I found a spear on the ground, halfway back to where everyone who wasn’t cleaning up the mess was gathered. And I stopped. If I went back, I couldn’t be sure that someone there wouldn’t just throw me in a hut again like a prisoner. I was done with being kept. I was leaving. I turned down one of the streets where no one seemed to be, and headed for the wall.
Just before I reached it, someone grabbed my wrist.
My whole body tensed, and I whipped around, ready to punch whoever it was in the face.
“Wait!” Polly let go, her eyes wide as she looked at my raised fist. “It’s just me.”
I threw my arms around my friend’s neck. “Sorry,” I said. “Where’s Dad?”
Polly’s face lit up in a mischievous grin. “Other side of this wall. He’s hellbent on escape.”
“Right now, so am I,” I said. “I have a dragon to catch.”
“Ooh, an adventure.” Polly grabbed my hand. “This is going to be so much fun.”
Chapter 18
Celedon
Coyotes darted along the ground, weaving their way through the tall grass of the plains. My focus was set on the swiftest of the trio, Herrik.
No question, Herrik was responsible for plotting and leading the assault on the wolf village. He’d set fire to their homes to attract my attention. He’d succeeded.
He wished to unleash the magic of the staff of earth. I’d show him its power—and its wrath.
Herrik ran past the entrance to the valley where the coyote village was nestled, and up into the narrow paths of winding peaks above. I followed. If he believed he could hide in the rocks, he was sadly mistaken. The earth would betray him. It was mine to wield.
My grip on the staff was loose. I did not need its amplification of my power for this.
I lifted a hand, forcing the narrow path to lift. The ground rippled, rising and swelling like the sea. Herrik scrambled and slipped. He fought for his footing on the shifting terrain. And like the vicious waves that protected the island, the earth crashed.
Trapped in a pit with no way out, Herrik returned to human form.
I landed softly on the precipice and stared down at the naked man twenty feet below. His eyes were crazed, and he scrambled along the floor of the pit, keeping himself as far from me as possible. And then he stilled.
Tufts of fur were abandoned on the floor. Chunks of hair missing from his human head. His heart raced like a rabbit’s and he was too stunned with terror to move.
I stared down at the wretched creature who had caused so much harm, and I felt something other than anger. I felt pity.
There was a sour scent above the valley. I looked over the rocky cliff, over the small village below. A key element was missing from the environment. I looked over the face of the rock cliff to my left. There was no moss, no wildberries, no vines. There was no vegetation. No life.
“Let me out!” Herrik’s voice shook and his body trembled.
I ignored him and touched the wall of stone beside me. The stone was cool, but deep beneath the surface, there was a darkness—a wrongness—and it stung. I pulled away, reflexively avoiding the pain that the blight caused.
What was it doing here, after I’d healed so much of the island? What was it doing beneath the surface of the stone?
I peeled back layers of soil, first firm and brittle, then soft and malleable.
“Let me out...let me out of here!” Herrik’s cries were like the buzzing of a gnat, persistent and unimportant.
The pricking of needles on my fingertips grew deeper, harsher as I pulled away the stone and clay. It only took a few inches to find what I was looking for. What should have been fertile soil was dry, blackened ash. Coils of dried and rotten roots snaked through the ground, the entirety of the plants so tortured by the blight, so far gone, even I could not save them.
Nowhere on the island had I encountered such disease and decomposition. To heal a wound so deep, I’d need the power of the staff. I squeezed my fingers around the wood and tested the link between my power and its own. Only a thread, nothing more.
“Master, please, save me.” Herrik’s words pulled me from my task.
Master. The coyote shifter had treated me with contempt and disrespect, with little acknowledgement of my power and position. Why the change?
I looked down at him. I could smell his madness, see it in his eyes. There was no point in looking for reason in the unreasonable, for logical intent and consequence where there was only chaos.
“He’ll come for me. He’s coming. Master!” Herrik yelled.
He wasn’t speaking about me. “To whom do you call?”
“I belong only to the one true Guardian,” Herrik said. “You can do what you want to me, but I will never betray him. I am his sword, his will.”
“Who?” I asked again, knowing his answer would likely be nonsense.
“Aldrych, Guardian of All.”
If there had been any doubt that Herrik was unhinged, that sealed it. My father, Aldrych, had died over two hundred fifty years ago. No one was coming.
“Aldrych is no more,” I said. I could ask Herrik why he’d done the things he’d done, why he’d harmed my people, why he’d sought me out to begin with. But he had no real answers to those questions. There was only one question to ask, one that likely had no bearing on anything that was happening, yet I was compelled to ask. “Where did you get the cube?”
Herrik laughed. “You don’t want to hand it over? Fine. It doesn’t matter. He’s coming, and he will take what is his.”
I shook my head. Perhaps my brother Ruarc could cure the illness of Herrik’s body and his mind. Perhaps then there would be real answers. As it was, there was nothing to say, only a duty to prevent the coyote alpha and his people from committing further atrocities.
I knew it was no use speaking to Herrik. Still, I told him, “Aldrych is—”
Darkness fell over the cliffs, over the valley, over the world. The air grew still and frigid, and a chill prickled over my skin.
Herrik laughed, a wild, merciless sound.
Shadows danced around me, and a sense of dread coursed through my veins. I looked up, slowly tilting my head to where the sun was meant to be.
And I saw him.
Wings black as night spread over the sky—a dragon. He appeared nothing like I remembered, yet when I looked into his red eyes, I knew that it was him. I could feel it in my bones, in my heart.
The dragon was my father.
Chapter 19
Astra
After a few miles of hiking through the forest, I stopped looking over my shoulder. The wolves may not have noticed we were gone yet, or maybe they just didn’t care. There was enough for Thorn to worry about in the village that I probably wasn’t even on his radar.
Even if they came, I wouldn’t go back.
“So, uh, Astra.” Polly walked up beside me. Her attention flicked from the scenery to me and back again. “What’s the plan?”
“I have to help Celedon.”
“Yeah, I got that part,” she said. “But how?”
“I don’t know yet.” I knew it wasn’t a great answer, but I didn’t have a plan. All I knew was that I had to be there. Wherever Celedon was, that’s where I belonged.
Finally, we reached the edge of the forest. Polly and Dad stopped walking and looked over the tall grasses that I’d been so impressed with just one day before. Now, the flowers were only a landmark to me.
“Be careful,” I said. “The coyote shifters blend right in with the grass.”
“We know,” my father said.
I was so in my own head I hadn’t considered their feelings. This was where they’d been held prisoner. Following me back here couldn’t be easy for them.
“You don’t have to come,” I said. “You can stay here, and I’ll come back for you when it’s over.”
Polly snorted. “Yeah, like we’re going to do that.”
I looked to my father. His expression was one I recognized—unyielding
soldier on a mission. He pulled a set of knives from his belt and walked past me. He bent down and stalked into the grass ahead of us.
“All right then.”
Only a few steps behind, it was unsettling watching the way he moved without disturbing the grass around him. He was a part of the field as much as the coyotes were, a reminder that our enemies could be anywhere.
“Not to sound like a broken record, but isn’t it possible that your dragon boyfriend can handle himself just fine?” Polly asked. “That we’re going to get in his way or that they could even use you against him?”
I froze. I hadn’t even considered that as a possibility. What if I was wrong about helping him? I couldn’t be a burden. I had been so sure that I knew what to do, but what if I was wrong? What was I supposed to do now?
My father turned around, put his finger over his lips in a gesture to silence us, and pulled Polly’s wrist. She let him guide her and crouched down. I did the same, and listened.
At first I didn’t hear anything but the rustling of grass in the breeze. I wasn’t sure what he’d noticed, until I looked up.
Hovering in the air was a huge dragon, larger even than Celedon. His scales were black, so dark the dragon seemed to suck the light from the sky. Which of Celedon’s brothers was he?
It didn’t matter. Whichever he was, Celedon’s brother would help him with the coyotes. I turned and ran toward the dragon, racing through the tall field toward a bowl-like canyon. He was above the side of the bowl, wings slowly beating to keep him in the air.
The grass ended at the edge of the canyon’s slope.
“Father, where have you been?” My steps faltered when I heard Celedon’s voice.
I climbed up over a large rock, and only then did I see him—Celedon was standing on the cliff, speaking to the dragon. The black dragon huffed a fog of smoke from its nostrils.
“So many years have passed, Father. We thought you died. Come down, return to your rightful place with your sons.” Celedon beckoned the dragon with a wave.
What had Celedon said his father’s name was? Aldrych.
The black dragon—Aldrych—opened his mouth. The low-pitched roar that came out was so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. The ground shook, my body shook. I put my hands over my head and crouched down into a ball. My chest felt like it was inside a blender, everything shaken so hard I wasn’t sure it would all go back right. Stabbing pain filled my head, and my eyes stung. I refused to shut them.
The sound lessened, though in its place was a strange numbness, like a cloud had filled my ears and stuffed itself inside my brain.
“Don’t do this.” Celedon took a step back, and then another.
I wanted to call to him, to run to him. My body didn’t move. I didn’t know if I could.
Shadowy tendrils reached out from Aldrych’s back, coiling through the air like snakes. One stabbed down, breaking the ground in front of Celedon. He jumped back.
Another struck through the air like a spear, right at his chest. I tried to scream, but no noise came out. Celedon dove to the side and rolled out of the way. In doing so, he dropped his staff. One of the tendrils reached for it. Celedon scrambled across the ground and grabbed it first.
“If you would only speak to me, I would try to underst—”
Celedon’s words were cut short as a mass of tentacles shot down over him like spikes. He crossed his arms over his chest, pulling fist-like walls up over his body. The tentacles beat against the stone cocoon, chipping huge rocks away. The rock shield wouldn’t hold, it wasn’t strong enough.
I wanted to race out there, to do something to help, anything. But Polly’s words stayed with me, making me doubt what was right. I could make it worse. I could get in his way. Waiting had never been so difficult. I was helpless.
Celedon scrambled out and stamped the butt of the staff against the ground. A geyser of rock shot up, creating a wall. Its end wrapped around the belly of the black dragon and snaked around his neck. Aldrych snapped his wings, and the stone bounds crumbled.
“Don’t make me fight you.” Celedon’s voice was both harsh authority and desperate plea.
Black lines shot down, peppering the ground all around Celedon. If he didn’t keep moving, he’d be struck. He could die.
My heart raced. I couldn’t breathe.
A huge chunk of the ground broke off and tumbled down the cliff. I looked down, and for the first time, I saw what was below. A village. The coyote village.
People had homes here, they lived here. And just like the wolf village, they were met with destruction. The boulder crashed down onto a house and rolled over a second, stopping halfway to crushing a third.
I looked back to Celedon, wishing there was something I could do to stop this. What could I do?
Aldrych slashed at Celedon, but for every attack, Celedon threw up another wall, each bigger than the last. He yelled. It was a pained, angry sound, and it made me hurt for him. His father was alive, and this awful battle was their reunion.
Vines wrapped around Celedon’s arm, coming from the staff. A glow of green light surrounded him, not unlike the white of his shift. But he didn’t change into a dragon. He stood his ground.
The earth broke apart, rising up into the air, pieces of the cliff larger than the entirety of the village. Celedon had lost control.
I ran.
I had to do something. This was it. Celedon was afraid of the staff’s power taking over. He could be no more lost than this. The earth trembled beneath my feet, and I knew we could all come crashing down at any moment, but I ran.
I grabbed hold of the staff. Celedon’s arm was fused to it, the vines turning into solid wood around him. His eyes glowed bright, and he didn’t even look at me.
I had to do this.
I pulled with all my might, and it broke. The staff snapped in half.
The glow disappeared. The vines withered. The boulders that were floating in the air quivered, dropping a few inches closer to the village below. Celedon blinked, and his brows formed a V as he looked at me.
“Astra?”
Chapter 20
Celedon
As soon as the staff broke, my power drained. The surge of uncontrollable energy seeped back into the earth, leaving the well dry in comparison. It was both a loss I felt deep into my bones and a relief.
The magic had controlled me. It was fury, it was destruction, and now it was over.
My mind sharpened slowly as the fog lifted, and a flood of questions returned in its place. Was this creature truly my father? Where had he been for the past two hundred years? Why had he attacked, and more important still, why had he stopped?
I held tight to Astra’s hand, shielding her body with mine. She had saved me. I was grateful, even if it meant that we were both now doomed.
The black dragon hovered above us, looking down. The tendrils shrank and returned into his back. He was my father, I could feel that he was, yet somehow he was not. Not anymore. His scales were meant to be cerulean, somewhere between that of my own and those of my brother Kaelestis. The tendrils, the color, and the feel of him were all wrong—not only incongruent with my memories, but sharing a quality with the darkness that affected so much of the world.
Aldrych the Creator was stricken with blight. Yet he survived.
The sky changed. Black and purple ripped across the fabric of reality like lightning spreading around him. My body was heavy with exhaustion, yet I took a step forward.
Astra held tight to my hand. I turned to her. Her expression was one of determination. She was saying something, but all I could hear was a ringing sound. Her voice was distant and muddled.
The dark break in the sky grew. The air became still and charged at the same time. So fast I almost missed it, my father disappeared into the tear and it dissipated.
The world returned to the way it was meant to be—blue sky, cool breeze. Birds chirped in the distance, and the warm sun heated my face. It was like none of it had even happened. I st
ared at the place in the sky where my father had gone, watching for a sliver of the portal to reopen, waiting for him to return.
Astra pulled on my arm. “Celedon, please.”
I blinked hard, rubbed a hand over my eyes and turned to her.
“We need your wings.”
I did as she asked, loosing my wings from my back. Only then did I realize the ground was shaking. How long had that been happening? What else had I missed?
I scooped her up into my arms and lifted us into the sky. There were tears on her cheeks. Astra was crying.
“You have to stop the boulders.”
I looked down, following her gaze, to the crumbing ground. Chunks of rock tumbled down from the cliff into the valley, onto the village. The boulders that I had been holding in the air were falling along with them. I flicked my wrist to return the earth to the way it was meant to be. Bits of dirt obeyed along with some of the rocks. Not enough.
Pooling what I could of my power, I halted the boulders in the air and gently set them down beside the village. The world was still, my power drained. I had never felt so exhausted in all of my years of existence. My eyelids were heavy, my muscles weak. I wasn’t sure that I could fly us back to my cave.
“Dad and Polly came with me,” Astra said. “They’re in the field. We can’t leave them.”
Gliding down on open wings, I lowered us slowly to the ground. When my feet met earth, she still held tight to my neck.
“Are you okay?” Her blue eyes were globes of concern.
“I will be fine.”
She leaned her head against my chest. “I can’t lose you.”
I set her down softly and held her to me.
“I love you,” she whispered.
My chest grew tight. Love was never something I’d considered, never something I had thought possible beyond familial bonds that were more duty than feeling. But with Astra, I couldn’t imagine a life without her and I didn’t want to.
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