Only Broken Things Are Free (A Pygmalion Fail Book 3)

by Casey Matthews

  I squeezed my trigger, but the rainbow gun clicked uselessly. Still stuck on the exhausted red stone, I realized. Koriana’s other hand made a nuisance gesture at me, and shadow serpents snapped around me too. I collapsed against a wall with my arms pinned to my sides, gun pressed to my thigh. Crap. Action-hero spells don’t protect too well against capture-y attacks. Cinema logic had been my undoing.

  “I, too, love someone and know what it means to defend them.” Koriana’s every word burned with a sanctimonious fury. “You’ve sniped at Dracon too long. Poisoned my daughter’s mind with your lies. Now you pay.” The energy pulsed from Ronin into her.

  “Please,” Eliandra begged. “Let her go.”

  Koriana, still absorbing Ronin’s life force, glanced sidelong at the Queen. “We can be together, darling.”

  “No you can’t!” I shouted. “Not with Dracon. Not with that sociopath.”

  “Silence.” Koriana flicked her free hand my way and the shadows choked me. I worked the rainbow gun partly free and managed to rotate the drum, but couldn’t figure out which stone it was on. That might end up sucking.

  “He’s right,” Eliandra said. “I despise Dracon and always will.”

  This terrified me, because it wasn’t the resounding “No” I had hoped for.

  “He’ll accept you as a daughter,” Koriana coaxed. “Give him time.”

  Eliandra shut her eyes. “You win. It rends me to do this. I know I’ll regret it every day of my life. But you win, Mother.”

  Koriana smiled tenderly. “Thank you.”

  Tears streamed down Eliandra’s face. “I wasn’t talking to you. I don’t even know you.” Her axe chopped Koriana’s hand off at the wrist.

  Koriana recoiled, clutching her gory stump to her chest. “Betrayer!” She leveled a devil-horns motion on her daughter with her remaining hand and Eliandra stared down the barrel of it, crying silently and waiting.

  No! Straining, I tilted the barrel of the rainbow gun up and fired, blindly relying on the luck spell.

  A gateway thumped on the ceiling, directly over Koriana.

  I can work with that. I readjusted my aim as best I could. Time slowed. The magic pumped through me. My second shot landed a gate firm on Eliandra’s torso.

  A wave of dark ribbons unspooled from Koriana’s two fingers, disappeared into the portal on her daughter’s chest, and popped out of the portal above. She rained the spell down on her own head. A crackling halo surrounded her, and in a flash of light, her flesh was gone.

  Only a smoking, green-glowing skeleton remained. The individual bones fell like Jenga blocks to the floor. The magical coils on Ronin and me dissolved and I struggled to my feet.

  Eliandra gaped, first at the wormhole attached to her chest, then the pile of bones that had, a moment ago, been her mother.

  I summoned both portals back into the teleportation stone. Ronin lay unconscious from the siphoning.

  Eliandra and I stared at one another a moment when I realized the chamber had grown dark around us. A glance at the room’s center showed me why: the magma core had cooled into sizzling black rock, extinguishing the ambient orange light in the room, such that everything was lit only by the white crystal lights in each glass casement on the terraces. Those lights were dimming too, no doubt because the magma powering everything had been drained of nearly all its energy. That was the purpose of Dracon’s altar, I realized: it had stolen the heat and magic from the Burning Vault so that Dracon could flee and reconstruct it elsewhere.

  And overtop that cooling lump of stone was the altar itself, where Dak traded sword blows with Dracon. At every clash of their magical weapons, sizzling blue sparks erupted, the glowing motes dropping to the floor and highlighting the shifting footwork of two master swordsmen. Dak used his size advantage to press Dracon with lightning strokes that came with such unrelenting rhythm that even when Dracon parried, he lost ground—and, on occasion, an ear, a finger, or even an arm. He regenerated new flesh just fast enough to stay on his feet.

  When Dracon returned a blow, it only ever missed by a hair, and I knew the luck spell protecting my friend was starting to wane.

  “I need to help Dak,” I told Eliandra. “Can you keep an eye on Ronin?”

  She was still staring at her mother’s bones. “Let me fight Dracon.”

  I hesitated. She’d tried to kill Dak only last night.

  She met my gaze. “I need to kill something.” The intensity in her voice alarmed me. “Let me kill the man who did this.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, I shot a gate into the pedestal near Dracon’s altar and another into the wall beside us. “Go.”

  Eliandra leaped through, popping out near Dracon. Her axe brightened the scene and swooped in gorgeously efficient arcs, combining with Dak’s offensive to put Dracon on the ropes.

  I snapped the portals back into my stone. The remaining orcs on my terrace rallied. I knelt by Ronin and rotated the drum to my unused blue stone: freeze ray. Through my hand, the pistol grip read my intent: Spike wall. The rainbow gun sprayed a clear stream of fluid, and ice crystals sprouted into a full-fledged wall with gleaming-sharp icicles jutting from the side facing the orcs.

  Frosty mist billowed off the barrier as the orcs starting chipping away at it with axes. At my flank, one would scale from a lower terrace now and then and I would freeze him. Others tried to get at my other side, and soon the floor nearby was littered with frozen orc statues. I dragged Ronin behind one, using it as cover against arrows, but worried about how long my wall would last—or my remaining stones hold their charge.

  Dracon cackled far below and I risked a glance. He fought Dak and Eliandra back and snatched whatever artifact from the altar he’d poured the Sky Keep’s power into—a ring, I realized, when he slipped it onto a finger. The terrace beneath my feet shuddered. Rubble vibrated on every surface. The magma core was solid, lukewarm rock and the whole mountain was crumbling.

  Dak and Eliandra attacked in tandem, an axe swing low and Dak’s blade high. Dracon blocked the axe, took a deep wound to his side, and leaped clear. Midair, enormous dragon wings sprouted from his spine. They flapped and he rose, laughing still.

  He turned his wild pug eyes on me.

  Oh shit.

  He flew straight for me, ascending with a crown of horns sprouting from his head. “Now you’ll see why I’m the dragon lord!” Flames erupted from his throat.

  Big damn wall! From my crouching position, I shot, icing a barrier between me and Dracon’s fire breath.

  A white-hot spot appeared on the ice, growing rapidly, and I narrowly dragged Ronin out of the way. The wall was reduced to a steam cloud in moments and Dracon alighted softly on the terrace directly in front of me.

  I raised my gun and he kicked it from my hands, leveling a sword point at my neck. “You filthy vandal. I’ll have to start over from scratch thanks to you. I’d relish killing you slowly, had I the time.”

  He drew back for a thrust, but the motion was exquisitely slow, the action-hero spell giving me a precious instant to think. The idea struck when I saw a swiftly regenerating wound in his side.

  I slipped the ghost stone from my pocket, pushing it between my lips just as the sword touched my chest. Its touch stung, but I was a ghost before it could pass deeper than the skin and into my aorta.

  Standing, I passed to the side so the sword wasn’t in me and spat the stone into my hand—popping into existence long enough to wipe blood from my chest and clap my palm to Dracon’s wounded side. I mouthed the stone again.

  We both ghosted. Dracon stared at me in the washed-out world of spook-land, confused. He was disoriented, but I’d used the stone before. Able to control my body better than he, I grabbed him, turned us both around, and thrust him into the stone wall.

  He gripped my shoulder, fighting for control. The heat of an obsidian ring—the one with the Sky Keep’s molten power in it—seared my skin even while ghosted. It was no use, though. Regenerate this! I released his side and wormed
from his grip, breaking contact.

  He materialized inside the wall.

  I floated back a pace and spat the stone into my palm, air pressure solidifying in my gut. I surveyed my handiwork. All I could see of Dracon was part of a foot and his opening, closing, opening right hand, fingers clutching futilely at the air. The rest of him was fused with solid rock.

  I fired another portal for Dak and Eliandra, who stepped through and stared; iSword played the opening riff to “Another One Bites the Dust,” but Dak told it to shut up. We all just stared.

  My loud fart broke the silence next.

  “Ew,” Dak said.

  “Sorry. It’s the ghost stone. Makes me gassy.”

  “Not you. This.” He motioned at what remained visible of Dracon.

  The flexing, grasping hand lost strength by the second. Dracon was still dying, I realized. Blood ran from the edges of the wrist where it fused with the stone, dripping down the wall.

  When the hand finally went limp, I felt Dak bump me with his arm. “You okay?”

  “I’m waiting to feel something. Triumph, disgust—regret, maybe.” I shook my head. “There’s nothing, though. I feel just… regular.”

  “Maybe all that comes later.”

  Eliandra groaned. “Must you gab about your every little emotion?”

  Dak pointed at her. “I have some emotions you’re going to hear about, Your Highness.”

  “You’re alive. My mo—Koriana is dead. What’s to discuss?” Eliandra snorted bitterly and touched Dracon’s dead hand. “Cooling off. At least her killer’s dead, too.”

  I glanced at my feet. Technically, the shot that ended her had come from me.

  “Stop it,” Eliandra growled at me. “Dracon ended her in every meaningful way a long time ago. Had the woman from my childhood seen what she’d become, she’d have thanked us for burying her remains.”

  “We still need an exit plan before this place falls apart or the bad guys remember us,” Dak said. Throughout the chamber thousands of orcs were crushing insects, obeying their final order—most unaware that their master’s career as overlord had, so to speak, hit a wall.

  I glanced at the Queen and she was already sprinting away. “She has the right idea.”

  “Wait,” Dak said. “Dracon had that magic ring with all the Keep’s power on his finger. It’s gone.”

  I gaped. “Eliandra!”

  She disappeared down a side corridor. Dak scooped up Ronin’s unconscious body and we pursued. When we turned the corner, Eliandra grinned back at us while fitting Dracon’s ring on her thumb. “Gentlemen. I’m retiring as Queen. Farewell.” She snapped a chain with her axe and a stone door on pulleys crashed down, cutting us off from her and the nearest exit.

  Leaving us behind with thousands of orcs.

  “Am I going to be surprised every time she screws us?” I asked.

  Dak bit his lower lip. “I might have to marry her, though.”

  An explosion ripped through the Burning Vault and a piece of roof broke free. Descending through the gaping hole was the Nell, firing from five lightning cannons at once. Thunder ripped through the air. An anchor rod lodged in a terrace full of orcs; a seed-shaped bomb skated down the anchor chain and detonated, raining rubble and powdered stone everywhere.

  “Cavalry’s here—and just in time.” Dak grinned back at me. “Your luck spell is my new favorite thing.”

  Orcs flooded our terrace afresh, spilling from corridors and scaling from levels below or dropping from those above. The Nell was descending straight for us and opening its long side-hatch, so I chambered my telekinetic stone and fired at Dak. Gently, I told the stone through the pistol grip, lifting my friend to the ramp.

  The orcs charged me and I leaped off the terrace, narrowly scraping by the outstretched fingers of the soldier at the very front. Rocket jump! I told the stone, shooting a telekinetic beam at the ground while bracing the rainbow gun in both hands.

  It launched me into the air. I overshot the ramp by twelve feet and landed in Dak’s waiting hands with a thump. He set me on the ground.

  “Get out of here now!” I shouted at Tammagan, who stood with Elsie at the ramp to cover our entrance.

  “Not without the Queen, you traitor!” She twanged an arrow into an orc far below. “Dakrith. How are you still alive?”

  “Because the Queen’s the traitor!” Dak bellowed. “She laid a mind-control whammy on Isaac and kicked me off a fucking building. She’s already found another way out. Now get us out of here before the orcs remember they’ve all got crossbows!”

  Too late. The Nell’s entrance had been loud and we had an army’s attention. Black shafts rained from terraces above, most deflecting harmlessly off crystal panes. But others flew at the open hatch, and Tammagan instinctually stepped in front of Ronin’s unconscious body to protect her. I watched in horror, trapped in action-hero slowdown, as a black bolt whizzed straight for Tammagan’s bare midriff.

  A ripple of magic made the air pop. Swirling silver lines covered every Akarri on deck, as though something big had just been summoned.

  The arrow tinked harmlessly off the darkened carapace of Tammagan’s new armor—the armor I’d drawn.

  I’d left the drawing in the Citadel. Even with the Citadel and world seed hidden, my picture was still tacked in place. With Dracon dead, I was Rune’s only remaining dreamer.

  My revision had taken effect.

  Tammagan gaped at her armor, which resonated with a skin-flush energy field that gave her face and hair a scarlet halo. “What the devil did you put me in this time, wizard?”

  Arrows boinked harmlessly off Elsie’s chest, her energy field flaring pink wherever they struck. “Don’t worry, Captain—you can still wear the bikini armor for me anytime you like.”

  Dragging Ronin to cover, I shouted, “Check the small of your back!”

  Elsie found a small handheld device. It unfurled from a compact capsule into a full-length bolt-casting rifle. Squealing with delight, Elsie fired tiny steel bolts at the orcs, nailing two before the hatch had fully closed.

  “What do you think?” I asked Dak.

  He shrugged. “A little sci-fi, but not too shabby.”

  “Jealous?”

  He gave me the puppy-dog eyes. “Insanely.”

  The Nell rose from the chamber floor and through the hole it had ripped in the ceiling. Propellers spinning at full bore, we broke for open sky.

  The last remnants of the battle played out all around us. The ice destroyer had cracked in two, its pieces strewn across the desolate Broken Valley. The dragons made for the horizon. “Why are they bugging out?” I asked. There were char marks on some of the crystal panes from dragon fire, but I saw no casualties—the dragons had been busy with the destroyer, it seemed.

  “Dracon’s magic controlled them,” Tammagan said. “Did you kill him?”

  “Pretty thoroughly, I think.”

  Beneath us, the Sky Keep crashed into the ground. A cloud rose from its impact point and swept the valley in every direction. Our ascent kept us far ahead of it.

  Tammagan braced hands to hips. “Time for you to explain. What happened to our Queen? And why is this woman dressed in Ronin’s armor?”

  Elsie darted over and threw her arms around me. “Isn’t it obvious? Grawflefox isn’t evil at all. And Ronin’s been a woman all along.” She kissed my cheek. “Thanks for the new armor, by the way.”

  “Still not sure I like it,” Tammagan groused, rolling her shoulder. “Though I suppose it moves all right.”

  Elsie turned on her. “You know, you’re never hotter than when you survive another battle unscathed.” She pounced into Tammagan’s arms, the older woman’s hands clapping reflexively around Elsie’s butt to hold her up. Elsie went to kiss her and their energy fields hummed to life, stopping her mouth a centimeter short. She glanced back at me. “Design flaw detected.”

  I smirked. “Tap the stone and tell it ‘shields off.’ ”

  Elsie gave Tammagan a smo
ldering look. “Also, I need to know how to take the armor off right the hell now.”

  Chapter Twelve: Totally Not an Epilogue

  When Ronin woke, she explained everything to Tammagan—and I mean everything. With Dracon gone, there were no more secrets. It was out: I was a dreamer, I’d created all the changes in Rune since the Cataclysm, and with my revisions to the Akarri armor, their old traditions were dead. They could all enjoy their new armor without being hanged for it.

  Dak and I stayed out of everyone’s way and played some cards on the weather deck with Elsie and Kyra. Quinny showed up now and then, and she and Dak settled into a competitive relationship, trading jabs and losing at cards to each other without ever bringing up their torrid night of boning.

  Our first day headed back toward civilization, Tammagan sat at the table with us and cleared her throat. “I want you to join our crew.”

  I heard a record-scratch in my head. “Wait—you want us on your crew?”

  “With no Queen to guard or give orders, I’ve dissolved the Akarri,” Tammagan said. “We’re taking the Nell on a journey to find Eliandra, and—if we can—convince her to retake the throne. Most of us are staying on, though a few will leave at the first port town. You can do either. Help us, or walk your own path.”

  It was tempting—flying around on a sky ship full of attractive women, having adventures. I glanced at Dak, though, and we both knew it wouldn’t work. “We’ve got our own business,” I said.

  Tammagan frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. For all our disagreements, Magister Grawflefox, your presence will be missed. May I ask where you’re going?”

  “We need to find the Citadel of Light.”

  “Isaac tried using his gate stone to get back to our own dimension last night,” Dak explained. “Somehow, Dracon’s seals on the exit portals are still active. The Citadel’s the only thing that’ll get us home. If we want to go back, we have to figure out where Cassandra hid it.”

  “If you ever need our assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask. The two of you have helped save our kingdom—perhaps our world. And,” Tammagan added to me, “you’ve given good counsel on all matters related to Elsie.”