Blood and Royalty

by M. R. Mathias

  They flew as swiftly as the larger golden-scaled wyrm could fly, and Jenka used his teardrop and his alien ability to make them move as fast as he possibly could. Soon, they saw the pair of dark-skinned things racing north.

  It didn’t take long to get right on the Nightshade’s tail, and from the advantage of having Aikira there to keep Golden on track, Jenka let loose one of his crackling yellow webbings at the pair.

  It missed, but part of the spell tangled around the Nightshade’s hind leg and caused them to slow a bit and turn. Before Golden could change directions, they flew right into the Sarsaraxus’s bone-jarring spell. Jenka was thrown from the saddle and into terrible pain as the saddle straps yanked at his shredded legs and inertia broke them.

  Aikira stayed mounted, but both she and her dragon were tumbling through the air so slowly now, that Jenka couldn’t help but wonder if the yank from hyper-speed when they were separated killed them. It might not matter, he saw, as the Sarsaraxus was about to core Golden, just like it had Blaze and the two dragons over Serpent’s Isle.

  Falling, there was little Jenka could do, but he tried anyway. Just as he’d diverted the blast that might have cored Crystal, he sent an emerald pulse at the Sarsaraxus’s blast and hoped he had a better aim than he’d just had with his webbing. Then he hit the water and found that at his rate of speed, it felt more like impacting stone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Zahrellion threw the sword to her daughter, knowing that with Amelia’s ability to slow the world around her, there was no way she wouldn’t catch it. Amelia was there one moment, then she and the sword were both gone. She heard Jenka’s voice like a whisper, and realized the mudged were leaving.

  In less than a few heartbeats it was only her, Crystal and Jade there. Marcherion’s body, and three dragons, including Blaze, were sprawled on the island, or partly so.

  Jade was wounded badly, and only just now making the beach, so Zahrellion and Crystal flew to him. She used all of her druidic knowledge and Crystal’s dragon dour to heal the younger wyrm, and several long hours later, it was clear that after they both had a good rest, they could wing it back to Clover’s castle.

  Crystal agreed to watch over them while Zah slept off her weariness. Jade’s rapidly healing body would be stealing his energy for a while, so they couldn’t hurry anyway.

  Zahrellion found that she wasn’t worried about her children like she’d been in the past. Jericho was a grown man, or almost, and Amelia was able to take care of herself. As she drifted off into slumber, she wondered how different it would have been if Anka Vira had kidnapped Milly instead of Jericho.

  The witch would have brought her back.

  *

  It was awkward getting his legs back over Golden’s saddle, but at least this time when Aikira lowered him she gave him time to adjust them. Even as they leapt back into hyper-speed and started north, Jenka didn’t bother to strap himself in. He could read Amelia’s thoughts as if they were his own. He even interjected reason and suggestion into her mind as she did what she was doing.

  He was glad she understood that they had to kill the Sarsaraxus before they gave Jericho the sword. Jericho wasn’t raised to be a king of war, but of peace. Jenka decided that he would leave his son a kingdom at peace, if it was the last thing he did. He knew that letting Richard live was a risk, but Richard was a fly compared with the things they were battling now. Jenka thought that even Gravelbone had been a tool of the Nightshade. Apparently, his mother and sister would soon give Jericho the tool he needed to keep the flies away. For the nicknames he knew for Errion Spightre were many: Peace Bringer, Life Giver, The Great Uniter, Demon Slayer. It was a sword for a king. It always had been.

  The song about the weapon had made it across the sea on the Dogma, but had been told, according to Clover, a few hundred years before even that. He was suddenly wondering where Clover was, when they’d seen her last. He didn’t have time to ponder her long.

  We will be coming up on something amazing soon enough, Jenka explained. Be ready to send your most devastating spells at it when you get your chance, because there may only be one opportunity to end this.

  Aikira gasped when she saw it, for it was an amazing sight to behold.

  A dozen or more High Draci all in a downward-arcing row were hovered there, almost perfectly still, for they were in real time. The dragons at the sides of the half-circle were parallel to the ocean, facing each other, but a good distance apart. The rest were evenly spaced between them around some imaginary center point. Their fiery, lightning, gaseous, and metallic spews were all blasting forth in real time, too, creating a multicolored wonder, an impassable wall of barely moving dragon’s breath before the Sarsaraxus and its hellborn mount.

  Milly was using the sword to send jagged bolts of energy at the two black-skinned creatures, but she wasn’t able to get through their shielding; she could only knock them off course and agitate the Sarsaraxus every time it tried to blast at one of the dragons.

  She was doing a good job of keeping the Sarsaraxus from getting around the amazing barrier she’d had the dragons create. Jenka couldn’t have been more proud.

  Get us close, Golden, Aikira voiced. I’ve a message from Marcherion and Blaze to deliver.

  Yesss, closerss. Jenka knew his voice sounded like Jade’s, for his alien ability allowed him into his dragon’s most private thoughts, and he and Jade had become more than just bondmates; they were nearly one. Knowing his dragon was safe with his wife and Crystal gave him the freedom to take risks he would not take with his other half.

  As soon as you let your magics loose, I will leave you back in real time. Jenka was speaking to both Aikira and Golden. If I do not survive thisss, take care of my wife, for my children will be able to take care of themselvesss.

  Jenka imprinted his next command on their minds so that they didn’t waste time questioning him, for here they were, and the situation was perfect.

  Aikira let loose a warbling mass of sticky-looking goo, and her dragon a gout of molten gold.

  Then, just as he had before, Jenka teleported from Golden’s back to a place mostly inside the Sarsaraxus.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Aikira came out of hyper-speed expecting the teeth-jarring change that happened to her the last time. After she shook off the disorientation of the change, she found she was covered with goosebumps. It was a glorious feeling, all of the dragon dour radiating from the colorful High Draci in real time, and she saw that there was more than just the barrier formed by their breath at work. There was also a shimmering glassine field spread wide around them for miles. She hoped it was blocking the pollen Jenka was so afraid of from getting to the Mainland. All of the dragons were immersed in something she soon picked up on: a hauntingly deep melody coming from Amelia.

  Though neither she nor they could see Jenka, Amelia, or the creature, the dragons were doing just as little Amelia was directing them. She heard the girl’s low, humming song in her heart. Then Golden was caught up in it, too, moving to add her dour to the mix and strengthen the wall of dragon magic the others had created.

  Amazing, she heard a boy’s voice and Aikira suddenly panicked, thinking of Pascal. It wasn’t him, though. It was Prince Jericho, and he was with them in the ethereal, but how?

  He has Marcherion’s dragon tear medallion, Rikky said.

  Aikira had to crane her neck around to see them in the sky, but there they were, Rikky and Pascal mounted on Silva’s back, as Silva, too, felt Princess Amelia’s call and joined the others.

  Aikira marveled at how the pure-blooded dragons had situated themselves so that they looked like the rays of a rising sun formed of naught but dragon’s breath and only halfway out of the sea.

  The center point, where all of their breaths were converging, was so intense that she doubted anything could survive it.

  Look at that, Prince Jericho said, the fear in his voice clear, even across the ethereal.

  Aikira saw which way he was pointing. She t
urned to see what looked like a cloud of small blackbirds all flying in a shifting formation. They were mudged, not birds, but they were being directed by the Nightshade just as the dragons were by Amelia. And she suddenly realized what the dragons and Amelia were really doing.

  Putting her faith in the will of a strange nine-year-old girl wasn’t an easy thing to do, but since her dragon had already done so, she didn’t really have a choice.

  As she felt herself and her own ability being directed, she decided to let go. The High Draci were no fools. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be ordered about unless what they were doing made sense for the greater good.

  They just wouldn’t.

  *

  Jenka only partially missed his mark when he appeared with one of his legs buried to the shin in the Sarsaraxus’s chest. Calculating a teleport while in hyper-motion, at a rate just slightly slower than the Sarsaraxus could achieve, was nearly impossible. Using his other leg, he immediately began trying to free himself. He saw the ultra-tiny feather-like puffs of pollen secreting from the thing’s pores, and the idea that he had failed assailed him. He couldn’t think about it, though, for he was stuck in the angry creature now, and it wanted rid of him.

  He was definitely causing the Sarsaraxus pain, for it slapped at him as if he were a cat that had landed on its upper shoulder.

  Jenka rolled around, allowing his head to dangle near the thing’s abdomen, barely avoiding the blow. Then his foot came out of it, without his boot, and he was falling. He saw that he was falling toward the Nightshade and managed to do the first thing that came to mind.

  It was so simple it amazed him.

  He drew the sword Mysterian had made for him, and as he fell past the hellborn creature, he opened its neck wide. Wide enough that it bucked the Sarsaraxus off of its back and went slamming back into real time.

  This left the Sarsaraxus tumbling not so far behind and above Jenka, who knew he was about to be smashed against the hardness of the slower moving sea, and the bulk of the huge creature.

  He saw the amazing display of dragon dour his daughter had orchestrated, and then felt his son in that mix with Silva, and Rikky, and Aikira. He knew his boy had Marcherion’s dragon tear, too, for he could read all of their thoughts as if they were on display. It was such an audible, vivid display of earthly power that he slipped off into reverie and let his senses absorb the awesome majesty of what he was seeing.

  In his, Amelia’s, and the Sarsaraxus’s rate of time, the dragons had created a gateway.

  Jenka reached out for Jade, knowing that his wyrm wouldn’t be able to respond, but he wanted his bondmate to know that he loved him and would have him carry his son if he didn’t survive this. Then he ground his teeth tight and prepared to hit the sea, for there was no time left to even try.

  I was swallowed by the alienss, too, Jenksss, Jade hissed, as he glided right underneath Jenka and kept him from impacting the hard water below. Zahrellionsss and sCrystalss don’ts even know I have left thems yet. The green dragon hissed a conspiratorial laugh. As far as dragons went, he was still an adolescent, and it showed.

  You can move in hyper-speed without me?

  Yessss, came Jade’s response, then he turned them so that they could see the Sarsaraxus splash into the water right underneath them.

  Like the Sarax, it started crackling over with bright blue static sparks, but it seemed to draw from it, as if all the power the sea had taken from the Sarax in the past was being delivered to the Sarsaraxus right then.

  And as if to prove Jenka’s theory, the thing spread its arms wide and they started to extend, taking the thin skin that stretched to its hips with it.

  It hovered up to the waist, upright in the water, and let a huge ball of terrible power loose at the wall of dragon breath, not the dragons. The ball of force went right through.

  Back to his world, Amelia finished Jenka’s questioning thought for him.

  Because of the sword, came the answer to his next question.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Nightshade appeared just as its swarm of mudged did, but it was squirting black blood from a gash in its neck and using all its strength of will to stay aloft.

  Rikky started to pull himself, Prince Jericho, and Silva away from the radiant formation they’d been in, but Princess Amelia showed herself right in the heart of the cloud of mudged and blasted them outward into cherry husks, like a grand explosion at some holiday sparkler show.

  She then pointed Errion Spightre at the Nightshade, and the hellborn wyrm was engulfed in powerful, pulverizing magic that left it falling from the sky like a thrice-shafted bird.

  Amelia disappeared again, speeding up as her scraggly-looking blue dragon flew her back into the ultra-fast motion her father always used.

  As he watched the smoldering remains of the mudged hit the sea and steam, Rikky saw the area of water displaced by the huge Sarsaraxus, too. And in the distance, he felt more than saw Zahrellion. She was calling for Jade as if the young dragon were a child lost in a snowstorm.

  I can sense him out there with Jenka, Zah, Rikky responded. Come join the radiance and feel this.

  What radiance? There was a pause of silence, then a quiet, Ooh.

  Exactly. Rikky tried to mask his sadness. If only Marcherion could feel it, too.

  Mother, I have Lord Commander Marcherion’s medallion, and I can think to you and the dragons now, too. Jericho seemed excited, despite the sorrow in his voice.

  This is amazing, Jericho, Zahrellion replied. All of it.

  Soon, they flew nearer, taking the place that opened when the dragons made room for her frost wyrm between Silva and a bright lemon-colored drake.

  Amelia did it, Jericho replied. Her and Errion Spightre.

  She and Errion Spightre, son, Zah corrected.

  Rikky found he was glad he didn’t have children. Then he saw the first of the pale, white, air-spouting whales that they had turned the shapeshifter into during the Confliction. There was another, and another. They were swimming around the displaced space where the Sarsaraxus was, and they were doing it with a purpose.

  *

  Jenka and Jade came around the creature. Jade let loose a blast of gaseous breath at it, then Jenka blasted it with yellow webbing that seared its pattern into the Sarsaraxus’s thin wing-skin, but nothing more.

  Noooo, Amelia screamed at him. You will not kill it!

  It has to die, he replied simply.

  Why?

  Jenka didn’t have an answer for his daughter, but he felt the truth of what he’d said deep in his core.

  Then let him do the deed. She flew her little dragon low to the water’s surface and let the flat of Errion Spightre’s blade slide across the skin of one of the white things swimming impossibly slowly in the sea.

  The sword isn’t a blade of peace. It is a blade of healing, she explained.

  Suddenly, the sky opened up, and a powerful swirl spun down into the sea, causing it to twist into a siphon. This was happening at their accelerated rate of speed, too, and it was overwhelming to behold, even to Jenka.

  Just as the Sarsaraxus leapt into flight and started toward the portal Amelia opened for it, an extending tentacle, still forming as it went, snaked up out of the water and grabbed hold of the Sarsaraxus’s leg. The white, blobbish thing underneath the water was growing, as more of its parts were being drawn into the healing power of Errion Spightre.

  Jenka watched as the alien shapeshifter gained their rate of motion when it latched hold of the Sarsaraxus. It grew and then wrapped itself around the creature even more tightly. The Sarsaraxus, however, wasn’t giving up so easily. It pumped its wings even harder and started pulling the other up out of the sea, trying to keep its nemesis from gaining all of itself.

  The shapeshifter let itself elongate as the Sarsaraxus stretched it closer and closer to the now shimmering portal. Jenka felt the alien essence in him and his dragon being drawn down toward the water. It was trying to reassume him, or at least the
part of it he had absorbed. He didn’t know what to do. Even when he tried using the power of his dragon tear, he couldn’t resist the urge to rejoin the creature.

  Suddenly, he felt Errion Spightre’s power as it engulfed him and Amelia and their wyrms. It was all the sword could do to keep the two of them from being drawn down into the alien. It was a part of them, too. Only Amelia’s quick thinking saved them, for they were whole as they were, and the sword would keep them that way.

  It was a sword of healing, after all, and neither of them were sick. They were just different. Like Amelia and Clover were different.

  That makes me double different, his daughter said, startling Jenka out of his thoughts, and reminding him that she was just nine years old. And why do you think of Clover so much?

  Jenka didn’t answer that one. He did his best to shield his thoughts from her, too, but he had a feeling it was a rhetorical question, because the scene unfolding before them drew her attention, then his, and held it raptly.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Amelia watched as the song she’d sung earlier kept resonating in the slower time happening around them. She saw her mother, brother, and Uncle Rikky in the arc of High Draci she’d willed to be. She saw Golden, too, and felt a twinge of pain for Marcherion; but it was more for Uncle Rikky’s loss, because Marcherion hadn’t been a part of her life growing up. To her, he was just a rumor that showed back up one day with stories about her mysterious uncle, King Richard.

  The Sarsaraxus was almost into the shimmering portal she’d created to let it go home, but the alien destroyed by her parents and the other Dragoneers was healing, and not letting go.

  Then the Sarsaraxus finally stretched the other creature thin enough to pull itself into the void the suspended dragon dour was creating.