, and Raphael fussed over her, made sure she had plenty of food in her room, etcetera. She finally really explored the Green Dragon, finding they had a little rooftop garden and where the rest of the bathrooms were.
Sitting on the roof surrounded by the smell of the blooming herbs there, she stared up, holding her hand in the air to measure the distance of the stars in the night sky. Where was Earth? She couldn’t recognize any of the constellations she’d looked at on the NASA website. She wondered why she’d been chosen to come here.
In her reading this afternoon, she’d discovered that the travelers before her had mostly been warriors.
There was Varden the Proud, who taught how the stars guided his people to victory. She guessed most of the astronomy pictures she’d seen had come from him because he was always reading the stars as omens of what Heavenly Mother directed. He’d come to this world after he’d led his people to a great victory on his. She also figured out he was the one who’d introduced glass because he wanted to observe the stars and therefore needed a telescope. The book had said there was a gigantic one in the castle.
Corrai the Wrathful was different. He’d been filled with anger at the injustice of his old world where he was a slave. From what she’d understood, he’d survived something like the Roman Colosseum. His anger at being oppressed had led him to wage grand wars against the monsters and he introduced several new weapons he’d used in his world like swords, daggers, two-headed axes, and flails. Allegedly, they’d mostly been using spears and bows before that.
Caldwell the Diligent had been brought from a world with a very trained military, and he was responsible for setting up the formal guard she’d seen today. Before that, everyone had had to fight. He was the first traveler in Caoi, and he’d also helped set up Dracona. Most of the information on him was more hearsay, because he was the one setting up the system and they hadn’t written it down for at least two generations.
But that was it. Three travelers in Caoi in the last several hundred years. If the book was to be believed, there were more in other kingdoms, but they didn’t have a whole lot of information on them either. It also kinda made it sound like Varden was still alive, but she wasn’t sure how old the book was either.
Absently, she held her hand to the sky, imagining herself touching the stars. Unlike the big burly men who all seemed to be fighters before they came here, she was just a girl who’d been trapped. It was no wonder why the people whom she’d told she was a traveler had a hard time believing it at first. She was nothing like the others.
But maybe that was okay. Maybe they needed a different kind of hero this time? Quietly, she whispered into the darkness, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.” Perhaps Frost was on to something.
She would make her own path.
- End of Book One -
Welcome to the World
Epilogue
Jade opened her eyes to the light of the new day, smiling with cracked lips as the sun hit her face. The night had passed, and it was the dawn of a new day.
She tried to push herself up, only to be stopped by the pain in her arms. She winced, glancing down at her skin-and-bones body, the multiple wires and needles stabbing into what little flesh she had. The methodical beep of monitors hummed in the background, a constant reminder that she was trapped.
Still, she turned her head, looking out at the blue sky she could see. The nurses would be in soon to bring her breakfast and put more medication in the drip. It would dull the aching pain for a few hours.
“Oh, you’re awake already! Good morning, Jade.” Nurse Sarah had walked into the room with a small packet of medication and needles for putting it straight into her body. “Here, let’s get you up. Doctor Aaron is coming in for a checkup at nine, so we’ll do a quick sponge down and braid your hair out of the way.” Buttons were pressed, and she was slowly raised to a seated position, with Sarah sticking more pillows behind her to prop her up. “Did you sleep well?”