What was I doing? I wasn’t a killer!
And yet, I was killing.
They killed us. They stacked us up like wood for the fire.
That thought was not mine! And the sound of it reminded me of Octon.
Before I could gasp at it, the next Bubbler was rushing toward me, my hands were up and ready before I was. Throwing him over my hip as I used his own momentum against him, I spun around to pin him to the rocks with the Dragon Staff.
This was crazy! This wasn’t me!
But I was the one who swallowed the stone – and this was definitely Octon. He’d been a warrior. And he’d fought with his hands. And he knew Rock Eater culture inside and out.
I was just glad I had an ally inside me, not an enemy. But I wanted this to stop. It wasn’t right to have part of another person inside your mind and controlling your hands. But was he controlling them or was I controlling them and just drawing on his skills and memories as I did it? Maybe I was just looking for someone else to blame so I didn’t’ have to admit that I was a killer.
I was still thinking that when my body spun to block a blow I hadn’t even expected, grabbing the attacked by the forearm and pulling him as I ducked, using my back to spin him over me so he smacked onto the hard rock on the other side.
Whew! Octon was quite the fighter!
A spurt of bubbles rippled through the air toward me and I leapt – higher than I should have been able to go.
Something grabbed the back of my shirt at the same time wind struck me, trying to push me down. My feet left the ground and my belly lurched as I rushed up into the air with nothing to hold onto. For a perilous moment, I dangled in the air, helpless, and then I was flying, hoping that whatever had caught me wouldn’t let go.
Chapter Fourteen
“Gotcha,” Heron said and his voice was triumphant as his dragon spurted fire, illuminating the ground below and the Bubblers scattered in every direction. Manticores and dragons lay sprawled on the ground bleeding but a group of about six Manticores were regrouping.
“You’re alive!” I gasped. Pure joy shot through me, eliminating for just a moment the guilt and pain I felt at leaving Hubric behind. Heron was alive! And Nasataa, too. And somehow we were going to escape.
Hopefully, Heron’s dragon was fast. I saw Atura leaping onto the back of the biggest Manticore with her baby Felroc in her arms. If we didn’t get free fast, we’d lose our chance.
“You didn’t think I’d leave you, did you?” he asked tightly, but there was a lot of emotion behind his words that he was failing to disguise with his light tone.
“I thought you were dead,” I said. “I hoped you weren’t. I tried not to think about it. And Nasataa, too. And all those dragons.”
He yanked me up to sit on the dragon, tucking me in close in front of him.
“It was a near miss. Olfijum is hurting. But we’re alive. Where’s Hubric?”
Olfijum was fast despite being hurt. The Manticores were shrinking in the distance as he raced away from their camp.
“Dead,” I choked, all the emotion I’d been forcing back spilling out in that one word. “Dead and gone. Atura sucked out his soul and put it in her rock and then ate it.”
“I’m not fond of Atura,” Heron said, blackly. As if ‘not fond’ could encompass volcanic levels of hatred. He drew me in close, one of his thick arms wrapping tightly around me as if he wanted to hold me forever.
“I had a bad night,” he admitted.
“Did you watch someone’s soul get sucked form their body?” I asked dryly.
“Worse.” Heartache leaked into his voice.
“Did you almost get burned alive?”
“Worse.” His tone was devastating.
“Did you kill people – people you don’t know, who were attacking you?”
“Yes. But that’s not why it was worse.” His voice was thick with something. Those weren’t tears, were they?
“What happened to you?”
“I spent all these hours thinking you were dead, little honey. Spent all this time imagining what life would be without you. Just thinking about it made me so hard to be around that Olfijum agreed to come after you despite the odds.”
Olfijum made a keening sound.
“He sounds sad,” I said, not sure how to reply to the rest.
“He lost friends. Friends he’s had since he was a hatchling.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said pressing a palm to his back. And now my tears were coming as hot and fast as the guilt that seared me. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
“Seleska,” Heron breathed into my hair. “You’re alive. You’re alive and safe and that’s all that matters to me.”
“Really?” I twisted around to look up at him. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but this time I wasn’t teasing him. This time I wasn’t trying to make him think something or do something. This time I wasn’t just playing around. This time was as honest as I could get. “Because that’s how I feel about you.”
When he kissed me, hot, teary kisses, I let myself melt into how I felt as if these tears could wash me clean of everything I’d done and everything I’d seen. As if just being treasured by him could make me a treasure – even if it was just for a few short hours.
“Don’t leave me again, Heron,” I said, but it was more like begging.
“I won’t. Not ever.”
I closed my eyes and held him and let myself relax for the short moments we had. They’d be gone again soon – far too soon – but for just these moments I wanted to add one more thing to my list of gratitude. I wanted to add a shared love with my best friend.
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m worried about Nasataa,” I said as the night wore on and we left the Manticores far behind.
Olfijum had climbed steadily upward until he was almost floating on a strong wind high above the earth.
“We sure are high up,” I added nervously.
Heron sounded affectionate as he said, “Olfijum likes flying high. The speed up here doesn’t worry him.”
And he didn’t seem worried at all. He seemed to require minimal effort to soar here and considering that he had bite marks in his tail and wings and some dark bruising around his neck, that was probably for the best.
“Don’t worry about Nasataa,” Heron said. “Olfijum says that Kyrowat is just ahead with the little guy under his wing. They are riding the same current we are, headed for the Dawn Gate. The only downside is that the Manticores could be riding this current, too. But I think it will take them longer to get organized. They aren’t the ones fleeing for their lives.”
I looked behind us out of instinct, but in the black of the night, I couldn’t see a thing. If only there was a moon out or even stars, but the sky was thick with clouds and our visibility was so poor that I felt like I was drifting through infinity. Hubric had been right about the new moon tonight.
“Olfijum says that Kyrowat thinks we’ll get to the gate by dawn if we stay up on this fast current. He says that it’s the only way in or out of the Lands of Haz’drazen – at least the only way into the Dominion or the lands to the north. Everything else is blocked off by magical currents impossible to pass.”
“Okay,” I said rallying. “Then we go through the gate and we find this Purple dragon Raolcan. And we’ll be okay. Olfijum and Kyrowat will heal up. Little Nasataa will have a chance to rest. Raolcan will know where the key we’re looking for is.”
I felt hope as I said it. We had a plan. We had a chance to succeed still. I wound a hand around the scarf Hubric had given me. It smelled of tea and peppermint and it made me think of him – and of my promise. I needed to make all of this worth it somehow.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, leaning against Heron. His strong chest and arms welcomed me like home. I dreamed island dreams of campfires and my parents, of feasts with the village, of sneaking off onto dark sandy beaches with Heron and kissing him again just for the joy of it.
I woke when his arms ti
ghtened around me.
“Seleska?” he whispered, though who needed to whisper up here? “Seleska, are you awake?”
“Mmmm,” I agreed, savoring the warmth of him in contrast to the cold air blowing around us.
“We’re here,” he said, but there was no triumph in his tone. Instead, it sounded grim.
I pulled out of his arms to look. The first light of dawn was barely tinting the land, crawling across the surface of the ground like a curtain being drawn. Olfijum soared down from his height, head stretched forward into the wind and wings back, giving us a clear view of what was below.
The rocky, jagged mountains were dominated by a round white gate – a portal of sorts decorated with a carved dragon eating its tail. It felt oddly familiar. But it wasn’t that dragon gate’s carving that had my attention. It wasn’t even the large heaps littering the ground and leaving long shadows behind them as the curtain pulled back.
It was the emptiness.
There was not a living creature to be seen. Not guarding the gate. Not on the road that wound out from the gate. Not anywhere.
All around us, littering the ground and spilling across the rocks, was nothing but death. The pervasive scent of death swirled in the air, growing worse as the heat of the sun rolled back over the carnage.
Not all of them were dragons. There were plenty of Manticores. And humans, too.
But all of the twisted figures below were very, very dead.
I made a sound like a whimper in the back of my throat. Nothing in my lifetime – not even the violent deaths of my own family – had prepared me for this. I felt heat in my belly as Octon’s memories flashed over my eyes. He had been prepared. He had seen this before. Only last time, it was his loved ones lying tangled in each other’s deaths.
Sadness stabbed through me like a dagger. All the hope we’d felt at the thought of reaching the Dawn Gate was erased in a single sight, a single realization that all was not what it seemed and never would be again. How could a culture recover from this? How could a species survive?
I wished we’d saved Jeriath when we fled. Maybe he would have had some insight into why the Ileriocs had helped bring an end to all that they knew. I wished I could understand this. But understanding escaped me as surely as the dawn.
In grim silence, we flew to the gate, not even pausing as we dove through to the other side.
Maybe Nasataa would be there. And that would, at least, be one small triumph.
The gate shimmered and a feeling of coldness washed over me – and then we were on the other side.
I bit my lip to keep from gasping again as fresh horror hit me.
Why had I thought this side would be any different? People, dragons and Manticores littered the earth here, too, as if a wind made of knives had torn through the gate and killed them all. It was all I could do not to vomit.
“What are we going to do?” I asked aloud, stunned by the silence.
“I don’t know,” Heron admitted, shaking his head. It felt worse when he’d admitted that. Like if he’d pretended to know it somehow would have made everything better. But I didn’t know, either.
We were racing an enemy so heartless, so numb from pain, that nothing would deter them. And we were losing. Slowly, but surely, we were losing.
There just had to be some way to turn this all around. If only I could find it.
Chapter Sixteen
We followed the road, looking often over our shoulders as if we expected ravening Manticores to burst from the door at any moment. Maybe we did.
When we finally caught up to them, they were curled up together in the shadow of a jutting rock. I leapt from Olfijum’s back, scrambling over the rocky ground to get to them.
Nasataa raised his little head for a moment before letting it fall again. No wonder he was exhausted. His first day flying and he hadn’t had a break in twenty-four hours.
Water in the saddlebags. Kyrowat said in my mind.
“There’s water in the saddlebags,” I told Heron as I checked Nasataa over. A few nicks and scratches dotted his scales, but he seemed fine besides the exhaustion.
Heron busied himself watering the dragons and offering me a waterskin. I drank gratefully. After hours with nothing to drink, I’d been ignoring my burning throat for far too long. I drank deeply, grateful for the cold water.
Salves, bandages, too. Kyrowat’s voice was still faint, but Heron was already pulling salves from his saddlebags and hurrying to Olfijum who snarled in pain as his wounds were tended.
I left Nasataa to sleep on Kyrowat’s haunches and scurried around to Kyrowat’s head. His big eyes were glazed over with pain.
“I’m so sorry, Kyrowat. So sorry,” I said beginning to cry again at the thought of the big dragon all alone now, his companion gone forever.
You have his book?
“Yes. Right here.” I pulled it out to show him.
And the scarf?
“Yes,” tears muddied my voice as I tugged at the scarf around my neck.
Then you follow through with what he wanted. Find Raolcan. Find the keys. Get Nasataa to the Haroc.
I nodded. “You make it sound like you won’t be going with me.”
My saddle and tack I gift to Olfijum. Instruct your young buck there that the reins are purely for decoration. Riders of Purple dragons do not use them. He’s been given a great gift in the opportunity to ride a dragon. He should not abuse it.
Behind me, Olfijum whined.
No, you aren’t going to suffer my fate, you young fool! You aren’t bonded to the boy, just doing him a favor. Young dragons! You’d be lucky to be bonded to a man like Hubric. The things we saw! The places we went. Every day an adventure.
He sounded like he was rambling now. I looked him over. He was battered and bruised. How had he made it this far on such ragged wings?
You do what you must, girl. I always have. And I did last night, too. But it’s not the same without Hubric. I feel my lifeforce leaking away with his death.
I took the bond with Hubric many decades ago. He was a young fool then. But I could see he was going to live an exciting life. Never one to stop trying, Hubric. Solid. A true believer in the Lightbringer causes and prophecies. And look at what he did. He installed two rulers in place. He shaped them into people worth ruling. He’ll be remembered. And maybe someone will even remember old Kyro, too.
“Of course, they will,” I said, caressing his snout as I sniffed back the inevitable tears.
No sniveling. It’s a waste of time. Won’t change the future and you have a lot to do. He left his book to you. Read it. That’s important to him. Tor never read his enough. He should have. Then things might not have come as such a surprise.
He coughed a big gob of black out, spitting it hard toward Olfijum who barely dodged it with an angry snap of his jaws.
Listen, girl, the prophecies in it are true. Hard to understand, but true. I’ve watched them fulfilled with these old eyes. Not all, but some. And there are more. Ancient ones yet unfulfilled, and more added by Zin the prophet of the Ka’vai people.
“I don’t even know who that is!”
Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you read it. If Hubric had lived, he would have insisted on that. Do you understand?
“Yes,” I said through thick lips. The tears were coming hot and fast as I felt his voice fading.
Leave me here under these rocks. It’s as good a place as any for an old dragon’s bones.
“But you’re not dead yet,” I protested. “Maybe you can recover!”
Can’t. He flamed – barely a spurt. Won’t. My bond with Hubric was too strong. I’ll be lucky to last the hour. I feel myself fade. Keep that baby dragon safe.
“Don’t go, Kyrowat,” I said through a broken voice. “We need you. Please.”
He closed his big eyes as Heron gently removed his tack, putting it on Olfijum instead. The young dragon danced irritably, his eyes constantly focused on Kyrowat as if he were waiting for orders.
; Long minutes passed, but Kyrowat was still breathing and I just couldn’t go.
I’ve done what I can. Called ahead as far as I could reach. If anyone was listening – any allies – they’ll come to help. Trust the Lightbringers. Watch out for the Dusk Covenant.
“Who?”
Read the book! He growled.
“I will.”
There was a sound behind me like ripping cloth. I turned back to see Manticores plunging through the Dawn Gate. Heron scrambled from where he was tightening Olfijum’s saddle. He scooped up Nasataa like he was still a baby and ran with him to the other dragon.
“Can you carry him?” he was asking his dragon. “Even for a little while?”
My eyes were back on Kyrowat.
“Goodbye, Kyrowat,” I said gently stroking his nose. I didn’t want to let him go.
You must. Hurry now. While there is time.
Heaving with sobs, I kissed his nose as Heron grabbed my shoulders and steered me toward his dragon. In silence, we mounted and found our seats as Olfijum sprang painfully into the air.
There was a cry of discovery from behind us, but my eyes were still fixed on Kyrowat. His chest wasn’t moving anymore.
And as we flew away, I felt as though I had left a part of my heart behind.
Chapter Seventeen
It was barely midday when Olfijum first stumbled, his wings not catching the air quite right.
Another minute until he stumbled again.
“He’s too tired,” Heron said, his voice tight.
Of course, he was. He’d been flying with the three of us on his back after a full day and night awake and moving. No one could do that.
I snapped shut the book of prophecies I’d been diligently reading, preparing to answer, but then opened it quickly back to the end. There were hand-drawn maps at the back of the tiny book with places and notations. Not cities, I didn’t think. Maybe they were places special to Hubric.
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