Dragon Empress

Chapter 19

“Really?!” she gasped, heart leaping.

“I warn you, it will be painful.”

“I’m not afraid of pain.”

“If you go down this path, Keriya, you won’t be able to turn back.”

“I won’t want to turn back.”

“I can guarantee you will,” said Shivnath, as the ground began to quake. “But your determination may be enough to keep you sane throughout the process.”

The grass, the obelisks, the sea, and the sky burst around them, shattering into shards of magic and chaos. The shards whirled, whipped into a hurricane by unearthly winds. Keriya was falling again, and she flailed her arms in a futile attempt to grab onto something.

“Shivnath,” she screamed.

With an abruptness that threatened whiplash, the tornado of energy ceased. Keriya found herself on solid ground, and she swayed from the change.

Squinting, she gazed around. Though she couldn’t see the sun, everything was bright as midday. She stood beneath a brilliant azure sky in the middle of a red canyon. Cliffs curved around her, hemming her into a vast pit. Mountains jutted beyond, their jagged peaks strafing the underside of the clouds.

Shivnath stood on the ridge of the canyon. She opened her jaws and spoke, her voice reverberating in Keriya’s bones and blood:

“Let us begin.”

CHAPTER TWELVE“Each magic requires a guardian warder, to balance the world and inhibit disorder.”

~ The Binding Laws, 15:1

“Valemagic is the magic of balance,” said Shivnath, prowling the ridge like a wolf circling prey. “It is the only magic that can create energy and mass where there is none, and the only magic that can destroy energy and mass without in turn destroying the universe.”

Keriya swallowed and nodded.

“Valemagic is the magic from which souls are created,” Shivnath continued. “And as you know from your dealings with Necrovar, it is the only magic that can change a soul. It can bind, corrupt, and even reconstitute the essence of a mortal, demon, dragon, or god.”

“Does that mean,” Keriya began, not quite meeting the dragon’s gaze, “valemagic could bring someone back from the dead? Not as a shadowbeast, but as their own, true self?”

There was a long, dangerous pause.

“In theory,” said Shivnath. Hope flooded Keriya at once.

“But,” the god added, in a voice that was unexpectedly gentle, “a true practitioner of valemagic would never use it for such a thing.”

“Why not?”

“We cannot change the way the universe works because we wish it were different.”

“Why?” Keriya had heard this time and again on her adventures, and the answer remained nonsensical. If valemagic was all-powerful, why were its wielders not allowed to bend the universe to their liking?

“Oh, but they do.” Shivnath’s voice deepened to a growl. Clouds rolled in from beyond the mountains, darkening the sky. “The true power of valemagic lies not in its ability to create energy, but to recycle it. What happens to a creature’s soul when its body dies? The soul does not cease to exist. Its energy passes beyond, into a different universe. This universe.”

Shivnath spread her wings. The omnipresent light filtered through them, drenching Keriya with green shadows. “To Destroy, we funnel energy from Selaras into this place. To Create, we draw on dead souls here, weaving their power back into reality. No creature is ever truly gone, for the threads of every soul are recycled throughout eternity—thus, the light of one is the light of all.”

“I see,” Keriya said, though she wasn’t sure she did.

“Necrovar abuses this power. When he rose to power in the Second Age, he offered dead souls a second chance at life. He ripped them from the beyond, hoarding their power for himself.”

During the Final Battle, Keriya had seen the threads that connected Necrovar to every one of his shadowbeasts. He’d created a bottomless wellspring of power to draw from. This had prompted her to siphon power from every living soul in turn.

It’s what nearly made me destroy them.

“He has created a vicious cycle of imbalance because he has bent the universe to his liking, as you put it,” said Shivnath. “The world is at once too weak and too strong to sustain itself now.”

“But with Necrovar imprisoned,” Keriya began, “and with the dragons returned, the world is better.”

“Hardly. When the dragons returned, mortals’ powers began evolving and mutating at unnatural rates. This is because the light half of valemagic augments the power of nearby threads. My presence alone made every soul in Allentria strong enough to wield, and made every wielder stronger than they otherwise should have been.”

Keriya’s eyes widened. Viran had wondered about this phenomenon last year. “Okay, but isn’t that a good thing? If mortals are growing stronger—”

“Balance, Keriya,” Shivnath interrupted. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. With too much magic in the world, imbalance rises and causes entropy.”

“Then what’s the answer?” Keriya demanded, floundering beneath the weight of knowledge she couldn’t fully comprehend. “How do we win, if not through valemagic?”

“Valemagic is no more than energy. It is a tool for you to wield, but it is you who will save—or doom—Selaras.”

“No pressure,” Keriya muttered.

“To properly wield it, you first must master the other magics. These are the finite building blocks of an infinite universe. From the twelfth stem the eleven, and from the eleven, the twelfth gains strength.”

“Uh . . . I can’t wield the other eleven.”

Shivnath raised a supercilious brow ridge. “Can’t you?”

“Well, I can wield some—”

“You can wield all of them, by my count.”

Keriya considered arguing, then decided against it. By this point she should know better. Drawing a breath through her nose, she asked in a controlled voice, “How do you figure that?”

“Your valemagic allows you to form bonds with other souls. Through bonds, creatures may share—”

“Thoughts, feelings, and even magic,” Keriya finished. These were words she’d heard when she’d first come to Allentria. “But the math doesn’t add up. I have lightmagic—”

“And timemagic,” Shivnath cut in. “A gift from your draconic ancestry.”

“I’ve never wielded timemagic.” If Keriya had been able to manipulate time, things would have been a damn sight easier.

“Nonsense. You stopped time in your final battle against Necrovar.”

“I did that with valemagic—”

“Valemagic is timemagic,” said Shivnath, a bite of frustration in her voice. “At the quantum level, all magicthreads are composed of the same elementary particles. Valemagic created all things, so its wielders can control all things. Your timemagic may manifest in subtle ways, but it is there, to be sure. Have you never drifted in a single endless moment, glimpsed the future in your dreams?”

Keriya hesitated, for Shivnath’s words had struck a chord of truth. Snippets of the future had slipped into her nightmares over the years. She’d seen herself fall into the fiery depths of Mount Arax long before she’d journeyed to that cursed peak. She’d spoken to Necrovar and Shivnath in dreams—manifestations of the present, she supposed. And long ago, during her earliest years in Aeria . . .

I saw Viran. The realization gripped her, making it difficult to breathe. The perfect Prince Charming she’d imagined as a child, the mysterious man with the strange eyes—was that a good sign, or a bad one?

“You also have the ability to wield forcemagic,” Shivnath continued from worlds away. “A power received from your bond to Thorion.”

“Excuse me?” Keriya’s voice came out shaky. “Thorion didn’t—”

“Dragons wielded forcemagic in ages past. During the Great War, Necrovar targeted and destroyed Gravien, the host of Pure Forcemagic. In doing so, he was able to stifle that part of the dragons’ powers. You are not bound the same way dragons are, so your forcemagic is wieldable.”

Don’t argue. Arguing wastes time. Keriya scrubbed her hands over her face. “Fine, whatever, accepted. That’s three.”

“Your changemagic comes from Arisse; your lifemagic, from a long line of human ancestors; your valemagic and earthmagic from me. You are the host of Pure Watermagic. Your air- and firemagic come from—”

“Viran.” Keriya reached the conclusion a moment before Shivnath said it.

In light of her dream revelations, this took on an ominous shine. Necrovar’s voice, haunting and sinister, rang in her skull: You’ve stolen your power from everyone you claimed to love.

This must be what he’d meant. After Thorion’s death, she had latched onto Viran. Her valemagic had drawn him to her, perhaps against his will. She had inadvertently manipulated him. She’d stolen not only his power, but his love.

More of the Shadow’s taunts echoed in her broken heart:

You deserve none of it.

“Also from him,” Shivnath continued, oblivious to Keriya’s anguish, “you have volt- and darkmagic. That makes twelve.”

“Viran doesn’t wield darkmagic.” Keriya’s stomach roiled as old traumas resurfaced. She was dangerously close to spiraling into a dark place—a place she’d fought tooth and nail to escape. All her internal work was coming undone.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” An echo of distant thunder grounded Keriya. She looked up at the Dragon Empress, who loomed beneath a condensing storm. “He would have told me. Because he loves—loved me.”

No more. The bond had lost its novelty; the infatuation had worn off.

Shivnath flicked a paw, casting aside the notion of love. “He has strong demonic heritage on his mother’s side. His electrical powers sparked when he came to Allentria. It was only a matter of time before his dark powers manifested.”

Too empty to cry, too tired to argue, Keriya crumpled. She didn’t mind that Viran wielded darkmagic, but the fact that he’d kept this from her . . . the fact that he no longer—or, perhaps, had never truly loved her . . .

“Having the twelve magics is one thing,” said Shivnath, drumming her talons on the rocky ground. “Knowing how to wield them is another. You must undergo a series of exercises that will open your soul to each one.”

This sounded like the Xamarai practice of opening one’s magicsource, but that procedure was painful.

“Oh, no,” hissed Shivnath, her eyes narrowing. “That is nothing compared to this. You are not merely learning to wield the threads in your soul; you are learning to wield the core essence of those threads. For that, you must endure many tortures.”

Keriya, who was busy gathering up the fractured pieces of her heart, felt a shiver run through her. That concept was chilling enough to bury thoughts of Viran.

“You told me you didn’t fear pain,” Shivnath whispered.

“I don’t,” she lied. “I’m ready. Do it.”

Do it now, before I break. Focusing on the future would keep her from focusing on her past. Pain would ground her like nothing else could.

She needed this power to move forward. She wanted it.

“So be it. We shall begin with earthmagic.”

Keriya’s heart thundered, rattling her ribs. “Seems fitting.”

High above, Shivnath’s pupils began to glow. They contracted to slivers, then disappeared, swallowed by the infinite darkness around them. “Once the process has begun, I cannot cease without causing your body and soul irreversible damage. You will beg for mercy, and you will beg me to stop. For your own good, I will not.”

Keriya settled into a neutral defensive position. She wanted to get it over with; she couldn’t bear the waiting. The calm was worse than the storm.

“You can still leave,” said Shivnath. A last offering of salvation.

“No,” Keriya said quietly. “I can’t.”

The dragon raised her right paw, and the ground in front of Keriya rose in response. A smooth, flowing stream of rock snaked its way up until it was as tall as a man.

Keriya tensed. She would survive whatever came next. Despite every misdirection and omission, every secret and untruth, she trusted Shivnath.

Shivnath blinked, and the rock struck.

It smacked Keriya across the face and she reeled backward, stumbling. The rock had latched onto her cheek, she could feel its grating surface against her flesh—