Breath of Dragons (A Pandoran Novel)

by Barbara Kloss

  "How are they getting inside?" Sonya asked amidst the chaos outside.

  "The aqueducts," I replied, "but some of the guards are handling that now."

  "And the wall?" she asked.

  Alex and I looked to each other. The guards behind us shifted, and in my periphery I saw the women watching us, anxious for our answer.

  "It stands, but there are too many of them," Alex answered slowly.

  The women looked to each other, clutching their children more tightly.

  Sonya's features fell in dismay. "And the curse keeps breathing life into them."

  Alex nodded solemnly.

  Suddenly, everything around me narrowed into laser-sharp focus and I thought of only one thing: the curse.

  The curse had to be broken. It was our only chance at stopping them, because as long as the curse remained, they would keep rising and attacking.

  You must destroy it, said a voice in my mind.

  No, I couldn't. Not even Master Durus and Arioch Prime were able to destroy it.

  But you can, and you must.

  But I had no idea how! Where would I even start?

  I will show you. You must trust me.

  Besides, how would I even get out there, past all the hordes of kytharii?

  A light breeze slipped over my skin, even though I was inside and the doors to this room were closed. It was light as a whisper, and neither Sonya nor Alex had noticed, but with it came strength and a sense of purpose. With it came an overwhelming sense of determination, and I suddenly knew what to do.

  Gathering myself, I stood tall and addressed the guards. "I need you to stay here with the women and children." The guards nodded, and I felt Sonya's sudden curiosity. Alex stared at me as I faced the women and children next. "I'll send more men to stand guard beside you."

  They clutched their children, weeping and afraid.

  "Daria…?" Alex whispered softly, wary.

  "And you'll stay, Aegis Sonya?" I asked Sonya.

  "Of course," she said, though there was deep concern in her eyes when she said this. She knew something big was about to happen. Something she probably wouldn't like.

  Finally, I turned to Alex. I stared steadily into his eyes and placed my hand on his arm. "I need you to stay here with them."

  He searched my eyes, looking for what I wasn't saying. "I won't leave you—"

  I squeezed his arm. "You will, Aegis Del Conte. You must. These women and children are the future of Pendel, and they need to be protected more than anyone else. And those guards could use your sword."

  His lips tightened. I hated using titles to force him to stay, but I had no choice. He would not listen to me otherwise. Alex nodded sharply, clearly unhappy.

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  I forced a smile as an answer, and then I said, "I'll be back." I hoped.

  Alex struggled against whatever he felt, but as my Aegis, he couldn't defy me. Not openly. I felt Alex's eyes burning into my back as I exited the hall and ran through the doors. The rain had stopped. For a moment, I stood there, looking down at the city and feeling the wind claw through my hair.

  I will show you. Trust me.

  I hoped so, because the battle looked hopeless. Men moved along the wall fighting back the kytharii that were scrambling through the embrasures, while others shot balls of fire into the horde. We had been fighting all night, and there were more kytharii now than when they'd first attacked. Despite the despair I felt, seeing the sight before me strengthened my resolve. Wind slipped over my skin as I fled from the great hall, skipping down steps and pushing past guards, back up to the ramparts, right until I found the one person who could help me do this.

  "Why won't you die?!" Thad screamed angrily as he hacked at a kytharii bending over an embrasure. "Ah!" Thad kicked the kytharii in the face, and the force sent the kytharii flying back squealing.

  "Thaddeus!" I called over the guards.

  Thad looked up everywhere, searching for the sound, and when his eyes finally found me, he gave me a look that said, Can't you see I’m a little busy?

  "I need you!" I yelled.

  With an exaggerated grunt, he jogged to my side.

  "All right, Thad, you want to make up for what you've done?" I asked.

  He eyed me with sudden skepticism. "Well, that's a loaded question if I've ever heard one." Then he looked past me. "Where's Del Can't?" he asked as if that question were related to his skepticism.

  "I need to destroy Eris's curse, and I need your help to do it."

  "In case you've forgotten, both Master Durus and Arioch Prime couldn't figure out how to do that, so I'm not sure what you think you're—"

  I grabbed his shoulders, my eyes boring into his. "I have a plan, but you're not coming with me. I just want help getting through the wall."

  Thad stared wild-eyed at me a moment, then pulled at his hair. "Demons and hellhounds, Rook! I need you, she says. A chance to make up for my past sins. By letting you die?!"

  "Thad. Calm. Down."

  "Calm? Do you have any idea what Del Can't will do to me if he finds out I helped you go out there—" He pointed a furious finger toward "out there."

  I grabbed his finger and shoved it down. "Thaddeus, listen to me. We don't have time. We are all going to die if I don’t do something. There are a hundred thousand dead men out there, and more are crawling out of the hillside. They are finding their way into this city, Thad. I won't get another chance."

  Thad stared at me a long and desperate moment. "Does it have to be you?"

  "Yes."

  He pressed his palms to his face and said something I couldn't understand, and then grabbed my hand and pulled me after him and into a shadowy corner.

  "Okay," he said, glancing past me to make sure no one was listening. "I can get you to the sewers. You'll have to wait here while I distract the men. But Rook…how are you gonna get past all those kytharii? They'll smell you the second you step out of the sewage."

  "No, they won't," I said. "Watch." I spread my palms and shut my eyes, feeling the wind slide over me like a second skin. I could feel each and every inch of it, pressing against me, where it touched and where it moved. I was aware of it as it was aware of me, a malleable power that encased me like a protective shell, and when I opened my eyes, Thad gasped.

  "How…how are you doing that?" He reached out and touched me. "You're there…I can feel you, but I can't really see you. It's like you're some kind of mirage of yourself. You're all hazy and everything." He reached out and touched my hair, perplexed and completely bewildered.

  I lowered my palms and the slippery wind died, returning my image to a normal opacity. "I can use Cian to distort the air around me. He can't make me invisible, but this should be enough to hide me—especially in the dark—and he'll be able to dispel any scent."

  Thad's eyes were wide. "Now, that's bloody brilliant."

  "But I need to you to get the guards away from the grille to the sewers."

  "Yeah. Sure."

  "Like, now," I said.

  Thad blinked. "Right, uh…" He scratched the back of his neck. "Rook, please be careful. If anything happens to you, I…I think I'll throw myself over a cliff and be done with it."

  I rolled my eyes. "Listen—try to keep the guards from firing at the edges of the horde. I'm going to sneak around and head straight for the box."

  Thad nodded and looked up at the wall. "I'll do my best." He reluctantly left my side and started screaming, "Kytharii!"

  The guards standing around the sewer looked startled, and their gazes followed Thad's finger, which was pointing in the opposite direction. "Hurry!" he yelled, pulling his blades free while running. The guards took off after him, leaving the sewer entrance vacated. But I would only have a moment. I sprinted to the grille and pulled; it was sealed shut. I closed my eyes and focused, letting the warmth spread from my fingers and into the metal, and with a bright spark, the grille loosened and I was able to lift it fre
e. Hopefully, Thad would remember to close it after me. I leapt into the sewer.

  My boots landed with a wet squish. For a moment I stood paralyzed by the stench. It was so heavy I could almost taste it, and I thought I might vomit. Cian helped a little, wafting the air before my nose and muting the stink of it. Still, I refused to take a full breath. My steps splashed in raw sewage as my hand trailed the tunnel. It was fairly straight, but eventually grew so small I had to crawl through. The tunnel ended in a grate positioned a few feet above a shallow river. I placed my hand on the grate and pushed gently, and after a bit of pushing, I was able to pry it free. Very carefully, I lowered it and myself into the water, climbed to my feet, set the grating back over the tunnel, and froze. Kytharii appeared near the edge of the water, sniffing the air like hounds on a scent. They saw me and went rigid.

  Quickly, I spread my palms and let the wind slide over me, twisting faster and faster as it obscured my image. For a few, terrible seconds, I thought it wasn't going to work. My heart hammered in my chest so loudly, I was certain they'd be able to hear it. I held my breath, staring straight at them, praying they could no longer see me. One of the kytharii stepped into the water, but then it went back to sniffing. It had lost its scent.

  I exhaled very slowly as adrenaline coursed through my veins. Picking up small remnants of courage, I waded through the stream, slowly moving past them. To my horror, they dropped on all fours, and headed right toward the sewer.

  They had been looking for it, and I had just shown them where it was. I wanted to go back. I wanted to run and warn the others, but I knew that I couldn't. This needed to be done. This needed to be done or this war would not stop until the entire city of Karth had turned into carrion for the kytharii. I kept going.

  I moved along the fringes of the kytharii, always keeping the wind close to my skin. Seeing them like this was nothing short of a nightmare. It was a kind of animalistic barbarism I had never witnessed. They ripped each other apart, took bites of rotted flesh and decay, clawed at faces and punched through chest cavities. And the smell. Putrid and acrid, fetid and potent like pathogenic anaerobes. I kept walking. Farther and farther, putting more distance between the horde and me, until I could see the faint pulsing of the curse about a mile away.

  This was it. This had to work, because if it didn't, we would all die at the hands of the kytharii sent by my uncle.

  Trust me, said the voice again.

  I went a few hundred more yards with the curse plainly in sight and then stopped.

  Now.

  I spread my arms, tilting my face toward the sky, and the wind picked up. Like a cyclone, it ripped across the ground, faster and faster, tearing at the earth as heat bubbled deep inside of me. A strong gale pushed against my body with so much force I had to open my stance to steady myself. The heat swelled until it was bursting, and when I pushed my arms forward, the heat exploded. Light and energy stretched from my fingers—so much energy—leaping over the field until it landed on the bramble and box.

  The bramble began to glow. It burned whiter and whiter as it absorbed the magic. I could sense the interest of the kytharii behind me. Some that had been standing on the fringes had turned their attention toward the strange, new light, and I knew that my disguise had probably fallen. I couldn't hold on to Cian while also pulling on this much power; I just hoped the kytharii kept their attention fastened on the light. And the light grew brighter.

  Energy pulled from my feet, through my torso and down my arms as if strings were tied to my soles and someone was pulling those strings through my body. Tighter and tighter, as the white light struck the bramble in a constant stream of white energy. My body sweat and my lungs squeezed as if they were running out of oxygen. But the bramble pressed back. It pushed against the light with so much force it almost knocked me down.

  I took a step back, steadying myself, fighting against the tension. I strained, my chest squeezing from the pressure, harder and harder until I could no longer breathe. Sweat dripped into my eyes and my head began to feel so dizzy I thought I was going to collapse. I knew I couldn't hold this much longer, and the bramble was starting to gain the advantage. And then something strange happened.

  White light rose from the earth. Tendrils of energy, snaking slowly like vines, arching toward my white beam of light. More and more rose from the earth, colliding with my beam and fusing with it. The beam grew thicker and brighter, like some streak of white plasma, dripping on the ground with energy and light. My body tingled all over and my knees trembled, and I was drenched in sweat, feeling like I was suffocating. Energy racked my body, bleeding from the earth, as if I were some kind of lightning rod, channeling its energy. And I knew it was Gaia.

  Gaia was pouring her power into mine, fusing her magic with my magic, pouring it with laser focus into the bramble. Gaia did not want the evil defiling her soil, and she was using me to stop it.

  The black bramble wailed in a sick and discordant sound, hissing as it fought against the light but unable to push any harder. It was finally overcome, and the black bramble began shrinking back, shuddering and vibrating as if touched by sickness, and the more Gaia poured her light into mine, the more the bramble recoiled. The plasma light surrounded the bramble like a white cocoon, and still the bramble pushed against it. Pushing and shoving and trying to break the binding, but it was no match for the power encasing it. The bramble shriveled, sickened and withered, and then it suddenly sucked in on itself as though it had been pulled through a black hole, drawing the beam of light with it.

  For a split second, the world went dark. And then a powerful sonic boom pulsed from where the box had lain, exploding out with so much force it knocked me down. I clutched my chest, gasping for air. I was so tired. So, so tired. It felt as though the life had been wrung from my body and I'd been hung to dry.

  But it was done. The box had been destroyed. Gaia had helped me break the curse.

  Trembling, I stood to my feet. The entire horde of kytharii had now turned their attention to me, now that they could both see and smell me. They were furious, growling and snarling like a pack of wolves. I was going to die. I was too far away from the sewers or the wall or any help whatsoever, and I had nothing left to give.

  But at least the city would survive. This would be my sacrifice. At least the people had a chance to defend themselves now.

  Desperation for my own life might have set in had I not been so weary. It was like stepping into a nightmare—some kind of out-of-body experience, where I watched the scene from afar. Some other consciousness knew what was happening and worried for me, but the person in my dream felt fuzzy. The person standing there, facing the kytharii, was confused and insubstantial, without any energy left to fight.

  A strange tingling sensation flooded me like adrenaline, and my body felt weightless. It hummed with energy like electricity before a storm, and it felt so light the wind might've carried it away. The tingling grew stronger and stronger, as though some outside force were acting upon my body, and the wind ripped all around me. It clawed at my hair and whipped it in my eyes, my mouth. The kytharii nearest stepped back, eyeing this strange force with uncertainty.

  I am coming, said a deep voice in my mind.

  This was not the voice from before. This was a new voice, a voice that did not know time or mortality. A voice that somehow sounded familiar. Everything changed in that moment.

  It was similar to what had happened outside of Mosaque, where I had become the wind. I slipped through space and through time, soaring above a sea of gray, twisting and spiraling through battlements and sliding over rooftops. But this time I was drawn toward something. This time I was drawn toward heat. A great and powerful heat, deep in the belly of the mountain behind the city. A heat that stirred, pulling me nearer as though the two of us were tethered.

  And I could see. But it was not my sight, for I did not see the kytharii. I saw rock. Walls of rock all around me, as though I were in a cave, and when I moved, the rock exploded. I moved
through this new opening, sailing and twisting, the percussive beat of my wings music to my ears. To spread these wings, to move. To be free again. I bellowed, letting the world hear my voice. And I was not alone.

  There were two more, flying on either side of me, reveling in our newly found freedom. The city sprawled before us. A city I had known well, but that had been many, many years ago. Men screamed when they saw us, their faces filled with blind terror. If I remembered one thing from my life before, it was man's terror.

  A strange gray sea swelled beyond, lapping against the walls of the city like the waves of an ocean, though these waves did not recede. They piled on top of one another, spraying over the walls and attacking men.

  Kytharii. What had brought such evil to this world?

  But then I realized these were not my thoughts, nor were these my memories. I—Daria—shared the thoughts of another being. I could see myself, a strange girl, standing there with arms at my sides, wind gusting so strongly that my hair was in a dark cloud. Then I opened my own eyes.

  And I saw an enormous, black dragon. It beat powerful wings with a force I could feel from the ground, hovering in the air above me in a crescent. Behind it were two more dragons, slightly smaller and staring straight at me. The largest of the three opened its jaws and blared, overpowering the shrieks of the kytharii. The kytharii were terrified, scrambling away as fast as they could, but they were no match for the dragons above. And then the dragons spewed a deadly fire over everything.

  Plumes of bright orange fire hosed the kytharii like liquid flame. The kytharii screamed and squealed and tried running away, but the flames moved fast like a high-powered hose, incinerating everything in sight. The dragons dove, snatching handfuls of kytharii in their claws and ripping them apart, tossing them in the newly created lake of fire. The fire burned everything, scorching the kytharii that had piled themselves against the wall, sending the men of the city scrambling away from the towers and ramparts.

  Heat. So much heat. My body dripped with sweat and my skin felt as though it might melt off my body. And everywhere I looked—all around me—was flame, as though I'd been thrown inside a huge furnace. A small circle around me had been spared somehow, but my eyes burned and the air thickened with smoke so dense that I coughed with each breath I took, choking on ash. And it was getting thicker, like trying to breathe underwater. My chest hurt and my abs felt like they were being twisted like twine, and when I moved my head, it kept spinning and spinning. The horrific sounds from the battle beyond faded in my ears and my legs collapsed beneath me.