by Katie Cross
“What a delight,” Maximillion muttered. “Please tell me you aren’t mine.”
“No,” she snapped. “You don’t have that honor.”
“You’re seeking my match,” Isadora said. “Aren’t you?”
Cecelia’s nostrils flared. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I have always had the greatest power amongst Defenders—until I sensed you. I thought myself safe, but clearly there is one greater than I.”
“When did you first sense me?”
She gestured to Lucey.
“On the raid.”
Wind whistled past Isadora’s ears, buffeting her with the wrath of the white-capped ocean. She had accessed the powers on the raid. She hadn’t been seen on the raid, but she’d likely attended. Watched. Let the Defenders do the work. Cecelia’s hair billowed around her shoulders. She stared with a steady, alarming gaze.
“You want my match,” Isadora murmured.
“Yes,” Cecelia hissed. “Your power exceeds mine. Indeed, your power exceeds any Watcher I’ve ever detected before.” Her gaze flickered to Maximillion, then back. “In more than just magic.”
“How would any Defender know they were my match?” Isadora asked.
“We can feel your magic,” she said, forming a fist over her heart. “We can feel the connection, perhaps before you can, because you didn’t even know it existed. Every time you use your magic, you bring us closer and closer.”
Isadora thought back to the evenings in the water. The sheer amount of power she’d poured out would have been an eternal beacon.
“Fool,” Maximillion said. “You’d call a more powerful Defender here, through her, with no hope of defeating them should they also be a power-hungry dog?”
“Who said there was no hope?” Cecelia asked lightly. “Defenders,” she called without removing her eyes from Isadora, “prepare your torches.”
Cecelia turned away.
“Your match,” Isadora called out. “You’ve already found your match, haven’t you?”
Cecelia stopped. Her shoulders stiffened.
“But you haven’t killed him,” Isadora continued. “I met him in Carcere. He’s still alive. He rivals you. Why haven’t you killed him?”
Cecelia remained silent, hands balled in fists at her side. Isadora’s mind raced. Her mouth rounded.
“Because if you kill him, you might also die,” she murmured. “Equal power. Your match might be tied to your own life.”
Cecelia spun, rage in her eyes.
“Silence!”
“Or do you not know either? But you don’t want to risk it? You don’t want to allow a Defender to connect with their match to find out. The Watchers you’ve killed have been weak, haven’t they? Their matches unknown. But the Watchers you kept—they match your Defenders. You haven’t killed them because you don’t know. Or because that means someone else, someone unknown, then becomes the match.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know I’m more powerful than you,” Isadora said, warming to her courage now. “I know that you’re terrified of me. Of Maximillion. Of all Watchers. That’s why you’re always surrounded by Defenders. That’s why you have to be the strongest, why you live where Watchers can’t access their magic easily. You’re terrified.”
Her eyes brightened in a terrible, majestic rage. “What do you know?” she shouted. “What do you know of the horrible power of Watchers? The pain they inflict? The control they assert? You see what may happen, then twist fate to suit your own desires. Who protects free will? Who protects fate? I do! Defenders! Kill them now.”
The magic beckoned.
Isadora returned to it.
The forest appeared in deep shadow and teeming light. Beams of luminescence ran along the forest floor, darting this way and that, infusing leaves, forming trails. Darkness wound alongside each speck of light.
Isadora poured her powers out, unleashing their coiled tendrils. The moment she let them loose, the air changed.
Someone screamed.
A dozen paths bubbled to the surface, all originating in fields of darkness. With this much of her magic turned loose, thousands of wisps, extending into what seemed like eternity, appeared. The darkness intensified, growing as thick as the light. Wisps disappeared at an alarming rate. A war outside of her influence raged around her.
She advanced into the chaos of light and darkness.
Wisps popped up everywhere, detailed to a degree she’d never known before. A few of them moved, only for a couple of seconds. Still, she analyzed them from a distance. They could mean many things—or nothing at all. Wasn’t that the true downside to this power? For as much as it revealed, there was more it must hide in the sheer number of variables it presented.
“Remove my path.”
Letum Wood remained alone, infused with the struggle of light and darkness. Something else tinged the air. Pain, was it? Yes, but more than that. Longing. Unadulterated, rabid need. Swept away by the desperation, Isadora closed the magic and opened her eyes.
Cecelia stood only a pace away.
Something wild had overtaken her. The same frenetic spirit that had revealed itself in the paths. Both worlds seemed to collide. The wind whipped Cecelia’s hair, stirring it in a torrent. Out of the corner of her eye, Isadora glimpsed the courtyard.
Defenders stared up at them.
Thunder boomed in the background.
“By Prana,” Cecelia whispered, clutching a hand to her chest. Her skin blanched white. “Your power is deep.”
“You’re wrong about Watchers.”
Cecelia physically jolted, as if brought out of her own shroud of magic. Isadora tugged on the magic, pulling it onto La Torra.
Paths raced through the ground at Cecelia’s feet, intermingling darkness and light. Leaves sprouted. Vines grew. Isadora tapped into a reservoir of power she didn’t know existed—light flowed through her, whirling in an eddy of darkness and light around each Defender. The Defenders recoiled, crying out. Isadora pulled, tugging them farther in. Letum Wood began to overlay La Torra. Isadora didn’t know if she brought the forest here, or if she pulled them there. It didn’t matter.
The war surged.
“I’m never wrong,” Cecelia hissed. Her eyes darted around, taking in their new surroundings. She backed away a step.
Isadora’s left arm was numb, the bones in her wrist aching from the ropes. The whipping frenzy of the wind faded into the calm of Letum Wood.
Darkness crept along the stones beneath Cecelia, crawling toward Isadora’s light. The two wrestled, tangled, bringing the war of the magical world into this one. Isadora let out a cry—what had she done? Had she created a bridge between the two worlds? Fatigue threatened to overcome her. She couldn’t maintain this for much longer.
The darkness pooled around Cecelia, as if cradling her. Isadora pushed one last burst of energy into the light.
With a jolt, La Torra disappeared.
Sanna released the heat in her body all at once.
Luteis’s bright-orange secundum billowed like a wave, tripling in size, ripping through the crowd of mountain dragons assaulting him. The viscous fire—almost like a burning liquid—attached to the mountain dragons’ wings and burned through them. They screamed, flapping away. Luteis crawled out of the pile and looked up.
“Mori,” Sanna whispered.
Voices populated through her mind, mere whispers at first.
My hatchlings. Where is my Rosy?
Marelis!
They continue to fall from the sky!
The dragons’ voices were back? An expansiveness had opened in Sanna’s mind again—similar to before, but more … open. Powerful. As if last time were an accident and this was on purpose.
No more! called another dragon. We cannot win.
I need help!
What’s happening?
The witch, Babs, has died.
Amongst the voices, she could just make out Luteis. You are changed, he said. He peered at her from the forest
floor, through the fighting.
I am.
Sanna, perched high, surveyed the battlefield below. Mountain dragons fell from the sky or appeared out of nowhere, but most of them weren’t focusing on the forest dragons. They were attacking … everything. Not far from Luteis pulsed another teeming pile of mountain dragons. Winks of a ruby color appeared beneath it.
Marelis.
Fire, Sanna said to Luteis, somehow directing it to him in her mind. I need your fire. Throw it toward Marelis.
Luteis didn’t hesitate. As soon as the flame left his mouth, Sanna let go of the building heat in her chest. Luteis’s secundum roared to life again, flaming over the mountain dragons like a blanket. They screeched, whirling away. Sanna reeled the internal heat back in. The torrential flow of fire from Luteis’s mouth stopped.
Sanna looked at her hands, still burning as if a thousand candles lived within them. The strange, pulsing power grew and coalesced again. What was this?
Magic?
You are the High Dragonmaster, Luteis said, anticipating her question. And now you have accepted it. This is part of your birthright in battle. We are stronger together, are we not?
She sucked in a sharp breath. It was magic. More dragon voices filtered through her mind. She’d never communicated with them on purpose. She didn’t really know how it worked, or how to start. After several pointless attempts at calling for Marelis, she reached into the strange void at the back of her mind, seeming to slip inside it.
Marelis, she said quietly.
A strange silence followed, at odds with the rampant chaos unfurling around them. Sanna watched the mountain dragons streak by. A slight pause followed.
Yes, High Dragonmaster? replied Marelis.
Her breath caught.
Climb free of the mountain dragons as quickly as you can, then find Cara. She’s to your left. There’s a small hollow in the trees there where you can take a minute to recover. She can lay down flame to protect you if any mountain dragon comes to attack.
Thank you, High Dragonmaster.
Cara? Sanna asked.
I will.
Elis, she said next, throwing his name into the void. The word hung there like a breath. Waiting.
You requested me, High Dragonmaster?
Sanna frowned. The way his voice rang, as if in a cavernous space, meant something. That others were listening, perhaps?
Junis needs help to your right. Come up from behind, and the mountain dragons won’t see you. Pick up a dead mountain dragon to throw at them as you go.
Yes, High Dragonmaster.
A screech caught her ear. She turned to see several mountain dragons snapping at a determined Rosy, who was attempting to fly away.
Rosy, drop.
Rosy glanced up, startled.
Stop flying, Sanna said.
After a moment’s hesitation, Rosy obeyed. She pulled her wings into her sides and fell. The mountain dragons slammed into each other and, snarling, began to tear at each other’s wings. Rosy collided with another mountain dragon about to attack Laris, the youngest hatchling.
Recover, Sanna said to Rosy. Fly again to the top of the canopy. Scout for me, will you? Let me know if more are coming. Be stealthy, if you can.
Levity entered Rosy’s tone. Perhaps relief. Yes, High Dragonmaster.
Yes, Sanna realized. She could lead because the dragons trusted her. Somehow, they really did. Sanna turned back to the battle below, her body tingling with this newfound power. With her eyes, she guided each dragon. Coordinated and amplified their fire. Prevented attacks. The fearful chatter she’d first heard settled down into a quiet space, filled with her commands and their responses.
The tide began to turn.
Mountain dragons drew back, flying higher in the trees, scales and bodies burned. They hesitated instead of plunging forward. Forest dragons amassed in intentional rhythms, throwing fire in coordination, protecting the witches, creating a field of flame that stopped the mountain dragons in mid-air.
Then the air shifted.
Something changed.
The solid thud thud thud of descending wings sent acidic air flying at Sanna. The skin around her eyes flared with pain. She threw an arm up, recoiling.
Ah, drawled a familiar voice. How typical. A forest witch cowering from a mountain dragon.
Sanna’s toes curled.
Pemba had finally come.
Pemba hovered in the air next to Sanna, staring straight into her eyes.
“Coward!” Sanna snapped, eyes watering from his acidic breath. “Showing up only after all your advance dragons have died. Some leader you are.”
You who will not even acknowledge her goddess?
The rage that had burned deep in Sanna’s chest surfaced again. “You better believe it,” she snarled, throwing her shoulders back. “These are my dragons, this is my forest, and you will never defeat us. You can burn in the hellfire of Hatha. I’ll never give my dragons to you.”
Are you finally willing to claim leadership now that your entire race is on the verge of extinction? You who care so much that you wouldn’t act until you had to?
With a guttural shout, Sanna ran, leapt, and threw herself into the air. Luteis swooped up, catching her as he threw fire at Pemba. The heat coiled out of her with true fury. Luteis’s fire expanded, nearly consuming the mountain dragon.
Pemba disappeared, only to reappear out of Luteis’s reach. He roared, flinging his wings open.
Sanna stood up.
You shall die! Pemba screamed.
Sanna’s vision blurred again, her eyes watering. With another growl, she ran, threw herself off Luteis’s back, and landed on Pemba blindly.
Sanna! Luteis cried.
She grabbed her knife from her belt and slammed it into Pemba’s scales. The sharp blade glanced off his hard scales, not even drawing blood, and plummeted to the ground. Pemba spun. Without magic to anchor her, Sanna flew off his back. Her body slammed into a tree trunk, then dropped onto a branch. Her ribs cracked. Her breath stalled.
Luteis roared. Coppery flames shot through the air as he soared right at Pemba. The two collided in mid-air with deafening screams, talons engaged. Blood sprayed in bright arcs around them.
Sanna gasped, crawling away from the edge of the tree branch. Pain spiraled through her ribs with every breath. Her face felt like it was on fire.
Rosy’s high-pitched cry preceded another thud.
High Dragonmaster! More are coming. They are large and fill the sky with their swarms.
Pemba’s acid made the air shimmer—Luteis turned it to fire. They darted around each other. Sanna peered over the edge of the branch, gasping.
The battle raged amongst the adult dragons. Cara crawled over dead mountain dragons—at least thirty of them—to stop a living one from taking down Junis. Another hatchling fell, screaming when a mountain dragon attempted to wrench its wing off. Bellis tried to throw fire, but nothing came out. Mountain dragons swarmed her, eyes wild with madness.
What now? Rosy asked, turning to Sanna in sheer terror. What now?
Sanna’s chest heaved with pain and fire and horror. They’d been doomed from the moment Talis died. Even if she could grow the fire of the forest dragons, they had run out of energy. She didn’t know the magic well enough to do anything but throw flame. Junis’s voice broke through Sanna’s mind and the cacophony of dragon voices that filled it.
High Dragonmaster! he shouted. Look out!
The edge of a wing hit Sanna from behind.
She dropped to her knees on the branch, stunned. Her ribs tightened.
Sanna gathered her breath back, banishing the black spots from her eyes, to see a mountain dragon attacking Rosy. Rosy screamed, but her fire gave out. Rosy ducked, but the wild beast grabbed her neck with a talon. Sanna scrambled for her knife, but it wasn’t there. Rosy feinted, taking out the dragon’s leg.
The mountain dragon fell off the bough, taking Rosy with him.
“No!” Sanna screamed. Juni
s leapt off the ground with a livid bellow. Rosy dropped into the teeming melee below.
Isadora stood in the paths with Cecelia, face-to-face, as if she wasn’t tied to a ready-to-burn star back in Antebellum.
In the magic, there was no flamboyant dress. Nothing but Cecelia without adornment or facade. A woman who appeared haggard and deeply terrified. Cecelia rushed backward with a cry, slamming into a tree. Isadora hadn’t realized it before, but in the paths she wore a simple dress with elbow length sleeves and a pale, ivory material.
“What are you doing?” Cecelia screeched.
“Watchers aren’t here to disrupt fate,” Isadora said. “You’re wrong.”
“And yet you do! Let me free.”
“Some do, maybe. We can’t avoid evil … but interrupting fate isn’t the purpose of the magic. Even I didn’t see that until now.”
Cecelia scowled. “Oh, really? Then what is your noble cause? Why does the magic give you the ability to control, to inflict pain, to interrupt what will be with what you want?”
“Show me young Cecelia,” Isadora said quietly.
Off to the left, a familiar pillar of light rose from the ground. A little girl, flinching, eyes squeezed shut. Cecelia saw it and fell to her knees with a cry. Her mouth opened in wordless question.
Isadora stared at the little girl, brow furrowed. The wind stirred again.
Frightened.
“Someone hurt you, Cecelia,” Isadora murmured. “A Watcher?”
Cecelia’s nostrils flared. Another piteous cry escaped her.
“My brother,” she whispered.
“He was a Watcher?”
Her eyes closed. For a second, Isadora considered asking the magic to reveal him, but she thought better of it. Could Cecelia handle such a thing?
“A vile witch,” Cecelia muttered, staring at the girl, transfixed. “Cruel in his use of the magic to control me. To force me to bend to his will.” She swallowed hard. “To do awful things for him. To him. No one protected me from him. No one.”