Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Jesus.

  Their power flooded the chamber, blowing through and around me.

  “May I present Jade Godfrey, alchemist, wielder of the instruments of assassination, dragon slayer,” Chi Wen said, bowing formally in my direction. “We have been awaiting her awakening.”

  No ‘granddaughter of Pearl Godfrey’ … no ‘warrior’s daughter’ … no ‘treasure keeper’s alchemist’ …

  Just me. Me and all the terrible I was capable of.

  Dragon slayer.

  Drake sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his head. “What did I miss?”

  I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. I felt hysteria burble up to override my terror and pain.

  The magic of the guardians continued to weave in and around me. They stood arrayed before me, armed to the teeth.

  They were the nine most powerful beings in the world. And they … paused.

  Paused.

  As weak and terrified as I was, I gave them pause.

  Then, without a word or a glance exchanged between them, their guardian magic finally broke through the shielding I was desperately trying to hold against it. Their power boiled around me, causing me to lose my grip on my knife.

  I swayed.

  I was going to die. Again. Or maybe I had already done that. I was losing track.

  The far seer stepped forward and swept me into his arms. He was at least seven inches shorter than me, but it was like I weighed nothing to him.

  He held me as if presenting me to the rest of the guardian nine.

  I continued to fight the onslaught of guardian magic. I lost. Darkness folded around me.

  “Dragon slayer,” the far seer repeated, utterly satisfied.

  I’d been set up.

  I’d been manipulated every step of the way. Perhaps right from the first moment Pulou had handed me the map and sent me to collect the instruments of assassination.

  But did it even matter? I wasn’t sure I would survive long enough to find out.

  Darkness shuttered my eyes, then my mind.

  There was nothing I could do about it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I remembered killing Shailaja.

  I remembered taking her magic and filling my necklace, my knife, and my katana to capacity … or at least to their limits as I understood them.

  I remembered talking to Chi Wen. He had showed me … something wrong, or bad, or dangerous. Something about destiny … and Drake? But it felt distant and unreal now. A story I could barely recall …

  I remembered gathering and absorbing Shailaja’s magic for myself instead of allowing all her power to fade.

  I just couldn’t remember exactly why. Except … maybe we’d unmade the future.

  ∞

  I woke up.

  I was surrounded by white.

  The ceiling, walls, and floor of the room I was in were constructed out of white tiles, each about eighteen inches square. They looked like some sort of metal, and were glowing softly. No doors, no windows, and no furniture decorated my white box.

  I sat up.

  I was wearing white brushed-cotton drawstring pants, a white cotton tank top, and a long-sleeved white cotton scooped-neck T-shirt. My feet were bare. My toenails — which had been prettily painted before — were naked now. No knife, no necklace, and no katana.

  And not a drop of magic.

  I couldn’t taste anything. I couldn’t feel or see any sort of energy. I wasn’t sure if something was wrong with me, or if something built into the white room was stripping all the magic away.

  I pushed my sleeves up. Then I pulled up each leg of my pants. My arms and legs were clear. I didn’t have a bruise on me. I didn’t feel any pain …

  Yet something was wrong.

  I rolled onto my feet easily enough … but not as quickly or smoothly as I’d become accustomed to moving since my dragon training started. The floor felt neither cold nor warm, as if it was somehow heated to my exact body temperature.

  I scanned the walls, looking for a door. But the white room was a perfect square box, twenty tiles across in all directions.

  It was a prison cell.

  That realization hit me hard, deep in my gut. A flush of knee-weakening fear washed through my body.

  They had taken my clothes.

  They had taken my weapons.

  They had taken my magic.

  And locked me away.

  Alone. With nothing and no one. I didn’t even know if Warner was okay … or if Kandy and Kett had survived … or Drake …

  A terror like nothing I’d ever experienced before threatened to choke me. I wanted to scream … to lash out against the walls … to pound the floor. I was shaking from my need to freak out.

  But I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.

  I sank to my knees, then shifted back into a lotus position. I closed my eyes and breathed.

  I was alive. I was whole. I wasn’t going to break down. I would figure everything else out. They might control my body, but they couldn’t control my mind …

  Control my mind …

  Had Chi Wen done something to my head?

  I pushed the thought away. I focused on my breathing. What was done was done. I couldn’t change it.

  I slept.

  I dreamed of Warner, of chocolate cosmos … and of laughter.

  When I woke, I was curled on the floor with my head on my arm. I sat up to discover that my arm had fallen asleep. I couldn’t remember the last time something so benign had happened to me.

  I laughed at the sensation of my limb reawakening. That rush of almost-painful tingling just beneath the skin.

  Had they really taken my magic? Was I wholly human now?

  Either way, I really needed to pee.

  “A bathroom would be nice.” I spoke out loud, wondering if someone was watching me. If so, I’d been a rather boring subject so far.

  One floor tile in the corner of the room suddenly rose to become a white cube. I stood, crossing to stare down at it suspiciously. The inside of the cube was shaped similarly to a toilet, but it was made out of the same metal that tiled the floor, walls, and ceiling. It didn’t hold any water, nor was it equipped with any sort of flushing mechanism I could see. And though it had appeared out of nowhere — just like magic — I still couldn’t taste or feel a single drop of energy emanating from it.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said. Again, speaking to no one. “What about freaking toilet paper?”

  No response.

  Damn it.

  I really needed to go, though.

  And … apparently an invisible bidet came installed in the magical toilet, as I discovered when I was done.

  Yikes.

  With that taken care of, I wandered back into the middle of the room, wondering what else I could demand from it.

  “How about some food?” I asked.

  Nothing happened. Maybe I needed to be specific?

  “Chocolate? Preferably a 70 percent single origin cacao from Madagascar or Ecuador?”

  Again, nothing.

  “Cupcake? Cake of any kind? Icing?”

  I spun around. The room ignored me. Or maybe the plan was to slowly starve me to death. At least my body would give out before my mind … I hoped.

  “Jesus, not even a piece of freaking fruit? An apple or a banana or an orange?”

  A white platter constructed out of the same metal as the tiled room appeared at my feet. It held a Granny Smith apple, a mandarin orange, and a banana.

  Apparently, the room got to decide what qualified as food. Or it was some shot at my weight. No matter what dragon genes I dragged around every day, I was never going to be skinny — and I was seriously okay with that. “A freaking prison should just keep its snotty nose out of my business.”

  Yeah, I was mouthing off to a cube.

  I ate the banana first. It was delicious. So were the apple and the orange. The flavor of the fruit was most likely heightened by my hunger, and by the fea
r of being locked away alone for any extended period of time.

  As I ate, I tried to lift the platter from the floor but couldn’t. Either it was seriously welded there, so that I couldn’t use it as a potential weapon, or I was really, really weak.

  The platter disappeared with my discarded peels and apple core the instant I swallowed my last bite.

  So … that was done.

  What the hell else was I going to do?

  I paced.

  I slept.

  I attempted to meditate.

  I thought I might be going slowly insane …

  What if the room didn’t actually exist? What if it was a product of my mind? But again, I really didn’t want to give whoever was watching the satisfaction of seeing me freak out, so I kept my thoughts tightly contained. Though I caught myself talking out loud more than once.

  What felt like eons passed, interrupted only by another summoning of the disconcerting toilet and the appearance of a bowl of tasty ramen. When I ordered the second time, I figured out that the room would present the food normally served in the nexus. But then, another platter appeared without my requesting it.

  A silver ice bucket with a lid, a silver spoon, a chocolate bar, a bottle of nail polish, a stick of peppermint candy, and a handwritten note sat on the platter.

  My heart was beating wildly as I sank down before the offering, first reaching for, then reading the note.

  I recognized the barely discernable scrawl even before I read the words.

  We have all survived.

  I won’t let them keep you. — W

  My hand was shaking as I reached for the lid of the ice bucket. Inside, packed in dry ice, was a half-liter carton. The waxed cardboard container looked identical to the tubs that Mario’s Gelati used to custom pack their in-store flavors. I snatched the container — careful to not touch the dry ice — and pried the cardboard lid off.

  It was my favorite flavor. Black-forest-cake gelato.

  Happy tears leaked out from the corners of my eyes, but I ignored them. Delicately running the edge of the silver spoon through the smooth, creamy top of the gelato, I made sure to scoop up a bit of each flavor — vanilla, chocolate, and cherry. Then I reverently slipped that cold, creamy goodness into my mouth.

  The taste of Warner’s magic, minus the smoky finish, flooded my tongue. I still hadn’t figured out how to duplicate that flavor combination in a cupcake. Not yet, anyway.

  I brushed the tears from my cheeks and ate half the carton, thinking of nothing else other than Warner. His grin, his stubbornness, his fierceness … how even when he was tender with me, I could feel the strength that lay underneath.

  I wasn’t alone at all.

  Then I cracked the chocolate bar — Amedei Madagascar Cru, 70 percent cacao. Its ripe red-berry finish was similar to Kandy’s magic, but without the bitter edge.

  The peppermint stick was predominately white, with a simple swish of red. It looked handmade. I held it underneath my nose and inhaled Kett.

  Sucking on the tasty candy in between squares of chocolate, I took my time painting my fingers and toes with the gold OPI nail polish. The color — Rollin’ in Cashmere — was from a two-year-old collection, and must have taken some effort to find. It was also almost the same color as Drake’s magic.

  Apparently, my boyfriend knew me freaking perfectly.

  Correction … my fiancé knew me perfectly.

  Huh. That was going to piss off some people — though who exactly would be against us would be interesting to discover.

  I ate the rest of the gelato while I waited for my nails to dry.

  I had just licked the last of the creamy goodness from my spoon when the platter disappeared. The bottle of nail polish and the remainder of the chocolate and candy went with it.

  “What the hell?” I yelled at the white tiled ceiling.

  Then a door slid open behind me.

  I shot to my feet, whirling around and holding the silver spoon between me and whoever had appeared at my back.

  Chi Wen stood in the doorway. He was clothed in his typical gold-embroidered white robes and gold sandals, but at least he had the decency to drop his ever-present Buddha-inspired smile.

  I couldn’t see anything but a solid white wall in the short corridor behind him.

  “You set me up.” I brandished the spoon in his direction.

  “Events were to transpire that, when given a slight correction, resulted in a better outcome,” he said.

  “For whom?” I asked. “You?”

  “Drake. You.” The old Asian man was completely calm in the face of my rising anger. “And, ultimately, the guardians. Though I’m not completely satisfied on that front. It is difficult to discern the events that weave around the nine. You, Drake, and the sentinel provide some clarity for the moment.”

  “You made me murder someone.” But even as I pronounced that as a fact, I knew it wasn’t true. “Shailaja was destined to die?”

  Chi Wen nodded. “By the warrior’s blade.”

  “And you thought I was a fine substitute?”

  “I cannot cause things to happen. I can only make suggestions.”

  “Like Pulou giving me the map.”

  Chi Wen smiled.

  “Like Suanmi persuading me to unlock the last layer of Shailaja’s magic.”

  “That last one was … difficult.”

  “And how do the other guardians feel about your manipulations?”

  Chi Wen tilted his head, thinking. “They are not all yet convinced of the necessity. But they understand that only I see.”

  He stepped away from the door. It remained open.

  I hesitated. And for a brief second, I thought about staying in the white room. I thought about how I deserved to be punished for my actions. Whether or not I’d been manipulated, no one had forced me to do anything. I’d been presented with options and I’d made choices.

  That was life, wasn’t it?

  It was safe in the white room. Safe and clean and easy.

  “You are expected, Jade Godfrey,” Chi Wen called from somewhere off to the left of the door.

  I crossed to the opening. I couldn’t see any hinges or casings or pockets that the door would slide into when opened. The tiles that had been there before were simply missing, creating an opening large enough to walk through.

  I glanced to the left. I was standing at the end of a white corridor. About a dozen white-tiled doors lined either side of the gold-carpeted hall.

  Still holding the spoon before me, I stepped onto the plush carpet and instantly tasted dragon magic. I was in the nexus — or someplace created with the same magic that had birthed the nexus.

  I turned down the hall, tasting Chi Wen’s magic wafting down the corridor.

  The door to the white room reappeared behind me, sealing it closed.

  I wandered after Chi Wen. With each step that took me farther away from the room, I felt myself becoming stronger, as if my magic had been dampened before and was now flooding back.

  By the time I saw Chi Wen open the intricately carved, Asian-inspired, dark wooden door at the end of the corridor, I realized that I felt … different somehow. I felt stronger, like my own magic was … embedded within me. Not just simmering somewhere, waiting to be called forth and utilized.

  “I’m … changed,” I whispered.

  Chi Wen glanced back at me with a nod. “Transformed by the power of the daughter of the mountain running through your veins. As expected.”

  “Expected by you, maybe.”

  Chi Wen grinned, then gestured for me to precede him through the door.

  I stepped through into the chamber of the treasure keeper. The massive piles of artifacts and gold coins, along with the onslaught of magic, were a dead giveaway.

  Except none of it felt quite as intense as before. Even without my necklace, I was able to walk across the cool floor without feeling overwhelmed. Though I still had the urge to snatch up random magical objects and mess with their magic.r />
  Once a magpie, always a magpie.

  I paused. I wasn’t sure what I was walking away from — or what I was moving toward. Either way, I needed a moment.

  Beside me, Chi Wen shifted back into my peripheral vision. He was just standing, staring ahead. Waiting.

  Waiting for what? For someone to come around the far pile of treasure? Or waiting for me? Maybe for me to slot certain missing pieces together in my head? Maybe for the questions I hadn’t yet formed?

  “What was in the sarcophagus? Who, I mean?” I asked without really knowing I was going to say anything at all.

  “It was empty.”

  “What does that mean?” I whispered. “That the phoenix has risen?”

  “If she has, she is hidden from my view. But that is not for you to fear.”

  “And the instrument? The flowers and leaves? Are they poisonous?”

  “A good guess.”

  “So you really know nothing?”

  Chi Wen chortled. “Perhaps you are asking the wrong questions, dowser.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Was it like … golden fire?” I whispered, recalling what Rochelle had told me in the cramped confines of the Brave. “Was I washed away in a fire of gold? Reborn?”

  Chi Wen looked at me. The white of his far seer magic flared in his eyes.

  I didn’t flinch at the sight. I didn’t feel fear curling in my belly at the thought of being shown a future I couldn’t control. I didn’t desperately want to be anywhere else but near him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Though ‘reborn’ is a simplification.”

  “It doesn’t sound simple to me.”

  “You are young.” He patted my shoulder, then said, “You go that way.” He pointed ahead of us. Then he did his old-man shuffle off to the left, slipping between two piles of treasure that I swore hadn’t been separate piles a moment before.

  “At least tell me you’re done with me,” I called after him.

  “I am not your concern, Jade,” he called back. “And you are not mine. Take the gift. Be strong. Love who you love. The rest will fall into place as it will.”

  And with that oblique-yet-somehow-completely-clear pronouncement, he turned out of my line of sight.