by Gage Lee
Then again, my friends were all members of other clans. If this brewing clan war kicked off, their elders would pry all the ammunition they could ever need out of my former allies. That thought made me want to throw up, so I pushed it to the side along with my concerns over Tru. The young dragon had been a steadfast ally so far. I’d just have to hope she didn’t become my enemy.
“You’re taller,” Eric said as Tru stood beside him. “And more colorful.”
Tru nodded and polished a patch of vibrant blue scales on the back of her hand with a length of her robe. “I’ve been brooding on my hoard,” she said. “Soon I’ll grow wings and my full tail. Then you guys better really watch out.”
Christina’s loud kiai drew all our attention to her section of the sparring mat. Her opponent, a husky guy named Oleg, was flat on his back with his hands raised defensively around his head. Sparks of silver jinsei loaded down with aspects I couldn’t identify evaporated from around him, and Christina helped him to his feet. She’d hit him with some technique I’d never seen her use before. Must have been something the dragons taught her.
“That’s not a myth?” Clem asked. “The hoard thing, I mean.”
Tru rolled up her sleeves to show Clem new patches of vivid sapphire on her forearms. “Totally not a myth. Dragons need a hoard to advance to our next form. We pull aspects from treasure to fuel our transformation. For this step, I need mostly gems and oboli. Raw jinsei works, but it’s wasteful.”
This was the first I’d heard about dragons and their transformations. Of course, I’d known that they changed form as they aged, but the details were all new to me. “What happens to the treasure after you change?”
The clatter of glassware distracted all of us. We watched as Hazel and Jidora fumbled with full vials of jinsei, nearly dropping them on the floor. I held my breath at the potential waste and didn’t let it out again until the girls had corked the vials and stowed them in a storage case. We couldn’t afford to lose any sacred energy. Tuition would eat up every ounce of jinsei we purified.
“We drain aspects away from it as we brood,” Tru explained. “Dragons who don’t replenish their hoards regularly end up brooding on piles of trash.”
“So that’s where it comes from,” Eric mused.
Tru raised one scaled eyebrow in his direction. “Where what comes from?”
“Your hunger for shinies,” he teased.
The rest of us laughed, and the young dragon reared up and took a deep breath, as if she were about to unleash her fiery breath on Eric. Her display was cut short by an ear-piercing shriek of tearing metal that ripped through the Stacks. A cloud billowed out of a silver-lined rip in the center of the Stacks, its sulfurous stink stinging my nose and throat.
My clan mates all yelped in surprise and spun to face the source of the sound. Fusion blades had already appeared in most of their hands, and they’d dropped into defensive stances. My friends and I were a split second ahead of them, and my serpents were curled up over my shoulders, ready to strike. Whatever threat had paid us a visit was in for a world of hurt.
“This was a very bad idea,” I barked, putting all the weight of my core and jinsei behind it. “I am Elder Warin, and this is the private territory of the Shadow Phoenix clan. Show yourself, or face my wrath.”
It wasn’t the greatest speech ever written, but I’d put enough sacred energy into my little spiel to send a blizzard of sparks dancing through the air. Something within the cloud coughed and stumbled, made a choked sound, and then burst into sight just a few feet ahead of me.
“Jace!” Maps shouted at the same instant my serpents dove toward her.
My brain ached from the effort it took to stop my serpents before their blades plunged into Maps’ chest. The deadly strikes veered wide and slammed into the ground in a perimeter around the messenger. If I’d been a second slower, they’d have turned her into a bloody pincushion.
Maps yelped and threw her hands up in front of her face, far too late to accomplish anything. “Thank you for not murdering me,” she said. “I have important news.”
My friends stared at the silver-haired young woman trapped inside a cage made by my serpents. Eric’s fusion blade burned with spectral flame, ready to plunge between the barrier’s bars at the slightest provocation.
“Everybody relax,” I said, retracting my serpents and holding my hands up to calm everyone down. “We’re not under attack.”
Maps straightened up, her long hair shifting into a short bob as her features aged into her mid-fifties, then extended once again as she shrank into the form of a six-year-old. “Please listen to my brother.” She giggled. “I had to get here in a hurry. Sometimes it makes a lot of noise when I move fast.”
My friends all stared at me. “Brother?” they asked in unison.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “And I don’t think we have time to discuss it now. What’s going on, Maps?”
The silver-haired girl grew into a statuesque woman in her thirties, her hair done up in ornate braids that glimmered with threads of jinsei. Her gown shone with sacred energy, as if woven from the stuff. Maybe it was. “I sent you a dream,” she said, “but it seems something interrupted my communication. Or have you decided to ignore the next leg of the Empyrean Flame’s quest?”
I winced when she said that. Now Tru knew we were up to something. Like most dragons, her curiosity put a cat’s to shame. There was no way she’d let this go without getting the full story. “I’m not ignoring anything. Your dream came at a bad time. I’d only just seen your face when the Golden Wardens snatched me out of my bed.”
“Golden Wardens?” Tru echoed. “You really run with a fancy crowd, Elder Warin.”
“Jace,” I grumbled to her.
Maps shifted again, this time into an ancient crone, bent and warped by untold years. Her voice grew thin and reedy as she wagged her finger at me. “I never know with you, brother. Let me be plain, because I feel tremors in the Design. You must forge a core for the Empyrean Flame. It requires a hollow orichalcum sphere, one inch thick, one yard in diameter. You must anchor it properly in—”
My thoughts raced a thousand miles a minute. Maps was spilling the beans about everything to Tru, which meant the Scaled Council would know most of the story before the end of the night. I had no idea where I’d get that much orichalcum, especially when I was trying to keep a new clan safe from a dozen enemies.
“Wait, let me write this down,” I complained.
Maps straightened up. She was my age again, her hands suddenly clasping my cheeks. Frantic worry bloomed in her eyes, and her next words were harsh and urgent. “Listen, brother. Your service to the Flame is not yet finished. The changes you’ve wrought in the Design have attracted attention. The Xaophis seeks the status quo. Do not let it stop you.”
“I don’t even know what it is!” I grabbed her hands. “Stay, Maps. Help me finish this.”
The cloud that had chased her through the rip in space and time had dissipated, leaving the silver gash hanging in the air. Darkness, as deep and endless as space itself, was visible through the gap. Something long and insectile swam through those depths, its bladed limbs stretching out, its segmented tail lashing the void to propel it toward us. The screaming sound returned, more powerful than before.
“I can’t!” she shouted back to me. “You must complete the core, Jace!”
A jolt of panic skewered my thoughts. With everything else hanging over my head, I needed Maps’ help to see this through. She knew more about the quest than I did. Together, we could complete it so much easier than I could alone.
I grabbed her hand before she could turn away. “I need you with me. There’s too much happening, too fast.”
“I can’t.” She wrestled with me, pulling her hand free of my grasp. “I’ve already done too much.”
Clem and Tru both shouted in alarm, and something slammed into my back. I took a stumbling step forward and heard a strange, whickering noise and a brush of wind from some
thing whipping past the back of my head.
“Byron!” Eric bellowed.
My serpents braced me against the stone floor, and I spun just in time to catch something retreating through the rip Maps had opened.
Byron was on his knees where I’d been standing a split second before. He’d clasped his hands to the side of his face, and his eyes were wide. The poor kid was pale as a ghost, and threads of fear and pain aspects wove through his aura.
“Remember the quest!” Maps shouted and threw herself away from me, a fusion blade appearing in her hands. She dove toward the gap, her spear plunging into the darkness ahead of her. Something howled in pain, and my sister disappeared. The rift vanished with a strange, warbling pop a split second later.
“What happened?” I asked, forgetting about Maps and the orichalcum sphere for a moment. Byron needed my help.
“Something came out of that portal,” he said. “I pushed you out of the way. It clipped my cheek.”
“Let me see.” I peeled the kid’s hands away from his face, expecting the worst. “Oh, that’s not too bad.”
A thin cut sliced across his cheek. Fortunately, the injury was straight, clean, and shallow. It looked like a paper cut, more than a real wound. I took a deep breath, pressed my fingers to Byron’s injury, and pushed life and healing aspects into it. When I exhaled, the wound was gone.
“Thank you, Elder Warin,” he said respectfully. “That’s much better.”
“I appreciate the save.” I helped Byron back to his feet. “I don’t see anything in your aura, but if you feel weird or sick, let me know right away.”
Byron bowed low to me, and I returned the gesture. “I will,” he assured me, then rejoined the students at the refining lab.
Before turning back to my friends and all the questions they had, I tried to burn everything Maps had told me into my brain.
An orichalcum core, one yard in diameter and one inch thick. Anchored, somehow. I tried to puzzle out what Maps had meant, but kept coming up empty. I didn’t know how to work orichalcum, or even where to get it. And anchoring it could mean anything. There were too many unknowns.
The old Garfield Tanoki would have known the answers to my questions or at least where to look for them.
I missed that guy.
“You have a sister?” Clem finally blurted out, incredulous. “How long have you been keeping that little tidbit under your hat?”
My peaceful moment of internal reflection was over, apparently. “Yes,” I said as I faced my friends. “But it’s complicated.”
“Ja—” Tru started, then caught herself. “Elder Warin, why did your lovely sister say you were on a quest for the Empyrean Flame?”
The rest of my clan mates were watching all this unfold. Everyone wanted answers from me, and I wasn’t sure what to tell them. Not only because widening the circle of people who knew about my quest was extraordinarily dangerous, but because I didn’t have all the information they wanted or needed. I crossed my arms over my chest, lowered my head, and tried to think of a good way out of this.
Unfortunately, the only options I could see were to lie or tell the truth. Both had risks, but it really wasn’t much of a decision.
“Gather around, folks,” I said at last. “I’ve got a story to tell.”
The Deal
IT WAS DIFFICULT TO break the past nine months down into a story Tru and the other Shadow Phoenix clan members could digest. The task wasn’t made any easier by the fact that I couldn’t tell the young dragon the whole, unvarnished truth. Anything I told her would go straight to the Scaled Council, and there was no way for me to know how they’d react. Maybe they’d understand and leave me alone. Maybe they’d freak out and lock me up for my safety.
And theirs.
I broke the story down to its most basic parts. Yes, the Flame chose me for this extra-special duty because I’d won the Empyrean Gauntlet. Yes, I was on a quest to help restore the missing Flame and the seers’ lost abilities. No, I didn’t know exactly how to do that, though Maps had just given me a clue. Any questions?
During my speech, Tru watched me like a velociraptor sizing up a tasty little creature. When I finished, she licked her lips like she wanted to bite a chunk out of me. “I was so close,” she said, her voice a raspy growl. “If things had been a little different. My team would have destroyed yours without the interference from your mother’s monstrosity.”
That wasn’t quite the way I remembered it, but I could see how Tru might interpret events that way. Dark light gleamed in her eyes, and a storm of conflicting emotions shuddered through her aura. Anger and disappointment were predominant, but fear and confusion held their own.
“Tru—” I started, but she cut me off with a sharp slice of her hand.
“It would have been me,” she said, her voice just short of a snarl. “Instead of humans upending the world and throwing everything into turmoil, dragons could have guided us through these troubled times. Our leaders are wiser than any other mortals.”
Eric shot me a warning glance. Tru’s temper was on the rise, and dragons behaved badly when they felt wronged. Getting into a fight with our liaison to Shambala seemed like a terrible way to start the new semester. I needed to smooth the waters before it was too late.
“Please, Tru,” I said in a voice I hoped was soothing and not condescending. “I had no idea of the Gauntlet’s stakes. My only goal was to find my mother. Do you think I wanted this mess?”
The young dragon stared at me with her jaws clenched. Her attention was a painful weight on my aura as she weighed her next move. Faint sparkles of jinsei raced through her channels. It might have been a precursor to an attack. If I waited to see which way she’d jump, I could lose the chance to defend myself. Tru was only a disciple-level sacred artist, but she was also a dragon. A strike from her was potentially crippling.
Or maybe she was preparing defenses against my attack. The dragons could see a first strike from me as an act of war between a clan elder and one of their junior members.
“Stop it!” Eric barked. He stepped between us, one hand on Tru’s shoulder, the other on my chest. “What is wrong with you two? Leave the past behind you. There’s no point in fighting over it here, in front of all these underclassmen members of the Shadow Phoenix clan.”
My friend’s words rang through the Stacks like a struck bell. His eyes flashed with jinsei, but there was no anger in his face, only a frown of concern. Despite his intervention, though, Tru didn’t back down. If anything, her stare became fiercer, and her core flared with a boiling current of sacred energy.
“You’re right,” I said to Eric, my eyes still fixed on Tru. “We’re all friends here. I have enough enemies without making new ones. Please accept my apology. I never intended to slight Shambala or cause your people any pain. If there’s anything I can do to right this wrong, please tell me.”
Clem and Abi watched the scene play out with caution. They were ready to jump in if needed, but held back to see which way the wind would blow. My students, on the other hand, simultaneously made me proud and terrified.
Christina and Byron were both ready to fight, their fusion blades summoned, cores crackling with sacred energy. They were behind Tru, out of her sight, and the rest of the clan members had taken up positions behind them in a rough wedge. I didn’t dare say anything for fear that Tru would interpret it as my ordering a surprise attack. My clan members held their ground, but all it would take was one wrong move from the dragon to set them off.
And that was a fight whose outcome I couldn’t predict. Tru was strong enough to kill one or two of my people before they could return the favor. I couldn’t let that happen. But Eric would respond if I attacked Tru. If a fight broke out, a lot of people I cared about would be hurt.
Come on, I thought, willing Tru to see that this wasn’t the way.
Bit by bit, she relaxed. A deep sigh gusted out of her, and she raked one scale-patched hand through the thick braids of her hair. “This isn’t a
simple problem, Ja—Elder Warin,” she said. “I’m your friend, and your liaison to the Scaled Council. It’s my job to make sure nothing bad happens to anyone on the grounds of the School of Swords and Serpents. But I am also a dragon. My only choice is to tell the Scaled Council everything you’ve revealed here today. And I assure you, the First Scepter will want to have a long, detailed conversation with you.”
Mention of the First Scepter froze my breath in my throat. That immense, ridiculously powerful dragon had been kind to me during our previous encounters. Incredibly wise and even more incredibly ancient, he was responsible for the well-being and safety of his people. My actions endangered that, if only indirectly. If he asked me about the quest, I couldn’t guarantee that his people would be untouched by the new Flame or its Design. After the tumultuous history of dragons versus humans, I did not think he’d willingly let me proceed with anything that looked like a threat to Shambala.
As strong as I was, the dragons were infinitely stronger. If they got it into their heads to stop me, I was as good as stopped.
I couldn’t let Tru tell her boss about my quest.
“I understand the difficult position this puts you in,” I said cautiously, my eyes shifting briefly to Byron and Christina. They looked ready to spring into action. I hoped they read the intent in my eyes and wouldn’t. “There’s no point in my asking you to keep my secret from the Scaled Council.”
Tru relaxed a bit more at that. She let her guard drop, just a little, and nodded gratefully to me. “I appreciate that you understand my duty. This is important to all of us, and the dragons can help guide you on your quest.”
Her more casual tone made it a little easier to breathe. I’d much rather hash it out with my friend Tru than with the ambassador from Shambala. The idea of anyone, dragon or otherwise, telling me how to handle this quest did not sit well with me. The Flame hadn’t entrusted the quest to me and a committee of people who thought they knew the best way to handle it.