Shade grinned and pointed at McGregor’s camp.
The dragon banked and dove at the collection of tents. When it was twenty yards out, jaws that could swallow a horse whole opened and black flames shot out.
So wide was the blast that the entire camp was engulfed in a single pass. When the dragon pulled up and banked to the left Shade got a better look at the camp.
Not that there was much to see. Everything had been disintegrated. Only black ash remained.
“Now you know why we don’t expect much resistance,” Shade said.
Roebuck could only offer a mute nod. He was probably wondering if that’s what would have happened to his camp if he’d turned Shade away. Knowing the boss’s temper, it probably was.
Chapter 6
Yaz stared. His mind froze and for a moment he forgot he was standing in a cold passage in a fortress filled with blood and corpses. Looking at this kid was like staring into a mirror five years ago. They really might have been brothers. He was mesmerized.
“Hi,” Yaz finally managed. “I’m Yaz. What’s your name?”
The boy cocked his head. “I don’t know. Malcom always called me the weapon.”
“No one even bothered to give you a name? That’s awful.”
“It’s okay. I played the blood squeeze game with Malcom and he lost.” The boy giggled. “I always win the blood squeeze game.”
Yaz shuddered. Whatever they did to create this kid, something went wrong. “Do you know any other games? When I was younger, I liked to play hide and seek.”
The boy did a little dance. “I played hide and seek with Malcom’s master. I won. Then we played the blood squeeze game and I won again, though he gave more blood than anyone else, so I guess he came in second.”
“Congratulations.” Yaz did his best to stay calm and not say anything that might set this insane creature off. “Winning on your first try is very impressive. If it’s okay, we’d like to visit the lab.”
“There’s nothing fun in there. Let’s play a game with your companions. I’ll squeeze one and you squeeze another and we’ll see who gets the most blood.”
“I think my friends would rather keep their blood inside. Maybe we could go outside after and have a snowball fight instead. All five of us. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“I can’t go outside.”
Yaz frowned a little. “Why not?”
The boy’s face scrunched up. “I just can’t! I have to stay in here. We have to stay here. We’re the same. We can play together. Once I get rid of them, you’ll have no one else to play with.”
“Get down!” Silas shouted.
Yaz and his mother dropped to the floor just ahead of a blast of the wizard’s lightning.
Silas’s spell hit a black barrier and sent the kid flying back through the door behind him.
“Let’s get out of here.” Yaz grabbed his mother and they ran.
The four of them retraced their steps back to the entry hall. His mother stopped and said, “We still need the key. There’s another, longer passage to the lab. That, what ever his is, will be looking for us here. We’ll take the long way around.”
The last thing Yaz wanted to do was go back to the lab with his junior doppelgänger after them, but he wouldn’t let his mother go alone and she looked determined so there was no way he could talk her out of it.
“You guys wait outside,” Yaz said. “You heard that kid. He can’t leave the castle, so you’ll be safe.”
“But you won’t,” Brigid said.
“The longer we talk, the better the odds of him finding us,” Yaz’s mother said. “We need to move.”
“It’ll be okay,” Yaz said. “We’ll be back before you know it. Whatever happens, don’t come back in.”
Yaz gave Silas a look and the wizard responded with a faint nod. Hopefully he’d keep Brigid from doing anything crazy.
His mother went to a wall nearby and touched three stones. A hidden door slid inward. With a final look back at his friends, Yaz followed her.
As soon as the door closed behind them, magical light burst to life, providing just enough illumination for them to see where they were going. The path was wide enough for them to walk single file and no more. Yaz sneezed when the dust they kicked up got in his nose. No one had been down this passage in a long time.
“Why didn’t we come this way in the first place?” he asked.
“I didn’t see any reason to. The castle appeared empty and the main passages are faster. This hidden corridor was designed for emergencies. I wasn’t even sure the door still worked. That girl loves you.”
Yaz started at the sudden change of subject. There was certainly something between him and Brigid, though from how she reacted when she found out how he came to be, Yaz doubted her feelings would be enough to overcome her distaste. Not that he blamed her. Yaz was horrified by his origin as well.
“I’ve tried not to think too far into the future. Don’t want to get my hopes up then end up getting killed before they come to anything.”
He could hear his mother’s smile when she replied, “You are definitely my son.”
“Who’s my real father?” Yaz asked.
“You don’t have a blood father. You’re an amalgam of various genetic compounds, primarily human, but also a little dragon and something darker we never really identified. The fact that you gestated inside a human mother allowed you to take on a human identity. That creature had nothing to temper its destructive nature, plus it had no one to raise it in any real sense. Kranic called it a weapon, which is how he treated it. You can hardly complain when your creation acts like you wanted it to.”
“Would that have been my fate?”
“Most likely. Quiet now, we’re getting close.”
Ahead of them, the outline of a door appeared in the wall. His mother pressed her ear to it for a moment then touched a stone that caused it to swing open. What lay beyond might once have been a lab, but now was nothing but a mess. It looked like someone had systematically gone and smashed every piece of glass in the room, including what used to be a tall vat made of heavy glass. If there was ever anything to find here, it was most likely ruined along with everything else.
“Gods’ blood!” his mother swore. “This is a complete loss. I couldn’t find the key in this mess, even if it was still intact. Let’s get out of here.”
The main door to the lab exploded inward. The boy stood there smiling at them. “Found you!”
They managed one step toward the secret exit before that door slammed shut and a bar of black energy formed across it, sealing them in.
“No running away this time,” Yaz muttered.
The boy looked around. “Where are the other two? One isn’t going to last us very long.”
Yaz racked his brain for something he might say to convince the little monster to let them go. He was supposed to be smart, damn it!
“Oh well.” The boy gestured and dark energy wrapped around his mother.
“Run, Yaz!” she said.
He couldn’t run. He already lost his father. Losing his mother would break him. He’d save her or die trying.
Yaz went into his mental library and found Wrath waiting. The small emotions were cowering away from the black-robed giant.
“We aren’t strong enough to open the door,” Wrath said.
That’s when it hit Yaz like one of Silas’s lightning bolts. They weren’t strong enough alone, but all of them together might be.
Yaz held his hands out and willed all the lesser emotions to join with him. He shuddered as Fear and Pain slammed into him. One after another, all the emotions he usually locked up charged through his body until only Wrath remained separate.
He reached out.
Wrath took his hand. When he did, the hood fell aside revealing Yaz’s face staring back, his skin pale and his eyes pits of darkness. This was what he would have become if his mother hadn’t saved him, if his father hadn’t raised him to put others before himself.
When Wrath was nothing but a memory, Yaz walked to the black door and imagined a pull.
It wavered into being.
He grasped the iron ring. It felt like ice in his hand.
Bracing one foot on the wall he pulled with all the combined might of his emotions. He put all his desire to save his mother into it.
The door opened a crack and dark power rushed into him.
He absorbed that strength and kept pulling. Nothing less than his full power would be enough.
With a final lurch, the door opened all the way.
Yaz was washed away in a black tide.
Yaz came back to himself and found his mother wrapped up in a blanket of dark energy and floating three feet above the floor, pained moans escaping her as the kid squeezed her tighter and tighter.
The dark power responded to Yaz’s rage and lanced out. Scythes of dark energy cut her down while lances slammed into the boy’s hastily erected shield. His mother hit the floor hard, but Yaz didn’t dare spare a moment to help her up.
His opponent quickly recovered from his initial assault. Clawed hands of darkness reached out to rend Yaz to pieces.
He blew them to shards and countered with more dark blades of his own. The power rushing through him now made his earlier efforts feel like a torch compared to a dragon’s breath. It felt like he could do anything
Could destroy anything.
He constructed a shield to protect him from the boy’s attacks. Claws and dark beasts scrabbled against the barrier without so much as scratching it.
“What are you doing?” the boy screamed as he backed away from Yaz. “We’re brothers. You were supposed to be my friend!”
Yaz lashed out, sending him flying through the wall and out into the hall beyond.
The boy landed hard, protected somewhat by his shield.
“You tried to kill my mother,” Yaz said, his voice cold and calm. “For that I would murder you a thousand times.”
Yaz lashed out again.
The boy turned his blast aside, sending it into the left-side wall, blowing it to pieces and exposing the sky beyond.
Yaz brushed aside a hail of daggers.
Why had this pathetic creature seemed so strong before? He was nothing compared to the full power lurking behind the black door. That power continued to rush out in a torrent, filling him to bursting.
“I’m sorry!” the boy wailed as he scrambled back, trying to put distance between himself and Yaz. “I’ll be good, I promise.”
“You’re not capable of being good. It’s not your fault, it’s just how you were made. You’re too dangerous and uncontrollable to be allowed to live. I’m sorry.” Yaz sent a spear of condensed dark energy into the boy’s heart. “May you find peace in whatever waits beyond this world.”
The darkness vanished from the boy’s eyes and he collapsed. Lying there, unmoving, powerless, he looked like a normal little boy.
Yaz’s heart lurched at what he’d had to do.
Then it lurched again. It wasn’t emotion, something was wrong.
In his mind the door slammed shut.
His power vanished.
The world spun.
He knew no more.
Brigid paced in the snow, glanced up at the castle, and paced some more. Her mind raced between worrying about Yaz and wondering what he really was. After what his mother said, how he was made in a lab then implanted in her… She shuddered. It wasn’t natural.
Despite that her feelings for him hadn’t changed so much as gotten complicated. The idea of having a family with him for instance scared the hell out of her. Would their kids turn out to be like that creature they encountered? Could they even have kids if he wasn’t fully human? She had so many questions and no answers. Brigid didn’t even know if there was anyone with answers.
“Could you possibly calm down?” Silas asked. “You’re making me more nervous than I was before.”
She stopped and turned to face him. “We should have gone with them.”
“No. We would have been in the way. I hit that kid with the strongest lightning bolt I could conjure and it didn’t even scratch him. Their only chance is to sneak in and out without running into him.”
“What do you figure the odds of that are?”
He shook his head and refused to answer. That told her everything she needed to know.
Silas wasn’t wrong though. If his magic wasn’t enough, what was she going to do, hit him on the head with her staff?
“What do you think, about what his mother said? You know, how he isn’t totally human.”
Silas shrugged. “He’s saved my life more than once, treated me with respect and as a friend. That’s better than I’ve gotten from most full-blooded humans I’ve met. Besides, you’re talking to a guy that travels with an undead dragon skull, so I might not be the best one to ask. Does it bother you?”
“A little, maybe, I don’t know. It’s just a lot to take in.”
“It is at that. Imagine how Yaz is feeling right now. One minute you’re a guy trying to help your people and the next you’re something… else. Yet he never hesitated to go back in with his mother. To go back for some potion that might make him even less human than he is now because it’s the best way to help his people. How can you not respect that?”
Brigid stared at him for a moment. She’d been so wrapped up in how she was feeling that she hadn’t even considered how shaken Yaz must be. She hadn’t even said anything to reassure him. Instead she’d pulled away, looking at him like he was a monster instead of the person she knew he was inside. The person that came to rescue her from that basement. The person that had killed to save her even though it hurt him.
Disgusted with herself, Brigid vowed that when he came back out, she’d tell Yaz how she felt. Damn the consequences. She loved him right down to her toes and nothing would change that. Not today, not ever.
Her good mood last about five seconds before a chunk of the castle got blown out.
“What was that?” she asked, heart in her throat.
“Looks like they ran into our little friend. I hope they—”
Brigid didn’t hear the rest. She sprinted for the castle. If he died before she got to tell him everything, she’d never forgive herself.
“Wait!” Silas shouted.
Brigid ignored him and pushed through the front door. Dust rained down as another explosion shook the castle.
Her memory might not be as good as Yaz’s, but she recalled the path to the lab well enough. She ducked down corridors and around bends. Finally, she came to a stop at the end of the long hall that led to the lab door.
The walls and floor looked like a war had been fought there. The boy that attacked them lay dead not far from the lab entrance. Further down Yaz’s mother knelt beside Yaz’s unmoving body. She held his head in her lap.
Brigid gasped and his mother looked up.
“He’s not dead,” she said and Brigid found she could breathe again.
“What happened?”
“Kranic’s weapon found us and attacked me. Yaz summoned his full power to defeat the monster, but the strain knocked him out.”
“He’ll wake up again though, right?”
“I don’t know. His power was never meant to be tapped without the key. It may have been too much for him.”
Silas came pounding up behind her. “Of all the stupid… Oh no. Is he…?”
“Still alive, thank the gods.” Brigid straightened. “What do we need to do to help him?”
Yaz’s mom looked at her with a faint smile. “There is one thing. We can take him to the source of his power. The energy in the dark well might heal him.”
Brigid nodded once. “What are we waiting for?”
Chapter 7
Leonidas stood with his hands above his head, the Black Ring glowing as he used it to steady the new mast they were installing on the flying ship. Jax had done all the work to prepare it in between scrying sessions. The wizard could only use his enchanted mirro
r for an hour or so each day without risking serious mental damage. So far he’d reported some movement in both Carttoom and Rend, mostly people who’d fled the burned capitals. There was no sign of major military activity. Which made sense given that an army wouldn’t last ten seconds against his dragons.
Still, he knew they were planning something. Not that it mattered. Regardless of what came his way, the dragons’ power would allow him to crush any opposition. With Rondo and Shade out gathering forces for him to use in bringing the kingdoms fully under control, there was nothing to do except while away the hours until they finished. Besides, it was nice to be out of the tower and doing something besides giving Ariel orders.
“Just another moment, Leonidas,” Jax said. “One more bolt and we’ll be done.”
He didn’t bother to reply. Holding the mast took such a paltry amount of his strength, he wasn’t going to run out anytime soon.
As he waited for Jax to finish, his mind drifted. There was something at the edge of his awareness but growing ever closer. Something powerful and magical. Perhaps the kings had finally made their move.
Jax appeared at the ship’s rail. “I sense something.”
“As do I. Is the mast secure?”
“Yes. I think we need to get inside.” Jax leapt over the rail and landed beside him.
“Can you make out any details?” Leonidas asked.
“I sense five powerful magic users approaching from five different directions. They’re all focused on us.”
“How powerful?”
“The most powerful. I believe the five elemental dragons themselves are coming against us.”
Leonidas frowned and studied the sky. The strongest wizards in the world answered to no king, so clearly this wasn’t the counterattack he’d been expecting. Perhaps activating the towers brought them out of whatever hole they hid in.
He debated facing them himself. It would be a fine test for his ring. No, better to let the black dragon handle them. He had an empire to rule now. He couldn’t be taking unnecessary risks.
By the time they made the short walk to the tower door, the air was thick with magical energy. Leonidas glanced up once more and spotted a flame-shrouded figure approaching from the west and a second surrounded by crackling lightning coming from the east. The other three were still out of sight, but they couldn’t be far behind.
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