Chapter Nineteen

Sanna and Luteis fell into Letum Wood

Leaves whipped past them as they dropped, and branches cracked beneath his heavy, limp body. She remained stuck to him, still merged, alive because he bore the brunt of the fall.

Finally, a nest of vines snagged them, slowing their rapid descent and taking her breath away. Luteis sprang up and down in their thick grasp. One at a time, the vines encircled his body, cradling him. Slowly, they lowered Luteis and Sanna to the ground. Branches moved out of the path on their own, and leaves shifted to make way.

Sanna stared from Luteis’s shoulder as they passed through the trees, descending past branches and fresh growth. The ride down seemed to take forever, the vines lengthening until Sanna feared they would snap.

Finally, they eased onto the ground. She leapt free.

“Luteis!”

His face lay slack and inert on the black soil. She touched his snout, his neck, his ears.

“Wake up! Demmet, Luteis. Wake up!”

He didn’t stir. No amount of pressing, shoving, or yelling made his eyes flutter. Sanna ran to his chest and pressed her ear to it. A faint sound. The distant, final throes of a mighty, booming heart protesting like a weak kitten. She closed her eyes, panting as she searched. Luteis said they shared magic. Perhaps she could use it. Revive him. Bring him …

The merging was gone.

“No!” she screamed, shoving away.

Several startled birds flapped out of a nearby bush, squawking. Sanna caught a sob halfway out of her throat.

“Luteis, no.”

Beneath her hands, his heartbeat had slowed. Blood pooled around his tail, spilling from his half-mangled back leg. The gaping hole had torn his mighty wing in half. Blood trickled from a wound in his neck, cascading in rivulets of deepest cobalt.

“Luteis!” She slammed a fist into his meaty shoulder. “Come on. Fight! Fight to live. We still have to kill Talis. Egads. You’re the only friend I have!”

A flicker of life stirred, then faded. For a moment, she thought she heard a whisper in her mind, a parting word. It faded like a wraith. Darkness broke out across her vision. She fell to her knees with a cry. Her breath vanished. Her heart thrummed like a hummingbird, threatening to pull her into a great chasm of darkness. At the last moment, Sanna pulled away, breaking the last threads of the merge with whatever life ebbed away from Luteis.

“No!”

Sobs filled her scorched throat. She slapped a blistered hand onto his flank. His chest had fallen silent. In desperation, she climbed on top of him and put her hands over the blood leaking from his neck. The pulses had slowed to a trickle.

The blood hissed when she touched it. The heat tore through her arm, but she locked her hand in place with a shout of pain.

“Heal! Mori, Luteis. Whatever magic it takes, I give. I-I don’t know how … maybe … come on!”

Sanna plunged deep into her thoughts, seeking the small puddle of power she’d felt on their initial merge. She searched the darkness, rummaged through every possible thought, every source of hidden power, but it wasn’t there. Nothing. Her body slowed. Her energy flagged.

She fell, leaning back against his scales. Without the merge, his body burned hot. Blisters broke out along the bottoms of her feet, and pain seared through her hand. A sob slipped out of her throat as she dropped to the ground.

A deep, mourning silence settled on Letum Wood.

Sanna’s tear sizzled on his scales as she pulled away. She dropped to her knees next to him and gave in to the sobs, pressing her forehead to the ground. The cries tore from her raw throat in giant, wrenching gasps. She’d lost her whole family. Isadora. Mam. Daid. Now Luteis. There would be no defeating Talis. There would be nowhere to go. No place for safety. For love. For family. No dragon to scoff at her. No canopy. No more Letum Wood.

Her fingers curled into the steaming blood as it mixed with the earth, soaking deep into the loam. A tiny plant unfurled, springing to life with a budding leaf. She stared at it with teary eyes.

“Luteis,” she whispered. “Please don’t go.”

A spark of light moved at the edge of Sanna’s vision. A stray fairy, come to see the ruckus, no doubt. She ignored it until it fluttered past again. Then again.

With a snarl, she straightened.

“Get aw—”

She fell against Luteis with a gasp.

The trees glimmered.

Iridescent light spread through the branches and trunks, teeming like a bright, wild thing. It ran through the roots until the ground beneath her pulsed with rays that broke through the rich soil like tiny capillaries. Roots snaked through the earth and paused near her hand. A whole army of them stopped, as if staring at her.

As if waiting.

She swallowed. She’d seen this light before. What felt like an eternity ago, in Letum Wood, while staring at a tree.

Deasylva.

Sanna hesitated, then reached out and touched the inquisitive root closest to her. Power shot into her body like a bolt of lightning. She fell back with a cry, but the root had wrapped around her wrist. Her entire body turned to flame. She screwed her eyes shut as energy sang through her blood. It filled her with light and vision and extraordinary power. Her body trembled with the force of holding it back.

She opened her eyes and held out a quaking hand. The veins appeared like dark, bruised rivers against the backdrop of light in her flesh. Any moment now, the glittering magic would burst through her skin. Twinkling from the inside out, Sanna planted a hand on Luteis’s flank. Without being told, she knew what to do.

“Heal,” she cried. “Heal, Luteis.”

She pictured the sinews of his body knitting back together. The blood multiplying and filling his veins again. His heart beating a steady tempo. His lungs filling with sweet forest air. The muscles of his wing rejoining in a scar-less marriage.

The power rippled through her in streams of light, flowing from the roots and into his broken body. She gritted her teeth and channeled the storm into Luteis with a guttural yell. The weight threatened to crush her. The magic bound itself to her body, burrowing deep into her bones until she didn’t know herself without it.

“Heal!”

Luteis absorbed the light. It swirled through his body in eddies of power, restoring scales, muscle, and tissue. His neck drew back together. Light sprinted along the edge of his wing and down the middle, pulling it into a seamless membrane. The pain in Sanna’s leg faded. Her lungs stopped burning. The magic whisked away every ache.

All around them, Letum Wood burned with white-hot power. Luminescence glimmered from every surface, coating the leaves, the earth, the trees with its radiance.

The torrent slowed. One of the roots released her. Then another. They slithered back into the ground like retracting vines. Her body jarred, set free.

Sanna collapsed.

Luteis’s chest expanded in a deep breath just as the last vestiges of magic whipped through him. Sanna blinked slowly once, twice, and finally pushed off the ground with the last of her strength.

“Luteis?”

His left wing twitched, then his right. They rose like giant specters, completely whole. His legs stretched, as though waking from a long, lazy sleep. He growled deep in his chest, a thick, cavernous sound that rumbled through the forest. A bright, yellow-moon eye shot open.

He leapt to his feet.

Strength radiated from him, as though Deasylva’s magic infused his very bones. He was more than Luteis now. He was sheer strength and might and determined ability. Fire illuminated his eyes as surely as it blasted from his mouth. His tail, without blemish, whipped over, wrapping gently around her ankle. He leaned close, then pressed his face to her chest, right over her pounding heart. He closed his eyes.

I have returned.

She reached out for him. His scales felt cool to the touch. Sanna pressed her forehead against his. They remained there for a long, breathless moment.

“I’m sorry, Luteis. I—”

It is already forgiven.

“You were right, though. You suffered all of that because of me. I shouldn’t have—”

Stop, Sanna of Anguis. The fault is not entirely yours. He pulled back, studying the trees. They still glimmered like stardust. How much time has passed?

“It’s hard to tell. An hour? Two? Less?”

You have saved me.

“Not really.”

You could not have been a conduit if not worthy of Deasylva’s power.

New strength filled her with every passing moment. She suspected there were injuries she’d known nothing about that were now banished forever. She glanced down at her body, still glowing. No blisters. No scratch marks. Breathing didn’t cause her pain.

“What happened, Luteis? You died. I mean … maybe I should have died too.”

He bowed his head.

Deasylva has healed both of us.

“But why?”

For her own purposes, no doubt. She does not often justify herself to me. She does not have to.

“But—”

Suffice it to say, we are alive. We have one more chance to defeat Talis.

“Luteis, it was horrible. I couldn’t do anything. Talis and Thyris were destroying you, and I had to just sit there. I … we can’t win if that’s all we have. You said there was magic, but I don’t know it! And maybe I could have—”

He lowered his head. It is time for me to be honest, for I have not been entirely open with you. Neither of us is blameless.

“You’ve lied?”

In that I have not told you all.

“All right,” she whispered. “I’m listening now.”

Close your eyes.

She obeyed. Her thoughts shifted into a gossamer, dark world. An expanseless void filled with an occasional whisper, a flicker of shadow. Muted light suffused the world outside, interrupted by vein-like ribbons of blue.

Me, he said. Within my egg. My first memory. I heard and still remember things from my time growing within. My mam’s voice. Talis. Other dragons who I believe are dead now.

The strange backdrop faded, replaced by a burgundy dragon. Beautiful, lithe, with scales infused with deep, glimmering purple. No horns—a female. Her eyes were intelligent, sharp as flint and quick as time. Something familiar lived in the angular pitch of her nose, the ridge along her back. She crouched over a copper-tinted egg.

Luna, Luteis said. My mam.

“Oh,” Sanna breathed.

I do not remember her. Deasylva has given me this image. Luna heard Deasylva’s call and escaped from Talis’s grasp. She lay me while in the forest, learning more about Deasylva. Talis found her and attempted to convince her to return and be his mate. That is when I heard his voice for the first time. It was far away, but I still remember it.

“He wanted Luna to be his mate?”

A most powerful position.

Especially considering that dragons didn’t typically mate for any length of time. The picture of Luna faded into another. Talis stood over her, looming and furious. She didn’t cower.

“She said no, didn’t she?”

She refused to return. He killed her.

“What happened to you?”

Deasylva protected me.

In her mind, Sanna saw a vine descend to the egg, rolling it gently into the notch of a tree root. Leaves and mud rose up, covering the egg in a protective layer. Branches moved aside, allowing a ribbon of sun to fall on it, warming the moist earth. Days and nights passed. Eventually, a tiny nose broke through the shell. A dragon the size of Sanna’s arm climbed free one limb at a time. He blinked against the light, tipping his head back. Searching, no doubt, for a mam who wasn’t there.

Her heart cracked. Such a sweet hatchling. Alone from the very beginning.

A feeling of soul-deep loneliness swept through her, nearly consuming her in its strength. Bringing with it the realization that she wasn’t in some void—she was in Luteis’s mind. The depths of his soul. Accessing the most hidden, treasured parts of his heart. Somehow, he could share this with her. Was this the magic of the merging? Or only a glimpse of it?

Sanna opened her eyes, meeting his intense gaze. Hints of Luna lurked in his eyes, in his bright, teeming intelligence.

“Luteis, I’m sor—”

I know your heart. Now you know mine as well. This is what I should have shared with you from the beginning. Because I held back, we could not truly merge. Deasylva says we have now completed our merging.

“But I still don’t know the magic.”

Not yet, no. We must defeat Talis without it.

“Then what’s changed?”

You are the only witch in all of Antebellum who has earned Deasyvla’s trust and fully merged with a dragon.

She shrugged. “So?”

You, Sanna of Anguis, are now the High Dragonmaster.

Isadora hurled a blast of light.

The ball spiraled into the West Guard’s chest and threw him back. His hand released her. Baylee and Isadora scrambled back as the two other West Guards advanced, creating a v-formation. The cursed West Guard lying in the bits of broken glass groaned, welts the size of Isadora’s hand ballooning across his arms.

“Isadora,” Baylee whispered. “What now?”

“Leave us alone,” Isadora shouted, but her voice trembled. The Guards laughed, deep, rolling chuckles that rippled with menace. Isadora backed into the post of a staircase, halting. Baylee grabbed her arm.

“On three, we run,” Isadora whispered.

Baylee nodded once.

The West Guard reached out, touching Isadora’s hair. He spoke to the others in a different language. They laughed again.

“Three!” Isadora cried. She spun and sprinted back the way they’d come. Just as they closed in on the cellar door, a hand grabbed her wrist, wrenching her back. She fell with a cry.

“Run!” she screeched.

Baylee paused over the cellar door, eyes wide. The West Guard shoved Isadora down, stomping on her back with a heavy boot. Her spine popped. He pushed his weight down until all the air left her lungs in a long rush. Her vision swam.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “You won’t feel a thing.”

A scream gathered in her throat. She tried to push up with her hands, but he increased the pressure on her back.

“I was just about to say the same thing, you wretched swine.”

Maximillion’s voice came from just behind the West Guard. A resounding crack tore through the room. The Guardian toppled, head smacking the corner of the wall before he slid to the ground. His chin hit the floorboard with a sickening sound.

Baylee rushed to Isadora and yanked her up. Isadora sputtered, gasping. Her right side burned. The splotches of black in her vision cleared, revealing Maximillion a few paces away, a heavy bottle of wine in his hand and his hair askew. The other West Guards lay writhing on the floor under a spell, their hands bound by thick lengths of rope.

“Hurry,” he said, tossing the wine aside. It shattered in a mauve spray, coating the floor like blood. “We need to get out of here.”

Her chest still aching and breath shallow, Isadora obeyed, leaning on Baylee for help when her head began to swim again. Maximillion led them to the back of the store, then out a slim door that led into a side alley.

“The school,” she panted. “We have to … check on the other girls. I-I think something is going to happen. But…”

“You think?” he snapped. “The same way you thought it would be a good idea to go out the front door?”

“I saw it!”

“You don’t know what you saw! I haven’t trained you in interpreting the paths yet. What were you thinking?”

Isadora scowled, but her reply trailed away, lost in her own doubts. She’d been so certain that the paths had been right—that she’d seen the way out. It had been so strong. But it had been wrong. If not for Maximillion … she shook her head.

“All the same, we need to go back to the school.”

Maximillion scowled and slipped into his magic but didn’t disagree when he returned. His jaw tightened.

“If there’s one left. Let’s go.”

Heat from burning buildings surged over them as they wound through the map of alleys. In a rush, they spilled out onto the road by the candy shop. Behind them, Berry smoldered. Shops flickered with sickly green and yellow flames.

A West Guard rounded the corner, but Maximillion set a curse on him. The Guard countered it, but the three of them had already faded into the shadows by the time he recovered. Isadora’s smarting chest loosened, allowing her almost a full breath as they hurried down the dirt road.

When they made it back to the school, terrified girls streamed in and out, hauling their few possessions onto the lawn. Smoke billowed from the back of the building. Maximillion paused, arms held out to stop them. Seconds later, he whipped around.

“Gather the girls and go! Run into Letum Wood. Now!”

He shoved through the congregated girls on the lawn and darted into the school. Baylee split off toward the young twins, who sat on a bench, shoulders hunched with sobs. An explosion erupted at the back of the house.

The girls skittered into a panic, rushing onto the street. Sophie called for them to come to her side, her hair a ragged, tangled mess. Isadora sprinted into the school and called Maximillion’s name.

Once she stepped inside, the magic tugged her back into itself under its own power. A black mist settled over the trees, filling all the paths. With a growl, she slipped back out, grabbed a young girl on the staircase, and turned toward the front door just as Maximillion rushed down the stairs, another girl in tow.

“What are you doing?” he yelled. “I told you to leave!”

“I came to help. The explosion—”

He growled and shoved past her. “Out the back,” he said to the two girls. “Run into Letum Wood. Now!”

While the two girls ran off ahead, Isadora followed Maximillion. She skidded to a stop on the porch with a gasp. West Guards filled the yard, each holding a girl with an arm across her throat. Baylee’s mouth opened in a livid scream as she struggled against her captor, but nothing came out.

Maximillion stepped forward with a snarl.

“You have a fight with the Central Network, Dostar, and you’re holding innocent young girls hostage? A fitting tribute to the High Priest of such a vile place.”

The largest West Guard, a beefy, sprawling man with arms like tree trunks, stepped out of the crowd. His beard flowed onto a bare chest in three sharp points, like half a star. Loose, white linen pants hugged his hips, billowing in waves to his ankles. His teeth gleamed. He held a curved, thick sword.

Dostar, Isadora thought frantically. Dostar.

An article from the Chatterer came back to her in an instant. The High Priest of the Western Network. Dostar.

“We have business with you and your new Highest Witch,” he said in a crisp, enunciated accent.

“Take it to the castle,” Maximillion snapped. “You don’t bring the fight to a farming village that can’t defend itself. If you’re going to fight, fight with honor, you insolent cow.”

“Honor?” Dostar barked with laughter. “There’s no witch in Antebellum more insulting than you.”

“Only to those that deserve it, you swine.”

“Honor is something neither you nor your High Priestess would know anything about.”

“Well,” Maximillion said with a cool gaze. “Seems like you’ve taken care of that problem, haven’t you? Meet me on fair ground, coward, or you’ll discover what my wrath can bring upon you and your witches.”

“You’re not the Highest Witch.”

“I don’t have to be.”

A sickly green mist sprang into the air. It snaked into the faces of the West Guards in thin funnels, avoiding all the girls. The West Guards coughed, choking, releasing the girls, who scrambled away.

“Enough!” Dostar cried.

The mist dissipated. Maximillion took two steps forward with a growl. “There’s more of that if you really want to fight me right here.”

Maximillion’s hard gaze didn’t waver, although Isadora’s knees threatened to give out just looking at Dostar. After what felt like an eternity, the High Priest relaxed.

“Chatham Castle. One hour. I will meet you there with that idiot Charles to negotiate an agreement, or the rest of my Network will descend and kill your witches in their sleep.”

Maximillion nodded once.

“An hour.”

Four of the West Guards moved forward, flames blossoming from their hands in glowing petals of emerald fire. They lobbed them into the air. Isadora held up an arm, protecting her eyes from the flash of light. Glass shattered, falling to the ground in shards as flames bit into the school. With one last insolent bow from the High Priest, the amassed West Guards vanished as quickly as they’d come.

The girls regained their voices as one. Terrified howls filled the air.

“Silence!” Maximillion called. Magic amplified his voice. “All of you. Gather what few possessions you can and congregate at the river. The West Guards are gone from Berry now. We’ll find you shelter there.”

The girls quieted. Sophie stood up on shaky legs, waving her thin fingers. “Come,” she called, her voice cracking. Tears and smoke streaked her face. A limp cigar drooped from one hand. “With me, girls.”

Maxmillion whipped around to face Isadora, murder in his eyes. A flash of something else lingered there. Was it fear?

“I’m leaving to speak with the blacksmith and make arrangements for the safety of the girls in the school, then I’ll go save this damn Network from the West yet again. You will go to Pearl and stay there until I tell you it’s safe. Do you understand?”

Isadora swallowed heavily. “Yes.”

He cast her one last cutting glance, then whipped around, ran through the yard, and disappeared.

The attacks on the Central Network stopped an hour later, as soon as Dostar began negotiations with Charles, the Central Network High Priest and new Highest Witch.

Berry burned all the way to the soil. The flames wiped out the last of the crops and all the homes and stores—not even the farms were spared. The cows lay dead in the field, slaughtered, their guts spilled. Steam rose from their bellies, joining the haze that lay in a thick blanket over the land.

Baylee and all the girls settled in at the river, watched by Sophie, the blacksmith, and the other witches staying there. Pearl and Isadora remained locked inside Pearl’s cottage in the trees. Pearl kept her curtains drawn and fires banked. Every now and then, a neighbor slipped up to the back door, murmured an update, and left. Despite the occasional news, nothing changed.

Pearl snored on the couch, clutching her empty coffee cup, while Isadora paced. Her thoughts whirled, driven by the temptation to slip back into the paths. She turned away in disgust. Her powers could have put her and Baylee in one of the worst situations imaginable. They could have died. She’d been wrong when it counted most.

Isadora felt the truth all the way to her bones—she couldn’t handle the magic. It was too powerful. Too much. She’d failed at magic, just as she’d failed at being a Servant. Mam and Talis had been right all along. People were innately evil, prone to hurt, maim, and kill. Magic was used for ill. If this was life in the Network, no amount of candy, no happy festival, could be worth living in such terror.

She longed for home. For Mam’s soothing tea. Daid’s reassuring voice. Most of all, she longed for Sanna. Her wry humor. Her annoyed glances and discreet smiles. Living in the Network hadn’t been fun. It had been new—but it had been hard. Magic required grueling, boring hours of work. New witches. Terrifying situations. Perhaps it wasn’t worth it.

Maybe she could do more good at home.

Midnight slipped by. Then one. When the clock ticked toward two, Isadora stopped pacing and eyed Pearl, bleary-eyed but resolute.

“Forgive me, Pearl,” she whispered.