When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Surrender to me. Let yourself go.”

  Then he saw the matrix of golden energy, a magical crystalline web over her heart—the mark of Athra’s spirit where Rajamin had charged her.

  The fused union of Life and Light shot through them. He seized its flow, preventing its escape.

  “Let it go!” she cried aloud.

  Not yet.

  He pushed it through her, trying to break open the bonds of the Kairantheum. It wasn’t enough. There was another knot of divine energy. It lay trapped in the scar on Aradma’s belly, potent and poisonous. She had lived with it for nine years. It jarred his focus.

  “Oh, Kaldor,” she murmured. “I know what you’re trying to do.” She kissed him. “Let yourself go now.”

  And he did.

  His mind fell away to liquid, and the commingled elements left him, filling her body in gentling eddies as the synthesized energies equilibrated between them. His awareness diffused throughout her, and then gradually returned to his own consciousness. He lay sweating in her arms.

  She kissed his head.

  They lay together in silence until the cold returned. He retrieved his robes, and she summoned another gown. The night didn’t seem quite as cold as before.

  The link to the Light was gone again. It didn’t matter. She had brought him back to it for a brief instant, and he was glad for it.

  “We should get back,” he commented.

  She took his hand in hers.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t heal the scar,” he said.

  She smiled. “It reminds me of what’s important.”

  They returned, hand in hand, to the house to rejoin the others.

  That night, Aradma shared her bed with Kaldor. Arda and Anuit took the other bedroom, and Oriand stayed with Fernwalker on the living room sofas, with Ghost by the dying embers of the hearth.

  Kaldor lay behind Aradma, his arm around her waist holding her close to him. “This will be the first time I’ve had a full night’s sleep in… I don’t know how long,” she murmured.

  “This will be the first time I’ve been happy in… I don’t know how long,” he whispered back at her, softly kissing the hair on her head. “Will you marry me?” he suddenly asked. He wasn’t getting any younger. He had been trapped too long to let this opportunity pass him by. He could hear his mother’s voice—his human mother from Omalar, long since passed away—telling him, It’s too soon. Kaldor! You just met this girl! What are you thinking! Honestly! Go back to your studies!

  No. He had known her all his life. He thought it had been Sidhna, but the light within her had retreated. Aradma was the light that wouldn’t retreat. The light that sacrificed herself for the world.

  Her eyes were closed but she smiled. “We’ll ask the queen in the morning. I don’t want the Church doing it.”

  He had almost dozed off when she whispered.

  “Kaldor.”

  He left his eyes closed. It was pleasant and warm. He briefly tightened his arm over her belly to let her know he was awake. “Yes?”

  “Your Light. It’s still inside me.”

  “The Light?” His link to the light… it had transferred to her somehow?

  She took his fingers and slid them under her gown, holding them against the smooth, hot skin of her belly.

  “We’re having a baby.”

  “Aradma?” He woke up. “Aradma?”

  She had fallen asleep.

  He kissed her again and closed his eyes. He tried to sleep, but the pure joy of it kept him awake. He opened his eyes and listened to her steady breathing. He was still listening when she awoke the next morning.

  32 - Spring Flowers

  They flew to Windbowl that morning on the magic carpet. Fernwalker squealed in excitement at the chance to ride on it. Ghost found a comfortable corner and plopped down lazily. After they arrived, Kaldor and Aradma walked to the church. Arda and Anuit had their own business to attend to and left to do so. Yinkle took Fernwalker to her house for the day.

  Kaldor stepped into the church while Aradma waited outside. It was nothing like he remembered temples being in the old days. Instead of grand marble halls, larger than life statues of the gods, and rows of pillars, it was smaller, with brick walls and no statuary of any kind. The ceilings had been plastered over, and someone had painted colorful images of gods and goddesses floating in the heavens.

  The altar was square now, at the end of the hall in front of rows of pews for congregants. Ten lit candles, each of a different color, were arranged in a line. A censer of frankincense released a line of fragrant smoke into the air.

  The old ratling priest stood in front of the altar, slightly off to the side. His right hand rested on the altar’s surface near the censer. He regarded the wizard with narrow eyes.

  He’s evaluating me.

  “Things have changed from the temples before the Empire,” Kaldor remarked.

  “Those temples were all bent towards the Shadowlord in the end,” the ratling said. “If there’s something you don’t like, tell us, and we will change it.”

  “You are Reverend Rajamin,” the wizard acknowledged.

  “And you are Lord Kaldor, incarnation of Archurion.”

  “Why ten candles?”

  “One for each of the Gods of Light.”

  “We didn’t see it that way then,” Kaldor said. “I like this. You’re on the right path.” Almost like the Kaldorite’s Ten Values of the Light.

  Rajamin’s fur puffed. Kaldor interpreted it as pleasure in response to praise.

  “The Church is ready for your leadership,” Rajamin said.

  He’s testing me. He thinks I’m a god, or the gods’ emissary. He’s worried I’ll take control.

  “The Church is fine in your hands,” Kaldor responded. “It doesn’t require my leadership.”

  “Thank you, Lord Kaldor. Might I ask then, why you are here?”

  “To help win your war against the vampires,” Kaldor replied. “I am here to see your queen. I wanted to see you first.”

  Rajamin puffed again. “You honor me, my lord. Are you aware of Lady Aradma’s special role?”

  Now that was unexpected. Careful. He is at a nexus in the Kairantheum.

  “She is special,” he acknowledged. “I intend to give her my full attention.”

  “There is one who will threaten to take her off her path,” Rajamin said. “Do you know who this man is?”

  This is a religious mind. Speak his language, and he will hear what he wants to hear.

  “It is not yet revealed,” Kaldor stated.

  Rajamin frowned but nodded. “I understand. May I make a request?”

  “Always.”

  “The Kaldorites,” the ratling said. “They haven’t yet submitted to the Church.”

  “They exist outside the Church,” Kaldor remarked.

  “That was because of the Shadowlord,” Rajamin pushed, “when the Church was corrupted by monotheism. The Church has been restored. Should they not return to her bosom? It will help show people your confidence and bring more people back to the fold.”

  Careful.

  Kaldor regarded the ratling without saying anything until finally Rajamin fidgeted anxiously. “It is not yet the appointed time.”

  Good. Leave the possibility open in the priest’s mind.

  Rajamin nodded. “The queen is waiting for us, my lord.”

  His mind is twisted in circles by his faith. He didn’t even ask the obvious questions.

  * * *

  Aradma stood outside the church while Kaldor spoke to the ratling inside. Attaris approached her.

  “Aradma,” he greeted her. He seemed tired. “Aradma, I’m glad you’ve come back.”

  “Oh Atty,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Shush, lass. I know. It wasn’t your fault. Modhrin called Hylda home at her appointed time. We don’t get to choose the time of our death—only how we meet it.”

  She clenched her fists, and then
relaxed them again, unconvinced.

  “Lass, we need you in the fight.”

  “Arda came back,” she said.

  Attaris’ eyes lit up, showing happiness for the first time since Kriegsholm fell. “Arda? How wonderful!”

  “She found Kaldor.”

  “Really!”

  “He’s in with Rajamin right now.”

  “Well, that’s good news!” Attaris exclaimed. “There may be hope after all!” He threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

  * * *

  Rajamin took great pleasure in presenting them to the queen. Upon joining her, Kaldor stood side by side with Aradma and Attaris. The wizard liked the dwarf more than the ratling.

  “It was you who brought the sun last night, wasn’t it?” Queen Aiella asked. “Can you teach our wizards this spell?”

  Now that is the question Rajamin should have asked.

  Kaldor nodded. “Queen Aiella, I was hoping to do just that. Starting with you.”

  “Good,” the queen nodded. “Let’s begin right away.”

  “No!” Aradma protested. “There’s something else we would ask you first.”

  Kaldor turned to her. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait and plan a celebration?”

  “No!” Aradma shook her head emphatically. “There’s no telling what tomorrow will bring. We’ve lost too much, and I won’t lose out on this.”

  “Lose out on what?” Aiella asked, confused.

  “I want you to marry us!” Aradma declared. “Yours is the sovereign power of this land.”

  Rajamin blustered. “Shouldn’t the Church do this for you? You are a priestess of sorts now.”

  “No!” Aradma snapped. “You have enough of me; you won’t have this. Please,” she implored Aiella, “say it is so, and it will be so! Declare us husband and wife!”

  The queen smiled. “I am honored you would ask, Aradma and Kaldor. I can wed you now, declare it so, but my price is that you allow us to celebrate later… maybe Lovers’ Night at the start of May.”

  “Celebration can come later,” Aradma acquiesced, “if that is what you want.”

  “It is,” the queen said. “Marriage is not a matter for the Church. It is a matter of our sovereign land, and if I grant your request in the eyes of my land, then you will celebrate for us. The wedding is not for the betrothed—it is for their friends and loved ones.”

  Kaldor nodded. “She speaks the truth, Aradma.”

  “Is this, then, what you desire?” the queen asked Kaldor. “You take this woman as your wife, her and none other?”

  “It is, and I do.”

  “And you, Aradma, do you desire this as well? Do you take this man to be your husband, him and none other?”

  “I do.”

  “Then by your will and the sovereign power of my crown, I declare you handfasted as wife and husband.”

  * * *

  Anuit stared at the door of the home where she and Seredith had grown up. It was a two-story townhome in the middle of a row of houses on a cobblestone street. Arda stood with her. Once, the building had been one of the preeminent seamstress shops in Windbowl. Marta had been both their coven leader and head of the Weavers Guild.

  “This is where we lived,” Anuit said. “For many years, I thought we were a happy family, just like everyone else. Except—special. I saw you and Aradma for the first time through that window. I was being punished. Counting carpet threads.”

  The house’s windows were now boarded up. The wood on the front door had not been painted or maintained for years. The houses on either side looked fresh and new, with potted flowers in the windows.

  “No one will live here again,” Anuit said sadly. “No one wants to live where sorcery was done, even though most of our training took place in the caverns underground, not in our homes.”

  “Do you ever regret it?” Arda asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  Anuit stepped forward and put her fingers to the door. It receded at her touch, slowly swinging open. She stepped inside. It was dark, but she didn’t bother with any lights.

  In the back, a shadow moved.

  “It’s true then,” a warbling voice said. “You have returned.” A shrouded figure stepped towards them, pulling her hood back to reveal Seredith’s pale face, frozen in a state of anticipated decay.

  Anuit stared at her numbly. Old feelings of guilt moved beneath the surface of her heart but they were stale. “I’m sorry, Seredith. I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

  “I have never blamed you,” Seredith said. “We were both deceived by Mother. You tried to save me—I saw that then, and I know that now.”

  “How do you… feel?”

  “Feel? I feel little. Only the pain of not feeling. I’ve spent all my time searching for a cure but there is none. Where did you go when you left?”

  “Astia.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Survived, like our mother taught us.”

  Seredith turned her milky gaze to Arda. “Have you fallen so far, paladin of the Light, that you stand by this one as a friend?”

  “Excuse me?” Arda frowned, folding her arms across her chest.

  “I do not blame you, Anuit,” Seredith returned her gaze to her former stepsister, “for what was done to me. But I blame you for what you have failed to do for yourself. You had a chance to be free of it, and I can feel it in you still—you have plunged yourself further into the darkness. Did you learn nothing from our mother’s end? The price of sorcery is your own destruction, as well as the destruction of those around you whom you love. You know this and you ignore it. You choose your own death and squander life. You are a detestable thing.”

  Anuit felt as if she had been punched in the gut. Shock and anger, along with fresh anguish from her friend’s words, filled her. Seredith had become a cruel creature, and it was Anuit’s fault. The sorceress fumbled. She lost control. Inky mist surrounded her form, and her mouth erupted with rows of hellhound teeth. Her fingers lengthened to thorny talons. She fell forward, catching herself on an old wooden chair. It shredded under the clutch of her sharp claws.

  “Abomination!” Seredith accused. “Of the two of us, it is I who am free.” She uttered a word of magic and vanished.

  Arda knelt beside Anuit, placing her hands on the sorceress’s back. “Anuit,” she whispered. “Come back to me. You are not alone. Come back.”

  Anuit found herself again, and the demonic features vanished. She laid her head on Arda’s breast and silently cried as the paladin held her.

  * * *

  It was the middle of April. The mountain passes had thawed, and only the peaks remained snow-capped. Rajamin received word that a caravan of gypsies had entered Windbowl through South Pass. They had gone as far as Wine Village and stopped. News spread that they sold a tea that made those who drank it undesirable to—and immune from—vampires. A little late for Windbowl, but people were buying as much as they could—one couldn’t be too careful, and people couldn’t rely on wizards being around all the time. There were so few of them. A more permanent solution was welcome, especially for those who needed to travel.

  Rajamin took an excursion to Wine Village to see the gypsies for himself. They and others like them had made their way north from Roenti, sharing this wondrous knowledge from town to town. They sold the tea, but they also brought with them potted flowers and seeds so that each town could grow more.

  At first, the priests and sovereign lords were concerned, for this was the same flower that produced Malahkma’s Milk. However, once the druids reported that the tea indeed worked, having witnessed its effects in the southern border states of Hammerfold, any objections were forgotten. Orders were placed for crates with beds of the flowers already planted and blooming in fertile earth, transplanting crops from Roenti’s southern mountain ranges. The tea’s properties protected the gypsies as they moved the source of the medicine—a vaccine of sorts—from the infested lands.

  The gypsies did not try t
o venture into the Covenant states—they knew they weren’t welcome and would be killed. It seemed for the rest of Hammerfold, however, that this was the final piece needed to restore safety to the sovereign lands. Aiella’s wizards, what few there were at her Academy who could master Kaldor’s spell, traveled to the hungerbound states and helped purify them. Rajamin had his priests coordinate with the kings of the land, enlisting the druids as messengers between them, to start planning the invasion of Roenti. His intent was to cleanse the hungerbound lands first, and then turn their attention on the more difficult challenge of the Covenant.

  Rajamin’s dreams had grown stronger. The gods were trying to tell him something. He was sure Aradma would be Athra’s agent that would bring about the final destruction of Malahkma’s work in Ahmbren.

  She must be cast back into the Abyss. Only Athra can do this. Only Athra’s vessel can defeat the Blood Queen. The Heart of the Dragon must be reconciled to the Gods of Light.

  He felt that the shadow was approaching. The man that would turn Aradma from her fate. He worried Kaldor might be this man—everyone was focused on his sun magic, but Rajamin knew that magic wasn’t the solution. He worried his people were succumbing to false hope. He was confused. He knew what the gods told him, but Kaldor had also been a god once. Kaldor couldn’t possibly be the dark agent—Archurion had been the gods’ chief messenger and would never have chosen a man who would turn against the gods as his vessel. Would he?

  In Wine Village, the gypsies had parked their line of brightly colored covered wagons on the road. Those who were once the pariahs of civilization were now welcomed with open arms. Windbowl finally had its first crop of Faerie’s Breath.

  This gypsy caravan… there were seelie among them. If seelie could travel unmolested in Roenti, then the tea truly did live up to its claims. These seelie were unlike any he had seen, all of them of solid, vibrant colors. Not like the evening and morning hues of the rest of the light elves. He wondered what made them different.