by Matt Forbeck
"I don’t want to be killed like a trapped rat,” she said. "I want to go out there on my own two feet and tell that bitch of a dragon just what I think of her.”
Kandler nodded as he tried to collect himself. "I understand howyou feel,” he said. "I really do. There’s something noble in what you’d like to do.”
"But what?”
"But this is no time for nobility.”
Espre laughed. "It’s the perfect time.”
"I’m not going to let you do this,” Kandler said.
Espre peered up at the justicar, tears welling in her eyes. "Don’t make me do it,” she said.
It took Kandler a moment to understand what the girl meant. Then he glanced down at her hands and saw them glowing black.
Kandler felt his heart stop, just for an instant. "Don’t,” he said in a soft voice.
Espre blinked away the tears, and the blackness grew until Kandler could see it running up and down her arms too. He told himself that she would never hurt him, but he’d never seen her like this before.
"Think about this,” the justicar said. "You’d kill me to save my life? You’re letting your emotions rule you. Use your head.”
"I—I won’t kill you,” Espre said. "I just want stop you from stopping me. Just let me by. Greffykor will take me to the queen, and this will be all over.”
Kandler looked back over his shoulder at the dragon looming over him. The creature stopped rubbing his eyes and gave him what he probably thought was an understanding smile. The dragon’s breath smelled like ancient ice.
As Kandler brought his head back around, his gaze flicked toward Burch. The shifter had reloaded his crossbow, and he stood with the weapon aimed at Greffykor’s teeth.
Kandler opened his mouth to say, "No,” one more time. He’d keep repeating it to Espre for as long as it took to sink in.
No matter how hardheaded she insisted on being about it, he would never allow her to sacrifice herself for him. That was the role of the parent, not the child.
Before he could explain all this, though, Sallah screamed in the chamber above.
"We don’t have time to argue about this now,” Kandler told Espre.
The girl reached out to put a hand on Kandler, but seeing the black glow still on her fingers he pulled his arm away. "If you leave to help her, I’ll surrender myself to Greffykor,” she said.
Kandler hesitated. He couldn’t let Espre give herself up to the silver dragon. To do so would be certain death for her, but he couldn’t just wait and listen while the red dragon made Sallah the first victim of a murderous rampage.
Something rumbled in Greffykor’s chest, and it sounded like the thunder of an approaching storm. "You should listen to the girl,” he said.
Kandler spun on the dragon. "You’re just worried about your damned observatory.” He raised his sword to strike. He refused to give Espre up without a fight.
Burch’s crossbow twanged, and a bolt whizzed past Kandler’s shoulder. The dragon raised its snout, and the bolt glanced off his teeth. Then the creature pursed his lips and blew.
A blast of arctic air burst between the dragon’s teeth. Kandler dodged to the side to avoid it, and it passed straight over his head in a white cone of wind.
The air above the justicar froze. Snowflakes crystallized out of nowhere and cascaded down onto his face. The dragon’s breath missed him, though, and the snowflakes melted as they touched down on his skin.
Kandler rolled to his feet and glanced behind him. He saw that he hadn’t been the dragon’s target after all.
A frost-rimed Burch knelt on the floor, curled around his knees, his empty crossbow on the floor beside him. The frozen weapon had broken when it struck the hard, stone floor, its bow snapped in half.
At first, Kandler thought his friend might be dead. Then he heard the chattering of the shifter’s teeth and saw him shivering as his body fought the dreadful cold.
Kandler took a half step back and prepared to launch himself at the dragon. It was a hopeless fight, he knew, but he hoped that he might be able to at least give the beast some sort of scar to remember him by.
Then something icy seized the justicar’s sword arm. He yelped in surprise, and that emotion turned to horror as he saw Espre’s slim fingers there on his forearm, her hands glowing black.
Kandler tried to pull away from the girl, but his limbs refused to respond. The power of Espre’s dragonmark had paralyzed him. There was nothing he could do now but wait for his daughter to end his life.
From somewhere above, Kandler heard Sallah scream again.
Chapter
54
Te’oma peeked around the edge of the doorway leading into the observatory and saw Sallah and Xalt standing behind the red dragon. In the air, the creature had seemed large enough to swallow the sun. Here, squatting inside a building—even one so massive as this—she seemed even bigger, as if the walls bent away from her to avoid her touch.
When Sallah raised her sword to strike at the dragon, the changeling considered shouting out a warning to the queen. She knew it would be a betrayal of those she had accompanied here, but there was little love lost between her and Sallah or Xalt. To alert the queen to the danger would put the dragon in her debt.
Te’oma doubted, though, that the dragon would see it that way. She’d probably kill the changeling right after she finished incinerating the warforged and the knight. The best that Te’oma could hope for from such a betrayal would be a quicker death.
She had to admit, though, that this was not the only reason she opted to let the lady knight strike. Te’oma wanted nothing more than to see these dragons hurt—killed if possible—and if she couldn’t muster the courage to attack them again herself, she at least wouldn’t stand in anyone else’s way.
Te’oma winced when Sallah’s first blow glanced off the dragon’s scales. Then she cheered silently when the lady knight’s blade cut deep into the dragon queen’s tail— although she slipped back behind the edge of the portal and out of the creature’s sight, just in case.
As the changeling waited for the furor inside to die down, she felt like a fly on an open table. She knew that the dragon-man aboard the Phoenix with Monja could kill her in an instant. She lived only at the creature’s whim. Fortunately, he seemed happy to ignore her for now, if only because Monja would be happily chatting his ears off.
Te’oma peeked back into the observatory in time to see Kandler—off to the right—disappearing down the hole in the floor. To the left, Xalt dragged Sallah away from the angry dragon and toward the monstrous crystal that towered against the chamber’s wall.
The changeling didn’t see Espre anywhere, nor Burch. She assumed the young elf was in the shifter’s capable hands, and she guessed that was where Kandler was headed too. For a moment, she considered following the justicar down the hole, to wherever it might lead, but she couldn’t bring herself to risk the dragon queen spotting her.
Te’oma cursed herself. Then she cursed the Lich Queen, Tan Du, Ibrido, Majeeda, and Nithkorrh to boot. She wanted to curse her long-dead daughter, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She cursed the girl’s father instead.
He’d been so slick and sweet, the kind of male that she’d dreamed about her whole life. For one, he’d been a changeling, which meant he knew what her life had been like. She hadn’t met too many of her own kind at that point, and few of them had been kind enough to spare her more than a few words, probably out of fear that their true identities might be exposed to those who lived around them.
Mondaro, though, he’d swept her into his arms and given her the first hint of love she’d ever tasted. For months, nothing could separate them. They’d taken the city of Sharn and made it their own, using their shapeshifting powers to sneak into the finest restaurants and stay in the best inns, all without ever spilling a copper from their pockets.
They’d even talked of marriage, of settling down and starting up legitimate careers, perhaps as actors in one of the local troupes.
For the first time that Te’oma could remember, she’d felt happy.
Then she’d gotten pregnant.
The night she told Mondaro, he sat there in shock, unable to digest the news. The next morning when she awoke, she could not find him. She would never see him again.
Te’oma considered getting rid of the baby. She knew of an apothecary that would sell her the potion to make that happen, but she couldn’t bring herself to visit his shop. She carried her little girl to term and cradled her in her arms.
Every time she looked at her daughter, though, she couldn’t help but think of the girl’s father. This drove her deeper and deeper into despair, and soon she couldn’t bear the sight of her child’s blank, cherubic face. She left her with those she thought could care for her, then she left Sharn far behind.
Te’oma had never regretted anything in her life more than that.
That is, until she agreed to find the bearer of the Mark of Death.
More than anything else, now, Te’oma needed to make up for what she'd done to Espre. The fact that it would put a thumb in the Lich Queen’s empty eye socket only added to the changeling’s determination. She saw no other way to redeem herself—in the judgment of both herself and her daughter, whom she felt watching over her from beyond.
She could not let the dragons have the girl.
Te’oma stepped into the observatory just as the dragon queen took a swipe at Sallah that almost put an end to the lady knight’s quest. The changeling forced herself to ignore the woman and the warforged who pulled her to temporary safety behind the massive crystal. The two had attacked the dragon as a diversion away from the girl, and Te’oma meant to take as much advantage of that as she could.
She slunk toward the hole and peered down into it. The silver dragon blasted Burch with its icy breath, then Espre reached out and attacked Kandler with the powers granted by her dragonmark.
Te’oma stifled a gasp. She’d never dreamed that the girl would be pressed far enough into a corner to lash out at her stepfather.
"Go,” the dragon said to Espre. "I will watch over them.”
Espre knelt down next to Kandler and felt his neck for a pulse. Then she slumped over him, and Te’oma heard her muffled sobs.
"You do not have long,” Greffykor said. "I will watch over them. They will not interfere.”
"You must promise me you will keep them safe,” the girl said. As she spoke, she moved over and stroked Burch’s mane. The half-frozen shifter stopped shivering for a moment.
"That is Frekkainta’s choice, not mine. I will not harm them.”
Espre stood up and wiped her face with her sleeves. "Then that will have to be enough.”
The girl walked over to the rope and began to climb. She ascended faster than Te’oma would have thought she could have managed, but the girl’s heart had to be pumping fast enough that she must have felt as if she were flying up the rope.
Te’oma admired the girl’s resolve. Despite everything that had happened to her, she had set herself on a course from which she refused to be swayed, and she would do anything—even attack Kandler—to make sure she achieved her goal.
Te’oma felt only the tiniest pang of regret that she would have to derail those plans.
As Espre reached the top of the hole, the changeling reached down and offered her a hand up. Despite the fact that her arms had to feel like wet noodles at that point, the girl ignored Te’oma’s hand and pulled herself up to the floor above her.
"I should have known I’d find you here,” Espre said. "Every time something horrible happens, you’re right by my side.”
"How kind of you to eliminate your protectors.” Te’oma smiled at the girl, showing her perfectly even rows of teeth. "Now you have no way to keep me from spiriting you away from here.”
Espre groaned. "We’re not going to go through all that again, are we? I thought you’d given up on trying to kidnap me.”
Te’oma put on a pained look. "I think of this as saving you.”
"I don’t want to be saved. I’m through being saved.”
Te’oma smirked. "I don’t recall offering you a choice.”
"I’ve already made it.”
The changeling looked down and saw the black glow suffusing the young elf’s hands.
Chapter
55
Sallah hated screaming, but she couldn t help herself. She’d thought that Deothen had long ago hammered the urge out of her during her childhood training drills. Having a dragon queen breathe fire down at her seemed to have subverted all that though.
The lady knight took a deep breath, as if to scream once more, but this time Xalt slapped a steely hand across her mouth. He held it there until the urge to scream passed from her, and she pulled his fingers away.
The dragon put an eye up to the other side of the crystal, which magnified it until it seemed the yellowish orb had to stand at least twenty feet tall. It growled as it did, although Sallah couldn’t tell if the dragon meant to say something in Draconic or just wished to growl in frustration at the way the crystal blocked most of the effects of her flames.
While the jet of fire from the dragon’s mouth hadn’t been powerful enough to reach all the way around the crystal, much of the heat from it had. Sallah felt rivulets of sweat slipping down the inside of her armor, soaking her from head to toe and plastering her red curls against
her neck and forehead.
"I will run to the left,” Xalt said. "When it follows me, you run for the doorway.”
"You’ll be killed.”
Xalt nodded toward the dragon’s monstrous eye. "That seems inevitable. This way, at least, one of us might have a chance.”
Sallah considered this for a moment, then made to bolt to the left. The warforged’s arms shot out and stopped her. "Let me do this,” he said.
"I can’t let someone else die in my stead.”
"I might not die. I’m not flesh and blood like you. The fire might not affect me as much.”
"Do you believe that?”
The warforged stared at her with his unblinking obsidian eyes. "Not really.”
Sallah reached over and kissed Xalt on the cheek. Despite the fact that his face was made of metal and wood instead of skin, it felt warm and smelled something like wet copper.
"You’re sweet,” she said, "but we’re getting out of this together or not at all.”
The crystal before them shuddered as the dragon queen slammed one of her mighty wings into it.
This time, Xalt screamed.
Monja wished nothing more than to fly the Phoenix straight into the observatory. She couldn't tell for sure if the airship would fit through the gigantic doorway at the end of the landing platform, but that didn’t matter so much to her. She wanted to crash the craft into the observatory and destroy her, unleashing the rebellious elemental trapped in the ship’s ring of fire.
With luck, such an explosion would bring the observatory tumbling down. She knew it might kill every one of her friends—and perhaps herself—but if it killed the dragons too it would be worth it.
Unfortunately, the dragon-man refused to leave her alone. She knew that he could kill her in an instant. If he wanted to, he could murder her and be off the ship before her corpse even smacked into the deck.
"Go ahead,” he said to her. "Try it.”
Monja stared at the dragon-man. His eyes burned like lava.
"You never know,” he said as he turned to gaze at the observatory. "It might work. You might kill her. You might save them all.”
Monja bit her lower lip. "You just want an excuse to kill me.”
The dragon-man’s lips peeled apart, showing his several rows of pointed teeth. "What makes you think I need one?” 1
Monja’s hands felt sweaty on the airship’s wheel. "You want me to kill your mother?”
The dragon-man pursed his lips and kept staring straight ahead at the observatory. "I’ve waited a long time to become king.”
"How long?”
"
Your people were still living in tents instead of burrows.” Monja’s brow creased. "We do live in tents.”
The dragon-man arched an eyebrow. "See? The Prophecy isn’t infallible after all.”
"You would let me kill your mother.”
The dragon-man looked down at the shaman. "I would probably stop you.”
"You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”
Monja could feel the elemental in the airship’s ring of fire straining at her will. The creature had no doubts about what should be done. If it could have spoken, it would have begged her to chance it, to aim the ship at the observatory’s doorway and smash her into the place, to leave this world in a glorious blaze.
"No matter what you do, I win,” the dragon-man said. "If you stay here, it does me no harm, and my mother will be pleased that I obeyed her orders. If you attack the observatory and fail, you will convince her that those from beyond the borders of our fair isle are unbalanced. That kind of paranoia I am sure I can exploit to my benefit.”
"And if I do not fail?”
"Then I become king.”
Monja waited for the dragon-man to continue talking, but he did not. Somewhere inside the observatory, Sallah screamed.
"Is this not what you want?” The palms of Monja’s hands began to itch.
"Mine is a long life, and I have many tomorrows before me.”
The dragon-man looked back at the halfling. "If I were to blink, your life would escape me entirely. Time is my friend.” He turned back to gaze at the observatory. "It is not yours.”
Monja felt the ship inch forward, right toward the open doorway. The Phoenix moved without the halfling willing her to, but Monja knew that the elemental within still obeyed her. The shaman wanted to charge the airship straight into the place and lay about with her until everything came tumbling down, but she knew she couldn’t.
She had to trust her friends. She had to give them a chance.
She had come along with Kandler, Espre, Burch and the others to help—to heal them when they needed it and to fly the airship. As a shaman, the need to aid others ran thick in her blood, but she had to admit that she would have come along just so she could keep flying the airship.
