“He can’t fly like this for much longer,” I told Hubric. “We need to find another way!”
“I’m open to suggestions,” he said tightly, but when I glanced back, the Manticore behind us was so close that I could see the gleam in his rider’s eyes. Any second now and they’d have us. We couldn’t stay ahead of them like this.
“Come on, Nasataa!” I called. “You can do it! Keep going!”
“Caught you, imposter!” Atura called from her Manticore.
In her arms, the creature she held was a small Manticore. His eyes glowed red and his small teeth were as jagged and broken as the older Manticores’ were. Could he fly, too? He was about Nasataa’s size and weight.
Wait.
Where was the baby dragon she’d had back at the throne of Haz’Drazen?
“Never heard of cloaking magic, have you?” Atura called. “The dragons hadn’t heard of it, either. They never even realized that little Felroc, the ‘dragon’ they chose as their Chosen One was a baby Manticore all along! And now I have the clues to the keys and I’ll be taking him to the Haroc!”
“Turn! Skies and Stars, turn!” Hubric yelled to the dragons ahead of us, but whether they could understand him or hear him not, they didn’t turn as the Manticores leapt forward with a burst.
Heron looked behind him, but he was too far ahead for me to catch his eye. I thought his mouth might be open, but whatever he was shouting was lost on the wind. We were too far behind. He and the other dragons wouldn’t be able to turn in time.
I gasped in a deep breath, trying to catch sight of Nasataa, but I couldn’t see him. Where was the little guy? This was why I didn’t like him to be out of my arms!
Something shook Kyrowat’s tail and then we were falling straight down before suddenly being whipped up again. I scrambled for my staff, tied to the saddle, my belly lurching as the scenery in front of me went from sky to rocks to sky again. I gritted my teeth, pulling at the lashings.
No, no, no!
One of the Manticores had Kyrowat by the tail, shaking him back and forth like a dog with a bone. Someone was screaming – was that me? I couldn’t tell anymore.
I had the staff. I leveled it against the pull of the wind, trying to turn it toward the Manticores but now we were tumbling form the sky toward the rocks. My heart was in my throat. Nasataa! Where was Nasataa?
A high-pitched scream filled the air and my heart felt like it might burst.
Nasataa! Nasataa!
Shut up! Kyrowat yelled through my mind. I can’t hear anyone else!
I tried to calm my thoughts, but my breath was coming too fast as his wings suddenly shot to the sky and we stabilized, still falling, but slower now, just before crashing into the rock.
All my thoughts were upward as my neck craned toward the sky.
There was no sign of my baby dragon. I couldn’t see him anywhere!
I tugged at the straps holding me to Kyrowat’s saddle, but it was impossible to untie them while holding the staff. A burst like a powerful wind hit us, tumbling us over the rocks. Manticore magic! I’d felt this before. I aimed my staff forward, gritting my teeth and tried to think of the things I was grateful for. Nasataa, Heron, Hubric ... but my worry was too powerful. I couldn’t feel that wave of hope like I had last time.
A second blast sent us spinning again. We tumbled end over end until we landed with a crunch. I was pinned under Kyrowat, my vision completely blocked by his back and spine.
I coughed, my lungs sucking at air that just wouldn’t fill them. Coughed again. I couldn’t see what was happening!
I could only see a sliver of sky and what I saw there made my heart freeze. The red and two black juvenile dragons battled a full-grown dragon with three Bubblers on his back. While they flamed, bursts of bubbles soared toward them.
“Hubric?” I couldn’t see him at the angle I was twisted into and I couldn’t move.
Above me, the bubbles hit the Black dragon square in the face and his flame went out immediately. He coughed, head whipsawing back and forth as if he were trying to shake a scent from his nose and then he coughed, his neck arching painfully before his entire body went limp and fell to the ground.
No.
Had he just ...
No.
NASATAA! I screamed in my mind as loudly as I could but there was no answer. No sign of him in the sky. No sign of Heron and his Purple dragon. No scolding from Kyrowat.
A second dragon fell from the sky, his landing shaking the ground under me.
“Hubric!” I called, panicked now as I tried to wiggle out from under Kyrowat. One of my hands was crushed under the staff, Kyrowat’s weight pinning it against the rock. “Kyrowat! Please, someone, listen!”
“I’m listening, imposter. What do you want to say?”
Shivers shot down my spine at the sound of Atura’s voice.
Chapter Eight
Her face appeared, leaning over me and she snatched away the mask over the lower half of it to reveal a venomous smile.
“How interesting. You didn’t get very far, did you? And now that I don’t have to pretend anymore, we can suck the life out of you and use it for something more ... interesting. The Saaasallla will be pleased. He was not amused when you went off on your own. Your impulsiveness nearly destroyed a plan that was decades in the making.”
“I do try,” I said through gritted teeth. “Nothing like threats about ‘sucking the life out of you’ to really make a girl want to foul up a plan.”
Her expression went tight.
“Oh, it’s not an idle threat.” She wrapped her hand into my hair and began to tug. I screamed through clenched teeth as every nerve ending in my head caught on fire, but then the weight lifted off my legs and I was free of Kyrowat’s weight. Atura dragged me across the rocks, snatching the Dragon Staff out of my hand as she went. My feet scrabbled across the ground as I tried to stand, tried to see what was happening. Was Kyrowat dead? Where were Hubric and Nasataa?
“Bubbler Atura,” another voice said as I was still trying to catch my breath. “The dragons are destroyed. Captives will only slow us down.”
Atura considered me carefully. “The Ilerioc?”
I looked to where Kyrowat was being dragged along the ground by a pair of Manticores. He looked badly beat up. His tail was missing chunks, his head rolled and flopped limply along the ground and one of his wings was at an awkward angle. I didn’t think he was dead but ...
I felt thick – like I couldn’t even feel all the emotions filling me. Not Kyrowat! Not the snappy dragon who pretended to be cranky when he was actually kind! What were they going to do to him?
“The Ilerioc lives, but he is gravely injured.”
“He must have been part of this or they wouldn’t have brought him with him. Revive him for questioning.”
“But Bubbler Atura – ”
“Don’t question your orders. Go and prepare him. We have time now that we’ve caught my rival. The Saaasallla will be very disappointed if she is not contained and the old man and dragon will help us. Our reserves grow low.”
There was no sign of anyone still in the air. No sign of anything other than Manticores and their riders on the ground. Were all the dragons dead? They couldn’t be, could they?
No, no. no, Seleska!. Despair would help nothing. I had to hold out hope. As long as I didn’t see Nasataa dead or lost or alone, he might be okay. As long as I didn’t see Heron dead, he might be okay, too. I needed to cling to that. I needed to believe it.
“As you say, Honored One.”
I tried again to stand but someone kicked me and I fell back to the ground. A boot stepped hard on my hand, bringing tears to my eyes. I blinked them away hurriedly. It wasn’t time for tears. It was time to be brave and hope for the best. I hissed as they ground their heel into the small bones of my hand.
But I couldn’t see Hubric anywhere. I couldn’t even see Jeriath.
What was going on?
Fingers in my hair lifted me up as
the foot released my hand.
“Do you remember how I told you that I am a master of the life arts?” Atura asked me. Her hand in my hair hurt but I gritted my teeth against the pain.
“Is this the list of your qualifications? Sorry, but I’m not hiring right now. You could see if the dragon city we left needs dungeon cleaners.”
She spat at me and I flinched.
“I think I’d like to see your face when you realize what ‘life arts’ means. You might remember a man named Octon from our lands, hmmm?”
I did remember Octon. He’d worked so hard to help us. He’d done it despite all the risk to himself.
“I used my arts on him. An interesting subject. If you hadn’t stolen that rock from me, maybe you could have seen how he turned out. I sucked his life out and I put it in that rock.”
A flare of heat burned in my belly at her words and I felt ill.
“Ah. I can tell by how your face pales that you understand. I’m going to do the same thing to your friends. It’s a convenient way to carry power around with you, don’t you think?”
Chapter Nine
I felt the blood draining from my face and my head spun. I was going to be ill. I was going to be ill. I turned to the side and vomited. But unfortunately, no stone came out with the food and water in my belly.
Had I really eaten what was left of Octon? I would never have treated that stone with so much ... casualness ... if I’d realized that was what it was!
Maybe she was lying. She was evil and evil people lied, right?
And yet, I had a terrible feeling that she wasn’t lying. That she really had taken the man who had helped us and turned him into a stone so she could use his life force to power her plans. And I’d swallowed that stone. And it didn’t seem to be coming out any time soon. The heat in my belly increased.
Maybe it would kill me.
Maybe I deserved that.
Stars and skies, I was going to be ill!
Atura pushed me ahead of her over the black rocks and I winced at every step. One of my knees didn’t feel right, pain lancing through it whenever there was weight on it. Blood and bruises marred my arms and hand and my face hurt on the side that had hit the rocks. But that wasn’t what had me worried. They’d tied Hubric to a rock and they were marching me to where he was tied. Jeriath slumped against another rock. No one had bothered to tie him.
I checked Hubric over. Other than a black eye and a gash on his forehead, he looked okay. His eyes burned with fire and his mouth was fixed in a scowl. I hoped that I still had his book and his scarf. He’d be pretty upset if I’d lost those. I thought I felt the book pressing against my leg in my pocket, but it was hard to tell.
I sought his gaze and found it and he seemed to be trying to offer me strength and bravery in the look he shared with me.
Atura shoved me roughly against a man-sized rock and nodded to another bubbler who began to wind rope around me as he tied me in place. Bubblers were crawling all over the rocks, gathering sticks and building fires near their Manticores. I could barely stomach a glance at the horrific creatures, though their stink filled the hillside like a dirty farm.
“Tie her so that she can watch. I want her to see why her side is going to lose,” Atura said with a smile. “You’ll like that, won’t you, Seleska? If that White Dragon hadn’t made you such a pet, we never would have had to attack at all, but you just had to work your charms on him, didn’t you?”
“They came over the mountains like a wave,” Jeriath muttered.
“He’s ready?” Atura asked.
“I think he’s close to dead,” one of the Bubblers said. “This is as ready as he’ll be.”
Atura sniffed.
“And the dragon?” the bubbler asked.
“Doesn’t look like he has much life left, but we can try. No need to tie him down. The Manticores will snatch him from the air if he tries to fly.”
“They flooded our land like a locust plague,” Jeriath mumbled. Whatever dreams he was having while he fought for his life were not pleasant ones.
And just like that, we were reduced to broken refuse, barely even worth the trouble of tying up. Like driftwood washed up on the beach and ignored until someone wanted a beach fire.
Come on, Seleska! I tried to coach myself. Don’t think like that. While there is life, there is hope! When Ramariri rescued me it had seemed hopeless, and then he’d saved me. There had been hope, after all. I didn’t dare give up now, right? But it was hard to feel that way when every time I blinked, I thought I could imagine little Nasataa in distress somewhere in these rocks. What if even now he was crying, looking for help and I wasn’t coming to help him? What if even now he was trying to get to me not realizing he would be in danger if he ever did? I bit my lip and tried not to think about it.
Hope, Seleska. Keep hoping!
I was still hoping as Atura strode away, head high, with a last comment. “I’ll be back for you before nightfall.”
I was still hoping as the Bubblers gathered around their fires and Hubric turned to me and spoke through thick lips. “This was prophesied. I heard it from the lips of Zin the Seer of the Kav’ai.”
“What was prophesied?” I asked, still hoping this was all a mistake.
“That when the girl who swallowed the stone swore to me, that meant my life was coming to fulfillment. You’ll die that day, Hubric, she said. But be strong. Your path does not end with death.”
I swallowed. “Maybe she was wrong.”
He shook his head sorrowfully and all my hope seemed to break like a waterskin filled too full. “She’s never wrong.”
“Everyone is wrong sometimes,” I said. “And she just has to be wrong. She has to be. Because Atura and these disgusting Manticores can’t win.” I felt my eyes stinging as the tears came. Someone had leaned my staff against a nearby rock and the last rays of sunset glinted on the blade. “And you can’t die, Hubric. And the dragons can’t lose. And Nasataa can’t be hurt. It just can’t be, okay?”
And now hot tears were dripping down my nose as hard and fast as they could fall.
“There’s no explaining why some things must be, child.” I’d never heard his tone so warm and soft. “But some things must be so that other things can happen.”
“Bad things? Wrong things? That just doesn’t make sense! I don’t want to live in a world where bad things have to happen!”
“Would you rather live in a world where none of it mattered at all?” His tone was gentle.
“What do you mean?”
“If nothing is risked, then nothing is gained. Great pain births great triumphs. I don’t know why it has to be this way, but this is how it is and how it always has been since before magic first swelled in the heart of the earth and poured forth to bathe us in light. Life is a testing ground. It plows deep furrows through our hearts. But unless our ground is broken up and our furrows plowed, we cannot grow new life. Nothing can be birthed where something wasn’t broken first.”
“I just,” I bit my lip. “I just don’t want the bad things to be true.”
“But they are,” he said fiercely as the sun slipped over the horizon, bathing us in shadow so that the only light left was the light of the fires the Bubblers had set. “They are true. And wishing them away does you no good at all. Find that gratitude you had in your heart. Find that hope that made you powerful before, and find how you can drive good into the world like nails.”
“There’s got to be a way to save you,” I said, my voice thick with the tears I wasn’t willing to shed. “There’s just got to be a way.”
“Zin told me that if I didn’t go on this quest, if I didn’t find you, then the world would be swallowed in shadow. I did what I had to for the sake of the light and I have no regrets, girl.” He said. And there were no tears in his voice. He seemed steady as he had hours ago when we flew together on the back of Kyrowat. “Do what you have to, Seleska. Don’t let either of our lives go for a cheap price. Make what you do next worth the sacrific
e and love that came before. Let the ground be tilled to grow something new.”
I nodded, my chin wobbling as I pushed back tears. I’d known him such a short time, but I’d felt so safe with him. I’d felt like I finally knew where to go and what to do. I tugged at the ropes around my wrists, trying to loosen them. Maybe if I worked at them hard enough, I could work my way free.
“And Seleska?” Hubric’s words sounded heavy.
“Yes?”
“If you can ... and I don’t know if you can, but if you can.” For the first time, his voice hitched a little. “Please take Kyrowat with you. He’s been a faithful companion. He doesn’t deserve to die like this.”
Hot tears slid down my face. I fought against them, but the harder I fought, the more came at the thought of this man who loved his dragon so much that he was all he wanted to save.
“I will.”
A voice rang out from the darkness.
“I’ve found a nice rock. Not as smooth as a river rock, but the right size. And he seems like he’s made of hard edges, too, so maybe it will be a good fit for him.”
Atura carried a torch and when she arrived, she planted it into a crack in the rock so that it lit Hubric, Jeriath and me with dancing orange light.
“They came but they did not stay. They died like locusts, falling from the air like dust.” Jeriath was still deep in his fever dreams. What had they done to loosen his tongue like that?
“What do you think?” Atura asked. She held out a black, sparkling rock the size of her pinkie finger and my heart fell. Somehow, I’d still been hoping that these were all empty threats, but the rock and these words, they made it all feel real.
“Ready, old man?” she asked.
“Do your worst,” Hubric said, eyes flashing in the torchlight.
“Oh, I plan to. You can count on that.”
Chapter Ten
I would have expected that a magical rite that stole a person’s life from them and turned it into power would take more than one person. I would have expected a lot of people – probably in terrifying costume and intoning in unison.
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