Dragon Child

by Elana A. Mugdan

  “Come on!” She hit his chest and air slipped from his throat in a familiar hum. Bolstered by these signs of vitality, she leaned down one more time and listened for a heartbeat.

  She listened for a long time.

  “Keriya?”

  “Shh!” She hissed at Max, who had come to join her.

  “Keriya, he’s gone.”

  “You’re wrong,” she snarled, lifting Thorion’s head and staring into his eyes. If he could see her, he would keep fighting. He would get up.

  “Thorion, please,” she whispered. “I never thought too much about my future, but when I did . . . you were always in it.”

  She fumbled in her cloak and withdrew the packet of laesabrel. She undid the drawstrings with difficulty, for her hands were shaking badly, and pulled his jaws apart to slip the last of the buds between his fangs. No response from Thorion. The mint-green bulbs went to waste, sitting uselessly on his tongue.

  Keriya kept seeing little things—an ear rustling in the breeze, claws contracting into fists—that made her believe Thorion was recovering. He was injured and needed time to rest. He would be better soon. He would come to his senses and see her sitting there. He would see that she had come to help him. He had to see that.

  But when his body—which had been limp and supple as a piece of twine—grew stiff, when he became cold to the touch, when a foul smell wafted from him, she was forced to concede that maybe Max wasn’t wrong.

  “Thorion,” she whispered, petting his head softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Thorion showed no sign that he could hear her.

  Then the brilliant purple of his eyes began to fade. The color paled from red-violet to a muddy magenta, dulled to brown, and finally darkened to pitch-black.

  And this made her realize that Thorion was dead.

  The tears arrived, flowing fast and free. They dribbled down her nose, fanned around her howling mouth, and splattered onto Thorion’s inert face.

  “Gods damn it,” she cried, rocking back and forth. She sucked long, anguished breaths between her teeth and closed her own eyes, unable to look at the lifeless ones below any longer.

  Max quietly draped his coat across her shoulders. It did nothing to warm her.

  “We should go before—”

  “I’m not leaving him,” she snapped, jerking away from the prince and hunching over the dragon. Max said nothing. He retreated, giving her space.

  “Please,” Keriya whispered into the scales of Thorion’s neck, “if anyone is listening, if anyone can help, wield air into his lungs and fire into his veins. Make him warm again. Make him whole again. If there is any magic in this world, please save him.”

  Whether she was talking to Shivnath, or Valaan, or the universe, she didn’t know. She held a hand to the drackling’s side, half-expecting life to surge into him after her heartfelt plea.

  He remained stiff and cold.

  Her fingernails scraped against his scales as her hands clenched. Her shivering stilled and heat boiled in her stomach. Her lips pulled back from her teeth in a silent growl.

  This wasn’t grief.

  This was anger.

  “There is no magic,” she breathed, the words grating in her throat. “There are no gods.”

  She slid Thorion’s head off her lap and rose to her feet. Max was standing nearby, staring at her. His face was oddly blank.

  “We need to go,” was all he said.

  “I’m not letting him stay like this.” Keriya walked to a patch of loose stones. She squatted and hefted one into her arms, groaning with the strain of it.

  “Keriya, stop it. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  She didn’t care. She lugged the rock to Thorion and laid it by his side. She would build a cairn, a funeral pyre, something to keep him safe from the elements, something to honor him.

  “It won’t do any good,” Max was saying in the background. “He’s going to rise as a shadowbeast! You need to save yourself.”

  Keriya, who had grabbed another rock, stopped. Yes, he was going to rise again, wasn’t he? She dropped the stone and went to Thorion, crouching by his side, inspecting every scale. There—the black stains on his paws were slowly seeping across his forearms.

  “Look!” She pointed, gesturing Max over. “Necrovar is saving him!”

  “Saving him? Keriya, do you know what you’re saying?”

  “Of course I know,” she spat. “Necrovar brings people back from the dead.”

  She heard the words spilling from her mouth, a last, desperate hope. Thorion would return as a shadowbeast, but that was fine. Doru had still been Doru when he’d attacked them in the rainforest; it followed that Thorion would still be Thorion when he returned.

  “I’ll wait for him. When he comes back, we’ll be together again. And this way, we don’t have to worry about Necrovar anymore! We don’t have to fight if we all get what we want.”

  More insane babbling. She feared those were the sort of words she could never take back, but Max’s face was full of understanding. He sat next to her.

  “I’ll wait with you, Keriya,” he whispered. “I’ll help however I can.” He put his arm around her and leaned in to kiss the side of her head. She didn’t react. Her attention was fixed on Thorion.

  The black was seeping further across his body.

  It wouldn’t be much longer, now.

  Keriya, lost in her fog of misery, didn’t notice the passage of time. The sun sank. Heavy clouds rolled in from the east so there was no light from the moons. She couldn’t monitor Thorion’s transformation. She was sightless in the dead of night.

  She’d meant to stay awake, to watch over him until he rose . . . but she blinked and she was elsewhere.

  “Max? Where are you?” she called to an empty world. The silence swallowed her words. She started to run through misty nothingness, but her feet gained no traction against the sable ground. She pumped her legs harder, to no avail.

  “Keriya Soulstar.” A voice hissed in her ear. She stumbled and fell.

  “No.” She shook her head and curled in on herself. Her stomach became a stormy sea. “No, I can’t. Not now. I can’t do this.”

  “I offered you peace,” said Necrovar. She clapped her hands over her ears but couldn’t shut him out. He appeared through the fog, a cloaked and hooded figure, and crouched beside her on bended knee. “I offered you a partnership. You declined—and you see how well that turned out.”

  “You offered me peace at the expense of Thorion’s life,” she snarled, choking on the burn of tears. “And you got what you wanted. You killed him!”

  “You killed him,” Necrovar shot back. Keriya cringed away from the accusation. She couldn’t dispute that point. All her arguments against Necrovar crumbled, leaving only her own guilt. It seared her from the inside, coursing through her in waves.

  “It is over. Come dawn, Thorion’s transition will be complete,” he said, rising once more. His form wavered and he began to disappear, bleeding into the shadows.

  “Wait,” she cried. “Wait, please. Can’t you do something?”

  Necrovar paused, half-darkness, half-man. Slowly, he re-solidified. “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone talks about how powerful you are,” she said in a trembling voice. “They say you’re the most powerful wielder who ever lived. You bring souls back from the dead. Can’t you save him? You could resurrect him—not as a shadowbeast, as himself.”

  Necrovar chuckled. “I don’t know who’s been putting ideas in that fascinating little brain of yours, but I don’t make the same mistakes twice.”

  “I’ll do anything if you help him,” she promised. “I’ll give you the sword. I’ll trade my life for his if that’s what you want!”

  Necrovar tilted his head, reminding her of how Thorion had always looked when he was examining something that didn’t
make sense.

  “You would do that?” he asked. “You would do that for this beast who kept you from his magic, thoughts, and secrets, who put you in danger, who hurt you . . . you would die for him?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears she’d been trying to suppress had returned. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Keriya choked on a laugh absent of happiness or hope. “Because I love him.”

  I love him. I wanted to protect him. I did the best I could. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. I tried to save him. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?

  “Motives count for nothing, I’m afraid,” Necrovar told her softly. “You may have loved him, but look at all you did in the name of love—not only to Thorion, but to your friends and your country. Some people don’t deserve love,” he concluded, as a far-off look came upon him.

  I must be one of those people, thought Keriya. All she’d ever wanted was to be loved, to fit in, to have a family—but she had known all along that wanting was not the same as deserving. She had used her bond with Thorion to force him to do things against his will. She had allowed her friends to go to the far corners of the empire, into the heart of danger. She had hurt everyone she’d ever cared about.

  And now she was a murderer. She had killed her dragon child. She had failed in every sense of the word. How could she have been expected to do otherwise? She was only a child herself, a child without the magic, knowledge, or skill to complete the tasks she’d been given.

  “When the sun rises, I will have what I need in order to return to Selaras,” said Necrovar.

  “What will you do to me?” she asked.

  A pinprick of angry light glinted beneath his hood as the shadows rose and wrapped around him. “We’ll see,” he hissed as he vanished.

  Keriya awoke to a chilling gray dawn. For a few muddled moments she couldn’t remember anything. Her mind had created a shroud of blissful ignorance. Max’s coat slid off her as she sat up.

  Then it all came crashing back.

  The memory of yesterday hit her like a tidal wave. She gave a small, shuddering gasp and looked around. Max was nowhere to be seen. What was worse, Thorion’s body was also gone.

  She leapt to her feet at once. “Thorion, come to me!” She called him in the draconic tongue, then in Allentrian, screaming until her throat was raw.

  “COME BACK TO ME!”

  There was no answer. She sank to her knees once more and shrieked words of incoherent anger at the ground.

  “What have you done?”

  A venomous growl reached Keriya’s ears, slicing through her cries. She jerked upright. That voice was so familiar, yet it couldn’t be . . .

  “Who’s there?” she whispered. A low rumble echoed behind her and she turned.

  A dragon, black as the confines of death, crouched atop a cloven boulder. His wings were spread in a stance of aggression and his sides were heaving with pent-up rage. Wild, obsidian eyes bored into her with frightening intensity.

  The emotion that overtook Keriya was so strong as to be nauseating. Terror and sorrow rampaged through her, but they were merely paving the way for hope. Her heart leapt at the sight of him.

  She raised a shaking hand. “Thorion,” she breathed.

  The shadowbeast sprang at her. His front paws collided with her shoulders, forcing her flat on her back. He bared blackened fangs as he lowered his snout to her face.

  “I am not Thorion,” he spat. This close, she could hear how different he sounded. She caught the faint undertone of another voice beneath his.

  “You again,” she murmured, staring into the once-beloved face that was now so horrifying.

  “I continue to underestimate you,” Necrovar said through Thorion’s mouth. “I almost enjoyed it, watching and waiting to see what interesting thing you would do next. But this time you’ve gone too far.”

  Thorion’s claws dug into her flesh and she winced in pain.

  “I don’t know how you managed it,” Necrovar admitted, “but the game ends now.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “HIS SOUL,” he bellowed, spraying flecks of black spit on her cheeks. “I cannot wield his soul! Tell me what you’ve done or I will rip your throat out!”

  Keriya stared at the Shadow, who stared back at her through her dragon’s eyes. “Thorion couldn’t win,” she murmured. “He could only ensure that you lost.”

  Necrovar backed off, seething and rattling Thorion’s wings. She rubbed her shoulder, which was bleeding in the place where his talons had punctured her skin. The dragon’s dark orbs rolled madly in their blackened sockets; then they landed on the grimy scabbard hanging at Keriya’s hip.

  “I will not lose,” he grated, staring hungrily at the weapon.

  Following her instincts, Keriya wrenched the sword free of its sheath. Necrovar tensed. She could tell he longed to lunge at her again and steal the weapon, but in his hesitation she also saw fear. He didn’t dare get too close to the ancient blade.

  With an enraged snarl, Necrovar swung Thorion’s head to the left. “You will come to Mount Arax,” he declared. Keriya glanced over to see that Max had returned. The prince stood between two rocks, frozen as he gaped at the shadowdragon. Thorion’s head snapped around to glare at Keriya. “You will bring that sword. And you and I will end this once and for all.”

  Before she could respond, Thorion went limp and collapsed in a heap.

  “No,” she gasped, struggling to her feet. Before she could take a step, he shuddered. She froze and watched as he pushed himself upright. Something about him was different. Necrovar was gone, but this also wasn’t the Thorion she had known yesterday.

  Again she reached for him. He noticed her movement and his eyes narrowed.

  “Thorion?” The word was a plea, a prayer.

  The dragon showed no sign of recognition. He roared at Keriya and she stumbled backward. For the first time since the day they’d met, she felt afraid of him.

  He spread his wings and galloped past her, launching into the air. He caught an updraft and then he was gone—vanished into the mists as he headed east, toward his new master.

  Max approached and reached for her. She shrank away. She didn’t want to be touched.

  “Come on,” said Keriya, sheathing her sword and marching downhill in the direction the dragon had taken.

  “Where are you going?” asked Max

  “To the Rift,” she replied. “To finish what I started.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “If you don’t premeditate crimes, you won’t be prepared to commit them.”

  ~ Rhyss Galerunner, Tenth Age

  Seba jolted awake. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she crawled across a scratchy pile of sackcloths and peered out a broken window. She brushed spiderwebs from the dusty pane. The dawn was gray but the heavens were empty, as she’d known they would be. She had only been dreaming of a terrible apparition rising on black wings above a battlefield, spreading destruction and despair in its wake.

  They’d spent the night in an abandoned barn on the eastern edge of Alakari Lake. Despite the deplorable conditions, it wasn’t the worst place Seba had slept while on the run with Cezon’s crew.

  “Up!” The barn door flew open with a bang and Cezon himself stormed inside. “Get up, you—oh. You’re awake. C’mon, let’s go. We should reach the border by dusk.”

  Outside, Endred and Iako were waiting with the two sorry horses they’d ‘borrowed’ from a farm. Seba allowed Endred to help her onto the slightly less mangy animal. He mounted behind her and clucked to the horse. It plodded into motion, flicking its ears in a disconsolate manner.

  They traveled in silence. Cezon and Iako took turns on the second horse—meaning that Cezon rode while Iako shambled along behind him, wheezing and grumbling.

  “Should be coming up
on the border,” Cezon announced. “Can’t be much further.”

  “What’s your plan for crossing?” Seba asked.

  “Now that you’re with us, it oughta be simple. I figure we’ll get through without too much fuss. We’re Border Patrol, ain’t we?” Cezon indicated his white and beige garments, which now looked more like brown and darker brown garments. They’d had a rough journey, and Seba had observed that he and his men didn’t put much stock in personal hygiene. “We’ll pretend you’re a prisoner we’re takin’ across.”

  “That’s an awful plan,” she said.

  “You got a better idea, little miss complainer?”

  Seba turned her nose up at him with a sniff. She didn’t have a better idea, but she wasn’t about to admit that.

  They crested a grassy bluff that gave way to a wide, windswept valley. While the northern border of the Erastate was unmarked, it was obvious here. Wooden pikes had been driven into the ground along the territorial line, as far as the eye could see. Twisted metal wires stretched between them. But what caused Seba’s jaw to drop and her stomach to fill with acidic dread was the army in the valley.

  “Helkryvt’s blood,” Endred breathed, sawing on the horse’s reins.

  “What the tronkin’ hell is this garbage?!” Cezon blustered, flipping up his patch to stare at the legion with both sharp blue eyes.

  It looked like an illustration from Seba’s history books about wars from past ages. She’d grown up believing that Allentria had seen the last of those troubled times, but here it was, unfolding before her. Tents marched along the border in neat rows. In the spaces between them, gray-robed men strode purposefully to and fro.

  “Imperials,” said Endred. “Thousands of ’em.”

  “What are those?” Seba whispered, pointing at a series of massive shapes that jutted from the darkness beyond the encampment.

  Endred squinted. “Siege weapons. Trebuchets, looks like. They got cannons, too.”

  “We gotta get away from this mess,” said Cezon.

  Iako hauled himself up behind Cezon, and the four of them rode south at a gallop. They peaked a hill and came to a grinding halt. Another army sprawled in the shallow basin beneath them.