“Ow,” she complained, touching a tender spot on her side.
At first she couldn’t see the signs for what they were, but when another faint pain rippled across her shoulder blades, she understood what was happening.
“Thorion,” she whispered. The book tumbled from her lap as she shot up. “Thorion?” she said again, louder this time, scanning the skies once more. There, to the east—a tiny dark splotch was approaching through the clouds. Keriya let out a whoop that resounded throughout the gorge. A low rumble echoed after it, the subtle shifting of faraway rocks.
Suddenly she was running, leaping from boulder to boulder, heedless of the danger. She charged over the lip of the ravine and down the other side. “Thorion!”
On the slope below, Alphir gave a startled cry. Max whirled around to glare at Keriya.
“It’s him,” she shouted, pointing. She tried sending a telepathic message, but even now she couldn’t sense Thorion’s mental signature.
“Something’s wrong,” she breathed, as the dragon dropped beneath the low-hanging clouds. Another frisson of pain worked its way through her left side, solidifying her concern. He was hurt.
Keriya tore downhill, careened past Max, slipped on a loose patch of gravel, and came to rest on an open expanse of ground overlooking the river. As Thorion circled nearer, she saw his bronze scales were caked with what looked like crusted blood. Something was looped around his neck and strapped to his back. Froth dripped from between his fangs, and his paws were stained pitch-black—a result of the darksalm. He landed a few heights from her, his legs wobbling as he thudded down.
Keriya ran forward and flung her arms around him. “You’re here,” she cried.
“Yes, I’m here,” he whispered, leaning against her and humming softly. She felt the vibrations in her chest, soft and reassuring.
“What happened? Why did it take you so long? Are you alright? Did you find a cure? I kept trying to contact you but I could never sense you.”
Thorion pulled away. There was something wretched about him, like he had grown dim around the edges. His scales were dull and his eyes held a strange, wild darkness.
“What have you done?” she whispered, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before.
“Only what was necessary,” he croaked. His voice was raspy and dry. “I exorcised the clean half of my soul.”
Keriya’s hands flew to her mouth. “You actually did it.”
“You wanted me to do it,” he countered, a hint of accusation in his tone.
Max joined them then. Thorion nodded at the Erastatian in greeting, but when he spoke, it was in the draconic tongue so only Keriya could understand: “The exorcism has made the remainder of my soul unstable. It weakened me, making me more susceptible to the Shadow’s influence. I had another episode where I wielded necromagic.”
Even without their mental link, Keriya felt a trace of horror and regret. She examined him again. Some blood was his own, stemming from various injuries, but some of it had obviously come from elsewhere, people and animals Keriya would rather not know about.
“What’s done is done,” she whispered. She wouldn’t ask her drackling what he’d endured. It was bad enough that he’d had to live it once; she would not force him to recount the violence. “Is this your solution, then?”
“Half of it. As I said, now that part of my soul is gone—the clean part—all that remains are the threads Necrovar has poisoned. That’s why I cloaked my mind. It lessens his hold on me, if only fractionally. I need your help with what comes next: to free me from the Shadow’s influence while I’m still alive, we must perform another exorcism to remove the rest of my soul.”
“But I can’t wield—”
“Keriya, listen to me.” Thorion’s voice rose in frustration. “You called me from the Etherworld, you can communicate with me, you fought Necrovar—”
“With Shivnath’s magic,” she began feebly.
“With your magic! You have power within you, and just because the humans can’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
“What’s he saying?” asked Max, who could probably tell—given their angry tones and the tears welling in Keriya’s eyes—that something big was happening. Keriya ignored him. She stared unwaveringly at Thorion.
“If you’re alive, you must have magic,” she whispered.
“Exactly,” he said, staring at her meaningfully.
She shook her head. “I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you. If you don’t have magic or a soul or whatever it is . . . that’s bad, isn’t it? That’s why the Aerians hated me so much. One of the reasons,” she added in a dry undertone. “What will happen if you cut out everything that makes you who you are?”
“I will be a lich, an undead creature,” he explained, lowering his voice although Max couldn’t understand a word they were saying. “Neither shadowbeast, mortal, or dragon. A husk who has no place in this world or the next. An unnatural and unwanted nomad on the River of Time.”
Keriya gaped at him. Now that she saw Thorion reduced, crippled with only half his magic remaining, she did not want to continue down this road. She shuddered to think what would happen when the rest of his soul was cut out, and she finally understood Max’s fear of the exorcism spell.
“Is there any other way?” she asked.
“At this point, no. The darksalm will destroy me within days if we allow the tainted half of my soul to remain in my body.”
“Then I will help you if I can.”
He dipped his snout to her. “Thank you.”
“Thorion’s had a long journey,” Keriya said in Allentrian, addressing Max. “We should let him rest.”
“What’s the plan?” Max pressed. “What’s his solution?”
“That’s a conversation for tomorrow,” Thorion said wearily. Keriya gestured for him to walk with her as she turned toward the path that led into the gorge. The dragon took a few limping steps before he froze.
“What’s the matter?” she asked quickly.
“I have something for you.” He lowered his head and hooked his claws—his horrible, pitch-black claws—into the filthy leather belt strap Keriya had noticed around his neck. It was attached to a cloth bundle he’d been carrying on his back, a long parcel that had nestled between his wings. The package fell to the ground with a soft clunk. “Open it.”
Keriya bent and started to unfold the cloth. Something lurched in her memory, and she realized what it was before it was fully unwrapped. Max must have guessed, too, because she heard a sharp intake of breath from him. The last corner of burlap fell away, revealing . . .
“My sword,” she breathed, touching it with shaking hands. She ran her fingers along the muck-encrusted edges of the age-old scabbard. “How did you find it?”
“I’m the one who hid it,” Thorion admitted. Both Keriya and Max frowned at him. If this was a joke, it was a bad one.
“It was for your birthday. The Galantrians sometimes let me into Indrath Olven to look around, and on one of my trips, I found the armory. I took the sword because I knew how much you missed it, and I hid it outside in the jungle. I meant to return it to you as a birthday present . . . but of course, that was the morning of the attack.”
“You did this?” Keriya was in shock, unable to process, unsure how to react. Her body quivered with tension, caught in a war of emotions struggling for dominance. “You knew where it was, all this time? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because there was never a time when we weren’t in danger,” he replied, furrowing his brows. “And other things were weighing on my mind, things I thought were more important to focus on than retrieving a weapon from enemy territory.”
“You should have given it back.” Something was boiling within her beneath the shock, something that made her want to shout and throw things. “Think of how different things might
have turned out if I’d had it.”
“Things wouldn’t have turned out different at all,” Thorion snapped, clicking his fangs together angrily. “No one attacked you with necromagic—just me.”
“You lied to me!”
“I have never lied to you,” he declared in the draconic tongue.
“Maybe you haven’t lied outright, but there’s more than one way to lie. Misdirection, omission, and over-simplification—you taught me that. I understand all the dragon secrets you hide from me, but what was there to be gained by not telling me where my sword was?”
Thorion glared at her, nostrils flaring and sides heaving. Keriya wished he hadn’t cloaked his mind. She had never wanted to know what he was thinking as much as she did at that moment.
“It would seem I have become too human,” he said at last, his voice distant. “The reasons I didn’t tell you were selfish and cowardly, and in retrospect, none of them make sense. There was no wisdom in my actions, only fear. Had I behaved more like a dragon, then yes, things may have turned out differently. But I am a product of my upbringing. I learned my lessons a little too well.”
With that, he spread his wings and launched into the air with his powerful hindquarters. She watched him circle and descend to the grassy plains on the eastern side of the river. He limped to the water’s edge and splashed into the icy liquid, washing off the wears of his travels.
Keriya couldn’t wrap her head around what had happened. “Why?” she asked, staring at the blade grasped in her white-knuckled fingers. “I don’t understand. Why would he keep this a secret?”
She raised her head and looked at Max.
“Dragons are dangerous creatures, Keriya.” His voice was heavy and there was a faraway look in his eyes. “As you’ve learned, all they do is keep secrets. They scheme and plot, and the world suffers for it. They trust no one, so it is impossible in turn to trust them.”
Then Max walked away too, and Keriya was left clutching the ancient sword, feeling more alone than she had in a long time.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Once you know the rules, you can break them.”
~ Helkryvt Moothvaler, Second Age
Keriya retreated to a secluded corner of the ravine. She tucked herself beneath a shale overhang, displacing a group of irate land crabs, and cradled the sword as she wept. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this.
Unfortunately, Max found her.
“I’m fine,” she said preemptively when she noticed him standing at the mouth of the grotto. She hoped he wouldn’t be able to see her red-rimmed eyes in the gathering twilight.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said softly. “It’s dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid.”
Max smiled. “Of course you’re not. I just thought you’d like some company.” He sat beside her, pretending to be busy polishing his amulet while she wiped away the evidence of her tears.
“So,” he began, “what’s the next step?”
“As soon as Thorion regains his strength, we’ll leave for the Fironem.”
“I thought he was working on a solution. Did he mention that?”
Keriya wanted to tell Max, but didn’t think it would be wise to let him know what her dragon was planning. The prince interpreted her silence as a bad sign and shook his head.
“He doesn’t have a solution, does he?”
She opened her mouth but bit back her response, remembering how he’d reacted to the idea of an exorcism in the Naetren Mountains. She couldn’t stand the thought of another argument.
“I’m sorry, Keriya,” Max whispered. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this war.”
“Shivnath wanted me to save Thorion—save the world—and I’m going to do it. I’ll find a way.”
“I wish I had your bravery,” he murmured. “And your faith. Mine has been fading of late.”
Eventually Max left to go start a fire. He invited her to join him when she was ready and told her to be careful walking around the gorge in the dark. She waved away his warnings, for she had no intention of leaving her cave tonight. She needed to be alone with her thoughts.
Solitude continued to elude her. The crabs returned, clicking their pincers furiously in an attempt to frighten her away.
“You better be careful,” she told them. “If Max finds you, he’ll turn you into our dinner and—ouch!” One of the crabs had pinched her leg. She jumped up and, conceding defeat, stomped into the night. “Fine! Keep your stupid cave.”
“Keriya?”
She stopped short. Thorion was standing on the narrow path, his eyes glinting through the mist.
“Oh. Hi.” The two of them stared at each other for a long and awkward moment.
“I didn’t mean the things I said earlier,” Thorion told her. “I haven’t been myself. I’ve been angry and afraid, and it has changed me for the worse.”
“You have every right to be angry,” she admitted, buckling the sword around her waist. “I’m sorry about what I said, too. Can you forgive me?”
“Always.” He smiled at her as she approached and laid a hand on his neck, petting his smooth scales. “Are you ready for the exorcism?”
“You want to do it now?”
“Now is all we have,” he said, his lips quirking in a twist.
Together they scaled the southern ridge of the gorge. Thorion led her to a place out of Max’s sight, a flat-topped rock covered with lichens. He lowered his head and opened his mouth. With his blackened talons, he delicately removed something lodged between his jawbone and cheek.
“What’s that?” Keriya asked, staring in consternation at what Thorion had produced.
“A valestone,” he whispered. “Take it.”
She accepted the drool-coated valestone. It fit comfortably in the middle of her hand. Its sides were coarse and it had a ruddy purplish hue. As far as she could tell, there was nothing special about it whatsoever—but Thorion had taken great pains to conceal it, so it must be important.
The dragon then dug under the scales of his left leg with his claws and wrenched one shiny bronze plate from his wrist. Keriya flinched but remained silent as she watched him use the scale to gather a few drops of blood from the wound.
“Be careful,” he cautioned as he offered her the bloodied scale. “My blood is dangerous.”
“How so?”
“In ways I am forbidden to speak about.” He smiled again wryly. The secret-keeping was a touchy subject for both of them, but their quarrels lay forgotten in light of their reunion and the nature of their work. “I can tell you this: like all living things, our magic flows through our blood. It just so happens that our magic is more volatile than most. Dragon blood tainted with necromagic is even worse.”
Keriya grasped the scale between her thumb and forefinger and held it far away from her body.
“I’m going to drop my mindcloak,” he told her. “Then I’m going to try to wield. If anything goes wrong . . .”
“I’ll run,” Keriya finished, though if the darksalm took over, running wouldn’t save her.
Thorion closed his eyes and a deep concentration clouded his features. Suddenly Keriya could feel him again. His mental presence was a bright torch flaring in her mind. His eyes flew open, and she was horrified to see that they were glowing. At first she feared the shadowbeasts had found their hiding spot, but then she realized he must be reacting to the necromagic within his soul. She squeezed her own eyes shut and found her lids painted with brilliant purple.
“Here we go,” he breathed. That was the only warning Keriya had before the pebble grew hot. She gasped and nearly dropped it. It pulsed against her palm as if it were a miniature heart beating.
Glancing at Thorion, she noticed that the shadowed veins on his fingers were inching higher and higher. She wanted to tell him to stop, but he must know what his wielding
was costing him.
“Keriya,” he said in a strained voice. “Set the stone down and pour my blood on it.”
Without hesitation or debate, she crouched and set the valestone before her. She carefully poured Thorion’s blood over it. Nothing appeared to happen, but though the pebble was no longer touching her, Keriya could still feel its ethereal beat in her flesh and veins. Warmth spread throughout her body. Her brow grew damp with sweat, though the night was cool.
“Is it working?” she breathed.
“Give it time.” Thorion watched the tiny rock. Keriya stared obediently at it, too. The stone’s imagined heartbeat pounded in her ears. Her body tingled with nerves. Seconds stretched into ages. All the while the Shadow crept further across Thorion’s scales, claiming more of him.
“Surely it must have worked by now?”
“Patience, Keriya, is a virtue,” said Thorion. “One which I fear you never learned.”
She was about to reply when the warmth faded and the heartbeat stilled. The valestone seemed to diminish before Keriya’s eyes, as though it had grown more ordinary.
Thorion’s body went rigid. He began to tremble as a dark mist oozed from him. Like heavy black steam, it wafted off his scales: a spectral, shadowy reflection of a dragon. When the last of the darkness left him, his eyes turned glassy and vacant. The inner light that shone in his bright, engaging gaze had been snuffed out. In the same breath, his mental signature winked out of existence again.
“It is finished,” he said. Even his words sounded hollow. His quiet, resonant tenor was a distant echo of what it once had been. The dark splotch swirled before him, a cloud seeping through the air like ink across a parchment page.
“So . . . that’s your soul?” Keriya asked breathlessly. She had never seen magic before. She’d seen the results of countless spells, but she’d never fully appreciated the fact that magicthreads existed, on some level, as quantifiable units. That all of Thorion’s being should be reduced to a small patch of fog was unfathomable to her. Nothing she had ever learned from Erasmus or in Allentria had prepared her for this sight.
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