Dragon Child
Page 48
The injured man perked up as Fletcher skidded to a halt by his side and snatched the bow. “That’s mine,” he said weakly.
“Sorry,” Fletcher muttered. He danced out of the man’s reach and drew an arrow with shaking hands. This bow was bigger and heavier than the one he’d used with Taeleia, but he fitted an arrow to the string and drew it back as far as he could, sighting on the other Fironian.
Fletcher exhaled slowly, fighting to keep his hands steady, willing his thundering heart to be calm. He had to strike while his enemy wasn’t expecting it, and he had to make his shot count. One wrong move and the soldier would turn on him—and unlike Roxanne, he wouldn’t be able to conjure a stone shield to defend himself.
Then Roxanne let loose a cry of pain. Her earthen spell cracked and thin shafts of fire squeezed through. She dropped to her knees as the Fironian advanced, wielding a relentless burning torrent against her.
Breath hitching, Fletcher aimed the arrow at the man’s heart—but he never got the chance to shoot it. Another rumbling sound reached his ears, the only warning before a wave of water rushed past him, engulfing the slope. It crested and broke on the Fironian, who didn’t have time to defend himself. Fletcher could see the faint outline of the man as the liquid caught him and slammed him into a boulder.
As quickly as it had come, it was over. The deluge slowed and the water began draining away, trickling down the slope and seeping into the porous terrain. The Fironian did not rise again.
“What in Shivnath’s name . . .?” Fletcher looked around and his jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe it—there, wet and bedraggled and limping up the slope, was Sebaris Wavewould.
He and Roxanne exchanged an astonished look. She clambered to her feet, wincing in pain, and came to stand by his side. Together, the two of them watched Seba’s approach in stunned silence.
“Where’s Max?” the princes demanded when she reached them.
Fletcher gaped at her in consternation. “What . . . how . . .” His brain was buzzing. He couldn’t settle on his words. “Why are you here?”
“I followed you from Fyrxav,” she wheezed. “I have to find Max.”
“Max didn’t come with us,” said Roxanne. Her clothes and hair were sopping wet. Though her earthen shield had protected her from the full force of Seba’s water spell, she’d been drenched by the wave.
“You’re lying!” Seba’s eyes were wide and her skin was sallow. Her fish-gill nostrils flared with every gasping breath she took.
“Lying?” Fletcher repeated. “Why would we lie about that?”
“Max was with you in the dungeons,” she shot back. Her voice was cracked and dry. “Saw him follow you out of the city.”
“He did come to the dungeons,” said Roxanne, “but we left without him. And believe me, if he had come after us he could easily have found us. We didn’t exactly take pains to cover our tracks.”
“But I saw him,” Seba insisted, wringing her hands.
“Saw him where?” asked Fletcher. She ignored him and stared wildly around, as if expecting Max to pop out from behind a rock.
“I think she’s gone mad,” said Roxanne.
“I have not gone mad,” Seba seethed, turning vicious in an instant. “I saw him with Keriya in the mountains. A black sky above, a red river below. There was a dragon with them. They fought and . . . and . . .” She trailed off, a haunted look flitting across her sunken features.
“Seba, have you eaten anything since leaving Indrath Nazrith?” Fletcher said in a soft voice. Her head twitched but she made no reply.
“Thorion is dead,” Roxanne said flatly, “and Max isn’t here. Whatever you saw, you must have imagined it.”
“No,” Seba breathed. Her thin frame shook with tearless sobs. “It was so clear. I saw.”
A noise interrupted their discussion. The injured Fironian was clambering to his feet. Roxanne raised her fists, but the man wasn’t looking for a fight. His gaze traveled up the volcano. He shook his head and stumbled downhill, fleeing.
Fletcher examined the peak, trying to figure out what had frightened the Fironian. Troubling dark clouds were massing over the summit of the volcano, but the slope was deserted. He couldn’t even see Keriya. A forest of spiky rock protrusions peppered the mountain, obstructing his view.
“Where’s Keriya?” Seba demanded suddenly. “Wherever she is, Max will be there. I know it. I’ve seen it. He’ll find her, and we have to get to her before he does.”
Roxanne huffed in frustration. “For the last bloody time, Max is not here.”
“Seba’s right about one thing,” said Fletcher. “We need to find Keriya.”
“Fine, then let’s go.” Roxanne trudged uphill. Fletcher followed, shouldering the bow and quiver. He didn’t think a plain old arrow would do much good against Necrovar, but he felt better about heading into battle with a weapon he knew how to use. Seba lurched into motion, limping along behind him.
“What are you doing?” asked Roxanne, glaring over her shoulder at the Galantrian.
“Have to find Max,” Seba panted.
“You stay here.”
“Roxanne,” said Fletcher, “you can’t leave her—”
“She’s had it in for Keriya—and us—since day one,” said Roxanne. “I don’t trust her and I don’t want her to come.”
“No,” the princess gasped. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Roxanne, look at the state of her,” Fletcher argued in an undertone. “She’s dead on her feet.”
“All the more reason for her to stay. If you drag her along she’ll slow us down, and we’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
“What about everything you said about not splitting up again?”
“That only applies to people I like.”
“I need to come.” Seba pressed her hands together and bowed her head to Roxanne. “Please. I’m begging you.”
Fletcher pinned Roxanne with an expectant look. She sighed. “I don’t care. Do whatever you like, just don’t get in my way when it comes time to fight Necrovar.” She stomped uphill once more.
Seba made a broken noise halfway between a sob and a laugh. She trailed in Fletcher’s wake as he picked his way across the damp rocks. “Necrovar . . . you believe you’re going to fight Necrovar?”
“That’s why we’re on this gods-cursed mountain,” said Roxanne. “Did you think we came for the view?”
“Shivnath showed Keriya how to reach the Rift,” Fletcher explained. “It’s at the top of Mount Arax. We’re going to the Etherworld, and we’re going to end the war.”
“Only a dragon can kill Necrovar,” said Seba.
Coldness seeped through Fletcher at the words, but he steeled his heart against it. “Shivnath chose Keriya to do the job, and she must have had a reason.”
He might not understand war, or politics, or magic, or any of the fantastic and horrific things that had led them to this point, but he had faith in the almighty dragon god.
I have faith in Keriya, too. She had always been a fighter. With Shivnath guiding her and her magic sword at her side, she would prevail. She had to.
“If Shivnath chose Keriya, then what are you two doing here?” asked Seba. “You think you’re a match for him? You think flinging bits of earth at him will do any good?”
Roxanne had reached the fracture in the rock by this time. She stopped and turned to Fletcher. “See that attitude? That’s just one of the many reasons I didn’t want her to come.”
“We lost the war the moment Thorion died,” Seba murmured. “None of us can stop the Shadow. No mortal hand can harm him.”
“If that’s how you feel, then do us a favor and go jump off a cliff. As for me, I’ve come too far to give up without a fight.” Roxanne balled her hands into fists and raised her arms. The ground shuddered once more and a branch of rock expanded from their side
of the fissure to bridge the gap in the ground.
“Well, I’ve come to save Max from that little witch,” Seba retorted. “And I will.”
Roxanne didn’t grace this with a response. With her spell complete, she dropped her hands and crossed to the far side of the crevice. Fletcher didn’t like the look of the earthen bridge she’d made—while Roxanne was usually a meticulous wielder, she was at the end of her strength—but this was not the time to be squeamish. He scuttled across the makeshift rock span, trying not to think about the depths below.
When he reached solid ground he looked back at Seba. “You coming?”
“Don’t feel obligated,” Roxanne added from up ahead.
Seba glanced at the darkening sky and gazed around the slope, muttering something incomprehensible under her breath. Fletcher saw a war raging in her glittering sapphire eyes.
She pursed her lips, nodded once, and hurried across to join Fletcher. He offered her a small smile, and the two of them continued side by side.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for.”
~ Jidaelni Proverb
The sun was merciless. If Keriya had believed it was hot at the base of Mount Arax, she’d been sorely mistaken. This was heat. Waves of it washed over her body as she toiled through the rock spires. Her dry eyes couldn’t focus and she choked on the arid air.
As she climbed, the world grew dark because of the storm clouds and the smoke pouring from the volcanic vent. Livid red light painted the underbelly of the smog.
The further she ascended, the more alien the landscape became. Cracks in the ground glowed eerily, leading into the bowels of the volcano. Flashes of light raced through the air every so often. It was like invisible filaments of magic had been woven around the mountaintop, and whenever she drew near one, it lit up.
It would have been unnerving if she hadn’t seen something similar once before. After her first battle with the Shadow she’d ended up in the Etherworld, and she’d had to step through the Rift to return to Selaras. She had a suspicion these random flashes were coming from the decaying threads of the spell that separated her world from Necrovar’s prison.
When a pulse of light glowed before her, she tried to touch it. Her hand passed through the momentary brightness without resistance, but a chill enveloped her as she connected with it. The overbearing heat vanished and the low, dull sound of screaming rang briefly in her ears. Keriya shivered and hurried onward, but the cold lingered in her bones, making her feverish.
That scream awoke other voices in her head, voices that had been mercifully silent the past few days. Now they returned with a vengeance. She heard Thorion’s voice repeating the last words he’d spoken to her. She heard Shivnath’s voice reminding her of her duty. She heard her friends telling her that she must keep going. Beneath these, her own voice rose like a howling wind, repeating the same thing over and over:
It’s my fault.
Suddenly she stopped. She had come to the edge of a plateau with a deep, gaping hole. This was the source of the red light. It was the mouth of the volcano.
She’d reached the summit of Mount Arax.
Gripping the hilt of her sword with fingers that had gone numb, Keriya approached the pit that led to the mountain’s innards. The air shimmered with heat and magic. Razor-thin shafts of brilliance lanced from the volcanic vent like forks of lightning. The fraying magicthreads of the Rift were more prevalent, and much more heavily concentrated. A silvery aura leaked from them, condensing in the air like mist.
Keriya stopped a few heights from the edge and stood on tiptoe to peer into it. Lava percolated below, rising from the depths. The heat had a physical weight, suffocating her, yet her heart was cold and still in her chest. The scrying spring had shown her how to get here, but it had failed to depict how terrifying this place was.
On instinct, Keriya looked around, but there was no one left to turn to. Shivnath was a thousand leagues away atop her own mountain. Fletcher and Roxanne were somewhere far below, locked in combat with the fire wielders. And Thorion . . .
She closed her eyes and swayed on the spot.
She was alone.
“It’s not so bad,” she whispered. “After all, I’ve always been alone.”
Strangely, with that revelation came calm. The voices in her head subsided. Her heart no longer felt like it was crumbling to ash, the way a shadowbeast did when it died. She didn’t feel afraid—she didn’t feel anything.
A smile brushed the corners of her cracked lips and her hand tightened around the sword’s grubby hilt.
“It ends now,” she announced, finding strength in her voice once more. As she took another step closer to the Rift, she added softly, “I’ll avenge you, Thorion.”
Roxanne thought she was about to faint. The battle had sapped her of strength and the heat was unbearable. Every breath dried her throat and burned her lungs. She was barely able to put one foot in front of the other, but through sheer force of will, she managed it.
“Come on,” she said, signaling for the others to hurry. Fletcher and Seba scrambled from a rocky chute onto a flat ledge. The three of them stood together, doubled over, panting and wheezing.
“Is that Keriya?” Seba asked, pointing. Roxanne’s head snapped up. Sure enough, someone was standing at the lip of a tableland a hundred heights above, separated from them by an impossibly steep section of gravelly ground.
“KERIYA!”
Roxanne jumped at the sound of Fletcher’s scream. He took a breath and called again at the top of his lungs, “Come back, it’s too dangerous!”
Keriya took a few steps forward, disappearing beyond the rim of the plateau.
“What does she think she’s doing?” rasped Seba. “That’s a volcanic vent. Is she planning to walk into the lava?”
At the princess’s words, panicked energy surged in Roxanne. It thrilled through her, shooting into her legs, and she began to run. She heard Fletcher floundering along behind her and redoubled her pace, but they made little headway. The slope was too steep, the ground too unstable. Choking for breath, she dropped to her hands and knees, crawling upwards.
“Keriya,” came Fletcher’s broken voice. “Come back!”
A low hum was swelling in the air, overpowering Fletcher’s cries. Louder it grew until it was deafening, pulsing against Roxanne’s eardrums and resonating in her bones. She didn’t know much about volcanoes, but the ground was shaking and the air was thickening with dark fog. She didn’t think either of those were good signs.
“We have to turn back,” Seba shouted from the ledge below. She looked utterly spent, and hadn’t bothered to attempt the final climb to the summit.
“No,” said Fletcher. “Keriya’s up there, and she needs our help!”
The hum became a roar. Arax convulsed, and its movement unsteadied Roxanne. She fell and crashed into Fletcher. Together they tumbled down the hill they’d worked so hard to ascend.
Roxanne came to a rest back on the ledge. Coughing, she craned her neck and looked at the summit. Smoke was unfurling from the mouth of the volcano, coiling up to mingle with the black thunderheads.
She pushed herself to her feet, determined to reach her quarry. She had not come this far to be defeated at the final hurdle. She headed again for the summit, but the tremors had damaged the integrity of the slope. The porous stone flaked beneath her feet and fingers as she climbed, and she couldn’t get enough purchase to push herself forward. It was the stuff of nightmares: running and getting nowhere. She scrambled in vain before she gave up, sliding down amongst the scree.
A violent spasm rocked the earth. Roxanne’s eyes widened and her throat tightened as a plume of scarlet lava jettisoned into the sky. Chunks of molten rock spiraled through the air, glowing with blood-red radiance. They rose in elegant arcs overhead before careening to the ground.
“This can’t be right.” Somehow, Seba’s whispered words were audible over the roar of the volcano. Roxanne looked at the princess. She wasn’t watching the terrifying dance of the lava—she was staring blankly at her hands. “I didn’t see this. We’re going to die.”
“Keriya . . .” Fletcher gasped from Roxanne’s other side. The glow of the eruption was reflected in his wide, glassy eyes. “She needs us. We have to . . . to find a way . . .”
Roxanne’s brain, which had stalled at the sight of the eruption, churned into motion. A leaden ball sank through her chest into her stomach, pulling her into darkness. There was no way Keriya had survived that initial blast.
She’s gone.
“We have to run,” she said, though she knew in her heart that there would be no outrunning the leaking lava. They were too tired and weak, and the force of nature bearing down on them was too great to be overcome by their magic.
Despite the hopeless situation, Roxanne took Fletcher’s hand and pulled him to his feet. It was not in her nature to give up, nor to take things lying down. If she was to meet her end here, she would do it standing, running, fighting no matter the odds.
Together, she and Fletcher took a few unsteady steps downhill. The force of another explosion slammed into Roxanne, throwing her to her knees. Fletcher dropped to the ground beside her.
“Can’t your animals help?” he asked Roxanne. “What about the phoenix you met? He’s a fire wielder. You can call him. He’ll come.”
“I don’t think anyone’s coming to help us, Fletch,” she whispered. “Not this time.”
“But . . . it can’t end this way,” he argued. “Can’t you do something? Or you?” he added, looking at Seba.