The Flames of Dragons

by Josh VanBrakle

  But what else could this be? It was different from the mental seasides where he met with Divinion.

  A miniscule dot appeared in the distance, a lone speck of color against the unending white. With nothing better to do, Iren walked toward it.

  Although he could see nothing but white below him, the place appeared to have an invisible floor. He approached the dot, and as he did, its shape changed. It was a person. A little farther on, Iren realized who it was. He scowled.

  It was Rondel.

  She must have noticed him too, because she moved toward him. The pair closed and glared at one another.

  “What did you do?” Rondel demanded. The burns she’d received from the fire on the hill were gone. Unlike Iren she had her Ryokaiten, though she had put it away.

  “Don’t look at me,” Iren shot back. “I didn’t do this.”

  “It’s your damn fault for using Muryoka. What were you thinking, casting a spell like that? You probably leveled Hiabi, and Minawë along with it.”

  Iren turned ashen. “Minawë was there?”

  “She was destroying those ships.”

  “You used me as a diversion!” Iren swung a fist at Rondel.

  The space glowed, and Rondel disappeared. Iren looked around. He was alone again.

  Wait, no, he wasn’t. There was a dot in the distance. He headed toward it.

  Rondel met him. This time she didn’t wait to have a conversation. She drew her Liryometa and stabbed Iren in the chest.

  Before the blade could pierce him though, the space glowed again. When it returned to normal, Rondel was a dot in the distance once more.

  They stalked back to each other. Iren put a hand on his forehead. “Wonderful. I have to spend eternity stuck with you, and I can’t even beat you up. Forget this. Don’t follow me. I’d rather be alone forever than deal with you.” He took off at a run away from her.

  He ran for several minutes. When he looked back, Rondel was a dot again. Iren kept on going. If this space was infinite, then he would get as far away from her as possible.

  A dot appeared in front of him. He smiled; it was another person! Stupid Rondel could spend eternity alone, but Iren had found someone. He hoped they were friendly.

  As the dot grew, Iren’s smile vanished. The dot took the form of an old crone standing by herself in the void.

  Rondel walked up to him. “Couldn’t get away from me?” she asked with her sarcastic grin. “I do have that kind of personality.”

  “Shut up!” Iren punched her, and they separated again.

  Iren sighed. So that was the game. They couldn’t attack each other, and they couldn’t get out of sight from one another. If this was death, then death had an annoying sense of humor.

  “Guess we’re stuck with each other,” Rondel said when they reconvened.

  “Grand,” Iren spat. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “Listen,” a male voice boomed.

  Iren and Rondel faced the voice. “Who’s there?” Iren called.

  A new dot appeared in the distance and approached them. “You figured out the rules of this place quickly,” the voice said. “I’m impressed. I expected you to fight for at least a day before you gave up.”

  The dot became a man. In age he looked a little older than Iren’s outward appearance, perhaps forty. He wore his tan hair short in the Lodian style, and he had sky blue eyes that reminded Iren of Divinion’s.

  Rondel trembled as the man reached them. “You,” she said. Her voice vibrated in sync with her body. “You can’t be here.”

  Iren looked from the newcomer to Rondel and back again. He couldn’t figure out what made her react so strongly.

  “Welcome, Rondel,” the man said with a smile. “It’s good to see you again.” He faced Iren. “And you, Akio, I’ve waited almost twenty years to see how you would turn out. I’m glad I managed to meet you as an adult. The last time I saw you, I could hold you in my arms.”

  Iren’s heart thudded. Tan hair and blue eyes . . .

  Rondel gritted her teeth. “What on Raa is going on, Saito?”

  Iren Saito smirked. “Welcome to my afterlife,” he said. His expression turned serious. “Settle in. We have a lot to talk about.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Saito’s Last Spell

  Rondel seethed. Before her was the man she’d loved, the man she’d killed. Iren Saito stood there as though nothing had happened, like they were all good friends gathered to discuss how their days went.

  She lunged at him. Her rondel flew for his stomach. The dagger passed through him, and the rest of her body with it.

  Saito turned and regarded her. “That won’t work,” he said. “You can’t hurt someone who’s already dead.”

  Rondel’s fists and teeth clenched so hard she thought she might break them.

  “You might as well listen to what I have to say,” Saito continued. “You aren’t going anywhere until you do.”

  Next to his father, Iren folded his arms. “So we’re not dead.”

  Saito nodded. “That’s right. This is my afterlife, not the afterlife. You’re just guests here. Of course, depending on your actions, you could be guests for a long time.”

  Rondel’s hammering pulse slowed a fraction as she forced herself to calm down. Whatever game Saito was playing, she wouldn’t fall for it.

  Still, he seemed in control at the moment. The best answer was to follow along and look for an opening. That was how she fought. It could work here too.

  Getting information was the first step. She sheathed her rondel. “What is this place?” she asked. “How did we get here?”

  Saito stroked his chin a moment. Then he called, “Divinion! If you’re around, why not join us?”

  A roar issued from the blank space. Rondel faced it, and she beheld a serpentine dragon flying toward them. White scales flecked with blue covered his body, and blue hairs ran down his spine. As the creature neared, Rondel saw that it had blue eyes that matched those of both Saito and Iren.

  Rondel had never seen Divinion before, but she knew the stories. With one look at the beast before her, she knew he must be the Holy Dragon.

  “Divinion!” Iren shouted, removing any doubt Rondel might have had about the dragon’s identity. “You’re here too?”

  “This is where I’ve been for five thousand years,” the dragon growled.

  Realization dawned on Rondel. “This space . . . we’re inside the Muryozaki, aren’t we?”

  Saito grinned. “You haven’t lost your edge,” he said. “When you two delivered what would have been fatal blows to each other, you triggered the spell I placed on the Muryozaki the night I died.”

  “The spell?” Iren asked.

  “During my fight with Rondel, I put magic into the Muryozaki,” Saito explained. “I knew I would die, but I wanted the chance to spare your mother.”

  “What did your spell do?”

  “It was a dormant shield designed to protect both the Holy Dragon Knight and my murderer—you, Rondel. If either dealt a fatal blow to the other, the shield would pull both murderer and victim into the Muryozaki and away from the attack.”

  “That’s a convoluted spell,” Rondel said. “Why do something so drastic? If you could set up the Muryozaki with a spell that triggered at a certain time, why not use something straightforward? A beam of light to take me by surprise would have made more sense.”

  “You already know the reason,” Saito replied. “I never wanted any of you to die. You, Akio, and Carita are the most important people on Raa to me. I hoped Carita would pick up the sword. If she had, then you, her, and I could have met. There were so many things I never told her, things she deserved to know.”

  Through her anger at Saito’s meddling from the grave, Rondel couldn’t help but notice that Iren had become pensive. The names must have sunk in with him. Carita was his mother’s, and Akio was his.

  “But Carita didn’t pick up the sword,” Saito went on. “Instead, Akio became the Holy Dragon
Knight. When I found out, I grieved for Carita, but at least now I get to see my son grown up.”

  Rondel glared at him. “Let me get this straight. You were willing to trap both me and Carita in the Muryozaki just so you could see us? How selfish can you be?”

  Saito shook his head. “I haven’t trapped you here. You’re free to leave, if you can figure out how.”

  Rondel kept her face blank, but inside she grinned. There was a way out. Now she just had to find it.

  “I didn’t want you to hate each other,” Saito continued. “Whether it was you and Carita, or you and Akio. I bear no grudge against you, Rondel. I never have. In truth, I would have let you kill me centuries ago. But on the last day of the Kodama-Maantec War, Divinion ordered my punishment.” Saito gestured to the dragon. “He commanded me to live. I ran from you each time we fought because I wanted to honor his decree.”

  Rondel stared up at the Holy Dragon. “How could that be your decision?” she demanded. “How could you let this mass murderer run free?”

  Iren looked at Rondel like she was crazy. Rondel had to admit the expression was justified; who of sound mind would argue with a dragon?

  Yet Divinion took Rondel’s challenge in stride. “It was justice,” he said.

  “Okthora’s Law is justice,” Rondel retorted. “Evil must be annihilated.”

  “That’s what happened. Saito so regretted his actions that he could never contemplate doing them again.”

  “He would corrupt you,” Rondel said. “That’s why the Storm Dragon Knight has to slay the Holy Dragon Knight when he becomes evil.”

  “I had no cause for worry. The evil in Saito was gone after that day, so there was nothing to corrupt me.”

  “How can you say that?” Rondel screamed. She didn’t care that Divinion had teeth and claws longer than her body was tall. She didn’t care that he was the most powerful creature ever to walk Raa. She shouted at him like the fool he was being. “Saito killed thousands that day! He butchered the Kodamas, and he sentenced the few survivors to an eternity imprisoned in their forests.”

  Saito raised a hand. “Actually, that’s the other reason I set up my last spell to bring you here. I’ve had a thousand years to think about it, and I don’t think I cast the curse on the Kodamas.”

  Rondel punched him. She knew it made no difference, that she would pass through his body as she had before, but that didn’t stop her. She punched him again and again, swishing through his incorporeal form. “Liar!” she yelled. “I was there! Don’t you dare deny it!”

  “I won’t deny that I caused the Kodama-Maantec War,” Saito said. “I won’t deny that the blood of Kodamas and Maantecs alike is on my hands. But of that final curse I am innocent, and in this place, I intend to prove it.”

  Iren spoke for the first time in a while. “How? Those events happened a thousand years ago.”

  “True, and that’s why we needed to be inside the Muryozaki together. Here we have access to the perfect memory not only of Divinion, but of Okthora too.” He gestured at Rondel’s dagger. “If we combine the two, I believe we’ll see a true picture of what happened that day. Will you help us, Rondel?”

  There was no reason for her to. Saito just wanted to cover up his crimes. She wouldn’t be taken in by this nonsense.

  Then again, Saito had said there was a way out. He and Divinion were in charge of this space. If she wanted to escape, she had to play by Saito’s rules.

  “Fine,” she spat. “Show anything you want, but don’t expect me to believe it.”

  Saito shrugged. “Believe what you will. I intend to do the same.” He turned to the Holy Dragon. “All right, Divinion? Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  War’s End

  The white space around Rondel filled in. As it did, her breath caught. She knew this place all too well.

  She, Saito, Iren, and Divinion were on a vast, scorched plain. Smoke covered the landscape, and jets of white flame lanced from fissures in the ground. A mighty storm raged overhead, but not a drop of water reached the baked soil. This was Serona.

  It wasn’t the lifeless Serona of today. Instead, mobs of Maantecs and Kodamas filled it. They smashed against one another. Swords cut, arrows shot, and spells launched from both sides. Cries from the fighting and screams from the dying made the landscape so loud Rondel wanted to cover her ears.

  Then, amid the chaos, Rondel saw something that made all other thoughts flee. Two people fought back-to-back with one another. One was a Kodaman man with wooden armor and a bow covered in living vines. The other was a short old woman wearing Maantec lamellar armor who fought other Maantecs. Rondel gulped. The man was King Otunë. The woman was her.

  “What is this?” she yelled over the din. “What have you done?”

  “Better halt it, Divinion!” Saito called. “No use explaining everything with shouting.”

  The dragon nodded. At once all sound and motion on the plain ceased. Fighters paused in mid-stroke. Dust hung in the air. Even the flames paused in their dancing.

  Iren picked his way through the battlefield. He tried to touch one of the frozen combatants, but he passed through him. “Is this a memory?” he asked.

  “Memories, to be precise,” Saito replied. “This space blends my memory with Rondel’s. Thanks to Divinion and Okthora, who have perfect memories, we can observe every detail of what happened during the final battle in Serona.”

  Iren whistled. “When I’ve looked at memories in the past, they were always through the eyes of the person experiencing the moment. This offers a much better perspective. But even if the dragons have perfect memories, there’s no way they could be this detailed. How is it possible to know how all these people were fighting when neither you nor Rondel was paying close attention to them?”

  Before Saito could show off any more than he already had, Rondel jumped in. “Because of Lightning Sight,” she said. “It sees every detail, even over extreme distance. There’s a limit to what I can process though, so I only focus on a few elements at a time. But with Okthora’s perfect memory, he can recall everything about what happened even if I wasn’t focused on it.”

  Saito nodded. “Well done.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Rondel spat. “Even if we can see all this detail, what difference does it make? I know what happened. I’ve seen these memories in my nightmares for a millennium. You aren’t going to show me something I haven’t seen thousands of times before.”

  “It’s possible,” Saito admitted. “Divinion, should we change our vantage point?”

  The dragon growled an affirmative, and the frozen battle shifted beneath them. They rose in the air and shot toward the thousand-foot tower that loomed over the battlefield. Rondel grimaced at the sight of it: Edasuko Tower, palace of the Maantec emperor.

  They stopped when they reached the tower’s roof, and now they overlooked the plains of Serona. A young-looking Maantec, all but identical to Iren Saitosan when he and Rondel had first left Haldessa Castle together, stood frozen at the roof’s edge.

  “I’ve seen this memory,” Iren said. “It came to me when I was unconscious in Ziorsecth Forest after rescuing Minawë. At the time I thought it was a bad dream.”

  “I knew the battle was lost,” Saito said. “Rondel, you were the strongest of the Maantecs. When I saw you fighting alongside Otunë, I decided to surrender.”

  “Liar,” Rondel sneered. “You wouldn’t surrender. You cursed the Kodamas rather than face the shame of defeat.”

  “Shall I show you my memory?”

  “If it gets me out of here.”

  The scene moved again. A blur flashed down onto the stone. It belonged to a man with flowing blonde hair and a massive seven-foot sword. He bowed to the floor before the younger Saito. “Exalted Emperor!”

  Iren blinked twice. “Balear?”

  It wasn’t his friend. The Saito in the memory said, “Rise and report, Belias. What’s going on down there?”

  “More Kodamas pour fo
rth from Ziorsecth,” the Sky Dragon Knight said. “Our forces are clashing with them all over the country. The Kodamas’ Ice and Stone Dragon Knights were overwhelming Nadav’s men, so he unleashed the fires beneath Serona. All three are dead now. The Water Dragon Knight also perished when she and the traitor tried to calm the storm.”

  “What of Rondel? Did she die too?” The young Saito sounded panicked.

  “No,” Belias said, “the traitor lives, but she used most of her biological magic to help the Water Dragon Knight. She’s become an old woman. She would have lost consciousness, but Otunë gave her some of his magic.”

  The young Saito loosed a visible sigh of relief. Belias seemed to take it as a sign that his leader had a plan for victory. “Exalted Emperor, come down with me. You and I will fight Otunë and the traitor. We will avenge our fallen brothers!”

  Saito looked across the battlefield. He said nothing for a long time. At last he spoke, “Belias, you have always served me faithfully. I must ask you to continue in that tradition and obey my final command.”

  “Anything you ask.”

  “Leave this battle,” Saito said. “Fly to Lodia and live with your daughter in peace.”

  Belias dropped his mouth open. “I don’t know what you—”

  “Yes you do. You kept it secret, but it’s my business to know what my lieutenants are doing. My respect for you is no lower because you fell in love with a human. Actually, it’s greater. I wish I’d learned the same lesson you did. This war is pointless. It’s always been pointless. Katashi believes Maantecs must rule the other races to bring about peace. I believed him. Too late, I see the truth. Katashi is wrong. I am wrong. The way to peace isn’t conquest, but to end this war. Go to Lodia. Love your wife and daughter as faithfully as you have loved me. That is my command.”

  Belias hesitated only a moment before he said, “I would have fought to the death for you. But if this is how I may best serve you, then I will see it done. Still, I must ask. What will you do now?”