Chapter 10
CAN WE TIP THE SCALES IN OUR FAVOR?
The journey to the ice valley where the nagrata lived was a relatively short one, and C’ael went ahead, promising to meet us at the location marked on the map. We flew in formation, Kalani and me in the center with Dhoona and Yudh flanking us.
The skies were clear, the weather mild enough for me and Kalani to communicate without having to yell.
“How does C’ael do it do you think? Get about? Do you think it’s transference?”
“I have no idea,” Kalani said. “I spoke with him while you slept, and I don’t believe he knows what he is or where he truly came from either.”
“He says that Iblees made him.”
“Yes, that’s what he believes.”
“You don’t think it’s true?”
Kalani was silent for several seconds, and I was beginning to think she hadn’t heard me when she spoke.
“I think he was in a mystical prison with a god and an evil entity. I doubt much of anything he remembers is true. But…I feel that he’s good.
I think he genuinely cares for you and wants to protect you.
If I felt otherwise, then I wouldn’t allow him anywhere near you. ”
It was my turn to fall into reflective silence. “You hated me when we first met.”
“I didn’t hate you. I hated what you represented. But you, Leela…I doubt that even your enemies could truly hate you.”
My cheeks warmed. “Wow, thanks.”
Her laughter vibrated through me. “You’re welcome.”
Mist billowed ahead, thick in some places and translucent in others, and beyond lay the icy blue peaks of the mountains where the nagrata made their home. The entrance to the aerie was somewhere among those peeks.
A shimmer bloomed in the periphery of my vision, but when I turned my head, there was nothing there. A trick of the elements, no doubt.
I pressed close to Kalani as the temperature dropped, the change so sudden that it had to be mystical. Thank goodness Jaantor had warned of this. I tugged my wool scarf up over the lower half of my face with a gloved hand, squinting as mist turned to ice.
We dropped altitude. I tucked closer to Kalani as a blizzard swept up around us. We swooped, searching for anything that resembled an entrance large enough for a nagrata to pass through.
“I see it!” Yudh yelled above the storm. He swooped down and to the left, and we followed, dipping beneath the worst of the sleet and ice, into a slightly warmer pocket of air where the world was relatively clear and a shadowy figure was visible beyond a sheen of frost.
C’ael stood on the craggy ledge leading to the nagrata lair, a hand making a visor against his forehead.
He wasn’t bundled up warmly like us, but if he felt the cold, he didn’t show it.
In fact, as we circled closer, I was sure I saw mist rising off his skin.
The air beside him seemed to shimmer too.
We landed a few meters away, and he strode over and held out his arms to help me dismount.
I swung my legs to one side, careful of the holster and twin axes clipped to my waist, and leaned into him, grasping his shoulders for balance as he drew me toward him and into an aura of delicious warmth.
Our bodies met for a beat as I slid down, and a flash of heat lanced through me, sudden and wholly unexpected.
My eyes snapped wide, pulse spiking. His fingers pinched my hips, and he tugged me tighter against his taut frame.
I staunched the impulse to melt against him and stepped back, breathing through the constriction in my chest.
The chill and his heat…The combination was playing havoc with my senses.
C’ael reached for me, brushing his fingers down my cheeks. I couldn’t help but lean into his touch. “You’re freezing. You should stay close to me.”
That was a reasonable excuse to press against him. I’d take it. I stepped under his arm, allowing him to hug me to his side. “How are you so warm?”
“I don’t know, but we can use it to our advantage.”
“We’ll need it up here,” Kalani said, joining us. She caught my eyes for a moment, and our aerial conversation came back to me. Yeah, we had no idea what C’ael truly was.
Dhoona and Yudh led the way into the cavern. Into the mountain where these ancient beasts that sounded like the dragons of mythology from my world were now sleeping.
The tunnel was at least thirty feet high and twenty feet across.
The nagrata must be fucking massive. Heat wafted toward us, kissing my skin and melting the frost that lingered on my cheeks.
I pulled away from C’ael as we went deeper.
A soft orange glow painted the walls ahead.
An opening came into view a moment later.
“Okay, this is it,” Kalani said.
Dhoona and Yudh fell back, allowing me to take the lead. Zarael’s father had said I’d be welcome here, but the others might aggravate the nagrata with their presence. Best for them to remain in the tunnel.
I continued to the opening, to the chasm that rose hundreds of feet up and descended an equal amount. The walls were riddled with caves, each housing the shimmering scaly body of a nagrata—different colors and sizes but all wrapped in their own tails. Fast asleep.
And in the heart of it, lying on orange smoldering rocks, was the largest one of all. Crimson scales edged in gold, thick tail wrapped around a body that rose and fell with each misted breath that spilled from its nostrils.
This had to be the leader of this group…whatever a group of nagrata were called. A set of roughly hewn steps were the only way down into the core of the chasm. I hurried back to the others and reported what I’d seen.
“The large one is the one you must awaken,” Kalani said. “Its size marks it as their leader.”
Yay me for being right.
“You must approach alone,” Kalani continued. “You are Iblees’s twin flame. You are Vayelle reborn. They will sense that. They will know.”
Zarael’s father Sorell had said the same.
“I’m coming with you,” C’ael said. “They can’t hurt me. I can transport away if need be.”
Like Chandra did. Transference. It had to be, but wasn’t that a godly trait?
Once again, Kalani caught my eye. She nodded. “Go, both of you. We’ll shout a warning if anything threatening occurs.”
“And how the heck do I wake the big one?” Everyone exchanged glances. I shook my head. “Never mind. I’ll wing it.” I paused and grinned. “Pun not intended.”
I went first down the stone steps. The fact they existed told me that people were expected to visit here, otherwise why build steps?
“How will you wake her?” C’ael asked.
“How do you know it’s a female?”
“I don’t. Not for certain, but it feels right for the nagrata to have a queen. A mother.”
“Yeah, it does. I think you might be right.”
The air shimmered with heat, making me long for the chill. I slipped my scarf off and tucked it into the holster around my waist. My gloves went into my pocket. It got harder to breathe the lower we got.
“I can’t go any farther.”
“It’s all right,” C’ael said. “I think you can wake her from here.”
I looked up at him. “Okay, here goes nothing.” I bracketed my mouth with my hands and yelled, “Hello! Nagrata leader! I need to speak with you!”
My words echoed louder and louder as they circled the chasm, and then a low rolling sound like the beginning of thunder chased the bleeding echo of my words. I pressed back against the rock face, heart hammering as the crimson nagrata opened one massive violet eye and fixed it on me.
Its vertical pupil dilated, and for a moment I was up close and personal with my reflection—a frightened woman pressed up against rock.
Yeah, this wouldn’t do.
If I had any hope of recruiting this magnificent creature, I needed to show myself to be worthy. I stepped forward, pulse throbbing in my throat, meeting her gaze levelly.
Her pupil contracted suddenly, and the chasm rumbled, heat rising in a wave as she lifted her majestic head. “Raknara,” she said, her voice like the edge of a storm. “It has been too long since I felt the aura of true spirit. Pray tell me, what is your name?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Leela. And yours?”
“I have been called many names, but you may call me Ganjani. Tell me, Leela who carries the spirit of Raknara, why have you awakened me before my time?” Her nostrils flared, expelling mist. “I feel that the world may have shifted while I slept.”
“It has. The primordial evil is free, and he has Iblees in his grip. He has taken the throne, and I need your help to stop him. If I can—”
“Wait, child. You say that he has Iblees in his control? What do you mean?”
I quickly explained about Araz and Iblees and how the primordial evil had hitchhiked and had Araz in lockdown. That even with his full power, Araz was trapped.
“You must leave. Now,” she said. “Quickly. Go from this place.”
An icy fist squeezed my lungs. “What? Why? Won’t you help us?”
“Child, I cannot help you because if the primordial evil has wrested control of Iblees, then I and mine are at risk of becoming his minions, and you…You are at risk of becoming nagrata food.”
Her words sent a spike of panic through me, but I pushed it aside. “He doesn’t know about you. At least, I don’t think he does.”
“But if we come with you into battle, he will find out, and he will take us from you. We took an oath to fly in Iblees’s name.
His enemy is our enemy, and we have loaned our wings to the devouring force in his name.
But if he is compromised, then so are we.
Go now, before…” She trailed off, a crimson sheen passing over her violet eye. “No…He sees us. He calls on us.”
Icy fingers gripped my nape. “What?”
She growled and shook her head, dispelling the red sheen. “Go…I will hold back my children for as long as I am able. Live and free us all. Now. Go!”
C’ael grabbed my arm. “Hurry.” He drew me in front of him, onto the steps above, and followed as I climbed.
The chasm rumbled with the sound of awakening nagrata. The click and scrape of scales on scales was loud as they unfurled their epic bodies. Below us, Ganjani growled and shook her head, fighting the control of the primordial evil.
How had he found us? How could he know?
The shimmer in the corner of my eye when we’d been flying here, then again once we landed…ankh.
Shit. The primordial evil had ankh in his control.
We made it to the top of the stairs and ran into the tunnel where the others waited.
“What’s happening?” Yudh demanded.
I didn’t stop, yelling as I ran past. “Run! The primordial evil has control of the nagrata!”
Bootfalls echoed mine, running out into the gray light of day.
I beelined for Raja, pulling my scarf from my waist and wrapping it around my face as I went.
The chaysavar let out a sound that was somewhere between a snarl and a whinny, stomping his hooves as if to hurry us along. Kalani reached him first, hauling herself up then throwing an arm out for me. I grabbed her wrist and swung up behind her.
Yudh and Dhoona were already mounted.
“I’ll find you,” C’ael said. “Go!”
Raja ran for the edge of the platform, wings flaring, and the next moment, we were airborne, rising toward the blizzard.
A terrifying screech tore open the air behind us as nagrata burst from the aerie. Four massive beasts, two with black scales and two with green. The green ones were slightly smaller than the black ones. Their eyes gleamed red—a clear sign of the primordial evil’s control.
“How the fuck did this happen?” Kalani yelled.
“The ankh.”
“We have to shake them off.”
The nagrata shrieked, the sound filled with impotent rage.
“We’ll try to lead them away!” Yudh yelled.
The brothers peeled off in opposite directions, and the green dragons split from the group of four, one on each of their tails. But the two huge black ones stayed on us.
The blizzard dropped over us, the wind howling and dragging its icy talons across my cheekbones.
My vision blurred, ice crystallizing on my lashes.
The world around us whited out, the elemental sounds muffled.
We flew through rocky terrain with zero visibility.
How the fuck was Raja able to see through this?
My question was answered when he let out a godawful screech, body jolting so hard it almost knocked Kalani and me off his back. He twisted midair, legs coming up as he tried to avoid the rocky ledge that he’d impacted with.
“Raja!” Kalani screamed.
He dropped, taking us with him.