Mystic Dragon

by Jason Denzel

  Freedom.

  The word whispered across her mind. Whether it came from herself, Sitting Mother, or somewhere else, Shevia did not know. But in that moment, her eyes widened as realization dawned on her.

  She pushed herself to stand on trembling feet. “You are not my master,” Shevia managed.

  Bhairatonix left her brother hanging on the broken tower’s ledge. His tall, naked body strode through smoke and wreckage. “Rage all you like, you are mine.”

  “No,” she said. “I am free from your lineage. I reject your tyranny. I am a Mystic, despite you.”

  “That’s impossible—” Bhairatonix began.

  A loud cracking noise sounded above. Shevia glanced up in time to see the roof collapse. Without thought, she threw a wall of blue fire above them. The wooden beams incinerated as they passed though, falling harmlessly as ash afterward. Beyond the broken roof, the full moon blazed in the calm night sky. Treorel shone on its very edge as it prepared to pass behind.

  Shevia surged the Myst and flexed her back. Silver wings, twice her height and shaped like the wings on her tattoo, erupted from her back. She felt like a moth crawling from its cocoon and spreading wide under the sun for the first time. She took the glass sphere in one hand, grabbed Bhairatonix with the other, and leaped into the air, smashing through the remains of the tower roof. For a moment they hovered in midair, high above Kelt Apar, bathing in the Mystic Star.

  And at that moment, Treorel passed behind the full moon, and Crow Tallin came upon the land.

  A slow, creeping sense of cold crawled across Shevia. All around her, a red shadow crossed over Kelt Apar, bathing everything in the color of blood and fire. The moon’s surface tinted to an angry red.

  The Myst churned as though it had been heated to a boil. The air around her rippled like a curtain, and as it shifted Shevia could see beyond to a realm of endless silver. Everywhere across Kelt Apar, the veil between worlds fell away.

  Shevia’s spine burned with power. Untold waves of the Myst raced through her veins, filling every fiber of her being.

  She crashed her feet hard into the ground. The soil around her erupted and a shock wave of fire rippled outward.

  A scream sounded from the tower as Tibron fell. She caught him with a cushion of Myst, easing him to the ground.

  A gathering of nearby Mystics backed away. Vivianna ran toward her from the tower, but she was too far and too insignificant to stop what was about to happen. The Green Man, who held Yarina’s broken body in his arms, turned his fierce gaze upon her.

  Shevia ignored them all. Bhairatonix squirmed beneath her grip, clawing at her hands. She could feel him throwing the Myst at her, but it did not harm her. “How?” he snarled.

  “By shattering my staff, you violated your end of our connection. I am the master of my own fate now. You have no power over me.”

  She felt the Myst surge in her old master’s body as he prepared yet another assault on her. “You denied me a proper Mystic staff,” Shevia said. “You broke the twig you deemed to give me. Now I claim a new staff.”

  Bhairatonix’s eyes widened. “No—”

  Shevia wretched his neck, snapping it. She flared the Myst and fire erupted across his naked body. She yanked her arm up and tore his spine out. It came out cleanly, like a sword being drawn from its sheath. The meat from his body slid free and his head thumped to the ground. The Myst and fire purified the long line of bone in her hand, hardening it. Power surged through it, focusing her. The dragon within her raged. The moth in the glass flew wildly within its prison.

  Near the tower, the remaining Mystics stared at her in horror. Vivianna skidded to a halt, covering her mouth as if trying not to vomit.

  “I call upon Sitting Mother,” Shevia said. “I summon Lagnaraste.”

  She let the glass sphere fall from her hand.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE FALL OF THE CROSSROADS

  Pomella lay on the banks of the pool beside the waterfall with sand and mud caking her lips. Her vision cleared, bringing silver fay into focus. For a panicked moment, she feared she was still in Fayün. Then she saw the brown and gray of the ground. She sighed with relief into the dirt.

  She pushed herself up and marveled at her surroundings. It was hard to tell where the fay realm began and the human world ended. Trees from both worlds occupied the same place, intermixing their branches. Familiar, human-realm animals chased fay creatures across the ground. Behind her, twin waterfalls roared into the silver and blue water.

  A deep feeling of sadness and loneliness washed over Pomella. Her mind raced to make sense of it, tried to remember what had just happened. A warning in her heart tried to stop those memories from crashing home, but it was too late. In a heartbeat, she remembered everything.

  Hector.

  A scream ripped out of Pomella’s throat. She scrambled to her feet and spun around. “Hector!” she called, and summoned him with the Myst. She pulsed the command again, calling to him as she had a thousand times.

  “HECTOR!”

  A hummingbird spun into view, but it was only Ena.

  Tears poured from Pomella’s eyes. Her chin and hand shook as she reached for her remaining familiar. “E-Ena,” she sobbed, “Where is Hector? Tell me he’s not really…”

  Ena alighted onto her palm, and Pomella sensed the overwhelming sadness and loss echoing from the little bird’s tiny heart. Hector was gone. Ripped apart by—

  No. No. No!

  It was all too much. First Lal, now Hector. They were equal losses in her mind. She refused to think of one as greater than the other. In losing Lal she lost her teacher, mentor, and friend. But in losing Hector she lost a part of herself. Her heart might still be beating, and her lungs might still draw breath, but without a doubt a small part of her had just died.

  She placed her face against Ena, trying to somehow feel Hector through his sister. Hector, who had died allowing her to escape. Hector, who gave her the strength of a hundred people.

  “I’m so sorry, Ena,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough, and that he needed to sacrifice himself.”

  Ena flew from her hand and darted for Pomella’s Mystic staff lying on the ground. It appeared as it had in Fayün, with intertwined trunks of polished brown and silver oak, topped with a snake’s head. Ena landed on the staff’s uppermost portion and quirked an expression at Pomella. The message was clear to her. Pick up your staff and give meaning to his sacrifice.

  Pomella took a deep breath. She looked skyward and saw Treorel nearly in line with the moon. Once it slipped behind, the human and fay worlds would be completely overlapped. There was well under an hour before that occurred—but she was a full two days’ journey from Kelt Apar.

  “You’re right,” Pomella said. “We have work to do.” She held her hand out and her Mystic staff leaped to her. Ena alighted from the staff and circled upward. At Pomella’s command, the Myst circled around like a vortex. “Take us to Kelt Apar,” she said to Ena. She wrapped her hand around the hummingbird and willed her to lift them skyward.

  The Mystwood and the rest of the world fell away as they rose together as a glowing streak of light. Under the light of Treorel, such feats came as easy as walking. They circled MagBreckan, twisting close to its summit as if to whisper a secret.

  Ena spun them once in a circle to gain momentum, then zoomed across the landscape like a shooting star. Below them, in the space of a heartbeat, Pomella saw the Mystwood reveal itself. Fayün lay atop the trees like a perfectly fitted blanket. To the west, the surface of the ocean rose and fell, rolling gently as it breathed. Pomella focused attention on her destination. MagDoon loomed ahead, dominating the Ironlow Mountains. The familiarity of home washed over Pomella as they approached Kelt Apar.

  Ena set her down outside the grounds, within sight of the hedge wall. Weight and substance returned to her as she took in her surroundings. She released Ena from her grip. The hummingbird circled her once, then hovered nearby.

  “Why’d
we stop here?” she asked the hummingbird.

  Ena didn’t reply, but Pomella thought she knew the answer anyway. She couldn’t see it, but some sort of barrier surrounded Kelt Apar. Perhaps it was related to Oxillian’s wall, or perhaps it was tied to the land’s nature; Kelt Apar could not be easily found within the Mystwood. Regardless of the reason, this was close enough. She’d have to get through the wall on her own.

  Pomella looked toward the towering hedge surrounding the grounds. Even from outside, she could see that Kelt Apar was on fire. Heavy black smoke rose from inside, lifting toward the night sky, obscuring Treorel and the moon.

  Between Pomella and the wall was a sea of rioting people. Hundreds of men and women ran between the trees carrying torches or weapons or both. Parents stood outside the tents they’d lived in for weeks, trying to keep their children safe from panicked individuals or roving bands of marauders.

  Adding to the chaos were the fay creatures. Most of them ran in panicked fear, not realizing or understanding that Crow Tallin had dragged them into the human realm. But Pomella also saw silver axthos running among the humans, swinging crude clubs or launching barbed arrows.

  A man ran straight at her, his eyes wide with panic. Before Pomella could react, he vanished, drifting momentarily into Fayün. Moments later, he appeared again, on her opposite side, still running.

  “Please, Mistress,” came a nearby voice. Pomella spun around as a cluster of disheveled men and women approached. The one who’d spoken was a woman, younger than herself, who clutched a child to her chest. “Help us. How long will this go on for?”

  “My boy was bitten by a fay spider,” said one of the men. A bloody gash shone on his chin. “Help him, please.”

  “Please, Hummingbird, what do we do?” said a second man.

  Hands reached for her. “I—” Pomella backed away. Now wasn’t the time. She wanted to help these people, and knew they were afraid.

  “This will pass,” Pomella assured them, trying to sound convincing. “Crow Tallin will be here momentarily. More fay will come before the end. Expect more strange occurrences. Find shelter if you can and trust in the Myst and all will be well.”

  Her words sounded hollow to her, but she saw tension drain from some of the grubby faces around her. She glanced back toward the wall, and the smoke beyond.

  The crowd around her grew. A couple holding an infant stepped directly in her path. “Hummingbird,” the mhathir said, her face gaunt and filled with tears. “My child, she’s, she’s—”

  Before Pomella could gently move the couple aside to open the path, the mhathir held her baby up for her to see. Pomella barely contained a gasp.

  The child, no more than a day or two old, was half fay. Overlaid atop her human face was that of what appeared to be a rabbit. The child snoozed soundly, her human and rabbit ears rising up and down with her breaths.

  “Our Niella, she’s—she’s—”

  Pomella touched the mhathir’s cheek to reassure her, and then reached down to the child to wrap the Myst around her like a blanket, using it to find a seam between the child and fay. It was as if the two had been fused together somehow at birth. She found herself wondering how many children born during Crow Tallin would be like this.

  Carefully, Pomella tried to slip the Myst between the child and fay to separate them. The child’s strange face scrunched and she made a little cry in her sleep. Pomella pressed harder, but the bond between fay and child held tight, refusing to let her divide it. The child began to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” Pomella said. “I cannot do more right now. I must return to Kelt Apar.”

  The mhathir’s face crumbled with sadness. “No, Mistress. Please!”

  “I’m sorry,” Pomella said again, her heart wrenching, and tried to step past the couple.

  The woman’s husband put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You’ve gotta do something,” he said. “Our tyke’s not well!”

  Pomella pulled away from his touch. More commoners pressed in toward her. “I—”

  “Mystic!” another person yelled. “Why’s this happening?”

  “We’re cursed!” yelled another.

  “Sing to the baby! Save her!”

  “My son’s taken by the fay!”

  Their pleas washed over her. More hands reached for her. The path to the wall was now completely obscured.

  “The Mystics are bringing this upon us!”

  “No,” Pomella said, responding to the last. “No, we are not. Crow Tallin is—”

  “Why are the Mystics punishing us? Aren’t our lives already hard enough?”

  “Heal the child!”

  “I can’t,” Pomella said, turning about, trying to focus on one face at a time. The surge of hands and voices overwhelmed her. A hand grasped her Mystic staff. She yanked the heavy branch back but more hands reached for it.

  The Myst rose around her again. All she had to do was flash it outward to give herself some room. Too many hands reaching. Too many voices. She needed—

  Thundering horse hooves pounded through the trees. Pomella turned and saw a rider pushing the crowd back. “Get away from her! She’s not hurting you!”

  It was Berrit.

  He wore his ridiculous-yet-charming hat and had a case with his musical instrument on his back. He held a thin baton in his hand, which he swung harmlessly in the crowd’s direction to discourage them from approaching.

  “Are you OK?” he called to her.

  “Yes,” Pomella replied. “I need to get to the tower.”

  “Go,” he said. “I’ve got these people.”

  There was no time to waste. Pomella ran for the wall. With the Myst surrounding her like a cloak, she focused on radiating serenity toward everyone. But trying to calm the riot was like trying to extinguish a forest fire with a single bucket of water. Ena raced in blinding circles around her, trailing silvery smoke, which collectively formed a sort of ringed barrier around her.

  As she raced toward the wall, more people noticed her. Hundreds of faces turned to look in her direction. But rather than rushing toward her, they backed away, wide-eyed.

  Screams assaulted her from all sides. “The Mystics are abandoning us!”

  “Open the wall, Hummingbird!”

  “Tear it down!”

  “Burn it!”

  The crowds stormed around her, even more fiercely than before, but this time nobody came closer than the protective ring Ena formed.

  “You’ve abandoned us!” cried a voice, and a stone flew in her direction, but Ena intercepted it and shattered it into dust.

  Just as Pomella arrived at the wall, screams sounded behind her. She looked back and stopped short. At least twenty mounted horsemen charged through the crowd. They ran toward the place she had just been standing. From this distance, she could still see Berrit, sitting astride his gelding, turning toward them.

  A whistling sound tore through the forest, followed by a sickening thud, and an arrow blasted into Berrit’s chest, splashing blood across a gathering of commoners standing near him. His horse whinnied, and Berrit’s lifeless body slipped to the ground, followed by his hat.

  “No!” Pomella cried, taking a step toward him. She stared in wide-eyed shock, unable to process what had just happened.

  The horsemen surrounded the gathered commoners who were trying to run. The mounted men kicked them back, or used looped nets attached to long poles.

  Slavers.

  The last horseman to arrive wore a gray mask with strange red markings on it. The figure strode past his men, who rounded up the panicked commoners. He stared straight at Pomella.

  Her heart raced as recognition came over her. She’d never seen him in person, but this had to be the Shadefox, the leader of the slavers.

  More screams came to Pomella, but this time they came from the opposite side of the wall. She looked skyward and saw Treorel on the very edge of the moon. Crow Tallin was moments away from beginning.

  Pomella lifted her staff to Unveil an at
tack on the Shadefox in order to maim or disable him quickly. But as she did so, the Shadefox lifted his hand and removed his mask.

  Pomella froze.

  It was her brother, Gabor. He was only a teenager, barely old enough to shave, but somehow, impossibly, he stood there, at the head of a highly organized band of slavers.

  The recognition and hate radiating from him was as bright as the full moon. He slipped his mask back on, turned his horse, and shouted commands to his men.

  At that moment, Treorel passed behind the moon, and Crow Tallin painted the land in red shadows. Overcome by emotion, Pomella fled. She ran to the wall and pressed her forehead against it. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  Flickering torchlight lit the night. All along the wall’s length people threw rocks, branches, or whatever else they could find at it, trying to breach the barrier. It was only a matter of time before they succeeded.

  “Ox,” Pomella said through her tears. “It’s me.”

  In response, a narrow tunnel opened, and she squeezed through. The tunnel closed behind her as she pushed, urging her along quickly. The torrential sounds of thousands of rioting people suddenly became muffled, although the crackling of the burning wall became louder and more clear.

  Pomella stopped as she stepped out onto the grass. “No,” she whispered. She didn’t know how much more she could take.

  The central tower was on fire. Most of its roof along with the walls of the upper chamber were shattered. Smoke and flames rose from that room, seeming to signal the end of yet another important part of her life. For a moment, Pomella lost track of where she was. Half of what she saw was the Kelt Apar she knew, and the other half was a rocky landscape.

  And standing in the same place as the broken central tower, a huge silver spire, covered in carved writing, rose into the sky.

  The Tower of Eternal Starlight.

  A nearby rushing sound startled her as an arrow lodged itself into the grass. It was well out of reach from her, but it had come from outside the wall. Another arrow fell from the night, and another. More than a few of those arrows had flames on their tips.

  Pomella ran toward the central tower where a cluster of people were gathered. Pomella recognized some of the Mystics, including Vivianna.