Chapter 28 The Hollow Canyon #3
I grab his wrist, stopping him. What was he going to say? “You’re bleeding.” Why didn’t I ask what he nearly said?
He licks the split he bit into his lip. Grasping my hand gently, he brings it against his jaw and my thumb traces the cut. “Only you can fix me, Wraith.”
“Oh, Princeling, haven’t you learned by now? I’m just going to make you so much worse.” I wish I could heal him and all the broken parts of myself, but I’ve never managed to unlock the Empress Arcana. Or give myself the gift and grace of healing. I meet his eyes.
“You are my salvation,” he whispers, leaning in and oh so tenderly pressing his lips to the space he laid his claim.
I can’t breathe or move, the yearning in my chest keeping me frozen.
“And my damnation.”
Draven pulls from my grasp to meet Commander Soto.
Emotions battle within me, overwhelming as a tidal wave.
No one has ever spoken to me like that, looked at me the way he does, made me feel like he does.
It’s maddening; worse, I can’t name it. It edges toward something I got only a brief glimpse of before with Kiana.
Overwhelmed, I barely notice when the elves pass us magical gloves that resist the drake’s stark acidic remnants.
I tug on my pair as I walk to a small corner of this former den.
“If you find anything other than zenith, please report it to me,” Draven says to our crew.
I use the Emperor and its power of movement to pick up the black crystal and shove it in a bag.
It seems encountering anything living causes it to ignite.
The rats set it off occasionally, but the stones stay blessedly dark when it bumps against other crystal, giving me the confidence to keep going.
But despite all the work, I see nothing but more and more unrefined zenith.
Nothing that could resemble a wand.
I overhear Malik arguing with ?lvor. “Are you sure it was only thirty feet long? Most grown drakes grow to at least sixty feet.”
“Sir, with all due respect, I saw its body with my own eyes. Dead, yes, but thirty feet from snout to tail,” ?lvor replies.
“It must’ve been an adolescent, but that doesn’t explain how it created a hoard of this level,” Malik disputes and Zara shushes him.
“I think he’d know,” Scorpius grumbles. “Pipe down, junior dragonologist.”
“Actually—” But before Malik can continue, Draven’s cohort all echo, “Actually,” as if mocking Malik’s know-it-all retorts is a common occurrence.
Malik only grins good-naturedly and continues, “A drake isn’t a dragon because it doesn’t have wings, and an adolescent gaining a trove of this size isn’t likely—”
“Fourteen elves died that day. I promise you, it was a full-grown drake,” ?lvor insists, his even tone turning irritable.
Beside me a rat scurries from under a crystal, and Fable jumps, hands fisting in frustration at the popping crack of zenith. I tense up, too, watching it race away, heart pounding.
Fable curses, “For fuck’s sake. Leave it to Draven to volunteer us for this fun little assignment.”
I give a dry chuckle, bending back down to gather more.
Quietly she says, “You know … I’ve never seen him like this before.”
“Covered in goo? Or pissed at me?” I hold up a large foul piece of black crystal, green toxic sludge dripping off it. I summon the Magician, changing grime into water, and it alters the composition. I stuff the crystal in the bag with the rest.
“The goo I’ve oddly seen.” She giggles at some old memory. Her green eyes catch in the ambient light she creates. “I meant … happy. I’ve never seen him happy, not really.”
“I don’t think I’m to blame for that,” I say, thinking of our argument.
“No … but maybe to thank.” Fable collects the rest of her little pile. She hesitates. “He deserves it. You probably both do.” She nods to me before moving a bit farther, to start on a new pile.
I stand there, guiltily thinking about what that means, what that kind of happiness even looks like if my family isn’t safe and secure.
A shimmer of blue light distracts me, glowing brighter. No one else is nearby, and before I can call anyone’s attention it races away. I follow the strange flame as it hops along, blinking in and out, leading me farther and farther ahead.
The others’ voices grow distant, and my steps slow as I chase what must be a will-o’-the-wisp.
My father told me stories about them, some in which they were the spirits of the fallen, luring the ignorant toward what killed them, hoping to be avenged.
In other tales, they were sprites leading people toward their fate.
The blue flame appears once more in front of a mossy corner of the cavern.
“Well, nowhere left to go.” I keep my hand over my cards as I approach and stretch my hand out …
But it disappears. Moss rustles in the breeze from where it hangs over a small opening— a hidden passage at the back of the cavern. I pad the moss aside and gasp, everything in me recoiling.
There’s a rotting corpse in elven armor behind it, burnt to charcoaled bone.
Something glimmers in its hand, a shard of black zenith unlike any I’ve seen so far, carved and spindled, wrapped with a sleeve of charred bark. It’s refined, but sparkling in a way I’ve never seen. Pinching the sleeve carefully, I pick it up slowly.
It drags on something within me, a magical charge pulling at my heart.
It doesn’t look exactly like the image drawn in Draven’s book, yet undeniably I know what it is.
The Darkstone. Worldwielder. One of the four Arcadian Artifacts, strong enough to give Draven, or whoever holds it, unimaginable power.
He was right. They exist.
I didn’t realize a part of me doubted until this moment.
The cards at my hip begin to glow on their own, as if it’s calling to them.
The light illuminates the shifting space ahead. My eyes drag up the scaled wall to the ceiling. It shifts, slithers.
And I meet the burning acidic-green eyes of a drake that’s very much alive.