Dragon Core

by Sain Artwell

  However, the portion sizes required most urgent adjustment. Three shrimps were nowhere near enough to sate Alron’s appetite.

  Skittish for something more substantial, Alron began walking towards the cliffs above an undersea ravine, where his favorite iron-nuts grew. However, before he could dive into the abyss, a metallic twinkling caught his eye.

  Where thick foaming strokes of the sea caressed the jagged pillars of other sea-trees, a lifeboat drifted into view. Two bodies lay on it, rocking with the waves, faces resting in puddles of blood.

  Beneath the crash of waves, Alron heard coral crunch again. Whoever killed the sailors was already on his island.

  Time for the guardian to do his duty.

  A gust rustled Alron’s tattered clothes and unkempt hair, billowing his cloak into a sail of browned fabric. Senses sharp, he scanned the bleached plateau.

  Forty yards to his left, a puddle splashed, despite nothing visible touching it.

  Alron’s focus snapped towards the sound. He spread dragonizing vis through his surroundings. Brittle coral became deep-red and as tough as metal. His tattered clothes transformed into an armor of scarlet scales. The rags around his limbs solidified, adding length to his claws. Alron fed vis to the heartstring vestiges bonded to his muscles, and charged the intruder.

  Wind whistled in his ears. In two bounds he crossed the distance, reaching the invisible invader. Alron raked wide cuts at the shimmering distortion. A mirage of invisible flames began to unravel.

  Beneath them, he glimpsed a woman garbed in blood-soaked golden veils. She stabbed her narrow claws at Alron’s neck.

  Sparks flew when he struck aside her blow. The two of them began to measure each other’s skill, skipping across the coral plateau as they fought, like two butterflies in a mating dance. Alron did not hurry to finish the exchange.

  The woman was cunning to have penetrated the blockade. Her ability to manipulate dragonfire into a veil of invisibility marked her as an awakened master, one with great mastery over her vestiges and dragonsoul. What’s more, she had the courage to match Alron claw-to-claw, despite an obvious and overwhelming disparity in their physical might and martial skill.

  A number of mad warriors had tested the island’s defences over the decades, only three of them ever reaching Alron. However, none had been as impressive as this woman. It was almost a shame to kill her, but she had trespassed upon his island, and this was his duty.

  Alron stopped matching her strength.

  With one claw, he caught her wrists, and with the other, he secured a chokehold. Alron slammed her into the ground. Coral shattered beneath her back.

  She groaned. Her mirage dispersed, revealing a scarred woman with white hair tied in a long tail. She was dressed in the silky garments of the Sandblade elites from the southern lands of Dustwing Dunes.

  Alron spoke in a voice as unforgiving as his claw’s grip on her neck, “You’ve lost, but I congratulate your tenacity and discipline. A wyrmkin of your caliber will have resolve to weather torture, so I shall grant you a quick end. Speak your name so I may carve it on your tombstone…” Wait…

  “Not quite how I imagined this day,” a familiar voice croaked. The woman’s pained scowl relaxed.

  She flicked hair from her face. His eyes drew wide.

  Words choked in his throat.

  That expression of royal arrogance framed by sharply angled bones, those azure eyes smoldering with confidence, that crown of four horns curving towards her scalp, those patches of dark scales on her limbs, that clear silvery voice, that familiar scent of spicy warmth, Alron now recognized them all.

  It couldn’t be…

  Fei was dead.

  This had to be another layer of the mirage! Who would dare to wear her face before him? Who would dare to dishonor her eternal slumber?!

  Enraged, Alron threw the entirety of his weight down, pinning her to the ground. Ground crumbled. She grimaced, choking. And yet, no illusions were shattered.

  “Impossible.”

  Staggered, Alron blinked, his mind reeling. Could she have contracted a master fleshbender to disguise her then? But if that was the case, why would she go through all the trouble and leave imperfections to her disguise?

  He’d never seen those scars dotting her limbs. They looked as if she’d only recently been nailed to the ground with stakes. Marks from cuffs adorned her neck, wrists, and ankles. Only starsteel could leave such scars on the flesh of awakened masters. Her cheeks were sunken, her ribs visible.

  She was nothing like the Fei from his memories. And yet, every fiber of Alron’s being wept in nostalgic recognition.

  “No. How can it be?” he uttered.

  “Hello darling. It’s been a while.”

  Alron shook his head, his mind refusing to accept this as reality. “I warn you,” he said, “Undo this disguise now, or prove you are her. Else, I shall exercise my imagination to inflict upon you every torment under the Stars.”

  She chuckled, shifting under his grip. “Slow down. Though certain torments have grown on me, and I’m as eager as you to indulge in your”—she licked her lips—“imagination. We would do well to catch up a little first, no? I suggest a romantic chat beneath the night-lit heavens. You don’t happen to know of any nearby establishments with a reputation for good bluemoon brew, do you? I’ve craved it for years.”

  “It is you…”

  “Oh, darling.” Fei chuckled. “If only you could see that face of yours. Never has the mighty hero looked as oafish. Almost makes the separation worth it.”

  As he withdrew his dragonsoul from his clothes and released her, a mote of familiar azure flames slipped past Fei’s dark red lips. It landed on his cheek, but didn’t burn. This was soulfire—a type of vis consuming dragonfire unique to Fei.

  Alron cared not whether he looked dumb. He allowed every repressed ounce of relief and sorrow to bubble onto his face, as they swelled in his heart. He gawked at Fei in awe, caressing her shoulder.

  Scarred though she was, her lightly tanned skin was as soft as when he’d first brushed by her as a blushing boy at the cusp of manhood. Despite her apparent suffering, she was every bit as beautiful, if not more so.

  Fei pursed her lips together. She blinked rapidly. Her breath quivered.

  “Alron, darling,” she said, her voice wet and heavy with emotion.

  “My Fei.”

  “I missed you, Alron, I missed you so, so much,” she said, on the verge of tears.

  “And I you. Can this be true? What knots have fates tied themselves in to return you to my arms from the beyond? With my own eyes, I watched you die.”

  She twitched, mustering a show of snark through her tears. “What I ponder, my darling,” Fei said, exaggerating his intonation, “is if this flair for melodramatic speech you’ve adopted is a jest you’ve yet to let me in on?”

  The sudden turn on conversation made Alron pause, but he indulged her humor. “It may be the result of decades of cultivation, solitude, and silence. You’ll have to forgive me. My only conversation partners were a tribe of squid beasts. Though clever, they are a few centuries away from adopting a spoken tongue. A few more than that from refining a sense of fine humour. Why? Does it offend your sensibilities?”

  Fei laughed and wiped her tears. “To tell you the truth, I’m glad. I’d have been embarrassed, had I been the only one turned mad.”

  Alron chuckled.

  A smile wider than he’d felt for years strained the shriveled muscles in Alron’s cheeks. For a time, the two of them basked in each other’s presence, as if both feared this to be a fragile hallucination.

  Indeed, it did not last long.

  One of the island’s guardian bellbirds began to howl in alarm, as its beady eyes stared at Fei in panic. Its bellowing rang in a warbling note louder than the crashing waves. Unless Alron rang the gong to signal a false alarm, the fleet would assume that whatever had invaded the island had been victorious, and respond with emergency measures.

  A
lron paused at the thought of the gong.

  This was no false alarm.

  Fei had commandeered a life-boat, and, in cold blood, slewn two wyrmkin sworn to defend Carrion Scourge’s vestiges with their lives. Shock of their reunion had held him from demanding an explanation, but surely… Surely she must’ve had a forgivable reason for murder.

  Fei’s chest shuddered. “Alron,” she said with a pause, noticing the suspicion in his gaze.

  He nodded, urging her on.

  A sadness weighed on her shoulders, and she withdrew from his embrace. “I should tell you something. But first, let me be bound to you again, to give you back your wings and fire.”

  “Of course. Come.” Alron tilted up her chin.

  Her lips parted, and eyes closed.

  “Submit, be mine again,” he whispered, pouring his draconic vis into her dragon-core.

  “Always…”

  Azure vestiges glowed faintly in Fei’s lungs and in her throat. Their hue brightened as her own vis saturated with his, until the light shone through her clothes. He could feel her dragonsoul within her core, a malignant entity of violence and power, now leashed beneath her will and vis. She pushed that leash onto him, surrendering the entirety of her being to Alron’s mercy.

  The moment he accepted it, everything clicked. He felt as if a shard of a shattered blade had joined his broken hilt.

  Reality around the island thrummed. Alron’s dragonsoul stirred, swelling against his willpower, as it drew might from hers and grew. Vestiges embedded in his chest squeezed his natural heart, seeking dominance over him. Alron held them down and kept the transformation under control, as wings once more grew on his dragonosoul, and a spark of soulfire was lit in his lungs. Droplets of stark azure flame coalesced in the air, drifting upwards, like a reverse firefall.

  Once more, Fei was his. A lost piece of Alron’s soul clicked back in place. The blade he’d once been was a shard closer to completion, though it would take heat and hammering to finalize the new seam.

  Alron helped Fei up on her feet by her hand, and asked, “Now tell me, Fei, what happened to you?”

  “We were betrayed,” she said bitterly.

  Alron furrowed his brows. “Betrayed? By whom?”

  Chapter 2 - Obsidian Oubliette

  Kastalos wrinkled his nose at the stale excrement-suffused air of the Obsidian Maze—an oubliette, which had for centuries served as a prison as secure as death itself. No longer could that claim be made.

  Howls echoed from the branching halls. However, the cells closest to Kastalos and his entourage were silent, the unwanted within prostrating themselves as low as their shackles allowed. Kastalos held a dragonfire lantern, illuminating the humid pit before him. The two hundred yard deep oubliette was empty.

  Scents of poisonous hallucinogens lingered in the air below. Piss and shit coated the floor. Blood clung to the thick starsteel shackles and stakes scattered on the floor below.

  “A smoke, honored Sovereign?” asked a noseless warden.

  Kastalos continued to stare into the pit, but extended his arm. A roll of goldleaf was placed between his fingers. The warden lit it up with her breath, and Kastalos took a drag. Half the cigar crumbled in sparkling white ash. A balanced mix of potent herbs soothed his lungs.

  He tapped the cigar, letting flakes of burning gold fall into the cell.

  “H-honored Sovereign, the security responded as per your designs,” said Grand Warden, an aging man with a tall, spindly build and thin blue horns. A distant relative, if Kastalos recalled correctly. Grand Warden flinched from Kastalos’ gaze.

  “And yet,” he began, voice heavy with resignation, “you still draw breath, as does she.”

  “A thousand apologies, honored Sovereign!”

  Kastalos ignored his groveling, drawing a short breath of his cigar. “And the pursuit?”

  “Master, I took the liberty of assembling a hunt force. I composed it of two awakened master warriors leading two squadrons of mantadrake riders, and an equal number of Sandblade elites. They were dispatched as soon as we received the report of the convict’s escape. The last sending I received placed them at the northern reaches of Shimmering Dunes, bound to intercept her at Razmaw Ridge,” said Ashir, one of the ten harem slaves chosen to accompany Kastalos today.

  White silks and silver chains of a slave adorned her pale ice-blue curves. Diamonds hung from her branching horns. They complemented her well.

  Kastalos grunted in acknowledgement.

  A blush darkened Ashier’s cheeks. She suppressed a smile. “Thank you. Master.”

  Kastalos turned to Grand Warden.

  The old man shivered. “Forgiveness, honored Sovereign!”

  “Silence.” Kastalos inhaled the last of his cigar, and was pleased to notice that the noseless warden who’d offered him the first had a second one prepared. He accepted it. The warden bowed, her movements stiff. Sweat beaded beneath her bangs. With that figure and dedication, she’d have made an excellent slave to his harem, if not for the hideous disfigurement of her face. A shame.

  “Grand Warden. Your negligence shall be forgiven, when you’ve figured out how she escaped,” Kastalos said.

  Relief spread on the old man’s face. “Your mercy is truly understated, honored Sovereign. I will make it my life’s mission, and shall not rest until your will is complete.”

  “I expect nothing less.” Kastalos patted the old man’s shoulder.

  Inability to properly master his dragon-core had made the old man’s aging disgraceful. Suffering such a pitiful creature as the Grand Warden due to a misplaced sense of familial obligation had been Kastalos’ mistake. And his to amend.

  Kastalos pursed the Grand Warden’s cheeks to open his mouth, leaned in, and flooded the man’s lungs with his sparkling iridescent dragonfire. Screaming, the man choked on fire. When he fell limp, Kastalos poured vis into one of his many relics. A healing tendril of emerald dragonfire extended from the vestige embedded in the relic, fixing the man just enough that he would not perish.

  When he released his grip, the former Grand Warden collapsed. His nose and eyes leaked tears and disgrace.

  “Imprison him in the oubliette,” Kastalos said to the noseless warden. “See to it that his bondage and torture match that of the cell’s former inhabitant.”

  “Your will be done, Sovereign,” said the woman on one knee.

  His sovereign duty done, Kastalos clasped clawed hands behind his back and turned to leave. Ashir and ten of his chosen slaves trailed behind the gilded seam of his cape. Temer, whose six crimson wings formed a robe around her body, was the first of his slaves to speak. “Your permission to leave, Master. I would evaluate the remaining High Wardens and elect a successor for the Grand Warden.”

  Kastalos grunted in acknowledgement.

  “Thank you. Master.” Temer shivered, delighted to bask in his approval. Then she quickly departed.

  For her sake, Kastalos hoped the Grand Warden of her choice would fare better than his.

  He brought the dregs of his second goldleaf cigar to his lips, when Ashir suddenly stopped. Her slit bronze eyes rolled upward, black sclera filling them. Hushed ethereal voices whispered just beneath Kastalos’ senses. His dragonsoul shivered, sensing the foreign dream of an oracle pass by, whilst Ashir received a sending.

  After a flicker, her eyes rolled back down. Her pupils remained wide, her breaths shallow. She swallowed nervously.

  “Speak,” Kastalos ordered.

  “The hunt force lost track of the escapee at Deepfathom Coast. Master.”

  Deepfathom… A dread he had nigh forgotten scurried up Kastalos’ spine. He spun to face Ashir, unable to maintain a calm demeanor. “Mobilize everything we have in that region. Have every vessel searched, and the sea-floor scoured. Hire every mercenary and bounty-hunter available. Kill her by any means necessary, no matter who else has to die.”

  Ashir shivered. She seemed to realize her mistake, but not its severity. How could she?

&n
bsp; “M-master. Who is she? I was under the impression that she was a traitorous awakened master, and measured my response accordingly. If you grant me with more accurate information, I would—”

  “I gave an order.” Kastalos glanced at another oracle slave, who bowed and hurried to fulfill his earlier command. Her eyes rolled upwards as she focused her dragonsoul, sending dream messages to his faraway subjects.

  By now aware of the gravity of her error, Ashir stiffened with fear.

  Agitated, Kastalos returned the cigar to his lips, but it slipped from his fingers. Kastalos cursed. Ashir picked it up, and presented it to him, but Kastalos failed to hold it steady.

  His fingers would not cease trembling.

  “Master? Are you unwell?” Ilmiy, a dusk-blue slave with a rich, soothing voice, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  Kastalos shrugged her off. Women could not soothe him now that his worst nightmares had come to be.

  Somehow, despite every precaution to obfuscate his existence, Fei had known where he was. Why else would she have chosen to flee towards the Deepfathom Sea? If she had broken her bindings and escaped Obsidian Maze, which by all reason should’ve been inescapable without outside help, Kastalos could not discount the possibility that Fei could find a way to navigate her way to the Nameless Island. If she did, then surely the blockade would stop her. Surely.

  If not…

  If the worst case scenario came true, would the blockade be able to contain him?

  It should. He was not immortal. He was not unkillable. He was weakened, outmatched by the firepower of the battleships, and outnumbered a thousand to one by their winged warriors. All reasonable logic predicted his end. But Kastalos knew better than to hope that common logic would apply to that man.

  He knew, perhaps the best out of his fellow sovereigns, how little sway concepts such as common sense and reality held over that man, if, or rather when he decided to defy them.

  An eerie tremor passed through the air, as if the world itself had shuddered.

  Ashir, Ilmiy, and two others winced. They alone had mastered their dragon-core to awaken their dragonsoul, thus opening their senses to the faint whispers of dragongods, and beings close to such ascension.