“That machine is an abomination!” Turgov pointed at the harmonizer. “Magic is meant to be free, not regulated. And now it will be. You have lost, King Falken. The Silver Rot—a disease born of your people's arrogance—has brought down the city. It will spread into every magical item until Eberein is clean and can return to using magic as it's meant to be used.”
I frowned in thought. “That ward plate was from the old armory, but you have to be a Dragon to gain entry. How did you get inside?”
Turgov preened, sending smug glances at his friends. “As I said, we are Imago. All we needed was a little piece of a Dragon—in this case, a hair taken from a knight's jacket—and we created a spell to change one of us into a Dragon. The effects are brief, but they worked long enough to get us into the armory.”
The Dragon knights shared worried looks.
But the Dragon King didn't care, and I knew why. He was going to kill these sorcerers.
“You have failed, you fool!” Falken shouted. “We’ve already destroyed the machine. The Silver Rot is over. Yes, we will have to eliminate every contaminated item, but the city will recover.”
“And now that we know it wasn't the harmonizer at fault, we can build a new one,” I added. “Things can return to the waythey were. We don't even have to worry about the rest of the kingdom.”
Falken shot me a grin.
“No! The machine will spread—”
A cracking sound cut him off as the machine collapsed in on itself. I'd been hiding the inward spread of the reagent, but now it was obvious.
I grinned at Turgov. “You lose.”
“No!” Turgov flung his hand out. A slim dagger flew across the space between him and the King. Magic wreathed the metal, and it hit Falken in the chest.
As the other sorcerers attacked, two knights pulled the King back, his body crunching through the silver heaps on the ground. The rest of the Dragon knights moved forward to protect their king, and the horns joined them. But sorcerers weren't just magic-users. They had control over occult forces and spirits. Even as the knights bashed into the ranks of sorcerers, unseen entities battered, electrified, and carried them away. The Dragons were trying to fight magic with might, and it wasn't working.
“Use your Fire and Water!” I shouted at the Dragons as I ran for Falken.
The sounds of the battle dulled as I dropped to my knees beside Falken. His eyes were closed, and his chest was barely moving. The wound was on the right side of his chest. It hadn't hit his heart, but it was bleeding profusely. A knight had both of his hands pressed onto the wound, but blood seeped through hisfingers. When the knight looked up at me, there were tears in his eyes.
“Keep that pressure firm!” I dumped the contents of my satchel onto the floor.
Screams came and smoke rose. The whoosh of water followed the clunk of swords hitting flesh. The Dragons were using their magic. Good. I could focus on the King.
“There it is!” I grabbed the little jar I kept for emergencies. Frantic, I jerked the cork out. “Move!”
The knight lifted his hands, and I dumped the entire jar onto the King's wound. Immediately, the blood clotted. It was a temporary fix, but that's all a Dragon needed.
Cackling, a spirit dove at us and picked up the knight who'd been holding the King's wound. Bloody hands flailing, the knight fought his incorporeal opponent. You can't hurt something that's already dead, but you can hurt the one who summoned it. I searched the battlefield and found an Argaiv man with his attention locked on the hovering knight.
“Him!” I pointed at the man. “Burn him!”
The other knight with me instantly sent a column of fire at the sorcerer. With him focused on his attack, he didn't see it coming and didn't act to protect himself. Flames engulfed him, and his screams quickly faded. As he died, the spirit laughed and vanished, dropping the knight to the floor. The knight jumped to his feet, gaze searching the air, and then rushed back to us.
I brushed the hair back from Falken's face. He still wasn't awake, but he was breathing, and the wound was closing.
“What's wrong? Why isn't he waking up?” The returned knight looked frantically from the King to me and back.
“I think the magic may have put him in stasis.” I fumbled among my scattered bottles and jars until I found the elixir I wanted. “Open his mouth.”
A knight pulled off the King's mask and pried open his mouth while I uncapped the bottle. Covering the opening with a finger, I turned the bottle over so that only a drop coated my fingertip. Then I brushed the elixir over Falken's tongue and quickly capped the bottle. The stuff was precious. The knight closed the King's mouth, and we all watched the King.
“Come on, Falken!” I shook his shoulder. “Falken!” Trembling in fear, I tore off my mask, cast it aside, and bent to kiss him. Drawing back, I whispered in his ear. “You are not allowed to die. I haven't finished deciding who you are to me.” I sat up. “Now, wake up!”
Falken inhaled sharply as he sat up, startling his knights into jerking back.
“Holy shit, that worked?” I whispered.
He looked at me, ignoring his wound. “You haven'tdecided?”
