Dragon Empress

Copyright © Elana A. Mugdan 2022 www.allentria.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Art by Jaka Prawira Interior Art by Neiratina ISBN: 978-1-7923-6663-5 Check out the other books of The Shadow War Saga! Learn more at www.allentria.com Or join the Allentria Community on our Discord Server! Table Of ContentsPROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE CHAPTER FORTY CHAPTER FORTY-ONE CHAPTER FORTY-TWO CHAPTER FORTY-THREE CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE CHAPTER FORTY-SIX EPILOGUE FUTURE BOOKS GLOSSARY & PRONUNCIATIONS ABOUT THE AUTHOR “Choice is stronger than destiny.” ~ Keriya Soulstar PROLOGUE Third Age, Year 738 Shivnath paced the edge of eternity, waiting. Ages passed before she sensed something. A spark. A pulse. A single magicthread wriggling into existence from nothing. Secluded in the depths of Argos Moor, she concentrated on the energy signature of the thread, so beloved and feared. Necrovar’s final enchantment would soon come to fruition. Shivnath watched as more threads popped into existence. Pairs of matter and anti-matter appeared and annihilated one another. The two essential parts of Valemagic existed in balance and bloodshed: spontaneous creation and immediate destruction. An invisible battle of cosmic scale. Occasionally, a particle would escape the deadly kiss of its bonded partner. A molecule of dark matter would break free, and Necrovar’s enchantment would seize it. Threads were drawn from the outer reaches of the universe to converge on Selaras, to fulfill the Shadow’s spell. “Here,” Shivnath whispered, focusing the energy. Necromagical threads twisted into a familiar shape. Over the course of decades, a skeleton came into being. White scales grew from sinewy flesh to coat the small body. Wings sprouted, horns bloomed, and a face she hadn’t seen in a thousand years slowly knitted itself together. “Valerion. My drackling.” Valerion was the only creature Shivnath loved unconditionally. Even if she hadn’t been bonded, she knew she would have loved her son. But bonded she was. It was her curse. “You will not be safe with me,” she told the forming body. She knew Valerion could not stay in her domain, but she could keep him close. The young Chardon could take care of him. “Curse the wretched demon,” Shivnath hissed. If Arisse hadn’t meddled, Valerion would never have joined the war. He wouldn’t have sold half of his soul to Necrovar. In that moment, Shivnath longed to destroy Arisse. Perhaps that was a result of her bond to Helkryvt—he’d poured too much jealousy and hatred into her—but she couldn’t destroy the Chardons without destroying the essence of Pure Changemagic. And if she destroyed Changemagic, she would doom the world. For Valerion’s sake, she would swallow her pride and work with her brethren guardians. She reached out to the nebulous, ever-changing mind of the young goddess. A hurricane swirled within Arisse—a tempest of disbelief tinged with desperate hope. Shivnath’s lip lifted in a sneer. She had kept Valerion’s identity secret from her brethren deities, pulling strings so subtly that no one sensed her touch. thought Arisse, brimming with an incomprehensible mix of emotion. Shivnath, by contrast, kept her mindvoice cold and her thoughts detached. She couldn’t risk any emotional overspill. Shivnath severed her mental connection to the Chardon and did some calculations. She couldn’t bear the idea of sending her son away. She couldn’t lose him again. There was only one option. She gritted her fangs and narrowed her eyes. She extended a tendril of thought to the host of Pure Watermagic. After the world-changing end of the Great War, storms and earthquakes had reshaped the planet as nature struggled to find balance. Her mountains, which had once bordered a wasteland, now plunged into the sea—and the sea belonged to Kraken. He was Water itself. came the deep, rippling reply. Shivnath bristled at his unctuous tone. Instinctive fury clawed at Shivnath. The emotional response had been ingrained in her during her time with Helkryvt, who’d never been able to control his temper she thought, stamping down on her destructive impulses. She would have to barter with Kraken, anyway. If she desired something from him, she’d have to offer something to balance the exchange. His mindvoice was oily as octopus ink, utterly flippant. Shivnath squeezed the hot coals of anger in her chest, squeezed them until they cooled to cruel determination. she informed him. So it was that Shivnath and Kraken struck their bargain. Kraken, greedy and shortsighted fiend that he was, desired nothing more than food. Shivnath had no love for the Allentrian humans—they were at fault, in part, for Valerion’s demise—so she snaked her way through several loopholes and promised Kraken he could feed on her mortals whenever they ventured into his domain. In return, the miserable mollusk allowed Shivnath to claim a portion of his domain as her own. Using earthmagic, she created a haven for Valerion by raising land out of the sea. She took stone and made it fertile; she took saltwater and made it fresh; she put her heart and soul into it, as much as she could when her heart was broken and her soul was poisoned. Shivnath told Arisse when her masterpiece was complete. It took Arisse a while to respond. Shivnath retorted with a snap. That quelled Arisse’s interrogation. She was too desperate to reunite with Valerion to question her good fortune. Shivnath glanced at the corner of her cave. The necromagical enchantment was nearly complete. Valerion wasn’t conscious yet, and she wished more than anything that she could let him stay. But she couldn’t jeopardize his safety. The truth about him—both of them—was too dangerous. So she brought his body to the haven she’d created, settling him gently in verdant, windswept grass. Beneath his closed lids, his eyes fluttered. Shivnath sent a mental picture of his location to Arisse, retreating to watch from the safety of her mountains. No sooner had Shivnath sent the information than Arisse appeared beside Valerion. Another creature stood at her side, small and wobbly and hideously deformed. Shivnath, who presided over the Aerian valley on a cliff, bared her fangs. Arisse whirled through a series of dizzying changes. The tiny goblin muddled through several changes as well, though none of the forms it took were recognizable. Arisse looked up from her place on the emerald plain and locked eyes with Shivnath. Something sinister slithered through Shivnath, seeping from the hollow place in her chest where Helkryvt’s presence had once been. This time, she did nothing to fight the darkness searing her veins and hazing her vision. She dug into Arisse’s mind, traced threads of memory, tore through the fabric of the past to find the truth. “A child?” Shivnath’s voice was thunder, and her wrath was a storm. It manifested in clouds that filled the sky, blocking the midday sun, turning the world dark. Arisse changed forms again, becoming a sleek, sky-blue dragon—the ultimate insult. “I know it is in violation of the binding laws to interact with mortals, but Valerion was not a mortal. If he had been, I couldn’t have meddled with him. The binding laws allowed me to continue my dalliance—” “This is hardly a dalliance.” Shivnath’s magic was in her mental grasp. Threads hovered around her, each one a deadly spear pointed at the treacherous Chardon. “It is not,” Arisse agreed, shrinking to a small form. A human form. The same body she’d worn when she had defied law and reason and followed Valerion into the Great War. “I loved Valerion. I never stopped loving him. But he was not mortal then, nor is he now. And our child is not a mortal—she is a hybrid.” Shivnath had to admire Arisse for the sheer gall of it. It took a master to know a master; Arisse had weaseled her way through loopholes, hoodwinking the gods of Selaras better than anyone ever had. Except for Shivnath herself, of course. She yearned to put the Chardon in her place . . . but then Valerion stirred. Arisse turned her back on Shivnath and ran to his side. And Shivnath, who knew she could not destroy Arisse or her halfbreed demonspawn, withdrew. An ache built in her chest as she watched her son awaken. “Arisse?” he whispered. “Yes, my darling soul-star. I’m here.” Shivnath cringed away from the words as if they were whips lashing her scales. Valerion shouldn’t have any memories of his past, yet he’d remembered Arisse. He had forgotten Shivnath when he’d done nothing more than change the shape of his body; how was it that he’d been resurrected from scrap molecules of necromagic, yet he knew the contemptible goddess the moment he took his first breath? Shivnath retreated to the depths of Argos Moor in disgrace while Valerion met his daughter. Arisse summoned his old sword from where she’d squirreled it away. The fact that the Chardon had claimed it still made Shivnath’s blood boil. One day, Shivnath vowed, I will set everything right. Shivnath watched over the mismatched family for the next thousand years. They were happy in Aeria, and the blade of her resentment dulled. But her semblance of peace was not to last. Valerion’s resurrection enchantment began to fray at the seams. As he decayed, the molecules of his body emitted necromagical radiation. The process was slow at first, almost unnoticeable, but it accelerated. Darkness oozed out of Valerion into his surroundings, poisoning his perfect haven. Arisse told Shivnath one morning. Shivnath did not deign to reply. She didn’t care what the child or Arisse did; she cared only for Valerion. But because Valerion loved his child, Shivnath vowed to protect her. So it was that Shivnath kept one eye on the hybrid, who assumed human form and settled in the Smarlands, and the other eye on Aeria. She watched, numb and disdainful, as Arisse failed time and again to heal Valerion’s terrible curse. It was no good. If there had been a magical cure, Shivnath would have woven it herself. Nothing could undo what had been done. Unless . . . Unless it was undone by the hand of its original wielder. She seized on the dangerous thought. Her mind churned into motion, concocting schemes and calculating risks. But Helkryvt was imprisoned. Nothing could stitch the Etherworld together with Selaras. That enchantment had been fueled by the pure energy of Valerion’s body and soul, powered by all the gods of the world, tethered and locked.