Chapter 16 #2
And then the waves rose, just before the shore. They were high enough to tower over the Guardian. These were the kind of waves I thought I’d see crash the other night. When I’d invoked the tsunami.
I looked over my shoulder. There was barely any space between us, and Dairen and his men.
Fuck. Fuck!
“We need to run faster,” I yelled. But my calves were starting to burn, my legs moving slower. I hadn’t been ready for a fight—not after I’d used so much energy to heal Auriel.
The waves crashed with a thunderous groan, and water exploded like a dam had burst, just behind us.
Auriel squeezed my hand, moving forward. Another wave crashed. He stilled, and turned. A river separated us from the soturi.
“Lyriana,” Auriel warned, his voice full of a kind of fear I’d never heard from him before.
The soturi started to scream.
I looked at the water again, realizing that it wasn’t water at all that had entered the shore.
It was fire. Blue fire.
And only one thing to my knowledge could do that. A creature I’d never seen before. A jalamnavim. A water dragon.
I turned to the ocean, my jaw dropping, pulse racing.
A dragon, the size of Sean’s house, hovered just above the ocean.
Its wings were spread, long and full of sparkling scales, flapping back and forth in the wind.
Its eyes focused, and blazed. They weren’t so much a color as they were made of fire.
Blue flames. It reared its head back, smoke curling from his nostrils, mouth opening to reveal two rows of sharpened teeth.
I could hear Dairen shouting, retreating, telling his men to stay back. He was already moving away when the dragon opened its mouth, and blue fire exploded, engulfing two soturi’s bodies whole.
“Um—did opening your tomb summon the water dragon?” I asked.
Auriel shook his head. “Did my tomb require the protection of a jalamnavim?” he asked, his eyes wide. “No! It definitely didn’t!” His hand tightened around me. “Now I need you to move slowly.”
But it didn’t matter what I did. Because the water dragon’s eyes were on us, its entire head turning in our direction, its mouth opening wider. There was a growl, and then … blue flames.
I hugged Auriel, feeling his arms tighten around me. Then he pushed me onto the sand, throwing himself over me, his body covering mine.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the fire, for the end. But it never came. The air grew hotter, crackling with heat. And then it stopped. Just like that.
I dared to peek one eye open. We were alive.
We hadn’t burned to death. Because someone had saved us.
Someone had come. She stood before us, wearing a tight-fitting black dress.
Long red hair fell down her back. Her arms were covered in golden bangles that jingled as she shifted.
Leather cases, meant to hold scrolls, were affixed to a belt at her hip.
Her stave was held high, blasting forth a dome of protection.
The blue flames pushed against it, but the dome held.
“Ramia?” I asked.
“Not now,” she hissed, her Afeyan accent thick. “I calm him. Quickly. Or you die.”
Now both of her hands were raised and she called out, starting to sing a song I didn’t recognize.
Auriel sat up, wide eyed, and pulled me into his lap. “We need to get out of here,” he said.
“How?” I asked, eyeing the scroll he still held in his hand. Our options were endless beach, death by water dragon, or death by soturi. And none of those options led us to Queen Ma’Nia or the red shard.
“You come with me,” Ramia said, looking back over her shoulder. “We ride him. The jalamnavim.”
“We what?” I asked.
But Ramia ignored me and continued to sing. I started to translate her song in my mind. “The old Gods have returned. The Goddesses, too. Calm down now, water creature. We honor you.” She kept singing it, repeating the rhyme again and again.
It was working. The dragon was no longer breathing smoke, no longer growling, but beginning to snake its neck from side to side—the movement similar to something Mercurial would do.
But where Mercurial was sneaky in his movements, the dragon merely looked curious.
I wasn’t sure if dragons could smile, but for a second, that seemed to be what it was doing.
And then smoke exploded as it screamed. One of Dairen’s men had launched a sword at its wing, and struck.
“Idiot!” Ramia yelled. The water dragon’s hackles raised, its wings flapping as it rose above the water’s surface and released a stream of blue fire once more.
I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
The soturion who’d hit the dragon was gone.
Nothing more now than a pile of ash and smoke. Barely even a burning ember remained.
I started to shake. Three soturi were dead, burned alive. And Ramia started her song again. Her voice louder, yet somehow still soothing and calm. Haunting.
“The old Gods have returned. The Goddesses, too. Calm down now, water creature. We honor you.”
Ramia snapped her head to the soturi—what remained of them—only a few yards away from us. And she gestured for the dragon to come forward.
“Come to me, come. I seek of thee. Come to me, come and see.”
Auriel stood up, moving protectively in front of me. His feet were already widened, and his knees bent into a protective stance. Then he looked back, his eyes moving slowly up my body before stopping at my face. “Guessing you’ve never seen a water dragon in this life, Meka?”
“No!” I barely remembered they existed. Not once in my life had they come this close to the shore.
I didn’t even know of anyone seeing one.
In fact, they were so uncommon, they were mostly referred to by their common name: water dragon.
“They’re supposed to be farther out in the ocean,” I said, “past Lethea.”
“Most are. Not all. Some are closer. But him? Him you disturb,” Ramia said. “Your little storm draw him out.”
Its enormous body sparkled as it came closer and closer until two large paws hit the sand. Water sluiced from its body, and its wings were raised like hackles.
Dairen started yelling again, his arms up directing his soturi back into formation, commanding them to brandish their weapons and prepare to attack.
Ramia ran forward, placing herself between the dragon and the soturi. Then she held up her hand, another dome of protection.
“I not hold for long. I do this as favor for Mercurial. Get on!”
“What?” I asked, eyeing the dragon. Its eyes were turning to flames again. It was getting ready to strike.
“Now!” Ramia yelled. “Climb!”
“Come on!” Auriel yelled, already lifting me into his arms.
He raced forward. “Good boy,” he cooed. “Good boy.”
Auriel hoisted me onto his back. The dragon’s scales reminded me of the nahashim, surprisingly warm.
“Get closer to its head,” Auriel said. I did, realizing there was a dip between the shoulder blades that made for a more comfortable seat.
“Did we ride on these?” I asked.
He settled behind me, one arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his torso. “We did,” he said, his mouth close to my ear.
A small shiver ran down my spine, my stomach tightening.
“Ramia, get on!” Auriel yelled, shifting over to give the half-Afeyan a hand. She was on his back a second later, tiptoeing with an incredible amount of balance before us, before she settled down and patted the water dragon’s head.
Auriel tightened his hold on me. “Ready? The dragon’s going to move—it will be quick.”
Our dragon rose to his feet at once, wings flapping, blood dripping onto the beach and then we lifted, soaring into the sky.
“Where the hell are we going?” I asked.
“I hear you need ride to Khemet,” Ramia said, shaking her head. She replaced her stave in a belt, and used one hand to fix her long red hair.
“How did you know?” I asked. Then I scoffed. “Mercurial?”
Ramia winked. “He said you find trouble at beach. So I come.” She laughed, and leaned forward, steering the water dragon.
We’d been soaring east over the water, away from land, heading toward Lethea.
But now we were moving south. She looked back at us again, and seeing we were flying steady, she twisted completely around.
“At last. I waiting for you to figure out.” She eyed the scroll, still held tight and safe in Auriel’s hand.
Auriel’s Valya. She knew. She knew exactly what it was.
She was a librarian who specialized in ancient artifacts and scrolls along with Afeyan writings.
But something in the way she looked at the case made think she knew more than she was revealing.
“Figure what out?” I asked, suspicious.
Ramia made a tutting sound and shook her head. “She not pleased to see scroll again. Not after rest destroyed. But good you bring it. You need scroll to work things out.”
“Work what out?” I seethed.
Her eyes sparkled. “Save Rhyan. Heal akadim.”
“You knew about the cure?” I asked.
Ramia nodded. “Yes. But cure useless for years, lost. Without you—without someone to bear this—” she pointed at my heart, “no cure. This always had to happen.” She gestured around us.
“Because the shard was broken. Because part of it is inside of me,” I said.
Ramia nodded. “No cure without light.” She eyed my chest. “And no cure without shard.” She eyed Auriel.
“Now pieces come together. But you face Queen first.” She shifted forward again, her hand on the water dragon’s head.
“Vra. Volara a Khemet,” she said. And we started to turn again, this time moving west. I mentally pictured a map of Lumeria.
Khemet, home of the Moon Court was west.
The dragon roared, and blue fire spurted from its mouth.
I stilled, but Ramia laughed. “Happy fire,” she said. “He in good mood now.”
“He better be,” I muttered, seeing the pyramids of the Great Library. They were like tiny points in the distance. We were flying fast, faster than a seraphim and gryphon combined. We’d be passing Scholar’s Harbor in no time.
“I fix you when we arrive. Make presentable,” Ramia said, nonchalantly. “My mother won’t like if you look a mess.”
“Your mother?” I asked, shaking my head.
Auriel’s eyebrows scrunched together.
“Why would your mother—” I looked back at the half Afeyan librarian I’d known most of my life. My stomach tightened. “Ramia? Who is your mother?”
She laughed, tossing her head back, the wind blowing through it now.
“In Khemet, I not Ramia.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief the way they had a thousand times since I’d known her.
Since I’d worked with her. “Not just Ramia.” Then she smirked, rolling her eyes as she shook her head in derision.
“I Princess Ramia,” she said. “My mother, Her Majesty, Queen Ma’Nia, High Lady of the Moon Court. ”