The Allyen (The Story of the First Archimage Book 1)

by Michaela Riley Karr

  A wave of pain shot through my leg through the numbing cold, and I couldn’t stop the scream escaping from my lips. Looking down, I saw that one of Duunzer’s razor sharp, midnight claws had pierced through the center of my upper thigh. Through bone. My chest heaved. I bit my lip to keep myself from crying, but there was no mistaking the crimson that began to leak from around the claw.

  “Nora was able to shoot the dragon on her first attempt.” Rhydin sneered at me. “Maybe you are not the Allyen I thought you were. After all, my Einanhi can only be destroyed if you strike the right target. Now, my dear, I have a locket to procure and an empire to raise out of these ashes.”

  Down underneath the bell tower, the Einanhi humanoid was giving Sam quite the run about. Sam thought he would be able to dispatch it quickly and join Lina in the tower, but Rhydin had prepared this magical being for more than simple, regular warfare.

  The lithe form was difficult to see in the dark and moved like no human Sam had ever battled. It could bend its spine and limbs in sickening ways to dodge his attacks. It wasn’t until the bells began to ring that Sam gained the advantage. When the Einanhi glanced up at the deafening noise, Sam aimed a deadly shot that sent the Einanhi flying backwards until it hit the tower wall, dissipating into nothing but sand.

  Sam gave a sigh of relief and was about to enter the tower door when he heard fluttering noises from behind him. He turned to see Rachel Owens coming down to the ground, the wings of her flying spell twisted horribly and hardly visible anymore due to the exposure to Rhydin’s magic. She held something her hand, but it wasn’t until she landed and limped closer that Sam was able to recognize it as the arrow. His eyes widened. Did Lina miss? Was she okay?

  Rachel’s eyes also went wide at the sight of him. “I thought you were going to stay with Lina?”

  “I was! But an Einanhi got in our way so I had to get rid of it!” Sam shouted, wondering why on earth Rachel would ever dare think he had ditched Lina on purpose. “Why do you have that arrow?”

  “Lina shot it, but she missed. She wasn’t aiming at the right part of the dragon. Luckily, it soared right past me so I grabbed it.” The red-haired woman said breathlessly, “I didn’t know the dragon wasn’t tangible. But when I was flying around, I saw the orb of magic inside its chest that’s keeping the whole thing together. You need to get up that tower and give her this so she can try again!”

  Sam nodded and was taking the arrow from Rachel when a piercing scream sounded, chilling Sam’s very blood. It was the scream of the woman he loved. Before Rachel could say a word, Sam grabbed the arrow and spun on his heel.

  He didn’t even bother trying the door to the tower. The stairs would take far too long. Instead, using the most magic he had ever used in his lifetime, Sam propelled himself up the side of the tower, jumping like a deer from the different landings or from the thin footholds in the tiny windows. He leaped as if he were weightless, scaling in only minutes the distance that had taken Lina twice as long on the stairs.

  When Sam was only one landing away from the top, a second yell broke the air and echoed around the courtyard. Sam raced the last leap, but what he found at the top of the tower gave him the rarest sense of absolute horror. Lina had been shoved against whatever was left of the tower wall, and one of Duunzer’s claws had gone straight through the middle of her leg. It had just been withdrawn, the source of the second scream, and Sam watched helplessly as Lina’s face grew deathly pale.

  I tried to breathe, but when Duunzer pulled out its claw to go with its master to find my locket, the pain grew even more excruciating. I didn’t dare look at the hole that had been gouged in my leg, and my head began to grow cloudy. I felt myself falling, unable to stop it. The wall gave way behind me, nothing to keep me from continuing on until I hit Lunaka’s soil. My sword dropped first, and I watched it flicker and flash to the grassy courtyard below with my hazy eyes.

  Suddenly, two long arms wrapped around my waist and lugged me back along the stone floor before I could fall. My head lolled around and stared blankly up at my rescuer. It was a very blurry Sam. I felt him unbuckle my belt and pull it tight on my leg above the wound. I could barely feel the squeeze through the pain, but it at least helped my vision to clear. I could see Sam’s face and the anxiety written upon it. I tried to talk and said, “Sam, we don’t have time for this. Rhydin is going after my locket!”

  He ignored me and pressed his hand firmly to my wound, sending waves of pain through me again. I gritted my teeth to keep quiet, but it was in vain. Out of nowhere, the pain died out, replaced only with numbness. Sam pulled me to my feet. “Better?”

  “Yeah, much.” I said confusedly, and looked down at my red soaked trouser leg still buckled with the belt. “What did you do?”

  “Rounan healing spell.” Sam said simply, but his eyes were still worried. “It’s not perfect though, so don’t push it! It’ll need more healing later.”

  I spun around, ready to go make my time count, but Sam caught my arm and thrust the very thing I was going to search for into my hands. I stared dumbly at the arrow, wondering if I was hallucinating. “Where did you get this? I shot it at Duunzer’s eye, and it sailed right through it!”

  “Rachel found it when it went through Duunzer. She told me you aimed at the wrong spot.” Sam gripped my arms to make sure I was listening. “She said she saw where you’re supposed to shoot it. I guess there’s an orb of magic, or something, inside its chest. That’s where you need to shoot the arrow.”

  I nodded, anxious to get going. “Let’s go then!”

  The two of us trailed out upon the castle wall, running as fast as possible with my bum leg while also dodging missing sections of stone that Duunzer had either knocked over or scorched to a crisp. Down below, I could see Rachel and her brothers on the ground, trying their best to give the dragon a hard time without the advantage of their wings. Frederick and Mira were nowhere to be seen, nor were Rhydin’s Followers. I hoped they were okay.

  As we rounded the corner, we leaped over yet another missing section of wall. My leg gave a throb, and I knew I didn’t have much battle time before it would give away again. We came to a stop when we reached the part of the parapet where Duunzer made its entrance. Even with magic, there was no way we were getting across this gaping mouth in the wall.

  Not able to get any closer, I began to scan Duunzer’s body almost a hundred feet away from us, especially its chest for this supposed orb. It didn’t take me long to find it now that I knew what to look for, and it was no wonder that I hadn’t found it the first time. With Duunzer’s body constantly shifting smoke and ash, it was hard to study it. Its body neatly covered up the red orb inside just as the clouds could cover up the sun.

  When the dragon began to slowly turn back towards us, I realized that Rhydin had discovered I had the locket again. There was no hiding the look of anger that contorted his young, timeless face.

  I shook out my fingers, trying to get feeling back into their cold hunks of flesh. As I did so, I couldn’t help a little jab as I raised the arrow in front of him. “Looking for this?”

  Rhydin shouted at us, his eyes like fire. “Give me that locket, Linaria! You will only miss again.”

  I ignored him and raised my bow, waiting to draw the arrow back until Duunzer was closer. I really couldn’t miss this time. The Owenses trailed after Duunzer on the ground, unable to get its attention off of me now, but that was okay. I needed Duunzer as close as possible. But how could I let it get close enough without me being crushed or burned again?

  My head started rolling, flipping through every possible scenario I could think of. This was going to take some creativity in order to get close enough to shoot and yet not be killed.

  “What are you thinking?” Sam said to me without taking his eyes off of the approaching dragon.

  I took a deep breath, my eyes lining up the trajectories between my bow and Duunzer’s orb, about seventy-five feet away now. As I decided on what I wanted to do, I shook my head. Sam
wasn’t going to like this.

  Before I said anything, I backed up to the very edge of the wall, giving me six feet of ground to work with. I grabbed Sam’s hand and finally looked him in the eye. He was gauging me carefully, but I only saw the little boy in his eyes that I’d had a crush on for years. I tried to smile, even though my heart was beginning to beat faster and faster. My voice was quiet. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  Sam immediately became skeptical, his fingers tightening on my hand as he realized I was about to do something stupid. “Lina, what are you thinking?”

  “Promise you’ll catch me.”

  All I saw before I ran was Sam’s look of confusion, then disbelief, and then terror, all washing through him in succession. I didn’t stop. Duunzer was finally close enough. I sprinted that six feet and made it count the best I could before aiming one hand downward to launch myself off of that crumbling parapet.

  Time slowed. Fifty feet. I soared over the castle courtyard, my hand reaching to pull the arrow back to my mouth.

  Forty feet. Duunzer let out one last roar, Rhydin on top of its head watching me with his calculating, amethyst eyes.

  Thirty feet. Light began to draw toward the arrow once again, the glow strong enough that the smoke of Duunzer’s body tried to roll away from it.

  Once I was within twenty feet of Duunzer’s body, beginning to fall from my leap, my eyes easily latched onto the little red orb within its chest.

  I breathed in and let my Allyen arrow fly.

  Sam’s heart fell into the pit of his stomach as Lina’s hand fell through his like water, and he watched her fly off of the castle wall. His hands balled into fists, unsure of what to do as he followed her with his eyes helplessly.

  Duunzer opened its big jagged mouth and let out another deafening roar. As Sam noticed its throat begin to glow with fire, he reached out with his magic and snapped the dragon’s mouth shut. There was no way he was going to let that thing fry his girl.

  Lina timed it perfectly. When she released her arrow, Sam relished in the anger and shock that tumultuously warred over Rhydin’s face. The arrow hit home in that red orb, causing the Einanhi dragon to screech louder than ever before. The orb exploded into a ball of light, Allyen light, and sent streaks through Duunzer’s smoky body.

  Beam after beam shot from the tiny sun in its chest until Duunzer was shattered into a million pieces, the smoke and ash no longer visible as the red eyes faded into nothing. Duunzer disappeared. Sam couldn’t hear Rhydin from where he stood now, but after a few seconds, the sorcerer escaped into a cloud of purple smoke. He was foiled today, and Sam reveled in it.

  As the dragon ceased to exist, Sam remembered Lina’s words with a jolt and reached out with his hands. His Rounan magic stretched into transparent extensions. Just as he had been able to pick up Terran the night of the Winter Ball, Sam scooped up Lina, falling out of the sky, into his invisible magic hand.

  She turned and smiled at him, a huge, triumphant grin taking up her entire face. She trusted him, and he had come through. Sam’s heart swelled with pride and love. After a difficult, single year of training, his Lina had won against Duunzer!

  While Duunzer imploded with light magic, I couldn’t see much, being so close to it, yet joy rippled through me when I saw my ball of light shoot upward. Duunzer was gone, and now I watched the light fly up and shatter the barrier that the Lunakan Royals had created. Shining shards like glass fell from the sky, disappearing into stars of rainbow color before ever hitting the ground.

  The light became truly blinding as it encountered the Darkness outside, and the noise was deafening with rustling and blowing sounds. I peeked through my white eyelids to see the Darkness being blotted out of existence with more beams, just as Duunzer had.

  All at once, blue sky broke in from above, having always been there, only hidden. The castle became blanketed in the beautiful shine of our natural sun, reflecting off of the snow and sending us its warmth. The Darkness had turned everything to such a chill that my fingers began burning with the sudden heat. There was no wiping the smile off of my face at the gorgeous sight of my homeland in the light once more.

  I looked at Sam, and he was grinning at me as he slid precariously down the ruined parapet. He looked like he might float himself right off the ground, he was beaming so wildly. When he got closer to me, he began to lower me from where I still floated a decent twenty feet off of the ground.

  Sam reached out with his arms, ready to catch me with my bad leg that I had definitely pushed too hard. His hands were firm on my waist, and, when his magic ceased to cushion my descent, he spun me around happily and kissed me hard. Love tinged with a bit of anger was in his eyes as he got all up in my face. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

  I couldn’t stifle my giggle. “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

  “I would say so!”

  Sam gave me a slightly defeated look as I turned to the new voice. Walking down the lane were Frederick and Mira, flanked by the three Owenses, who had masked every sign that they had been a part of this battle. Rachel, Luke, and James looked simply exhausted, each with heavy shadows under their eyes from being around Rhydin’s magic too long. Frederick had several sword cuts decorating his skin, now visible through torn sleeves, while Mira’s hair was in disarray. A nice bruise embellished her face while her skirt was in shreds.

  “Congratulations, Lina.” Frederick beamed at me. “I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

  Mira and the Owenses echoed his sentiments, and Rachel walked forward to plop a familiar object into my hand. “You seem to keep losing this, don’t you?” She laughed.

  I looked down to see the warm metal of my locket, its face seeming newly cleaned after such powerful use. I pulled my chain from my pocket and looped it through, clasping my locket around my neck once more, as it was meant to be. I still felt happy, but I found that the smile on my face was beginning to droop.

  “What’s wrong?” Rachel asked, her red brow furrowed.

  “We didn’t get Rhydin, did we?” My shoulders fell, my own weariness beginning to make my limbs feel like lead.

  Luke grimaced, his eyes turning a brilliant shade of green. “No. You’re right, Rhydin got away.” – He walked over to me and took my scraped hand – “But the important thing is that you defeated Duunzer. For now, Nerahdis is out of danger. Rhydin will come back with a new plan, that much is certain. You are a full-fledged Allyen now, and the people know that you are on their side. I would say that is a huge victory.”

  The corners of my mouth tried to tug back into a smile, but my heart wasn’t quite as into it as before. Frederick put his arm around Mira’s shoulder and led her back toward the castle. King Adam was nowhere to be seen, but Queen Gloria stood at the threshold and embraced her children warmly.

  The three Owenses looped their lanky arms around each other, all around the same height. Rachel straightened James’ hair so his ears were covered, and then the three of them started marching out toward where the castle entrance had been enlarged by one dragon’s width.

  I turned to follow them, but I felt Sam’s hand hook onto mine, stopping me in my tracks. I looked at him expectantly, wondering what he wanted as the townspeople began to inch out of the castle into the daylight.

  “Lina, I…” Sam stuttered, seeming jumbled. He took a breath, sighing hard as he reached to take my hand with both of his. Whatever this was, it was definitely hard for him. “I nearly lost you today.”

  I sighed, “I know. I really am sorry. It just seemed to be the best plan that I could come up with.”

  Sam started waving his hand quickly, seeming embarrassed. “No, it’s not that. I understand why you did that. It was a good idea, even if it was dangerous.” He smiled.

  I quirked my eyebrow, becoming confused. “So, what’s your point then?”

  His eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He looked down, his thumb began to rub circles over the back of my hand. “My point… My
point is…” Sam suddenly stopped his nervous ticks and looked me straight in the eye. “My point is that I could have lost you. With Rhydin still out there, our lives could be turned upside again at any moment, and I want my life to be on the same up side or down side as yours, all the time.”

  I eyeballed him carefully. I didn’t allow myself to hope quite yet that he was going where I thought he was going.

  That didn’t remain long as Sam abruptly dropped his long leg so that his knee was soaking in the snow. He kept his eyes trained on mine as my other hand flew to my mouth. “Lina, I want to marry you. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember, and I don’t want to spend another minute away from you. Rhydin could come back anytime, but I don’t care. I want to spend every moment I can with you. Will you marry me?”

  I don’t remember my exact response anymore, but I can tell you with certainty that I dropped down and choked him in a bear hug faster than if someone had knocked my knees out from under me. He was my childhood friend, and I loved him with a love that trumped all others.

  Sam made a funny comment about how he was the first Rounan to marry a Gornish woman, but I didn’t care. Nothing could have made me happier than knowing that I would have him by my side for the rest of the chapters of my life, both the good ones and the inevitable bad ones when Rhydin returned with a new scheme.

  Duunzer was defeated, and Nerahdis was safe for the time being. I could be content with that for now. I knew in my bones that I would be ready when Rhydin returned. I had proven myself against Duunzer and had proved that I was just as qualified as Nora had been. Just as I would love Sam until my last breath, I would protect Nerahdis as well.

  After all, I was The Allyen.