Beyond the Crimson (The Crimson Cycle) by Danielle Martin Williams Page A

dragon. You have nothing to fear.”
    “B-b-baby dragon?” I stammered. Was that thing really a dragon? It looked more like a monstrous bird.
    H e laughed again. “Aye,” he said, eyes twinkling, “have you not seen one?”
    I shook my head. “W —we don’t have d—dragons,” I faltered, still struggling to speak.
    The smile fell and h is eyes widened. “No dragons?” He put a hand to his forehead. “What kind of dwelling is this?” he muttered to himself, and I couldn’t help but notice his eyes glanced over my attire once more. He scratched the side of his head, turning slightly to the frame. “When did the dragons disappear?” he asked quietly.
    “I… I never even knew they really existed.”
    He turned back to me, eyebrows burrowed tightly together. “If you do not have dragons in this realm and know not of their existence, then that must be a vortex to my world.” His face lit up suddenly. He moved to the frame and began examining it from all angles, running his hands down the sides of it. 
    “You don’t know that for certain,” I said with anxiety climbing. I wasn’t sure if was from fear of letting another creature in or the fact that he might disappear before I had the answer to his secret.
    “I know for certain it would be more my world than here ,” he said contemptuously, looking around in disgust. His fingers traced the inscription and suddenly his jaw clenched, thrusting out the small muscles above the bone. He turned back with a sinister look and stomped towards me, yanking the bracelet from my wrist, and in the same instant, the large gust of wind blew past us with the same blinding light. He covered his eyes for a moment then straightened his shoulders, grinning wide and lop-sided. “Farewell, lady,” he said without a care, as he turned and strode back to the frame, but as he went to step through he halted, unable to go any further, impeded, just as he had been with the bond.
    “What have you done?” he hollered , as he pulled back his fist and pummeled it into the entrance of the vortex, but nothing happened as the invisible barrier prevented anything from passing through.
    “Nothing!” I yelled back. “You’re the one with my bracelet!”
    He cursed loudly as he tried to throw his body into it over and over again like a wild animal, but it was to no avail. He swept his arm across a nearby shelf in his rage, smashing more items to the floor.
    “ Stop it!” I shouted, horrified as irreplaceable items became nothing more than ruined fragments.
    He backed up looking defeated, fists squeezed tightly as though ready to punch anything in his path. Then he opened his palm to look at the bracelet in his hand and angrily threw it to the ground, sliding it back towards me. I picked it up and placed it carefully on my wrist. It was still my bracelet; it was a gift from my grandfather, and he had no right to take it. Slowly, the light faded, and the vortex closed once more.
    He squatted down with his head between his hands, gripping his hai r on both sides. “You mean to trap me!” he growled, keeping his face downward.
    “ I freed you!” I yelled back irately.
    He lifted his head , and I took a step back, preparing for the fiendish look I was already becoming familiar with, but his eyes never made it past the level of the floor. Instead they lit up, and I followed his gaze to a bright green glimmer coming from the linoleum tiling. There, resting on the ground was a beautiful emerald jewel, the same shade as his eyes, hanging from a golden chain. I figured it must have been one of Mr. Riley’s artifacts that crumbled to the floor from the destroyed shelves. He crawled towards it and slowly reached out his hand—hesitating for just a moment—then suddenly snatched it up, and at the same second a loud burst sounded throughout the warehouse, very different from the previous vortex.
    It looked like an explosion , but instead of combusting outward it forced everything inward like a