“Yes.” Jhiton leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
His wound probably pained him more than the conversation, but Vorik regretted that his brother’s sense of duty had him here, standing upright when he should be resting.
Vorik turned to look at the assembled chiefs, groping for a way to finish his talk in a manner that would leave them inclined to vote for a cessation of hostilities.
The storm god is rising,the voice of a dragon boomed into their minds. Ozlemar.It is time.
“What?” Silently, Vorik added,Agrevlari?
Another dragon has arrived with information,Agrevlari replied.Apparently, he stayed behind at the Island of Eliok, out of sight of the queen and her ships, to monitor the situation. He says he sensed the power around the volcano growing stronger and believes the dragons succeeded in the ritual they performed to call to the storm god. As the greatest of his creations, they believed they had the power to reach him and draw him back to this world. It seems they were correct.
They performed a ritual? That’s information you failed to give me earlier.
I’m only learning of it now. Since you disobeyed orders, I’ve not been kept in the know.
All the dragons must go to him,Ozlemar boomed.To our creator, he who made dragons, he who knows dragons should rule the world and hunt wherever they please.
Numerous people exchanged uneasy looks with each other. The stormers had been allied with dragons for a long time, and those dragons had always openly spoken of their love forhunting and their desire to access the Kingdom islands, but Vorik hadn’t heard many speak ofruling the world.
Jhiton turned to walk away from the meeting.
“Where are you going?” Vorik called after him.
The storm god calls,Jhiton replied telepathically.
To the dragons, maybe, but not to us. He hates humans, and we don’t worship him. We certainly don’t answer his beckons.
The power that he’d sensed before again flared up and roiled off Jhiton. When he gave Vorik a long look back over his shoulder, it was in his eyes, like swirling dark clouds.
Deeper unease pooled in Vorik’s gut as Jhiton disappeared into the tunnel. Whoever had just left… Vorik didn’t think it was his brother, not fully. Maybe it wasn’t Jhiton at all. Maybe he’d died in that mine, and this was… Vorik didn’t know what this was.
It was deep in the night, with rain continuing to fall and Wreylith complaining that she needed to hunt and replenish her reserves, before she’d excavated enough rock to reveal the shielder chamber. Perhaps feeling triumphant after completing the arduous task, she threw her head back on her long neck and roared.
A muffled scream of concern came from below.
“Aunt Tibby?” Syla thought she recognized that voice.
The scream stopped as Syla crept to the edge of the great hole Wreylith had cleared and peered down. The lava tube that they’d once walked through to reach the chamber was unrecognizable. As they’d guessed, the door was jammed partway open, rubble half-filling it. It was Fel rather than Tibby who poked a head out.
“Thank the gods,” he said.
Wreylith lowered her head to gaze down at him.
“And your dragon,” he added.
Syla and Teyla climbed down to join Fel and peer through the doorway. The chamber, lit by two lanterns burning on the floor,wasrecognizable. Other than some rubble that had pushed in around the entrance, it appeared unchanged from the last time Syla had been there.
Aunt Tibby knelt beside the new shielder. No longer wrapped in canvas, it was mounted between the silver branches of the frame, as the other had been, and appeared little different from the original, though it didn’t yet glow like a moon. Thinking again of that long lightning strike, Syla worried the shielder might not work, but she was relieved Tibby and Fel were all right.
“That air is wonderful.” Fel tilted his face toward the sky.
“It smells of sulfur and electricity and rain,” Syla said.
“And dragon breath,” Tibby added, pushing herself to her feet, “but the air down here was getting stale, so we’ll take it. Come, lend me your hand, Syla. This might go better with two people to activate it, and the heir in particular.”
Syla did so, leaving Fel to stand guard. “Did you try to activate it before?”
“Yes, but a great crack and boom came from above, and the magic seemed to… retreat. That’s the word that comes to mind. Then the roof caved in, and I didn’t blame the magic for going into hiding.”
