by Emily L K
A push on her barriers made her lowered them slowly to admit Rowan. He brushed against her mind, a simple acknowledgement of her location, then he twined their connecting threads tightly together so she couldn’t raise her barriers again.
Stay close, he said softly then withdrew to whatever he’d been doing.
Cori went back to her inspection of the wine bottle. She was considering opening it to taste it when a deep rumble shook the floor beneath her. She clutched the bottle tightly and caught hold of the mantle above the fireplace to steady herself.
She reached out to Rowan but his response was distracted and she wondered if he’d even felt the disturbance. She placed the bottle carefully back on the rack and moved towards the staircase. Before she’d made it halfway across the room, another rumble shook the floor, more violent than before, and a thunderous roar rent the air. Behind her the wine rack fell and the bottle smashed.
Even in her underground space Cori had to clap her hands over her ears as she staggered sideways into the wall, thrown by the tumultuous ground. And then Daiyu was there, her mind seeping down around them though she did not possess them.
Come back, Rowan said to Cori and she could hear the Deathsong in his mind, fighting to be unleashed.
Cori pushed herself off the wall and towards the staircase. There was another roar and then something - something enormous - collided with the building. The cracking noise above was deafening, and the ceiling caved in. With a gasp she threw up her hands, stopping the falling stone from crushing her. Still, the stairwell was now blocked.
Cori? Rowan called to her, alarmed.
Cori isss it? Daiyu hissed before Cori could respond. Isss your name Cori? With a sinking feeling, Cori realised that Rowan had given her away.
And then something changed. Daiyu’s Hum flickered as if a barrier was being dissolved. The cold calculation of Daiyu was replaced with madness and hatred. This dragon wasn’t Daiyu, it had been masquerading as the black beast.
It’s the green dragon, Cori gasped as she shoved more rock away, trying to clear a path. She could feel Rowan’s confusion.
The green -? The dragon hit the library again, and the impact sent Cori tumbling back down the stairs. She cried out when her hip hit the corner of a step. Her mind reached for Rowan’s again.
I can see him, he whispered. The Deathsong vanished behind its protective barriers.
What are you doing? Kill it! Cori pushed herself back up the stairs. Even through their shaky connection, she could tell he was torn.
The song isn’t meant for him.
Cori gathered her strength and pushed at the stone before her. It exploded into shards and dust. She was pressing at the next blockage when the dragon spoke, his voice reverberating through Cori‘s mind.
Karalisss, Cadmus sends his regardsss.
And where is Cadmus the coward? Rowan said angrily. He drew his magic and aimed a blast at the dragon’s mind as Cori forced her way through the last of the rock. She staggered back into the reading hall to see a gaping hole in the ceiling. Sliding out of the hole, the length of five bodies and the thickness of seven, was a lucid green tail adorned with shining black spikes.
Cori stared at it, breathless. She wanted to scream, or cry, or both, but she somehow stayed silent. The size that the dragon appeared in her dreams didn’t do it justice. The real-life version wouldn’t just rip holes in her, it would eat her whole. The tail slithered out of sight. She scanned the hall for Rowan.
He was pressed against the opposite wall, his sword unsheathed and in his hand. His face was set in a hard expression as he watched the dragon disappear, but when he looked down and saw Cori his eyes widened.
There was a rush of wind as the dragon took flight and he let out an ear-splitting roar. Cori saw Rowan’s lips form her name, and he started towards her at a run. She pushed off the door frame she had been clutching and moved forward.
The ground shook with every roar from above and Cori’s heart hammered in her chest, but she kept her eyes on Rowan and continued towards him even as he dodged hunks of stone and falling mortar to get to her. She was almost before him when the dragon collided with the building again, a different wing to the one they were in. Nonetheless, the room shuddered and Cori tripped, going down on her knees, scraping them hard against the stone.
Rowan caught her by the arm, hauling her back to her feet. The sword dropped from his other hand to clatter on the floor. His arm came about her waist, pulling her against him, and he kissed her.
Hot energy charged through her, starting where his hand still grasped her arm, where her fingers clenched the front of his shirt and where their lips met. It travelled through her veins, filling her until she couldn’t feel the ground shaking or hear the dragon overhead. The moment was eternity, and it was absolute. All she could feel was him, the urgent touch of his lips and the way his hand let go of her arm to bunch instead in her hair.
Rowan drew away ever so slightly and the rush of wings and trembling building, their imminent deaths, all came flooding back.
“I had to,” he whispered, so close his breath still touched her lips. It wasn’t an apology, it was a goodbye.
“No,” she said, and tightened her grip on his shirt. All she wanted then was for them to escape, to turn their back on this mad quest and run. It was in that moment the dragon returned.
Cadmus thanks you for the throne, Karalisss, the mad beast said before it hit the building above them. Rowan pushed her, and she fell back, hitting the ground hard as the ceiling caved in. Flinging her arms over her head saved her from the worst of the shards that showered down upon her. A chunk larger than she landed to her left, narrowly missing her leg. She swore and scrabbled back. Dust filled the room but she could see the pile of stone where she and Rowan had just been standing, and through the widened hole above it came the dragon.
It had always been larger than her when it had visited her dreams, but nothing could prepare her for the size of the monster that snaked into the room now. His body was easily the size of ten horses and just one of its curved claws could rip her in half with a single swipe. His head was dished and two black horns rose from his skull, twisting inwards like a ram’s.
“Oh shit,” Cori whispered as he swung his head in her direction. He exhaled a hot breath through flared nostrils and tasted the air with a flicker of his forked tongue.
Tasty human, he said to her, crumbling more of the roof as he tried to fit the rest of his body into the room. Cadmus said I could eat the human. Cadmus said I could eat all the humans.
Cori could only send a thread of panic to Rowan, paralysed with fear as she was.
And fear flavours the human, the human named Cori. I like fear with my flesh.
Move, Cori! Rowan’s voice cut through the dragon’s. She couldn’t see him but she felt a moment of relief he hadn’t been trapped under the cave in. It was enough to get her going; she scrambled backwards in an attempt to get away from the dragon and to keep it in sight at the same time.
Tasty human, juicy human. Come, come.
Her hand fell on cold steel and she looked down to see Rowan’s sword. She pivoted, scrabbling to pick it up. Her entire body shook much she couldn‘t grasp the sword, and she hopelessly dropped it twice.
Two hands, she told herself, two hands! She caught hold of the hilt and hefted the blade. She could hear the dragon crunching over the wrecked stone behind her, shaking the foundations with every footfall.
Cori are you going? She could hear the desperation in Rowan’s voice and his ineffective attempts to batter the dragon’s mind with spells.
Use the Deathsong, she told him. She rolled back to face the dragon, vaguely aware of a painful tearing of the muscles under her wound.
It’s for Cadmus, not the dragon. We have to run!
The dragon was almost upon her. She got to her knees then onto her feet; the sword held in front of her.
Cadmus isn’t here! You have to kill it!
There was a long paus
e.
I’m not strong enough. The song isn’t strong enough.
Please, just try, she begged him. The dragon opened his maw so wide Cori could have walked down his throat. She swung the sword.
If she’d hit tooth or scale, it would have been ineffective but she got lucky; the blade swiped across the tip of his tongue, severing part of it. He reared back on his hind legs with a roar, his head colliding with the roof and sending another shower of stone down to the floor. Cori fled.
She made for the entrance hall. Ahead, Rowan clambering over a pile of stone blocks. They reached the doorway at the same time and he caught hold of her elbow, forcing her through before him. She could hear the Deathsong again, pulling the very energy from the air around them in its insistence for extra power.
“He doesn’t know how to weave,” Rowan told her as they ran through the entrance hall to the front door, “I just need to get through his natural barriers to use the song.”
There was a great crash behind them as the dragon took flight again and then they were outside in the blinding sunlight. Rowan veered left off the steps, staying close to the wall. Cori ran behind him, still clutching the sword.
Where are you, my tasty human? The dragon taunted her. She didn’t respond but he must have sensed them because as they gained the ruins of the left wing he soared overhead, translucent wings outstretched.
He landed before them and they stopped. For a moment the dragon cocked his head to eye them then he said, roasted human and roasted Karalis would be better, and a great rumbled started deep within him. His chest expanded, the lighter green scales of his underside glowed and once more he opened his jaws. Cori opened her mouth to scream and Rowan turned, catching her in his arms as an orange inferno erupted from the dragon’s mouth.
She thought they were most certainly dead, but the flames licked around them, warm on their skin but not burning. Rowan drew back a little to look at her. He didn’t speak over the roaring of the fire but he held her gaze and in it she read everything he wanted to say.
The flames halted, though the tangle around them continued to burn and the stone wall beside them glowed red hot. She sensed confusion from the dragon at their lack of roasting.
“He will try again,” Rowan whispered. He brushed a hand tenderly over her cheek and tucked her hair behind her ear. “And when he does his barriers will be weakened. I’ll use the song.”
Cori nodded, unable to speak. The hair on her arms stood up on end and her skin prickled, the body’s natural reaction to expected trauma.
“Look after yourself, all right?” He told her with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes; there she saw resignation.
“We’ll weave another one for Cadmus,” she offered him. “Afterwards, I’ll help you.”
His jaw worked as if he might say something but eventually he just nodded. The dragon rumbled again. Rowan pulled her close once more and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She placed the sword hilt in his hand as the roaring flames once more engulfed them. He retreated from her and, sword held at his side, he walked through the flames towards the dragon.
Cori watched him until he became a silhouette then she crouched low, placing her forehead against her knees and her arms around her shins. She could still help, she could still distract the dragon.
I’m still not roasting, you stupid lizard, try harder! She felt a surge of anger from the dragon even as she felt a glimmer of amusement from Rowan. Above it all the Deathsong wove itself, building in intensity until she felt as though she sat at the edge of a maelstrom.
The inferno grew in strength and although the flames continued their warm caress against her skin, the wind from the dragon’s efforts buffeted her back. She put a hand on the ground to steady herself and felt the grass sear her skin. Apparently she was only immune to the direct flame and not anything else that caught on fire.
Is that all you’ve got? She baited the dragon. She lifted her hands and pushed them out in front of her, palms forward. The flames moved with the force, whirling back upon themselves and engulfing the head of their maker. The inferno stopped with a furious roar and Rowan unleashed the Deathsong.
Since he‘d revealed it to her, she‘d felt it tugging at her mind, taking bits and pieces of her emotions but now Rowan drew on her energy like his life depended on it. It melded with his own and he poured it into the song without reservation. The song itself took form, latching itself onto the dragon’s mind and drawing from his energy too.
Her body waned quickly. Breathing became difficult and her vision darkened. She couldn’t move. Rowan was going to kill her and there was nothing she could do to resist him, not that she would have; the song took more of his life energy than hers. His body wouldn’t withstand it. He was close to burning out. Distantly she heard the dragon’s anguished screams and the flap of his wings as he tried to take flight.
And then it all stopped.
Cori was released from the song to keel onto her back. The hot ground heated her clothes uncomfortably, but she couldn’t move except to turn her head.
The dragon was before her, a hulking green figure collapsed awkwardly on the ground. His tongue poked between his teeth and his eyes stared vacantly to each side. As she watched, his body glowed, green and gold and brilliantly blinding. She blinked, and the dragon was gone, absorbed back into the earth. A few feet from where the dragon had been, blocked from view until now, stood Rowan.
Cori felt her heart leap. He’d done it! Then she saw his face and her heart plummeted; his features were slack and his eyes were dark and empty. He swayed forward, first to his knees and then fully to the ground.
She reached with her Hum and found only emptiness where his summer song had been. A scream of denial ripped through her lips. She strained to sit up but couldn't. Blackness threatened the corners of her vision and blood rushed to her ears. She was stuck in a funnel and all she could see at the end was Rowan, sprawled dead on the ground. She couldn’t reach him. Was that her guttural howling echoing around the the clearing? No birds took flight at the sound, no rodents scurried away. There was no life here; it was a graveyard, a haunt for demented souls.
Pain was everywhere; in her body, in her voice, in her heart. Was she dying? She wanted to. She let the darkness take her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The ground had cooled and the afternoon sun was weak in its warmth. She should have been cold, but a fever had taken her again. Had mere hours had passed or had she been lying there for days?
She opened her eyes and a lump form in her throat. He was still lying as he’d fallen. She wished the Dijem were absorbed back into the earth as the dragons were so she didn’t have to see.
She rolled to her side and pain flooded her body. Fingers dug into the singed earth, rocks and nettle bit her skin. Her vision swam and her own desperate gasps echoed in her ears. She was still, willing the hurt away. When the aches subsided she tried again, this time gaining her hands and knees. She crawling forward, placing one hand agonisingly in front of the other and dragging her knees across the scorched ground. It seemed to take an age to reach his side. It was too soon.
She paused beside him, unsure of what to do now she was here. Tears burned hot and unchecked down her cheeks. He was on his stomach, one arm by his side but the other was outward, his hand held some dirt, as if he‘d grasped the earth when he‘d hit it. With a shuddering sob she eased her fingers under his side and rolled him onto his back.
His eyes were closed, and he was unmarked save for dirt smeared across the side of his face where he’d fallen. The guilt she felt was like a knife in her chest. He’d tried to tell her but she’d told him to use the song anyway. His reluctance hadn’t been due to Cadmus’ absence, but because he hadn’t wanted to die. And she’d sent him to his death. Stupidly, she hadn’t understood again and this time the consequences were irreversible.
With a shaking hand she brushed the dirt from his face. His skin was warm. Her breath hitched. She didn’t want to hope; it could j
ust be the sun on him, or her own body heat. Nonetheless, her trembling hand found his throat. It was rapid and weak, but there was a pulse.
“Oh, Rowan,” she whispered. She couldn’t see the rise and fall of his chest but when she pressed her hand to it, she could feel it. She reached with her mind but found nothing.
“Rowan, please wake up.” She shook him as hard as her weak limbs would allow but there was no response. This was possibly worse than the death she’d thought he’d been dealt. She had no way of caring for him, no way to get help. She could feel her own exhaustion threatening drive her to unconsciousness again and now that the fight was over she realised she was bleeding steadily from the wound on her hip. There was nothing she could do; they were both going to die in this wretched place.
She lowered her forehead until it touched his chest then she lay down beside him, placing her ear over his heart. It was fast, trying to repair the damage the Deathsong had done to him. She closed her eyes and touched his face. He hadn’t shaved since Resso. She let her fingers trace from the stubble on his jaw to the smoothness of his cheek, over his nose and down to his lips. Lips that had had only hours ago been pressed against hers with such desperation and desire. A sob escaped her own. She didn’t want to ever forget that kiss; the moment his love for her finally took physical form. The moment he decided he wanted to live for her instead of die to finish a war.
She must have slept for a time for when she opened her eyes again the sky had darkened. It wasn’t the setting sun that had woken her though; it was the stuttering of Rowan’s heart. Her stomach clenched as she waited for it to stop, but it didn’t. After a moment it resumed a regular, albeit weak, rhythm.
Cori let out a slow breath and felt tears sting her eyes. She didn’t want him to die, but she didn’t know how to get them out of here; she didn’t want him to suffer.
