Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Shailaja straightened, stepping away from Drake and widening her stance. She held my mangled katana loosely at her side.

  “I really don’t care,” she said. “Your heroes are down. And if you don’t want them dead, you will free the final instrument of assassination and aid in my ascension.”

  “You should care.” I carefully shifted weight onto my left leg, testing it. It held, though barely.

  “We’re running tight on time, sweetling,” the rabid koala said.

  Then I lunged to the side, startling Shailaja enough that she raised the katana. Except I wasn’t going for her.

  I slammed my hand into the iridescent magic that surrounded the far seer. Then, in the hastiest bit of alchemy I had ever performed, I ripped it asunder. The flavors of pear and toasted grain filled my mouth even as the magic coursed through my limbs, burrowing into my arteries and veins.

  The flowered branch fell, landing softly on the stone coffin.

  I twisted around, fighting to force the foreign magic I held into my knife and my necklace. I raised my blade to meet the overhead blow I was expecting from Shailaja as she raced across the chamber toward me.

  She kicked me in the gut instead.

  I flew across the tomb, over the pit, and crashed into the far wall near the archway. I fell in a tangle of limbs, still too injured to be graceful about any of it.

  I rolled over onto my belly. Looking up through the tangle of my curls, I tried to organize my thoughts.

  Chi Wen slid off the coffin.

  Shailaja shied away from him, raising the mangled katana before her.

  But the far seer was watching me, not her.

  I struggled to stand, knowing as I made it to my feet that I wasn’t going to survive another hit.

  I couldn’t understand what the far seer was waiting for …

  Then I realized.

  Me. He was waiting for me.

  And I had no idea what to do.

  I looked at Shailaja.

  The rabid koala was livid. She was wary of Chi Wen and completely pissed, all at the same time. She stalked back over to Drake, laying the edge of the katana at his neck.

  “Dragons don’t kill dragons,” I said.

  “They do when they’re ascending,” Shailaja sneered.

  “No,” I said. “That’s by mutual agreement. Not force. Not trickery.”

  “We both know you’re going to do this, alchemist. We both know you won’t stand there and let me kill anyone.” Then she turned just her head, glaring at Chi Wen. “Look at him!”

  The far seer continued smiling cheerfully at me.

  “He’s gone!” Shailaja snarled. “He’s walking around with all that power, and he’s nothing. Useless. The more powerful I am, the more you are.”

  “No.”

  “We’ll take Warner to Baxia. She’s next in line to relinquish her mantle.”

  “He’d never do it.”

  “I swear I will kill him!” She pressed the blade to Drake’s neck. As it had when it hit my father, it sliced through his skin with no effort.

  I let go of my knife. It sheathed itself before it hit the ground. Tears began to slip unchecked down my cheeks.

  Disbelief flitted across Shailaja’s face. Then anger. She straightened. Spinning on her heel, she stomped across the chamber to stand over Warner.

  “Fine,” she said. “Him, then.” But there was an edge in her voice as if she was convincing herself. “The sentinel is a worthy sacrifice.”

  I began to sob. Terrible, racking cries tore out of my hollow chest. My heart was in tatters, and my mind wasn’t far behind. But I wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t going to hand Shailaja any more power. Warner wouldn’t want me to.

  “Goddamn you, Jade Godfrey. You will do this!”

  “He’s already dead …”

  “What?”

  “He’s already dead to me!” I shrieked.

  Shailaja threw the katana.

  It spun toward me.

  I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and reaching out with my dowser magic. I sought the stolen magic held within the mangled blade.

  Then I claimed the darkness I had sealed in the weapon with my own blood. I claimed the magic of all the Adepts sacrificed by my sister. I acknowledged their deaths. I accepted responsibility for the creation of this dark blade, as I should have that night on the beach in Tofino.

  I opened my eyes.

  The sword heeded me, zigzagging away from the portal that Shailaja was in the process of opening.

  Her jaw dropped.

  The circle of folded steel spun toward me. I reached for it. I let the blade slice across my open palm, then twisted around to clamp my bloody fingers around the hilt. The weapon came to a halt in my hand.

  I met Shailaja’s surprised gaze. My face was sticky with the tears I hadn’t bothered to wipe away.

  Chi Wen grunted with satisfaction.

  The rabid koala lunged sideways, sliding across the tiled floor and grabbing Drake’s gold broadsword from where it lay beside the fledgling. Then she rolled to her feet, facing me with the pit trap between us.

  It was my turn to smirk.

  “What?” Shailaja snapped.

  “That blade owes you no allegiance. It was forged for the fledgling.”

  “No matter what dragon weapon you hold, alchemist, I will always outclass you.”

  I snorted, slamming all the power in my grasp into the mangled katana. Under that onslaught, the blade unfurled. All the damage done to it when I’d twisted it around Sienna’s neck unwrought itself, as the blade reformed into its original twenty-eight inches of straight, strong steel.

  “You stupid bitch,” I said. “This is my freaking sword.”

  I shifted my right foot behind me, falling into a classic forward lunge pose as effortlessly as I’d claimed the pulsing magic of the katana. I leveled the blade at Shailaja, offering a challenge.

  “And they call me dragon slayer now,” I whispered.

  Shailaja snarled.

  I leaped forward, pushing up and over in an attempt to clear the pit between us. But I understood even before I’d completed the leap that she was faster and stronger than me.

  Whether I’d reclaimed my katana or not, I wasn’t going to land a single blow.

  Still, I held the sword over my head, primed for a futile downward strike. Knowing that when that attack was thwarted, I was only leaping toward my own death.

  That thought was a relief, actually.

  Because what else could I do?

  As I’d expected, Shailaja ducked underneath my strike. In my gamble to get there fast enough, I’d left myself open.

  I waited for her to gut me.

  Then Chi Wen appeared beside Shailaja. He laid his hand on the back of the rabid koala’s head, as if to tousle her hair and congratulate her on an imminent victory.

  She screamed as the far seer’s golden-white, spiced magic flared within her eyes.

  The rabid koala convulsed, lowering her blade and arching forward and upward, directly into the path of my strike.

  My katana sliced off her head.

  I hit the ground hard, landing on my weak left leg. I collapsed. Crashing into the far seer’s legs, I felt my ribs snap — again. Or maybe it was my spine. The sensation was like slamming into two steel poles.

  I screamed. My vision blackened from the pain for a moment. But I regained my sight in time to watch Shailaja’s headless body fall to the floor in front of me. Blood flooded from the ghastly wound that was her neck.

  I was still screaming. I couldn’t stop. Screaming with the terror of what I’d done, and of the life I’d snuffed out. It was Chi Wen who silenced me, yanking me up onto my knees.

  “Hurry, hurry, Jade Godfrey. Hurry, alchemist.”

  “What?” I mumbled through the pain of being hauled up so abruptly.

  “Take the magic now. Take the magic. Claim your kill.”

  “What?” I shrieked.

  “You must take the magic of th
e daughter of Pulou-who-was. It is your destiny.”

  “What?” I repeated a third time. And then my brain finally clicked in. “No!”

  “You will not allow such a gift to go unclaimed. Take it now, alchemist.”

  “You’ve seen this? You see me taking her magic?”

  Chi Wen gently turned me, so that I was looking at him instead of Shailaja’s beheaded corpse. Even with me on my knees, he wasn’t much more than a foot taller than me.

  Then I realized he wasn’t moving me with his hands on my shoulders. He was moving me with his mind.

  Utter terror filled my already overwhelmed brain.

  “I will see this,” Chi Wen said simply.

  “What do you mean?” I forced the words out, trying to push past the horror in an attempt to understand what was happening.

  “Do this, alchemist,” he insisted. “You must not allow this power to fade.”

  Completely disoriented but still attempting to obey the far seer’s concerned urging, I grabbed the magic that coursed within Shailaja’s blood. I tried to channel that intense power into my necklace and knife, then into the katana.

  I failed.

  “The sword can’t hold any more,” I cried. “My necklace, my knife … I can’t.”

  “You, Jade Godfrey. You are the vessel to hold the power of the daughter of the mountain.”

  “No.”

  “This is how you ascend. This is how you become.”

  “Become what?”

  The far seer crouched down before me. He ran his hand through the blood pooling by Shailaja’s severed neck. “If you were a fledgling guardian, you would need to actually drink her blood and consume her heart and brain.”

  My stomach squelched with revulsion. “But I’m not a fledgling guardian.”

  “You are not. And as such, the physical consumption is not necessary for you.”

  “I can’t do it,” I mumbled, still not completely understanding what he was asking of me. “I won’t.”

  Chi Wen lifted his bloody hand, catching my chin and forcing me to look in his eyes. I waited for his brain-searing magic to destroy what was left of my mind.

  “When I was a boy, my mother was the far seer,” Chi Wen said. “She saw me, as I see Drake.” His guardian magic rolled across his eyes, yet I knew his vision wasn’t clouded. He saw most clearly in those moments when he used his seer powers.

  “The day my mother saw me no longer was the day she knew she was to relinquish her guardian mantle.”

  “I don’t understand, far seer. We must call the other guardians … Drake … Warner …”

  He released my chin, wiping a single bloody finger across my face. Then he dipped down to Shailaja’s blood and back up again, making another pass on my other cheek. It was as if he were applying slashes of war paint. He was painting me with Shailaja’s blood.

  “That is not how I see Drake.”

  “I don’t understand …”

  Then the far seer’s magic flooded my mind, wiping out everything in its path … my thoughts … my memories … myself.

  I was an empty shell.

  Then Chi Wen showed me … he showed me Drake.

  Drake older … but not old enough.

  Drake was standing over Haoxin. The petite guardian was lying across a gold altar surrounded by nine ornate chairs, arrayed in a semicircle.

  “No …” I moaned.

  Drake was lifting a jewel-crusted chalice filled with blood. He looked across Haoxin’s body at someone I couldn’t see … someone even Chi Wen’s sight couldn’t see. The fledgling’s face was etched with fear.

  A five-colored silk braid was wrapped around Haoxin’s neck.

  “No!” I cried.

  Chi Wen released his hold on my mind. The tomb of the phoenix swam back into view.

  “That can’t … happen …” I was dizzy and so, so sick. I wasn’t sure if I was sitting or standing, but I could see Drake still lying on the ground just beyond Shailaja. The pool of her blood was slowly creeping toward him.

  “You can unmake what you have seen,” Chi Wen said. “I’m sorry, Jade, but you must hurry.”

  Something stung my right wrist. I looked down to see blood there, then to watch the far seer drag my jade knife across my left wrist, then up my forearm. “No,” I muttered. “That’s mine. That’s my knife. You can’t be touching it without my permission.”

  “Now … become.”

  He wasn’t listening to me. He sliced my right wrist and my arm again.

  Why wasn’t I moving? Why wasn’t I stopping him?

  He was killing me … with my own knife.

  Oh, God.

  He was still in my head.

  The magic in Shailaja’s blood tingled against my face … then it began to itch …

  Then it burned.

  “Ow …”

  I couldn’t do anything but speak. I couldn’t wipe the blood from my face or move away from the far seer.

  “No,” I said again as I watched blood pour from my slit wrists. “This is so wrong.”

  “Who are you to say so, fledgling?”

  “Me. I’m me.”

  “Yes,” Chi Wen said, sounding overly satisfied. “Now you are you.”

  “This was my destiny?”

  “It is now. If you are to survive, you have to take it all, alchemist. Every last drop.”

  Then he nudged me forward — not with his hand or foot, but with his mind.

  I fought back. “Magic isn’t blood …” I screamed the words as I rose stumbling to my feet. Somehow, I managed to shove the far seer away from me.

  He grunted, pleased and full of satisfaction.

  My head swam. I was standing, but I didn’t think I could move without falling down again. It was too late. I’d lost too much blood. I was too badly injured.

  “Take the magic. Make it your own,” Chi Wen whispered. “Or die. I cannot force you, Jade. But do this. For Drake. For you.”

  As if woken by the far seer saying his name, the fledgling guardian groaned and turned his head toward me.

  I looked over at Warner. His chest rose as he drew breath. He was alive. He would live … without me …

  “I don’t want to die,” I murmured.

  Chi Wen pressed my knife into my right hand. I took it. Then he pressed the katana into my left. I took that too. Though I wasn’t sure why I needed them.

  “Take it all, dragon slayer,” Chi Wen coaxed. “You will need it to stand before your next foes. You will need it to stand at Drake’s side. You will need it to alter the future.”

  So I took it. I reached out for the dragon magic of the woman I’d murdered. I took it for my own.

  I sought out the power swirling within the blood at my feet. Then I pulled at it. It rose eagerly, coating my feet, ankles, and calves in a golden sheen. I pulled it higher, coating myself with it as I’d seen Shailaja do twice. I gathered all the rabid koala’s magic, along with the magic in my own blood that Chi Wen had drained from me.

  I wrapped the power from every last drop of blood around me like a full-body shroud … like a spinning net that sparkled with gold. It settled on my skin, then was absorbed into it.

  I was the abomination I had always been accused of being.

  “Forget now.” Chi Wen brushed his fingers across my cheek.

  …

  …

  …

  “Forget what?”

  A massive boom sounded through the archway, cracking the tile mosaic on the wall and shaking the ground underneath our feet. I stumbled away from the far seer, falling to my hands and knees, then crawling the rest of the way to Warner as more stone exploded somewhere deep within the tunnel.

  A plume of rock dust flooded into the crypt. Coughing and barely able to hold myself up on my arms, I tried to shield Warner’s nose and mouth with my body. Just as I’d triggered the earthquake and flood in Hope Town and the centipede in Peru, I assumed I was about to face the final security measure of the shrine. Though I hadn�
�t tried to remove the instrument. Maybe compromising the magic that had been holding the instrument was enough.

  Then the fire breather walked through the archway. I thought Suanmi had been scary in cashmere and braids. But she was a much more terrible and awesome sight in shiny black samurai gear. Her dark hair was slicked back in a tight bun. Her katana was easily a foot longer than mine.

  Her gaze swept the chamber, taking in the sight of all that had happened. Then that gaze turned toward me. “What have you done?”

  A portal blew open behind her. And the seven remaining guardian dragons stepped through its golden magic into the tomb behind the fire breather, fanning out around the pit. The portal remained open at their backs.

  I’d been praying that the guardians would show up and save the day. And here they were.

  Except I had a sinking feeling that I was now the big bad they had come to save the world from.

  Qiuniu went to Drake, crouching to briefly touch his neck. Then he straightened with a nod in Suanmi’s direction.

  Pulou stepped over Shailaja’s body without a second glance, sweeping the instrument of assassination off the sarcophagus and into a mesh bag constructed out of platinum and cinched with jeweled ties. The entire side of the treasure keeper’s face was badly scarred.

  Yazi, appearing fully healed, immediately stepped toward me, but Chi Wen shuffled into his path, lifting his hand to stop the warrior. Frowning, my father stepped back to fall into line with the other guardians. They turned, looking toward me.

  Not knowing what they wanted, I struggled to my feet and attempted to bow.

  No one spoke.

  The pit and Shailaja’s decapitated body stood between them and me.

  “Please,” I whispered. “Healer … the sentinel …” The combined magic of the guardians was wreaking havoc on my senses. I was injured and overwhelmed.

  Hell, I’d just murdered someone.

  Qiuniu looked to Chi Wen. The far seer raised his hand a second time.

  I felt my grip weaken, and I lost hold of my katana. It hit the floor. I couldn’t find the strength to pick it back up.

  So I just stood before the nine most powerful beings in the world. I’d done so before, but this time, each of them was arrayed for battle with dragon armor and weapons. Swords … knives … bows … Jiaotu carried two deadly axes. I was pretty sure I couldn’t have lifted either one of them.