Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 50: Memories and Collars

Suddenly, I could see an enormous pile of pulsing silver orbs sitting in a dark void. Every orb held one of my memories. The most recent ones were on the outside of the pile by me, and through gaps between the outer orbs, I saw older ones deeper in. When I stepped towards the pile, one of the orbs flew up and displayed Clarisa's face. It spoke in her voice, but I didn't remember ever hearing what she was saying.

"You see the blue mist over there?"

I looked around and saw a patch of blue mist a little ways away from the pile of memories. It was hard to judge distances in this void, but the mist seemed fairly close.

The Clarisa orb continued, "The spell allows you to visualize your memories as physical objects and move them to a safe place where the probe can't find them. It doesn't last very long because the memories want to stay together in the main pile. If you are probed again before the spell runs out, you will have to hide the memories for a second time. If you are probed after the spell runs out, you're out of luck. Move any incriminating memory orbs to the mist quickly."

The memory orb quieted and started dropping from the air. I caught it just as a red, sweeping beam of light appeared on the opposite side of the pile of memories. It changed form and solidified into a daltek, who immediately began inspecting the orbs. I hoped there was nothing incriminating over there, because I couldn't steal memory orbs from right in front of him or he'd figure out that something was up.

I focused on the side of the pile near me, where I could see the memories that covered the time from when I joined the Academy until now. They all had a green glow around them that the earlier memories didn't, probably corresponding to when I bonded with Leera. I sorted through them, grabbing any that mentioned the mission or my true allegiance to Lykela.

Feeling for some reason that I shouldn't let the dalteks see my memories of the bronze katalni either, I reached for those as well. But because my arms were full of memory orbs at the time, I only managed to drop several as I picked up the new ones. They stuck to the pile as if magnetized, which made an audible zinging noise.

I glanced up at the daltek, who seemed incredibly focused on his task. He was already halfway to me. I didn't think I'd be able to run the orbs I was carrying to the mist, come back, and hide the rest in time.

"Let me help," a girl's voice said from behind me.

I jumped at the unexpectedness of finding someone else in my mind, but I relaxed as I realized there could only be one other person here. I turned around, expecting to see a green dragon but instead spotting a teenage girl about my age with long, green hair.

"Leera?"

"Yeah. Hands are more useful than claws, so I imagined myself like this." She picked up the memories I'd dropped and the the katalni ones as well. Frowning, she picked up the memory when I was an owl and the bronze katalni stopped her from eating me. "I almost killed you. You never said."

"That's not important right now. We have to hide these." I headed for the blue mist.

She followed close behind, and we deposited the memory orbs there. As soon as we finished, I felt like I was forgetting something big.

"You can't remember the memories you hid," Leera said.

"What memories?"

She patted my shoulder. "You'll remember soon."

I hoped so.

The daltek neared us but didn't look up from his work. His hands were like lightning, picking up hundreds of orbs and setting them back down before I could blink.

He checked the last one without incident, and I was pulled back into reality. His hands were no longer on my head, but I had a throbbing headache, and my entire body felt like I'd run a marathon.