When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Keira nodded. “Tiberan is my husband.”

  “Come, eat with us,” Tiberan offered. “You came for a reason.”

  “The trees spoke of dragons,” Odoune stated. “And you’ve changed,” he added, inclining his head towards the seelie’s antlers.

  “Yes, sit,” Tiberan repeated.

  They stayed still for a moment, and then Odoune nodded. “Yes, thank you,” he assented. “It has been a long journey, and we are hungry.”

  Soon they sat comfortably around the fire. The air was warm enough that they didn’t need their outer furs.

  After breakfast, Odoune spoke first. “Dragons,” he said, his great liquid eyes staring intently at Tiberan. “The trees speak of dragons returned to the world. How?”

  Tiberan nodded. “The same magic that threw me forward in time preserved dragon eggs. We have kept them safe.”

  Keira wondered at these two men. They had both loved the same woman, intensely so. Aradma had chosen Tiberan over Odoune in the end, but Odoune had fathered her child, something fate had denied Tiberan. Nevertheless, she could not detect any animosity between them. They weren’t warm towards each other, like tribesmen might be, but they held an air of respect, a friendliness born over their common love for that woman. She didn’t think she would have been so understanding. The human in her valued loyalty, but the wolven in her was downright territorial. Tiberan was her mate, and—

  Calm down, she told herself. Aradma’s gone, remember? Tiberan won’t betray me.

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t quite kill the thought that Tiberan’s seelie blood might lead him to be more open than her with his affections. Maybe one day she wouldn’t be enough for him.

  She frowned and forced her attention back to the conversation.

  “What do you want with the dragons?” Hearthmother Esteri broke in.

  “We are druids,” Odoune replied. “All life interests us, and dragons returning to the land is miraculous. We are compelled to protect them. The Druidic Order was founded by the Green Dragon, after all, so how could we not answer the forest’s call?”

  Esteri nodded, apparently satisfied.

  “That’s not all,” Tiberan stated. “You are at war right now.”

  “Yes,” Fernwalker replied. “We battle for Artalon. How do you know of this?”

  “I am in contact with the sidhe wizard Tallindra,” Tiberan replied. Keira noted he did not reveal he had actually learned of the war from Keruhn himself.

  Fernwalker hissed a quick intake of breath. “The sidhe are our enemies.”

  Tiberan shook his head. “Not this one. Tell me, why do you fight for Artalon?”

  For the next hour, Odoune and Fernwalker told them about the war and the Kairantheum. They explained how the ones who could unlock Artalon and find its secret Stag Throne—some sort of magical control mechanism that could focus the city’s energy—could bring balance to the gods. Or control them.

  Tiberan sat in thought for a long while. Keira remembered what he had told her about Keruhn’s charge to him. Tiberan himself would be necessary to unlock the magical city. A sick pit formed in her stomach. Now was the time, and she wasn’t ready for him to go.

  Finally, Tiberan spoke. “There are many intentions for Artalon, and it seems to me that even the gods cannot agree on what should be their fate.” He sighed and looked at Keira. “It is time. I must accomplish the task.”

  Odoune looked at him skeptically. “Who charged you with this task?”

  “The same one who gave me his mark,” Tiberan responded.

  “Keruhn,” Fernwalker stated. “I remember the stories from Rajamin as a child. I don’t trust gods.”

  Tiberan cocked his head. “I don’t either,” he said. “But he stated something that intrigued me, and I would go and see where this leads.”

  “What did he say?” Aradma’s daughter asked.

  “That he has faith in us.”

  Odoune snorted.

  Finally, Tiberan asked the question Keira knew must be coming. “How did Aradma die?” Tiberan asked. “I’ve learned that both she and Kaldor are dead. Is this true?”

  “That was a long time ago,” Fernwalker said. Her brow creased into a frown. “Kaldor is dead, but Mom was taken by the seelie man called Athaym. She’s missing. I refuse to believe she’s gone.” She stared into the fire.

  Odoune continued. “Only later did we learn he is the vessel of the Black Dragon’s shadow.”

  Tiberan stiffened.

  “He took Aradma,” Odoune said. “We found her trail into the depths of the earth, but we could not follow. We turned our attention to Artalon in the end.”

  The gold striations in Tiberan’s deep blue eyes flared with light. “The dreams…” he muttered.

  “What?” Odoune prompted.

  Tiberan suddenly bolted to his feet. “She is not dead!”

  They stared at him.

  “Aradma is not dead! He has her. The Black Dragon still has the dreamwalker!”

  Keira shared in the others’ confusion.

  “My dreams, Keira.” He turned to her. “I understand my dreams now! Graelyn’s dreamwalker was tortured by the Black Dragon in the Otherworld… I was part of the Dragon’s greater mind focused on the dragonsleep. I remember knowing of this, but not being able to do anything to help her, lest Klrain truly waken.” He grew more excited. “And he has her again. Her soul was reaching out to me, trying to tell me! And I’ve been here the whole time!”

  Keira choked and looked away. Tears welled in her eyes. I’m going to lose him.

  Tiberan suddenly stopped and knelt beside her, laying a hand on her back. With his other hand, he tenderly lifted her chin.

  “Beloved,” he told her softly. “You are the mother of my children. You are my wife. I will not forget my loyalty to you, nor will I stop loving you.”

  Keira’s tears flowed over her cheeks, and she gazed into his blue eyes, swimming in their golden light.

  Tiberan continued. “Aradma’s and my time has passed,” he said. “We share a link through the Dragon. She was Graelyn’s dreamwalker, and I was the focus of Graelyn’s will that sent her out into the world while I—while Graelyn—slept. I promise you, my heart, you will not lose me. But surely you see that I must go try to find her.”

  “Oh, Tiberan,” she cried, falling into his arms. “Yes, I know, I see it. I loved her too. We cannot leave her to the Black Dragon. Go. Go and free her, and then see your task through in Artalon. Only, you must come back to me!”

  He took her face in his warm hands, and she surrendered to his kiss, oblivious to the others around the campfire. When he finally released her, she pulled her knees to her chest and stared into the flames.

  “I’m sorry,” Fernwalker said softly. Keira raised her eyes to see the seelie woman looking at Tiberan. “Aradma was right to love you. I’m sorry I doubted it.”

  “I never did,” Odoune added. “I told you once—in another place, another life, I would have accepted you as house-brother.”

  Tiberan and the troll both stood and faced each other. The seelie reached out his hand, and the troll took it, clasping arms as brothers. “I know,” Tiberan said. “You honor me with your words.”

  “Come,” Odoune said, voice quivering with emotion. “Let us go find her. Can you travel by air?”

  Tiberan grinned. “I think it’s time to introduce you to a dragon.”

  * * *

  Seredith appeared in the Academy's detention cells. Alarms sounded in the halls, as she tripped magical wards the Academy wizards had set to warn of intruders. Duke Montevin, and later Queen Aiella, had not believed in execution as a primary means of punishing criminals, excepting treason. When Windbowl had started accepting exiled wizards from the Artalonian Empire, it stood to reason that at some point some of them might break the law. The Montevin family had insisted that if the wizards were to set up a college, they would also have to police their own. And so the detention cells had been built, though rarely used through t
he ages.

  Seredith knew this is where her apprentices would be. The Academy faculty wouldn’t outright kill them, but they wouldn’t let them roam free either.

  The only one in danger of execution was Chambry. He had committed treason by murdering the queen. Seredith hoped that their desire to discover what he had learned from her would have stayed their hands for the time being. Wizards were always more interested in the promise of knowledge than justice. They would execute him eventually, but not while he was useful. She only hoped she wasn’t too late.

  A wizard appeared in front of her. She flicked her wand, and he fell to the ground, heart frozen in his chest, too slow to counter her spell.

  Two golems appeared in the hall, animated stone statues intent on killing her. Seredith swiftly traced sigils in the air and then gestured at each one. The glowing symbols flew at the golems and encircled them, bending them to her will. No wizard here could override her control. Find and slay your creators, she commanded them. The golems turned and proceeded down the hall from whence they had come. Seredith allowed herself a slight smile when she heard surprised screams and then the dull splut of skulls against stone floors. That would buy her some time before the others came.

  The revenant walked the detention halls, opening cell doors until she found Chambry.

  “You’re alive,” she stated.

  He rose from the floor, surprised to see her. He rubbed his eyes and stared again. He had been asleep.

  “Am I dreaming?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Chambry grinned. “I knew they could not best you.”

  “They could not,” she agreed.

  He looked down at his empty hands. “I’ve no wand,” he said, “or components. Nor any spells prepared. I am useless.”

  She shook her head. “Everything is prepared in the tower.” She pointed her wand and sent him to her chambers at the top of Castle Windbowl.

  Seredith continued through the other rooms, finding the rest of her circle. They each carried the air that her eventual arrival had been expected, and she knew they had not broken her trust in them. She sent all of them back to the top of Castle Windbowl, but she had a few more things to do before she joined them.

  She translocated into the Academy lab mere seconds before the Academy battlemages appeared in the detention halls. She didn’t have much time, but she knew the laboratory well and made her way to the thing she had come to collect.

  She lifted the top off a small glass cage. Within it was a black widow spider, sitting in her web. An egg sack of hatchlings, nearly ready, lay nearby.

  Seredith held out her hand to the spider. At first, it didn’t move. She took it in her hand, and it bit her palm. Its venom had no effect on the dead flesh, but the spider seemed more comfortable now for having bitten her. Seredith held her hand flat, and the spider crawled up her arm, into her sleeve. She then retrieved the egg sack and gently placed it in one of her cyan robe’s pockets.

  She heard movement behind her. With barely enough time to cast defensive barriers, she managed to get them up before fireballs and magical disintegration rays ended her. They rebounded off her magical shields, reflected back at their attackers.

  Seredith translocated again, just outside the front doors of the Academy. She raised her wand and uttered complex, mercurial words of magic. A dark light appeared at the top of the Academy, and shadow spread over its grounds.

  She knew she had to be very careful. A singularity mishandled could swallow all of Windbowl, her along with it. This was not magic the Academy taught; she had discovered it on her own. Creating a singularity was the height of her power, and casting such a spell would tax her greatly. She could not repeat it without more preparation.

  She guided the singularity with her wand, taking care not to open it too wide. She lowered it into the building, and then turned her wrist a few inches to the left.

  The building trembled for a moment, and it seemed the lands around her warped. Time and Light were pulled into the point of absolute Dark, and then, in an instant, the entire Academy imploded and collapsed into the singularity’s point.

  Seredith turned her wrist back to the right, and the singularity vanished, leaving nothing but empty dirt where the Academy once stood.

  Satisfied, she uttered the words to translocate back to Windbowl’s north tower.

  Her students waited for her. They each had eager looks on their faces.

  “What now?” Chambry asked. “Surely they will come for us here.”

  Seredith shook her head. “The Academy is destroyed, and the wards here will prevent anyone from intruding. I am prepared this time.”

  “What about Captain Kaern?” Chambry asked. “He won’t rest until he finds a way through. He could contact the gnomes in Artalon.”

  “Yes,” Seredith responded. “Gnomish wizards would be a problem. Windbowl, however, will have other things to focus on than us.”

  She reached into her sleeve and drew out the black widow. The spider rested calmly in her palm.

  Seredith walked to the window of her chamber—that same window where, years before, Arda had climbed to try to rescue Lunarin, when Seredith’s mother Marta had forced the elf to discover her true name of Aradma—and placed the spider on the windowsill. She then laid out the egg sack.

  Seredith drew her wand and uttered the words of what she hoped would be tonight’s final spell.

  The black widow climbed down out of the window onto the tower’s outer wall. It grew until it was a hundred feet long, climbing over the towers of the castle. Alarms sounded, and the shouting of guards could be heard from below.

  The egg sack grew and burst. Hundreds of little spiders crawled down the walls into the city, growing to the size of houses by the time they reached the ground. They quickly spread over the entire city and ate those foolish enough to run outside.

  The mother spider spun her webs, wrapping Castle Windbowl in thick strands of sticky silk.

  * * *

  Tiberan rode atop Kreen as they soared southeast towards Windbowl. He wanted to see the place from which Aradma had been taken. Perhaps he would find clues that the others had missed. It had been ten years, and the signs would most likely be gone, but he had to start somewhere. And, he was Tiberan.

  He left Ghost and Cloudpaw behind with the Glavlunders. They couldn’t travel with him on dragonback, and he was happier knowing they were there with his family in any case. He meant with certainty what he had told Keira, but even so, his heart raced with the prospect of seeing Aradma again, even as his stomach turned with guilt over not having understood his nightly dream sooner.

  It was early evening when they flew over the Windmane Mountains into the unfamiliar lands of Windbowl. Tiberan followed Odoune and Fernwalker, looking down at the rolling pines and farmlands. A cold land, but nothing like the Ice Plains.

  He had asked to start where Athaym had first taken Aradma at the stone house in the foothills. The owl and crane descended and Kreen followed.

  The dragon landed in the open grass behind the home. The house looked like it had been of dwarven construction originally, but a new roof and some of its walls had been replaced. Tiberan slid off of Kreen’s back and approached it.

  Odoune alighted to his left, and Keira to his right.

  “Something is wrong,” Odoune said. “The trees are agitated.”

  “I hear it too,” Fernwalker confirmed. She pulled her rifle from her back and held it ready.

  “What is it?” Tiberan asked. “I cannot sense the forest. It is not one of my talents.”

  Odoune closed his eyes and listened for a moment. Then he opened them again. “It is unnatural,” he said. “Undeath has returned to Windbowl.”

  “We killed Seredith,” Fernwalker stated. “Do you think there are more like her?”

  “Or maybe vampires,” Tiberan suggested.

  “Not likely,” Odoune replied. “The only vampires living anymore belong to Count Markus and his Covenant. Before we came to
find you, we killed a revenant in Windbowl.”

  “Maybe not,” Fernwalker said. “Maybe she’s back.”

  “What does this have to do with Aradma?” Tiberan asked.

  “We cannot ignore this,” Odoune said.

  Tiberan regarded the troll for a moment. “I only care about Aradma,” he said. “This is a distraction.”

  Fernwalker stepped in front of Tiberan and took his hands in hers. “Tiberan,” she said. “I want to find my mother too. Me more than anyone. But I also hear the warning in the trees’ song. There is something very wrong here. There is a presence. It is not a distraction. My mother cared deeply about this land. Her blood created the revenant Seredith, and Seredith turned on the queen. If Seredith has returned…” Fernwalker closed her eyes. “But it’s not just Seredith,” she added. “There is something else. Someone else.”

  “Where?” Tiberan asked.

  Odoune pointed northwest. “Castle Windbowl,” he said.

  Tiberan let their words soak in. Both of them loved Aradma. Both of them wanted to see her saved. Both of them were telling him that whatever was going on in Castle Windbowl was worth his attention. He absently touched his right fingers to his antlers. There were patterns in the world that he didn’t see, but Keruhn, from his vantage point in the Kairantheum…

  Keruhn had been right. When he received the mark, the time had not yet been right for Tiberan to leave. He wouldn’t have left his family then. But now, circumstances, a pattern, had unfolded. And here he was.

  These two people had called him away from home. All three of them had one thing in common: Aradma. All three of them sought to solve the problem posed by the gods in the Kairantheum. Artalon was the center, and Aradma was a key… and both Odoune and Keira were telling Tiberan that he needed to go to Castle Windbowl. The trees were telling the druids, and Ahmbren was telling the forest.

  Tiberan acquiesced. “I will go,” he said. He climbed on Kreen’s back and took to the skies. The two druids followed him, shapeshifted as birds.

  * * *

  Seredith moved to an adjacent room and looked out over the inner courtyard. She was pleased to see guards strung up in the spiders’ webs, either struggling or already paralyzed and wrapped. The gargantuan baby spiders fed on some of the Windbowlians. She noted that Captain Kaern was not among the number captured.