The Stone Demon

by Karen Mahoney

  But this? A … dragon?

  She realized that she was sitting on mossy ground beside a stream. It was cold right where she had collapsed, but she didn’t care. She wondered if splashing water on her face would help.

  The dragon moved again, shifting its wings and bringing down another tree in the process.

  “Stop!” Donna cried. “You’re destroying things.”

  The massive head swung toward her, lowering until the giant black eyes were almost on the same level as hers. It blinked. Donna could count its eyelashes, and she had to squash a hysterical urge to reach out to touch them to see if they were real.

  The dragon’s snout puffed out a breath that blew Donna’s hair away from her face. It was like being caught in a hurricane, and reminded her of what had happened when she’d created the Stone. She got a strong whiff of burning wood and held her breath. Fire flickered around the beast’s cavernous nostrils. Donna thought she might pass out.

  She figured that would be perfectly acceptable under the circumstances.

  “You called me,” the dragon rumbled. Its voice still came from directly inside Donna’s head, taking her by surprise. “I am here.”

  “I … I … ” She shook herself. Get a grip, Underwood.

  “You called me.” The tone brooked no argument.

  “I’m sorry,” Donna whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “I believe that you did.” The dragon nodded its mighty head and waited.

  What was it waiting for? In the part of her brain that hadn’t quite lost the plot, Donna knew that this was part of the process—the Blackening—and yet she hadn’t realized there would be an actual dragon.

  Like, for real. She desperately wished that Xan and Navin could be here to share the moment, but she also realized that would be impossible. This was a moment for her, and her alone. Somehow she knew this was true.

  Maybe it was some kind of vision, like the lucid dreams she had, when signs and portents seemed to flow through her the way the dragon’s wings flowed with their own inner light.

  She forced herself back to her feet, her knees trembling but just about holding her upright. Time to take control of the situation. She glanced at the immense creature before her and stifled a burst of hysterical laughter. Control ?

  The dragon settled back onto its mammoth hindquarters, folding its wings against its body and regarding her with an almost human expression of benevolence.

  Donna cleared her throat. “How exactly did I call you?”

  “You died. You came back.”

  “Dying means someone can summon dragons?”

  There was an awful trumpeting sound. Snorting and snuffling followed by a spurt of fire, which ignited a bush on the far side of the stream.

  Donna realized that the dragon was laughing. At her. She stood taller. “Hey, I’m new at all this.”

  “If you are so untrained, child, you should not be in possession of such power,” the dragon rumbled.

  “I’m just doing the best I can. That’s all. Please … won’t you explain?”

  “The ability to call the dragon has been sleeping inside you since your birth. You knew that much, yes?”

  “No … I didn’t know anything about dragons. Not real ones, anyway.”

  “You have the dragon spark in your soul. Why do you think the Demon King wants you so badly?”

  “Dragon spark? You mean, the first matter?”

  If dragons could shrug, Donna was sure that’s what it would have done. “If that is what you call it. The prima materia. Dragon spark. Names change. The nature of the power does not.”

  “Does this mean that you’ll fight for us?” Donna asked, suddenly seeing things more clearly. “I think that’s what Maker wanted.”

  “Maker?” the dragon mused. “So he still lives in this world, does he? I can’t say that I am surprised.”

  She stared at the noble, ancient creature. “You know Maker ?”

  “Of course, child. All of the old ones know him.”

  Donna didn’t know what to say. She wanted to ask more, to find out once and for all just who Maker really was. But there was a war to fight. That mystery could wait—at least until a little later. It would give her something to anticipate, if she survived.

  She swallowed smoke and ashes. “What do I do now?”

  “You have the Stone,” the dragon replied, which was no reply at all. “Use it to command me. It is no more complicated than that. You are the Twice-Born Daughter of the Dragon.”

  “I … ” She watched the magnificent beast’s slowly blinking eyes, still trying to wrap her head around what was happening. Maybe this was a shamanic vision, like how she’d relived the past while in Demian’s realm. Except for the part where the freaking dragon actually knew Maker. That sounded pretty real.

  The dragon continued to wait. It had all the time in the world.

  Donna shook her head, trying to clear it. “I’ve never commanded anything before.”

  “Does that mean you can’t do so now?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know how. I’m not sure I like the idea of … controlling others. I get that done to me in my own life, you see.”

  If dragons could smile, Donna was pretty sure this one was doing just that. It was surreal and beautiful all at once. “You created the Philosopher’s Stone. You found me beneath the Ironwood. All you have to do is tell me what you want of me, and it will be done. But only once, do you understand?”

  “One command?”

  “Yes. After that, every last drop of the dragon spark within you will be gone. That is the price you pay for commanding dragons.”

  Donna paused, wondering if that meant what she thought it must. Would she lose the first matter for good? Her heart lifted and she almost smiled. That was supposed to be a cost? She would gladly pay that price.

  She took a tentative step forward and laid her hand against the great leg of the dragon. The scales rippled cool and smooth, hot and jagged, all at the same time. It was like touching the bark of a great tree, and yet it was nothing like that at all.

  It was everything she had ever dreamed of.

  It was magic.

  Donna took a deep breath and steadied herself. This was it. What she said now would change reality. It would affect her life forever—assuming she survived.

  She held tight to the Philosopher’s Stone and commanded the dragon: “Help us end the war and send the demons back to where they belong.”

  The creature bowed its head, and Donna could almost swear that she saw a flash of pleasure in its bottomless gaze.

  Reality shifted, and she heard the rush of giant wings. Darkness descended and then lifted. The real world returned to her like a wall of heat, quickly enough to knock the breath from her body as the sounds of battle resumed.

  Then Donna got the hell out of the way, as her dragon took to the sky and the Ironwood burned to the ground.

  Twenty-seven

  The war was over.

  Donna crawled toward the remains of the clearing, smoke in her eyes and clogging up her throat. It was like one of those thick fogs in a bad horror movie, or like too much dry ice pumped onto the stage during a play. She was still holding the Philosopher’s Stone in her bare hand, but her tattoos had finally stopped moving. The place inside her chest—deep in her heart, where the first matter usually resided—was quiet at last.

  Once she reached the edge of the clearing, she stopped and sat against the trunk of a tree. The circle that had once held a demon king was empty, and inside there was just a scorched patch of earth. Maker’s wheelchair, lying forlornly on its side, was a reminder of that terrible loss, and she fought down the urge to assume the fetal position for the next few hours. Was Demian really back in his realm, locked away again? She hoped so. Another couple of centuries without him around wouldn’t be such a bad thing
.

  She looked up at the sky, watching the dragon sweep the last of the demon shadows away. The sight was both terrifying and awe-inspiring. Her eyes blurred, no matter how much she rubbed them with her grubby hands.

  Tears continued to pour down her cheeks as she looked around, and Donna realized that they were real tears—tears of grief and pain rather than simply the result of too much smoke. People had died here today. Navin was gone, presumably still trapped in the Otherworld. There was no way Demian would let him return, not after what she’d done to him. She hugged herself as she sat on the hard earth and sobbed, finally letting it all out.

  Only a few trees remained. She tried to block out the last sounds of fighting—a few scavengers from the Otherworld had managed to stay behind when the gates were closed for the last time—but it was impossible to ignore the things that were still happening. Demons screamed, and the dragon roared in the distance.

  She listened to the echo of her father’s voice in her head—the voice she’d heard while dreaming in a river that had no beginning and no end—and he told her to stay strong. It’s what he would have said if he were alive today. She knew that. But that didn’t make it easy to do. She was tired of staying strong. Heroes in books and movies … it always seemed like everything came too easy to them. There was a bit of struggle, sure, but you knew they were going to win in the end.

  How can I win, now? she thought. There was no winning when people she loved were injured—or worse. Her throat ached and she stayed in her position for what seemed like a thousand years, her forehead resting on her knees. She had nothing left in the tank. She was empty. Alone, in those moments, it felt like one of the worst trials she had ever faced.

  “Hey,” said a voice. “Did you miss me?”

  She looked up so quickly that she almost gave herself whiplash, and found herself staring into Navin Sharma’s shining eyes. He was undeniably dirty, and his jacket was badly ripped, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

  Donna leapt to her feet, finding the energy from somewhere, and threw herself into Navin’s arms, bursting into a fresh round of tears. She hugged him so tightly she was probably hurting him. To his credit, he didn’t complain.

  “Navin,” she whispered, over and over again. “Nav, you’re here.” Her voice was hoarse, unrecognizable, scrubbed raw by emotion. She pulled away and stared at him, honestly wondering if this time she really had died and he was a ghost. Or she was back in Demian’s realm. Or—

  “It’s really me,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking, Underwood.”

  “But … how did you get out?” She wiped at the tears on her face.

  “Newton.” Nav shrugged, as though it were obvious.

  “You mean you saw him as an actual demon?” Despite everything that had happened, and despite the proverbial shit hitting the fan right now, Donna couldn’t help feeling a stab of curiosity.

  “Yeah,” Navin replied. “He looks … pretty fucking weird.”

  Donna gasped out a laugh. “Like, how?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Can’t? Um … well, what’s his real name? It’s obviously not Newton.”

  “I can’t tell you that either.”

  “Sharma, what’s going on?”

  “Seriously, I promised. Apparently it’s a binding deal.”

  “You made a deal with a demon? Have you completely lost what remains of your sanity?”

  “Clearly,” he said. “I’m friends with you, aren’t I?”

  Donna hit him gently on the shoulder. “Yeah, well. Whatever.”

  “Seriously, if I tell you I’ll have to kill you.”

  “You mean Newton will have to kill you.”

  “Something like that.” He grinned, but the expression fell just as quickly. “Demian came into the Underworld—appeared out of nowhere, totally covered in flames—and he couldn’t get out again. Things looked pretty bad for a minute. I owe Newton for sure.”

  Donna nodded. She didn’t like it, but Nav was here and that was all that mattered. He was safe. “As long as you’re okay.”

  “Honestly, owing Newton a favor is a small price to pay for getting out of there.”

  She hugged him again. “I believe you.”

  Ironwood Forest was gone, the last remnants just debris on a battlefield. The surviving alchemists may have woven wards around the area to hide the truth from human eyes, but something would have to be done to explain the destruction in the future. Still, right now, there were more important concerns.

  The casualties were heavy on all sides. Isolde lost her first knight, Taran, who had been slain while defending his queen against a horde of Strix. The faerie queen herself had been injured; a scar stood out against her ivory complexion. Donna was surprised to see her beauty marked in such a way. Was it possible that demon injuries were permanent, even for a being such as Isolde? It was as though the wound—what must have been a nasty gash in her cheek—had already healed and scarred in the space of minutes. But the scar itself was showing no sign of fading.

  Isolde did not seem to care. She was mourning Taran’s death; it turned out that Taran had also been her consort. Donna swallowed her own sadness. Immortality didn’t matter if you could be killed by demons. The fey weren’t strictly immortal, anyway. They could live for a very long time without aging or illness, but they could still be killed. It was complicated, but there had to be checks and balances in life and death, even for the most powerful races.

  Donna was glad to see Cathal. The tall knight carried wounds of his own, already healing, but he too would be scarred. Something had tightened in her throat when the smoke first cleared and she’d caught sight of Cathal with his arm around Xan. Father and son had been reunited under the worst circumstances imaginable. Probably, had their meeting taken place under any other conditions, Xan would not have been so quick to accept the birth father he’d never known.

  As it was, Xan leaned into his father, helping him to sit down so that his leg could be tended to. Amazingly, Xan’s only injury was to his left arm. He’d broken it when a Strix had knocked him to the ground. Fey healers were already setting the bone and tying a sling made of an iridescent gossamer material around his neck.

  Donna approached him. “Can’t they just fix it with magic?”

  Xan smiled. He looked tired. Older. “They wanted to, but I’d rather they saved their mojo for the people who really need it.”

  “I have to tell you something,” she said. There were so many things to say, but this was the one that could hurt him the most. “It’s about Maker.”

  How was she going to tell him? How could she say that his dream of wings was gone now that Maker had died? Well, Maker’s body hadn’t been found in the wreckage, and some of the alchemists were trying to tell Donna that it had probably burned up in the dragon’s fire. This time, however, she wasn’t buying it. All the other bodies had been recovered, so why not his? What exactly was it that Maker had said to her before she woke the dragon? Something about how he was looking forward to going home …

  And the dragon itself—the dragon who had already melted back beneath the ground, back into its ley line—had known who Maker was, which made no sense at all.

  She swallowed as Xan touched her face, surprising her. He wiped away some of the dried tears and ash smeared on her cheeks. “I know about Maker. It’s okay. This isn’t about me anymore. Maker’s gone and … maybe that’s the way it was meant to be.”

  “But what about your wings?” Tears shimmered in Donna’s eyes, blurring her vision.

  His smile was gentle. “What about them? It would have taken dozens of operations. It was never going to happen overnight, you know? And Donna … ” His smile widened. “I’ve been up there, now. The prototype worked and I flew.”

  Donna swallowed past the huge lump in her throat. “You were magnificent.”

  He ret
urned her smile, joy radiating from him like the slowly rising sun. “I was, wasn’t I?”

  They held each other for a long time, then Nav wandered over and told them to get a room. Donna blushed and hugged him, too. And then the two guys shook hands and Xan introduced Navin to his father.

  It was a strange thing to witness, but it was also pretty awesome.

  Later, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her mother, surveying the wreckage. Donna remembered how she’d thought that some parts of the Otherworld landscape looked bleak, but that was before seeing the after-effects of a battle.

  Rachel was clearly drained, her face was almost black with smoke and ash, but she was all in one piece. That was the main thing. Donna took one look at her mother’s expression and knew what was coming.

  She asked the question anyway, because she had to. “Where’s Aunt Paige?”

  Rachel reached out to Donna, trying to draw her into an embrace.

  Donna held up her hands, warding her off. “No. Not her as well.”

  “I’m sorry, darling. So sorry.” Her mother’s face crumbled, and Donna felt strangely shocked to see her cry for her sister-in-law. The woman who had betrayed her more than once. Patrick’s sister—and Simon’s puppet.

  And that was it, wasn’t it? Donna thought. They’d all been puppets. Aunt Paige with Simon. Quentin with Simon, too. The wood elves with the faeries. Even Isolde, dancing to Demian’s tune. Everybody had had a master. She took a shuddering breath and finally allowed her mother to hold her. Rachel stroked her hair away from her face, kissed her forehead.

  Donna looked up into her mom’s eyes—soft gray eyes so like her own. “How did it happen?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Does it matter right now?”

  “I need to know.”

  “She was running from demon shadows. There were so many of them. Quentin was the closest. He tried to help, but there were just too many … ” Her voice trailed off.