Dragon Speaker

by Mugdan Elana A.

  “Don’t take it out on him if you’re feeling sorry for yourself,” said Keriya.

  “Oh, I haven’t begun to feel sorry for myself. Don’t get me started on what a bad decision this was, because I could go on all night.”

  Fletcher didn’t have the strength to mediate between them anymore. He stuffed his fingers in his ears, trying to blot out their voices.

  “If it was such a huge mistake, why did you come?”

  “My father would have killed me if I’d gone back. There was no choice!”

  “There is always a choice,” Keriya countered authoritatively, crossing her arms. “Go back now if you’re so unhappy.”

  “Maybe I will!” And with that, Roxanne stood and stormed off.

  “You couldn’t be nice,” said Fletcher. “You had to drive her away. She’s the only one of us who can use magic properly.”

  “Don’t worry, Fletch. I’ll get us over the mountains—”

  “Keriya, stop! There’s nothing out there. We’re alone. We left our home, our families . . .” He trailed off as a coldness spread through his chest. “We can never go back. We’ll never see them again.”

  “Why are you upset? You didn’t like your family.”

  “I know,” he murmured. Neither Asher nor his mother had ever given him the support he needed. It was foolish for his heart to ache for people who would have happily thrown him to the wolfcats. “But I loved them.”

  Keriya stared at him, her eyes catching reflections of phantom lights. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault you had to leave.”

  Fletcher scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “Well, I couldn’t leave you to fend for yourself in the mountains, could I?”

  The echo of Keriya’s words to him during the Ceremony of Choice brought a tiny smile to her face. It softened her gaze, making her seem like her old self.

  “We’ll be okay as long as we stick together,” she said stoutly.

  Fletcher drew up his knees, hugging them to his chest. “Right,” he said, with more conviction than he felt.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Come not between the dragon and her wrath.”

  ~ Rheenaraion Proverb

  Roxanne stomped through a patch of pebbles. Stupid Keriya Nameless, she fumed. What choice did she think I had?

  She’d had to choose between climbing the deadly mountains or staying in Aeria with a mob of raving villagers—some great choice that was. Though it had been a choice. She had left willingly. That said something.

  Look on the bright side, Roxanne thought, massaging her temples to ease the headache that had been plaguing her. He can’t hurt me anymore.

  Running from her father was the first choice she’d ever made alone. Whether it had been right or wrong didn’t matter. It had been hers.

  That revelation calmed her, and she decided she’d return to the campsite. She turned and a wave of dizziness overtook her. Bright spots winked across her vision.

  “Get a grip,” she told herself, swaying on the spot.

  As Roxanne ventured back to camp, her knees went weak. With another step her legs gave out, sending her tumbling to the ground. The pain in her head spiked, and for the briefest of moments, she imagined she was high in the air, circling the rugged peaks.

  The image vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving her breathless and shivering. Fine time to start seeing things. Why couldn’t that have happened during the Ceremony of Choice?

  “It’s okay. Just a hallucination,” she whispered, though if she was ill enough to hallucinate, that was hardly comforting. This must be a side effect of the altitude.

  Trying to shake the horrible, nagging idea that her vision had been real, she hurried through the maze of boulders to Keriya and Fletcher. Keriya began to say something that sounded like it might be an apology.

  “We should find cover,” Roxanne interrupted.

  Fletcher frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “I thought I saw something,” said Roxanne, gesturing vaguely behind her.

  “Something like what?” said Keriya.

  “Does it matter? Everything in these mountains is dangerous. If it’s not a wolfcat, it’ll be a snow bear, or a wild boar, or—”

  A far-off, grating screech interrupted Roxanne. It was a sound every Aerian knew and feared.

  “Or a drachvold,” Fletcher finished in a haunted voice.

  Roxanne’s stomach twisted. The suspicion that her hallucination had been more than a mere hallucination resurfaced and solidified.

  The three of them scrambled beneath a rocky overhang as the thud of the creature’s wings grew audible.

  “Stay still,” Roxanne breathed, flattening herself against the cold face of the mountain. “They’re attracted to movement.”

  Fletcher ducked his head. Keriya shifted her weight to crouch in front of him protectively, and Roxanne’s opinion of the pale girl rose a fraction.

  With another piercing wail, the drachvold emerged through the fog. It was massive, three heights long including its barbed, reedlike tail. Powerful chest muscles flexed beneath its stubby neck; equally strong hind legs were curled against its round belly. Slitted nostrils flared at the end of a short snout, and its bulbous yellow eyes flashed as it scanned the slope.

  It passed their overhang and Roxanne believed they’d avoided disaster. Then it banked and spotted them.

  With a bloodcurdling cry that revealed a thick tongue in a toothless mouth, it circled around. Its stomach convulsed, rippling grotesquely, and it spat a sickly green liquid at them. Roxanne leapt into the open as the rock above her bubbled and boiled, melted by the drachvold’s stomach acid.

  Quick as a flash, she embraced her internal mine of magic. Usually she loved connecting with her power, but now, exhausted and sick, she felt the drain as she siphoned energy from her body and directed it into the mountainside. Magic was not an infinite resource—it was a life function that required good health to use effectively.

  “Stop,” Fletcher cried as she manipulated a boulder into the air. “The rocks are too unstable!”

  As if to illustrate his point, the drachvold dove and landed heavily in front of them, causing loose stones to shake and tumble downhill. Its long toes splayed across the ground, each tipped with a sucker pad to help it balance.

  Roxanne ignored Fletcher and prepared to attack, but Keriya beat her to it. She rushed the drachvold, forcing Roxanne to drop her spell. The boulder crashed to the ground and she felt an uncomfortable pinch in her chest as she abruptly severed her connection to her magic.

  Keriya hurled something at the drachvold. Was she throwing rocks?! The drachvold hissed and retched again, ready to strike.

  “No!” Roxanne screamed. She squeezed her eyes shut and tossed up her hands in a vain attempt to protect herself from the spray of deadly acid.

  But it didn’t come.

  Daring to peek through her dark lashes, Roxanne saw that through some miracle, the drachvold seemed to have choked and couldn’t spray them. With its strongest weapon disabled, it retreated. It cast Roxanne a baleful glare, snapped its toothless jaws in a show of aggression, and leapt into the air with one mighty flap of its wings.

  Roxanne waited until it had vanished before rounding on Keriya. “Are you crazy?”

  “I had to do something,” said Keriya.

  “I was taking care of it,” Roxanne grated. “Throwing rocks wouldn’t have done any good.”

  “Why not? That’s basically all you do with your magic, isn’t it?”

  “Enough!” said Fletcher. He was trembling from head to toe. “We need to find a proper hiding spot, because I don’t want to be here when it comes back.”

  In a huff, he started to climb again. Keriya joined him and Roxanne trailed in the rear. Not a word of thanks for warning them and saving their lives. Ingrates.

  It wasn�
�t long before a fierce wind rose, bringing with it a billowing snowstorm. The conditions were too hazardous for climbing, but if they stopped before finding stable shelter, they’d freeze to death.

  As Roxanne climbed over a ledge, she slipped on a patch of black ice. With a scream, she slid downhill and smacked into a boulder.

  The cold sank its agonizing claws into her at once. The sweat that had formed on her brow turned to ice, making her feverish. She tried to rise, but the impact felt like it had broken half the bones in her body. Somewhere far away, she heard Keriya and Fletcher calling for her.

  “Over here,” she managed feebly.

  She waited—how long, she couldn’t say—until they found her. Keriya’s lips were blue and her face was so white that she practically blended into the blizzard. Fletcher had a nasty gash on his brow. He was talking, but Roxanne couldn’t understand him. There was a ringing in her ears and everything was going dark.

  She closed her eyes and knew no more.

  Keriya gazed hopelessly at her companions. By now they’d both succumbed to the cold. She tried to shove Fletcher’s body toward a rock to protect him from the storm, but she was too weak. She huddled next to him to keep him warm. She could save him. She had to.

  The cold dragged her into a frigid slumber, and part of her believed the dreams that ran through her mind were real. First the Aerians followed her into the mountains and burned her alive for being a witch. Then she was walking across a barren plain next to a dark-haired man with strange blue eyes—a Prince Charming that Keriya had invented for herself, like the ones in her storybooks. Next she was lying naked and beaten on the edge of a cliff, and Shivnath was standing above her, telling her she’d failed.

  That last image was disturbing enough to jolt Keriya awake. She blinked as her senses returned, wondering if she wasn’t still dreaming. A cluster of glowing mushrooms illuminated her surroundings, revealing a small and wonderfully warm cave.

  A soft noise drew her attention to the far side of the grotto. There, a few hands away, Fletcher and Roxanne lay nestled on a lush blanket of springy moss.

  “Fletcher,” she gasped. “Hey! Wake up!”

  Despite her best efforts to rouse him, he didn’t stir. He and Roxanne appeared healthy—the injuries they’d sustained while climbing the mountain had vanished—but they remained in a deep slumber, no matter how much Keriya yelled or how hard she shook them.

  She had to find help. Keriya crawled across the cave toward a narrow egress and emerged into an enormous cavern. The rock walls were peppered with shards of tiny gemstones—they glittered like stardust in the glow of a soft, bright light streaming through an opening across from her. Ancient, gnarled vines twisted through crannies and crevices. Stalactites and stalagmites jutted like fangs.

  And there, reclining on a granite ledge, was Shivnath.

  “Leaving so soon?” Her voice, deep and feminine, hummed in the air, and her eyes pulled Keriya into their endless depths.

  “Um . . . hello,” said Keriya. “So, where are we this time? Not dead, right?”

  “This is Argos Moor, my home. You’re alive because I took it upon myself to save you. I nearly broke the binding laws doing so—bringing along an entourage was not part of our agreement.”

  “Sorry,” Keriya mumbled. “It just sort of happened.”

  The two stared at each other, Shivnath immobile, Keriya fidgeting. She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask.

  “I was wondering,” she began awkwardly. “How am I supposed to find Necrovar?”

  “The easiest way is to go to the Rift,” said Shivnath. “That is where Necrovar has torn the threads of the spell that separates the Etherworld from Selaras.”

  “I see,” said Keriya. “And, ah . . . how am I supposed to find the Rift?”

  “The Rift is a rip in spacetime, a gateway to a parallel universe,” Shivnath said unhelpfully. “The widest part of it, where you may step through to the Etherworld, is in the southern part of the Fironem atop Mount Arax.”

  Keriya didn’t want to look stupid in front of Shivnath, so she nodded, pretending to understand. She figured she’d be able to ask directions once she reached Allentria, so she shifted her focus to more pressing matters.

  “I assume I’ll have to use your magic to kill Necrovar, right?”

  Shivnath blinked, her face as impassive as an uncut emerald.

  “Sorry,” Keriya said again, “it’s just—well, I’ve never used magic before, so . . . how do I do it?”

  “This is already an encroachment of the rules that bind me, so I cannot answer your question in a way that will satisfy you. All I can tell you is that wielding magic is the most natural thing in the world.”

  Keriya scowled. She appreciated that Shivnath had restrictions on what she was allowed to reveal, but how hard would it be to offer a few pointers?

  “Fine, one more question,” said Keriya, sensing the god’s patience was running thin. “Why did you change the color of my eyes?”

  “The magic I placed within you manifests in strange ways. Your eyes are simply an unfortunate side effect.”

  That answer was disappointingly dull.

  Shivnath rose to her feet and turned. “I have business to attend to. I will provide food and water for you, so you needn’t wander while I’m gone.”

  “What business?” Keriya asked, trailing in Shivnath’s wake as the dragon plodded toward the white light shafting through the mouth of her cave.

  “That is none of your concern.” Shivnath spread her wings, and the chamber was washed in green as the glow filtered through the translucent skin stretching between her bat-like fingers. She leapt into the unknown and was swallowed by the mysterious brightness beyond.

  Keriya followed, but the moment she crossed the cave’s threshold, the warmth vanished. She staggered as a blast of icy air slapped her and the world came sharply into focus. A blizzard was raging outside, but some manner of enchantment prevented it from entering the god’s lair.

  She darted into the shelter of the cave. How long would she have to wait until Shivnath returned? What could she do in the meantime? Her hobbies in Aeria had consisted of reading, studying with Erasmus, and exploring—but Shivnath had forbidden her to explore.

  “Although she probably won’t be back for a while. I could just look. I wouldn’t touch anything,” she explained to a nearby stalagmite. The stalagmite said nothing to dissuade her, so she squared her shoulders and headed for a tunnel that led into the depths of—what had Shivnath called her mountain?—Argos Moor.

  The winding passage split about twenty heights in. Keriya peered down the left fork and saw a cave with a rock basin rising out of the ground, from which shone a cold, silver light.

  Though she wanted to investigate, a warmer golden light from the right tunnel snagged her attention. She rounded a bend in the passageway to discover a cavern filled with mounds of sparkling things. She stooped beside a wooden chest overflowing with gleaming treasures and examined a round item. It was heavy and oddly soft.

  Keriya spotted another chest that held an assortment of books, and she raced to it. Her spirits sank when she saw the books were written in strange runes. She looked through them anyway, placing her hand on each one with delicate reverence, as if touching them would unveil their secrets. Moving a heavy tome aside, she saw familiar letters on a ragged clump of vellum pages strung together with a thin cord.

  She gingerly extracted the book and leafed through it. The handwritten runes were Aerian, but the text was in the ancient tongue. Erasmus had only taught Keriya the basics of the old language, for basics were all anyone knew of it, but one passage caught her eye:

  . . . she called me ‘Soulstar,’ for she, above all others, understood the light inside me. I had no family name, nor land of birth to mark me; even my given name, the only remnant of my lost past, seemed unsuited in a way I could no
t explain. But ‘Soulstar’ always sounded right when she spoke it, befit for the great hero I had become.

  “Soulstar,” Keriya whispered. It felt good to read. It calmed a part of her that had been snarled with anxiety ever since she’d entered the Felwood for the Ceremony of Choice.

  Nothing else jumped out at her until she reached the end of the book, where a poem had been scratched onto the last tattered page. Some of its vocabulary was beyond her, but the first few lines were fascinating:

  Flesh into sword, bone into blade,

  Magic and blood and legend are made.

  Eternity binds only those who are dead,

  But thence from this spell shall I rise once again.

  The words echoed in Keriya’s head as clearly as if someone had spoken them aloud. They thrummed in her brain, pulsing like a heartbeat. Whoever the author was, he had been powerful—powerful enough to bring himself back from the dead, if she had it right. Surely he was someone who rivaled Shivnath in terms of magical strength. No wonder she’d kept his book.

  Keriya shivered and carefully returned the vellum tome to its resting place. She next spied an arrangement of smooth rocks half-hidden near the back of the cave. They surrounded the cracked remains of an eggshell, gray with age. Could this be Shivnath’s nest?

  On closer inspection, Keriya decided the nest was too small for the god. Perhaps it belonged to another dragon. But that couldn’t be; weren’t all the other dragons gone?

  “Yes. They were imprisoned in the Etherworld with Necrovar.”

  Keriya yelped and spun around. Shivnath loomed behind her, seemingly unsurprised to find Keriya there.

  “I’m sorry,” Keriya stammered. “I wanted to know more about you. I had some questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for instance . . . how come you weren’t imprisoned, too?”

  “I am the Allentrian guardian of earthmagic. I am not a creature of light, as the dragons are. When Necrovar was banished from Selaras, a magic equal and opposite to his had to be removed to preserve the balance. Thus, when the Shadow Lord’s legions of darkness were imprisoned, the dragons were, too.”