Everyone in this building was a pious worshipper of the gods. She used them to cheat in races. She talked back to them when they tried to chastise her. If she weren’t the Childe Empyrean, she could never be a santi. There was a purity to their devotion that she lacked.
The High Santi met her at the top of the flared staircase, dressed in white robes cinched at the waist by a broad golden belt. His salt-and-pepper locs fell past his shoulders, the back half wrapped in a white crochet cap. Luckily, he seemed embarrassed by the display his novitiates had put on when she’d arrived. Instead of the usual fawning, he personally escorted her to the sunroom at her request, and she didn’t see another person on the way.
The sunroom door was open and waiting for her, heat already leaking into the otherwise cool hallway. There were sunrooms in every temple, one where the sun rose and one where the sun set. People prayed in them, and santi grew plants like mint and thyme in them, but they were mostly meant to be living examples of Irie’s power. The glass panes that made up the walls and ceilingamplified her sunrays, bringing life-giving heat to the herbs and drawing beads of sweat to the surface of her people’s skin like a biological sacrifice in her honor.
The High Santi ducked his head respectfully and then left Faron there alone. But, within seconds, she wasn’t anymore.
Obie appeared in his pure white suit, his hood drawn, as always. Next came Mala, her curls hovering like a cloud around her narrow face. And, finally, Irie shimmered into view, braids decorated by a golden crown.
“Hello, Empyrean,” Mala said brightly, floating forward to pull Faron into her arms. Affectionate and bubbly, Mala was always the first to take advantage of the fact that the pious power of temple grounds allowed the gods a rare measure of corporeality. Faron only came up to her knees, but she never cared. “How may we help you?”
Irie stared icily through the glass walls of the sunroom. “I can feel them.”
Even if Faron hadn’t seen her expression, she would still know that Irie was talking about the Langlish miles away at Pearl Bay Palace. Irie had once explained that the gods had neither the interest nor the ability to intervene in every war of man, but Langley oppressed the island with tools that had escaped from the divine plane where all the gods of every religion resided. It was no longer one country’s magic against another.
It was a problem that deities had created, and thus a problem the Iryan deities had to help solve.
“I need your help,” Faron said. “And my sister needs your help. There was this voice… This dragon… And then—”
“Oh, Empyrean, hold your tears.” Mala gave her one last squeeze before she rejoined the line of gods. “Tell us what happened.”
The story spilled from Faron like water through the cracks in a dam, trickling at first and then pouring out in an unstoppable deluge. The Summit. The screams. The dragon attack. She shook as she described almost drowning her sister, how shewould havedrowned her sister and never noticed until it was too late. And then the voice, that stupid voice, talking her through taking command of the dragon’s soul. Helping her end the attack without bloodshed.
In contrast, it took only a few seconds to summarize everything that Commander Warwick had said about the Fury and Elara’s fate. By the time she finished speaking, Faron was ready to collapse from emotional exhaustion.
And none of the gods looked happy.
“The problem is that you are trying to break a bond without killing anyone involved,” said Irie. “It is an impossible task, Empyrean. Dragons choose Riders whose souls are made of the same celestial material as their own, and the bond fuses that ethereal matter together to create a channel between them to share power, emotions, and thoughts. Your sister’s soul is inextricable from that of her dragon and her co-Rider, because their souls are the same. That is the very basis of the dragon bond.”
It took everything Faron had to keep from screaming. “My sister doesnothave the same soul as adragon. That’s impossible. She’s Iryan. Why would you—How could you have allowed this?”
“We cannot affect the mortal realm except through proxies like you. Yes, we created your world, but we did not create the dragons, and they are now on a different plane than—”
“There has to besomething. Please, give mesomething. That voice—” Three sets of faces closed off in an instant. Faron’s heart stuttered. “You know who that voice belongs to.”
Irie sighed. “Empyrean, you need to understand. If this voice belongs to the being we suspect it does, you and your world are in grave danger—”
“Whoishe?” Faron demanded. “He’s reached out to me twice now, and all he’s done is help me.”And, she thought but didn’t say,he made me feel powerful.
“He was the one who taught the founders of the Langlish Empire how to bond with dragons and how to ride them,” said Mala. “They may have forgotten his name, but they still worship him as a god, even though his regard for them is nonexistent.”
Faron’s eyes widened, though she couldn’t truly say she was surprised. How else could that voice know so much about dragons? How else could he have helped her soothe one? Iryans knew as much about dragons as they knew about the clouds; there were scientific theories, but no one had ever gotten close enough outside of a drake to really know anything for sure.
“We have no proof of it,” Mala continued, “but I suspect that his reappearance might be a symptom of the Fury that you speak of. He is the one who opened the door that brought dragons into your world, and it would be just like him to originate a problem with them and then put a hefty price on returning to fix it.”
Which meant that itcouldbe fixed. If this man had taught the Langlish how to bond with dragons, then surely he knew how to break that same bond. If this man had created the Fury, then surely he knew how to cure it. Her sister’s life hung in the balance, and all Mala was doing was confirming that the answers Faron sought were in the hands of the same voice the gods were trying to warn her away from.
“Ishe a god?” she asked. “Can I summon him the way I summon you? What’s his name?”
“He would call himself a god, and in many ways his powers are equal to our own,” Irie said. “But his name is irrelevant. He was born a man, and a duplicitous one at that. If he is talking to you, whatever he tells you will be a lie to get what he wants.”
“But, unlike you, he can affect the mortal world? So doesn’t that make him the more powerful god?”
Obie was a silent ghost behind Irie, but Mala looked stricken by Faron’s words.
“Faron, dragons are creatures with cosmic power. They were never meant to be in this realm. The Fury is beyond anyone’s ability to create or control at this point. We think, in fact, that this is a sign the creatures have overstayed their welcome.” Mala said this as if she were trying to calm a toddler. “The way forward is clear. Once, we came to you to be the Childe Empyrean and save San Irie from the dragons. Now we must call on you to save the world from them.”
It was a moment that Faron had always known, at the back of her mind, would come. The war was over, but the gods had never left. For all their complaints that she used their powers for trivial things, the gods were seemingly content to be at the beck and call of a teenager who had done her duty.
