Dragon Blessed

by D. K. Holmberg

  Fes wasn’t a strong swimmer. The current pulled on him, dragging him downstream, and he kicked, trying to swim toward the empire shoreline.

  Another moment and the water pulled on him.

  He splashed, struggling to get moving, wanting to reach the shore. He managed to get his head above water and took a gasping breath of air. With another stroke, he felt something slick in the water. He grabbed at it, thinking that it was a rock or something that would help secure him, but he was pushed beyond it.

  And then something grabbed at him.

  Fes panicked.

  He started to bring the sword around, intending to slice at whatever it was in the water with him, when he heard a familiar voice. “Don’t,” he heard.

  Fes looked up.

  “Jayell?”

  She grabbed him and pulled him out of the water, dragging him along the shore.

  Fes rolled to his feet and looked out over the water. He saw no sign of the golem. The bridge was far upstream, completely destroyed, leaving only the base on either shoreline intact.

  Horses thundered toward them, and Fes looked up to see Adoran and Ulesn heading his way.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “This is my help,” Fes said.

  Fes looked over at Jayell. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been waiting,” she said.

  “Waiting for what?” He looked up at Adoran and Ulesn. If it came to it, would they help him? Would they defend him against a fire mage if Jayell were involved in the attack?

  “Waiting for you,” she said.

  “You didn’t need to wait for me,” Fes said.

  “I know. But when you left…”

  “I left because I don’t know whether or not I can trust you.”

  “And I waited so that you could trust me.” She held his gaze a long moment, and something in her eyes practically begged him to understand. “I will be more honest with you. I will share with you what you need.”

  “It’s not what I need. And I’m not sure that you can share with me now. After everything that you have kept from me,” Fes said.

  She shook her head. “Fes—”

  Adoran looked down at him. “What did she call you?”

  “She called me by my name.”

  Adoran and Ulesn shared a glance. “It’s not possible,” Adoran said. He turned his attention back to Fes and stared at him for a long moment. “What is your name? Your full name?”

  “Why?”

  “Tell me.”

  Fes dusted himself off. He was drenched from his time in the river, and the water had been cold enough that he was not interested in going back in. At least he still had his daggers and the dragonglass sword. Had he lost those…

  “My name is Fezarn Varan.” He rarely used his last name anymore, but if they wanted his full name, Fes wasn’t beyond sharing it. What did it matter?

  “Fezarn?”

  Fes nodded. Why did Adoran look at him so strangely?

  Adoran jumped from the saddle and approached Fes slowly, pinching his cheeks between his fingers, twisting his face from side to side as he studied him. Fes would have jerked back, but the suddenness of it and the strangeness of it took him back.

  “What do you know of your family?” Adoran asked, stepping away from him.

  “Nothing. My parents died when I was young. I know they weren’t from the empire, but not much more than that.”

  “And did you have anyone else besides you and your parents?”

  Fes frowned. “Why?” That was not something that he talked about much with anyone. He refused to do so.

  “There was a boy who once passed through Toulen.”

  “So?”

  “He was named Fezarn.”

  Fes glanced over at Jayell. She watched him, almost as if there was something about his name that mattered to her, too, though he wasn’t entirely certain what that might be. He ignored the searching glance that she gave him.

  “It’s a unique name, but probably common where I come from.”

  “Perhaps that is true, but your name is unique enough that I remember it.”

  Fes’s heart hammered briefly. “Why?”

  “According to our records, Fezarn was once the name of a very powerful dragon.”

  Fes laughed bitterly, shaking his head. And here he thought he might learn more of what happened with his parents and why he’d ended up in Anuhr. Why should he have expected someone like Adoran to have known when he hadn’t known? “Of course it was.”

  “Why do you say it like that?” Adoran asked.

  “Because these days, everything seems to revolve around the dragons.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The source of the spell compelled Fes back toward the dragon fields. As much as he would prefer to avoid them, the steady burning heat building around him practically summoned him forward, demanding that he head in that direction. It was a constant pressure upon him, a building power that irritated him as much as he tried to ignore it.

  “Why did you look at me like that?” Fes asked Jayell as they rode.

  “Look at you like what?”

  He nodded over at Adoran. He and Ulesn had been engaged in a quiet conversation ever since Fes had revealed his full name. Whether or not they knew something about him was meaningless to Fes. He knew who he was. What did it matter if he was descended from Deshazl or had passed through Toulen as a child? None of that mattered to him, not anymore.

  “Look at me the way that you did when he mentioned my name.”

  She rode in silence for a while before taking a deep breath. “You want honesty from me?”

  “You ask that now?”

  She sighed again. “I have heard your name before. I didn’t realize it, not when I was calling you Fes, but the name Fezarn I had heard. It is unique enough that it stands out in my mind.”

  “Yeah. Lucky me. I have a unique name.”

  “There is nothing wrong with uniqueness,” she said. “You should embrace the fact that you have something like that. My name is not uncommon. There is nothing about it that inspires such a reaction.”

  Fes snorted. “A reaction? You’re only impressed because they say that I was named after a dragon.”

  “You have to admit that is impressive.”

  “I don’t have to admit anything.”

  “Why do you fight this?”

  “Fight what?”

  “Fight who you are. What you are.”

  “I think you’re mistaken. I haven’t fought who I am. I’ve never claimed to be anything more than a collector.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you need to claim that you are more than a collector.”

  “And what would you have me claim?”

  “You are Deshazl,” Jayell said. “If nothing else, that means that you have a connection to an ancient power. Think about that. Even your name connects you to that power.”

  “My name is nothing more than a name,” Fes said.

  He ignored her, turning away and focusing on riding. As they went, the sense of the heat rising around him continued, growing more and more strong. He looked at the others, but no one else seemed to detect it. Only him.

  Jayell watched him as if she expected him to do something, but what was there for Fes to do?

  “What is it?” she asked after a while.

  “It’s nothing,” Fes said.

  “I can see from your face that it’s something.”

  Fes shook his head. “You can’t see anything from my face.”

  “I rode with you long enough to recognize when something was happening,” she said.

  Fes turned away, not wanting to acknowledge her. What she said was possible, and he realized that perhaps she had ridden with him long enough and maybe even knew how to read him. If that were the case, he didn’t know whether he should be impressed or annoyed. Probably a little of both, he decided.

  “I can pick up on the sense of heat from Elizabeth, and it continues
to build, almost constricting me,” he said.

  “I thought your daggers allowed you to cut through her spells?”

  “They do. At least they mostly do. When the spells continue to build, and when they are this powerful…”

  “What do you mean that they are this powerful?”

  “Just what I said,” Fes said.

  “Are they getting more powerful?”

  “Not any more than they were.”

  “You understand why I’m asking?” Jayell asked.

  “Not entirely,” he said.

  “If she has reached the Draconis Pass, could she use the artifacts you said are there?”

  “I don’t think that’s where she’s heading,” Fes said. “I think that she wanted to bring the dragon skull back to the empire.”

  “Did they tell you they had it?” she asked, not hiding the naked excitement in her eyes.

  Fes shook his head. “No. I don’t know whether that is it or not. They aren’t interested in sharing with me, either.”

  Jayell urged her horse to a gallop, sending it surging forward so she could ride alongside Adoran. Fes followed, wondering what trouble she might get him into this time.

  “What was she after in Toulen?” Jayell asked.

  Adoran glanced at her before turning his attention back in front of him. He leaned over to Ulesn, speaking softly.

  Jayell forced herself between them. “You might not want to tell me, but I think that we need to know with whatever it is that she might be coming for. If there’s anything that Fes can do—”

  “There isn’t anything that Fezarn will be able to do. Not with what she would have taken from Toulen.”

  Fes approached him and forced Adoran to look over at him. “Listen. We’re heading toward the heart of the dragon fields. I need you to tell me whatever you know that might be beneficial. If she somehow manages to bring it to the heart—”

  “She is not going to reach there.”

  “How do you know?” Fes asked.

  “Because there is a reason that we have kept the dragon relics we have. They are safe in Toulen.”

  They reached the outer edge of the dragon fields. The heat pressing on him came from deep within the dragon fields, far enough within them that he knew exactly which direction they needed to go.

  Elizabeth headed toward the Draconis Pass, but how?

  If what Jayell said was true, she would have needed someone else with her to allow her access to the pass, and without anyone there, she shouldn’t have been able to reach it.

  “Is it just me or does something about this look different?” Jayell asked.

  Fes frowned as he looked around, surveying the dragon fields. The rock had the same barren and bleak appearance that it had when he had been through here before. But, there was definitely something that looked a little different.

  “The haze is different.”

  Adoran glanced over. “What do you mean?”

  “There typically is a persistent haze that hangs over everything. It seems to be less,” Fes said.

  “What kind of haze is this?”

  Fes shrugged. “It’s sort of as if the ground itself continues to burn. I’m not sure whether it’s real or imagined.”

  “In this place, it is likely that it is real.”

  And if it was real, why would it suddenly have changed? Could whatever Elizabeth be after be the reason that it changed? Or could it be the fact that she had come here with something?

  The longer they rode into the dragon fields, the more it became evident that the haze was less than it had been before. Why should that be? What would have changed? It reminded him of the way Reina had peeled away the haze from the dragon fields, revealing the bones within.

  “I don’t like this,” Fes said to Jayell.

  “It’s probably nothing,” she said.

  “I’ve been here twice, and each time the haze has been the same. The fact that it would suddenly lift…”

  Jayell stared straight ahead.

  Fes focused on the heat. Focused on the pressure, that of the spell that he knew was from Elizabeth, from a fire mage spell.

  He moved to ride alongside Adoran and Ulesn. “I know where she’s going.”

  “Where?”

  “The pass.”

  As they went, the haze remained missing. The longer they rode, the clearer it was that there was no more haze, not as there had been.

  “This was where the haze should have been thickening,” Fes said.

  “What do you mean?” Adoran asked.

  “Only that the last time I was here, the haze was much denser.” The dark rock making up the land began to angle downward. The last time he’d come here, Fes had been walking. Traveling by horse made it easier, but it also made him more aware of the contour of the landscape that he hadn’t been aware of before.

  None of the fog that had obscured things was present.

  He had assumed that the fog and haze came from the dragons who had died here, their blood seeping into the ground, but maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe the haze came from the dragon relics here. Reina had been able to remove the fog, drawing it upward into the sky using her connection to the dragon relics. This was almost like that, other than the fact that there was no evidence of the haze at all.

  As they rode, he realized something else. The massive collection of dragon bones was gone.

  What had happened here?

  “I think she’s already been through here,” Fes said.

  Jayell looked over, frowning. “Why do you say that?”

  “There should be dozens of dragon skeletons here. When I was here before, there were…”

  Fes rode his horse forward, remembering where the skeleton had been. When he had been here before, the skeleton had been in this spot. Over here was the place where he had faced Reina, holding her off as she drew upon the power of the dragon relics. And over here was where he had begun to confront the mercenaries, hoping to catch Carter and slow her.

  All of this should have dragon skeletons. Relics.

  They were gone.

  “What is it?” Jayell asked.

  There shouldn’t be any way for Elizabeth to have removed all of these artifacts, not in the time that she had been ahead of them. Even if she had the assistance of the golem, she wouldn’t have been able to move all of the artifacts away from here as quickly as it seemed as she had.

  Which meant that someone else had been through here.

  And there was a possibility that Elizabeth would have needed to travel through here with someone of Deshazl descent in order to reach the Draconis Pass.

  “Skies of Fire,” he breathed out. When Jayell looked at him, he shook his head. “There was another fire mage who had somebody of Deshazl descent with them.”

  “Azithan,” she whispered.

  “I think he had to have been here,” Fes said. “Elizabeth would have needed someone from Deshazl descent to reach these relics and wouldn’t have had that with Indra.”

  “But Azithan did,” Jayell said.

  Fes nodded. “When he took Griffin, he had what he needed to reach the Draconis Pass. I don’t know that he would’ve had it before. And now…”

  What did it matter that Azithan would have taken the relics? It would’ve made him powerful, he knew that, and perhaps powerful enough that he could counteract Elizabeth and her golem. Maybe that was what Azithan was after.

  But why would she have come here?

  The heat continued to build and Fes started toward it. He could feel the way the heat was pressing on him, and its source was nearby. He wasn’t certain how he knew that it was nearby, only that he could tell that the sense of the fire magic was close.

  He dismounted. There was something about standing on the dragon field, walking along the rock and feeling the heat coming through his boots, that helped him connect with what he should be doing. They reached the edge of a small rise and started down.

  In the distance, he saw movement.


  Fes unsheathed his daggers. He slashed at the air, carving the spell.

  As he did, one of the figures looked up at him. Elizabeth.

  Fes advanced slowly. There was no point in heading down rapidly, not now that he knew she was aware of him. And he had the sense that she wouldn’t attack him. She had come here for a purpose, but what purpose?

  He felt movement to his left and spun, raising one hand toward Carter.

  She appeared behind a rock, straightening from a crouch. She had someone with her.

  “Let her go, Carter.” Fes glanced from Carter to Jayell. How had Carter managed to capture her so quickly?

  “I don’t think so,” Carter said. “Until I know what it is that you’re going to do, I think that I will hold her here. It seems as if she has some sentimental value to you. Which is surprising, considering no one has held any sentimental value to you.”

  Fes flicked his gaze over to Elizabeth, looking to see whether Indra was with her, and if she was, whether she was injured. He found her sitting atop one of the horses. She watched him, a tight expression on her face and weariness in her eyes. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through.

  “I’m not here for her,” Fes said to Carter.

  “So if I slice her throat, you won’t be upset?”

  Fes looked at Jayell. Panic had set into her expression. She watched him with a wide-eyed gaze, and he shrugged. “Like I said. I’m only concerned about the other one.”

  Carter brought her knife up to Jayell’s throat and made a movement as if to slice across it. Fes turned away.

  He waited for the gasp or any sound that Carter might have completed what she had promised, but it didn’t come.

  He hadn’t thought it would. Carter was ruthless and could be cruel, but he had never had the sense that she took great pleasure in killing. For Carter—much like Fes—it was a thing of necessity.

  He continued toward Elizabeth and slashed at the air, cutting through the fire mage’s spell. “You didn’t come here to raid the dragon relics, did you?” Fes asked.

  He glanced over his shoulder, knowing the Toulen warriors would be approaching. They would have to be nearby, and when they appeared, what would happen?