His dark eyes were full of sorrow, and a promise of vengeance. He flipped the golden weapon, holding its hilt toward me without question.
I stepped forward to grab him by the wrist, seizing him with every ounce of strength I had.
He flinched, his eyes widening with what might have been the first hint of personal concern I’d ever seen from him.
Good. He needed to be wary.
Neither of us could stand against a dragon who could hold a guardian hostage. A dragon who could bore holes in stone and throw weapons through portals. Not apart and not together. Yet we were about to forge ahead, with everyone I loved scattered and battered and possibly even dead behind me.
I wrapped my hand around the hilt of Drake’s broadsword. Pulling the weapon sharply toward me, I sliced his hand open, coating half the length of the blade with his blood.
He winced but didn’t pull away.
Pumping my alchemist magic into the razor-sharp weapon, I snared every bit of magic in Drake’s blood, holding it in place.
Loosening my grip on the fledgling guardian, I flipped the sword over, then ran the opposite edge of the blade along the palm of my left hand. I sliced open my own skin even as the wound on Drake’s hand healed.
I raised the sword before me, drawing all the magic from our blood around it. I coaxed the power stored in my necklace up my arm and through my hand, then into the sword. Using that power as mortar, I wrapped every drop of the combined power of our blood around and along the blade. Sharpening it. Fortifying it. I whetted its golden edges with all the magic I could give it.
Drake’s broadsword absorbed every drop.
“It’s glowing,” he whispered.
“Is it?” I asked. But I wasn’t even remotely moved by the feat of magic I’d just performed.
My heart was nothing but a husk. My thoughts and feelings were dampened … gone. I would continue. I would protect Drake as best I could. But only because there was nothing else left for me.
I flipped the sword in my hand again, offering it hilt first to Drake.
He wrapped his fingers around it reverently, lifting the weapon between us. A golden glow flared, flowing up the blade, then back down. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I glanced down at the wound on my hand. It was already knitting together. I gathered my fingers into a fist.
“It won’t be enough. Not against my mangled katana. The chakram.”
Drake nodded. “It will be enough to give you an opening.”
“So you’ll sacrifice yourself before me too?” I laughed harshly.
“Why would I do anything different than what you do every day, Jade? Why would I give any less? Why would any of us?”
“I’m not a fan of being schooled by a fifteen-year-old.”
“Sixteen today. And you never seem to not need it. You are blind to yourself.”
I reached out, wrapping my arm around Drake’s neck and shoulders in a tight clench. I pressed a harsh kiss against his temple. Then I released him, catching his dark-eyed gaze with mine.
“Let’s go slay a dragon, then.”
He nodded, slipping in behind me.
Striding forward in silent determination, we turned the corner only to see an archway at the far end of the tunnel.
We’d been a few dozen steps away.
Shailaja had perfect timing.
I would have hated her for it, but I was beyond all feeling.
Perhaps I was walking to my death … or my rebirth, as Rochelle had called it.
And if these were the steps I was meant to walk? Well … who was I to argue with destiny?
I was so damn tired of being scared of what was to come.
So I would surrender.
Right after I carved out Shailaja’s freaking heart.
∞
Drake and I stepped through the archway together, pausing and scanning the large chamber opening up before us.
No, not a chamber. A tomb. Though I’d never been in one — or even seen pictures of one this large — the stone sarcophagus placed along the far wall was an unmistakable giveaway.
Yes, a sarcophagus. I pulled out the big words when my life was in imminent danger.
While the tunnel had been carved out of plain stone, the tomb of the phoenix was anything but. The image of an enormous orange and red raptor covered the wall behind the stone coffin. The bird’s wings were spread in flight and its wicked talons poised as if to strike. Its multicolored feathers and scales were constructed out of some sort of jeweled tile mosaic. Its bright yellow eyes were trained on the archway where Drake and I stood.
The walls were constructed in similarly tiled fashion, though I wasn’t sure of the material. The floor around the coffin was a mosaic in the form of a setting sun, whose horizon was the coffin’s base. Its tiled rays radiated out toward the walls and the archway in alternating shades of light and dark orange.
Shailaja stood just to the right of the tomb, at the origin point of one of those inlaid sunrays. She’d changed into a fur-trimmed beige jacket and skinny-legged brown pants tucked into fur-lined boots. Apparently, she had been following us through the mountain though I hadn’t picked up on her magic. She’d ditched the tote bag but was holding my mangled katana at her side. Three leeches clung to the tiled ceiling above her head, huddling between the amber lights.
Chi Wen sat on the sarcophagus, swinging his legs and smiling in our direction. I couldn’t pick up a drop of his magic.
As his gaze settled on his mentor, Drake exhaled a soft sigh of agony, then fell silent.
The pain in that brief noise pierced my numb heart. “We don’t know yet,” I whispered to the fledgling. “We don’t know that it’s his doing that brought us here.”
Drake didn’t answer.
“Are you just going to stand there?” Shailaja asked.
Ignoring her, I shifted my head to get a better look at the one object that stood out even among all the glittery glamour of the crypt.
A single sparsely leafed branch speckled with pink-tinted white flowers hung suspended over the right side of the coffin. I recognized the distinctive pattern of leaves and flowers from the map. Apparently, we’d found the third instrument of assassination.
Though what flowers and leaves could do to a guardian dragon, I had no idea. Other than burn them, based on the first two instruments. But even Shailaja wasn’t crazy enough to touch the branch. Poison maybe? Like Kandy thought the trees in the atrium might have poisoned the shadow leeches? The ramifications of the entrance of the shrine potentially being filled with leaves and flowers that could poison every single guardian dragon was chilling enough to crack the numbness that muted my thoughts and feelings.
I shook off the terrifying thought. I could only take care of what was in front of me right now.
Chi Wen and Shailaja were positioned an equal distance to either side of the branch. If I turned my head to just the right position and looked from the very corner of my eye, I could see that some sort of iridescent magic held the branch suspended. The same magic also appeared to be wrapped around the far seer.
“He’s behind a ward of some sort,” I said.
As Drake nodded, I could feel his relief.
“That’s what happens when you try to get grabby with an instrument of assassination,” Shailaja said snarkily, conveniently ignoring the fact that she’d grabbed an instrument herself and gotten her magic locked away for it.
“Is everything okay, far seer?” I asked.
Chi Wen responded with a cheerful nod.
“Where’s Warner?” Shailaja asked crossly.
It took a concerted effort to not simply lunge across the room and rip her throat out, but I didn’t answer her, scanning the tomb for possible exits and magical traps instead. I saw no sign of either.
The rabid koala tilted her head. One of her leeches stretched down from the ceiling to touch her shoulder. Her expression grew irate as she locked her gaze back on me. The leech squelched in on itself, shooting bac
k up to the ceiling.
“And you just left him there?” Shailaja spat. “I suppose he got caught in it to save you. You are both so annoyingly weak. Standing around feebly waiting for the world to collapse on you. I expected better from the far seer’s apprentice.”
Drake started forward, but I slammed my arm across his chest, holding him back.
“Why cave in the tunnel,” he whispered fiercely, “if we weren’t supposed to be caught in it?”
Shailaja’s only answer was a curled-lipped smirk.
“To block the exit,” I said.
“To block the entrance, you twit.” A smile spread across the rabid koala’s face. “Never mind.”
Then the shadow demons dropped from the ceiling and streaked toward us.
Drake and I raised our weapons, more than ready to slash the final three leeches to shreds. But, blowing past us like a hurricane of shadow, they exited into the tunnel instead of engaging us.
A smirk spread across my face. So apparently, I wasn’t completely devoid of emotion yet. I still commanded all the ugly ones. Hate. Anger. Bitchiness.
“Only three?” I said tauntingly. “It’s utterly stupid to send them away, Shay-Shay, whatever your master plan. Drake and I against you? Even with the katana, that isn’t a fair fight. Not even remotely.”
“The disgraced apprentice will come forward and relinquish his claim on the far seer’s mantle.” Shailaja ignored my snide remarks.
Drake lifted his sword.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You don’t have any right to call him out. No, we’ll do this my way.”
Tired of bandying words, I charged along the golden-orange ray that created a perfect path between me and my prey.
Shailaja looked surprised, then concerned.
Concerned?
The floor dropped out beneath my feet.
I tumbled down into darkness, slamming into solid, craggy ground and shattering my still-healing ribs. My skull cracked. A kaleidoscope of bright dots exploded before me.
I lay there for a second, catching my breath. Then, just as I decided I needed to keep moving, the hole caved in.
Darkness swallowed me.
∞
When I awoke, I was in terrible shape. At least that was the thought screaming through my brain. My sense of self-preservation was babbling about staying still and waiting for help.
Then I heard grunts and footfalls above me.
I couldn’t move. Not an inch. I wasn’t even sure if my eyes were open or closed. My limbs were so, so heavy.
Maybe I was dead.
Then agony radiated through my head, chest, and limbs. So, unfortunately, I was still alive. Though probably barely.
One of the sources of footsteps above me fell so hard that the ground around and below me shook.
The pain in my head exploded, radiating back to front. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t actually open my mouth or move my jaw.
Whoever had fallen scrambled to their feet. A clang of steel hitting steel sounded out.
I tried to focus through the pain. People were close enough that I could hear them, and my hearing wasn’t that acute.
I couldn’t move. But I might be able to dowse. I reached out with my magical senses, catching the taste of honeyed almonds and carrot cake before another avalanche of torment slammed through my body.
I pulled back the tiny tendril of magic I’d reached out with. I focused on my necklace. The chain was pressing against my chest so harshly that I thought it might have embedded itself into my ribs and collarbone. That had to be bad.
I could also feel my knife sitting on my right hip.
Okay, so I was armed. Just not remotely dangerous.
I thought about staying there. About just giving up. Then Drake fell again — I heard him cry out the second time — causing the ground underneath me to shift. I screamed, managing to voice a strangled sort of noise.
The fledgling guardian couldn’t hold off Shailaja for long. No matter that he was destined to become the far seer, she still had years of training on him … and my katana.
Ah, damn.
I attempted to sit up. My right arm and leg responded, but my left didn’t.
Right. The walls of whatever pit I’d fallen into had caved in.
Slowly — painfully slowly — I began to feebly kick and shove at the stone that apparently covered me from my left shoulder to my left foot.
The sounds of metal striking metal got louder above me.
Drake grunted in pain.
Shailaja cackled.
Goddamn freaking rabid koala.
I kicked myself free of the stones that held me. Somehow, I managed to roll to my hands and knees. Then I threw up. And then I threw up again and again, until I had nothing else to evacuate.
My head swam. Blinking rapidly, I realized that I could see. The amber light from above was faintly permeating the pit I’d been half-buried in. My hands were covered in sticky blood, which didn’t make any sense until I realized that must have been what I was throwing up. That couldn’t be a good sign.
I pushed back into a sitting position, so that I could look up. I could see the ceiling of the tomb. I was maybe twenty-five feet below the floor.
The tomb apparently came with pit traps — one of which freaking Shailaja had set just for me. And I, not tasting anything magical in the area, had walked right into it.
My left leg and arm were shattered. I tried to ignore them, but the pain was almost incapacitating. I pulled more magic from my necklace and knife, coaxing it to flow through my body. My only hope was that it would stir up and accelerate my healing.
From above me, I heard Drake fall.
The ground heaved. The edge of the pit cracked and loose stone pelted my head and shoulders.
Then there was only silence.
Get up. Get up. Get up.
No one moved above me.
Ignoring my left arm and dragging my left leg, I reached for the rocks before me with my right arm. Pushing forward with my right leg, I attempted to climb out of the pit.
I got about halfway.
Shailaja peered down over the edge. “Ah, good. You’re alive.”
The rabid koala reached for me. Her fingers brushed my raised arm.
I threw myself away from her.
My left leg buckled, collapsing underneath me.
I fell back onto the craggy stone, cradling my left arm in an attempt to not injure it further.
Shailaja dropped down into the hole, reaching for me again.
I had nowhere to go.
I urged my knife into my right hand, but she pinned my wrist without effort. Then she grabbed my left arm, wrenching it up around her neck.
I screamed.
“Gadzooks,” Shailaja said under her breath, continuing to lift me up and across her shoulders.
Agony flooded my entire being. I threw up blood again, splattering the rock wall as I tried to shift myself off the rabid koala’s shoulders.
She pivoted, finding hand and footholds with no apparent effort. She climbed the craggy walls of the pit with me hanging across her shoulders.
The pain was too much.
I was dying.
Again.
Darkness took my eyes, then blotted the pain from my mind. I welcomed it.
Everyone else had fallen. Why not me?
Dying would make it all better.
And if I believed, if I could just believe in a world beyond this one, then maybe … maybe … I would see Warner again.
∞
Damn it. I wasn’t freaking dead.
Oh, God.
I was going to have to wake up.
Again.
I was going to have to fight.
Again.
I was lying on my back on a hard surface. My limbs were splayed out as if I’d been dumped unceremoniously onto the ground.
Right.
Shailaja.
I tried straightening my arms. Then when that failed, I simply pu
lled them closer to my torso. My left arm responded sluggishly, then exploded in a flood of painful tingling that set my entire left side on fire.
Moving was a bad idea.
I opened my eyes instead.
Warner was lying beside me.
Hope bloomed in my chest, pushing away the pain in a wash of euphoria. I didn’t know what was going on, but we’d survived it all somehow …
Except … he wasn’t moving. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing. He was badly beaten … almost crushed looking. And his magic was a faint note of smoke in the back of my throat … like the memory of a taste.
Maybe we were dead. Maybe this was some sort of limbo.
No.
I could see the image of the phoenix rising on the back wall.
We were still in the tomb.
Shailaja nudged me in the ribs with her foot.
I screamed.
Yep, I could still feel pain.
She muttered something impatiently, then stalked off.
Though I really didn’t want to, I turned my head away from Warner. Scanning the ceiling, I spotted the remaining three shadow leeches and clicked the pieces of Warner’s appearance together. The demons had dug him out somehow. Or maybe they transported him as they did Shailaja.
I kept turning my head, catching sight of Chi Wen’s sandaled feet still dangling off the sarcophagus.
Then I saw Shailaja standing over Drake at the far side of the room.
The fledgling guardian’s chest rose, then fell. He was still alive.
“Do you think I have to kill the apprentice?” Shailaja called out to me. “For the ascension ceremony to work?”
Focusing every part of my body and mind, I attempted to leap up, race across the chamber, and rip her heart out.
The only result was a low growl and a mouthful of bloody spit.
Shailaja laughed at my feebleness. She deliberately pointed her finger at me, then pressed it to Drake’s forehead. “Get up, Jade,” she said. “I’m sorry about the collapsing floor. It was for the fledgling, not you. Tricky you. I thought you always let those more powerful lead.”
I sat up. It hurt. I still couldn’t use my left arm. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the pretty mosaic tiled floor. The bright red complimented the orange perfectly.
“That was Warner’s idea … him leading,” I said. Shifting my weight onto my right leg and arm, I attempted to stand. “When Drake and I train, he always follows. So as not to impede my dowser senses.”
Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic Page 27
