Buried Embers (Elemental Seekers Book 3)

by H. M. Sandlin

  “How? What’s wrong with her?”

  “She shouldn’t have hatched yet. She is too small. Something must have happened in the cavern that caused her to hatch. Queens will hatch early if there is a threat to the other queen’s lives. We must try to protect the little queen and find out why she hatched.” He turned away from us. I could feel his sadness that the little queen was so weak. There was nothing he could do to help her.

  “Abby, try to heal her,” I said, gently lifting the dragon who was still lying in my arms. She was too weak to move anymore.

  Abby scooted closer and laid her hands on the dragon. I shifted the little queen in my lap and grabbed Abby’s shoulder, transferring some of my power to her. I watched her shimmering yellow magic flow out of her hands and down into the baby dragon. The colors around the dragon were the same muted colors as the fire elementals. I looked back at the other dragons, concentrating on their colors. They were all muted.

  “Is it the stupor doing this to her?” I asked Abby.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can heal her either. She is so weak.”

  I pushed more power into Abby. I wasn’t going to let the little queen die or fall into the stupor. We would save her. I continued feeding Abby magic until I started to get tired.

  “Guys, we need you. It’s going to take all of our energy to help her.” They made their way to me and grabbed each other’s hands. Richard placed his hand on my shoulder, increasing my magic. I pushed everything at Abby. The muted color was starting to lift. We gave Abby everything we had as the last of the muted color faded away.

  “I think you did it,” I said to Abby. “Her colors look much better now.”

  “We need to let go, but when we do, we are going to be weak. Gavin, you need to get us something to eat.”

  “There is a smaller cavern up ahead stocked with supplies for the guards. I will go get something right away.”

  “Let’s all lay down before we let go. That way, if we used too much energy and pass out, we won’t hit our heads or break anything.”

  Once we were all settled, I counted to three and let go. I immediately felt woozy, and I heard Abby gasp. I turned my head to look at her. It was hard to move my head that little bit, and I worried about Abby. When I finally saw her, my heart sank, her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving. I could see her chest rising, so I knew she was breathing, but it looked shallow.

  “Everyone ok?” Richard asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Tider whispered.

  “I am,” Adam said faintly.

  “I’m fine, but Abby passed out,” I told them, barely able to get the words out.

  Gavin came running back into the cavern and gave us something similar to a granola bar. He had to help me eat I was so weak. I could feel the baby dragon lying across my legs. She wasn’t moving either, and I was worried all this had been for nothing. By the time I finished the food, I was already starting to feel better. Gavin helped me into a sitting position, and I looked at the little queen.

  She hadn’t moved from my lap at all. I reached down to pet her. Her eyes flicked open, and she purred as I pet her scales. The guys were getting up as Gavin handed me another bar. I ate this one on my own. When I finished I scooted back toward Abby and laid my hand on her shoulder.

  I poured a small amount of my energy into her. Her breathing deepened, and my friends sighed in relief. Abby would be fine. I gave her a little more but stopped when I started to feel lightheaded again. She needed to sleep now. I did too, but I had to take care of the little queen first. I moved my arms under her, forcing her to stand up. She stumbled on unsteady legs, her wings fluttering around uselessly.

  “Come on, little queen.” I encouraged her when she tried to sit back down. “You need to move around. We need to get this stuff off the rest of your scales too.”

  Gavin handed me a towel he brought back when he got the food, and I went to work, rubbing the scales until they sparkled in the firelight. I left her wings alone, not sure if I should try to dry them. They were very thin and fragile looking.

  “It’s ok,” Gavin said. “They are tougher than you think. They need to be cleaned off. Usually, her mother would clean her. She needs her wings to be dry so they can start to work properly.”

  After drying her wings, she spread them out and took a few steps forward, flapping them. She wasn’t able to fly, but it made me laugh watching her try.

  After a few more minutes, I laid back down and closed my eyes, telling Gavin I needed to sleep for a while. My friends had fallen asleep while I took care of the little queen.

  When I awoke, my friends weren’t with me, but I could hear their voices coming from across the cavern. I slowly stood up, noticing the little queen was missing from my lap. I walked toward my friends and found them standing near a large red dragon.

  “We can try to heal him, but I don’t know if it will work. You saw how much energy it took to heal the little queen,” Abby was saying as I moved closer.

  “We should at least try. He may be able to tell us what happened.” Richard said.

  “Why do you want to try to heal this one and not one of the queens?” I asked.

  “He is the oldest dragon. If any of them know what is happening, it will be him,” Gavin said.

  “I say we try it. We need to know what happened to them,” I said.

  We agreed, and the little queen gave a soft yip. She was standing on the leg of the giant dragon, butting him with her head. She was so tiny compared to him. It amazed me, knowing she would one day grow into a creature so large. I stood next to the dragon and put my hands down for the little queen to climb into. I realized my hand was smaller than the big dragon’s paw. If we healed him and he was angry, we could get seriously hurt.

  I voiced my concerns to Gavin, but he laughed, saying as long as we had the talismans, the dragons would never hurt us. They could sense the talisman each person carried. I hoped he was right.

  “Let’s try this,” I said.

  “Now?” Abby asked.

  “Yes. Let’s get it over with quickly. I’m sure the brotherhood will be trying to find us, not to mention the Pulhu are still trying to get in. We need to get this figured out and wake the elementals.”

  Abby laid her hands on the dragon, and we all joined hands. Abby pushed her healing magic into the dragon, and he stirred almost immediately. A growl entered my head, “What are you doing, human?”

  “We are trying to help you,” I replied.

  “Don’t. It is too dangerous for you to heal me.”

  “What happened?”

  “Our water has been poisoned. It is in the well.”

  “How can we help you?”

  “We need to drink from the well to wake up, but without the poison in it.”

  “Do you know what kind of poison or how the poison works?”

  “The poison slowly seeped into our bodies, causing us to lose the will to live. Eventually, we fell into this stupor. Do not let your friend give me any more of her healing magic. Use it to save us all. Find a way to stop the poison from getting into the well and bring us the water when you are finished. If you pour it over us, the magic might begin to seep away, bringing us back to our former selves, eventually.”

  “Where is the well?”

  I got a picture in my head. The well was past the caverns and through the center of the mountain. In the picture, I could see a river of lava flowing past the path that we needed to take to get to the well.

  “Save the well, and you will save us all,” the big dragon said before I felt his presence fade from my mind.

  I told Gavin and my friends what happened. Gavin knew where the well was located, but he had never been there before. Only the dragons and true fire elementals went that far into the mountain. It was too dangerous for the human elementals. The heat was too intense. We would need to use Abby’s potions.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Abby gave everyone a potion, and we stuffed them into our pockets before
moving deeper into the cave. We stopped in the cavern next to the sleeping dragons to grab some food. The little queen started making noises when we left the other dragons, but she calmed down as soon as Sievroth flew ahead of us. She wasn’t strong enough to fly, so I held her as we walked.

  The cave grew hotter as we moved farther into it. It sloped slightly downward the whole time we walked. We were moving deeper into the ground. Abby and Tider finally called for us to stop so they could take their potions. They couldn’t come any further without them.

  Once they took them, they were fine. Everyone else was ok, so we continued. A few times, the tunnel split into different caverns, but Gavin didn’t know what they were for. We rounded a turn and a wave of heat hit me. It was so hot I struggled to breathe. I stepped back around the corner, taking in deep breaths. Everyone else was gasping except Abby and Tider.

  We needed to take our potions. Abby even gave one to Gavin so he could come with us to the well. The potion only took seconds to work. This time when I walked around the corner, I could breathe. It was still hot but not like before. Across the room, lava poured from a hole in the wall and into a pool of molten rock.

  “Guys, there is lava over there,” Abby said.

  “It’s not called lava, Abby. It’s magma. Technically, it’s still in the earth’s crust,” Tider smirked.

  “They are the same thing, Tider. I’m more concerned with how we are supposed to get past it.”

  “We don’t have to get past it,” I said. “We need to walk alongside it.” Ahead of us, a small trail shot off from the main path. It followed the pool of lava around until it butted into another path.

  We walked along the path, single file. There wasn’t enough room to walk side by side. We stayed as close to the wall as possible. We may be able to handle the heat, but if the lava hit us, we would get burned. When we switched to the next path, I was able to see the river of lava spread out in front of us. There was a path on either side of it that we could take. I looked at Gavin.

  “I don’t know which one to take,” he said.

  “Let’s choose, and if it isn’t the right side, we will take the other one,” Richard said.

  “Wait,” I said before they could move forward. “Sievroth,” I called. He didn’t answer, so I called again. Even the little queen started making noises. Sievroth came back and stopped in front of me with his head down to the little queen. I waited until he lifted his head and asked where the well was.

  “The little queen has commanded me to tell you. She is growing stronger,” he said with pride. “Take the left side and hurry. I can feel the magic in the fire realm weakening. I think your Pulhu friends are doing something to open the portal.”

  We moved faster down the path until we reached an opening into a large room. I felt something pulling me into the room. I tried to turn away and continue toward the well, but the little queen hopped out of my arms. She managed to glide a decent distance into the room, and I yelled to my friends to wait. I stepped into the room, and the pull intensified.

  The little queen was hopping and flapping her way across the room into another cavern. I rushed to catch up with her. She was faster than I expected. I finally grabbed her in the next room, but she flapped her wings so much I couldn’t hold on.

  “Where are you going, little queen?” I yelled as she moved farther into the room. There wasn’t any fire along the walls, so I created a fireball to see what we had stumbled upon. I could see the little queen’s scales shimmering in the firelight as she made her way across the room. She was heading for a giant object lying on the ground.

  I could barely see it in the darkness. I moved closer, following the little queen’s yips. When I was almost to the object, I saw the little queen sit down in front of the object. I moved my fireball closer, trying to see what it was, but the light from the fire was having trouble piercing the shadows around the object.

  “What is that?” Abby called from behind me. I was only a foot away now, and I finally recognized it.

  I gasped. “It’s a dragon.”

  The others stumbled closer. “It is a dragon,” Richard said.

  “It’s Garuld. No one has seen him in so long that we thought he had died,” Gavin said. “He was ancient even when the dragons came to earth.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  The little queen flared her wings to get my attention and hopped back and forth, her head swiveling around to look at something on the other side of Garuld. I moved around to the far side as Richard crept around the other side of the old dragon.

  Cowering on the ground was a man in a tattered robe. He had a giant needle and a vial in his hand. I lashed out with my power, causing the ground to become mud under his feet. It quickly covered his hands and feet before turning back into hard ground.

  He started to whimper, but I told him to be quiet. I reached down and grabbed the vial and the needle that had fallen to the ground.

  “What are these?” When he didn’t answer, I pulled more power to me, shaping the small amount of moisture from the air into an ice spear. I pointed at the man, and he whimpered more.

  “I’ll tell you. Don’t hurt me,” he whined.

  “What are you doing to Garuld?” Gavin asked angrily.

  “I’m taking his blood, it doesn’t hurt him. He is asleep. They all are.” He laughed. Something wasn’t quite right with this person. He was acting a little crazy. Richard hadn’t shown himself yet, and I connected with him to tell him to stay hidden in case we needed a surprise attack on this guy.

  “Why are you taking his blood?”

  “Because I need it.” He laughed again. I pushed my ice spear closer to him. I wouldn’t actually hurt him with it, but he didn’t know that, and we needed answers. “Ok, ok,” he whimpered. “It’s to keep them asleep. His ancient blood, combined with a powerful sleeping spell, has caused them all to fall asleep.”

  “Why would you do that?” I asked, horrified that this person had been doing this to all the dragons.

  “They trap us here in the fire realm. They didn’t tell us we would be stuck here forever. I left all my family. They all died while I was trapped here.”

  “I thought all the followers came willingly,” I said to Gavin.

  “They did. I don’t remember this sniveling weasel coming through, and I watched every single person come in. I’ve never seen him before.”

  “No lying,” I said to the man, thrusting my spear at him. It was only inches from his chest.

  “I’m not. I swear. I snuck in with the others. I used an invisibility spell. I wasn’t planning on staying here forever. I only wanted to hide out until the shadow king finished destroying all the cities, then I was going to go back.”

  “Why didn’t you leave then?”

  “I couldn’t. The fire elementals didn’t allow anyone to leave. They said it wasn’t worth angering the shadow king again, and we would stay in our own realm for a few decades to make sure he was calm. Decades turned into centuries. I was trapped.”

  I felt bad for him but kept the spear pointed at his chest. Even if he did sneak in and get stuck, he shouldn’t have tried to hurt the dragons. “Why didn’t you go to them and explain what happened?”

  “I didn’t want them knowing I snuck in.”

  “Why not?”

  He refused to answer me, and I wasn’t willing to threaten him anymore.

  “Fine, keep your secret. What’s your name?”

  “Zacharius.”

  “I know that name. You can’t be. There hasn’t been anyone named Zacharius in the realm because the last person named that…”

  “Yes,” the man said, laughing maniacally. “I am Zacharius.”

  “You started the fighting between the elementals. You started teaching black magic to followers. Everything that has happened is because of you. That’s why we were punished so harshly compared to the other elementals. You were one of ours. Why did you betray us and use dark magic?”

  �
��I wanted more power, of course.” He threw his hands up into the air, streaks of fire flowing from them. Before he could use them on us, Richard hit him from behind with air trapping him in place.

  “How do we fix the dragons?” I asked him. I couldn’t believe I had felt sorry for him a few minutes ago.

  “You don’t. Only I can, and I never will.” He laughed again and didn’t stop. Richard finally used his magic to hit him over the head with a rock, and he crumpled to the ground. Richard kept him tied up with air ropes, and Abby made sure he would live. We didn’t want to kill anyone. Even this crazy man.

  “So this dragon’s blood is poisoning the well. If his blood isn’t getting into it, then they should all get better, right?”

  “That could take years to filter all the dragon blood out. We don’t have that kind of time. We need to save them now.” I laid my hand on the dragon. He looked different than the others. The poison must affect him differently since his own blood helped create it.

  The little queen started flapping and yipping for attention. I moved over to her and picked her up. She was trying to show me something, but I couldn’t figure out what until Sievroth appeared in the room.

  “She is a bossy little thing, Sally. She is going to make a great queen one day.” I heard his voice in my head. “She wants you to take some of her blood and give it to Garuld. She thinks it will wake him since her blood is free of the poison. Fill the needle and inject it into Garuld.”

  “Little queen, this is not a good idea,” I told her, but she yipped at me until I grabbed the needle. “Are you sure?” She nodded and turned so I could access her side. I inserted the needle, and it started to fill with blood. I called Abby over to make sure I didn’t take too much. When Abby told me to stop, the needle was halfway full.

  I took it over to Garuld with the little queen wrapped up in my other arm and inserted it into his neck. Nothing happened right away, so we sat down to wait. I murmured soothingly to the little queen. I was watching Garuld and saw his colors starting to come back. It was slow at first, but it got faster. Soon his scales gleamed in the firelight.