Through Fire & Sea

by Nicole Luiken

  The swath of destruction the dragon left in its wake made Leah sick. Why wasn’t he fighting Qeturah’s control, as he had when Qeturah ordered him to drop her in the volcano? Was he really a ravening beast?

  Then Thunderhead rumbled, and the world realigned as Leah saw things from the dragon’s perspective. Enemies had invaded his father’s territory—of course he wanted to drive them off.

  He was not evil.

  “Ready to crown me queen?” Qeturah asked the dukes. “You can keep your duchies. Once you’ve sworn me oaths of fealty, your lives will continue much the same as they do now. There will be taxes, of course—”

  “You’ve broken parley.” In one smooth move, Duke Ruben unsheathed his sword and held the tip to Qeturah’s neck.

  “Kill her,” the Duke of Cinders growled. Even his kindness had a limit.

  Qeturah smiled, still poised. “If you do, the dragon won’t stop ravaging until your armies lie dead and burned. And then it will move on to your castles and valleys. Come, my dukes,” she coaxed. “Would it really be so terrible to have a queen?”

  They were silent while the army screamed and burned in the distance. Leah stared at Qeturah in helpless hate.

  “The sooner you swear fealty to me, the more of your men you can save,” Qeturah said. “Well, my lord dukes? What is your answer?”

  Sabra dropped to her knees. “My father is dead. As Duchess of Smoking Cone, I hereby acknowledge Qeturah as my liege queen and vow fealty…”

  Leah’s eyes narrowed. The words sounded rehearsed. Her suspicion that Qeturah and Sabra had planned this hardened into certainty when the Duke of Poison Cloud also knelt, his face passionless. Qeturah had probably promised him aid installing his son Yakob as duke of Smoking Cone.

  Angrily, the Duke of Cinders grabbed Qeturah’s hand and capitulated.

  The new queen smiled at Duke Ruben. “And you?”

  “Never.” With a cold smile of his own, he lifted a whistle to his lips. The high note cut through the screaming like an ax. Mockingly, Duke Ruben gestured half a mile to the east. “Behold, the dragon slayer.”

  Horrified, Leah watched as a group of men wearing dark clothes that blended with the rock busily erected a giant bow. Five men were required to winch back and nock the ten-foot-long arrow. The sun glinted off the tip.

  “The diamond arrowhead will pierce dragon scales,” Duke Ruben said, satisfaction evident in his tone. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he added, when Qeturah tried to fade backward. “Stop her.”

  Qeturah meant to save her own skin and escape. “You have to warn him,” Leah pleaded.

  “I can’t, thanks to you,” Qeturah snarled as the Duke of Cinders apprehended her. He suddenly looked less the portly uncle and more the lord.

  Sabra took half a step forward, but the Duke of Poison Cloud shook his head, and she subsided, the pair of them cutting their losses.

  Desperately, Leah began to search for a flake of obsidian.

  “Don’t bother,” Qeturah told her. “I used dragon blood to link the control mirror to the talisman, and I only had one drop.”

  The Duke of Cinders kept firm hold of Qeturah but directed his ire at Duke Ruben. “You bastard. Half my men are dead. Couldn’t you have whistled earlier?”

  “The dragon’s attention needed to be occupied,” Duke Ruben said. “My men have taken losses, too.” Which was true, but the Grumbling Man soldiers were holding ranks, and the dragon seemed more inclined to pursue the fleeing Cinders men.

  “That’s not why you did it,” Leah said bitterly. “You wanted to see if they would bend the knee. Once Jehannah—”

  Duke Ruben grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back, cutting off her words on a gasp.

  Tears leaked from her eyes as the dragon slayer thrummed. An enormous arrow arced through the air and struck the dragon’s haunches.

  His flight faltered; he dropped twenty feet. His long neck twisted around, and he wrenched the spear out with his teeth. Shrieking, he dived toward the bow. A single fireball set it ablaze. The crew ran for their lives, and the dragon pursued.

  Her father’s grip crushed her wrist. “Now,” he said under his breath. “Get the bastard while he’s at close range.”

  Cold sweat iced Leah’s skin. There must be a second bow. “No!”

  The dragon was half a mile away—on the battlefield below men and horses screamed and crossbows twanged—and yet the dragon heard her. His head lifted, and he wheeled around.

  His sudden change of direction made the next arrow miss.

  “How did he hear you?” Duke Ruben demanded.

  “I’m his soul mate.” Leah saw her chance. “Please, let me go. He’ll come for me, and I’ll take off Qeturah’s talisman. No one else need die.”

  She leaned closer, desperate words spilling from her lips. “I’ll do whatever you want. It’ll take the changeling Jehannah bears years to mature into a threat. You could be king today.”

  Duke Ruben stared into her eyes, then gave her a little push. “Call him to you. Give me proof.”

  Leah climbed fifty feet up Thunderhead’s black cone. She didn’t want the dukes to know his name, but she flung back her head and Called Gideon with lips and heart and every beat of her blood. “Soul mate, hear me.”

  The dragon came, winging swiftly across the lava plain. In moments, she could see the crystal shine of his beautiful eyes. His wings spread wide, and his flight slowed until he hovered in place.

  Thrum!

  A giant arrow speared deep into the dragon’s chest.

  Leah’s smile of welcome turned to horror as his wings folded, and he plunged from the sky. The dragon landed high above her on Thunderhead’s slopes and broke against the unyielding stone.

  …

  Leah wept and climbed and fell and scrambled up again.

  The granite and obsidian scree scraped her hands raw, but the pain didn’t matter. She deserved the pain for helping lure Gideon to his death.

  She reached the dragon’s twelve-foot-long black tail first. It lay unmoving. She skirted around his crumpled, broken wings. Hope seized her chest as she saw the tracery of magma glow in his wings—until it flickered.

  “Gideon!” The arrow still pierced his chest; her own heart beat painfully against her ribs. Black blood bubbled and smoked around the wound’s edges.

  She laid her hand on the wooden shaft, then stopped. It was as thick as her wrist. Pulling it out would tear a bigger hole and he’d lose blood faster.

  Helpless, Leah fell to her knees. “Please,” she choked. “I didn’t betray you. I didn’t know—” Her pitiful excuses dissolved into disjointed pleading as she stroked the still-warm scales of his forehead.

  The dragon’s eyes opened. Leah felt a desperate flutter of hope—but a mist dulled the diamond brightness, and she felt only a small pulse of heat.

  [Forgiveness. Sadness. Love.]

  “Don’t die!”

  But the dragon sighed, his eyes closing again. He’d only clung to life this long because he’d been waiting for her.

  [Soul mate.]

  He breathed his last.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Shattering

  The ground shook. Far above Leah, Thunderhead rumbled. She felt an immense throb of heat: the grief-stricken cry of a father for his son.

  Thunderhead erupted.

  A wall of sound blasted her ears. She watched, numbly, as red-orange lava fountained hundreds of feet up into the air at the summit, then splashed down. Bright streamers cascaded down the sides of the volcano, covering the half mile downslope to where Leah sat with terrible speed.

  She waited for the molten rock to immolate her, but Thunderhead spared her. The lava flowed around her and the dragon. Even from five yards away, the heat parched her skin, and the fumes choked her lungs.

  Burning flakes filled the air and bit into her arms. Leah ignored the embers; she didn’t care if her clothes burned, if she burned. Gideon was dead.

  Relentlessly, the lava rol
led to the bottom of the mountain, but it cooled and slowed before reaching the dukes and their army.

  Having failed with lava, Thunderhead loosed another blast and vengefully rained large pumice blocks down on the three dukes.

  Sabra screamed as a fist-sized rock grazed her shoulder, the force of it driving her to the ground. The Duke of Poison Cloud hauled her back to her feet, shouting something Leah couldn’t hear. Blood streamed down her arm.

  Leah felt neither horror nor enjoyment watching them scurry and run. She couldn’t seem to feel anything at all. Gideon was dead.

  Her father’s stallion broke away, but the duke mounted one of the other steeds. The Duke of Cinders pulled at his stirrup, protesting; Duke Ruben kicked him in his ample gut, then raked the horse with his spurs. Neighing shrilly, the animal broke into a wild gallop.

  Two blocks hit simultaneously on either side of him, missing. Dull hatred stirred in Leah’s heart, but the next falling block of stone knocked Duke Ruben from his horse.

  He didn’t move, his skull crushed.

  For so much of her life she’d longed for her father’s love, his attention, his approval, but now he was dead, and she didn’t care. Leah watched, unmoved, as a snaking rivulet of black-crusted lava set his body afire.

  Thunderhead’s revenge changed nothing. Gideon was still dead.

  The other two dukes and Sabra outraced the missiles. The army milled about, some of the men retreating, others holding ranks, including the crew of the huge dragon-slayer bow. She knew that to them the dragon had been nothing more than a ravening beast, but when they slapped each other on the back in congratulation, a surge of hate shook her entire body. How dare they!

  Thunderhead roared in sympathetic fury.

  A great crack appeared in a bulge a third of a mile to the left and downslope of her. A landslide of small rocks tumbled toward the army.

  Heads lifted, the crew abandoned their cruel weapon. Leah bared her teeth, until she saw that the new fissure formed a second crater. And then Thunderhead’s new mouth spoke.

  A second explosion, greater than any of the previous eruptions, deafened her. A column of rock and ashes shot skyward. The towering cloud swiftly blocked out the sun.

  Jagged forks of lightning struck the new crater, hurting Leah’s eyes, but she refused to look away from her coming death. She mindlessly stroked the scale on the dragon’s nose. Soon she would be with her soul mate. The thought was a balm.

  The column of debris collapsed and formed a thick, dark cloud of ash and gas. Because of the direction of the wind, only the edge of the cloud expanded to reach Leah. She fought for breath, choking.

  Eyes streaming, she watched Thunderhead’s terrible vengeance fall like a hammer. The glowing cloud raced down the mountain’s steep slope. It engulfed the army and scoured it away as if it had never been.

  …

  A great crack of sound like a mountain splitting in two dragged Leah back up to consciousness. Her hot blood recognized Isaiah’s cry of rage at the death of his duke. Grumbling Man had erupted.

  The sound was echoed by another explosion and then another and another. Poison Cloud, Cinders, and Smoking Cone, most likely. The news of Thunderhead’s revenge must have traveled through the hypocaust system. The Volcano Lords’ wrath blackened the midday sun.

  “Sweet Aesok.”

  Qeturah’s voice startled Leah. She’d assumed she was the only person alive in the valley, but Qeturah stood twenty feet downslope from her. Ash blackened her dress and face, but Thunderhead must have spared the mother of his child, too.

  Anger tightened Leah’s muscles—Qeturah deserved to die—but apathy beat the emotion down. What did it matter? Gideon was dead. So probably were her mother and Jehannah and everyone she’d ever known.

  Qeturah laughed. She sounded intoxicated. “Fire World is doomed. There will be more eruptions. The crops will wither, and the survivors will fight over the scraps. The population will drop below sustainable levels.

  “Or perhaps the squabbling Volcano Lords will wake their mother, the supervolcano, the one you call the Goddess in the Lake of Fire. If she erupts, she’ll silence all life everywhere.

  “This is even better than becoming queen,” Qeturah gloated. “Once the world has shattered, the energy that Besok stole from the True World will flow back. Do you understand?” she demanded.

  Leah stared at her blankly, then deliberately turned away. Looking at the woman stripped away her protective numbness.

  “I did this!” Qeturah gave a funny hop skip, as if dancing. “I shattered a world! Every alarm on the True World must be ringing. They’ve never suffered a loss like this before. That smug sow, the First Councilor, will be removed from office once they realize her decision to imprison me here led to this…” Qeturah mused aloud. “If one Mirror World can break, then they all can. Think of all that power… There must be a way to siphon it off… Endless possibilities!”

  She kept talking, but Leah didn’t listen, wrapping her mind in soothing layers of wool.

  Some time later, Qeturah slapped her face, stinging her awake. “Enough. This world is dying. There’s nothing left for you here.”

  Leah stared at her resentfully. Nothing? Gideon was here.

  “You’re a Caller,” Qeturah said persuasively. “You can still be useful to me. Come back to the Tower.”

  Leah turned back to Gideon. She ignored all further entreaties. A film of the still-falling ash had settled on the dragon’s face, and it was very important that she wipe it off.

  …

  Sanity returned to Leah in the morning along with a raging thirst. Ash coated her throat, and her tongue felt swollen. Her body was stiff and bruised. She hadn’t slept. Bouts of crying had shaken her like storms until her body had no tears left. Her skin felt parched.

  Leah wavered. She needed water, but she couldn’t bear to abandon Gideon.

  Dark thoughts crowded in. She could just stay here, wait for the end. Where was there for her to go, after all? She had no home, and with the other duchies in a state of fear and chaos, no one would have any charity to spare for a stranger. And she certainly never wanted to see Qeturah again.

  Memory stirred. Qeturah had taken credit for shattering Fire and spoken of shattering the other Mirror Worlds.

  Leah thought about warning her otherselves, but their fate seemed remote and unimportant.

  She doubted Qeturah could break another world anyway. It had taken a long string of coincidences to bring disaster to Fire: Gideon’s death had caused Thunderhead to seek terrible vengeance on the gathered armies and their dukes, which in turn had roused the other Volcano Lords’ wrath. Leah had learned a lot about Water in her long days of observation, and she didn’t think Water had Volcano Lords. Or dukes. What could Qeturah do, really?

  Leah’s place was by her soul mate. She would stay here, but she took some solace from the thought that there yet existed four worlds where Gideon’s otherselves lived. He couldn’t be truly dead so long as that were so.

  She stood, creaking like an old woman. Thunderhead had erupted twice more during the night, sending up fresh geysers of lava. Since then, black crusts had formed on top, but she knew rivers of molten rock still flowed underneath. The heat given off kept the dragon’s body warm and gave the illusion of life.

  She’d hoped sundown or sunrise would transform Gideon back into a man, but death had frozen him in dragon form. It seemed brutally unfair that she couldn’t gaze upon his face one last time. The huge bolt sticking out of his chest bothered her. She grabbed it with both hands and pulled with all her strength. It didn’t budge. Within minutes she was sweating, and the strength left her arms. Eventually, she had to give up.

  She sank down to her knees. What was the point? Removing the bolt wouldn’t make his heart beat again. But then she saw the glitter of a mirror on his forelimb. She threw the talisman into the lava.

  Trembling and weak, she sat by the dragon’s great head and waited to die of thirst.

  Bu
t she couldn’t find the blessedly numb frame of mind she’d been in yesterday. She kept seesawing between her bodily pains and her grief, until she took refuge in the mystery of what Qeturah intended to do on the other Mirror Worlds.

  From what Leah had gleaned of Holly’s world, it was much bigger than Fire, with thousands upon thousands of cities.

  Surely its very size would protect it from Qeturah’s machinations? Anything she could do would only be a drop in a bucket.

  But Qeturah wouldn’t have murdered her otherself unless she had some plan in mind.

  Leah felt a twinge at the thought of Gideon’s otherself, Ryan. He wouldn’t know his true mother had been replaced by someone immoral.

  Suddenly Leah intuited Qeturah’s plan. If Gideon’s father had been Thunderhead, then Ryan’s must be a Water Lord. His death would anger the ocean.

  Duke Ruben had caused Gideon’s death. Surely even Qeturah wasn’t evil enough to murder her son’s otherself?

  Leah only had to consider for a second to know that Qeturah could and would do it. Qeturah believed only the True World was real. To her, everyone else was just a tool.

  No. Leah found herself on her feet, swaying. “I have to stop her,” she told the dragon. “Gideon’s otherselves can’t die.” The dragon’s silence seemed to reproach her, and she rambled an apology. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back when your otherselves are safe. You won’t be alone long, I promise.”

  Leah stooped and laid one last kiss on Gideon’s black-scaled forehead. “Good-bye.” Her voice rasped.

  With an inward wrench, she left for the Tower, picking her path between the lava flows.

  …

  Leah found a rain barrel outside one of the village houses but could barely bring herself to pause and gulp down enough water to ease her thirst.

  The closer she came to the Tower, the higher her anxiety rose, until she found herself running. She passed through the deserted lower story with barely a glance, pounded up the stairs, and burst into the Mirrorhall, her breath knifing through her lungs.

  Her gaze bounced off the multitude of mirrors lining the cave walls, searching, but the only movement came from her own reflections. An oval of polished silver showed a girl with wild black hair. Her ravaged expression transformed her into a stranger.