“Mind lighting the way?” Max whispered as the six of them entered the stairwell.
“I’d love to,” Effrax said in a dry voice. “Only problem is they made me drink a healthy dose of evasdrin, so I’m not really feeling up to it.”
Fletcher made a noise of startled disbelief. “Why?”
Roxanne frowned. Evasdrin was a poison that preventing people from using their magic. Once it entered your bloodstream, it took about three days to recover your wielding abilities.
“What, you didn’t hear? Mage fire destroyed the town. Therefore, all fire wielders are guilty,” Effrax retorted.
They reached a landing that opened onto the main floor of Indrath Olven. Instead of leading them into the central fortress, Max leaned against a door on the back wall. It opened into a cramped hall beyond—probably a passage for servants—and he ushered them through.
“Does it get much narrower?” Thorion wanted to know as they set off again. His wings scraped the sides of the narrow corridor.
“No,” said Max, stopping to unlock another door. “We’re out.” Icy wind and blue moonlight flooded the passage as they filed outside. As soon as she was free, Roxanne pressed herself against the wall of the fortress. They were on a snow-glazed ledge behind the citadel, facing the mountain abyss.
“What kept you?” A snippy voice cut through the air. “If I’d known you were going to take so long, I’d have come up with a better distraction for the vaecount.”
Roxanne did a double-take. There, huddling by a snowdrift with her hands stuffed under her arms, was . . .
“Sebaris?” Effrax gaped at the Princess of the Galantasa, looking as if he’d seen a ghost. To be fair, she did look ghostly. Her skin was pale, her heart-shaped face gaunt. She was garbed in a white fur coat and a loose, white hospital gown that billowed in the wind.
“You’re awake,” said Fletcher.
“You shouldn’t be out in this weather,” said Effrax. “You were in a coma for—”
“I’m healthy enough to save your neck, Nameless, so spare me the lectures.” She sniffed in disdain, her fish-gill nostrils flapping shut and flaring open. Her features softened as her angular sapphire eyes landed on Thorion. “I’m sorry this happened. I trust my people treated you well?”
“Not particularly,” said Effrax. “How—”
“Explanations later,” Max interrupted. “We’re an hour from sunrise. Follow me.”
They moved in single file along the ledge, hugging the wall and keeping as far from the cliff as possible. Fletcher, who wasn’t fond of heights, walked between Roxanne and Keriya. He held onto Roxanne’s cloak, and Keriya steadied him whenever he slipped on a patch of ice.
Where the fortress met the great Irongarde wall, the ledge ended.
“We climb from here,” said Max. “Thorion, we’re far enough away for you to fly.”
Thorion sprang into the air. The gusts from his wings battered the land-ridden travelers, and Fletcher clung more tightly to Roxanne. “What exactly did you mean by saying we have to climb?” he asked.
In response, Max jumped off the ledge. Roxanne’s breath caught in her throat, but the prince hadn’t fallen far—a staircase was hewn into the side of the cliff, with nothing but a sculpted iron railing between the steps and a fatal drop. She sighed in resignation when she saw their escape route and jumped down next to Max.
Keriya did the same, offering her hands to Fletcher. “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be just like climbing Shivnath’s Mountains.”
“I hated that, too,” he grumbled.
Keriya moved to the front of the procession and Max went last, using airmagic to remove any trace of their footprints. As the group descended, the world grew lighter and the mist thickened. Thorion rode silently through the air, circling beneath them. Roxanne figured he was serving as a sort of safety net in case anyone should slip on the icy steps. Though she could hear the rustle of his leathery wings as he passed, he was no more than a scrap of shadow drifting through the fog.
After what seemed an age, the mists thinned and they reached a bamboo forest. It was warmer here, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of level ground.
Thorion was waiting for them. He held his right wing awkwardly, and Roxanne could see a dark purple splotch spreading on the snow beneath him. The wound in his membranous skin was dripping blood.
“Are you okay?” she asked when she reached him. She winced as the words left her mouth. She hadn’t been thinking. Even now, necro-threads were burrowing their way into his soul.
Thorion rolled his shoulders in a shrug. Keriya went to him and examined his injury while Roxanne helped Effrax down the last few steps. He and Sebaris looked awful.
“What I wouldn’t give for a healer,” Max murmured, gazing around at their ragtag troupe.
Roxanne looked at Thorion. “Couldn’t you . . . ?” She faltered, not sure how to continue. He’d healed a knife wound in her side once. Timemagic was the root of his power, the same way lifemagic was the root of Roxanne’s, and he could fix any injury or sickness that would heal on its own. She was sure he could patch his wing and help Sebaris and Effrax.
“My source has been diminished since yesterday’s incident,” he told her, guessing her question. “I’d prefer not to wield. I don’t think it’s safe at present.”
“Of course,” she said, ducking her head.
“We should keep going,” said Max. “We can rest in the rainforest.”
The sky was swathed in gray clouds, but it had grown bright enough for them to pick their way through the bamboo. Roxanne relaxed as familiar mindvoices of animals trickled in once more. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been; there had been a time, not so long ago, when she would have given anything to shut them up.
After an hour of hiking, Max decided they were far enough from Irongarde to stop. Effrax sat at once, closing his eyes and leaning against a tree for support. Sebaris sank onto a boulder. Her chest was heaving and her cobalt-blue hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat.
“So,” Fletcher said in a tone of forced lightness, “how’d you get here, Princess?”
“I followed you from the Galantrian Palace,” she replied coolly, “and was attacked by the bogspectre.”
“I think he was asking how you came to be part of this rescue mission,” said Effrax. He was gripping his left thigh tightly, massaging his injury.
“I’ve been awake for days,” she informed them, “but I asked my attendants not to alert anyone. During the attack, I escaped from the hospital and made my way to the fortress. I found Max, he told me what happened, asked for my help, and here we are.”
Roxanne suspected the princess had glossed over quite a bit in her explanation, but didn’t pursue the matter. She didn’t care for Sebaris; the girl was as stuck-up and rude as Penelope Sanvire had been in Aeria.
“And why are you here?” Effrax prodded.
“I should think the reason is obvious,” she said, crossing her arms. “I’m here to help Lord Thorion.”
Another long silence settled on the group.
“Any idea where your sword is, Keriya?” said Max.
Roxanne didn’t bother to ask how he knew Tanthflame had been looking for the sword. Word was sure to have spread by now.
“No,” she said shortly.
A third silence, this one darker and more foreboding. Roxanne began making bets with herself on who would be the first to mention the main issue.
Surprisingly, it was Thorion.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
Max cleared his throat. “Darksalm is a powerful substance, born of the very magic that flows through your blood. It has no cure. At least,” he added, “no cure has ever been recorded in our history.”
“Then there might be something?” said Fletcher.
“Probably not
,” grunted Effrax.
“Let’s brainstorm ideas,” Fletcher persisted, his tone filled with irritating hopefulness. “Working together, maybe we can cure Thorion.”
“It’s impossible,” Max told him.
“Do not,” hissed a soft voice, “say that.”
They all turned to look at Keriya. She stood by Thorion’s side, and there was a dangerous glint in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Keriya, but sooner or later, you’ll have to come to terms with—”
“I will come to terms with nothing,” she said. “We live in a world filled with impossibilities. Necrovar has returned; Thorion escaped the Etherworld; I died Shivnath resurrected me. I’ve seen the impossible happen. I am the impossible. So don’t you dare tell me it’s impossible to save my dragon.”
Keriya lifted her chin, but her lower lip trembled. Roxanne saw a flash of something in her vibrant eyes. It was there only for a heartbeat, but that was time enough for Roxanne to recognize it. It was something she understood all too well: the quiet, stubborn defiance of someone who knows she cannot fight her fate, yet fights it anyway, to her dying breath.
That was how Roxanne had felt growing up in Aeria. Between the Elders’ laws and her father’s unrelenting hand, she had been trapped. Yet she had fought. Every day she’d waged silent, invisible wars against the system she hated and feared so deeply, and every day she’d lost.
Every day, that is, until Keriya had returned from the Ceremony of Choice with purple eyes and the promise of a world beyond Aeria.
“You heard her,” Roxanne said loudly, planting her fists on her hips and glaring around at her companions. “We’ve got three people who received the best tutoring in Allentria, one of whom is an expert on the Great War.” She shot Max a pointed look, annoyed that he was being so negative. “Ideas. Let’s go.”
“The only way to free Thorion’s soul is by killing the wielder to whom it is bound,” Max retorted. “You must do as Shivnath commanded. Go to Mount Arax and step through the Rift. Find Necrovar and face him.”
“I can’t,” whispered Thorion. “He’ll twist my soul and take control of me as soon as I see him. He’ll kill me . . . or worse.”
It occurred to Roxanne that Thorion’s voice was different. Certainly it had changed from when she’d met him—he hadn’t had emotions then, and he had spoken in a calm, cold monotone—but now it was bleak and heavy, burdened with unspoken fears that hadn’t been there yesterday morning.
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Effrax murmured. Thorion’s pupils narrowed nervously as he nodded.
“Then we need to find a cure before we go to Necrovar,” said Keriya.
“What about a phoenix?” suggested Sebaris.
“Their fires purify and heal,” Effrax began, “but you would need arcane magics to treat something like darksalm. That being said, we could seek out Valaan, the phoenix-god of the Fironem.”
“The elves.” Seba spoke over Effrax, ignoring his mention of Valaan. “Lady Taeleia is the greatest healer in Allentria.”
“Taeleia will tell you what any healer worth their salt will tell you,” said Max. “Darksalm is a sickness of the soul, not of the flesh. You can’t change a soul.”
“A caladrius bird,” she said, changing tack without missing a beat.
“They work the same way elves do. Neither lifemagic nor timemagic will help Thorion.”
“There’s tell of a healer in the north, a werelion—”
“Bedtime stories,” Max said dismissively.
The royals tossed ideas back and forth, suggesting increasingly far-fetched plans. The Aerians, whose knowledge of healing amounted to what the schoolelders had taught them about aloeferns, could only sit and listen, nodding when something sounded interesting.
“What about Lake Sanara in Aeria?” Fletcher offered. “Its waters have powerful healing properties.”
“Oh yes,” scoffed Seba. “Let’s jump on our flying pigs and soar past Shivnath’s Mountains to the mythical land of Aeria. We can bathe in the Fountain of Youth, take a stroll through the Broken Vale, and visit the island home of the Chardons while we’re at it.”
Roxanne and Keriya exchanged uncomfortable looks. They never spoke of their homeland, and since meeting Cezon Skyriver—a crotchety criminal who’d informed them that no one in Allentria believed Aeria existed—they hadn’t told anyone where they were from. Roxanne caught Fletcher’s eye and shook her head. Now wasn’t the moment to come clean.
“Sanara’s useless anyway. It never healed anyone,” Keriya muttered. Max, who was standing next to her, chuckled dryly. He must have thought she was making a joke.
“A unicorn,” Sebaris said at last.
Effrax grew thoughtful. “No one’s figured out their magic. And they’ve always been considered among the most powerful of the healers.”
“You’ll be wasting your time,” said Max. “Nothing will solve this—nothing except facing Necrovar.”
Keriya’s eyes clouded at the prince’s words. She turned away from him and asked, “Where can we find a unicorn?”
“They once lived in the western forests,” said Effrax. “Further north. They prefer the cold.”
“Then we’ll head north and west,” she declared, and she turned and started walking.
“Where are you going?” Roxanne asked. She was sure Keriya had no idea what a unicorn was, much less where to find one. It wasn’t a term they’d come across in Aeria.
“If I found a dragon, I can find a unicorn. Necrovar will get a stronger hold on Thorion every day, and the Allentrians . . . well, Fletcher was right. How do you think our escape will look to them? They’ll be after us soon.”
“You didn’t find me, you summoned me, Keriya,” said Thorion. “Is it wise to search blindly for a creature who may not be able to help?”
“What else can I do?” she said, rounding on the group. For a moment she looked like she was about to cry. She pulled herself together with obvious effort and announced, “The quest has changed. Our only objective will be finding a cure for Thorion.”
Max shook his head. “For the record, I think this is a bad idea.”
“What’s a bad idea?” Keriya challenged him. “Saving the only creature who can defeat the Shadow?”
“No, losing sight of your main objective,” he returned, his voice unnaturally cold.
“Maxton, I can’t fight like this,” Thorion whispered. “If I go to Necrovar now, it would be suicide.”
The prince’s gaze flickered briefly to the dragon before settling on Keriya once more. “If this is what you want, so be it,” he said softly. “We’ll stop in Edora to get supplies. North and west—this way.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Tread lightly in enemy territory.”
~ Ghoori Proverb
Despite the deep snow, they made record time with Keriya and Thorion forging the way. Fletcher often wanted to complain of his frozen feet, or ask to stop so he could catch his breath. But with every sodden step he took, he reminded himself of how Thorion must be suffering. So he put his head down and kept his mouth shut. Besides, the hike was keeping him warm—for the most part—and thinking about his feet kept him from thinking about his empty stomach.
They arrived at the small mining settlement late that night. Guards stood before the main gate, alert and grim.
“Seba and I are the only ones who should go in,” Max announced as they huddled in a thicket of giant ferns by the path leading into Edora.
“I can’t go in there,” the princess protested. “They’ll recognize me.”
“That’s the point.” He looked at her with an almost pitying expression. “You can’t come on this journey. You’re still weak. You need to go to the guards and request an escort to your palace.”
“Don’t coddle me, Maxton,” she snapped. “I deserve to be part of this que
st.”
“It isn’t a question of deserving—”
“It is a question of honor,” she said, a dangerous fire kindling in her eyes. “If you hand me over to the Edoran guards, I’ll tell them what you did and where you’re going. Yes, if you force my hand, I’ll do it. This is one fight I will not lose.”
There was more arguing to be done, but Seba turned to Thorion and asked him if she could come. Fletcher saw Keriya shake her head madly at the dragon, but Thorion considered the request and nodded.
“That settles it,” Seba said triumphantly as Keriya’s mouth fell open. “Now, it will look suspicious if Max goes in alone. Someone must accompany him.”
She was very bossy, Fletcher thought, as the group bickered.
“It can’t be Effrax,” she was saying. “They won’t want him in there.”
“Story of my life,” said Effrax, reclining on the roots of a kapok tree with his bad leg outstretched.
“I’ll do it,” Fletcher offered. “I don’t stand out. People will recognize the rest of you, but no one knows who I am.”
So it was that Fletcher found himself approaching the bamboo gates with Max.
“No idea what’s gotten into Seba,” the Erastatian was muttering. “She should know better. So should Nameless, for that matter. Why do they want to put themselves through this? It’s not like the legends and songs, you know,” he added, casting a sidelong glance at Fletcher as if to impress that point on him. “This journey will be dangerous.”
“They have their reasons for coming,” Fletcher said with a small shrug. “So do I.”
New though he was to the world beyond Aeria, this war had always felt personal to him. He was invested in doing the right thing and protecting his friends. At the beginning of their journey, those had occasionally felt like two separate objectives, but now there was no confusion. He considered Thorion one of his best friends—and saving Thorion would save Allentria.
As Seba had predicted, the guards on duty were suspicious of their late arrival. The foreman stopped them and peered into their eyes, and looked as if he might deny them entry until Max slipped him a gold derlei.
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