StoneDragon

by Adrian Cross

  “No!” Clay surged up after her—or tried to. His body rebelled. Pain lanced through him, all through his body, made no better when he hit the floor, cheek and arm hitting stone, pain rolling through his body. He stifled a moan.

  Then Bern was there. She lifted him, cradled his head. Her eyes were close, dark and brown—but not a common brown. Rather the rich warm brown of an autumn day, of warm leaves and gentle breeze.

  His fingers touched her cheek. He didn’t remember deciding to put them there. It was warm and soft, softer than he expected. Her cheeks reddened. Strangely, it gave him the courage to say the next words.

  “Karen isn’t who I care about.”

  “So who is?” Bernetta’s eyes were deep and unreadable.

  “Guess.”

  A smile spread across her face, pulling at her lips and brightening her eyes with a sudden mischievous sparkle. Her lips dropped to Clay’s, warm and light as a butterfly’s touch. He knew instinctively that she planned to pull away as fast.

  If he’d been gifted with one thing, though, it was quick hands. He cupped his palm around the back of her head and then slid it down her neck.

  She didn’t protest. Instead, he felt her lips curve into a smile, and she pressed more deeply into the kiss. As she did, she sank down farther, the warmth of her body settling down beside his, warm and soft and perfectly right. The heart beating against his was wonderful and precious as anything he’d held, and he curved his arms gingerly around her, as if she might break.

  As usual, she didn’t let that state of affairs last long.

  In that small room, under a dark and fire-ringed city, the frozen shell around Clay’s heart finally started to thaw and crack, like ice splitting from the summer’s heat.

  And it didn’t hurt at all.

  Epilogue

  Rose was cold. Her arm flared with pain every time she moved, broken at the wrist, and she’d lost a lot of blood where a ragged piece of stone had ripped her calf on the way down. Her head ached, patches of memory were missing, and she likely would have died where she lay, if an unusual rescuer hadn’t carried her to a small room in the Tower where Doc Tully worked. He’d given her a briefing on her injuries with a sour enthusiasm, tempered slightly by the figure who hadn’t left after carrying her in, but rather waited in the corner.

  The Prophet made most people uneasy. His icy blue eye tracked everything Tully did. “You’re done then?”

  “Yes, but—”

  The Prophet gathered Rose in his arms. His chest felt strangely cool against her side, and she shivered.

  “Follow,” he ordered Tully.

  “But…” the doctor started but then shriveled under the Prophet’s gaze. Tully followed as the robed man strode deeper into the Tower, through a dark and dusty corridor, nearly black but with a tinge of red to its walls that grew as they walked, until the Prophet led them through an archway.

  Rose could see a weak flame flicker in one corner, but it wasn’t a fireplace. Instead, it seemed that part of the exterior wall had broken in, and the creature that had done it lay in the room’s far corner, still smoldering. It was no human, or Earth warrior, but rather a large human-like shape with dark wings. Red fire licked at its feathers.

  Rhino crouched in the room, his back to the wall, the black diamond sword on his knees. The light cast deep shadows on his features but kindled a hard flame in his eyes. He stared sightlessly past the angel, through the hole in the wall, to the brighter Wall beyond. It was almost time for StoneDragon to Shift, Rose realized.

  The Prophet set Rose down carefully and then stepped back. Doc Tully hovered near the door, reluctant to come in but obviously afraid to make his escape completely.

  “The end is coming,” Rhino said. “We will all see the Last Great War and not much longer now.”

  “How can you know that?” Rose asked weakly. She tried to marshal her thoughts. Rhino had not brought her here for casual conversation, not on a night like tonight. And when had he and the Prophet been on speaking terms?

  The flame of the dark angel’s wings crackled softly, striping strange shadows around the room.

  “Tell her,” Rhino said.

  “The End is coming,” the Prophet said. “Ready or not. The city of flame will crack open and spill forth its seed. Humanity’s life, or death, shall be decided.”

  Silence engulfed the room. Rose struggled to weigh the Prophet’s words. He was known to always be right. He was also known to be insane and deadly, having nearly destroyed StoneDragon himself. Could he be believed? And even if so, what did those words mean?

  “I’ve done my best to raise you,” Rhino said. “Maybe not the ideal job, but I took on the task asked of me and gave you the tools to survive in this dark world. But there are more important things than even family. The survival of humanity is one of them. A battle is coming and I could use you, but I have to be sure of your loyalty. An army is not a democracy. And if we lose this war, we will lose everything.”

  He shifted his gaze to her, and its intensity was like a punch in the chest.

  “So I need to know. Who has your loyalty? Me or Clay?”

  Rose’s chest hurt and not from any of her injuries. She suddenly felt like an angry little girl. How could Rhino do this to her? It was too big a decision, too final.

  Clay was broken, imperfect. But he’d struggled to be better, from the first day she’d known him. He’d had the strength to turn away from everything he knew, all his companions, when he’d felt it necessary. His moral compass had endured the near destruction of StoneDragon and his own looming death. He struggled, but he was willing to stand behind his beliefs. And he’d turned out to be more closely connected to her life than she’d ever believed.

  Rhino was steadfast as well, but he seemed to grow darker with the passing years, more removed from the consequences of his actions, the small cruelties. He had looked after her, but in some ways, Clay had been a warmer figure to her than the horned warrior.

  Outside the hole in the wall, StoneDragon’s greater Wall rippled and brightened, as if some fuel charged its flame, before dying back again. The city had Shifted.

  They had won, beaten back the Earth gods, but what would happen if they faced humanity’s ultimate Enemy? Was it true that the end of the world was really coming, or was the Prophet feeding Rhino’s obsessions for his own reasons?

  She felt weak, small, and alone. How could she make such a decision? She could never know what would happen in the future. All she could base her decision on was what she knew at this moment. What her heart told her.

  Was she with Rhino or against him?

  She took a deep breath and gave him her answer.

  Afterword

  Thank you for reading StoneDragon. I hope you enjoyed it, but no matter what, thank you for giving it a chance.

  This idea originally started as a humorous detour to warm me up before I started my first serious novel, but the piece grew more serious and darker as I invested more time and imagination into it, and I decided to give it a real chance. I wanted to create a world filled with cool things and dark magic.

  As this was my first book, I originally wrote it bumbling my way through, with a rough idea of the beginning, end, and not much more. Which I’ve learned since is not the most efficient way to write, and a good way to eat up an inordinate amount of time in subsequent editing (good Lord, yes)! My first email on this book, with the original idea, happened in December 2010. A few years have passed since then.

  After writing it the first time, I circulated it with a selection of agents, without gathering much interest. I had the periodic positive event as well, the most significant one of which was when I submitted the book’s first line of the time to an online contest hosted by fabulous author Faith Hunter. After I submitted the line, Faith contacted me with compliments and even agreed to provide a critique of the first chapter. My brush with writing celebrity! She’s great. I read a lot of her stuff, and she is a brilliant technician as well.


  I also submitted the book, in one of its earlier versions, to Harper Voyager’s first e-book call. I waited a year for an answer on that one. The book survived round after round of cuts and came close to the finish line before it got a rejection slip. Ouch.

  Eventually, I put the novel in a drawer and wrote another two manuscripts (a middle grade comedy Mastermind for Hire and a YA fantasy Black Diamonds). After that, though, I decided to come back to StoneDragon instead of starting something new. I liked the bones of the story enough to give it a second chance. So I decided on some major revisions and decided I would self-publish it. I had to make that commitment to myself to be willing to put in the time required for the major facelift I felt it needed.

  So I spent another couple of years working on this book (squeezing the effort in around my regular life), while periodically also taking breaks for the odd short story. A highlight of that time was getting a story published in the fantastical Sherlock Holmes anthology, An Improbable Truth: the Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

  StoneDragon is finished, or at least finished enough to send out into the world. Spending so long on a project ends up creating a loss of perspective. I will be as curious as anyone if it strikes a chord with readers. If it does, and people express enthusiasm, I have ideas for another couple of books in this world. If not, I’ll move on to different projects. One thing I’m not short of is ideas!

  For those who enjoyed the artwork in StoneDragon, it’s my own. I am a professionally trained illustrator, although I didn’t end up taking that path in life.

  If you’d like to see future StoneDragon books, please let me know on review sites for this book. A self-published book is only as good as the notice it gets, and good reviews and reader enthusiasm are the things that make sequels more likely. And just to repeat, thanks for reading!

  Adrian

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my wife, for putting up with this often stressful hobby of mine and recognizing that having a creative outlet is important to the maintenance of my mental health. Thank you to the many people, on this story and others, who gave their time for critique and encouragement, especially the two wonderful ladies from my first SCBWI critique group: Nikki Smith and Traci Van Wagoner, both talented writers themselves. Thank you to my parents for encouraging my artistic side when young, despite neither really being of that bent themselves. And thank you to my kids, just because! (Well, at least partly because I get to watch cartoons again…)

  About the Author

  Adrian has a full time “mathy” job, a lovely wife, and two hooligan boys. As a result, he doesn’t have a lot of spare time, but what exists, he spends writing and illustrating fantasy pieces and occasionally writing posts for his website. He is a member of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and OWW (the online writing workshop for fantasy, science fiction, and horror). He earned an animation degree many moons ago and has expanded his artistic mediums and techniques since that time.

  For more information:

  www.adriancross.ca

  adrian@adriancross.ca