Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  “He won’t ask for much.”

  “I don’t have any coins.” Gwen’s pockets were as empty as a beggar’s; Lynnael had devoured a breakfast feast that had cost both of them their last coins.

  “He won’t ask for coins.” Taliesin turned sharply to the right, into an alcove. Reluctantly, Gwen followed him.

  Voices swirled from further down the tunnel, and a door loomed several meters ahead.

  The Master of Crows.

  Gwen was not looking forward to seeing the king of assassins again at all.

  Chapter 4

  The first door in the underground tunnel led to a small room revealing a second door flanked by two guards. Taliesin nodded at them, and they stepped aside to let Gwen and the assassin pass. The next room had a similar set-up, only there the guard standing on the right side of the door, a black-clad Nighthawk, jotted his chin at Gwen.

  “Full name, please.”

  “Gwenlian. No last name.” She studied the guards’ face, to try and figure out if she knew him, but he looked unfamiliar.

  The guard scoffed but knocked on the door. Seconds later, a voice from inside barked a command, and the guard walked in.

  Gwen shot an angry look at Taliesin. If she had known their little trip down into the underbelly of Mermydion Hall would lead her to a face-to-face encounter with the Master of Crows, she would’ve thanked him for the effort but chosen another path out of Mermydion Hall—even if that other path led her straight to the guards.

  As the door crept open again, the guard reappeared and gestured for Gwenlian and Taliesin to follow him.

  The next room was larger than the previous ones, but it was almost completely soaked in darkness, besides a lone candle balancing on the desk positioned in the middle of the room. Behind the desk sat the Master of Crows. Long, black hair, strong jaw, dark eyebrows, the rest of his face covered with the same hood as Taliesin was wearing. The scar deforming his left eye was a nasty red, the wound never having healed properly.

  When the Master of Crows got up from his chair, he towered over them, impressive in height and size. Muscular, his hands the size of shovels and capable of snapping a person’s neck as if it was a twig.

  “Master.” Taliesin slightly bowed his head while moving to the side. Gwen would’ve rather he stayed in front of her, blocking her direct view of the giant.

  The last time she had seen the Master of Crows was carved into her memory like a tattoo in flesh, a persistent, haunting memory.

  “Gwenlian.” The giant gestured for her to sit down in the chair on the opposite end of a desk. As if they were business partners getting ready for a friendly chat.

  Despite the cold temperature in the room, Gwen refused to wrap her arms around herself, or show any other sign of weakness. Instead, she sat down on the chair, crossed her legs and stared straight at the man who terrified her more than any other being alive.

  Because she knew him. She knew what he was capable of.

  The screams of those Mettinbury oprhans still rang in her ears when the cloister that had doubled as their orphanage burned down.

  Orphans, just like her. Orphans who had to die simply because the master of the cloister had gotten into an argument with the wrong man, an individual without scruple but with plenty of gold.

  “It’s been a long time.” The voice of the king of the assassins echoed through the small room.

  “Not long enough.” Gwen dug her nails into her palms, trying hard not to show any emotion.

  “How have you been?”

  Gwen shrugged, not bothering to answer. Two years, the Master of Crows had been her mentor, before she realized the horrors he was capable of and had turned her back on him. Two years during which he trained her to become just like him, just like Taliesin.

  A murderer.

  The Righteous Hand, the master of thieves, had allowed her to join his ranks, but her leaving the guild of assassins had come at a price.

  Gwenlian glanced at Taliesin for a second, before focusing back on the Master of Crows. Did Taliesin know why he had been sent to the Drowning Lands? Who had made the choice that had signed his fate?

  “It seems you’re not very talkative.” The Master of Crows sat back down, crossing his hands. “I trust Taliesin has informed you that using my tunnels requires one to pay a certain…fee.”

  “What do you want?”

  Gwen’s heartbeat thundered in her chest. Nothing good had ever come from any price or fee demanded by the king of assassins.

  The Master of Crows’ eyes sparkled, and Gwen knew that underneath that hood, he was smirking, an expression lingering between amusement and cruelty that she had seen on his face a thousand times before.

  “I want you to steal a jewel for me.” The crow leaned back in his chair. “You’re a thief, so it should not be very difficult for you and your friends.”

  “A jewel.” Gwen frowned at him. “What do you need jewels for? If memory serves correct, your treasure chests are filled to the brim with jewels of all kinds.”

  “This one is special,” Taliesin said, which earned him a sharp look from his master. “Rare, well-protected.”

  “It’s a dragonstone,” the Master of Crows interrupted. “One of the rarest jewels in the world, and it’s held in the house of a powerful shaman. Protected by spells and guardians.”

  Gwenlian swallowed hard, staring from Taliesin to his master. “You concocted all of this. You didn’t save me from the guardians because you were once my friend.” He had already plunged one knife in her heart with his betrayal: now he had twisted it sharply, making her bleed. “You did it because you wanted to bring me here, so I would be indebted to him.” She jerked her head at the Master of Crows.

  Taliesin shook his head. “No, that’s not how it went. I did want to help you, but the moment I saw you were in danger, I figure why not kill two birds with one stone?”

  “What would you have done if I didn’t need help?” Gwen asked, venom slicing her voice. “Would you have come to beg for my help, tell me some sob story about the horrible things you went through in the Drowning Lands? Was it even real, or was that a lie too, just to get my sympathies? How do I even know you went there?”

  “I was gone for years, Gwen.” The dark shadow clouded Taliesin’s gaze again, but this time, Gwen didn’t feel sorry for him at all. “I didn’t mean to trick you, and yes, in the other scenario I would’ve asked you and your friends for your help.”

  “In which case we could’ve turned you down,” Gwen snapped at him. “Now, you haven’t given me much of a choice.”

  “Sorry to interrupt your quarrel,” the Master of Crows said. “But you’re asking entirely the wrong questions. Taliesin may or may not have tricked you, but none of that really matters. What matters if why we want you to get this jewel for us.” The look he gave her was so condescending, dripping with arrogance, that Gwen wanted to smack him across the face.

  “Why then? Why me?”

  The king of the assassins chuckled. He removed the hood cloaking the bottom of his face.

  Gwenlian had seen him before without his mask, but every time she was surprised about the small characteristics of his face that made him look cruel. A line near the bottom of his lip, a dimple in his chin, another small scar.

  “Roll up your sleeve.”

  It was a command, but Gwen was in no mood to obey. “Why?”

  “Just humor us,” the Master of Crows replied, while he dropped his hood on the table, and took off the pendant around his neck.

  Reluctantly, Gwen reached for her sleeve, but Taliesin stopped her. “The other one.”

  The other one.

  The arm with the scales.

  Her eyes shooting firebolts, Gwen turned and started rolling up the sleeve on her other arm. The king of the assassins knew of the scales she had been trying to hide her entire life—the man knew all about his pupils, every secret, no matter how small, any imperfection, anything that was unique to them, had to be shared with him. He
had once said, during one of his classes with the assassins in training in the assassins’ keep, on the other side of Yargon, that the only thing more powerful than an assassin was knowledge. It was one of the few lessons he had taught her, that Gwen had considered helpful and true.

  Slowly, Gwen rolled up her sleeve. The light of the candle reflected on the scales, showing myriad green hues.

  In the meantime, the Master of Crows clicked open his pendant, revealing a small, transparent gem. He held it between his thumb and index finger: the gem was scarcely larger than a grain of sand.

  “This is dragonstone,” the Master of Crows explained. “Much smaller than the jewel we are looking for, but with similar qualities.”

  Gwen was about to ask what he meant, when the assassin leaned closer and held the dragonstone above her arm.

  Three things happened simultaneously.

  First of all, the transparent stone glowed with a golden color brighter than the sun.

  Secondly, her scales, first a greenish, moss-like color, now transformed into the same golden hue.

  Thirdly, a voice in Gwen’s mind said, “hello.”

  Loud and clear, as clear as if the voice had belonged to Taliesin, the Master of Crows, or the guard flanking the door.

  A booming, echoing voice.

  Gwenlian’s arm shook, and her eyes grew wide as she stared at the dragonstone. “What… how…”

  “A thousand years or more ago,” the Master of Crows explained while he held the stone in place, above Gwen’s skin, “when dragons still roamed, these stones were used to track them down and control them. Stones much larger than this one, of course. This stone only has a fraction of the powers a dragonstone is really capable of.”

  Gwen swallowed hard. The spectacle of light was mesmerizing, and it took her every ounce of willpower to roll her sleeve back down, but she didn’t like them gawking at her any more than she liked the strange effect that gem had on her.

  And then the voice. The ‘hello’, sounding as if it came straight from the dwarven tunnels deep underneath the earth—far deeper than any assassin would ever dare to dig.

  “The stone glows when dragons are near,” Taliesin explained in a soft voice. “Back in the day, it was used to control dragons, but long before that, these stones were controlled by dragons.”

  Gwen’s ears whizzed. The stone glowed when…

  The thief’s opened dropped open, and she stared at the gem, then at the Master of Crows, then to Taliesin, only to have her gaze rest of her now again covered-up arm.

  Dragon.

  She was a dragon.

  “But I can’t be…” Gwen protested. Sixteen years, she had thought she was a lizard, or some type of sea creature. A thousand options had passed her mind, but never once this. “Dragons are… They are extinct. There hasn’t been a dragon in these lands for a thousand years.”

  “Yet, that stone is glowing.” Taliesin nodded at the dragonstone, and then back to Gwen. “As I said, the Drowning Lands had creatures more terrible than you could ever imagine. It was one of these creatures that told me about the existence of the dragonstone, and where I could find it. They gave me the gem, so I would know what to look for.”

  Gwenlian shook her head. She felt dizzy, nauseous, her palms sweaty and her mouth as dry as sandy paper.

  A half-dragon. How was that even possible?

  “The creature I met was one of the Banished,” Taliesin further explained, referring to an ancient order of mages Gwenlian had thought was nothing but a legend until now. “If you agree to join me and steal this stone, then I will introduce you and your friends to Drac’jin, the Banished.”

  Gwen licked her lips. “Why do you want this stone so badly—or why does that mage want it so badly? Do we even have any idea regarding the extent of its powers, and what would happen if that power falls into the wrong hands?”

  The Master of Crows put the gem back inside the pendant carefully, with delicate gestures Gwen had never seen the brute use before. “We are well aware. But a stone as powerful as this one shouldn’t be kept in the claws of a greedy shaman. I believe there are...individuals…in the Seven Kingdoms much qualified to protect such rare jewel.”

  “The mages of Thusan?” The mages were disciples of the legendary wizard Thusan who once succeeded, according to the legends, to tear the fabric of the universe in half, creating a portal to a world beyond our own. The wizards were known for their vast collection of powerful objects.

  The Master of Crows gave a half-shrug. “Along those lines. All that matters for you is that you will be well rewarded for your precious time, as will your friends.”

  Gwen bit her lip. None of this sat right with her. “So, the stone reacts to me—my kind.” A dragon, a freaking dragon—a species supposedly extinct! “But why do you need me and my friends? Sure, the shaman put up some protective spells, but there has to be more to it than that.” Gwen gazed from one man to the other, trying to gauge their intentions. One, a leader of assassins, whom she had once seen as a mentor and who then showed her how wicked the world could truly be. The other a friend who had tossed her aside, and now came crawling back because he needed her, torn apart and stitched up by a place hosting nightmares and horrors.

  A shiver ran down Gwen’s spine. A stone that recognized her as the abomination she truly was.

  “The stone will be drawn to you.” Taliesin sounded reluctant to tell her more.

  “Before they were used against them, the dragons used these stones for power. The stones gradually gained some sentience and began to communicate with their dragon masters,” the Master of Crows explained. “When the dragonstone picks up on the presence of an actual dragon, it will be drawn to you like a dragonfly to a flame.”

  Gwen’s hands trembled, but she squeezed her hands together to avoid that the two vultures in the room would notice.

  “If you help Taliesin, not only will you be handsomely rewarded, but your debt for using my tunnels will also have been paid,” the Master of Crows reminded her.

  A debt Taliesin had tricked her into. Receiving payment from a man so loathsome she would prefer to crush him underneath her boots instead.

  “And if I refuse?” Each word came out like a struggle, her mouth stubbornly refusing to cooperate. Defiance wasn’t wise.

  The Master of Crows’ lips curled into a cruel smile. “I wish there was another way, lassie.” He didn’t even bother hiding the lie—he enjoyed this moment, savored every second of it. Years ago, she had abandoned him after discovering what monster he truly was, and this was his revenge. Confronting her with the monster she was deep inside.

  A dragon. She still couldn’t wrap her head around it. Dragons were supposed to be extinct. According to the lore, it had been a thousand years ago, if not more, that the last dragons had soared through the skies.

  “But you’re the only dragon we now, and we’re afraid this is one assignment we simply can’t abandon.”

  “In other words, you’re threatening me.”

  “If you want to put it so nasty, yes.” The Master of Crows rolled his eyes. “You should be thinking about the reward. If you and your friends join, I’ll give them two thousand crowns each.”

  Two thousand crowns. A fortune, money that would at least last them one to two years, if not more.

  But in exchange for risking their lives, messing with magical stones they had no inkling how to use, steal for Gods know who…

  Still, she was a thief and stealing was her profession…

  “Looks like I have no choice but to accept,” Gwen grumbled, “but my friends decide for themselves. If they don’t want to join, then they don’t and you don’t bother them.”

  “Fair enough.” The Master of Crows extended a hand and Gwenlian shook it reluctantly.

  “It feels good to have you working for me again,” he said, revealing a mouth half-filled with golden teeth. “For old time’s sake.”

  Gwen yanked her hand back and turned sharply to Taliesin. “Let’s
go.” She feared if she would say anything else, her anger would explode. It had become a raging pit in her stomach, a vortex of fury.

  The guard opened the door to let them out, and Gwen stepped back into the tunnels without bothering to look at the boogeyman of her waking nightmares—a different one than the boogeyman of lost memories that haunted her at night, but a terrifying monster all the same.

  For old time’s sake, the Master of Crows had dared to say. She hadn’t missed the taunting edge to his voice.

  For old time’s sake, she would steal that dragonstone and destroy it before he could ever get his talons on it, or use whatever mystical powers the object possessed to boil his insides and roast him alive.

  Thank you for reading the first part of DRAGONBLOOD

  The story continues in the second part of DRAGONBLOOD releasing fall 2020.

  Author Bio

  Majanka Verstraete studied law and criminology, and now works as Legal Counsel. Writing is her passion ever since she learned how to read.

  She writes about all things supernatural, her books ranging from children’s picture books to young adult novels, all the way to new adult academy and reverse harem books.

  Check out her website for more information about her current series and her upcoming projects: http://majankaverstraete.com

  Violet Haze

  C. A. King

  Violet Haze © 2020 C. A. King

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.