The Air Witch's Dragon

by Severine Wolfe

  “What do you know?” He demanded of Lennalth.

  “She’s nowhere here in the castle, and nowhere on Wushin,” he told his King and friend shielded behind Cassie’s wards.

  Ryluth raged again, yelling for Sofia. Lennalth was sure his friend’s mind had broken.

  Cassie waited for him to stop and then stared him down. The Demi had that amazing ability, like Sofia had. A quiet strength that forced a male to behave around her. Of course, with Cassie it was with the knowledge that she could kill you with a thought. She’d already done so with an entire world of Demons and Demis. Of course, she’d only been channeling an angry goddess, but poh-tay-toh/puh-tah-tuh.

  “What do you have, Cassie?” He finally breathed out, now exhausted.

  “We know she was taken from her doorway, but we don’t know where,” the Demi informed him. “The castle has been searched and I’ve performed my own search of your planet and she’s not anywhere where I can find her.”

  Ryluth nodded, thinking. “Would your way find her if she were underground or in a cave system?” That had to be a possibility on his world.

  Cassie nodded sadly. “She is not here, Ryluth.”

  He grabbed at the hair on his head and pulled it in much the same manner as Lennalth had witnessed earlier that evening.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” he said quietly and put his hands down to his sides.

  Cassie lowered her shields and looked to the others with her. “Would you guys mind stepping outside a moment?”

  They nodded and filed outside his door and Lennalth closed it with one worried look at his friend.

  “Ryluth, could Threlzin have taken Sofia?”

  That caused him to jerk his head up, his brows drawing down towards the bridge of his nose. “What? Why would you ask that?”

  “She disappeared from her doorway. No one saw anyone come down this hallway, except Lennalth, and he was in here with you when she was taken. There is no sign of anyone, there is no portal or gate energy, and The Aztec and I were busy elsewhere,” she informed him, with a slight blush. “So, unless you have a world walker you’ve told no one about, it only leaves one kind of person who would take her without a trace, and that is divine.”

  Ryluth just stared at her. She had discerned all of this in a short matter of hours.

  “I -- I don’t know why he would want her. He only wants Coalna back,” he said absently as his mind tried working through the puzzle in front of him.

  “Lennalth tells me that you have been working on some kind of curse or prophesy,” Cassie prompted.

  “Yes,” Ryluth answered, still mentally absent from the room. “We were trying to find a way to break the curse on my world, given by Threlzin when he lost his mate to murder and treachery. We’ve been translating in the past few days, and I think I was getting close to something important. I had called on my Librarian and High Priest for assistance...” his voice trailed off as his mind went down another path. “Where is my Librarian?”

  Cassie shook her head, not understanding.

  “Lennalth!” He yelled to the door. When his friend popped his head in, he demanded to see the Librarian immediately. “Drag him here if you need to.”

  Bax and some man Ryluth did not know entered his chamber and Ryluth raised an eyebrow. “Who is this?”

  Gareth’s image shimmered to his Demon form and then back into a human male and Ryluth laughed.

  “Yes, my people are still not trusting of Demons,” and he looked at Cassie who turned bright red. “Especially, when they just appear in their sleeping chambers or treasure troves.”

  “One time, Ryluth,” she mumbled and began looking intently at the toes of her shoes.

  Lennalth came running into the room.

  “The Librarian is gone, he’s nowhere.”

  “Well, hell,” Bax said.

  All of them went down to the library so Gareth could get tracking on the Librarian, but he couldn’t.

  “Impossible,” Ryluth declared. “The male lived here.”

  “How do you know that?” Bax asked.

  Ryluth looked at him, perplexed. “He was always here. No matter what time I came here looking for something, he was here.”

  Cassie nodded. “He was keeping an eye on solving the curse,” she stated.

  “Why? He set the conditions?” Lennalth asked, clearly out of his depth.

  “There is something more here that we are not seeing yet,” Cassie said absently. She looked over at Gareth. “I don’t think we need your services any longer, Tracker,” she smiled. “I’m going to send you home.” And then Gareth just disappeared. Both Drakkos gasped and Cassie smiled. “I’ve been working at translocating so that I am not constantly popping here and there. It’s harder than just porting, takes and ass load of power, but I can do it.”

  “Well, we won’t know that you did until we get home and Krys either wants to hug you or kill you for losing her mate,” Bax teased and kissed his wife’s head.

  Cassie looked at Ryluth. “Show us what you were working on.”

  *****

  Ryluth showed them what he was working on and discussed his findings on the journal with Bax. Cassie’s eyes began glazing over as he’d barely begun to explain, so he sent Lennalth to get Groffur.

  Cassie picked up the parchment where Sofia had written the translation of the curse and sat down in her chair. Ryluth wanted to protest her sitting in Sofia’s spot and only just realized how ridiculous it was. He was just this side of frantic, still, so he was trying to reel it in.

  Groffur came in, clearly interrupted from tending his future mate, tousled and grumpy. The males all began going over the translation of the journal. Ryluth spared a glance at Cassie, who sat with her eyes closed. He pulled his head back into what he had been explaining and Bax nodded and he began at the beginning of the journal.

  *****

  Cassie politely knocked on the door of her goddess and Siletha graciously answered.

  “We think that Threlzin has taken Sofia,” she said without preamble, knowing without question that her goddess had been keeping an eye on her.

  Siletha frowned. “Whatever for?” She asked.

  Cassie shook her head. “That is what I can’t figure out. The guys are working on it now,” she paused, looking over her shoulder as if she could see them from where she was inside her own head. “Do you think he will harm her?”

  Siletha shook her head as soon as Cassie got to the word harm. “No, he would not, or no one would ever trust him again and he would lose power if that happened.”

  “The curse said that someone must find a mate and lose her to appease him. That’s harming someone and would have the same consequences.”

  “It would seem that Threlzin painted himself into a corner with his wording of the curse, but considering the circumstances, it’s understandable, if still unforgivable.”

  Cassie looked up at her goddess, loving her deeply and knowing that Siletha would move heaven and earth to keep harm from befalling her.

  “My guess is that the Drakkos are close to solving this riddle and that Threlzin wished to urge them to go faster.”

  “I don’t want Sofia to have to die to satisfy him. He killed everyone who was related to the family that betrayed him and then some. This curse has brought them near extinction.”

  Siletha nodded. “And, they still chose not to become as the Demons.”

  “It’s the only reason I’m helping them,” Cassie admitted. “They are an honorable race.”

  “Then you must assist them,” the goddess said, cupping Cassie’s cheek, and gave her such a look of love the Demi felt filled to the brim. “Do what you have to do, but I cannot help you there.”

  Cassie nodded and opened her eyes in the library. She gasped and smiled.

  “Odds are your answers are right here in this room,” she told the men who all looked at her. “Your Threlzin knows you are close, and this is his way of cracking the whip.”

  The look that c
ame over Ryluth’s face was so wrathful that if Cassie had been standing she would have taken a few steps back. “He had better not harm my mate,” he said quietly, and it was a promise. She had no doubt whatsoever that he would go against a god for harming one hair on Sofia’s head.

  “Siletha says that he cannot harm her or that you will lose your faith in him and he will diminish in power,” she explained.

  Ryluth turned to Lennalth. “Send for the High Priest. I want him here now. I do not care if you pull him from his bed.” His friend nodded and stepped outside the office and spoked with a guard who ran off.

  “Your answers are here, but I’m no good at his, unless there are old temple ledgers in there,” Cassie joked and sat down. “What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”

  The men all laughed when Lei Yep stepped inside the office with a tray of refreshments. The Chinese mage stopped and stared at everyone.

  “What?”

  *****

  Several hours later, while the males went over the journal and the females got to know one another better, Baxter Clancy asked a question that had not occurred to Ryluth or Groffur until that moment.

  “What is the significance of the priest collecting the tears from the corpse of the Dragon?” He asked and looked at the High Priest who had finally come at Ryluth’s summons and was busy helping with some points and questions that needed clarifying, while sending terrified looks to all the males standing about.

  “Can you wait a moment before answering that question?” Cassie finally interjected, having spent her time talking to Lei while the males went over details. “The twins are nearly here.”

  Nei and Meira appeared at the door to the library with two huge males right behind them. They nodded at Cassie and smiling, linked hands and cast a spell that everyone, even Bax felt.

  “Okay, you can answer the question now,” Cassie smiled and nodded to the two half-elves who were picked up by their males and carted off.

  “What did you just do?” the High Priest demanded, frowning.

  “I asked the twins to help clear you minds, so that you can think better while solving this,” Cassie said while looking over cookies on a plate next to her chair. She looked up. “It’s like clarity, Bax, go with it.”

  Everyone looked at Bax who shrugged. “It helps to focus the mind so we can stay on track.”

  All of the males nodded and looked at the High Priest whose brow wrinkled in thought, and then cleared.

  “It is believed that Threlzin can resurrect anyone from even the smallest life left in them. But since a Drakkos corpse incinerates itself after dying, the time to do that is extremely limited. Perhaps to even half an hour.”

  Ryluth stared at the man, open mouthed. “So where is this vial the old priest saved?”

  The High Priest shrugged. “I would imagine it would be in the journal,” he stated.

  “There was nothing in the journal but that cylinder...” he stopped. “Gods!” He yelled and began pawing furiously through the book and found the cylinder at the bottom, forgotten and ignored by everyone until this moment.

  They all stared at the stone cylinder as if they expected it to impart its secrets to them merely by the act of looking at it.

  “How do you open it?” Bax asked the obvious question. He reached his hand down and stopped, looking at the Dragons. “Do you mind if I look? It’s sort of my thing.” All the males nodded at him.

  Taking it in his hand, Bax gave it a look, then brought it close to his face and rubbed the pads of his fingers over every inch of it. Cassie stood up from her chair and came over to look over his arm at what he was doing.

  “Cassie?” He asked, knowing she would be on track with him.

  They all felt magic and Cassie nodded her head. “Yep, it’s magical.”

  Bax looked up at the High Priest. “How do you preserve relics for your temples?” He demanded.

  The High Priest looked at him, perplexed. “I’m -- I don’t understand.”

  Bax rolled his eyes at the Dragon. “I don’t want to know your secrets, I am saying that there is a way you preserve relics and that the tears the old priest collected are preserved in this cylinder.”

  Everyone looked at the High Priest then.

  “Open it,” Ryluth ordered the male.

  “You think they will still be in there?” The male asked, incredulous, and yet, his hand still reached out to take it.

  “Are you telling me that you cannot really preserve relics you keep at the temple and that your demands for spell components are all fraudulent?” Ryluth shot back.

  The High Priest sputtered and uttered an incantation and the end of the cylinder popped open and inside was a glass vial. Everyone stopped breathing.

  “Holy sheep shit,” Bax breathed. “It worked.”

  Cassie would have slapped his arm for his blasphemy, but was afraid the vial would fly out of the cylinder and break.

  “What do we do with it now?” Ryluth demanded of the High Priest, who was reaching for the vial and Bax pulled it back towards himself.

  “Uh uh, fakir,” Bax cautioned. “This belongs to Ryluth to get his woman back.”

  The High Priest glared at the human male. “You are being sacrilegious, Human. You are coming very close to blasphemy.”

  Bax’s head pulled back, he stared at the priest for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I’m not anywhere near that territory, old man.” Then he looked at Ryluth and recapped the cylinder, handing it over to the Dragon King.

  Ryluth took the cylinder with a shaking hand and pocketed it. He then looked over at the High Priest.

  “Go to your temple and do whatever you have to do to summon Threlzin,” he then turned and began walking out of his office. At the doorway, her turned to the priest again, nailing him with an arch look. “Do not think to turn this to your favor or I will request that Threlzin gut you after I summon him. You will not deny me my mate or Threlzin his so you can continue to grasp your perceived power.” He turned to walk away, but stopped and turned, pinning the High Priest with a glare.

  “By the by, three Faerie found their way on to Wushin and say a priest helped them.,” He continued to stare at the Drakkos. “We will have words once this is over.”

  The High Priest stared after Ryluth, then ran from the room, looking a little scared.

  “Wow, people appear and disappear so quickly around here,” Cassie whispered. Her husband turned to her and chuckled. “We’re staying, Bax. I’m here until Sofia is back.” He just nodded and continued to look at the old books and parchments. Cassie knew she’d lost him and that he would probably be making a lot of requests to come and go here. She looked over to Lennalth and Groffur.

  “He will let us know, correct? I really want to see this.”

  Both Dragons nodded.

  “Let us show you the way,” Lennalth said as Groffur took the hand of his little mate and led the way out the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ryluth raged all the way back to his chamber, stopping only to glare into Sofia’s room. The attitude of the priest had outraged him, grasping for that vial, as if he’d been the one to figure it all out. Then, hesitating to open it to prove the tears of Coalna did, indeed, rest there. His temper flared. Then, he stopped in the middle of the hallway. A thought occurred to him that seemed so awful that his mind immediately rejected it, but it didn’t stop some part of his mind from picking at it, searching and defining what he found.

  Why would the vial not have been recovered from the journal? There was no question that the priesthood had no idea what was in the journal, had perhaps, never even read it. It had just been dumped in the box with a bunch of irrelevant stuff. Nothing in that box come close to being as important as that journal. Why was it dumped in a box in the library?

  The Librarian... where had that Dragon gone, and what part did he play in the entire saga? Had he known what was in the box?

  He finally began walking to his chambers again, shaking
his head in confusion and disgust. He could not allow himself to be distracted by matters that could be dealt with later. Everything in him must be bent to getting Sofia back.

  That grim determination spurred him on.

  *****

  Sofia looked down at the gazing orb that Threlzin had provided for her and watched as Ryluth marched down the hallway. She looked up at the Dragon god with tears in her eyes. Ryluth’s pain and confusion were her own.

  “How can you do this to him?” She whispered. “Through everything he has remained faithful to you.”

  Threlzin gazed at her, as he, too, watched the orb.

  “Yes, he has, and all of this is necessary to right a wrong.”

  Sofia stared at him, not comprehending.

  “Taking a mate would have killed two, not just one,” he explained. “I should never have worded things in the manner I did, and it has damned them to a hellish existence, and yet, my Dragons have retained their honor, unlike the Demons who became even more depraved.”

  “So, you took me from him?” This logic confounded Sofia.

  “He needed a spur to make him look further than he normally would, and ask questions he’d never thought to ask.” Threlzin pinned her with a look. “He was being held up by more than one Drakkos who wanted the glory of solving the curse. You should be flattered, Human. Your loss caused him to look and think in ways he would not normally have done.”

  “So, you take me to make up for the loss of your mate?” Sofia was still so confused as to the motives moving this god.

  Threlzin shook his head. “That was my mistake,” he said quietly. “I should have never demanded what I did. Wiping out the traitors should have been enough, but I took their mates from them, as mine had been, and then made it impossible to correct anything.” He looked around, obviously collecting his thoughts.

  “I found the journal years ago, but I had to work on Ryluth to get him to move to try to get females here as mates and not just brood mares. That is my biggest fault. My Dragons no longer saw themselves worthy of mates and had given up hope. They were very close to despair when I urged Ryluth to travel to the Demonworld and make his deal with Cassandra.”