Page 102 of Wild Bond

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered. I could have sworn I heard that raspy chuckle again, and then nothing.

I stood there for a moment longer amidst the stone walls and the fog before continuing on. I went back over what he had said in my mind. It always seemed to come back to the bond. I checked in on Skye again, but even though I could feel her there, she still felt like she was some distance away.

I was about to call to her when a shrill scream split the eerie quiet.

“Stop!” the voice cried, and it sounded like a young girl. Fear for the girl shot through me, and before I even consciously thought about it, I was sprinting in that direction.

There was an oddly familiar thumping sound, and another cry rang out, closer this time, more pained. I ran faster. My heart was pounding in my ears as I rounded a corner and came upon the scene.

A girl no more than ten was crumpled on the stone path ahead. She was dressed in rags, and her pale blonde hair was a mess that covered her face as she sobbed, “P-Please stop. You’re hurting me.”

A man stood over her holding a long thin cane. I could just make out the red welts forming on her hands and across her back where her shirt had ripped open.

“Get away from h—,” I yelled, but the words died on my lips and I stumbled to a halt when I saw who the man was.

“Safan?” I breathed. Disbelief, fear, and confusion all warred for dominance in my tone as I took in his familiar face. The look of pure rage. “But you-you’re dead. This-this isn’t . . . it can’t be . . .” My voice trailed off as I looked down at the little girl at his feet. She peered up at me through her hair—her white-blonde hair—and I reeled in shock at the tear-stained face that stared back at me. Big green eyes blinking wide.Myeyes.

The little girl was me.

My breath caught, and my mind swirled as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.

The moment I recognized her, the girl—me—disappeared, and I was left alone with Safan and his cane and that look of rage. A look which he now turned on me.

“You,” he snarled, pointing the cane at me. “This will teach you for disobeying my orders again. I’ve given you everything, and this is how you repay my kindness?” He stepped towards me, and I stumbled back. It was an instinctual response, a decade of childhood memories and fears flooding back.

My back came up against the stone wall, and I raised my hands. “Wait, Master I—” I started.

He was on me in moments, moving with surprising speed as he raised the cane.

I sank to the floor in response, curling into a ball as I had so many times, trying to present a smaller target as the blows rained down on me. The familiar, all-consuming pain lanced through me with each strike. I tried to remember that this wasn’t real. It was a test. Safan was dead. Someone had killed him. But no . . . no that wasn’t right. There was nothing I could do. He was so much bigger than me. So powerful. It was best to just wait until his anger cooled and he stopped. No one was going to stop him. No one was going to save me. I was alone. I was—

All at once a strong, warm presence flowed through me. A presence, I realized, that had always been there.Skye.Skye, reminding me that I was strong, that I wasn’t that scared ten-year-old girl anymore. I hadn’t been for a long time. I had been homeless, become a thief to survive, endured two years in prison for a crime I hadn’treallycommitted, and now I was a dragon rider.

Suddenly that same anger I had felt when I confronted Safan in his office overcame me. I stood in one fluid motion and caught the cane as he brought it down again.

Staring directly at him, I murmured in cold fury, “Enough.”

Instead of taunting me like I expected—like the real Safan would have—he vanished. The cane vanished as well, and I found myself gripping empty air. The pain from the welts disappeared and I was left standing alone again.

My body still shook as I lowered my arm and took several deep breaths, trying and failing to settle my racing pulse and control my emotions as the mysterious man had advised. I knew that wasn’t all, though. That there had to be more, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

I sent a thank you down the bond to Skye, and she hummed in satisfaction. I could tell that she had no doubt we could do this, and I wished I had her confidence.

Knowing there was nothing for it but to continue forward, I did just that. This time I decided to take the maze of pathways at a jog, heading in the general direction of the innocuous pull.

But as I ran, from one moment to the next, in that dreamlike fashion that made no sense, I found myself suddenly staring at my mother.

The maze around me had opened to form a rectangular passage from which several paths branched off. My mother was lying on the depressingly small mat we had shared in our little hovel all those years ago. She wore the same nightdress I remembered so well, and her golden hair was matted and plastered to her wan but still beautiful face with sweat. She began to cough, a deep, wet, hacking sound that had my blood freezing in my veins. I knew that cough. Knew what it meant.

“Mama?” I sobbed, rushing over and collapsing by her side. I immediately clutched her too-thin hand in mine. Everything else dropped away, my worry about the trial, Skye, the incident with Safan, everything. All of it swallowed up in the fact that my mother was here.

My gaze greedily moved over her face, memorizing and relearning every forgotten and half-remembered detail.

“Corrine darling, is that you?” my mother asked. Her eyes were half delirious from the pain as she raised a frail hand and cupped my cheek.

“Yes, mama it’s me,” I replied, holding her hand to my cheek.

Her face softened in a warm smile. “Look how you’ve grown . . . my beautiful girl.”

---