“You are permitted here because I say you are. I have brought you here in a dream, and the laws don’t matter in dreams. You are troubled, Helena. Tell me how to make right what is not.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t need you to save me from my life, dragon.”
“I feel your loneliness.”
“Hey! Get out of my head!” That he could feel my vulnerability sent indignation and shame burning through me.
“I don’t need to deliberately read your thoughts to feel them. Don’t think so loud, and I won’t see them.”
“Ugh.” I spun, and the dress’s train tangled around my legs. “Get this thing off.”
“No.” Amusement dripped from his voice.
“Look, unless you can teach me to control my powers, I don’t want your help.” Then I shook my head. “No, scratch that. I don’t want it at all.”
“You think I will demand a price.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Figures.”
“Helena, control will come when you learn surrender.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“When the time comes, we will make of you what the world needs. You will be taught all you need when the time is right.”
“You…you mean the Dragonwatch.” Cold fear dug into me, defiance sending magic zipping along my fingers. “No way!”
“Not all Suvia Kyans like to bully humans.”
I frowned. Familiarity tugged at me.
“I will see you again soon, Helena. Sweetest dreams.”
I jerked awake in a cold sweat, breathing hard. Weakening light filtered through the tent walls, tinted with the orange of sunset. Only when I saw there was no dragon did my heart rate return to normal.
He could reassure me all he liked, but I knew better than to trust him. Dragonlords would say anything to get what they wanted. If only I could believe him.
As often happened moments after waking, the dream faded until I was already struggling to remember what I’d seen, what I’d heard, yet my thoughts spun with undeniable panic.
I don’t care what he said, I won’t let the Dragonwatch turn me into a weapon. I won’t let them have me.
The next day, while my dad drove toward Colorado, I debated telling him about my dreams. That I couldn’t remember them beyond the panic they evoked, the constant sensation that I had a target on my back. A target for the Dragonwatch Guard. Except I couldn’t put into words what had no memory to back it up, and Dad would probably only think I was jittery.
I couldn’t have denied that I was.
“Dad, who is this woman we’re seeing? What do you know about her?”
“Only what Kyas told me.”
“That’s reassuring.”
He scowled in a way that seemed to scold me for my continued distrust of the Dragonlord. I sighed. We had no other choice, and Kyas had done nothing to me to deserve my hatred. Still, alarm bells rang in my head at the thought of him.
“What did he tell you? If she’s going to teach me magic, she must have magic, too, right?”
My dad nodded. I expected him to say she was a witch like me, a woman who hid what she was and reached out to other witches to help them without getting caught by the Dragonwatch Guard.
“She’s an Elemental,” he said.
“What the hell’s an Elemental?”
“It’s not surprising you’ve never heard of them. Only a few remain in existence. They don’t usually interact with humans, so Kyas must have convinced her to help us. They’re ancient supernatural beings. Immortal. They’ve withdrawn from humanity, choosing to live in their own little pockets of space where no one can find them.”
“So why are we going to see her?”
“Unlike you, Rishtar only controls fire, but Kyas says learning elements is the same for all beings who have that power, and learning one is the same as learning the others, so she should be able to help.”
“Can we trust her?”
“Are you asking that because she knows Kyas?”
“I’m asking because I’m a witch, and all supernaturals are connected.”
He glanced sidelong at me from the driver’s seat and his gaze softened, hearing me use his own words. “Okay. There is no love between Elementals and Suvia Kyans, I’ll tell you that. Elementals are mostly women with command of powers some say are far greater than any Suvia Kyan man. The very idea of a woman with powers better than a Suvia Kyan man offends them.”
“But she knows Kyas.”
He said nothing, jaw clenched.
“If he’s sending us to her, I assume she trusts him. But he’s Suvia Kyan, and a Dragonwatch Guardsman.”
His hands gripped the steering wheel too tight. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Helena. Do you hear me?”
That much I believed. All the same, he was hiding something from me, I knew it.
Two days later, we arrived in Colorado Springs. We drove through the city and up into the mountains west of Red Rock Canyon, the crisp cold air untouched by the bright sunlight that bathed the plains. It was brighter here, but no warmer than the gloomy December cold that gripped Pennsylvania. Thick clusters of blue spruce trees and ash intermingled with rock canyons and pillars that jutted up from the green like the fingers of some ancient god.
When night settled over the desert, moonlight turned the spruce to a silvery blue. We arrived at a cluster of rock summits, two of which formed an arch high above most of the neighboring spires. Dad got out and we hid the truck under a low outcropping. He checked the pistol holstered under his trench, then took a crossbow and a quiver of bolts out of the cargo hold before we headed up a path that led to the arch.
It looked like no one had set foot on the path in years. A few hundred feet from the arch, which sat on a flat outcropping of rock, the path grew steeper. Just below the arch’s plateau, my foot slid on the loose rocks. I skidded backward with a shout. Dad caught me and pulled me up onto the plateau. Joining him, I stared up at the curved spires in wonder. They rose up two hundred feet high, bending at the tips to form a nearly completed archway.
“Wait…” I rubbed my arms, but it didn’t do anything for the electrical pulse of magic that raised gooseflesh on my skin.
“What is it?”
“Magic, but it feels…different. Stronger, stormier.”
“The Elemental’s power.” But for all the reassurance in his tone, he scanned the landscape intently.
Beyond the arch, twenty-foot tall rock formations created ledges and rises, red-hued rocks turned to dark shadows by the night.
Dad stepped up to the arch and reached out his hand, pushing it into the empty space between the rocks. He moved his hand through the air like he expected something to happen, but nothing did. He looked at me, eyes quizzical.
I reached my palm out, slowly bringing it up to the space right between the rocks. The air rippled as though I’d touched the surface of a pool. Magic pulsed along my palm, colliding with my own power and nearly making me stumble backward with its intensity.
“Wow. I’ve never felt anything like that. It’s not like my magic, or a demon’s, but not like a Dragonlord’s, either. It’s stronger. Like she could tear open the sky with a word.”
Licking my lips, I stepped through the space.
“Helena—” Dad reached for me, but I ignored him and continued through to the other side. Magic surrounded me, hot pin pricks covering my skin as the supernatural energy passed over me. I hissed at the almost painful sensation.
Once through the gateway, or whatever it was, I turned to my father and waved for him to come through. “It’s safe. Not the most pleasant sensation, but it seems harmless.”
He drew a breath, then stepped through. Once beside me on the other side, he looked back through the archway. “I didn’t feel anything. I guess you did because you have powers.”
Magic senses magic. I turned to walk with him down the narrow sloping path before me, but stopped, jaw fallin
g open. “Dad.”
“Holy shit.”
The path led to a huge outcropping of polished stone that glittered like a golden jewel. With many extensions and towers, it looked almost out of place among the clay-colored, harshly cut rock formations around it. Massive doors twenty feet tall served as an entrance and led to a set of wide stone steps. Left and right, wellsprings glittered in shimmering pools. Everywhere else, red, sandy desert rolled for miles, but here, green trees rose up with leaves in shapes I’d never seen, brush growing in a thick hedge along the path that led to the steps.
Swallowing, I followed my dad slowly up the steps to the front entrance. He notched a bolt on his crossbow. Before I could knock, the doors opened with a deep rumble, rock scraping the ground.
No one showed themselves anywhere, yet as we passed through the grand, marble tiled halls, lamps alighted with flames, bowls of oil igniting out of nothing.
“It’s like a fucking palace.” Dad’s voice carried so much that the echo startled me. I glanced at him. He had his crossbow pointed down, but at the ready. “There’s no one here, though.”
“Yes, there is. I don’t see anyone, but I feel them watching us. I only feel one source of magic, though, and it’s strong.”
We made our way across an open front hall to another set of doors; these were unadorned in polished wood that looked like cherry. The doors opened on their own as the other ones had.
We stepped inside, my gaze glued on the center of the room. At the center of a floor tiled in blood red and obsidian black, a woman stood draped in robes of the same hues. Long, blond hair curtained either side of her chest, all the way to the jeweled sandals on her feet.
My God. Everything here pulsed with a secret magic, the woman herself radiating power. Serene, supremely controlled power.
“Rishtar?” My dad called to her.
She didn’t speak, and something about her silence bothered me. Her face, human in appearance, looked too pale, and she stood too rigidly in place. Alarm bells gonged in my head, my skin prickling.
I grabbed my dad’s arm before I’d even considered why. He raised a questioning brow.
“Something’s wrong,” I said.
Two seconds before I saw them, I felt them. Dragon’s magic pounded from two directions, to the left and right of me, two sources that slowly became distinct. Out of the corner of my eye, white gold magic flashed. I grabbed my dad, dropped into a crouch as I’d seen him do before, and pulled him with me.
A rod of white-gold light flew over our heads, flying right through where my head would have been. The rod struck the wall on my right, and the stone there crumbled, parts of the wall crashing to the floor.
Dad stood and rounded on the Dragonlord, firing a bolt at him. The Suvia Kyan caught the bolt between his big palms, slapping them together with a crack that echoed in the room. Two heads taller than my dad, his golden eyes gleamed with delight, dark mustache twitching with a smile as he stalked toward us, predatory.
Without a word, he flung out a hand. The crossbow in my dad’s grip flew through the air and clattered against the wall, out of reach.
At the same time, another Dragonlord on my left flung out his hand. I caught sight of a blue, winding dragon on the back of his hand, then iridescent, blue magic shot from his palm, a wall of power. I hadn’t noticed until then, but the column of air that held the Elemental trapped was now gone, and the wall of blue power crashed into her.
The magic was a Watermaker’s power, striking with the force of a wave that sent her smashing into the wall behind her. Stone cracked and crumbled.
“Thank you, Rishtar, for your valuable service.” The Watermaker Dragonlord made a crushing motion with his hand. The woman gurgled and clawed at her throat.
“Helena…” She choked out my name. “The amulet. Use the amulet…”
The Watermaker snapped his fist closed. The woman choked a final time, and then her head flopped to the side with a horrible popping sound. She crumbled to the floor in a heap.
The Watermaker, with curly dark hair that fell to his red-caped shoulders, turned to me and my dad, then nodded to the Windwielder. “Dack, now.”
Dack gave a dramatic flick of his wrist. The cuffs hanging from his belt flew through the air and shackled my wrists with metallic clicks. A key followed, spearing into the locks and turning them closed, then flew back into his outstretched palm.
My magic cut off, the feel of it suddenly gone. The absence of it in the presence of two clearly well-trained Dragonwatch Guardsmen left me feeling naked and defenseless. Especially when the Watermaker was looking me over like a prized catch caught in a net.
A prime weapon for the shaping.
As soon as my wrists were bound, my dad moved toward Dack, but a rope of light flew out of his palm and wound itself around my dad’s wrists, binding them together in front of him. The Suvia Kyan broke the space between them in a blur of movement, and, before my father could do anything, he punched him in the gut with one huge fist. My dad doubled over with a grunt.
“Don’t touch him,” I shouted.
“What will you do about it, little witch?” Dack cocked his head at me.
Fuck, they had us.
I glanced around. There were three dragon magicks. If what my dad had told me was right, all they’d need was a Firewalker, and they’d be able to shut me off from my powers permanently. Except, they wouldn’t do that. They wanted a weapon. I’d almost have preferred being cut off from my power.
“It took you long enough to get here, witch.” The one in front of us now turned to my father. His electric blue eyes glowed with magic, and then a bright ball of blue energy formed above his palm, hovering there. Pulsing with currents of deadly power. “Did you have trouble finding the place, Ghost?”
“Leave her alone,” Dad growled.
Dack punched him again and he fell to his knees with a curse, bent over. I shouted at Dack to stop, but he ignored me.
God, I hated Dragonlords.
“What do you think, Solarr?” Dack said, yanking my father to his feet by the back of his shirt, one hand gripping his jaw. “Shall we stop?”
“I think not. It’s time she paid her dues for what she is.” Solarr stalked toward me until he towered over me.
“Now I see why he’s obsessed with controlling your power.” He looked me over like a prized calf. “You look just like her.”
“Like who?” And who was he?
His mouth quirked in a cruel smile. Then he lifted the ball of pulsing blue energy until it hovered so close to my face the magic heated my skin. I jerked my head away, but he grabbed my chin and jerked it up, inspecting my face. My eyes. What the hell was he looking for?
“You don’t look like much,” he finally said, releasing me roughly. “Scrawny, without poise or refinement, you’re hardly the image of…” He dropped his shoulders. “Well. I suppose you could be…what is it you humans say? A diamond in the rough?”
“I won’t let you take me as a weapon.”
“If that is what we want, that is what you will give us. Oh, and by the way. Kyas sends his regards.”
Chapter 11
A Silver Lining
Kyas sends his regards.
The words thundered around in my head, unstoppable. Every muscle in me tightened, the blood rushing in my ears.
“Dack.” The Watermaker nodded to the other Dragonlord, but shock seemed to have numbed my brain so that I only half registered what the gesture meant.
“Yes, Captain Solarr.” Dack seized the back of my hair and yanked me across the room, the pain and my father’s angry shout jarring me back into the moment.
“Get your hands off her, Dragonlord scum!”
“Let go of me!” I twisted, but Dack’s fist tightened on my hair. He yanked so hard I felt my hair come out at the roots. My feet went out from under me, sending me crashing to the tiles on my side.
Across the room, Dack shoved me toward a large stone basin where Rishtar had been standing. I ha
dn’t noticed it when my dad and I had arrived, but the basin, wide enough to fit ten people easily, had a ledge that stood three feet high, with two stone steps leading up to it. Steel bars encircled the ledge, forming a two-foot tall safety barrier, left open where the stairs were. Water glistened, filling the basin almost to the brim.
“Hands.” Dack reached for my wrists.
Across the room at the doors, my father shouted, then I heard him hit the floor. Instinct to protect him overrode my common sense; I swung at the Dragonlord’s face, a clumsy attempt with my wrists bound in dragonsteel.
Dack backhanded me across the face. The metal covering his hand collided with my jaw, no less painful than the last time I’d been punched by a Suvia Kyan, four years ago. The force of the blow sent me spinning to the floor on my stomach, wrists pinned awkwardly under me. I winced, working my agonized jaw, eyes watering.
Fuck, these guys hit like hammers. How he didn’t break my jaw, I didn’t know.
“Obey, witch.” Dack yanked me to my feet, turned me to face the basin, and slid my arms up over the bars. Then he had my hair again, pulling my head back. His sour breath, like onions, fanned my ear. “Defiance is the mother of retribution. Kneel in the splendor of The Dragon, for to bend knee to all but Him is darkness come.”
What the hell he meant, I hadn’t a clue, but there was no mistaking the fanaticism in his tone. He released me, and I tried to turn my head around far enough to see my dad.
Solarr had dragged him across the room toward where I stood. My father tried to punch him in the face, but the Dragonlord caught his fist and twisted his arm up behind his back until he was bent over double in front of him.
“He told me what happened back then, Adam. Shall I break your other arm?”
My father’s face went white. His eyes squeezed shut in pain, his body deflating. “Don’t hurt her. Please.” Dread filled his voice, but I had a feeling it was for more than having his arm broken again, whenever that had happened.
“Ah, yes. You’ve lost much already. How much good will you be to your daughter with one of your arms torn off? Your other eye gouged out?”
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