Chapter 10 Carbella #3
“Rodjex, look at what these powers have done to you,” Hardin said, searching for a way to get the amulet out of Rodjex’s control.
After seeing how a skilled magician could wield power through an amulet once a person was cursed, Hardin was sure it was the source of what was devouring his hometown.
“You used to be a person our people respected. A model citizen. Then you betrayed us by gambling our taxes away and caving in to Thorgan to cover the losses. Now you’re a tool for an even greater evil, the rimeshade and this entity you speak of? You are not yourself.”
“Myself?” Rodjex laughed, the sound sharp as breaking icicles. “I have not been under my own control for years. But this vessel,” he gestured to the egg, “is how I get my life back.”
He’s completely lost. There is no redeeming himself, Hardin realized.
“When it hatches, those who are worthy will—”
Hardin didn’t let Rodjex finish. He darted forward, plucking the egg off the pedestal. He felt the protective wards around it bend as his arms wrapped around the egg.
“No!” Rodjex roared. Dark veins lashed out from the blue amulet like a dozen arms attacking Hardin.
The tendrils burned with frostbite as they wrapped around Hardin’s leathers.
He screamed and an instant later a harmonic roar echoed through the cave.
Quinthara was there at the chamber entrance.
The runes buried beneath the ice flickered, their rhythm disrupted in the same way they’d been disturbed before.
Rodjex staggered, losing control over the arms of darkness. Their hold over Hardin, quivered, loosed, then let go.
The egg’s glacial green surface cracked.
Hardin stopped, heart pounding at the thought of holding whatever creature was trying to hatch from this tainted egg.
What would it do in his arms? But the green scaley surface of the egg didn’t break open from the evil trying to escape.
Rather, the pressure from his arms was cracking the exterior.
How? he thought.
The answer came from Quinthara. The corruption had made the shell unnaturally brittle. Whatever was inside, no longer stirred to break free.
Through the tones Quinthara used to disrupt the flow of dark energy, Hardin hoisted the fragile egg away from the pillar.
The veins of darkness peeled away, resisting him.
They lost their grip like elastic arms unable to keep hold, snapping off and making it easier to haul free with each passing moment.
Quinthara roared louder, the waves of magic disrupting further, ice cracking, tendrils whipping wildly away from the egg.
Hardin almost had the egg completely free.
“You can’t take it away from us. If it’s not brought into this world correctly, the preparations won’t last. You’ll doom us all!” Rodjex thrust both hands forward, making to grab the egg from Hardin.
“Quin, now!”
Hardin passed the egg off to his dragon.
She caught it gently in her claw while Rodjex fell onto Hardin.
Rodjex’s hands burned as his icy grip closed around Hardin’s neck.
Hardin braced against the man, his own grip landing on the prize that had fallen right into him.
Hardin clutched the amulet containing the curse.
Flaring a pulse of energy through their bond, he ripped the amulet free.
The chain broke, the cursed amulet broke away from Rodjex’s neck.
The frostbitten hands dropped away from Hardin’s throat as Rodjex’s face turned haunted at the sudden and abrupt change.
The man’s body fell to the ground, broken veins spreading under his opaque skin.
Hardin held the amulet, feeling a surge of darkness tearing through it.
In that moment he understood. The curse had been corrupted too, altered by the darkness that had changed Rodjex, changed the people of his town, and changed the conditions of the curse.
With all his force, he smashed the amulet against the stone pillar.
The amulet shattered like ice, light and darkness rushing out.
All at once the power funneling in through the veins and the runes of the cave ceased.
The darkness retreated, fleeing back into whatever unearthly plane of existence it had come from.
Hardin staggered as the cave filled with a sound beyond hearing, a death cry from the fleeting darkness. The ice flaked off the walls in huge chunks, each leaving fissures in the walls. Hardin didn’t need Quinthara’s warning to tell him it was time to leave.
Hardin ran for the exit as the icy chamber began to cave in behind them, leaving the fallen Rodjex in his tomb.
Hardin took hold of Quinthara’s tail, letting her drag them out of the cave faster than they could’ve moved otherwise.
They burst into daylight as the mouth of the cave filled with rubble.
The townspeople stirred individually, the dark stains on their skin fading completely.
Hardin saw his mother, Kaya, helping Marra to her feet, both of them clear-eyed and free of the curse’s influence.
As the dust, snow, and ice expelled from the collapsed cave settled, Hardin observed the thing that they’d retrieved from the cave.
Quinthara opened her claw to expose the egg.
Only, it wasn’t the same. The oversized egg had crumbled, revealing a small white and green animal the size of a full-grown hound.
Its scales were dull, as if the color had been drained from it before hatching.
Its two small wings unfurled as it opened its eyes.
Hardin stared down at the infant dragon as it stared up at him and Quinthara with two cream white eyes rimmed in gold.