At least they had until seven months ago. That was when Amroth, overwhelmed by the Fire Dragon Feng, had attacked the Kodamas. The Fire Dragon had ripped Minawë’s mother from the life-giving forest and let her succumb to the curse of her people.
Iren stepped past Minawë. He shook the salt water from his short tan hair, brown leather trousers, and white silk shirt. “It’s sunset,” he said. “Let’s go back. It’ll be dark before we reach the tree.”
The pair climbed the hillside up from the beach. When they reached the top, they beheld the crater that had once contained the Heart of Ziorsecth, the largest tree in the world. The massive hole was more than five hundred feet across and two hundred feet deep. Just looking in it made Iren dizzy.
Only one thing grew within the crater. A single sapling, barely Iren’s height, sprouted from the hollow’s center: the new Heart of Ziorsecth.
Iren shook his head. The original Heart of Ziorsecth had towered thousands of feet in the air. It had been one more sacrifice to Feng’s rampage. How many centuries would it take that new seedling to match its predecessor’s splendor?
A flash of white beside the Heart caught Iren’s eye. The Muryozaki, his old dragonscale katana and Divinion’s resting place, gleamed in the evening sun. Six months ago he had left the sword in the crater to aid the tree in its recovery. If he couldn’t use Divinion’s magic, maybe the tree could.
Rather than cross the crater, Iren walked around it. He wanted to avoid the Kodamas’ burial ground on the far side. Minawë spent more than enough time there. Just as Iren went to the beach daily, Minawë devoted every waking hour to kneeling at her parents’ graves.
Iren understood her anguish. He was an orphan too. He knew what it was like to feel alone and abandoned. He’d lived that way his whole life.
Even so, he wished Minawë could find a way to overcome that grief. She was supposed to be the Kodamas’ queen now, and her people needed a leader after the terrors of Lodia’s invasion and Feng’s attack. Yet Minawë hadn’t once returned to Yuushingaral since Iren had recovered. The dead were keeping her from the living.
After hiking around the crater, Iren and Minawë entered Ziorsecth Forest. Darkness engulfed them as the thick canopy cut off the light of dusk. They walked another mile before stopping at a maple tree thirty feet in diameter.
No matter how many times Iren walked in these woods, the trees amazed him. More accurately, the tree amazed him. The entire forest—thousands of square miles—was in reality a single tree with many stems linked by a shared root system.
Tonight, though, Iren scowled at this stem’s immense trunk. His fists tightened with frustration. Minawë raised a hand, and a large section of the trunk opened. Rotating on invisible hinges, it swung inward and revealed the hollowed-out space of the first floor greeting room.
Minawë gestured again, and this time a ball of light appeared in her palm. The orb floated into the tree and settled near the ceiling. Though tiny, it lit the chamber well. It cast its radiance over the organically carved wooden table and chairs designed for comfort and entertaining. In the back, it shone on the spiral staircase that led to the higher rooms within the tree.
Iren suppressed his anger, fearing Minawë would see. He needn’t have bothered. She’d been too distracted lately to notice his moods. They hadn’t even said a word to each other since meeting up on the beach.
It wouldn’t have been like that seven months ago. They would have joked and teased one another. The briefest flicker of a grin crossed Iren’s face as he thought about how Minawë used to call him “moron.” He’d grown up taunted by everyone, so he knew she didn’t mean it.
But Minawë hadn’t called Iren “moron” for six months, not since the day he’d discovered he couldn’t use magic. In a perverse way, he wished she’d say it to him, just once. He longed for proof that her mother’s death hadn’t turned Minawë into the shell Iren feared she had become.
Minawë created more orbs as the pair entered the tree and climbed the stairs. They passed the second floor, devoted to cooking, and the third floor, where the sleeping areas began. Minawë should have turned away there and left Iren alone to go to the guest room on the fourth floor. Instead, like every night, she went with him to light the way.
By the time they’d reached Iren’s room, he couldn’t take it anymore. “It’s all right, Minawë,” he said. “I can handle it from here.”
The Kodama ran an uncertain hand through her green hair. “It will be total darkness. Can you manage?”
She meant well. She really did. That didn’t make it better. “I can manage just fine!”
Minawë jumped back and covered her mouth. Iren sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Please go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Tears were in the queen’s eyes as she left the room.
With Minawë and her magical light gone, the windowless room became utterly black. Iren felt his way to the dresser and pulled out a long Kodaman nightshirt. He changed into it and headed for bed.
But switching clothes had disoriented him. He smacked into a wall. It took two more minutes of fumbling to find the bed and crawl into it.
Iren lay awake a long time. He wondered how many more days he could put up with this. In Lodia, he would be one of the most powerful men. Even without magic, Maantecs had greater strength, speed, and resistance to injury than humans. Among the magic-dependent Kodamas, though, he couldn’t even light his way to bed or open a door. He needed Minawë’s help for the most basic tasks.
It wasn’t fair. He had become the Dragoon. He had saved the world from Feng. Why was he being punished for that?
By the time exhaustion forced him to sleep, the answer still eluded him.
* * *
The dream came again.
It had started after his battle with Feng. At first Iren had dismissed it as delirium while he recovered from his injuries, but it had persisted. Now he had it at least twice a week. Tonight’s was the most vivid yet.
He was inside a small house, sitting in a simple yet comfortable rocking chair. The rough, blocky wood under his fingers told him the piece was nothing of merit. Even so, its subtle motion and quiet creaking soothed him.
A fire burned in the hearth across from him, and above it hung the Muryozaki in its sheath. A layer of dust had settled on it. Iren had no use for it anymore.
He was more concerned with the woman in her upper twenties rocking in the chair next to him. Her head rested against his arm, her raven hair soft on his skin. Though she wore only basic homespun clothes, when Iren looked at her, he knew she was the most beautiful person on Raa.
She was all the more beautiful for the bundle she held to her chest, the child they had made together. As she rocked, she hummed a tune, soft and lilting. It rang at once of joy and sorrow, of love and loneliness, of boundless hope and endless despair.
Iren remembered the first time she’d hummed that song for him, though he couldn’t place where or when it had happened. Back then it had made him smile. Tonight it nearly made him weep.
Choking back tears, Iren said, “He will be hated, just as I am hated.”
The woman stopped humming. She looked at him with bold, deep brown eyes. “He will be loved,” she declared, “just as you are loved.”
Iren knew better, but he dared not disagree with her. Instead he smiled, leaned down, and kissed her on the forehead. “I don’t deserve you.”
She smiled back at him, and as happened every time she did, all his pain melted away, just for a few seconds. “You’re tired, Iren,” she said. “Go and lie down. I’ll be in shortly. Our little man’s almost asleep.”
Iren rose and headed for the bedroom, but before he’d gone two steps, a knock came at the door. Iren’s head whipped to face it. No one should be around this late at night.
The woman looked at Iren, concerned. He gulped as he walked to the door. He couldn’t place why, but he knew this was no ordinary traveler. Reluctantly, he opened the door.
No
one was there.
At that moment, as it happened every time he had the dream, Iren woke up.
CHAPTER THREE
Return to Lodia
This was it. Life or death depended on one shot.
Rondel stood inside her stone prison, now so hot from Serona’s flames that she felt kiln-dried. Her teeth clenched the hilt of her snapped dagger. With her left hand smashed, she needed her right hand free to act as a conduit.
She concentrated for several minutes as she let all of both her own magic and what energy she could draw from Okthora flow into her right hand. For the purpose of escaping her cell, it didn’t matter that she had broken her rondel. Its hilt remained intact, and more important, so did the three rings of kanji symbols stained into the red wood. Those rings connected her to the Storm Dragon’s magic.
The old Maantec pressed her palm against the ceiling. Her hand glowed blue from the lightning coursing through it.
It had to be enough. She couldn’t risk drawing more magic from Okthora, or he would rip control of her body away from her. That would admittedly release her from this prison, but it would cast her into one far worse.
At last she heard the detonating crack she’d been waiting for. Her cell shone white. The lightning bolt descending from the sky shattered the stone into dust as it connected with the opposite charge Rondel had built up on her hand to attract it.
Rondel didn’t get a chance to enjoy her freedom. The bolt’s energy overwhelmed the feeble magic in her hand. A shock ripped through her, and everything went dark.
* * *
Iren stood again in the Yuushin Sea’s surf, but everything felt different from yesterday. For one, the waves were higher this afternoon. Most broke against his chest, and the occasional one topped his head.
It was easy to see why. Thunderheads gathered over the Yuushin and filled the southwest sky with black. The waves would only increase in size as that storm blew in.
None of that bothered Iren. The tumultuous water suited his mood.
If he focused on his anger, maybe today he would get a result. During his training with Rondel, he had learned that strong emotions could make his magic act on its own. His feelings had killed the leader of the Quodivar bandit gang, and they had cured Minawë of her race’s curse. Both spells had happened without conscious thought.
Iren stretched his arms in front of him. Concentrating on his left finger, he recalled his fury at bumbling around last night in the tree.
Five minutes went by, then ten, then thirty. Every wave crashed over his head now, and twice the current almost took him out to sea.
After an hour, he couldn’t stand the punishing sea any longer. Iren stomped off the beach. He climbed the lip of the crater and sat down.
On the crater’s opposite side, Minawë hunched over her parents’ graves. Even at this distance, Iren could tell she was crying.
In his mind Iren heard the woman from his dream humming her lullaby. Her voice was strong yet soothing. She didn’t use magic, and neither did he. When he was with her, he didn’t need magic. He was a normal person, and she loved him for it.
Iren shivered. He cared for Minawë. He should be dreaming of her, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Every day he stayed in Ziorsecth, he died a little more.
He made up his mind. He supposed he’d known it for a long time, but last night had settled the matter.
Iren slid into the crater and walked to the tiny Heart of Ziorsecth. Next to it lay the Forest Dragon Bow, the Chloryoblaka. Iren ignored it and instead picked up his katana. He slid the sheathed weapon into his belt.
Rocks tumbled in front of him. Iren looked up; Minawë was heading in his direction. “What are you doing?” she asked when she reached him.
The worry in her voice was so great that Iren doubted himself. But he’d made his decision. “I’m sorry, Minawë,” he said. “I have to go.”
“What?” She grabbed hold of his shoulders. “What are you saying? Why?”
Anger flashed in Iren’s sky blue eyes. “Don’t you understand? The Kodaman way of life relies on magic. I can’t live like that.”
“You don’t need magic,” Minawë replied. “You have me. Let me help you.”
“You mean let you do everything for me. I can’t even walk through the house alone. Without magic I’ll be dependent on you the rest of my life. That’s why I have to leave.”
Minawë looked at him with despair. “Where will you go?”
Iren hadn’t seen that expression on Minawë’s face since her mother had died. He hated that he made her look that way, yet there was no escaping it. “Lodia,” he said. “I won’t need magic there. I’ll be like everyone else.”
“No, you won’t,” Minawë said. “You’ll be an outcast, a traitor, and a Left. All the humans in Lodia are right-handed. They’ll find out you’re not human, and when they realize you’re a criminal on top of that, they’ll kill you.”
“They won’t recognize me. If they even remember Iren Saitosan, they’ll recall a teenager, not a thirty-year-old man. Besides, I have to go to Lodia. There’s a place I need to visit.”
“Where’s that?”
“My parents’ farm.”
Minawë’s sad face turned to shock. “Your parents’ farm? Why do you want to go there? I thought you didn’t care about their murders anymore. I thought you’d given up on revenge.”
“I did,” Iren said. “That’s not why I want to go. My father was the Holy Dragon Knight, even if he didn’t realize it. If I go there, maybe I can find a clue about how to restore my magic.”
“That seems like a long shot.”
Iren shrugged. “It’s the only lead I have.”
Minawë hugged Iren so hard he could barely breathe. “If you regain your magic, will you come back?” Her voice was pleading.
He didn’t answer right away. The black-haired woman from his dream appeared in his mind’s eye, smiling in that way that could make all his pain vanish.
Iren pushed the thought away. She wasn’t real. Minawë was. “I will,” he promised. “I don’t know how I’ll regain my magic, or how long it will take, but when I do, I’ll see you again.”
Minawë reluctantly let go of him. Iren turned and headed up the crater away from her.
The moment he reached the tree line, Iren broke into a run east toward Lodia. He followed the empty swath of forest created by the old Heart of Ziorsecth’s own eastward trek.
Even with the lack of undergrowth, though, his pace frustrated him. It was a tenth of what he could have managed using Divinion’s magic.
Still, his Maantec muscles would let him go faster and take fewer breaks than a human. He would only need a few days to reach the border.
Once he crossed it, he feared he might never do so again.
CHAPTER FOUR
Traitors Reunited
Four days after parting with Minawë, Iren Saitosan stepped across the threshold of Ziorsecth and into western Lodia. He was used to the forest’s dim light, so the morning sun on Lodia’s open fields all but blinded him. He stumbled forward, shielding his eyes from the glare.
He’d only walked a few steps when he tripped and fell in a hole. Iren took in a mouthful of dirt and came up spluttering.
“Who on Raa put this here?” he demanded, though no one was around to answer. He waited until his vision adjusted, and then he climbed out and surveyed what he’d fallen into.
Iren took two steps back in amazement. The hole was thirty feet across and at least a dozen feet deep in the center. It didn’t compare to the devastation where the Heart of Ziorsecth had ripped free of its roots, but whatever had landed here must have hit with a lot of force.
Dusting himself off, Iren headed southeast. He had no desire to travel on foot any longer than necessary, so he headed for the closest city, Orcsthia. He didn’t have money for a horse or even food, but that didn’t worry him. He’d figure something out when he arrived.
He’d hiked for several hours when he heard the telltale pound
ing of horse hooves. Iren paused to face the noise, and he spotted a pair of riders galloping toward him. Both wore thick leather armor and crude helms. One had a bow with an arrow already nocked, while the other cradled a spear across his lap.
When the horsemen reached Iren, they leveled their weapons. “Who are you?” the one with the bow asked.
Iren put his right hand on the back of his head. “Just a wanderer,” he said. “Do you know how far it is to Orcsthia?”
“What do you want to do in Orcsthia?” the spearman demanded.
“An inn would be great. Can you recommend one?”
The spearman eyed Iren up and down. “You don’t look like an ordinary traveler.”
Iren had to give the guy that. His Kodaman silk shirt and leather trousers were definitely not Lodian style. He opened his mouth to explain, but then the bowman said, “Hey, what’s that on his belt?”
With a silent curse, Iren realized his mistake. People might overlook his clothes as some odd fashion, but there was no mistaking his katana. No one in Lodia carried a sword like it, and even if they did, they’d never keep it on their right side.
“You . . .” the spearman gasped, “you’re a Left!”
The bowman drew back his arrow. Iren threw up his arms and shouted, “Wait, it’s a mistake!” He tried to think. “I’m not a Left,” he said, improvising. “Actually, you just proved why I carry my sword this way. Bandits would love to attack a lone traveler on foot, but if they think I’m a Left, they’ll leave me alone. Everyone knows Lefts are undefeatable in battle.”
It wasn’t much of a ruse, but Iren didn’t need it to be. If the men believed him, they’d probably let him go. If they didn’t, well, he’d reminded them how dangerous messing with a Left could be.
The riders exchanged glances, and at last the bowman lowered his weapon. “You shouldn’t travel alone,” he said. “People are going to think you’re a spy.”
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