Sword of Fire (Through the Ashes Book 1)

by J. A. Culican

  "So, okay, that's funny. Now, how about a serious answer? This is a serious problem." Jaekob wrinkled his nose.

  "I am being serious. No Pures can get in there except dragons, and none of your people have any reason or desire to go back down there any time soon. I know you all have reinforced the Wards in Safeholme even more than you have in Philadelphia, right?"

  Jaekob shook his head and sighed. "Yeah, they have no desire to go down there. Neither do I. Can't we just drop it in a volcano? This thing can't be trusted."

  "What if we do end up needing it to save the world? You should hide it, not destroy it. And as I said, that's not a guaranteed solution." Bells stared into his eyes, willing him to go with her Warrens idea.

  "Then can't we just bury it in the middle of the Sahara desert?" Jaekob made a fist with one hand and then rested his head on it, drumming his fingers on his leg with the other hand.

  Bells fought back a burst of laughter and he frowned at her. She said, "I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you."

  "Just my idea?" He smiled wanly.

  "Yes. This thing is so powerful that anyone scrying for it will find it unless it's behind your Wards. Few know about it anyway, but at least the six people we heard it from do, and Creation only knows who else. At least one other group, the Sword Society's enemies. They mentioned them in passing."

  He leaped up from his seat and clapped his hands together. "Right. Okay, then, it's the Warrens. Let's get moving."

  "Right now?" Bells climbed to her feet, as well.

  "This sword doesn't like me. Maybe it's because I have no interest in using it to dominate people. Since it doesn't want to be very useful to me, it's not going to help us stop the people behind this infection and it's far too dangerous to leave alone for even a moment."

  That was an understatement. "Fine, let's go. I know this thing could solve the big problem but it might cause another one just as bad. The faster we get it hidden, the faster we can get back to fighting the infection." She respected him for not wanting to dominate others but it was frustrating to have the solution in their hands and not use it.

  Jaekob looked at her intently. After a moment, he smiled and said, "I'm sorry, I just can't take people's will away, enslaving them. I'll never be a slave master, I swear it on my honor. It's unfortunate that it makes saving the world harder, but there must be another way. A better way."

  She nodded, forcing a smile as she realized he wanted to be reassured that he was making the right choice. The only problem was that she wasn't sure of it at all. And yet, if he had rushed to dominate everyone in his path, she'd have lost all respect for him. Not that the opinion of a fae mattered to any Pures, especially not to dragons. "Off we go, then. Can't fly out. Are we driving?"

  Jaekob's eyes went wide. "No way. It would draw far too much attention. We want to be ignored, not remembered. We'll have to ride out to the Warrens entrance by your village, if I remember right."

  "I don't know how to ride," Bells cried. Embarrassed, she added, "The elves never let us." When did slaves get to ride horses, after all?

  They couldn't fly, couldn't drive, couldn't ride. They would just have to walk. She'd done it before, when she came to the city in the first place.

  Jaekob saw her expression and laughed, pointing at her. Gasping for breath, he said, "Sorry. You should see your expression. I guess you're in for a treat, then, because there's no choice. We have to ride. If you can't do it, then you can sit on my horse in front of me where I can make sure you don't fall off. I'll bring an extra horse for when you get more comfortable on them."

  "If I never get comfortable on one? Those things are huge compared to me." At only five feet tall, fae were miniscule beside those monstrous beasts.

  Jaekob smirked. "Then the extra horse will be for when the first one who gets tired of carrying all that extra weight."

  She felt a flash of fire in her gut, hot anger rising. First, he didn't want to fight to free fellow Pures who were virtual slaves, and now, he didn't want to walk. His high-and-mighty feet must be too tender for—gasp!—walking. And he was a jerk for commenting on her weight. She looked down, frowning. She'd never seen herself as being overweight, before. She thought of herself as pleasantly curvy. Fae worked hard to survive, after all, so they were fit. But now, she wondered if she'd been deluded. Maybe it was all the barley fae ate...

  Well, fine. If he was going to be like that, while she might have to go with him to save both worlds, she didn't have to talk to a rude dragon. Part of her knew her silence wouldn't last long, as fae simply did not ignore other Pures, but the idea of it felt absolutely great at the moment.

  She followed him toward the stables, silent and lost in her own thoughts.

  The exciting rush from her first time riding a horse wore off quickly; her quickened heartbeat lasted much longer, but then again, she had Jaekob's strong arms around her to hold her up in the saddle. He was rude and selfish, which wasn't surprising from the heir to the First Councilor, but he was as attractive as he probably knew he was. She felt a twinge of guilt at enjoying the experience. It wasn't every day that a fae had a Dragon Prince's arms around her.

  Behind them stretched two werewolf packs running in parallel rows. Jaekob had told them to get behind him and they’d gladly obeyed. It was comforting to know she had a virtual army of weres at her back, even if they were only there because of something truly horrible. Maybe they'd leave of their own free will after she and Jaekob hid the sword. She hoped so.

  A giant insect buzzed past her face, so fast that it was just a blur. Her gaze naturally followed it and she saw the thing strike dirt, then skip twice before stopping, embedded in a soft pine tree. That was no insect. It was an arrow—

  "Ambush!" Jaekob cried at the same time she saw it. From the ridges along both sides of the road, elves and trolls leaped toward them, sliding down the embankments with their weapons drawn. It was no welcoming party.

  Jaekob dismounted, taking Bells with him and not gently. They were just in time to get off the horse before it reared and then bolted away. As she climbed to her feet, pulling out a knife, the two werewolf packs caught up and rushed the oncoming attackers, howling furiously. Only a second later, she heard a troll scream and a wolf howled in agony.

  Then everything went crazy. Blood and chaos—that was the only way she could have described it. Dozens of elves and trolls rushed down the embankments, their downhill momentum allowing them to crash into the werewolves and knock them aside. They kept right on coming toward her and Jaekob. While the werewolves killed some elves and trolls, they weren't killing fast enough to make it worth the losses they, too, sustained. She and Jaekob's followers were too outnumbered.

  Jaekob used his arm as a bar across her chest and pushed her behind him as he drew the Sword of Fire. The runes pulsed once, then lit up as brightly as the sun; she could hardly look at it. Bells instinctively used Jaekob's shadow, cast by the sword's light, to vanish into her shadow-walk, a fae's best hope of survival.

  Unaware that she had vanished, Jaekob raised the sword above his head and the battle slowed as people on both sides turned, mesmerized by the sword and its lights.

  Bells once again thought he looked every bit the mythological hero from old stories...

  His military-trained voice rose above the screams and clanks of weapons striking claws, fangs rending helmets, as he cried out. "Hold! You dare raise a blade against the heir to the First Councilor, lord of dragons? I command you," he shouted, and the sword runes flared brighter, "if you want to live to see your families, then put down your—"

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Three arrows impaled Jaekob at the same moment, two in his back and one in his chest. He jerked hard as each one struck and the ancient sword flew from his hand when the last arrow pierced his heart. Then he fell to one side like a tree toppling, landing in the dirt with a thud.

  Bells grabbed her own face with both hands and screamed in horror as Jaekob stopped and looked down at the arrow sticking out of his chest. H
e looked confused, but she was confused, too. How could simple arrows punch through his dragon scales? She had seen him take far worse blows and simply shrug them off, so this couldn't be happening. It wasn't possible.

  Her stomach flipped as she realized he hadn't actually seen the arrows coming. Was that important? She had no way of knowing. They could have been enchanted arrows, it dawned on her, and if they were, then it meant this was an assassination attempt, not some random banditry in the middle of a chaotic situation in the city.

  With her shadow gone, Bells vaulted away, back-flipping to the sword. It had to be kept safe. As she flipped, she caught tumbling glimpses of two elves sprinting toward her, and her fear made her move even faster.

  There, the sword! As she landed on her hands, she snatched it up. She was stunned when the sword's grip felt warm and sent tingles through her hand. As she brought her feet up over her head, not slowing down, she again looked for the oncoming elves. One stood only two feet from her and was already swinging a heavy mace. Frantic, Bells used her energy to thicken the air between them, but the mace was faster. Her spell only slowed it down a fraction before it was through her feeble shield.

  The mace struck her in her gut and pain rocketed through her whole body. Agony pierced her ribs, as well, and she knew immediately that at least a couple ribs had broken. The force lifted her off the ground and sent her flying in one direction, the dislodged sword in another.

  She landed in a building’s shadow and used her ability even before her slide came to a halt. She rolled away from where she landed as the elf smashed his mace into the ground she'd just been lying on. She froze, covering her mouth and trying not to breathe loudly from pain and exertion. Her only hope was to go unnoticed.

  The elf swung his mace to his left and his right, one missing her by inches, the other by feet. He snarled a curse, then backed away from the shadow. He got a few paces safely away from the shadow he knew must be hiding a fae, then he bolted toward the sword and snatched it up.

  When he held it over his head, face twisted into a triumphant snarl, the fighting stopped in seconds—the elves and Jaekob's werewolf packs both halting mid-swing to turn to the elf bearing the sword.

  Oh no...

  The Sword of Fire worked for him, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. If she revealed herself, could she end up its slave? It seemed likely. Her gaze landed on Jaekob lying bloody in the mud and her eyes welled up with tears. She suddenly didn't care at all about his occasional selfishness or that he was the only hope for the fae to be free. In a moment of crystal clear honesty, she realized she just wanted him beside her, alive and well. She was helpless to go to him, though.

  The elf wielding the ancient sword shouted, "All who stand with us, rally to me!" The remaining elves, trolls, and even the werewolves all circled him, pressing close and reaching out to touch him. His mouth moved, but he spoke in a low tone and Bells couldn't hear what he said.

  It turned out to be a spell. A moment later, violet-colored tendrils of smoke rose up around the group like a hundred writhing snakes, and when the people were wrapped completely in tendrils, they burst into a flash of light with a loud pop. When the light vanished, so had their enemies. The lavender tentacles writhed their way back into the dirt and disappeared.

  Bells ran to Jaekob's body, crying out for help, but there was no one around to hear.

  All thoughts for her own safety vanished and she sprinted to Jaekob's side. His aura was weak but it was still there—he was alive, though not for long. She paused, her stomach churning, and her options flashed through her mind in a blur. She could run for help but he'd likely be dead before she found anyone.

  She could run home and hide, but whoever had that sword wasn't going to keep it in a vault. They were going to use it and her village would probably be one of the first to fall, being close to the city. Plus, the very idea of leaving Jaekob there to die while she ran made her bile rise in her throat. She could never live with herself.

  All that remained were her fae powers. But this wasn't like a bruise or small cut. When a fae healed someone, a part of her power went into the other person and they became connected. For a small cut, the difference would never even be noticed, but to save someone's life was a profound choice with real consequences. Fae rarely healed fatal wounds unless the victim was in their immediate family, and sometimes not even then.

  She thought through the consequences. If she tried to save him and it worked, they would be joined together, connected by their auras touching. It meant they'd be able to tell each other's moods instinctively, no matter the distance, almost like having someone in her head. If one were wounded, a fraction of the energy they lost would also be lost by the other, like a sudden flu.

  Also, he might pick up traits from her, like being more timid, less ruthless, less brave. The opposite was also true. Could she live with that? Could Jaekob? Or, because they weren't the same Pure race, it was possible there would be no shifting traits. There was no way to tell, and in all the legends she’d heard around the hearth growing up, she had never heard of a fae saving a dragon.

  She didn't want him knowing how she felt about him, especially when she wasn't even sure how she felt, in fact. But she didn't want him to die, that was the only certain thing. Not only was Jaekob the only one who could or would help get the sword back, but some part of her cared about his fate more than she wanted to admit.

  "The sword," she muttered at last. Maybe it was an excuse, but it was a real one. She needed Jaekob to save the world. She began to hum a melody that sounded like an evening forest, a babbling brook; it was as though birds were chirping and the sky was rumbling with a spring thunderstorm at the same time. Some called it a spell, but she didn't believe the fae used magic. No, they used the web of connections that joined everything in the world to every other thing just by bending the threads and weaving something new.

  As she hummed, she felt Jaekob's wounds closing around the arrowheads and shafts. She also soothed his aura, unbending it and shifting it from an almost neon red to a gentle pastel blue, sending him into a deep sleep to spare him the pain of what she had to do.

  When the internal bleeding stopped, it was time for the brutal part. Still humming, she grabbed one arrow shaft firmly and pulled it out with a strong and steady pressure. The wide heads caused fresh wounds on their way out, but nothing like if she had yanked them out before giving him a lot of healing.

  When she withdrew the third and final arrow, she laid her hands over the wound on his chest and her energy flooded into him. There was so much damage, it shocked her that he had survived long enough for her to get to him. One lung was punctured and both were nearly full of blood. A gash ran through his liver, oozing black gore into his body. And the last arrow she removed had struck one kidney, dead-center. She could feel the toxins leaking into his bloodstream.

  She had to grit her teeth as she hummed, and her whole body shook with the effort. He was healing, but slowly—there was so much damage!—and the longer she kept at it, the more a growing faintness threatened to overtake her. But she would not stop, not while she had a sliver of hope to save his life and with him, the world. Her family was in that world.

  At last, the bleeding stopped and the toxins were neutralized; his skin began to knit together where the arrows had cut through twice. She shook, starting to convulse, and her vision faded at the edges. And yet Jaekob still hadn't woken up. She rallied the last of her strength. She had never used so much energy so quickly. She hadn’t even known she was capable of it. Wake up, Jaekob, she screamed at him in her mind, though her chanting didn't waver. The world needs you. I... need you.

  Just as her eyes began to roll back into her head, her vision nearly all black, Jaekob coughed. She collapsed to the ground next to him, utterly spent. He coughed again, much harder, and turned his head away from her to spit out a big gob of blood, then another.

  Bells could only watch him, knowing he would almost certainly live. His aura was strong a
gain, though hers was so weak it flickered. He rolled onto his belly and struggled to his hands and knees, then had to rest, sitting on his heels as he gasped to catch his breath again.

  He looked over at her and did a double-take. His eyes grew wide and began to glow red. "Are you okay? Who did this to you?" he asked, practically shouting.

  Good. His strength was returning. Bells smiled weakly and whispered, "I'm fine. I did it. Are you in pain?" If he were, she still had work to do on him, but it would have to wait until she recharged her energy with sleep.

  "No, I'm fine. Did you..." His voice trailed off. Then he shook his head. "It doesn't matter. We have to get out of here. Can you walk? Do you need to be carried?"

  Bells’ heart skipped a beat. No way she was going to let him think she was so weak that he had to carry her, although the idea of his arms lifting her up wasn't entirely without its charms. No, no—she was letting her imagination get in the way of reality. "Thank you, but I think I can walk. I just need a minute to rest." She yawned hard, her eyes scrunched tightly, and it felt like it went on forever.

  Then she blinked a few times. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then climbed to her feet. She was shaky still but that would go away. She hoped he hadn't noticed her shakiness, but his amused smile told her he had. She felt her cheeks growing warm. "Why do we have to get out of here? The attackers are gone and there's no one around. We're safe."

  He shook his head. "What? No, we're not. I don't know why you'd think that. I'm sorry to say, they aren't going to leave the prince's corpse lying on the street. They will definitely send someone back for my body. There is magic the elves could do against my father and my household if they had my body. Plus, I don't want to go with them. Do you?" He grinned.

  Bells felt her hands stop shaking at last and pulled them out from behind her back. "Okay, let's get out of here."