Blue Fire

by Amity Thompson

  “I love you, Jerroth,” Tressa said with a voice of honey. “I want the world to see what I see, a man strong and righteous, who is willing to do what is necessary for Drageria and for me. Do not let her take you from me.”

  Jerroth’s fire took on a strange sheen. It shifted once more my way. Panic ran down my spine as the columns shifted again. Over half my defense had been consumed. Tressa raised her hand and a globe dripping red sparks appeared above her palm. Perfect red lips blew me a kiss.

  Shamino appeared in the foyer’s doorway behind Jerroth and Tressa.

  As soon as I saw Shamino, my flames shook. Tressa laughed and threw the red sparks. Somehow Shamino took everything in; the spells, Tressa’s hand on Jerroth, my panic.

  He lowered his shoulder and slammed into Tressa’s back.

  Her grip on Jerroth broke as she hurtled forward. Red, blue, and black magics swirled together, the colors refusing to mix. Tressa fell into the center. I cast the strongest shield I could, flame and air and magic, and I flung it across the room over Shamino. I made one for me just as the spells exploded.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I woke bruised and splayed on the floor. My head buzzed, and my vision swam with color. I blinked, pushing myself up, and a tiny part of me noticed with happiness that my shoulder was working again. I blinked some more.

  Black soot coated the floor an arm’s-length from me. Most of the furniture had disappeared, and two walls were black. The decorations, gone. Across the room, Shamino stirred. Beside him, an unconscious Jerroth. Tressa—

  I vomited the moment I saw her. I heard Shamino doing the same.

  Tressa was dead. She was worse than dead. Her golden hair had burned to black stubble. Porcelain skin had oozed like wax and pooled on the floor. The contour of her bones jutted through the melted slag, and charred ruby lips were frozen in shocked horror.

  “First One,” Shamino said. He sounded as if he might vomit again, and my stomach quivered. “She didn’t deserve that.”

  Disappointment and ambition had twisted my once-friend into my greatest enemy. I had no doubt that she had intended to kill me. But Shamino was right. No one deserved to die like that.

  Shamino pulled a half-charred tapestry off the wall. He covered the body. I shivered as fabric sank over a not-quite-human shape.

  “Jerroth?” I asked.

  The man was still unconscious. He must not have shielded himself from the backlash of magic in time. The dagger jutted from his stomach, the blood around the blade sticky. Shamino felt for a pulse and pulled back Jerroth’s eyelids.

  “Is he alive?” I asked.

  “He’s breathing. Pulse weak, but not dangerously so.” Shamino examined the wound. “If he were a dragon, I’d say the dagger didn’t hit anything vital. I think he’ll recover?”

  I shook my head. “No. He loved her; he’ll never recover. Tressa was using her Gift on him when she died, too. I don’t know what that’ll do to him.”

  Shamino stood, and our gazes met. I knew so much from a single glance. He’d been sleeping poorly, he’d used magic earlier, the death he’d just witnessed disturbed him more than anything ever had. But I couldn’t tell how he felt about me, the deceiver.

  Thorkel’s daughter.

  Part of me couldn’t believe he was even there. “How did you get past Thorkel’s mages?”

  “Paige. She Illusioned us to look like the wall, and we snuck past…” Shamino ran a hand through his hair. “Raul told me—I had to come before—Adara, I’m sorry, I still love you—”

  That was all I needed. I stepped over Jerroth and kissed Shamino, hard.

  It wasn’t like our first kiss—slow and scared and tender. Our lips crashed into each other, hungry and desperate. In the back of our minds we both knew I could die before sunrise.

  Something heavy slipped onto my thumb. I broke the kiss and looked down. A thick gold ring with a silver tower on its face, the night sky glittering with sapphires and diamonds. The house of Evenspire’s signet ring.

  “I need that back.” Shamino brushed my cheek with his fingers as he removed the dagger from his waist. “This, too. The dagger was Mother’s, and the ring—it’s just for now. I’d like to make you one that fits.”

  I couldn’t speak. Apparently, I could just sniffle like a fluffbrain. I kissed him again.

  He pushed the sheath to my chest as the kiss ended. “Hurry. Merram needs you. I’ll stay with Jerroth.”

  “If he wakes—”

  “I have my sword,” Shamino said. For the first time, I noticed the scabbard at his hip. “I can even manage an offensive spell if I have to. Now go.”

  “I love you,” I said. The kiss had said so, but I needed to say it aloud, and I prayed to the First One that it wasn’t the last time. I blinked back tears, turned, and prepared myself to face my father.

  Chapter Forty

  I found them in the dragon cave.

  The air vibrated with magic. The cave looked like Merram’s dragon had once entertained frequently, but now most of the furniture smoldered or formed strange pools on the floor. Gaping holes spotted the wall hangings. Only the great double doors were whole, and even they bore scars. The two men in the center of the cave flung spells with single-minded intensity. I couldn’t even follow the magic. Fire, lightning, water, ice. Spheres of energy, invisible blows. The air flashed red and black—the rings on Thorkel’s right hand blazed.

  I am an ox-brained fool. I sagged against the doorway. The battle waged, and I wanted to run back to Shamino’s arms.

  As I despaired, though, one thing became obvious.

  Conserve your Gift, Zoland had told me over and over. One of the best strategies is to deplete your opponent. When he is tired, that’s when you go for the final blow.

  Merram had to know the strategy. He did not know about the gemstones’ abilities—I’d kept it from him. The black mage flung spells slower than the red; he breathed heavily and his movements were jerky. They’d been fighting for a long time, and my Dragonmaster was nearing the end of his Gift.

  I don’t need to fight. I just need one perfectly placed spell. A ball of fire, perhaps, from behind. If Thorkel survived it, his concentration would still be broken. It’d be enough for Merram to finish the fight.

  I slid a step toward the side of the room. Another. I took care to avoid the smoking slag of furniture. Care to stay fluid, slow, lest I draw Thorkel’s attention.

  Almost there. Merram’s gaze flickered my way. His mouth thinned and he flung spells with renewed fervor. He’d seen me, and he knew the end was near.

  Maybe Thorkel saw that energy and knew what it meant. Maybe he heard me breathing, maybe I had brushed against an unseen spell. One minute my Gift swirled in hot, orange flames before me; the next minute, red flashed, a man fell, and Thorkel neatly blocked the fireball before it engulfed him.

  “The Kyer has taught you such bad manners,” Thorkel said with my grin on his face. “Attacking me from behind. Not nice at all.”

  I’d failed. Merram’s body didn’t move. The magic in the air, gone. “You killed him.”

  Thorkel only laughed. “A fool the world will not miss. Merram was a charismatic speaker, but he was never a visionary. He was never brilliant. I was the intelligent one. I saw the potential in the Kyer.”

  His words angered me. “Potential? Is that what you call using your dragons to slaughter defenseless commoners?”

  Thorkel made a dismissive gesture. “The dragons of Carthesia are, shall we say, a little temperamental. They are the descendants of those brave enough to challenge their elders, and for that they were exiled. If they have a bit of anger to work out…”

  I gaped. “So you just let them run rampant? I grew up with those people! My foster mother, my old friends, children—you killed them without a single thought, and you don’t regret their deaths at all.”

  Calculated repentance swept across his face. “You are right. Bitterness has clouded my judgment. That is why I need you, Adara, by my side
.”

  The smallest movement behind Thorkel caught my eye: Merram’s chest. If I kept Thorkel talking, Merram would recover to help me.

  “You are so like your mother,” Thorkel murmured. He closed the distance between us, his hand held high as if he could caress my cheek from afar. “I’ve followed your progress at the Kyer—your power is breathtaking. I cannot wait to see what you will achieve with my guidance.”

  The words escaped before I could stop them. “I don’t want your guidance.”

  His smile tightened. “You will.”

  The ground trembled so violently I fell to my knees. “What are you doing?”

  “I love earth spells,” he said. “Difficult to do in the desert, you know, with the shifting sands. But here?”

  The ground trembled again. The gems on his hands glittered, and spikes rose from the floor and surrounded me.

  “A cage,” I said. To my shock, I felt amused. “You think that, after all you’ve done, I’ll join you?”

  “Many daughters are not happy with their fathers,” he said. “Fortunately, I will settle for obedience and respect.”

  I did a quick check—Merram still breathed, but his eyes stayed closed. I put a hand on an earthen spike. Shamino’s ring tapped against it. How many gemstones were in that single ring? If I—

  “Do not ignore me!” Thorkel suddenly erupted. Quick strides brought him to my cage. “I am not a monster, Adara. Carthesia was a seething mass of chaos, locked in a cycle of self-destruction. I united them, I gave them purpose, I saved the dragons from insanity in the desert.”

  “Gave them the purpose of killing us,” I said. Cautiously I slipped my Gift into the rock… crystals. “Drageria doesn’t need saving.”

  “I’m offering you the world,” Thorkel hissed. “With your Gift and my brilliance, we will be unstoppable.”

  The walls aren’t all the same, Orrik had told me on my very first day at the Kyer. The crystals in the rock, small and almost unnoticeable, added variety to the rooms and corridors. Even beauty, if you looked.

  “I don’t want a world of fear,” I said quietly. “And I refuse to forget the dead.”

  “Then be the silk that sheathes my blade,” Thorkel said. He reached through the spikes to caress my cheek. I recoiled, but I couldn’t get away. “Krysta didn’t save me, but you can. Stay at my side, soft and kind.”

  My skin crawled with his every touch. The rings glittered on his fingers.

  Merram isn’t going to rescue me.

  “The problem with you, Father, is that your thinking is too limited.”

  He chuckled. “Tell me, Adara, what have I overlooked?”

  “You’re a noble.” I attempted a smile. Slowly, I slid Shamino’s dagger from my hip. “You grew up with magic, and that has narrowed your perspective.”

  Thorkel’s fingers left my cheek and ran along my jaw. His grin turned my stomach. Of course he’d twist my words.

  “I, on the other hand, grew up without magic,” I continued. “I see possibilities you do not.”

  I turned my head.

  I kissed his fingertip.

  I cut off his hand.

  It was easier than hacking off a dragon’s wing. Thorkel screamed and bent over the spurting stump. I grabbed a spike with my ringed hand. My Gift filled the gems, and I pushed it out all at once, a single beam filling a thread of crystal inside the spike. Rock exploded outward and punctured Thorkel in a dozen places.

  Never assume you’ve defeated the enemy. Always be on the defensive. I raised a shield and began to strengthen it against fire, lightning—everything.

  Thorkel laughed as he knotted a sleeve over the stump. Blood soaked it instantly and dripped. He pushed his good hand to the floor. “You have much to learn. Sadly, you’ll never reach your full potential.”

  The cavern began to shudder and cracks spidered across the floor. Bits of rock fell from the ceiling. I expanded my shield to cover me from above just in time to block a rock the size of my head. I formed a similar shield over Merram’s body. “What are you doing? You’ll kill us both!”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Thorkel said. “I do know my dragons will dig me out while yours, well, they’re mostly dead.”

  I threw a fireball—flames flowed over an invisible shield. I tried another spell, and another, but no good. The earthquake rumbled on.

  I have to stop that spell. I knelt and pressed my hands to the floor. Zoland had never taught me earth spells—he’d always assumed I’d fight in Carthesia’s desert. I sent my Gift far, using it as another sense, and prayed I’d find some inspiration.

  There. That’s Thorkel’s Gift. His magic sought tiny weaknesses in the rock, expanding them. That was how he created the earthquake. I tried shoving his magic away, but I didn’t understand the spell enough to be effective. Come on, think! Zoland would say to try a new strategy—I’m good at fire. How can I use heat?

  Heat.

  As if from a dream, I heard Sylvia on my first day of class: the dragons chose these four mountains for their hot springs. The Kyer’s heart was heat. If I could—

  A crack opened under me, thrusting half the ground upward. I lost brief control of the shields— a rock struck the same arm that Jerroth had hit earlier. Pain flashed, followed by… nothing. I couldn’t move my fingers.

  Part of the cavern collapsed.

  Hurry, hurry, hurry. I ignored my hand and thrust my senses down… down… heat called to me, sang into my heart. I used the crystals in the rock to extend my reach and… there, not too far under the hot springs, I found it: molten rock.

  I pulled, dragging lava up the spidery crystal paths. Rock oozed—it gathered speed as it found Thorkel’s cracks. I nudged it, just a little to the right…

  Thorkel’s eyes widened. “What are you—”

  Lava burst through the ground under his hand.

  I watched, detached, as a fountain of glowing orange swallowed the shrieking man. The quaking ceased. The last bits of rock trickled from the ceiling.

  Hand still pressed to the ground, I used the crystals between the fountain and me to take hold of the lava’s heat. With a single, focused burst I shoved the heat upward and out.

  With a roar that made dragons sound meek, the air rushed out. The thick double doors incinerated. Behind the wave of superheated air, the lava fountain instantly hardened into crystallized rock. Terrible, beautiful. It only vaguely resembled a man.

  I removed my hand from the floor. “I… did it.”

  Cool night air felt freezing after so much heat. A tendril of hair floated and stuck to my sweaty face. I tried to wipe it away, but my left hand wouldn’t move. I couldn’t even raise it.

  “But I did it,” I whispered to the lifeless hand. It was over. Across the cave, Merram still breathed. A half laugh, half sob caught in my throat.

  *It’s over!* I called to Mettalise. The bond was still there, so she still lived, but I didn’t know if she heard me. I didn’t care. *Thorkel’s dead!*

  That’s when the blood-red dragon landed on the platform.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Thorkel’s dragon barreled toward me. I dodged, but I tripped on the battered cavern floor. He didn’t bother with flame—a mage who had defeated his bonded would be prepared for that. Instead his nose scraped me off the ground and he hurled me through the air.

  When I was thirteen, an ox startled by lightning had tossed me over a field. Back then, I’d landed on soft, tilled earth. I’d been bruised where the ox hit me, but I had lived.

  Thorkel’s dragon struck with rage. My body smashed into the cave wall. Black sparkles filled my vision, but I didn’t pass out.

  I couldn’t move, either. I couldn’t think. Pain heated my every muscle, and I might have thrown up. The sparkles began to fade, and I saw the dragon drawing closer.

  *Mettalise.* Did I call for her? How did telepathy work? It didn’t matter. The dragon was bending over me. Zoland, he said… The first step in fighting a dragon is to run. Let your bonded fight.


  I started to laugh. The dragon’s eyeridges lowered. A blur of motion—the tail smashed into the wall right above my head. Rock fragments dusted my face. I laughed harder when I realized that I could itch while in excruciating pain.

  That must have really angered him, because he extended a single claw. Slowly the dragon stabbed my good shoulder and dragged it through my flesh. I screamed in agony.

  Don’t let him kill you. Was that my thought? Mettalise speaking to me? I really wanted to pass out. Adara, fight back.

  The command tore through the pain. The dragon withdrew his claw and I did the first thing I thought of. I flung myself at his snout.

  The dragon reared, and I discovered vital flaws in my non-plan. My left arm, the battered one, didn’t obey. It flopped uselessly against the dragon’s snout. The other arm, the dragon had mauled. The pain from trying to hold on made me gasp. I was falling…

  Did I pass out this time? No? Pigshit. I stared at the dragon chuckling above me. The dagger trick. I can do the dagger trick again. My Gift only affected the dagger, the dragon’s magic barrier wouldn’t stop it, and if I aimed for an eye—

  No dagger. It lay in a pool of blood beside Thorkel’s severed hand.

  The dragon stopped chuckling. His shoulders relaxed, his tail flicked. Maolmuire behaved the same way when he held someone in contempt.

  The crimson dragon was done with playing. I closed my eyes. First One— What did one say in one’s dying moment? My ears rang so loudly it was difficult to think. First One, help Shamino find happiness… I faltered. My last moment was taking a long time. I opened my eyes.

  No dragon loomed over me. I turned my head to the side.

  Mettalise. Silver and red circled each other, teeth bared in silent snarls. Mettalise’s left wing dragged on the ground, the strips of flesh painting bloody lines on the floor. The red dragon already bore wounds along his back. He hissed with fury.

  Mettalise’s haunches tensed. The enemy’s tensed as well. Mettalise feinted a tackle and lashed with her tail.