by Amy Bearce
“Impressive, Nellwyn. But you’ve never been as skilled with two weapons as with one.”
She reeled at the implications of his statement. He knew her. Knew her personally?
He spun the swords so they whirled in circles, becoming one continual slicing blade. She pulled her dagger from her sheath, struggling to keep up. She cursed the decision to not bring her second sword, but he was right. She’d always favored fighting with a single sword over two.
Clang, clang, clang.
His swords kept knocking her blades away. She was going to lose. Again.
The knowledge shook her.
“Why not just submit now? Is being dead really better than ruling at my side?” the Dragon said, his voice gruff with anger.
“You have a funny way of trying to recruit people. Destroying my home. Trying to kill me. And if you use up Aluvia’s magic, you’ll kill us all,” she shouted.
Their swords met overhead, and she pushed back as hard as she could. They held there, two warriors locked in combat.
The glint of his eyes shone through the mask, so close to her face. He whispered to her, “I saw your family flee your home before I had my dragon strike. I didn’t kill them. No, I want to save us all, with your help. Don’t you see? Any war brings causalities, but the world isn’t balanced―we all suffer without the magic we’re due.”
She couldn’t process what he was saying, not now. He lunged at her. She blocked, but he struck again.
“You’ve taught people we’re servants of magical creatures,” he said. “That we owe them protection. It’s so, so wrong. Come with me now, and we can lead this world. Dragons, fauns, fairies, merfolk, and more―they’ll all respect and serve humans as they should. Together, we’d be welcomed as rulers, and lives would be saved.”
She shoved hard, and her dagger slipped.
He spun. With a quick twist of his wrist at the last second, he sent her dagger flying. It fell to the ground with a clatter. She’d only seen one person do that maneuver.
Her eyes snapped up to the man, searching his mostly-hidden face, his body, for clues. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Her distraction cost her.
He reversed his grip, and the pommel of his second sword came up hard under her chin. She tasted blood and saw stars, slamming onto her back. Her breath left in a whoosh, and she felt pinned down by a thousand daggers. Her hand barely held onto her sword, but he walked over and stepped on the blade.
“Come on, Nellwyn. Weren’t you going to save these poor people with the strength of your sword arm?”
Faces swam in front of her eyes. The crowd had gone quiet. She’d expected jeers, but she only heard the rustling sound of dragon wings in the sky. She turned her head and caught Corbin’s horrified expression, Micah holding him back. Sierra stood nearby, shocked.
Blood dripped from Nell’s mouth. Pooled on her shoulder. She wiped her face with one sleeve and growled. But she couldn’t force herself to sit up. Her head was ringing.
The Dragon’s masked face loomed over her, growing nearer until it filled her vision. His strip of white hair fell past his mask, and his eyes glowed with a sinister light.
“Kill me now, then,” Nell said, and she spat blood to the ground. Hopefully Corbin and her friends had the good sense to run. Someone had to find that sword.
He laughed, a low, cruel sound. “Killing you would be like melting down a perfectly balanced sword because your enemy once held it. You and I, Nellwyn, we’re meant to fly. The sky has no limit for us. Don’t you feel it?”
“The name’s Nell, and what I feel is you’re crazy.” She gritted out the words through the fiery ache along her jawbone.
His next words came so softly she barely heard them. “I’ve been watching you a long time. I knew you’d be powerful, though not even I guessed how closely our paths would dovetail. We’re the same, you and I.”
He knelt and lifted her to a sitting position. The world spun until colors resolved again into shapes. He was so close she could pick out the intricate carving along his mask, the careful dye work.
“We aren’t the same at all.” Nell shook off his touch and swallowed more blood, salty and metallic. She tried to stand, but her body refused. At least her voice wasn’t shaking. “Why don’t you show me who you are, if you want me to join you.”
“Don’t you know me yet, girl?”
She’d been disarmed like that before, by her weapons trainer, Shane McConnel. But Shane died, she thought groggily. Murdered by Jack and Bentwood. And Shane wouldn’t have white hair. Or magic.
Especially not evil magic. He’d never be like this man.
The unknown man leaned even closer, the scent of leather mixed with something both sweet and sour rolling off him. “No matter. The point is I know you’re a worthy warrior to join me, with or without the sword you seek.”
“You already know where the sword is?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll never find it in time.”
He turned and faced the crowd, sword extended high. He raised his voice so loud it echoed in the square. “The creatures in the frozen continent listen to my commands, as all magical creatures should. Without someone leading them, they’re no better than wild monsters.”
He gestured at his scarred neck. The scar’s center was white and jagged, but skin puckered around the long red seam of it. Pity pushed at her fear. She recognized the sheer amount of pain represented by a scar like that.
Struggling to her knees, Nell left her sword behind. His strength was incredible. She was lucky he hadn’t broken her jaw.
She was going to die right here.
No. The word was clear in her mind. It wasn’t the prophetic voice speaking in her mind, though. It was just herself, Nell, refusing to die.
A tiny knife could still pierce a heart. She only needed the strength of her right arm for this maneuver.
Nell slid her hand smoothly to her boot and palmed the tiny knife she kept hidden there. Ignoring the pain, she stood and shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, waiting for an opening.
He turned back to her with an eyebrow raised. She glared at him, raising her chin high.
“That’s my girl,” he said, and she snarled.
She was nobody’s girl.
Then the familiar tightening of her throat cut into her concentration.
Not now! Not now! she screamed to the voice.
Usually, being taken over by the voice felt like being pushed underwater, but not this time. Her vision didn’t waver at all. A strange taste touched her tongue, like heartbreak in winter.
The crowd froze. Even the Dragon paused, eyes widening behind the mask.
“People of Aluvia, remember this moment. Salvation can be regained, but suffering will now be had in equal measure first. The sword must open the sky with fire to defeat the icy death of the enemy.” The words rang clear but held worlds of sorrow that broke Nell’s heart.
“What power! I must have it,” he murmured, staring at her eyes, which she knew must be pitch black. The voice’s power slid from her awareness and left her fully herself, fully angry. Grief always made her mad.
She couldn’t let him win. Wouldn’t.
Nell steadied the thin, hand-sized knife. He might kill her, but she’d take him down with her.
She flung herself at him, two steps, three, a blur of motion.
Her arm felt unsteady, but she stabbed him as hard as she could. The knife slide into his chest, too high for the heart, and she cursed at herself for missing her target.
She shoved hard anyway, hoping to hit an artery. Blood poured down his chest, covering her palm. The people shrieked, stumbled backward.
“Nell!” she heard Corbin cry. But he was too far away, trapped in the crowd.
The Dragon sucked in his breath but smiled. Her stomach twisted.
He chuckled, staring down at her from his full height, not even hunched over from pain, blood dripping down his body. “A warrior queen, that’s what you are.”
She stared at his blood coating her hand. She may have missed his heart, but she’d struck a solid blow. Perhaps he had some sort of magical strength, the way fairies were tougher than their size suggested. As if she needed the scales tipped any further against her.
Dragon bellows filled her ears, drowning out the crowd. Their roars shook the ground. He wouldn’t hold those beasts back once she went down.
A dragon landed in the courtyard with a rippling thud that sent people screaming into the safety of the buildings. His dragon, the biggest of the blues, coiled up like a spring to fit in the remaining courtyard behind his master. The man didn’t flinch.
He grabbed her wrist and sliced a thin line along her palm with the black edge of his sword. Blood dripped down her fingers, and roaring filled her ears, followed by pain like she’d never known.
iquid fire ran up her arm. Nell screamed and fell back to the ground. The black stuff on his blade had to be poison. Was she dying? She almost wished she was. This made Jack’s beatings feel like a loving caress. She struggled to catch her breath. Loose rocks in the courtyard dug into her back.
The Dragon leaned over her, his mad, wild eyes showing through the mask. “We are alike, touched by magic. You don’t really want the power, I know. I’ll take the burden from you.” He stood and held his hands over her as a cold traveler might warm their hands against a fire. His eyelids drifted half-shut, his fingers questing in the air until he clenched his hands into fists above her prone body.
Pain ripped through her again, a sword edge slicing at her very essence.
The voice inside Nell shrieked, a chorus of voices breaking at once. He’s taking your magic, taking our strength! Don’t let us go, Nell. Fight his power!
Nell gasped, clutching at her chest, back arching as he raised his hands higher. It felt like her limbs were being torn from her body. Her sight warped as she stared at the blue sky above, trying to breathe. Corbin and Sierra’s voices, shouting threats and curses, drew nearer, but not close enough. Nell’s awareness of them slid away.
Something was unspooling inside her, the glowing magic that had dwelled within since the fairies infused her with it. The magic that somehow sustained the prophetic voice.
Wind spun up around them, blowing hard. Fire and ice coursed through her veins, smashing into each other, warring for control. Her hands clenched. The battle inside her was the hoof beats of a thousand horses thundering through her, the rushing of a million wings sending her high into the sky, surrounded by air, by mist, by light, by pure energy.
Hot, cold, hot, cold… Her lips chattered, and she burned as if with fever.
He leaned down and said, “My elixir traps your power while allowing mine to absorb it. It’s my best creation, a powerful potion like no other. It’s easier on you if you give in to it.”
She gasped, struggling to contain the surging power rocketing through her. “You can’t take this magic. It’s not for you.”
“We’ll see,” he murmured, flexing his hands over her like a puppet master pulling on invisible strings.
She screamed again. When the sharpest pain eased, she panted and turned her gaze to the blue dragon behind them, who seemed, perhaps, solemn? Sad?
The man followed her wide-eyed gaze and glanced past his shoulder. “He remembers how it feels, I imagine, to have his magic taken. His fire burns inside me now, just like with all my dragons. They do what I ask and give me power. So much power.”
He flexed his hands, tightening into fists again. She lost all breath from the pain.
Knives were stabbing her heart, she was sure. The voice inside her wailed.
We can’t stop him, it cried. He’s placed us in a web, a trap…The voice grew fainter. He’s locking us away from you, Nell… separating you from your magic…
The world continued to shudder and buck as Nell fought the theft, the loss of the voice. She shivered as cold ripped through her again.
Let us help… the voice urged. His power is like yours, but wrong, too cold to be safe…We can hide in your heart and protect you there, keep your magic from him until you can reach the Tree and be healed.
“Give it time, Nellwyn,” he said.
Nell fought to listen to both voices.
“You might be able to keep me out for now, but not for long. My elixir will strip you bare soon enough, and you’ll come to me.”
“Stop it! Leave me be!” she screamed, focusing on all the magic she’d ever touched.
The dragon behind the man threw up its head and wings as if it had been stung. It lurched back, away from her, out of her darkening vision. She heard a dragon roar, a flurry of feet, a clatter.
“Look at her eyes! They’ve gone black,” she heard someone say. Sierra?
Then someone was dragging her, her back scraping hard against the stone ground, but she couldn’t stop to see or think. She could only feel, and she wished she couldn’t. This was far worse than the fairy swarm.
Quick, Nell! We are almost too weak to help. Open your heart to us.
“What do you mean?” Nell cried aloud. Her will to fight was fading. She was plummeting into unconsciousness. This time, she might not wake up.
You didn’t want this, it’s true, but if you don’t fully accept us into your heart, you’ll die. Our legacy will die, too, along with Aluvia’s magic. Our world will sink into an ice age it might never recover from. We need you, Nell. The fairies chose you; we chose you.
Why? she wanted to cry. This hurt too much. Wind whipped through her along with the Dragon’s evil magic, freezing her, killing her. She was powerless to stop it.
Because you’re a fighter, a warrior.
Who are you? Nell had to know.
There’s no time. His magic is twisted and will corrupt anything it touches. He won’t be able to steal your magic―yet―but he could turn it to darkness―turn you to darkness. We’ll protect you as best we can. Let us into your whole heart, Nell. Now!
Fine, she said. She couldn’t even remember why she had once resisted the voice at all. Nothing mattered now. Take whatever you need. I give you my life. I accept you fully and forever.
And warmth filled her like a tide, gentle but strong. It slowed her descent into darkness, lifted her until she was drifting among clouds on a summer day full of light. The warmth soothed the freezing places, even healed her jaw, her knees, and her back. But his poison was still there, one icy knot beneath her heart not even the voice could undo. It burned in its coldness.
It’s the best we can do. The source of his magic is the most mercurial of all magics, easily corrupted, and the first lost to our world long, long ago. Be warned―you don’t have much time to find healing. We can’t fight off his poison forever. Find the Tree at the summit of the icy lands. Follow the map. You’ll have to be strong, our child. But you are. You can survive this.
The voice was fading now. A mere whisper, growing softer and softer still, as if locking itself behind a closed door. The door was almost shut. Soon, it would be gone.
Who are you? she asked again while the sky swam around her.
A series of images flooded her mind in response:
Women in red cloaks lifting hands toward a tree that touched the clouds.
A group of women living separate from the world, living in a unified purpose and study.
Each leader among them binding herself to a sword that blazed with orange and red flames, one woman after another through generations.
The sword forever holding some part of the soul of each woman who wielded it.
The fiery sword of Aluvia.
We are the ones who have lived years beyond measure, giving up all to mend and tend Aluvia’s magic.
Nell fought to remain conscious. Why did you give up so much for our world?
We chose to.
But why?
We are the guardians.
The blackness overtook her.
“Forget this temple. Let’s get her in the sea! Now!”
Nell awoke t
o Corbin’s voice. He sounded unlike himself: demanding, angry, insistent.
“She’s still unconscious, even after Micah poured magic into her! I don’t think even mer-magic could keep her from drowning.” That was Sierra. Angry, too. Why?
“The people will break in here any moment. The dragons may be gone for now, but the villagers made their allegiance known.”
“I think they regret their choice.” Micah’s voice came from farther away. “Did you not see the old woman and her husband crying at the end?”
“I couldn’t see anything but Nell,” Corbin said.
There was such pain in his voice. She sucked in a breath, and the others exclaimed, their presence surrounding her.
“Nell, we really don’t want to relive the fairy swarm black-out. We don’t have time,” Sierra said, strained teasing in her words.
Nell forced her eyes open and focused on Corbin’s relieved face. Tear tracks stained his cheeks.
“Hey, I’m okay,” she whispered, tracing the paths of his tears with shaking fingers.
“I’m not,” he said. “I nearly lost you. Don’t ever do that again!”
His voice was rough, and she wanted to close her eyes against his audible pain. He’d shed tears for her.
Nell tried to think past the fog in her mind. “I remember he was winning. But what happened? Why aren’t I dead?”
Micah said, “When you told the Dragon to stop, it seemed his servant dragon felt your command. It fought its master long enough for us to drag you away during the man’s struggles to control the beast.”
“We used the chaos to hide in the temple.” Sierra picked up the story. “Micah tried to counter the poison with magic. It helped but didn’t seem to work completely.”
Micah shook his head. “It was all I could do.”
Those words sounded familiar for some reason.
“And now?”
“Now we have to go,” Corbin answered. “It sounded like the dragons flew away. This is our best time to leave, before the villagers or the dragons come back. Phoebe and the merfolk are waiting for us. Can you travel?” He touched her face softly.