“Urgh,” I said. “I don’t know where to start.”
Glyran huffed. “A wise man once said, ‘It is always best to start at the beginning.’”
I grimaced. This wasn’t going to be easy, but I swallowed once and began. I told him about being chased down the corridor by the dark figure, about piercing the magical barrier. I told him about going there after, and finding the dragon, dead. I expected some sort of reaction, but there was none, which threw me off a little.
“Is there something wrong, Jes?” Glyran’s piercing crystalline eyes bore into mine, and I almost looked away, so intense was his gaze.
“No, not really. I…I just wondered why you weren’t surprised when I told you about the dead dragon king.” Then it hit me. I remembered my earlier conversation with Hoggan. “But of course, the race memory thing you dragons have. Hoggan told me —”
My words cut off as Glyran breathed in swiftly. Heat swam off him in waves as the gas ignited in his belly. It was so intense I started to sweat. I knew dragons used this method to assist them with flight, but this was nothing to do with that. No, as well as the heat, I felt confusion and rage hit me like an almost physical blow.
“Glyran,” I whimpered. “What’s wrong? Have I done something to upset you? If I have I’m really sorry.” I quivered like a spring sapling in a brisk breeze, and my heart threatened to leap from my chest. For a moment, I thought that Glyran might unleash the full fury of the fire barely contained within him, to burn me to a crisp for offending him. My mind raced back over what I’d said. He’d been calm—almost too much so—as I’d told my tale, up until I mentioned knowing about their race memory. Was that it? Was it some sort of secret that Hoggan should never have told me?
“I…I’m sorry,” I said, my voice shaking. “I won’t tell anyone else about the memory thing, I promise. I promise on my mother’s life. I promise on my whole family’s lives. I promise…”
Glyran seemed to deflate, the heat within him being absorbed back into whatever pool contained it within his mighty form. The naked fury in his eyes dimmed as he bowed his massive head. “No, my child, it is I who must beg for your forgiveness. My loss of control was…inappropriate in front of one not of dragon kind, but the name…” He paused.
The name? What name? The only name I’d given him was Hoggan’s, and hadn’t Hoggan said he knew Glyran? That he was his friend?
“Who is this being who calls himself Hoggan, and what form does he take?” Glyran’s voice was quiet, but as sharp as the deadliest dagger.
I gulped. “He’s the son of the dwelven king. But…he said he knows you, that you’re friends…”
Glyran’s laughter was colder than anything I could imagine. The air itself seemed to fog over with a freezing mist. “Hoggan is…was, indeed the son of the dwelven king, and we were friends. A long time ago.”
Was the son of the king? What did that mean? And had they fallen out somehow? Was that why they were no longer friends?
“Hoggan died.”
What? How was this possible? “He… he can’t be. He can’t be dead. I…I spoke to him just the other day. He told me about the race memory you have, and how the council of dragons might use the knowledge of the rebellion to free yourself from the binding spell—”
“ENOUGH!” Glyran’s rage had returned, but at least this time I knew it wasn’t directed toward me. “Hoggan died in the first rebellion, at my own hands.” Glyran’s voice shook with fury and grief. “He was one of the generals of the dwelven army sent by his father to help protect the great forest. He was at the front of the force attacking the Citadel when the eldar king threw himself from the wall, enslaving us all while ordering us to kill them even as he plummeted to his death.”
Glyran turned away, as if to hide the shame he felt. “He faced me, his features set in stone as he ran at me, his battle axe raised to strike. I tried desperately to stay my blow, willing to accept my own death in return for his survival, but I couldn’t resist the binding spell.”
I was horrified. This curse had forced Glyran, gentle, noble, magnificent Glyran, to kill his friend? I wanted to go to him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but he turned back to me before I could say anything.
“So, you see, Jes. Whoever this being is, he is not Hoggan.”
I was utterly confused. I knew Hoggan, didn’t I? We’d been through so much during the time I’d spent in the Citadel. He’d helped me in so many ways, made my miserable existence in this place a tiny bit more bearable. Had it all been a lie?
Suddenly, the red orb in my hand pulsated. I had totally forgotten about it, but as Glyran noticed it for the first time, I held it out so he could see it clearly. “I found it, Glyran. I found the source of the spell that binds you. All you have to do is destroy it and —”
Glyran recoiled as if struck a physical blow. I began to take a step toward him when a bone-chilling sound filled the air. It was the song. The dark figure’s melody, only now it wasn’t in the distance. It was here, now, beside me. I whirled around and stopped dead in my tracks, frozen to the spot as a pool of inky darkness rose up from the ground and solidified into the same vague, dark shape I’d seen in the cavern with the dead dragon king.
Behind me, Glyran was struggling to rise. He seemed to be pinned by an unseen force. I turned back around to face the dark thing. “What have you done to him? Let him go!”
A chuckle as cold and malevolent as the depths of the pit of darkness from the old stories echoed through the night air. “It is not I who holds the binding spell.” The voice was high and thin, just as it had been the last time.
I looked down at my hand to see the dragon eye pulse like the beat of a heart. I felt Glyran’s soul battle within, felt it strain against the leash of the bond, and felt that leash snap him tightly into unbearable submission. My heart skipped a beat. Skipped along the same beat as the pulsating orb I held in my hand. No! This can’t be happening.
“Oh, but it can, lass.”
I snapped my head up. Before me, where the dark figure had been a moment before, stood Hoggan. The same Hoggan I knew and loved, except for one thing. His expression. Gone was the tenderness in those eyes and features, replaced by hard, cold evil. There was no other way to describe it.
He’d read my thoughts. That shouldn’t have been possible.
Hoggan…No, not Hoggan. Whatever this was had never been Hoggan. Maker, I felt so stupid.
He laughed, and the sound grated against my whole essence. “The soul trap is your master now, and I am its. So, you are now mine, little faerie. Mine to use, mine to shape and twist.” The dragon fire inside me had become part of the soul trap, and now I was as trapped as the dragons. The Darkness had used me to find the spell that the eldar king had hidden.
I reached for the fire within me, reaching out an arm to engulf him in blue flame, to end the threat once and for all. My flame rose up from within. I willed it outward, longed for it to rip into, rip through whatever this thing was. This wasn’t my Hoggan. Glyran was wrong. Hoggan wasn’t dead, but wherever he was, this thing before me wasn’t him, and I was going to kill it.
Instead, the flame flowed up my arm, engulfing it as far up as my elbow before I halted the advance. It took every shred of will I possessed to stop it, and a bead of sweat rolled down my forehead and into my eye. It stung. I stood like a statue as the not-Hoggan walked around me, chuckling.
“So generous of you, dragon, to give Jesaela such a gift.” He stopped in front of me. “The soul trap was fashioned to entrap dragon souls, young one. When Glyran gave you this gift, this dragon fire, it became a part of you, and you a part of it. You are part dragon now, so all I had to do was allow the spell long enough to adjust, to steal a tiny sliver of your own soul and trap it.”
Unwillingly, I raised my other hand and held the soul trap on my opened palm. I willed my hand to close, willed it with all my being, but not a single muscle as much as twitched. Whether I had claimed the eye or not, I was now giving it, willingly, to
whatever this being was.
The not-Hoggan took it, grinning widely, and as it separated from my hand I felt a pain unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. I’d thought the agony when Lyssa had taken my wings was unbearable, but this was worse. Much worse. A hundred times worse. It was like a tiny part of each individual cell of my being was being ripped away from the rest of me, like a shadow being torn away from its owner when the sun was the highest in the sky. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. Tears flowed down my cheeks, and something warm and wet slipped out of my nose onto my top lip. I tasted the coppery blood as it entered my mouth and would have gagged if I’d been able. It began to slip down my throat. Was I going to drown in my own blood?
Then the hold on my breathing released. I choked, coughing out as much of the blood as I could. I was still pinned by whatever force bound my will. I couldn’t even try to move. It was as if my body were no longer my own, but I could speak.
I’d been a fool. All along I’d been a pawn in another game. “It was never about freeing the dragons, was it?” My voice was forced, my breath whispering from my lungs.
“Oh, I’m sure the dragons would love to have their free will back. I’m quite positive when Glyran and you talked on the journey from your home, he thought he’d found a chance to free his people.”
The last few minutes flashed through my mind, remembering back to the library, to the place where the eye had been hidden, the scent surrounding it. Faerie magic! And to the words the not-Talyn—who I was now certain stood before me as Hoggan—had told me. The eye could not be taken. It had to be given freely. But how—and why—had it ended up hidden there, and by a spell fashioned by faerie magic no less?
“Think about it, girl,” the not-Hoggan said in the tone he’d used when teaching me the history of this place.
I felt sick to my stomach, but I couldn’t help but rattle through the thought process. “The eldar had control of the dragons, but that wasn’t good enough, for you, was it? You wanted the power for yourself.”
The not-Hoggan nodded and beckoned me to continue. What more was there? He had control of the eldar but… “They hid it from you!”
Not-Hoggan smiled. “Very good, child. Yes, it was I who convinced the first eldar king that the other people of this world would be better as slaves than equals, and I who planted the seeds of war amongst you all. And it was I who turned a mad king’s desperation into this.” He held up the eye, which had grown dark again, no longer pulsating, as if again at rest. “But the current king was stronger and more willful than his father and deflected my direct influence for many years. I grew impatient and foolish. I acted too swiftly, but not fast enough.”
“A faerie,” I snapped. “The king gave it to a faerie to hide.”
Not-Hoggan barked a mirthless laugh. “The fool tried to escape to the forest, but I sealed the gates. He could not get out, so he hid the eye then took his own life.” Bitterness dripped from his last words.
“So you needed a faerie to find and free it.”
The not-Hoggan seemed to shift, to grow darker. “I knew exactly where it was, foolish girl. I’ve searched that library hundreds of times, spent years staring at that patch of wall, studying spell book after spell book on your pitiful faerie magic.”
I wanted to snort, but the control he allowed wasn’t sufficient so all I got out was a wispy laugh. “Not so pitiful when it beat you.”
His eyes flared, and I steeled myself for the pain to come, but what happened was ten times worse. A roar of pain rattled the platform, which shook so much I almost fell to my knees. Noooo! Just as suddenly it stopped.
“Upset me again, girl, and I won’t just stop his pain. I’ll silence him but leave him suffering in agony for a decade.”
I wanted to sob but my body wouldn’t allow it. Just as I was wondering how long this being would hold me here, he released me. I half expected to fall to my knees, my muscles complaining after struggling to break free, but I hadn’t been struggling at all, such was the control the being had. But I wouldn’t stop struggling. The eldar king had found a way, and so would I.
A cold chuckle sent a shiver up my spine. I spun around to find Lyssa and Talyn standing…well, that wasn’t quite right. Lyssa stood over a doubled-over Talyn. His face was bruised, lips bloodied, and one eye partially closed.
“Tal!” I started to run to him before I was stopped dead in my tracks. I tried everything to move, but nothing worked.
“Oh, Master, if only you had granted me this power earlier,” she said, her voice positively oozing with pleasure. “I would have broken the little bitch. We wouldn’t have had to go to all the trouble of getting a half-blood like her a hostage to use as leverage.” Talyn winced as a barb of fire lashed across his back.
NO! Wait. What? Did she mean half-blood like Talyn? He was half mer, and quarter each eldar and faerie, but me? I was pure faerie.
Lyssa giggled with delight, clapping her hands together in perverse pleasure. “She actually had no idea. Oh, this is wonderful! Oh, wait until she finds out about—”
“Enough!”
Lyssa instantly quieted, but she continued to grin. There was no vacant expression, no sign of any controlling influence, and I knew then the charade in the library had been a performance so I would think I’d escaped with the eye, while in fact they were just giving it time to ensnare me.
No, Lyssa was fully in control. My blood froze at the realization. Her father and mother—the entire eldar court—were in thrall to this thing, but she had chosen to serve it. I was going to kill her…slowly.
“Now, Jes, we can’t have you thinking those thoughts of your sister now, can we?” The not-Hoggan was staring into my eyes.
Sister? By the Great Maker…what? No! But as I stared back, I saw no lie. My heart sank like a stone in a bottomless pool. How was this even possible?
“Twin sisters,” not-Hoggan explained. That didn’t help the growing urge to throw up.
“How?” I breathed.
Lyssa snorted. “I’ll skip the birds and the bees, shall I? You’ve spent most of your life around the filthy things, so I’m sure you understand the…mechanics of it.”
Scrub that. I wasn’t going to kill her. I was going to make her suffer forever.
“My mother couldn’t conceive, you see, and an heir was needed to fulfill the prophecy…oh, not the one you heard. That’s one you savages have been singing around your camp fires for centuries.” She cocked an eyebrow at not-Hoggan who carried on from where she left off.
“The pieces are all here but not quite aligned. I have the eldar, and now, thanks to you, my dear, the dragons are mine.”
A pit of guilt opened up below me.
“Now all I need is you.”
What? “You have me. You can make me do whatever you want. What more do you want?”
Not-Hoggan and Lyssa exchanged a glance and Lyssa came close. I wanted to get as far away from her as I possibly could but was frozen in place as she came closer and closer until her mouth was next to my ear. “It would be so much better, sister, if you were with us. Just think of the fun we might have.”
“You’re deluded if you think I’m going to stop fighting you,” I hissed.
“I told you, Master”—Lyssa turned to face him—“that being nice would be a waste of time.”
Nice! I doubted she had a nice bone in her body.
“Very well,” said not-Hoggan, his voice dripping with fake grief. “Kill the boy.”
Lyssa grinned, and it wasn’t until then that I realized Talyn hadn’t uttered a sound. That changed as Lyssa waved a hand and he screamed. And screamed.
“Tal!” I looked pleadingly at not-Hoggan. “Stop it, please. You’re killing him.”
He shrugged. “Yes, I know.”
Talyn’s screams echoed off the towers surrounding the platform, amplifying and washing over me. It seemed like he screamed a thousand times. Lyssa began to giggle, then shriek in delight as Talyn writhed on the ground. He’d
curled into a ball, but it clearly did nothing. His voice was hoarse, but he kept on screaming and screaming.
“Stop!” I couldn’t let it go on. “Stop it. I’ll do whatever you want. Just let him go.”
Not-Hoggan…no. That was gone. The dark thing was back. I was glad. I didn’t have to look at what I thought was my friend. It raised a hand and Lyssa took a reluctant step away from Talyn, who collapsed, breathing raggedly. Lyssa’s lips tightened in displeasure.
“You will submit? You will join me?” The dark thing held a hand out to me and I felt my body release again, but instead of taking the hand I took a step back.
“Only if Talyn goes free.”
“No!” Lyssa hissed, and I saw her fists tighten at her sides.
“It’s either that or I will fight you with every fiber of my being for as long as I live. Which won’t be long. The first chance I get I will end myself!” I meant it, but I dreaded the cost of what I was about to do. What would happen to me? Would I become like her? I shuddered.
The dark thing seemed to shift and was instantly standing inches away. “Lyssa has always been…different. When your father bedded the faerie queen and twins were the result, well you can just imagine the fuss.”
The queen? By the Great Maker! I was…I’m…
“A princess, yes.” The dark thing laughed, a reed-thin sound. “Only one heir was needed, but it was decided to let you live, just in case anything…unfortunate happened. Plus, there was the fact that you had wings and your sister did not.” It leaned in as if to whisper, but I don’t think it was capable because when it spoke it was the same volume as before. “I suspect that is the reason she took your wings. I sensed a little jealousy.”
My head reeled. It was too much to take in. My mother, the woman who had raised me, wasn’t my mother. My brother and sisters…they weren’t mine. They weren’t my…family. Tears welled and my vision blurred. I thought back to the profound sorrow displayed by the queen the day Glyran had come to get me. I had wondered at the time, but now I knew.
Companion of Darkness: An Epic Fantasy Series (The Chaos Wars Book 1) Page 22
