The Color of Dragons
Page 30
“I do. And she cannot escape. Not this time.”
Griffin smirked. “She’s a wily creature. And powerful, as you well know. What makes you so sure?”
“She’s shackled.”
“Why?” Griffin asked more vehemently than he should have.
“Her power,” Jori confessed, “is stronger than anything either of us has seen. I’ve bound her for the same reason we bind the creature you are about to face. To avoid becoming lunch.”
Griffin gasped.
The dagger pierced his skin below his ribs. The blade was so light and sharp, the blow so hard, it cut through him like a butcher’s first strike on a pig, deep and with purpose. Griffin couldn’t breathe. He kept his back against the wall to keep from falling over.
Jori twisted the grip, then let his hand fall. “Your dagger. I return it to you. You won the bet after all.”
Griffin looked down at the jeweled hilt protruding from his gut. The seeping blood was barely noticeable on his new black tunic.
“Now go out there and put on a good show.”
“Griffin?” Malcolm caught his arm. “Griffin, what the hell? Jori!”
He slid his sword back into his scabbard. “Maggie! We have to get Maggie!”
Guards blocked the stairwell. More filed in from outside the arena, filling the tunnel.
“I have an announcement,” Jori said to the guards. “As soon as it’s over, Sir Malcolm and Sir Griffin will enter the arena. Tell Perig to bring Rendicryss.”
Jori vanished into the stairwell. Malcolm propped Griffin against the wall beside the lift and waved, yelling for Maggie. Fruitless. Even if she heard, she would never be able to get down the stairs. There were too many guards. And her hands were bound. Griffin looked down. The Phantombronze dagger. His dagger, which the king had gifted him. He threw his head back, laughing. The message was unmistakable. Jori had been plotting for this day from the first moment his father favored Griffin.
All along he had acted, pretended, waited for the opening he needed. Well, his moment had certainly come.
The pain in Griffin’s abdomen was unlike anything he ever felt before. Cold more than hot, like the blade was forged with the same kind of magic that lived in Maggie.
“That’s it. . . .” The answer to freeing Rendicryss hit him like a bolt of lightning. Bracing his back against the wall, Griffin pulled the Phantombronze dagger out. He fell to his knees, but managed to slide it into his belt before the guards hefted him to standing.
Jori’s voice echoed through the arena. Griffin heard him tell everyone of his father’s death at a traitor’s hands. The people’s reactions were swift and filled with disbelief and fear.
Jori told the crowd of the duplicity of Xavier the Ambrosius and revealed that Maggie was the true sorceress. “I will ensure your safety and guarantee the superiority of our kingdom in one fell stroke, by taking control of this sorceress and her immense power.” Then he ushered her to the front of the balcony, in chains. “Before the sun sets on this day, she shall be my wife.”
Outrage. He could feel it radiating off every man and woman seated in the arena.
The stands broke into a unified stamping. Griffin glimpsed flags waving in the Bottom section. Maggie’s scar sketched on them. Above the noise, Griffin could just make out Jori saying Maggie’s name and fiancée in the same sentence. There were boos and jeers and angry voices. The frustration in Jori’s voice as he tried to silence them kept Griffin’s heart beating, kept him alive and present much longer than he should have been.
Griffin never heard Duncan call for them to enter the ring. He didn’t remember being lowered by the lift, but suddenly, Griffin was there. The throngs chanting his name while gasping as he stumbled here and there. His sword in his hand was somehow too heavy to hold. It clanked uselessly on the ground. Not that he would use it. Griffin had only one goal before he died: to save Maggie. For that, he hoped he had all he needed.
Rendicryss’s chains rustled from deep inside the shaft of the tunnel in the keep. Malcolm drew an axe.
Griffin reached for Malcolm’s shoulder, but missed and fell over. The crowd went wild with panic, demanding he get up. Malcolm knelt, his eyes fixed on the keep’s dark tunnel.
Griffin grabbed his knee. “The pulleys; we have to break the wheels.”
“Are you mad? That dragon will have enough lead to kill people in the stands. To reach my sisters!”
“Have faith, Malcolm.”
“A dying man’s last words are always of faith. Why is that, Griffin?”
“Because a dying man’s last deeds are righteous.” He rolled forward, yanking the dagger out, turning it over to Malcolm. “Phantombronze. I can’t fight off the guards to get to the pulleys. You can.”
“But the dragon?”
“She will be sufficiently distracted. Help me up.”
Malcolm lifted him, then sprinted into the gloom of the keep.
Griffin held on to his bleeding stomach with one hand and reached for his sword with the other. The cold burn spread through his abdomen until he couldn’t feel the wound anymore. He couldn’t feel much of anything at all.
He heard Maggie call his name, but was afraid to look up. Cries of dissent echoed from the people. The stadium shook. The air vibrated with Maggie’s name. Griffin’s name. Malcolm’s name. When Jori tried to calm them, the chant changed.
“Let us out.”
“Open the gate!”
“No more wall!”
Rendicryss’s ear-piercing cry halted the rioting. All stopped to see the dragon that had so easily slaughtered Cornwall. She was majestic in the way she walked. Not barreling or lurching like a draignoch. So light-footed and delicate, Griffin never felt her coming. Never anticipated a crafted and calculated tail swipe that sent him hurling across the ring.
Rendicryss ran to finish him off. But her long fangs stopped short. Her head jerked.
Maggie.
She was speaking to Rendicryss.
Griffin should’ve run, but he couldn’t move.
The chain around Rendicryss’s neck loosened. She used a long claw to pluck it off. But there were still other bindings, and a shackle on every foot.
Malcolm emerged, his axe’s handle covered in blood. He lifted it. Griffin saw Sybil reach a hand into Maggie’s boot. Jori was blind to Sybil sneaking up on him, but a guard wasn’t. He grabbed Sybil around the waist, hoisting her up. Sybil let the dagger fall, into Esmera’s hands. As Jori turned to see what the commotion was, Esmera drove the dagger into the prince’s chest.
He staggered backward, falling over the railing, into the ring.
Rendicryss brought down her foot with a great thud, her claws ending whatever life was left in him.
The prince, the only heir to King Umbert’s line, was dead.
The world swam before Griffin’s eyes. Then all was dark. The last thing he heard was Maggie telling him to hold on. He couldn’t. He couldn’t feel anything anymore, except an intangible, inexplicable, impossible warmth and peace.
If he had to put a name to it, it felt like love.
Twenty-One
Maggie
I called for Rendicryss, but the guards didn’t need encouragement from a dragon to run. Esmera and Sybil helped me get down the stairs and into the lift without stumbling on the long cloak. The shackles cut into my wrists and elbows. The key to them had fallen with the prince into the ring.
Tears poured as the lift lowered. I didn’t know when they’d started, but they weren’t stopping anytime soon. Griffin was dying. Or he was already dead.
“We have not time for tears, Maggie. You are a healer, are you not?” Esmera insisted. “You must heal him.”
“But I am bound!” I wailed.
“Not for long.” Esmera turned to Sybil. “In his tunic’s pocket!”
I leaped out as soon as the lift neared the ground and ran to Griffin.
I felt Rendicryss’s cry run through me and understood her. Healer, I heard. That is what the moon
made you.
Rendicryss was watching. She was giving me hope.
Sybil returned with the key. Her hands shaking, it took her two attempts before I felt the metal slide off. I lost track of the other things happening around me, but they were happening.
Later I would find out that the people stayed. Afraid of my dragon, they didn’t venture into the ring. They chanted Griffin’s name and my name, weaving them together. As if that would save him.
Griffin’s lips were blue, his green gaze fixed on me. His chest heaved with painful gasps, clinging to life. The wound crusted with ice from the Phantombronze. Its power was akin to mine. Like a frozen poison, its magic spread from the wound, freezing his insides.
“What do I do?”
Rendicryss slid her foot over Griffin’s fallen sword, cutting it. But she did not cry out. She had done it on purpose. Her blood pooled and tiny flames leaped from the place where it lay.
Fire. While Griffin was ice.
Could I use Rendicryss’s blood to heal him?
I gathered some in my palm and poured it into Griffin’s wound.
His body jerked and he let out a wail of pain. I worried I was making it worse, until the blue faded from Griffin’s lips. I picked up his hand, threading my fingers through his, feeling warmth return. His breathing eased. He squeezed.
I looked up at Esmera and Sybil. “It’s working!”
Rendicryss roared, shaking the whole of the arena. Spectators ran for cover, though I wasn’t sure why.
“Help her,” Griffin whispered.
I reluctantly let go of his hand, and ran around Rendicryss, into the gate where the three chains stretched taut. With a high grab, I drew down the moon’s power, whipping it at an angle, slicing through the Phantombronze.
“Remove the chains!” I called to Sybil, Esmera, and Malcolm, who did what they could to unravel them from her body.
A hard shake from the dragon finished the job. With a hair-raising shriek, Rendicryss’s wings spread to their full and greatest height.
The spectators quieted with wonder.
Perig came beside me, staring in awe at Rendicryss. He bowed to her. She lowered her head and he used his keys to quickly remove the shackles around her feet. The angry burns on her skin from the Phantombronze would leave permanent scars. As it fell, she flapped her wings three times and spirited into the air.
Malcolm took his sisters’ hands and led them up to the balcony. He stepped to the front and beckoned his sisters to stand with him.
Then he spoke.
“There is a whole world outside the wall of this city. This wall wasn’t just built to keep draignochs out, but to keep you in. Do you want to live in a cage, or do you want to be free?”
He called on every section of the arena. If there were any votes for remaining in cages, they were thoroughly drowned out.
The people joined in Malcolm’s chant of “Take it down. Take it down!”
Griffin sat up slowly. “Do it, Maggie.”
And so, I did.
I reached for the moon, catching a beam, and hurled it at the wall. It left a mark, a target for Rendicryss. She made for the wall.
Her tail hit like an axe on a tree trunk, carving away at the stone wall until the wall weakened and fell in a heap of boulders and dust. The sun broke through the gray clouds, rays touching her back as the moon would touch mine. She returned, and lowered her head, allowing me to climb upon it.
She took flight.
We were two pieces of the same universe. Sun and moon. And we would always be a part of the same sky.
As Griffin and I left the city on the hill, we weren’t sure which way to go. Malcolm and his sisters were returning to the North but agreed to stay on for a time to help guide those who remained in the city.
Malcolm asked if there was anything I needed from him. He was surprised when I asked for the draignochs to be freed so they could return to the forest. It was Rendicryss’s request. She vowed they would remain there until they were fully formed dragons with the knowledge to tell right from wrong.
Perig opened the cages in the Oughtnoch. The draignochs paraded in a long colorful line, following Rendicryss, who would lead them home, ensuring there was no damage done to people along the way. My dragon would find me when her job was done. Of that, I was sure.
Griffin and I slept under the stars, under the light of the full moon. I danced in her glory, taking with me long glistening strands. Arms extending, then drawn in, like my younger self in the forest, dancing for Rendicryss. This time, I was dancing for me.
Griffin sat, staring at me with a look in his eye that warmed my soul—a look of friendship, and maybe love.
Others came from the Walled City after us. People who wanted to see more than they had ever been permitted to—ever thought to wonder about before—and meet their new neighbors in the Hinterlands. They camped along the roads I had been so afraid to travel. Lit bonfires in celebration. They sang songs about the dragon, the moon child, and the champion.
With every retelling, a layer of wishful thinking was added, growing the tale from story to legend.
For me and for Griffin, this was just the beginning of our adventures together. I was no longer Maggie of Nowhere. He was no long Griffin of the Walled City.
And although our names would change over time, the name of our grandson would live on as the greatest Ambrosius to ever walk the Earth, Aurelius, sometimes known as Merlin.
Acknowledgments
This book has been a fantastic journey filled with moonlight and dragons. From the first creative meetings with Pete Harris and Marty Bowen at Temple Hill, to the brainstorming editorial calls that really opened up the world with Kristen Pettit at HarperCollins. We could not have written Maggie and Griffin’s adventure without you all.
A special thanks to the entire Harper Teen and HarperCollins family. To the editorial team, marketing, public relations, sales, the art department, and everyone who has worked so hard to make this book not only happen but look so beautiful!
And lastly, a very special thanks to Paul Lucas at Janklow & Nesbit for putting this together.
About the Authors
Photo credit Diane Salvatore
A lifelong resident of Massachusetts, R. A. SALVATORE penned his first manuscript in 1982, in a spiral notebook, writing by candlelight while listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk album. He is the acclaimed author of the DemonWars trilogy—The Demon Awakens, The Demon Spirit, and The Demon Apostle—as well as Mortalis, Bastion of Darkness, Ascendance, and the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime. You can visit him online at www.rasalvatore.com.
Photo credit Peter Konerko
ERIKA LEWIS grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, where she spent most of her childhood riding her dirt bike through Fort Ward, the Union army Civil War stomping grounds. She earned a master’s degree from Georgia State University and an advanced certificate in creative writing from Stony Brook University. Game of Shadows is her debut novel, and The Color of Dragons is her young adult debut. You can visit her online at www.erikalewis.com.
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Books by R. A. Salvatore and Erika Lewis
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE COLOR OF DRAGONS. Copyright © 2021 by Temple Hill Publishing LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text m
ay be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2021 by Sasha Vinogradova
Cover design by Jessie Gang
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021937002
Digital Edition OCTOBER 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-291568-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-291566-5
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FIRST EDITION
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