by Sever Bronny
Augum felt woozy but distracted himself by asking her a question. “What form did your dragon take in the dream?”
“Dragoon Rebecca Von Edgeworth. Straight out of my memories of Arcaner training. Strangely, she was a water warlock in the dream, even though she was originally air. Interesting, eh? Anyway, the lair was in a deep underwater cave, but she made me an arcane pocket of air to breathe in. It was … neat.”
“Mine appeared as Myrymydion. It was, um …” But he just didn’t have it in him to tell her he had seen Myrymydion die twice, the second time on behalf of the dragon.
Leera grabbed his hand with both of hers and caressed it across her cheek, only to notice that his palm light was pulsing. “Here, let me help you put your robe back on.” She began the task, mindful of his wounds. “You look pale and sound weak. How do you feel? And I want the truth now, not brave boy talk.”
He sighed. “Like I’ve been chewed up by a dragon, spit out and then ground under its foot. Every part of me is sore and I think a fever might be coming on. And I’m nauseous. Like, vomit nauseous.”
“Might be your body fighting the wounds.” She finished slipping the now sleeveless robe over his head and gently smoothed it down his body. Then she pressed her hands against his chest. “I want to take care of you.”
And I you, he thought.
She closed her eyes and smiled. “Ugh, I’d kill for a bath and a warm bed and a cozy fire.”
“We will have to do just that.”
“Huh?”
He gazed past her at the dark jungle. “We’ll have to kill to get out of here.”
She studied him, face streaked with mud and rain. “What happened?” she whispered.
“My dragon …” He shook his head slowly.
“Tell me.” She pressed her hands to his cheeks and made him look at her. “Please.”
He swallowed. “All right …” And he began telling her everything that had happened with Myrymydion both times, and how in the end his dragon died and he had slipped the egg into its body and how he left it in light that would have faded to pitch-darkness by then. By the end of the telling, he did not know if those were tears on his cheeks or rain, he was too numb from it all. Too numb …
“Oh, love, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry …” She wrapped him in a loving and gentle embrace and kissed his cheek. “I miss home. I miss the castle. I miss peace.”
He squeezed her back, wincing. “Me too. Me too …”
* * *
“Psst—!” came a noise from above when they neared the necromantic lair.
Augum and Leera looked up from their crouch to see Bridget in the tree above, soaked and muddy and barely visible in their palm light.
“Dim or snuff those,” she whispered. “Haylee’s in that bush behind you. I have to keep watch.”
Augum and Leera snuffed their palms and found the nearby bush, the inside of which had been hollowed out by an animal, affording a little shelter. A shivering Haylee lay within, water dripping on her from the leafy ceiling, looking every bit as miserable as Augum felt.
“Hey,” she said through chattering teeth.
“Hey,” he replied.
“I’m going to confer with Bridge,” Leera said in the darkness. “You two lie here and rest.” She patted Augum on the butt, prompting him to turn his head to smirk at her, only to realize she couldn’t see him.
“Sorry,” she mumbled quickly, and skittered out of there. Only then did he realize she had done it accidentally. But he was too tired to give the matter any thought and gingerly sat down beside Haylee.
“Got your dragon?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Congratulations.”
“You’ll get yours one day.”
“No, I won’t. And you know what? I’m okay with that. I just want to survive.”
He closed his eyes, fighting the nausea. “How’s the wound?”
“Needs Jengo. The walk was hard. I might have it in me to ’port once—if I’m lucky. Truth is, I’ve never been more tired in my entire life. Bunch of beasts sniffed about the cave, triggering all the traps. Then they started pawing at the makeshift door. But I didn’t want to call you all so I did what I had to. It was …” She shook her head slowly, but didn’t elaborate. “What I had to. Didn’t catch a wink of sleep until Leera came back and sent them all to hell. Cried like a baby when I saw her. Like a baby, Augum. It was … it was a low point.”
Augum could only imagine the horror of being stuck in that cave for two whole days while injured and trying to keep the beasts at bay. Yet she had not called upon him or the girls, knowing what their tests meant. He wondered if she would have rather died than interrupted them. She was a hero in his eyes.
“I’m sorry that you went through that,” he whispered.
“I’m only glad you’re all okay. Now we just have to get out of here.”
“Tell me about the Canterrans and what you overheard.”
Haylee repeated the story Leera had told him, adding details she had missed.
“Wait,” he interrupted at one point, “why did they talk about what time they were going to bring Olaf, Jengo and Mrs. Stone?”
“I don’t know. Carelessness, I guess. Fifth hour of the morn. Dawn. About an hour away.”
“And why were they so close and making so much noise?”
“Like I told you, they were hunting us and got ambushed by something.”
But Augum was shaking his head in the dark. “Doesn’t make sense.” Then he bolted upright, realizing the awful truth of it. “It’s a trap. They were waiting for me to return—”
But he was cut off by a powerful wave of Fear that ripped through their camp. It was so strong that he sat frozen in a puddle of wide-eyed hesitation while Haylee whimpered beside him. And by the time he gathered enough wits to cast a spell, it was too late, for a second wave washed over him—a frigidly cold one that snuffed his arcanery like a candle.
Sprung
Just as the Fear aura withdrew, Augum and Haylee were dragged out of the bush by their legs and hauled to their feet. Before them stood a circle of eight Canterrans, armed either with bush knives they had stolen from the friends or makeshift spears tipped with sharpened flint. Bridget and Leera already wore arcane manacles made of iron and chain and were each held by a Canterran. Three necromantic dragons hovered directly above, their immense wings flapping and causing a downdraft that shook the trees, their wingspans so great they blocked most of the rain.
All the Canterrans were as muddy as the trio and Haylee. A now white-robed Tyranecron stood nearby, a hand raised at the dragons as he muttered soothing words, controlling them. He had to have either brought the robe with him into the plane, or taken it from another Path Archon—neither would surprise Augum.
Leera began struggling with the muscled Canterran holding her. “Let go of me, you dumb brute!”
The muscled man grabbed Leera’s hair, pulled her head back, and hissed into her face, “Path shut you up or you will regret being born.”
Leera spat into the brute’s face and he immediately slapped her in response. She scoffed and said, “That all you got, weakling?”
Augum saw red and shot forth only to be grabbed roughly by two Canterrans. “Virtus vis viray,” he hissed, but nothing happened. As in the last ambush, the three dragons above had combined to create an aura that snuffed arcanery. Instead, he could only struggle—and weakly at that, for he was exhausted and sick—while the Canterrans took Burden’s Edge and slapped a pair of arcane manacles on him, shackled in front.
“Lee,” Bridget said. “Enough.”
Leera looked at her captor with rebellion in her dark eyes before nodding at Bridget. “We’ve been in this spot before.”
One of The Path Archons shook Leera’s rucksack. “Kind of you to return our stolen manacles.”
The friends only glared.
Tyranecron ceased the incantation and the dragons dispersed. The cold arcane-snuffing aura the dragons emitted
had lifted, replaced by the manacles’ binding arcanery. Augum felt like his very soul had been placed in shackles. The man strode over to Augum and studied him from foot to head with his black eyes. His pale translucent skin looked sickly in the darkness.
“Return with thee His Highness has not.”
Augum only glared mutinously.
“Thou hast vanquished him. I can see it in thine eyes.” When Augum did not dispute the assertion, Tyranecron shook his head at him, almost pitying him. “Dost thou realize what thou hast done? Thou hast ensured the destruction of thy village, thy kingdom, thy people. Everyone thou hast ever loved shall die. Nothing can save them now. Nothing.”
“I can save them,” Augum spat. “We can. And we will.”
Tyranecron scoffed. “Fool of fools, thou hast forfeited thy lives upon first stepping foot in this plane.” He motioned with a hand and Augum was shoved forward by the tip of a bush blade.
Augum looked back to see Edwin standing there. The sixteen-year-old averted his gaze, for there was guilt in his eyes—guilt and sorrow and regret.
The group was escorted over the lip and down the side of the pit. The dragons circled lower and lower overhead, eventually landing in the center. They waddled into the lair like a brood of chickens. The group followed, with the Canterrans lighting their palms in the darkness within.
Augum studied the situation from a tactical standpoint. He suspected direct confrontation was out of the question as the dragons were each at least twice the size of the trio’s summonable inner dragons, not to mention Tyranecron could somehow control them. They would simply have to free themselves and elude recapture, which meant breaking out of their manacles first and foremost. Except the manacles would likely not be removed until the last moment, when the group would be offered up to the dragons, and by then it would be far too late to act.
He next studied the enemy. Only two Canterrans were behind him, the first of whom was Edwin. Perhaps that was their only hope then. Edwin the fearful young man, Edwin the unlikely enemy hero. But could it work? Luckily, the Canterran behind Edwin struggled to keep up as he had an injured foot, providing Augum with a slim window of opportunity.
He thought carefully about what he was going to say. When the dragons ahead began making scraping noises against the walls, he slowed his gait a little to put distance between himself and the Canterran ahead. Then he turned whispered, “Edwin, we need your help—”
“Quiet or you’ll get me in trouble,” Edwin whispered back. “Tyranecron is not as forgiving as His Highness.”
But Augum did not relent. “I know we’re supposed to be enemies, but you need to put that aside for the sake of Sithesia. Your emperor will murder a lot of people if he’s not brought to heel. He’s a tyrant, just like my father was. We can save you and your mother. Come back with us, Edwin. Come back with us.”
“Please be quiet, please—”
“Edwin, this is it. This is the moment you’ll regret for the rest of your life if you do not act. Do you want to wake up every single day knowing that you were a coward—”
“I’m not a coward!”
“—that you did not stand up for what was right? You can be a hero for all of Sithesia. A true hero, Edwin. A hero who transcends all kingdom borders. Think on that. You need to undo my manacles before we hit that chamber so that you can live with yourself, so that you can give Sithesia a chance. Otherwise, it’s over. All of it. And you know it.”
“You have to stop talking now,” Edwin hissed, panicked. “Everything you’re saying goes against my Sacred Archon Code of Honor. Do you realize that?”
Augum saw the entrance to the big chamber loom ahead and knew he only had one more chance. He had to get it right. “Edwin, you’ll be murdering us. You’ll be a murderer. What will your mother think upon hearing that you murdered the Augum, Bridget and Leera? What will she say when the day eventually comes when everyone realizes we were the only hope of a true balance—and you know that day is coming. You know what our shields stand for. You know what true honor is, I can see it in your eyes. What will you say to your future children? That you had a part to play in our deaths? Is that what you’re going to tell them? Will you be proud of it? Or will your heart be heavy with regret that can never be erased?”
When that did not work, Augum took a heavy breath. “They’re going to sacrifice you anyway, Edwin, because you are expendable to them. You saw it happen already, didn’t you? That’s your future.”
That still didn’t seem to penetrate and Augum forced himself to concentrate. Then, remembering that Gavinius had told him that none of them had been loved, he took one final shot. “Haylee likes you, Edwin. She genuinely thinks you’re cute. Are you going to save her … or are you going to murder her?”
At last he had struck true, for Edwin stepped over out of line to look ahead at Haylee, whose long blonde hair swayed with each stumbling step. He drew closer to Augum and replied in the barest of stuttering whispers, “You have to swear on your shield that you will d-do everything in your p-power to save my mother, to b-bring her to Solia.”
Augum was not heartened by that stuttering and realized he might not be able to rely on Edwin for much. Hopefully it would be enough. “I will save your mother and bring her to Solia, this I can swear on my shield. But I will do more than that, Edwin. I will ensure that you are treated as an equal among us—as a respected hero. You know my word is my bond.”
“Then may the Unnameables forgive me. Pretend to twist your leg. Do it now.”
Augum, hopes scrambling to fly on tattered wings, stumbled and fell, moaning in real pain from his wounds.
Edwin slapped Augum’s back with the flat of the bush blade—hard, causing Augum to cry out in pain again, for the blade had struck his wound. “Get up, you mangy cur,” Edwin snapped, putting on a show as well.
The other Canterran behind him, a thin man with a soulless gaze, hurriedly hobbled up to kick Augum’s side with his injured foot, only to gasp with pain himself. “Get up,” he nonetheless hissed through gritted teeth. “Get up, filthy dog.”
Augum rolled from the kick, groaning and desperately trying not to vomit. He was slow to get up.
“You heard him,” Edwin said, and positioned himself between the Canterran and Augum. He jerked Augum up by the hair and manacles, scraping his feet as he did so—and thus obscuring a muttered runic incantation, “Korto unaquo”—that Augum caught every syllable of. The manacles went loose around his wrists, but Edwin’s eyes flared at Augum, silently telling him to pretend to keep them on. “Now move it along, blasphemer,” he barked, shoving him forward.
They quickly rejoined the procession, with Augum holding the manacles to his own wrists, obscuring the fact that they had been opened.
“The incantation is the same for all of them,” Edwin murmured.
“No words can express my thanks,” Augum only replied. His arcanery had instantly flooded back to him, a precious nectar his soul feasted on, and although he was weak and feverish, he knew he could at least act when the moment came. What he now had to do was give it his all, and focus.
The first and most obvious act would be to cast Centarro. The second would be to free his great-grandmother. The third would be to yank everyone else together and have her teleport them out of there quick as lightning. That’s all. They didn’t have to fight everyone immediately. All they needed to do was survive and regroup. Maybe they could return to Ley and seal off the portal, preventing the Canterrans from escaping and informing the emperor of what had happened.
The group turned down a passage unfamiliar to Augum, for he and the girls hadn’t come through it upon rescuing the captured eggs. The stone here was cracked and crumbling, having long been penetrated by roots and vines and decay. The detritus of old bones had been shoved aside recently and now lay in piles against the walls. The passage dipped to an incline carved with shallow steps that descended a long way before finally opening up to a vast and overgrown chamber lit with torches.
The first thing he noticed was Jengo and Olaf standing on the right of a wide stone platform. Both were manacled and haggard and overseen by two Canterrans. They looked at Augum and the girls with long faces of defeat. The second thing he noticed was his great-grandmother. She stood on the left with poise and grace, looking fit and young and lethal, attended by a single Canterran. Her hands were bound, as were her legs, complicating things. Augum could almost feel her raw arcane strength bubbling underneath, awaiting expression. Yet why was she so confident? Did she have a plan of her own? Was someone going to swoop in and save them at the last moment?
Only then did Augum get a good look at the chamber. At the very back, behind the captives, stood two enormous stone statues of dragons, telling him the Rivicans might have worshipped them as gods. In between them was a sarcophagus, and in front of that sarcophagus was an altar, no doubt for sacrificial purposes. Augum couldn’t help but wonder how much knowledge the Rivicans brought to Sithesia that they had learned from dragons.
As his group was led toward the altar Augum had a cold vision of a similar series of events happening underneath the academy, when he had witnessed the girls being led up a clay ramp toward Orion’s gaping maw. But this time he didn’t have The Grizzly watching his back. And sure, Mrs. Stone might have a plan, but he couldn’t rely on it.
The trio and Haylee were made to stand with Olaf and Jengo while Tyranecron led the three black dragons to sit before the altar. One of them licked its dragon lips with a crimson tongue, eyeing up the group as if they were a rich treat.
Olaf’s gaze was solely for Bridget. She wasn’t allowed to stand near him—in fact a Canterran stood between each of them—yet she looked up at him regardless. Her eyebrows scrunched together as she mouthed, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Olaf mouthed back, tears rolling down his cheeks. He looked like he hadn’t eaten since being captured. His face was haggard, with deep rings under his eyes, and his breathing came in short bursts.
An already-thin Jengo looked even worse off, with fat bags under his eyes and his skin taut over his bones, giving him a sunken appearance.