by J B Cantwell
I had no plan.
My knives were still stuck in his chest as he stood and walked over to where I had fallen, slipping them easily from his body. Before my eyes, his skin healed, the red patch on his chest sliding off his shimmering silver cloak like water droplets on a window.
He spat a mouthful of cold blood in my face, and, picking up his pointed staff, he lifted his chosen weapon above my stomach.
Everything stopped. I felt the magic of the silvery wood as it dropped toward me through the cold winter air. Phalen smiled, and this time I was the one who was scared. The wood was an inch away now, and the flame which encased it felt like little embers coming off a bonfire, a buzzing feeling of heat and energy. These embers were not dangerous on their own; only together in concert would they turn deadly. With precision and care, the tip of the staff slit through my tunic, pausing just a moment over my skin before sliding almost delicately into my body.
No. Not like this.
I felt the tip of the bladed staff as it hit the ground at my back.
My eyes bulged, ears listening for sounds that were now garbled. Who out there would save me? Who out there could?
I came back to myself, if only for a moment. He was still standing there, and he put his boot upon my chest as if he had won the prize. He smiled and looked around, seeming to be waiting for some sort of applause, some recognition over him dominating me, killing me. Oh, how his father would react. He would want him at his side forevermore.
But I knew that Torin wanted no man to take the life of someone in his beloved book. Those names were for him, alone.
Either way, Phalen would be dead before this night was over. I felt sure of it.
The only question was, would I?
Suddenly, I began to fight. I gripped onto the wood, but it was surprisingly too hot to hold, even with my hands lit. Still, I tried. My body hadn't yet registered the seriousness of my injury, and the fight I was putting forth now was probably only hurting me more. But I didn't feel pain, only pressure from where the wood had pushed aside my organs on its way through my body.
He moved his boot from my chest to my throat, and the spikes along the bottom dug into my skin. He twisted it around a bit just to make sure I could feel the pain. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. I had no dragon to call. It was only him and me now, and I was on my way out.
I wasn’t like Phalen; I was unable to heal myself, something I saw now that was surely his greatest gift, his greatest talent. My mind flashed to Duna, and I feared she would be among the bodies I had seen from the air, dead in the snow.
Phalen called calmly to his dragon in a tongue I didn't understand.
She stepped toward us without another word from him, and I knew I was about to be defeated. But then, from the corner of my eye, I saw something I didn’t expect.
Urvar.
He was coming up to us behind where Phalen stood, so the sorcerer didn't see the threat until it was too late.
Urvar opened his mouth and spewed flame so powerful I could smell my hair singeing from the heat. It overtook Phalen, and he lost his composure, flailing around in an attempt to put out the fire.
In his haste, he had forgotten one important thing.
His staff.
Ananta seemed to have her orders from Phalen without him speaking them, and she attacked Urvar just as he was inching his way closer to me. He was trying to protect me, yet I felt it was too late for me. It didn't matter if I lived, but it did matter if Phalen died.
Urvar seemed to sense this, and despite the attack from Ananta, he went after Phalen instead of protecting himself. Again and again, he spewed forth his fire, not giving Phalen enough time to heal.
Ananta was on top of Urvar, biting the back of his neck with her wicked, pointed teeth, ripping the flesh and scales away.
But Urvar didn't stop. And as Phalen slowly slipped between this world and the next, his hold on Ananta began to slip as well. He screamed when he saw with his hollowed-out eyes Ananta join Urvar in the attack. Slowly, his face was changing, his features undulating, moving back and forth between life and ash. Soon, he was on the ground with the two dragons standing over him, spewing forth their most deadly fire. He flailed, but he could not get away from them, and they were relentless.
It was only moments longer before his flesh melted away, and he took one last breath, turning from a man to ashes that blew away in the crisp winter air.
Chapter 30
Voices. Breathing. Shushing.
I was warm, which seemed strange given how cold it had been just a moment ago. Cold as my life force was drained out of me. Cold as I lay motionless in the snow.
Hands found me, one on my neck and the other over my stomach.
"No! Don't move her!"
It was a voice I recognized, though I couldn't figure out where from. It didn't seem to matter. There were other voices, too, but none of them made any sense. I briefly considered opening my eyes, but I worried that if I did, I’d see nothing but black, that the truth of my death would come crashing down around me.
Some part of me felt sure that I wasn't yet dead, but I kept them shut anyway. I would be soon enough.
I felt a pulling sensation over my stomach, and it confused me. Was somebody removing the staff? No. I felt certain it was already gone. But there was warmth now, a heat over my belly that twisted and turned my insides until they were righted, their broken fibers connected once more.
Breathing was becoming difficult, and I was vaguely aware of the taste of hot blood in my mouth. Then, a hand, the same hand that had touched my stomach, slowly stroked the skin on my neck. Inside, the sinewy flesh slowly knitted back together, and a few moments later, I could breathe again.
"Open your eyes, girl," a voice said, and this time I knew who it was.
I opened them and stared into the face of my savior. Duna had found me just in time.
I tried to sit up, but she held me back.
"Give it a minute," she said.
I turned my head toward a noise I didn't recognize, and I found that Ananta and Urvar were sweeping the snow with their wings, scattering the rest of the ashes that had once been Phalen's body. Urvar was bleeding profusely from where Ananta had ripped at his flesh, but I could see the scales of his hide slowly coming back together.
"The dragon," I croaked, pointing.
Duna looked up, then shrugged.
"He seems to be doing fine on his own," she said. "Dragons have their own healing power."
Suddenly, cries rang out, footsteps and heavy breathing were getting closer.
"Is she dead?" Tosia asked desperately. She fell to her knees at my side, practically knocking Duna out of the way. She, herself, was covered in deep cuts along her arms and face, and she had a head wound just behind her hairline that was bleeding onto her shirt.
"She ain't dead," Duna said. "Now back off."
I laughed. It was fleeting, though, as I remembered our reality.
"How did you get down so fast?" I asked Tosia.
"The red dragon," she said, pointing behind her. In the distant sky, I could see the great animal flying away.
"What about the others?" I asked. "Who…?"
Who had died?
Duna sat back on her feet and put her hands on her hips.
"Arte and Lesley," she said. "And… Tosia's mother."
Tosia fell to her side in the snow and put her head in her hands.
I wanted to speak, but all I could do was nod: Arte, their leader, gone now. I wondered what that would mean for Angus.
"Let me up," I said to Duna. "I'm okay."
She grumbled, but she didn't stop me when I moved to sit up.
I looked around and then up at the sky, a million stars shining down, visible now.
"Where is she?" I asked. "The bear?"
Tosia looked up, catching Duna's eye.
"She went down with the first dragon," Duna said.
A weight pressed on my heart. I’d been the one to f
ree her from a thousand years of servitude. What a waste of a life, that poor creature now gone from us forever.
The Shadow Mountains were now free of Keepers. I hoped that the Light which had been spilled in this place would help to rebuild it, would infuse it with magic once more. The great bear had touched the sky, tearing away the clouds that had been hiding this range for a millennium. Now, looking up above, I saw that the rest of the clouds were slowly clearing.
The dragons kept walking, sweeping the snow and ashes, the remaining pieces of Phalen, now too damaged to ever join to create his body again.
I wondered about his soul.
Duna stood up and, taking my hands, helped me up to my feet. Then, unexpectedly, she put her arms around me.
"I thought you were dead," she said. "When I saw you…"
"I thought the same thing, myself," I said. "Thank you for the healing."
Tosia stood up, her crying eyes staring at the ground.
I broke away from Duna's hold and walked up to her.
"You did great," I said.
"All I did was hide. It wasn't enough. And now Mother…"
"My mother is gone, too, you know. That's something we share. And you didn't only hide. You protected me the whole way up the mountain, which is more than I could've asked for. If it weren't for you, I’d probably be dead."
"Ahem," Duna said.
I laughed.
"You, too. Obviously."
She knelt down on the ground and pulled from a snowbank Phalen's giant silver staff. She gripped onto it with both hands, her eyes wide as it burst into flame. She dropped it to the ground quickly, where it melted the snow until it was lying in the dirt.
"Did it hurt?" I asked her, kneeling down, myself.
"No," she said. "It was freezing cold, like ice. It stuck to my fingers and took off some skin. Here, look."
Indeed, a couple of layers of skin from Duna's fingertips were gone, leaving angry red flesh behind.
I moved to touch the staff, but then at the last moment, I realized it would probably stick to my skin as it had Duna's. I lit my hands with fire magic and picked it up. It felt supple and warm. I stood and held it upright. Immediately, a flash of blue light erupted from its tip, and I recognized it now as my own.
"What happened to you up there?" Tosia asked. "I was yelling for you, but you didn't respond. It was almost like you were asleep on the back of the dragon."
What had happened to me? I asked myself the question, even though I already knew the answer.
Something bad. Something which meant I had evil within me.
I'd possessed a Wick, a dragon, and finally Phalen, himself.
It was no man or woman's place to force entry into another's mind, and yet that was what I had done. It was the way I'd survived this day.
I wondered if I'd found my power, the thing I could do endlessly without tiring. The thought made me want to vomit, and I fell to my knees in the snow.
"What is it?" Duna asked.
Is this what I was meant to do? Did a world exist in which this type of magic could be considered good?
I wasn't sure.
Tosia was crying again.
Could I possess her? Would it help?
No.
I crawled over to where she was sitting and put both of my hands on her shoulders. Then, without anything to say, I put my arms around her. We stayed like that for what felt like a long time. She had lost everything. The only thing she had now was her magic. And that wasn't much, not enough to fill a whole life.
"When this is over, you'll come with me," I said, pulling out of the embrace. I tilted my forehead against hers as her tears fell into the snow. "Would you like that?"
She opened her mouth, but she seemed to have no words, so she simply nodded.
I broke away from her and helped her up.
"And what about me?" Duna said with a smirk.
I laughed. "We would never survive without you," I said. "Will you accompany us?"
She scoffed.
I took that as a yes.
I left the two women and walked up to Urvar, who’d finished sweeping the snow and now lay in its embrace. Ananta came between us, but Urvar spoke.
"Leave her be, Ananta. She saved us all. Anyone who could be saved."
Ananta hissed, blowing fire from her nose, clearly wanting to kill me, too.
"She possessed you," she said. "She is evil like him." She tilted her head toward where they had been spreading Phalen's ashes. "This witch should rest with him."
"Ananta, don't make me get up right now," Urvar sighed. "The place where you bit me hurts, and I'd rather not spend too much energy while I heal. Leave the girl. She is Alina's daughter."
Ananta took a few steps backward, surprised. And then she surprised us all, kneeling down in the snow, her sharp scales clicking as she hit the ground. She bowed her head.
I was confused. Clearly, I’d done something wrong, and yet Urvar protected me, and Ananta now gave me her allegiance.
"What do you know about my mother?" I asked her.
"Your mother could do no wrong," she said. "All dragons in our world know this."
"But what does that have to do with me?"
At this, Urvar stood and walked straight up to me. Now that I was staring him right in the face, I got a little nervous. He was huge, as big as ten horses.
"You are Alina's daughter," he said. "She was very… important to me. I have told all of my kind about her and about you."
I got choked up for a moment, both at the mention of the mother I never knew and the reality of the dragon who never guarded me as he had her.
"You want to know why," he said. "Why I wasn't there for you." He bowed his head as if embarrassed. "When your mother left this world, she left me alone in it. I flew away from Eagleview and the Soaring Mountains, where I kept my home. I found a quiet place far from here at the edge of the world where it meets the Opal Sea.
"But that place did not stay quiet for long, for Torin also makes his home there. He added me to his… collection. He, too, possesses man and beast. That is a talent you share and a rare one, indeed. He keeps there his armies of Wicks and dragons. If you have not seen them all in your travels, you surely will when you finally come face-to-face with him, as is your destiny."
"I don't want to share anything with him," I said quietly.
"And yet you do. Your name is the most recent entry in his book. Though he doesn’t know it yet.”
I looked up, surprised.
"Yes, I know about the book,” Urvar went on. “He covets it, desperately wanting to know whose name is next. His magic depends on the murder of the sorcerers in the book. He has only stayed powerful this long because of the Light those who worship him provide. Right now, he wants to kill you because he recognizes you as a threat. But what he doesn’t know about the entries in the book is that you are, in fact, his descendent.”
I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't believe it, either. I looked at Duna, who shrugged her shoulders, and then at Tosia, whose eyes were wide.
"This can't be true," I said.
"And yet it is." This time it was Ananta who was speaking. "When Urvar came to us, he told only the dragons who resisted Torin about you and your mother. You see, while it may be possible to possess the body of a dragon, it is not possible to possess their mind. Those we trusted kept the secret, and Urvar traveled the world, letting each and every dragon know the truth. Only then did he come to the Opal Sea."
"But how do you know this?" I asked. "It's not possible, is it? How could something like that be kept a secret for so long?"
"With every generation, your ancestors have moved and changed and hidden the truth," Urvar said. "Alina knew, for I told her about the prophecy, myself. There were… things about Alina that matched the story of Torin. The fire magic, the kindness in her heart, her connection with me. And then her eyes, violet, just like yours. Just like his. Like Bevyn's and Phalen's and all the rest.
"It has been ove
r a thousand years since his queen escaped, a baby girl in her belly. Over centuries, the secret passed from mothers to daughters. But some mothers didn't survive long enough to tell their children that which they desperately needed to know. Just as Alina never had the chance to tell you.
"For a long time, Torin has been led astray, chasing down every thread, every story, searching this world for the next sorcerer in his lost book, and failing without the knowledge from it.”
Ananta stood up and backed a few paces away from me.
"Tell us what you need," she said, "and it shall be yours."
I stood dumbstruck. What I needed?
None of this was right; it couldn't be. But this was Urvar the Protector, and I had the Book of Torin in my possession. I had no reason to doubt him.
"Can you… can you come with us? To the edge of the mountains, at least?"
"We will fly above you," Ananta said.
Urvar nodded. "You can come with us if you like."
But I'd had enough flying to last me quite some time.
"Thank you, no. But I will have… questions."
"Of course."
I'd been so immersed in these revelations that I hadn't noticed Kaelin and Angus approaching. They kept far back from the dragons, waiting for my signal before coming any closer. I walked away from the dragons and up to them.
"I'm sorry about Arte," I said to Angus.
He shook his head sadly. "There is no need. I know he was unkind to you, unkind to many." His eyes rested on Duna. "But now we will begin again."
"You're staying?" I asked.
He tilted his head up and looked at the stars above.
"It has been so long since I have seen the sky over my home. I dare not leave it now."
"And what about you, Kaelin?" I asked, but I knew his answer.
"There are still hidden things in these mountains," he said, smiling. "I intend to find every last one. And you? What will you do?"
I looked at Duna, Tosia, and the dragons, and I knew my journey was just beginning.
I couldn't wait until sunrise.
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