“Excellent, thank you!” I took two packs and turned a beaming smile on Sir Galfred and Adath. “See you soon, my friends.” I turned and strode from the tent, with Rizzala and Arieste beside me.
“Goddesses guide you on your way,” Sir Galfred called after me as I strode from the tent and
I felt an excited spring in my step as I hurried toward where Irenya and Letharia waited. I’d never been to a sunken city before, and it seemed like a thrilling new adventure awaited us. I would get to travel with the beautiful women that had become my close friends, and at the end of our journey we’d defeat the dragon that had threatened the city and people of Whitespire. Plus, I’d get another magical ability and come one step closer to fulfilling my quest.
We found Irenya standing guard over Letharia, who had taken a seat on an overturned crate. The dark-haired woman’s shoulders were slumped, her expression dejected.
“You ready?” I asked Irenya and Letharia as I approached.
“Yes,” Irenya rumbled.
Letharia barely looked up, and her only answer was a silent nod. She wasn’t like Arieste, Irenya, or Rizzala, and she’d made it clear she had no desire to go adventuring. If we didn’t need her help to get through the crypts and defeat Curym, I would have let her stay in Whitespire. But the truth was that she was the only one who knew anything about Emerald Deep, so we had to bring her along.
“I know you’re not eager to come,” I told the dark-haired woman in a quiet voice, “but I promise I’ll do my best to make sure you stay far out of harm’s way.”
“I could simply give you the information you desire,” she said, her eyes filled with apprehension. “The tablets back at my lair will tell you everything you need to know.”
I pondered her words for a moment. “I’ll make you a deal,” I said finally. “If your tablets really do have the information we need to get into the crypts, find the Mistresses, and locate Curym’s lair, I won’t bring you into Emerald Deep with us.”
Her eyes brightened. “Truly?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “We need your help, but I’m not going to force you to risk your life if there’s a better way. But only if there’s a better way.”
Letharia leapt to her feet and clambered onto Irenya’s back. “Take me to my--to Zaddrith’s lair, and I will show you everything you need to know!”
I gave Irenya instructions on how to find the muddy swamp where we’d fought Zaddrith, then mounted up. Rizzala took a seat behind Letharia, doubtless to keep an eye on her. Arieste, however, sat right behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist.
“It’s been too long since I’ve had any Ethan,” she murmured in my ear. “I trust you plan to remedy that very soon.”
The warmth of her body seeped into my skin and the flowery smell of her perfume filled my nostrils, and I felt a stiffness in my crotch.
“Yes,” Arieste murmured as her hands traced down the front of my chest, over my belt, to the bulge in my pants, “very soon.”
“Maybe it’s worth taking a few hours off before heading off to another battle,” Nyvea purred in my mind. “Even heroes need rest now and then.” From the emphasis on the word “rest”, I could tell her plans from me included everything but sleeping.
It was very tempting to agree with Nyvea. I’d welcome a night wrapped in Arieste and Irenya’s arms after the last few days of endless battle. But if we didn’t hit Curym soon, she’d have time to recover from the battle and spawn more minions. We needed to take her down as soon as possible. That meant we’d have to delay the fun for a bit longer.
Arieste’s arms tightened around my waist as Irenya leapt high into the air, and I had to cling tight to the red dragon’s spikes to stay in my seat. Her powerful muscles rippled as she flapped her wings and slowly gained altitude. She circled once, banked hard to the northeast, and quickly picked up speed. Within seconds, we were hurtling over the land of Elloriel like a speeding arrow.
Irenya’s dragon form was larger than Arieste’s, but once she picked up speed, she could fly much faster. We soared over the forest, which flashed by below us like a sea of emerald green, brown, yellow, and red. Elation surged through my chest as the wind whipped at my hair and clothing. It had only been a few days since my last flight, but it felt like a lifetime. There was no feeling on Earth that could compare to the thrill of sitting on a dragon’s back and cutting through the sky high above the city. It was like riding a motorbike, hang glider, and helicopter, but with far more power and control than any Earth machine.
I shot a glance back at my companions. Arieste had her face pressed against my back, her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around my waist. Letharia’s eyes were also closed, but her face was as white as the knuckles that gripped Irenya’s spikes. A massive grin split Rizzala’s face, and she waved her arms as if she was riding a roller coaster. She was staying on Irenya’s back with nothing more than the strength of her powerful leg muscles.
A ribbon of blue cut through the dense forest blow, and the sun sparkled on the fast-flowing water of the Crystal River. I tapped into the siphon ability that had been my first gift from Barodan, the Silent Guardian. The Mark of the Guardian, the black tattoo on my chest, gave me the ability to sense the presence of magic in the world around me. Over the last few weeks, I had learned how to use it as a sort of magical radar, and it had warned me of threats and saved my life on multiple occasions. Now, however, I felt no hint of the biting, metallic-edged acid magic of Zaddrith’s minions or the seething, churning water power of Curym and her creatures.
Beyond the Crystal River, more forests spread out to the north, south, and east for hundreds of miles. I’d made this journey on Rizzala’s back, but seeing it from this high up was a truly spectacular thing. Elloriel, the southernmost human kingdom on the continent of Iriador, was a land of lush, vivid greenery, so alive, so beautiful. It painted a stark contrast with the rocky canyons around Windwall, Riamod’s fire-blasted lands, and Frosdar’s frozen territory.
Within fifteen minutes, the forests gave way to rolling hills covered in waist-high grass. From our vantage high above the ground, we could see for a hundred miles in every direction. I felt a pang of worry as I scanned the grassy landscape. I hadn’t seen any hint of General Daxos through the thick forest canopy, and I saw no sign of him now. He’d only left Whitespire an hour or two before we did, so he couldn’t have gotten this far. I had to trust that my friend and his Blackguards could take care of themselves. Thankfully, there had been no sign of Zaddrith’s minions either.
Something to the northeast drew my eye. For a moment, I couldn’t figure out what the strange ripples in the tall grass were. Then, as I leaned forward for a closer look, I realized what I had seen. The grass wasn’t rippling, but it was being trampled by creatures with bright green skin and long red spikes rising from their humped backs. I counted at least twenty or twenty-five of the murlocs trying to flee back to Zaddrith’s lands.
“Irenya!” I shouted.
“I see them,” the red dragon rumbled.
“Light ‘em up!” The grass was green enough that we wouldn’t have to worry about starting a brush fire, and we could take care of at least one problem for General Daxos.
“With pleasure.” Growling low in her throat, Irenya swooped toward the valley in which I’d seen the murlocs. The frog-looking monsters filled the air with their panicked, croaking cries, and they tried in vain to hop faster to escape the threat. Crimson light shone from the gemstone set in Irenya’s chest as she summoned her magic, then a pillar of bright red, yellow, and orange fire burst from her mouth. The scorching heat and devouring flames engulfed the murlocs and silenced their croaking cries.
The first blast of fire caught fifteen murlocs, and Irenya’s head turned to send the flames streaming at another five. Three of the creatures escaped the flames, but Irenya swooped low enough that her sweeping tail crushed their humped bodies and splattered the grass with their bright green blood. When she glided upward a moment later, nothing but bu
rned and shattered bodies remained of the murlocs.
I felt a stronger pulse of acidic magic to the north, and I turned to study the landscape in that direction. There was just one magical presence, not multiple, but it was stronger than the power I’d felt within the murlocs. Even though I couldn’t see it moving through the tall grass, I knew it was one of Zaddrith’s serpents.
“To the north!” I shouted to Irenya. “There’s a giant serpent slithering through the grass.”
“Your favorite, eh?” Irenya said, with the rumbling sound I’d come to learn was dragon laughter. “Just for you, handsome.” She banked in the direction I’d indicated and soared upward to gain altitude. I searched the hillside for any sign of the serpent, but its scaly skin blended in with the grass too well. Unfortunately for the snake, I didn’t need my eyes to find it.
“On my signal,” I told Irenya, “blast the ground with the biggest pillar of fire you can manage.”
“You got it!”
Once again, the gemstone flared bright red, and I felt the surge of fire magic within Irenya as she drew on the power coursing through her. My heart leapt into my throat as Irenya dropped toward the ground and hurtled a few yards above the grassy fields. It was like being a race car driver and a fighter pilot, with bad-ass wizard thrown into the mix.
“Now!” I shouted.
Fire burst from Irenya’s throat and turned the grassy field below to ash. A loud hissing filled the air, cut off a moment later as the flames roasted their way up the serpent’s tail and body to consume its head. I caught a few seconds of wild thrashing as we hurtled past, but when I glanced back, the snake’s twitching had fallen still and no trace of Zaddrith’s acidic magic remained.
My eyes sought out Letharia and found her face whiter than usual. Until a few hours earlier, she had been Zaddrith, the green dragon that summoned these minions into existence. She had all of Zaddrith’s memories, thoughts, and feelings, which meant she had to be suffering over the loss of these minions…her minions. None of the other dragon women had had to watch their creatures die like this. I resolved to try and talk to her about it the first chance I got.
But that would be later. Right now, I needed to focus on scanning for any more of Zaddrith’s minions. The more we could deal with now, the easier it would be for General Daxos, Grendis, and the others to finish the job.
My magical senses didn’t find any more creatures as we zoomed over the rolling hills. A smile broadened my lips as I saw the fields of wildflowers stretching out ahead of us. The grasslands were carpeted by cornflowers, daisies, and poppies in a dozen different colors, and I remembered the sweet smell from the night before.
“It’s beautiful,” Arieste murmured in my ear.
Within a few minutes, however, the colorful hills gave way to the lowlands of Zaddrith’s swamp. Even this high up, I could smell the stink of rotting vegetation, animal carcasses, and stagnant water. Thankfully, Irenya flew over the swamp far faster than Rizzala had run through it. Less than ten minutes passed before she circled around the clearing where we’d fought Zaddrith the night before. Her massive dragon claws squelched loudly and sank into the muck as, and she let out a low, rumbling growl of displeasure.
I leapt off Irenya’s back onto a small hillock that rose above the surface of the stagnant water, then turned to Letharia. “We’re here. Time you show us what we need to know.”
Rizzala’s expression was wary as she scanned the forest for any threat, and Arieste sat stiff-backed on Irenya’s back, her face a mask of disdain at the filthy conditions.
Letharia, however, studied the swamp a strange mix of nostalgia and disgust, as if the human part of her recoiled from the land her dragon half had loved. She allowed me to help her dismount from Irenya’s back and stepped gingerly onto the hillock beside me.
“It’s this way,” she said. Her nose wrinkled as she waded through a muddy patch of ground toward the now-shattered altar that had once served as the source of her magic. I followed along behind her, my magical senses active to scan for any threat.
“Under here.” She pointed to a rotten log a few paces away from the altar. Gritting my teeth, I gripped one end of the slime-covered and heaved. To my surprise, the log weighed far less than it looked. As I lifted, I saw it was little more than hollowed-out bark, like the lid of a treasure chest concealing the valuables stored beneath. The lower half of the log was equally hollow, and the curved bottom held a collection of stone tablets.
The tablets were about a foot long and eight inches wide, made of a deep grey stone. They were lighter than I expected, as if they were made from pumice or slate, but felt very solid in my hands.
Letharia searched through the tablets for a few moments before seizing two and holding them up in triumph. “Aha!” She turned to me with a grin and held them out. “These will tell you everything you need to know about Emerald Deep.”
I took the tablets from her, but frowned as I stared down at the strange lines and shapes etched into the stone. It was like no written language I’d ever seen, sort of a mix of Viking runes, Arabic script, and hieroglyphs.
“Yeah, there’s no way I can read these,” I said and held the tablets out to her.
“What?” She looked surprised. “You can’t read the common tongue of Iriador?”
“This isn’t the common tongue,” I told her with a shake of my head.
“Of course it is!” she protested. “This language has been in use for centuries.”
“Not anymore.” I drew out the scroll that bore King Obragar’s decree that I was to become lord of Greenlake. “This is what people in this day and age use to write.”
Letharia snatched the scroll from my hands and stared down at it. “Odd,” she said, her nose wrinkling. “It almost seems like a bastardization of Old Iridan, but lacking the elegant depictions and grace of High Agrasic.” Her brow furrowed as she studied it, then shook her head and handed it back to me. “I believe I could figure out the language, but it would take me a few days.”
“It would take me much longer than that to learn how to read that,” I said and pointed to the stone tablets in her hand.
Letharia’s face fell. “You mean you can’t read it?” She turned to Irenya, Rizzala, and Arieste. “Any of you?”
“Riamod was the sort to collect magical weapons, gold, and jewels, not moldy books and tablets,” Irenya rumbled.
“Not a lot to read in Frosdar’s frozen wastes,” Arieste added.
Rizzala shrugged. “Emroth could never stray far enough from her altar.”
Letharia’s eyes widened. “So you mean I’m the only one who can…” Her voice trailed off, and she collapsed to a seat on a nearby stump. “No, no, no, no,” she moaned, her head clasped in her hands.
I crouched in front of the dark-haired woman in the green dress. “Letharia, I know you don’t want to do this, but we need your help. I swear that I won’t let anything happen to you. I will do everything I can to keep you safe, and I know the others will as well, right?” I turned to the two women and the dragon behind me. Rizzala’s expression was disdainful, but she nodded along with Arieste and Irenya. “You aren’t just our best chance at success. You’re our only chance.”
Letharia fixed me with a panicked expression. “But in this weak body, there’s no way I can defend myself against the Mistresses or Curym. They’ll kill me!”
“We’re not going to let that happen.” I took her trembling hand in mine and gripped it hard. “We defeated Zaddrith and Curym’s armies because we worked together. More than that, we fight for each other and do whatever we can to protect each other. And now you have a chance to be one of us, to work with us to make a real difference. You can fight for us and for the people of Whitespire, the people you attacked when you were Zaddrith. You have a chance to start a new life. With us.”
Her deep green eyes searched mine, and I saw the fear begin to retreat. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would you do that? After everything Zaddrith did to you.”
“Zaddrith is gone,” I told her. “You may have some of her memories, but you aren’t her anymore. You’re a human, a new person, and that means you get a shot at a new life. Just like I got when I came here to Whitespire, and like Arieste, Irenya, and Rizzala got. Everyone deserves a second chance. Everyone.”
The panic in her expression lessened, replaced by a glimmer of hope. “Even after all the pain I caused?”
“That’s why it’s called a second chance,” I told her with a grin. “You made choices as Zaddrith, choices you regret now that you’re Letharia. So use those feelings of regret to drive your actions from now on. Make a conscious decision to do what you can to atone for what you’ve done. You can make a real difference, Letharia, you just have to be willing to try.”
She remained silent for a moment, her expression pensive. Finally, she lifted her eyes to mine and nodded. “I’d like to try,” she said in a quiet voice. “But I’m afraid. Even as Zaddrith, I was afraid. Afraid that someone else would come and take my power, my land, my treasure. Afraid that the other dragons would try to kill me. Fear has been my constant companion for so long that I don’t know anything else.”
“Fear is normal,” I said with a reassuring squeeze of her hand. “I feel fear, just like you. All humans do. Hell, probably all dragons and animals do as well. But the secret is in facing those fears. A doctor friend of mine once said that courage isn’t a matter of being not frightened. It’s a matter of being afraid but doing what you have to do anyway.”
I pointed to the two women and the dragon behind me. “Each of them feel fear, too. I’m sure Arieste was afraid when she felt Zaddrith’s acid coursing through her veins. Irenya doesn’t like being trapped in small spaces. Rizzala…” I paused, then grinned. “Well, Rizzala’s probably not afraid of anything, but all the rest of us know what it feels like to be afraid. The secret is just in facing those fears, and they tend to be a lot less scary than we expected.”
Her eyes searched mine, and her hand returned my grip. “You will protect me?” she asked.
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