A roar reverberated through the cavern.
“There is someone here after all,” Roberto whispered. “That sounded like a shadow dragon. Hopefully it’s alone. Danion, take Kierion, Adelina, and Fenni, and see if you can find out what’s out there.” Roberto motioned toward double metal doors at the rear of the cavern, so shrouded in shadow that Fenni hadn’t seen them. “Those doors are huge. That must be how Zens gets his shadow dragons out when they’re ready.”
No doubt. Fenni nodded, his mouth dry. It was one thing to face a shadow dragon on dragonback with Kierion as Riona flamed her way through the skies. It was another thing entirely to face one on foot.
§
Kierion, Adelina, Fenni, and Danion dashed across the cavern. It could take them forever to open those metal doors. Kierion couldn’t see any sign of a handle or a lever, and they were large enough to need more than one man to push them apart.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when the double metal doors hissed open as they approached. They plunged into a short tunnel large enough for a dragon to walk through. Yellow light glowed from around a bend. Danion and Kierion edged along the wall and craned their heads around the corner to get a better look, while Adelina and Fenni hung back.
An enormous tharuk with a broken tusk was standing before a strange metal contraption that streamed yellow light against the cavern wall.
Rows of shadow dragons mounted with fake mages were waiting, the dragons’ ragged wings furled against their sides and their feet shifting, talons scraping rock. Their mental cries drifted through his head. The mages leaned forward, hunched in their saddles as if they were about to launch themselves into the air.
Kierion frowned. It made no sense. They were facing the lit-up wall. There was nowhere to go.
The huge broken-tusked tharuk was bathed in the yellow light. It held up a gleaming jade ring, too small to fit on its large furry fingers, and rubbed it, calling in a guttural voice, “Kisha.”
Billowing golden clouds appeared before the wall, swirling in midair, lit up by those unearthly yellow rays.
“Go, now,” Broken Tusk bellowed, saliva dripping off its tusks and its dark eyes glinting. The tharuk stepped aside.
Kierion cut off a gasp as a shadow dragon and mage leaped at the clouds and disappeared.
“It’s a realm gate,” Danion breathed in his ear.
Kierion nodded. He’d thought so. Somehow Zens had created one with that metal contraption.
Another shadow dragon and mage jumped and vanished. And another pair, and another, until there were only a handful of tharuks left, milling around, pushing and shoving. A wiry tharuk leaped, tusky snout first, into the rays and disappeared into the billowing clouds.
Danion tugged Kierion back and they crept to the others.
“There are only a handful of tharuks left. Let’s attack,” Kierion whispered, quietly drawing his sword.
Danion nodded. “There’s a strange metal box producing yellow rays. I think it sucks people through a realm gate. Stay away from its light.” He and Adelina pulled their swords from their scabbards.
Fenni held his hands at the ready.
Adelina nudged Kierion. They spurted around the corner, feet hammering on stone, swords out. Broken Tusk roared and dived into the billowing clouds, something clattering to the rocky floor behind it.
Tharuks spun to meet them, slashing with their claws. Adelina deflected one, then plunged her sword into its side. Kierion finished it off with a blow to the head. Dark blood splattered him as Danion took another beast down. Fenni shot plumes of mage fire from his hands, blowing holes in two tharuks’ chests.
Kierion spun and ducked the last tharuk’s claws. Adelina jumped on its back, knocking it to the stone. The beast snarled and bucked, trying to throw her off its back. She clung on.
“Head back, Adelina!” Kierion charged in, raised his sword and hacked through the tharuk’s neck, bone crunching and his sword thunking wetly through its flesh. Blood spurted up, raining on the stone.
Adelina stood, panting.
“My apologies if I got your riders’ garb dirty.” Kierion bowed and sheathed his sword. “That one was rather messy and you were in the splatter zone.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sure was.”
He kicked the beast onto its back, staunching the bloody fountain, turning it into an ever-growing pool. “You all right?”
She nodded and retrieved her sword from where she’d dropped it. “You?”
He grinned and took her hand. “I am now.”
She grinned back and leaned against him.
“Come on, you two, we’d better show Roberto what we’ve found.” Danion gestured at the metal box, which had strange dials and levers and an aperture through which the rays still shone.
“That’s not all we’ve found.” Kierion tugged Adelina over to where the big tharuk had stood. “Fenni, a little light over here, please.”
In the gleam of the mage light, Kierion found what the tharuk had dropped—the jade ring. Kierion passed it to Danion. “At least now we know where the dark dragons have gone,” he said.
“Do we?” asked Adelina.
Kierion shrugged. “Not really, we can only guess, but now we know how to get there.”
“Good work,” Danion said. “Now we can take the battle to Zens. Let’s get back to Roberto.”
Kierion gestured up the broad tunnel they were standing in. “Adelina and I will take a look at the rest of the tunnel and see if there’s a way to get our dragons in. There’s no point in chasing Zens without them.”
“Be careful,” warned Danion. “We don't know what’s up there.”
§
As Danion and Fenni went back into the shadow dragon chamber to report to Roberto, Adelina wrinkled her nose and toed a tharuk with her boot. “These beasts always stink.”
“Let’s get some fresh air,” Kierion replied. “Wherever this tunnel leads, it’s got to be better than this.”
“Fresh? We’re in Death Valley, remember?” She elbowed him.
He laughed, his hand warm in hers as they strode along the tunnel, leaving the humming box with its yellow rays and the dead tharuks behind. “That box is handy. We can finally explore a tunnel without Fenni to guide us.” Kierion leaned in. “I’m so glad we’re here together. It was absolutely awful when I didn’t know where you were. I thought I’d lost you.”
She sighed. She’d been so silly, running off to Montanara—angry with Kierion. With Roberto, Amato, with the world, actually.
“Are you all right now?” he asked. “I know this trip hasn’t been easy for you with your fath— um, him along.”
Her flash of anger was instant: the moment he’d been about to say father, Adelina had wanted to rage at Kierion all over again and scream that Amato was no longer her father. That he didn’t deserve that title after all the horrific things he’d done to their family. She expelled her breath in a whoosh. “It’s a little better. It was such a shock knowing he was alive. We all thought he’d died in Crystal Lake. Do you know what’s funny?”
She stopped walking and tilted her head to look up at him. The light wasn’t as bright here, but she could still see his pretty eyes, now gazing down at her in concern. “He survived by living in the very cave that Roberto and I used to hide in when he was on a rampage. We didn’t know, because after we thought he’d died in the lake, both of us refused to go there again. If Roberto hadn’t shown Ezaara his littling haunts on their hand-fasting holiday, then—”
Kierion pressed their clasped hands against his chest, her hand right over his heart with his warm palm on top. His heart thrummed beneath her fingers. “I don’t think that’s funny at all, Adelina. No one should have to live in fear of a family member.”
“He’s not my family.” She shook her head fiercely. “Not anymore. Roberto’s my only family now.”
“I don’t think that’s right,” he said.
She was about to protest when Kierion took his hand off hers and cra
dled the back of her head, slipping his other arm around her. His head descended and his lips brushed hers.
“I’d very much like to be part of your family, Adelina. I swear I’ll protect you with my life.”
Kierion’s warm soft lips found hers again. His heart pounded beneath her hand like a wing of rampaging dragons. Adelina’s own heartbeat raced, trying to keep up with his as she reached up, wrapping her fingers into his blond hair and pulling him even closer.
The coil of tension that had been wound tight inside her since she’d first seen Amato at Dragons’ Hold—and gotten ever tighter since—unwound with each brush of Kierion’s lips, each caress of his fingers over her cheeks, with the trail of kisses he left down her neck.
He groaned softly, kissing her earlobe.
The coil sprang loose inside Adelina. She grabbed Kierion’s cheeks and kissed him, soaring like a dragon on the wind. She felt free—really free—for the first time in her life. She’d always buried her feelings, hidden her fear and pain behind a cheerful wall of bubbliness. No one suspected there was a terrified little girl hiding inside her. But Kierion saw that little girl. And loved her for who she had been, who she was, and who she one day could be.
Kierion pulled back from her lips. Foreheads touching and arms wrapped around one other, they gazed at each other. He smiled, their breath mingling. “I guess that means yes, you’ll count me as part of your family?”
She nodded.
His face lit up like a thousand methimium rays. He flung his arms open wide and tipped his head back. “Yahoo!” Kierion’s cry echoed off the tunnel walls and bounced back and forth as he picked Adelina up, spun her around, then kissed her, still holding her aloft.
She laughed. And laughed again as he carried her along the tunnel, kissing her again and again.
Suddenly, the flap of wings filled the tunnel, coming toward them.
In a flash, Kierion set her on her feet and was running up the tunnel, sword drawn.
Adelina ran, yanking her sword from its scabbard. Of all the stupid things! They’d forgotten they were in enemy territory. Shadow dragons were coming. Their wingbeats echoed off the tunnel walls around a corner. By the sounds of things, there were a few of them.
A flash of purple scales rounded the corner, and sky-blue scales followed.
“Riona!” Kierion called. “Linaia! How did you find us here?”
Linaia mind-melded with Adelina, “Kierion’s mating call was heard by all of us.”
From the red tinge that covered Kierion’s face right to the tips of his ears, Adelina guessed Linaia had shared the same message with Riona. “Mating call indeed!” she huffed. “We were merely—”
“Doing what humans do as a prelude to mating, or hand-fasting or whatever you riders call it. But I know a mating call when I hear one, and his echoed through this tunnel and off the mountainsides.”
Laughing, Kierion sheathed his sword and wrapped an arm around Adelina’s shoulders. “It’s nearly official. We’re family now.” He beamed.
Adelina couldn’t help laughing.
She laughed even harder when Kierion said, “We’d better get back to our big brother before he tells us off.”
§
Most of the slaves hadn’t yet recovered from the effects of numlock. It was still too early. Lovina’s attempts to help them bake bread and teach them to help themselves were failing. Tharuks had stored ample barrels of stale flour and supplies for feeding the thousands of slaves they’d captured from villages across Dragons’ Realm. It was just that these people couldn’t think for themselves anymore. After months of being drugged with numlock and underfed, their reserves were sapped and minds drained.
She shook her head as a man dropped yet another round of flatbread dough on the floor.
“Come on, pick it up,” Lovina encouraged.
He stared at her, then bent to retrieve the bread, now covered in dust. Forgetting to wipe it off—as she’d just shown him when he’d dropped the last—he placed it on the flat iron over the glowing hearth to bake.
Lovina wiped sweat from her brow. After her leap from the rowboat, her trek along the tunnel and now helping these people all day, she was exhausted.
Tomaaz placed a gentle arm around her shoulder. “Lovina, we can’t leave them here like this. They’re as helpless as littlings.”
Lovina leaned into his comforting embrace. She’d been thinking the same thing. “But we can’t stay here with them.”
“Then there’s only one option.” Tomaaz’s kind green eyes regarded her. He smiled. “I knew you’d agree. Let’s take them with us.”
She shuddered. “Wherever Zens has gone, his tharuks and dark dragons are with him. We could be leading these people into a death trap.”
Tomaaz nodded. “Until they’ve recovered, they don’t have much chance if we leave them here alone. I’ll go through first, and you can be the rearguard. If anyone’s not in good enough condition to travel tomorrow, we’ll leave them with fresh bread and water, and come back in a few days.”
Lovina shrugged, her gaze skimming the people in the food hut shuffling about their work.
“Let’s leave a few of the more able-bodied to tend them and tell them we’ll be back in a week,” said Tomaaz. “If we bake all this bread”—he indicated the mass of dough they’d kneaded—“they should have enough to last that long.”
His brow furrowed. They both knew he could be lying—they had no idea what the next week would bring, whether they’d even be alive.
Courage
Gret bent over Sorcha, examining the clear tubes leading out of his neck and arms. They went right into his veins. This must be some strange magic from Zens’ world. She touched his skin. It was cold, still bluish. Not a good sign. She leaned in. Pale-blue fluid was flowing through the tube into the mage. Perhaps this was how Zens controlled their magic or even gave them magic. She tugged the tube to Sorcha’s arm gently. It pulled at the skin inside Sorcha’s elbow. Gret let go. Who knew what would happen if she took it out.
Bellows came from outside the huge metal doors at the back of Zens’ shadow dragon cavern. A sword rang on stone. The others were fighting. Gret dashed back into the main cavern.
Roberto and his father were bent over a workbench, investigating Zens’ paraphernalia, arguing.
Gret slid her sword from its scabbard. “Roberto, should I help them?”
Roberto cocked his head.
Gods, Fenni was out there fighting and she hadn’t even told him how she felt.
Thuds rang outside. The roars died. The murmur of voices reached them. “I think they’re all right now.” Roberto said. He pointed to something on the bench and mumbled to Amato.
Gret paced, waiting.
The doors hissed open. Danion and Fenni strode inside, splattered with dark tharuk blood. Danion held up a ring of green stone. “Zens has opened a realm gate and this might be the key.”
“This ring is Ezaara’s. It was stolen from us on our hand-fasting holiday.” Roberto took it from Danion. “We suspected it had ended up here. Thank the Egg you’ve found it.”
“You might not be that pleased when you hear that every last shadow dragon has fled Death Valley,” Fenni said. “We killed the remaining few tharuks.”
Roberto grimaced.
Gret hadn’t expected the master of mental faculties and imprinting to show his emotions.
“Shards, I would’ve liked to question those tharuks who knew where Zens went.” Roberto shrugged. “We’ve no time to lose. If Zens has traveled by realm gate with his army, he could attack anywhere. Gret and Fenni, could you free those mages and destroy the ones Zens is growing, while Danion and Amato and I take care of things in here?”
Fenni’s keen green eyes flicked to Gret, then he nodded. “Sure. Back soon.”
Gret accompanied Fenni into the chamber where the mages were kept.
“These are attached. I didn’t try to take them out, because I didn’t want to hurt her or Sorcha,” Gret said, wavi
ng at the tubes leading into Velrama’s arm and neck. “Maybe you could help.”
“I’m not sure if I can.” Fenni scrubbed his hair with a hand. “We may kill them. But it’s better than leaving them here.” He examined Velrama’s arm.
Gret noticed that Fenni kept his eyes averted from the thin fabric barely covering Sorcha, only looking at her arms or face. It was sweet, really. Endearing. Her cheeks burned. She remembered enjoying Danion’s face, allowing her eyes to roam over his tanned torso on the deck of the ship, even though she’d already known she loved Fenni.
Fenni didn’t really deserve her. He was too sweet. Mind you, she’d been sweet and innocent too. Until Danion had kissed her, she’d only ever kissed Fenni. And only once.
Fenni pointed at Velrama’s elbow. “This tube is attached to a slim piece of metal, like a needle, that enters her vein. See it?”
“Yes, I can. Do you want me to hold the tube steady while you try to pull that needle thing out?”
He nodded. “That idea’s as good as any. Let’s try.”
Gret tried to swallow but couldn’t. “Fenni, what if we kill her?”
He turned, his green eyes steady. “Zens will kill them both anyway. You can guarantee that. At least we’re giving them a chance of survival.” He tilted his head. “Does that help?”
Gret nodded, unable to trust her voice. A tear slid from her eye, down her cheek.
“Hey, Gret.” Fenni cupped her chin in his hands. “What is it?”
Another tear slipped from her traitorous eyes. “Um, nothing. It’s not important.”
His hands slipped from her chin to her shoulders. He straightened and pulled her against him. “Whatever you feel, it’s never nothing. Your feelings are always important to me.”
And that was it, in a nutshell: her feelings were important to him. He cared about what she felt for Danion, or for him. And she’d hurt him. She’d been so cruel. And so confused. For a moment, Gret let herself cry in Fenni’s comforting arms. He held her tight until she stopped crying. Then he gazed at her tenderly, wiping the tears from her eyes with his fingertips.
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