by Rain Oxford
“Doubtful. Your brother is trying awfully hard to show you he has changed.”
Mason picked up Thad’s chair and pushed my brother into it. To my astonishment, Thaddeus calmed down. “Are you sure Mother didn’t pretend that she was talking to someone in order to fool you?”
“I’m fairly sure. Father, do you know who in the castle is working for her?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Will you tell us who?”
“No.”
Thaddeus scoffed and muttered something under his breath.
“Any day you feel is a good day to die, son, I invite you to try it,” Father said, obviously having heard what Thaddeus said.
Mason, sitting between them, blanched. “Sorcerers are so violent.”
Thaddeus smirked and whispered something to him, which made him blush. I was completely lost, but that might have been a good thing. I didn’t like to overhear bickering.
“It could be Jeb. I mean, warlocks are known for backstabbing,” Roulis said.
“Or maybe it’s you, werewolf!” Jeb responded.
“Be careful who you’re accusing,” Evelyn said. “He may not be a magic-user, but at least he’s not a con artist.”
“I’m not a warlock! I don’t approve of my family’s choices and that’s why I have no contact with them! I am a sorcerer!”
Argument broke out over the table and aside from Merlin and me, only Magnus and my father stayed quiet.
“Do not let suspicion ruin your friendships and alliances,” Merlin suggested.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t do anything about the fact that someone in this castle is a traitor?”
“Be prepared, by all means, but do not ostracize yourself when you need your friends the most.”
I considered our options. “As long as no one can get all of us Sjau together, we’ve… sort of beaten my mother. All we have to do is not let her steal our magic until we stop the black star. We can worry about defeating her after we save Caldaca.”
“That sounds like a plan to me.”
I pulled my wand out of my pocket and tapped it on the table. “Stop it.” Pink sparkles sprouted from it, startling everyone out of their argument without hurting anyone. It would have been really neat if it wasn’t so pretty. “We can’t let it divide us. We need to stand united.”
“What makes you think she’ll stop once we save magic?” Gideon asked.
“I don’t think she’ll stop until we stop her,” I said. “This isn’t about her, today. We have to save the egg, or hatchling, before Baltezore can kill her. We have to stop the black star first and deal with my mother second.”
“How do we stop an enemy so powerful?” Houda asked.
“By using his power against him. That’s what Dessa said. I’m just not sure how.”
“That’s where I come in,” my father said, standing. “Come outside. I am going to teach you how to use the galaxy stone.”
“But I already know how to use it. I can do dragon magic and conjure a dragon to help me.”
“You haven’t even brushed the surface of the stone’s power.”
“I’m running out of time.”
“Then stop wasting it and get outside. You have no chance without my training.”
“Merlin and I work well together.”
“How do you think your mother knew about the black star? How did she learn that she could steal your magic if she had all fourteen of you together?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she oversaw something Dessa…” I trailed off as it occurred to me. The creature in my mother’s dream had glowing green eyes… the exact same green eyes as Baltezore when he was taking the form of a dragon… the exact same green as the magic that flowed from his galaxy stone. “She’s working with Baltezore.”
“What?” Merlin asked.
“Did you see the creature from my mother’s dream?”
“No. I heard it, though.”
“Well, it had glowing green eyes.”
“Like Baltezore’s in your dream?”
“Yes.”
“That’s right,” my father said. “She is working with Baltezore. I expected you to figure that out on your own.” His expression was irritated and disappointed, which didn’t surprise me at all. He turned and left the dining room. Pretty much everyone in the room sighed with relief.
“Your father is intense,” Evelyn said.
“What’s wrong, princess? Is your beast not man enough for you?” Jeb asked. He wasn’t usually that defensive unless he was pushed into it, and he was still riled up from being called a con artist.
I grabbed my staff and left before a fight broke out. As much tension as there was, I knew Mason and Houda could break it up. Naturally, the argument wouldn’t have even gotten that far if Rita was there.
I met my father outside. Unfortunately, everyone else joined us outside to watch. I really wished they hadn’t, because I was certain I was going to embarrass myself. Whatever my father planned to teach me, he wouldn’t do it the easy way. Then again, maybe that was why I never forgot one of his lessons.
He was in the middle of the field, so Merlin and I joined him. Everyone else stood along the castle wall, out of the way. “Healing Merlin gave your galaxy stone what it needed to fully bond to you. It is now an extension of your mind and cannot be used by anyone else. This is important. I know your brothers couldn’t have used your staff against you before, but Baltezore could.”
“Does that mean it gained new powers?”
“Most likely, yes. However, it might have lost the powers it had before. When you face Baltezore, you need to know how to use your own strengths. Don’t let that confuse you; this will be a battle of wits, not power. You cannot overpower him; you have to outsmart him.”
“What about my wand?”
“It is worthless.” He raised his left hand calmly and pointed to the air. Before I could ask what he was doing, lightning erupted from him into the sky. Houda gasped with shock and Merlin growled. After a moment, my father slowly lowered his hand and pointed to the ground beside us. I didn’t know whether to go where he was pointing or run back into the castle, so I stood still.
And then a dark shape passed in front of the sun. I thought it was a bird at first, but as it flew closer, I realized it was a dragon. Surprisingly, I didn’t want to jump up and down with excitement.
This wasn’t going to be a nice visit.
The dragon landed where my father indicated. He was black with striking gold claws, horns, and eyes. He wasn’t as large as Baltezore, but he was still impressive. “Bow,” Merlin reminded me. He was sitting with his head down. Even my father bent at the waist in a deep bow. I knelt and did as Merlin ordered.
“Why do we always have to bow to dragons?” I asked.
“Because they are very old and very arrogant.”
“Thank you for coming, Harðtǫnn,” my father said. Merlin and I stood.
“I hope you have called me here to eat your horrid wife,” the dragon said. His voice was not as deep as the voices of the previous dragons we’d met, and his words weren’t as clear. His scaly lips contorted awkwardly over his long fangs, as if he wasn’t used to speaking aloud.
“Is he a young dragon?” I asked Merlin.
“It appears so.”
My father laughed. “Not today, old friend. I’m not done with her yet.” He gestured to me. “This is Ayden, my youngest son and one of the Sjau, and Merlin, the one destined to end the war on magic.”
“That means little to me. I was not involved in the dragon wars and if Caldaca falls, I will find a new world.”
“If you care that little for Caldaca, why don’t you just leave now?” I asked him. My father rubbed his forehead as if I was irritating him. Before Harðtǫnn could answer or Merlin could stop me, I continued. “Caldaca may be flawed, but so what? I’ve heard loads of stories of other worlds, and none of them sound better. Worlds with magic are dangerous, there is cruelty and greed, and
those without are just plain boring.”
“What is your point, young Sjau?”
“My point is that Caldaca is worth fighting for. Why are you here if you don’t agree?”
“Stop talking before he decides to eat you,” Merlin ordered.
“Would you be willing to fight this hard for the egg if the fate of Caldaca did not rest on it?”
“Yes. No dragon, hatched or not, deserves to be hunted.”
“Then I will help you.”
“If he were any other dragon, he would have eaten you,” Father said. “Harðtǫnn, Ayden has just bonded with his galaxy stone and he needs to experience fighting with a dragon.”
With no warning, the dragon opened his mouth and blew fire at me. I dropped and rolled out of the way, narrowly dodging the attack.
“Use your staff,” Merlin said.
I pointed it at Harðtǫnn. “Stop!” The dragon didn’t. Before I could say anything else, he roared. An orange ward formed around me and I suddenly couldn’t move. It felt like overwhelming magic was pressing down on me, not unlike being deep underwater.
“I lost that power?” I asked Merlin in his mind.
“It appears so.”
“Can you use my magic again?”
“No. This time, you need to do it on your own, or else your father will interfere.”
I focused on shattering the ward and visualized it crumbling. White magic shot out of my staff, struck the ward, and did nothing. At least, it did nothing to the ward.
“Use your dragon’s eye,” my father ordered. “Try to control the dragon in different ways to see what works and what doesn’t.”
“I lost the most useful power.”
“You have probably gained a stronger, similar power. Your crystal will tell you what it does if you let it.”
I took a deep breath and tried again to break the ward. Meanwhile, Merlin was standing between Harðtǫnn and me. I focused my mind harder and harder until my magic was frantic. This time, possibly because the dragon was distracted, my energy struck the ward and dissolved it.
I pointed my staff at the dragon. Turn him to stone. Blue sorcery shot out, hit its target perfectly, and bounced off harmlessly. Dragon scales are primarily impervious to magic.
“Stop telling your dragon’s eye what to do and let it tell you,” my father said. “It is your bond with dragons and knows what you need it to do. It knows you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Then you don’t stand a chance against Baltezore.”
I pointed my staff at the dragon. Instead of telling my magic what to do, I opened my power to the staff. Instantly, magic poured out of me and the crystal blazed blue. The dragon immediately stopped blowing fire and slowly sat down. I was confused. “What happened?”
My father smirked. “That is so very much you.”
“What is?”
“Your stone’s newest power appears to be peace. You can still make a dragon stop fighting, but now you can actually make them peaceful. How long the enchantment lasts, I don’t know. I only know one other person with that power. As soon as your spell wears off, you will begin your second lesson. Please stick close to the castle, Harðtǫnn.”
The dragon grumbled halfheartedly and ambled away.
“I’m ready for more now,” I said.
“I know you are, but you’re also in a hyper state of reaction. When you’re calm and off your guard, that’s when you’re vulnerable.”
I nodded. “In that case, I’ll be in the library.”
* * *
“The castle is too full,” Merlin commented, entering the library and kicking the door closed behind him.
Startled, I fell out of my chair. I had been so immersed in a book that I forgot where I was or that the world was in danger. I quickly composed myself. “I agree. Even with six brothers and two parents, I’m not used to living somewhere with so many people. It’s quieter without the Minof family, though.”
“Be that as it may, I cannot concentrate with people walking and talking in every corner of the castle. I am used to living on my own or with a single apprentice. Even when I trained princes, I never stayed in the castle. Being trapped alone in a crystal cave for more than a hundred years can make anyone antisocial.”
“I guess we should discuss what we’re going to do after we defeat Baltezore and my mother. The others are going to leave, but do you want to find a cabin to live in instead of staying here?”
“And separate you from your library? How heartless I would have to be. We can decide on that when the time comes.”
The door burst open and Mason ran in. “Koufax just arrived without my family. He said that they set up a transportation portal, but he was the only one who made it through.”
“Is he upset that my father’s here?”
“No, he respects the Rynorm family a lot. What do we do about my family? I even tried to contact my sisters. I can’t lose them, Ayden.”
“I know. Have you tried the mirror?”
“Do you think I would be in here if I hadn’t tried that already?!”
Thaddeus came in holding a dead, bleeding mouse by its tail. “I’ve got what we need to find your twin,” he said, calmly.
“I’ll ask my father what he knows about this,” I volunteered.
Thad scoffed. “Good luck getting any answers out of him.”
They both left. Merlin and I found my father on the field, where he was scrubbing Harðtǫnn with a sponge. He dropped the sponge into a bucket of water at his feet and turned to us. “You want to know if your mother took the Minof family.”
“Yes. I take it you’re not going to tell me.”
“She did. She had to separate them to weaken their defenses, though. Now they’re all together, along with Sven’s wife.”
“Great. Where?”
“You will know soon enough. You learned that your dragon’s eye has a useful power. Now, you need to face the dragon without your magic.” He made a motion with his hand and my staff disappeared.
“What?” I screeched. “I can’t fight a dragon with magic let alone without magic!”
“Then you had best die here and save me the shame. It will give me a chance to settle on another world before Caldaca is destroyed.”
“What did you do with my staff?”
“If you want it back, you must fight Harðtǫnn. And Merlin, I know you have been teaching him to do magic without a staff or wand. That isn’t allowed this time, either.”
“You’re asking the impossible.”
“Life will sometimes ask the impossible of you. Deal with it.”
“Your father is harsher than Caedmon,” Merlin said.
“I think that’s normal for sorcerers.”
“Stop chatting and get to work,” my father demanded.
“If you cannot use magic, you can still use mundane weapons,” Merlin suggested.
I wanted to use my wand, but I had no doubt my father would take that away as well if I did.
The dragon blew fire. We dodged it and took off for the castle. Unfortunately, there were no trees or boulders to use as shelter. We made it inside the castle and ran to Gideon’s room, where we found him polishing a set of knives. “I need a sword that can defeat a dragon,” I said, gasping for air.
“And a shield,” Merlin reminded me.
“A shield, too.”
“Why do you need---” He was cut off by the sound of Harðtǫnn roaring.
“No time to explain. The dragon will probably burn the castle down if we don’t get out there soon.”
He opened the armoire and retrieved a sword and shield. “This is my favorite sword, so I’ll never forgive you if you break it, but it is the only one I have that can pierce a dragon’s scales.”
“Thank you. I’ll try as hard as I can not to damage it.”
He didn’t hand it over. “Don’t ‘try’. Try means nothing to a warrior. Failures try. Warriors do. If you want to wield a warrior’s sword, you have to uphold
the warriors’ code.”
“I suspect there is an easier way to get that point across. A proverb, perhaps, that the guild can live by,” Merlin said.
“Merlin, I don’t think we have time for proverbs.” To Gideon, I said, “I won’t damage your sword, or if I do, I’ll die, so you won’t be able to yell at me anyway.”
“Good.” He handed the sword and shield to me. The sword had a black leather hilt with silver and gold decorative engravings.
The room shook. “I guess that means it’s time to get back to the fight.” I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want the dragon to destroy the castle, either. As soon as we made it through the back door, the dragon landed in front of us. I crouched down beside Merlin and held the shield over us both. Instead of blowing fire, the dragon struck us with his tail. We both went flying.
“You have to anticipate your opponent’s attack,” my father said.
“I think you want me dead!” I accused, trying to breathe through the pain in my battered body. I rolled before the dragon’s tail could crush me.
My father laughed. “If I did, you would be already. You obviously don’t understand the severity of your situation. Maybe this will help.” He suddenly had his wand out and from it, black and red magic spilled, forming a massive black cobra. “Kill him.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop relying on your magic and be a sorcerer.”
“Sorcery is magic!”
“But you are more than magic. You were given more power than your siblings, your mother, or even me. It doesn’t matter what kind of magic it is or how you use it. You rely on it too heavily, and so if you ever lose it, you will be helpless as a kitten. You have to be strong, brave, and clever. Be a sorcerer.”
“I’m not a sorcerer, I’m a Sjau!”
“That’s your source of magic, not who you are.”
The snake struck at that point and I barely blocked with my shield. I figured my father was just trying to confuse me. Being a Sjau was better than being a sorcerer. I could help my friends and defeat my enemies. It had everything to do with magic, though. Without magic, there was no way I could fight a dragon, let alone a dragon and my father’s cobra.
