by E. A. Copen
Dex groaned and doubled over, but before Ash could walk away, he spat through gritted teeth, “You’re not worthy.”
“Of what?” Ash grabbed him by the chin and lifted his head.
“Of her. Of the dragon’s heart. Of anything.”
Ash smirked. “Is that so? And what makes you think you are? I’ve beaten you. All of you. What do I care what you think I’m worth? This time tomorrow, you’ll be dead and I’ll be a god well on my way to conquering the continent. No one will remember you ever existed.”
Dex lunged at Ash, only to get a knee to the stomach and an elbow in the back. He fell face first to the rocky floor of the cavern, but even that didn’t keep him down. He clawed at the ground and tried to rise.
Ash slammed a foot into his back.
“Enough!” I shouted. “What sort of god beats a dying man? You came for the dragon. Take it.”
Ash glowered at the man beneath his heel for a moment before lifting his foot. “You’re right. He’s beneath me. Let him die there.” He trudged up to the dragon and placed a hand on its scaly back. “What an ugly creature. Makes you wonder why nature makes such ugly beasts.” He smiled at me as if it were a joke.
“Maybe the only way you can appreciate something beautiful is to see something so incomprehensibly ugly that you never forget,” I said.
“Suppose it doesn’t matter now.” He unsheathed his sword.
The dragon let out one last cry of pain before it fell silent.
I turned away. I couldn’t watch him butcher her.
Dex had struggled to his knees. There were guards all around him and Ike, but none were paying any attention. They were all leaning forward, eager to watch their leader dig through the dragon’s guts. Ike made a small motion with his head, gesturing to his hammer. It was hooked on one of the guard’s belts, just within reach. My sword rested on a flattened rock right next to Dex, the blade still bare. Dex gave it a sideways glance.
I shook my head once. Don’t do it, you idiots. He’ll kill you both.
There was the sound of a blade slicing through stubborn meat, of wet insides pouring out.
“Finally,” Ash said in a breathy voice. “The heart.”
Ike lunged for the hammer.
Two guards turned to stop him, but he punched one in the jaw, laying him out flat. The other missed his initial grab. Ike yanked the hammer from the third guard’s belt and kicked the guard away, all before Ash knew what was happening.
Ash looked up from his prize just as Dex set fire to the rope binding his hands. Dex grabbed my sword and tossed it to me.
I caught it by the hilt and quickly turned the blade on Ash, holding it against his throat.
Dex rubbed the singe marks from his wrists. “You should’ve used iron. Never use flammable restraints on a fire mage, idiot.”
Ash ignored him, sneering at me. “You won’t kill me, Ember. You love me.”
“Love you?” I stepped in, pressing the blade in enough to draw a small trickle of blood. “I don’t even know you.”
“She doesn’t have to kill you.” Dex unleashed a weak blast of flame from his fingertips before grunting and falling to his knees, exhausted.
Ash easily dodged the fire by moving his head to one side. “Pathetic. All that and you didn’t even hit me!”
Dex chuckled. “I wasn’t trying to hit you, asshole. I was buying Ike time.”
“Ember!” Ike shouted. “Move!” He brought his hammer down on the cavern floor with a loud smash and a flash of blue light.
Rock rumbled above and giant boulders came smashing down from the cavern ceiling.
I pulled my sword back and stabbed it into Ash’s stomach while rocks came down all around us.
Ash’s eyes widened. He dropped the dragon’s heart as if it meant nothing and stared down at my sword sticking out of his gut. “Ember, you… You’ve killed me.”
“You died five years ago when you stepped into that rift, Ash. I just didn’t know it.”
“Ember, watch out!” Dex tackled me out of the way of a massive falling rock.
We fell to the cave floor, my back scraping against a thousand tiny sharp pebbles. More rocks fell all around us and on top of us. Dex let out a pained grunt, but stayed where he was, shielding me from the collapse. For one stunned moment, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. There was no way out of the cave-in. He was going to die, and it was going to be my fault.
“I… always wanted to die… on top of a beautiful woman,” Dex managed.
I could’ve punched him if I wasn’t so sure we’d both be dead in the next thirty seconds. Instead, I closed my eyes tight and held onto him as best I could.
The rocks suddenly stopped falling and a dustier version of Ike appeared with Foggy slung over one shoulder. In his other hand, he held an umbrella shaped rock. Smaller rocks bounced off of it and tumbled to the ground. “Will you two quit messing around? The entire mountain is coming down on us! We need to go!”
I pushed Dex away. “Guess you don’t get to cross that one off the bucket list just yet.”
“Damn. So close.” He pulled me to my feet.
The ground shook, and I almost fell over. The place where Ash had been standing only moments ago was a pile of rubble, but all the falling rocks had somehow missed the dragon’s heart he had dropped. I lunged to grab it.
Ike grabbed me by the belt just as my hands closed around it and practically dragged me away.
With the dragon’s heart pressed against my chest, we fled the cave, dodging rocks as they came down.
“It’s blocked ahead. Look!” Dex pointed.
“Hold him.” Ike shoved the dwarf at Dex. He struck the cave in with his hammer and the rocks curled, reshaping themselves to create a tunnel just big enough for us to walk through. Ike came back to collect the dwarf.
“You’re more useful than I thought,” Dex said.
Ike’s answer was an annoyed grunt.
We ran as fast as we could through the last part of the cave and found daylight waiting for us on the other side. The mid-day sun never looked so beautiful. But we weren’t clear yet. The stairs Ike had fashioned earlier were crumbling. We raced down them.
At the bottom, Dex collapsed.
I ran back to him, but I couldn’t carry the dragon’s heart and Dex, so I shoved the heart at him. “Here! You carry that and I’ll carry you.”
“Carry me? You can’t—Whoa, hey!”
I slung him over my shoulder with a grunt.
“Huh,” he said. “Maybe you can.”
“Shut up and think lightweight thoughts,” I ground out through my teeth.
We half walked, half slid down the narrow mountain path, dodging rocks and boulders as they rolled our way. It wasn’t until we were halfway out of the desolate no-man’s zone the rift had created that I turned around to look.
Ike wasn’t kidding when he said the mountain was coming down. One whole side looked like a giant had reached down to scoop up the rock in its palm.
There was no way Ash had survived. The realization left me weak. I had to put Dex down. As I did, I noted the lack of resistance. He hadn’t said anything in a while, either. I lowered him as gently as I could. His eyes were closed, and the heart was tucked in his shirt, secured there.
“Hey!” I slapped his face.
No response.
“Ike! Help!”
Ike rushed to my side. “What happened?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. He collapsed at the bottom of the staircase, but he was still cracking jokes, so I thought…”
Ike pulled the dragon’s heart free, tossed it to the ground, and pressed his ear to Dex’s chest.
Please, please don’t be dead!
“He’s breathing,” Ike announced, “but he’s feverish and non-responsive. Could be a coma, Ember. I don’t know if he’ll make it back to Atlanta.” He looked at me, apologetic.
“No, no, no! There must be something we can do.” I shook my head and thought as hard as I
could. We didn’t go through all of that just to let Dex die. There had to be something, anything… “The elves! We can take Dex to the elves.”
“Do you even know where they are or how to contact them?”
“Not exactly. Only a general idea, but we have to try.”
Foggy groaned. He was coming around finally. The dwarf put a hand to his forehead. “Stones, did anyone get the name of the broad that hit me? I think I’m in love.”
“That would be a dragon, my friend.” Ike went to Foggy’s side and offered him his canteen.
The dwarf twisted off the cap, drank some, and spat it back out. “Water? Might as well force feed me piss, why don’t you?” He turned to me, wiping his beard. “What’s the problem, lass? I see you have the heart. Does that mean we won?”
“Not if we don’t use it.” I picked up the heart and stepped away, trying to think. Even if I could get back to where the elves were—which I wasn’t sure I could do without a map—I’d have to convince the Telmara to help him. They didn’t seem very interested in him before, but maybe they would listen to me. But how would we get there? Ike could make golems, but they’d move too slow. I couldn’t carry Dex, and I’d get lost on my own.
Something nearby snorted. I looked up on the grassy ridge at the edge of the rift zone where Scorch lazily stomped on some grass, as if it had offended her. Wide-eyed, I turned back to Ike. “Ike…”
He nodded. “I’ll help you get him on the saddle.”
Ike picked up Dex while I went to get Scorch. She gave me an irritated glance and shook out her mane as if to say, “What took you so long?”
I took her reins and patted her nose. “I know. Thank you for waiting.”
Ike grunted and placed Dex on the back of the horse. “Ride south until the sun is about here.” He pointed to a place in the sky. “Then if you go west another few miles, you should find the clearing we made camp that night. I hope you can orient yourself from there.”
I nodded. “I can. What about you? Will you and Foggy be all right?”
He smiled. “I expect so. I also expect to see you when you bring this idiot back to Atlanta, alive and well. I owe you a drink and an apology.”
I threw my arms around him and squeezed. “You don’t owe me anything, but I’ll take that drink just the same.”
Ike stiffened a moment before he patted my back. “Here,” he said, stepping back. He shed his jacket and stripped off his shirt, which he wrapped around the dragon’s heart, using the sleeves to tie it to the saddle. “Don’t lose it on the way.”
“I won’t.” I climbed up into the saddle. “Ike, in case something happens…”
“Something always happens,” he said with a tired smile. “And when it does, you’ll come and tell me about it. You and that stupid half-elf both. See you when I see you?”
I nodded and took up Scorch’s reins. It didn’t feel like a goodbye, leaving them behind at the edge of no-man's-land. I knew they’d be okay. Whatever happened to Ike and Foggy, they’d make it back to Atlanta one way or another.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I rode in the direction Ike pointed out to me, pushing Scorch as fast as I dared. The forest was thick with vines, bushes, and fallen trees. She leapt over moss-covered trunks and dodged hanging vines as if it were second nature.
Hold on, Dex. Just hold on.
The journey to the old campsite felt like it took hours, though the sun had barely moved in the sky. True to Ike’s words, I knew it as soon as I stumbled on it. The ashes of old fires slept in their pits and indentations on the ground marked where we had pitched our tents. A dark stain lay on the ground where Kenny had died.
I circled the camp once to get my bearings and then went west.
The abandoned ruins where the heretics had kept us were empty, dead and silent. I pulled Scorch to a stop among them. “Leseran!”
My voice bounced off the decaying stone.
“Someone! Anyone, please!”
My heart sank as time stretched on without answer. I knew the elven encampment was somewhere nearby, but I didn’t know in which direction or how far. Were they even close enough to hear my frantic shouts? Even if they could hear me, they might not care. Dex wasn’t one of their own, and I was an outsider, a stranger. They had no reason to help either of us.
It’s no use. I lowered my head and curled my fingers around Dex’s shirt. Through it, I could feel his ragged, shallow breathing. Dammit, he didn’t deserve to go this way. Killed by the very thing that had let him save me. If I hadn’t demanded so much, if he hadn’t drawn in so much magic, he might’ve made it back to Atlanta.
My shoulders shook. Hot tears stained my cheeks. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault!”
“Awfully selfish of you,” Dex suddenly said, his voice strained, “taking all the blame. Seems to me there’s plenty to go around.”
“Dex!” Hope made my heart jump into my throat. I dismounted and quickly pulled him down from the horse, gently laying him out on the ground where he’d be more comfortable. When I saw him, that hope quickly faded. His color was off. Not just pale, but a shade of gray. “Don’t you die on me. I won’t let you.”
“Pretty sure you don’t get a say.” He wheezed and coughed. “It’s okay.”
I shook my head and pushed away more tears. “No. No, it’s not! Don’t you dare say it is!”
“Just… do me one… favor?” His clammy fingers brushed against the side of my face. “Don’t forget me, huh?”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Never.”
“Good.” He smiled and closed his eyes.
A wave of white magic rolled over his body, and he froze in place.
“Dex?” I reached down to shake him, but he didn’t respond.
“He won’t be able to answer,” said a voice from behind me.
I rose and spun, drawing my sword as I did, only to find Leseran and two other elves behind me. The elves on either side of him had their bows drawn, arrows trained on me.
I ignored them, gripping my sword tightly. “What did you do to him?”
“A stasis spell. Nothing more. It will keep his condition from progressing, but only for a short time. May I?” He gestured to Dex.
I lowered the sword and stepped aside. The elves lowered their bows.
Leseran knelt beside Dex and sniffed the air. “Magicite poisoning. I was worried something like this would happen. Your people can only channel so much of it through your bodies before it does damage.”
“Dex isn’t human.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“I thought you hated your brother.”
Leseran sighed and stood. He gave me a bored glance. “I hate that his continued existence is a point of shame for a respected elder in my community. Blood is still blood, however, and I am bound by oath and honor to respect that.”
“In other words, no one kills your brother but you.”
He shrugged. “If you like, although there is little even our greatest healers can do for his condition.”
I untied the heart from the saddle and held it out to Leseran. “What about with this?”
Leseran’s eyes widened as he took the package and unwrapped it. He turned to the other elves and said something quick and sharp in his native tongue. They nodded and came forward to lift Dex’s body between them. “How did you come by this?” Leseran asked me.
“Not easily.”
The shadow of a smile touched his thin lips. “I imagine. You do not know the power such an item has.”
I stood up straighter and licked my lips, watching them handle Dex carefully. “I was told it could cure any ailment.”
“Almost any,” Leseran agreed. “But there are… side effects. And to prepare one treatment, we’ll have to use the entire thing. It’s unfortunate. An ingredient like this could do so much more.”
“Can your healers use it to save him or not?”
Leseran wrapped the heart back up and nodded once.
“I believe they can. Come. You will follow us back to camp. The Telmara will want to meet the one who killed the drekhmal.”
***
Hours passed. I spent them pacing outside the medical hut, separated from it by a ring of sacred stones. The elves had taken both Dex and the heart inside, but forbid me to enter under penalty of death. I didn’t care, so long as he came back out. Smoke poured from the hole in the roof, gray, white, then black. Lights flashed inside, illuminating strange silhouettes.
I hugged myself and paced, waiting, watching. Hoping for the best.
At dusk, the healers were still at work. Leseran approached me. “The Telmara have summoned you.”
“I can’t. What if something happens while I’m gone?”
Leseran frowned in the direction of the healer’s hut. “He is in good hands. Trust that he will be healed, and he will. Belief is a power all its own. The Telmara won’t be denied. We must go.”
Reluctantly, I left my post and followed Leseran to the Telmara’s tent. They had already gathered and sat, waiting in their chairs, their faces hidden behind strange veils. Leseran presented me with a bow and backed away. For a long, heavy moment, no one spoke.
“We have been informed that you killed the beast of Black Mountain,” said one off to my right.
“Then you heard wrong,” I replied. “I defeated the dragon, but I didn’t strike the killing blow. I meant to, but we were interrupted by someone else.”
Another of the Telmara leaned forward, tenting their fingers. “And the rift? Closing it was your doing?”
“I wish I could say it was, but no. Not entirely.”
The Telmara exchanged quick glances.
“Then what exactly was your part in all this?”
I looked around, weighing my words. If I said the wrong thing, it might cost Dex his life. “The one who interrupted us. I knew him in another life. We were friends, maybe something more. I saw him going down a dark path and believed I could save him. But he didn’t want to be saved. All he wanted was more.”
“More what, child?” pressed the Telmara.
“Of whatever he could get. Ash was hungry. And nothing in this world will ever be enough to fill him up. Not me, not all the power in the world, and not that dragon’s heart. But he doesn’t know that yet. He would’ve taken it, used it to make himself more powerful. I couldn’t let him. I brought it here so your healers could save Dex.”
