Descendant

by Giles, Nichole

  “Isleen saw to it that he didn’t know. But the lie cost her. My theory is that, in the process of giving birth, each child took approximately one fourth of Isleen’s powers—which she should have recovered under normal circumstances but never did. I suspect it’s part of the deal she made with the Morrigana. I’m not sure. Regardless, the deception cost Isleen a full half of her powers.”

  “That’s why they made this pendant.” My fingers stroke the warm stones.

  “Presumably. Isleen knew what Tynan was before he was born, and also that she couldn’t keep both children. When she gave birth, she turned Tynan over to the Dark Ones, having never laid eyes on him.”

  “How could she do that?” The horror of it shocks me. How did I not know this of the woman I’ve seen in so many visions?

  Valdemar sighs. “She didn’t have a choice. If she wanted to keep Theron, she had to give up Tynan. He was a preconceived sacrifice.”

  “Why would the queen have to sacrifice a prince?”

  Val bites his lip as if trying to decide the best way to explain. “Because of the way the boys were conceived. See, King Damon wasn’t the father of Isleen’s babies. Rhys was. Those boys were created in a mix of love and betrayal, splitting the queen’s heart—and her embryo—in two. The goddesses Morrigana gave Isleen a choice. She could abort the fetuses and remain childless forever, or she could carry them to term and give one away. The child born as the manifestation of Isleen’s betrayal would be taken and raised as Prince of the Otherworld Elen. He’d live on one of the Phantom Islands as a royal child, raised with every privilege until he could be crowned at eighteen. She felt it a better alternative than abortion.”

  “That doesn’t sound so terrible,” Rose says from the back.

  “Raised as a prince and crowned at eighteen?” Jen says. “Sounds good to me.”

  He was raised by demons. I glance up at Val, sick to my stomach. “He didn’t have a chance.”

  “No, he didn’t.” Val tips the rearview mirror so he can glance at Rose and Jen. “I’m certain Tynan didn’t live the life you’re picturing.” He returns his eyes to the road. “Anyway, fast-forward a few years. Tynan wasn’t happy living in the Otherworld—”

  “What’s the Otherworld?” I interrupt.

  “The Otherworld is where the opposites live,” Val says.

  “Opposites?” Eric says. “I wouldn’t call them that.”

  Eric’s statement gives me a nervous tingle, and I wonder how he knows about the Otherworld. I feel like I’m missing something.

  “I believe that’s exactly what they are.” Val turns his head, his expression calculating. “History tells us that every positive energy is counter-balanced by a negative one. Like when cold water is mixed with hot water and becomes warm. The same is true for human souls. We’re born with both positive and negative energies. Most of us use parts of both, finding a neutral balance that allows us to experience the highs and lows of life. Every once in a while, the energies split, leaving a positive embodiment or a negative one. When this happens, the positive energy is absorbed into the universe, taking on another form—for instance, a special ability, or Gift, as you all have.”

  “All of us?” I turn around to smile at my friends.

  “Yes.” Val nods. “All of you. And many more.”

  “What happens to the negative?” Jen’s voice is barely above a murmur, but we all hear her.

  “Negative energy can be absorbed into a balanced person. It might be manifested in the form of a cancer or severe bitterness or hatred, which is often fed by more negative energy until it becomes destructive. Or it might take a form of its own. Shadows. Demons. Banshees.

  “Those negative beings eventually become immortal Elen, and they live in the Otherworld, which is located among the Phantom Islands. Most of these islands are said to be lands of eternal youth and beauty—eternal bliss, if you will. But once you cross under the crystal bridge to get there, you can never come back. Tynan’s Otherworld—the one he created in rebellion—is not the same. His kingdom is the place where shadows or demons might go to retire, if they were able to get through the portal.”

  “They can’t get in.” It’s more statement than question. Piece by piece, my mind connects the dots. Raina locked the door. And I have two of the Keys.

  “No,” Val says slowly. “Tynan and his army have been attempting to escape for almost five hundred years.”

  Eric pipes up again. “If someone locked me in a poisonous cave, I’d try to break out, too.”

  Val’s head turns with a jerk, his eyes narrow at Eric. “How do you know the prison is poisonous?”

  Eric looks away, muttering, “Just something I heard.”

  Outside the windows, the Teton Mountains spear the skyline. Dark gray peaks tipped with snow rise sharp and angry through the pale blue backdrop. Deep green and brown foliage is buried in a blanket of white. Miles fall away as we climb in elevation.

  “When Dryden fell, the Morrigana stepped in.” Val slows our ascent when patches of ice make the road slippery. “They couldn’t allow Tynan’s demons to completely take over, so they created a prison out of poisonous stone and directed the Otherworld portal into it. To ensure no one person could open the door, they forged four Keys, which had to be inserted simultaneously to open the lock. Tynan and his army were lured there and locked inside. When the war ended, there were seven mortal Elen survivors, besides myself.”

  “Seven?” A violent shiver rattles my teeth and I crank the heater up to full blast. “Of how many?”

  “Thousands,” he says. “Three couples and one other person. These people became guardians of the Keys and dispersed into different parts of the world to live until the Morrigana saw fit to rise up a new generation of Gifted.” He glances at me, then in the rearview mirror at each of my friends. “You four and Kye are only a part of this reemergence.”

  I slip off my shoes and hold my feet under the dash where the heat is blasting. I can’t seem to get warm.

  Val clears his throat. “You need to understand why Tynan’s army was locked up in the first place. This wasn’t simply a matter of competition between brothers. It was a struggle for power. Tynan had powerful Gifts—lots of them—and he used them to obtain things he wanted, things he coveted, and things he never should have had. Greed became his best friend, his lover, and his constant companion. The things he acquired were never enough. Not even when he started stealing Gifts.

  “Unfortunately, greed has a twin sibling in fear. Tynan feared his brother more than all else. When Theron married Raina, Tynan was furious. We thought he had finally come after Isleen, angry with her for giving him up. We thought he intended to take her Healing powers.”

  “You were there?”

  Val taps the steering wheel with his thumbs. “Yes, as much as I’d like to claim otherwise.”

  Tynan’s face swims in my mind, glittering and fading into smoke that drifts away on the wind, and it hits me that Tynan wasn’t so much angry as afraid. “He really came for Raina. Raina had the power to bear Theron a son who could possibly be twice as powerful as either of the brothers. A descendant who could balance both worlds.”

  “Probably.” Val punches the gas and changes gears as we travel up an icy incline. “No one realized Raina was already stronger than both brothers until it was too late.”

  “What about the pendant?” Eric cuts in. In the rearview mirror, I catch his eyes boring into my neck, where the emerald still hangs. “Didn’t Tynan want Isleen’s pendant? Wouldn’t it have given him dominion over both mortal and immortal worlds?”

  Val hesitates. “We can speculate, but no one really knows. All we know is that he gathered an army of demons and used them to destroy the royal family.”

  I study Val’s profile, wondering about his age. “Have you ever taken someone’s power?”

  He looks at me, startled. “Absolutely not. No.”

  “How are you still alive if you were there?”

  “Old magic.”
He sighs as if reluctant to tell the story. “Before the fall of Dryden, the three sister goddesses—Badb, Macha, and Morrigan—paid a yearly visit to the kingdom, during which the highly Gifted people demonstrated their Gifts. Those with exceptional power were monitored for a period of ten years. If the Morrigana determined the chosen one used his Gifts for the good of others, that person was given an opportunity to become immortal by plucking a white blossom from a silver bough and eating it. Then, after serving the mortals for a period of time—usually a few hundred years—they were given passage to the Phantom Islands—the good ones, not the Otherworld—to live for eternity. I accepted a blossom.”

  I tuck the blankets more tightly around me as goose bumps erupt across my shoulders and down my arms. “How much longer will you serve?”

  “Until balance is restored.”

  “That could be a really long sentence,” Eric mumbles. After what I’ve seen, I have to agree. The conversation falls to a lull as we cover more distance, but after a while, I grow restless. I wonder if Kye is still alive, how badly he’s hurt. “What do we do now? Where are we going?”

  Val rubs his chin. “We need help. It’s time to introduce you kids to the Dragons. Only they have the ability to locate the portal.” He frowns as his eyes travel to the torn hem of my dress and my bare feet. “I wish you were better dressed for the occasion.”

  I’ve always pictured Dragons as enormous creatures with long tails, scales, and jaws that spewed fire. Even though Kye told me about the Elen Dragons, I can’t get the old picture out of my head.

  Rose tosses me a pair of hiking boots that are two sizes too big but remarkably better than wobbling around in high-heeled sandals. I lace them on and accept a coat from Jen, leaving my wrap and Kye’s jacket behind.

  We hike for almost a mile, using mostly pre-cut trails and the boardwalks that float over the unstable volcanic crust covering the ground. After a while, Valdemar leads us away from the path and up a hill through a section of fire-burned forest. My breath catches as we crest the top and catch a view of a volcanic pond. Natural greens and blues circle the middle, surrounded by yellows that turn into oranges, reds, and then browns. The spring is more like a lake than a pool, and by my guess, somewhere close to the size of three football fields.

  “There’s no one here.” I’m worried, tired, cold, and beyond hungry.

  Eric’s arm drops around my shoulder and he rubs the sleeve of my borrowed coat. The hike has my blood moving steadily enough that for the first time all morning, I’m not shivering—until he touches me. I shrug away, attempting a friendly smile and failing.

  “First lesson,” Akers says. “Just because you don’t see a single Dragon doesn’t mean there aren’t a hundred nearby.” He steps to the edge of the cliff overlooking the spring, waves at us, and leaps.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Dragons

  “Akers!” Instinct has me lurching forward. “What are you doing?” Val stops me with a hand on my arm.

  Time seems to slow as Akers plummets toward the boiling acid. I don’t want to watch, but I can’t drag my eyes away. Part of me half expects someone to fly out and catch him, save him, Superman style. No one does, and in the time it takes a heart to beat once, my favorite teacher slides beneath the surface. Oddly, the water doesn’t change and his body doesn’t float to the top or cause the acid to sizzle.

  Eric lets loose a string of curses that would embarrass a trucker. A guttural sound comes out of Rose, completely unintelligible, and Jen screams like a banshee. We are all shocked, panicked, sickened.

  Val shouts over the din. “It’s okay, kids. Calm down. Let me explain.”

  After all I’ve seen this week, my brain is overloaded. No words come to mind, just pure and utter shock as I stare into the water, the acrid scent of sulfur stinging my nose.

  “Never try that alone,” Val says louder. “It’s difficult to tell a portal from an actual acid spring.”

  As if on cue, the water ripples and a froth of air bubbles to the surface, bringing with it a strange buzzing that touches our ears with an electric hum.

  A murky shadow moves at the bottom, grows larger, and takes on the shapes of bodies that rise gracefully to the surface. Figures emerge from the pool—completely dry—and float to us on clear, reflective spheres of light that glimmer with the same colors as the spring.

  They hover in a triangular formation and lower the hoods of their midnight blue cloaks in perfect sync. Powerful red energy encompasses them, so bright it hurts my eyes. Mr. Akers smiles at me from his position just behind and to the right of the leader. When he turns his head, I notice a small tattoo behind his left ear. It looks like the same symbol that marked the spot where Kye and I found the pendant in the Statue of Liberty. I think back, wondering why I’ve never noticed Akers has a tattoo before.

  The Dragon leader appears to be about eighteen, but his deep emerald eyes tell me that looks are deceptive. His golden skin picks up highlights in the dark brown mane of hair that is combed away from his crown and secured at his nape with a strap of leather. “Valdemar,” he says. “It’s good to see you. I understand your protégé has run into some trouble?”

  “Apparently.” Val’s expression is carefully neutral. “Kye Murphy recently became acquainted with the newly appointed guardian of the Ring of the Princess, and soon after, Nematona, goddess to the Elemental Fae, invoked an oath that he would find the rest of the Arawn Keys to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands and aiding in opening the Tomb of Demons.”

  The Dragon clicks his tongue. “The Arawn Keys were hidden to prevent such an occurrence.”

  “Yes.” Val’s eyes narrow and his voice takes on an edge. “However, it’s come to my attention that an old friend and former Dragon is currently in possession of the Arawnian Dagger. A dangerous weapon, even without the other Keys.”

  Murmurs spread through the ranks. The Dragon’s face remains stoic. “That can’t be. The Dagger was protected by powerful spells. A disturbance in the magic would have caused enough destruction to alert the entire planet.”

  Akers whispers something in the Dragon leader’s ear. A look of horror passes over the leader’s face, and he mumbles something angry and unintelligible to Akers before saying, “Forgive me. I was unaware that the Dagger’s movement was the apparent cause of a volcanic eruption in Washington some years back. Unbeknownst to us, the Dagger has been traveling around for some time.”

  Val and Akers exchange a guilty look. Val says, “Long enough for the followers of the Dark Prince to gain uncountable powers. Whether or not their sacrifices are being kept alive, clearly many Gifted have been cut, their powers drained.”

  More murmuring among the Dragons. The wind shifts, momentarily clearing away the acrid air and replacing it with tiny snow flurries that sparkle in the weak sunlight. A finger of air blows up my dress, raising goose bumps along my back.

  “It has begun,” the Dragon leader murmurs. And then, “Introduce your students.”

  Val presents each of us. “This is Eric Fisher, Gifted with Ice Conversion.”

  “Rose Westover, Gifted with Tongues of Persuasion.”

  Okay, I really should’ve figured that one out on my own.

  “Jennifer Thomas, Fire Summoner.”

  “Ah, yeah. About that.” Jen shakes her head. “Not exactly something I can control. I’m not sure I’ll be of any help to anyone. Just so you know. In fact, if you feel the need to take it from me, I’m cool with that. I wouldn’t mind not having to worry about burning holes in everything I touch.” Val shushes her.

  The Dragon leader bows, offering Jen a brittle smile. “A Gift cannot be removed except by use of the Arawnian Dagger. The means are painful, dangerous, and potentially deadly. Think very hard before thoughtlessly offering to toss away a Gift from the goddesses. There are those who seek to take that ability, and in doing so, will not hesitate to forfeit your life. And that, I’m afraid, would be a lucky thing indeed.” Jen gulps but remains silent as the Drag
on leader moves to face me.

  Nerves make my mouth feel dry and sticky. With a hand on my shoulder, Val introduces me. “This is Abigail Johnson, Gifted with both Healing and Sight, current guardian of the Ring of the Princess.”

  “This is our new guardian?” The Dragon rubs his forehead, looking bewildered for the first time since he appeared. The wide sleeve of his cloak falls around his elbow, exposing the pale, pale skin on his forearm and a snakelike tattoo. “And two Gifts? Very unusual.” His deep green eyes bore into mine, like he’s trying to see inside me, through me. Then he murmurs, “Can it be?”

  “Can, and is.” Val smiles, looking like a proud father. He makes me feel bold, important.

  I straighten my back, annoyed by their secret communication. Mr. Akers notices and grins at me. The head Dragon bows, ever the gentleman. “You may call me Sir Zane, Dragon Master.”

  Dumb title. Sounds like a video game login. “How about just Zane?”

  He looks taken aback, but shrugs. “Whatever suits you.”

  To Zane’s left, a fair-haired man with perfect white teeth and deep blue eyes bows as Zane introduces him. “Captain Tobias, my second-in-command.”

  “Call me Toby, Mistress.” The tattoo on Toby’s neck peeks out from beneath his hair as it falls forward. He winks and straightens, then moves aside to make way for another cloaked figure, this one with hair like muddy water and eyes gray as the pre-dawn sky.

  “Captain Gabriel,” Zane continues, “who usually stands at my right, except when Captain Akers decides to grace us.”

  Gabriel playfully slaps Akers on the shoulder, dancing aside to avoid a return slap, and I gasp, worried he’ll fall off his floating sphere. “Gabe, at your service, Miss Abigail, Guardian of the Ring of the Princess. And serving your boisterous friends as well.” His cheeks are tinged pink when he stands upright, biting his lip, clearly trying to hold in a fit of laughter. The expression hits a memory. I’ve seen Gabe before.