Dragon Mark

by Kit Bladegrave

  I flew once around the camp, found who I needed, and landed right beside Aiden.

  “Fredwin, he’s here, and we need to stop him and the Priests,” I said in a rush.

  “On it. With me,” Aiden yelled to the troops he had command of, and thirty dragons, witches, and warlocks fell in behind him, along with Tank, Jenny, and Preston.

  If they could take out the Priests, I could go straight for Fredwin.

  I owed him anyway, for what he did to Everest, what he nearly did to me. I shifted and threw myself into the air, pulling on my inner fire, and let it fall from my jaws as I made my way over the camp, headed right for the evil Priest I was more than ready to chomp in half.

  Eleven

  Everest

  I gasped and doubled over. “Something’s wrong,” I gasped. “Slade, he’s in trouble.”

  “Then it is time,” announced the red-headed witch Nora. “Everest, are you ready?”

  “Don’t have much of a choice.” I straightened, begging Slade to hold on. I waved my hand over the boulder as Nora taught me to do, but all I could see was where my body remained, in the mountain base and far away from the battle.

  When I turned back around, Nora stood before me with the rest of the First Communion waiting alongside her.

  I steeled myself to hand over my body to these six witches and finally brought myself to nod. Nora reached out and rested her fingers on the necklace around my throat. Her smile told me this plan would work, and I would be able to go back to Slade and my family and friends, but her eyes held a much different story. Fear that all of this would be for nothing.

  She shut her eyes, and I gasped, my head falling back as she was sucked into the necklace and essentially became a part of me.

  One after the other did the same until I was alone by the campfire in the place where it was never fully day.

  I staggered forward, falling to my knees in the sand, attempting to clear the sudden fuzziness in my mind.

  “Everest?”

  “Mom?” I shook my head hard, then turned around to stare at the boulder.

  The witches in control of my body were sitting up, and Mom’s face came into view.

  She was crying in happiness, but then she frowned and stepped away. “You… you’re not Everest.”

  “We are not, but your daughter is safe,” I heard my voice come out of my mouth, but more echoed the words, layering it as the First Communion spoke through me. “We have come to end this war, and we need Everest to do so. The Lost Heir, where is he?”

  “Come on, Mom,” I whispered urgently. “I’m in here, I swear it, and I’m alright. Just tell them. Please tell them.”

  She nodded, swallowing hard a few times before she finally replied, “They’re attacking the Black Diamond encampment. There’s a portal in town.”

  “Thank you, Mahlia, our Descendant,” my voice said, and then we were walking as if I hadn’t spent the last week almost lying there on that cot, dying. We were about to step through the portal when Mom called out, and we turned to face her again.

  “Wait, you… when you say, we are you… are you the First Communion?”

  My head bobbed in answer. “We are, and we swear we will keep your daughter safe.”

  “I hope,” I whispered, and watched as my body disappeared into the portal.

  When we… they, I couldn’t decide how to call my new possessed self.

  She, I would just go with she.

  When she exited the portal and appeared in the town square, her head turned, and I recognized Shadowguard fighters, but there were no other portals.

  “The encampment, Everest, where is it?” she asked me aloud, meaning I was talking to myself, which I would’ve thought was weirder if I hadn’t been so desperate to get to Slade.

  “I don’t remember the exact coordinates.”

  “Picture it in your mind.”

  Funny, how I was technically in my mind, but I shut my eyes and tried to remember the path we took, what route we walked through the woods. I brought up every single detail I could remember.

  There was a flash of light, and I heard a few people calling out in a panic, asking what I was doing as a portal formed before me. The witches said nothing and then she was through this portal and came out the other side to a nightmarish scene.

  The encampment was on fire, shadowed flames mixing with the red that tore through anything in their path.

  Several fighters were frozen to death right where they stood.

  The sky was filled with dragons, Black Diamonds, Shadowguards, a few Hollow Wells.

  We’d barely taken a few steps though when one came crashing to the ground, shifting back into his human form, and clearly not by choice. Red tendrils of magic wrapped around his body, strangling him.

  Before I even opened my mouth to yell for Nora to do something, she raised my hand, and violet mist shot out, cutting through the Priest’s magic and following it back to the villain in question.

  It shot up his arm, and he screamed in agony as his arm vanished. He fell to the ground sobbing at the missing limb as I watched myself run straight into the fight.

  I spotted Aiden taking on a several Black Diamonds, but he was already bloodied and bruised.

  Dead littered the ground at his feet, foe and friend alike.

  I cursed, pacing madly in front of the boulder, wanting to tear my hair out since all I could do was watch, but Nora had it well in hand.

  She barely had to think before magic erupted from her hands, striking down any enemy that came within range. But where was Slade? We needed to find him.

  “There,” Nora called out.

  I followed where she pointed and saw Slade’s massive form high up in the clouds. He was fighting another dragon and swiped his claws across its face before he tore one of its wings free. It faltered and hit the ground.

  I smiled in relief until I saw him struck down by a massive burning red ball of fire.

  “No… no!”

  Nora was already running, following where the magic came from. The second his face came into view, I willed her to tear that asshole apart with her bare hands.

  “Fredwin,” I hissed. “Kill him, Nora.”

  “Don’t worry, Everest,” she said, sounding just as vicious as I felt like being, “I will.”

  I wanted to see Slade, but her focus was entirely on Fredwin as more Priests rushed out of another portal behind him.

  “Nora, if you can’t stop him and shut down that portal, these Priests will wipe them all out.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” she assured me. “Time to see some real magic, my child.”

  I bit my nails hard, and nodded fervently, ready to see just how badass I could be, well, all of us.

  Twelve

  Slade

  I slammed into the ground, grunting at the pain rolling over me from the hit. I couldn’t hold my dragon form and shifted back, clawing at the ground. My breathing was ragged, and I couldn’t see straight. For a few moments there, we had the upper hand, but Fredwin, he brought more Priests, and they struck us from the sky one by one, ripped us apart with their damned magic.

  The Black Diamonds had either retreated or were dead, but the Priests, they were holding this fight all on their own.

  I pushed to all fours, spitting grass and dirt from my mouth… and froze.

  Scrunching my eyes shut, I figured I’d hit my head harder than I thought, but when I opened my eyes again, there was Everest, striding through the middle of the camp, that damned look on her face of a determination I loved and hated at the same time.

  I got to my feet unsteadily, following where her path would lead and drew two knives from my sides.

  “Everest!” I tried to yell, but the word got stuck in my throat.

  Each step sent jarring pain through my back, but I had to stop her from getting herself killed.

  Fredwin, she couldn’t take him on alone. I wouldn’t let her. And how the hell had she even gotten here?

  I picked up
the pace, frowning to see her using magic. It swirled around her hands without her even seeming to use any effort to draw on it. Fredwin was only yards away. His eyes narrowed on her face as he leered. The air became charged as red lightning crackled at his fingertips and those of the Priests around him.

  “You will not harm another soul here,” Everest warned.

  I missed a step.

  That voice, that was not Everest.

  “Is that so? And who are you to stop me, huh? You’re nothing but a Descendant with no training and no chance at defeating me.”

  “You’re wrong,” Everest replied, and her lips curled into a smile that was also not Everest.

  This was wrong, very wrong. I wanted to call out to her, but then Fredwin’s gaze shifted, and his eyes zeroed in on me. He raised his hands over his head and with a yell, aimed that lightning right toward me.

  It was coming for me and the other dragons who started to rally behind me at the sight of Everest.

  I yelled for them to get down, ready to take the hit for as many of them as I could, trying to shift and use my wings as cover, but as the explosion of the hit sounded, nothing happened.

  We weren’t thrown across the camp. There was no pain, nothing except dirt falling over our heads. I shifted back right away, then I straightened.

  Everest was holding her right hand out toward us. A shield had formed around us, keeping us safe. The red lightning cracked around it but couldn’t get through.

  “You Priests and your blood magic,” Everest snarled, “all of that came long after we came to exist.”

  She reached out with her left hand toward the lightning and with a yank, pulled it away from us, then shot it back toward the Priests. It struck them down all around Fredwin, leaving him standing in wide-eyed confusion.

  “You… you don’t have that power,” he muttered, taking a wary step backward.

  “Don’t I?” Everest dropped her right hand.

  I expected the shield to fall, but it remained and spread out, taking under its protection all the remaining forces we had standing. How was she doing this? It wasn’t possible, couldn’t be. “Your magic is merely a twisted version of mine. And you? You are not worthy to wield it in any form.”

  Fredwin yelled, striking at her, again and again, as I watched, but she waved each attack harmlessly to the side where it struck the ground instead.

  I pushed against the shield, wanting to be by her side, but it pushed me right back.

  “What’s she doing?” Aiden asked out of breath, running to reach me.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her smile… her eyes… that’s not Everest.”

  I wanted out of this confinement, but then she was pulling the power back to her hands, a violet thunderstorm in her control.

  Fredwin turned, ready to flee, but she shot the storm toward him, and it swept him up in its grasp, flipping him upside down, so he hung helplessly before her.

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want,” Fredwin yelled. “I swear it. I’ll tell you what Radnak’s plan is.”

  Everest grabbed him by his hair and clicked her tongue. “I already know his plan, Priest, I have no need for you. And by the way, Everest says hello.”

  A dagger was in her hand, and she slit his throat in a blink.

  I choked at the sight of her being so heartless. Everest had told me how torn up she was about having to finally kill in order to save herself and others, how she still felt guilty about torturing that Black Diamond.

  Whatever being possessed Everest had taken her away from me.

  The shield around us fell, and I stalked toward her as the rest of our soldiers rounded up the remaining Priests and Black Diamonds who were surrendering, while Selma rushed to lock the portals, keeping them open, but preventing anything from easily coming through.

  Fredwin’s body hit the ground with a thud when I was just a few feet away from Everest.

  “Slade,” she said as she turned to face me, completely emotionless. “I am glad to see you alive.”

  “You… who are you?” I demanded with a growl, my grip tightening on my dagger. “Who, damn it.”

  “We are Everest.”

  I shot a confused look at Aiden. “We? What does that mean? What have you done to her?”

  “She is safe, we swear to you, but we needed to use her body. It is the only way we can help you end this war caused by Radnak.”

  It was her voice, but there were so many others layered in, it made my ears ring. And those eyes, I searched in vain for any sign of my Everest amongst the yellow-green, but they blurred from one color to the next, never staying the same for long.

  “I don’t… I don’t understand,” I whispered. “You were sick, and that mark… is this blood magic?”

  She shook her head and lifted her shirt to show me her ribs. The mark was gone, as if it had never existed at all.

  “Slade,” she said, and took a step toward me, but I took one instinctively back.

  A flicker of hurt, of Everest, flashed through those eyes, before they went back to their shifting.

  “You need to listen to us closely. We are the First Communion of witches. Everest is our vessel for the time being.”

  My head was spinning. “You hijacked Everest’s body?”

  She nodded. “We were left with no other choice, and it was Everest’s decision to make.”

  “Wait, she let you do this to her? Is she… is she alive?” I asked, my heart beating faster and faster in my chest as I waited for her to answer. “Is she or not?”

  “Yes, but the situation is complicated.”

  “Complicated, no shit.” I ran a shaking hand through my hair, not willing to believe this was actually happening. “You’re using her.”

  “Everest was our only option, and we are afraid without us, Radnak would win this war. You see the powers the Priests possess, and the Black Diamonds numbers are far greater in the other dimensions,” she explained calmly. “We are here to aid you in this final battle against your enemies.”

  I took a few more steps back before I turned around, unable to face her right then.

  Everest, they took over Everest’s body, her mind? Did she even know what was going on? Did she really agree to this? I couldn’t believe she would allow herself to be handed over so easily… but then again, she was ready to do whatever it took to end this war for my sake and the rest of the clan. Every instinct inside me said this was wrong and Everest was dying the longer they stayed within her. How the hell could I get them out of her body?

  The necklace.

  I straightened and turned back around.

  She watched me closely as I moved nearer.

  That damned necklace was the cause of all of this. If I removed it, I would save her, bring her back to me.

  “Slade—no!”

  I’d lunged forward, ready to yank the necklace free, but found myself floating several feet in the air, unable to move. “Bring her back to me,” I yelled. “Do it.”

  “We can’t, not yet,” she informed me, and I growled at the pity on her face. “You have to trust us.”

  “Well, I don’t. I don’t trust anything about you.”

  “Do you trust Everest?” she asked.

  I clamped my mouth shut.

  I trusted Everest with my life, but this was not Everest. “I want to speak to her, directly. I want to know she’s alright.”

  She frowned, seeming to think it over, and slowly lowered me to the ground. “Before you try to tear the necklace away again, doing so now might kill her. Do you understand?”

  She didn’t release her hold on me until I swore I wouldn’t go for it again. The fact that I could’ve killed Everest by acting so rashly had me wanting to kick myself, but I wasn’t backing down.

  “You can speak to her, but it will only be for a moment.”

  “I understand,” I growled.

  “Everest? Press your hand to the s
tone,” she said.

  I looked around, confused.

  She raised her hand. “Press your hand to ours, Slade. Do it quickly, there is not much time.”

  My hand was against hers, and I felt myself leaving my body.

  “Slade?”

  I opened my eyes, confused to see sand beneath my boots and boulders and palm trees surrounding me. “Everest?”

  She was in my arms a second later, and I hugged her close, breathing her in as I kissed her.

  “Thank god we got to you in time,” she said, holding me to her. “I was so worried we’d be late.”

  “Wait, just slow down. What’s happened to you? What is this place?”

  “For right now, it’s where I have to stay.”

  “Why? None of this makes sense.”

  “Listen to me,” she said urgently, cupping my face in her hands. “You need to trust that I know what I’m doing, and so do they. The only way for them to enter our world and use their powers is to bond with a vessel. Me.”

  “But what is this doing to you?”

  “Honestly, it depends on how long they have to remain here.”

  I heard the fear in her words and hugged her again, not wanting to let go, but I felt like a hand tugged on my middle. “No, I won’t leave you here like this.”

  “I’ll be fine, I will. I can see everything that’s going on, but there’s no time. Listen to them. There’s something about your clan that’s been hidden for years. It’s why Radnak is after the souls. Swear to me you’ll do as they say, Slade. Your life depends on it.”

  I ran my fingers through her dark hair, memorizing every detail of her face as the tugging grew more insistent. “I won’t fail you,” I swore, kissing her again.

  “I know. Now go, finish this war.”

  I backed away from her, our hands straining to remain together, and then I blinked, and she was gone. I stood back in the camp as the Everest before me lowered her hand to her side.