LITMIR.BIZ

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Patricia managed to read:

      «It is an escape! It is treason! It is a change of essence! It is an empty crown! It is the absence of a queen! It is the eternal search! It is an anger that burns everything!»

      How did she learn to understand these bizarre fiery symbols? Surely they must be some kind of magic writing. The stranger was tempting her with magic. No, he’s not a stranger. Patricia knew him from somewhere. She couldn’t remember where.

      She woke up terrified. The blazing sea from her dream was still in front of her eyes. The alarm was sounding on deck. The mute was flying overhead like a stray.

      Patricia reluctantly got up from her bunk. «Was the fairy villain rebelling in the hold again?»

      Bad premonitions gnawed at her soul like worms. They shouldn’t have taken the prisoner. A fairy prisoner is a great danger. Those who keep magic creatures in captivity risk being torn apart themselves. Patricia remembered the story of an overseas merchant who came to Opal. He told of a circus for which magical creatures were captured. One of the captured creatures had driven the circus owners mad. It was a syrin or something. Anyway, it sat in a cage and sang magical songs, and the circus owners went crazy. Eventually all the circus pets broke out of their cages and clawed the entire town the circus was in. Patricia didn’t even remember the name of the town, but the merchant’s story impressed her. Queen Esperanza, who was still alive at the time, had laughed for a long time in response to the merchant’s tales.

      «Things are even worse in Opal,» she said.

      Patricia hadn’t realized what the queen meant. When she learned of the king’s magical experiments, it was too late to heed her warnings.

      «We burn! Fire!» screamed Netopyrina, hovering over the ship. One of its wings grazed the porthole of the captain’s cabin.

      Patricia shuddered and grabbed her saber. How could one burn on the high seas! The threat seemed to be empty. There is water all around. The fire has something to put out. Unless the fairy trapped in the hold managed to summon magical fire. There’s nothing to put that out. Then the ship would burn, and the fairy hostage would escape. Patricia closed her eyes and imagined the triumph with which the freed fairy would look at the sinking wreckage of the ship before flying away.

      There was no smell of fumes yet. Could the alarm be a false alarm? You dumb alarmist!

      Patricia looked out the porthole and gasped. The entire horizon was ablaze.

      «There’s a dragon ship coming this way!» She exclaimed, pressing her palm against the glass of the window. Her palm burned immediately. The glass in the porthole was so hot it could have melted.

      What do we do? The dragon ship was heading straight for Patricia’s ship. We could try to turn away from it, but the sea around it is burning for leagues around. They’ll never make it anyway.

      «We’d need a tailwind so strong we could sail a hundred leagues a second! That’s the only way we can get away from him! Can you conjure such a wind, Zeligena?»

      Patricia thought the swamp fairy was standing behind her. A murky, magic aura was spreading through the air.»

      «It is a lovely specimen, but alas, she is only mortal,» said an unfamiliar voice.

      Patricia turned around. The fiery young man from her dream was standing in the cabin. Strangely enough, he was no longer glowing. Only the outlines around his hair, forehead, and shoulders remained fiery. Even in this state, if he touched something, the cabin would burst into flames. There are a lot of wooden objects around. It is as long as the guest didn’t touch anything. Otherwise there’d be a fire.

      Patricia found herself wanting to touch him, despite the risk of burning herself. Gods, he was so good-looking that one could even burn in his arms! Patricia imagined their bodies entwined in an embrace and collapsed onto the narrow bunk. Then the hard mattress would seem like a king’s bed. Or is it a funeral pyre? In the arms of a fiery lover, you can’t help but burn.

      «Who are you? How did you get here?» Patricia opened her lips, but no words came out. It was as if the guest had magically blocked her from speaking. She couldn’t move either, as if her whole body was paralyzed. And the fiery guest was scrutinizing her.

      «Are you Rose?» He asked hesitantly.

      Patricia thought frantically. Who is a rose? A rose is a flower with thorns. There are no flowers on board. And there are no rose fairies on the ship either. But there were Rose Fairies in Opal. Their temper was as prickly as the thorns on a rosebush. Rose fairies threw lightning bolts and thorns that stabbed painfully into people’s bodies. Rose fairies could kill their abusers with a thorn sent straight to the heart. It was best not to clash with the rose fairies! Patricia learned this lesson when the rose fairies surrounded the most beautiful lady of Opal and plunged so many thorns into her body that the beautiful woman died in agony. And one singer of frivolous songs they lured into a ravine with rose bushes, where the poor man died of his wounds. The fairies laughed at him for a long time, picked up his lute and composed mischievous songs about his death among roses and thorns.

      Patricia learned to avoid any interaction with the rose fairies. To do so, she had to avoid the rose garden of the Opal Royal Garden.

      «Did a rose fairy sneak onto my ship?» Patricia could only squeeze out a whisper. Her lips and tongue were numb.

      The fiery young man shook his head sadly.

      «Rose is the key to everything,» he said quietly.

      «She is a mere mortal,» a graceful woman in a luxurious purple and black dress emerged from the darkness of the cabin. «And she is a bandit, too!»

      Patricia blinked her eyelashes. Where had the lady come from? It was as if she had formed out of the darkness like a ghost. There were many ghosts in Opal’s court, but such an arrogant beauty was not one of them. The guest seems to be a queen, as a magnificent crown glistens in her coal-black hair.

      «I can’t stand robbers and thieves!» The lady twisted her pretty face. «This wench is a criminal! If it weren’t for the magic of her ship, I’d have her executed immediately. My bats can do it with the whole flock!»

      The lady prepared to make passes with her hands. Black glitter fell from the tips of her fingernails.

      «Stop it, Medea Shai!» The fiery young man commanded. His voice hissed like a flame. Or was it a serpent’s hiss?

      Patricia blinked, but couldn’t move. The magical stupor wouldn’t go away. Orange scales seemed to have formed on the guest’s skin, as if a dragon was sitting inside him.

      If Patricia’s not mistaken, the guest is a powerful wizard.

      «There’s a dragon ship coming right at us! Help us!» Patricia called out mentally because her lips wouldn’t move.

      The arrogant guest shook her long, serpentine curls. They looked like tar-black snakes scattered over a purple dress.

      «Shouldn’t you be on your ship, fairy queen?» The young man addressed his companion. «You seem to be a spirit bound to the ship Medea Shai. How on earth did you manage to leave your ship?»

      «I followed you, Edwin! If you remember, we’re tightly bonded now!»

      «Don’t tell me you’re planning to do to me what you did to Tamlane.»

      The lady moved her wing and hit a shelf in the cabin. The compass fell from it and shattered.

      Patricia only now noticed that the lady had wings. They were black as darkness, so until they came into motion it was impossible to see them. If the lady kept flapping them around, she would knock over all the things in the cabin.

      «Let’s fly out of here!» A fiery young man named Edwin unceremoniously grabbed the lady by the wing.

      «O! What are you doing?» The fairy beauty rebelled. «You’ve lost all manners over the centuries!»

      Patricia’s

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