Return of the Dragonborn: The Complete Trilogy

by N. M. Howell

  “It is the custom of these people to show respect to its guardians,” Saeryn said. “Make no mistake, that is what you are now. I’m afraid this pales in comparison to the rites we would normally perform, but we have not the time just now. One day we will be able to repay you.”

  Saeryn rose and lifted her hand toward the ceiling. An enormous suction swept the room and seemed to gather all the air at once. It formed a flat, whistling vortex against the ceiling and as Saeryn flicked her fingers upward, the vortex shot up through the ceiling. Higher and higher it went, ripping and tearing marble, stone, earth, plants, and snow until it broke into the air hundreds of feet above. The hole led out somewhere on the mountainside far above. The dragon riders mounted the beautiful beasts and saluted Andie and her friends as they roared off into the giant hole on their journey to the sky. The adult dragonborn gathered the children and the elderly and ascended in crackling beams of purple light, some magic Andie had never known. She looked at Saeryn, confused.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Andie, we must go where it’s safe,” Saeryn said, the space around her beginning to glow.

  “But how will I find you? What will we do here? You can’t leave me here. You can’t leave me here alone!”

  “Trust your blood and you may find us whenever you need us. Fight for who you are. Never live in shame. Together, we will prove to the world that we have every right to breathe and know peace as the rest of the lands. We are unique from sorcerers, but we need not be seen as dangerous. Merely different. We will meet again, soon, guardian. For now, we seek asylum.”

  And as the final word left her lips, Saeryn vanished. And with her the dragonborn were gone, again. Andie hadn’t even realized that she was crying. She only wished her mother had lived to see that night.

  “Everyone, to me now,” Marvo called. “It’s time to tell them who we are.”

  Marvo walked over to Andie to put his arm around her. He held her for a moment.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

  “Now that I know my people are alive... yeah, I’ll be fine,” she said, smiling.

  “Good.”

  The newcomers gathered around Andie, Carmen, and Yara. Andie gazed around the faces and saw people she recognized: Murakami from Leabherlann, one of the working ladies from the mess hall, even the lady she’d met in the street her first night in Arvall.

  “I see you found your way home after all,” she said.

  Andie saw professors she’d seen in the hall, a student or two, and the landlady from the restaurant—the middle-aged spinster who hadn’t said a word. Kristole.

  “I see you recognize a few of our faces,” Marvo said. “I’m sure you remember Kristole, but what about her tattoo?”

  Kristole turned around to show Andie the tattoo on the back of her neck. A hand in flames.

  “Andie, cast a revealing spell on my neck,” Marvo said, turning.

  She waved her hand and suddenly the same hand in flame appeared on the back of Marvo’s neck. She looked at it in awe. The other newcomers turned and Andie revealed the hand on all of their necks.

  “Andie,” Marvo said, “We’re part of a secret society of allies to the dragonborn. We don’t have a name, though we have from time to time been known as the Council. We’re made up of outcasts; some of us are purely human, like myself, but almost all of us have sorcerer’s magic, but chose to refine it by natural means rather than be brainwashed by the University. I know you’ve never heard of us and that’s because we’ve stayed hidden for centuries, passing our secrets on to our children so they could be ready to fight when the time came. This is a big day for both you and us. Our ancestors fought for your people. I’m sorry that they lost, but I’m overjoyed that we succeeded. For a very long time the University led the persecution of the dragonborn and their descendants, but we’ve been working on that, too. From the shadows, we’ve gained influence and spread a desire for peace. There’s a quiet, but growing push against the University and every hateful policy it seeks to uphold. Your father was at the forefront of that.”

  For once, Andie wasn’t shocked. She knew what kind of man her father was and how much good he was capable of.

  “The University found out,” Marvo continued. “That’s why they caused your father’s accident. To corrupt his memory and take him away from the vanguard. But don’t be afraid. We’re going to help you and your people reunite and stand for the justice that never should have been denied you. And I can promise you one thing,” he said, taking her shoulders. “You are free to be everything you always were.”

  Marvo hugged her and Andie looked over his shoulder to see all the encouraging and smiling faces of the newcomers. “So, this is finally it,” she said quietly to herself as she pulled away from Marvo’s kind embrace. “The life and the friends and the future I always wanted.” Marvo let her go and Andie hurried over to Raesh. He was still unconscious, but the wound hadn’t opened again. If they could get him to a doctor soon, he would be just fine.

  “Stay with him while we check to make sure it’s safe to leave,” Marvo said, cocking his gun. “This place is full of dragon-hating sorcerers who just heard this battle echoing through the halls.”

  Andie nodded and took Raesh up into her arms again. Marvo and about half of the newcomers took off into the hallway and then up into Leabherlann. The rest of the newcomers combed the room looking for survivors and tending to their wounds. Carmen and Yara dropped down next to Andie. Carmen took one look at Raesh and started crying, holding her hand to his face.

  “He’ll be fine, Carmen, I promise,” Andie said. “We just need to get him to a healer. I’ve done all I can for now, but a healer will fix him completely.”

  “He should never have been here,” Carmen said through her tears. “This is all the University’s fault. They’ll answer for the things they’ve done.”

  “And we’ll be the ones to ensure that,” Yara said, reaching out to comfort Carmen and reaching the other hand out to Andie. “We won’t leave you, Andie. I promise. Through fire and storm and battle, we’ll stand by you.”

  “And I’ll need you,” Andie said, softly stroking Raesh’s hair. “All my people will need you. The University has no idea the hell it just brought down on itself. I think that with the right words and a little patience we can reason with the rest of Noelle. Hell, we’ll reach even the farthest edges of Shaeyara. I’ll go to them, just as I am, and show them that we’re not dangerous or evil, and that all we want is the peace they stole for themselves. But the University must pay. We’ll show them no mercy, give them no advantage. The land has had too many cycles of hate and prejudice. Now we’ve turned the tide.”

  Andie held Yara’s hand, Yara held Carmen’s, and Carmen touched Raesh as Andie held him. A bond was struck then and there, a pact of loyalty harder than steel. Andie looked up.

  “There’ll be no corner in this world where they can hide.”

  Fueled by Dragon’s Fire

  Prologue

  The dragons have returned.

  It began as a rumor. A rumor like any of the hundred others that had been spread countless times over the centuries. But not once had they proved to be anything other than fabricated stories. Lies propagated by governments and institutions to incite fear and chaos throughout the great land of Shaeyara. Such a rumor had spread so frequently that this time no one seemed to care.

  No one even blinked.

  It had already been some time since the University in Arvall was ruined and shut down, but still, no one fully understood what took place there that night. No sense could be made from that wreckage. All the world knew was that the University had finally been toppled from its pedestal. The inhabitants of Arvall, one of the greatest cities of all of Noelle, all believed the professors to have gone crazy. As, after all, no one living had ever seen a dragon. Those creatures and their masters had not walked the earth in centuries, and it was insane, impossible even, that they had returned. No one believed it.

>   Not until they saw for themselves.

  The dragons and their riders were first seen in the skies over Abhainn. Even from a thousand feet below, the dragons seemed like enormous manifestations of nightmares. People ran screaming, gathering their children and searching for shelter. No one had ever seen such creatures, such magnificent and terrible beasts that could cut the sky with speed like a thousand celestial knives. They had all heard the stories. Dragons were vicious beasts, capable of slaughtering villages in minutes with their fire. Dragons were evil beasts.

  Or so the people were led to believe.

  From the moment the first dragon was seen in the skies, rumors spread like wildfire through a brown field, to even the farthest reaches of Noelle. Even to the mine cities in the north where hardly any news ever came or went. Rage and panic began to move through the people. Several attempts were made to find the dragonborn, but it was impossible to track them. The dragons were too fast, and when they sensed they were watched, they could soar so high the eye could not follow them through the clouds.

  When the tales began spreading from all corners of the land, however, people began to believe. What everyone once knew to be outlandish stories had finally come alive. The rumors spread by those who survived that horrible night at the University were finally believed. Not only did this mean the dragons had returned, but it also confirmed the deaths of all eight-hundred innocent people who had lost their lives in the mirror hall of the University on the night of their return.

  The dragons killed them, people claimed. The evil dragonborn warriors brutally attacked the University that night, a great and angry race who had no business existing in modern time.

  Fear grew among the people of Noelle, and the University was only spoken of in whispers for fear of drawing the dragons near. Although many were glad to finally see the University deposed as the leading influencer of Noelle, the people who died were most of the over one-thousand diplomats who had traveled to Arvall to enjoy the Winter Festival. The abrupt and terrible end of so many world leaders left Noelle in utter, devastating confusion as hundreds of politicians across the country clambered over each other to fill the power vacuum. Each claimed to be the one strong enough to lead the people to victory against the evil dragonborn and their dragons. The world waged war.

  The threat of the dragons and their riders loomed over the land, increasing with each day that passed without the dragons being found. And so, all the world lived in fear.

  But there was at least one who knew the truth.

  Chapter One

  Andie stared down into the endless depths of the chasm that spread across the largest cavern they’d come across yet. Her toes clung dangerously over the edge, and the cool, damp air sent goosebumps up her arms as a strange breeze made its way up from the abyss, the wind a haunting song in her ear. “There’s no way out,” she whispered.

  Their party had traveled through nearly every tunnel and corridor in their search for a way out, but they just kept going in circles. Every path eventually led back to that same cavern with the chasm they could never hope to cross. She was tired, hungry, and had grown thin and pale in the near constant darkness they had been living in for the past few months. Worse still, she had ceased to feel the connection to her people and their magic.

  She feared for herself and her friends, but she worried more for the dragonborn out there in a modern world that wanted them slaughtered. A world that must be completely foreign and unwelcoming to them, and so far from home. She knew that with her and her friends trapped underground, nothing but evil rumors would spread throughout Noelle. Whether the University had shut down after their bloody battle or not, she knew in her heart they wouldn’t stop until her people were found. Until her people were destroyed.

  “Ow.”

  Carmen’s voice pulled her out of her reverie. She had broken her ankle weeks before, and without their magic, they hadn’t been able to mend it. Andie went over to her and kneeled beside her and began to rewrap the torn shirt tied around Carmen’s ankle. It needed to be tighter. Even after all the time that had passed, her ankle still hadn’t healed. Andie thought it was finally better some weeks ago, but when they found the bone was mending at the wrong angle, Marvo had to rebreak it. That certainly hadn’t been their best night.

  All of Andie’s injuries had healed because of her dragonblood, but Carmen couldn’t heal herself without a spell, which would bring the Searchers right to them. Since the night of the battle in the archives, the University had been monitoring the icons that remained implanted in Andie, Carmen, and Yara’s hands. If any of the girls so much as cast a simple levitation spell, the University would know exactly where to find them. That was not an option. Not after all the trouble they had taken to hide themselves where no one would think to look for them.

  “I’m so sorry, Carmen,” Andie said as she yanked the wrapping as tight as she could. “I never meant to get you in this mess. I never meant to get any of you in—“

  “I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” Carmen snapped, ever defiant. “I did what I needed to do to protect my friend, and I would do it again. We’ll get out of here, Andie, and we’ll win. We’ll win.”

  “Yeah.” Andie wasn’t so sure. Their party grew weak, and their chances of survival decreased with every passing moment.

  “You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to look out for one of my friends.” Carmen unsteadily pushed herself to her feet and began collecting whatever small sticks and withered vegetation she could get her hands on to make a fire. “Raesh doesn’t talk about it, but something happened when we were younger. I don’t know if he ever got over it. Did he ever tell you?”

  Andie took the sticks from Carmen’s arms and began making a small fire away from the edge of the cavern. It took her numerous tries with the limited supplies they had collected, but eventually, the flame took and cast a much-needed warmth over their shaking bodies. Carmen curled on her side next to the fire, and Andie joined her, eager to hear what she had to say.

  “When we were eight our parents took us to Taline. We were going to stay in a hotel there for a little while. It was back when they still had the Glass Games. You probably don’t remember it, but there was loveglass everywhere in the most beautiful and brilliant shapes. The athletes were so talented; I remember one of them offered to take me on a short run and my parents said yes. He took me all the way up to the thirteenth floor of a building, then we swirled and flipped and drifted back down. It was incredible. Raesh was scared to be in the city then. I guess all the people and the size of the buildings scared him. I held his hand as we walked through the city.”

  Andie did remember. She held her hands out in front of the small fire for warmth as she listened intently to Carmen’s story. She had never heard this story before. Obviously, it was one Raesh didn’t want her to hear, or else he would have told it to her himself. Nevertheless, she listened quietly as Carmen reminisced, staring dazed out into the dark corners of the cavern.

  “Anyway, we’d been in Taline for a couple of nights already, and then one day we were around midtown, just looking for new collar robes for my father. I looked up, and I saw this pair of Red Ravens flying in circles above us. They say it’s a sign of great fortune to have the ravens dance over you, to be chosen by them.” A flash of a smile crossed Carmen’s lips in the flickering firelight, but the smile was quickly replaced with a haunted expression. “I was so excited. I grabbed Raesh and pointed to the sky. But when I looked up again, the ravens had changed color and were flying away. I never knew until then that they turn black when they’re scared. But I looked down Owl’s Line, the main boulevard of the city, and there was this huge purple wave crashing toward us. By the time we knew what it was, the explosion had already reached us. Every one of us was knocked off our feet. I can’t even describe what it was like. Hot, powerful, relentless energy. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can still hear the screams.”

  Andie nodded solemnly along to Carmen’s recoun
t. She knew it well. “The first terrorist attack in Taline. They’ve been plagued by them ever since.”

  “When the blast wall passed us, I couldn’t find my parents or Raesh’s. The air was so thick with dust. My eyes were burning, and my ears were ringing. A few moments passed, and I realized I could hear Raesh. He was screaming. He’d gotten thrown through the glass window of a nearby store, and his legs were buried in debris. But the building was collapsing; the debris was already falling off of it as the building collapsed in on itself. But I couldn’t leave him there.” A single tear trickled down Carmen’s cheek. Andie pretended to look away as she wiped the evidence away with a torn sleeve.

  “What happened?” Andie asked.

  “I ran inside, ducking through the people rushing out. I helped him dig himself out, and then I half carried him out. I barely got him out in time before the entire building had collapsed right where he had been trapped. Our parents found us, took us up, and ran. I almost lost everyone I loved that day.”

  “You saved Raesh,” Andie said, her eyes tearing lightly. “That’s an incredible story. Is that why you’re so… so…”

  “Headstrong?”

  “I was going to say protective.”

  Carmine laughed. “Yeah, that works, too. It’s strange. That day helped make me who I am, but what I remember most isn’t the explosion or the chaos. It’s all those people running out of that building and ignoring that little boy stuck in the debris, screaming for someone, anyone to help him. To save him. I could never understand how people could be so cruel and so selfish.”

  “Fear and the unknown can make a person do anything, but more often than not it just shows you who you really are.” These words held more meaning to Andie than Carmen could ever know. “But you didn’t run. You saved him. You’re a hero.”

  “No. I’m just someone who won’t leave a friend behind. Where were you that day?”