Noble Dragon (The Elven-Trinity Book 2)

by Mark Albany

  Before the djinn could recover, however, Norel was on her with another lightning strike. This one certainly didn’t have the expected effect. The djinn didn’t move, and the bolt disappeared into her hands.

  “Fool me once, darlings,” the djinn giggled manically, tossing the gathered energy from side to side in her hands as she stared Norel down. There appeared to be some kind of grudge left from their last contest against one another. Norel was scrambling to come up with some kind of defense as Aliana jumped to help her sister. Oro, for his part, seemed lost in the conflict, trying to raise wards or something. I couldn’t quite tell what he was doing.

  Just as the djinn released a bolt of energy at Norel, something popped in my vision. It was a soft sound yet loud enough to make my ears hurt, bright enough to give similar sensation to my eyes as the bolt was send arcing into the sky.

  “Wha…” Norel asked, looking around in confusion. Something jumped out from behind a few trees. It was… well, it looked like Frarris, but there was something different about her now. The vision of a cat was long gone. In its place was a dragon who was now the size of a large dog, with powerful jaws snapping at the djinn as Norel fell back behind her.

  Aliana jumped forward. There was no time for questions regarding just what had caused Frarris to suddenly appear like that, or why she had grown in size. Maybe something to save Norel? I shook my head, keeping my mind focused on what was to come.

  Aliana was launching a series of attacks but it was apparent that any match between the two was seriously unbalanced. The djinn quickly diverted them, that annoying grin I remembered from my dream on her face as her dagger flickered into motion. Aliana brought one of hers out just in time to block the first strike, but a second followed in quick succession, threading a long although not particularly deep gash up the outside of her thigh.

  Aliana jumped back in pain as Norel and Oro finally joined the attack. I could feel the terror of joining the fight seeping into me, but pushed it aside when I saw the pain on Aliana’s face as she desperately backpedaled to defend herself. For all her power, the djinn seemed to lack the ability to focus her attack on more than one target at a time, which was something that we could take advantage of. I tugged the ring from where it hung around my neck and put it on, feeling it become something of a focusing point for my power alongside the runes in my hand.

  I jumped forward, runes in my hands starting to burn again as the magic I was using flowed through them, allowing me to focus as I laced a quick, easy but nasty attack spell into the shields still wrapped around my hands.

  Oro came around behind the djinn, all the wards he’d been preparing suddenly coming into action as he bound her in place. Norel and Aliana prepared a coordinated attack between themselves. The djinn should have looked annoyed or even a little afraid that we were all attacking her together, but all I could see was that manic smile as she turned to look at us. That same dark energy she’d use before extended from her fingers like inky black webs from the world’s most terrifying spider. I reached into myself, not wanting to be caught in that kind of blast again, looking for something—anything—that might help me defend my comrades since they all seemed blinded by their own attack plans.

  There was something glowing in my hand, I realized. The same hand that had the ring and the runes was glowing white. That spell. It hadn’t worked out quite the way I’d intended, and it was building power with each second that it was left pooling energy from the ring.

  I wasn’t sure how, but I suddenly realized that I knew what I needed to do next.

  Aliana had raised defenses, but Norel and Oro hadn’t seen the impending attack and probably wouldn’t until it was too late. I needed to act now.

  I stepped in, roaring as the power building in my hand was starting to burn painfully. Time seemed to slow as the djinn turned to see me, her look of fury and revenge fading into confusion as she saw the way the air seemed to warp away from my hand—the same one that was hooking toward her face.

  She screamed. I could feel the power in her hands detonating a second before she meant it to, but not before I hammered my closed fist into her jaw.

  The power of both spells offsetting like that struck me in the chest hard enough to send me flying a few paces through the air before I crashed painfully into one of the trees, hitting my head hard and watching the world go black.

  16

  I came to, looking around and gasping for breath. My eyes took a moment to adjust but as I pushed myself to my feet, looking around for the djinn to continue the fight, I realized she wasn’t there anymore. I’d been the closest to her when our spells collided and exploded together, which meant that while the rest of them had been touched by it they hadn’t been sent flying like I had.

  My head was pounding, and my hand was aching and burning at the same time. I looked down, seeing the runes still glowing but not as brightly as they had a few seconds before. What was gleaming a lot brighter than before was the ring on my finger. As I noticed it, the pain of it burning my hand increased. I gasped, pulling the piece of jewelry off and tossing it to the ground before moving over to where Aliana lay still on the ground.

  She groaned as I came close, flooding me with relief as I realized she was still alive. I dropped next to her, pulling her hair away from her face as she looked up at me. There was still a gash in her leg courtesy of djinn’s blade and an open cut on her lip, but she looked otherwise unharmed.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, stroking her hair.

  She groaned, nodding and pushing herself up from her prone position on the ground. She looked over the forest, trying to track down the rest of our little group. Norel looked like she had taken a good piece of the impact herself, with one arm hanging limply at her side, the other reaching to cradle it gingerly as I watched. I could see a small cut on her forehead. Oro also took some of the impact, but it was glancing. His already-threadbare robes had been thoroughly shredded, leaving his chest bare to show off a myriad of fresh wounds that were weeping blood.

  “Where did she go?” Aliana asked, looking around.

  “She must have opened another portal to escape.” Norel said, not sounding too sure of the suggestion herself.

  “No portal was opened,” Oro said.

  “She wouldn’t need one,” I replied, placing a hand on the ground. “She had the advantage in the battle. I have no idea why she would run in that kind of position.”

  “She did not run,” Oro insisted, still staring at me, but I paid him little thought. We needed water, and from the look of things, our packs had been scattered during the fight and the ensuing explosion. I closed my eyes, reaching deep into the earth underneath us. There was no apparent source of water on the surface, but I’d heard that the nearby lake was fed by underground rivers. I quickly found one and with a tugging movement of my hand, brought some of it to the surface. When I opened my eyes, a small depression had formed and cool, clear water was filling it.

  We didn’t have any vessels to carry the water so I reached into the ground again, filled my hands with the mud that had formed, and with a quick motion, used a concentrated fire spell to form the clay into a proper, useful bowl. I filled it with water and leaned over Aliana, gently running the liquid over her leg wound.

  When I looked up, I realized all three of them were staring at me.

  “What?” I asked, jumping from one confused expression to the next until I landed on Aliana’s. She was still nursing her wounded leg while staring at me.

  “You should not be able to do that,” Oro replied, keeping his voice low as he moved over to the pool that seemed to still be collecting water from under the earth.

  I wanted to ask him what he meant. What the hell he was on about, but those weren’t the questions I wanted to hear the answers to, I realized. I knew that I could do what I just did. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew.

  “I…you’re right,” I said, shaking my head as I filled the small container with water again. “I feel different.”
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  “I wonder,” Aliana said as I took a sip of water. “When she hit us, we were all attacking together, but maybe you…” Her voice trailed off.

  Oro picked up her line of thought as he took a handful of clay and formed it into a useable bowl, like I just had. “She melded us,” he growled, his deep voice sounding a little haunted by the realization. “You, being in the center of our attack and stepping over the wards I’d placed on her, took in some magic from all of us. Even the djinn, I believe. Pulling water from the earth, for one thing, was a spell taught to me as a boy by my father.”

  I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t even stop to think about it. I just knew I could.”

  “We’ll try to figure out what else you can do,” Norel said, scowling because she had just finished putting her shoulder back in its socket. “Once we have Braire. We need to keep moving. I do not know where the dark djinn went, or how, but if she is gone, we need to make sure she cannot find us so easily again.” Frarris jumped out from behind one of the trees, bounding over to where Norel was standing and butting her head into Norel’s thigh.

  And yet, even with a dragon in clear view, I could tell that Oro was still staring at me.

  “I…I’m not sure what happened,” I said, pouring more water over Aliana’s leg. “But in the heat of the moment, I think I might have struck her with a spell I didn’t quite understand. I was wearing the ring on my finger, and it started to glow. I didn’t even think about it, I just punched her with it. And then she disappeared.”

  “I’d say that she is in the ring now,” Oro said, his voice soft. “Bound to it now until someone releases her from it.”

  “You did what?” Aliana asked, turning to me in astonishment. “She’s in the ring? I don’t feel any less bound to you, though.”

  “Maybe it was not the ring that bound the two of you together,” Oro said with a small smile, standing up from the pool of water and walking over to where I’d left the ring on the ground. I could see that it was still glowing, albeit faintly. He smirked and flicked it over to me. I reached out to catch it deftly, reconnecting it to the chain and hanging it from my neck.

  Norel took a moment to treat the wounded, healing the cuts on Aliana’s leg and Oro’s chest as well as checking my head for any damage before we started moving again, pausing to collect our supplies before we set off deeper into the forest, heading toward the mountain range that separated the Empire from the kingdoms in the west. Aliana was looking at me oddly and as the day went on it started to get on my nerves.

  I could feel the power surging in me. It was similar to when we had sex, a kind of pooling of our collective energy that joined us together and strengthened our bond. This was power of an extent I’d never felt before. I could feel it roiling inside me, needing to be used for more than just pulling water from underground. It crawled under my skin, making it itch where it once only tingled in response, and as the day drew on, it grew harder and harder not to scratch at it.

  As the sun dropped below the horizon and the sky grew dark, we stopped to make camp. With most of our supplies eaten, destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable by the djinn’s attack, there was little to do other than find a spot that was mildly more protected by the elements and settle in. I remembered more than a few cold nights Aliana and I shared in our early days together in that cave of hers.

  Out here in the wilderness, the nights grew colder still. Without something to protect us from the wind, we were in for a long night.

  Well, maybe not.

  I got up from my seat and walked over to a fallen tree that looked like it had been struck by lightning a few years ago and was only now starting to come apart. A few larger pieces of log woukd be sufficient, so I brought them all back at the same time. I could tell that the eyes of my three companions were on me, but I didn’t let it distract me from what I was trying to do.

  I closed my eyes, placed my hand on one of the logs and took a deep breath. I started imagining the fire we so desperately needed. In a few seconds, I could smell smoke rising from the log. A few seconds more, and I had to pull back as flames were starting to lick at my hands.

  After a few moments spent making it a bit safer and adding a few more logs, we had a happy little fire going. I sat down next to it, closing my eyes and letting it banish the chill from my bones.

  “You really have my power now?” Oro asked as he sat down next to me. “Another trick that I was taught as a boy, interestingly enough. You never find the like in the books teaching magic, as all those who read books for magic want the complex and violent, but never the simple, useful tricks like starting a campfire.”

  “I feel like my skin is trying to flay itself off and then repairing the damage, only to cause it again,” I said, rubbing my fingers over my arm and trying not to scratch it. “Is that what you feel like all the time?”

  “No,” Oro replied with a gentle shake of his head. “But then again, I was born with it, my body accustomed to it from an early age. From what I can tell, your power was hidden from you until recently, which usually causes such…annoyances. I have read of it happening but never saw it for myself.”

  “So you think it will settle with time?” I asked, turning to look at him. I really hoped this was the case, since I knew I was going to have a difficult time of it if I was constantly pushing away thoughts of clawing my skin off.

  “Sleep, Grant,” Oro said with a chuckle. “And maybe when you wake, it will feel better.” He got to his feet. I watched as he strolled over to the edge of our camp.

  Aliana moved over to sit next to me. After a few moments, she wrapped her arms around me, pulled one of mine over her shoulder and laid her head against my chest as I leaned back into a tree. Despite the itching, I could feel the efforts of the day catching up with me, and it was all I could do not to fall sleep immediately. As my eyes were drifting shut, I saw Oro setting up defense wards around our camp.

  17

  When I woke, I could feel a second form pressed against me. I took a deep breath, feeling a head lying on my stomach. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I really hoped it wasn’t Oro lying on top of me. I liked the man but wasn’t quite ready to have him sleeping that close to me.

  I opened my eyes and was relieved to find that Norel was the one was curled up next to me, her head using my torso for a pillow as she slept blissfully. Frarris had followed Norel’s lead, of course, and was curled up on my lap, her long ears twitching as she dreamed of… what was it that dragons dreamed of, anyway?

  Aliana had only moved to pull my arm closer around her. Feeling the heat emanating from her body and Frarris’, I wondered just what we needed a fire for. As we were, the camp was hot almost to the point of uncomfortable without the need for the dying embers.

  The sun was only just starting to crest the horizon, flooding the sky above with a wide variety of colors. Or so I assumed. The trees blocked most of the light, leaving a sense of almost constant twilight. I hadn’t noticed that in my previous trips to this forest, although it was unsurprising considering that my previous trips had been at night.

  A speck of movement caught my eye as I watched Oro sitting by the fire. He had constructed a rudimentary cooking station over it, and the smell of something roasting was making my mouth water to the point where I was willing to untangle myself from the mess of limbs I was in. Frarris was the only one to wake, but went back to sleep as soon as she tumbled over to curl herself under Norel’s arms while I joined Oro by the fire.

  “Pheasant,” the man answered the question I was almost too afraid to ask. “They are quite populous in this region. These are the months where the males are the most brazen, as it is when most of the females find themselves in heat, and thus are easy to catch.”

  I nodded. “How does a man like you know so much about living out in the wilds?”

  “I had what you might call an unorthodox training regimen,” he replied with a soft chuckle. “My father was a noble, like most others who could use magic, and yet he w
anted me to learn how to live my life without the comforts that came with position and the ability to wield magic. The man wasn’t too cruel in my upbringing, though, as he joined me in our yearly trips into the wilderness as well, teaching me everything his father had taught him about how to survive in the wild.”

  I nodded, smiling and leaning back as I enjoyed the heat of the fire, which I assumed he had fed before he started cooking the pheasant. “You said that the reason why you started hunting djinn was a long story. I don’t suppose that story would have started with your father, now would it?”

  Oro nodded, a pained expression crossing his face. “He was murdered by a djinn right before my eyes. I had no idea what it was when I saw it, of course, but years of study and learning had taught me to fend for myself. I hunted the creature down and only after capturing it was I made aware of the fact that it was a djinn, naturally, as well as the fact that it had been acting under the orders of another. The years it took me to hunt the creature and its master down left me in possession of a very particular set of skills that I set about putting to use in making sure that none would ever fell victim as my father did.”

  I nodded, tilting my head. “You know that Aliana is different, right?”

  He took a deep breath. “I do. Over the years, I learned the difference between the djinn that gave themselves fully over to the darkness of their kind and those that fight to keep their sense of honor intact. Aliana is one of the latter. It was how I was able to discern that she is young among her kind. Well, comparatively speaking.”

  “Was it her appearance?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Not really,” Oro replied with a shrug, checking on the pheasant before sitting back down. “The fact that she hasn’t given in to the darkness yet. It will happen eventually, you know. It may be tomorrow, it may be a hundred years from now, but one day, something will happen that will make her abandon whatever it was that kept her pure, and she will… change.”