He looked like an actor about to perform a heartfelt monologue, but for some reason, I had no desire to laugh at him.
Noticing my attention, Pax gave me what I could only consider a smirk. “This is what the others wore when I was last on the surface. I chose not to search for something in my hoard to mimic your attire.”
Obviously, he was not a fan of bloody rags.
“I am assuming there is some very interesting story behind our unexpected introduction.” His brows raised high on his impossibly perfect face. Wyvern’s father had worn the body of a teenager when I had met him; Pax looked closer to his early twenties. He looked a lot like my grandfather in the structure of his face, and like many of my cousins, though his face still had an ‘other’ inhuman quality to it also.
“I need to speak to the Vrykolakas dragon right away! Um… please.”
“Why would you ever want to speak to him?” He blinked slowly, looking almost amused.
“Because, Wyvern, the Wyvern Rex’s son who rules New Anglo on the surface, has some sort of magic in him that is not dragon magic… it’s killing him. I don’t know how much time he has left,” I said.
“Is it human magic?”
I paused. “No, something else. You… know about human magic?”
He chuckled. “Dearest great-granddaughter, of course I know about human magic. The last time I went to the surface was when your father inherited his exceptional aspects. Here, come with me. I must call that boy’s father and hope the Wyvern Rex arrives before his son dies. You have left me in a rather discomfited situation, my dear.”
I looked back to Wyvern once; his face morphed to almost a dragon’s now, gleaming opal scales spotty across the length of his nose. I grabbed the leathery cheeks of his half-transformed face. “You better survive, you hear me? I’m going to be right back… don’t even think of dying while I’m away from you or I’ll never, ever forgive you for it.” Leaning in, I kissed him on his forehead, his half-formed scales catching on my lips.
Swallowing heavily, I released him to crawl my way as quickly as possible to my great grandfather.
Pax waited until I stood next to him, then offered me his hand.
“You are going to teleport us?”
“Of course, there’s no other way to get out of this room.”
The moment my hand touched his burning skin, the room fell away and the biggest hearth room I had ever seen in my life popped into existence around us. I buckled forward, my knees hitting the warm stone.
“That won’t do.” Pax lifted me by the hand he still held. Gesturing with his other hand first, he led me to the… it wasn’t a fire pit.
Where most dracon houses would have a large open fire, Pax had a small lake of molten magma. A lava-fall fed it on one side and another stream led away and into the wall at one side of the enclosure. The room glowed with a reddish light radiating from the lake.
“It circulates through the fortress,” Pax said as he stopped in front of the lava pool.
“Will you also be getting the Vrykolakas dragon?”
His eyes reflected the lava pool as he regarded me. “I will not.”
“Wyvern is dying,” I pleaded.
“He definitely will die if I bring the Vrykolakas dragon to my keep. As I expect would you, if that bastard did not intend to take you for his own instead. Besides, the Vrykolakas dragon is a depraved idiot, and I would not have you meet him. You will need to pose your questions to me and hope that your great-grandfather is clever enough to solve it.”
I nodded, too nervous to speak as he let go of my hand.
“I will be right back, my dear.” He walked purposefully into the lava, not hesitating for a second as his body slowly submerged and was gone.
The tears came then. Tears dropped for Sophie and Sarah’s betrayal. Sobs ripped from me because I had no idea how to save Wyvern. And finally, a few quiet sniffles, because for a moment with my great-grandfather, it felt so much like my grandfather was with me.
I looked down at that shimmering line, a line that only I seemed to notice. A line I could only assume was the connection between our souls, pulled taut between us. I closed my eyes because I hoped that if that line was still taut between us, he was still alive.
After five minutes waiting, I gave up standing. The room had no furniture, and when I looked around, I realized, no doors either. Laboriously lowering myself onto the ground, I watched the placid surface of the lava lake. It, and a couple sconces on the walls, was the only feature in the entire room; otherwise, it was just a stone box, big and tall enough for several dragons to move around in.
My eyelids tried to shut, but I forced them back open.
Suddenly, a huge white dragon burst from the magma, sending lava spurting out in every direction. The lake’s surface did not even ripple in warning, there was nothing, then an explosion of magma and scales.
The white dragon dove at me, the intensity of his soul plowing into me a moment before his claw did.
I screamed as one of the dragon’s massive claws slammed into my body and pinned me to the ground. His jaw came down and sharp teeth snapped inches from my face. His head pulled back and lifted, mouth opening to make a screeching sound that shook the room around us.
A scream ripped from me again as I fought against his hold on me, trying to get my hands up to my ears.
“Enough!” Pax shouted from somewhere I couldn’t see, and then the dragon vanished. It took my body a couple second to realize that the fleshy underside of his claw wasn’t pressing me into the ground anymore.
I gasped in air, looking around at the now empty room. All around me there were deep heavy scratches in the stone from where the dragon had been holding me down.
“Oh my gods!” I whispered, covering my face. Reaching behind me to the small of my back, I fumbled out Contingency. I looked at my gun, whispered, “Oh my gods, what am I thinking?”
Pulling my portal purse from where I stowed it, I zipped it open and pushed Contingency through the portal, and then zipped it back up. I stowed the purse back into my bra.
There was a loud, booming crashing sound below, then Pax appeared before me. In his hands, he held out what I could only assume was a gown from the same time-period his clothes were from. Blue velvet surrounded what I was sure was real gems.
“Your attire is now completely destroyed,” he said.
As I took the dress, he said, “I will give you a couple minutes.”
“Wait!” I said, but he was gone.
I removed the scraps of clothing I still had on and with an enormous effort, pulled on the dress. The dress probably weighed thirty pounds. The reason Pax had the dress in his hoard and the reason that it weighed so much was probably the same; the entire bodice was encrusted with blue jewels. From the waist up, I looked as if I too now had gleaming scales.
My arms were all but swimming in the loose material of the sleeves as I tried to reach behind myself and tighten the laces of the corset. Finding what I hoped was the right lace, I pulled upward until the bodice was tight enough that I hoped the dress would say on.
With some effort, I leaned down and grabbed my portal purse back from my pile of ruined clothing to stow it in my bodice. When I realized how much the dress pooled around my feet, I realized what a mistake the clothing was. I should have kept the rags, consequences be damned, because there was little chance I’d be able to fight in this dress if the Wyvern Rex decided to kill me.
Pax appeared before me, glanced at my dress and nodded. “That is much better.”
“Great-grandfather, we need to go back to Wyvern,” I said.
“To do what?” he asked.
“We need to find a way to save him.”
“That is why we are up here. If we go back down there, you will still have no idea how to save him, and you’ll be in the path of a berserk dragon.”
“Will Wyvern be okay down there with him?” I looked around frantically, though there was nothing to look at.
“
He is likely the only one who would be safe with the High Rex right now.”
Another loud crashing sounded as the floor shook beneath us.
Pax patted my shoulder as I stared wide-eyed at the floor. “He would have to break though seven floors in my keep to get to us. Now, tell me what happened. We may take a seat, if you are more comfortable.”
As I sat, I said, “You’re not how I always pictured you.”
“How have you pictured me?”
“Devious and cunning,” I said.
He chuckled. “Those are the traits I am known for. I am devious and cunning, as, I hear, are you. Let me ask you, are you devious and cunning with my son George?”
“No,” I said.
“We all play our roles, Dakota. But I do not wish to play my role with you, nor do I expect, do you wish to with me.” He sat down beside me. “Be welcome and unburdened at my hearth, always, great grand-daughter.”
“Thank you. Okay…” I reported to him the way I would have to my grandfather, thoroughly and as detached as I could manage. Even though I watched Pax’s expressions closely, like my grandfather, he gave nothing away as he listened. I left nothing out, but he asked me a few specific questions along the way, clarifying to him which people said what and asking me to describe the features of people I didn’t know. After explaining everything, I whispered, “It was my fault they got to Wyvern. I’m always making the same mistakes… If I’d just told Wyvern, he’d be fine and we might even know who was behind all of this.”
“The choice was sound,” Pax said it like it was law. “You owed her a life debt, whether or not she has betrayed you.”
“Do you have any ideas?” I said.
“I know at least a good amount of what you need to know.” He nodded.
“What? Are you serious? How do I save Wyvern?”
“Where does magic come from?”
My eyes widened. I begged, “No! Please, just tell me… no riddles.”
He just regarded me the exact same way my grandfather would, patiently and unyielding, like stone being batted at by a fly.
“Come on…” I sagged in defeat. “Okay… magic comes from the Dragon Kingdoms.”
“Where in the Dragon Kingdoms?”
I looked around, then back at him. “The dragons themselves?”
“Then how can the humans in Mabi have magic?” he asked.
“You’re right. Ailani told me… the volcanoes carried dirt and rocks from the Dragons Kingdoms a thousand years ago and the humans on Mabi evolved. The food they ate and materials they used slowly made them magical, but in water magic instead of fire.”
“Very true. Though I would say more specifically, the iron, silica, magnesium, calcium, potassium and other elements of our world spread into yours. Though this process took hundreds of years. It took twelve days between when the Mabi Volcano erupted from the ground, creating the first ever lava portal from the Dragon Kingdoms to the surface and when the six dragons passed through.”
“The humans weren’t magical then.”
He shook his head slowly.
“And they killed dragons,” I whispered, realizing where this was leading.
“And they killed dragons.” He pinned me with his eyes.
“How?”
“The four high kings made a law long ago that no one that knew—and there were few of us that knew—would ever speak of what could kill dragons.”
“But you know?”
He nodded.
“And I need to figure it out myself?”
He nodded again.
“Typical. Crap,” I said, looking away.
“That is not appropriate language for any great-granddaughter of mine.” A small smile touched the side of his lips. “All the information you need the world has already provided for you. You just need to be cleverer.”
“Thanks,” I said, dryly.
“Okay, so the volcanoes are bringing up minerals from the Dragon Kingdoms, right? Is there any naturally occurring magic on the surface?”
He shook his head.
“So it started from here, but it’s not human or dragons… and there wasn’t enough time for anything else to evolve.” I looked at the magma lake. “Is it the minerals themselves?”
“If the minerals came directly from the Kingdoms and they are the same minerals that make us dragons magical, wouldn’t your prince ally read the magic as at least similar to dragon magic?”
“But over time, it’s converted through plants and animals…”
“Which makes it like human magic.”
“What else can happen to elements that come through the lava portals?”
I looked off at the fire flickering from the sconces. “I don’t know.”
“What is produced when minerals are gathered together within the magma and then meet the temperatures and pressurization of the surface? It’s something that cannot be formed in the Kingdoms and dragons greatly desire.”
“Gemstones,” I whispered, glancing down at my dress. “But gemstones don’t kill dragons, otherwise every dragon would be super-dead.”
“Most gemstones do not, this is true.”
“But there’s one that does? A… white one that looks like bone?” I asked, as I remembered the painting ‘Extinction’.
He didn’t answer, just looked on approvingly.
“But if the humans had this way to kill dragons… and gemstones too, why did they never kill another dragon?”
“That my dear, is a much more complicated answer which involves our family very much.”
“Our family?”
“Who else’s? At that time, the Mabiian’s were isolated from most other areas of the world, but the dragons knew that this would change as the human’s were traveling further and further with their ships. When the dragons re-entered the surface and started infecting humans and having offspring, they had a choice… they could have their young offspring go to war with the only humans that had found a way to end the dragon’s immortality before their knowledge could spread. Or they could send in the offspring of a dragon known for his patience and cunning, a low level king of little influence. They could offer this king autonomy from rule from the four High Dragon Rexes. In exchange, he would send in his only son to make peace with the Mabiians, and slowly but surely, he would eradicate their knowledge on how to kill dragons.”
“But they didn’t forget?”
“They did.”
“Are these gems in Albonia too?”
Pax looked away. “No, it is a Mabiian anomaly.”
“Then how did…” I shook my head. “Not us? We didn’t… Grandfather didn’t do that?”
“Your grandfather made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” I spat.
“He fell in love. He was a very young man when he fell in love with your grandmother and not much older when he lost her while she birthed your father, Kaipo. He did not expect to lose her, not knowing that your father would be twice as powerful as he should be. Kaipo was his first child, his only family aside from me, and I could only communicate with him through portals and letters.”
“When did he remarry?”
“Not for two hundred years after.”
My jaw dropped open. “I did not know that.”
“He had no interest in taking another wife. Your father was George’s only son for a very long time, the only son he wanted. I warned him not to love too much, as I know as well, having only one son myself, but your grandfather is stubborn.”
I couldn’t help a small smile at that.
“The Regina of Oceania bought land and had a summer estate built on Mabi Island near that two-hundred-year mark. Your grandfather allowed her the purchase, but neither he nor I were comfortable with her proximity. Before I had been granted my autonomy, I had been the Vrykolakas dragon’s vassal.” He paused for a second, and though his expression gave nothing away, a tide of revulsion swept over his massive soul.
“He’s that bad?” I asked.
“H
e’d not wanted to grant my autonomy, and had made it perfectly evident that he considered what was mine, his. Both I and your grandfather expected the same of his daughter.”
“She seemed pretty fierce,” I said.
“Not at the time. She too, was only a couple hundred years old. She was just released from a contract with the Alobian Rex, son of the Draqui Rex. He’d made many threats on her life at that time and this was the reason she gave for staying there so long. It was months before George discovered that she and Kaipo were in a relationship. He had offered her a contract in secret. George was furious. He believed that she intended ill on the Vrykolakas dragon’s behalf and at the first opportunity she would harm your father.” He looked away again, to the lava.
“So he gave the gem weapon away to the Alboian Rex?”
“It was anonymously done and given with vague stories about the stone’s history and usage.”
“You were okay with that?”
“Not in the slightest. After the day I learned of George’s betrayal, I ordered him to never go twenty years without a wife again. I ordered that he populate the island chain with his offspring. I told him that if he did not follow my orders, he and Kaipo would live in my keep for a hundred years.”
“Why did you guys even keep the stones?”
“That was part of the betrayal. I ordered him to destroy the stones. He believed that the stones would work the same way on the Regina as it had on the dragons. However, instead of quietly making another attempt on the Regina’s life, the Albonian Rex had his son use the gemstone. When the gem killed that dracon, he used the stone on his brother. After both dracons died, he spread a self-inflating rumor that he and his family had the power to curse. For years he continued this ruse, gaining himself power and respect until he finally decided to use the gem on the Regina.”
“But it didn’t kill her, and she killed the Albonian Rex and all of his family.”
He nodded solemnly.
“What does the gem do to the soul, exactly?”
“With your abilities, my dear, you would know better than I.”
“I need to find out… or is there a cure?”
Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2) Page 26