“Enough bowing. Let’s go,” Kenzo snapped.
“What’s your destination? Does that light point you?” Rona asked.
“I hope it does. I need to reach the chamber of the Black Dragon’s male heir.”
“Safest or shortest route?”
“Both,” Kenzo said, snapping his beak.
“This way.” Rona spun on her bare, calloused heel and led them along the lighted path, keeping a quick pace that challenged her guests to keep up.
After many minutes, Lyra paused, out of breath in the close underground air. “Are we near?”
The owl stopped last. He had trouble keeping up because his balance along the curves required that he unfold his wings, which caught on the tunnel walls.
“Just need to wind through the mountain depths where the dark lair sets. We’ll enter directly into that chamber, avoiding all guards,” Rona assured.
After gulping air into her lungs, Lyra continued, heartened by the information. The remainder of the tunnel proved difficult, uphill and narrower. Her legs ached when Rona stopped and pulled a boulder inward, revealing an opening just wide enough for Lyra to crawl through.
The keeper peered into the large room, then pulled her head back. She whispered, “Only heir is napping inside. No one else there. Ready?”
Lyra nodded and materialized her magic box, withdrawing the small amber bottle of celestial dew. “Be ready to help me move back down the tunnel when I’m done, and alert me if danger approaches.” She moved past Rona and worked quickly and quietly, listening for any movement outside the chamber. This part of the quest she planned over and over during the past days. If only she could control her powers.
Methodically, she stepped to the head of the juvenile black dragon, resting against one of his forelimbs. He was more mature than Yasqu, horns almost fully developed.
Lyra gagged on the stench of rot in the air—spoiled meat, the favored food of black dragons. Forcing herself to overcome the foul odor, she took a deep breath and centered, gathering her heart aura. For the first time, she called upon the majority of her scribal power, leaving only what she thought would fuel her withdrawal. Her lesson with Tarom gave her confidence she could wield it all with fascination. Good thing. There would not be a second chance.
She forced the huge mass of power behind her eyes. The pressure throbbed, pushing hard on the optic nerve, pain shooting through the sockets. Ready to transfer, she kissed the air.
The dragon’s large, black eyes eased open, groggy with half-sleep—just what she intended.
Lyra hurled her power through the few feet of air.
A surprised jerk and snort from the dragon, upon recognizing her form, fizzled out to a puff of air as his head drooped back to the ground.
The connection worked; her power passed inside his mind. A quick survey showed the location of Cullen’s stolen aura. Carefully, Lyra covered it with a film of her own aura. That belonging to the heir occupied one-third the volume. At its central point, she shot a tremendous jolt of her aura—a mental powerball, another technique from the Advanced Fascination text borrowed from Cullen’s library. Holding her breath, she monitored. Activity slowed, but a few thoughts remained.
Dizziness swept over her own mind, and perspiration trickled down from her hairline into her eyes. She feared the salt water might hinder the connection. Balling hard fists, fingernails slicing her skin, she dug deep inside and willed another missile of power into the mind of the dragon. Her ears rang and eyes prickled with sharp jabs of electricity. She pummeled one more shot at the beast. Weakness forced her to withdraw.
Listening, she sat on the stone floor and opened the bottle of celestial dew, gathered from the snowstorm under the light of her soulstar. No noise in the corridor. Lyra held both hands to stabilize her aching head and sensitized her skin with her mind aura, allowing her deeper powers to rest.
Dull vibrations rippled the clairvoyance at her surface. She took many samples within her. Study revealed their origin from the heir’s basic functioning—breathing, blood flow, and heartbeat. Several emotions fluttered past her skin, their surfaces cracked and jagged, as well as his fragmented subconscious intentions to kill her.
His regular life-sustaining rhythms that Lyra received ebbed until her sensations only resembled hairs rising with goosebumps. Timing was essential. Then, the key she waited for finally arrived—a thought beyond his consciousness, impossible to perceive with fascination. His subconscious viewed the blinding light of death in the distance.
She raised the bottle of dew to her lips and drank down the contents. Immediately, her head cleared of pain, and she refocused the entire sum of her heart aura for fascination once again, speeding it through her eyes into the gaping black sockets of the dragon. Carefully lifting Cullen’s aura, she surrounded it with more of her own to keep it safe and separated.
The heir’s body slumped lifeless, losing muscle functions. Slow impulses still traversed his brain. Time was up; she had to exit or lose both her aura and Cullen’s within a corpse.
Without energy left to snap the large mass quickly back into her own mind, she felt for the channel.
“Lyra! Footsteps are coming,” a soft voice urged next to her.
Lyra’s concentration wavered. She couldn’t find the way out of the dragon’s mind, now dim with only flickers of electricity. She paused to focus on a mental image of Cullen’s face. A slight wave of strength allowed her to pull the enormous mass of combined aura back the way she had traveled. Finally, the opening appeared. She entered the nerves passing to the dragon’s eyes, dark and unreceptive. After a lungful of breath, she jumped the heavy load back into her own mind and dumped it into her heart. The back of her head hit the stone floor with a thud.
“Lyra, come now.” The bony hand of the cicutaminus pulled on her arm.
Above the ringing in her ears, she heard loud footfall in the hallway. Unable to stand, she crawled on hands and knees to the entrance of the tunnel. Her weak limbs wouldn’t coordinate to move her body through the opening.
Rona pulled from inside the tunnel while Kenzo pushed.
Lyra landed fully on her arm, twisting it painfully. Without thought about her discomfort, she whirled on her bottom and with the other arm, guided the owl to safety.
“Did you do it? Do you have Master’s aura?” His owl eyes were wider than she’d ever seen them.
“Yes, I—”
Drakes entered the chamber door.
“Come, fast!” Rona called.
Adrenaline fueled Lyra’s legs back to strength. Clamped onto a handful of owl feathers, she twisted farther into the tunnel.
Their path illuminated with flames from fire drakes, breathing into the opening.
“Lyra, let go! I’m fine to travel,” Kenzo called to her. “Run with all your worth!”
Lyra ran hard, not bothering to light her phoenix flame. She stumbled and bumped into one gnarled root wall then another, not caring about how many bruises her body took. Her only thought—get back to Cullen.
Then, Rona halted without warning. The others tumbled over her. As they untangled limbs and wings, noises sounded above. Sharp strikes shook the ground. The keeper whispered, “They’re attacking the tunnel ahead. There is one other path away from here, but it is a dead end. We will have to surface.”
Lyra swallowed hard. “Yes. Hiding here won’t work. They’ll demolish the entire area to find me now that I killed their heir. Go on.” She looked over her shoulder and felt in the dark for feathers.
After a few more minutes travel down a narrower root, Rona scooted aside a large, flat rock and jumped out of the opening. She held a tiny hand down to help the others wiggle and work through.
The entrance hid behind a rowan tree neighbored by several boulders. The three crouched low between the rocks and surveyed the area outside the lair, alive with drakes of every type. More than Lyra could count, on the ground and in the air. None appeared present in the area in back of their cover. Apparently Rona’
s side route fooled the attackers.
“We’ve got to move. I’m going to dart from tree to tree.” Lyra turned to the keeper. “Are these all rowan trees?”
Rona looked down and shook her head. “Some are. Most aren’t. I can’t help Lady Lyra more.”
“Thank you very much, Rona.” She patted the thin shoulder of the circutaminus. “We’ll have to take our chances. Okay?” she asked Kenzo.
“I’ll cover you. Maybe my wings will camouflage.” He nodded and flew low behind Lyra as she ran a short distance.
Lyra reached the next wide trunk out of breath. Carrying an extra aura sapped her physical strength. The total aura of the heir was small, only one-third of Cullen’s mind aura. It seemed likely that dragon could accommodate the addition, maybe even needed it to restore some deficit. Tarom’s total aura dwarfed the heir’s. The way Lyra felt, she guessed a cimafa couldn’t fly well after stealing an aura.
They made several quick runs, each shorter as Lyra weakened…until an avril let out a blood-curdling caw directly above them.
Lyra caught a scream in her throat. Her heart pounded. She motioned them onward, staggering. Every step away from Silva Nocens helped her reach Cullen.
The pair covered one more stretch.
Wings of dragons beat the air. The forest covered many miles before the Steppe of Ora. She was trapped.
Suddenly, a sweep of a black cloak dropped from the tree limb directly above them—Revelin. In one swift stride, he pinned her firmly against the tree trunk she used for cover.
Chapter Thirty: The Magic of Love
“Pateo,” Revelin murmured next to Lyra’s cheek. His black hair lay in snarls, like he’d been traveling out in the open for days.
The bark split behind her, like before, and the tree admitted them into the total darkness within its trunk. Lyra welcomed a moment to catch her breath, but didn’t know what new dangers she faced.
“Seems I’ve saved you from attackers before like this,” he chucked softly, his breath warm against her face and his body pressed tight against hers.
Kenzo squirmed at her side.
“Thank you, but why do you protect me?”
“I love you, and you love me. Isn’t that enough?”
Lyra hesitated. If she used clairvoyance to determine his sincerity, he would sense the test and become angry. Using fascination required she see his eyes to make contact. Logic told her he wanted to keep her alive. Whatever was his strange reason didn’t matter. “If you love me, will you give me back my jadestone?”
“You declared your love for me, and I accepted it as a symbol to remind me of you. I can’t part with it.” He caressed her hair and neck.
Unable to talk him into giving it back, she pulled some aura behind her eyes and prepared to fascinate him. Oddly, the small mass of power she held there stung and burned. Ignoring the pain, she rose on tip-toes and gently brushed her lips across the coarse stubble of his beard, until he moved his lips to meet hers. Knowing her eyes must be only inches from his, she attempted to jump the aura and alter his thoughts. But, she couldn’t make the transfer. Trying again proved no better. A third time. Nothing. Only sharper stabs in her eyes. Apparently, holding Cullen’s aura kept her from using her own. No magic left her defenseless. Panic set in.
She gulped air between his kisses. Other than trying to possess her, it seemed he didn’t mean her any real harm. An idea flashed into her mind. In this world of magic, she discounted her influence as a female. She kissed him passionately for a minute, then pulled her head away a few inches, all the space the trunk allowed. “I wanted the jadestone back, so I could make it call to the other. I want to get the other back from Sire Drake and give it to you, so we can be bonded as lovers.”
Feathers beat against her leg. Kenzo must have thought she was under some spell. Her hand reached down to assure him. Instead, his beak bit her finger.
“You know a jadestone cannot be taken, only gifted. However, if the owner dies, the stone then belongs to its mate.” Revelin’s voice sounded deep and seductive, as though he bought her idea. “We can kill what’s left of Sire Drake. Because his stone will bond to the one I possess independently, we can then present them to each other.”
“Yes, that will work,” she said with a forced giggle she hoped sounded convincing.
“In that case, we need to get you safely out of Silva Nocens.”
“And together go back to the Alliance lair, telling everyone you’re going to help me heal him.”
“Ah, very good detail.” He paused and kissed her.
Lyra tried her best to make the kisses feel real, full of desire and eagerness. She forced her battered body and mind to disconnect and let her tongue swirl around his. She felt a hot, wet sensation against her stocking. Did Kenzo pee on her? She trusted he’d eventually forgive her.
“I think if you wear my cloak and quintessence pendant, it will hide your scribal magic and deceive the drake guards. Then, we can simply walk out into the Steppe.”
“Yes. Let’s try that.”
In the tight space, he transferred his necklace to her. Its magic weighed like lead, and her stomach tightened into a knot.
“Ready?” He asked the tree to open in his own magical tongue.
Once outside, he removed his cloak. The undulating hem quieted. He draped it over her shoulders, but the tentacles remained still.
Revelin located a main trail, and the three made for the border.
Kenzo cast glares her way, but remained close.
***
The sunset flooded the opposite side of the Steppe of Ora. At the far edge, the Imperial lair stood on the cliff face. Hope swelled Lyra’s heart. Just a short distance, past the Geminus tree in the middle of the plain, lay Alliance territory. However, danger filled the skies over the barren side belonging to the Dark Realm, green dragons and drakes—fire, magma, and ice varieties. They even soared past the boundary where a squadron of Imperial Guard blues circled.
Several circled close. Lyra felt heat from the breath of the fire and magma drakes. The dark magic of Revelin’s pendant weighed her down, and she drug her feet, toes catching in the eroded cracks. “I can’t walk the rest of the way. Your necklace…I can’t,” she begged Revelin while her fingers fidgeted with the stone, lifting it from her chest as if that might lighten her load.
He wrapped a strong arm around her shoulder to bolster her. “You must keep it on. Otherwise they will discover your magic.”
“Why don’t the drakes attack you?”
“I am of this land.”
After this admission, Kenzo bolted away and flew out over the miles wide evil side of the Steppe. Lyra held her breath, watching him dodge one drake after another. Worry about her friend stressed her body beyond its limits. She dropped to her knees onto the frozen gray dirt. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a familiar blue dragon. “Yord!” she yelled with her remaining strength.
The great blue dragon lowered his wings into a slower flight and looked her way without recognizing her.
She called again with no success. She yanked off the pendant and cloak, thrusting them at Revelin. “Yord! Here!”
The magnificent blue flew straight for her, not pausing at the border to the Dark Realm.
Lyra turned to Revelin and took his hand. His face went pale watching a blue sail straight for them. “Mount with me. It will be safe. We’ll get the other jadestone.”
The entire squadron of blues paraded, firing tremendous lightning bolts. They injured many drakes and a few greens. Fire from the magma drakes heated the air around them. One ice drake dropped from the air to hit the ground only thirty feet away, dead.
Yord jerked to a landing, his claws digging into the frozen earth and leg muscles clenching to brake his motion. Immediately, he lowered a wing. “Mount fast and cover yourselves with a ward to protect from chlorine gas.”
“I can’t,” she called to him while she stepped up and sat between his spines.
“Then hold tight
er for harder turns.”
She held a hand down for Revelin. He hesitated.
Yord bellowed at him, “You are her guest. Come!”
Following orders, Revelin replaced his pendant, flung his cloak over his shoulders, and briskly mounted behind her. Yord’s acceptance seemed to reassure him, keeping Lyra’s plan on target.
With one mighty leap, Yord bounded into the sky. His whole torso contracted under them with the initial downstroke of his wings.
In the air, a green dragon shot a cloud in their direction.
The blue took to higher airspace while his fellow guards burned the attacker’s flank, forcing him down.
After that first abrupt upward turn, Lyra clamped her thighs tighter around the dragon. When Yord made a hard right turn to avoid the whipping tail of an ice drake, she was better prepared, anticipating the shift.
Three fire drakes encircled them, singing the tip of Yord’s left wing before the other blues made airspace below for him to drop down. He dodged at least a dozen more attacks before finally passing the Geminus tree, dark and weather-beaten on one side, the other covered in thick, silvery bark.
“Yord, have you seen Kenzo? He flew away from me, and I lost him,” Lyra called.
The blue glanced over his shoulder. “I did once and then became occupied with battle. Let me circle.” He dove low and swept close to the land on the Alliance side of the Steppe. Among the bushes covered in silvery ice crystals, the coloring of a tiger owl would blend in.
Lyra leaned over, scanning the ground.
Yord dropped lower. “There! I think that’s him.” He landed twenty feet from a lump of gray striped feathers.
Lyra scooted off the dragon’s lowered wing tendon and picked up the limp body, breathing but barely alive. “Kenzo, hold on. I have no healing magic now. No magic at all. We’ll be back soon and Mimio can fix you. Hold on,” she whispered into his feathers.
His eyes fluttered.
“Yord, can you do any healing?” she asked.
Enchanted Bookstore Legends (5-book complete epic fantasy romance box set) Page 55