Dragon Child

by Elana A. Mugdan

  Seba was staring at the glowing river of lava rolling toward them, shaking her head dazedly. Water wielder she might be—and a powerful one, given the strength of that spell earlier—but Roxanne doubted even a hundred water wielders would have been enough to stop the inexorable flow of infernal liquid rock.

  Gathering the last vestiges of her strength, Roxanne sent out one last, desperate telepathic message, though she knew no animals were within range. She tried to wield, but she was empty. She’d exhausted her source and there was nothing left inside her.

  The lava loomed, burning. Blinding. Roxanne’s eyes prickled in the heat, too dry for tears. Seba was right.

  They were going to die.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  “Look into the eyes of a man who has seen war, and you will see hell reflected back at you.”

  ~ Viran Kvlaudium, Twelfth Age

  Grouge was well aware he was a second-rate demon. He was the least favored of the Master’s followers—not just because he was roundly incompetent, but because of his insubordination. He wasn’t worthy of the mercy the Master had shown him, and he deserved every punishment he received. He knew this. Yet despite that knowledge, his belly writhed with angry jealousy whenever he looked at the Master’s newest recruit.

  Dragons were the enemy. The Master had hated them for ten ages and more. So why had this dragon become the Shadow Lord’s prized possession? Tanthflame—an unsavory human who’d called for the beast’s destruction countless times before—fawned over him now. The shadowbeasts looked to the dragon as their leader, their most powerful weapon.

  Grouge seemed to be the only one who remembered that a few short weeks ago, Thorion Sveltorious had been their arch-nemesis.

  He didn’t understand, so he tried not to think about it. The only problem was, he couldn’t not think about it. He was in the middle of a war, and he was fighting beside a creature he’d been taught to hate.

  For the last week, the Master’s army had besieged the stronghold of the resistance. Before Tanthflame’s war machines had razed the city, the rebels had activated a magical shield. Since then, it had fallen to the shadowtroops to do the fighting.

  On the second day of the attack, Grouge and his fellows had advanced on Fyrxav to draw out defenders. What none of the shadowbeasts had known was that Tanthflame had planted explosives in the ground beyond the city walls. When the Fironian forces had ridden forth, the commander-general had detonated the devices, killing hundreds of rebels—and thousands of shadowbeasts. Grouge himself had only just escaped.

  Following that, the rebels had retreated behind their force field and the Master’s army had made camp. Tanthflame and his humans relaxed in their tents and drafted propaganda to send to Noryk while the shadowbeasts were forced to surround Fyrxav.

  Every so often Grouge and his fellows would surge forward, feeling the inescapable pull that meant the Master was compelling them to take action. They were always met with decisive retaliation. Fireballs rained on the demonic legions, decimating their forces.

  Grouge didn’t know what they were trying to accomplish. Nothing was explained to him. Since that fateful battle in the Galantasa when he’d somehow managed to resist direct orders, he’d lost the privilege of being in the Master’s confidence . . . but surely if he was being told to lay down his afterlife he ought to at least know what he was fighting for?

  The worst part of it all was the dragon. That damned dragon circled overhead, far out of range of the rebels’ attacks. At night he vanished, disappearing to safety while Grouge and the others stood watch. If he was so powerful, why wasn’t he being forced to fight?

  The days dragged on. For every one of Grouge’s comrades who fell, another newly risen recruit replaced them, so the tide of blackened bodies that crashed against the rebels’ walls was seemingly never-ending. A snippet of conversation between Tanthflame and his scouts summed up the situation for Grouge and confirmed his suspicions:

  “Expendable pawns,” the commander-general said as he rode past in a routine check on the troops. He glanced skyward at the silhouetted shape of the dragon and added, “Even the best of them.”

  Grouge’s dead little heart stilled with despair.

  At the start of his second life, Grouge had hated dragons as passionately as the Master did. But this second life wasn’t what he’d hoped it would be. He’d assumed he would be resurrected to continue as if he had never died—the truth of the matter was vastly different. In fact, Grouge discovered on the fifth day of the siege that instead of hating dragons, he now hated Necrovar.

  Perhaps this was because he knew he was on a mission he wouldn’t survive.

  He deserved this. He’d been treading on thin ice since he had fled that fight in the rainforest. He was being punished for disobeying orders and having treasonous thoughts. But really, enough was enough. Tanthflame was winning his war, everyone was happy, Grouge had done no wrong!

  Perhaps, he thought on the dawn of the seventh day, the wrong thing was trusting Necrovar.

  He shouldn’t be thinking this way, for Necrovar could see every thought in his tiny brain. So when he was seized by an overpowering desire to run at Fyrxav once more, he assumed the Shadow was forcing him toward the enemy so that he would at last be destroyed.

  He and his fellow shadowbeasts approached the sandstone walls at a gallop. Grouge saw pitch-black animals colliding with the magical repelling barrier that surrounded the city and resigned himself to the fact that this might be the day his afterlife ended.

  Then something miraculous happened. With a wild, piercing cry, a shadowdrachvold spit acid at one of the towering pillars that loomed at intervals along the wall. The pillar melted and the air around it shimmered. Waves of energy radiated from the crumbling column like ripples on the surface of a pond, and the drachvold flew on, right through where the force field once had been.

  The shift in shadowbeast consciousness was uniform and immediate. Every creature changed course, heading for the vulnerable spot in the wall. A series of explosions boomed in the north. Tanthflame had opened fire with his cannons, and a barrage of concentrated blasts at the unprotected pillar caused a section of the wall to collapse.

  Jubilant howls and triumphant cries filled the air as Grouge’s comrades surged into the rebel city. Grouge felt his spirits lift fractionally. Was this the end of the resistance? Was the battle over? He might yet survive!

  No . . . the real battle, it seemed, had only just begun. Fire streamed from the hole, incinerating the front line of demons. Grouge skidded to a halt. His barbed tail curled in terror between his hind legs as a host of Fironians emerged onto the field.

  “No,” Grouge breathed, watching as the rebels burned and sliced their way through the shadowtroops. They split Necrovar’s soulless legions as an ax might split wood, driving north toward the Imperial camp. They were ruthless, vicious, and they showed no mercy. A storm of black dust whirled across the battlefield, the only remnants of Grouge’s brethren.

  Grouge would have wept if he wasn’t so terrified.

  Thunder rumbled behind him and he glanced back to see a contingent of mounted Imperials cantering from their base. Tanthflame was finally sending in reinforcements. Grouge had a suspicion he would be safer if he stuck with Necrovar’s human warriors, so he wheeled around and made a beeline for the mortals.

  Wrong again. These soldiers were elite wielders, and they worked in ways Grouge couldn’t comprehend. A wall of water rose before the horsemen. Scores of demons were swept up in the spell, which was crashing toward the rebels.

  Fire issued once more from the wall—this time it was a concentrated blast designed to counter the water. Flame and liquid met in a devastating collision, and the unfortunate shadowbeasts caught in the middle were destroyed on impact. Steam erupted from the clash, rolling across the dusty plain. The blast hit Grouge and he crouched low, whimpering in pain as his pitch-black hide b
listered from the heat.

  “Make it stop,” he moaned. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to Necrovar or not. If he was, his plea would fall on deaf ears. The Shadow Lord cared nothing for shadowbeast suffering.

  What followed was utter chaos. Demons broke rank and scattered. Those who had magical abilities did their utmost to defend themselves, but their power was nothing in the face of the raging flames, the roiling earth, the savage winds, the relentless water. It reminded Grouge of that night so long ago, when a deadly purple vapor had infiltrated his master’s citadel. On that occasion, too, Grouge had been forced to watch as his comrades had been annihilated by incomprehensible otherworldly forces.

  Much as he wanted to flee, he couldn’t. Necrovar owned him, and Necrovar wanted him to stay and fight. Caught between his own will and the will of the Shadow, Grouge remained frozen on the ground as the war raged around him. He watched the humans spill each others’ blood. This was also eerily reminiscent of the violence he’d witnessed in the Second Age.

  It made him sick.

  Then an odd sensation came upon him. A tingling spread throughout his body as an unnatural stillness crept across the field. Grouge saw every battling demon had frozen in place. Large or small, man or beast, they all had a wide-eyed expression of reverent anticipation shining on their faces.

  Once the mortals noticed the eerie calm, the fighting abated. Tanthflame’s men withdrew to regroup. The rebels massed together, rallying around a cluster of their leaders. An awful, deafening silence descended.

  Suddenly Grouge sensed it—a distant rumble not heard, but felt in his bones. To the east, a red glow illuminated a mountain peak against the stormy sky. It was Mount Arax. Grouge had visited Arax often over the past decade—it was the closest any shadowbeast could get to Necrovar in the Etherworld—and he’d been certain it was dormant. Yet something big was happening there. It looked like the volcano was erupting.

  A trumpeting roar split the air. Grouge’s hackles rose and he bared his fangs. Every one of his shadowy nerves sparked with anticipation. His flesh tingled with nervous fire. His eyes were drawn, like iron to a lodestone, to the north. There, in the distance, a monstrous shape rose from Tanthflame’s camp on bat-like wings.

  The dragon, king of shadowbeasts, had been summoned at last to fight.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  “From darkness we are born, and into darkness we return.”

  ~ The Dragon Empress, in the Age before Ages

  Keriya hadn’t been prepared for the eruption. One moment the lava was blistering in its pit, the next it had been catapulted sky-high. Now the only place free of the deadly magma was around a pocket of brightness near the edge of the crater. Glowing threads of starlight pulsed from it. This was the epicenter of the Rift—it had to be.

  So Keriya ran for it.

  The sight of lava boiling toward her was nearly enough to make her falter, but she knew hesitation now would mean death. She closed her eyes and plunged headlong into the unearthly glow.

  At once the heat vanished. Though she was running, she was no longer getting any closer to the lava. In fact, the lava ripped apart, shearing in two to reveal a dark chasm. Sparkling fibers crackled along the lines of the fracture. She was passing through the Rift.

  A weightless sensation crept through her. She was floating.

  And then she was falling.

  As Keriya dropped into the magical abyss, her view of Selaras vanished. Bright strands of magic tore her sleeves as she hurtled through the space between universes. Her descent slowed as sparks snagged at her, cushioning her landing on a vast expanse of darkness.

  She staggered when she hit the ground and took her first stumbling steps in a different world. Part of her couldn’t believe she’d successfully left Selaras. Perhaps she hadn’t—perhaps she was dead. When she had died, she’d been trapped in an empty void. This place had a similar feel to it. The only difference was the sinister swirling mist that was twisting around her ankles, whispering promises of torment.

  “Hello?” she breathed, terrified that someone might respond.

  The darkness grew brighter. Sheets of red light streamed past her. Keriya turned and saw the Rift, which was much more well-defined from this side. It stretched across the blackness, a serrated scar hanging in midair, ringed by shining, tattered magicthreads. Selaras was visible through the rip. She could see the top of Mount Arax where lava was pooling at the edge of the volcanic crater.

  Then her eyes caught movement on the slope. Her heart stopped—it was Fletcher and Roxanne! And . . . was that Sebaris Wavewould standing beside them? But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

  Keriya didn’t know. Nothing seemed real anymore. All that mattered was that her friends had survived. They were a few hundred heights downhill, staring up—seemingly right at her. Keriya realized that they must have witnessed her walking toward the heart of the volcano. They must think she was dead.

  “Fletcher, I’m alive! I’m alright,” she called in a futile attempt to let them know she hadn’t run to her death—that she had, in fact, run into the Rift to save her life.

  Then she realized, with a terrible jolt, that there was no way they could do the same. Arax was bleeding lava, and she had a sinking suspicion that a worse eruption was coming.

  “Get out of there,” she shrieked, waving her arms madly. “Run!”

  Too late. With a rumble that knocked Keriya off her feet, a geyser of magma blocked her view of Selaras.

  “NO!” She shoved herself up and ran at the Rift. It was stupid—it was, in essence, suicide—but her brain had stopped functioning properly. Her vision had stopped working properly, too. She could no longer see the fountains of red-hot liquid rock, she could only see that terrible image of her friends on the mountainside. It was impossible to blink away. It was emblazoned in her mind.

  She tried to dive through the Rift, but she slammed into an invisible barrier and ricocheted off, toppling backward. Shaking her head to clear it, Keriya scrambled around. A vision of horror was unfolding in the space between the glowing threads. Chunks of the volcano’s core careened skywards and trails of sluggish lava crawled toward Fletcher, Roxanne, and Seba. The three of them had been knocked flat by the force of the last explosion. They weren’t moving.

  Fueled by impotent fury, Keriya crawled forward and beat her fists against the barrier. Her view of Selaras distorted around the places where she punched at the Rift, blurring the gruesome scene. The image of her world shimmered as she assaulted the portal, then it dimmed, and finally it vanished altogether.

  Keriya knelt in the dark, hitting something she could not see, staring with haunted eyes upon something that was not there. She found she was weeping. Icy tears coated her face. They froze when they touched the mist and shattered on the ground like crystals. With shaking hands, she brushed the wetness from her cheeks.

  It was only then that she noticed what had happened to her.

  In place of her pale flesh she had translucent skin, from which leaked an undulating, shadowy aura. She unfolded her fists to discover her fingers were tipped with demonic claws. Those claws were covered in a dark liquid that looked unpleasantly like blood.

  Keriya gazed into her chest cavity and let out a cry. Shining purple veins twisted around her organs. Her heart was a dark magenta blob hammering a frenzied beat against her rib cage. And below her heart was a tangled web of pitch-black threads.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why is that there?” With her bloodied claws she scratched at her sternum, trying to extricate the mass. She only succeeded in hurting herself.

  A deep laugh sounded behind her, shivering through the air. Keriya froze. She closed her eyes and discovered they were glowing. A tremor wracked her body. She had known this moment was coming . . . but still she was not prepared for her first true sight of Necrovar.

  She’d grown used to the idea of Necrovar as a m
alevolent shadow, the faceless, hooded thing she saw in her dreams. The reality of him was worse than she ever could have imagined. A pair of curved horns and pointed ears framed his skull-like visage. Obsidian flesh stretched tightly across his face. Empty eye sockets leered at her, vacant save for two balls of sickly orange light which served as pupils. He had no lips—they had rotted off, leaving his skin curled over pointed black fangs.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Keriya,” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of welcome. “It took you longer to arrive than I expected. I’d have thought a budding young hero such as yourself would have come directly upon learning you’d failed to defeat me.”

  He wore a simple dark tunic and leggings, and a scabbard hung at his side. A long cloak billowed after him as he approached, stirring the whispering fog. He smiled at her, splitting the parchment-thin flesh at the corners of his mouth to reveal pitted bone beneath. “You seem at a loss for words. Not uncomfortable, are you? Too cold?”

  Keriya couldn’t speak. She was unable to do anything except move her head to watch as Necrovar paced in front of her. She wanted to close her eyes, to escape the horror, but she was perversely mesmerized by the sight of him.

  “I see you’re disturbed by my appearance and your own.” She nodded, hating herself for doing so. “Your reaction to me is normal. What intrigues me is how frightened you are of yourself.”

  “Why am I this way?” she asked in a shaking voice.

  “The Limbus is an odd place—especially here, at the crossroads between your world and mine. At the threshold of the Etherworld, spells unravel and threads change. What you are seeing is the truth of who you are.

  “On the surface, there is the shroud of darkness cast over all humans, who cloak themselves in greed, anger, and hatred. Beneath your skin,” he went on, “we see your veins, through which flows the precious and potent power that forges your connection to the dragons. On your hands we see the blood of the late Thorion Sveltorious.”