“A dragon being your father was soon no secret in Akaria, so it wasn’t a coincidence that Phobos arrived in town one day and wanted to speak with me. He helped me, gave me valuable tipps and even a better paid job within his castle. Everything was fine until I got to know that he wanted to take you as his wife. That’s when I went in hiding with you.” Barnett ended his story and waited for Lia to react.

“Why have you never told me about mother?” Lia felt tears rising into her eyes.

Barnett looked from her to Aeris. “Because then I would have needed to tell you about him as well. And I couldn’t … didn’t want to see him ever again.” He gnarled his last words.

“Don’t make me responsible for everything your sister had to endure”, the dragon growled back. “I couldn’t save her from death as much as you were just a puppet in your betrayal!”

Both man stared at each other as silence fell.

“Everything that happened was just Bradley then”, observed Lia, clenching her hands into fists, ignoring the tears in her eyes. “Jans death, Mothers death, Yukikos pains … all of them Bradley.” She felt the magic within her responding to her rage, her right arm tingling and shooting lightning down into the ground, causing a chunk of it to just disappear. Lia fell a few inches deeper, toppling over backwards, her rage dissipated by the suddenness of it all.

“Be careful, my child”, Aeris touched her shoulders, helping her back onto her legs. “You need to control your emotions, your rage.”

Lia looked back to him. “Is… that normal? Is it because I’m half dragon?” As Aeris didn’t answer, she looked to her halfbrother. Riko hid behind him, keeping her distance from Lia all of a sudden.

“No, none of us have that problem”, he answered after a moment. “I guess it is because you are half dragon and dragon priest at the same time.”

Lia looked at her hands. Felix. Felix wanted to help her. Was he still able to do that? Jan wasn’t alive anymore.

She felt tears rising into her eyes again. What should she do? If only Felix was with them. Or Yukiko at least.

“Lia!” As if in answer she could hear the voice of the girl. She turned just in time to see the dragon coming straight at her out of the sky. The girl standing on his back, Ice present all around her.

Aeris pulled her to the side, just before a spear of ice hit the ground now next to her. She culd feel the cold all around her. That wasn’t the girl she knew. That was something else.

“You have a choice”, shouted the girl as everything got even colder around her. “Come with me back to Bradley”, Aeris pulled her aside once again, before a spear of ice hit her, “or die!”

The girl jumped down from the back of the dragon, using some contraption of ice to land gently on the earth. The black dragon flew over them and disappeared.

“Yukiko! Come to your senses!” Lia wrestled herself out of her father’s arms. “You are not that!”

“Why have you betrayed us? Why have you betrayed me?” A gust of ice-cold air hit Lia face-on.

“I haven’t betrayed you!” Lia tried to defend herself. How should she resist the powers of Yukiko if she wasn’t allowed to use her own?

“I see”, Yukiko sighed, looking towards the ground, “you want to die.” As she looked back up, there was no rage, but only sadness, there were tears in her eyes. A thick layer of ice spread on the ground, with Yukiko at its center.

“It’s the tear! Bradley is using you through it!”

“I won’t give you my tear, no matter which lie you tell me!”

Aeris and Phobos ran past her, the dragon’s fire enveloping the girl, thawing the ice on the ground. It only took a moment and the ice solidified again, the flames were put out. Aeris and Phobos were pushed back from her, rolling over the ground. Aeris crashed into the castle walls, Phobos rolled a few meters further and stopped there. The strong gust of wind almost pushed Lia from her feet, but she managed to keep standing, only to glimpse Yukiko throwing something at her.

She raised her arms in defense, a blade of ice cutting into it. The pain from the cold burning her was worse than the wound itself, but a moment later she couldn’t feel it anymore.

Aeris jumped again towards Yukiko, another gust of wind, Lia toppled over backwards, fumbled blindly for something to stabilize herself and found something. Aeris flew past her, ramming into the castle wall again.

Lia looked towards Yukiko, seeing her hand clutching into the air, her fingers disappearing into small golden glowing holes. Her hand and her arm were black, golden glowing veins all over its surface. She couldn’t feel it.

The wind stopped as suddenly as it started. Lia stabilized herself quickly enough only to dodge another blade from Yukiko. The girl had a sword in her hands that was much too large for the little girl!

Her right arm reacted, catching the blade in the air. Lia hadn’t even realized what had happened, her gaze fixated on Yukiko, noticing that she still had tears within her eyes. She had to do something, had to free her from that tear!

Her left hand grabbed forwards, tried to get the gem underneath Yukiko’s clothing. The girl reacted faster, jumping backwards from her.

Phobos appeared behind Yukiko, tried to grab her. Yukiko jumped aside, becoming invisible. After another moment Lia could see her again, like a faint purple silhouette.

“Where is she?” Phobos looked around. Has he lost her?

Yukiko was behin him, a dagger of ice in her hand. Phobos tried to avoid it in the last moment, but it hit him on the side.

Lia ran forwards, Yukiko to the side, running towards Aeris, her father examining the surroundings carefully.

Yukiko had another dagger in her hand. Lia ran as fast as possible, but how could she catch up to the girl? “Dragon!” She hoped her father would …

Aeris jumped into the air and transformed into a dragon, making the dagger miss.

The girl looked towards Lia, ran a few steps to the left and to the right, staying out of Lia’s reach.

“Why do you have to make everything so complicated?” Yukiko sighed, tossing a gust of wind and several daggers of ice against her.

Lia’s arm reacted on its own, tearing through the air. Just before her appeared a whole of absolute nothingness, of blackness, consuming wind and daggers alike.

“Bradley will be here soon. Please …!” Yukiko ran towards her, one Dagger of ice in each hand.

Lia hadn’t much time to react. Her left caught one of Yukikos arms, the other one managed to hit Lia’s shoulder. Her right arm had a mind of its own, tore through Yukikos clothes and ripped the gem from her throat.

The girl hesitated. Lia forced herself to kneel, forced her right arm to pick up the traitorous gem.

“Give it back …”

Lia crushed the fake tear in her hand, something crackled, sparks flew and a bolt of lightning traveled up her arm, hitting her in the shoulder. She felt pain and unclenched her hand, small parts of the gem falling to the ground.

Yukiko looked towards the black pieces, her eyes going wide … and then she looked to Lia. “I … I’m sorry!” She started to cry loudly.

Lia hesitated before wrapping her left arm around the little girl, willing her right to staystill.

“Bradley had you within his control”, she said, her voice colder than she wanted it to be. Her right arm was stil black and she had no feeling within it. But why? She had followed Felix’ instructions and hadn’t used her powers.

“We need to leave.” Phobos stepped towards them, slightly bent forwards. His upper body was bandaged and those bandages were already reddened by blood.

Lia looked around and noticed Ray staring at her. His robe was torn, his upper body seemed unusually pale within the sun. He hadn’t fought, had he?

“Ray bandaged me”, said Phobos.

Aeris landed next to them in the courtyard, tearing down the walls. “Get on”, he ordered, “we need to leave!”

◊

Bradley paced impatiently through the room. Why has he waited so damn long to follow Yukiko? Eien was already loyal to him. Felix was managing the land as he would do it. But he had only followed the thief after he was sure that all those details were as he wanted them to be. Now he paced through the empty hallways of Naverins castle, Yukiko was nowhere to be found and Lia wasn’t either.

“We’ll go to Letoa!” He stopped pacing and ran outside to the other dragons. Yamira was next to him and nodded in agreement, transforming as soon as they arrived in the courtyard. He hopped onto her back and they rose into the air.

He was sure, that he needed the dragons on his side, if he wanted to have a chance against Lia. He alone could make use of Ninas ability to teleport, but it also had its limits. She wasn’t able to teleport his whole army to Letoa, but at least she could support them with tailwind.

Still, Bradley had the feeling that they were too slow. He felt a hit going through his whole body, heard something snap. He had a bad feeling as he looked down to the black diamond he carried within his armor on his breast. He could see cracks in the otherwise smooth surface.

He clenched his teeth, realizing that he already had lost Yukiko. His dream had already been within his grasp but now it was like sand trickling through his fingers.

Lia was too dangerous to keep around. He couldn’t control her and she was a danger to him and his plans. He had to remove this danger. Lia had to die!