Dragon School: Starie Night

by Wilson, Sarah K. L.

  Starie's soldiers worked industriously to break their camp despite the early hour, packing up tents and pots onto packhorses and carts. We'd be leaving soon, I could tell. I wondered if I should expect to ride with Starie again. It seemed that she wanted to keep me close.

  The pavilion was open to the air, the door flung wide despite the cold and snow. Starie and Grandis Elfar stood close together, speaking in low, intense tones as the servants around Starie packed up the pavilion. They finished speaking as we entered the tent, the Magika bowing as he arrived.

  "Your prisoner, Chosen One."

  "Return to your duties."

  He bowed and left, but the Grandis took his place beside me, looking me up and down and circling me as she did so.

  "Not healed, then, are you?" she said, her eyes narrowing. "And yet you have survived. I never would have credited it."

  "I thought you had faith in me," I replied. It still stung that the most fair-minded and kind of the Grandis had proved to be my enemy.

  "I never said that."

  “I thought you cared about the students of Dragon School.”

  Her face grew hard. “I care about the Chosen One, Starie Atrelan. She is our only hope to keep this world from drying up like a rag left in the sun. And I’ll sacrifice anyone and anything that I have to if it means keeping her alive.” She shot a look over her shoulder at Starie. “Remember that. And don’t grow so soft that you fail us all.”

  She stormed off, leaving me with a creased brow and more questions than ever before.

  Chapter Ten

  Starie's expression was furious when I finally looked at her. The Grandis might be her ally, but there was no love lost there. Was that why the Magikas were so jumpy? Was it because their leadership was fracturing? Perhaps it was why she kept seeking me out. They said it was lonely at the top. It must be even lonelier when your friends were nervous of you and you couldn't be left alone with your conscience.

  One of the servants brushed too closely to Starie and the false Chosen One spun, her mouth firming in rage. She tilted her head to one side and there was a burst of dark light around the servant woman's face. My gut twisted as dark ooze ran from the servant’s eyes and she fell to the ground, lifeless.

  I swallowed, a tremor running up and down my legs. I had almost grown used to Starie and her black mirror magic. Had I begun to think of her as tame instead of the evil killer she was?

  That heartlessness! This was the woman the Dusk Covenant wanted to lead us. I bit my lip, letting the taste of blood remind me of what was real.

  "You waste what's left of the world's magic just to settle an irritation?" I asked, not able to control the warble of emotion in my tone. A woman who would kill out of annoyance would kill for anything.

  "I didn't waste it. Remember what I told you? I use mirrors to enhance magic."

  I looked around. There were no mirrors nearby. They'd already been packed. There wasn't even a shiny object nearby.

  “It’s the eyes. You know how they say that the eyes reflect the soul? It’s true. They reflect everything and that’s all the mirror that I need.”

  Starie crossed to the last table that hadn’t been packed yet, picking up a battered book from the tabletop. “Did you know that there’s a book about me? But, of course, you did. You have your own book of Ibrenicus prophecies. It’s scary how accurate it is. Scary for my enemies, that is. Have you read it, Amel?”

  "I have." My hand drifted unconsciously to the pocket that held my own copy of the prophecies.

  "Listen to this one,” Starie said.

  “Corrupted in the last days and trickling from the earth,

  Dying in a bloom of power

  The old passes and the new comes

  Mirror of the old but amplified

  Greater than the power which gave it birth.

  Accurate, don't you think?"

  It was accurate. The prophecies always were. But they didn't necessarily mean what she thought they did. Perhaps it meant that our nation and power structure was shifting, not the magic systems like her mirror magic.

  "I found my power that way," Starie continued, striding out of the pavilion to where a line of dragons was being readied. Grandis Elfar was at their head, pointing and ordering servants and soldiers around like a High Castelan might. "Grandis Elfar brought me to the Healing Arches with a group of Magikas. It was the first time that they called up an Ifrit – ever – right there, from the pool of magic in the Healing Arches. It's funny what you said about how they brought out Savette's power through suffering because that's exactly how it happened for me, too."

  Around us, there was a bustle as the first soldiers and caged wagons began their journey along the road. Everyone else was issuing orders or following them, gathering supplies or strapping them in place, extinguishing fires, drinking a last cup of tea, cinching straps and calling back and forth or up and down lines of men and women in squeaking leathers or clinking armor. Even the Magikas, usually slow and dignified in their movements, were hustling and hurried as they prepared to march.

  Anxiety filled me as I watched them work. All these people were working against the future of the Dominion – whether they knew it or not.

  A servant ran up with a breakfast tray for Starie and she accepted a bowl of porridge and gestured to me to take one.

  "Eat now. There will be no more for a while."

  "Thank you." I took the offered food and began to eat, but I wasn't distracted by the moving people or the hustle of the camp, my attention was fully on Starie. I had a feeling that what she was telling me was deeply important.

  "The Magikas gathered around the arches while the Dragon Riders stayed nearby. We were transporting them, and also working as a security force, but I ... I was curious. I wanted to know how they were going to do it. I'd heard the whispers that they were raising an army for the Dusk Covenant. I knew why it mattered ... but I didn't know at what cost."

  She stopped to take a bite and I ate, too.

  But I wasn't thinking about the food. I even kept my face clear of emotion when I watched Rasipaer's caged wagon rumble past, pulled by a pair of furious dragons. Magikas in dark robes whipped them from either side to keep them going. Fury and bile rose in me equally. There would be a way to end this. I would make one if I had to.

  Around Starie's throat, the Pipe of Wings flashed silver. I forced my gaze from it. I didn't dare show how badly I needed it back.

  "I left my post and stood just behind the circle, watching. They were having trouble drawing up enough of the power from the well and someone suggested that if they could just start the flow of power then the rest might pour into it. It was in that moment that someone noticed me - Jasin Heedrunner, a Magika apprentice. He pointed across to where I was standing and before I knew it they had tied my hands and feet and drawn a knife. I thought I was dead. I thought they were furious that I'd been spying on them. I didn't realize until later that it was my blood that they needed for the life power. What they did ... I won't tell you. Not because I want to protect you. Not because I don't think it should be spoken of. Because I don't want it duplicated."

  She turned from her breakfast to look into my eyes through that fear-inducing black veil and the spooky gaze made me freeze in place. I swallowed, my legs feeling like jelly under me. She wouldn't tell me about how she was tortured because she thought people might want to try it for themselves? What kind of person would think that?

  Her mouth was a determined line. "I don't want anyone else to have what I have. Because it was the things they did to me - the terrible way that I suffered - that changed everything. I remember looking into Grandis Elfar's eyes during the worst of it. She'd come closer then to plead for me – I think. It was the reflection of myself - of what was being done to me - in the black depths of her eyes that triggered something in me. I reached into that blackness, dove as deep as I could, and the mirror magic bubbled up. It reversed all my wounds. It killed the ones who had tortured me. It touched me with that de
ep, reflected darkness – and in the rebound of their power, it brought to me the first of my pure soldiers. Creatures of blood and dust. Pure of intent. Born of darkness."

  "Ifrits," I whispered.

  "Yes." She smiled in that eerie way she had of only letting the edges of her mouth turn upward.

  "Ifrits. And with them a darkness that has filled me and fueled me ever since. Do you know how to end suffering and bring the magic back into the world, Amel?"

  "Yes."

  She laughed. "Oh, I doubt that. You're doing everything in your power to stop it. You want the suffering and madness of this place to continue. I don't. I want it to end. And I know how to fix everything."

  I couldn't help myself. I had to ask.

  "How do you fix everything, Starie?"

  "I end it."

  Chapter Eleven

  We traveled the rest of the morning in silence. Starie wanted me close to her, but she seemed to be done telling me her secrets. There was no love lost between her and the Grandis, though it was the Grandis who bound my hands when they loaded me onto the back of Starie's dragon.

  "You wouldn't want her to push you off," she said by way of explanation. Starie had laughed at that as if it was the biggest joke in the world. After her revelations to me, she shouldn’t be so certain. I could almost do that without a qualm. When Jalla had wanted me to kill her war leader, I had never really considered obeying. This was different. This person wanted to destroy the world.

  We traveled until noon, the dragons flying loops and circles to stay with the army and the Magikas whipping the walking dragons mercilessly to force them to pull the caged carts. Most of the carts held a dragon or sometimes even two of them, packed in the cages so tightly that they were like extra blankets stuffed into a chest. There were only two cages that held people and I watched the one with my new husband in it often.

  Eventually, we reached the plains between the twin sky cities, angling to a spot just north of the torn and muddy plains. As the scene slowly grew clearer and clearer, I felt my breath quickening and my belly knotting.

  It was here, in these mud holes and chewed up earth, that the battle for our future was being fought. It was in the ragged remains of Sky City and the stark silhouette of Dominion City that the generals and castelans planned the moves of their armies and dragons. It wasn't until we were closer that I could make out the sprawling camps of soldiers. Between the two armies, fragmented walls in various states of dilapidation wove twisting lines. Defenders clustered at the haphazard walls, clouds of Ifrits or bursts of colorful dragons breaking up the otherwise monotonous mud-tones of the battlefield. How many days had they fought? How many weeks.

  "Many. The end draws near," Starie said. "We have pushed them almost to the edge of Sky City. We have ground them into paste beneath the feet of our soldiers. Our Ifrits have torn down their defenses and shattered their dragons. The end draws near. But none of us wants to lay siege to a city. A siege could go on for years. Best to draw them out. And that, of course, is why you are here."

  On the north end of the battlefield where the landscape began to rise toward the northern mountains and hills, someone had erected a massive platform. It was on that platform that we landed when the sun was at its zenith.

  Rocks had been thrown into a pile larger than my village to create the base of the platform, a timber floor laid over the rocks and a pair of towers built on the northern side of it. The south side was free of obstacles – clearly built to look out over the battle. Strange that no one was fighting here. Both armies were far away in the field below.

  “There’s no military advantage to the platform,” Starie said. “Unless I am here.”

  Grandis Elfar landed beside us. The Magikas she was transporting dismounted immediately, spreading out across the platform.

  She was careful not to look at Starie as she spoke. "I'll meet with the Generals immediately. Your purpose remains the same?"

  Starie's voice sounded firm. "Yes. I'll draw out the pretender. Only then, can we strike a final blow."

  Elfar nodded, still looking into the distance rather than at her protégé. "And the Dominar?"

  "Is less than a day behind us. He and his army will be here in time for the final victory."

  "Good." Her dragon kicked off again and she was gone before I could wonder why she wouldn't look at me.

  "She takes her duties seriously. She always has. It is hard for her when it is time to make necessary sacrifices," Starie said. She was scanning the battle below us. From here, picking out details was hard. All I could see was the ebb and flow of masses of black-clad soldiers. The occasional school of dragons or cloud of Ifrits was easy to pick out against the monotones but seeing a single soldier in that mass of bodies would be impossible. What was she looking for?

  "There," she said eventually, pointing to a place in the field. Behind me, other dragons were landing and offloading their Magika cargoes, while below us on the ground – and a little way off from the platform, Starie's army was parking the cages and stowing their cargo wagons. I followed Starie's finger with my gaze. "See the bright light around her?"

  Savette! I could see her there, across the battlefield. Starie was right that her people and their ragged wall were pushed up almost to the base of Sky City. Still, she fought, white light pouring from her hands as she disintegrated a cloud of Ifrits. It was amazing to see, even from so far away.

  "Dismount," Starie said, cutting the rope binding my hands.

  The dark light from her eyes was even more intense now, as if proximity to Savette's light made them brighter – or was that darker?

  I rubbed my wrists awkwardly after so many hours of being tied up and then followed her down. We were standing at the edge of the platform and the drop beneath us made me think of Dragon School.

  "I'm glad that I had time to tell you why everything must be this way. It will make what comes next easier."

  I looked from Starie to the drop and back again. There was no one else here. If I timed a push just right I could knock her off the platform. I could end this now.

  I lunged before I thought, pushing off with my crutch and rushing toward her with all the speed I could muster. Fear and courage pulsed through my veins so that all I could hear was the roar of them as I flew through the air.

  I froze, neither foot touching the ground. No!

  Around me, darkness pushed. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, could even hear. And the edges of my vision, there was nothing but the mind-bending darkness of Starie's mirror magic and the pull of it as it tried to refract me into nothingness.

  Chapter Twelve

  I woke up to a hard surface under me and a pounding headache. My face hurt. I reached up and felt blood.

  Someone was standing over me. Between her boots, I could see the battle raging on the fields below. Savette stood at the front of her troops, flaring with light again and again. Even from here I could tell her head was held high.

  I flashed into her eyes for a moment and felt her movements – lightning quick as she spun. A massive Ifrit bubbled up from the dust in front of her. He snatched up one of her wide-eyed soldiers, cracking the man in half in his monstrous grip and then tossing him aside like a fallen leaf. Savette’s arm shot out and with it came her light. The Ifrit flared with light for a moment and then dissipated in a burst of dust and ashes. Around Savette, her soldiers doubled over in coughing and hacking, but when their eyes met hers there was nothing in them but utter devotion. These men and women would fight and die for her.

  There was a battle cry from nearby and a line of soldiers rushed toward her position. I recognized the man at the front. General Honorspur was exactly as he had been the day I met him – when Starie killed another general before his eyes. Now, he fought for the false Chosen One, rushing toward Savette, his men a vanguard before him.

  The soldiers around Savette seemed to gain courage rather than melt away. They swelled forward, calling out her name.

  “Savette Leedris! The Chos
en One!”

  The first clash of steel on steel was joined by Savette’s flare of light.

  I snapped back into my own mind, panting from the intensity of the battle below. Now only tiny figures on the massive field below, the armies crashed together like waves across the sand. I had the strangest feeling that someone was looking through my eyes. That had better not be Rakturan!

  The boots in front of my face shifted and a voice growled.

  “You can stay down there or get up. It won’t matter. Either way, this fight is done for you.”

  I looked up at Grandis Elfar. How long had I been unconscious? It must have taken her at least a little time to meet with the generals. Had it been hours? Days?

  “We could put up a dome around her,” one of the Magikas offered.

  “Unnecessary,” the Grandis said. “You have your own work and I can deal with this stray.”

  It was strange to see her here, standing over me. She’d been doing her best to avoid Starie and me. Perhaps her conscience troubled her. Had she received what she hoped from helping Starie to power – from maneuvering things to put her in power? She didn’t seem to have the prestige or honor I would have expected from someone in her place.

  Guards stood a few steps away, but they weren’t needed. The Grandis held one of the dragon whips in her hand. It was unfurled, ready to lash out at a moment’s notice. That was more than enough to keep me in check.

  “It’s done for you too, from what I’ve seen,” I said, my voice rougher than I had expected. I raised a hand to my cheek and felt blood. Fighting dizziness, I sat up. My arm hurt where the crutch was digging into the skin. It had torn a divot through my forearm when I fell, but the blood there was already dry, a scab forming over it.

  Grandis Elfar didn’t respond. Interesting. When I was angry – when something cut too deep – that was when I didn’t speak. She was angry, too. I needed to spread division here. That was my only hope against an enemy with such an advantage.