by Lee French
“Claire. I know you think you’re doing the right thing by trying to stop me. This is about things you don’t understand.” He dragged her back.
She ran her fingers over the cobblestones, trying to find an edge she could grip. “What things? You’re supposed to be training me. That’s not only about running and stabbing.” The longer she kept him talking, the more time Enion had to break the seal.
“You’re tainted. You won’t accept anything I say, so it hardly matters.” He smacked her head into the street and grabbed a fistful of her hair.
She squealed and tried to get a grip on his hand or wrist. Her hands slid off his mailed gloves. “What if you’re the one who’s tainted?”
Lifting her by the head and a leg, he tossed her over Tariel’s saddle. Her stomach hit first, knocking the wind out of her. “As if that would happen.” Justin let go of her. “Keep her out of the way.”
Tariel whickered and danced to the side. Claire gasped for breath as Justin plunged into the fog.
“Help me!” Enion shouted. Two other dragons responded.
Claire wondered what would happen if all three dragons broke the seal together. “Tariel, you have to see it. He’s tainted. Kurt’s corrupted. We have to stop him before he does something even stupider than usual.”
Tariel tossed her head and hopped from side to side. Claire squirmed against the horse’s efforts until she finally wriggled herself off head first, hands out to break her fall. The horse set a hoof on her back and whinnied as if to say, “You’re not going anywhere.”
Claire heard splashing. Justin said something too quiet to make out. Wind roared down, blowing the mist away and picking Claire and Tariel up. They both flew through the air until they hit a slab of rock with a thud. Despite the impact, Claire sprang to her feet, unhurt. Beside her, Tariel also seemed fine, also standing with haste.
They stood together on a huge, flat plain. Copies of the Skidmore Fountain dotted the landscape. Bright yellow light shone from everywhere and nowhere. In the distance, Claire saw a tiny dragon battling a tiny person with a shining silver light between them. Fire billowed around them. Tariel trumpeted and charged.
The woman statue on the nearest fountain flung her huge hand out, knocking Tariel to the ground. Claire paled. If one of those things hit her, she’d be splattered. Tariel rolled to her feet, shaking her head, and edged away from the fountain. She backed into the reach of another fountain and dodged its blow by inches.
Even with these obstacles, Claire had no way to beat Tariel in a foot race; the horse could run faster than cars on the freeway. Claire turned in a full circle and saw no clear path to Enion anyway. Then she remembered the fight against Caius and how she’d gone from staring up at the precipice to finding him a short distance away.
“You can beat her, Claire.” Rondy laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “You know how.”
“What are you—” She shook her head. “Never mind. No time.” She took a deep breath, focused her will on reaching Enion, and took a step. Another blast of fire exploded, this time close enough for her to feel the heat on her back. She whirled to see Justin less than twenty feet away, his back to her. Tariel remained a speck in the distance, weaving between the fountains.
Justin swung his sword, keeping horse-sized Enion at bay. Between them, a gleaming silver crystal hung a few feet up in the air. Enion darted in at the crystal. Justin slashed his sword in front of Enion’s face, forcing the dragon to pull up short. Enion batted Justin’s arm away from the crystal.
They’d duel to a standstill until Claire and Tariel intervened. The horse could beat Claire any day of the week, and so could Justin. Once Tariel arrived, the fight would be over.
A huge fountain’s stone hand struck Claire from behind, sending her flying through the air with a grunt. More than anything, she wanted to knock Justin down long enough for Enion to get that crystal. This wasn’t like fighting Caius. For all she knew, she couldn’t even touch that crystal because she hadn’t been the one to stab the fountain.
She pivoted in mid-air and plowed into Justin’s back. He grunted and staggered. Enion flared his wings and pounced on the crystal. Silver flashed. Another great wind erupted and knocked Claire away. This time, she screwed her eyes shut and screamed when something heavy slammed into her, cracking her ribcage. Bones shattered all over her body, overloading her with agony. Though she still screamed, her voice faded to a rough whisper.
Snapping her eyes open, she discovered Tariel lying across her body and dark clouds swirling overhead, barely visible in the night. She hyperventilated. Nearby, Justin groaned. Thunder exploded and white filled her vision. Another blast of force lifted Tariel off her. Distantly, as if it happened to someone else, Claire felt her limp body tumble across the cobblestones. She heard two different heavy impacts on bricks.
Lying in a crumpled heap, Claire focused on breathing. Her vision remained blank white, and her head throbbed. The locket on her chest seared her flesh. She whimpered as she pawed broken fingers against her fleece’s zipper until the locket flopped out and hit the ground. The tinny smell of burning metal reached her nose at the same time sizzling and popping reached her ears.
Large creatures roared nearby. “Look at us,” Enion said, his voice as deep a rumble as it had been in the heart of the Palace. “We’re dragons!”
Claire heard thumps and whooshes and the clicking of claws across the cobblestones, all drawing near. She grinned. Her vision returned, the white fading away. “You did it,” she croaked before she saw him.
“Let’s get the witch.” Enion stopped in front of her, his silver skin gleaming in the yellow light. As in the other realm, he stood at least ten feet high at the shoulder and fifteen feet long without his neck or tail. He spread his huge silver wings and struck a majestic pose.
The two other dragons, both as large as Enion, roared again.
Claire chuckled at him, pleased he’d won because of her. Her bones realigning swiftly, she sat up with care. Drew lay across the light rail tracks where a train would hit him if he didn’t move soon. Patches of white under pieces of a smashed brick pillar showed her where Tariel lay. Across the way, a cloud of dust and a hole in a brick wall pointed to Justin’s whereabouts.
“Get Drew off the tracks,” Claire said. “He’s not the enemy. Neither are Anne, Justin, or Tariel. We need to get Kurt’s Phasm. This is all his fault. I’ll get up in a minute.”
One horse-sized dragon loped to Drew’s side and bit the arm of his raincoat, dragging him to relative safety. Enion stepped forward, Claire’s dagger in one forelimb. The third dragon helped Claire roll onto Enion’s back.
“You guys, wow. You’re amazing.” Claire wanted to spend an hour running her hand over Enion’s skin, memorizing every detail so she could tell all the dragons apart at a glance. It would have to wait. “Let’s get back there before Justin and Tariel can.”
Enion bounded across the cobblestones, jarring Claire’s still-healing body, until he leaped and didn’t land. His wings flapped around her. She should have been cold and buffeted by the wind, but instead felt pleasantly warm with only a slight breeze.
The other two dragons flanked Enion like an honor guard to soar over Portland together.
Chapter 32
Claire
Flying on Enion had to be what riding Tariel at high speed felt like to Justin. Though she still healed, Claire threw her arms open wide and knew Enion wouldn’t let her fall. She whooped and watched the streetlights zip past a hundred feet below. With a dragon, she could go anywhere and do anything. With three dragons, she could…
Kurt wanted the dragons. He must have intended to use them for some crazy scheme that would do more than just destroy the Palace. Justin’s mentor had big plans. She wondered if he’d always been that way, or only since his Phasm’s corruption. Later, she wanted to check into what had corrupted him and find out if it pointed to this kind of plot.
By the time Enion landed, one hind foot first, on the g
rass of Anne’s yard, Claire had healed enough to walk. She climbed down and patted his side, hoping they’d be able to find plenty of time for flying. When this ended, she had to take Drew for a ride.
“Come out,” Enion said.
The trees and shrubs bent and groaned as two dozen large dragons revealed themselves. Claire had no idea how creatures so big and shiny hid so well. She supposed they might have a harder time with it during the day.
“Listen to Claire.”
Twenty-some silver heads turned to her, waiting for her instructions.
Not used to giving orders, Claire blinked and blushed. “Oh. Uh. Guard the house, I guess. Don’t hurt Anne, she wasn’t in her right mind when she…did whatever she did. Don’t let anyone in, though. Especially not Justin, the guy with the horse.” She couldn’t think of anything else for the moment.
“We should get there and face Kurt,” she told Enion. “As soon as he’s destroyed, Anne should be her normal self. I don’t really know her, but I bet she’ll fall all over herself to apologize.” Justin probably would too, but not to the dragons.
Enion nodded. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. She thought he might spew fire at the trees until he disappeared in a flash of silver. In his place, the tiny dragon she’d first found jumped off the ground to fly up and land on her shoulder.
“That’s a neat trick.”
“Yes! Let’s go.”
As she picked her way through the undergrowth, Claire realized three things. First, no matter what Justin thought, Anne must have been the one to put that icky binding on the dragons. Second, she’d stood in a place—Skidmore Fountain—where Caius himself had wrought a magic seal. Third, and most importantly, she had no idea how to enter a corrupted Phasm’s demesne. She’d seen it done without understanding anything. From her perspective, the Knight bowed his head and magically shifted into the other plane of existence.
Everything about being a Knight seemed to go back to Caius’s three principles, with strength of will as the central pillar. She took a deep breath and tried to figure out what could be bent to her will. In the Palace, she had to go through the wall in her dormitory room. Here in the real world, she had to use a couch.
When she forced her will on the couch, what really happened? Not knowing had probably been what stopped her before. Justin said it happened by intuition. Going by Rondy’s Principle of Different, she needed more than intuition. She needed to know how it worked.
“The couch is only a couch,” she muttered.
“You can do this,” Enion chirped.
“Yeah, I can. It’s not about the couch. It can’t be. If it was about the couch, every Knight would use a couch. That means it’s about the Palace and the Knight. This would be so much easier if I could just punch someone.”
“Punch the tree?”
Claire smirked. “Probably not going to help. I must be reaching out with some psychic hand or whatever and…shaking the Palace’s psychic hand? If that’s how it works, then I should be able to reach for Kurt’s psychic hand-thing and shake that instead. Right?”
“Sounds good to me!”
“I’ll bet there’s another piece to this puzzle. Like a conduit or a membrane or something. A link. When this is over, I’m going to ask—” Except she couldn’t ask Rondy. She pushed that pain away. “I’m going to spend some time in the library and learn about stuff.” She leaned against a tall tree and took another deep breath. This time, she imagined herself reaching out for Kurt’s demesne, demanding it answer her.
“Huh. And who’re you, little girl?”
Claire snapped her eyes open to find a peaceful, pleasant beach. Water splashed her boots and receded. Tall grass in the distance threw long shadows in dim orangey-pink light. To her side stood a misty, insubstantial form with the broad shoulders and thick, meaty limbs common among the Knights.
“Claire. You must be Kurt. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She lunged with her dagger, hoping he’d be taken off guard by a sudden assault.
He slid away from the attack and scowled at her. “Must be Justin’s apprentice. You’ve got about the same manners he did when I first met him.” His form backed away from her. “Now you know it’s not that easy, what’s your next move, kid?”
Scooping Enion off her shoulder, she shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to resort to less subtle violence.” She tossed the dragon at Kurt and charged. Enion expanded as he flew until he landed with a thump. Kurt sidestepped Claire, floating into the billowing burst of fire Enion blew at him.
Kurt’s form dissipated and Claire couldn’t believe they’d handled him so easily. She waited for his demesne to evaporate. Half a minute later, she still waited.
“Crap. Where’d he go?”
“Don’t know,” Enion said.
“We should look for him, I guess.”
“Split up or stick together?”
Claire patted him on the neck. “Stick together, partner.”
Enion nodded and grinned. “Then ride on my back!” Despite his new size, he still sounded as enthusiastic as he had in his small body. Only his voice had changed, not his personality. Claire wondered if all dragons behaved that way.
She stepped on his leg and swung onto his back, her legs straddling the base of his neck. He had no frill, hair, fur, or spikes to hold onto. The horns on his head were too far away to reach. Claire planted her hands on his long neck and decided they’d need to come up with a saddle. “Let’s go.”
Enion nodded again and launched into a jog. His claws dug into the sand, tossing it everywhere. Claire chose not to complain. If she walked alongside him instead, it would take twice as long and the same thing would probably happen anyway. She held her arm up to let the pink fleece filter the air for her.
They reached the tall grass, and the sand no longer churned under Enion’s feet. Claire lowered her sand-crusted arm and looked around. She saw grass, grass, and more grass.
“This is going to be harder than I thought, I guess.”
Chapter 33
Justin
By the time Justin stumbled out of the wall and his vision cleared, Claire had disappeared. Every bone in his body ached. He shambled to Tariel, lying under a heap of brick and concrete, and fell to his knees beside her. Brushing fragments away from her face, he wondered what disaster those dragons had caused.
“I’m healing,” Tariel said, her voice tight and pinched. “I need a few more minutes.”
“Me too.”
Someone nearby groaned. Justin saw Drew’s yellow raincoat a few dozen feet away. He forced himself to move, taking it slow until he stopped at Drew’s side. The kid had bled from his nose, mouth and ears and his head lay in a tacky, red puddle. Drew should have been dead twice over. Justin prodded him with a boot.
“What are you?”
Drew groaned again.
“Where’s Claire?” When he got only another groan, Justin crouched with a wince and grabbed the front of Drew’s raincoat. Lifting the kid off the ground took enough effort he had to plant a knee on the ground. With their faces only inches apart, he said, “Tell me where Claire went. Now.”
“Kurt’s demesne.” Drew’s eyes stayed shut and his head lolled on his neck. His mouth barely moved to speak the words.
“Why did she go there?” The kid didn’t answer again. Justin shook him. “Tell me! Why did she go there?”
“To kill him.”
Justin scowled. “What are you? I know you’re not human. Humans don’t survive this and heal.”
Drew’s eyes fluttered without opening.
“Tell me what I want to know or I’ll cut your head off.”
“I don’t know!” Drew’s eyes snapped open but his head still hung limp. “I’m not an ur-phasm or a ne-phasm. I’m something else. Don’t hurt me. We’re on the same team. I work for Kurt, just like you do.”
Disgusted by the fake boy he’d welcomed into his family and home, Justin let go of his coat. Drew hit the ground with a grunt. Justin rubbed his
forehead, not sure what to do. Claire had messed up everything. Now he didn’t have transportation, let alone what he needed to deal with the witch. The girl needed to be stopped before she caused more trouble than he could fix. Maybe Djembe had been right about her.
Needing an outlet for his annoyance, he flicked Drew’s cheek and watched him flinch. This kid had no use at all, unless… “Take me to Kurt’s demesne.”
Drew groaned again and rolled toward Justin. He squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered. Mist billowed up out of nowhere and surrounded them.
Justin narrowed his eyes at the kid. “What are you playing at?”
The mist dissipated, revealing Kurt’s beach scene. Justin sighed as healing rushed into him and soothed away all his aches and pains. Drew opened his eyes and sighed with his own relief. He squawked when Justin grabbed his jacket again and wrenched him up.
“Why did you attack me?”
Shrinking away from him, Drew stammered. Justin caught only one useful word, “Anne.”
He shoved the kid into the sand again and stood. Everything went back to Anne. “Kurt?” In the distance, he saw a strange silhouette lumbering over the grass. He crouched again. “She’s here. With a giant dragon.”
“I noticed.” Kurt appeared beside him, thinner than before. “Drew, who broke the fifth seal?”
“The dragon.”
“That’s kind of a problem, boy.” Kurt poked Justin in the chest. “It’s kind of your problem. Those dragons need to get into the Palace to take care of the witch problem once and for all.”
Something about that logic seemed flawed, but Justin couldn’t figure out what. “All of them? She only takes the one, and it’s her sprite. How do we get all those dragons into the Palace?”
“They’re magical creatures. Use your imagination.”
Justin frowned. “I can only think of one thing, and I’m not sure it’ll work.” He hated his idea. As troublesome as Claire could be, he didn’t really want her dead. Out of the way would be better. “If you promise to keep her alive no matter what, I’ll do what you want.”