He wanted to call out Dela’s name and get the reassurance that she was not only still alive, but that she wasn’t in any harm, but caution made him hold his tongue. They didn’t yet know for sure what they were dealing with, and though he was sure who ever lived here already knew they were there, he didn’t want to give them a heads up if they didn’t.
Vehel reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped short, his breath catching. He lifted a hand to tell the others behind him to stop.
A figure stood facing away from him. The light was too dim to make out any details, but the person was slight, and long hair spilled down their back.
Was this the Seer?
Every muscle in his body tensed, and his pulse raced. He opened his mouth, still unsure what he was going to say, but as he did, the person turned around.
“Dela!”
His heart lifted at the sight of her, and a wide smile broke across her face.
“Vehel!”
She ran to him and threw her arms around him. He held her against him, lacing his hands in her soft hair and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“By the Gods, you’re safe,” he murmured.
“Yes, I’m safe.”
She noticed the others behind him, and untangled herself from his arms and went to each of them in turn, throwing her arms around them and hugging them tight. “Orergon! Warsgra! I’m so happy you’re all okay. I was frightened you might have drowned or the sea serpent had eaten you.”
“We thought the same thing about you,” Warsgra said.
Orergon looked around. “What is this place?”
She stepped back from them and gestured to the cavern they’d found themselves in. “This is what we came here to find. The home of the Seer.”
Vehel frowned. “Then where is she?”
“Right here.”
Icy fingers crept up his spine at her words, and he darted his gaze around the cavern. He noticed what he hadn’t before—a small figure wearing a cloak of animal skins, the hood of which was pulled up to cover her face and hair, crouched in the corner.
His heart lurched, and he sucked in a breath. “It’s her.”
Dela placed her hand on his arm. “She’s not what you’re expecting.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
But Dela didn’t answer, and instead the figure rose to standing. Was this another Fae? They were small enough. He’d never heard the Seer was Fae, always assuming she’d once been human, but then she turned to face them, and he staggered back a step in shock.
The person standing before him was a child. A girl of no more than eleven years old, and when she lifted her face to regard them, her eyes were solid white. She had no pupils, and as such was completely blind.
“But ... but ...” He reminded himself of what he’d thought during his descent down the staircase, how nothing was impossible.
“It’s a kid,” Warsgra exclaimed, unable to hold himself back.
The girl spoke, her voice soft. “I was a child once, many hundreds of years ago, before I was made what I am today.”
“She is the Seer,” Dela said. “She knows stuff. She knows ... everything.”
Vehel stared at her. Other than the strange eyes, she looked just the same as any human child. From either side of the hood fell tendrils of honey-blonde curls. “But, you can’t have been living here by yourself this whole time.”
A smile touched the girl’s lips. “I’m not by myself. I have the entire world, right here, inside my head.”
“This can’t be real,” Warsgra said in disbelief.
The Seer continued. “The things you see now are only material. The rock you’re standing on. The island itself. In time, they will wear away, and then there will be nothing where they once stood. So what is more real? The things I’m able to see inside my head, or the things I can’t see that someday will no longer exist?”
Vehel didn’t know what to say.
She turned to Orergon. “You have death inside you.”
Vehel’s stomach twisted at her words, and he turned his head to regard Orergon. Death? Was that linked to what he’d done back on the fire mountain?
Orergon frowned and glanced down at the floor. “Yes, I know. I can feel it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Vehel asked Orergon, but the Moerian didn’t answer. Vehel looked to Dela, who also glanced away. She knew.
The Seer continued to stare at Orergon with her blind eyes. “Who brought you back?”
Orergon nodded to Vehel. “He did.”
The girl nodded. “Elvish magic. Part of the reason the Treaty was formed in the first place.”
“I was the one to break it,” Vehel admitted, shame flooding through him. The doubt in himself that he’d worked so hard to push aside came back with a vengeance. Had he been wrong in bringing Orergon back? Why hadn’t he and Dela confided in him? Though the Seer wasn’t able to see him with her eyes, he still wished he was able to melt into the floor.
“Yes, I know that,” she said. “But the Treaty should never have existed in the first place. Xantearos is not supposed to be a divided land.”
“But what about the death inside me?” Orergon asked. “Is there a way I can get rid of it?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. A time will come, and then you will know. But you must be careful, or it will consume you.”
Lines appeared across Orergon’s brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
A faint smile touched her lips. “Exactly as I have said.”
The small group looked around at each other, none of them quite knowing what to say.
“We need your help,” Dela said eventually.
The small, strange smile didn’t leave her face. “I already know that.”
“Of course, you do,” Warsgra huffed.
Dela shot him a warning look.
“You need my help,” the girl continued, “because she can speak with dragons.”
“Not just speak with them,” said Vehel. “She can see what they see. She saw how Xantearos is going to be at war. With her ability, she can bring Xantearos back together again. She could be our new ruler.”
But the girl shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “No, you’re wrong.”
Vehel’s stomach sank. Wasn’t that the whole reason for them coming here, to help Dela learn how to control her ability, and make her strong enough to stand up against those who waged war on Xantearos? “What do you mean?”
The girl’s white eyes were almost luminescent in the dim light. “The Dragonsayer will not be your ruler.”
Chapter Fourteen
Dela
DELA FELT AS THOUGH someone had punched her in the chest, winding her. She’d never considered the possibility that she might one day rule Xantearos, but still it was strange hearing it coming from the Seer’s mouth.
Warsgra balled his shoulders. “What do you mean? What’s all this for if not to stop the madness and have Dela with her dragon ruling the land?”
“I didn’t say she wouldn’t be ruling Xantearos, only that she wouldn’t be ruling you.”
Vehel shook his head. “What does that even mean?”
“You all will rule. There will be four rulers for one kingdom.”
Dela frowned in confusion. “There can’t be four rulers.”
“Yes, there can. One for each of your kind, but with each of you in unity. A marriage of four. Show your people that you do not need to be divided, that you can all work together to achieve the same thing. Peace.”
“But,” her mind raced, “there are already people on the throne. King and Queen Crowmere in Anthoinia, and even the Inverlands have their own ruler—Vehel is their son.”
The girl smiled again and looked around blindly. “Ah, yes, a prince.” She turned her attention to Vehel. “But your father is neither good nor kind,” she said, “and neither are your brothers.”
Vehel’s gaze darted across her face in confusion. “How do you know that?”
“I know everything.” Her smile broadened. “Well, almost everything.”
“Vehel already has a rightful claim to the throne when his father passes,” Dela said, “but I’m a no one. I’m just a street girl. I don’t have any right to be taking a throne from anyone. Especially not King and Queen Crowmere.”
“There, you are wrong. Many hundreds of years ago, it was the Dragonsayers who ruled Xantearos. It went without question that those who were able to communicate with dragons were also the ones who should rule. Admittedly, both the Dragonsayers and the dragons were more prevalent back then, and they waged wars of their own, but that’s no longer the case. Dragonsayers are no longer aware of their abilities, and the remaining dragons have been forced into hiding to protect their kind from extinction.”
Dela thought of something, and her fingers went to the ring at her throat. “You say you know everything, so do you know what happened to my brother? He wore this ring all the time, and it didn’t burn him. So does that mean he was a Dragonsayer, too? He vanished during a Passover, and I’ve no idea what became of him.”
A shadow passed over the Seer’s young face, and her blind, white gaze flicked to Warsgra. “That is not my place to say.”
Confusion swept over her. “What does that mean?” It was frustrating not to get a straight answer from the Seer.
“Some things are better left in the past. I’m not here to fill in all your questions about what has been and gone. It is the future we must focus on.”
She wanted to press the Seer further, but she worried the girl might not help them. As desperately as she wanted to learn about her brother, she couldn’t be selfish. They’d all put their lives at risk to get here, and they’d done so to find out how to work with the dragon and put an end to the war.
“We need your help,” she said. “The dragon is the way to bring this world back together again, but I don’t understand how I’m supposed to use him, or even how I can be strong enough. When we saw him at Drusga, he must have felt me in his head or something, and he wasn’t happy.”
“Dragons are the most powerful beings in Xantearos, but they’re hundreds of years old. They’ve seen what the different races do to each other, and this is why they remain hidden all this time. They’re not just going to allow a human—Dragonsayer or not—to try to control them. You have to earn their loyalty and trust.”
Dela frowned. “But how? He wouldn’t even let me go near him. I mean, he didn’t hurt us or anything, but he definitely warned us away.”
“If you took him something of importance, perhaps that would be enough for him to understand you are friends. You want something from him, after all. Is it not fair that you offer him something in return?”
“I want to offer him something,” Dela insisted. “I want to offer him peace, and a Xantearos he would have remembered from since before the Treaty.”
The girl smiled sadly, and it was a strange expression to see in her blind white eyes. “The Treaty was not the start of the troubles in Xantearos. The races were at war with each other long before then.”
She shook her head. “So how am I supposed to bring that to an end?”
“You’ll do what comes naturally to you. Each of you will. But first you must make the rest of Xantearos aware of your existence, and to do that you need the will of the dragon.”
Dela held back a huff of frustration. They were going around in circles. “That’s the problem. I don’t have the will of the dragon. That’s what we came here to speak to you about. I need to know how to get it.”
“It’s not something that can simply be acquired. As I already said, it must be earned.”
“But how?”
“By finding what the dragon has wanted all this time.”
Dela gritted her teeth. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Your king and queen don’t only have jewels and gold in their vault. There is something else of huge value as well. Something the dragon would want.”
She’d never heard of a dragon being interested in wealth before, but she wasn’t exactly well versed on dragon lore. “Tell me.”
“They have an egg. One that was stolen many years ago. Retrieve the egg, and the dragon will know he can trust you.”
Her mouth fell open. “A dragon egg? In Anthoinia?”
“The king and queen believe it to be fossilized, but that’s not true. The dragon egg is the offspring of your dragon, and another like it. They will appreciate having their baby back.”
Dela shot Warsgra, who was standing beside her, a wild look. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to do that.”
“That’s something you must figure out for yourself. You have three of the strongest warriors at your side.”
“That’s still no match for King Crowmere’s army.”
“Show yourself to be as brave and fierce and loyal as the dragon, and then perhaps he will accept you as his own.”
Dela lifted her eyebrows. “And if we’re killed trying?”
“Then you will die.”
Vehel stepped in. “We’re hundreds of miles from Anthoinia. The war might be over before we’ve even made it back to the city, never mind after we’ve stolen a dragon’s egg and then made it back to Drusga to present it to the dragon.”
“I never said the dragon would remain in Drusga. The Dragonsayer knows what great distances it travels, and in no time at all.”
Dela nodded her agreement. “Yes. It can fly the entire length of Xantearos in one night.” She knew that because she’d been able to see through his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to see what was happening back in Anthoinia and be back in Drusga the following day unless he was able to travel such distances at speed. That he was able to do so didn’t surprise her. The dragon was massive, his wingspan larger than anything she’d ever seen on a living creature. She couldn’t even imagine the speeds he could reach while flying unhindered far above Xantearos.
“So, how are we supposed to get back to Anthoinia?” Vehel asked.
The Seer turned her focus on him, though it was never actually clear if she was seeing him, her eyes blind, but her abilities not limited to the mere workings of the mortal world. “That is where you come in. Your magic brought you all here.”
“To the north,” he said, “but we’ve traveled many miles to reach you.”
“I understand, but to get back, you must learn how to control what you do. Your magic drains you, but the weakness is in you, not in the magic.”
Chapter Fifteen
Vehel
VEHEL EXPERIENCED A flash of anger. It was as though his father’s words had come out of the Seer’s mouth. He’d always been told he wasn’t good enough, one side of his brain always believing it, while the other side raged against it.
“I’ve spent my whole life being told I wasn’t allowed to do magic. Now I’m supposed to suddenly be able to transport the four of us into Anthoinia?”
The Seer shook her head. “I never said it was easy, and I didn’t say it was something you were going to be able to do immediately. I will help you, of course, but only the strongest of Mages will be able to do this magic. You’ve already shown yourself to be one of the great Mages by bringing the four of you to the north in the first place, but still you won’t believe in yourself, and it’s the lack of belief that is hindering you now.”
“I don’t know how to believe in myself,” he admitted. “My family has made me doubt myself my whole life, and I never grew up learning magic. You know it was banned, and I was punished repeatedly as a child if I ever let go of my ability.”
“That is the root of your problem. You think that if you truly believe in yourself and what you can do, you will be punished for it. Not like when you were as a child, but that the universe will bring down its wrath on you and make you pay.”
She was speaking the truth—he felt it in his heart.
“But I was right to believe that,” he said. “Look at what happened in the Southern Trough. I released my hold on my ability and
we all ended up here, and with the rest of the Xantearos at war.”
A small smile touched her lips. “Do you believe these last few weeks have been a punishment?”
He faltered. “I guess so, yes.”
“Not a reward?”
“A reward? We’ve almost died, several times over. How could that possibly be a reward?”
“You’ve finally been given the opportunity to become who you are destined to be.” She stared around with her blind eyes at Dela, Warsgra, and Orergon, too. “Each of you. I do not see that as a punishment.”
“You don’t know what we’ve been through to get here.”
She nodded. “Yes, I do, and I know what you will have to go through still. This isn’t going to be easy, but you need to have faith in yourselves before anything else.”
He shook his head, feeling helpless. “But I don’t know how to do it. Each time I try, my magic only gets weaker. What if I get it wrong and I send us somewhere miles from Anthoinia? What if I send us into the middle of the fire mountain, and we die the moment we get there?”
She stepped forward and placed her small hand on his arm. Her touch was cool, fingers slender and pale, with nails longer than he’d ever seen on a child. “Your faith in yourself needs much improvement, Elvish prince. But do not worry, we can work on that.”
He looked around at the barren, dark cave. “What? Here?”
“Yes, you can stay for the moment, and I will help you learn your magic.”
Vehel glanced at the others. Warsgra’s expression was sullen, Orergon’s unreadable, but Dela nodded, and her opinion mattered the most.
“I want to get back to Anthoinia,” Dela said. “I know it’s completely selfish, but my parents are there. They must assume I’m dead, and I don’t know how they’re coping after losing my brother during a Passover as well. I’d give anything to put my arms around my mother and father and tell them I’m alive.”
The Seer reached out her hand and caught Dela’s forearm. From Dela’s widened eyes, Vehel thought the Seer’s grip must have been impossibly strong. “You have a new family now. Don’t forget that, Dragonsayer. Not just these men with you now, but the dragon you are bonded with. Do not let some past feelings of loyalty divert you from your true goal.”
Chronicles of the Four: The Complete Series Page 32
