Jack Of All Trades ✓ | steampunk, dragons, trickery

Chapter 10.2: No More Cursed Gift!

A dark blue cloud shimmied out of Jack's chest and rose to the ceiling. Serena pointed her finger at it and a spark of green light hit the cloud. It evaporated.

"Well?" Serena smiled.

Jack waited, but there was nothing. He went over to Eli and touched her arm.

"Hey," she whispered, "Jett—"

It's gone. Just me. He faced the Enchantress and a smile stretched on his face. He was free from the curse. At long last, after all these years!

"I can't hear your thoughts!" He turned to Eli. "Ha, I'm free." Now he could just go off. Be on his own. Not worry about what side of a person he was standing or avoiding crowded places. He didn't have to hear the thoughts of the women who kept thinking about how he might be in bed. He didn't have to learn about what people thought of him in the privacy of their minds.

"It's a relief?" Serena asked.

"Oh, yes!" Jack shouted. "I feel lighter, too. Yes!" He kicked the air in front of him as adrenaline seemed to rush through his body. The purple glow on his chest came but didn't hurt. Maybe it had been affected too, whatever it was.

Serena laughed through her nose. "And I gladly accept payment as well."

His smile faded. "Payment? But you said if I freed you, you would—"

"That's a dragon's promise. I was only pretending to be a dragon."

With a hand gesture, the rest of the ceiling came crumbling down. Green sparks of light shattered the dragon's breath stones on the shelves.

"Oh, my goodness, Jack, we need to get out of here!"

Jack was trying to work it out. What did she mean by payment? If she wasn't a dragon, that meant Eli couldn't become a Seeker. If she couldn't become a Seeker, Jett wouldn't be saved. But what was payment?

Eli tugged on his sleeve, urging him to help her carry Jett who was still passed out. But then a coil of green smoke dove into Jett's chest and he turned black. In the next moment, his body floated up and began to enlarge. His skin cracked, becoming scaly. A tail grew behind and his arms and legs became thicker while claws stretched from his hands and feet. Green cloud masses surrounded Jett and he wailed as his body transformed.

Something whistled through the air, but then Eli's body lifted from the ground. Her boomerang melted when Jett breathed fire. Jack was too slow to grab her and stunned at what was happening before him. All around dragons were growing from colorful smoke that hissed out of the shattered gemstones.

"You can go now, my son."

"That's payment?" He looked up at Eli, struggling against the green smoke that held her like a snake coiled around her waist.

"Help me!" she called down below.

"I have a country to conquer, take back from the fraud queen and my cheating husband what is rightfully mine, but you don't have to be a part of that. I grant you freedom from your wish and give you freedom to do as you please with your life. I know you have wonderful dreams of traveling the world."

At her words, images of his dreams invaded his mind. He saw himself as a world-renowned aeronaut who mapped the unknown lands. He would be the first to venture beyond Trident and discover the mysteries of the world. And he saw himself working at a gallery somewhere. Maybe not as Jack Ogswold, but he could reinvent himself and it would be just like the Kaleidoscope.

"But what—"

"If you so wish to save this girl and this Piet, your curse will return, and you will suffer as you had. Every day. Have they become so important that you would return to a life of constraints and stress?" Serena said and then turned her back. She bowed her head. "They were all after me when I tried to get close to you. To help you. The old Seeker tried to kill me, so I trapped my own soul into a gem, knowing one day my son would find me. You wanted to have the curse lifted, didn't you?"