by N. M. Howell
Return of the Dragonborn
The Complete Trilogy
N.M. Howell
Dungeon Media Corp.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.
Copyright © 2017 Dungeon Media Corp.
All rights reserved.
Contents
Marked by Dragon’s Blood
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Fueled by Dragon’s Fire
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Called by Dragon’s Song
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Also By N.M. Howell
About the Author
Marked by Dragon’s Blood
Prologue
Hightowyr. It was once the greatest city in the western-most reaches of the province of Noelle, in the great land of Shaeyara, and was ruled by a powerful royal lineage. The streets of that ancient city were bursting with sorcerers and sorceresses, all dedicating their lives and resources to innovation, knowledge, and the perpetual ascension of magical might. But the city fell. And almost all of the great magical minds who survived, fled to the far side of the continent. That magnificent royal lineage became a byword and a whisper. For centuries, the city languished in ruin and darkness.
As the land lay wasted and devastated, collapsing on itself, the rest of Noelle flourished. Great cities like Taline to the north and Thabes in the True Isles, rose up from the earth and became beacons of knowledge, power, and beauty. Eventually, the few sorcerers who had remained in Hightowyr grew jealous and angry. In the five hundred years they had managed to stay alive in the ruins of the city, only that envy and hatred was powerful enough to cause them to shed their weariness. They began searching for ways to bring the people back, to encourage the greatest magical beings to return to the city and help rebuild, but the sins and the destruction of the past had not been forgotten. No one would come.
Riddled by their own failure and their endless rage, these seven men and women made a pact and a sacrifice. They each tasked their families to build a university; for these seven had been among the most brilliant of that lost time and had passed all their knowledge to their families. It was meant to be the greatest university in Noelle. No matter what happened, regardless of forces acting upon the city or time ravaging the earth, their descendants were to watch over that institution and seek, above all, to be the most prestigious and powerful.
As for the seven themselves, they vowed to use every ounce of their considerable magic to rebuild as much of the city as they could. And for one year, they did. For one year, they worked tirelessly to clear the rubble and strengthen the foundation. For one year, they touched the ground, drawing the stains of dark magic from the earth. For one year, they pulled on every bit of magic in their bodies, even the core spirit centers of their souls. But it was too much. By the end of the year, they each fell sick and, shortly after, wasted away.
True to their word, their families established the University. They created it in the gargantuan black marble husk of the ancient mint and the many annexes once used by the royal government. They began to invite new students. At first, only the poor came, as the wealthy and the truly brilliant went to the beautiful, inveterate universities across Noelle. But as the years passed and word spread of the potential of the Hightowyr University, more people came. Hundreds. Then thousands. The University gained wealth, prestige, and professors who were known the world over. The time came when the past was too distant to have its name in the present, and so the city and the University were renamed.
Arvall City began.
Today, one thousand years after the fall of Hightowyr, Arvall City is the greatest urban center in all of Noelle. Perhaps even in all of Shaeyara. Taline is the closest rival, but that wonderful city has been plagued by terrorist attacks for eighteen years. Arvall City built itself on the ruins of Hightowyr, its infrastructure rising in tandem with the ruins in some places and covering the old stone completely in others. While Hightowyr was stone and mortar, Arvall City is made of glass and steel, its buildings rising hundreds of feet in the air and catching the sun to make it a city of light and promise and might. At the south end of the city, the buildings have been built right into the mountainside. The mountain is Brie, and even after its hard trials and the Great Erosion of the Third Cycle, it is still the tallest mountain in the world. No one knows for sure how tall it is, but its peak pierces the atmosphere, and soars even taller still.
The University sits high upon the mountainside, even higher than the buildings, and sprawls across the vast bowl that was made in the mountain in a time before memory. From the other side of the city, the University looks like some great, dark specter, menacing Arvall from its perch. Bordering the city to the east is the beginning of the String Fields, and to the west is the Spider Sea. To the north are a smattering of small towns and hamlets, one of which is Michaelson, where a powerful sorceress named Andie was riding the train, heading to Arvall City.
It was the two hundred eleventh day of the Ninth Cycle of the First Age. So it began.
Chapter One
She was flying. No, not just flying, but soaring high above the gol
d and rolling fields of Michaelson. Not too slow or too fast, but at that perfect speed that allowed her to feel exhilarated, while still giving her the presence of mind to see and feel and need her surroundings. Soon, she left Michaelson behind and was so high that she couldn’t follow her shadow on the ground. The farther she was from home, the higher she flew until she was nearing the edge of Arvall City, and the clouds were nearing overhead.
She felt so good, so unlimited, that she thought her heart would burst as she soared in the soft, iridescent glow of the evening sun. There was no wind, no friction on her skin, and nothing whipping or rolling in the breeze. And even though she knew this was odd, she liked it: the feeling of flying and being still at the same time. It felt like she belonged.
She was only just nearing Brie when she was swallowed by darkness. Then there was no wind, no light, no sound, no sensation, or movement at all. There was only a nameless, formless pain—an anguish so vast and terrible that it wasn’t just in the darkness. It was the darkness. She couldn’t tell if it was coming from some other source or from herself, but it was crushing. Maddening. But then she heard it. It was even worse than the anguish. Screaming.
“Ma’am?”
Andie woke with a jolt, her books slipping from her lap. She turned toward the voice and saw a stewardess.
“Ma’am, are you okay? Bad dream?”
“I’m... I’m fine. Yeah, bad dream. I’m sorry, was I too loud?”
“No, not at all,” the stewardess said, suddenly smiling. “You never made a sound. It’s just that ... Well, the spellglass.”
She pointed toward the window and Andie followed her finger. Spellglass looked like regular glass, yet anyone with magic in their blood could control its shape and density with only a thought. The spellglass had totally transformed, becoming opaque and protruding like knife points in some places, while in others, it flowed like liquid. It was like a tesseract that could feel, that kept collapsing on itself and rebuilding in the same instant. With just one thought, Andie calmed the spellglass. It returned to its normal state.
“Is there anything I can get for you, ma’am?”
“No, I’m fine,” Andie said, embarrassed and not wanting to seem like a charity case. “I’ll try to stay awake.”
The stewardess smiled and walked away. Andie took a deep breath and looked out the window. Most of her life was passing her by: the mayor’s fields, the coal mine, the Forest of the Orange Pines where the poorest farmers lived, and the little twin creeks snaking their wet bodies through the fields with impunity. She had lived in Michaelson her entire life, and though she had been in Arvall City almost regularly since she and her father stopped going into Taline years ago, it still felt as if she was doing something adventurous and new.
She bent forward to pick up her books, still shaken by that beautiful and terrible dream. All of them were there; everything she needed for her first semester of classes at the University. But there was one she couldn’t find. It wasn’t for school, and in fact, she shouldn’t have even been reading it on the train. She was never supposed to take it from the house, let alone be seen with it in public. As she told herself to stay calm, she started to panic anyway. She tried not to think of what her father would say if she had lost it. He’d be furious, or worse—disappointed. Suddenly, a blonde head peeped around the seat in front of her.
“Lose something?”
“Oh, yeah.” Andie forced a small smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. It’s just that I lost one of my books and I thought it might have slid under your seat.”
“I think you mean... this!” the girl exclaimed, flourishing the book like the end of some corny magician’s routine. She clearly didn’t care if anyone saw the title of the book. From Dragons to Men.
“Oh... Uh...” Andie fumbled, anxious and baffled.
“This is pretty heavy. Someone has a lot to say about... er... dragons and men. Ooh, sounds exciting! Here.”
She handed the book to Andie as if it were just a thing, maybe a leaflet from the Church of Stone and Sea. Andie took it, thanked the girl, and quickly tucked the book away into the bottom of her bag, where she planned to keep it safely hidden from prying eyes until she was locked away in her new apartment. She gave the girl another smile and then gazed out of the window, turning the spellglass into a double-paned latticework that transformed the early morning light as it streamed in the train compartment. The girl was still peeping around the chair, eyeing her curiously. Andie felt uneasy, but she didn’t want to be rude so she did her best to smile back and then turned her attention back towards the window. She wasn’t in the mood for talking and definitely didn’t want to encourage the very thing the girl did next.
The trains in Noelle were golden, sleek, and narrow. The seats were arranged in single file, with a moderate walkway running parallel. If someone wanted to talk to a friend behind them, they’d have to press a button to swivel the chair around, which is exactly what the blonde girl did, nearly tripping a steward in the process.
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry. I’m such a cub sometimes. So,” she said, turning her attention to Andie, oblivious. “I’m Tristtle.”
“Andryne,” Andie said as she extended her hand. Her eyes then widened and she quickly corrected, “I mean, Andie. Please.” She extending her hand, hoping the girl wouldn’t latch on to her real name. She cursed herself for letting it slip. She didn’t even know why it had slipped from her lips, as she hadn’t gone by that name since her mother had died. No one outside her family knew her by that name. The girl beamed back at her.
“Wow, super old-fashioned. Andie. So cute. Totally blue. I didn’t know people still shook hands. I’m not a germaphobe or stranger-phobic, or even phobic at all, but it’s really... vintage. Blue, you know? Anyway, so I’m totally on my way to see my uncle. He’s a total boss. I’m going to see him eternally and I’m not sure why, because I don’t really like him, but I’m here like flow. Between us girls, it’s really his money I’m after. I’m not a bum or anything—and I’m completely not bum-phobic—but he’s got money on top of money. I should probably keep things like that to myself. I’m such a cub. But he’s this really big architect who designs all kinds of buildings and stuff, and now he’s working on the tallest tower in Vall and he—”
“I’m sorry, where?” Andie said, not wanting the answer so much as a break for silence.
“Vall. Arvall City? They’re saying this thing is going to be a monster, which is okay, I guess, even though I thought it was going to be a little baby business building—super cool, super blue...”
Andie had her mother’s unfailing kindness, and so she listened to Tristtle talk and even made a genuine effort to focus on the conversation. Yet her mind wandered to Arvall City and all the things waiting for her there. Towers that touched the sky, standing closer together than dogs in the field. Strange powered vehicles floating through the city in dense, angry waves, with the mist from their crystals trailing in soft pastel clouds. Trains that ran vertical, up the sides of buildings. Red Ravens, which had been given civil liberties in Arvall City, just as they had been in Taline. And, of course, the Academy. She’d seen all these things before, but never as a student. Never as someone who belonged there.
The Academy was the department of the University that instructed students in their first year. It was the second most rigorous year of the program—the most demanding being the last year. First year students went to classes year-round, with only ten breaks of ten days each. That meant that for three hundred of the four hundred days of the year, Andie would be in class. To her, it was as daunting as it was thrilling. She longed to learn, to discover, to grow. And, more than anything, she desired greater control over her dragon magic before it got her killed.
After almost an hour, the train finally pulled into the station.
“So, promise to look me up sometime?” Tristtle asked.
“I’d love to,” Andie said, thinking that Tristtle was kind of sweet in her own way.
“Yeah. I start at the Academy today.”
Tristtle was silent for a moment; Andie didn’t think anything of it until Tristtle looked like she’d stopped breathing.
“Are you... still alive?” Andie asked.
“Yes. Yes!” Tristtle said, suddenly full of life. “I just can’t believe I’ve been sitting here with a sorceress this whole time. Hey,” she said, leaning closer. “Ever used your magic at home?”
“Of course not,” Andie lied. “It’s illegal unless you’ve graduated the University.”
“Of course. I’m such a cub. Anyway, I hope I see you again soon.”