This Red Sky

Chapter Two

The world came back into focus, just for a moment. Sonia felt herself being carried in someone's arms. Her head throbbed, and her whole body ached. She was too weak to cry out, or do anything but open her eyes. She could see the stars above her, through the trees.

She drifted back into unconsciousness.

+++

Sonia awoke again, and it was bright and hot. Midday. Someone placed a cool cloth on her forehead. There were bandages on her face and limbs, heavy and uncomfortable. She struggled, trying to take them off.

"Elna?" she croaked.

"Shhh," someone else said softly. "You are safe."

The voice was familiar, but Sonia couldn't place it. The person was smoothing back her hair. Sonia tried to open her eyes. Her vision was blurred, but she saw a smudge of red.

Darkness swallowed her again.

+++

She awoke a third time, and her lips were dry and cracked. Sonia licked them, groaning a little as she turned over. The bandages were still in place, and as she reached up to touch her head she felt another one wrapped around it. Her body still felt sore, but the pain was duller and further away.

She definitely wasn't in the woods anymore. Sonia sat unsteadily upright, rubbing her eyes. Her heart was batting, faint and fast, against the inside of her chest.

Her eyes flitted around, unable to recognize what she was seeing around her. The white linen on her arms and legs brushed against the precious silks and furs she found herself sprawled upon, and as she breathed in, the stench of burnt flesh and smoke mixed with metal and sweet perfume filled her nose.

She heard footsteps. A parched cry of fear and surprise escaped her as she scrambled a few feet away. Her hands hit a pile of diamonds and gold coins, banked up at the edge of the makeshift bed, and she spun around to face the source of the sound.

The strange young woman from the festival came from around a pile of coins. Her red cloak was gone, her black hair tied out of her face, and in the heat a few beads of sweat were forming on her forehead. Sonia's eyes traveled up and down her body—lean and muscular, outfitted in mismatched leatherlike armor, each piece a different deep jewel tone.

Sonia scrabbled at the pile of treasure for a weapon, her hand closing around the handle of a silver dinner knife. She held it out threateningly, her hand shaking.

"Where am I?!"

"The dragon's cave," the woman said quietly.

They stared at each other for a long moment, Sonia feeling a little sick. The strange woman sat on the pile of silks facing her, making no move to attack, and Sonia tightened her grip on the knife as she looked around.

She was in a massive cave. Treasure was everywhere.

It covered the floor completely, banked up against the walls, piled like the sand dunes of the west. Sonia saw jewels bigger than her fist, bigger than her head, more gold than she could ever fathom being in one place, elephant tusks, swords inlaid with precious gems, statues of gods she didn't recognize, and multitudes of colored stones all strung together in jewelry that looked too heavy to wear. A golden throne was lying on its side. She was sleeping on a pile of silk clothes and furs heaped together to form the softest thing in the room. They were all dyed fantastic colors, including something beautiful Sonia had never seen before, somewhere between blue and red.

The woman moved, and Sonia sat up straighter, holding the knife up again. The other, watching Sonia's face, slowly removed a waterskin with a cork from the backpack at her side. She held it up, and then gently tossed it towards the girl.