She stumbled over dead bodies lying on the stairs. She could barely see in the dark. She summoned a faint glow of starlight so she could make her way, illuminating lifeless ratling eyes inches from her face, frozen in the horror of death. Dead human eyes glinted beside it. The sweet air evoked a retch, and she paused for a brief moment as nausea raced around the pain of her open belly wound.
To stop is to die. Life will find a way.
Imps flitted about her, landing on walls and the dead, bent knees of rotting corpses. “She’s following,” they whispered. “She will feed you to us. Stop and let it happen. Let her scrape you from her memory.”
Fernwalker kicked herself forward. The stairwell was dry now, and the dead bodies filled the air with a stench that made her want to vomit. She kept moving, caught somewhere between crawling and running. Gods, she’s just a little girl. It didn’t matter. The child had been twisted by the Black Dragon.
A shadow formed at the top of the stairs, blocking the halls of the next level. The girl stepped out of the vortex, and a swarm of imps accompanied her. They whispered among themselves.
“Naiadne will consume her.”
“Naiadne will feed us bits of her flesh.”
“Naiadne is the favored of Klrain.”
“Naiadne will save us from the Light.”
Fernwalker shuddered. She knew what that name meant. Aradma must have chosen it. In the old tongue, Child of Light. Naiadne was anything but. She has not forgotten the truth of her being. She has never known the truth of her being. Damn you, Athaym, damn you to a thousand hells! It was because of him. If Fernwalker could rip his heart out, she would. This crime against her flesh and blood, her sister that she had never known, was unforgivable.
Damn it! She couldn’t shift. If only she could become the black marlin again, or even her more familiar squirrel form and run past the girl’s legs to freedom… but the element of Life was too distant through the pain. She couldn’t find her center! She tried to call upon Life to heal her calf and stop the bleeding, but even that slipped through her mind, too difficult to focus on.
She took a step back, leg splashing in the water behind her. A ripping fire tore into her limb, throwing her forward on her palms and knees. The troglodyte had swum behind her and bitten a large chunk from her calf. She cried out in pain as more green blood spilled over the watery steps.
The troglodyte crawled over her, pressing her body to the floor. His narrow, forked tongue flickered in and out of his closed mouth. He grabbed her shoulders, and she knew in the next instant he would open his terrible iron jaws and bite her face off.
In one last moment of desperation, she reached and jabbed her ten fingertips to the sides of the troglodyte’s lizard face. Life exploded through her arms, and the captured starlight from long ago exploded in the troglodyte’s skull.
Black blood and tooth chips spewed in all directions.
The demon child—sister or not, that’s what she was—approached.
Fernwalker grunted and tried as hard as she might. She shifted into the squirrel and raced past the girl’s feet, only to lose her focus and fall back to the wounded elf body not four yards past the dark child.
I’m going to die, she thought. My own sister will end me.
She limped down the hallway, leaving a green spattering trail behind her.
And the seelie child followed with the feverish gleam of murder in her eyes.
Blood dribbled down Fernwalker’s leg, leaving the green outline of her footprint as she hobbled. She grunted as she struggled forward, trying to escape her demon sister. No matter how far she got ahead, or how much she half ran, half fell through each painful step, Naiadne was always right behind her in the shadows, just around the corner. Giggling.
Always giggling.
The faint breath of moonlight spilled from the room up ahead, punctuated by explosive flashes from the outside battle. Fernwalker limped into the room, finding its contents strewn about. A giant wardrobe had fallen over the doorway to the outside balcony, leaving gaps too small to crawl through. Through the window beside it she could see demons and blazing sidhe energy streams streak past in the sky across the field of stars. She knew she couldn’t break the glass—she wouldn’t even waste time trying. It was magically created, almost as strong as the zorium walls of the tower.
A pile of corpses lay atop each other against the fallen wardrobe. They had tried to pull it away and climb over and press through its gaps before they died, mostly human men and women. Fernwalker shuddered. It looked like they had been trying to escape from something. One woman’s neck was snapped, twisted around with dead eyes staring vacantly at the young druid.
Oh gods. I knew that woman. One of King Donogan’s bookkeepers.
The girl’s voice floated from the corridor from which Fernwalker had just entered. “You know,” the child said with that lighthearted giggle, “my father tells me not to waste time playing at torture unless it serves a purpose. But this is too much fun. If he won’t let me kill Mother, I will enjoy killing you.”
Again Fernwalker tried to take hold of the element of Life. Her link wavered, and she had a brief instant where she was reminded of a game she’d played on fair day as a child, trying to catch a greased piglet. She grabbed ahold of what she could within her and released captured starlight from behind the wardrobe. She heard the boom of the explosion, but it was weak. The wardrobe shook, jostling the mound of dead bodies, but didn’t move.
She’s going to kill me, Fernwalker thought again. Panic rose, and her breaths came in short, choppy bursts. I’m going to die. Then: No! Focus. Hide.
She climbed the corpse mound and lifted them over her. She dug through the mass and buried herself underneath the dead bodies. She left a tiny hole to see out from and hoped she had concealed herself enough to escape notice. She held her breath to a slow rhythm, trying to keep as quiet as she could.
She could barely see, the light was so dim. The child’s silhouette appeared in the door. “Hiding?” she teased. “I know you’re in here.”
The child stepped into the room and said something in a strange language, somewhat like the mercurial words of magic, but different. Darker. Oily.
A low growl rumbled from the shadows, and the toothy head of a hellhound filled her field of view. It leaned low over the corpses, sniffing, then continued past the mound to examine the other piles of debris lying about the floor.
Every so often, Fernwalker could see the hellhound come back into view, crossing to the other side, and then couldn’t see it again. All the while she heard its sniffing and pawing through the junk while the short elven silhouette remained in the chamber’s center.
Mist flowed around the wardrobe from outside, spilling from the doorway’s gaps and through the mound of corpses.
The hellhound snorted and growled.
The fog condensed into Sidhna’s form.
“Naiadne!” Sidhna said. “Stop this! If you come with me, no harm will come to you.”
The girl spat. “You were strong once,” she accused. “You spent too much time with her.”
“Aradma is stronger than you know, child,” the vampire said. “Stronger than all of us, only he never let you see that.”
“Do not speak of Father that way!”
The hellhound’s growl deepened into a piercing shriek.
“Naiadne, your father was Kaldor, the avatar of the Gold Dragon. You are a child of Light and Life, the Gold and the Green. Athaym has twisted you into a lie against yourself.”
Naiadne clenched her fists and pounded the sides of her hips, screaming.
The hellhound leaped on Sidhna. The vampire was fast, but not fast enough to completely sidestep the demon. She fell under its weight.
Fernwalker sucked in a gasp.
Mist flowed back into view, and Sidhna stood unharmed. Fernwalker remembered Aradma telling her of the time that Sidhna killed Anuit’s hellhound at the top of Taer Iriliandrel, but Sidhna had been filled with the power of Mala
hkma then. Malahkma was now bound in the Abyss, and the vampire no longer enjoyed the goddess’s strength.
Still, she was the first vampire. Sidhna darted forward, faster than Fernwalker could see. Out of her field of view she heard them fight and crash through fallen piles of debris. The hellhound roared, and the vampire hissed. Finally, the hellhound’s growls turned into a whimper, and then a yelp.
And then it was silent.
Naiadne spat in rage, breath whistling through clenched teeth.
Sidhna came back into view and approached the girl. “It’s over, Naiadne,” she said.
“No!” Naiadne yelled. “I’m stronger than you! Father made me so!” She slapped Sidhna and Darkness exploded when her palm struck the vampire.
Sidhna fell to the ground, landing flat on her back. A look of shock showed in her eyes. Her head rolled backwards, and her gaze met Fernwalker’s.
Get up! Then Fernwalker shouted aloud, “Get up!” She pushed the corpses away and struggled to reach the vampire.
Naiadne grinned triumphantly. She stepped on Sidhna’s chest. “Death is mercy for the weak.”
“No!” Fernwalker yelled, but there was nothing she could do. Sidhna seemed to gather her focus, but it was too late. Before she could move or even mist away, a dark rod of solid shadow shot from Naiadne’s palm into the vampire’s heart.
Sidhna gasped and then emitted a choking gargle. Blood dribbled from her lips. Her eyes blazed orange, and her serpentine fangs extended to their full length. She struggled and thrashed, but the dark rod held her pinned to the ground.
Fernwalker tripped on the outstretched hand of a dead body. She fell beside the vampire.
Sidhna turned her head and met Fernwalker’s eyes. In that moment, the vampire light went out, and the fangs retracted. She looked like so much the innocent elven lady she had once been. Her lips parted in sorrow, even as her eyes relaxed.
A crescent stroke of sharp shadow sliced through Sidhna’s neck, severing the head from the body, ending the last of the Dragon avatars.
Naiadne turned to Fernwalker. The young druid pushed herself to her feet and then fell again, this time on her bottom. She scrambled back against the glass window, pushing with her palms and good leg. Pain shot through her torn calf.
Naiadne followed her lazily. “Everything the Green Dragon touched is being undone,” she said. “The Black Dragon will rule this land, and I will be at his side.” She pointed her finger, and a dark rod extended, impaling Fernwalker’s shoulder to the glass. Still pointing, she twisted her finger.
Fernwalker screamed.
“After father cleanses the world, our mother will be the last of Graelyn that endures. In time, I will kill her too. He doesn’t need anyone else, other than me.” She pointed her second hand, and another dark rod impaled Fernwalker’s other shoulder.
The older sister screamed again and tears watered her cheeks. “Please,” she gasped, barely above a whisper. “Please stop.”
Naiadne appeared to consider. Then she twisted her fingers once more, smiling as the druid shrieked in agony. Fernwalker felt the bones in her shoulders crunch and splinter as cartilage and ligaments tore. She couldn’t feel her hands. Her forearms had gone numb, overwhelmed by the wrenching trauma and dark energy coursing through those rods.
“Death is mercy for the weak,” Naiadne said.
“Hey!” a bright voice shouted from behind the demon child. Fernwalker struggled to open her eyes, seeing Kristafrost rush into the room. The elven druid cried in relief at seeing the one-eyed agent with her little eyepatch. “Pick on someone your own size!” Kristafrost shouted.
Naiadne snarled and turned away from Fernwalker. The dark rods vanished, and the druid fell forward onto her stomach, face turned to the side and arms uselessly sprawled wide.
She could just make out the gnome and elven girl facing off against each other, sideways in her vision. Kristafrost drew a pair of nimble looking blades, but Naiadne opened her palm, and a solid spear of shadow pierced Kristafrost’s stomach and jutted out through her back. The gnome’s eye widened in shock, and she fell to her knees, dropping her daggers to the floor. Naiadne held her palms together, and an amorphous field of shadow swallowed the gnome. The shadow vanished, along with Kristafrost.
She shadowjumped her away, Fernwalker numbly thought. Oh, please don’t be dead. Please gods, not Krista. The pain subsided now, and she felt as if her body drifted away from the floor. This is it… unless I do something, I’m going to die.
She closed her eyes and focused, seizing her last bit of wakeful consciousness before it slipped away. She fastened her mind around her inner link to Life and then opened her eyes.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Naiadne was still facing the other way, but she started to turn towards Fernwalker. The young druid channeled and found the space just behind the nape of Naiadne’s neck. She released the starlight, and a tiny explosion burst—
POP!
—Naiadne crumpled to the ground.
The girl lay there, unconscious. She had fallen next to Fernwalker. The druid stared at her sister’s face, studying the lines that reminded her of their mother. In slumber, Naiadne looked so innocent.
Damn you, Athaym! Fernwalker thought again. She couldn’t move. Her blood spread from her shoulders and filled in around Naiadne’s cheek and hair.
Fernwalker drifted in and out of consciousness. She thought she saw a bloodied bear, then the form of Odoune, come into the room.
Dad…
Eszhira followed him.
I’m dreaming.
Odoune gathered Fernwalker in his arms. He closed his eyes, and Life flowed from him into his daughter. She felt his warmth, but the pain returned, brought back to the surface as the numbness of dying receded. She moaned.
“Shhh,” her father said. “I’ve stopped the bleeding. We’ll get you to safety and fully heal you. You’re safe now.”
Fernwalker cried.
“Shhh,” Odoune soothed her, and he picked her up in his bloodied arms. She saw gashes up and down his body, but she was too far gone to say anything.
Eszhira picked up the body of the girl. “She’s alive,” she said.
“Bring her,” Odoune replied. “She too is Aradma’s daughter. Make sure she stays asleep.”
Eszhira nodded. Then she cried out, kneeling to take Kristafrost’s daggers. “Where’s Kristafrost? I thought she was ahead of us.”
Odoune looked at the unused, unbloodied blades. “I don’t know,” he said grimly. He closed his eyes and focused, and a soft blanket of grass grew and carpeted the room, revealing no impressions of an invisible body. “She is not here,” Odoune said. Then his eyes fell on the vampire. “Sidhna gave her life defending my daughter.” He knelt briefly and closed the eyes on Sidhna’s severed head. “For this, I will honor her memory.”
Fernwalker fell into unconsciousness as her father carried her in his arms. Before she completely slipped away, she saw Eszhira lift Naiadne and follow, casting her eyes about in worry.
* * *
“Be free in the Dark,” Anuit whispered in Aradma’s ear. “I release you.”
Aradma felt the last of the shadowy bonds slip away, and Life filled her being, suffusing every cell. She opened the fullness of her link to the element, and now that the Dragon was fully integrated into her mind, she saw the elemental seal at the center of her being.
Athaym rose. His eyes glittered clearly now, and his lips pulled back into a snarl. Aradma witnessed the truth of his being, seeing his soul music spill in discord as he tried to establish his link to the Dark.
Anuit passed out. Aradma set her down gently and then rose to face him.
Fury rose within her, and then exploded through her veins. She hurled raw Life energy at him, even as he found his own connection to the Dark. Her Life rushed into his link, sucked into the Void.
“I will end you!” he shouted. He tried to channel and bring the Dark out through him, but it kept pulling at the Life she
threw at his center, falling in upon itself and collapsing back into the Void.
He shrieked in rage, cut off from the Dark.
Ten years of anguish from watching him twist Naiadne into a dark creature, ten years of torment from being trapped in a fragmented mind all came surging through her at once.
Aradma howled in a mother’s rage, pulling her lips back to bare her teeth. The cords on her neck pulled taut and then she shifted. Her howling became a roar, and the white leopard leaped across the chamber, knocking Athaym to the ground.
He froze, his breath knocked from him. She continued to channel Life, relentlessly plunging the energy into his link to the Dark. His eyes widened in bewilderment.
Her claws dug into his flesh, and she opened her mouth, roaring into his face.
He tried to struggle.
Growling, she plunged her canines into his chest, locking her leopard teeth around his ribs. His blood spurted through her teeth with delicious joy, and a primal surge of ecstasy shot through her feline sides as she fastened her teeth deeply within the flesh of his chest.
Athaym gurgled. The expression in his eyes was mixed with pain, but the surprise remained.
She yanked her jaws back and pulled his sternum out through his chest, cracking open his rib cage. She plunged her snout once more and bit deep into his heart, clamping her jaws over the beating muscle to feel its contractions spasm and weaken against her lips and tongue. Growls of feral rage ripped through her throat over the blood in intense delight. She tore it out of his body and consumed it.
Taer Koorla grew silent. Aradma sensed the tower’s fear.
Athaym’s body lay sprawled, shredded and lifeless in a pool of green blood amid chunks of flesh. His seelie eyes lay dark. Even in death, his face reflected a final thought: I am perplexed.
Aradma shifted back into elven form, still wearing the choros suit. She pulled Life around her, and finely woven foliage spread over her body, splitting apart the skin of the mollusks and clothing her instead in a bright green and orange gown.
The druid went to Anuit and lifted her in her arms. Healing life flowed into the sorceress, and Anuit wakened with a gasp. Her eyes opened wide, staring up at the seelie. At first, awe, and then joy, spread over her face, and she smiled. “You did it!”
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 132