When Forces Rise

by Meagan Hurst

  At least until the Dragons had followed her. Veilantras had removed the brush between her and Z upon learning the Kryhista was still alive and Nivaradros had gone back to clear an area in the forest by burning everything in his way into fine ash or a puddle that sank into the ground. He had created a dry clearing for them, but it wasn’t safe to move Dyslentio yet.

  “Don’t touch him!” she snapped at Nivaradros as he started forward. “He cannot be moved!”

  “He cannot stay there, Z; he is gravely wounded.”

  “If you move him he will die. Let me…just give me a minute!”

  “You intend to heal him?”

  “No! Yes…maybe…” Z hesitated while looking at the unconscious Kryhista. Like horses they couldn’t remain down for too long without serious consequences—including death—and she knew he was undoubtedly cutting that close. Yet healing…that she couldn’t just do. He had, however, healed her. She owed him. But although she was in control of most of her power, her healing talent was something that she still couldn’t control.

  Shuddering, she finally gave in and closed her eyes. Reaching out with magic, she felt his injuries as they were and slowly began to force her power to do whatever she could. She took nothing and offered nothing more than magic, and in the end—when the damage to Dyslentio was as healed as she could manage—she felt a familiar touch on her senses.

  Sleep, you have done enough. Nivaradros’s voice was soothing, and she knew he could tell how agitated she was. Veilantras and I will watch him. He is healed—he may doubt his memory as there are not even scars.

  Ha ha, she murmured, but she didn’t shove his magic away.

  Sleep, Zimliya, the Dragon pressed. His tone took on more of a command and his magic began to swell against her shields. If you are needed I will wake you, but this has harmed you and you must recover from it. I will handle things.

  Surrendering because she was certain Veilantras would ask questions she couldn’t afford to answer, Z let Nivaradros push her into sleep. Asleep, she did not have to fear the results of her attempt to heal Dyslentio, no matter what the Dragon claimed.

  She awoke to three familiar voices speaking softly from somewhere close to her right. Sitting up—drawing Kyi’rinn—she glanced over at the two resigned Dragons and the one startled, but very much alive, Kryhista. Dyslentio appeared to be healed; he was standing on his own, and not even a hint of dried blood or a scar remained to imply he had been close to death.

  Silver eyes, however, were faintly uneasy. “I see your reflexes haven’t softened since we last met, but at least this time you managed to wake without wounding yourself.” Dyslentio glanced at Nivaradros, but the Dragon offered him nothing. “Allegedly my survival is all of your doing…?”

  “I can take it back if you’d rather be lying in the bushes dying,” Z snapped.

  Dyslentio tossed his head in surprise. “No, no, I am grateful for your aid, but with your outlook on magic and the fact you never showed even the slightest ability to heal when I met you, I was surprised to learn you were behind my recovery.”

  “Don’t get used to it,” she muttered under her breath. Standing, she brushed the dirt from her clothes and moved closer to the three immortals. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  Raising a brow in surprise, Z glanced at Nivaradros. The Dragon was at least consistent; he offered her nothing as well. “Why were you looking for me?”

  “Because after centuries of having no contact, Nivaradros showed up carrying you and was beside himself with fear over the fact that you were dying. You, a mortal, had managed to get the Dragon to seek out my help in order to save your life when he had never before shown even the slightest interest in a human. Not only that, but from what he told me, and what I saw in you both when I healed you and when you had awakened, you were perhaps the only other being in this world to see the Dragon as he was, and not judge him.”

  “I never have,” Z murmured.

  “No you have not,” Dyslentio agreed with a frown at Veilantras. “Unlike his people who made him what and who he is.”

  “They did not make him who he is,” Z argued, “but they did make him what he is not, truly. They turned him into a scapegoat and in doing so they forced his hand.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I never raised a talon nor a wing in violence against him. Nor a spoken word,” Veilantras countered as her eyes began to brighten as they met the furious ones of the Kryhista.

  “Perhaps not, but you also didn’t offer him aid. You have no idea what it was like to watch Nivaradros become something darker and infinitely more dangerous than anything I had known, than I wanted to know. The ability to trust him became compromised by his actions toward others despite the fact that he never raised magic, talon, wing, fire, or teeth against me, against any of my people. And in the end, I distanced myself from him. Yet when I—we—needed him he was there, fighting to keep us safe. My people would not have survived without his aid, yet he showed that side to no others. Until Zimliya.”

  Silver eyes returned to her. “He would have died to protect you from a fate in which he couldn’t intervene.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “But in the end he did intervene, Dyslentio, multiple times.”

  “He is not the reason you are immortal.”

  “Actually, he is part of the reason. He was not, as you surmised, part of the process that resulted in my immortality.”

  The Kryhista snorted and idly pawed the ground. “To return to your question, I was trying to find you to see if you had survived—and if you had not, I wished to see how Nivaradros was coping with your loss.” His attention moved to the Dragon. “You wouldn’t have accepted her loss.”

  Veilantras watched Nivaradros acutely as the younger Dragon nodded. “No,” Nivaradros admitted. “I would not have. She was—is—far too important to me. Losing her to such a minor amount of magic would have been frustrating.”

  The Dragon’s definition of ‘minor’ differed from hers. She had made a pact with an ancient magic to awaken the Shades, and even if that could have been considered minor, everything the Shades had accomplished with her could not be considered so. At least, in her mind. Nivaradros’s opinion didn’t match Dyslentio’s either; the Kryhista looked rather bemused.

  “One of you could have at least told me how things had ended. Since you never returned with her, Nivaradros, I thought she had perished.”

  “We’ve been busy,” Z pointed out.

  “Yes, I have been told. It worries me to hear that the world is in such dire straits, and it concerns me that you have been thrown into the center of it.”

  “You don’t think I can handle it?”

  “I feel you deserve better. I am not as caught up on affairs as I would like to be, but based on what I have heard, you are being taken advantage of—again—and you are allowing it because you see no other avenue to take.”

  “The Dragon is not taking advantage of me,” Z protested as she stiffened.

  “I don’t mean Nivaradros. He, at least, cares for you. You did claim her right?!” Dyslentio demanded harshly of Nivaradros.

  Z watched as Veilantras’s eyes rounded in surprise as Nivaradros not only failed to take offense, but also seemed unconcerned the Kryhista was mostly ignoring him. “I did.”

  “Good. It took you long enough.”

  “I didn’t want to frighten her. She is rather touchy about certain things. Especially when it involves sharing air with other beings.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  Dyslentio glanced at her before he approached—with care—and knelt. “Come, Z—let us go discuss things that must be voiced.” When she didn’t move, he sighed. “I would have hoped Nivaradros had gotten you over this by now. I am fine—you healed me after all—and this does not, in any way, insult me. Come, Zimliya, let me carry you.”

  Moving forward, Z shook her head and gestured for him to rise. Once he was standing, she placed a hand on Dyslentio
’s withers and swung easily onto his back. “I ride Shanii, you should not have to demean yourself by kneeling for me.”

  “It is not demeaning,” was the amused reply as he picked up a gallop and carried her through the snow some distance away from the two Dragons, ensuring they were well out of hearing range. Slowing by a stream that was somehow not frozen, Dyslentio paused when he was by the widest part of it and waited until she was on the ground once more.

  “What really brought you out of hiding?” Z asked as she knelt beside the water and trailed a hand along its edge, cold be damned. “Surely not just to see if I was alive.”

  “I was curious,” Dyslentio protested in a wounded tone. “But no, as you’ve concluded, it is not the only reason I left my lands.” The pause felt like the world was being carried upon it. “Faslieya was found slain a month and a half ago.” At Z’s sharp inhalation, he continued. “She was outside the protection of our valley, and no one knows why or how she ended up there.”

  Silver eyes closed. “She was shredded, Zimliya. And careful investigations on my part have led me to believe she discovered something and chose to seek outside aid. I have considered—intensely—who she would have turned to with information she felt the need to share, and my conclusion was she intended to seek out you. If you had passed on like both of us feared, it is my belief that she would have sought out Nivaradros for aid, regardless of the fact that she loathed him.”

  Z was shocked, alarmed, and slightly uncertain how to digest this bit of news. Continuing to swirl her hand through the water, she considered her options. “She never reached us,” she said at long last.

  “No, it is the other reason why I personally made the trek here. She scarcely got out of the valley before she was attacked, which suggests the possibility of a spy or a traitor in our mists. Unfortunately, a traitor is possible in our closed off valley. I was attacked soon after I left the valley, but I am more of a fighter than Faslieya was, and I was expecting an attack. Even then, had you not been traveling this way with the Dragons, I would have perished and our plight would have gone unnoticed.”

  “Except we have no idea what it is.” Standing, Z turned to face him. “Just how much did you learn from the Dragons?”

  “Not as much as I would have liked to. I know you are immortal, most of the kingdoms were overthrown, and you are struggling to win them back, and apparently, you were adopted.”

  In Z’s mind, he knew little. Inwardly sighing, she gestured for him to make himself comfortable and then began to explain things in depth. She had the pleasure of finding out she could shock him. Multiple times. In fact, she almost wished his eyes were like so many other races and changed colors just because of the added amusement that would have offered her.

  “You…you are going to be ruling a kingdom?”

  “Kingdoms,” Z said with a grimace—stressing the plural. “It was not my desire or my goal, but Nivaradros is delighted and very few others seem to be offended.”

  “If anyone is they are a fool,” the Kryhista announced. “You have the proper disposition for that sort of appointment.”

  It took everything she had not to respond to that sentence. Instead she continued to explain things as carefully as she could, hoping he would remain an ally. He reminded of her the Mithane, and she didn’t want to lose or jeopardize his approval. It mattered far more than it should have to her, but the Kryhistians were a race she looked up to. They were one of the very, very few immortal races that didn’t define politics or advancement in rank by slimming the line of beings ahead of you.

  When she finished catching him up to date, Dyslentio was silent for several minutes before he approached and nuzzled her shoulder. “You’ve done what had to be done. From the standpoint you have decided to take, you could not condemn the Shade for his actions, and it is the right path for you. But it sounds like my people are wise to remain hidden. Our world is very dangerous to a race such as mine.”

  She managed a weak smile. “I am going to work on that…one day.” Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “Though it’s been slow going.”

  “You’ve won back some of the kingdoms.”

  “A minor victory in the grand scheme of things. What it will all come down to is a final faceoff between me and Midestol and the armies we can bring to the field…and I am trying to delay that as long as possible.”

  “Please wait until I return to the safety of my valley,” Dyslentio replied in a dry tone. “Not that I consider it safe any longer.” He pawed at the ground. “I have a favor to ask of you,” he began.

  “Ask.”

  “I wish for your backing when we return to the Dragons. I intend to accompany you to the Isle.”

  Shock kept her silent. Of all the things he could have asked for, that had never crossed her mind. When she found her voice, she still held her tongue until she was certain the words she had assembled would not offend the Kryhista before her. “You plan to go to the Isle…?” While the Dragons had never slaughtered the Kryhistians for sport, they had occasionally hunted them for food, and Z was uncertain whether allowing Dyslentio to accompany them was in his best interest.

  “Nivaradros needs more support than you or Veilantras can provide,” Dyslentio told her. “You will be seen as his pet, or they will make your immortality seem less than it is by saying your opinion is tainted by your relationship, and Veilantras is his former mentor and has a soft spot for him. They will discount her words as well.”

  “You’re his friend, they could just as easily discount your words.”

  “It will be harder to do. We are friends, yes, but we should not be friends. His kind have hunted mine in the past, and Nivaradros has been labeled the darkest of his kind. I have, with me, memories and tales from every Kryhistian who was willing to offer them. In this way I pay Nivaradros back for the one thing he has never held against me.”

  “And that is?”

  “I abandoned him as he grew supposedly darker. The eldest and leaders of my kind demanded I cut ties with him, and I reluctantly agreed. I never should have. Especially because when we needed him, he was willing to set aside the past to aid us…and I still turned him away. Something else happened as well, but even that was not his fault. You recall my greeting to him when he brought you to me—you were conscious at the time, were you not?”

  She was, and she remembered his cold—icy even—greeting to Nivaradros. “I was, and I remember your words, yes.”

  “I am sure—when you had recovered—you were astonished that Nivaradros never once lost his temper when I dangled the bait before him.”

  Inclining her head, she said nothing and continued to watch him, willing to allow him to talk her into this, but worried things would end badly. If the Kryhistians were already in danger, losing the sole member of the herd who acknowledged the risk would be catastrophic. Especially in light of the fact he would first be confirming the existence of his race after millenniums of hiding.

  “I owe him, Zimliya. He will not concede the debt, and I plan to discharge it on my own. However, I will need your help. I know what I am risking, but it is past time to take that risk. And Nivaradros…he’s a friend, Zimliya. My payment for his efforts on my behalf is overdue.”

  “If he is not acknowledging the debt then he doesn’t want you to feel you owe him,” Z argued, but she could see a time where she would need his support, if not that of his whole race. “Alright,” she agreed in resignation. “But you will not hold it against me if we lose this…discussion with the Dragons.”

  Dyslentio laughed and shook his mane as though dislodging flies. “I will not. Let us return,” he advised as he started to kneel and thought better of it. “I am sure at least one of them is starting to get worried over our disappearance.”

  Knowing he was right, Z moved to his side and swung gracefully up on his back. “He acts like I can’t take care of myself.”

  “Just remember you prefer it to his seeming attempts to kill you. That had to have gotten old.”


  Laughing, she patted the Kryhista’s neck and let him carry her back to the two Dragons whom she was hopeful had decided not to burn down the rest of the forest out of boredom. It had, unfortunately, happened in the past and explaining to a very irate immortal ruler why the forest to the east of his city was more or less a pile of ash had been one of the worst political situations she had been subjected to.

  There was a fire going when they returned, but it wasn’t a fire that enveloped the entire forest. Apparently one of the Dragons had decided they needed a fire since it was getting dark—or Nivaradros intended to enforce his annoying habit of getting her to eat a minimum of two meals per day. Of course, since she had come to the conclusion that it was one battle not worth starting, she really couldn’t complain too much; she hadn’t asked him to stop.

  It was Nivaradros’s fire. And he was cooking. The major surprise came from his choice of meal; there wasn’t any meat included. Dyslentio snorted with amusement as she swung off of his back. “I have seen you devour beings and creatures before my very eyes,” the Kryhista drawled. “You won’t offend my delicate senses if you decide to eat something that has to be slain first.”

  Now Nivaradros snorted. His had a hint of smoke to it. “As you were almost served up as someone’s dinner earlier I thought it would be in poor taste to remind you. Perhaps I have spent too much time around humans. I swear they get offended over the stupidest things—”

  “They believe,” Z injected dryly, “‘they are entitled to having everyone share the same opinion.’”

  “Right. What do you call it?”

  “What it is: stupidity. I prefer the immortal mindset in cases like the ones you are referring to.”

  Nivaradros’s smile was all teeth. “Ah, you would offend people by saying that.”

  “Hence, I consider some humans, like Tenians, to have a delicate mental and emotional state.” She shrugged and waited for someone to protest. To her surprise not even Dyslentio was offended. He looked relieved. This is why she had always gotten along better with immortals.