Chapter Ten

 

 

Luca

 

When I’d flown to Eldor’s land a few days before, the trip hadn’t seemed to take long at all, but in this Sno-Cat, fighting the icy terrain, the driver was taking his time and moving slowly. Pen spent most of his time staring out the window and my mind was full of scary imaginings about how Dmitri might be injured, never once stopping to wonder why the fuck Eldor would take him to his home to recover, or why he’d take him anywhere for that matter. The times I’d seen them interact they hadn’t exactly been the best of friends.

About thirty minutes or so into the journey, Pen turned to stare at me. “You look at great deal like your mother, you know.”

“I do?” I turned to him in surprise. No one ever talked to me about my mother. Never. My dad always shied away from the subject and actually got crazy if I pressed him for answers. And since I spent most of my childhood trying to dodge those big fists of his, I didn’t press very often. Or at all.

“Did you know my mother?” I asked softly.

“I knew her,” he said, his mouth turning down in a bitter little frown.

“I’m guessing you didn’t like her much.” I turned away from him, feeling unreasonably hurt by his attitude about my mother, though I had no idea why. I never knew the woman at all. “I don’t think anybody liked her much, actually. The one time I got my dad to talk about her, he was pretty damned drunk. He called her a fucking bitch, so…”

Pen glanced at me sharply. “What? Auric said that? He called her that?”

I nodded. “Normally, he wouldn’t even speak her name. It was Rosamund, wasn’t it?”

Pen flinched like I’d hit him. “Rosamund,” he said, and his eyes got a faraway look. “I haven’t spoken that name in a little more than twenty years. But yes. She was…very beautiful.”

“Yeah? Can you tell me what she looked like? I’ve never even seen a picture.”

I thought at first he wasn’t going to answer me, but then he looked at me strangely. “Auric never told you about her?”

“No. Like I said, he didn’t like to talk about her.”

After a long moment, he sighed. “Curly black hair, like yours. And eyes so blue they didn’t look real. Her smile was…”

He stopped talking right in the middle of his sentence and started looking back out the window again. I noticed he was clenching his fists so hard they were turning white.

“I don’t have anything much of hers left,” I said, more to pass the time than anything else. “I would have liked something more than what I have. You know, just to make her seem more real to me. I heard my dad and some woman he was living with for a little while arguing one time about him pawning all my mother’s jewelry. I guess he didn’t split the money with her or something. Anyway, the woman was pretty pissed off.”

I had no idea why I was telling him all this shit. I’m sure he couldn’t have cared less. “Since by then my dad was calling my mother names and all, and since by that time, I’d heard the things the neighbors had to say about the night before I was born…”

“What did they say?”

“That they were fighting really bad that last night. And they never saw her alive after that.”

He drew in a breath sharply, but I just kept talking.

“The only thing I have left of hers was one of her old books. She had stuck one behind the radiator that never worked. And inside was a letter, dated from a week before I was born, so I guess she never got to give it to my dad. It was a love letter and I kept it,” I said, blushing a little. “Anyway, I just didn’t feel right about giving it to him.”

“A love letter,” he repeated softly and the look in his eyes was odd. He looked furious and kind of yearning all at the same time. The look my dad got in his eyes when he passed a bar or a liquor store and was all out of money. That was when he was at his most dangerous because he usually took that fury out on me.

I shrugged. “I think that’s what it was. She told him how much she loved him and said that when the baby came—that would be me—she was giving me both her father’s name, Luca, and his father’s as my middle name. Funny, ’cause my middle name isn’t Eldor.” I smiled. “Thank God.”

“Really?” he said sounding bored. “What is your middle name?”

“Myrdinn. Weird, huh? My full name is Luca Myrdinn.”

He recoiled away from me so hard he almost fell off the seat. “What-what did you say?”

“I just told you my name. Luca Myrdinn. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

He grabbed my arms and turned me toward him. I tried to twist away because I don’t like to be grabbed, but he held on so tight I couldn’t move. “Tell me what the letter said. Every word, Luca.” He put one hand up to my forehead then and I found myself saying shit I hadn’t thought about in years. Repeating that letter word for word.

“Darling, by the time you read this, our son will be born. Yes, it’s true. Our son. I know you’ll be angry and shocked, and I’m sorry I lied to you, but please believe me when I tell you I had no choice. I’ll tell you why when we’re together again. I love you so very much, and I’ll tell you everything when I hold you in my arms. Until then, please keep me in your heart. When our son is born I’ll name him after my father and yours. His name will be Luca Myrdinn, and he’ll be everything that has been promised and more.”

After I had repeated the letter, I fell back in my seat, exhausted, and he let me go. He looked white as a sheet and his chest rose and fell really hard for a long time as he stared at me. He reached up to the glass between us and the driver, and his hand was trembling. He rapped on the glass and the driver turned around to look at him.

“Turn around.”

“What? No, I have to get to Dmitri.”

He shook his head at me. “Dmitri just arrived back home and he’s searching frantically for you. Everything I told you was a lie and I compelled you to believe it.”

“What? I don’t understand! Why would you do something like that?”

“Because Eldor has paid me well to do it. Because Dmitri is right and you give your trust too easily. And because I’m a bastard whose heart apparently turned to stone twenty years ago when Rosamund left me to go to America with Auric.” He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I thought I would die when she left me. We were lovers, Luca. I wanted to marry her and take her away from Eldor, and I thought she wanted me to. But then everything changed overnight and she left with Auric, after she told me she hated him. Hated the way he looked at her and touched her. And now you’re telling me… I thought she was a liar all these years, but goddess help me I loved her anyway. I don’t understand this.”

“Then that makes two of us. If my mother was so much in love with you, then why would she…? Wait a minute, the letter I found. She said she’d lied, but she had no choice and she said…” I turned to look at Pen with wide eyes. “She said she’d name her son after both her father and her lover’s. Pen, what is your father’s name? Tell me, damn you.”

He raised his eyes to mine and they were filled with pain. “His name is Myrdinn. Myrdinn Pendragon.”

 

****

 

Dmitri

 

It didn’t take me long after we flew to the western border that morning to figure out we’d been played for fools. The men I had stationed at the small outpost nearest the Arctic Ocean were surprised when we burst in on them, expecting some kind of trouble. They assured us everything was quiet, and that’s when I turned around to stare at Sebastien. He said the name that chilled me to the bone.

“Eldor.”

I felt the blood drain from my face and I got a little light-headed with fear. I don’t even remember the trip back home, but we made it in record time and I was exhausted when the house finally came into view. Everything looked just the way it did when we left with no outward sign of trouble, but I still had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

We landed and shifted back and I ran inside and through the house shouting for Luca. I was vaguely aware of my parents and some of my cousins and even Viktor and the other servants looking at me like I’d lost my mind. I guess I had, in a way. My father pulled on my arm and tried to stop me, and I damn near took his head off. He backed away quickly, his hands held out in front of him and from the look on his face I think he finally realized how much Luca meant to me. I think I finally realized it myself.

Because Luca had been right, even though it had made me angry when he called me on it. I had been thinking of him all this time as a pretty little possession. Someone fun to fuck and play around with. The fact that so many others wanted him was just icing on the cake. He belonged to me. He was my possession and I’d play with him until the newness wore off. Oh, I had no plans to ever part with him, just like I had no plans to part with any of my treasure. I wasn’t the kind of Dragon who traded his treasure or spent his gold. I liked to hoard my pretty things and keep them close. So when had Luca become more than a possession? I wasn’t sure, but I knew that he had. And I knew that if I lost him, I’d spend the remainder of my very long life mourning that loss.

I knew what Eldor would do to him if he got his hands on him—everyone knew what he’d planned to do to that little girl, Rosamund, so many years ago if she hadn’t gotten away. It was monstrous, and the idea of him doing that same thing to Luca fucking terrified me.

The things that Luca always said about pure-bloods came back now to haunt me. “All the Dragon breeds are dangerous and care only for treasure,” he often told me. “They will literally kill to increase their hoards. They’re devious liars too, completely devoid of any moral compass. They are, in a word, assholes—imperious, high-handed, arrogant creatures...”

When he’d said these things I’d get angry and resentful, but what had he said that wasn’t true?

All I could think of was getting to Luca, and I ran out the front door, intending to shift into my Dragon again and kill anyone and anything who got between me and Luca. Before I could, however, I heard the sound of a Sno-Cat headed toward us at top speed. Sebastien and Alexei came to stand beside me, and we waited together to see what was coming.

The heavy vehicle pulled up on the front drive and the door popped open. The first one out was the fucking witch, Pendragon, and I growled menacingly at him, low in my throat. I had every intention of killing him on the spot, but first he was going to tell me where Luca was. Then before I could get to him, he motioned to someone in the cab, and Luca jumped out beside him, his beautiful little face strained and shocked.

I literally saw red. I held out my hand to him to get him out of the way before I unleashed the flames burning in my throat and incinerated the man who had dared touch what was mine. I could feel the inferno building in my body, and I wanted nothing more than to light the bastard up. Luca ran to me before I could do any of that and threw himself into my arms. I loved the feel of him there, but first I had to deal with the witch. I tried to move Luca away, but he wrapped himself tightly around me, and he was like an octopus, all arms and legs, and I couldn’t budge him. Finally, some of the absolute rage I was feeling began to dissipate a little, and I could hear what he was saying to me over the roar of the holocaust in my heart.

“No, Dmitri! It’s not what you think. Well, it is, but everything is different now. Dmitri, listen to me, damn it! You can’t burn up my father now that I’ve finally found him!”

Shaking the haze from my eyes, I looked down at him. “What? What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

“Pen!” he said, shouting it in my face. “Damn it, Dmitri, focus! Rheged Pendragon is my father!”

It took a while for the fire inside me to tamp down and the air to clear, but eventually the things Luca was yelling at me got through. I thought at first the witch was compelling him in some way or had put a spell on him, but gradually the two of them began to convince me that what Luca was saying wasn’t being forced. But I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of Pendragon as Luca’s biological father.

It seemed to be pretty hard for the witch too. He looked like he was in shock, really. He mostly kept staring at Luca with a dumbstruck look on his face, and I could sympathize, because I was feeling a little like that myself.

We had made our way into the front room of the house, and I was sitting on the sofa with Luca standing beside me, too keyed up to sit down, he said. They both explained to me again how Pen had lured him out of the house with lies about me being injured. That made me furious all over again. “So you were just going to deliver him up to Eldor, knowing what Eldor had planned for him.”

“I think so. Maybe,” he said and I wanted to kill him. Then he looked up at Luca who was standing beside me and I saw the misery in his expression. “No, I don’t think so. I was having… second thoughts.”

I made a sound of disgust, and Luca put a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me what he would have done to me. Dmitri said that he’d lock me away and keep me there.”

“Yes,” I said, feeling guilt wash over me. “Well, I may have not been entirely truthful about that.”

Luca glanced back and forth from me to Pen. “What is the truth then? I need to know.”

Pen sighed. “It has to do with the prophecy I told you about. I wish I could remember all of it, but I did lie about one thing. I remembered the last line, but I didn’t want you to know.”

“Imagine that,” I said. “You lying to him.”

“You’re one to talk!” Pen retorted, balling up his fists.

“Dmitri, please. Let him talk.”

“I already told you some of it—when the Spawn rises to rule the land, a son of Dragon and child of man, born of magic, blood and rage…The last dragonet is the only chance, to stem the tide and quell the advance.”

“What the hell?” I said, losing what little patience I had left. “Those old prophecies don’t mean anything.”

“But they do,” he said, glaring at me. “This prophecy is what Eldor has based his entire pursuit of Luca on. He’s frighteningly serious about it, I can assure you.” He turned back to Luca when I rolled my eyes. “The part I left out was the last, because I didn’t want to scare you. His heart is the hardest treasure to hold.”

“Okay,” Luca said. “So why would that scare me? What the hell does that even mean?”

The witch shrugged. “Nobody really knows. Eldor thinks he does though. Prophecies are always confusing and obscure. Some of it makes sense, especially now. You’re the last dragonet, that’s for sure.”

“And born of magic…” Luca said thoughtfully. When he saw me looking at him with a dubious expression, he shrugged. “He’s magic,” he said, nodding over at Pen. “Maybe Rosamund had some too. Exactly what did Eldor plan to do to my mother?”

“Kill her,” he said, so matter-of-factly that it chilled my blood. “He planned to cut her heart out and keep it, in case it proved to be powerful.”

“Oh shit,” Luca said and came around to fall down on the sofa beside me to glare at me. “Jesus, did you know about this?”

I blew out a breath and finally nodded. “Yes, we all heard the rumors when he captured Rosamund. Some didn’t believe them.”

“But you knew,” Luca persisted. “And you never told me.”

“I didn’t know for sure. I just knew he didn’t want you for anything good, no matter what he said that day he came to the house.”

Pen spoke up. “He believes it’s what the prophecy is talking about. He thought her heart was the treasure. The literal-minded asshole thought he had it all figured out.”

“But Rosamund got away. And now he wants to carve out my heart…”

“From your chest while it’s still beating, yes. More potent that way. He thought whoever owned your heart would have all the power and eventually beat the Spawn in some kind of apocalyptic uprising and rule the damn world.”

“But that’s crazy.”

“Yes, it is. Batshit crazy. But that’s Eldor for you. And his fucking son too, because Auric was the one who was trying to sell you out to Eldor. If you’d gone over there to see Auric the night we left, you wouldn’t have been coming back home again.”

“And that makes the man I called my father a monster and the rumors are all true.”

“What rumors?” Pen asked.

“About my mother,” Luca said. “I told you some of it. People in our neighborhood said my dad got drunk the night I was born. The walls are thin in public housing, you know, and that’s where we lived up until I moved out. Some kind of fight started with my mother and the neighbors heard her screaming, but they were too afraid of him to help her. The next day, he told everyone she left him, but nobody believed it. A few days later, the neighbors heard a baby crying in the apartment. They all knew what he’d done. That he’d killed her. But they were still too scared to turn him in.”

Pen jumped to his feet, his voice and manner agitated. He was pale and his hands were shaking. I swear to God the tattoos on his arms and hands were glowing. “Are you saying he murdered Rosamund by beating her to death?” He practically choked on those last words and a look of pure grief came over his face. It was so raw I had to look away, and I didn’t even like the guy.

“Born of magic, blood and rage,” I quoted softly.

Luca reached out to touch his father’s arm. “And what about you? Were you going to stand by and let Eldor kill my mother? Is that why she left you?”

“No!” he roared, flinching away, and suddenly the smell of ozone was strong in the air around us. “I was only a kid myself—just sixteen and so much in love I thought I’d die from it. I was powerful even then, but I had no discipline and couldn’t always control my magic. I had traveled to Eldor’s house to apprentice with an older magician named Pelasius. Much of the time I was a glorified servant when I wasn’t studying, and that’s how I came to know Rosamund. I brought her food in the dungeon he kept her in. She was so frightened. So beautiful. Many nights I’d sneak back down late at night and talk to her.”

“And you fell in love with her?”

“Yes, I did. And it was agonizing because I knew what Eldor had planned. She was not much more than a child—a year younger than I was. Eldor was waiting for her to mature a little. He had some idea that her body had to fully develop before he could take her heart.”

“God, that’s disgusting.”

“Yes, it was. I planned to get her out of there and take her back to England with me. I knew my father would help me keep her safe. But before I could finalize my plans, she was gone. She left with Auric and the next thing I heard she was in America, pregnant, I thought, with his child. I was devastated.”

“But it wasn’t his baby.”

Pen hung his head. “Not if you’re telling me the truth about the letter you found.”

“I swear it on my life.”

Pen nodded. “I believe you. I’d know if you were lying. I just don’t understand why she left me to go with Auric if she didn’t even love him.”

Pen moaned again, burying his face in his hands, and I felt a little sorry for him, despite how angry I still was. It had been a long time, but twenty years or a thousand years, if I had lost Luca and then learned that he had died so cruelly at another man’s hand, I’d have lost my mind.

 

****

 

Luca

 

Over the next few hours, Pen set up powerful wards to keep Eldor and his men out of Dmitri’s territory. A ward, I learned from Pen, was a spell to put up a barrier to protect what was inside its perimeter. We could go out but Eldor couldn’t come in. Dmitri didn’t like the idea much, saying he could provide the protection I needed, but Pen insisted and did it anyway. I could already see a future of clashes between these two strong-willed men with me right in the middle. I knew that it wouldn’t take much for Dmitri to fight Eldor. He was already dying to.

So when Eldor sent him a challenge over email late that afternoon, calling him a coward who hid behind a mage and his wards, I could see his temper blaze up and take over.

“Look at this!” he said disgustedly, throwing down a piece of paper in front of Sebastien. It was early evening and except for Dmitri, we were all sitting down to dinner, just like we weren’t being threatened by a maniac who wanted to cut out my heart. Dmitri’s mother had insisted we have a civilized meal, but Dmitri said he was too busy and wouldn’t come down. Normally, I’d have seized any chance to miss dinner too, but I knew Pen would be there, and I thought someone should keep him company so he wouldn’t be the only pariah at the table.

So there we were, picking at our roast beef dinners when Dmitri stormed in. He had printed the email out for his cousins to read, and Sebastien and Alexei both bent over the paper with twin expressions of outrage.

“Dmitri, please,” his mother said, but after one furious glare she patted her lips with her napkin and pressed her thin lips firmly together.

“What are we going to do about this, Dmitri?” Sebastien said. “Tell me we’re not going to hide in here behind the wards.”

“What the fuck do you think? I sent him a message back saying we’d meet him at first light, on the border between our land. It’s time to finish this thing once and for all.”

“He’ll have something up his sleeve,” Pen said, throwing down his napkin. “You can’t trust him.”

“Believe me, I don’t. But we can handle anything he throws at us.”

“I’d like to be there too,” Pen said.

Dmitri nodded and turned to me. “And before you start, the answer is no. You’re not going.”

I opened my mouth to respond to him, but he turned his back on me and was out the door before I could say a word. Did he still seriously think that would work on me? I simply folded my napkin and leaned back in my chair, feeling the gazes of everyone at the table burning into me. Pen, in particular, was regarding me thoughtfully. I gave him a brittle smile and stood up.

“Have a good evening,” I said and left to go up to my room. Dmitri was downstairs in his office, which was where they’d make their plans for the coming fight with Eldor. I had already made my decision, and I had my own plans to make.

Halfway up the stairs, I heard someone call my name and turned to see Pen looking up at me from the foot of the staircase.

“Carrying on the family tradition, I see.”

“What are you talking about?”

He climbed a few steps to come up just below me, a little smile playing around his lips. “Taking off and running away when you’re hurt or angry instead of facing things head on. Dmitri’s just trying to keep you safe, you know. He didn’t mean anything else by that.”

I gripped the stair rail so hard my fingers ached. “He thinks of me as a possession, not a person. So yeah, he’s protecting his investment, I guess.”

“He loves you, Luca.”

I shook my head. “Then he has a funny way of showing it.”

“Maybe he’s showing you the only way he knows how.” He glanced back toward the dining room. “I wouldn’t suppose he’s learned a lot about love from those two in there, would you?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not anyone he can or even should love. I learned that pretty early on.”

Pen surprised me then by putting his hand over mine on the railing. My skin tingled where he made contact. “Who convinced you of that? Auric? Why in the name of the goddess would you trust any opinion of his? Or think that it matters in any way? I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting what happened to you and your mother, son. I should have gone after Rosamund—found out why she left the way she did, but I was so hurt, so full of pride that I convinced myself I was better off without her. If only I had known she was carrying my child…” He looked up at me and I could see the hot pain radiating out of his eyes. “The saddest words in any language, aren’t they? If only. You deserve to be loved, son.” He moved his hand to my chest. “But first, you have to feel it in here, or no one else will ever be able to convince you.” He patted my chest and then turned and went back down the stairs, leaving me staring after him.

I’d like to say his words resonated in me, but that wouldn’t be completely true. I knew he was probably right, but it was still something I had to learn for myself. I was getting there, but I had a few things I had to prove to myself first. See, I had received my own message from Eldor that afternoon in the form of a picture. So I knew the message he sent Dmitri was only a decoy, a lure to get him out of the way. The message I received, though only four words, was much more powerful.

In the photo, a man was tied to a chair. Mr. Alvarez’s snowy white hair was bloody in patches, and he sagged against the ropes that were holding him upright. Artie Samboa, his ugly face grinning into the camera, gripped his hair and held up his battered head. Below the picture was the caption, “Come alone, before dawn.”

I knew I had no choice. They would kill Mr. Alvarez if I didn’t show up. They probably would, anyway, and I already knew what they had planned for me. But if I could manage to take Eldor with me, then I could end this thing once and for all and maybe give Mr. Alvarez a chance to get away. It was a big maybe, but I had to try. Mr. Alvarez had stood by me when no one else would. He had given me food and shelter and what’s more, he had given me hope of a better life. He had been the first and maybe the only one in my life at that time who showed me I had some value. How could I abandon him now?

And if I told Dmitri or Pen, then they would insist on storming the place and the first casualty would be Mr. Alvarez. We might succeed in killing Eldor and his men, but my friend wouldn’t stand a chance. I had to try to give him one.

So I went to bed early, lying in the dark and plotting what I would try to do. I heard Dmitri open the connecting door between us, and he stood there in the dark for a long time, just looking at me. I wanted so badly to say goodbye, but of course, I couldn’t give him any indication of what I was planning. After a long time, he gently closed the door.

I waited until the house settled down around me. I could feel the tension in the air as Dmitri and the others prepared themselves mentally for battle, but the house was dark and silent when I sneaked out of my room and up to the roof. Eldor had told me once that his home was just over the mountains. I quickly shed my clothing, shifted into my Wyvern and leaped up into the night sky. The moon was shining down on the icy landscape below me as I made my way across the mountains. The air was still and I thought about my poor, doomed mother, who had tried to escape her own fate, only to meet death a few months later. Now I was on my way to my death, but I didn’t feel sad and sorry for myself.

I was filled with rage.

Once I cleared the mountain top, I could see the lights of Eldor’s mansion below me. I dipped down out of the clouds and flew right up to the front steps, landing lightly on my feet and shifting back to my human form. He must have been watching for me, because the door opened right away and Eldor himself stepped out onto the porch.

“You came.”

Strange bodies came pouring out of the door behind him with flashlights blazing and the darkness beyond the porch slunk back, waiting. I could see that most of them were Spawn, and all pumped up and different looking, like those that attacked me back in the States. They were probably Artie’s gang, but with Artie himself notably absent. Their breath steamed in the cold night air and none of them said anything. This was Eldor’s show, and they waited for him to start it.

“You knew I’d come,” I answered him and he smiled.

“I hoped you would. Don’t fight me, Wyvern, and I’ll try to make this quick.”

“What about my friend? Will you give me your word you’ll let him go?”

“Of course,” he said and gave me an oily smile again, and I knew he was lying.

I growled at him and he raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to fight me, little dragonet? I assure you I’ll win, and you won’t get the easy death I promised you. I’ll rip through your chest with my claws and pull your still-beating heart out.”

“I hear a lot of talk but I haven’t seen anything yet.”

Some of his Spawn muttered restlessly and moved a few steps toward me, but he motioned them back. Then suddenly, out of the night sky, three Dragons dropped down beside me, golden and shining in the moonlight, their faces cold and cruel. The air shimmered beside them and Pendragon appeared, his expression terrible to behold, his arms outstretched as he muttered incantations.

Eldor gasped and took a step back as a lick of flames hit the wooden porch where he’d been standing. His eyes glowed and he shook himself, changing instantly into his Dragon. The porchlight over his head wavered and flickered. No one was moving, but still I sensed movement all around me.

With a final flicker, the lights all dimmed, and I could no longer see Eldor. A ladder of fire fell down in front of me leading up into the sky and blue flames shot out from my feet to reach the bottom rung, but the flames didn’t burn me. I could hear the scarlet thwack of wings beating overhead. I looked up, expecting to see another Dragon swooping down on its prey, but instead saw two winged red serpents, their scaly necks bent to the yoke, pulling a fiery chariot across the sky. A woman drove them across the lofty space and I heard a male voice cry, “Where thou ridest, there are no gods!” The woman was the witch Medea, granddaughter of Helios, the sun god, her wicked sword drenched in her own children’s blood. It didn’t even occur to me to wonder how I knew.

Unable to bear looking at her any longer, I turned my head and saw a Hunter’s moon, bigger than I’d ever seen any moon before or since. It leaned down out of the sky toward me and I heard the dripping of its heart’s blood onto the ground. Each drop was like acid, sizzling as it split the earth underneath.

A voice was shouting, high-pitched and monotonous, and each word shot through me like a knife, opening up my chest. Then the light went out altogether, and I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear my own voice, intoning these words.

 

“When the Spawn rises to rule the land,

a son of Dragon and child of man,

born of magic, blood and rage,

a son of a maiden and spawn of a mage,

will stride forward to meet the tide,

with the Seven by his side.

A trio of Dragons, noble and Gold.

A wizard, a Wyvern, and three heroes bold.

The last dragonet is the only chance,

to stem the tide and quell the advance.

Precious wealth he is, far greater than gold,

his heart is the hardest treasure to hold!”

 

The pain in my head was so bad I thought it might kill me this time. In front of me, I could see more visions of three Golden Dragons, their beautiful scales flashing in the sun and three human men, men I’d never seen before, but who stood with swords in their hands, beside my Dragons, guarding their flank. And Pen was there too, his hands outstretched as they were now, red flames shooting from his fingertips. The visions flashed and swirled around me, breaking over me one by one and then winking out, leaving only silence and darkness.

I came to slowly, feeling groggy as if waking from a dream or a nightmare, and I saw the Spawn cowering behind Eldor on the porch. Eldor roared and leaped toward me, but Dmitri surged forward and caught his body in mid-leap.

The Spawn spilled off the porch then and into the savage teeth and claws of Sebastien and Alexei. Pen came to stand beside me, and he glanced at me only once, but that glance held wonder and perhaps a tiny bit of fear. In the air in front of me, Eldor had torn himself away from Dmitri’s punishing grip and hurled his body toward us. Pen lifted his hands but mine were quicker. I could feel the blue fire within me, burning me from the inside and wanting to be free. I flung it outward toward him in a swirl of indigo and his wings burst into flames. He screamed and tried to beat at himself, but that only served to fan the blaze higher. He fell to the ground and the blue fire consumed him utterly, leaving only a pile of white ash where Eldor’s body had been.

The visions returned as I stared down at what was left of him, and they fractured in the air in front of me and fell to the ground and shattered like shards of glass. The pain came rushing back and the light winked out. Insensible, I dropped to the ground beside the pieces of my visions.