Dragon Empress

Chapter 16

“Pardon, Your Highness,” said Rainsword. “There’s worse news.”

“What could possibly be worse than this?!”

“Our strongest wielders have weakened,” he explained in a low voice. “Without Zumarra to guard our threads, water wielders will suffer as entropy rises.”

Seba opened her mouth, then closed it. She opened it once more, seeking the right words. None came, and she remained silent.

Zumarra, serpent-god of the Galantasa, was imprisoned in the Etherworld alongside Valaan and Naero. Necrovar had overpowered the three Allentrian guardians prior to his coup—this was common knowledge. What most people didn’t know was that the host of Pure Watermagic had also left Selaras. Left for a different dimension, a place beyond reality and outside of human comprehension.

And there was no telling when she’d be back.

Just our b****y luck, Seba thought, scowling.

Upon entering the annex, Rainsword hailed more servicemen and sent them forth with evacuation orders. Seeing this, Seba realized she had her own orders to dispense. She glanced at her left hand, where a silver communication ring glinted on her finger.

“Seba to Fletcher,” she said, focusing on the person who had been her first—and for a long time, her only—real friend.

“Go for Fletcher.” His voice sounded in her ears, and Seba was overcome with a pang of grief.

“Sorry, Fletch. You were the first one I thought of. I have news from the Galantasa.”

“Bad news, I take it.”

“The Red Tide is back. If it’s here, it’ll spread across Selaras soon enough.”

Silence stretched for a few moments in the wake of her words. Then: “I’ll relay the message. You focus on your kingdom and your people.”

She could have cried with gratitude. Fletcher had his own burdens to bear, yet he’d taken one of hers without even being asked. He was a good soul, and he deserved better from her.

He’d want to hear the truth. He’d want to say goodbye.

But Seba still could not fathom the idea of goodbye. Selfishly, she kept her mouth shut.

When her group reached the circular shuttle room, they had to wait for the enchanted miniature ice bubble to return from its previous trip. Seba stewed in angst. Each second felt like an hour. She fiddled with her comms ring. No one had reached out for additional information; they probably didn’t want to stress her with their questions.

Or maybe they had no questions. Everyone knew the Red Tide was an omen of change, a harbinger of catastrophe. The last time the algae had bloomed, Keriya Soulstar had widened the Rift and called forth the dragons.

Gods know what calamity the damned algae might precede this time.

A shudder wracked Seba’s frame. Her gaze drifted from her ring to her forearm. Beneath the sleeve of her dress lurked a shiny black scar of shadowrash. A permanent reminder of her suffering at Necrovar’s hands. A reminder that he was neither gone nor defeated.

When the ice shuttle arrived at last, Rainsword laid a hand on its frosted, spherical surface. A hole irised open to admit passengers. Rising from her wheelchair, Seba stepped into the shuttle. Amanzi, Rainsword, and two nereid guards joined her.

The opening frosted shut again and the shuttle plummeted into the waterway to the Galantrian Village. When they arrived, chaos reigned. People ran through the streets, some silent with purpose, some screaming with fear, some crying with loss.

It was all eerily reminiscent of the darksalm explosion five years ago. Seba had stood in this same coralstone square, watching the tainted inferno tower over the world, threatening to consume all in its path.

She centered herself. This was not the time to reflect on past traumas—especially since she had plenty of present-day traumas to keep her busy. The magnificent waterfall-mesa that stretched across the horizon, towering over the city peaks and turrets, had changed. A hint of red tinged the frothing white falls. Even the mist had a b****y hue, painting the afternoon sky with an ominous gleam.

Seba drew a breath through her fish-gill nostrils, part of the stubby bone crest that marked her nereid heritage.

“All officers on comms,” she said, clenching her left fist to feel the cold bite of the comms ring. “This is Queen Sebaris Wavewould. I’m evacuating the Galantrian Village in the face of the Red Tide. Portable boundary poles should be brought to the city at once, and I’m requesting a battery of Imperial troops to assist with our efforts, over.”

Her words opened the floodgates. Everyone from Empress Aldelphia to a random lieutenant-general assaulted Seba with questions. She answered as best she could while Rainsword and Amanzi prepared for the evacuation.

“This is Soulstar’s fault,” Seba heard Commander-General Caelburn growl. Whether he’d intended her to hear the remark or not, she wasn’t sure—but his sentiment lingered with her, filling her with dangerous thoughts.

Thoughts of Keriya.

Thoughts of Max.

Stop it, she told herself. You have to forget him.

That was easier said than done. Seba had wasted years pining over Max, fighting for his notice. But he had forgotten her, like everyone else.

Her dream from earlier resurfaced, causing a dull ache to throb between her eyes. She knuckled her forehead, wishing she could scrub the vision from her mind. It was old and useless, a dream of a dream: a rehashed memory of a haunting foresight.

In Seba’s original foresight, she’d seen Keriya Soulstar kill Max. The puzzle pieces had, at one point, looked like they might align. Then they’d fallen apart, and Seba had been forced to admit her foresight had been wrong.

Not wrong, per se—visions of the future were never wrong, but oracles could catch glimpses of different possible futures from different timelines. She had seen a different future, a different universe.

She wanted nothing more than to forget the stupid foresight.

Yet try as she might, she couldn’t.

CHAPTER TEN“Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars.”

~ Draconic Proverb

When Keriya stepped through the Vale portal and left Selaras, a weightless sensation suffused her. She was floating in a tingling swirl of dark energy.

Then she was falling.

Energy pelted her as she hurtled through the space between universes. Violet magicthreads tore at her clothes, cocooning her in freezing fire. The violet faded, and Keriya plummeted through a lightless eternity.

She knew it would do no good to call for help—she’d left reality far behind, and no one could hear her scream. She cried out anyway, but no sound reached her ears. The darkness was absolute and infinite, swallowing all noise.

Stars winked into existence as she plunged. Only a few pinpricks of cold, distant silver at first, then a deluge of them. The heavens opened and poured light onto Keriya. Galaxies and cloud nebulae hung in the sky, shimmering with faint, ethereal color.

Against all reason, she smiled.

The light condensed, slowing her descent. She’d fallen so far that she could see her surroundings at last. A calm black sea rippled below, ringed by a range of faraway peaks. She settled on a band of solid starlight, loose hair swirling weightlessly around her shoulders.

“Hello?” She tested her voice and found she could hear again—yet her voice was the only sound in this universe. It was eerily quiet. Oppressively so. The stillness set her teeth on edge.

She’d lost her connection to her source during the journey, and she tried embracing her magic. When she looked inside herself, digging through her consciousness, she found nothing. Her body was as empty as it had been during her childhood in Aeria.

Adrenaline pulsed through her, but she wrestled it down. She was in a different universe, and different rules of science and magic were sure to apply here. Swallowing her misgivings, she took her first tentative step on the starlit path.

It held her weight, so Keriya took another step, and another. The path sloped toward the water. Though the light was dim, she could see for leagues and leagues, able to pick out every silver-crested ripple in the ocean. Ahead, in the center of the sunken sea, sat an island.

This is it. Keriya’s heart launched into her throat as she approached. Dark sand lined the shores, giving way to sparkling grass—grass so dark it might as well be obsidian. Beyond the lawn stood twelve stone obelisks in a perfect circle, guarding something. Ghostly mist shrouded whatever rested between them.

“Hello?” she tried again, stopping on her insubstantial walkway. “Uh . . . Dragon Empress?”

No response, but faint noises now emerged: the grass whispered, undulating, though there was no wind to stir it. Keriya shivered, keenly aware of her own weakness. She had no magic with which to defend herself.

I’ve faced worse monsters than whatever’s lurking here. I lived without magic for seventeen years. I’ll survive. She took a breath and stepped from the starlight.

A ripple went through the world, emanating from her toe as she set foot on shore. Sand, grass, sea, and mountains shivered in anticipation. Keriya froze, waiting for something awful to happen—but nothing did. Letting out a shaky breath, she transferred her full weight to the island.

“So, you found your way at last.”

Keriya yelped. The disembodied voice had come from nowhere and everywhere. It was all around her, ringing in her ears, her soul. It was a voice that haunted her nightmares, one she would know anywhere, at any time.

“Necrovar.” The rasp of metal rang as she yanked Aurelas from its scabbard. “How did you get here?”

A chilling laugh echoed around her. Keriya spun on the spot, seeking its origin, but she was quite alone. “This is my home, my dear. I am forever connected to this place.”

She clenched clammy hands around the sword’s hilt. “If you think you can stop me, you’re wrong. I’ve waited too long and come too far.”

Another rustle stole through the world—a shiver of wanting. Of hunger.

“I won’t stop you.” Necrovar’s melodic tenor was low and cold. “But I’d be remiss if I didn’t caution you against it.”

“Why’s that? So I’ll never be able to defeat you?”

“Power comes at a price. What do you think she’ll demand of you? What are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want?”

Doubt trickled in at the edges of Keriya’s mind.

“I don’t care about the price,” she said, speaking not to Necrovar, but to herself. “This is the only way to move forward.”

So she did. She moved one foot after the other, sinking into the sand. She braced for more poisoned words from Necrovar, but none came as she left the beach and entered the shin-high grass.

The reedy stalks rustled as she delved toward the circle of obelisks. A faint crunch beneath her boots drew her eyes away from the stone statues. Pebbles lay scattered throughout the grass—small, unassuming rocks with rough edges that shone faintly purple in the scant light.

“Valestones,” she breathed. Just one of these pebbles contained enough raw power to protect Noryk for a year. She was tempted to scoop a few into her pocket, but some primal instinct told her not to do it.

Her flesh began to crawl as she neared the obelisks. They towered three heights above her, and each had a similar texture and color to the pebbles. Keriya sheathed Aurelas. She couldn’t make out what waited in the mist beyond, but now she saw glyphs on the closest pillar.

The largest glyph was strangely familiar, though Keriya couldn’t imagine where she might have seen such a thing—certainly it wasn’t something she’d come across in her research. It looked rather like a strangely formed bulls-eye, three interconnected rings encircling a central dot.

Her brows contracted as she inspected the symbols beneath the bulls-eye. She gave a soft cry when they began to rearrange themselves into runes she knew, the Aerian letters she’d grown up with. Entranced, she read them aloud: