Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
O ne of the screams turns from panic to pain. The dragon stands in the tunnel, her great jaw open so every tooth is visible. Powder sparks near her tongue, right before she bites down. Bones crack, and blood rains from her jaw. The scream abruptly silences. She swings her head side to side and tosses the half-visible, bloody body to the side. Then she fixes her head squarely at Marcellus and Ayc, her red eyes vibrant in the darkness.
Ayc's ability to breathe succumbs to a mixture of fear and wonder.
Marcellus lunges for the dragon’s egg. Ayc slides into his path once more, holding his sword at Marcellus’s chest. The ground quakes as the dragon charges toward them.
Marcellus halts, but a smile twists on his lips. A force slams into Ayc and takes him to the ground. Ayc barely gets his sword up to block the fae—the same one who stopped to help his injured comrade—from severing his neck. The fae presses their weight down upon their sword, and Ayc’s arms tremble to hold him back. Inch by inch, the fae’s weapon creeps toward Ayc’s throat. Cool sweat beads at Ayc’s neck; his heart pounds at his sternum.
Then the fae slumps on Ayc, blood dripping from their neck where an arrow struck. Ayc kicks him off and jumps to his feet. Xylie races toward him, her bow still in her hand. In the center of the chamber, the dragon’s progress has been interrupted by three Lux Aester, who swing their weapons, ready to do battle.
Fools, Ayc thinks. All of them.
“Fae scum!” the dragon growls, whipping her tail so fast it cracks with the force of the earth splitting. “I will end you.”
She snaps her jaws at one. Another Lux Aester throws out their hand, and a shield, quite like Bronwen’s, appears before the dragon. As the dragon’s teeth collide with the shield, it explodes with a concussive boom . The dragon rears her head back with an enraged growl. The third fae thrusts a spear toward her vulnerable chest. With one swipe of her claws, she swats the spear holder across the chamber where he collides with the wall.
Using the moment of distraction, Marcellus sprints around Ayc, grabs the egg, and slips it into the pouch at his side.
“No!” thunders the beast.
Ayc lunges for Marcellus, but he leaps over the wall of stone and continues running. The dragon snaps at Marcellus as he races by. She inhales like she might breathe flame, but she doesn’t have time to exhale. From across the room, Marcellus’s First heaves his ax. It spirals through the air and slams into the dragon’s chest.
The dragon screams . It isn’t a growl or a cry. It’s an almost human scream. She buckles to the ground, her long neck splaying, her wings crumpling. Xylie’s lips form a wordless cry as a river of blue blood pours from beneath the dragon.
The sorcerer near the dragon grabs a sickled blade from his side and holds it above his head. Ayc flings himself over the rocks, but he knows he won’t get there in time. The dragon scratches out weakly, but she’s dying, and soon her snarls turn to something else: a keening, whining sound.
She’s crying .
She looks past her attackers and locks onto Ayc. Her red gaze bores into him, and she paws forward, her clawed hand reaching. Pleading.
“Save my baby.”
Across the chamber, Lora dispatches the Lux Aester soldier she’s been battling with and races toward the dragon. But neither she nor Ayc make it. The sorcerer’s sword drops, slicing the dragon’s head from her body. Lora slams her sword through the sorcerer’s spine a moment later.
Fuck!
Ayc grinds his teeth against a scream and searches for Marcellus. The priest strides to the entrance alone, ignoring that his men are still locked in battle with Peregrin and Bronwen. Tavish, not holding Saga’s leash, stumbles into Marcellus path, and they collide. Ayc and Xylie bolt his direction. Marcellus lifts his sword, and Ayc runs faster, even knowing he won’t make it to his friend in time.
“I’m divina!” Tavish cries, flinging up his arm, the one with the mark. “Look! See! I’m divina.”
Marcellus shoves him, and Tavish lands with his hands behind him, pinned to the ground. Marcellus storms past him and into the dark tunnel.
Ayc pauses beside Tavish. “Are you all right?”
“Fine!” Tavish replies.
Xylie flies past Ayc and Tavish, charging after Marcellus.
“Wait!” Ayc calls, but she doesn’t even glance back.
“Ayc, stop her!” Lora demands, from where she has rejoined Peregrin and Bronwen, somehow aware of everything even as she fights two opponents at once.
Ayc doesn’t need the command. He’s already racing after his friend. In the tunnel ahead, Xylie slams into Marcellus, hands clawing at the pouch where he put the egg. Marcellus catches her wrists and wrestles her backward a few steps. She kicks out, fights to be free, but her feet slide over the stone until he releases her with a thrust. Her small frame spirals backward and lands right where Marcellus intended.
In a bog pit.
For one strangled heartbeat, she lingers on the surface. Then the mud swallows her whole.
“No!” The word blazes like glass in Ayc’s throat. He bolts the last few steps and drops to his knees beside the pit, as Marcellus escapes down the dark tunnel. Xylie’s hand shoots out, and Ayc scrambles to grab her. Her fingers, slick with grime, slide through his grasp, and she completely vanishes beneath the dark surface once more.
“Lora!” Ayc screams, pawing at the mud, searching for any sign of Xylie. “Lora, help! Xylie!”
This can’t be happening. He can’t fucking lose her. Not his best friend. Not the one person who made him hold on when everything was more than he could bear.
“Ayc!” Lora calls, pounding down the tunnel toward him. “What’s going on? ”
“Xylie! Marcellus pushed her into the pit.”
Every bit of warmth drains from Lora’s cheeks, turning her gray and ashen. She flings her pack off her back and yanks off rope that is coiled on the side. She winds it around her chest, her arms, her waist and ties it with a quick knot. It takes only seconds, but every moment stretches out like eternity as Ayc reaches into the pit, up to his elbows, but still finds nothing within the mud.
“Ayc, catch!”
He pulls his hands out of the mud as Lora tosses him the end of the rope.
“Don’t let go!” she orders. “When I tug on it, pull us out.”
Ayc has just enough time to circle the rope once around his right wrist and grasp tightly before Lora leaps into the bog pit. She disappears instantly, just like Xylie. The weight of her wrenches against the rope, and it slides through his grip. He tightens his hold and cries out as the rope burns against his skin. He sits backward and anchors his heels against the stone. The mud drags at the rope, trying to rip it away, but he only grasps tighter.
Even as it bites into his flesh, even as his skin opens and bleeds, he doesn’t let go. Lora has given an order, but that isn’t why. He doesn’t even sense the command. He only knows that Xylie and Lora are at the end of this rope, and he'll drown in this pit with them before he lets them go.
Footsteps pound down the tunnel. Half a dozen Lux Aester flee behind Ayc as though finally realizing their master has left them behind. Bronwen chases after them with power pulsing between her fingertips like lightning. Peregrin follows a dozen feet behind her, moving in a limping run. When one of the Lux Aester dares to look back, Peregrin fires a knife straight past their nose. No one looks back again.
A sharp tug comes at the rope, different from the steady pull of the mud.
Ayc yanks, but the mud has cemented the rope in place. He digs his heels in, but it doesn't give.
“Help me!” Ayc pleads, and Bronwen and Peregrin turn their attention to him.
Peregrin and Bronwen rush to seize the rope. All three fight against the mud. Ayc grits his teeth against the burn, his own blood slicking the rope. Slowly, so slowly, the rope pulls upward. At last, a hand surges above the mud, and then two heads.
Mud masks Xylie and Lora’s faces, but they both cough, and that means they’re breathing.
“Grab her,” Lora calls, thrusting Xylie closer to the edge.
Without releasing the rope, Bronwen maneuvers closer and grabs Xylie’s outstretched hand. She heaves her from the pit. Xylie lands on her hands and knees, letting out a relieved sob. Lora drags herself along the rope, and Ayc surges forward, grasping her beneath her arms and ripping her from the mud. They collide together on the stone, Lora's weight falling onto him.
Her breath warms his neck. Something releases behind his ribcage, and Ayc sucks in his own gasp. He thinks he’s held his breath the entire time she was in the pit, knowing she and Xylie couldn’t breathe.
She lifts her head, and her midnight blue eyes find Ayc. They are the only thing visible in the mud. Without realizing what he’s doing, Ayc reaches his fingertips—the only place on his hand not blistered—to brush away the mud that has coated her cheeks. “Are you all right?” he asks, a thread of panic still in his words.
She nods and stares at him. Her head tilts toward his fingers, but then she jerks away from his touch and rolls off him. Her absence crashes over him like a cold shock, like diving into the Bellum Sea. He sucks another breath through his teeth.
Lora pushes to her knees before Xylie, who now sits, gasping. Bronwen rests a hand gently on her back. Tears trail through the mud on Xylie’s cheeks.
“ I’m sorry,” her trembling hands say. “ It’s my fault we lost the egg. You should have gone after Marcellus. You should have left me ? —”
“Stop,” Lora says, urgently, catching her cousin’s hands in hers. “I would rather lose this entire Trial than lose you . There is nothing worth more to me than your life. Do you understand?”
Xylie nods.
“Good.” Lora presses a kiss to Xylie’s head then pulls her into a tight embrace. Xylie’s shaking hands clutch Lora’s back.
Ayc sits up, unable to look away from the two, forcing his chaotic head to believe his eyes. They are here; they are both fine. And?—
Ayc squints and shifts closer to get a better look. When Lora leans back, he sees her chronicler more clearly.
“Lora, your chronicler!” Ayc calls.
She shoves back the dark material of her sleeve. A single pink stone is lit, casting its hue against her damp, brown skin. She pulls back her sleeve further, to the list of quests written there. One of the seven lines has disappeared.
“Unearth a priceless treasure,” Bronwen murmurs, glancing from Lora’s arm to Xylie. She chimes off a quick laugh but presses three fingers to her lips. “Guess we didn’t need a dragon egg, after all.”
“Yeah.” Ayc’s own laughter is nervous, almost unhinged, releasing his remaining tension. “All we had to do was throw Xylie into a large mud puddle. Should have done it sooner.”
Both cousins shoot him a vulgar sign.
“Didn’t need the dragon egg?” Tavish calls, as Saga leads him down the tunnel from the chamber. He looks unscathed. Somehow, they've all made it through this fight. “Do you mean I stole this thing back for nothing?”
He pulls his other hand out from behind his back, and there, balanced in his palm, is the dragon egg.
“Holy shit, Tavish!” Ayc’s voice booms through the tunnel, a grin splitting across his face. “How did you manage that?”
Tavish shrugs. “Most people don’t expect a blind kid to be pick-pocketing, so Zephen taught me how to use it to my advantage.” His eyes widen, and he swiftly adds, “Not that I do it often anymore. Or ever. I never do it. But I saw Marcellus take the egg and I just?—”
“It was brilliant, Tavish,” Bronwen assures. “Absolutely brilliant.”
Xylie springs to her feet and races to take a closer look at the egg. Tavish lets her take it into her hands, and she cradles it gingerly.
“But what do we do with it?” Bronwen asks.
“We leave it here,” Peregrin says with finality, but they glance at Lora.
She nods. She brushes mud from her armor and her swords as she stands .
Xylie hands the dragon egg back to Tavish, looks at Ayc and signals for him to translate.
“The egg won’t survive, now that the mother is dead.”
Ayc swallows. The brief elation he felt at Lora’s chronicler and Tavish’s rescue of the dragon egg implodes, leaving only heaviness. Like someone has rested an anvil on his chest.
Xylie continues to sign, and Ayc presses on, “Without the mother, the heated stones will go out and the egg will grow too cold. Or another dragon will come and destroy it. Dragons are very territorial.”
“What do you want us to do, Xylie?” Lora asks. Her tone is not cold, but neither is it warm. It is merely blunt and factual. “We can’t take it with us."
Xylie stares at her, but her hands remain frozen in the air, saying nothing.
“We have to put it back where we found it,” Lora says. “I’m?—”
A groan reverberates down the tunnel from the direction of the chamber. Lora stiffens. The groan comes again and forms words, “Help me.”
“I injured one of them,” Ayc says. “They must have left him behind.”
“I’ll handle it.” Lora marches toward the chamber. She lifts her foot extra high on one step and yanks a knife from her boot. “And then we need to leave.”
Ayc rushes after her. Surely, she can’t mean to murder an injured man like he’s a wounded deer that needs to be put out of its misery. Footsteps echo behind him as the others follow them.
In the chamber, they find two Lux Aester. The one who the dragon swatted across the room has crawled to lie beside the one who Ayc wounded. The former’s legs bend at odd angles. The latter is so pale he nearly blends into the rock beneath him. Lora storms toward them, and the broken one utters a cry.
“Wait, wait,” his words slur as they exit his mouth. He rolls onto his back and slides backward on his hands, dragging his legs. Blood and a clear liquid drip from one nostril, a sign Ayc remembers from Evander’s teachings that a skull is fractured. Lora continues to advance on him. He finally sees the futility of the situation and stops. Lora kneels before him, resting her blade on his throat.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I won’t help Marcellus again. I won’t cheat in the Trials. I’ll?—”
“No, you won’t,” says Lora calmly, and she slits his throat.
Ayc clamps a hand over his mouth to silence an involuntary cry. Lora turns her blade toward the other Lux Aester. She places the bloody point against his sallow cheek.
“Can you hear me?” she growls.
A whimper is the only response.
“If you live or die is up to you. I don’t care either way. But if you live and somehow make it off this island, I want you to give Marcellus a message for me. He harmed my family, and he threatened my friends. When I see him again, I’ll kill him for that. Do you hear me?”
The injured man nods. She slides her blade back into the sheath in her boot and stands. She marches back toward Ayc, the cape flowing behind her, her face a mask of mud, blood, and relentlessness.
Perhaps, Ayc should hate the coldness of what she’s done, but the feeling that erupts within him isn’t hate. She is like staring at the sun on the horizon when you’ve lost all sense of time—unsure whether it’s a sunset or a sunrise. She’s all contradictions and contrasts; day and night, rolled into one. She is devoted to those she loves and utterly merciless to those who might harm them. He doesn’t dare name this powerful feeling within him, but whatever it is, it’s as hot as a dragon’s flame.
“It’s only a matter of time before the wraiths or another dragon return.” Lora looks toward the others, resting her gaze on Xylie who is cradling the dragon egg once more. “Xylie, put it back where it was so we can go.”
Ayc stands rooted in place as Xylie, head hanging down, carefully climbs over the hot stones. She kneels to place the dragon egg down. Ayc glances to the right, where the mother dragon lays motionless. Several Lux Aester bodies also lay on the ground. This place is a tomb, and the unborn dragon will just be another death among them.
Xylie sniffs, drags the back of her hand across her face, and gets to her feet. Ayc offers his hand to help her over the stones.
Lora squeezes Xylie’s shoulder, a brief comforting touch, and then turns. “Let’s get the fuck out of this place.”
Xylie hesitates, her attention lingering on the egg, before following. Bronwen, Tavish, and Peregrin fall into line, but Ayc can’t bring himself to move.
Save my baby.
The dragon’s voice replays in Ayc’s head. A mother who would do anything to save her child. A mother’s love like that he remembers, oh so well. And how can Ayc ignore a final wish?
When Ayc is sure no one will look back, he steps back over the stones. As quickly as he can, he wraps the dragon egg into his blanket with his aching hands and slips it into his pack.
When they make it back to the rowboat, they find it smoldering—the wood black and crumbling from the blaze Marcellus and his men must have started. The sea is empty as far as the eye can see. The fisherman's boat that brought them is long gone. Had Marcellus used force or bribery to get them to leave their post? Not that it matters, because the effect is the same.
They are stranded on the Isle of Nightmares.
Bronwen’s shield shimmers around them. As they retraced their steps through the mountains, the calls of wraiths followed them. No one admitted what they heard, but it was clear by the looks of pain that crossed everyone’s faces that they heard something. Now that they are on the shore, Ayc has finally stopped hearing his mother whimper “ water, more water” the way she did when she died in the thick of an intense fever.
Ayc wonders if it’s only a matter of time before the wraiths creep out of the mountains and devour all of them on the beach. The sun above is sloping toward the western horizon, the shadows of the mountains deepening. It’ll be nightfall in only a handful of hours. If wraiths wander around in the hazy daylight, what worse things come out to play at night?
Lora crouches toward the ground and places a hand on her chin, as though perhaps the position makes her think better. Like she’s going to solve this, but the little line between her eyebrows reappears and tells Ayc she knows what he does.
They are completely and totally fucked, and even he doesn’t have the heart to joke about it.
As though reading everyone’s mind, Peregrin shakes their head. “We’ll get off this island.”
Lora glances over her shoulder at them. “Any ideas?”
“Just one,” says Peregrin. They tilt their head upward, searching the gray skies above. A small smile tilts up their lips. “And look, here she comes.”
Ayc narrows his eyes and sees merely a dark dot in the sky. It flies lower, out of the clouds, and Ayc recognizes it for what it is. Tempest’s mighty wings beat through the sky as she descends. Ayc feels air, and hope, soar back into his lungs at the sight of the glorious gryphon.
Thank fuck.
“She noticed when the fishing boat came back without us,” Peregrin explains.
The gryphon lands with a graceful flutter of wings. And then she swings her mighty head to narrow her silver eyes at Peregrin. Ayc doesn’t need to hear the mental connection between rider and gryphon to hear the ‘I told you so’.
Peregrin ignores her ire and lays a hand on the gryphon’s neck. “Thank you for coming, friend.”
Ayc and Xylie are the first to be deposited on the Everadyn shores close by the Noxumbra fishing village of Pax.
Peregrin tells Tempest to “Fly hard and fast”, and she does. The speed at which she flies makes Ayc realize how careful she was when she carried them before. He clings to her feathers, and despite the gloves he pulled on, his blistered hands ache. Xylie grasps his waist tightly and buries her face into his shoulder beside his pack until they dismount onto the sand, their legs trembling.
After Tempest rockets into the sky again, Xylie drenches herself in the ocean, scrubbing the silt and mud from her clothes, hair and skin. After, Ayc and Xylie set off for a place a little farther from the shore to wait, collecting driftwood as they go. They assemble the wood into a pile, Xylie sprinkles two different powders across the logs, and soon a fire ignites. They sit in silence, side by side.
The fire crackles, and the tide shushes as it slides against sand. Occasionally, sounds of life carry from the fishing village a little to their north: mother’s calling, children playing, a cart rambling on the dirt road toward the village. To the south, a different set of mountains makes shadows against the horizon. Ayc has seen enough maps to know those mountains are still dozens of miles away, and deep within them, lies the school of Adamant, where Lora called home for years.
The sun descends impossibly fast toward the western horizon, and Ayc watches it cast streaks of pink and red across the waves.
“She’ll be fine.” Xylie’s soft voice shatters the silence so suddenly, Ayc jumps. “Lora’s strong. She will be back before nightfall. You don’t have to worry.”
“I’m not worried,” says Ayc, forcing his lips to curl into what he hopes is a believable smile. But he is. His anxiety twists in a constant cycle of thoughts. What if Tempest’s presence brings dragons to Lora’s position? What if the wraiths return? What if, what if, what if ?
“Uh huh, sure.” Xylie twists her body to fully face him and crosses her legs beneath her. “Let me see your hands.”
Ayc turns toward her and offers his hands. She strips off one of his gloves to survey the damage with keen eyes. Ayc looks into the fire instead, watching a blackened piece of driftwood glow red at its center. He already saw his raw palms, the area where the first layer of skin has been ripped off entirely, and the blisters that brand the bases of his fingers. He doesn't want a closer look.
Xylie clucks her tongue, takes a jar from her pack, and begins to slather a salve onto his hands. It eases away the pain, and Ayc is sure it holds something to help protect it from infection and promote healing. She carefully wraps his palms in a white bandage.
When she pulls his glove back on, Ayc finally works up the courage to admit, “I did something I probably shouldn’t have.”
She doesn’t look up from her work. “You kept the dragon egg.”
Of course she already knows.
“What are we going to do to keep it warm?” she asks.
The term we doesn’t go unnoticed. She’s now his coconspirator. “I wrapped it in a blanket before I put it in my pack.”
“Good. Keep the pack by the fire at night. During the day, take my blanket too and wrap both around it," she says as she tends to his other hand. “If only I thought to bring An Exploration of Dragons , I could have done a lot more research, but that tome is much too large to carry.”
Ayc pulls his gloves on over the bandages and teases, “How dare you not foresee me becoming a dragon egg thief, on top of court magician and baker extraordinaire? ”
She snorts and glances toward the ocean. “Peregrin and Tavish are here.”
As soon as Peregrin, Tavish, and Saga set foot on the sand, Tempest launches back in the air. Deep violet edges the eastern horizon behind Ayc. In the west, the distant mountains of Somnia Ignis are fading from sight. With only Lora and herself, is Bronwen able to maintain the shield for this long? If not, how long until the wraiths surround them, or a dragon picks up on their scents?
Ayc has to drag a breath through his nose multiple times before the constriction eases on his ribs. Every second that passes lands like a sharp sting against his skin. The four of them nibble on dried meat and bits of unleavened bread slathered in preserves. Xylie works a hand towel from her pack through the roots of her many braids and soothes oil that smells faintly of peppermint into her scalp. Tavish fills the silence by telling a fable he learned in Tenebra, about a leviathan who lost a race to a seahorse. It sounds like a similar tale to one Ayc’s mother told him growing up, but that tale involved a rabbit and a turtle.
The moon rises, casting silver like fractured bones across the rippling waves. The stars appear one by one, blinking down upon them. And then finally, finally, a shape cuts before the moon. This time, Tempest lands next to the camp. The gryphon huffs, her barreled chest rising and falling, her lion fur slicked in sweat. Bronwen tumbles off first. Her own breaths come in pants.
“I’m going to sleep for ten days,” Bronwen says, collapsing by the fire. Tavish offers her some unleavened bread, and she devours it in three bites.
Lora pauses by Tempest’s side and runs a hand down her feathers. “Thank you, friend," she murmurs, before she turns and heads toward the fire. Lora must have washed while she waited, because her hair is damp and clings to her round, freshly scrubbed cheeks.
The strangest of desires ripples through Ayc, but he resists the urge to jump up and run to her.
Lora sits and accepts dried meat offered by Peregrin. She searches around the fire, taking in every person. She pauses on Ayc for a heartbeat longer than the rest. His nerves rattle at her attention, but when he dares to meet her gaze, she looks away quickly.
Saga, who was previously sleeping, bolts upright and turns to stare into the darkness. A growl forms deep in his throat. Everyone jerks to full attention. Ayc’s spine snaps straighter as he follows the dog’s focus. Past the perimeter of the fire, all Ayc can only see empty sand that transforms into emptier grasslands, broken only by the occasional farmers field and home. But all is quiet.
“What is it, boy?” Tavish asks, resting a hand on Saga’s head.
“What does he see?” Lora asks.
Tavish touches the Kindred collar’s leash. “Nothing. He doesn’t?—”
One moment there is nothing. Then a foot covered in sharp pointed steel crosses the plain from darkness and into the firelight. The body follows, towering as tall as Ayc but built wider and stronger. Every inch of that body is covered in plates of dark armor that appear black at first but gleam an effervescent crimson where the firelight touches. Spikes curl from the plates at his shoulder blades. He draws himself to a halt only five feet from Ayc and Xylie.
Lora, Bronwen, and Peregrin are instantly on their feet, drawing their weapons .
The newcomer holds up his empty hands, in a gestures that shows he is unarmed, that he means peace.
“Loraphne, daughter of Yris.” His voice is somehow like both silk and like sandpaper—deep and rough, but elegant. “I mean you no harm. I’ve been looking for you.”
He grins, presenting a full set of teeth. Every single one comes to a devastatingly sharp point.
Ayc feels like he’s a little boy again, breaking out of the clutches of a nightmare. Except now, he is waking to find that the monsters who haunted him aren't a dream.
A Drakr is here.