Dragon School: Starie Night

Dragon School, Volume 19

Sarah K. L. Wilson

Published by Sarah K. L. Wilson, 2018.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

DRAGON SCHOOL: STARIE NIGHT

First edition. September 22, 2018.

Copyright © 2018 Sarah K. L. Wilson.

Written by Sarah K. L. Wilson.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Behind the Scenes:

For Eugenia, my beloved proofreader. Thank you for making my dreams easier to share.

Chapter One

I’m coming for you.

Relief flooded through me. Was Raolcan hurt? How far had the river taken him before he surfaced?

Not far enough – not as far as the Feet of the River. I could have used the healing there.

You’re hurt?

Not mortally.

If he was hurt, then he needed to rest. He needed to recover. He could come for me later.

Amel, nothing – not even death – will keep me from coming to your aid.

How were we even talking over such a long distance?

Our bond strengthens and grows. But now I must be quiet for a time.

Whatever he needed, he should have. I was just so happy he was alive. The tiny candle of hope I’d been carrying flared into a fire of hope.

“Don’t think a conversation with your dragon changes anything,” Starie said as she rose from her seat and turned to look at me over her shoulder.

I had almost forgotten where I was in my excitement over Raolcan, but now it all crashed back in on me. I was Starie Atrelan’s prisoner. I was in her magnificent pavilion. She thought she could use me for her own purposes.

“I want to use you as bait in my trap for Savette,” she said with a smile. “But for now, I have things to attend to, including bringing that masked man back to his senses. You’ll be guarded by my Magikas tonight. Don’t try to escape. I had them keep Leng Shardson. I remember the two of you being friendly. After all, you nursed him back to health all that time ago. I doubt you’d like to see the things I could do to him if you try to escape. I’ll see you in the morning, Amel, we’ll have much to discuss then.”

She snapped her fingers and a pair of Magikas hurried through the doorway.

“You know your orders,” she said to them. They bowed and seized me by the arms, pulling me up out of the chair. They had to drag my toes, carrying me in their haste. I couldn’t possibly use my crutch when they held me this way and the tip of it bumped uselessly along the ground as we hurried out.

They pulled me through the darkness in silence as my mind raced. I was in the hands of the most dangerous person in the Dominion – Starie Atrelan. These Magikas served her like slaves – something I never would have expected from such powerful people! Worse, she had the Pipe of Wings – control over dragons everywhere. But there was good news – my dragon was alive, Leng was alive, and Jalla’s army was untouched, even if it couldn’t reach us yet.

What I needed now, more than ever, was to keep my head. There would be an opening somewhere for escape – or even better – to bring down Starie completely. But if I let my emotions take control of me, I would lose the opportunity. I needed to focus. I needed to be cold as the wind and hard as the rock to see the right moment to strike. This was not natural to me.

The tent they took me to was guarded by two Magikas. Their hands glowed and radiating out from them was a dome of faint purple light. The tent was surrounded by the dome and as we stepped into it, I felt a shiver go through me and a lasting chill stayed under my skin.

“She’s your problem now,” one of the Magikas dragging me said. “The Chosen One says to deliver this prisoner back to her pavilion at dawn.”

The female Magika he handed me to shifted irritably. “Don’t give her to me. Push her into the tent. You know how hard it is to concentrate like this.”

He grunted and complied, but not before I saw the two guards frowning and shaking their heads at him. Whatever they were doing required concentration, did it? Hmmm. Every scrap of information I could gather would help.

I stumbled into the dark tent. The flap closed behind me so quickly that all I saw was a quick glimpse of some sort of pallet on the ground and nothing else. I tripped over something metallic with a ding and landed painfully on the ground, my crutch twisted under me.

“Amel? Is that you?” The whisper filled the tent.

I gasped in relief. “Leng! Are you hurt?”

“No,” his own relief leaked into his voice and a moment later I felt strong hands helping me to sit up and unstrap my crutch. “Did they torture you?”

“No.”

Strong arms pulled me to him and I leaned into Leng’s chest.

“Amel, I’m so sorry – about Raolcan, about everything.”

I leaned into him, letting the tears finally leak down my face as I pressed my cheek against his strong chest.

“How is Ahlskibi?”

“Alive. He’s hurt, though. I can’t hear his voice anymore. We’re too far away.”

I had forgotten that most Purples didn’t have the range that Raolcan did.

“Leng, I’m so sorry about Shonan. I had hoped ... I had been counting on ... he was one of a kind.”

Leng didn’t say anything but I felt his chest shaking with silent sobs. I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him tightly as if I could hold him together with just my arms.

“I love you, Amel,” he said, eventually. “If I didn’t have you...”

His voice faltered, like he couldn’t even say the next thought out loud. He let go of me for a moment to wrap our cloaks around us and some sort of threadbare blanket the Magikas must have left behind.

“I love you, too,” I said.

“Can I hold you tonight?”

“Yes.”

I don’t know when I fell asleep, but his sweet breathing as I slowly drifted off was the only thing keeping me sane. Maybe I was doing the same thing for him.

Chapter Two

Morning came too quickly. We were given water and a thick porridge and a single candle to eat it by before the sun came up.

The Magika left us with a terse reminder. “Eat. The Chosen One wants you at dawn.”

We did eat, but between bites, Leng tested the magic barrier surrounding the tent. He peeked his head out the side of the tent, running his hands across the barrier.

“It keeps us in,” he whispered to me. “I can’t force my way through. It’s as tough as glass.”

Neither of us dared to talk more about escape – not when every word could possibly be heard by our captors. I didn’t dare tell him that Raolcan knew where we were or that there might be some way to topple Starie if I were careful. I did take out my book of prophecies and together we read again the prophecy that he’d quoted to me only a few days ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since that day.

“When the people of the earth sound horn of battle,

And the land trembles and is torn,

When the skies are rent in sorrow,

And the depths bring help no more,

Then the lame and the blind shall lead them,

And guide them from the storm.”

“There’s something there,” Leng said when we were finished. “It just keeps picking at me, like there’s something I should be seeing there...”

“Well,” I said, grimly, “the depths won’t be bringing help anymore. The Troglodytes won’t be coming to save me. Now, it’s up to me to appease them.”

“And didn’t it look like the skies were tearing when Shonan died?” His voice faltered a little over the word ‘died’ like he could barely get it out. “When all that snow fell out of them, it was like they’d been ripped.”

“Neither of us is blind,” I said with a half smile. We were grasping at straws. We just wanted to have hope in something.

He held my hand as we finished our breakfast, like he couldn’t bear to not be in physical contact with me. I couldn’t bear it either. We were both drifting out beyond the point of no return. It was as if we had swum out into the ocean and been pulled by a current to a place where no one had ever been. We couldn’t swim back and no one was coming for us. I just wanted those last hours to be full of him. I resented Starie for taking me from him. I resented our breakfast every time he let go of my hand to take a bite. I just wanted to hold on to him forever.

When we were done, he helped me strap on my crutch and gently brushed my hair from my face and helped me straighten it. His big fingers were surprisingly quick as they braided the stray hairs back. I bit my lip nervously at the sweetness of the gesture and then cupped his face in one of my hands to quickly steal a kiss.

He held my palm to his face and smiled boyishly.

“You don’t have to rush. It’s not like you’re taking something I don’t want to give.”

Shyly, I stretched forward and kissed him slowly, lingering over the closeness, resting in the acceptance and welcome of his answering embrace. If these were our last hours or days, they would be sweet ones.

A cough broke us apart. “Time to leave.”

I felt my cheeks heating as Leng moved to let me hobble to the side of the female Magika.

“I don’t care what you do in here. But when we leave you obey, or you suffer the consequences,” she said, as if she was giving us some sort of gift. Maybe she was. I didn’t know how Magikas handled their prisoners other than the time we found them torturing Leng and Savette. Maybe not torturing us was a mercy from them.

My belly squirmed at the thought of that, but I schooled my expression to blankness and followed her out of the tent and through the camp.

The army camped here was larger than the one that had crossed the bridge. Clearly, Starie had brought them with her. Voices called across the camp as the first light of dawn lit up the snow-crusted field. Fires exploded in sparks as new wood was tossed in and pots or kettles were arranged over them. Sleepy soldiers stumbled out of tents or back into them in the general chaos of a huge group of people sleeping and eating out of doors.

“No distractions,” my guard said, poking my back with a finger. I hobbled on.

“You’re a Magika,” I said, for lack of a better subject to talk about. “Have you been in the Dusk Covenant for long?”

She barked a laugh. “Oh, look at the lip on this girl! So, because I use magic you assume I belong to the Dusk Covenant? They should be flattered.”

“Don’t you? Don’t you all serve the Dusk Covenant and their Chosen One now? Aren’t you working with elements from Baojang and the Rock Eaters and Ko’Torenth to trade our dragons for power?”

Her eyebrows rose and she smirked.

“Sometimes, Dragon Rider, knowing only half the story is worse than knowing nothing. Your tongue is full of half-truths and half-understanding.”

“Then enlighten me,” I countered. I could see Starie’s orange pavilion ahead, dusted in white snow. We would be there soon and before we arrived I was hoping for some shred of information to use against her.

“We – the Magikas of the Dominion – are the heart of this land. We are the power it was built on. It is we who craft dragonsteel. It is we who built the great cities of the sky and the wonders of this land  - the bridges, statues, and healing arches. If we are telling you that something is wrong here, if we are saying that a treaty needs to be made with foreign lands, if we are the ones negotiating the price of it, shouldn’t the rest of you listen?

“Our agenda here is the only thing left that can save the world. But no, you fool beast-riders and your misread prophecies think you know better, don’t you? You just keep messing everything up, throwing up a half-obstacle here or thwarting a carefully laid subtlety there – like a dragon in a spun-glass shop crashing around and breaking everything. If this was left to you, the entire Dominion would be a burnt-out husk by now. You should be grateful for us.”

We were at the entrance to Starie’s pavilion now, but I wished we weren’t. I wanted to hear more. The Magikas, it seemed, saw the world through a very different lens.

“Show respect in there. The Chosen One is our last hope.”

She stalked away before I could answer or even ask her name.

Chapter Three

"Amel, excellent. You'll be traveling with me today," Starie Atrelan said as I entered her pavilion. She was seated before the large gilded mirror, brushing her long red hair while around her servants bustled packing up her blankets, folding chairs, and rugs.

I watched her arm where the tattoo ran up it. She'd received that in the mountains at the Dawn's Gate, but I was still puzzled about how. She caught my gaze in her mirror and grinned wider.

"I treasure your ignorance, Amel. It amuses me to no end."

I amused her?

"You wonder how I was marked when you are certain that only your false Chosen One could be marked, hmm?" She handed the brush to a servant beside her and tucked her hair back.

Something strange in the mirror caught my eye, but when I turned to look at it, there wasn't anything there, only a strange distortion that made the inside of the pavilion look different. Even Starie looked distorted for a moment, like a watery current was running through her.

A servant threw a black cloth over the mirror as Starie finished with it. I chewed the inside of my cheek watching as they carted it away. There had been something there. Definitely. Hadn't there? Or was my mind playing tricks on me?

Starie adjusted a leather cord around her neck, smirking at me. The Pipe of Wings hung from it, like an amulet of power. And of course, that was what it was. With it, she had nullified our dragon allies. With it, she could conquer the world.

"And I will," she whispered as she closed the distance between us. "And now, Amel, we go over the rules. It's handy that you brought a friend with you. Handy for me, that is. If you try to escape, I'll have one of his limbs removed with you watching. Try to take the Pipe from me, and I will do the same. Give me trouble?  I will have the Magikas torture him in front of you when we stop for the night. Understand?"

I swallowed. I understood very well what Magikas could do to a man. And I was under no illusions that Starie had a heart.

"I understand."

"Good. Follow me."

She strode from the pavilion and I hobbled along behind her. The bright light of dawn was already spreading over the horizon and Starie's golden dragon was waiting.

"You'll ride behind me," she said. I felt my eyes growing wide. Why did Starie Atrelan want me to ride behind her? And would her dragon even allow that? After all, she already had taken from me what she wanted - the Pipe. "I want so much more than that. We have a lot of catching up to do."

A sick feeling welled up within me. What more could Starie want from me? And would I be able to give it without compromising the people I loved? The more I was around her, the more chance there was that I would do something that displeased her - and Leng would suffer the consequences.

Starie mounted promptly and then nodded her head briskly to a pair of Magikas who, grimacing, helped me up on the back of the saddle. The golden dragon snapped and snarled. Starie made an irritated clicking sound with her tongue until he settled himself. Golds had thick armor and the ridges cut uncomfortably into my thighs where the saddle didn't protect them.

All I could think about was the dragon I was supposed to be riding today. I hadn't heard from him again since that quick moment of assuring me he was still alive. Was he hurt? Was he with friends? Was there anything I could do to help him? The silence in reply to my thoughts was deafening.

The servants finished decamping and around us guards began to form up - mostly Dragon Riders, their faces steely and hard - with Magikas sitting behind them in the saddles two, three or four to each dragon. They wouldn’t be able to fly all day like that.

"My actual army is not far," Starie said casually as I watched one of the groups of Magikas pushing Leng to their dragon. Our eyes met for a brief moment - just long enough to share a burst of courage and hope. "We'll rejoin them now that the task here is complete. We have something we need to bring south as quickly as possible."

She meant the Pipe, of course. With that she would win handily over Savette, but why was she being so mysterious about it? I glanced north, looking as far as my feeble human eyes could. I saw figures on the road, but no dragons and no Sentries. Likely, Jalla and her army were still building a bridge or finding another road to Dominion City. I couldn't rely on them for help. Anything I came up with, I'd need to be able to do myself.

At Starie's signal, the dragons around her leapt into the air and her servants and the Magikas unassigned to a dragon started down the road. Our own dragon took to the air, and Starie called back to me, "And now, Amel Leabrought, you will tell me everything you know or have learned about Savette Leedris."

Chapter Four

Around us, the snow had begun again, in little whirls and glittering puffs as if the world were trying to make up for the darkness of the times with diamond specks of sparkle.

I’d lost track of Leng in the flurry of dragons, but I noticed something about the enemy dragons around us. Their riders were dressed differently than the norm, their dragon rider braids tied up in topknots and their clothing bedecked with capes and jewelry instead of scarves. Interesting. It was as if their new allegiance had severed ties with the old and they felt the need to express that in what they wore and how they conducted themselves.

As if reading my mind, Starie answered my thoughts.

“It’s a new age, Amel. The times and values you are devoted to are past. This is the future.”

New fashions were the future?

“What do you know about Magikas and their power?” Her question had a testing note to its tone.

“They harness power from seams beneath the earth’s surface.” It felt strange to have my enemy – a fearsome wielder of dark power – engaged in such a simple conversation with me. Even now, black light emanated from her. It was hard to see it dead on, but it turned the edges of my vision blurry in a way that made my head ache. If I tried to look right at it, it wasn’t there, and yet it was always present in the edges of my vision.

“In part, yes,” she agreed as our dragon climbed higher through the swirling snow. The plains below were still dull, despite the dawn and the clinging wet cold seemed to penetrate through my clothing to my very bones. “But there is so much more than that. Magikas pull power from everything around them. And everything has some of the residue of the power that created it still within – people do, of course, but also grass and trees and even rocks."

"Rocks?"

"Where do you think Ifrits come from? They are creatures of life and dust. Sure, the life is needed to fill them, but so also is the dust. But that is not what we're discussing just now." She signaled to a nearby rider and our dragons all shifted to a slightly changed course. I kept my eyes on Starie. Perhaps, in the middle of this seemingly irrelevant conversation, she could tell me something about herself and if I was wise, perhaps I could use that to free us all. "Magikas pull on that leftover power - but it takes a toll on what they pull it from. There are deposits of it left in the earth from when the world began. Large, deep deposits and it is better if they pull their power from there. Not just better - but more effective. It's like the difference between harnessing the power of water from a raging river or harnessing it from gathering it drop by drop on a dewy field. You comprehend?"

I nodded, but she was facing forward and couldn't see. She seemed to take my agreement for granted.

"And now, those stores are mostly used up."

Wait. What? They were mostly used up? But that didn't make any sense. The Magikas I'd encountered were still using magic. They were throwing fireballs and building bridges and burning those resources up like there was an unlimited supply.

"People, it would seem, are terrible conservationists," Starie remarked indifferently. "I thought so from the moment I understood what I'm telling you now. They know their supply is limited. They know it can't go on forever and yet they use, use, use. Why? Because when it runs out that will be someone else's problem."

It was true that people were endlessly adaptable. If we ran out of linen for clothing, we would move to wool. If we could no longer grow rice, we would eat oats with as much enjoyment.

“There are ways to supplement it, of course. Ways to magnify the power that’s left. But some of them don't want to lose the power that comes from tapping into the power of the earth. Have you ever asked yourself why so many Magikas are part of the Dusk Covenant? Haven't you noticed that none of them are with your precious Lightbringers? We don't care about your ridiculous claims to truth. We don't care about your romantic ideas about faithfulness to a lost ideal. We are concerned - and rightfully so - with our impending loss of power. We don't want to watch the Dominion die and her rivals eat what's left like ravens fighting over a half-eaten carcass in a field.”

"You've allied with Ko'Torenth, Baojang and the Rock Eaters to destroy the Dominion," I said, unable to keep silent in the face of her lies. "Don't tell me you are trying to save our land!"

She laughed. "They should never have let you into Dragon School. They certainly shouldn't have released you out into the world with such a poor education. Grandis Elfar has been saying that all along, and she's right. It's only the woefully uneducated like you who can stand in our way now - and if you only knew ... but, of course, I am telling you.

“Listen, Amel. We aren't trying to destroy the Dominion. We're trying to save it - or at least save what we can. And yes, that means selling part of it to outsiders to keep what we can. And most of all, it means tapping into our strongest resource to buy friends where we can, so this whole country isn't overrun and our entire population isn't swallowed up by a stronger, more powerful nation. Yes, we've been making friends. Yes, we are giving them the dragons as a tribute gift - and as soon as possible! Yes, we will be giving them about two-thirds of Dominion held cities. What, exactly, did you expect would come as a result of the waste and irresponsibility of these last years?

“This is the last hope of our land. We must raise up defenders who can help us - Ifrits. We must destroy the dissenters. We must build a land strong enough to withstand the devastation to come. You think that you and your friends are going to save the Dominion? You're the reason this land is dying! It's only we - the last few people who really understand - the people at this world’s dusk, who have made a covenant together to keep a remnant of this place alive - it is only we who can save the world now. And you’re going to help us. It’s time to begin."

Chapter Five

The clouds below us were clearing and the dragons dropped lower in the sky. As Starie talked, I was watching the landscape rolling under us. We were approaching the twin sky cities at the heart of the Dominion. I couldn't see them yet, but the fields below had changed from tall wild grasses to fenced pastures and tilled fields. Small specks of villages dotted the land below, but there was no smoke drifting up into the air. Were there still villagers in those little hamlets? Or had they fled the conflict?

When all of this was over, the Dominion would be in a precarious situation no matter who won the war. Our cities were devastated, our crops dying in the fields, unharvested. Winter approached, and with it would come hard, bare times unless we could end this quickly and take the time we needed to rebuild and store what crops we could salvage.

My belly twisted at the thought of taking care of all of these people. With Shonan gone, Leedris Castel fallen, and hundreds of our best dead or dying, who would lead us? Would Savette step up to take that role? Should I be worried that she was married to Rakturan? He would always hold his allegiance to Baojang above his allegiance to the Dominion.

"You should stop fretting about things that will never be your responsibility," Starie said airily. I hated that she could catch the edges of my thoughts.

She directed her dragons with her hand signals as she spoke in a way that reminded me of Grandis Elfar. Where was the Grandis? I would have expected her not to leave Starie's side. Was it possible that Starie had left her in charge of something? Something too important to leave unprotected? And if that was the case, what did that say about my enemies? Perhaps their trust was fractured. Perhaps I could use that to find a weakness ...

"If taking you out of Dragon School has made you that devious, then I take it back - it's a good thing you left."

I didn't care what Starie thought. I only cared about bringing down her reign of evil. Where was the frightened girl who had been forced to join the Magikas? The last time I'd talked to Starie, she had been a very different person.

"We've all had to grow up in the last months, Amel. Don't think you're the only one who has had to stretch into a new role. But now, we get to the point of this talk. Tell me about Savette Leedris."

"She's the Chosen One," I said, firmly. I knew it was true. I had seen the signs.

"No, no, that's me. Let's try this again. How did Savette acquire her power? It does not come from tapping the resources of the living earth like the power of the Magikas does."

"No, it doesn't. Savette's power comes from truth."

"That's an interesting perspective - though likely flawed. When did she first start to show her power?"

"She was taken by the Dusk Covenant," I said. "You know that. And she was brutally tortured."

"And that brought out her ability?"

"Yes."

“It wasn’t present before that?”

“No.”

She was silent a long time and I took the time to study the landscape, trying to gauge how many days it would take for the armies of Baojang to catch up with us.

"Power often comes from suffering," Starie said. "Yours or another's – it hardly seems to matter. I find it interesting. After all, we are the only two people I know who have a power different from that of the Magikas."

Then she didn't know about Rakturan. Or about Ephretti. Or about me. Because all of us had tasted Savette's truth-power and used it to help others.

"What sort of power do you have, Starie Atrelan?" I asked.

She turned around in the saddle so she could look at me face to face through her black blindfold. A smile curved across her face and I shuddered.

I was growing to loathe Starie's smiles. It was true that suffering and difficulty matured a person. I was deeper and stronger than I had been. So was Savette. The problem with Starie maturing, though, was that she had matured into something more deeply herself: she'd started as a self-centered, vindictive child. Now, she was all that but multiplied by a hundred and aged into a person who could wield power well to achieve her goals. Would I be able to find a weakness in her at all, or had she already shored up every opening? Was there any hope against an opponent who was clearly miles ahead of me in reaching her goals?

"I have the power of mirrors, Amel." I felt an icy stab go through me at her words. The memory of her mirror distorting flashed through my mind. What could you do that was magical with mirrors? "Where the Magikas need deep flows of life-force to draw on, I need only those droplets, because I can multiply them by mirroring their power back and forth and back and forth concentrating it to do as I will. I can tap the edges of their minds and amplify what is there. I can take the power of someone like Savette and mirror that, too. How do you think I achieved these marks?" She held up the arm that had been marked in the dragons' test. "It's easy enough to mirror another's power ... if you know the trick. And the dragons weren’t watching for that. It never occurred to them to guard their tricks against counterfeit."

What did that mean for the coming battle? Could she mirror back at us everything we came up with? Maybe I should push her off here while I still could. I studied the straps holding her in place, weighing whether I could cut them or unfasten them quickly enough to pull them off in time. I wasn’t tied in like she was and I was pretty sure that she could knock me loose before I could loosen her safety lines.

"How do you think that I hear your thoughts, Amel?" Her smile twisted, giving her an almost mischievous look that was at odds with her intensity. "I'm mirroring them back to you. It's the reason that I know I won't ... can't ... be beaten. Whatever you or your friends try to send my way, I can send back with twice the force. There's no way to beat someone who knows you better than you know yourself."

Chapter Six

We were headed toward a cluster of foothills when the dragons began to descend. Around the base of the hills, a massive camp was set up. Tents in rows, campfires, picket lines, and a long line of caged wagons filled the dips and valleys around the foothills and a massive set of three pavilions was set up on the hillside, so the leaders could overlook the camp. Jalla would approve - or she'd kill them all without a thought. I was almost starting to miss my 'blood sister.' I had a feeling that she wouldn't be hindered too much by mirror magic. Jalla had little to hide and revealing her secrets wouldn't stop her from ruthlessly destroying you.

Raolcan? I called out, hoping beyond hope that I would hear him.

There was no response. I took a long steadying breath. He was alive, wherever he was. I needed to manage my own business and wait. He would come as soon as he could and if he was anywhere near Jalla's camp, Hubric and Kyrowat would be helping him heal. They would take care of him. I just had to trust and focus on what I could do.

Starie was occupied with the landing, leaving me to study her camp. I didn’t like what I saw. The guards circling the camp seemed attentive and the dragon section of the pickets was manned by Dragon Riders in proper leathers, though these ones were also dressed non-traditionally. I was most puzzled by the cages on wagons. They reminded me – in an uncomfortable way – of the wagons Savette, Hubric and I had been loaded into to be brought to Dominion City, except these ones had roofs, which made them difficult to peer into from above.

Arriving at this new camp made me feel like a drum was beating in my mind, slowly, one beat at a time, but it was speeding up with every step we took toward the final battle. Eventually, we would run out of time.

We landed in a clearing at the center of the camp. Whoever laid the encampment out had carefully thought through dragon landings. Starie's dragons circled in the sky waiting for their opportunity as dragons landed one by one, quickly hurrying off to the pickets. Dusk was descending, and I was already shivering and looking longingly at the fires as we landed in the field.

Starie’s golden dragon snapped at the Dragon Rider who ran up to take his reins and Starie cursed at him, kicking him hard with her heel. There was no love lost there. Perhaps that was where her weakness lay, but she could have used the Pipe at any time if she really wanted to. Why didn't she use it to calm the Gold?

“I’m not going to waste my time getting to know a flying horse cart.” She must have heard the edge of my thoughts. She turned to me as I slid off his back and adjusted my crutch. "You can cajole a person - or dragon - to do your will, or you can remind them who gives the orders. I'd rather train him to listen all the time and do as he's told. Then I can rely on him when there's nothing forcing him to obey."

Which was fine in theory, but in practice, the dragon hated her. And that was definitely a weakness.

"I'm done with you for tonight, Amel. Don't forget the agreement. You need to be on your best behavior." Her icy gaze swept the frosty camp. The snow was starting to swirl again, gathering in footprints in the mud and waiting long minutes before melting away as if it never was.

I watched the snow as a Magika hurried to my side and laid a powerful hand on my shoulder. Other Magikas rushed to greet Starie and on the hill. The door to the center pavilion opened as a familiar figure stepped out.

Grandis Elfar.

Perhaps the precious thing she was guarding for Starie was her army.

Starie climbed the hill, mostly ignoring the Magikas and nobles hurrying to fawn over her. I wanted to watch her greet Grandis Elfar - that greeting would be telling - but the Magika pushed me forward.

"Don't make me ask twice," he said, as if a push were a gentle request, but I knew better than to fight over that. I hobbled forward, responding to the pressure of his hand as he guided me through the camp, dodging hurrying servants and cursing soldiers, weaving between full tents and crackling fires. The soldiers were in good spirits, joking and calling to one another, but more than one sneer was directed at me.

It didn't take long to realize where the Magika was headed. Dread filled me as I watched the long train of caged wagons growing nearer. I scanned the area around my path, looking for any other option - any way to negotiate or cajole the Magika into keeping me out of those cages. - but there were no other options.

As if he were reading my mind, the Magika leaned in to make sure I could hear him as he said, "If you ask me, the cages are a waste of time. You're all traitors to the Dominion and you should die a traitor's death. As quickly as possible."

I studied the nearest cage as we drew level with it. A puff of smoke surprised me, and I stumbled slightly. As the Magika cursed, leaping back from the cage, the edge of a purple snout poked out and I caught a glimpse of the dragon inside.

"Rasipaer!" I said.

I thought he might almost be smiling in greeting, but the Magika pulled me away, forcing me back to the path.

"All you Dragon Riders are alike, fawning over the creatures as if they wouldn't take your arm off in a second if they were given half a chance!"

Someone hadn't had a good experience with dragons. From what I could tell, he'd probably earned whatever wrath he'd received. We reached the next caged wagon, and he angled us toward the door.  A few figures were huddled at one end, but in the fading light, their faces were impossible to see.

The Magika called out and a guard hurried over from a few wagons down, keys jangling in his hand.

"Would you hurry it up? I want to drop this prisoner off so I can get some hot grub and warm up. Do you know how cold it is out here?”

“I have one, too,” a voice from behind me said. I tried to twist to look, but the Magika holding me slapped my face. “Eyes ahead!”

The guard with the jangling keys turned the lock and opened the door with a squeal of unused metal. “Here, move them in. Let’s get this over with.”

The Magika pushed me forward and I hobbled to the wagon, climbing awkwardly up the steps to the door. After a moment he grew impatient and shoved me in.

There was a growl from behind me. “Treat her with respect!”

Leng! I had just enough time to feel relief and then he was shoved in after me and the door was locked behind us. We were trapped.

Chapter Seven

I pulled myself to my feet, Leng reaching to help me as a voice from the other end of the cage interrupted us.

“I knew I’d see you again, Amel Leafbrought. And still alive. I was betting you would be.”

I peered through the darkness. Ashana Willowspring stood at the other end of the cage, a pair of Dragon Riders on either side of her, purple scarves fluttering at their elbows and knees.

The murmur of our guard's voice drifted away in the night, joining the sounds of the camp - a constant dull noise, but with no clear words or sounds standing out from the rest. The worry knotting my belly mixed with the sounds to give me a dull headache. I limped forward, stiff and sore from a day of flying behind Starie.

I saluted. "For now."

Ashana looked us up and down. "Your dragons?"

Leng shook his head. "Ahlskibi lives - I think - but he was badly injured in our last battle and I don't know where he is. Captured, perhaps."

"Raolcan is alive," I said. "But I lost contact with him."

Ashana nodded briskly. "These are Eluci Daggerworn and Peln Vendris. We were taken by the Dusk Covenant two days ago."

"These cages seem well built," Leng said, joining the others. I followed him, worry filling me. I didn't like that they had us in these caged wagons. There was something about this that seemed strange. Why take prisoners this way? It was almost as if they had planned for it.

"I don't think they are for humans," Eluci said, braiding her hair absently as she spoke. "We've checked and rechecked them and they're built very solidly - overbuilt, really - no human would need something so strong to hold them. Why waste the resources and increase the weight for no reason?"

"What pulls them?" I asked. No single horse could pull something so heavy - not even a team of horses.

"They are using dragons to pull them." Ashana shivered. "Dragons are not made to be draft animals."

"We weren't made to be caged," Leng said.

"So, they built them for dragons then?" I asked, quietly.

Ashana nodded. "And they built them a long time ago - before this war started. I think they only have put us in here temporarily."

"If they want our dragons," Leng said, "They need to keep us alive. Every Dragon Rider they kill is one less dragon they can use."

Ashana nodded. "We concluded the same thing. But the Council and all other Dragon Riders are divided. Some are loyal to the Dominar. Others of us find ourselves drawn, instead, to our dragons."

Beside her, Peln shifted irritably.

Ashana laid a hand on his arm. "If I speak to these two it is because I trust them."

"She's not even a full Dragon Rider," he objected, pointing to me.

"Hubric Duneshifter says I am," I said quietly. "If you have so few Dragon Riders to call on, why worry about whether my title is formalized?"

"Because to formally be raised to the title you must pass tests and inspections that verify you have what it takes to join our ranks." Peln was frowning. "With Dragon School in complete disarray, it's impossible to determine these things. You could betray us thinking you were doing the right thing."

Ashana clicked her tongue. "Enough. Hubric said you were ready?"

I nodded.

"Then let it be so. She is raised a Full Dragon Rider of the Purple."

"You can't just-" Peln started, but Ashana threw up a hand.

"I can, and I did. Now, enough squabbling. We have limited time to hatch a plan before they decide to do something more than keep us in cages."

"They plan to use me as bait," I said calmly. "To trip up Savette Leedris."

"And you're fine with that plan?" Peln asked. "Savette Leedris and her rebellion are the last hope of saving our dragons. Do you know what they plan to do to them?"

"Yes."

He looked shocked. "And you're fine with that?"

"Of course not. I won't let her use me."

There was the sound of feet outside the cage and a call as two soldiers passed, calling drunkenly back and forth to each other. We all fell silent, huddling closer in the night.

"We'll wait until the guard changes to speak more on this," Ashana said.

"More waiting," Peln grumbled.

Ashana rubbed the bridge of her nose between her fingers. Her patience must be growing thin trapped with Peln all this time.

"We all have dragons we are worried about, Peln. Taking it out on each other doesn't help anything."

Peln had the good grace to look embarrassed before mumbling a 'sorry' and sitting down. Ashana sat down next to him and we all followed suit, forming a ring in the bottom of the cage. I missed the benches we'd had the last time. My bad leg always hurt when I sat on the ground. It was hard to get it into a comfortable position.

"First," Ashana said, "You'll catch me up on everything that has happened since last I saw you-”

“Actually,” Leng interrupted, “Now that we’re in the same place, I was hoping you’d grant my request.”

Chapter Eight

The dark of night was falling now, and the night was moonless. The only light in our cage was coming from the cookfires of the camp a little way off. I shivered, huddling into my cloak. What was Leng talking about? Ashana was hardly in a position to grant anything from the inside of a cage. And yet, she had an ironic twist to her lips as she looked back and forth between us and he was almost vibrating with the tension of whatever his request was.

"In the middle of a war?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Yes." I loved how firm and certain Leng's voice was. No matter how confused or unsteady I was, he was always a sure thing.

"With our enemies currently winning? With us caged like animals, and the fate of the world in our useless hands?" Her gaze bored into him.

"What other time would there be?"

He was smiling slightly and in the velvet darkness, he reached out and took my hand. I felt warmer - safer - despite where we were.

The caress of his calloused palm against mine – so real, so safe, so certain – comforted me.

My eyes strained in the darkness to see him, only seeing hints and flickers of his expression when the light caught it the right way. I shivered, conscious of the strange incongruence of the safety I felt with him and the evil all around us.

This was us. Two leaves rushing down the same waterfall side by side. Two doves huddling on the same branch in the storm. Two flickering candles holding off the dark of the night. Maybe someday there would be peace and sipping tea in safety together, but for now, a clinging grip of two hands, flickers of emotion in the corners of the mouth, hope in the eyes – this was enough. I could rest in this. I could treasure it forever.

Ashana laughed. "Well, if I am going to die tomorrow, I might as well help a pair of lovers marry tonight."

Beside her, Peln groaned, but my heart was beating a mile a minute. I had forgotten about Leng's request! He was asking her to marry us in the middle of a prison in an enemy camp!

My gaze drifted to the soldiers outside bent on destroying the land we loved, to the pavilions on the hilltop where Starie, Grandis Elfar, and their cohorts plotted the destruction of our dragons, to the darkness beyond the camp where somewhere our beloved dragons fought for their lives.

I would have liked Raolcan to be here. But I wouldn’t miss this one chance. Besides, he probably would be complaining that it was too mushy for him. He would want us focused on defeating Starie and setting her army ablaze.

Coming...

Raolcan! I could barely sense him, but he was there - and he was coming! Excitement welled up for my dragon and for Leng. I felt like I could take down this entire enemy camp with the intensity and energy that filled me.

"Do you want to marry Leng Shardson, Amel Leafbrought?" Ashana asked, slicing through my reverie.

Of course, I did! The only thing I wanted more right now was victory.

"Yes," I said.

"Don't tell me. You're just going to say, ‘you’re married,’ like you did when you raised her to Dragon Rider," Peln objected. "We have traditions and ceremonies for a reason First Rider!"

"We do," Ashana said, authority in her voice. "Ceremonies and traditions are vital to the future of the Dragon Riders and always have been so in our past. Through these traditions, we find meaning and our place in this world. We come to understand our shared values and agree to keep our promises as a group. But what are the fires of war and the famine of adversity but a kind of ceremony all their own, inducting us into a deeper kind of life?”

Maybe this wasn't a formal ceremony, but her words felt formal. And we were in the core of a war right now, we’d been swallowed down the throat of battle and found ourselves in the churning belly of conflict.

"A marriage between Dragon Riders," Ashana continued, "is different than most other marriages. Both Riders are dedicated to their own tasks, their loyalties to their dragons and to their Color, but at the same time, you are promising to have a greater loyalty to one another. It is complicated and not without strain. Dragon Riders rarely marry and are rarely given permission to marry. Do you understand that?"

“And maybe it would be a good reason not to do this now,” Peln grumbled, but I didn’t care that he objected. The whole world could object, and it wouldn’t’ change my mind.

Leng loosened his grip on my hand. Was he afraid? I felt a stab of uncertainty until I remembered he was the one who had pushed for this. He was the one who had interrupted Ashana to ask all over again. He was simply letting off the pressure, so I could decide for myself.  I gripped his hand tighter to assure him that I was with him. I wanted this. No cost was too high for the chance to call him my own.

"Yes," I agreed, and this time I was proud that my voice wasn't shaking at all.

"Yes," Leng echoed.

"It is only because of the great loyalty and dedication that you have already shown that I am offering you this opportunity. I trust you will not falter in your other duties, that you understand that you are servants of the Dominion and that your own commitments will often have to come second to that. You are committing to seeking the good of the other above your own, to lifelong loyalty and to an intertwined life. Are these things what you want? Is this the truth as you see it?"

"They're true," Leng said, and his words were like granite. My breath was just a bit faster at the thought of him beside me through the days ahead. I felt warmth spreading through me at the knowledge that in these hard times, these toughest of tough days, he wanted to promise to keep loving me, to stay by my side, to keep loyalty to me close to his heart.

"Yes," I said aloud and this time my voice was quivering, not with uncertainty but with an intensity of emotion that I hadn't expected. I'd hoped for his love, but I'd been almost too afraid to hope that he'd offer me this - a future.

When I’d joined Dragon School I’d been looking for a purpose in life- and I’d found it. I hadn’t expected the family that came with it and I’d certainly never expected this – a permanent place in someone’s heart - a place guaranteed by promises and truth.

"Then we don't need a ceremony," Ashana said. "As the head of the Purple Dragon Riders, you have my permission. You are married."

I leaned into Leng, closing my eyes to savor the moment. I could smell his warm musk and feel his strength against me. If Raolcan was here, he'd be teasing us and laughing at us for getting married in a cage in an enemy camp, but nothing about our love had been normal or predictable. It made sense that our commitment to each other would take place in an unexpected way. I was just grateful for him - for his love, his strength, and the sudden hope that sprang up in me as I held his hand. Surely, in a world where Leng could exist, not everything was dark and hopeless!

“I have something more to say,” Leng said, almost shyly. He turned so he could hold my arms, bringing his face down close to mine, almost intimately. “No matter what comes, Amel, I’m yours. I won’t ever stop loving you, stop protecting you, stop helping you. No matter how our circumstances change, or how we change, I vow not to leave, not to give up, not to give half-heartedly. From here on, I am yours.”

Heat flooded me and I was suddenly very aware of him so close to me.

“I promise the same thing, Leng. We’ve been through too much to ever walk away from each other. We’ve saved each other’s lives over and over. No matter what happens next, I love you and I promise to be there for you.”

The moment felt precious – like a perfect drop of dew on a sunny morning, like a feather floating in the air. I wanted to hold on to it forever.

"And now, you talk.” Ashana's tone changed to something that had a growl behind it. Beside her, the other two Dragon Riders seemed to perk up. "Tell me everything that has happened since last I saw you."

“At least let them kiss first,” Eluci said, speaking up for the first time. “It’s not a proper wedding without a kiss.”

And she was right.

Leng gathered me in his arms, feeling in the dark to find my waist with one arm and to cup my face with the other hand. His lips were hot and gentle, fierce but yielding. As if it were the seal on the promise we’d made, it seemed to brand our new place with each other onto my heart and into my flesh. I wanted it to go on and on, to lose myself in the moment and forget the war and the cold metal surrounding us as I fell into him. I felt my cheeks heating, as if the blaze within couldn’t be kept inside. He was mine! Mine!

I should have stayed away. I finally get close enough to hear you and I get this! I did not come back for squishiness! There’s a war to win, Amel. Am I going to have to come down there and do this myself?

Chapter Nine

We talked long into the night, sharing information before we drifted off to sleep. When the Dragon Riders were finally talked out, I slept curled up against Leng, sharing the warmth under both of our fur-lined cloaks. There was something so precious about laying my head on his chest and listening to him breathe as I fell asleep and something so fleeting about the way our shared warmth would flee with any movement under the cloaks. It, like the preciousness of the moment, was too fragile to last.

I woke to the squeal of the cage door as it opened and a Magika called from outside the cage. "We're here for the cripple. Send her out."

I untangled myself from my cloak and pulled myself up, adjusting my crutch and cloak. Outside, the Magika cursed and pulled one of his magic whips from inside his own cloak.

"No need for that," Leng said from beside me, sleep still thick in his voice. "She is only gathering her crutch."

He looked up at me, concern in his eyes. We were together in life now, our fates intertwined. He hurried to stand, pulling a scarf from where it was tied around his waist and wrapping it quickly around my hips and cinching it tight. I knew what that meant now. Dragon Riders didn’t give out scarves without a deep meaning and this scarf – wrapped around as much of me as he could get it – had the deepest meaning of all the scarves I wore. I liked the feel of it there – like a snug reminder that we were tied together now.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered.

“Be safe, heart of my heart.”

His fingers brushed mine in a goodbye before I hobbled out of the cage, sending him a last fleeting look as I left.

Would I see him again?

That question had weighed heavily on me before, but now it had a heavier feeling to it, as if our commitments to each other made the link between us both more powerful and also more significant. If one of us fell, it would drag the other down in a way that wasn't possible before. If one of us rose, it would pull the other up, too. It was a strange thing to feel, but just as precious as that fragile warmth and in a way, it kept me warm inside as the Magika pulled me roughly down the steps.

He was no longer patient enough to let me walk at my own pace, gripping my elbow to pull me through the skim of snow that coated the tents and ground and made everything seem brighter somehow.

"This whip isn't for show. Keep up or feel its bite."

I ignored him. I was already going as fast as I could. Whipping me would only slow me more. These Magikas were on edge - too on edge to realize the idiocy of their threats. I needed to focus on that. Where there was edgy behavior, there was weakness and where there was weakness, there would be opportunity. If I watched carefully, I might find out what that opportunity was.

We hadn't settled on a plan last night. Ashana's account had been simple enough. Having rescued the refugees in the warrens and brought them to the lands of Haz'drazen, the Dragon Queen had been kind enough to deliver her to the Dawn's Gate. After the chaos there had subsided, she'd hitched a ride to Sky City and helped the Lightbringers in their underground work there until Rasipaer had returned. After that, she'd been running messages for Savette along with the other Purples loyal to the true Chosen One. It was while they were running a message to Casaban that they had been caught by Starie's Magikas and Ifrits and pulled from the sky. None of that helped with a plan. And I needed a plan and needed it quickly.

"Have you been a Magika long?" I asked my guard, making conversation as we slipped through the wet grass and slick layer of snow.

"What's it to you?"

"I'm just making conversation."

"Save it. We all know your fate. There's no point getting to close to someone who has only one purpose."

"As a prisoner?" I asked, poking to see if I could get anything more out of him.

"As bait. Either you will be tortured for your friend to see or you’ll be left alive long enough to draw her out of Sky City and bring her into the reach of the Chosen One. After that, all you'll be good for is raising an Ifrit."

I shivered, but not from the cold. I knew how they raised Ifrits. Somewhere around here, there was a dust demon made from the life of my old friend Tomas.

I wondered, idly, as if my mind were trying to distract itself, how the Ifrits did in the snow. They didn't like water. They hid under rivers and avoided them when they could. They liked to stay in touch with the dust from which they came. How did they cope on a landscape coated in frozen water?

We had a long walk to Starie's pavilion. My guard, strangely enough, seemed to be a favorite in the camp. At every campfire we passed, someone called out a greeting to him or bowed respectfully. He returned their calls with comments equally cheerful. How strange. To me, he was the boogeyman come alive. To them, he was a buddy.

Starie's soldiers worked industriously to break their camp despite the early hour, packing up tents and pots onto packhorses and carts. We'd be leaving soon, I could tell. I wondered if I should expect to ride with Starie again. It seemed that she wanted to keep me close.

The pavilion was open to the air, the door flung wide despite the cold and snow. Starie and Grandis Elfar stood close together, speaking in low, intense tones as the servants around Starie packed up the pavilion. They finished speaking as we entered the tent, the Magika bowing as he arrived.

"Your prisoner, Chosen One."

"Return to your duties."

He bowed and left, but the Grandis took his place beside me, looking me up and down and circling me as she did so.

"Not healed, then, are you?" she said, her eyes narrowing. "And yet you have survived. I never would have credited it."

"I thought you had faith in me," I replied. It still stung that the most fair-minded and kind of the Grandis had proved to be my enemy.

"I never said that."

“I thought you cared about the students of Dragon School.”

Her face grew hard. “I care about the Chosen One, Starie Atrelan. She is our only hope to keep this world from drying up like a rag left in the sun. And I’ll sacrifice anyone and anything that I have to if it means keeping her alive.” She shot a look over her shoulder at Starie. “Remember that. And don’t grow so soft that you fail us all.”

She stormed off, leaving me with a creased brow and more questions than ever before.

Chapter Ten

Starie's expression was furious when I finally looked at her. The Grandis might be her ally, but there was no love lost there. Was that why the Magikas were so jumpy? Was it because their leadership was fracturing? Perhaps it was why she kept seeking me out. They said it was lonely at the top. It must be even lonelier when your friends were nervous of you and you couldn't be left alone with your conscience.

One of the servants brushed too closely to Starie and the false Chosen One spun, her mouth firming in rage. She tilted her head to one side and there was a burst of dark light around the servant woman's face. My gut twisted as dark ooze ran from the servant’s eyes and she fell to the ground, lifeless.

I swallowed, a tremor running up and down my legs. I had almost grown used to Starie and her black mirror magic. Had I begun to think of her as tame instead of the evil killer she was?

That heartlessness! This was the woman the Dusk Covenant wanted to lead us. I bit my lip, letting the taste of blood remind me of what was real.

"You waste what's left of the world's magic just to settle an irritation?" I asked, not able to control the warble of emotion in my tone. A woman who would kill out of annoyance would kill for anything.

"I didn't waste it. Remember what I told you? I use mirrors to enhance magic."

I looked around. There were no mirrors nearby. They'd already been packed. There wasn't even a shiny object nearby.

“It’s the eyes. You know how they say that the eyes reflect the soul? It’s true. They reflect everything and that’s all the mirror that I need.”

Starie crossed to the last table that hadn’t been packed yet, picking up a battered book from the tabletop. “Did you know that there’s a book about me? But, of course, you did. You have your own book of Ibrenicus prophecies. It’s scary how accurate it is. Scary for my enemies, that is. Have you read it, Amel?”

"I have." My hand drifted unconsciously to the pocket that held my own copy of the prophecies.

"Listen to this one,” Starie said.

“Corrupted in the last days and trickling from the earth,

Dying in a bloom of power

The old passes and the new comes

Mirror of the old but amplified

Greater than the power which gave it birth.

Accurate, don't you think?"

It was accurate. The prophecies always were. But they didn't necessarily mean what she thought they did. Perhaps it meant that our nation and power structure was shifting, not the magic systems like her mirror magic.

"I found my power that way," Starie continued, striding out of the pavilion to where a line of dragons was being readied. Grandis Elfar was at their head, pointing and ordering servants and soldiers around like a High Castelan might. "Grandis Elfar brought me to the Healing Arches with a group of Magikas. It was the first time that they called up an Ifrit – ever – right there, from the pool of magic in the Healing Arches. It's funny what you said about how they brought out Savette's power through suffering because that's exactly how it happened for me, too."

Around us, there was a bustle as the first soldiers and caged wagons began their journey along the road. Everyone else was issuing orders or following them, gathering supplies or strapping them in place, extinguishing fires, drinking a last cup of tea, cinching straps and calling back and forth or up and down lines of men and women in squeaking leathers or clinking armor. Even the Magikas, usually slow and dignified in their movements, were hustling and hurried as they prepared to march.

Anxiety filled me as I watched them work. All these people were working against the future of the Dominion – whether they knew it or not.

A servant ran up with a breakfast tray for Starie and she accepted a bowl of porridge and gestured to me to take one.

"Eat now. There will be no more for a while."

"Thank you." I took the offered food and began to eat, but I wasn't distracted by the moving people or the hustle of the camp, my attention was fully on Starie. I had a feeling that what she was telling me was deeply important.

"The Magikas gathered around the arches while the Dragon Riders stayed nearby. We were transporting them, and also working as a security force, but I ... I was curious. I wanted to know how they were going to do it. I'd heard the whispers that they were raising an army for the Dusk Covenant. I knew why it mattered ... but I didn't know at what cost."

She stopped to take a bite and I ate, too.

But I wasn't thinking about the food. I even kept my face clear of emotion when I watched Rasipaer's caged wagon rumble past, pulled by a pair of furious dragons. Magikas in dark robes whipped them from either side to keep them going. Fury and bile rose in me equally. There would be a way to end this. I would make one if I had to.

Around Starie's throat, the Pipe of Wings flashed silver. I forced my gaze from it. I didn't dare show how badly I needed it back.

"I left my post and stood just behind the circle, watching. They were having trouble drawing up enough of the power from the well and someone suggested that if they could just start the flow of power then the rest might pour into it. It was in that moment that someone noticed me - Jasin Heedrunner, a Magika apprentice. He pointed across to where I was standing and before I knew it they had tied my hands and feet and drawn a knife. I thought I was dead. I thought they were furious that I'd been spying on them. I didn't realize until later that it was my blood that they needed for the life power. What they did ... I won't tell you. Not because I want to protect you. Not because I don't think it should be spoken of. Because I don't want it duplicated."

She turned from her breakfast to look into my eyes through that fear-inducing black veil and the spooky gaze made me freeze in place. I swallowed, my legs feeling like jelly under me. She wouldn't tell me about how she was tortured because she thought people might want to try it for themselves? What kind of person would think that?

Her mouth was a determined line. "I don't want anyone else to have what I have. Because it was the things they did to me - the terrible way that I suffered - that changed everything. I remember looking into Grandis Elfar's eyes during the worst of it. She'd come closer then to plead for me – I think. It was the reflection of myself - of what was being done to me - in the black depths of her eyes that triggered something in me. I reached into that blackness, dove as deep as I could, and the mirror magic bubbled up. It reversed all my wounds. It killed the ones who had tortured me. It touched me with that deep, reflected darkness – and in the rebound of their power, it brought to me the first of my pure soldiers. Creatures of blood and dust. Pure of intent. Born of darkness."

"Ifrits," I whispered.

"Yes." She smiled in that eerie way she had of only letting the edges of her mouth turn upward.

"Ifrits. And with them a darkness that has filled me and fueled me ever since. Do you know how to end suffering and bring the magic back into the world, Amel?"

"Yes."

She laughed. "Oh, I doubt that. You're doing everything in your power to stop it. You want the suffering and madness of this place to continue. I don't. I want it to end. And I know how to fix everything."

I couldn't help myself. I had to ask.

"How do you fix everything, Starie?"

"I end it."

Chapter Eleven

We traveled the rest of the morning in silence. Starie wanted me close to her, but she seemed to be done telling me her secrets. There was no love lost between her and the Grandis, though it was the Grandis who bound my hands when they loaded me onto the back of Starie's dragon.

"You wouldn't want her to push you off," she said by way of explanation. Starie had laughed at that as if it was the biggest joke in the world. After her revelations to me, she shouldn’t be so certain. I could almost do that without a qualm. When Jalla had wanted me to kill her war leader, I had never really considered obeying. This was different. This person wanted to destroy the world.

We traveled until noon, the dragons flying loops and circles to stay with the army and the Magikas whipping the walking dragons mercilessly to force them to pull the caged carts. Most of the carts held a dragon or sometimes even two of them, packed in the cages so tightly that they were like extra blankets stuffed into a chest. There were only two cages that held people and I watched the one with my new husband in it often.

Eventually, we reached the plains between the twin sky cities, angling to a spot just north of the torn and muddy plains. As the scene slowly grew clearer and clearer, I felt my breath quickening and my belly knotting.

It was here, in these mud holes and chewed up earth, that the battle for our future was being fought. It was in the ragged remains of Sky City and the stark silhouette of Dominion City that the generals and castelans planned the moves of their armies and dragons. It wasn't until we were closer that I could make out the sprawling camps of soldiers. Between the two armies, fragmented walls in various states of dilapidation wove twisting lines. Defenders clustered at the haphazard walls, clouds of Ifrits or bursts of colorful dragons breaking up the otherwise monotonous mud-tones of the battlefield. How many days had they fought? How many weeks.

"Many. The end draws near," Starie said. "We have pushed them almost to the edge of Sky City. We have ground them into paste beneath the feet of our soldiers. Our Ifrits have torn down their defenses and shattered their dragons. The end draws near. But none of us wants to lay siege to a city. A siege could go on for years. Best to draw them out. And that, of course, is why you are here."

On the north end of the battlefield where the landscape began to rise toward the northern mountains and hills, someone had erected a massive platform. It was on that platform that we landed when the sun was at its zenith.

Rocks had been thrown into a pile larger than my village to create the base of the platform, a timber floor laid over the rocks and a pair of towers built on the northern side of it. The south side was free of obstacles – clearly built to look out over the battle. Strange that no one was fighting here. Both armies were far away in the field below.

“There’s no military advantage to the platform,” Starie said. “Unless I am here.”

Grandis Elfar landed beside us. The Magikas she was transporting dismounted immediately, spreading out across the platform.

She was careful not to look at Starie as she spoke. "I'll meet with the Generals immediately. Your purpose remains the same?"

Starie's voice sounded firm. "Yes. I'll draw out the pretender. Only then, can we strike a final blow."

Elfar nodded, still looking into the distance rather than at her protégé. "And the Dominar?"

"Is less than a day behind us. He and his army will be here in time for the final victory."

"Good." Her dragon kicked off again and she was gone before I could wonder why she wouldn't look at me.

"She takes her duties seriously. She always has. It is hard for her when it is time to make necessary sacrifices," Starie said. She was scanning the battle below us. From here, picking out details was hard. All I could see was the ebb and flow of masses of black-clad soldiers. The occasional school of dragons or cloud of Ifrits was easy to pick out against the monotones but seeing a single soldier in that mass of bodies would be impossible. What was she looking for?

"There," she said eventually, pointing to a place in the field. Behind me, other dragons were landing and offloading their Magika cargoes, while below us on the ground – and a little way off from the platform, Starie's army was parking the cages and stowing their cargo wagons. I followed Starie's finger with my gaze. "See the bright light around her?"

Savette! I could see her there, across the battlefield. Starie was right that her people and their ragged wall were pushed up almost to the base of Sky City. Still, she fought, white light pouring from her hands as she disintegrated a cloud of Ifrits. It was amazing to see, even from so far away.

"Dismount," Starie said, cutting the rope binding my hands.

The dark light from her eyes was even more intense now, as if proximity to Savette's light made them brighter – or was that darker?

I rubbed my wrists awkwardly after so many hours of being tied up and then followed her down. We were standing at the edge of the platform and the drop beneath us made me think of Dragon School.

"I'm glad that I had time to tell you why everything must be this way. It will make what comes next easier."

I looked from Starie to the drop and back again. There was no one else here. If I timed a push just right I could knock her off the platform. I could end this now.

I lunged before I thought, pushing off with my crutch and rushing toward her with all the speed I could muster. Fear and courage pulsed through my veins so that all I could hear was the roar of them as I flew through the air.

I froze, neither foot touching the ground. No!

Around me, darkness pushed. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, could even hear. And the edges of my vision, there was nothing but the mind-bending darkness of Starie's mirror magic and the pull of it as it tried to refract me into nothingness.

Chapter Twelve

I woke up to a hard surface under me and a pounding headache. My face hurt. I reached up and felt blood.

Someone was standing over me. Between her boots, I could see the battle raging on the fields below. Savette stood at the front of her troops, flaring with light again and again. Even from here I could tell her head was held high.

I flashed into her eyes for a moment and felt her movements – lightning quick as she spun. A massive Ifrit bubbled up from the dust in front of her. He snatched up one of her wide-eyed soldiers, cracking the man in half in his monstrous grip and then tossing him aside like a fallen leaf. Savette’s arm shot out and with it came her light. The Ifrit flared with light for a moment and then dissipated in a burst of dust and ashes. Around Savette, her soldiers doubled over in coughing and hacking, but when their eyes met hers there was nothing in them but utter devotion. These men and women would fight and die for her.

There was a battle cry from nearby and a line of soldiers rushed toward her position. I recognized the man at the front. General Honorspur was exactly as he had been the day I met him – when Starie killed another general before his eyes. Now, he fought for the false Chosen One, rushing toward Savette, his men a vanguard before him.

The soldiers around Savette seemed to gain courage rather than melt away. They swelled forward, calling out her name.

“Savette Leedris! The Chosen One!”

The first clash of steel on steel was joined by Savette’s flare of light.

I snapped back into my own mind, panting from the intensity of the battle below. Now only tiny figures on the massive field below, the armies crashed together like waves across the sand. I had the strangest feeling that someone was looking through my eyes. That had better not be Rakturan!

The boots in front of my face shifted and a voice growled.

“You can stay down there or get up. It won’t matter. Either way, this fight is done for you.”

I looked up at Grandis Elfar. How long had I been unconscious? It must have taken her at least a little time to meet with the generals. Had it been hours? Days?

“We could put up a dome around her,” one of the Magikas offered.

“Unnecessary,” the Grandis said. “You have your own work and I can deal with this stray.”

It was strange to see her here, standing over me. She’d been doing her best to avoid Starie and me. Perhaps her conscience troubled her. Had she received what she hoped from helping Starie to power – from maneuvering things to put her in power? She didn’t seem to have the prestige or honor I would have expected from someone in her place.

Guards stood a few steps away, but they weren’t needed. The Grandis held one of the dragon whips in her hand. It was unfurled, ready to lash out at a moment’s notice. That was more than enough to keep me in check.

“It’s done for you too, from what I’ve seen,” I said, my voice rougher than I had expected. I raised a hand to my cheek and felt blood. Fighting dizziness, I sat up. My arm hurt where the crutch was digging into the skin. It had torn a divot through my forearm when I fell, but the blood there was already dry, a scab forming over it.

Grandis Elfar didn’t respond. Interesting. When I was angry – when something cut too deep – that was when I didn’t speak. She was angry, too. I needed to spread division here. That was my only hope against an enemy with such an advantage.

“Is that General Honorspur in the field? How strange. I would have thought that a man of his position would be somewhere safe, not slogging through mud with his troops.”

“The General is honored to fight with them,” the Grandis said, but I heard the note of tension in her voice.

“Is he? Or did Starie use her eye-magic on him? Did she look him in the eyes and tell him what to do so that he thought it was his own idea?” I pulled myself painfully to my feet. “Has she been doing that to you? Maybe it wasn’t really your idea to bring her to Dominion City and announce her as the Chosen One.”

“Of course it was,” the Grandis said, but her eyes were on the field, watching General Honorspur and she was answering me as if I were her equal, as if I had the right to question her. No person at her level of importance would do that unless they wanted to talk – unless they hoped that I had the insight they needed to make sense of something they’d suspected for a long time.

“Was it your idea to bring an innocent girl – someone in your charge – to a violent magical ritual?” Her head shook almost imperceptibly. She probably didn’t realize she’d even moved. I pushed harder. “Was it your idea to let them-”

“The prophecies have been fulfilled in her,” the Grandis’ voice was quiet. Was she afraid that if she spoke louder she would shatter the lie?

I matched her quiet tone. “Which ones?”

She began to quote the prophecies, but out of order. I frowned as I listened. Was there a thread running through them?

“Corrupted in the last days and trickling from the earth,

Dying in a bloom of power

The old passes and the new comes

Mirror of the old but amplified

Greater than the power which gave it birth.”

“In dust and deception, I am made,

Bound by water and blood.

Who may retrain the dust storm or calm the call of water?

Who may feed the maw of the earth?

Is it not you, dark one?

Is it not your dusk descending upon us?

“Twice dead, she rises.

Her rising a sign of salvation.

Favor from the heavens.

Relief from the fires of hell.”

The Grandis paused for a moment. “She died that day. I’m sure of it. Died in body and in soul. Twice dead.” Her face went pale as she spoke the next words. “Twice blind but still seeing, The only bulwark against the dark”

“And what makes you think that she didn’t trick you into thinking those words applied to her?” I asked. “What makes you gamble your future on them.”

The whipcrack startled me. The tip of it hit me across the face, splitting the skin in a burning line. I shuddered, a cry escaping my lips. I almost missed her next words as my brain fought to maintain consciousness. My hand was holding my torn face, the other one gripping the crutch in a jelly-like wobble. Inside, my emotions warred against a sudden thought ‘oathbreaker.’

The lash did more than sting my face – it sent a stab of magic through my brain triggering every stray thread of guilt or shame that was lodged there. I felt, deeply, the guilt of being rescued when he fell. I felt the heavy burden of the deaths of innocents in Vanika, the deaths of soldiers in the warrens – my fault and every other breached covenant and willful deception of my short life. I shuddered under the weight of it.

Grandis Elfar waited until I recovered enough to look her in the eye. Her words were a hiss.

“I believe.”

Chapter Thirteen

Raolcan! I called mentally, bracing myself against the continued effects of the whiplash. I couldn’t allow myself to admit the guilt it forced into my mind. It would have no control over me.

I held my injured face, pushing back tears. Carefully, I unwound the scarf Ashana had given me when I became a Color, holding it against my right cheek. There was a split on the bridge of my nose, too, but most of the damage was to the cheek. It stung, but not as bad as the pain inside.

I’m here.

I gasped in relief, all thought of physical or mental pain evaporating at the feel of his mind. He was here! He was finally here! So many days of longing and hoping, of worrying and wondering and he was here!

I choked back my sob, scanning the sky for him. Grandis Elfar was already marching away, and the guards she had left drew in tighter around me. Magikas or not, they didn’t stand a chance against Raolcan!

He wasn’t over the battlefield. I studied it carefully, noticing the surge as Savette’s smaller force rushed forward and General Honorspur’s line opened up, letting them in like a flood.

He wasn’t over the towers at the back of the platform. Starie was on one of them, the Pipe held to her lips. My breath caught as I heard the sound of it playing out a tune I’d never heard before. If Raolcan was in the sky, was he being controlled by her?

Not in the sky. Not affected by the Pipe.

Then why was he so quiet? It wasn’t like my dragon to be quiet when there were people to mock and enemies to fight.

I looked to the north and my breath caught in my throat.

The Dominar had arrived. His army marched forward and without stopping for rest they hurried down the road toward the field of battle. In minutes, they would be there – reinforcing the already greater forces arrayed against the Lightbringers. There was no way Savette could stand against that! We needed to do something right now!

And then I saw him.

He was surrounded by Magikas, whips in hand.

They’d tied a chain around his neck – many chains, enough for each of them to hold one. And chains were wrapped around his eyes. No!

His head hung as he walked, his snout almost bumping along the ground. That was not my dragon – tied like that, humiliated like that. It must be a different purple. It was hard to see at these distances.

It’s me.

What had they done to him? How badly was he injured?

Not badly enough that I can’t walk.

Or fly?

My wings are not damaged.

But somehow, he’d fallen into their hands. Somehow, they’d wrapped him in chains and pulled him across the ground like one of the horses he despised.

I thought for sure that if he washed up further down the shore that Hubric would find him.

I didn’t wash up along the shore. I was plucked out of the water by a stray Ifrit. He brought me to Iskaris. Apparently, he has a list of people and dragons that he’d rather see tortured than killed.

Had he tortured Raolcan?

Beyond putting me in chains?

I held my breath.

No.

Then why was he so quiet? Why was he walking so strangely? Was he embarrassed that he’d been captured? Was he ashamed that he wouldn’t be flying to my rescue today?

I didn’t care about any of that! I was just glad he was alive!

It takes a lot of concentration for me to walk right now – although I’m getting used to it. It makes me less talkative.

Why?

There was no answer.

“He’s back.” Starie sounded smug as she joined me at the edge of the platform. It took me a full breath to realize that she meant the Dominar, not Raolcan.

She was still grasping the Pipe. She played a second set of notes and I clenched my jaw as dragons soared out of Savette’s gathered army and above them in Sky City, to swirl above the battle for a moment before diving down toward their own allies.

I flinched when they struck. I spun toward Starie, fists clenched.

She waved a finger at me. “Oh no, Amel. Remember? I can knock you out with a single glance.”

The dark light behind her blindfold flared for a moment and my heart stuttered in response.

“I don’t think your friend has noticed that you’re here. Let’s draw her attention, hmmm?” She smiled in her odd way and then her voice was amplified over the field of battle. “Savette Leedris.”

Below the battle seemed to almost stutter to a halt as soldiers looked her way. I couldn’t tell if Savette was looking, but her light strikes stopped for a moment.

“Let’s make this personal!” Starie continued. “I have your friend. You have one hour to surrender, or I’ll cut her throat right in front of you.”

Sweat soaked me so suddenly that I shivered. I felt lightheaded, and not just from the blood soaking the scarf I held to my face, or that first head wound. I was trapped here. Leng was trapped. Raolcan was trapped. There was no way out this time.

And I still didn’t know what Raolcan wasn’t telling me.

Starie was going to beat us by seeking out own fears and using them against us. It was her reflection magic all over again, but you could hold a mirror up to another mirror, couldn’t you?

“What will you do when all of this is over?” I asked, breathlessly. Surely there was some way that I could reflect her back at herself.

“Rule.” Starie seemed unconcerned. Her gaze was on Savette. The light bursts hadn’t started up again yet, but now the Dominar’s forces had almost finished joining the Dusk Covenant army in the fields below.

“But what will you rule? The purpose of the Chosen One will be over. Magic will be mostly spent. The population of the Dominion decimated in this war. Your allies fearful of your dark gaze. You’ll never be certain if their thoughts are their own or only a reflection of yours. They aren’t your friends. They’re barely even your allies.”

The muscle of her jaw clenched and then unclenched.

“Shut up.”

I’d struck a nerve. But I’d have to keep on striking at it if I was going to defeat Starie Atrelan. If only I had Raolcan’s help. He was great at knowing exactly what to say to people. If only he’d just tell me what he wasn’t saying!

I’m blind. I lost the other eye, too.

Chapter Fourteen

I felt like I was falling. The bottom had dropped out of my world and I was falling through whatever was underneath the earth I stood on. Falling, falling, falling ...

My knee hit the stone and I wavered, barely catching myself with the crutch. This couldn’t be true.

It. Must. Not. Be. True.

I knew it was a mistake to tell you.

This is what he’d been hiding! Was this also how he had been captured?

It’s hard to fight blind.

I felt as if I were deflating. I was losing myself second by second, melting away like a candle thrown in a fire.

On the field below, Savette surged forward, toward the platform, toward me.

“Yes!” Starie’s sound of victory was barely audible.

I watched, helplessly, as she pushed forward, spreading her troops dangerously thin.

I felt ill. I would be the cause of her defeat. I’d already been the cause of Raolcan’s and of Shonan’s. I couldn’t bear one more. Memories of Vanika burning in the night flashed across my mind. So many dead because of me. So many defeated. I couldn’t bear even one more.

I’m a little insulted that you think I’m defeated.

I tried not to answer. Anything I said would hurt him. But I couldn’t help but think that he was lying to bolster my spirits.

Remember when I told you how I could compensate for one missing eye? I can read the minds of the people around me – I can even see what they are seeing if I concentrate.

That’s why he had to concentrate to walk.

Exactly.

And to fly ...?

I don’t know yet, but I expect it would be the same. You should have more confidence in me, Amel.

He’d never see another sunset. Never see a drop of dew on a flower, the spider-work of frost across a rock, the delicate flakes of a first snow.

Not with my own eyes – but I’m already getting better at this. In time ... who knows? It’s a little addictive to flick from mind to mind watching everything from a thousand pairs of eyes instead of just one.

My eyesight was blurry as hot tears splashed down my face. I sobbed raggedly, trying to control myself and failing. I thought the lowest point of my life would be the burning of Vanika. The wounds from that on my psyche still hadn’t fully closed. But this ... this was somehow more painful. It was worse than the slash of the Grandis’ whip.

What I see now is different – like if the world were colored by emotions. Like if you could taste and smell the things you see – even from far away. I can see you up there. You need to stop looking so indigo.

Indigo?

You look like you might throw yourself off that platform.

I swallowed. Would it really hurt anyone if I did? It might actually save this war.

It would kill me. Do you think my life is worth nothing just because I can’t use my eyes? Don’t insult me! Is your life worth nothing because of your leg? You’ve done things that no one with two working legs could do. It’s not over yet, Amel. Not even close.

I swallowed. Beside me, Starie whooped and threw a whip to a Magika nearby. He closed in tighter to guard me.

“I’m going down to face her,” Starie said, the darkness flaring from behind her blindfold. “One on one. Dark versus light. It’s time to finish this once and for all.”

“You should take a cluster of Magikas with you,” Grandis Elfar said, walking up from behind us.

“You know it’s better for me to go alone,” Starie said, coolly.

A vein bulged in Grandis Elfar’s forehead. She didn’t like Starie telling her what she knew. Had I planted enough seeds of doubt? Would she stand against her protégé?

“It’s better not to risk our Chosen One,” Grandis Elfar said, licking her lips. She refused to meet Starie’s blindfolded gaze. “Stay with the hostage and I will go down and convince Savette Leedris to come to you. Alone.”

“Look me in the eye and say that again.”

It was working!

“Without you, this alliance will fracture,” Grandis Elfar said, still not meeting Starie’s gaze. “The Generals follow you. The people have faith in you. Only you can fulfill the prophecies and lead us to a new era. If you go down there and die for no reason, all of that is lost. Look,” she pointed toward the Dominar’s army. “Even the Dominar is moving to higher ground.”

I followed her pointing finger. A formation of Silver Dragons flew toward a single room-sized platform dangling from the edge of Dominion City. Instead of walls, the sides of the round room were made entirely of arches. They must have been huge. As I watched, the figure of the Dominar on his dragon grew smaller and smaller until it reached the hanging room and entered through the arches on the side.

“I’m not the kind of coward who directs battles from a safe Observatory,” Starie said, coldly.

The Grandis face darkened as Starie spun suddenly and crossed the distance between them, grabbing Grandis Elfar by the scarf and pulling her in so they were almost nose to nose. They were close enough for me to hear her, though her voice was barely above a whisper.

“And what about when all of this is over, Grandis? What about then?”

Starie was waiting for the Grandis to meet her eye. I could tell she was, but the seeds of doubt were too deep. The seconds stretched, and when the Grandis refused to meet her gaze, Starie pushed her away.

“Look after the prisoner,” she ordered. “If the hour passes without their surrender – or if I fall – kill her. At least you’re good at doing that.”

She stormed away, fury filling her face.

Chapter Fifteen

The look on the Grandis’ face as Starie walked away made me shudder. I had one hour with this woman. One hour to escape or I would die. Or worse – Savette would surrender.

Allies are almost here.

I looked to the north, but my dull human eyes couldn’t see anything coming from that direction. Above us, though, the Silver dragons still circled below the Observatory. From here, I could just make out the silhouette of the Dominar in the arches. I didn’t know how he was signaling the army below, but they were moving differently since he arrived. If I had the Pipe those few dragons wouldn’t be enough to stop me.

Focus. One thing at a time.

“Grandis Elfar?” I needed her attention if I was going to do anything now.

The Grandis turned to look at me, the battle laid out behind her. I saw a pair of silver dragons drop from their place surrounding the Observatory and dive toward our end of the battlefield.

“Don’t speak to me. I know what you’ve done. You’ve sown division among us. The Chosen One wouldn’t be running headlong into battle with minimal guards if it hadn’t been for you. Look!” She dragged me up and forward, grabbing the scarf around my neck and shoving me to the edge of the platform so that I was leaning precariously over the edge, held only by her grip. “Look and tell me what you see!”

The Silver Dragons plummeted toward us at full speed. Were they coming for Grandis Elfar? For me?

“Tell me!” she demanded.

I choked against the scarf wrapped around my neck, gagging and gasping. She pulled me back from the edge – only enough to catch my breath in quick pants. As soon as I could form words I began to talk. I started at the western end of the battlefield.

“The Lightbringers are fading in strength. Some of them have retreated to Sky City, those who remain on the ground are only the most devoted ... or the dead.”

“Go on.”

“Savette has plunged too far into enemy lines. Her soldiers are almost cut off from their own lines, fighting a battle on all sides. Starie is moving toward her, but there is a lot of ground to cover. She’s barely left the platform. The battle is still hot across the entire field. It hasn’t stopped just because those two have a vendetta to deal with.”

“Continue.”

“There are two Silver dragons. They’ve reached the base of the platform and-”

They were taking the prisoners! That was Ashana they’d loaded up on one of them and there! There was Leng, his hands bound, his eyes searching frantically for me. Where were they taking him?

“See? They’re taking your friends to the Dominar. You think you’ve split us up with your words, but it is you who are divided. I can count the minutes of your life on my fingers.”

Surely it hadn’t been that long yet! Was she planning to kill me prematurely?

Something glimmered in the distance to the north-east as the Silver dragons launched into the air. Leng couldn’t sign with his hands ties, but his gaze never left me. When I finally tore my gaze from him. I felt like I was tearing myself in half.

“I’m not done yet,” I said.

“You will be when I slide my knife across your throat.”

“I mean I’m not done describing the battlefield.”

She laughed harshly. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“From the north, the armies of Baojang are entering the fray. I can see the Sentries at the front of their ranks. They descend.”

“What?!”

I was yanked back to the platform, coughing and clutching my throat as Grandis Elfar stepped to the edge, stretching to look north-east.

“They’re led by Jalla, the Winged Prince,” I said through my raw throat. “She is so feared in Baojang, that their war leaders united under her in a single day. She comes not to join you, but to finish you.”

I thought I might see her in the distance, a flash of gold across the sky. The Silver dragon bearing Leng was growing smaller and smaller. There was suddenly a lot of activity around the Observatory.

“Baojang stands with the Lightbringers,” I continued, this time, louder. “Baojang has read the prophecies. Savette Leedris is the one they call the Hasa’leen, the bringer of light.”

The Magikas around us shifted uncomfortably, but Grandis Elfar was still looking to the north-east, her hands clenched in fists. I remembered those hands teaching me to oil and care for tack. What could have turned her so far against the truth?

“I was so certain ...” she whispered. “How could they choose your side?”

“It’s like the prophecies said:

In secret, their doom is sealed.

In secret, it is wrought.

Evil brings its own demise.

The dusk may still be fought.

How could you have turned on your own people, Grandis? How could you have chosen to serve the Dusk Covenant?”

“I believed ...”

Keep pushing! I’ve almost found a way out...

There were three dots heading toward us, dodging Ifrits and dragons as they came. I could almost pick them out by color. Gold. Purple. White.

“And the people will be free of terror and the nations of uproar,

when the Chosen One brings truth to the heart of the Dominion,

when the dominion of darkness comes to an end.” I quoted.

Grandis Elfar wasn’t looking at me. She was watching those dots like her life depended on it.

“You’re misquoting the prophecies,” she said.

“Or maybe it’s you who has been misquoting them all this time.”

They weren’t dots anymore. They were dragons – and they were heading right for us. I could almost see Jalla’s flint-hard face when I quoted one last final prophecy.

“Advised by folly and deception,

Reflection but not the truth,

Dark falls twixt the cities,

And all her children scatter.

Woe to her mother.

Woe to the one who gave her birth.”

I paused a moment before I asked. “That’s you, isn’t Grandis Elfar? After all, you’re her advisor. You’re the one who birthed that child of darkness.”

Her slap rang across my face, so hard that it seemed to loosen my bones. I felt the whip wound open up again as hot fluid dripped down my cheek.

Chapter Sixteen

I didn’t have time to be shocked, didn’t have time to wonder if any part of me was going to survive unscathed after all of this was done. I reeled back and then the Grandis was whipping me, fury in her eyes.

Crack!

I threw my arm up over my face to protect it and felt the sharp agony of the whip’s snake-like strike on my arm. My Dragon Rider leathers squeaked as the leather pulled at them but they protected me from the worst of it.

I stole a glance at the Grandis from behind my arm. She’d turned her back to the battle below us and the Magikas guard was turning inward, too, focused on our private battle instead of the armies clashing below. Frustration and uncertainty painted the Grandis’ face as she channeled her emotions into her strikes.

Crack!

The whip shot out again, slashing across my ribcage.

Crack!

The leathers protected my skin from splitting, but each whipcrack was like a blow and this one knocked me backward. I barely managed to keep my balance on the crutch.

Crack!

This time the whipcrack hit my leg. Growls of appreciation escaped the nearest Magika. Grandis Elfar wasn’t the only one who needed a release for her pent-up emotions. If I could keep them off balance and focused on me, maybe I could distract them for long enough that they’d forget why they were really here.

The Grandis wasn’t speaking, but her face was red and her lips trembled as if she wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t form.

Crack!

This time, the whip wrapped around my crutch, pulling it out from under me. I crashed to the ground, barely breaking my own fall. My bad leg twisted under me awkwardly. Was it broken? I couldn’t feel if it was.

With the surge of urgency pulsing through me, I couldn’t feel much of anything.

I scrambled up, pressed the button on my crutch and with a flicking motion, I let the retractable end shoot out.

This time, when the tip of the whip snaked toward me, I caught it on the crutch and jerked it toward me.

The Grandis stumbled forward, her teeth gritted and a snarl on her face and she pulled back. I twisted to one side, carefully balancing on my crutch, and then pushing all my weight onto my good leg so I could pull the crutch to the side with a quick snap.

The Grandis cried out, startled as she tripped, falling to one knee, and finally freed her whip.

“I don’t have to wait a full hour, girl.” She pulled a wicked-looking curved knife as long as my forearm from a sheath at her belt and started forward again.

I moved into a defensive position, bracing myself against my crutch. The Grandis nodded to the Magika beside her and he nodded back. What-?

I tried to take a step back, but I was frozen in place. The smile on the Magika’s face was all I needed to see to know who was responsible. I didn’t need him to raise his glowing hand or wink at me – though he did.

The Grandis bounced the flat back of the knife across her other palm as she walked toward me.

In the distance, I could hear shouting. It seemed to be growing closer, but I couldn’t move to look at it, and my captors were preoccupied.

“I suppose I could wait the full hour before I finish you off,” Grandis Elfar said, speculatively. “You don’t need to be whole to work as bait, do you? After all, you aren’t whole now.”

If she thought that old insult had any power over me anymore, she could think again. I was so much more than the body I’d been given. I was so much more than the limitations others might try to put on me.  I wasn’t going to die a cowering cripple. I would never be that again. When she slit my throat with that knife, I would die a Purple Dragon Rider, human to the Prince of Dragons, married to Leng Shardson, Lightbringer.

In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have asked for more than that.

Yes! Yes! Finally, you get it!

When it’s done, get to Haz’drazen as quickly as you can and see if she can save you. And take care of Leng.

The Grandis raised the knife. Her eyes were so close that I could see my own face reflected in the pupils, I was proud that I looked so calm. I was ... wait ... was that ...?

Fire flashed past me, incinerating the Magika holding my bonds. I dove to the ground as screams and a howling wind of sudden flames filled the air around me.

I rolled to the side to see the Grandis running, the curved knife in her hand. She dodged a burning Magika leaving him to stumble off the edge of the platform with an agonized scream. But she wasn’t fast enough.

A golden blur flashed past me. Jalla and Renn rode Ahummal like angels of death. Ahummal’s tail smacked my shoulder and I flinched at the accidental hit, but my eyes grew wider as Jalla carefully drew her big sword.

She leaned out precisely from Ahummal – like a master clothier preparing to cut cloth – and then, in a single, decisive movement, she lopped the Grandis’ head off her running body.

Chapter Seventeen

I pulled myself to my feet, looking around me at the chaos. There wasn’t a guard or Magika still standing on the platform. I stood, alone, in a tiny clear spot between clouds of smoke. Behind me, the wooden towers roared in flames while Ahummal carefully flamed any part of them not already consumed.  No one ran to put out the fires. No one worked to assemble a counter-attack. Ahummal circled the platform and set down beside me.

“We’re even now,” Jalla said, flicking her blade to one side to shake the last drops of blood off it. “Twice blood sisters, but equal in debt. This alliance is going to be good for us!” She grinned, and my eyes widened. Only Jalla would find this amusing. Only Jalla wouldn’t even flinch after single-handedly devastating a pair of towers and a half a dozen Magikas! “Good job distracting them. The Snake Prince is going to be envious of my tally. He’s never taken down so many magic-users at one time.”

Was my mouth hanging open? Yes. I shut it quickly.

“Well, I don’t have time to sit and girl talk right now. We have a war to win and Renn is feeling ill.” He looked ill. His face was green and his hands gripped Ahummal’s reins like they were the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. If I had ever wished revenge on Renn for his betrayal and moral weakness ... well, he certainly looked like a man who was suffering. What would a lifetime of being married to Jalla be like?

Ahummal launched into the air and she was gone before I could thank her for saving my life or even ask her to carry me off the smoking platform. I gritted my teeth against the pain and hobbled to the stairs. If I waited too long, I’d run out of time. The tower end of the platform was already engulfed, black smoke swirling up through the leaping flames and embracing the sky.

I hurried down the steps and then stopped. Between me and any allies was an army of soldiers, generals, Magikas and Ifrits bent on my destruction. Now that I was on the ground, I’d lost perspective. Even the caged wagons were too far away to hobble to easily.

I watched as a squad of soldiers ran by, surrounding a Magika. His hands were alight with magical energy, and his intense gaze focused far away. In their wake, an Ifirit followed. I shrank back into the platform’s supporting stones. I didn’t want to catch his eye.

When they were past, I shuffled out from my hiding place, blinking at the obstacle before me. I couldn’t stay here – not with a fire raging behind me. No one was even bothering to fight it. They all had bigger worries.  I also couldn’t just stroll across a battlefield. I stood frozen, fear and worry clouding my mind.

A shadow fell over me.

I looked up, shielding my face with a hand, but all I saw was a dragon’s belly as he swooped over my head. He landed a few feet away.

Raolcan!

Amel!

Chains wreathed his neck, rattling as he settled onto the ground. His eyes, blind now, were also swathed with metal chains, as if they could lock up his vision with their metal weight.

I hurried to him, throwing my arms around his huge neck and nestling my cheek against his.

Sorry it took so long. It was hard to convince the guards to unlock the chains.

He managed that?

I’m not proud of it. We aren’t supposed to use our mental voices to manipulate humans.

I didn’t care about that. I only cared that he was alive and with me again. I tugged at the chains around his eyes.

Leave them. We have other things to deal with right now. Can you ride without a saddle?

If he was careful with me. And I could hold the chains, unless he thought that would hurt.

Don’t baby me. I’m not a weakling. Look at me! With these chains on me, I look twice as tough as ever! Those Reds and their gnarled scales don’t have anything on this chain look!

He still had his sense of humor.

I smiled, kissed his cheek and then hobbled to his side to mount. He helped me, pushing me up onto his back with the help of his snout.

I find that in life there are a lot of times where you can choose to either cry or laugh. I’d rather laugh.

In the middle of a battle?

Especially then!

With our lives in the balance?

What better time?

I laughed, too.

Okay, let’s show these dust demons what a blind dragon and lame rider can do!

Blind and lame ... that reminded me of something.

It should. It’s from the prophecies:

When the people of the earth sound horn of battle,

And the land trembles and is torn,

When the skies are rent in sorrow,

And the depths bring help no more,

Then the lame and the blind shall lead them,

And guide them from the storm.

We rose up into the air and I tried to orient myself to see what was happening in the chaos of the battle.  Jalla was flying back to her ranks. A White dragon – Enkenay! – closed in on Savette. Hubric ... where was Hubric? ... There! He was at the cages, a fleet of Sentries at his back. They were fighting the guards as a unit. That was something I’d never expected to see!

When my eyes settled on Starie – not far now from Savette – I almost froze. She looked like she was looking right at me despite the distance and the blindfold. She lifted the Pipe in the air and waved it at me before blowing it fiercely.

Uh oh.

Chapter Eighteen

Raolcan froze beneath me for a moment and we fell like a stone.

No, no, no, no!

His wings spread out suddenly, like a human who threw out his arms when he tripped to keep from falling face-first on the ground. and our descent eased. I scanned the sky, my heart rising into my throat as all around us, dragons dropped from the sky like meteors.

Hubric and Kyrowat had been close to the earth when they dropped, and the older dragon looked unharmed. Hubric scrambled off him, his movements frantic as he rushed to his dragon’s head.

I can’t hear their thoughts.

Everyone or just the dragons?

Just the dragons.

I could hear my own heartbeat pulsing in my head and my breath came quickly. Were they dead? I’d played that Pipe many times and never actually hurt the dragons ...

It was different. I don’t think they are dead. I think they are trapped ... it’s like they are behind stone doors I can’t access.

Stone doors?

Mentally.

We needed to join Hubric. We could decide what to do then.

Agreed.

Hubric took up a position at Kyrowat’s head, his short sword drawn and a fierce look on his face, though none of the guards around the cages was coming for him. They seemed as shocked as he was by the dragons’ fall. A pair of legs stuck out from under Kyrowat’s belly and an arm from under his neck. He must have crushed a pair of guards when he fell. How many other people had been crushed across the battlefield? I glanced behind me. Chaos ruled across the plains.

Keep your eyes ahead!

I snapped to obey the order.

It’s easier to see if I only have your mind to read. Easier than reading hundreds of minds at once. It means I can still talk to you and think about other things.

What else was he thinking about?

The kind of magic that can take the call of the Pipe and amplify it almost as if the dragons affected were mirrors facing each other, reflecting that one note over and over and over.

We were getting close to Kyrowat now and I gasped at his open eyes. Tears leaked from them, but he was unresponsive otherwise. Weren’t the eyes the mirror to the soul? Could Starie have somehow used her mirror magic to multiply the effects of the Pipe and to have them reverberate back and forth from one dragon to another and to another?

It’s a crazy thought, but not a bad explanation. After all, what do I have that none of these other dragons have?

Let me guess, ravishing good looks and a rapier wit.

True. But I was referring to blindness. She can’t use my eyes against me.

I had a flashback to Grandis Elfar refusing to meet Starie’s gaze. There was something to this theory. It had to do with the eyes. We needed to get that Pipe back from her before every dragon on this field of battle died. They were defenseless like this.

Raolcan landed close to Kyrowat. Hubric spun toward us, sword raised. His shoulders sunk with relief and his eyes closed for a moment when he saw us.

“Amel! Skies and stars, I thought you were dead! And that old lizard of yours, too!”

Sure. Pick on me when you know I can’t talk back because your dragon is unconscious.

“Is Kyrowat okay?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” he said, pointing to Kyrowat. “He just fell – they all did.”

His eyes narrowed when he looked at Raolcan.

“Starie,” I gasped, sliding off of Raolcan’s back to limp to the cages. The guards were down, the Sentries and their riders ringing the cages. “I think her mirror magic uses the reflection of their eyes.”

Hubric squatted down, staring Kyrowat in the eye. He waved a hand, but his dragon was unresponsive. He hung his head for a moment and then startled, tugging suddenly at the arm sticking out from under Kyrowat.

“Here. Ask Raolcan to give Kyro a push. I’m never gonna get this guy out otherwise.”

I frowned, watching him speechlessly. Had the old man mentally snapped with his dragon down and incapacitated?

Raolcan hissed a steamy laugh before leaning forward to help.

You forgot something, Amel, but Hubric didn’t. How do you open a cage?

“Ah! Here it is!” Hubric said, pulling the fallen guard out from under Kyrowat and tugging a leather strap from around his neck. “The key!”

I grabbed it from his hand and hurried to the first cage. Eluci was pressed against the door.

“Hurry!” she said, as I fumbled for the right key on the ring. “They took the others – Leng, Ashana, Peln.”

Around me, the buzz of the Sentries was making my hair stand on end, but they were the only ones standing between us and our enemies.

I’m still here ...

And my mighty dragon, of course. I found the key and slipped it into the lock, quickly opening the door. Eluci stumbled out of it and down to the ground and I shoved the keys in her face.

“Take the keys! I need to go stop this madness!”

“The war?” she looked aghast, as if I’d gone crazy in the hours since she’d seen me.

“No, what it’s doing to the dragons. Free the prisoners!”

I hobbled back to where Hubric was kneeling beside his dragon, holding Kyrowat’s snout in his hands. “Whatever magic this is – he can’t stay like this forever. It will kill him.”

I gripped his shoulder until he turned to me. “I’m going to find a way to stop it.”

He nodded.

“If I don’t make it back ...” I paused. “Leng is in the Observatory.” I pointed to the place where it hung beneath Dominion City. “He’s a prisoner there. So is Ashana.”

Hubric nodded, gripping my hand on his shoulder. “Go fix this, apprentice.”

I laughed. How long ago had it been since the day he adopted me as his apprentice and gave me this crutch.

It had only been a few months ago.

It felt like a lifetime.

“And don’t die!” he called as I mounted Raolcan carefully and we rose, again, into the sky.

Chapter Nineteen

Look! Do you see Starie?

I scanned the field of battle as we rose into the air. The battle raged on two fronts, the Dusk Covenant versus the Lightbringers at the very edge of the base of Sky City, and our Baojang allies versus the Dusk Covenant below Dominion City. Despite the sudden chaos born of dragons falling from the sky, the armies were already regrouping. A red flag unfurled from the Observatory – a sign of what, exactly? I didn’t know. It wasn’t hard to find Starie. I looked for the most chaotic spot of the battle. There! A nimbus of black light circled her.

The falling dragons had slowed her in her quest to meet Savette on the field of battle. Both of them were diverting from their paths, trying to move around fallen or dead dragons. I swallowed at the sight of an entire squad of soldiers climbing up on the rib cage of a White, slashing and hacking at those who passed below, as if the dragon were only higher ground and not a living thing.

There was something strange about the soldiers that Starie encountered on her way to fight Savette. They seemed confused ... disoriented.

She’s doing the same thing to them that she did to the dragons. She doesn’t have the Pipe to reach them all at once, but she uses the reflection in their eyes to amplify her power and to entangle them.

I swallowed. Who could resist a magic like that?

Savette can. Her eyes are so full of light that no darkness can enter there, and no reflection can be stolen from her.

What would happen when they met face to face? Would the world end then?

I doubt it. The world has seen evil and good meet before.

Before they met, I needed to get to her. We needed that Pipe. If the dragons were left like this, many more would die. I would not stand by and watch my friends die for no reason – and that included my dragon friends.

In that case, I need you to trust me.

I always trust you, Raolcan. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there when you were hurt. I’m sorry that you were taken captive when it should have been my tender care to help you, not the rough chains of enemies! I’m sorry that you’ve lost your eyes to save me.

I’m the worst thing for you, but you keep on loving me.

Amel, my dear girl, my spider. You need to remember something.

He was flying faster than I ever remembered flying so that it took almost all my concentration to hold on. The battlefield blurred beneath us.

What did I need to remember at a moment like this?

You need to remember that you are why I’m here. We’re in this together. Neither of us can succeed alone.

Succeed at what?

Victory. Now, enough of flashing that big heart around. I need you to trust me.

I do trust you!

Take off that lovely scarf that Leng gave you – the one around your waist.

How did he know it was lovely?

Allow me some assumptions. Tie it around your eyes.

Around my eyes? Then how would he fly?

After you tie it on, I’ll have to focus so I can navigate. You’ll hold one of these chains and drop down beside Starie and I’ll tell you what to do. You have to get that Pipe before she realizes that you’re above her. Are you able to do that?

I swallowed. a sour taste filling my mouth. Sweat broke out across my body. I wasn’t really the most athletic person...

You can do it. We’re almost there. Catch this chain!

He whipped his head in a complicated fashion and two of the dangling chains his captors had used to lead him whipped up beside me. I grabbed one of them in shaking hands and tucked it under my thigh to hold it in place while I got ready.

The blur of the armies below slowly came into focus as Raolcan slowed, curving in a spiral. My hand shook as I realized what I was going to do.

Scarf on!

I unraveled the scarf and quickly tied it around my eyes.

Hold on to the chain.

I wiped my hands on my leathers and then gripped it with both hands.

Could I do this?

I wasn’t sure.

You have to. It’s our only chance.

I could hear the chain rattling in my shaking hands, the din of the battle growing louder. Starie was shouting something over the rush of voices.

“Face me, Lightbringer! Face me and show the world that darkness overcomes light! Or are you trying to extend your life by seconds? I will catch you! You cannot run from my power!”

Jump!

I couldn’t ... I couldn’t ... I did!

The air whipped around me and I braced my grip for the impact. Even gripping as hard as I could my whole body jarred when I reached the end of the chain. Could my joints pop loose? It felt like some of them had. I swallowed back a cry, listening for directions.

Left! Reach to your left and grab!

I felt almost as if I had just missed someone.

She can read the edges of your thoughts. Don’t think, do!

I pawed the air with wild abandon. There was a shriek as I grabbed something to my left – hair! I tugged as hard as I could.

Yes! Now let go and feel for the strap around her neck!

I raked my hand across a face, ignoring the cursing and found the strap, gripping it as hard as I could. I felt the leather cord jerk up, and for a moment my arms screamed in pain as I was being pulled upward with one arm and pulling Starie upward with the other.  The sockets of my shoulders felt like they were ripping in two.

Then, all at once, the leather cord snapped, and I was swinging back and forth through the air on the end of the chain. I jammed the leather cord into my Dragon Rider leathers before feeling to see if the Pipe was there.

We had it!

I tugged my blindfold off and reached for the chain with my other hand. As I adjusted my grip, light surrounded me and with a clap like a thunderbolt, we were spinning through the air, tumbling end over end, my only link to Raolcan – to life – my grip on that snapping, whipsawing chain.

READ THE LAST CHAPTER of Amel’s story in Dragon School: Ascendant

Behind the Scenes:

USA Today bestselling author, Sarah K. L. Wilson loves spinning a yarn and if it paints a magical new world, twists something old into something reborn, or makes your heart pound with excitement ... all the better! Sarah hails from the rocky Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario -

learning patience and tenacity from the long months of icy cold - where she lives with her husband and two small boys. You might find her building fires in her woodstove and wishing she had a dragon handy to light them for her.

Sarah would like to thank Harold Trammel, Eugenia Kollia, and Sarah Brown for their incredible work in beta reading and proofreading this book. Without their big hearts and passion for stories, this book would not be the same.

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Dragon School Reading Order:

Dragon School: First Flight

Dragon School: Initiate

Dragon School: The Dark Prince

Dragon School: The Ruby Isles

Dragon School: Sworn

Dragon School: Dusk Covenant

Dragon School: First Message

Dragon School: Warring Promises

Dragon School: Prince of Dragons

Dragon School: Dark Night

Dragon School: Bright Hopes

Dragon School: Mark of Loyalty

Dragon School: Dire Quest

Dragon School: Ancient Allies

Dragon School: Pipe of Wings

Dragon School: Dragon Piper

Dragon School: Dust of Death

Dragon School: Troubled War

Dragon School: Bitter Darkness

Find them all on their Amazon series page.

Why Novellas?

I love watching television series. I don’t really like movies, because they’re simply too short of a story arc for me. I prefer long, drawn out stories in smaller, bite-sized episodes. Dragon School is my book version of the television dramas that I love. I’m writing the type of series I want to read – long and rich but with short episodes I can read in a single evening. I hope that you’ll enjoy this format as much as I do. I am planning approximately twenty episodes (we’re almost there!) for the first season. The first season will be a complete, self-contained story.

There is a second season planned for 2019 that will continue in the same world and timeline with a new main character and dragon. Many of the beloved characters from Dragon School will pop in and out of the story, so you won’t miss them too badly. Stay tuned for Dragon School: Chameleon!