^^^Adam vs. Dagen
Here is an early chapter for you lovely people. I love you and thank you for all the support you give for this book, you all are truly amazing.
Norah
Air whips at my braids, pulling strands free and into my face. Holland and Easton curse. Dagen laughs as he falls to his death. I throw out my abilities, hoping to catch the ice on the cliffs. A thought passes, quick and sudden, of grateful acceptance. Just fall.
"Sorry. Sorry!" Adam throws his hands out. My teeth rattle, bone connecting with bone. Solid air rises up to meet us and I stumble forward, fearing one extra step will send me over the edge of the invisible platform.
I put a hand to my mouth, my blood metallic against my tongue. I stare at it for a moment, memories of Clarika's blood and scolding red water circling the drain, of me scrubbing at my skin until it was raw and then scrubbing more. Iron had coated my tongue then, had been there before the shower.
Adam slaps a hand to his mouth, gaping at me. "I am so sorry-"
I fight to feel mad, but cannot. My life is full of bad things, this is just another to add to the pile. "It's fine," is all I say.
His lips clamp together and he nods, wincing as he turns away.
"Now that Adam's done trying to kill us, let's move on," Holland grumbles, his face a white mask. Like the others, he has shed his extra layers of warmth, letting the runes I've placed there be his only layer of protection. Without the blistering winds or snow, staying warm is easier.
Adam lowers us to the ground, wiping his hands as we discuss where to go next. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you guys to be so heavy," he says.
The tunnels had taken us too far away from our dragons. Holland lost his connection first, then Easton. But Rima is not a normal dragon and our bond is anything but ordinary. She watches through my eyes, relaying everything back to the other dragons in the cavern.
"Where are we headed?" Easton asks, green eyes roving over a mile of stone that leads to the withering buildings jutting out of the stone.
"To the tree," Adam says, as if there isn't any other logical option. When Easton frowns, Adam gapes at him. "Have you ever picked up a book?" He gestures to the tree so massive it's multicolored leaves brush the dome of the cavern. "It's a ginormous tree in the middle of a city where a relic is supposed to be."
"I'm going to the tree," I tell them. It's become too easy to drive emotion from my face, from my eyes and simply tell facts instead of what I feel.
A hollow finger curls around me, tugging me closer like someone on the end of a string. I try to ignore it and focus on the ice littering Aros' streets.
"It feels empty." Dagen agrees.
I eye him for a moment then turn to Easton. Green eyes slide to me, concern and surprise written there. I stiffen but do not back down. If he chooses to follow, he can but I will not waste useless hours and energy exploring this city when I know something is at the tree.
"We're going to the tree," Holland declares, nodding for us to follow him forward. "Norah, how many do you think are in the city?"
My fingers straighten, wanting to claw at my scalp. I want to have the relic. I want to be done with this. "I don't know, I can count up to thirty. But after that, everything mushes together."
"Keep an eye on them," he says, "if they are Thrawlers, I want to stay as far away from them as possible. Keep the talking to an absolute minimum." He looks at Adam.
The walk to the city is quiet, everyone too focused on the path ahead. But I sign to Holland where the ice is heavier, letting him pick the best route to lead us away.
I study the stone, too smooth and too perfect to not be made by earth mages. It melts into large, rectangular rock slabs, each one as long as Holland. Ash grey stones reach for the sky, towering even Frovein's massive height. Most buildings are missing entire chunks of wall or roof, but the ones on the outer walls have been reduced to rubble. Long canals weave through the city as desiccated paths. Once flowing rivers used by hydromages for transportation, they are now dry and brittle.
The city had obviously once stood grand and beautiful. Now its elaborate architecture lay in ruins.
"There's nothing here," Rima says as we walk down another street, portions of which are cleared of rubble as well as anything that might have shown life once thrived here.
My senses stay on high alert, eyes darting to deep, dark shadows. Rima's uneasiness seeps into the bond like ink in water. Everything is too dark, too quiet. As if death itself lurks within the dark depths of the streets.
"Vakeya was just like this. Deserted until it wasn't," Rima says, her voice low but not soft. She wishes she could be with me even if her flame is nothing like the other dragons.
I realize now that this cold tendril tugging me closer is the same feeling I had in Vakeya. Only it hadn't been pulling then, it had just existed.
The street opens into a large field. Giant slabs of faded white stone, which appear to have been placed upright in a circular pattern at one time, now rest against other on the ground. We weave through its maze of circles until a small clearing opens up. A place for rituals or worship. Gaea had mentioned these ceremonial gathering places before, how they bring commoners closer to nature's center.
Then we're back in the streets where the first bits of debris show through. Marks of old flames darken the walls and ground.
Movement makes my gaze snap to Dagen, who is slinking in and out of the houses with his cloak swaying behind him. He winks at me as he tucks something into the jacket he stole in Chiver City.
I peep an eye into one of the buildings he disappears into. Swords and bows and morning stars are set across a table, the rusted metal covering the living room table as if the inhabitants had just left and planned to return any minute.
Questions spin in my head.
Holland stops to check the intersection we must cross. Easton frowns at it, eyes roving over the large open space. He signals to Holland, asking if it looks like a landing pad dragons use. A nod is his answer.
An emptiness, different from the one belonging to Clarika, settles over me like a wet blanket. This city was once full of life but now lays dormant, forgotten.
The city falls away, quickly overtaken by roots.
We stop. Adam's eyes widen, his breath catching. Even Holland seems in awe.
The tree dominates the city's center. It makes me wonder if the mages who built Aros built it around the tree, around the heart of the emptiness.
Hundreds of thousands of roots coil around each other. My eyes follow it up, up, up to where the roots grow thick enough for dragons to walk on. The roots rise into the air, twisting into the tree's base and disappearing into the leaves. From the cliffs, I had thought the leaves to be like fall where one color transitioned into another. But each leaf is only one color. Some are magenta purple, other's black. I see every spectrum of colors.
We tread over the sea of roots while Adam leaps from root to root, his feet barely brushing the ground.
I choke the hope that threatens to rise.
The relic must be here, for if it isn't everything will have been for nothing. Clarika's death will have been for nothing.
How will I tell our parents what's happened? That question has plagued my mind every night, with every beat of silence. Only the worst outcomes of their reaction seem to answer me. It is the only realistic possibility.
"You've got some bad luck, huh?" Dagen muses, coming to my side. He tilts his head back to see the trees top. The leaves do not move, frozen in time.
"Go play with your dead people," I say, and mean it.
His face twists in a sneer. "There's not a single spirit here," he says lowly, as if breathing might draw them closer. "It's heaven, we should stay here."
"Maybe you've finally annoyed them so much they're ignoring you."
He places a hand to his chest. "I could only be so lucky." He takes in the tree once more, his gaze roving over it slowly, methodically. "How far do you think I could climb before I fell?"
I sigh, wishing for silence and the thoughts that come with it. "You really think you would fall?"
"Of course not, I'm asking if you think I would-"
"I'll race you!" Adam bounces up, air swishing my braids around. My heart drops, eyes scanning the city, waiting to hear a roar of Thrawlers rushing out. None comes, though Holland glares at us.
By the time I turn to look back, Dagen is already climbing up the tree.
Easton steps in between me and Holland, studying the tree with intense focus. "Could the relic be in there?" he murmurs. "Or could the tree be the relic?"
Somehow the old warrior looks more annoyed than ever. My finger brushes over the rough lines of bark. "I don't know. We could check for a way in-"
"It's found the way in!"
"Get to the center!" A voice booms and I take off. But the body is not my own. My shoulders too broad and chest too flat. My steps thunder like herding cattle.
Everything is wrong. The streets are alive, filled with men and women running deeper into the city, through streets I recognized and don't. Buildings are whole, domed roofs painted in colors of blue, white, and grey.
I glance behind me.
Raging, pitch-black flames explode out of the tunnel. It surges out, sweeping over the fleet of dragons and their orange flames without any sign of effort. Screams and shouts erupt from the army on the ground.
The darkness arcs over, curling like the crest of a wave. It's plunging down, down, down, crashing against the floor with a thunderous boom. It sloshed up on the stone, destroying the buildings with every lapping wave.
My legs pump faster, but the other's around are too slow.
Death consumes them. Skin rots away, devouring armor and metal, skin and bone until there is nothing left. Midnight spears shoot out from the cloud, driving through chests and heads. The victims die from the inside out.
Glass pops and metal shrieks and stone rumbles, toppling into the darkness without a sound.
I dive into another street. The darkness pours forward, spilling into the street.
An army lays before me, so close yet so far with death nipping at my heels. They raise their swords, their dragons, and familiars bracing.
I throw myself towards them.
Another crack explodes as if two boulders have been hurled against each other. My body shakes on the ground but a man pulls me to my feet, clapping me on the back. "Good work, soldier," he says, with an emotion in his eyes I cannot read.
Lightning strikes nearby. I wheel around, watching as black surges above us, following the invisible dome up and up. Suddenly, the dome is swallowed, casting everyone in night.
Fire mages ignite flames in their palms, bathing us in red and shoving the shadows away.
It takes me a moment, but I find my place in line of men and women, taking an offered sword from a woman with metal shifting over her skin like snakes. My gaze finds the man beside me, his dark eyes sparking with golds and oranges. But I see something deeper. I see hope rekindled from embers.
"For the future," he says, unsheathing his sword
"For the future," I echo.
I'm thrown forward, my mind scattered and aching. I pull my fingers away from the bark, the tree pulsing with power.
"-through the gaps." Holland finishes and I blink a few times.
Rima's presence caresses my mind, prodding deep enough that I know what she wants. I let her into those memories that were not my own.
But whose were they?
"The Headmaster had been searching for that cloud," she says after a long moment, processing. "And you overheard the mages talking about it at the party. And Fullerman had taught that story our first year on Khalier. Of the cloud that almost destroyed life itself."
"But Fullerman said they trapped it in a cage," I tell her, turning to the cliffs.
There had been a stone ramp before, leading directly into the city. It had been long but not as long as the trek across the flat stone.
Because it destroyed the ramp. Ice freezes my veins, churning my gut. The Darkening had destroyed this city and the army within it as if it were nothing. Holy Gods. How does someone stop something so powerful? How did we stop it before?
Rima is silent for a moment, taking in the city with a new perspective. "The tunnel had been bigger and there had been no tree."
"The mages sealed off The Darkening, remember?" My head does not move, though I nod through the bond. "After they caged that thing, the mages threw a mountain over it, sealing it off."
I turn back to the tree, trying to recall Gaea's teachings as Holland relays rumors he's heard over the centuries of The Darkening's cage. They listen with words and pictures.
My fingers press to the tree's scratchy, rough bark. I send an image of the darkness into it, feeling hundreds of jolts shock my systems.
My mind is sucked in, my eyes becoming seeing through the tree's perspective. Aros lay deserted, it's streets empty and without rubble.
Small footsteps draw me down. A small group of people, dark mages, in thick winter's clothing huddle around the tree's base. They mutter things too low to hear, but their hands move. Steel glints and blood spills across their palms. Blood runes, some of the most powerful I've ever seen, are drawn on the wood, creating a small square. Rhythmic murmurs float over the air.
Cries and screams of warning fill my ears, steel on steel in my mind. Hundreds of thousands of voices.
A cleaver splits through me, magic against magic. The tree cracks, a hole for whatever is inside to leak out.
Black bleeds into the world, a wisp of delicate smoke that reaches out for the man. The smoke unfurls for his outstretched finger but hits a barrier. It jolts back, then tentatively, considerately, brushes against it. The darkness spreads, tendrils brushing against every edge and corner. It pokes and prods the box, moving with such curiosity and consideration that I wonder if it understands what is happening.
The dark mages are not fools with their unleashing this thing upon them. And this darkening is hardly the rampaging inferno that destroyed Aros, that stories and books depicted as being a world-ending storm of death and destruction. I watch it move, the curls of smoke now following the man's finger which hovers on top of The Darkenings box.
"Do you feel that?" The leader says, dark eyes roving over the tree. "That sense of nothing?"
"The God of Death will show us the way," another says.
"He will make us stronger," adds another.
"Fascinating," the leader breathes, moving his hand around the box. The darkness coils back into itself.
Then it strikes, faster than lightning.
Its cage shatters, like stone thrown in glass. The darkness latches onto the leader's hand and eats its way up, up, and up. He screams, dropping to his knees, tries to yank himself free. But the darkness holds firm.
None of his companions move, their eyes lit with awe and fascination even as the smoke grows and solidifies.
The smoke pours into him, black going up his arm and neck. It goes into his eye sockets, devouring away at his eyes and the pink flesh there until nothing is left. But his bones do not decay and the sword on his hip clatters against the bark. His bones turn black.
Then the man's thrashing stops and a skeleton made of obsidian bone sits on its knees. Slowly, gracefully, it stands, picking up the sword and turns its head to the men.
One man kneels, hand splayed across his chest. "Kneel before your God."
The other's drop to a knee and the skeleton approaches on silent feet. He looks up, submissive morphing to fear as a sword pierces his throat.
The other's jolt, shooting to their feet. One raises his hands, jagged black veins racing down his arms. "I command you," he says quickly. "You belong to me."
But the skeleton stalks forward, taking its sword with him. The cloud grows with every passing second, letting the skeleton unleash itself upon the dark mages and cuts through their numbers with lethal precision. Then it settles into the dead, turning them into creatures of darkness.
A fireball shoots past and the skeletons leap over the roots. One draws a bow and arrow, it's living form possessed, another hurtles a knife into the city.
"Mage!"
A Thrawler, freshly dead, rises from the beginning of the roots in the green and brown robes of an earth mage. It sprints toward the city before ice freezes flesh and a chunk of stone crashes into it, shattering the body.
"Do you need a moment with the tree?" Dagen muses.
My mind shudders and Rima quickly fills into the new memories. I slide my eyes to Dagen leaning against the tree, arms crossed beneath his cloak. He eyes me with bored amusement.
"Do you want me to introduce you to the tree? You two have the same IQ," I say, not bothering to hide the sharp note in my voice.
A stupid sarcastic smirk spreads across his face and he whips out a dagger to clean beneath his nails. "Norah, love, you don't have to fight so hard to hide your feelings from me. You're totally into that tree, I can see it." He smirks at me. "There's a spark."
I open my mouth, a vulgar name on my lips.
"If you two are done flirting over there," Holland says impatiently. "Can we please get back to saving the world?"
My glare finds Holland whose brows pinch. "Are you, the person holding everything up, glaring at me?" he growls.
Dagen smirk deepens. "Yeah, Norah. Get your act together."
I cast a dark look at him, wishing to slam his head on the tree. Squirm crouches, ready to bite him but with one picture he remains still. "The tree was talking to me-"
He laughs. "What?"
My fingers twitch. "This tree isn't the relic," I say, voice laced in iron. "It was the cage that held it."
Adam gulps, inching away from the tree like that would do any good. "Was?"
I march around the base to the split in the tree, now running up the entire length of the tree. "That is from dark mages and necromancers trying to release it. They wanted it to teach them to be stronger but it turned them into Thrawlers instead. But they weren't Thrawlers they were something else. They didn't say anything when mages attacked and they fought with weapons. And they were good at fighting, too good."
"Oh my gods, that's horrible," Adam says. Then his eyes widen, hands squishing his cheeks as he studies the tree. "So this is a cage" His eyes narrow slightly. "Stories never did give specifics on what the cage was. But how did they get it in the tree."
"The tree grew around The Darkening to trap it." Fury clenches my throat as Adam refuses to understand the level of destruction before him. I gesture to the cliffs and the flat stone there. "That used to be a ramp, a city used to be there and The Darkening wiped it all out." I turn to Holland, his eyes burning as bright as the fury pounding in my ears. "That cloud destroyed everything in a giant wave; it killed an entire fleet of dragons like it was nothing. Fire did nothing to it."
I don't know how long I go on, passing over the roots, arms flailing. But when I stop, my very soul thrums with rage.
The Darkening is destroying our cities, killing people because dark mages were greedy for knowledge and power. I rake my fingers over my mouth, mind spinning with too many questions and not enough answers.
I glance at Holland, who has said nothing but a curse. I look at Easton, whose breathing comes in ragged rhythms, his knuckles bone white. Adam stares at the city, the gears spinning with more and more questions and possibilities. Dagen studies the tree with a new meaning, poking his dagger into the tree's split.
Then I feel it. Really feel it.
That rage everyone sees so easily.
I stop pacing and let that fire cool into icy rage. Then I feel nothing at all.
"Well, what do we do now?" Easton says into the silence. "Do we find the cloud and try to retrap it in the tree?"
Adam tilts his head, wincing. "I don't think it would fall for that again, would it?" I shake my head, remembering how the black smoke had moved so carefully, testing the waters before striking.
"We need to find out as much as we can about The Darkening so we can take the answers back to the island." Holland starts, his eyes piercing into the shadows of the city, then the tree. He looks at me side-long. "I'd never thought I'd be saying this, but Norah, see if the tree knows anything else."
I walk to the tree, feeling their eyes on me. "The tree doesn't want to talk in front of others," I say, eyeing Holland. A deep canyon forms between his brows. "The tree is shy."
He stares a bit longer. The canyon vanishes and he tilts his head as if to say, are you serious?
"The tree is shy," Dagen mocks from behind.
"I understand." Adam bobs his head. "I have anxiety too."
I shoot a glare at the necromancer. "Turn around."
"You don't tell me what to do," he says, putting his back to me.
I wait for the rest to turn before placing my palm against the bark. Whispers caress my ears as I send a picture of The Darkening to the tree. But the tree does not respond and I dig deeper, sending more and more images.
Easton says, "Is that Rima?"
I look behind me, seeing her red and white body gliding down from the West of the cavern. Her wings send air into our faces, talons digging carefully into the roots.
Easton smiles at her, a bit of relief in his eyes even if he knows flames do nothing against The Darkening. "How did you get in?"
She waddles over, slitted eyes running up and down the tree. She rumbles deep in her throat and nudges my shoulder with her snout. "I found another way in," she tells everyone. Dagen rubs his temple. "Too small for the other dragons to fit into."
I watch as she sniffs at the split within the tree. Her eyes narrow and she rears back.
Smoke rushes out, lodging deep into her chest. She screeches and I lunge, shouting her name. Terror like nothing I've ever felt before surges through me. Because The Darkening had waited to strike and now he has Rima.
She shakes her head, the bond running cold. With a scream she whips around, her tail following right behind. Adam isn't fast enough to jump out of the way and slams against the tree with a crack. He falls, blood trickling on his lips, eyes wide-open, and does not get back up.
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Rima slams herself against the tree, rattling the wood. Her shriek burns my ears and draws the things in the city nearer. Pain sears in my chest, my head, our bond. Driven like a spike through flesh and mind and soul.
Cold, hollow darkness wraps down the bond, driving deeper and deeper and deeper. I try to force it out with every bit of will Rima and I share-
The string snaps.
Rima's terror, her alarm and fury vanish. That space where our minds had once been melded together now lays in a void of icy darkness.
Rima slumps against the tree, her ribs rising and falling. I rush over, damning the risk.
Her eyes fly open, her slitted pupils no longer red but black. A wild savageness has burned away what remains of my dragon. What stands before me is not Rima but a beast made to shred apart its prey.
Rima lunges for me, maw salivating. I dive beneath her, scrambling out from under her. Ice races up her feet but it does nothing to hold her still. But she does not spin for me.
A blast explodes at Easton's feet, sending him flying back several feet. Adam's body rolls, his green and grey armor set aflame. I extinguish them with the flick of my wrist and send a bundle of icicles her way.
"Norah, get her mouth shut." Holland runs to across from me. He shouts at Easton to do the same for him, to surround both sides and distract her. I try to relay what I feel, what I no longer feel but red-white spines hurtle my way.
I raise a block of ice between me and the spine and sprint back. "Holland, The Darkening has her!"
My wall drops, turning to splinters of ice I use to encircle Rima, to try and keep her from hurting anyone else. Darkness devours her scales, turning the white to black and working its way up to the red.
Terror drowns out all thoughts and I scream Rima's name. Then I'm screaming Easton's name as two spines protrude from his chest. My legs move before my mind and I throw myself beneath him, lowering him to the ground.
No no no no no. Warm, wet liquid spills over the roots. He tries to say something but blood is all that comes out. It dribbles down his mouth, his fingers digging into my forearm. Then the pressure loosens and he falls still, pupils dilating.
My heart shatters. Memories of us fighting, years spent training and laughing and midnight talks claw at my head. Everything buzzes as my mind screams into the silence of my head.
Hands grabs me, throwing me back.
Teeth consume my vision, the snap of a jaw closing reverberating inside my head. Holland shoves me into a run, down the roots and into the city. I force myself into a box, my body becoming a mechanism where I no longer feel, only do. I can feel later, though even as I think it, I know that won't happen.
My eyes search for Dagen.
"He left," Holland breathes, dodging a red and orange blast. We rush into another street, Rima's roar following.
We find a building to hide in, one with strong walls and places to escape. Holland waits a moment, listening to see if she's heard or seen us. But we both know that staying in one place too long, even breathing too loud, is a risk when dragons are involved.
She passes the building, the scratch of her talons drifting into silence.
He turns to me, eyes gleaming and intent. There is such an avid sort of rage on his face that I cannot bear to stare into it much longer. My eyes drop to the angry, red scabs on his fingertips, where he had spent hours picking flesh and bone and hair from in between the scales of my armor.
What do we do? I sign.
Anger turns to disgust. What do we do? He retorts, hands shaking with rage. Norah, we are here because of you. Because you are a spoiled brat who didn't trust me enough to talk to me. If you would only talk to us, trust us--trust me we would be at home safe right now. But you had to do everything your way, and now your way may have just gotten us all killed."
Tears rise but do not fall. "I'm sorry."
He waves a hand. "Apologize to the people you got killed. Apologize to Easton and Adam. Apologize to Clarika."
I flinch, the words driving hard and true and so staggering I hardly see through it. Holland's eyes narrowed, rigid, cold, and hard. He wants to say more but a spine to the chest stops him. It goes right through him and splinters the wall by my head.
"Holland!" I surge forward, shock and guilt exploding into fear. The building shudders, dust and smoke clouding the air with every one of Rima's blast.
I catch Holland as he falls, his weight making my knees buck. He chokes on blood, the hot flecks peppering my face and neck. But his chest rises and falls.
My muscles scream as I drag him deep into the house and into what must have been a bedroom. There are no windows to escape out of, no doors or secret rooms. But there are tables, stacked with rusted weapons. I lay Holland beneath the one farthest from Rima and wrap walls of ice around to shield him from the rubble.
This room was a death trap. There is no way out but towards the dragon I know I cannot kill. As I unsheathe the sword on my back, Holland's sword, I also know I cannot let Holland die.
I place myself between him and the fire, clutching the sword with both hands when the walls erupt.
My back slams into stone, pain lancing through me. I fall, knees hitting stone and the sword clatters across the room. Too far to reach.
Rima's tail slams against the wall, destroying what little remains of the wall. She shoves her snout in, razor-sharp teeth reaching for me. I scramble back, shouting at her to fight the darkness which has rotted away at her snout and works up to her head and back.
For a moment, I think this is all a horrible nightmare. But Holland is on the ground, hacking and wheezing, his ice barrier in fractures around him. And Rima is turning for him, teeth bared and knees bent. And I know this is not a dream, and I know when my dragon is ready to lunge.
I force myself not to think, to not give myself any chance to doubt. My hands thrust up as Rima strikes.
Ice shoots up from beneath her, forcing apart black flesh and bone. It drives straight through her heart and out her back. She doesn't scream.
I stare at her, my dragon, reeling in a shuddering breath. My heartbeats, but Rima's does not follow.
Silence storms over me, enveloping me in nothing. It leaves my soul in a sea of silence. Even as my knees hit the stone. Even as I begin to scream.