“This way.” Keriya strode down the Noryk-bound tunnel, her footsteps echoing in the vast emptiness.
The tunnel branched into smaller tributaries, and each time they reached a fork in the road, their path became narrower and darker. She found a piece of rubble coated with bioluminescent fungus and used it as a makeshift lantern. Whenever the tunnel forked, she inspected the directions carved into the walls. She had to hand it to the dwarves—they were excellent artists. Even the smallest renderings of Noryk were recognizable in the dim light of her fungus-rock.
Her anxiety faded. Somehow, against all odds, she was finding her way. She’d summoned the dragon. She would reunite with her friends in Noryk. From there, it was only a matter of time before they defeated Necrovar.
“Actions fit for the great hero I have become,” she murmured, recalling the words from the book she’d found in Shivnath’s lair. Something welled against her heart and bubbled out of her, and she laughed aloud.
“What are you doing?”
She turned to find Thorion watching her. “I was laughing.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Because I feel like I’m on the right path.”
Thorion tilted his head, his eyes roving across her face. She thought she saw something flicker deep within them.
“Can you do it again?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” she said gently. “Hopefully it will come again soon enough.”
But it didn’t, for her happiness evaporated shortly thereafter. Without the sun, it was hard to tell how much time had passed. They walked for what felt like hours. Keriya stopped when she found a small alcove where they could spend the night.
Her stomach grumbled as she lay on the cold floor. She longed for a hot meal and found herself missing Effrax and his ability to make fires.
“Do you have any provisions?” asked Thorion, reacting and responding to her thoughts in much the same way Shivnath had. Keriya shook her head. “I require sustenance.”
She wished she’d considered the issue of food before agreeing to travel through the tunnels. “I don’t suppose there’s anything around here we could eat?”
“I could eat you,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Keriya looked at him sharply. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you are large and warm-blooded, so you would provide me with a satisfactory amount of nourishment; and because you are slow and weak, without the ability to defend yourself or do me harm if I were to attack you.”
“No, I mean, why would you think it’s okay to say that?” She was appalled that the idea would occur to him.
“It makes sense.”
“It’s . . .” Keriya worked her jaw, casting around for an appropriate word. “It’s rude to eat people you’re friends with.”
Thorion’s ears quivered as he tilted his head. Likely the concepts of rudeness and friends were lost on him.
“Accepted,” he said unexpectedly. “Your usefulness alive currently outweighs your usefulness as a food source, so I won’t eat you. I will forage.”
With a flick of his tail, Thorion bounded into the darkness. Keriya scooted under a stone bench and curled into a defensive ball. Not that hiding under a bench would help if the dragon were to change his mind about turning her into his dinner.
Thorion returned with his stomach sagging. Presumably he had gorged on something she would rather not know about. A dead rat was dangling from his jaws.
“For you,” he said, dropping the rat in front of her.
“Oh! How . . . how nice.” Keriya offered Thorion a tentative smile. After a moment he smiled back, his scaly lips twitching at their corners. It was the only identifiable expression she had thus-far seen him make.
“Why’d you bring it?” she asked, figuring that his lack of emotions meant he couldn’t be thoughtful, generous, or kind.
“Wise not to allow the guide who may help free my family from the Etherworld to starve to death,” he said, settling down next to her and resting his head on her ankles.
Regardless of this wisdom, Keriya did not eat the rat.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“The distance between bravery and stupidity is measured by one’s motives.”
~ Aldelphia Alderwood, Eleventh Age
After an uncomfortable rest, Keriya and Thorion continued toward Noryk, following the dwarves’ picture directions. She wondered where the dwarves were—why was this place abandoned? She’d only ever read about dwarves in her old books, but if she were a dwarf, she would think this was a fine place to live. It was gloomy, but the architecture was beautiful.
Keriya called a halt to their journey when they reached a large hall dotted with totem poles. She was tired, hungry, cold, and she couldn’t wander the tunnels anymore.
Thorion brought her another rat. She hid it—though he wasn’t capable of being offended if she didn’t eat his gift—and fell asleep almost as soon as she lay down.
With no sun to wake her, she might have slept for days. Fatigue had seeped into her body, running bone-deep. She’d been away from the light too long, and she was in desperate need of food and fresh air.
“Keriya.”
Keriya cracked her eyes open. Thorion stood over her, a little too close for comfort.
“Yes?”
“There is a water slug nearby. It is probable it will smell us and attack, so I will attempt to kill it preemptively. In the meantime, find somewhere safe to hide.” His bronze scales flashed as he snaked his lithe body around and vanished into the darkness.
“Mm-kay,” she mumbled to the floor before lapsing into a light slumber.
“What?” she groaned, rolling over and blinking blearily.
She frowned. Thorion’s voice had a flickering quality to it, reminding her of shafts of sunlight streaming through turbulent clouds. She could hear him as clearly as if he were standing next to her, but he was nowhere in sight.
“Not yet,” she said, clambering to her feet. Several hallways stretched away from the grand chamber, one of which was emitting a faint blue glow.
“I’m getting there.”
“Alright, I’m going,” she said, perhaps more loudly than was prudent, as she jogged away from the glow. In response, a gurgling roar reverberated throughout the chamber.
She glanced behind her and saw the monster. It was enormous, fat enough to take up the entirety of the tunnel whence it oozed. A jelly-like substance, which was emitting the spectral light, encased it in a watery cocoon. The slug didn’t have discernible eyes, but it slithered straight for her and roared again, revealing a wide mouth bristling with sharp teeth.
Keriya now had a good idea why the dwarves had abandoned these tunnels. Heart thundering in her ears, she bolted across the hall. She’d died once before, and she had no intention of returning to that empty void.
But then, of course, she tripped.
The slug hissed and spat as it drew near. Keriya scrambled behind one of the totem poles, wishing with all her might that she could use Shivnath’s magic at will, wishing she was as strong a wielder as Roxanne.
Another sound filled the air, high-pitched but fearsome. She peeked around the pillar and saw Thorion soaring through the hall. The blue glow of the slug’s magic lent his bronze scales a sickly greenish shine.
He was making a terrible racket to attract the slug’s attention. The creature reared and snapped at the drackling, who dodged its jaws gracefully.
Thorion couldn’t be frightened, but upon seeing those blade-like teeth nearly slice him in half, Keriya was seized by an irrational urge to run out and protect him.
While she appreciated that he was trying to keep her safe, she couldn’t sit by and do nothing while his life was in danger.
Yes, you do, she thought privately, wincing as he barely avoided the slug’s fangs. A half-formed plan surfaced in her brain when she spotted a loose rock on the floor. She grabbed it and hurled herself into the open.
“Hey!” she called, heaving the rock with all her might. It hit the slug’s mucus coating, having no effect other than to draw the monster’s attention to her. It lunged, mouth open wide, intending to swallow her whole.
She leapt aside, barely avoiding the slug. It whipped around to face her again, coiling its body for another strike. Keriya jumped into a crouch, every muscle tensed, ready to dodge.
It was over in the blink of an eye. One moment the slug was on a collision course with her frail human body; the next, its head had slammed against one of the totem poles. Thorion had flown at the slug, smashing it into the stone column.
“Thorion, no!” Keriya ran forward, fists raised in vain defiance of the slug. The little dragon was now trapped in the blue mucus, burrowing through it to get at the creature’s flesh.
The slug made a valiant effort to dislodge him, but the mucus that protected it also proved its undoing. The substance was so thick that it held Thorion in place despite the monster’s desperate thrashing. He burrowed until he reached its bumpy gray skin, then burrowed further.
The slug’s death screams were heartrending, yet Keriya watched, transfixed with morbid fascination, as it was decapitated. It died when Thorion was halfway through its neck, but he finished the job and dug all the way through.
The creature’s head thudded to the floor, splattering Keriya with its glowing sludge.
“Ugh,” she groaned, shaking her hands and wiping her eyes. She was surprised to find the sludge was merely water held together in a viscid capacity, presumably by the slug’s magic. With its wielder dead, the water melted into a liquid state.
Keriya stood in silence, trembling and dripping, watching Thorion nose through the slug’s remains. He snuffled at the head and sank his fangs into the withering flesh.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. Putting his life in peril to save hers didn’t make sense, even if he did view her as a useful guide.
Thorion seemed at a loss, but when he finished his mouthful of slug he said, “I was hungry. As I grow, I must eat. The water slug will hydrate and nourish my body.”
Keriya gazed at the corpse in alarm, wondering how much food a growing dragon needed. Thorion took a few more bites before he trotted to her side and nudged her fingers with his snout.
Bemused, she raised her hand. Thorion took the opportunity to deposit a mouthful of half-chewed slug skin on her outstretched palm.
“You should eat,” he told her. “And you are likely dehydrated. This will help.”
She repressed a shudder that ran from her spine to her toes. The slug’s skin oozed cold, slimy fluids across her hand.
“Oh—that’s very kind of you, but you should eat your fill first,” she said, offering it back to him with what she hoped was a smile, rather than a grimace.
“I am finished with my meal,” he announced, gamboling into the shadows.
The incident put Keriya off tunnels. After some strategic wheedling, she convinced Thorion it would be wise to return to the surface world. Thus, on their third eve of travel, they emerged from a dwarf hole into the fen.
“Thank Shivnath,” she sighed, spreading her arms and tilting her head toward the diamond-studded night sky. She inhaled a lungful of air, savoring the fresh, earthy smell of the fen. “I missed the stars.”
“Why?” Thorion asked, watching her.
She smiled and shrugged, settling herself against the mossy side of a boulder. “It’s nice to have them watching over us.”
“Stars do not have eyes,” Thorion informed her, folding his legs to lie beside her. “They are gaseous spheres, millions of lightyears away, that emit light as a result of violent fusion between magicthreads.”
Keriya chuckled and, without thinking, petted his slender neck. “If you say so. I think they’re beautiful. And peaceful.”
Thorion tilted his head to observe the gently twinkling stars. Echoes of their light danced in his wide eyes.
“Yes,” he agreed after a time. “I suppose they are.”
The next morning, after a much-needed rest, they continued their trek south. Thorion was suddenly quite talkative.
“What are these things you put on your hind paws?” he asked, sniffing at her sheepskin foot-coverings.
“In Allentria, they’re called shoes. We wear them to protect our feet.”
“They smell bad,” he observed.
“Well, I’ve been walking for a long time,” she retorted, shooting him a flat glare.
He lowered his brow ridges in irritation, mirroring her expression. The sight made her giggle. Thorion didn’t imitate her this time, but he watched with rapt attention. He looked away when her laughter faded, flattening his ears to his skull and narrowing his eyes.
Keriya narrowed her own eyes. She was no expert, but didn’t expressions indicate emotion? She wasn’t sure. Maybe she was reading too much into it.
They walked for another hour, Keriya answering Thorion’s questions to the best of her abilities.
“What magic do you wield?” he inquired.
She stifled a heavy sigh. “I have no magic of my own.”
“Magic is the energy that powers all life functions,” said Thorion. “If you are alive, you have magic.”
“I don’t. Believe me.”
“You must wield at least one of the four base magics, because you are human. And you must have at least one of the four arcane magics, because you can speak my language and communicate with me telepathically.”
“Shivnath gave me some magic, but I can’t wield it until . . .”
“Until what?”
“Never mind.” She still hadn’t told Thorion about Necrovar, and this wasn’t the time to do so. “How about you? What magic do you have?”
“Lightmagic, but I am too young to wield it. Dragons reach magical maturity at around three centuries. Perhaps the same is true for you—perhaps you must grow into your magic.”
She snorted. “I’m not going to live for three centuries. Besides, humans don’t grow into our magic, we’re born with it.”
“So are all living things,” Thorion countered. “But wielding requires a certain level of intelligence, control, energy, and constitution. Dragons adapted to have their souls develop slowly. It is advantageous to let our bodies to grow and strengthen before we begin using our power.”
“Humans aren’t like that, I’m afraid. I was born different from the rest of them. I’m . . .” She faltered. There was no translation in the draconic language for the word she wanted.
“Crippled,” she finished, using the Allentrian term.
“What is ‘crippled’?” said Thorion, curling his finely scaled lips around the foreign pronunciation.
Keriya’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. This was a touchy subject for her, but she indulged his question. “It’s just a term that means someone is lacking in one or more physical powers or abilities.”
Thorion was silent as he contemplated this. She suspected dragons didn’t have a word for crippled because there were no crippled dragons. If they were emotionless creatures who lack
ed empathy and love, they more than likely engaged in practices like discarding so-called ‘undesirable’ offspring—a barbaric custom that had been common in Aeria.
Keriya had been born pale and wrinkly, but her abnormal looks hadn’t been enough to make the Aerians do away with her. Only when they’d realized she had no magic and would never contribute anything to their society had they truly begun to hate her. By then she’d been a toddler, and it had been too late for the Elders to discard her.
“You don’t seem crippled to me.” Thorion shocked her out of her reverie with his statement.
She smiled wryly. “Maybe you don’t get the meaning of the word.”
“I understood your definition,” he said. “It is similar to our word ‘disadvantaged.’”
“Yes, we have that word too. But those words have different connotations in human culture. For us, a disadvantage is . . .”
She paused again. She’d never had to consider this in Aeria, where her condition had been stigmatized and ridiculed. No one had bothered to educate themselves on the subject—and until now, Keriya had accepted the identity the Aerians had foisted upon her.
“A disadvantage is something you can overcome,” she said at last.
“And I would argue that you have overcome your disadvantage,” said Thorion. “Despite having been born different, you have found ways to adapt and survive. That makes you powerful.”
He was so direct and matter-of-fact in his assessment that it gave Keriya pause. He wasn’t denying her differences—he was accepting them, examining the issue in a way she herself never had. Did he really believe she was powerful?
She watched him as he trotted along, ears swiveling to catch every subtle sound of the fen, wings pressed neatly against his limber body. His tail swayed with his graceful movements, remaining parallel to the ground. The sun peeked out from behind a passing cloud and its light rippled across his scales, turning his bronze hide to liquid gold.
Suddenly she was overcome with the beauty of the creature walking beside her and the brilliance of his thought process. She had come this far, she had survived—and didn’t that make her more powerful than the people who’d sought to oppress her?
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