Dragon Child

Chapter 2

“I will not force you to do anything against your will,” he murmured.

Exandrya barked a mirthless laugh. “I will help you, because I know what you fear. I will bring you to Necrovar if that gives you the courage to do what must be done. I will play the part you have written for me in the tale of your demise.”

Valerion winced. He thought of the foresight again and his resolve weakened. What if he went straight to the gods from here? He would die, but he would save the world.

No. He couldn’t. He wasn’t strong enough.

He wasn’t selfless enough.

“I must warn you,” she cautioned, as she knelt and allowed him to climb onto her back, “that you cannot cheat the Shadow. Many have tried. All have failed.”

“They tried to cheat the Shadow for power or magic,” he said, settling between her muscular wing joints. “I am cheating the Shadow in the name of love.”

“I wonder if that’s as true as you’d like it to be.” Exandrya padded to the mouth of the cave and leapt into the night, spreading her wings to catch the air. Valerion wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he remained silent as they soared west.

They rose on thermals, hiding in low-hanging clouds over the vast open plains of the Fironem tribelands. Through the haze and smog, the twisted spires of Necrovar’s citadel slowly grew visible, silhouetted against the red glow of Mount Arax’s volcanic rim.

Exandrya thought, gliding on a warm draft. She wielded to bend light around them, making them invisible.

No sooner was her spell in place than an air patrol unit passed. Valerion eyed them warily. The shadowbeasts, as his human friends called them, might catch Exandrya’s scent. The demon riders might hear the rush of wind beneath her leathery wings.

Without warning, Exandrya opened her jaws and spat a beam of light at the group. The riders didn’t have time to cry out before they disintegrated to dust, as demons do when they die.

“What are you doing?” Valerion hissed aloud.

she thought stonily.

Valerion was in no place to caution her against her actions, considering what he was about to do. He let Exandrya work. She destroyed four more air units before she angled around to the front of the citadel, swooping low.

she thought.

Along with her mindvoice, Valerion sensed the consciousness of another entity. He stifled a curse; he should have had the sense to use a mindcloak. Now it was too late—Necrovar knew he was here.

he warned.

thought Valerion.

She dropped and leveled, her wide wings bending around irregular pockets of hot air. Valerion leapt from her back to the pumice walkway that led to the gated entrance of Indrath Necros.

He landed with a thud. The threads of Exandrya’s illusion clung to him, concealing him from the guard on duty, who sprang up at the noise. The lone demon soldier was half Valerion’s height, with a squat feline body and a barbed tail. It had black horns, tufted ears, and a vaguely humanoid face that bore an expression of bewilderment. A manticore—lucky. Manticores were vicious fighters, but they weren’t too bright.

Valerion approached the hapless creature, treading silently on the pads of his leather boots. He took a breath and shed the spell that made him invisible, unsheathing Sethildras.

Here goes everything, he thought.

CHAPTER ONE“Complacency is the enemy of progress.”

~ Sabaeran Tolnae, Eighth Age

Twelfth Age, Year 607

Thorion crouched between drifts of snow, keeping low to the ground. His bronze scales shone in stark contrast to the white world, and he didn’t want to be seen.

He snuffled at the wet flakes and crept forward, following the scent of his unsuspecting quarry. His bat-like wings stayed tightly folded at his sides as he snaked through the rainforest, passing trees that had shed their leaves and bamboo that weathered the winter in full greenery.

His second set of membranous eyelids rose, shielding his vision from the harsh glint of the sun on the snow. Inching forward, he peeked past a tangle of tree roots to stare into a shallow gully. A cloaked figure tiptoed through the jungle below. Her hood was up, veiling her face. Two Galantrian soldiers trailed her, serving as her guard. Iron-worked breastplates, pauldrons, and gauntlets covered their blue military garments.

Thorion hid a smile. She thought she was clever, thought she could catch him unawares, but all the stars in the heavens would burn out and die before there was born a human who could match a dragon’s cunning. She drew level with his hiding spot and paused.

He pounced. Leaping over the knotted roots, he spread his wings and glided down the hill. She let out a cry when he landed behind her, grabbing the hem of her cloak in his jaws. No sooner had his talons touched the ground than he sprang again, pulling the cloak over her head. The fabric twisted and she fell to her knees as Thorion landed.

With a growl, he tugged on the cloak. She flailed, trying to free her arms from the mess he’d created, before she managed to grab the fabric and tug back.

“Thorion!” She rolled onto her side, revealing a pale face and hair as white as the surrounding snow, pulled into long ponytails on either side of her head.

Thorion let go of the cloth and danced out of her reach. He jumped around while she struggled to her feet, dusting off the front of her brown wool dress.

“Come here,” she said, grinning.

He barked a dragon laugh, tossing his head like a proud warhorse, and fled uphill. “You’ve yet to win this game,” he told her glibly. “Do you think today will be any different?”

“Only if you stop cheating!” Her booted feet slipped and slid as she started after him.

“Lady Soulstar!”

Keriya froze in her tracks. Together, she and Thorion trained their red-violet eyes on the Galantrians.

“You’re not to stray too far from town,” said the taller of the two. Thorion, who’d been studying the Allentrian language during his last three weeks in the city of Irongarde, understood him perfectly.

Keriya waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

The soldiers scowled, but made no protest as she ran into the woods.

Thorion and Keriya alternately frolicked through snowbanks and sat still to soak up what little warmth the sun provided. Winter was tough for cold-blooded creatures, but Thorion’s wing membranes were excellent at absorbing solar energy. Besides, his size kept him warm, and his magic fueled him in a way that food and sunlight never could.

He found a patch of frostberries, which turned Keriya’s tongue blue when she ate them. They hiked up a small rocky path and admired the view, and spoke of happy, simple things. Eventually, as was almost always the case, their conversation turned to magic. Though Keriya continued to assert that she didn’t have magic, Thorion knew this was impossible.

“If you are alive, you have magic—it’s that simple,” he told her for what felt like the hundredth time. “And I can teach you how to wield it.”

“Erasmus tried teaching me for fourteen years and that got me nowhere.”

Erasmus, who had served as her childhood guardian, was the only person from her old life who Keriya remembered warmly. Though she admired him for his intelligence and stoicism, he had been disappointed by her inability to wield—and that disappointment had hurt Keriya more than she would ever admit. Thorion knew better than to speak ill of someone she respected, but he had become fiercely protective of his bondmate, and disliked anyone who made her feel lesser.

Keriya sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of malcontent. While her lack of power would always be a touchy issue, at least she was no longer in an environment where people mistreated her because of it. “I’ll never wield again.”

thought Thorion, sending his words directly to her mind.

“The summoning was absolutely special,” Thorion said aloud, stopping to stare down at her. He had grown at a remarkable rate since they’d reached Irongarde, and now the top of his head stood a hand above Keriya’s. “You called me out of the Etherworld that day.”

She shook her head. “That’s impossible. Shivnath and Lady Aldelphia knew you were in Allentria long before I summoned you. Necrovar did, too.”

Thorion frowned. Something about that didn’t add up.

“I think your crossing from the Etherworld confused you,” said Keriya. “You admitted it yourself when we met. Maybe you don’t remember what really happened.”

“I suppose,” he conceded, though he didn’t suppose that at all. He abandoned the topic as they wandered north, toward the town.

Keriya’s two best friends joined them in the early afternoon. Fletcher Earengale had also grown and fleshed out—a month of fine treatment in the city had done wonders for him. Currently he had a patchwork appearance: he was bundled in a gray coat with a red scarf and purple gloves. A green hat covered his scruffy brown hair. The clothes were gifts from Keriya, who had received them in turn from the people of Irongarde.

Roxanne Fleuridae was tall, lithe, and limber like a woodland deer. She always had a smile for Thorion, and there was something fascinating about her honey-hazel eyes. Of all the humans he’d met, Thorion liked Fletcher and Roxanne best, apart from Keriya.

“Should you be out of the infirmary?” Keriya asked Roxanne.

“It’s fine. Besides, I’ll go crazy if I lie in bed all day again,” the taller girl retorted, brushing a strand of silky, dark hair away from her brown cheek.

“It’s not fine,” said Fletcher, whose fallow skin was three shades paler from the cold. “You had four cracked ribs and pneumonia.”

“So? Keriya had a concussion, and she’s allowed to do whatever she wants.”

“Not without babysitters,” Keriya muttered, jerking her thumb at the guards who watched them in stony silence.

“Why don’t we ditch them and go exploring?” Roxanne suggested. “One healer mentioned there’s a cliff with waterfalls east of the city.”

Fletcher argued that they shouldn’t be running from the soldiers, but Keriya ignored him, dashing into the jungle. “Last one there owes me their dessert tonight,” she called.

Thorion bared his fangs in a smile. “Shall we follow?” he asked in slightly accented Allentrian.

Fletcher rolled his chestnut eyes, but a small smile was also tugging at his lips. He, Roxanne, and Thorion pelted after Keriya, leaving the Galantrians far behind.

Thorion sped up as the guards’ angry shouts echoed after him. He outpaced the humans, his nimble feet with their five dexterous, clawed toes whisking him through the undergrowth. He burst from the trees and slowed to a walk on the open green before the gates of Irongarde.

The city sat on the edge of a great mesa. A solid iron wall peaked with sawtoothed spires encircled the artfully designed settlement. Just inside the wall was a settlement where the poorer folk and laborers lived, separated from the inner city by a stretch of bamboo. The towering buildings beyond were built almost entirely from the iron mined in the mountains. A fortress perched at the cliff’s northernmost limits, its turrets scraping against the clouds.