“What happened to them?” Romie asked.
Something changed between them. Where they had once existed as peaceful allies, they became ruthless foes. Death followed in their wake. Eldritch were pitted against dragons. The world became a battlefield, scorched in fire and blood. When the Night Bringer and the Sun Forger looked at the destruction they had wrought and realized they were to blame for it, all they felt was remorse. Sothey forced each other to venture into the underworld, where they would slumber in exile as penance for what they had done.
The world started to heal without them in it. But now it has started all over, an evil spreading across the world like wildfire. They say the Night Bringer has risen. But if the Sun Forger still slumbers beneath the earth, there is an imbalance in the world, and this chaos that is unfolding can only be stopped by waking the Sun Forger. Restoring balance.
Romie and Nisha exchanged a glance. This sounded eerily like the myth about the Tides and the Shadow and how they’d been sent to the Deep.
“I’m afraid the Forger is dead,” Tol said mournfully.
Dead?Gwenhael echoed.Why do you say such a thing?
“I’m light-blessed. Touched by the Forger,” Tol explained. “I’ve always had a connection with her, and I felt the moment her heart stopped. It was right here, on the day the knights chained you and threw me in a cell for breaking an empty oath.”
Romie glanced at Aspen, wondering if he was confusing the witch’s presence in his mind for this connection to the divine.Aspen’sheart had stopped only a few days ago, when the demon tore a rib from her chest, right before Emory healed her back from the brink of death.
The Sun Forger cannot be dead, the dragon said.I feel her energy in this very room.
Confusion and hope warred on Tol’s face. “How can that be?”
She lives on in you.
“But I can’t feel her. Not like before.”
That band around your neck is like the one around mine. An old magic used on dragons and draconics and eldritch alike to sever us from our makers’ magic. That is why you cannot shift into your draconic form, and why I cannot regenerate my heart-flame and burn my way to freedom.
“If the Forger is alive,” Romie said, a suspicion forming in her mind, “can you tell us where to find her?”
I do not know where she slumbers. But there are those who might. Those who follow the old ways and uphold their vows to the dragons they serve. If you free me, I can take you to them.
“These chains are unbreakable,” Tol despaired. “Made by the alchemists out of the most solid metals.”
“Is there any water nearby?” Virgil asked. This earned him several confused looks. He rolled his eyes at them. “For bloodletting, obviously. Any metal can r—”
The sound of a sword being unsheathed had them turning to see the Knight Commander. Her armor was stained dark with eldritch blood. She looked at Tol with disappointment. “I should have known this is where I’d find you. I see you haven’t come to your senses, even after all this?”
Tol practically shook with anger. “After you proved the Fellowship to be rooted in brutal lies and dishonor, chained me up for stumbling on the truth, and sent me to my death for breaking a binding magical oath that never existed, to beasts that are supposed to besacredbut instead are tortured?”
The Knight Commander sighed. “I always feared that empathy of yours would get us here one day. But I gave you the chance to live, Anatolius. You chose to side with beasts instead of your own family. You rejected the Fellowship’s way, so its secrets must die with you.”
Tol seemed to fight back angry tears. “What kind of family treats their own like that?”
“A strong one. A family that knows their enemy well and will do anything to triumph over it.” She held up her sword. “If you don’t stand with us, Anatolius, then I’m afraid you stand against us.”
Tol’s sword remained limp in his hand. “You were like a mother to me. I don’t want to fight you.”
“Then I’ll leave you no choice.”
There was a lethal flash of gold as the Knight Commander pounced and Tol’s blade just barely lifted in time to meet hers. Movement caught Romie’s eye. Virgil was kneeling next to a puddle of water at the dragon’s foot, either because he had a death wish—
Or because he was calling on death itself.
Before their eyes, the chains holding the dragon rusted through until they became completely withered. With a deafening, bellowing roar, Gwenhael snapped its neck up, the chains breaking—dissolving—as easily as a pile of ash might disappear on a sudden wind.
And then the dragon lowered its mouth to them, white-hot flames building at the back of its throat.
41BAZ
“IDON’T LIKE THIS.”
