Dragon Child

by Elana A. Mugdan

  “You cannot destroy Thorion with mere archers,” Max told the Fironian.

  “And you think you’ll last more than three seconds against him?” said Effrax, pointing at the dragon swooping overhead. Max didn’t respond, but when Effrax took a step forward he wielded an air shield, blocking the king from proceeding.

  Effrax’s brows stormed together. He banged a fist against the sheet of solidified air. “What are you doing?”

  Max’s blue eyes shone as he withdrew. “Take shelter in Fyrxav and arm the ballistas in the towers. I’ll lead the ground troops in a distraction—then you shoot the dragon. You may have only one chance before he turns on you, so make it count.”

  He turned and ran toward the remnants of the Fironian halberdiers. Toward Thorion.

  Toward his inevitable death.

  “Find a way around this,” Effrax growled to his men, who scrabbled against the barrier to find the edge of the solidified air. Before they could make any progress, a dark mass crashed into them from behind. They were overwhelmed by a group of shadowbeasts, consumed by swarms of pitch-black creatures, trapped by the magical shield at their backs. Blood splattered against the invisible wall and dripped down in thick rivulets.

  It was a massacre. Keriya leaned over, bile rising in her throat, unsure how much more horror she could withstand. At the sound of a terrible screech, her head jerked up again.

  The image had shifted once more, showing Thorion. He was circling above the battlefield. The blood of Allentrians—possibly of Max, by now—was streaming from his jaws. He puffed himself up, preparing to wield, but another volley of arrows assaulted him. These were no ordinary arrows: they were massive, with thick bolts and wide, serrated iron points. Fires sprang to life on their heads as they flew. A few glanced off Thorion’s armored stomach. One flaming projectile found its mark in the unprotected flap of skin between the base of his jaw and his throat.

  He froze in midair. His wings stilled and his dark eyes widened in slight disbelief. He soared for a few moments before he dipped and began to fall.

  He never hit the ground. Before he reached it, he disintegrated into dust.

  And Thorion Sveltorious was finally gone.

  Necrovar waved his hand across the oval, and the sounds and images of war died. He regarded Keriya as she shivered before him, clutching her stomach, rocking back and forth.

  “You killed them,” she said in a haunted voice. “You killed my friends.”

  Necrovar tutted. “I didn’t force the Fironians to fight. I didn’t lure Fletcher and Roxanne up the side of an active volcano.”

  A ragged sob tore from Keriya’s throat.

  “You and I have both done evil things, my dear. Everyone has. For countless ages, humans have assumed that balance must be won through violence, but there are ways to restore the natural order that do not involve conflict. We don’t have to fight—we can end the war by working together.”

  Fury sprouted within Keriya, blooming from the shattered remains of her broken heart. “I would never work with you,” she spat.

  “Why not?”

  It was a simple, guileless question. Necrovar appeared genuinely interested in her answer, but Keriya refused to give him the satisfaction of a reply. The longer the silence stretched, the more disappointed he looked.

  “You know,” he began, “we’re not so different, you and I. Each of us hates what we are. Together, we could change. We could be better. With our powers combined, we could save the world, unite all tribes under one banner.” He reached to her, spreading his hands imploringly.

  “People despise us now, but think how they would love us when we are their saviors. We can bring balance at last. We could rule the universe! And you wouldn’t have to be alone anymore—I would guide you every step of the way.”

  “But I wasn’t alone,” Keriya said slowly, as if she were only just realizing this fact. “I had people who loved me. And it’s your fault they’re gone.”

  She was rejecting everything he had shown her, repressing it so she could concentrate. She must remember her mission. Face Necrovar. Destroy him.

  “I can tell from your savage thoughts that you are still not amenable to this concept. It’s a shame, it truly is; I’d rather hoped you’d have learned something since our meeting in the rainforest. Fortunately, I don’t need you to balance myself—I only need that sword.”

  “And you will never get it!”

  Before Necrovar could respond, Keriya ran. She pelted through the empty expanse of the Limbus, faster than she’d ever run before, clutching her weapon. Necrovar’s laughter wafted after her, echoing on her heels, filling the infinite void.

  “You can’t escape me, Keriya. I’ve had ten ages to learn the rules of this place. I’ve walked the edge of reality and lived between universes. Though the Etherworld is a prison, designed to prevent me from wielding, the Limbus is less restrictive. If you know the loopholes, you can control the space around you.”

  At his words, a labyrinth of black walls shot up from the ground. Keriya smacked into a barricade and barely had time to regain her balance before Necrovar was upon her, drawing his sword from its scabbard with enviable grace. Its blade was a dark silvery material. Its hilt was comprised of gleaming sable stone, carved with runes and inlaid with red gems.

  “This is Nighttalon,” he said, pointing it at her as he advanced.

  She swung her own sword with all her might. Even with the force she exerted, she couldn’t make Necrovar’s weapon—Nighttalon—waver from its path.

  “It is a marvel of the old world,” he boasted. “Forged in dragonfire, enchanted to remain eternally sharp, and blessed by an oracle who foretold that it would be invincible.”

  Keriya’s old sword could never stand against such a magnificent blade. But she had to try, for the sake of her friends, each of whom had fallen in battle. That was all she had left to fight for: their memories. Necrovar had been right—she was evil for leading them to their deaths—and the fact that he’d been right about her caused her to burn with hatred.

  She slashed at Nighttalon again. Necrovar disengaged, and Keriya scampered around the corner of the nearest wall to give herself time to plan her next move. But she had never been a planner—she was a doer, and there was nothing she could do. Now it was a sword fight, and she knew nothing about swords.

  Yet her sword was special. It was magic. She had beaten him with it once, so it stood to reason she could do it again.

  Gritting her teeth with resolve, she wheeled to meet Necrovar, who had followed. He cut at her, but this time her arms held fast against him—whether that was because of the sword’s strange power or strength she’d dredged from within herself, she didn’t know.

  Keriya managed to fend off a few biting blows from Nighttalon, but as she retreated from the onslaught she tripped over her own feet and fell.

  Shivnath, she thought desperately as she raised her arms to defend herself, I need your powers! I need them now!

  Too late. With a metallic flash, Necrovar knocked her sword from her grip. It spun away on the dark floor, bounded off a stone wall, and skittered back toward her, just out of reach.

  She looked up into Necrovar’s pitiless eyes. He smiled as his blade came to rest above her heart. “Shivnath said your magic would be veiled until the right moment, and then it would be gone forever—is that correct?”

  Keriya’s gut clenched—how could he know such a thing?—before she realized Necrovar was siphoning information from her. He was delving into her mind, pulling out memories.

  “Yes,” he hissed, “always clever, our Shivnath. Always scheming. She didn’t lie to you, but neither did she tell you the truth. At least this time, her scheming worked in my favor. She has made it sickeningly easy for me to take what I want from you.” His flesh tore along the seams of his mouth and nose as his lips twisted in a sinister sneer. “Remember,
Keriya: never trust a dragon.”

  Keriya hated that he could see into her mind, strip her down to the core of her being and fish out her innermost secrets. She wished she could master her thoughts and shut him out. She latched onto her memories of Shivnath, trying to siphon strength from them. She thought of every word Shivnath had ever spoken, every promise made, every assurance uttered.

  They were all useless here, now, while Keriya was trapped at the mercy of the greatest mage who’d ever lived.

  “I wonder if Shivnath knew what she was getting herself into when she sent you,” he mused. “Poor little dragon-child. You will die without knowing the proper way to swing a sword, or the touch of a man, or the truth of who you are. You had no idea what you were looking for . . . and now you’ll never find it.”

  With that, he plunged Nighttalon into her chest.

  Though she opened her mouth to scream, no sound escaped. She was lost in a world of agony and despair. She didn’t exist anymore, except as a mass of pain. She was barely aware of the blade coming free of her flesh with no blood on it. It had not pierced her skin, yet she felt as though her body were on fire. She swayed on her knees, her breath coming in gasps. Her lungs wouldn’t expand—she was drowning in fear.

  Necrovar knelt to stare at her. Her stomach writhed, her hands balled into fists, her blood sat unmoving in her veins, stricken and cold. She blinked tears from her eyes, red tears that stained her vision. Was she crying blood?

  Now icy blood was filling her mouth, too. She was choking, and her throat was burning, and her vision was failing, and her heart . . . Shivnath, let her heart beat!

  The Shadow Lord bent close, so close that the tips of their noses brushed each other, and whispered, “I’ve won.”

  Then he put his mouth over hers and kissed her.

  Pain erupted within Keriya, searing her nerves. She could feel Necrovar sucking the life from her. He would absorb her essence, everything she was, everything she ever would be. She was dying, but she would not be dead. She would have no soul, no spirit, no body that could die once he finished unraveling her.

  Necrovar ripped out her life-threads were ripped out, one by one, and absorbed them. The skin of her face drooped as it started to melt. Her shoulders sagged as her torso began collapsing. Her fingers turned into dripping strands of flesh and bone, unable to hold themselves together, because the finely woven threads of her body were coming undone.

  “Stop,” she choked uselessly, the word garbled in her disintegrating throat.

  Necrovar glowed with energy as he pulled more threads from her. Through her failing, feebly glowing eyes, Keriya watched him extend an arm and rake his hand through the air. His pointed claws rent the fabric of the space around them, creating deep, shimmering furrows that hovered in place. He clawed again. The furrows widened.

  Even through her blood-haze, her blinding anguish and panic, Keriya recognized the telltale markers of the Rift. He was tearing apart the threads of the spell that held him prisoner. He was using Keriya’s energy—her life, her soul—to power his escape.

  Words from Valerion’s prophecy echoed in her melting mind: The Shadow will rule.

  It was over. Necrovar would return to Selaras in full glory while she would be reduced to a wisp of memory, a wisp that would fade like shadows fleeing the summer sun. Her name would live briefly on the lips of the people she had failed . . . then it, too, would vanish, like the condensation of the breaths that had uttered it into a cold, cruel universe.

  The liquefied threads of her hand touched something solid, and with a pinching, prickling sensation they started to re-knit themselves. Keriya grasped at what had saved her, recognizing the feel of her sword. The magic of the weapon counteracted Necrovar’s spell and forced the unstable threads of her arm to solidify. She felt her body returning to its proper shape and clutched the grime-encrusted hilt as if holding onto life itself.

  She was ripping apart at the seams: the sword was willing her life-threads to return to their proper places while Necrovar was trying to steal them away. And now there was another sensation within her. It was a bursting, crackling energy, an energy that was deadly yet comforting, alien yet familiar.

  Magic. Shivnath’s magic.

  Without questioning how or why, Keriya reached for it. There was an explosion that rivaled the eruption of Mount Arax, an explosion that seemingly emanated from Keriya herself. Necrovar withdrew, snarling and shielding his eyes against the unexpected light.

  Power pulsed through her. It surged through her veins and flowed across her skin. She had never thought she’d feel this again, this intoxicating sense of invincibility. It consumed her, as it had when she’d first fought the Shadow, and when she’d summoned Thorion, and when Shivnath had bent the rules of the universe and given her the gift of magic.

  She rose on shaking limbs that barely managed to reconstitute themselves in time to support her weight. Hefting her sword, she ran once more. Running was foolish, she knew, for she couldn’t hope to outrun Necrovar in her current condition. So she did the only thing she could think of, and the dove through the section of the Rift that he’d torn open.

  Brightness, then darkness, then brightness again. Heat enveloped her,. She realized that in fleeing to Selaras, she was fleeing to a fiery death atop Mount Arax.

  With the last of her strength, she raised the ancient blade. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but something within her knew how to do it. Magic filled her to the brim, making her feel, for an instant, as vast as eternity.

  Then she was small and insignificant again, and she was elsewhere.

  The sky opened with a thunderclap and light poured out around her. Keriya found herself stranded amongst the clouds. She floated weightlessly for a moment before she fell, hurtling toward a grassy plain far below. She was going too fast. The impact would kill her.

  Like a living thing, the light reached out and held her, slowing her descent. Her body jerked as she came to a halt. She hung in midair a few heights from the ground, clinging to her sword.

  The brightness faded and she dropped into a patch of sere, yellowing grass. She lay battered and bruised and empty once more, devoid of power, bereft of magic. Had Shivnath stepped in to save her, or had she saved herself? Was she truly safe? Where was Necrovar? He had torn his way through the Rift, hadn’t he? Surely he would be after her any moment now . . .

  The threads of her brain, which the Shadow had started to unravel, had not yet re-woven themselves. In fact, it seemed they were still unraveling, for the longer she lay there, the less she remembered; and the more she tried to remember, the more her memories slipped away.

  She’d been through an ordeal, but she couldn’t recall it. She was in pain, but she didn’t know why. Her soul hurt. Her heart ached. And she was tired.

  So very tired . . .

  She closed her eyes, and Keriya Soulstar slipped into a dark and dreamless sleep.

  Far away in the city of Noryk, the bogspectre shuddered. Revur’s body was failing—the bogspectre had inhabited it for too long and it was rotting from the inside. The other flesh-rats paid it little mind. To them, the bogspectre’s stolen human form simply appeared to be plagued by some terrible skin condition.

  The bogspectre had gained access to Noryk in Revur’s body and had been using its mortal disguise to track demons. But the dark energies in the city had recently dried up. Thus, the bogspectre found itself trapped, pointlessly lost in a seething mass of mortals.

  It was mad with grief and hunger. Something had collapsed in Revur’s chest—perhaps his rotting organs could no longer support their own weight—and this made it difficult for the bogspectre to move its human host. It had been prowling the outskirts of the metropolis, trying to find a weak point, a way to escape into the wild, but its attempts to sneak past the human guards had all been foiled.

  Now it perceived a great swell of energy in the south a
nd the east. The bogspectre froze, its eyes going wide. None of the flesh-rats paused in their work. They kept trudging along as if nothing had happened, as if the world hadn’t just changed irrevocably.

  The fabric of the universe wrinkled, tugging the bogspectre’s senses toward a black hole. It sensed a familiar presence. It knew.

  Necrovar had returned.

  Wherever the Shadow Lord had been imprisoned, he’d broken free. The bogspectre could feel his darkness radiating outwards like heat waves from a fire. Magics that had been lost for a ten-age surged forth, saturating the air with invisible burning threads.

  Surely such an imbalance would destroy the bogspectre, the city, the entire world.

  But catastrophe did not strike. The city did not crumble. The sky did not cave in on the oblivious mortals racing hither and thither beneath it.

  In the back of its mind, the bogspectre realized something must have happened that had made possible Necrovar’s return. The release of another magic that balanced the Shadow Lord’s power, perhaps . . . or something worse than that.

  The bogspectre ran toward a nearby pathway that was dark with soot and riddled with waste. It shed Revur’s body, squeezing itself out of his nostrils and ears and eye sockets. The human form crumpled beneath the bogspectre as it swirled in the air, weak with fear. The fear gave way to a rabid anger, which faded to a muted hopelessness.

  No matter that the effects hadn’t been immediate and the humans hadn’t noticed a thing—the world as they knew it would soon come to an end. The Shadow Lord had returned.

  And the bogspectre’s treasure was gone.

  The bogspectre abandoned Revur’s corpse in the alley and drifted toward the main street. It twisted until its decayed threads became invisible. Clarity had settled into its festering brain, a focused clarity born of passion and hatred. It must not be found by the Shadow Lord. It must flee while it had the chance.

  It must return to its home.

  It barely remembered its home—it had lived in a mountain cave, hadn’t it? No, a desert . . . no, a forest. Yes. A rainforest. A rainforest glade spotted with sapphire pools and glazed with emerald moss.