Dragon's Awakening (Heir of Dragons: Book 1)

by Sean Fletcher

  “Edwin,” Kaylee said, suddenly thinking of something his story reminded her of. “At the Slag Heap, what did Damian mean when he said ‘what happened last time’?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Edwin said quickly. “You already know I’m a screw up at magic. You don’t need more examples to remind you of that.”

  “But what—”

  “Just forget it!” Edwin snapped. He let out an exasperated breath. He ran his fingers through his hair, as though trying to brush the memory from his mind. “Sorry. You don’t need me yelling at you again, but…

  Kaylee lay a hand on his leg. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great Merlin.”

  “Kaylee, I’ve literally screwed up almost every spell I’ve done.”

  “Maybe you’re just…creative with the spells.”

  Edwin snorted. Then he began to laugh, and then Kaylee was laughing right along with him. The mausoleum echoed with the sound until both of them flopped back on the ground, still giggling.

  “Creative, I like that,” Edwin said. “I’ll just use that next time Baba yells at me. I was taking ‘creative liberties’”

  “Just as long as you stay away from hitting any more of her sea turtles,” Kaylee warned. “You’ll notice she moved every single one of them out of the training room.”

  “Um, excuse me, but you know she did that because you kept freezing them.”

  “Did not!”

  They laughed again. Then Edwin fell strangely silent.

  “But that does remind me,” he said. “That wasn’t the only reason I wanted your help. If we want to learn anything else about the spell, if we want to know for sure what the Slayers are doing, we have to get into Baba’s secret room.”

  Kaylee sucked in a breath. “That’s the only way?”

  “Only way I can think of. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to—”

  But Kaylee shook her head. “I’ll do it. I trust you. When?”

  Edwin tilted his head, his eyes meeting hers. “Tomorrow.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It took Edwin and Kaylee exactly nineteen minutes and twenty-three seconds to annoy Baba enough to call their lesson quits for the day.

  “It’s like you’re trying to suck!” Baba fumed as one of Edwin’s spells went awry and torched off the top of the nearby recliner. “And Kaylee!” Baba pointed to the splintered ground beneath Kaylee’s bare feet. “You’re supposed to be shifting your feet to dragon scales, not ruining my foundation! This house is falling apart enough without your help!”

  “Sorry, Baba,” Kaylee said, really hoping she sounded like she was.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Edwin said, definitely not managing to sound sorry at all.

  Baba glared at both of them. “Clean up. Then do your drills. A hundred times until you can do them without disappointing me. Or disappointing everyone else in general.”

  Then she swept out, grumbling about teenagers.

  Kaylee and Edwin listened to the thump of footsteps heading upstairs, followed by a door slamming shut. Kaylee let out a relieved sigh.

  “I thought purposefully annoying her would be more fun. Not terrifying.”

  “Anything with Baba is terrifying,” Edwin said. “And it was necessary.”

  Kaylee looked behind him, to the smoldering embers that were the top of the chair. “Was that really necessary?”

  Edwin jumped as he noticed the destruction. He managed to smother the rest of the smoldering with his jacket. “I had to make it authentic. And this chair’s so ugly I think the burning’s an improvement.”

  Kaylee couldn’t argue with that.

  Edwin rushed to his backpack and removed a small spell book and charm.

  “For concentration,” he said to Kaylee’s questioning look. “I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out a way to get through the door’s charm, but I’ll need a little help.”

  “You think?”

  “Oh hush.”

  They both paused once more to listen, but upstairs was quiet. Edwin knelt in front of the door to the forbidden room. Even from behind him, Kaylee could feel a gentle trill of magic emanating off it, coursing through her bones.

  Edwin placed his hand on the door. “Now, if it explodes, I want you to run.”

  “One, why would Baba have an exploding door?”

  “Because it’s Baba—”

  “And two, if it explodes, I doubt either of us will be running anywhere ever again.”

  “Ah, right. Maybe you should back up then.”

  Kaylee planted her feet firmly in place. “Just get on with it.”

  Edwin nodded. He took a steadying breath and began chanting softly, eyes closed but flickering beneath his lashes. Kaylee noticed that he didn’t stutter like he usually did with the bigger spells. His incantations were smooth and sure. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he’d been practicing.

  A soft hum of magic grew in pitch. The wood beneath Edwin’s hand began to glow. Intricate patterns of light curled away from his fingertips, as if painted by an invisible artist’s brush.

  Edwin’s chanting grew louder. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

  Then the spell broke. The magic hum died and trickled away. The door swung inward as Edwin collapsed back against Kaylee’s legs.

  “I…didn’t think I could do it,” he panted. His face was shining. “But I did.”

  “I only doubted you twice,” Kaylee said, helping him up.

  The door had opened to the cramped room Kaylee had seen her first day with Baba. It was much smaller than Kaylee remembered. But even as she thought this the floor stretched beneath the throw rug. Wood tiles sprouted between the spaces, pushing the far wall back until they were looking at a space twice the size.

  Edwin took a hesitant step inside.

  That’s when the rug attacked.

  It reared up in front of them, growling. The entire thing appeared to be hand-knit, the fibers thick and coarse and unraveling. Its outer threads wound and snapped at them like whips. The floor beneath their feet roiled unsteadily, preparing to toss them out again.

  Kaylee pushed Edwin behind her. “My turn.” She extracted a small spray bottle from her jacket pocket and aimed it at where she guessed the rug’s face might be.

  “Back. Down.”

  The rug growled a warning. Kaylee sloshed the bottle at it.

  “You know what this is, threadbare? Your worst nightmare—liquid bleach.”

  The rug lurched back as if stung, a cat-like hiss escaping it. Kaylee advanced, still brandishing the bottle, herding it into a corner. The rug curled tighter on itself until it was just a lump of fabric.

  “Just stay there and nobody gets hurt,” Kaylee promised.

  The rug whimpered agreeably. Kaylee pocketed the bottle. Edwin blinked as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen.

  “Let’s…not tell anyone about this,” Kaylee said.

  “Easy. Nobody will believe me,” Edwin answered. He peered around, in a second forgetting the rug. His face opened into an expression of awe, and though Kaylee didn’t know a lot about magic stuff, she could understand why.

  Dozens of thick, leather-bound tomes were lined in neat rows on shelves bolted to the walls. The smell of ancient things—like the back of an antiques shop—was thick in the air, mingling with incense coming from a tray hung from the ceiling. An umbrella stand full of gnarled staffs was standing beside star charts and an overflowing box of gold and silver rings. On the table circling the room were crinkled pieces of parchment covered with random ink markings.

  “Baba’s work,” Edwin said reverently, picking one up.

  Kaylee peered over his shoulder “Looks like gibberish.”

  “It’s genius.”

  “If that’s genius then I should start scribbling like a three-year-old on all my biology tests. Maybe I’d finally get A’s.”

  Edwin returned the parchment and peered around, his eyes shining. It was clear he was greatly restraining himself from running a
round and touching every single thing in the room. “We don’t have long so let’s split up and search. We’re looking for a book of dark spells.”

  “Why would Baba have one of those?” Kaylee said.

  “Safekeeping,” Edwin said. “No matter how dangerous a magical object is, it’s better we have it than the Slayers or someone else. I’ll start with this shelf.”

  Kaylee began hefting down the thick volumes, trying not to choke on the amount of dust kicked up as she opened them. They smelled of wax and mold. The pages crackled with age.

  There were plenty of spell books, but most were merely advanced charms and conjuring, not dark at all. There was one called the Merlin’s Codex. A few were more nonsense scribblings (more genius, apparently), but one was labeled The Journal of Lesuvius. Curious, Kaylee flipped it open and began paging through it. The more she did the more her apprehension grew. The book was a diary of sorts, full of rantings and ravings of someone who clearly hated the dragon-kin with a passion that’d make Brendan’s actions look positively saint-like by comparison. Spells were written in the margins, ways to draw power from living things, ways to inflict pain and suffering.

  Disgusted, Kaylee flipped to the end, but the journal just stopped, as if the pen had been yanked from the author’s hands or something terrible had happened. To someone this nasty, Kaylee kind of hoped it had.

  “Who is this?” Kaylee said, holding the book up to Edwin. He pulled his eyes away from the magnifying glass he was using to examine a book no bigger than his thumb.

  “Lesuvius…I’ve heard my dad mention the name a couple times during his Convocation meetings but I’m not sure why.”

  The name sparked a faint memory for Kaylee. “I think I heard one of the Slayers say Lesuvius’ name the night outside Baba’s house. Didn’t they say he’d be mad if they didn’t get us or something?”

  Edwin shrugged. “Maybe he’s one of their leaders or something. Probably heading the Slayers group around Scarsdale.” He grimaced as he read some of the text. “Even if he’s not, I see he isn’t a fan of the dragon-kin. I wouldn’t worry about it, Kaylee. He’s just another nut.”

  Kaylee returned the journal to the shelf and pushed it as far back as it would go. “He sure seemed to know a lot about the dragon-kin.”

  “Mmm…” Edwin said, back with the magnifying glass. “Probably talked with some of them who are with the Slayers.”

  Kaylee froze. “Wait. There are dragon-kin working with the Slayers?”

  “Didn’t anyone mention that?”

  “Um, no.”

  Edwin sighed and tossed the little book he’d been studying aside. His pupils returned to normal size when he looked up at her. “There are some dragon-kin who think the Slayers are right, that their kind need to be controlled.”

  “But that would hurt them!”

  “Not if they’re on the winning side,” Edwin said in a placating tone. His eyes traveled over Kaylee’s shoulder. “What’s that?”

  The last thing Kaylee wanted to do was drop the subject, but Edwin’s expression had shifted to 1000% focus mode and she knew nothing short of the sun colliding with the Earth would deter him from whatever was the new subject of his gaze.

  Kaylee helped him lower an immense volume down to the center table. It was covered in blank leather. Markings were stitched on the spine and as Kaylee’s fingers dragged across them, a cold feeling crawled up her arms. A slimy, dark feeling.

  “This is it,” Edwin whispered. “Step back just a little, Kaylee. Sometimes these ancient spell books have trap charms cast by the creator.”

  Kaylee was more than happy to.

  Gently, Edwin cracked it open. Nothing happened. The book didn’t appear any different than the others, but Kaylee watched Edwin’s eyes grow wider and wider the more he flipped through.

  “I never even considered…the things they use magic for, it’s…it’s wrong and yet absolutely incredible.”

  “Let’s just find the spell we need,” Kaylee said, laying her hand on his, as much for comfort as for warmth. The temperature in the room was falling, and for once it wasn’t because of her. Their breath billowed in front of them. The rug in the corner let out a terrified whimper.

  “Here,” Edwin said, sticking his finger in a passage. “These are the ingredients they’ve been asking around for. Blood crystal, sap plant, Wargheimer shavings… It looks like it’s an absorption spell, but…” His breath caught. “No way.”

  “What does it do? Does it stop a dragon-kin’s powers?”

  “Worse. It absorbs their magic. Permanently.” His frightened eyes met hers. “They’re trying to steal all the dragon-kin’s powers. For good.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “This shouldn’t even be possible,” Edwin continued. “Absorbing another’s magic is so against the laws of nature.”

  “I feel like everything in that book is against the laws of nature,” Kaylee said.

  Edwin blinked rapidly, as though trying to purge the twisted ideas of what he was reading from his mind. His fingers shook as he drew a path down each line of ingredients.

  “Kaylee, if they manage to do this, if they manage to get all of this together to create the spell and you lose your magic—”

  “Edwin,” Kaylee said gently, growing worried by how terrified he was getting. “I’ll be okay.”

  “No, you won’t be. Without your magic, now that it’s part of you, you’ll die.”

  Kaylee returned her hand to his. “Just figure out how we can stop it. Let’s take things one step at a time.”

  Edwin stared at her for a heartbeat until Kaylee flicked her eyes at the text. He blinked again and refocused on the book.

  “Figure out how to stop it. Easy enough.” Edwin’s finger traced down the page, stopping every now and then. He continued muttering to himself. To Kaylee the noise, while usually annoying, somehow reassured her now. It meant he was completely in his element, locked in on something that wouldn’t escape him no matter how hard it tried.

  “They must have most of the supplies by now,” Edwin said in an exasperated voice a minute later. “Most are common things that almost every spell from beginning to advanced needs as a base. And the stuff that makes this spell specifically dark like the blood crystal has been out on call for weeks. I’m sure they’ve managed to find them by now too.”

  “Is there anything they might not have gotten?” Kaylee said. “If we can figure out where they need to be to get it…”

  “Then we can get it before they do,” Edwin finished. He reached the bottom of the page. “Here! The crux ingredient is a star-kissed meteorite!”

  Kaylee wrinkled her nose. “A what now?”

  “It’s a meteorite that’s landed on Earth and basked in the glow of the stars for a hundred and one days,” Edwin said in one breath. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds,” he added at Kaylee’s look of disbelief. “Merlins have been using weird stuff for spells for thousands of years. The bottled laughter of a child, the footprints from a butterfly, even nuts that were buried by a blind squirrel beneath an oak tree on a Wednesday. Always on a Wednesday.”

  He re-read the line. “I’m guessing the properties of the meteorite have some kind of relation with the Dragon Moon. They’re both tied to the stars.”

  “But then that’s good if that’s the final ingredient,” Kaylee said. “I mean, how common can a stupid star-washed—”

  “Star-kissed.”

  “—star-kissed meteorite be…Not like you can go down to the hardware store and…Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “They’re actually not terribly uncommon,” Edwin said regretfully. “Quite a few dragon-kin Convocations have them.”

  “Are you serious?” Kaylee said, throwing up her hands. “Who goes around collecting random meteorites like that?”

  “Besides stargazing enthusiasts? Merlins and dragon-kin. They can help power a lot of spells.” He tapped his finger on the page. “But I’m not sure where one would be around he
re. And even if there was one they’re usually well-guarded. Aha!”

  Edwin suddenly withdrew his tiny spell book from his pocket and jotted down a sequence of words Kaylee could barely read, not to mention pronounce.

  “Counterspell,” he explained. “Every major spell has one just in case things go wrong and you need to abort. Kind of like an emergency brake. If I’m able to do it right this may be the way we can stop it. There’s just one small catch…”

  “What’s that?” Kaylee asked, not liking the tone in his voice.

  “Counterspells only work when the spell they’re countering is currently being conjured. And they’re close-proximity use only.”

  “So if we don’t get the final ingredients to stop them, not only do we have to be close to them, we have to let them finish the spell before we can do anything?”

  “No, I have to be close to do something. The spell is against dragon-kin. You’re not going anywhere near it.”

  Kaylee huffed. “Edwin, if they’re trying to conjure something that takes away all dragon-kin powers then I doubt they’re gonna require us all in one room to do it. I’ll be in danger no matter where I am.”

  But Edwin had already tuned out, closing the dark magic spell book with a snap! of finality. The room instantly warmed again.

  “This should be enough,” Edwin said, brandishing the small notebook. “All we have to do is find the last ingredient and get it before they do. And I know just the man who might have an idea…”

  He trailed off, his eyes catching something. “Is that a…photo album?”

  It was partly buried under a mound of parchment and cup of quills, shoved back beneath the table’s shelf. Edwin pulled it out and dusted it off.

  “It is,” he said, opening it. “Of Baba.”

  A younger looking Baba, Kaylee noted. In the pictures, she couldn’t have been more than twenty. Maybe just out of college. Kaylee was shocked by the difference compared to their current mentor.

  Gone were the constant frown-lines and haggard, sagging face. The woman smiling back at them—actually smiling, not grimacing, growling, snapping, or swearing—was an entirely different person. Her cheeks were flushed and vibrant, her eyes sparkling with barely contained amusement. On either side of her were undoubtedly her parents, their arms wrapped lovingly over each shoulder. Right in front of them, grinning liked she’d won the lottery, was another young woman close to Baba’s age.