They ran along the rocky cliffs. When they stepped over a mound of ice, Celeste’s dagger winked out.
The ice beneath them crumbled.
“Look out.” Landon pushed Mirhana to the edge of the ice, but it, too, cracked and groaned. They tumbled through the earth into a cavern.
His body hit the ground. Mirhana landed on top of him, her elbow lodged into his side underneath his ribs. He gave a huff, and Mirhana whispered an apology.
Magic was here. The energy tingled along her skin. They detangled themselves and scrambled up.
Before them, the Warloc glowered. The other side of the cavern wall showed through his phantom body. In each direction stood a pillar carved of marble. Four pillars held up the cave ceiling. Words she had never seen before etched from top to bottom on them.
A woman dressed in white with dark hair and eyes was to his right. Her stare matched the Warloc’s in intensity.
“Damn witch,” she seethed. This must be the Sorceress.
She felt the power pulsing from her, from both. They weren’t ready. The prophecies did not explain how to stop them. Landon unsheathed his sword. They would not go down without a fight.
“Are you ready as the key and sacrifice?” the Warloc hissed to Celeste.
“Fate has chosen my path,” Celeste said. “No matter the consequences I’ll never allow you to return to the land of the living.”
His laughter roared in their ears. “Then let us begin.”
“What’s he talking about, the sacrifice?” Brock asked.
Mirhana saw the anguish on his face. They had thought that the sacrifice had been her, when she was taken from her twin and given to the witches. All of the Elvin, except Nivel, thought her killed as a babe.
“There’s no time to explain.” Celeste’s eyes flicked in his direction, then back to the Warloc.
“Ah, but I’ve all night if you wish.” The Warloc grinned, but his smile didn’t relieve her. “So she and Nivel did not tell the rest of you? Prophecy demands a dual sacrifice; one will be that ancient elf, Nivel, who the damn witches linked with me so that his life would only end when mine did, fully.”
The thought of Nivel dying made Mirhana want to rip the Warloc’s jaw off. That would end his smile. What would she do without the constant Nivel, her ancestor, her mentor in her life?
“The second part of the prophecy demands the sacrifice of a mortal.” He glanced around the cavern. “And besides my protégé, your dear witch is the only mortal here.”
“Lies. I’ve read the prophecies myself, they do not speak of such.” Or did they? Mirhana racked her memory, but prophecies were vague.
“Really? And you read all of them?” He mocked her with his tone. “Even the golden tablets which Nivel buried? If you don’t believe me, ask him. He arrived here days ago—though I must say there’s not much left of him now. I will be free from my chains of him. He will no longer be the key to my prison.”
With a wave of his arm, a yellowed fog rose from the ground around them. The scent of decomposing flesh filled the air.
Corpses rose from the ground, among them Nivel. His robes hung on him as if he were a skeleton covered with skin. Even his white hair did not soften the age she now saw on his face. Deep wrinkles lined his mouth and green eyes. If the Warloc had not said that Nivel must die, she’d have thought him a corpse like the others. But she saw his pulse thumping against the side of his neck.
“Then Nivel always liked secrets.”
“Tell me he lies,” Mirhana whispered. When he didn’t answer her, she notched an arrow. “Release him. These arrows are coated in poison for the undead.”
The Warloc waved his hand and the corpses scuttled back like beetles.
“He speaks the truth.” Nivel’s lips were cracked and bleeding. “I knew you’d drag your feet if you knew it all.”
Chapter Forty-four
The cavern spun around Mirhana as she realized the truth. Brock’s shout broke the silence as he leapt forward as though to tear the Warloc apart.
His body froze in midair as Celeste’s magic touched him.
“This is hard enough.” Celeste had sorrow in her voice. “Please do not make it more so.”
“Surely you guessed this was to be.” The Warloc swept closer to him. “All prophecies speak of the sacrifice—you knew it was her. Why did you think we tried to kill her so often?
“And yet, we did not bother so much with you. When we could not kill her, the Drow Queen, under persuasion, sought to flaw her magic. If Celeste killed a living person, then she’d become the vital piece to my rebirth instead of my prison. Yet, because of Celeste sacrificing a piece of herself so the barren queen could have a child, the Drow refused to harm her and thus became my enemy.” His finger pressed through the red glow of Celeste’s magic as if moving aside a curtain. “Here, the magic of this place gives me the advantage to destroy you all.”
“No!” Mirhana’s arrow whizzed past his ear. She aimed it at his weakest point.
Instead of striking the Warloc, it struck her goal, his protégé, wounding her in the arm. The Warloc’s scream made the dead scream in echo.
In a flash, the Warloc’s hands were around Mirhana’s throat. Apparently, he was not as much phantom as she previously thought.
He held her dangling in the air as she struggled to breathe. “And you, dragon. Unconcerned about your arranged marriage and newly recovered father. Here is your bride,” he gestured to his protégé, “Kavith.”
“No!” Landon’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“I forgive your lust of this … thing.” She lifted her chin towards Mirhana. “But after we marry, you will never see her again. You must remain faithful to me alone!”
“Shall we have the ceremony here?” The Warloc winked at his protégé. “After all, I persuaded your father of this marriage. He knew exactly who and what I was, but he wanted the easy road for his kingdom.
“Did you know that his ailment was from your mother? Before she died, she discovered the truth of this treaty and sought to stop him. Your father mortally wounded her, but not before she cast a powerful dragon spell that it’s taken me until now to break. Don’t worry, I will honor our arrangement and marry you to Kavith myself. Then the undead feasting upon your kingdom will cease. I’ll even let you devour this one as your wedding feast.” He squeezed Mirhana’s throat tighter.
Behind her, Landon roared but crashed into a wall of corpses that clung to him. “So that’s how the marriage was to solve the deadwalkers in my kingdom,” he seethed, “because you controlled them. I will not be a part of this. Consider the arrangement of me marrying Kavith broken.”
“You don’t have a choice! I’ll feed your lover to them. And because she died here, her ghost will continue to be devoured every night.” Kavith’s pale skin colored in rage.
The Warloc’s fingers clenched harder and Mirhana kicked him in the gut, but met air.
Landon clawed his way forward. The corpses piled on top of him, until only one of his hands shone out from amongst the others’ rotted ones. As she watched, the skin on his hand darkened, and then grew; black scales and gleaming claws emerged.
He shrugged off the corpses as if they were gnats. “Let her go.”
The Sorceress removed the poisoned arrow from her arm. Her flesh around the wound colored into a greenish hue. “She is nothing to us and soon will be nothing to you.”
“The beast within you longs to break free.” The Warloc’s words drifted into a chant. “You yearn to taste blood and flesh upon your dragon tongue.”
Landon growled, and then shook his dragonhead as if the words rolled around in his mind.
“If you join me, then you may eat her.” He dangled Mirhana’s body before him. She clawed at his hand, but his grip did not lessen.
Celeste’s magic still held Brock.
“There’s nothing stronger than a dragon’s hunger.” The Warloc smirked at Brock. “Not even your gift.”
Landon’s scaled bo
dy lunged forward. His wings covered Mirhana and the Warloc. She smelled blood everywhere.
“Take your magic off!” Brock screamed.
Blood sprayed through the air. Mirhana heard the sound of ripping flesh and breaking bone. She tasted the spicy copper taste of blood. Yet, she felt no pain. Perhaps it was best this way.
She wanted to turn back time. Find a way to defeat the Warloc without having Landon lose his humanity. She wondered why she did not feel pain and opened her eyes.
Landon in his dragon form cradled her against his chest with one wing. With the other and his tail, he slashed through the undead.
“How is this possible?” she asked. “I tasted blood.”
Nivel whispered, “Love saved you. He used his own blood to heal you. And maim many of the undead.”
“Enough of this. Time for death.” The Warloc swept his arms up. Corpses dragged their twisted bodies forward.
“Now!” Nivel yelled. “Let me face him alone, each of you stand before a pillar.” An emerald glow surrounded Nivel.
The Warloc and Kavith sucked the light and air from the cave.
Darkness tunneled and slammed into Nivel’s magic. “Go now. They consume all magic to use against me. The pillars will prevent him from taking it away from you and strengthening himself.”
Mirhana trudged to reach the nearest pillar. She did not want to be apart from Landon, but if this was the only way to free them and others from the Warloc’s tyranny, then she would do so.
In the ground, hands reached through and gripped her about her ankles. Hundreds of corpses slowed her path.
To her left, Celeste’s magic protected her from the corpses.
On her right, Landon, still in dragon form, swept aside the dead with his tail. He trudged forward as though moving through thick water.
Beyond him, Brock used his sword to make his way to the farthest pillar.
“I’ll destroy you this time.” The Warloc threw his hands forward and black tar bubbled up from the ground. “Aye, I see the terror in your face, Nivel. This is the roc’kman, your pawn from the labyrinth. Here, he’ll have his revenge for you imprisoning him.”
Mirhana could not look away from the bubbling ground between them.
Brock and Celeste had fought this creature in the tree cave before they arrived in Vicsburg. Rotted vines entwined the creature’s body. His boulder arms swung toward Nivel.
“How is this possible? I destroyed it.” Brock shook his head.
Even with a burst of magic from Nivel, the creature did not slow.
“This is the land of the undead. All who have died are here.”
“I’m the one you want.” Celeste marched forward. “It’s I who helped bring your death.”
“Aye. And I’ll have you too.” The rock creature’s voice sounded like he chewed granite.
As his hand swung down to crush Nivel, Celeste blocked him with her athame.
“Your magic nags at me like a bitefly.”
Before the scream was out of Mirhana’s throat, she saw Celeste’s magic twist apart. Then a flash of sapphire.
The creature stumbled back as his body crumbled, and beneath him, Celeste.
“No!” Brock’s legs moved forward when Nivel’s power slammed him back to the pillar.
“Do not leave until I say.”
“Celeste!” he shouted out her name.
Mirhana slid forward away from the pillar. As soon as her flesh no longer connected with the stone, the corpses sprung on her. Celeste! It couldn’t be.
“Join with me.” The Warloc told Landon. “Rule with me. You may keep your beloved alive as your mistress if that is your wish. Or she will die. One scratch, one bite on my word and she will be like them.”
As if sensing a weakness, the corpses fled from the others. They added their numbers to the throng clamoring over Mirhana.
“Come to me and all your fears will vanish. I can even bring back your mother.”
“Landon, no!” Mirhana used her sword to hack at the corpses. “It’s a trick.”
“Soon even her Elvin magic will not stop them. Death already fills your snout as witness to the truth I speak.” Tentacles of coiling black smoke crawled forward between the Warloc and Nivel. “Submit to me, and I will spare you and the girl.”
As if in a trance, Landon’s wings folded and he let the smoke curl around him.
“Don’t listen to him.” Mirhana lopped off the head of one of the undead creatures. “All he speaks is lies. I love you. Don’t become like him—everything you hate.”
“Submit, and all you desire will be yours.”
From the Warloc’s words, Landon fell forward as though some invisible force bent him.
Beside the Warloc, his protégé added her magic to his. The greenish hue from Mirhana’s poison now spread up her arm and along her neck.
“Your mother alive, your love by your side.” His words were melodic almost as if he sang them. “Even your people will rejoice and live in peace.”
Landon’s scaled legs brought him closer.
“You can’t fight us. No dragon has ever been strong enough to resist me. You are the Ladon, the ancient word for dragon, and must do my bidding as did your ancestors.”
A roar tore through the air. Mirhana’s ears rang from the sound even after Landon changed his roar to words. “I call upon dragon magic. Past and present. Give to me your strength Ad’yra along with the others to avenge our ancestors, our brothers’ death.”
Mirhana thought she saw colors float through the walls as if rainbows lit his dragon scales.
In a blur, he leapt towards the Warloc with fangs and claws. The undead crawling over her, fled. Their screams rose until Mirhana collapsed with her fists over her ears to block out the sound.
Landon breathed out dragonfire and all the undead spirits were incinerated, but it was too powerful to reduce the ones nearest to Mirhana and he couldn’t risk hurting her. Still, the others, as though fearing the loss of their existence, scuttled away from her. Mirhana rose with her sword in her hand.
Brock, still stuck by Nivel’s magic to a pillar, screamed in rage. The more he struggled to be free from the pillar, the more tangles he created, binding him to the marble.
Finally, it was quiet. Brock was released and he snatched his sword. Nivel blocked his path to Celeste.
“Let me pass. I must see her.” His rage betrayed his voice. “Bad enough you used her and me.”
“The sacrifice was made—only not in the way you believe. I-I didn’t realize it myself until I came here. I’d thought it was me.”
He pushed past him. At the rock creature’s body, he and Mirhana dug through the debris until they found a body.
Then gently he lifted her into his arms. His power slipped forward as the body was barely alive. And not Celeste.
“For you, do I do this,” Jeslyn whispered.
He gasped, but apparently could not move his arms from her as his power emptied her.
“I could not bear to see disdain from you and Landon.” The blood seeped from her eyes and nose. She choked back a sob. “Perhaps now I will be free of the struggle of which of you to love? And you will forgive me?”
Landon, returned to human form, crouched beside them. With gentleness, he kissed her forehead. His nakedness did not appear to concern him as he watched Jeslyn die.
When her kajh was gone, Brock laid her down.
Then Mirhana realized Celeste was not beneath the rocks. “Where is Celeste?”
“There.” Nivel pointed to her pillar. “She never left the safety of her pillar as I made her promise through telepathy.”
“I saw her here,” Mirhana said.
“An illusion I created to help the sacrifice do what was necessary.”
“You used Jeslyn.” Landon’s fists held Nivel up by his robes.
“Prophecy must be fulfilled.”
“Damn the prophecies.” Mirhana wanted to punch Nivel. Though, he seemed frail enough that if she did so she would
probably injure him more than she wanted.
“No. Ultimately, the choice was hers. Jeslyn chose to follow you here, and she gave her life for another. The crucial sacrifice was that a mortal lay down her life for the rest of us, in contrast with her nature as an assassin.”
“I thought the sacrifice and the key was Celeste.” Mirhana glanced down at the Warloc whose spirit faded away. Kavith beside him was also dead, but when Mirhana glanced at her from the corner of her eye, she swore her eyes moved beneath her lids for an instant.
To cover his nakedness Landon stole a pair of trousers from one of the corpses.
“Celeste is now the key and part of the sacrifice.”
“How can she be both?” Mirhana cleaned her sword.
“Because she has given up her mortality.”
Mirhana stared at him, and then back to Celeste. She appeared no different.
“From this day forth, only she can release the Warloc back to the land of the living. Moreover, as this key, she is now immortal. For as long as she lives, the Warloc will remain dead, even his spirit.”
Chapter Forty-five
“So we are finished, then?” Mirhana asked even though she dreaded the answer. “Neither the Warloc nor his protégé Kavith will threaten us again?”
“There are other concerns now besides this prophecy.” Nivel answered.
“Such as?” Landon slipped an arm around Mirhana’s waist. The other hand clutched his tattered trousers to keep them from falling down.
“How do we get out of this place of the dead? For no ships sail these waters. We are too far out for dragons to fly. And even though we’ve won here now, there will always be others who come to destroy life.”
“Damn the prophecies. When will we live in peace?” Mirhana felt Landon tighten his grip around her. Yet, she could not shake the feeling of unease.
“Peace is worth fighting for. According to the ties, I should be dead, but I’m not. Do not concern yourselves with prophecy at this hour. Now is the time for celebration.”
“What are you not telling us?” Brock frowned.
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