by Eric Vall
We passed the pile of bones, and Ruslan ran his fingers along one of the huge ribs with a grimace.
“A lyngba,” he murmured. “I assume you are the one who slayed this beast.”
“Yeah, that was a rough fight,” I replied. “It can make the water completely black. I could barely see anything.”
“Water cloaking.” Ruslan nodded as he continued past the beast. “The lyngba is rare, and very few have actually been defeated. It is odd to see one in such a place.”
“Well, it was corrupted,” I said. “I’m sure Olivier was doing more of his experiments on it.”
“Horrid,” the fox Demi-Human replied with a disgusted look on his face. “His death was entirely too quick for his crimes.”
“On that, we can definitely agree,” I muttered before I pushed through the thin magical veil and stepped into the cavernous opening of Olivier’s library.
It was just as expansive as I remembered, and it looked completely untouched from the battle we’d waged in the cave. I picked up a book from the shelf and flipped through the pages. Not a single one was wrinkled from water or showed any other signs the flood had entered the library.
“These are in pristine condition,” Ruslan breathed as he looked through another text. “Even without the battle you fought outside here, this is thousands of years old and still in near-perfect shape. It’s unbelievable.”
“Olivier seemed to find the best of the best,” I murmured, and my gaze drifted down the row of books that seemed to go on for a mile. “Are they all worth taking?”
“Let me see,” my father answered.
He strolled down the row and eyed a few books from each section. He muttered and gasped and clucked his tongue, and I turned my attention back to the texts when one in particular caught my eye.
Draconic Times.
I pulled the book from the shelf and opened its yellowing pages to see a hand-painted dragon sprawled across the inner cover and first page. It was a gorgeous creation with red and gold scales, and each scale was painted in great detail down to a shimmer that seemed to bring the painting to life. Even the bright green eyes appeared to stare into mine as I looked at the design. It was incredible.
Then I slowly turned the page to find handwritten depictions of dragons. It was as though someone had spent years observing multiple dragon families, and the writer described every little detail about their lives. It began with dragon mates, their courtship and subsequent bonding ceremony, and their hatchlings. Then it continued to talk about the hatchlings and how they were raised among other dragon families.
“We used to have whole dragon communities,” I sighed to myself.
It was unbelievable. Some of the younger dragons were sent to live among the drache, where they were trained to wield their magic and protect dragon villages all over Inati. Thousands of dragons used to build their nests and towns among the mountains everywhere, and Olivier had used his blood magic to destroy nearly an entire race. There had to be a reason he targeted dragons, but I had no idea what it could be.
However, I’d at least figured out an important piece of information. I confirmed what Eskandar told me a few days ago when he’d brought up the fact that dragons couldn’t be born of humans, but as far as I’d known in my life back on Earth, such things didn’t exist. Now, I was living, breathing proof dragons were real, at least here on Inati.
So, how was I created?
I was fairly certain my mother had been human, and I figured my aunt would have mentioned something by now if that wasn’t true. As for my biological father, I had no idea. My mother never talked about him, and questions about him were met with uneasy or half-hearted answers. As a kid, I thought he was a shit dad who walked out on us. As I got older, though, I wondered if he’d died or she really just didn’t know much about him, which would explain why she didn’t like to talk about some illicit, short-term affair with a stranger.
I wouldn’t have judged her for a one-night stand, but it would have been nice to know my dad, whoever he was.
I snapped the book shut and tucked it into my spatial storage. I wanted to go through it more later, but it might help to read it with Valerra and Alyona, who knew much more about dragons and the magical world than I did.
“All of them!” Ruslan declared suddenly and interrupted my thoughts.
“All… what?” I blinked a few times as I turned to see my father with a wide grin. “The books?”
“Yes!” he cried out with excitement. “We need to take all of them back to the archives. Some texts here date back to the days of mere humans walking the land!”
According to the merpeople I’d met back in Pullis, that was a while back, so it seemed Olivier had amassed quite the collection.
“Spatial storage?” I offered.
“Indeed!” Ruslan agreed and skipped back to the other end. “I’ll start down here!”
“Guess I’ll start on this side,” I chuckled as I walked back toward the entry.
Then I opened my spatial storage and felt a bit like Mary Poppins as I began to dump row after row of books into the magical space.
“I suppose your father decided to take all the books?” Nike’s voice was amused as he strolled into the library with a grin.
“Yep,” I sighed. “Any luck on the evil laboratory?”
“Indeed,” the noble confirmed as he held up a small journal. “There weren’t any finished books in there, but I did find Olivier’s notes about his experiments. The beast we faced was not his first creation.”
“Gods,” I muttered. “What happened to the others?”
“The first few died within minutes of their, ah, birth,” he explained with a grimace. “There were two more right after the first generation, and they lived for almost a month. He seemed to improve with each round, and by the time he created the beast we saw, it was one of six.”
“But we only saw the one.” I frowned and rubbed my face with frustration. “So, where are the other five?”
“He found two dead out on the mountain,” Nike answered. “The other three were released into the wild.”
“Of course, they were,” I groaned. “Are we going to have to hunt these things down?”
“I don’t know, my lord,” he replied as he furrowed his brow. “They may die as their siblings did, but I can’t say for certain.”
“Let’s just hang on to that journal,” I decided. “We’ll discuss it with His Eminence. Maybe he can send a group of soldiers to the release locations and handle it.”
“Good idea.” Nike dipped his head and handed the book to me.
I tucked the journal into my storage with the others, and I summoned a messenger dragon in my palm. It was strange to look at the tiny creature now and know the larger version lived in my spiritual sea as my inner dragon. He was the epitome of all my dragon instincts, but for now, he was the physical access to my magic that I could send anywhere I wanted to pass along a message.
“Go to King Rodion,” I commanded the little beast. “Tell him there are at least three of the deformed creatures possibly roaming these mountains or possibly the forest closer to the ground. He needs to send his soldiers to hunt the beasts and dispose of them.”
The tiny dragon lowered its body into a bow, and then it took off out of the cave toward the White Jade Temple, where my father-in-law likely sat on his balcony and held tightly to his hold on the seal that kept the demons at bay. He had a lot on his plate, but I knew his soldiers could handle the abominable creatures, and we could both continue working on closing the Breach.
I focused once again on the bookshelves, but as soon as my fingers grazed the spine of one book, a shiver trickled down my arm to my toes, so I gripped the text and pulled it from the shelf. The title simply read Covetous.
I opened the cover and skimmed through what looked to be almost like a children’s fairy tale, but certainly in the style of the Brothers Grimm. It featured a man who went around his village and made terrible deals with the citizens that
were obviously in his favor, though they didn’t realize it yet. He would either make a fake treasure, or he would steal from one person and trade the stolen or fraudulent item with another person for the things he truly desired, such as gold, jewels, and clothing.
Soon, he’d gathered a fortune and quickly departed his home village before his fellow citizens caught on to his schemes. He moved from city to city, always moving on before anyone could figure out what he was doing. Suddenly, he was met on his path by an old crone who warned his dastardly deeds would soon be his undoing, but he dismissed her without a second thought. He had everything he could possibly want, and he still wanted more.
I turned to the second to last page, and I nearly dropped the book as a drawing lashed out. In the fable, the gods appeared in front of the greedy man and demanded he return all his wrongly obtained goods to their rightful owners or he would suffer the consequences. The man refused, and the gods gathered together for a moment before one of them hit the man with a bolt of lightning and killed him instantly.
His soul was dragged into the underworld, which was a gruesome depiction of tortured beings who begged for reprieve, and his body was left on the road to rot and be eaten by the creatures of the nearby forest.
It was a grisly tale, but the point was clear. The gods didn’t want people to lie and steal to get what they wanted from other people. Or maybe it was just the fact that the man wanted what everyone else had. Either way, he sounded like a prick who got exactly what he deserved.
I just couldn’t figure out why the book sent chills down my spine.
I glanced up to see Ruslan was about halfway down the aisle, and I decided to show him the book and see what he thought. As I closed the book, I turned toward my father, but then the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
We were no longer the only ones in the library.
Chapter 2
I drew the Sword of Hatra from my belt as Nike followed suit, and we turned to face the entry to the tunnel. Maybe one of the hare-brained beasts had found its way back into the cavern, or perhaps Olivier had other tricks up his sleeve before his death that we hadn’t found yet. Either way, we were prepared for a fight.
But instead of a ghastly beast, a small child emerged from the tunnel.
He was maybe seven or eight, and his pale face was streaked with dirt and grime. His pale, brown hair was nearly matted to his head, while his clothes were filthy and torn. He looked up at us with eyes the color of an early summer sky, and they were filled with tears as he wrung his hands together and sniffled.
“H-Hello?” he nearly whispered. “You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here!”
“Do not worry, child,” Nike declared as he quickly sheathed his sword. “We are nobles, and we are not here to harm you.”
I kept my grip on my own blade as I cocked my head to the side and studied the child. Something wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was the way the boy stared at us without fear. Even alone and dirty in this empty cave, his gaze never wavered, though his tears looked well-practiced.
Before I could ask my own questions, Ruslan rushed past me and knelt in front of the boy.
“Are you alright?” my father asked in a breathless voice. “Did Olivier hurt you?”
“Olivier?” the boy repeated with wide eyes. “You know the Sage? He is a horrible man! You should leave before he comes back!”
I furrowed my brow with frustration. It had been two days since we’d battled Olivier right here in this cave. The boy should have realized we’d taken him away if he’d been here the entire time. Something was fishy.
“Perhaps the boy was another of his experiments,” Nike murmured. “We know he didn’t have any regard for the lives of children.”
My mind flashed back to the cave in the mountain filled with the bones of hundreds of helpless children that Olivier had sacrificed in the name of his blood magic and necromancy. Even now, the memory made my stomach turn, and I wanted to kill the bastard all over again.
“How did you get here?” I asked the child, and I narrowed my eyes on his as I awaited his response.
“I-I don’t know,” he stammered and looked down at his bare feet on the cold ground. “I went to sleep at home and woke up here, and the Sage told me I was his now. My mama and papa died from the illness, so no one even missed me.”
“I’m sure someone was caring for you,” Ruslan insisted. “An aunt? A grandparent, perhaps?”
“No.” The boy shook his head and wiped a single tear from his cheek. “I was alone there, as I am now alone here. You really must leave soon before we aren’t alone any longer.”
“What illness took your parents?” I continued my suspicious inquiry.
The child had only given vague responses, so I wasn’t convinced we weren’t being tricked by some magical being. I’d seen dozens of spells that could change what you saw, and this could easily be another one. Hell, even Miraya had taken the form of a child when we’d first met because she knew I had a soft spot for kids.
“They coughed for days until blood trickled from their lips,” the child answered. “When the people from our village came to check on us, they took my parents’ bodies away and told me it was my house now, but it was so lonely.”
“They just left a small child in his house without parents?” My eyes widened with disbelief. “Where do you come from?”
“My village,” he replied with a shrug. “It was in the mountains, but not these ones. This place smells different.”
“Then we’ll take you back,” Ruslan declared.
“No, we will not,” I argued. “We don’t know what mountains, what village, or if this kid is even a kid.”
“He’s clearly a child,” Nike pointed out and looked at me as though I’d gone mad.
“Or he can make himself look like one,” I grunted as I turned back to face the boy. “What have you been eating up here?”
“Uh, well, I…” The boy fumbled for a response, but suddenly his expression grew blank, and he sighed. “Fine.”
Then he grew.
The boy’s small face aged into that of a young man, and the dirt disappeared into his skin. His hair darkened to the deepest black I’d ever seen, though his eyes remained the same bright blue. When his transformation was complete, the man who stood before us was a few inches taller than I was, and his body was filled out with sinewy muscles and covered with golden armor. A crest that stirred a sense of familiarity was embossed on his chest plate, but I ignored my curiosity and brandished the Sword of Healing.
“Who are you?” I demanded as I stepped in front of my unarmed father and gripped my blade tightly.
“Aeron,” the man answered with a proud jut of his chin. “And you are not meant to be here. I gave you the opportunity to leave.”
“Oh, gods,” Ruslan muttered and dropped to one knee. “He’s one of them.”
“Them who?” I growled as I eyed the stranger.
“The gods!” Nike hissed, and I looked over to realize he’d already lowered into a bow as well.
“Shit,” I cursed and sheathed my sword as I fell to a knee.
“We humbly apologize for our insolence, great Aeron,” Ruslan said. “We beg your forgiveness for our intrusion upon your sacred ground.”
“And why have you returned to the place you know is forbidden to mortals?” Aeron thundered as he towered over our kneeling forms. “You are aware the punishment for such a rebellion is death, yes?”
“We wanted to finish cleaning it out,” I replied and risked a careful glance up to the armored god. “It was filled with blasphemy from its previous, ah, resident. This is a sacred place, right? We couldn’t let him leave it with all these sacrilegious leftovers, especially when we’re the ones who finally doled out his punishment.”
“Ah, yes, the Sage,” Aeron spat out and turned to pace in front of us. “You may rise.”
We stood and faced the god, and he stopped to look at each of us as though he
was deciding our fate for breaking the rule of entering Bruven’s Peaks. Which could certainly be what he was doing, given the whole ‘punishment is death’ thing, but the silence was killing me already. If he hadn’t made his mind up yet about allowing us to live, maybe he just needed a little explanation.
“Your, uh, Godliness?” I cleared my throat. “I don’t mean to be rude, but we didn’t mean any harm. We’ve almost cleared out Olivier’s stuff, and then we’ll be on our way. We have no intention of staying, I swear.”
“Godliness?” Aeron echoed with a smirk. “I know your intentions, young dragon. And if not for your acts of valor since you arrived in our realm, I would have struck you dead already.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” I sighed. “So, we’re good?”
“I am good,” he responded and waved his hand dismissively. “You are mortal, so you must decide your own goodness or evilness. I am the one who determines which you have chosen and acts accordingly.”
“So, like, you’re the judge?” I grimaced. “And the executioner?”
“Unfortunately, in most cases, I must wait until the mortal actually dies,” Aeron sighed and crossed his large arms over his chest. “Though, occasionally, there are a few who earn our wrath earlier than their intended time. Then I get to exact my punishment.”
“Swell,” Nike muttered.
“And Olivier didn’t earn your wrath?” I arched an eyebrow in surprise. “He killed, like, a lot of people and dragons, and that’s not even bringing up the corrupted creature shit.”
“Silence!” the God of Punishment commanded as he sneered at me. “Olivier accessed powerful magic that cloaked him from our view.”
“Cloaked from a god?” I raised an eyebrow, but maybe I should have just kept my mouth closed since I was implying a god must not be that powerful if a mortal could hide from him.
“Yes. Now, I see the spell died with him, and Bruven’s Peaks are no longer under its protection, so I knew the moment you arrived here.”
