Chapter 27 Reyla
Reyla
Once dressed, we stayed together.
Farris slunk down the hall with us and poked around each room that had probably been searched by others but might still reveal the right key.
None did.
With my heart weighing me down, I walked up the stairs beside Lore to the next level. On the third floor’s north wing, we strode past a huge tapestry depicting fae battling mid-flight on dragons.
Mesmerized by the beasts, I stopped to study it.
“These dragons aren’t very big,” I said softly to Lore.
His hand rested on my shoulder. He’d kept touching me since healing my wounds, either by holding my uninjured hand, though it looked and felt like it had never been wounded, or touching my lower spine. “I heard yours are larger than ours.”
His people must’ve reported this to him. He and my friend, Tempest, had formed an agreement where he supplied troops to help in our upcoming battle, and in exchange, he would receive a willing fae bride. Me, to be specific.
“Why didn’t you join the fight?”
“I wanted to but worried that might create problems.”
He was no coward; he’d proved it over and over again.
“I could’ve met you earlier,” I said.
His lips curved up in that smirk I adored. “And fallen for me earlier.”
I poked his side. “Same, husband. Same.”
“The day I met you, you captured every eye in that marketplace.”
I had a hard time believing that. “I was trying not to stand out.”
“By stealing a nyxin from Prager in the middle of a busy marketplace.”
“I thought she was going to eat him.” Instead, she wanted him for some other, unknown reason.
Farris nosed the fringe dangling along the bottom of the tapestry, nudging it up and poking his snout beneath. Pulling back, he huffed.
“Dusty under there?” I stroked his silky ears. “Queen Naveer needs to hire more staff or start running a damp cloth around to collect the dust.” As if that would happen.
A breeze gusted down the hall, stirring my hair around my face and lifting the edge of the tapestry.
Farris darted forward, disappearing behind it.
My pulse quickened. A hidden passage. “Farris?”
He scooted back out, and the edge of the tapestry slid back into place. Sitting, he looked up at me, flashing his teeth in a nyxin grin.
Lore used power to lift the tapestry higher, revealing an arched wooden door cracked open wide enough for a nyxin to slip through.
“Feel like exploring?” I asked Lore, who grunted and kicked the door open hard enough to make it slam against the inner way.
The circular chamber beyond held a fountain of pearled alabaster surrounded by four sculpted guardians the size of horses. Their heads were lowered, and their mouths stretched wide, the one on this side cradling a key between arched fangs.
Magic hummed in the air, but underneath the ancient power something else lurked. Whatever it was, it made my skin crawl. I suspected these guardians had been waiting a long time for challengers.
“A fountain.” My frown grew. “Why put it here and not in the garden?”
Lore shrugged. “Must be part of this strange competition. I'm feeling good about it because of the dragons.”
I cocked my head to look his way. “Why dragons in particular?”
“They…” He shook his head. “I guess I feel an affinity for them.”
“You've always been interested in them, but an affinity?” Perhaps the one who'd helped him inside the labyrinth played a role in his current feelings.
“Affinity, yes.” He strolled around the fountain, tipping his head back to study each one. “They have runes on their chests that translate into Drac’Vana. Aer’Quilith. Ral’Asteir. Pyr’Toval.”
“And that means…”
He circled slower, reading them aloud again, along with their translation. “Earth.” He pointed to the one with tan, granite-like scales before moving to stand in front of the next, the one with a swirling pale blue pattern across its muzzle. “Air.”
I couldn't read the runes, but I sensed the pattern here.
“Water.” I nudged my chin toward the third, where rusted rivulets drizzled from the nostrils and pooled in the white dragon’s fountain basin.
The last was dark gold streaked with red. The mouth opened wide with heatless, flame-shaped carvings curling around it.
“Fire.” Lore joined me in front of it.
Keys rested on each maw, gleaming with promise. Maybe this would be it. We'd find the right one, bring it to Naveer, and then we could get a good night's rest in preparation for tomorrow's test.
Lore would die in three days. The thought made my chest tight.
Farris came over to sit beside me, his ears high, his warm eyes flicking from me to the fang-filled mouths and back again. His shadow angled in the opposite direction, toward the door.
“What’s wrong, little guy?” I ruffled the top of his head. He looked up at me soulfully before whining again. “Should we leave?” I asked Lore, who’d also noted the position of Farris’s shadow.
“Not without testing the keys.”
I moved toward the earth dragon.
Drac'Vana squatted in front of us, its granite scales rough and pitted. As I approached, I noticed the floor around it was littered with what looked like small stones, until I realized they were teeth. Human teeth.
“What kind of test leaves behind teeth?” I asked, my skin quivering with dismay.
“The bad kind. Be careful.”
The metal piece gleamed temptingly between the dragon's jaws, but something about the creature's stillness made me pause.
I snapped my hand toward the mouth. The instant my fingers crossed the threshold, the jaw didn't snap, it began to close slowly, while stone tendrils erupted from the floor to wrap around my ankles.
“Reyla!” Lore lunged for me, but more tendrils shot up, forming a cage around me.
The dragon's mouth continued its relentless closing. I had maybe ten seconds before it crushed my hand, but the tendrils binding my feet held fast.
“The floor,” I shouted to Lore. “Break the floor.”
He sent power slamming into the tiles. Cracks spider-webbed outward, and my stone shackles crumbled. I latched onto the key and flung myself backward as the jaws slammed shut with the sound of breaking bones.
The dragon's eyes opened, ancient, hungry. And disappointed.
Lore crushed the cage surrounding me with brute force and pulled me against him, his hands shaking as he healed the cuts on my ankles.
“It was playing with me,” I whispered. “It wanted to feed slowly.”
The metal in my palm was ice cold, but that was the least of our concerns. We'd learned that these tests weren't meant to challenge us, they were meant to consume us.
“My turn, wife.” His voice held deadly calm. “You're not getting hurt again.”
If he could, he’d wrap me in sikeen to protect me from all harm. The only problem was that bad people still knew how to yank the fabric from my grip.
“Alright. You can have this one. But we’re taking turns.”
He growled but said nothing further.
We strode over to stand in front of Aer’Quilith.
Different in shape than the others, the air dragon had no clear mouth.
Only a deep funnel down its throat. The key hovered inside, balanced mid-air.
Lore casually reached for it as if he wasn't worried about whatever the wind beast might have to offer.
The moment his hand passed the outer portion of the maw, a growl erupted from the dragon, vibrating through my bones.
Wind screamed up the dragon’s throat, slamming Lore into the nearest wall.
I dropped low, my hair whipped back from my face. As soon as the wind stopped, I dragged myself to where Lore crouched, glaring at the room in general.
Farris slunk across the floor with his ears pinned flat, joining us. His shadow detached from his paws, slithering to the door, pausing to peer back at us. I didn’t have time to figure out what that meant.
“Are you hurt?” I asked Lore, running my hands over his body. Why hadn't I been gifted with healing magic? Then I could use it on him.
“I'm not hurt,” he grated out. Reaching up, he stroked my cheek. “I should've guessed how the air dragon would respond.”
At least we were learning.
“Let’s do the next together,” I said. “Then we can help each other.”
“Wise as always, Wildfire.”
“Aquatic guardian?” I asked, and he nodded, rising to his feet.
Ral'Asteir loomed in front of us, its scales the color of storm clouds. Unlike the others, this guardian wept, a constant stream trickling from its eyes down to the corroded metal resting on its tongue.
“Something's not right about this one.” Tilting my head, I studied the yellowed water pooling in the fountain but couldn’t determine what the oily sheen on the top might be.
Farris whined and backed away, his fur standing on end.
“The water's poisoned,” Lore said, his voice tight. “I can smell the toxins.”
But we needed that key. I pulled a dagger and extended it toward the dragon's mouth, planning to hook the corroded key without touching the tainted stream.
The moment my blade broke the plane of the dragon's jaw, the weeping stopped. The creature's eyes snapped open—real eyes, not carved stone—and fixed on me with rabid hunger.
“Move.” Lore urged me aside as the dragon's mouth unhinged like a serpent's. Poisoned water erupted in a pressurized torrent, striking the wall behind where I'd been standing. Stone hissed and bubbled where the liquid hit.
The fountain overflowed with the toxic flood. Wherever it touched the floor, the stone began to dissolve.
“The water will eat through our boots.” Lore grabbed my hand, pulling me toward higher ground near the door.
But the dragon wasn't finished. Its neck twisted, its eyes tracking our movement. It shot another geyser of poison toward us. I flitted us to the side, but droplets splattered my sleeve. The leather smoldered.
Farris howled from his perch on a pedestal, and his shadow stretched toward the dragon, not away from it. The darkness touched the poisoned pool, and where they met, the toxic water turned clear.
“Farris can neutralize it,” I breathed.
Lore's grip on my hand tightened. “We won't risk him.”
The dragon's eyes tracked between us, and I realized it was waiting. Hunting. It wanted us to come closer, to make a mistake.
I had a different idea.
“Can you use your elemental magic here?”
Lore's eyes lit with understanding. “On the stream, not the dragon.”
He gathered frost and ice, sending it racing along the poisoned flow. The moment the liquid crystallized, I darted forward and snatched the corroded key from the dragon's frozen tongue.
The guardian's roar shook the chamber, but the ice held long enough for me to retreat.
“Cold,” I gasped, dropping the useless piece.
The dragon's eyes closed, and it returned to weeping as if nothing had happened.
Moving to Farris, I lifted him into my arms, giving him a hug while he licked my chin. “What a good nyxin you are. Did you chase the water dragon away?”
He yipped.
I lowered him to the floor between us, and he sat, looking from Lore to me. His shadow had settled, or near to it.
I shoved strands of hair off my face. “Fire’s the only one left.”
Pyr'Toval stood pristine before us, its scales gleaming like molten gold. But as we approached, I noticed something that made my blood chill, tiny scorch marks on the floor around its base, and what looked like bone fragments scattered near its claws.
“Previous challengers,” Lore said grimly, following my gaze.
“Naveer’s sacrifices, you mean.”
He jerked out a nod.
The metal piece rested on the dragon's tongue, but unlike the others, this one pulsed with inner heat. The air above it shimmered.
“It's not only going to breathe fire,” I said. “It's going to explode.”
Farris pressed against my legs, trembling. His shadow didn't just retreat, it cowered, trying to hide behind him.
“We could leave,” Lore suggested, but I shook my head.
“What if this is the right one? We can't give up.”
I studied the dragon's construction, looking for weaknesses. The mouth was too narrow for both of us to reach in together, and the metal was clearly superheated beyond what we could grab quickly.
“I have an idea, but you're not going to like it.”
Lore's jaw tightened. “Tell me.”
“You create an ice barrier between me and the dragon. I grab the key with shadow magic since shadows can't burn, and the moment I have it, you flit us out.”
“The explosion will—”
“The ice will absorb most of it.” Maybe.
His face went deadly pale. “Reyla, no.”
“Lore.” I framed his face with my hands. “Trust me. Trust us.”
He stared into my eyes for a long moment, then nodded once.
I called to the shadows while he built a wall of ice behind me. The darkness responded eagerly, hungry for the heat they could devour. I sent them creeping toward the dragon's mouth.
The moment a shadow touched the key, Pyr'Toval's eyes blazed to life. Flames roared from its sockets as it registered the theft.
“Now,” I shouted.
Lore's magic wrapped around us as the dragon detonated. Fire consumed the chamber, but we materialized outside the door with Farris in my arms and the shadow-wrapped key in my hand.
Through the wood, we heard stone cracking and flames roaring.
I unwrapped the shadows carefully.
“Cold,” I whispered, looking up at Lore. “But we're alive.”
His hands shook as he checked me for burns. “Never again. Promise me, never again.”
I wanted to promise him that. The words sat on my tongue, sweet and easy. But lies wouldn't save us now. I touched his face gently. “I can't. Not until you're safe.”
He grumbled, but he’d do the same.
“My assumption is Naveer either wants to kill us so she can guzzle down the spent energy or wear us out.” I peered down both sides of the hallway, but we were alone.
“She doesn’t understand us.”
Farris sat beside us, his tail swishing back and forth on the floor. His shadow glided out before snapping back to rest on the tiles beside him.
“I wonder if his shadow knew we wouldn't find anything inside the room.”
“Hmm.” Lore frowned at Farris. He crouched and cupped the nyxin’s face, staring into his eyes. “You know something we don't. Can you lead us to what we need, little friend?”
I expected Farris to huff or sigh or flop on the floor, begging for belly rubs.
Instead, he yipped and raced down the hall, his claws skittering on stone.
We bolted after him.
The torches along the corridor guttered out one by one, darkness chasing us from behind.
We ran faster.