by Aaron Ehasz
“This is it,” Rayla said. “This canyon leads to the Moonstone Path.”
“Wow,” Callum said. “I can’t believe that we’re almost to Xadia.” But he was only excited for a moment. “We came this far, and Ez isn’t with us.”
Zym made a soft whining sound. Callum had carried Zym in his arms most of the way to the path. The baby dragon hadn’t recovered from losing Ezran. He was clutching Callum tightly and had buried his head in Callum’s chest.
“I know,” Rayla said. “But we can’t think about that now. Ezran’s doing the right thing, and so are we.”
They came around a final turn in the canyon, which opened onto the border. Callum gasped.
At this spot, the border was an enormous field of cooled, cracked lava. The cracks glowed an ominous red. Xadia was visible far across the lava, but the field stretched for miles to both the north and south. Clearly there was no going around.
“One simply walks into Xadia, huh?” Callum said. He raised an eyebrow at Rayla. Might as well start walking, then. He lifted a foot to step onto a rock.
“Hold on there!” Rayla said. She yanked him back to solid ground. “There’s sort of a trick to it.” Rayla picked up a stone and tossed it on the rock Callum had almost stepped on. The rock instantly sank down into the liquid magma below. Callum gulped.
“Not all the rocks sink that quickly,” Rayla explained. “A few will let us stand on them long enough to walk across. Those special stones were enchanted and marked with hidden runes centuries ago, and the path has been a closely guarded secret. We call it the Moonstone Path.”
“Okay, great,” Callum said. There was at least a fighting chance of making it across. “So how do we know—”
“Patience, friend,” Rayla said. She pointed in the direction of the moon, which was hiding behind a cloud. “Patience.”
A moment later, the breeze blew the clouds away and the moon emerged. Callum’s eyes grew wide as runes appeared on some of the rocks before them. They glowed, reflecting the moonlight.
“Oh, I get it,” he said, marveling at the eerie yet beautiful sight before them. “The Moonstone Path.” The rocks with runes created a safe route across the lava field.
He tentatively stepped on the closest Moon-marked rock. It began to sink, but much more slowly than that first rock he’d nearly stepped on. He smiled.
Slowly, they began to pick their way across, the marked stones sinking behind them.
The trio moved at a steady pace, but the path was slow going. Soon Callum, Rayla, and Zym found themselves far out on the lava field. The other side was within sight, but still quite far away.
“The sky’s getting lighter. We need to hurry,” Rayla said. “If the sun rises, we won’t be able to see the moon runes anymore.”
They started to move faster. Callum could still see the runes, but he had to strain his eyes. He stepped from one safe rock to the next, but each time, as soon as he landed, the rune faded before his eyes.
He looked up. The sun was now peeking through the crack of the canyon up ahead. Time was just about up.
“Run!” Callum shouted.
Callum, Rayla, and Zym ran as fast as they could, racing against the sunrise. But before they reached the end of the path, the runes disappeared entirely. The trio stood frozen and helpless on a single rock as it slowly started to sink.
Ezran and Corvus walked side by side through the forest to Katolis. Ezran tried to imagine what he would encounter there. He was looking forward to seeing his old friend Opeli, and he wouldn’t mind getting his hands on a jelly tart.
Suddenly, Ezran’s heart skipped a few beats. He forgot all about Katolis and tarts. Zym needed him. He could sense it. Ezran stood very still.
“What’s wrong?” Corvus asked. “Why are you stopping?”
“I can see something,” Ezran said. “Something that’s not here.”
“What are you talking about?” Corvus asked.
“They’re in trouble,” Ezran said. “They can’t get to Xadia.” He closed his eyes. “I can feel a connection to Zym as if we were in the same place! He’s reaching out to me right now. He’s scared,” Ezran said. “It’s okay, Zym! You’re going to be okay. We’ll get through this together.” Determination surged through Ezran. It was his job to guide the tiny dragon home after all.
“Corvus,” Ezran said. “I need to try something that might seem a little strange. You need to trust me.”
“You’re the king,” Corvus said. “Whatever you need.”
“Kneel down,” Ezran said.
Corvus immediately obeyed. Ezran awkwardly scrambled onto his shoulders. Corvus stood up.
“Okay, Zym, you can do this. You need to block the light,” Ezran shouted through space and time to the tiny dragon. Then he spread his arms and slowly moved them up and down as if they were wings.
Zym stared across the Moonstone Path. He wasn’t sure why Callum and Rayla had stopped, but he knew they were all in trouble. They had to get to the other side of this river of lava. This, he was sure of. And it seemed that the problem was the sun.
Zym scampered over to Callum and climbed onto his head. From this height, he could see that the sun was rising over a rocky structure. Right now, the rocks blocked the full brightness of the sun. But it wouldn’t be long before the sun was fully risen.
“Zym? What are you doing?” Callum asked.
An idea suddenly popped into Zym’s head. If he could fly across the lava and land on the rocks, maybe he could block the sun and help his friends.
But Zym didn’t know how to fly. He wished he’d practiced more with Ezran. Maybe taken the lessons with Phoe-Phoe a little more seriously.
Where was Ezran? Zym needed him so badly.
And then, with his feet on Callum’s shoulders, Zym felt a strange sensation. It was as if a piece of his soul raced out of his body and then—BLAM!—joined another soul. He was with Ezran! Somehow, their souls were together, joined in an unknown part of the universe.
With his eyes closed, Zym saw Ezran spread his arms wide. Zym did the same. He unfurled his wings.
Then Ezran raised his arms up and down. Zym did the same with his wings.
You can do it. You can do it. Zym felt Ezran’s words of encouragement flow through him.
There was no time to lose. Before he could think twice about it, Zym opened his eyes. He flapped his wings harder than he thought was possible. Then he leaped.
He was flying! He was really flying! Zym felt a big smile spread across his face as the wind breezed past him.
“He’s flying! He’s trying to block the sun!” Rayla shouted.
Zym heard Callum and Rayla cheering him on as he soared through the sky.
He was almost to the edge of the lava river when he noticed he wasn’t as high as before. He flapped harder, but he only dropped lower to the ground. It didn’t matter how hard he flapped. He wasn’t strong enough.
Zym was going to fail everyone. Rayla, Callum, Ezran. Even Bait would be disappointed. And Zym would never meet his mother.
He stopped flapping so hard. It didn’t matter anymore.
“ASPIRO!”
A tremendous gust of wind lifted Zym up into the air. He continued flapping, but this time he was gaining height. The winds from Callum’s spell were pushing him upward.
Zym was high up now. He could feel the sun on his face. Seconds later, he arrived at the crack in the rocks where the sunlight shone through. He threw his head back in triumph and spread his small wings to block the sun.
In Zym’s long shadow, the light of the moon activated the runes on the path.
“There’s the path again,” Rayla said. “Run!”
Zym heard Rayla and Callum sprinting across the path. At last, he heard Callum cry, “We did it! We made it across!”
Zym drifted down to meet Rayla and Callum on the Xadian side of the border. Then he folded his wings back.
Zym was a dragon now.
General Amaya stared at the Breach from the
human side. She didn’t know how much longer the Breach would hold, and she could feel Lieutenant Fen’s onion breath on her neck.
“General Amaya, we’re running out of time. I strongly recommend we gather the battalion and abandon the fortress,” Lieutenant Fen signed.
Amaya scowled. Abandon wasn’t a word in her vocabulary. There was too much at stake. She’d put off the search for her beloved nephews and left Viren in charge of Katolis. All this to maintain the fortress at the Breach.
For generations, the Breach had been the only way for humans to cross the border to Xadia. And for all these generations, the Breach had remained safe and secure. If they lost control of the border crossing, it could be used by Xadian forces to launch massive attacks on the human kingdoms. Amaya would not let it fall under her watch. She was not about to walk away … not from the Breach anyway. Amaya turned away from Fen.
“General!” he shouted.
Amaya continued to walk away, but she could feel the thud of Lieutenant Fen’s footsteps pounding behind her. She kept marching as he ran even faster to overtake her. Now he was facing her. She couldn’t help but read his lips.
“General, the Sunfire elves have already taken over the outpost on the Xadian side of the Breach.”
This was the last piece of news she wanted. Amaya stopped. She didn’t want to have this conversation, but now she had no choice.
“If the elves mount an attack, we just don’t have the numbers to hold this fortress,” Fen said. “When the elves mount an attack, I should say.”
“We do not abandon our post,” Amaya signed.
She started to walk away when another soldier ran up to them.
“General Amaya, I’m sorry to interrupt. But someone has arrived.”
Amaya turned in the direction the soldier was pointing. She saw a figure walking onto the battlement. She’d recognize the walk of that man anywhere! He was walking toward her slowly—too slowly for Amaya’s taste.
She hurried over to Gren and scooped him up into one of her famous bear hugs. Amaya could get by without a translator, but communication would be much smoother with Gren to sign and speak at the same time.
Plus, she’d missed his cheerful, freckled smile terribly. But for some reason his boyish face was covered in the beginnings of a beard.
“What’s this?” Amaya signed, stroking the growing stubble.
“I couldn’t shave,” Gren signed back. “I’ll shave as soon as I can so you can read my lips. We have a lot to catch up on.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Lieutenant Fen said, “but where are the reinforcements we requested? We sent many messages to Lord Viren.”
“No reinforcements are coming,” Gren signed. “That’s one of the things we need to discuss. Lord Viren has been arrested for treason. He also held me prisoner, which is why I couldn’t shave.”
Amaya rolled her eyes. But in case Gren needed clarification on her feelings, she signed, “How shocking,” with extra energy in her sarcastic hands. Even if Viren’s treason wasn’t surprising, it put Amaya in a more difficult position. Without reinforcements, they could not defend the Breach. She signed as much to Gren and Fen.
“Lieutenant, you are right—we can’t defend the Breach.” Fen seemed satisfied to have won the argument, but Amaya continued. “But I won’t abandon it either. Our only option is to destroy it.”
General Amaya thought quickly. “We’ll set up explosives at a half dozen detonation points and connect them with a single cable. We will trigger the explosion with the cable from our side of the Breach and bring down an impassable wall of flowing lava.”
Amaya, Gren, Fen, and a group of troops moved to the river of lava to set up the defensive explosion. Amaya worked with Gren to stuff barrels of explosives up into the rocks just above the secret path to Xadia. Nearby, her troops did the same. They had to be incredibly careful in their placement. If the explosives were a few inches too close to the magma, a stray ember could ignite the explosives prematurely.
After about thirty minutes, the troops waved their hands to signal that the explosives were in place.
“The cable,” Amaya signed.
Fen passed Amaya a cable. She attached it to the last barrel in the chain.
“It’s done,” Amaya signed. “Let’s go!”
The group hurried down the path to the human side of the Breach. Fen rolled the long cable out behind them. Amaya, Gren, and Fen stood just inside the gate that led to the secret path. A few soldiers stood nearby, cable in hand. They looked to Amaya.
“On your command, we’ll pull the cable and detonate the barrels,” Fen signed.
“And a thousand tons of rock and lava will seal the Breach forever,” Amaya signed back. She dropped her hand, giving the command.
“Pull!” Gren shouted.
Fen yanked the cable with all his might. Nothing happened. He pulled again. This time, the cable snaked back toward them, and they could see it had been severed. Its end was glowing red hot.
Amaya whipped her head around. She could see the Sunfire knight standing in the middle of the Breach path in the distance. She held the opposite end of the cable she had just cut in one hand, and in the other was the glowing Sunforge blade. A sneer crossed her face.
“Now what?!” Fen shouted. “The trigger’s been disabled.”
Amaya shook her head. Of course, Fen was panicking.
“Someone has to go out there and set them off,” she signed. “I’ll do it myself.” She mounted her horse. She would charge the Breach and set off those explosives on her own.
Gren was running toward her, waving his arms. She paused.
“But Amaya. You won’t survive,” Gren signed.
Amaya looked at Gren. “But the rest of you will,” she signed. The general grabbed a nearby torch—she would need it to ignite the barrels. Then she gave Gren the best smile she could muster, and galloped off.
Amaya and her horse raced toward the Xadian side of the Breach. As she neared the explosives, torch in hand, she could see the Sunfire knight standing directly in her path. The knight’s eyes were narrowed, and her sword was drawn.
Amaya charged the knight and her glowing blade. But as Amaya approached, the knight dug her heels in and brandished her weapon. Amaya tried to leap over the knight on horseback, but the Sunforge blade singed the horse’s flank.
The horse screamed in agony. Its body twisted and contorted in pain and it collapsed onto its side. The torch flew out of Amaya’s hand, and she watched in desperation as it tumbled off the edge of the ravine. Now she had no way to light those barrels.
Nevertheless, she ran toward the first barrel and began to climb. But before she could get to it, the knight yanked her to the ground. Amaya stepped forward, within the knight’s reach. She grabbed the hilt of the knight’s glowing Sunforge blade and ripped it away from her. Then she kicked the Sunfire knight back and clambered up to the barrel of explosives.
Amaya gave one last look across the Breach. She caught Gren’s eye and nodded.
Then she plunged the Sunforge blade into the barrel to ignite the explosives.
Amaya planted her shield down as close to the cliff wall as she could, and braced herself behind it. She shuddered at the huge initial explosion. Then she felt each successive barrel blow, one after the other.
Success! Torrents of lava flowed over what was once the path, making passage impossible.
Amaya clutched her scorched shield, happy to have succeeded and surprised to be alive. She looked around, surveying her options on what to do from here. Her eyes settled on the Sunfire knight. She was nearby, barely hanging on to a ledge. She was moments away from plummeting into the lava far below.
Amaya hurried to the ledge and crouched down. She narrowed her eyes at her enemy. It could all be over in an instant. A simple shove would send the knight to her death.
But instead of shoving the knight, Amaya reached her hand out.
The Sunfire knight frowned and refused Amaya’s hand. But Amaya h
ad made up her mind. She reached down farther, grabbed the Sunfire knight’s wrist, and pulled her to safety.
Within seconds, a group of Sunfire elves arrived on the scene and surrounded Amaya. They didn’t seem to care that she had just saved their leader.
The knight looked away as the elves apprehended Amaya.
Amaya held her head high as they tackled her and tied her up. She had done what she had come to do. Katolis was safe … for now.
As the sun rose over the small town, Claudia helped Soren out of the hospital. She couldn’t believe the doctors and nurses had allowed him to spend another night there after the whole dark magic healing fiasco. But they seemed to like Soren there. Claudia had slept on a nearby bench, outside.
Soren was hobbling on crutches, but his new lease on life seemed to have drained out of him.
“We both failed our secret missions, Claudia,” Soren said. “What’s Dad going to say when we show up empty-handed?”
This fact had occurred to Claudia as well. She wasn’t looking forward to returning to Katolis. Their dad was going to be super furious. But there was no reason to upset Soren. He needed to focus on getting better.
“We’re both alive, Soren,” she said. “That’s the important thing. And we’re not coming back empty-handed.” She waved something in front of Soren’s face. “It’s the horn you cut off the dragon!”
Soren eyes widened. He admired the dragon horn, and then he looked off into the sky. “Guess what, Claudia. Inspiration has found me,” he said. Then Soren’s expression changed to what Claudia had now learned to recognize as his “poem face”:
Failed missions, mad dad.
But dragon horn means magic.
Maybe Dad not mad?
Claudia beamed as she counted the syllables. Five-seven-five! Soren was unpredictable in the best ways.
“Yes!! That was amazing! A perfect haiku.” She threw herself on Soren in a bear hug, nearly knocking him over in the process.
They would be able to reunite Zym with his mother any day now! In the early morning light, Rayla looked around at the rises in the canyon; she was practically bursting to show Callum what lay beyond. She spun around to face Callum and Zym and threw out her arms.
