[Dragon's Gift 01.0 - 05.0] Complete Series

by Linsey Hall

In the middle of the room, a young woman sat at one of the tables. She had pale green hair and pointed ears. A fae or pixie of some kind. Though she looked young, she had a timeless quality about her. Fae lived a long time. I’d put money on her being as old as the building.

  “Flora?” Corin said. “We’re here to ask you some questions.”

  Flora looked up at us, blinking wide green eyes. They were slightly blank, as if she’d been in another world inside her head. Even when she looked at us, they didn’t focus.

  “Yes?” Her voice was vague somehow, as if she were only partially here.

  Yeah, she made an appropriate historian for a place like this.

  “Sit.” Corin gestured to us and the chairs across from Flora.

  We sat on the hard wooden surfaces. Flora had turned back to reading her book.

  “We don’t like to have to ask Flora unless we must,” Corin murmured. “She prefers to be left alone. But with the demons hunting you… This is better. I don’t know the whole story or I would tell you.”

  “Flora?” Corin asked.

  Flora looked up, eyes slightly blank. “Yes?”

  “Could you tell us about Victor Orriodor’s history with the League of FireSouls?”

  Flora sat back in her chair and gazed into the distance. Her voice sounded far away when she spoke. “At that time, he was called Argus. Five hundred years ago, before we became the League of FireSouls, there was Callum McCord.”

  Behind Flora, the air shimmered. Her magic floated on the air, the scent of old books and the sound of rustling pages flowing with it. A hazy apparition of a man appeared. He was massive and heavily bearded, his body draped in an old-style cloak.

  He must be Callum McCord, and Flora had a crazy ability to project the past. It was different than Corin’s gift. Callum was much less substantial, and he was brought to life by nothing more than Flora’s words.

  “Callum was a FireSoul,” Flora said. “But he was also a leader. During his time, it was nearly impossible to live alone. Farming, trading, working, and living—it was all done as a group. This made it difficult for FireSouls to hide from those who persecuted them.”

  Which was everyone—just like today.

  “Callum found FireSouls and offered them a place on his land. He lived in a remote part of Ireland. A peninsula that juts into the sea. There, the FireSouls could live as normal people, dividing the labor as others did, and living more than a scrabbling existence.”

  Behind her appeared a hazy apparition of a group of people sitting around a rustic dining table. All ages, all clearly coming together after a hard day’s work.

  “One day, the man who would become Victor Orriodor appeared on their land. He was a FireSoul as well, but he did not seek asylum. He sought vengeance.”

  Behind Flora, an enraged man appeared. Though her apparition emitted no sound, he was clearly ranting and raving, his hands gesturing wildly. He looked little like the boy I had seen earlier and more like the man I knew today, though he was still young.

  “He thought they would help him obtain vengeance for the death of his parents,” Flora continued. “They hid out on this remote bit of land because they were persecuted. Attack the persecutors, he said, and be able to live like normal people.”

  Except that the persecutors were everybody. The Order of the Magica and the Alpha Council may have enforced the laws that FireSouls were scum, but the regular folk propped up that belief with their fear and distrust.

  “Of course, he was wrong,” Flora said.

  Behind her, the people at the table shook their heads, rising to their feet and physically evicting Argus when he wouldn’t relent.

  “When Argus couldn’t find the help he needed, he turned to taking it,” Flora said. “He used his FireSoul power in a way that most would never dream. He became what everyone feared, stealing dozens of powers.”

  And killing everyone he took them from.

  “It drove him slightly mad,” Flora said. “But in a calm, cold way.”

  Behind her, Argus appeared, looking older and wearier than before, but with a stern determination in his eyes and a cunning intelligence. I shivered.

  “Callum McCord knew that something had to be done,” Flora said. “Argus was responsible for many Magica and Shifter deaths, but worse, from Callum’s perspective, was that Argus fueled the tide of suspicion and hatred for FireSouls. He was everything that they feared, and as a result, the Alpha Council and Order of the Magica cracked down on FireSouls even harder. Callum’s settlement was at risk if he didn’t do something.”

  An image of the FireSoul compound formed behind her.

  “So he formed this place and began the battle against Argus, attempting to foil Argus’s goals.” Her gaze focused on me. It appeared that story time was over, and I was meant to engage.

  “Which were what?” I asked.

  “Vengeance.”

  “Against who?”

  “Whoever persecuted him. But as you saw in Corin’s projection, we do not know who they were. Or what Argus’s end goal was.”

  “Why hasn’t he accomplished it yet? It’s been hundreds of years.”

  “Callum successfully stopped him. For a time. They put him into a magical stupor meant to last forever. He was too powerful to kill, but they could entomb him. For hundreds of years, he has been asleep.” Flora looked at Corin. “You may finish, as this was within your time.”

  Corin nodded. “He woke twenty years ago. We don’t know how, but he did. I was very young then, and my parents part of the League. He took the name Victor Orriodor. We think it was to hide his origin from us. But we discovered it and have been attempting to stop him ever since.”

  “Stop him from what?” I asked.

  “His vengeance. Though I fear his goal is even greater. He knew enough to kidnap the Triumvirate.” She gestured to the three of us. “It can’t be coincidence. Though we don’t know what he wants with you.”

  “Can’t be good,” Del muttered.

  “Nope.” I blew out a breath. So, this wasn’t great.

  Somehow, knowing about his past made him that much more real and much more terrifying. And he was already plenty terrifying to begin with. Not to mention that he’d killed my parents. Whether it had been his hand or another, they had died attempting to rescue us from him.

  “This shit just got real,” Nix muttered.

  “No kidding.”

  “How do we stop him?” Del asked.

  “No idea,” Corin said. “After our numbers were decimated trying to save you from his compound, we haven’t had the manpower or the skills to find out. Your arrival here marks a turning point.”

  Talk about pressure. “And my power? Do you know how I can get it back? Or what my root power was?”

  “We know neither,” Corin said. “We believe that your root power is something no one’s ever seen. But it’s quite a personal thing. Your parents never said—if they even knew. But we can point you in the right direction to find answers, so that perhaps you can find out for yourself.”

  “Then which direction do I go?”

  “I will get it.” Flora rose and moved gracefully toward the corner of the library. Her movements were as eerily calm as her eyes, almost as if she were half-spirit of some kind.

  She returned with a rolled up scroll. The paper was yellowed at the edges, the wooden dowel at either end a simple stick rather than the ornately carved ones seen on many scrolls.

  Corin moved aside some books to clear a space on the table, and Flora unrolled the scroll, pressing it flat against the wood.

  Corin held it open while Flora pointed. “You need to go there.”

  It was a map—an old one, from the looks of it. The squiggles and lines made no sense to me, though. “Where?”

  “The passage tomb where the seer had her vision. You should be able to find answers there.”

  I sure hoped so. I didn’t know if finding out about my root power would help me get rid of the Nullifier’s awful power, b
ut it was the only direction I had to go, so that was where I was headed.

  We arrived at the Black Fort at sunset. The blazing orange ball was setting behind the cliffs to the west, shining a hazy orange light across the small field of wildflowers that surrounded the statues. The stone wall of the fort rose high, blocking us from the rest of the island. Protecting us.

  “Cass!” Aidan loped across the grass toward me and scooped me up in his arms, hugging me tight.

  “Oof.” He was strong as a freaking bear. “Whoa there, big guy. I’m all right.”

  He pulled back, his brow quirked. “I know. You’re too tough to kill. But I’m glad to see you whole all the same.”

  I grinned and pulled back. I may not have gotten all the answers I’d wanted, but I was farther along than I had been. And the info about Victor Orriodor might come in handy somehow.

  Claire approached, her sunglasses propped on her dark hair. “Success?”

  “Sort of. We’ve got another place to go.”

  “Good,” Connor said. “I’ve got a hankering to see the world.”

  “You sure you don’t need to get back to P & P?” I asked.

  He scowled. “Don’t get me wrong. P & P is my baby, but you need us more than the shop right now.”

  “Thanks.” Warmth filled me. They’d proven again and again that they had my back, but every time felt pretty amazing.

  “And I’m sorry to say we won’t exactly be seeing the world.” Del raised the scroll. “These are our directions, and it looks like we’re headed south.”

  Aidan reached for the scroll, and Del handed it over. He unrolled it and frowned at the map, then flipped it over. Understanding filled his eyes.

  “This is near my home,” he said. “Only about thirty minutes east.”

  “Ever been there?” I asked. If I’d lived near a passage tomb, I’d definitely have gone exploring.

  “No. It’s protected by powerful charms.”

  “Good thing we’ve got those penatrist charms then,” I said.

  “Good thing, indeed.” He glanced over his shoulder at the setting sun. It’d disappeared behind the cliffs, headed for the sea. “It’ll be dark soon. Let’s get out of here. We can take my plane. Rest up at my place, then head to the passage tomb in the morning.”

  I nodded. As much as I wanted to head straight to the tomb, he was right. The tomb had been built by supernaturals. Ancient sites like that were often booby-trapped. Heading into one at night, exhausted, was a surefire way to end up dead.

  I took one last glance at the statues that stood silently guarding the portal, vowing to return to see if the apparition of my mother would reappear, then followed my friends across the small field.

  We climbed over the rock wall, and by the time we dropped down on the other side, it was nearly dark. The ground was uneven, the slabs of stone making our passage slow.

  Aidan pulled out his phone and made a call, speaking in Irish and requesting that the pony traps come to the end of the lane to pick us up.

  He said goodbye and lowered his phone. “They’ll be here in twenty.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We made quick work of getting our bags from the house. Unlike at the Black Fort, I didn’t look back. I’d return here one day, once all of this was settled, and figure out how I felt about this place. For now, it was too difficult to think of.

  Fergus and his friend met us at the end of the lane with the same two pony traps we’d taken to get here. They took us back to the airstrip, their clip-clopping hooves creating a soothing rhythm. The pub we’d passed last night was once again rocking with the sound of trad music. Though there was a lot to talk about, I didn’t want to do it in front of the drivers, so I listened to the unique sound of our journey.

  My phone buzzed with a text, and I pulled it out of my pocket. Aerdeca’s name popped up, along with a message that they hadn’t yet found anything about Victor being involved with the Order of the Magica. Whatever he was doing with them, it seemed to be on the down-low. It might not even be in any kind of official capacity. Which made sense, because I might hate the Order, but they wouldn’t knowingly ally with someone as evil as him.

  “Here we are,” the trap driver said when we pulled up in front of the plane.

  Only on an island as tiny as this one would a horse drawn carriage be allowed onto a runway. True, we were the only people out here, but still.

  “Thanks, Fergus,” I said as Aidan paid the driver.

  “My pleasure.” He handed Aidan a large paper bag.

  Aidan took it and turned to me. I nodded inquiringly at the bag.

  “Dinner.”

  I grinned. “You are the best, you know that?”

  “I know how you like to eat.”

  I draped an arm over his shoulders, having to reach up high to do so. “Feeding me is truly one of the finest qualities a man can have.”

  “I aim to be the finest you ever met.”

  I grinned. “I’m a lucky girl.”

  Aidan talked to the pilot while we climbed on board and settled into the plush seats.

  “For magic’s sake,” Claire said. “You really caught a big fish, Cass.”

  I glanced around at the opulent plane. “Yeah. It’s pretty ridiculous, really.”

  “Yep,” Connor said as he ambled into the small kitchen and peered into the fridge. “But I’m going to take advantage of our new high-rolling connections.”

  He pulled a soda out and tossed it to me. I snagged it out of the air, fumbling it briefly before I got a good grip. Quick as a professional bartender—which he technically was—he grabbed more drinks and tossed them to Claire, Del, and Nix.

  It was good to have Connor and Claire here. They kept things feeling a bit more normal when Nix, Del, and I might have gotten bogged down in the enormity of all this.

  I popped my soda and took a swig, then sat on the couch that spread along the wall near the back. “So, let’s chat.”

  Aidan entered the plane. “Eat first.”

  He dug into a big paper bag and pulled out sandwiches wrapped in more paper. He passed them around, and I took mine gratefully. My stomach grumbled as I unwrapped the bundle and revealed a thick ham sandwich.

  I took a huge bite, delighted by the taste of sharp cheddar and some kind of sweet onion stuff.

  “These Irish know how to make a sandwich,” Connor said.

  I had to agree. It was no beef and potato pasty like Connor made, but it was damned good. I polished it off so fast that I wasn’t sure if I breathed or not.

  I swallowed the last bite, comfortably sated, and said, “So, we learned a bit about Victor Orriodor.”

  I told the story we’d learned, trying not to leave anything out.

  When I’d finished, Claire said, “He’s still a bastard. Loads of people have effed-up childhoods and don’t turn into power-hungry sociopaths.”

  Her loyalty warmed me.

  “So, we know that Victor is after the Triumvirate,” Connor said. “Which is you guys.”

  “Fancy title, by the way,” Claire said.

  “Thanks. Just wish I knew what we’re supposed to do.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Del said.

  “It’s all tied up in Victor Orriodor, so if we figure him out, I bet we’ll figure us out,” Nix said.

  We talked about what we knew. Victor was out for vengeance, he was somehow involved with the Order of the Magica—which was probably the scariest thing of all—and he’d collected a whole bunch of things that were meant to aid him in his goals.

  “So, Victor is like a magpie collecting things to help his end goal.” Nix held up her hand and began to tick items off. “Scroll of Truths to find FireSouls, Chalice of Youth for immortality, HeartStone of Glencarrough to protect something of value, and the Celtic cauldron with the massive dampening charm.”

  “That’s quite an arsenal,” Del said.

  “Don’t forget he’s bought out pretty much every transportation charm in the world
,” Aidan said. “It’s going to become a lot harder for people to travel quickly in the future, especially since they’ll use up their charms before they realize there’s a shortage.”

  “And we’ve got two,” I said, wishing one of us had found the transportation charm that Corin had found. “And two penatrist charms.”

  “And any potion we want, courtesy of Connor,” Claire said.

  “Right,” Del said. “That’s not bad. A pretty good arsenal of our own.”

  “So, Victor wants vengeance on someone,” I said. “And to capture us. We want vengeance on Victor.”

  “And he wants us,” Nix said. “The Triumvirate.”

  “Right. The Triumvirate.” Whatever that really was, it was important. Almost two dozen members of the League of FireSouls had died trying to save us because we were the prophesied Triumvirate. My parents had died trying to save us.

  “Do you think that’s why we managed to escape Victor’s dungeon when we were kids?” I asked, thinking back to our desperate race from his house. “There was almost no one in the house when we ran for it. No guards other than the one I killed. Alton said that the League of FireSouls lost most of their force when they fought to free us. They probably took down as many of Victor’s demons, and he hadn’t yet replaced them.”

  “So they cleared the way,” Del said.

  “Even if they didn’t realize it.” Nix’s eyes glimmered with tears.

  My parents saved us, even if they hadn’t lived to break us out of the cell themselves. I’d been so close to seeing them.

  I slouched back against my seat, suddenly exhausted. Tears threatened, but I forced them back. Now wasn’t the time for weakness or weeping.

  I thought of my parents, of the people I’d seen in the visions. They wouldn’t cry now. They’d fight. Like I would fight.

  Up to this point, it’d been a fight for survival. To escape Victor and never be found. Now, it was a fight for vengeance. And to stop whatever awful thing he had planned.

  10

  A shower in Aidan’s massive, magical bathroom hit the spot. It was hard not to enjoy a shower with eight shower heads.

  We’d arrived at his place thirty minutes ago, and everyone was settled into one of the many bedrooms. The house was protected by enchantments, but that didn’t mean that Victor Orriodor’s demons couldn’t break in anyway. We thought we had their only penatrist charms, but we could be wrong. All they needed was one in order to send in an assassin.