by K. C. Julius
Leif thought of his gran and wondered if it was even what he truly wanted. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “once your binding is complete, Ilyria will help you find your brother.”
“Do you think so?” she said, brushing aside her tears. “If that were true, I would gladly do whatever she asks of me.” A wan smile lit her face. “Thank you, Leif, for giving me this hope. With it, I can face even a dragon!”
Face a dragon.
Leif hoped his own smile betrayed nothing of his true apprehension.
Chapter 32
Maura
The summons, when it came, struck Maura like a lightning bolt. She shot up from her pillow, drenched in a cold sweat, with a searing pain in her heart.
She gulped in short, sharp breaths until it diminished. Then she rose, fumbled into her robe, and crept out into the hallway.
Leif appeared from the shadows, his hand tight against his chest.
“You feel it too?” he whispered.
Maura didn’t trust herself to speak, so great was her dread. She nodded and slipped her hand into his.
“It must be close to midnight,” murmured Leif. They had waited all through the long day for the promised call from their dragons, and it had never come. Maura had finally taken to her bed, exhausted by the strain.
Now they made their way through the gardens, the wheeling stars above them spangling the heavens. The night air was crisp, reminding Maura that for all the mildness of the weather here, it was winter, even in Mithralyn.
They passed into the forest, lured by an instinct born of their wounded hearts. The duff rustled beneath their feet, and something startled in the branches above them, flapping suddenly through the trees. All the while, a song without notes reverberated in Maura’s mind, irresistibly drawing her toward its source.
Even before they arrived at its shore, the lap of gentle waves, and the damp seeping through her slippers, told her they were nearing the lake. As they stopped at the edge of the dark water, crowned with a diadem of celestial light, Leif gave a little sigh of pleasure, and Maura felt her own blood tingle. The strange, compelling music in her mind faded to silence, and she shivered in the chilly air.
For a moment, all was still.
Then a shadow fell over the water, and two dark-winged titans swooped down to skim its tenebrous surface. Maura caught her breath as the dragons, shining bronze and frosted cerulean, spread their luminescence across the mirroring ripples and drifted to land on the opposite shore. A gust of cold air lifted her hair, and her pulse quickened.
Ilyria was waiting for her.
You must trust in your dragons, to your peril, Master Morgan had warned them. But what did that mean?
The temperature had plummeted. Maura sought Leif’s eyes, but he was staring, his mouth agape, across the water. It was frothed with whitecaps, which swiftly stiffened into frozen peaks.
“By Ursaline’s Light…”
“They want us to cross to them,” said Leif.
“Is it safe?” Maura asked, but he had already stepped onto the glittering ice, pulling her along with him.
She could no longer feel her fingers interlaced with his, nor did she dare take her eyes from the jagged path they were slowly traversing. Sleet had begun to pelt down, soaking them through, the icy droplets freezing on their robes. She had never known such a deep, abiding cold.
Maura’s lashes were rimed with ice, and her vision blurred; the faint silhouettes of their dragons across the lake had all but faded from sight. Her breath burned like blue fire in her lungs. For an instant she hesitated, and it was then that she heard a sound like a whip being lashed.
“What is that?” she cried, clutching at Leif.
“It’s the water!” he shouted. “It’s moving under the ice. We have to make a run for it—or turn back!” They had only a breath to decide, and Maura felt Leif’s fear as palpably as her own.
Without a word exchanged, they bolted forward. But they had taken only a few steps when there came a low groan and a sharp crack. The ice split, a thin fissure racing toward them through the troughs of the frozen waves.
“Faster!” Maura cried.
More cracks appeared. They leapt together over them, weaving between the icy crests. Maura could feel the cold weighing down on her as though it would encase her in its chill breath, and she pushed herself for more speed.
Suddenly, the ice gave way beneath them, and Leif’s cry echoed her own. But instead of plunging through it, Maura found herself hurtling skyward on a gushing plume of water shooting up from the depths of the lake. Spiraling at its crest, she caught a glimpse of Leif spinning beside her before the geyser dropped away and they were falling back toward a hole in the treacherous ice.
She gasped in anticipation of the frigid water—only to realize that despite plummeting below the ice, she was still falling through air. She and Leif were plunging down a pitch-black chute into the very bowels of the earth. And just when it seemed that their fall would be infinite, they dropped through a vast cavern of shimmering ruby light, and into a pool of steaming water.
She broke the surface with a gasp to discover Leif bobbing and coughing beside her. Together, they hoisted themselves out of the pool and collapsed, panting, at its edge. Maura had no breath for words, but she sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for the heat emanating from the crystalline walls surrounding them as she gradually regained feeling in her limbs.
“We’re deep under the ground,” Leif croaked. He had pushed himself up to a sitting position against a glittering wall, his legs splayed out before him. “No closer to our dragons.”
“Do you think they’ve changed their minds about binding with us?” Maura didn’t add what she was thinking. Do they mean for us to die here?
A guilty expression crept across Leif’s face.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“This is part of our trial,” he said. “I didn’t tell you because I thought it would be easier not to know. I don’t even know much myself, but I came across a rhyme in one of my father’s books—about the initiation rites of the dragonfast. The water bit was the first part.”
Maura frowned. “The first part? You mean there’s more of this sort of mayhem to come?”
The air in the cave stirred, and a scattering of dry debris began to whirl around them. Their eyes locked, and Leif gave a slow nod.
“Leif?”
His name had barely passed her lips before Maura felt herself wrenched upward, like iron to a lodestone. With a deafening roar, a funnel of raging wind swallowed them up and tossed them about like chaff. There was no up or down as they wheeled in the maelstrom.
And then they were abruptly ejected from the whirling air and plunked down hard on solid ground. They were still in the forest; Maura could smell pine and see the stars through the dark branches overhead. Leif was sprawled beside her, and she would have laughed had she breath to do so, for his black hair was spiked up in all directions.
When his gaze turned toward her, his eyes widened.
“Yes, I can imagine,” she said wryly, pushing her tousled hair away from her face.
But Leif held up a silencing hand, and Maura realized he was listening to something she couldn’t hear. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, and there was no mistaking the apprehension in his voice. “But I have a feeling we won’t like what’s coming.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What was the rhyme, Leif? I’d rather know—truly I would.”
Leif swallowed hard. “I’m not sure I remem—”
“You know it by heart,” said Maura. “I know you do. Tell me!” She laid her hand on his arm, and he flinched under her touch. Drawing back in surprise, she said, “Are you hurt?”
“It wasn’t me that moved,” said Leif in a low voice. He rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Hurry! We haven’t much t
ime!”
Dragging her after him, he began to run between the trees.
“Leif!” Maura cried. “Tell me! What is the rhyme?”
Leif flung himself against a massive trunk and pulled her down beside him. Only then did he begin to recite, in a breathless voice:
“Immersed within the elements,
The dragonfast acquire
The essence of the inner sphere—”
A flash of lightning bathed the forest in eerie light, and he faltered.
Maura gave his arm an urgent shake. “The rest of it, Leif!”
His face was in shadow, but she heard the strain in his voice as he began the rhyme again:
“Immersed within the elements,
The dragonfast acquire
The essence of the inner sphere—
Water, air, earth and fire.”
“That’s all?” asked Maura. Before Leif could reply, the ground trembled beneath them, and she realized what was about to happen. “Water and air,” she whispered. “So now comes—”
An explosion of sound drowned out her words, and the earth rocked and shuddered beneath them. They clung to one another, deafened by the rumbling, which grew to an earth-shattering roar. The forest floor wrenched and split, and red molten rock began to ooze through the cleft.
Leif shouted something over the cacophony, but Maura could hear nothing but the roiling fury erupting around them. The scent of burning wood, at first aromatic, was now searing her throat. Wafts of smoke drifted through the air.
Then she saw them. Beyond a ribbon of fire, a mere dozen yards away, the dragons crouched with unfurled wings. They want us to cross through the flames to them, she realized.
And yet when she spun to look the other way, she saw that another option had appeared: a wide path that ran straight between the trees. At its end was the edge of the palace gardens. Leif had seen it too.
“We can go back,” he said.
“No.” Maura shook her head. “No, we can’t. We’re going to see this through, Leif. The only way is forward, come what may.” Even as she spoke, Master Morgan’s words rang in her mind like a death knell. Not all survive their trials.
Leif’s expression reflected back the panic she felt. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?” he said.
The fire was raging now, stalking toward them like a demon possessed.
Maura pushed herself to her feet. “We might,” she said grimly.
She held out her hand. Leif grasped it hard and levered himself up beside her. Together they faced the flames flaring higher by the second. Maura felt her hair halo her head as the punishing heat confronted them. The fire was now a wall rising between them and the dragons, its fatal forks flickering in the great beasts’ smoldering eyes.
Maura and Leif pushed themselves forward against the terrible inferno. Step by agonizing step they approached it, the fire responding with roars of anger as it strove to drive them back. The heat was so intense Maura expected to burst into flames with each foot of ground gained.
A blazing tree crashed down in their path, sending a blast of searing air that knocked them off their feet.
“Maura?”
Leif groped the ground around him, and she saw that he’d been blinded by the smoke. A rush of fury pushed back against her terror, and she staggered up from the scorching earth, tugging Leif up after her.
“We are their chosen!” she shouted. “We shall remain so, and now they must be ours!”
She ran toward the flames, pulling him in her wake. She felt her skin tighten against the heat of the fire, but she would not, could not heed the pain. Instead, she thought of Dal.
I won’t lose Leif as well. Not without a fight.
With a sob, she propelled them both into the raging fire.
* * *
The silent song of the stars rang in Maura’s ears. She tasted evergreen and the crisp, clean cold on her tongue. She could smell the moon’s light, though it was hidden behind the shadowed trees. Her skin tingled but she was not burned. The smoke and fire and rending groans of the earth had disappeared the moment they’d crossed into the inferno. Leif stood, whole and safe, at her side.
They were both fast in the glittering gaze of two magnificent dragons.
Their magnificent dragons.
First Ilyria, and then Rhiandra, raised their heads to the sky, giving voice to roars at once terrible and triumphant as ultramarine fire burst from their perilous mouths.
Maura braced herself as the bronze dragoness lowered her snout only inches from her nose. A blast of warm air assaulted her, and Leif jerk back beside her as Rhiandra did the same to him. She felt a glow of approval, and when she glanced at Leif’s giddy smile, she knew he felt it too. They had successfully crossed the second bridge of their binding.
We must be almost there, she thought.
When the creatures pulled back and towered over them in silence, Maura remembered what Master Morgan had said about dragons and the proprieties. She gave Leif’s hand a squeeze, then released it to drop into a low curtsey.
“Maura of Branley Tor,” she said shyly.
She was vaguely aware that Leif had also leapt forward and made a bow to Rhiandra, but Ilyria’s presence was filling all of her senses, washing over her like a wave upon the shore, enveloping her and then drawing back, but never entirely releasing her. This was what a binding felt like, she realized, not without fear—one that would connect them the rest of her life.
Ilyria sank back on her haunches, and Rhiandra crouched beside her. “Come closer, bindlings,” said Ilyria, her voice reverberating and deep. “I have waited centuries to bind again, to find the perfect match once more.” She made a low humming that sounded almost like a cat’s purr, and her breath smelled of sulfur and earth and musk. “The process of becoming dragonfast is almost complete, now that you’ve gained the essence of the elements. We are well-pleased.”
Maura raised her hand tentatively to the dragon’s snout. Its scales were cool and supple, and she felt a thrill of wonder.
“May I ask a question?” Leif said.
Maura couldn’t help but laugh; it was so like the lad to plunge right in to sate his burning curiosity.
“You may,” replied Rhiandra, guardedly. “But there are some things we cannot tell you until after you have passed the last trial.”
“Why us?” said Leif. “What made us your choices for binding? And why now?”
The dragons exchanged a look, and it was Ilyria who answered him. She is the elder, Maura recalled.
“We dragons are guided by the prophecies of Before,” said the bronze, “but I alone of my kin can discern the future. While this gift can be cryptic, recent visions have left me in no doubt that mankind is on the cusp of chaos. Human conflicts will soon force all who dwell in the Known World to choose with whom to align themselves. We too must choose, for it will be a battle for our survival as well—indeed, a battle for the survival of all that is good and pure in this world, so high are the stakes. If we do not act, the dark force rising will obliterate all who stand in its way. Worse than this, I have sensed that betrayal lies ahead, although by whom or what has not been revealed to me.”
Her words made Maura’s blood run cold in her veins.
“I have long wished to bind again,” Ilyria continued, “but have refrained from doing so until my brothers and sisters were prepared to as well. I now fear this will never happen. What I have just told you of the future—it is what I believe, but my siblings are not convinced. And so I made my choice, and urged my younger sister to bind as well.”
“What is this dark force of which you speak?” asked Maura. “Surely the gods will not allow the world they created to be destroyed.”
Rhiandra snorted, and puffs of grey smoke billowed from her cruel nostrils. “You humans and your gods! You persist in creating divine entities to w
orship and to explain that which defies knowing. The result is a tangle of beliefs that may unite small communities and provide comfort, but in time always ignites bigger conflicts. This is the worst failing of your kind!”
“You’re saying the gods don’t exist?” Leif’s eyes were as round as saucers.
“My sister means dragons do not view the world as you humans do, as something separate from yourselves,” said Ilyria. “We are the world, as well as of it, part of the sacred essence that is life.”
Maura wasn’t at all sure she understood. Her own people had given scant attention to the gods, but she had never thought to challenge their existence.
“In any event,” said Ilyria, “it is not your gods who are fueling this discord. I cannot see what is, but it is evil, and it will take brave hearts to combat it. And there is none braver than a dragonfast.”
Maura’s happy glow had disappeared. She knew she didn’t possess the sort of courage of which Ilyria spoke.
“Time will tell,” Rhiandra said coolly, as if reading her thoughts, “whether you have sufficient mettle to complete your bindings.” She ruffled her blue leathery wings and narrowed her golden eyes. “There is still one more trial to go. And now I will tell you what it is you must do.”
* * *
As she trudged back through the sleeping forest, Maura felt weary beyond words, and filled with despondence. What the dragons had asked of them was impossible for any human to achieve. And she had no idea how much time they had to prepare for the final trial to complete their bindings. Ilyria had said only that it would take place “as soon as the time was right,” whatever that meant.
“I have foreseen we must endure a time apart,” the bronze had said, without elaboration. “This is unavoidable, and we must be bound before then.”
It was Leif who’d asked the question foremost in Maura’s thoughts. “What happens if we fail? Or—if only one of us succeeds?”
