Of Dreams and Dragons

by Karpov Kinrade

Before he can answer, there is a great roar in the sky.

  We both look up, and there, coming toward us, are dragons.

  Many. Many. Dragons. The largest thunder I have ever seen.

  "How?" I stutter.

  "The Wall, it must be fading. A Sundering maybe? Or… look!" He points.

  I see the red dragon from before. Surrounded by drakes and smaller dragons. But this time, the red dragon is closer. Close enough to see the rider on it.

  "That's her. She's controlling them. The Outcast is behind this!" Kaden is livid.

  And scared.

  We both are.

  We are in no condition to fight that many dragons. Raven is still out cold. I'm injured. Our squad is still back at the village. We are no match for what awaits us.

  "Take Raven back to the village. You have to run," I tell him.

  I pull out the dragonstone I keep hidden in my pouch and hold it in my fist. I look to see if Kaden listened, but of course he didn't. He set Raven under a tree and is running back to me. Stupid man.

  I close my eyes and focus on my power, and I channel the largest dragon I ever have. Umi roars from me full of fire and rage, and heads straight for the dragons that are descending on us.

  My feelings of victory are short lived as the red dragon fights with Umi. They battle and I feel it in my bones. Every lash. Every cut. Every wound.

  I focus harder, trying to send more power to help him fight. But he's losing. The other drakes and dragons are coming to aid the red dragon, surrounding Umi until he can't escape or fight them all.

  I feel the moment he's killed and dissipates into the air, and I sink to the ground, my power draining from me like water from a broken cup. I feel empty, and I know I will not be able to channel again anytime soon.

  Kaden reaches me, his eyes wide.

  Tears leak from my eyes. "I told you to run. You just killed yourself and Raven."

  He kneels before me. "Do you trust me?"

  "Of course. But that doesn't change our fate."

  "I can save us, but you have to trust me. I promise I will explain everything later. And… I'm sorry." He kisses me softly. "Please don't forget I love you."

  I sit in stunned silence, wondering what he's sorry for. Trying to make sense of his words, as he closes his eyes.

  He's clearly reaching for Spirit. He'll go out fighting, of course he will. I will watch him die, and then I will die. I can only hope they will spare Raven. Maybe she will regain consciousness and get to the village.

  Power washes over Kaden, and he begins to glow as he summons his Spirit.

  A huge black and red dragon that looks demonic and very powerful. The dragon he transmuted into when he rescued me from Skip's inn.

  Kaden opens his eyes, and I hear a gasp behind me.

  Raven is there, staring at us both, blood dripping down her face.

  Kaden swears, and it takes me a moment to make sense of everything.

  His eyes.

  They are red.

  Kaden is Corrupted.

  He turns away from us and mounts his dragon, then takes to the sky to fight.

  Raven sinks to the ground beside me and I put an arm around her. She lets me. We watch, silently. Waiting.

  I'm numb inside. Or think I am. But I'm also scared. Can you be numb and scared?

  I can't lose Kaden.

  Not to this fight.

  Not to the Corruption.

  But it didn't seem sudden. He knew.

  He knows he's corrupted, and he never told me.

  But how? How is this, is any of this, even possible? Corrupted ones can't control it. They go mad. They are deadly. He is none of those things.

  The dragons fight above us, and one of their drakes falls from the sky, dead. Another follows. Kaden fights like a beast possessed. I've never seen anything like it.

  Except.

  Except I have.

  In the Corrupted.

  When another dragon falls dead from the sky, the Outcast pulls out of the fight, and the red dragon leads what's left away, unwilling to lose any more of her thunder to Kaden's ferocity.

  He lands before us, his dragon dissipating as he runs to me, his eyes still glowing red. "Sky, I can explain."

  "They saw you!" Phoenix is here now, but I didn't hear her arrive. She looks pissed.

  "No, wait!" Kaden holds out his hand, but before he can reach us, I feel something hard hit my head, and I fall to the ground, passing out before my head hits the rock.

  Thirty-Seven

  Alon Londal

  I have been betrayed.

  For years, I trained to be an Ashknight because of Kaden's guidance, and now he has trapped me in a cell. Were his promises to help me defeat Pike all hollow? Were our stolen kisses all lies? Did he have something else planned all along?

  And what of his eyes…

  Red eyes mean a Corrupted Spirit, and yet Phoenix wasn't even surprised. She knew he was Corrupted. She knew and she wanted it kept secret. She would rather us captured than talk. Maybe she would rather us dead.

  But we still breathe. And we will be free.

  Heavy shackles cover my wrists, steel rings engraved with nullify glyphs. They remind me of my wrist brace, but even stronger in their effect. I can't feel my Spirit at all, and all my attempts at transmuting and beckoning leave me nothing but tired.

  Raven has barely spoken since we woke a few hours ago. She sits next to me, her small pale body feeble compared to the massive chains that link us to the stone walls. Her skin is purple around the wrist, bruised from the tight confines of metal. There is an emptiness in her eyes. More so than usual. She has always been distant, but now…

  Now she is defeated.

  My lips are cracked, my throat dry. We've not had water since we woke, and I do not know how long we were here while unconscious. There are no windows in our cell. Only torches of blue flame on the opposite side of the bars, castling long shadows. I do not know if it is night or day. If we are above ground or below. I know nothing but the cold hard floor, the ache in my bones, and the growing hunger within.

  A droplet of water falls from the ceiling before me, adding to a slowly growing puddle. Perhaps it is raining. Perhaps we are beneath snow. Drip. Drop. The water falls. Drip. Drop. The sound buries itself in my mind, and a headache grows. I cannot sleep. I cannot relax. How long will this go on for?

  Will we be prisoners for days, weeks, years? Or will they kill us?

  They can try.

  As soon as someone enters my cell, I will be upon them, fighting tooth and nail. I will free myself to honor my promise to Kara, or I will die trying.

  A rattle. A groan of wood.

  Someone just opened a door.

  Footsteps.

  A man emerges from the shadows.

  Kaden.

  He stands before the bars, his face tired, his eyes… normal.

  The red is gone.

  But how?

  There is no cure for Corruption. Not yet. That is what they seek to discover in the Asylum.

  "I'm sorry," says Kaden softly. "If it were up to me, you would never have been put in these cells—"

  "Then free us," I say.

  He frowns. "I can't. It is not for me to decide, you see."

  I stand, walking forward, chains rattling behind me. "Then who decides?"

  He sighs, saying nothing.

  Raven looks up at him. "You were Corrupted. Now you're not. How?"

  He leans forward, clasping the bars with his hand. "There is much you don't understand. The Masters have been lying to you. About Corruption. About the Asylum."

  I take another step forward. If I can grab Kaden's hand, maybe I can pull him against the bars, wrap my arm around his throat, take him prisoner and negotiate a release.

  "Tell us the truth then," says Raven.

  One more step. I almost have him.

  Kaden pulls his hands away, grabbing a set of keys from his belt. "I can't tell you. But I will show you."

  He unlocks
the cell, then steps within. He is in reach now. I can grab him, but I don't. Why don't I? This could be another trick. Another lie.

  But there is truth in Kaden's eyes. He wants to show us something. He wants us to understand.

  With a key, he unlocks the chains, and they fall to the ground with a thud. I raise up my arms. "Now the shackles," I say.

  He shakes his head. "That I cannot do. Not until you swear to do no harm within these walls."

  "I swear." It is a lie. I choose freedom over truth.

  "It is not to me you must swear, but to another." He puts the keys back on his belt. I consider grabbing them. Together, Raven and I could overpower him and—

  "I know you're thinking of escape," says Kaden, glancing at us both. "Perhaps you could take the keys, though I have access to Spirit and you do not. Perhaps, you could remove your shackles and defeat me, though I am an Ashlord and you but knights. But I swear to you, there is another here you cannot defeat. And if you run, she will kill you." He pauses, clenching his fist, his eyes intense. "Do not run. I beg you."

  I see the sorrow in him, and it softens me. Somehow, he is on our side in this. I do not know how. But I hear it in the way he speaks. It wasn't he who knocked us out. It was Phoenix, and he seemed against it. There is more in play here than I know. Much more.

  Kaden grabs a torch from the wall and motions for us to follow, and so we do, leaving the cell behind. He guides us past other cells, most empty but for two. One holds an old man, another a younger woman, both shackled like us. "Who are they?" I ask, their faces unfamiliar.

  "Criminals," says Kaden. "The woman awaits trial. The man carries out his sentence."

  "Are we in the King's dungeons?" I ask.

  "No." He does not elaborate, leading us up a set of spiral stairs. The stone walls are old and cracked. Ancient symbols are etched into the ceiling.

  Raven glances at me. "Remind you of anywhere?" she whispers.

  I nod. The catacombs beneath Dragoncliff. Is that where we are? It is not long until we reach a doorway and emerge into a giant cavern, so tall and wide I can barely believe we are underground. Crystal stalagmites glitter like stars in the ceiling. Blue flames flicker in the distance, lighting doors and windows carved into stone walls, and roads weaving between blocks of dark rock. A vast pool of water casts reflections in the center of the cavern, large enough to be a lake. Waterfalls pour from stone, thundering in the distance. Giant trees, with tops like mushroom, reach high above, glowing a pale blue in the darkness. This place would seem an underground sanctuary, if not for the people.

  They are everywhere, bustling about, filling stalls around the roads, washing clothes in the lake, chatting on rooftops, bathing beneath the waterfalls. Most wear gray robes. A few, like Kaden, wear black.

  "This is a city," I say.

  Kaden nods, raising his torch higher. "Welcome to Alon Londal. Home of the Ashwraiths."

  "They're real," whispers Raven, her eyes locked on the city. "The Ashwraiths... All this time… I thought I knew… I thought I knew… " She talks more to herself than us. I have rarely seen her surprised.

  My mind mulls over everything I've recently learned. I remember Kaden's eyes. The Corruption. And a thought forms. "Are Ashwraiths Corrupted Twin Spirits?" I ask.

  Kaden nods. "Yes, and no. Corruption is not what you have been led to believe. It is not a disease to be cured. It is not a curse. It is but the next step for the bond between Spirit and man. An evolution."

  I raise an eyebrow. "But when one's Spirit becomes corrupted, doesn't the Spirit take over their mind? Make them dangerous?"

  Kaden guides us forward, talking as we walk. "At first, yes, it makes one dangerous. But is a Broken One not dangerous? Is an untrained Twin Spirit not dangerous? Those who become Corrupted shouldn't be locked away. They should be trained."

  Two men pass us on the way. They look at Raven and me with suspicion, but to Kaden they bow their heads.

  "Are all these people Ashwraiths?" I ask.

  "Yes."

  "But there must be hundreds."

  "And you're wondering how they all ended up here," says Kaden. His voice takes on false sincerity. "All Corrupted Ones are sent to the Asylum. Those who flee are hunted down. Within the Asylum, Corrupted Ones receive treatment and shelter while a cure is developed for their condition." His voice returns to normal. "That is what all Ashlings are told. What we all come to believe."

  "You mean… they lied?" I ask.

  "Oh, they lied. Let me show you how much." He guides us into a tunnel, and we walk up until we reach a dead end, a brick wall before us. A man and woman stand on either side of the wall, wielding spears; the first weapons I've seen in Alon Londal. When they recognize Kaden, they bow their heads.

  "Lord Kaden," says the man. "How may we be of service?"

  Raven and I exchange a look. Bowing and calling people lords is something for the nobility, not Twin Spirits. Yet these people seem to do more than bow for Kaden. There is respect in their voices. Reverence in their eyes. Who is Kaden to these people?

  The Ashlord smiles. "Anyone new come through the doors?" he asks.

  "A woman," says the man. "An Ashknight who pushed herself beyond the Wall."

  "Who tends to her?" asks Kaden. "Meric?"

  "Iona, my lord," replies the man.

  "Ah. Iona has a tender heart," says Kaden. "She will do well. Now, my company and I must pass."

  The man and woman glance at the shackles on our wrists and frown. They don't appear to agree with what Kaden is doing, but they offer no argument. "Yes, my lord," replies the woman. She pulls a black lever on the cave wall, and the bricks before us slide out of the way.

  We follow Kaden forward and enter a new chamber. Where everything in Alon Londal was black stone, here it is white. White walls, white ceilings. There is nothing else. It is an empty chamber, the size of a barracks. High above, I see something in the wall. A door of black steel. There is something familiar about the door. About the size of the chamber and the white walls.

  And then I understand.

  "This… This is the Asylum," I say.

  Raven gasps. "But there's nothing here."

  Kaden walks forward, gesturing at the empty space. "The Asylum was never a place to treat Corrupted Ones. Simply a place to lock them away."

  I bend down, rubbing my fingers against the floor, wiping away a layer of dust. "But if there's no treatment, why not simply kill anyone who becomes Corrupted?" I ask. "Why the lie?"

  "The Corrupted were killed," says Kaden," back in the ancient days. Back before Illian."

  "The first Ashlord," I say, remembering Illian's statue at Dragon Cliff. "The one who ended the first Sundering, sealing a breach in the wall, and becoming Corrupted in the process. They say, with her last act of lucidity, she took her own life."

  "Another lie," says Kaden. "Let me tell you the tale of Illian. Let me tell you the truth that was kept from you."

  "Illian, like all who become Corrupted, could not control herself at first. Her followers had a choice. Kill her like they did all Corrupted before, or try to find a cure. They could not bring themselves to murder their great leader and friend, so they trapped her instead. In this place. It was not long before all Corrupted were placed here as well. No one wanted to kill their friends. This was an easier choice. A simpler choice. Lock your friends away until a cure was found. It made sense. It eased the conscience. But as the years went by, no cure was found. As centuries passed, all hope for the Corrupted began to fade. This place, this prison, was no longer the beacon of hope it once was. And so the Masters, in an attempt to boost morale, devised a story. They had converted the prison into an Asylum, where the Corrupted were treated with care and where a cure was being developed. But they sent no doctors and nurses into the Asylum. And the cure… the cure had long been abandoned.

  "The lies appeased the people, however, and in time, the story of Illian changed as well. There was no honor to joining the Asylum. Illian took her own life i
nstead, they said. I wonder if it was to try and encourage others to do the same.

  "The Masters abandoned those who were corrupted. They left them locked away for centuries. And then something happened no one expected. Illian, the oldest of us, began to regain control. It took many years with no guidance, but somehow, she succeeded. She regained balance with her Spirit, and became lucid once more. The other prisoners did not harm her. Nor each other. Their connection, the fact that they were all ascended, kept them safe. And Illian began to seek a way out. She could not breach the door, for it was sealed with many glyphs and barriers. But she could dig.

  "For years Illian dug through the walls and earth. She sought to find the lands outside, to see the sun and moon once more, but instead she reached something else. A forgotten part of the catacombs beneath Dragoncliff. A place so large it could hold all those within the Asylum and more.

  "Illian thought to leave then. To make her way through the catacombs until she reached the Cliff and then freedom. But she would have to leave the other Corrupted behind. Men and women she had spent centuries with. Men and women she had grown to care for even though they had never shared words. None had died, for the Corrupted were immortal, whether they had earned dragon hearts or not. And so she stayed with them and began began to teach them control.

  "It took many years, for Illian barely understood what she herself had learned. But in time, her first pupil, Yosa, became lucid as well. He and Illian had achieved a level of ability with Spirit never seen before. They could do things the Masters had never envisioned. And they began to train the rest. They did not call them Corrupted, for they realized the inherent lie in that word. When one pushed themselves too hard, when their Spirit took over and their eyes turned red, they had simply reached the next part of their journey. A journey none ever thought could be completed. But Illian and Yosa proved them wrong. They and their pupils became something new, something more even than Twin Spirits, and so they no longer called themselves Corrupted, but Ascended.

  "In time, there were hundreds of them. They thought to leave the catacombs then. To return to the Cliff and show the Masters the errors of their ways. But what if they were not believed? What if they were seen as a threat? For how does one prove that they are themselves and not a Spirit merely playing at human? If the Masters refused them, a great war would begin. And the Ascended, still relatively small in number, would die.