The same as had happened to his brother. Fes hadn’t been able to save him, but he could save Indra.
She deserved better.
His body screamed with pain from the heat. If only he could get his hand free and bring up the dragonglass dagger, he might be able to counteract the spell, but his arm didn’t move. Whatever it was that Elizabeth had done to him kept his arm trapped to his body, confined so that he could not get free.
Thoughts raced through his mind. They were dark thoughts and the kind that came in the moments before death. Fes had little doubt that he wouldn’t survive this. How could he?
In all the times that he had thought he might die, never would he have believed that he would succumb to magic like this. Never would he have believed that a fire mage would be the reason that he died. Falling while attempting to complete a collection? That was far more likely. Even getting caught while taking a job, and perhaps killed via a crossbow bolt or an arrow, or even a knife to the belly. Those were much more likely. But for him to die because of fire magic?
That was almost an insult.
With each passing moment, he felt the pressure of the spell pushing in against him. He fought, but there really was nothing he could do. Every attempt he made to push back against it failed.
Thunder rumbled. Would he be caught in the rain along with this? Would he die sopping wet?
No one would even know that he was gone. No one would care.
Fes breathed out heavily. It was of his own doing. He had lived a life that had kept him separated from others. One that had left him isolated, and it was a life he had enjoyed, a way he had avoided getting hurt again.
The thundering rumbled closer. It was a continuous peal of thunder.
Was it rain that he felt? The heat pushing on him seemed to abate, but Fes could no longer move his head and he couldn’t even see the dragon pearls to know whether they were spent. That was his only hope. If he could withstand the power of the dragon pearls for even another hour or two, maybe the power within them would be expended, and then… Then he would go after Indra.
He would have to find some way to counteract the golem.
The heat began to ease. It was no longer his imagination. Fes knew that it was easing off. As it did, he managed to turn his head.
Someone was crouching near him.
The barrier eased, and Fes stumbled forward. He rolled, jerking his dragon blades around, and slashed, preparing to carve through a spell.
“You don’t have to fear,” a voice said.
“Who are you?”
“Simply someone who recognizes danger.”
Fes took a deep breath. He was exhausted. Days of poor sleep and then an afternoon spent fighting off the effects of the fire magic had left him wiped out, and he didn’t know that he would be able to stand for much longer. “Who are you?” he asked again.
“Who did this to you?”
“Fire mage,” Fes said.
“Which one?”
“Her name is Elizabeth.”
The figure stepped forward. Fes didn’t recognize the older man, but he recognized the dress. He was bald and wore a robe with red stripes along the sleeves.
A dragon priest.
How was it that a dragon priest would find him?
Did Horus have anything to do with it? He wouldn’t put it past the man as Fes had been the one to request someone to help. But why would he have sent a dragon priest rather than sending the rebellion?
“Elizabeth? Are you certain of that?”
“Quite,” Fes said.
The priest turned to the others with him. One was a younger woman with deep black hair and an olive complexion. The other was a boy who had to be barely more than ten or twelve. Likely the same age as Indra.
“We should go,” the priest said.
“Go where?” Fes asked.
“If Elizabeth has left the city, then others are in danger.”
“What others?”
The man started off, and Fes realized that they were on foot. When he had heard the rumbling, he had assumed that maybe they had come by horse, but it appeared that they had not.
Fes chased after him. “What others?”
The man glanced over at him. “If you have gained the ire of Elizabeth, I cannot help you.”
“You already did help me. You freed me from whatever it was that she was doing.”
The priest glanced down at his hand, looking at the dragon pearls cupped there. “You should not have been able to survive. Perhaps her abilities have waned.”
“They have not waned,” Fes said. “And she is more dangerous than you realize.”
“I suspect that she is more dangerous than you realize,” the priest said. “I am quite well acquainted with Elizabeth and what she is capable of doing.”
“She has a golem with her,” Fes said, calling after the man.
The priest paused. He glanced at the others with him, shaking his head. “Even she should not be able to control such a creature.”
“I don’t know anything about that, other than the fact that I know it’s a golem. I’ve seen it.”
The priest and the dark haired woman shared a glance. “That could be why we found those men dead,” she said. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“We don’t know that.”
“They were mercenaries. Elizabeth sent the golem after them.”
“Why?”
“Because she hired someone who apparently disobeyed her directive,” Fes said.
“That sounds like her,” the priest said.
“How do you know her so well?”
The priest glanced at Fes. “Because we helped train her.”
The priest started off, and Fes ran after him to catch him. “How did you train her?”
“She came to stay with us. She claimed a desire to see the dragons returned, but she had a different interest altogether.”
“What interest is that?”
The priest turned to Fes. “We would see the dragons restored. They are only gone because man believed them dangerous when they are nothing more than a part of the world. They are to be celebrated. She would see them subjugated.”
“How?”
“She thinks to control them. She thinks that it will bring her power.”
“She’s a fire mage. Doesn’t she already have enough power?”
“She is a fire mage, but there are limits to her power. She seeks to find a way to move beyond those limitations.”
“Why?”
The priest didn’t answer, but the raven-haired woman did. “She wants to overthrow the empire.”
Fes froze in place. He wanted to laugh, but he knew that he couldn’t—and shouldn’t. They believed what they were saying. “She serves the emperor. She doesn’t want to overthrow anything.” And Fes could think of a different reason that she would want to resurrect the dragons. She might think that doing so would bring her favor with the emperor. She wouldn’t be the first person to curry favor with him.
Maybe she wasn’t as foolish as Azithan had said. Maybe Elizabeth knew much more than he realized.
“She serves only herself. If you have encountered her, you would realize the truth of that.”
“I have encountered her, but I don’t think that she wants to overthrow the emperor. I’ve seen her with the emperor.”
The priest stopped and looked over at Fes.
Fes shouldn’t have shared that with him. All it did was raise attention to the fact that he had some contact with the emperor—and close enough contact that he had been granted an audience. What would they think of him? What would they do to him?
“You have been with the emperor?”
Fes considered the priest for a moment. They had information about Elizabeth, and perhaps knowledge that he could use to help him understand how to stop her. That was what he needed to do now that Elizabeth was gone and had Indra with her.
“I was brought before the emperor because I had collected something from her.”<
br />
“Collected?” the priest asked.
Fes nodded. “I found her in Vayan. That’s where I first came across the golem, too. I took two dragon pearls from her.”
The priest held his hands up, looking at the dragon pearls.
“Not those. They were different dragon pearls.”
“You are a scavenger, then.”
“I prefer to refer to myself as a collector,” Fes said.
“Who do you collect for?”
“The emperor.”
The priest stared at him for a long moment. “And you have seen her with him?”
“I have seen her standing at his side.”
The priest glanced at the woman. “That will be troubling, if so.”
“Why?”
The priest started off again, and Fes had to hurry to keep up. The man was quite a bit older than him, but he moved with a swifter pace and had a steady gait, making it not easy for Fes to keep up.
“The empire is bad enough. They collect and hoard dragon bones, draining them of power, making it so that the return is nigh upon impossible. And yet, the empire is predictable. We have dealt with the empire long enough that we know exactly what they are after. Elizabeth is something else. She is unpredictable.” He glanced over at Fes. “And if she has found a golem to control, she has acquired even more strength than she last did.”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Fes said.
The priest stared at him for a moment. “You care nothing about what happens in your lands?”
“All I care about is rescuing a friend, a promise that I made to a young girl.”
“What girl?”
“That was the reason I’m here. I was to escort a girl to Toulen.”
“Are you certain?”
“I’m quite certain. I know what I was supposed to do.”
“That… is not good.”
“Why?”
The priest glanced at the raven-haired woman. “If she has discovered the secret in Toulen…”
“We might be too late,” the woman said.
“What secret is that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the priest said.
“It matters to me. This girl deserves to return to her home.”
“Why do you care so much about some girl from a foreign land?” the woman asked.
Fes looked over at the young man. He assumed he was her son, but maybe he wasn’t. If they were priests, it could be that he was nothing more than an acolyte, someone training to understand the way that the priests served.
“I care because she is a friend,” Fes said. “I care because I made a promise to her father to see her home safely.”
“I am sorry that you have failed in your promise,” the priest said.
“I haven’t failed. I will get to her. If it takes me going through Elizabeth and her golem, I will get to her, and I will make sure that she is safe.”
“Return to the city and mourn the loss of your friend. There is nothing that you can do to save her. Not anymore.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand. I fully intend to go after her. Now if she’s someone I need to know more about, it would be helpful if you could share what you know. Otherwise, Elizabeth only gets stronger.”
“If she has secured a golem, as you say, she already has more than what you can manage. She is more than any of us can manage.”
When they continued to head away from him, Fes reached for the man, grabbing at his sleeve. “Please. I need to know anything that might help me stop her.” He had thought that he would be able to counter a fire mage, but the more that he learned about Elizabeth, the less he felt that he was able to actually do. She might be too much for him. When he had stopped Reina, he had been lucky. He should have recognized that, and recognized the fact that his luck would likely not happen again. Instead, he had mistakenly allowed himself to believe that he would somehow be able to overpower a fire mage. What arrogance was that? Why did he allow himself to think like that?
“Return to the city. Don’t risk yourself in this way. There is nothing that you can do.”
“I can’t return to the city.” He was several days out on horseback, and traveling by foot would take two to three times as long. “Don’t you want to know what it is that she’s after?” Fes asked.
“We know what she’s after. And we will do all that we can to prepare to stop her.”
“What happens if you can’t stop her?”
The priest glanced over. “Then we all will suffer.”
Fes swallowed. “I’m not willing to do nothing. Not the way that you apparently are.”
“You know nothing about what we are willing to do.”
The priest continued to walk away, and Fes followed. They wouldn’t prevent him from tagging along, and they were heading in the same direction as he intended to go. Once he figured out a way to get a horse, he would go after them more swiftly. Until then, he would stay on foot.
“You aren’t welcome with us,” the priest said.
“Do you intend to stop me?”
The priest glanced at the raven-haired woman. She shook her head.
That was surprising. Was she the one with power?
He had thought that the priest had been the one who had moved the dragon pearls, but maybe that wasn’t it.
They kept a steady pace, marching quickly, not mindful of the fact that an even younger boy was with them. Did they not care that he couldn’t keep the same pace?
Every so often, they would pause and pass around a water skin, and Fes was surprised when they handed it to him, sharing it. He was even more surprised when they handed him a few sticks of jerky, allowing him something to eat to calm the grumbling in his stomach.
“I thought you didn’t want me to come with you.”
“We don’t. But we won’t make you starve just because you make a foolish choice,” the priest said.
There was something about the priest that reminded Fes of Talmund. “What’s your name?”
“I am Donathon.”
“And you?” he asked the dark haired woman.
“I am Jayell.”
“What of the boy?”
The priest glanced over at the young man. The boy had been silent, saying nothing the entire time. When they had stopped, he had taken drinks from the water skin and had eaten without prompting, but Fes realized he’d said nothing since he’d come across them. Was there something wrong with him?
“The boy is with us to find the salvation in the dragons.”
He started to laugh before realizing they weren’t joking. “What salvation is there in the dragons?”
“You aren’t able to understand,” the priest said. “It takes faith to recognize the power that comes from the dragons and the way that it can be used to heal.”
“Is he sick?”
Jayell looked over at the boy, and there was compassion in her eyes. “He hears everything. He understands everything. He cannot share with us what he is thinking. We will bring him to the healing of the dragons, and hopefully, he will be able to return to us.”
“What happened? How was he sick?”
“He has been sick since he came to us.”
“Came to you? He’s not yours?”
“He is not mine. He came to us seeking healing.”
“And you brought him here?”
“We brought him out with us, intending to find healing that he cannot to get otherwise.”
Fes stared at the boy. It wasn’t as if anything seemed wrong with him, but he did seem off. It was hard to explain why other than the fact that he was quiet in ways he wouldn’t expect from a boy his age. And then there was the blankness in his eyes. The emptiness Fes saw when the boy looked around.
“Are you here intending to find him help?”
Jayell and Donathon shared a look.
Fes frowned. He turned his attention to the north and thought he understood what they were doing and where they were taking the boy. “The dragon plains. That�
�s where you’re going.”
Donathon nodded. “If there will be any way of helping him, it will be there.”
“Have you ever been to the dragon plains?” Fes asked.
Donathon frowned. “I am a Priest of the Flame.”
“That wasn’t the question,” Fes said. “Have you ever been to the dragon plains?”
“I have heard them described, and everyone knows how to reach them.”
“Reach them, yes. But I’m not sure that you could cross them if you were able to reach them.”
Then again, Talmund had been able to cross the dragon plains, and he was the one who had told Fes there was something more to how to do it.
“And what do you know about the dragon plains?” Jayell asked.
“I have some experience with it.”
Donathon studied him for a moment. “What experience is that?”
“The kind of experience that allows me to know exactly what it takes to cross them,” Fes said.
“You have been there.”
“I have been there.”
Donathon watched him, looking from head to toe. “How is it that you were able to make the crossing?”
“I don’t know. But I know that crossing. Crossing the dragon plains requires that the person have more than a passing connection to the dragons.”
“And, so what is your connection?” Donathon asked.
“I wish I knew.”
Jayell watched Fes for a long moment. “How were you able to withstand the barrier placed around you?”
“Why?”
“You shouldn’t have been able to,” she said, turning her attention to Donathon. “The dragon pearls should have burned him. How was he able to withstand it?”
“I’m not able to answer that.” Donathon turned his attention to Fes. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I’m a collector. Nothing more than that.”
“From what you have described, you are much more than that.”
“I don’t know what I am, but whatever it is makes Elizabeth uncomfortable.”
Jayell studied him for a moment. “If he makes her uncomfortable, we need to work with him, Donathon.”
“Can we trust him enough to work with him?”
“I don’t know that we cannot trust him.”
“I don’t care whether you work with me or not. All that I care about is reaching them before they do anything to that young girl.” An idea came to Fes. “If you do this, if you help me, I will help you cross the dragon fields.”
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