Chapter 49
49
“ N O!” I yelled, trying to claw my way back into the memory, my hands scratching the stone slab underneath me. Wind picked up in the dunes, sand grains flying into my face. I choked on the sand as my mind whirred a hundred miles per hour.
In the memory I had been fighting with the rebels. With Tristen. I wanted to go back, to get the answers I so desperately wanted.
Suddenly, there was an explosion of sand behind me?—
“SAFFRON!” Callum yelled, and he threw his shield out to cover me just as a huge spindly creature came screaming out of the sand, lunging at me. It had a massive, shiny brown body the color of sand. It was a giant arachnid twice my size with razor sharp legs and a dozen bottomless black eyes, all trained on me.
I spun around, my hands and feet kicking sand as the creature bounced off the shield. Just a second later and its sharp legs would have skewered me. It let out a cry and suddenly eight other sand spiders—Dune Stalkers, Rachelle had called them—shrieked as they shot out from underneath the sand.
Callum had shielded me, but him and the group were now vulnerable.
I saw it as it happened in slow motion.
Callum released his shield and unsheathed his sword, slicing right into one of the Dune Stalkers that had lunged for him. He was fast—but there was one that emerged slowly, silently from the sand behind him.
“CALLUM!” I screamed, pointing.
He turned, yanking his sword out from the spider it was embedded in. He raised his sword, but the spider seemed to sense his movements as if being tuned in to the vibrations on the sand. It stepped in the other direction, and then with one precise movement, it raised one of its razor-sharp legs…
…and stuck it right through Priscilla’s heart, Henry and Issac looking on in fear.
I screamed as all hell broke loose.
Tristen’s shadows held one down as he doused it in shadowfire, and it fell to ashes on the sand.
Rachelle shifted into a panther, dodging and weaving the sharp arms of another.
Issac and Henry were fighting with their swords now, and I saw Henry place a hand on one of the Dune Stalkers. The moment his hand touched the creature, its movements slowed by half. That was enough time for Henry to get a slash in with his sword, cutting off the creature’s legs before his power loosened its hold on the creature. It was dead before it had a chance to retaliate.
I started into the fray, but realized I had no power to fight with. I looked back at the slab of stone, wondering if it could give me some sort of power just like the dragon’s egg had, but it now seemed to glow with a kind of heartbeat that made mine feel skittish.
“ Everything comes with a price ,” that rough-as-rocks voice whispered into my ears. The guilt sliced through me as I saw Tristen’s shadows struggle to hold down another advancing Dune Stalker. I had run to where the voice had promised me a memory without a thought to what would happen to my friends. I had been selfish, I knew, and saw two more Dune Stalkers emerge from the sands and scuttle closer to the fighting.
And as I watched my friends tire, I realized I would be forced to watch them die. That would be the price of my memory.
“No,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I won’t let it!” I screamed at the heavens.
“ Oh? ” the voice asked. “ So what are you going to do about it ?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I barreled deep within myself. There had to be something. Something I could?—
There .
The magic I had taken from the dragon’s egg. There was a… whisp of some sort. Something small. It was barely a thread to yank on. Barely anything at all.
I pulled with all my might.
“LET THEM LIVE!” I shouted into the barren night, tears of rage and anguish rolling down my face.
A terrible crack split the night, but my friends were too busy fighting to notice. One of the Dune Stalkers got in a slash at Rachelle, and she yowled, tumbling down the side of the sound dune. Tristen turned, shooting out a pale blast of shadowfire that managed to distract the Dune Stalker about to go after her, and lure it to him instead.
Two more advanced on Tristen, and he dodged and parried with his sword, his flames, and his shadow. His power—even drained—was still so immense, but I could already see his shadows starting to weave around his body, threatening to douse him in that void he spoke of with such terror.
Callum fought one off, but the Dune Stalker seemed to grow tired of trying to kill him as he stabbed and parried its sharp leg. In one sweep, it knocked Callum off the top of the dune. As it approached him, it sliced Issac in half—who let out a gurgled scream before he fell to the ground.
The Dune Stalker pushed Issac’s body aside and scuttled over to Callum, and raised its leg, aiming to pierce his heart.
I felt the pain and the fear bubble up in me, but before I could voice my horror, fire doused everything .
Fire that came from above.
I staggered back under the intense heat, and through the wavy haze of the fire, all of my friends looked to the sky. A flash of shadows grabbed Henry—who was in the path of a blaze—and swept him back. The flames burned the Dune Stalkers one-by-one, and their piercing cries seemed to echo in the quiet night.
When the fire stopped, we all could see what was above us clearly.
Flying to me on unsteady wings was a baby dragon.
It landed on the sand, skidding to a halt in front of me. And looked up at me. As if waiting for instructions now that all of the Dune Stalkers had been reduced to ash.
The group walked to me, looking as haggard as ever—but all of their eyes widened as they took in the baby dragon in front of me. It was just a bit larger than a housecat, with iridescent scales that glittered green and blue and gold in the desert sun.
“That’s… impossible,” Callum said as he stepped toward me. “The dragons are all dead.”
The baby dragon looked up at me with warm brown eyes, and then hopped and down and… chirped .
I leaned down, and it jumped in my arms.
“Careful,” Callum warned.
“It’s okay,” I said, feeling a sense of comfort as I ran a hand down his scales that were surprisingly soft. “He’s here for me.”
“He must have just hatched,” Tristen said, helping a limping Rachelle to her feet.
“Rachelle!” I said, my eyes widening as I saw a gash in her side.
“Gods, he’s so cute it hurts!” she squealed, clapping her hands before buckling over in pain.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“I will be when you tell me how you got the cutest baby dragon in all of Septerra to come save us,” she said.
I looked down at the dragon. “I… I think I called him. For help. Using the tether to him I created when I took his power earlier when he was in the egg. But… how is it possible? Weren’t those eggs just fossils?”
Tristen shook his head. “They must have been frozen in their hatching process. Your power must have awoken this one somehow.”
Callum took a few steps closer, looking at the thing warily. “Regardless, he came just in time.”
“Yeah,” I said. The baby dragon flapped its wings, and I released it. It landed by my legs, and nuzzled me like a cat. “I’m naming him Pepper,” I said with a small smile.
“Well, Pepper and the rest of us should get going,” Callum said. “Who knows what else is waiting for us.”
I waded through sand and reached Rachelle and Tristen. She was clutching her side.
“Is it bad?” I asked.
She lifted her shirt, and the cut looked deep. I tried to hide my wince.
Tristen met my gaze. “We have to get to the end of this trial. I can help her walk, but we need to get going.”
“I can help, too,” Henry said, pulling himself up. He was battered and bloody, but not nearly as bad as Rachelle.
Tristen shook his head. “Maybe later. I’ve got her for now.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s head out.”
“This way,” Callum said, and started leading the way through the dunes.
I followed him and Pepper kept to my side, skipping through the sand and chirping in surprise whenever we slid down a sand dune.
We trekked for hours through the night. Whenever we heard a scuttling among the sand, we all stopped and Callum threw his shield around us. As we got deeper and deeper into The Eternal Sands his shield flickered out faster and faster, unable to hold for as long whenever we paused at a strange sound.
Four or five hours into the trek, we paused for a break, drinking the last of our water.
“Here,” Callum said, offering me his waterskin, but I shook my head.
“You need it for your shield,” I said, trying to ignore the grainy feel of sand coating my mouth.
“We’re almost there,” Callum said.
“Yeah,” I said, and I looked down to see Pepper leaning against my leg, as if dozing off. I picked up the small dragon and cradled it in my arms. It let out a satisfied chirp before nuzzling into my tunic.
I smiled, but it vanished as my thoughts returned to what we had lost already. Priscilla. Issac. Nearly everyone else. Without Pepper, we would all have been dead. If I hadn’t followed that voice…
“It’s not your fault,” Callum said.
I met his gaze. He looked exhausted, going on two nights without sleep, but his expression was still warm.
“It was, though,” I said. “I wanted… I saw a memory. My memory. Of fighting alongside the rebels. With Tristen.”
Callum’s expression hardened. “The stone you touched? That was the marking of where the dead god of The Eternal Sands slumbers, Saffron. They plant all sorts of false lies in your head.”
“It felt real,” I said.
“You’re not a rebel,” Callum said as he met Tristen’s glare from across camp as he sat crouched next to Rachelle.
“I know what I saw,” I said.
“Have something to say to me?” Tristen asked, standing and strolling over to us.
“Please,” I said. “Let’s not do this now.”
Tristen’s shadows swirled around him. “I know you’ve been trying to poison her against me, Callum.”
“And so is the island, apparently. Maybe it’s a sign?” Callum spat.
Tristen’s eyes widened and he turned to me. “Did Nocterin speak to you? Did you hear him?”
“Nocterin?”
“The God of Shadows and Madness. He is buried here, somewhere in The Eternal Sands. I bet the stone you touched was his grave marker. What did he say?”
“He showed me one of my memories. Of me—of us—fighting against Luminaria?—”
“He’s the God of Madness , Saffron,” Callum countered.
Tristen ignored Callum, stepping closer to me. “Those with gods’ blood have the power to restore that which is forgotten. That’s within their power. So what you saw was real.”
Before I could react, Callum was lunging at him, but Tristen sent up his shadows, deflecting Callum’s blade with ease.
Callum roared, the anger flashing across his face?—
“STOP!” Rachelle screamed.
We all turned and saw Rachelle flat on the ground, Henry crouched over her with a dagger.
“Get off her!” I screamed, and Pepper screeched and took flight with a flap of his wings.
I made a move to run to them, but Tristen was already there, yanking the dagger from Henry’s hand.
Henry froze, rising to his feet. His head turned to Tristen—and then kept turning in a horrific 360-degree motion . He opened his mouth, his teeth covered in blood as he gnashed them, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
“How nice it is to see you, Tristen ,” a voice that was both Henry’s and not Henry’s boomed with something ancient and terrible. “Come to slay me at last?”
Tristen didn’t hesitate, blasting Henry with shadowfire—enough that he should have been reduced to ash. But instead, Henry’s body went flying.
“Stay away from him!” Tristen shouted at all of us. “Nocterin has his body.”
Henry’s body stiffly rose and walked back up the dune toward us. His gait was awkward, his bones broken from the blast. He was like a puppet being moved forward by cosmic strings. “She got a taste, but she didn’t pay the price. She must pay the price.” He raised a broken arm, leveling a pointed finger at me. “She must pay the price.”
“She’s paid enough,” Tristen said, shadowfire at his hands—more faint than it had been all day.
“Put up your shield around all of us, Callum,” I said, turning to him.
Callum shook his head. “Let Tristen fight it.”
“No,” I seethed through gritted teeth. “Put up your shield.”
“Let him make his own decisions,” Callum said, his glare leveled on Tristen.
“Like you do mine?” I said, and before I could stop myself, I had placed my hands on Callum’s bare arms.
Callum looked down at me in surprise, but I didn’t stop. I pulled with all my might, yanking his power away from him and into me.
I had never taken power so quickly before, and I gasped as I stumbled back, but I threw up the shield all around us, blasting it up and over us, over Tristen, Rachelle, Callum, Pepper, and I. It glittered above us as Henry’s re-animated body stopped at the edge of it.
Henry’s eyes—now black and depthless—locked onto mine as I stood panting, my body and my power feeling run ragged.
“You have a role to play. And you will play it,” said that gravely voice that sounded older than the sand beneath us.
One moment Henry was standing there. The next, he exploded into hundreds of beetles, and slipped below the sand. Pepper keened, crying in fear and nudging my leg.
A moment of silence. Two. Then I let the shield drop, and fell to my knees, my stomach heaving as I vomited all over the sand.
Callum fell to my side. “Saffron?—”
“We have to move,” Tristen said. “I can carry Rachelle. Can you carry Saffron? We have to get to the threadwell. Now .”
Callum didn’t look up, just brushed my hair back as I sat back on my feet and wiped my mouth on my tunic sleeve.
“I got her,” Callum said.
Tristen went to Rachelle, slipping his arms around her legs and back and holding her to him.
“Can I pick you up?” Callum asked me.
I only had enough strength to nod, managing to sweep a trembling Pepper up in my arms just as Callum cradled me in his.
Callum and Tristen crossed the dunes, climbing through the darkest part of the night. Slowly, as we continued through the dunes, I saw it.
The first precious rays of morning light were rising. Not only that, they were shining on a glittering body of water.
“The threadwell pool,” Callum breathed. “We made it.”