Child of the Dragon Prophecy
Page 28
Dalton moved closer to her, running his fingers through his hair. “They’re following your magic trace. The man from my dream told me they were planning an attack on the village. That’s why I met you out here.”
“My magic trace? What exactly is that?”
Dalton’s eyes narrowed. “Not now, Stephania.”
An angry and frustrated energy instantly permeated the air.
“Seriously? They’re hunting me because of my trace, and you won’t tell me what it is?” She turned to him, her eyes flashing angrily.
“It’ll just make it worse, Stephania. Not only that, but we don’t have the luxury of time. You have to trust me. You can’t know everything.”
“Trust you?” Her voice rose to a high, breathy pitch. “Gods of all, Dalton, I trusted you my whole life, and you did nothing but lie to me! What reason do I have to trust you?”
A stab of pain filled his eyes and his shoulders sank.
When she saw his hurt reaction, she regretted her words. She had let her mouth run away from herself again, but it was hard not to. Her whole world had been turned upside-down. She couldn’t tell truth from lies anymore.
He opened his mouth to answer, his eyes begging to explain, but his voice was drowned out by the screams of the Etas that tore violently through the forest. The screeching, mixed with the terrifying thunder of running beasts and the flurry of wings, exploded all around them. It was almost deafening. The trees bent and cracked, moving closer together. Snapping wood joined in the noise as the Etas desperately tried to break through the barrier, but in vain. The trees were protecting the Duvarharians.
Stephania gasped in awe. Could something so wonderful, so magical really happen? Before she could appreciate the situation any more, a piercing pain tore through her mind. Something was tugging her, pulling her toward the Etas. It was weak, but so was she. She groaned, dropping her weapon, and clutched her chest. “Dalton.”
He caught her just as she collapsed, and he laid her gently on the ground. She twitched, convulsing at whatever was trying to control her. A second consciousness wrestled at the end of hers. She fought against it, repulsed by the fact that it was reaching out to her. It pierced through her wall and dove into her mind, tearing through her memories and visions.
She screamed.
“Curse the gods!” He muttered spells over her. “Not again. Please not again.” Brown magic twined from his hands and covered her, creating a shield around her.
Images of a man and woman holding her flashed before her. Their faces were a blur. She saw a mountain range and a glowing white palace. Brown sparks swirled around her, and the evil consciousness fled from her, leaving chaos in its wake. She sat up, gasping.
§
“Dase, źebu,” she moaned, as she looked frantically around her. By the glazed look in her eyes, Dalton knew she wasn’t seeing what was actually around her. She was trapped in another vision. By the words she had just spoken, the Duvarharian words for ‘father’ and ‘mother’, he guessed it had something to do with her parents.
He held her hand in his fatherly embrace and cradled her to his chest as she sobbed, shaking her head and moaning in pain and anguish.
After a long time, the rushing beasts around them faded into the distance, and her crying stopped as she fell asleep in his arms.
“If only there was some way I could help you.” Tears sparkled in his eyes as he smoothed her soft hair, gently rocking her in his lap. “Just hold on for a little longer. Artigal will help you. He’ll know how to heal you. He’ll know how to protect you.” His heart sank into despair. Tears filled his eyes. Unlike me.
He held her for a while longer, letting his tears fall unashamedly from his face. Then he packed up their little camp, using the slightest touch of magic to light the map he was reading.
“Where are we?”
Stephania’s groggy voice startled Dalton, and he quickly shifted his position so she could sit beside him.
§
Her head throbbed. She felt only fear. She couldn’t remember the things she had just seen. The last trails of the vision had all disappeared from her grasp. She did, however, remember terror and death. A lump rose in her throat. She could see the worry in Dalton’s eyes, but she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what had happened. The evil consciousness had left her feeling exposed, naked, raw. Her mind felt ravished—a strange, dirty feeling she wished she hadn’t endured and would never have to endure again.
“I think we’re here.” He pointed to an obscure place on the map. “And that—” he said, as he drew an invisible line across the entire map to the top left quadrant, “is the Dragon Palace.” Just above his finger was a minuscule drawn representation of the Dragon Palace. His worried gaze flickered across her face, and she quickly looked away, biting her lip against the tears. She knew he wanted to ask if she was alright, and she wanted him to; she almost let him. But before she could, she slipped behind the mask of false wellness she had gotten so used to wearing.
“Gods of all. We have to travel all that way?”
“Mm-hm.”
She sighed heavily and frowned. It’s so much farther than I would have thought. Or wanted. Her eyes lingered on a particularly imposing mountain range called the Filate Mountains. She recalled Dalton saying they were the steepest ranges in Ventronovia. By surveying the map, she concluded they would have to travel over them or spend years bypassing them. She had been looking forward to the adventure, but with that distance, and the obstacles that stood between them and Duvarharia, she wasn’t sure if it would be so enjoyable.
She stood, feeling much too anxious to sit still, and paced the dark circle of trees they were trapped in. Her hand subconsciously ran across the branches that enclosed them. She turned her thoughts to anything but the wretched illness the evil presence had left in her. “How are we going to get out of here?”
Dalton stood beside her, having just finished packing their horses. “I don’t know. The forest decided to protect us, so I guess it’s up to the forest to decide when to let us go.”
Well, that doesn’t make any sense. She pursed her lips. “But how would it know to protect us? I mean, shouldn’t it be impossible for it to know who we are? And why should it even care about us?”
Dalton studied her eyes. “Yes, it should be impossible, or the forest should be, at least, indifferent to us. Unless … unless we have something that belongs to it that it wants to protect.”
She frowned as a memory flashed before her. “You must take this, Stephania, as a token of our allegiance.”
“The lyre,” she whispered with wide eyes. “It’s protecting the lyre. It must be.”
She moved slowly, entranced by the sensation that the forest was pulling her to the instrument. Her fingers slipped open the satchel’s straps and pulled the flap aside. She dragged out the neatly folded blanket. The curve of the lyre shaped the fabric. A shudder ran down her spine. Slowly, she lifted the edges of the wrapping until it slipped free and fell to the ground. The cold instrument rested delicately in her hand, its eerie, green light illuminating the forest around them.
Dalton took in a sharp breath, his eyes wide at the sight of the legendary instrument. Despite the fact that Nemeth had spoken of it to him before she died, he hadn’t believed its existence until now.
“The Zelauwgugey.”
“The what?”
Dalton moved to her side, his eyes fixed on the magnificent instrument. “The Zelauwgugey. That is the lyre’s name—Forest Essence. It’s supposed to contain the life of the forest. I didn’t believe it existed. It was thought to have disappeared along with the last Fauns and all of the forest children. I had sensed that you were carrying something foreign and powerful, but I hadn’t been able to find it. It seems it is only physically visible to the holder, unless the holder is touching it. Then others can see it as well. Fascinating.”
Before she could respond, he eyed her with suspicion. “How did you come to find this?”
“Given to you?”
She nodded. “By a Faun, I think.”
“Incredible.” His eyes flashed with hungry excitement. “So she hadn’t been completely delusional. She did have a son, and somehow, they both escaped the Sleeping.”
Stephania frowned. “What do you mean?”
His eyes flashed, meeting hers briefly before shifting his gaze to the forest. “I was just remembering something Nemeth told me a long time ago, about the forest.”
“What about it?”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m still not fully sure. It’s all … confusing.” A heavy sigh escaped from his lips. “I’ll tell you when I find out more about it. But until then, it’s just rumors, dying words, and a few lost ballads.”
She shrugged, disappointed that he wouldn’t tell her more, but also feeling a little too tired to pry any more confusing information out of him.
For a few minutes, they did nothing but stare at the lyre in amazement and bafflement before Stephania shook herself back to reality.
“So, now what?”
Just as Dalton shrugged, and opened his mouth to answer, the forest creaked and moaned around them. The branches shifted and moved until a tightly woven tunnel appeared before them, stretching into the dark distance.
Dalton and Stephania looked at each other, their mouths gaping open in awe.
“I guess we follow the forest.”
§
“How long do you think we have to keep walking through here like this?” Stephania wiped her forehead before taking a drink of water. Braken stamped his hoof, and she swatted him away as he sniffed her pouch for treats.
Dalton had suggested walking for a while to give the horses a break, but he could tell Stephania was quickly tiring of the seemingly never-ending walk.
He looked up at the seemingly eternal canopy of branches and leaves. If it weren’t for his magic, which showed him they were still moving forward, he could have sworn they were going in circles. “I don’t know. That is for the forest to decide.” His own horse, a dappled gray gelding named Austin, was becoming more anxious and claustrophobic in the tight space. Dalton wondered how long it would be before it would be dangerous to be in such small quarters with two large beasts.
“Well, curse this forest.” She shot a scathing look at the instrument in her hands, but its glowing green light neither dimmed nor wavered, and the forest didn’t so much as sigh in return.
A small smile crept up on Dalton’s face as he watched Stephania. She reminded him so much of Drox, with his headstrong, impatient ways. Andromeda had always been gentle and levelheaded, always careful to think things through. Though Stephania had inherited her mother’s ability to overthink even the smallest, unimportant details, it seemed the girl had not a trace of the Lady’s patience.
“What if we’re just going in circles? I mean, how can we trust the forest? It’s not like we,”—she pursed her lips, looking for the right word—“know it.”
He bit back his laughter and held his hand out in front of him. A brown, swirling, transparent compass formed out of smoke-like shimmering magic, the arrow pointing just barely north-west. “We’re still moving in a consistent direction. Where that is leading us, however, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
She snapped her head around just in time to see the magic compass before he dissolved it.
“You’re using magic.” Her face contorted in an array of emotion, chief of which was frustration.
“Yes, I am.” He stared calmly back, but the fire in her eyes had yet to go out.
“And what about your magic trace, Dalton?” Her voice had a sharp bite to it, as if she were trying to pick a fight. He winced.
Ever since she had started carrying the lyre, it had, along with the frustratingly dark and small tunnel, begun to weigh on her, making her extremely moody and grouchy.
Their patience and composure were wearing thin.
“I, unlike you, Stephania, can control my magic trace and cover it up.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Then teach me.”
“No.”
“Why not? Because somehow covering my magic trace would make my magic trace bigger? How stupid is that? This whole magic stuff is so ridiculous.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. She feverishly twirled a lock of her hair around her finger, ignoring the knots that were forming. Her eyes darted from side to side as her jaw worked against itself. Her eyes shone with a challenge.
Dalton bit back his stinging response, his hands balling into fists. “Yes, that is exactly what would happen. While I taught you, your magic trace would still be imprinting itself all over this land. That would only endanger the villagers. Not only that, but the Etas aren’t following my trace. They’re following yours. It’s you they want. Not me.”
“Curse those villagers,” she hissed under her breath. “What if you covered my trace for me as I learned?”
He wanted to. He wanted to teach her so many things, but it was pointless to try.
“I can’t, Stephania. That’s not how that works.”
“Then at least tell me how it works!” Her Shalnoa, the markings on her hands and neck, were starting to flare up due to her anger.
“I can’t.” His voice was flat. So this is what Artigal had been fighting against when she lived with the Centaurs. The Igentis had thought it best to teach her, but in doing even that small act, he had awoken the magic within her. It was impossible to win. It was impossible to both keep her safe and to let her understand.
“Why not? Because you just want another thing to hold over my head? Is that why you never tell me anything? Because you want to have some sort of control over me?” Her voice quavered with emotion. “Why is it so hard for people to tell me what’s going on? Why do I always have to live in the dark? Why does all this have to be so confusing? I’m sick of having no control. It’s my life, after all, isn’t it?”
“I just can’t.” His own voice was choking with uncertainty. “Okay? Please just trust me. Please.”
“No!” She furiously wiped away her tears.
He stepped back, shock and hurt painted on his face.
“I don’t know if I can trust you anymore! What don’t I remember? How can I trust someone who let my life and memories be taken from me?”
Her fists rested at her sides, but she looked as wired as a caged animal. “You’ve never done anything to help me! What if you stole my memories from me because you’re the one who killed my parents? What if—” Fear flashed through her eyes as she took in a sharp breath. “What if you’re Thaddeus?” The tears streamed down her face. Her voice was a bare whisper. “How do I know?”
Her words hit him like a spiked mace. He felt his heart shatter. No. No. No. What could he say to still her fear? “I never did anything to help you? Do you really think I could be Thaddeus? Please tell me you don’t believe that.”
She tried rubbing the tears from her eyes, but they only grew thicker. She hiccupped. He could see the regret crash over her as she looked into his face and saw the hurt and anguish there.
His voice was quiet.
“I raised you, even though I didn’t have to. I kept all of the villagers from murdering you from the first moment they met you. You have no idea what I have sacrificed for you. No idea! You think you’re suddenly so grown up and entitled just because you found out that you are a Dragon Rider and because your parents were Lord and Lady of the Dragon Palace, but that’s not how it works.”
Tears drew rivers down his cheeks, catching in his stubble and wetting his shirt.
“You think that life is just so easy because you suddenly have magic or that any little thing is possible because we’re Duvarharian. We’re not gods, Stephania.” He took a few deep breaths. “And you know what, you may be some sort of heir to an ancient throne, but you are nowhere near
being their leader. You are still a child. You are still my niece, blood relation or not. I love you like my own. I always have, and I always will. I wish you would remember that.”
She bit her lip, choking on her breath. She averted her eyes from his, her nails digging into her palms.
“Everything I have done, all the secrets I kept, no matter how painful for either of us, I only did to protect you. You can hate me for it. But it won’t change that what I did was right, and Artigal too. And it will never change that I love you.”
She wept, covering her face. “Oh gods,” she whispered so quietly he could barely hear. “Why does everything I do have to end in suffering?”
Dalton clenched his jaw and shook his head, brushing the tears away from his eyes. He didn’t know what to say to her. He tried to dispel the knot in his stomach, but it remained. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to say how sorry he was, to tell her he loved her, but she seemed so far away. It was like her mask had turned into a castle. She seemed far beyond his reach. He stood in silence, feeling so alone. Finally, he spoke. “Come on. We have to keep moving.”
She didn’t move but instead wiped her tears from her face and sniffed loudly. “Yeah.” Rubbing her arms and grinding her teeth, she bit her lip to stop the fresh wave of tears. Her shoulders slumped, and the disappointment in her eyes stabbed his heart. “Okay.”
Just as she pulled herself together, the forest creaked and moaned around them once again, shifting its branches in a whirlwind of brown and green.
Stephania gasped.
They were standing in a clearing at the top of a small mountain, looking down at a valley. He recognized the valley and the town that was at its center: New-Fars.
“Gods of all.” Dalton stumbled and fell to his knees, his heart slamming against his chest, dread sinking heavily inside him.
“What—” Stephania quickly made her way to his side and followed his gaze.
Their house and training arena were lit up as flames violently tore them apart, turning the buildings and all their belongings to ash.
Stephania sank to the ground, trembling uncontrollably. “Oh, gods.”