Legends (Dragon Reign Book 3)

by Kit Bladegrave

  Kate was trembling as she asked it and I glanced at Craig over her head, worried this was too much for her. She’d exerted a huge amount of power when we first arrived and seemed to have none of the usual fallout from it. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

  “When we faced down Allis at the ruins, he said he worked for his master,” I said. “Was that the brother?”

  “No, he was much worse, the first of the plagued. A wraith of pure evil.” Crane unrolled the rest of the parchment.

  A larger version of the plagued demon we faced down in the Burnt World stared back at us.

  Kate flinched and turned away from the table. “He is the one to blame for the breach in our realms. His name is Zohar, and he is still alive, waiting for his chance to break free and finish what he started.”

  Zohar.

  The name didn’t sound familiar to me at all, or to Craig apparently. “Kate?”

  “Sorry, I just, this is a lot to take in and all, but we need to know where the rest of the shards are,” she said quickly. “Do you have them here?”

  Crane was already reaching into the trunk again, and I held my breath. But when he revealed a letter that bore a wax seal, broken open, my hopes were destroyed. “This was brought to us many, many years ago. I’m afraid it was the only thing that made it to us.”

  “Malcolm never reached you?” I took the letter when Kate didn’t seem able to.

  “And his body was never recovered. Whatever happened to him remains a mystery, but this letter, it appeared on our doorstep.”

  I unfolded it and felt a very strange connection to the handwriting on the page.

  The signature at the bottom was Malcolm Darrah’s, and I struggled to start reading the words.

  “I have been overtaken by the enemy. The traitor, he was not sealed away with Celandine. We have failed, we have failed, and I fear ruin will come to all. The shards were meant to come to you, but they have been stolen from my dying grasp. I know not where he goes, but fear the worst. If the shield is ever to be made whole again, you must find him, you must find a way into the world created to stop the darkness. For it is there, and only there, you will find the power needed to defeat it.”

  I paused to take a breath as I saw the next few words and my hands grew clammy.

  “’The plague has come for me, and I have no time left. I pray to the gods for mercy, pray the Vindicar will rise once more.”

  “Well, that ended about as badly as Broden’s letter did.” Craig sat down hard in his chair and shot back the rest of his wine. “You know what that means don’t you?”

  I folded up the letter and handed it back to Crane. “Sadly, I think I do.”

  “That bastard took them to the one place we barely survived the first time around! And now, it almost guarantees this Zohar knows we’re coming. He knows the three of us have been reborn!” Craig grabbed a carafe and refilled his glass. “How in bloody hell are we supposed to go back there and track down the missing pieces? There could be hundreds of them!”

  “How big is the Burnt World?” I asked,.

  Craig slammed his glass down so hard, I was amazed it didn’t break.

  “How big are the Darrah lands? The original Darrah lands?”

  I whistled, and joined him in refilling my glass.

  “But I can track the pieces, can’t I?” Kate turned back to face us, a new determination in her eyes. “I smelled the first one on Craig when he had it. I should be able to find the others, right?”

  “In theory, but we wouldn’t know for sure unless we were there.”

  “Actually, I may be able to help with that,” Crane suggested. “I could give her something to enhance her natural ability to connect with the shield. It would give her more range at least.”

  “Do it,” Kate replied, before either of us could say a word.

  “We have to talk about this,” Craig growled as he shot to his feet.

  “What’s there to talk about? We need those shards, or the entire world is doomed.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No,” she snapped, cutting me off. “No, we are not going to sit here and waste time having a discussion about it. We need those shards. That’s it. We’re going back to the Burnt World to find them, and we’ll be ready this time. We know what works against them.”

  She picked up the knapsack and dug around inside, but I had no idea what she was looking for. I leaned over, trying to peer inside, and spied several vials of black liquid before she closed it again.

  Crane clapped his hands as if to say our talk was over, but it was far from over. “Well, then the three of you will be needing accommodations to at least stay the night while I prepare this potion. Greyson, show our guests to their rooms, would you?”

  He waved us on, and Crane said he would see us in the morning, bustling through another door with several sorcerers behind him.

  “Kate, we have to talk about this,” I argued as we followed Greyson out of the hall and up a set of stone stairs.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  I made a strangling motion with my hands behind her, and Craig nodded in agreement. I was seriously considering locking her in a room, or tying her to a chair if it would keep her from going until we could at least come up with a plan.

  “Here you are, Kate,” Greyson announced, stopping at the door. “Your room is just down the hall.”

  I opened my mouth to try and convince Kate, but she hugged me close, kissing my cheek. “If you still want to talk about it in the morning, I’ll hear you out, but we have to go back to get the shards.”

  I hugged her tightly and hated to let her go.

  She hugged Craig next, and I saw his arms straining to pull her to him before he too reluctantly released her.

  Her smile was off as she stepped into her room and closed the door in our faces.

  “I don’t like this,” Craig muttered as he moved on down the hall.

  “I don’t either, but you heard her. We’ll talk in the morning. I’m sure she was just overwhelmed again by all the new information.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  I pushed open the door to our room and cursed. “No, not one damned word of it.”

  24

  Forrest

  Two hands grabbed me by my shirt and lifted me off the bed, shaking me hard.

  My eyes shot open to discover Craig glaring at me in complete panic.

  “What? What’s wrong? Are we under attack?”

  “No, damn it! She’s gone!”

  My heart dropped as he let me go, and I scrambled to get back to my feet and tug on my boots.

  “What do you mean she’s gone? She couldn’t have left. I have the coin!” I patted down my pant pockets and froze. “The coin… it’s gone.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Craig bellowed in rage, and tore from the room.

  I sprinted after him, unsure of where he was planning on going, but we weaved our way through the home of the order until we found the main stairs and he started screaming for Crane.

  The sorcerer appeared, rushing out of the hall.

  “What is it, what’s wrong?”

  “Did you put her up to this? Did you?” Craig snarled and reached Crane before I could. He had the old man by his robes and slammed him into the nearest stone column, his face shifting into his half-demon form. “Did you?”

  “Craig, you’re going to hurt him,” I argued, and tried to pull him back, but he was too enraged.

  “I told her the truth,” Crane said calmly, despite the spitting mad demon holding him to a wall. “She asked for the truth, and that is all I gave her.”

  “She’s gone!”

  Crane’s eyes widened, and then he sighed. “I see.”

  “You see? That’s all you have to say about this is you see?” Craig slammed him into the column again, harder this time.

  Crane winced, and I knew he could fight back, but he resisted.

  “She is the Vindicar. Her destiny has always been to
fight the darkness.”

  “Why alone? She would never have left us here unless he had good reason! What did you tell her?” I asked. “And be specific.”

  Crane’s gaze slid to mine, and I saw the horrible sadness in it all of a sudden.

  “It’s not what I told her. It’s what she told me, late last night. It’s what she finally remembered from one of her visits to the past, what Celandine needed her to understand.”

  Craig slowly lowered Crane back to his feet, but didn’t release him. “What?”

  “Zohar was not a wraith, not to begin with.” Crane licked his lips nervously, and finally blurted out, “He was the dragon king of the Darrah clan, and Celandine’s father.”

  “No.” I stepped back in shock as Craig let him go. “No, that can’t be true.”

  “It is. She tried to deny it herself last night before she finally realized who he was and why he would be coming after her, and her alone.” He rested a hand on each of our shoulders as he said, “He’s going to want his revenge, and he will take it out on her, one way or another.”

  “So she’s taken off for the Burnt World, to face him alone,” I muttered, meeting Craig’s eyes as his face morphed back to normal.

  “So she can protect us.” He cursed vividly and clasped his hands behind his head, stalking around the entryway.

  With another bellow of rage, Craig punched the wall, breaking chunks of stone away, and probably breaking a few fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice. His rage was my rage, and as I turned to the front doors of the home, I sensed the last bits of Kate’s emotions before she’d taken off, leaving us behind.

  We had to go after her, had to stop her before she got herself killed.

  She would not face this darkness alone, not while I still had air in my lungs.

  Afterword

  I hope you enjoyed Legends! I can’t wait to bring you the next book in this series!

  Keep reading to see the cover and how to find more of Kit’s books!

  (You may have to flip to the next page to see the image.)

  Sign up for Kit’s Newsletter to find out about new releases

  Click the link below

  Newsletter

  or put the following in your browser window:

  mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/m5q3f7

  Copyright © 2017 by Kit Bladegrave

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.