I remained rooted in place, annoyed at myself and trying to justify staying annoyed at them, too but what was the point? They were right. I let myself think I was invincible these past few days ever since I realized I was a dragon, a Darrah.
I found out I had a great destiny and suddenly I threw caution to the wind, shifted whenever my dragon wanted and let myself use powers I didn’t fully understand, and clearly couldn’t control.
I was scared to press any deeper into these lands. The voices, what if they came back and pushed me to do something else? I couldn’t stop myself the last time. Apprehensive about what we would uncover at the ruins, I took my time walking towards what little remained of what had been a mighty fortress.
I could see the outlaying stones and see how far they stretched on. The place was huge, and it had been reduced to rubble. We stood by what must’ve been the outer wall a long time ago.
Craig sat on a large broken stone, tossing rocks into the distance, as Forrest busied himself rearranging the pack at his feet.
In all my years of living with Mama Lucy, I’d only ever gotten in trouble once. I’d messed up the garden big time and ruined half her vegetable crop. She’d forgiven me, but the guilt and fear at asking her to forgive me for what I’d done had made me feel so small, much as it did now.
I was new to this world and to magic, and I could be hurt just as easily as they could. I couldn’t throw my life around so recklessly, not if I was the only left alive who could piece together the shield that would save us all from a horrible fate.
Ashamed and guilty for putting both of them through watching me almost die, I went to Forrest first, but he shook his head and waved me on towards Craig. I squeezed his hand before I left, thankful he was so quick to forgive.
Something told me Craig wouldn’t be.
He chucked another rock into the distance as I neared, tucking my loose hair behind my ears nervously. “Hey.”
He scoffed and said nothing else.
“I’m sorry, alright?” I said in a rush. “I wasn’t thinking, but I wanted to keep us safe, and I just let them take over. I didn’t think about what I was doing, and I’m sorry. I really am.”
He dropped the rock in his hand, and his intense blue eyes drilled into me. “You’re strong, Kate, and you’re powerful, but you can’t let that control you. The second you do, you lose yourself. You lose everything, and those powers will get you killed.”
“I understand,” I tried, but he stood, shaking his head.
“I don’t think you do. A lot of my scars? The ones that my father didn’t give to me? They came from messing with magic more powerful than I was and before I was ready. I don’t want you to wind up like me.”
I gave him a once over, unable to resist lingering on his muscled arms with the sleeves of his shirt shoved up, but then I saw the blood staining the fabric. My blood. I tucked my hands in my butt pockets and sighed. “I’m sorry for what’s happened to you, I am.”
“It doesn’t matter what happened to me, or what will happen to me,” he insisted. “You have to survive this. That’s the only thing that matters.” He shuffled his feet and smiled bitterly. “I know everyone thinks I’m a screw up, but all I care about is saving this world. Our worlds. You’re the key to doing that, and all you’re going to do by being reckless is destroy us all.”
I scowled at him. “You suck at pep talks. That was awful.”
“It wasn’t meant to be a pep talk. It’s the truth.”
“So, no pressure at all, thanks really. Because I don’t spend half the time freaking out already.”
“You should be. This isn’t a fairy tale adventure. People could die, we might die,” he said harshly, motioning to himself and Forrest. “If we fail, we fail everyone so yes, there’s pressure, love, and you best get used to it.”
I went from feeling horrible to wanting to smack him in a heartbeat. “You’re an asshole, you know that?” I snapped and stormed away.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from you and your lectures!”
All this time, I thought Forrest would be the one to give me the high and mighty speeches, but now that I messed up one time, Craig was turning out to be exactly like him. They both infuriated me, and I muttered a stream of curses as I stomped around stones and ignored them both calling after me.
I didn’t want to talk to them and certainly didn’t want to apologize again. Maybe I didn’t want to be the last Darrah alive. Maybe I didn’t want to be forced into saving the entire damned world! I wasn’t even eighteen yet, and already I’d had more near-death experiences than I cared to remember.
“You’re a Darrah,” I mocked as I continued to walk on. “You have to use the shield. You have to save us all, but you have to control your dragon. Don’t overuse your powers.” I barked a laugh at how ridiculous all of this was. “Don’t put yourself at risk to save us. Don’t mind us anyway because all we do all day is bicker about who you should like!”
I heard them yell my name again, but threw my hands up and kept on going.
The ground beneath my feet softened, and I froze when it shifted and creaked.
Gulping, I carefully looked down to see I stood on rotted out floorboards. I was too far from the edge to jump back safely.
I saw Craig and Forrest hurrying towards me, but one shift of my weight and the boards gave in.
With a yelp of alarm, I fell through the floor, crashing hard into several beams of wood before tumbling down a slope of debris and landing in a heap. Coughing and grimacing at the pain spreading from landing on the Executioner blade, flat against my back, I sat up and peered around.
“Kate!” Forrest called down, and I saw their heads appear in the hole I made. “Kate say something!”
I pulled myself to my feet and squinted into the semi-darkness. “Guys? You might want to come down here!” I yelled, unable to tear my gaze from the tapestry hanging against the back wall of what had once been an impressive room. “I think I found some of our answers.”
There before me done in brilliant colors, somehow holding their hue after so many years of neglect, was an image of the shield of the Vindicar.
“Welcome home, Kate,” I whispered to myself and stepped closer, the voices in my head seeming to murmur in agreement.
11
Forrest
I skittered down the slope of debris after Craig, and stared around the gloom of the room.
A few barren torches lined the walls and one by one, I lit them with a puff of dragon fire. Light filled the space, part of the old fortress that had been caved in after the place was destroyed by other dragons.
My family to be exact.
Guilt suddenly weighed heavy on my mind, but Craig and Kate were at the tapestry, and I could not simply stand in a corner while they worked at figuring out this riddle of saving us all.
The tapestry was a magnificent work, displaying the shield of the Vindicar. The shield, whole and beautiful, was stitching to perfection.
The colored bits of glass and metal were fit together to create the image of a dragon breathing blue fire like lightning, destroying a shadow beneath it. It wasn’t round as I assumed, but more of an oval with a point at the bottom.
Words were stitched along all four sides of the tapestry, but the language was old and beyond my understanding, much as the runes that had covered the bracelet Kate used to wear, as well as the ones tattooed into her flesh.
“What do you think it’s telling us?” Craig asked quietly, squinting at the words.
“You can’t read it?”
He glanced at me briefly. “I’m going to assume from the confused look on your face you can’t either,” he murmured.
I glared at the back of his head.
“Didn’t think so.”
“It’s old, very old.” I stepped forward, running my fingers over the raised stitching.
Kate was doing the same moving the other direction, and her lips were moving.
I strained to he
ar as words tumbled from her mouth, rough words, guttural in nature. They had power in them, I could feel it snaking along my arms and filling the air.
That same air grew heavy around us, as if it was going to drown us.
Her eyelids fluttered, and when I reached out for her arm to pull her around, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she was whispering three words over and over again, words that made my skin crawl.
“Kate!” I gave her a hard shake, but she didn’t snap out of it. “Katherine! Open your eyes.”
Craig cursed behind me. “Wake her up!”
“I can’t,” I growled and shook her again, harder this time. “Kate!”
Craig reached around and pinched her arm. She yelped and blinked, furiously staring at us as she shoved us away from her.
“What the hell was that for, asshole?” she snapped, rubbing the sore spot on her arm.
“You were doing it again,” Craig grunted. “Stop reading things, just don’t touch anything.”
Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, and smoke trailed out of both nostrils as she rolled her shoulders. “Stop ordering me what to do,” she snarled in warning and stalked towards him. “This is the home of my family. This is where I’ll find the answers we need.”
“And it’s the place that’s going to wind up killing you if you’re not careful,” he challenged, reaching for her.
I grabbed his hand, unsure of his motives, but he nodded towards her ear.
I released his hand, and he shoved the loose hands of hair from her ear, and I saw the blood there, just as we saw it when she created the shield.
I exhaled. “You can’t let this place take control of you.”
She reached up and felt her ear, grimacing when she saw the blood wetting her fingers. The anger slipped from her face, and she backed away from us both, wiping the blood on her pants leg.
“I have to get answers,” she said, but there was no growl in her words this time.
“We will, but not with you placing yourself in danger.” Craig returned to the tapestry. “At least now we know what the shield looks like. Do you have that glass shard?”
Kate nodded slowly and reached into the knapsack Craig had set down earlier. She removed a velvet pouch and dumped the single shard we had into the palm of her hand.
I waited, holding my breath to see if anything would happen, but the glass merely reflected the light of the torches as she handed it over to Craig.
He stepped back from the tapestry and held it up, trying to see where it fit I guessed.
“We still don’t know how many pieces,” I said, planting my hands on my hips as I stared around the vast room. “What was this place?”
“The war room,” Kate replied, and I didn’t ask how she knew.
While lighting the torches, I’d been too distracted to pay attention to any details other than the tapestry showing us the one weapon that could stop this plague.
Racks of swords rested against the far wall, covered in cobwebs and years of dust, but none appeared rusted. The floor was covered in scraps of maps and parchment along with bits of broken furniture, wooden tables, and chairs.
“We need a way to decipher these words,” Craig was saying as I paced around the room. “Without you touching them,” he added when Kate started to reach out for them again.
She seemed ready to argue, but bit her tongue and shrugged. “Maybe there’s a book around here somewhere.”
He tucked the shard in his pocket, and we spread out through the room. I saw more weapons than books, but there was a set of double doors at the far end of the room.
“I don’t think this is the only chamber to remain untouched.” I pointed at the doors. “Do you know where that goes?”
Kate studied the doors and nodded slowly. “Another room,” she replied smartly with a smirk, and continued her search.
I exchanged an annoyed glance with Craig, but what could I say? We both had been hard on her without understanding what she may be going through.
These were the destroyed ruins of her family, all that remained of them, her only link back to her past, and we were too busy rushing around for answers to give her time to take it all in.
“Guys? You might want to see this,” she called, waving her hand for us to join her.
The wall was partially covered by the heap of debris we’d all slid down, but she picked up a torch from one of the metal brackets and held it up to the stone.
Carved into the stones in near perfect detail was an image of a Darrah dragon, it’s vibrant blue body, wings spread wide, staring out with blue-green eyes that crackled with power as the flame passed over it.
We moved down the wall, and the next image appeared. There was a crack at the bottom of the wall, intentional it appeared, for a darkness spread up and out of the crevice.
It reached upwards towards the sky above, showcasing the various worlds of the races.
A tendril touched each one, spreading the darkness and threatened to take them over, destroy them.
Kate held up the flame closer, reaching out to touch the stones, but I stopped her this time, not willing to see what might happen if she touched that darkness. I sensed power in these images, strong magic waiting to be unleashed again.
She yanked her hand from my grip, but said nothing and moved further down.
More Darrah dragons were present, battling the same spawn we saw at the temple, but this was an army of them. Leading the charge was a warrior, not in dragon form, bearing a shield.
“Vindicar,” Kate whispered.
The woman’s body shown with the same bright blue brilliance, her magic surrounding her as she held out the shield as well as a long sword.
Craig squinted then leaned in closer.
“That’s the Executioner blade,” he stated. “How is that possible?”
“Are you sure it’s the same sword?” I asked, leaning in next to see.
“Yes, but what is a Darrah doing with it here? The demons forged it for their greatest warrior, not for the dragons.”
“I don’t know.” Kate glanced at the sword on her back. “Maybe the demons lied.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, but didn’t appear convinced.
The dragons and demons had long been enemies. There had never been much trust between them, not in all the histories I’d read of our two races, but before that… was there really a time they’d been allies?
We left the question unanswered and stepped up to the last image on the wall before it was covered in rubble and we couldn’t see how the story ended.
But what we did see had Kate squeezing the torch so hard her knuckles turned white, and I sensed her dragon roiling just below the surface, ready to break free.
“Kate?” I whispered, but she shook her head and looked away.
Craig and I stepped up to the wall and saw the warrior from the last scene bearing the shield and sword as she fought the plague.
As the light hit the images, they shifted and moved as if alive, showcasing the battle.
Kate seemed to convince herself to look back and we finally saw what she must’ve already sensed was coming. The warrior moved to attack the plague, driving the sword through its body and pummeling it to the ground with the shield, but something happened I did not anticipate.
The power drained from the Darrah, sealing the crevice and locking the plague within, but then the warrior fell to her knees, before she toppled to the ground, appearing dead.
“Well, nice to know how this story is going to end,” Kate muttered darkly, eyes fixated on the dead warrior. She stepped away, shaking her head and her shoulders sagging.
“Kate,” I started to say, but she walked away, chucking the torch aside as she went.
“Let her be,” Craig said when I tried to go after her.
“Why? So, she can be more miserable than she already is?” I shrugged out from under his hold. “We have to know if that warrior died or not.”
“Unless you want to shov
e aside decades worth of rubble, we’ll have to find something else.” He stared up through the wooden slats. “I’m going to make sure no one realizes we’re down here. Why don’t you get our camp set up so we can rest? Should be safe here for a day or two at least. You said no one comes onto these lands?”
“Not unless they’re us,” I replied.
He stomped away, climbing back up the rubble and grabbing hold of the rope we’d tied to a stone up top so we could ensure a way back out.
I worried the shield would be seen and would draw patrols, but as long as it held, we were safe inside it. Getting out would be the problem.
I found Kate staring at the tapestry again, but her hands were shoved in her back pockets, not touching anything, as we requested. ]I walked over as quietly as I could to grab the knapsack and get some semblance of a camp set up so we could all take a rest.
She acted as if I wasn’t even there.
Craig returned a few minutes later after covering up the hole we came down through, and said he saw no sign of any patrols or those skeletal beings following us.
“And the shield?” I asked quietly, leaning my back against a fallen hunk of stone.
“Still going strong,” he growled, and did not sound very happy about it. “Are we going to even talk about what those things were?”
“I’m assuming dead dragon warriors corrupted by the plague.” I picked up a stone and tossed it aimlessly from one hand to the other. “I’ve heard nothing of warriors vanishing for falling sick, not a single word.”
“Could they be one of the patrols meant to guard these lands? Or ones who came from an outlying village? When the plague first hit, it was weeks, months even, before many of the demons were found ill. Not many traveled so far out unless for trade.”
I could not believe my father would know nothing of the plague appearing in our lands, but then again, I wasn’t sure I knew my father as well as I’d thought anymore.
We were still uncertain on why her father showed his face. Maddock and the rest of the Darrahs had hidden for so many years, many believed them to be gone and paid them no attention.
Shards (Dragon Reign Book 2) Page 7