by LJ Andrews
“What’s happening, Teagan?” I said, gently brushing my fingertips along his arms.
His eyes were pained but locked in deadly focus when glass shattered from the main floor. “I don’t know—I feel different but . . . stay here, please.”
“I can’t, it’s Konrad. He’s in trouble!”
Teagan pushed himself in front of me, a surge of power rippled between us as we abandoned Bart’s lifeless body and sneaked toward Sapphire’s office. My heart leapt out of my chest when a large bookshelf burst through the doorway and crashed in pieces along the front entry. Teagan filled the door frame, but I saw him jump backward slightly.
“What is that?” he gasped.
I peered over his shoulder, my eyes taking in every horrid thing unfolding. Sapphire’s face was turning a ghastly plum color, his skin was covered in burns and gashes, and he clutched his throat. The office was in ruin, but I saw nothing else apart from Sapphire’s dying human body desperate to draw in a new breath.
“I see nothing!” I screamed, rushing toward Sapphire though Teagan tried to stop me, his face still as pale as though he’d seen death itself. A few steps away from Konrad, something jabbed deep into my side. I shouted, clutching my ribs, the invisible force drawing my boiling blood. It was a whirlwind after that.
Teagan rushed between me and my invisible enemy. The zomok, no doubt. Teagan’s arms crackled in a hardened, scaly armor that gleamed in rich jade green. It reminded me very much of my skin when I took my wyvern form.
I couldn’t see the zomok, but Teagan wrapped his armored hands around the bulk of space hovering over Sapphire. He grunted, pulling down the invisible zomok and allowing Sapphire to gasp gratefully, filling his lungs once again with fresh air.
“Jade.” Konrad shoved me away like Teagan. “Run, now. Don’t let him find you.”
“No. No more running!”
Teagan dodged some sort of strike. He held up his forearms, and I saw the strike spark along the armor. He stumbled slightly, and though I sensed his power trembling throughout the room, he was unarmed. Teagan couldn’t do this alone.
The top of Sapphire’s desk was glass, and without a second thought I placed my hands across the surface, the heat from my energy chipping and cracking the smooth surface until it shattered into chunky shards. “Teagan, get down!”
With a fiery glance, Teagan saw my hands over the shattered glass and rushed out of the way. With a command to the powers of the air, my touch released the glass toward the empty space where Teagan had stood. A hiss from the zomok sent a chill down my spine. Glass pummeled against its body, dripping blood along the ground. Though I could not see him, now we could track him.
In an instant, green, poisonous flames erupted into a floating ball. Sapphire ripped me out of the way, preparing to sacrifice his life for mine. Teagan scrambled along the floor, his hand reaching for the place where the zomok would be standing. Everything slowed.
Sapphire shoved me out of the office.
Teagan shoved both of us aside.
I screamed when the office window smashed and a figure crouched in the frame. A woman. She gripped a curved knife. The blade gleamed with magic. Her body was covered, apart from her head, in blue gleaming hardened skin. Like the armor over Teagan’s arms, except she was protected to her neck.
Her eyes narrowed. She said nothing, gripped her knife and lunged at Teagan and the zomok.
The girl jabbed her blade, and a shrill shriek erupted through the night. A gash along an arm appeared. The knife robbed the zomok of its camouflage. The girl struck again, and I saw the side of a hooded face. Teagan’s palm wrapped tightly around the zomok’s face and shoved the creature to the ground.
“Release me!” Sapphire boomed. “Release me now. I’ll entrap him!”
I didn’t understand, but the girl whipped her head around, her steely eyes bright and alive. She abandoned Teagan, leaving him to wrestle with the half-visible beast. I gaped watching the girl traipse the office in three paces. It was strange to see her place her palms on Sapphire’s chest. “Orietur verus forma, Orietur verus forma.”
As she spoke the air in the room thickened. A voice whispered to my soul, speaking in the same dialect as the power of the willow.
When she tore her hands away, Sapphire grinned a little wickedly. Cracking his neck once, his human form peeled away.
I stared wide-eyed. Teagan stopped fighting the zomok and backed against the wall.
Sapphire’s enormous form filled out the room. Though I had so few memories, my heart missed the sleekness of his royal body. Sapphire carried himself with a regal air when his enormous blue-black wings spread wide, drawing a dim shadow over the room. His claws were the same color as his stone, rich, gleaming sapphires, and his body rippled between cerulean shimmers and rich ebony. But it was his eyes, I’d never forget those eyes. Joyful tears welled behind my own eyes when the dark flames flashed in his black crystal eyes.
“Force the snake to reveal himself,” the girl shouted across the office. She was trapped behind Sapphire’s thick, powerful tail. Her words were directed at Teagan, who’d frozen as he watched Sapphire stomp toward the bloody pool in the corner of the office.
“Touch him!” she shrieked in exasperation. “Command him. He’s not stronger than you.”
Without question, possibly because he wanted to get away from Sapphire, Teagan rushed toward the corner where the zomok bled, his palms covering the half face once more. He didn’t speak out loud but soon the form of the zomok took shape.
He’d reverted to his human form, though I yearned to see the creature in its slithering, weak shape. Sapphire would crush him.
The moment the zomok was revealed entirely, Sapphire unhinged his powerful jaws and a stream of blue flames spilled out. The girl clutched Sapphire’s tail, and power radiated between them.
Sapphire burned a circle into the wooden floor. The zomok hissed angrily from beneath his hood.
“That’s enough,” said the girl, her scaly protection slowly faded into wyvernian marks made of royal blue and shimmering silver along her skin. I marveled at her ferocity during the fight, especially when her stature seemed to get thinner and thinner.
Teagan met my eye from across the room. His marks were back as well, but I pointed to his arms. His eyes followed my finger. The marks had burned their way up toward his biceps, carving painful red lines in his skin. He looked pale, but didn’t collapse as he had the first time the writings etched into his skin.
It wasn’t long after the scorched circle imprisoned the zomok that Sapphire’s tail began shortening, his rippling muscles shaped into arms and legs. A blue cloak covered his body as his skin shifted and the fabric draped around his feet. It was strange to watch the shift of wyvern to human, but when he was back to his human shape, there was still the crystal gleam in his eyes and a new vibrancy in his skin.
Teagan wasted no time in crossing the room and pressed his body against mine, subtly pushing me away from the threat.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” I gripped his hand. “I’m fine.
“You’re trapped, serpent,” Sapphire snarled at the zomok. “How did you get here?”
The creature snarled, well, it was more of a gurgled laugh, but I hated the very sound of it. “You fools. You think you can hide away forever. You cannot even take form without the help of a girl.”
“Oh, let me slit his throat,” the girl growled, but Sapphire held up his hand.
Teagan’s arm wrapped around my waist, and I couldn’t remember when I’d ever felt safer.
Sapphire stepped forward, his shoulders heaving with adrenaline from shifting for the first time in centuries. He crossed over the scorched circle and tore back the hood.
I gasped, Teagan snarled, and the second mage giggled.
Teagan’s voice turned dark and low. “Graham!”
“He’s not Graham, Teagan,” Sapphire growled. “There never was a Graham, was there, snake?”
“I
wondered,” Graham said, his voice was different though—more drawn out, more sinister, “how I would ever escape the notice of the hidden royals. I always imagined you were incapable of being deceived, but never once did you suspect me. Pitiful. I will admit you hid your energies well; it wasn’t until he showed up and your queen found her connection that I even had an opportunity to sense you. Imagine my shock when I discovered the great Sapphire was none other than a royal in disguise.
“His face, it wasn’t Graham when I saw him first,” Teagan insisted.
“You saw his true form,” Sapphire said without taking his eyes from Graham’s black, soulless holes.
“You’re hideous, Graham,” Teagan said.
“I am a powerful zomok!” Graham screeched. “You are nothing.”
My chest tightened, and I had the fierce desire to tear the zomok’s skull from his neck.
“Powerful. You’re a slave of the lindworms.” I took a step closer to him, but Teagan tugged my hand back. “I’ll be fine. He can’t harm us now. I want to see his eyes before he dies.”
“Step back from me,” Graham hissed.
“No,” I said with a sneer. “I don’t think I will.”
My hand scorched against Graham’s face, my stronger power burning through his human skin and muscles. My touch destroyed his human form and forced the zomok’s curled, slithering body to plop into a coil in the fire circle. Zomoks had narrow heads, like a snake had been run over by a tire. Graham’s eyes were slits of orange, and sharp needle-like teeth bared over his flat lips. His skin was a putrid sort of puce, and he looked sickly in his spineless body.
“There, that’s better,” I said. “Konrad, are you going to do the honors? I cannot take my form, and we certainly can’t have him slithering back to his pit.”
The zomok snarled and snapped his jaws, speaking in the lindworm tongue. I understood some, but it was too vulgar to repeat. Sapphire stepped back. “No, I think I’ll give the honor to the real hero tonight. Agatha, please rid the world of this beast.”
The girl smiled, and I noticed the space between her teeth for the first time. Wielding her gleaming knife once more, she stepped forward, patting Sapphire’s shoulder. “Funny, but I hate that name now, Kon.” Her attention turned toward the zomok as she whirled her knife a full turn with a dark smirk on her lips. “You may have discovered the royals, but you missed the mage.”
Through a hiss and a growl, Agatha slashed the head clean off the serpent dragon. His rank blood burned my nostrils as remnants of his pyre escaped with his last breath of life.
Sapphire wrapped his arm around the mage’s shoulder. “Well done. Where have you been? I haven’t sensed you at all. I thought you were dead.”
“Dead! Kon, you left me, remember?”
“Left you? You were there, I didn’t want to leave, but we were forced to leave you. By the mage!”
The mage blew out her lips. “So, because you didn’t see me, you automatically assume I’m dead? Come now, who do you think I am?”
“I didn’t think you’d ever survive without me.” He winked when her face turned red.
“I’m holding a knife, Konrad.”
Sapphire laughed, but it faded when his eyes turned to Teagan. “Perhaps we should reacquaint later.”
Teagan leaned against the wall, his hands rubbing his shoulders and biceps. I placed a hand on his chest when he seemed ready to tip over. His face was white as the moon, but he stood straighter at my touch.
“It will pass,” Agatha said, checking his marks. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Come with me, Teagan,” Sapphire said. “I think we have some things to explain.”
I had a thousand questions as well, but clamped my jaw tight. Sapphire nodded at me, allowing the mage to lead the way as he wrapped an arm around Teagan’s shoulders and helped steady him to the sofas. I drifted to the stairs where Bart lay dead. Gently, I passed my hands over his body, smiling at his positive soul that had remained nearby.
It wasn’t difficult to care for the dead, in fact it was one of my most cherished gifts. I enjoyed saying farewell to those true in heart who fell. Bart’s human body dissolved into nothing but pure goodness as I demanded my powers to free him from this wretched state. I cupped my hands, whispered my prayer of release, and watched the glow of his life fade away, leaving the stairs empty of any gore and blood.
Teagan was seated on the sofa—silent and tense.
He looked to me when I entered the room, and an overwhelming need to ease his burden gathered in my belly. Was the sensation the same for him?
Agatha was perched on top of the piano against the wall, and Sapphire took a place in one of the wing-backed chairs, his eyes softer as he gave pause for me to situate next to Teagan. I clasped his fingers tightly, and I heard him draw in a new breath, his face adding more color now.
“You,” Teagan muttered after a few moments, his gaze drifted toward the girl. “You’re Mini. You sent me to those . . . those dragon stones.”
“You’ve met?” Sapphire said, surprised.
She smiled. “Yes, I did. I saw your marks. I thought I was the only mage left in the area. I also got a sense you have no idea what you are and what you’re capable of. If you found the stones, then our powers wanted you to find them. Not all mages will, so that makes your mystery all the more intriguing.”
“You’re Sapphire’s . . . mage,” Teagan whispered, daring to glance at Konrad.
“Observant, this one.” She curled her legs beneath her on the piano. Her voice low and raw. “First things first. I think we need to ask you a few questions, Teagan. Why do you suppose you have the jade armor? Everyone knows that bloodline died off during the war. I think you have some explaining to do, or we may find you a threat, just like that headless snake back there. So, start talking.”
Chapter 17
Konrad studied Teagan with a level of caution that I didn’t appreciate. I could easily sense his hesitation to trust the man who’d tried to stand between me and the serpent, but it was Mini, or Agatha, or whoever she was, who caused my neck to prickle with heat.
She leapt from the piano, standing in front of Teagan, eyes narrowed.
Teagan slouched, his hair damp on his forehead. The marks on his arms were red and swollen. When Mini leaned in I stood, jaw tight.
The mage met my gaze and scoffed.
“We need to ask some difficult questions, princess,” she muttered—a little disrespectfully—but Sapphire didn’t seem surprised at her tone.
“You want to accuse him of something, mage?” I snapped.
“Mini will do.”
“See now what changed?” Sapphire said with a pout. “For decades you gave me more trouble for making up that name.”
“It grew on me after the divide,” Mini said, eyes still on me. “I am not accusing him of anything. But I damn well want to know where he’s been hiding and how he’s connected to the jade armor.”
“He won’t know—” I began, but stopped when Teagan gently tugged against my hand.
“It’s okay.” He looked at the sapphire mage. “We know I have nothing to hide.”
Relenting, I returned to his side but kept my hand protectively on his knee as though I’d be ready to pounce at the slightest threat.
Mini paced in front of him. “Where have you been?”
“I’m from Hamilton,” Teagan said simply.
“I mean who has been schooling you? Training you? Who’s your grandmaster?”
Teagan chuckled darkly. “I’ve been living with my Aunt Liz and a house full of defective kids in the Glacier Magis District. I was arrested for drinking and driving with a wolvyn and a pixie, so if that’s what you call schooling, or my grandmaster, I’m not impressed.”
“It’s not possible.”
“Jade showed me that mage book—I know you all think I’m this hidden mage, or a traitor here to hurt Jade, but I don’t know how else to prove it to you that I have no idea what’s happening. I never knew an
ything like this existed. Dragons and mages have always been dead to me.” Teagan took a deep breath when Mini softened her expression and listened. “I wouldn’t harm Jade, or anyone. You want to ask me questions, but you won’t get any answers. I’m the one who has questions. I’m the one who feels like my body is on fire right now. I’m the one who feels like I’m losing my mind, and no one apart from Jade has tried to explain anything. You want to know who I am, well, so do I!”
Mini sighed, rolling her knife back and forth between her hands. I caught a shout from the upstairs and growled. Sapphire nodded toward me, and without effort I placed a shield over the other reforms’ eyes and ears. Holding Teagan’s hand only strengthened my ability to bend the mind. If a reform walked into this room, all they would see was Sapphire, no zomok corpse, no broken glass, just a pleasant morning and their counselor.
Mini settled on the coffee table directly in front of Teagan. Her blue marks on her skin still pulsed with energy. The mage armor was fascinating and unique, but it didn’t speak the same language as Teagan’s marks. Mini’s spoke of cunning, and swiftness, Teagan’s was of strength and valor.
The armor stretched along her arms and finished just below her jawline. She had no new armor adding to her skin, only Teagan’s was spreading.
“He did find the mage sanctuary I made, Kon,” Mini said.
“Mage sanctuary?” I asked.
“Those stones,” Teagan whispered, his eyes on Mini also. “That’s what it was, right?”
Mini nodded. “When I saw you on the road—which is protected by powerful warding, by the way—I knew you were lost in more than one way. The jade color was a mystery and quite a surprise to me, especially since I didn’t suspect any sinister energy. So, my best bet was to send you toward the sanctuary. If you had broken the bond of protection against an elemental the sanctuary would never have shown itself to you—in fact, you probably would have been killed. Don’t mess with the bonds; our power doesn’t appreciate it.”
