“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“When I shift, you mean?” Finn asked.
Anya nodded.
“Not really,” Finn said. “It mostly feels like there’s a lot of pressure pushing down against your limbs. It’s not exactly comfortable, but it isn’t painful. And it’s over very quickly, anyway. If I haven’t shifted in a long time, it’s actually a relief to let myself morph into dragon form. My dragon DNA gets restless if I don’t let my dragon out now and then, so I try to shift at least once a month. Lately it’s been a lot more, though.”
“Because of the war?” Anya asked.
Finn nodded. “We’ve all been trying to keep our dragons in top shape, just in case we have to shift and fight at a moment’s notice. Which, as you saw, is a very real possibility.”
“What is the war about?” Anya asked. “And is it only shifters and wizards? There aren’t going to be attacks on humans, are there?”
“Well, if my side wins the war, there won’t be attacks on humans. If we lose, though, I fear for all of us.”
“That’s rather cryptic,” Anya said, frowning.
“I suppose it is,” Finn said. “I didn’t mean for it to be, but it’s a lot to explain and I’m not quite sure where to begin.”
“I’ve got time,” Anya said, leaning back in the moss on her elbows the same way that Finn had. He looked over at her and she was surprised to see how close their faces were now. His face crinkled into a smile, and, for a moment, time seemed to stand still. It had been ages since Anya had felt a true rush of desire, but she knew she was feeling one now. Finn’s smile went deeper than just his face. It reached his eyes, and he had somehow put his very heart and soul into that smile. If asked, Anya would have been hard-pressed to explain what she meant by that, but she somehow knew it was true. Her own heart and soul seemed to respond to the smile, and for a split-second she was overcome by the absurd notion that she should lean over and kiss his smiling lips. Something was passing between them, and she knew he felt it, too, by the way his eyes locked with hers and saw right into her.
But just as quickly as the moment happened, it ended. He looked away, staring up at the treetops as though they were the most interesting things he had ever seen. Anya felt like time began to move again. She could once again hear the birds singing and the rustle of the leaves. The forest around her came back into focus, and she could see things other than just Finn’s face. She desperately wanted to recapture the emotion she had felt only moments before, but Finn seemed determined to press forward with his explanations.
“The truth is,” Finn said. “Wizards aren’t the only source of magic in this world. In fact, centuries ago, dragons used to hold magical powers as well. Over the years, the dragons’ power weakened. Eventually, the dragons began to store their powers in different physical objects in an attempt to preserve those powers.”
“How is that possible?” Anya asked. She felt as though the more she learned about the shifter and wizard worlds, the more confused she became.
“I don’t know how to explain it, other than to say that it just works somehow. I’ve never had magical powers myself, so I’ve never been faced with the task of storing them in an old stone or pot or something,” Finn said. “Perhaps it’s easy to do, perhaps it’s not, but at the end of the day, the ancient dragons somehow found a way to do it. As a result, there are hundreds of ordinary looking objects scattered across the world that actually contain immense power. My clan, the Redwood Dragons clan, until recently spent most of our time searching for these objects. We recover them and take them back to our base in the Redwood forests for safekeeping. We believe that the world as a whole is safer when these powerful objects are kept in the hands of good shifters.”
“Makes sense,” Anya said. “No matter what form power comes in, it’s always devastating when in the hands of the wrong people.”
Finn nodded. “Well, it turns out that there are four ancient artifacts that are exponentially more powerful than any of the other ancient artifacts. They are actually four gemstones—an emerald, a sapphire, an amethyst, and a ruby. Until very recently, we didn’t even know that these stones existed. They were created in secret by the ancient dragon kings, who put all of their power into the stones. The ancient dragon kings knew that they would not be able to stand against the forces of evil that were warring in the world at that time, so they preserved their power in hopes that a future generation might find the stones and use them for good. Well, for hundreds of years the stones remained hidden. A few decades ago, though, there was another big shifter war, and some of the good dragons discovered the existence of the dragon emerald. The dragon emerald was recovered, and put in safekeeping, where it remains to this day.”
“What about the other stones?” Anya asked, finding herself being drawn into the story. She was imagining an ancient world full of powerful dragons and wizards, similar to the fairy tales she’d always read as a child.
“Well, that’s where the trouble starts,” Finn said, a shadow passing over his eyes. “Not long ago, the wizards learned that the dragon sapphire had been located. They worked with us to recover the sapphire, and that’s actually how they became our allies. But we weren’t the only ones who had heard word of the dragon stones. A power hungry dragon shifter named Saul started building an army with hopes that he could find and recover the remaining two dragon stones, the amethyst and the ruby. He’s managed to gain a lot of ground and get a frighteningly large number of people to follow him. His army includes wizards, shifters, and even humans.”
“There are humans who know about all of this and are fighting a war over it?” Anya asked, incredulous.
Finn nodded sadly. “Saul knows how to win people over. He promises power and wealth, and that anyone who follows him will be leaders in the new world regime he plans to establish once he finds the other dragon stones and uses their power to make himself king of the world.”
Anya could not help giving a snort of laughter. “King of the world? Really? Sounds a bit dramatic.”
But Finn wasn’t laughing when he gave her a sideways glance. “Perhaps it sounds a bit dramatic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. These stones are powerful. Each time we find one, it is more powerful than the one we found before. If any of them were to get into Saul’s hand, it could spell disaster for the entire world. Including humans.”
Anya frowned. “It still seems a bit extreme to think that someone could take over the whole world using a couple of small gemstones.”
“It doesn’t seem extreme to me,” Finn said. “Because I understand how powerful these gemstones are. The ancient dragon kings were more powerful than any ruler alive today. That power is preserved in those stones, and Saul would have no qualms about using it to cause great terror and destruction, all so that the whole world would fear him and obey him. You asked what this war is about, Anya. Well, the short answer is that it’s about power. Saul is an evil man, and he’s hungry for power. I shudder to think what will happen if he gets that power.”
“What makes him so evil?” Anya asked. She felt a strange, growing sense of dread filling her as Finn talked. The tone of Finn’s voice made it sound like Saul wasn’t just your ordinary, power-hungry dictator. There was something more to it than that.
“That’s also difficult to explain, but I’ll try,” Finn said. “In the world of magic, you see, there is good magic and dark magic. Good magic is just your normal everyday magic, and it’s what most wizards practice. There are, of course, some very powerful spells. But most wizards use those spells for good, and the wizarding community has a lot of rules and regulations about what is allowable in terms of magic use. Too many rules and regulations, if you ask me. But, anyway. That’s ‘normal’ magic, if you will.”
“Okay,” Anya said. “So I’m assuming this Saul guy doesn’t practice normal magic?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Finn said. “He practices dark magic, as do all of his minions. Dark magic is very, very powerful. You
can do some truly awful things with it. The problem is that dark magic spells require bits of your soul to be effective. If you want to practice dark magic, you have to be willing to literally give up your soul.”
Anya shuddered. “That sounds pretty awful,” she said.
“It is,” Finn said. “The longer someone practices dark magic, the worse off they become. They grow more powerful, for a time. But you can only sell your soul for so long before doing so destroys you. No one can practice dark magic and survive. It kills everyone it enslaves. And the longer someone is practicing dark magic, the more impossible it becomes to bring them back to the side of good. I would imagine Saul is a lost cause by now. He’s worse even than a normal dark magic wizard.”
“Why is that?” Anya asked.
“Because he’s not actually a wizard. He’s a shifter,” Finn explained. “Ordinarily, only those who are born as wizards can practice magic. But shifters can gain magical abilities, too. After all, centuries ago many shifters were born with magical abilities. The only problem is that, in this day and age, the only way for a shifter to get magical abilities is through dark magic. The spell to give a shifter magical abilities is itself a difficult spell for even the most accomplished of dark wizards. Whoever performed the spell on Saul is probably dead by now. But he certainly left behind quite a legacy. Saul is destroying everything in his path, and if we don’t stop him he might destroy the whole world before dark magic destroys him. I know it probably sounds like I’m being dramatic once again, but it’s the truth. We’re on the edge of a world war unlike anything anyone has ever seen before.”
Anya frowned. “If it’s as dire as you’re saying it is, then why don’t you try to get more help? Talk to the humans about it! Get some governments involved. Or use the dragon stones you already have. You said they’re exceptionally powerful, right? Why can’t you use their power to defeat Saul?”
Anya watched as Finn looked up at the sky. He watched the treetops without really seeming to see them. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded sad, and he did not look at Anya.
“I wish it was that easy. But we cannot risk it. We don’t know who we can really trust, and Saul’s powers of persuasion have proven to be very strong. Our best hope of victory is not to raise an army, which might betray us and be swayed by dark magic, but rather to take away the source of Saul’s potential power. We must find the dragon stones before he does. If we have to use the other dragon stones to hold him off, we will. But only as a very last resort. We cannot risk them falling into the wrong hands. Of course, we may soon reach the point of last resort.”
“Why do you say that?” Anya asked.
Finn looked back at her then, and he looked into her eyes long and hard. He was searching for something, but what?
“You can trust me,” Anya said. “I may not have reacted in the best way possible to the news that shifters and wizards exist, but I’m not an evil person. I believe that good is worth fighting for, and I would never betray you to an evil shifter-wizard or his army.”
Finn must have believed Anya’s speech, because he nodded and even cracked a small smile.
“I suppose, if you weren’t trustworthy, I would have already told you too much,” Finn said. “I guess I made the decision to trust you the moment I explained to you how shifters and wizards exist. And I think it was the right decision. Hopefully you don’t prove me wrong.”
Finn looked up at Anya and winked, and the warmth on his face sent a funny little thrill through her body. It was so strange, she thought, to be sitting here having a conversation with a man who looks completely ordinary and yet can change into a dragon at a moment’s notice. She still felt like she was dreaming, but the dream was starting to feel less and less like a nightmare and more and more like an adventure.
“You made the right decision,” Anya said, winking back at him and feeling deliciously flirtatious as she did. “I’m completely trustworthy.”
Finn laughed, but only for a moment. His face sobered up again as he began speaking. “Owen, Izzy, Raven, and I are supposed to be on a mission to find the dragon amethyst right now. We have a bunch of old records that point to a place in Montana known as Devil’s Melt as the location of the stone. The only problem is that we stole these records from Saul’s army, so Saul knows that the stone is somewhere in Devil’s Melt, too.”
“So it was his army that attacked you last night, right?” Anya asked. Things were slowly starting to make more sense.
“Yup, that was his army,” Finn said. “But we aren’t sure how they knew where we were. We expected that Saul would be closely watching for us near Devil’s Melt. But we were hundreds and hundreds of miles away from Devil’s Melt last night. We should have been relatively safe, because we had been traveling under invisibility spells. They shouldn’t have had any idea where we were. Which means either they have dark magic that can see through invisibility shields, or they have spies in Falcon Cross.”
“Falcon Cross?” Anya asked. “Where’s that?”
“Oh, right,” Finn said. “I forget you’re still new to this group. Falcon Cross is in Oregon. It’s the wizarding village where Izzy and Raven are from. Some of my clan of dragon shifters are there right now, helping out with various military operations as we attempt to hold off Saul’s army and find the dragon stones. Falcon Cross has become a sort of command central for this war. If there were spies there, that would be a devastating blow. But I don’t really think there are. If that were the case, they probably would have attacked us much sooner. I think it’s more likely that the enemy’s dark magic abilities are growing. Our invisibility shields are strong, but the enemy is getting through them anyway.”
“So could they see us right now?” Anya asked, feeling suddenly worried and exposed. She peered into the thick brush of the forest, half-expecting to see evil eyes staring back at her. But nothing stirred except the occasional squirrel or bird.
“Yeah, they could definitely see us right now, if they were here,” Finn said. “But don’t worry. They’re not here. They might have some pretty strong spells, but they still suck at flying. We outflew them last night, and are far enough away now that they aren’t likely to look for us out here. We’re far enough away in the wrong direction, I should say.”
“The wrong direction?”
“We flew south instead of north,” Finn said. “They’re expecting us to fly toward Devil’s Melt, where the amethyst is. And that was our original plan. But there’s no way I’m heading into Devil’s Melt without some sort of reinforcement. If they found us in Idaho, they’ll definitely find us in Montana. I don’t know if you noticed, but the campsite we’re at now is different than even the first spot we escaped to last night.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Anya admitted. “I was so confused when I came to the first time that I didn’t pay much attention to what the forest looked like.”
Finn nodded. “No big surprise there. You had a lot to think about. But just to catch you up, I’ll tell you what happened. After you passed out for a second time last night, we decided that we needed to keep moving. We were still relatively close to the area where we were attacked, and we didn’t want to chance another attack. So Izzy put a sedation spell on you and put you on her broomstick. Then we flew all through the night as far south as we could get. We’re somewhere in Utah right now. The good news is that we’re probably off the radar of Saul’s army, for the moment at least. The bad news is that we’re far, far away from the dragon amethyst with no idea how we’re going to manage to get to Devil’s Melt and find it. Our only option at this point might be to get the dragon emerald and dragon sapphire and use their powers to protect us while we search for the amethyst. But that decision won’t be mine to make. Oh, and, we’re also really far away from where we originally found you. I’m really sorry about that. We’ll find a way to get you home, I promise. Last night, though, the priority was to get away from Saul’s men. If we’d left you behind and they found you, they would have killed you.”
“And what if I don’t want to go home?” Anya asked.
Finn looked up at her in surprise. “Well, no one’s forcing you to go home. I just assumed that you’d want to. And I also thought you might be a bit pissed that you innocently went to sleep at a campsite in Idaho, then woke up in Utah surrounded by shifters and wizards.”
Anya felt her heart beating faster as she looked at Finn. She could hardly believe she was about to say what she was going to say, but she knew she didn’t have a choice. She still didn’t understand everything, but she understood one thing: this Saul guy could not be allowed to win. If what Finn was saying was true, then a lot of good people were at risk right now—shifters, wizards, and even humans.
“Listen, Finn,” Anya said. “The attempts your clan and these wizards are making to do things on your own are admirable, really. You’re sacrificing a lot, and now that I know that, I’m truly grateful. But if you think I’m going to go quietly back to my old life now and act like nothing out of the ordinary happened, you’re wrong.”
“What are you trying to say, Anya?” Finn asked, narrowing his eyes slightly as he looked at her.
Anya squared her shoulders. “I’m trying to say that I think you just found the first human soldier for the army against Saul.”
Chapter Seven
Finn should have seen it coming, but he didn’t. Anya’s words took him completely off guard, and he stuttered as he tried to formulate a response.
“Anya, that’s…that’s very noble of you. But I’m not sure you understand the dangers involved here. You could die. Saul and his men would think nothing of torturing you and killing you.”
“I’m not afraid, and I’m not stupid,” Anya said. “I’ve heard everything you’ve been telling me, and I realize that there are risks involved. But it sounds like it’s a little late for safety, anyway. What happens if I go back home now and you guys aren’t able to get the rest of the dragon stones? I’ll still be in danger. The whole world will be in danger if Saul has that kind of power. Not only that, but I’ll have to live with the knowledge that I might have been able to do something to stop Saul.”
Destiny and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 5) Page 6
