Dragon Empress

Chapter 24

“What version of events are you remembering?” she muttered.

Fletcher’s wristwatch chimed seven. “We should hurry.”

Roxanne pocketed the evasometer and fished out her old switchblade. Making the tiniest nick on her left thumb, she offered a bead of blood to the teleportal.

The changemagic rippled, and the sheer cliffs of the Chasm grew visible across its pearly surface. Jagged crests of reddish rock rose before her, dropping into unfathomable depths. Sprawled over the misty lip of the canyon, a hundred heights away . . .

“Ra’s teeth,” said Viran, who bore Sethildras and a bag of supplies.

“You can say that again,” gasped Roxanne.

You knew the Rift was wide here, thought G’shídrian.

Yeah, well, it’s quite a bit wider than the last time we looked.

A snaking band of light, twice as high as a man, rippled through the fog and spilled shafts of silver brilliance upon them. Black sparks and smoky wisps danced at its edges.

“Before you go, I would remind you of the Etherworld’s horrors one final time,” said Khyvette. “You will not be imprisoned, but this universe feeds on energy. It is vampiric, and it will destroy you if you are not careful. You remember the most important rule?”

“Under no circumstances should we wield,” said Effrax.

Khyvette nodded. “If you do, the Etherworld will punish you.”

A subtle tremor ran through the humans.

“Neither Fletcher nor I can risk straying too close,” she continued, “but now that this part of the Rift has opened, it cannot be closed. At least, not without magical interference.”

“And your escort will make sure no interference comes,” said Fletcher, gesturing over his shoulder. Behind them, a unit of Imperial Guards stood at attention.

Roxanne and Effrax nodded, but no one moved. Confronted with the eerie anomaly hanging in midair, they were all struck dumb.

“It’ll be fine,” Fletcher said after a charged pause.

“Will it?” said Roxanne. “Keriya’s the one who’s been prepping for this.”

“So have you. You and G’shídrian have worked on this project for over a year. I trust you.”

She smiled, taking heart from the simple words. “Right, then. No more delaying. We’ll see you soon, Dragon Speaker.”

Fletcher gripped her shoulder, squeezing in solidarity. Then he withdrew, leaving her to her mission.

Roxanne stepped from Noryk to the Fironem, G’shídrian on her shoulder, Effrax and Viran at her side. The rhythm of marching behind her indicated their personal platoon of guards was following.

They approached the sinuous Rift. It winked through the haze, beautiful but deadly, a flytrap flower awaiting its next meal.

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” said Effrax. “From one portal to another.”

“Let’s hope this is a two-way portal,” said Roxanne, eyeing the nebulous edges where wisps twisted like beckoning fingers.

Effrax stopped five heights from the sparkling scar, spinning on his heel to address the Imperials. “The smallest fluctuation on this side of reality could spell disaster for us once we’re in the Etherworld, so guard it well.”

The soldiers spread out in a loose circle around the Rift, weapons drawn as if they thought their swords and guns would save them from the horrors of the Etherworld.

“What do you say, Tigress?” Effrax asked in a low voice. “Together?”

“Together,” she agreed, too nervous to bother hiding it. She, Effrax, and Viran lined up in front of the empty, glowing rip in spacetime.

Just like any other portal, she thought to herself.

Clenching her fists and drawing courage from the phoenix on her shoulder, Roxanne plunged into the unknown.

Crossing from one world to the next was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Whorls of light and darkness entombed her. Gravity abandoned her. She was weightless, floating, and she couldn’t feel any part of herself: she was a mind without a body, a tangle of thoughts and nothing more.

G’shídrian? She called out telepathically, but received no response. Nor did she feel the subtle simmer of energy in her mind and soul that accompanied telepathic communication.

An abrupt shift turned her floating into falling. Roxanne’s stomach plunged as she hurtled toward a new center of gravity. She tumbled head over heels through voidspace until she found herself on solid, invisible ground.

G’shídrian’s reassuring weight returned, as did her sense of self. In possession and control of her body once more, Roxanne whirled on the spot, seeking her friends.

She let out a horrified gasp. “What the blood happened to you?”

Viran’s skin had become transparent. His eyes flickered like a thunderstorm—light and electric, then dark and cold. His face looked demonic, and in place of his prosthetic hand there shimmered a ghostly paw with scythe-like talons.

By comparison, Effrax looked almost normal. Beneath translucent skin, his veins pulsed with fiery light. A knot of dark blue threads, a color Roxanne associated with guilt, hung in a haze around his chest. Beneath it, she glimpsed a pure, burning heart.

“It’s alright,” said Viran. Even his voice was distorted, the guttural growl of a monstrous beast. “This is the Limbus, the space between worlds.”

“What’s it done to us? Why do we look like this?” Roxanne demanded.

“According to Keriya, this place shows the truth of who we are.”

An irrational surge of self-consciousness gripped her. “How’s my face?”

“As dazzling as ever,” Effrax drawled.

“I trust that like I trust a dagger at my throat.”

Effrax chuckled, but Viran drew Sethildras from its scabbard. A barbed wire knot of dark threads crisscrossed the luminescent blade. He hefted the weapon so Roxanne could peer at herself in the polished metal.

“Not too terrible,” she murmured. Dark scars marred her visage, but it was largely unchanged. The biggest difference was in her eyes. They were wholly yellow with slitted pupils.

G’shídrian launched from her shoulder, wing clipping her as he flew off. He was the least changed among them—he’d become a bird-shaped fire. Although his flames were bright, they seemed not to emit light. The cavernous darkness swallowed all hint of illumination.

The Limbus is a crossroads, he thought. We must go on.

“Let’s keep moving,” said Roxanne.

“Off on another quest,” said Effrax, falling into step beside her as she trotted after the phoenix.

She snorted. “Just like the bad old days.”

“There were good days, too. Don’t you think?”

Roxanne considered the question. She’d been through hell and back during the war. There was no denying her traumas had changed her, perhaps for the worse. And yet . . .

“There were good days,” she conceded softly.

And those, too, had shaped her.

They walked for what felt like hours, silent and vigilant. No other life existed in this place—at least, not that Roxanne could tell—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them.

Ahead, G’shídrian’s shape wavered. His spectral flames faded, allowing his true form to peek through.

We are at the threshold, he thought. In the Etherworld, you and I will no longer be able to telepathically communicate.

That’s alright. We know the plan.

And we are in luck. Valaan’s presence is strong. G’shídrian’s words were saturated with excitement, though his mindvoice was growing weak. He will be able to siphon power from us, which will give him the strength to follow us home.

One more step, and Roxanne’s soul shivered. Coldness spilled from her heart, suffusing her veins with ice.

When she clutched at her chest, she saw a greenish haze wafting from her flesh. Glowing tendrils tore away from her to dissipate in the darkness, a darkness which itself seemed more profound.

Heart thumping, she checked on Effrax. He was back to normal—normal, except for the fiery, phantom shine around his body. Red wisps drifted from his form. His aura flickered in a sickly manner, blurring his handsome features.

Viran, again, was more disturbing. He’d regained his human appearance, but a mix of colors flitted through his aura: white fading to red, electric blue flares skittering across his skin, scintillating shadows twisting around him.

It’s magic, Roxanne realized.

The moment they’d entered the Etherworld, its vampiric nature had taken hold. Threads of energy were being siphoned away from them in real time, piece by infinitesimal piece.

Shafts of pale light filtered past Roxanne, piercing the darkness. Behind her, a shining scar hung in the air: a window to Selaras. She could see the Chasm stretching into the mist, the Imperials standing watch, and the rolling red hills of the Fironem beyond.

She checked her evasometer. Sure enough, its platinum needle pointed straight and true toward the Rift. Gavoch’s invention would lead them safety home.

“Keep close,” Viran advised. “We’re losing energy.”

Roxanne sandwiched herself between the others, linking arms with them. There was little warmth to be gained, even with their bodies pressed so close. The Etherworld stole whatever heat she generated.

They continued like that, following G’shídrian. He wasn’t flying so much as he was drifting, wings spread wide. Red-orange wisps of magic arced off his feathers, trailing in his wake like fiery smoke.

“How long does G’shídrian estimate this will take?” Viran asked.

In this horrible place, Roxanne could no longer communicate with the phoenix lord—not telepathically, at any rate. She’d lived among the Flame’shikrim, and she knew G’shídrian as well as any of her human friends. Better, arguably, since she was more adept at reading animals’ body language.

“G’shídrian?” Her voice was thin in the vastness of the void. “Do you have an idea of how close we are?”

The phoenix emitted a soft hoot. No mental words or colors accompanied the noise, but the tone sounded confident. He tilted his head and fixed her with one shiny eye. It gleamed with reassurance, but also conveyed a supplication for patience.

“I’m not sure we’re close,” Roxanne admitted, “but I don’t think we’re too far, either.”

On they walked—for minutes, hours, or years, it was impossible to tell. Spacetime warped and ebbed in the Etherworld. Roxanne felt no hunger or thirst to indicate passage of time, but her extremities were numb from the cold. Her jaw ached from clenching it to prevent her teeth from chattering. Her breath fogged the air, creating another misty aura.

Though there was no light source to speak of, things grew visible over time. A landscape emerged from the nothingness: a mirror image, reverse replica of reality. Like a painting whose colors had been inverted, the peaks and valleys of rocky plains were darkly luminescent. The obsidian void of the Chasm yawned to their right. Hills unfolded in ripples of indigo. The sky curved above, traces of black clouds whisking across the midnight firmament like ghosts.

It made goosebumps march along Roxanne’s arms.

G’shídrian gave another cry. Several heights in front of them, he wheeled in a circle above a flat expanse of ground, warbling in confusion. She broke away from the humans, hurrying toward him. He swooped low to meet her halfway.

“What’s wrong?” Viran called after her.

Roxanne shook her head. She searched for answers in the depths of G’shídrian’s glittering eyes. Excitement shone there—and worry.

“Which way now?” she whispered. The phoenix trilled a cry and circled, dipping low to the ground and rising again in graceful arcs. She turned to her friends, who had jogged to catch up. “I think he’s saying the trail ends here.”

Effrax swore under his breath. Roxanne was about to question G’shídrian further, when something in the shadowy distance caught her eye. The others noticed it, too. Effrax unslung his quiver, removing his bow and arrows. The humans huddled together while G’shídrian circled above.

“It could be a shadowbeast,” murmured Viran, watching the western—or was it eastern, in this backwards universe?—horizon.

“Could be Necrovar himself,” Effrax said in an infuriatingly flippant tone.

“Not funny,” Roxanne growled.

“Not trying to be. I’m happy to run for it.”

“G’shídrian is staying in this spot, so we must, too. Besides, if no one can wield in this world, then we’re on even footing with our enemies.”