We found a second ornately carved door situated directly opposite the entrance — according to Drake, anyway. I had absolutely no sense of direction, which meant I would never find my way out of this place on my own. But that was okay. I wasn’t sure that leaving under my own power was even going to be an option. Foiling Shailaja’s plans, then walking away only to get lost would be a nice problem to have.
Except I couldn’t taste the rabid koala’s magic anywhere nearby, and the clean-edged holes that had been bored through one side of the door were giving me heart palpitations. Dozens of six-inch-wide stone circles littered the ground at our feet, discarded and useless like champagne corks. The scalloped-edged gaping hole in the door revealed a dark corridor leading deeper into the mountainside.
It had taken just about everything I had to rip enough magic away from the exterior door that I could crack through its stone. These pieces of granite screamed of precise, focused magic.
“You were right,” Drake said, hunching over to span his hand across one of the discarded stone plugs. “The leeches were a distraction.”
“She used her portal magic to bore through stone,” I said. It was a mind-numbing idea. “Through stone. Solid stone. Spelled stone.”
“Slowly,” Warner said, sounding unimpressed. “And I doubt the warding here was as intricate as it was on the entrance to the atrium.”
Drake straightened, stepping through the damaged doorway.
I tried to call him back, but I couldn’t speak the words.
“Jade?” Warner’s voice was distant.
I turned my head to him, scanning the dark night and the stone door as I did … so, so slowly.
I was shutting down.
“Jesus,” I murmured. “I’m having a panic attack.”
“You don’t appear to be panicking,” Warner said.
“Don’t laugh,” I cried, suddenly sobbing and screaming at the same time. “Don’t laugh at me! She can bore through stone! Through stone! That shouldn’t be possible! Right? Not without a tool … or a magical drill … or something. What else could she bore through? And what about Kandy and Kett? What if the leeches —”
Warner grabbed my arms. I fought his grip, attempting to twist away. I needed to run. I had to run.
No.
First, I had to grab Drake. Then I had to run.
Warner was shouting, but I couldn’t hear his words.
Drake stepped back through the door. His face was etched with worry. I was the one who was supposed to take care of him, not the other way around.
But I couldn’t stop melting down … I couldn’t gain control of my limbs … my brain was overloaded mush.
Then Warner was kissing me. His grip was brutal, punishing. His magic flooded my senses … deep, dark chocolate with a hint of smoke in the finish, followed by sweet, explosive cherry, and topped with smooth, thickly whipped cream.
“You’re not stone, Jade,” he whispered. “You’re not stone.”
I wrapped myself around him, feeling the strength of his limbs and hearing the conviction of his words. Parting my lips, I thrust my tongue into his mouth. Holding him harder and rougher than I ever could have held anyone else I’d ever been intimate with.
Gradually, I became aware that I needed to be standing on my own two feet. I unwrapped my legs from him and stood. I loosened my embrace.
Warner responded in kind as he rubbed his thumbs across my cheeks. He wiped away my tears, placing teasing, light kisses on my lips.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“No,” he said, stopping my apology with another all-encompassing, brain-scrambling kiss.
Then he stepped back from me and looked toward the door.
I followed his gaze.
Drake was standing in the rubble, his head bowed and partially turned away from us. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked utterly dejected.
A low fire began to burn in my belly. I stepped away from Warner, holding on to his hand until I had to let go. Then I took three deep breaths.
“Meltdown,” I said. “Check.”
Drake lifted his head, grinning at me.
I nodded as I looked back over my shoulder at Warner. “Thank you.”
“Any time.”
I chuckled. Crossing through the stone plugs littering the ground, I followed Drake through the hole bored in the door.
“Well,” I said into the utter darkness stretching out before me. “Here’s the tunnel I was expecting.”
Drake laughed somewhere ahead of me.
I reached to my right, taking two tentative steps before my fingertips brushed against the wall. I waited, expecting the flavor of pear tea. But I couldn’t taste anything. “The leeches have been here.”
“Also as expected,” Warner said behind me.
I spread my dowser senses along the wall, seeking out dormant magic. “Watch your eyes,” I said. Then I pushed at the pinpoint of power I had sensed just above my head.
An amber light flared. I squinted up at it. The glow was emanating from the center of a sun embossed on the stone wall.
Warner grunted, shielding his face.
I reached farther, triggering more lights every few feet along the tunnel and illuminating Drake about a dozen steps ahead of us. Other than the stone light fixtures, the walls of the tunnel were bare, and constructed of smooth charcoal granite. The magical ice stopped at the threshold behind us.
“Installing lights always makes sense,” I said flippantly. “Practically no one can truly see in the dark.”
“Thank you, dowser,” Warner said. “The leeches will have a difficult time sneaking up on us now.” He palmed his knife as he stepped ahead of me.
We traversed the tunnel slowly and diligently, checking for magical traps every step of the way. The eight-foot-high passage curved and narrowed periodically, so that we couldn’t see as far ahead as I would have liked. We spread ourselves single file about six feet apart, following the path cutting deeper and deeper into the heart of Jiuding Shan.
In the stillness — and despite the constant anticipation that the next curve would reveal the chamber that held the final instrument and Shailaja waiting for us — I began to replay all the thoughts that had given rise to my panic attack at the mouth of the cave.
We hadn’t seen or felt another hint of the shadow demons since Kett and Kandy disappeared, and my dread grew with each step I took away from my best friends. What if the leeches had followed them? What if we weren’t drawing them away?
Then there was Shailaja’s ability to bore holes through stone.
I stopped walking. The corridor continued before me, its lights luring us ever deeper into the mountain.
Drake continued forward, his golden broadsword glinting as he turned to glance back at me.
“I’ve been here before,” I murmured. “Again and again.”
Warner looked back over his shoulder at me, concerned.
“What if this is it?” I asked him rhetorically. “What if this is life?”
“I don’t understand.” The sentinel glanced toward Drake. The fledgling had paused at the curve of the corridor a dozen feet ahead of us. Then he looked back at me.
I let go of my knife, feeling it slip into its invisible sheath at my right hip. I reached my hand toward him.
A frown creased his brow as he stepped back, taking my hand. I curled my fingers around his, feeling his strength.
When I was lost inside the golden magic of the portal, I’d felt trapped by that magic. Smothered. Now, I was deep within a mass of stone that felt as if it had always surrounded me … physically and metaphorically.
Maybe I was doomed to repeat the same challenges — to learn the same lessons — over and over again. Maybe none of it was within my power to change.
Nothing was within my control … except my own actions.
“I’m having an epiphany,” I said.
“Right now?”
“Ask me again,” I whispered, smiling up at him with my heart ready to burst. “Warner, ask me now.”
He didn’t even blink. He swept me up, twirling me around. Then he set me down, kneeling before me. “Jade Godfrey, I love you with every ounce of my being, with every drop of my magic. I would be yours till the end of my days. At your side. At your back. Whenever and wherever you’d have me. Will you marry me?”
“I will.”
He straightened, rising to sweep me into a kiss.
I reached for him. My fingers brushed the hair just above his ears.
Then I tasted cinnamon. Shailaja.
“Warner!” I cried.
The sentinel shoved me hard enough to crack my ribs. Pain exploded in my chest as I flew backward, smashing into Drake and dragging him another twenty feet along the curve of the corridor.
Then the ceiling collapsed on Warner.
Let me be more specific.
Then the mountain collapsed on Warner.
Within all the destruction and ruin raining down around us, I felt the portal magic dissipate almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Shailaja must have set up some sort of magical delayed charge. Or maybe she had worked to slowly undermine the entire tunnel as we advanced. Instead of shoving the shadow demons through her miniature portals, she’d used them to bore out chunks of stone from the foundations of the passage, compromising its integrity.
I untangled myself from Drake’s long limbs, heedless of everything else. I shoved the fledgling guardian away from me. Dust and rock cascaded off us.
I rolled forward onto all fours. I crawled over the edge of the cave-in, dragging myself to my feet. I could feel my ribs healing, leaving only a dull ache in place of cracked bones.
I ran the last few steps, climbing a mound of debris to press my hands against the pile of granite that now stood between us and the tunnel entrance.
I shoved at it.
Smaller rocks shifted, undermining my footing. But I didn’t so much as dent the wall.
Scrambling for purchase, I slammed my shoulder and hip against the wall of jagged stones. I dislocated my shoulder in my grief-fueled effort. Pain streaked up my neck and into my right temple.
I hit the wall again, shoving my shoulder back into place with another burst of pain.
I wasn’t going to break through with force. I wasn’t strong enough.
I clawed my fingers at the rock, tearing my nails in an attempt to find a grip on any stone, any single piece. If I could move one, maybe it would shift the others.
But the jagged boulders were too large for me to move. Too difficult for me to grip.
My breathing was ragged, my heart a piece of lead in my chest when I finally stopped. I pressed my ear against the wall of rock.
I couldn’t hear anything.
I couldn’t taste a single drop of Warner’s magic.
He had just stood there.
He could have grabbed me and run.
But he’d been so … so stupid. So fucking stupid. Sacrificing himself. For me … and Drake. He’d thrown me in a way that he knew would save both of us.
I stumbled back from the wall of stone. Then I froze, staring at that mountain of shattered rock that separated me from Warner.
I fell to my knees.
I would stay. I would watch. When Warner was ready, he would shift the rock himself. And I’d be there to help dig him out.
“Jade …” Drake whispered from behind me. “We must continue. The oracle said it might come to this … on the beach in Washington … she said I might have to force you to continue.”
I didn’t listen. I wasn’t interested in anything Rochelle had to say or anything she’d seen.
“Jade Godfrey!” Drake bellowed. “You will continue. You will get me close enough to lay my blade at the heretic’s neck.”
I screamed as I shot to my feet.
I screamed as if I were ripping out my heart and flinging it to the ground. I screamed a sharp, shattering shriek, filled with a dreadful magic so strong that it hit the wall of stone before me and cracked it.
The cave-in shifted, slumping to one side. Loosened rock tumbled down to strike my feet, bouncing up and battering my shins. It drove me back a few more steps.
Numbness flooded through my chest and my limbs. I welcomed the sensation.
I turned away.
I left my love behind.
Facing Drake, I held my hand out. “Give me your sword,” I said.
His dark eyes were full of sorrow, and a promise of vengeance. He flipped the golden weapon, holding its hilt toward me without question.
I stepped forward to grab him by the wrist, seizing him with every ounce of strength I had.
He flinched, his eyes widening with what might have been the first hint of personal concern I’d ever seen from him.
Good. He needed to be wary.
Neither of us could stand against a dragon who could hold a guardian hostage. A dragon who could bore holes in stone and throw weapons through portals. Not apart and not together. Yet we were about to forge ahead, with everyone I loved scattered and battered and possibly even dead behind me.
I wrapped my hand around the hilt of Drake’s broadsword. Pulling the weapon sharply toward me, I sliced his hand open, coating half the length of the blade with his blood.
He winced but didn’t pull away.
Pumping my alchemist magic into the razor-sharp weapon, I snared every bit of magic in Drake’s blood, holding it in place.
Loosening my grip on the fledgling guardian, I flipped the sword over, then ran the opposite edge of the blade along the palm of my left hand. I sliced open my own skin even as the wound on Drake’s hand healed.
I raised the sword before me, drawing all the magic from our blood around it. I coaxed the power stored in my necklace up my arm and through my hand, then into the sword. Using that power as mortar, I wrapped every drop of the combined power of our blood around and along the blade. Sharpening it. Fortifying it. I whetted its golden edges with all the magic I could give it.
Drake’s broadsword absorbed every drop.
“It’s glowing,” he whispered.
“Is it?” I asked. But I wasn’t even remotely moved by the feat of magic I’d just performed.
My heart was nothing but a husk. My thoughts and feelings were dampened … gone. I would continue. I would protect Drake as best I could. But only because there was nothing else left for me.
I flipped the sword in my hand again, offering it hilt first to Drake.
He wrapped his fingers around it reverently, lifting the weapon between us. A golden glow flared, flowing up the blade, then back down. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I glanced down at the wound on my hand. It was already knitting together. I gathered my fingers into a fist.
“It won’t be enough. Not against my mangled katana. The chakram.”
Drake nodded. “It will be enough to give you an opening.”
“So you’ll sacrifice yourself before me too?” I laughed harshly.
“Why would I do anything different than what you do every day, Jade? Why would I give any less? Why would any of us?”
“I’m not a fan of being schooled by a fifteen-year-old.”
“Sixteen today. And you never seem to not need it. You are blind to yourself.”
I reached out, wrapping my arm around Drake’s neck and shoulders in a tight clench. I pressed a harsh kiss against his temple. Then I released him, catching his dark-eyed gaze with mine.
“Let’s go slay a dragon, then.”
He nodded, slipping in behind me.
Striding forward in silent determination, we turned the corner only to see an archway at the far end of the tunnel.
We’d been a few dozen steps away.
Shailaja had perfect timing.
I would have hated her for it, but I was beyond all feeling.
Perhaps I was walking to my death … or my rebirth, as Rochelle had called it.
And if these were the steps I was meant to walk? Well … who was I to argue with destiny?
I was so damn tired of being scared of what was to come.
So I would surrender.
Right after I carved out Shailaja’s freaking heart.
Drake and I stepped through the archway together, pausing and scanning the large chamber opening up before us.
No, not a chamber. A tomb. Though I’d never been in one — or even seen pictures of one this large — the stone sarcophagus placed along the far wall was an unmistakable giveaway.
Yes, a sarcophagus. I pulled out the big words when my life was in imminent danger.
While the tunnel had been carved out of plain stone, the tomb of the phoenix was anything but. The image of an enormous orange and red raptor covered the wall behind the stone coffin. The bird’s wings were spread in flight and its wicked talons poised as if to strike. Its multicolored feathers and scales were constructed out of some sort of jeweled tile mosaic. Its bright yellow eyes were trained on the archway where Drake and I stood.
The walls were constructed in similarly tiled fashion, though I wasn’t sure of the material. The floor around the coffin was a mosaic in the form of a setting sun, whose horizon was the coffin’s base. Its tiled rays radiated out toward the walls and the archway in alternating shades of light and dark orange.
Shailaja stood just to the right of the tomb, at the origin point of one of those inlaid sunrays. She’d changed into a fur-trimmed beige jacket and skinny-legged brown pants tucked into fur-lined boots. Apparently, she had been following us through the mountain though I hadn’t picked up on her magic. She’d ditched the tote bag but was holding my mangled katana at her side. Three leeches clung to the tiled ceiling above her head, huddling between the amber lights.
Chi Wen sat on the sarcophagus, swinging his legs and smiling in our direction. I couldn’t pick up a drop of his magic.
As his gaze settled on his mentor, Drake exhaled a soft sigh of agony, then fell silent.
The pain in that brief noise pierced my numb heart. “We don’t know yet,” I whispered to the fledgling. “We don’t know that it’s his doing that brought us here.”
Drake didn’t answer.
“Are you just going to stand there?” Shailaja asked.
Ignoring her, I shifted my head to get a better look at the one object that stood out even among all the glittery glamour of the crypt.
A single sparsely leafed branch speckled with pink-tinted white flowers hung suspended over the right side of the coffin. I recognized the distinctive pattern of leaves and flowers from the map. Apparently, we’d found the third instrument of assassination.
Though what flowers and leaves could do to a guardian dragon, I had no idea. Other than burn them, based on the first two instruments. But even Shailaja wasn’t crazy enough to touch the branch. Poison maybe? Like Kandy thought the trees in the atrium might have poisoned the shadow leeches? The ramifications of the entrance of the shrine potentially being filled with leaves and flowers that could poison every single guardian dragon was chilling enough to crack the numbness that muted my thoughts and feelings.
I shook off the terrifying thought. I could only take care of what was in front of me right now.
Chi Wen and Shailaja were positioned an equal distance to either side of the branch. If I turned my head to just the right position and looked from the very corner of my eye, I could see that some sort of iridescent magic held the branch suspended. The same magic also appeared to be wrapped around the far seer.
“He’s behind a ward of some sort,” I said.
As Drake nodded, I could feel his relief.
“That’s what happens when you try to get grabby with an instrument of assassination,” Shailaja said snarkily, conveniently ignoring the fact that she’d grabbed an instrument herself and gotten her magic locked away for it.
“Is everything okay, far seer?” I asked.
Chi Wen responded with a cheerful nod.
“Where’s Warner?” Shailaja asked crossly.
It took a concerted effort to not simply lunge across the room and rip her throat out, but I didn’t answer her, scanning the tomb for possible exits and magical traps instead. I saw no sign of either.
The rabid koala tilted her head. One of her leeches stretched down from the ceiling to touch her shoulder. Her expression grew irate as she locked her gaze back on me. The leech squelched in on itself, shooting back up to the ceiling.
“And you just left him there?” Shailaja spat. “I suppose he got caught in it to save you. You are both so annoyingly weak. Standing around feebly waiting for the world to collapse on you. I expected better from the far seer’s apprentice.”
Drake started forward, but I slammed my arm across his chest, holding him back.
“Why cave in the tunnel,” he whispered fiercely, “if we weren’t supposed to be caught in it?”
Shailaja’s only answer was a curled-lipped smirk.
“To block the exit,” I said.
“To block the entrance, you twit.” A smile spread across the rabid koala’s face. “Never mind.”
Then the shadow demons dropped from the ceiling and streaked toward us.
Drake and I raised our weapons, more than ready to slash the final three leeches to shreds. But, blowing past us like a hurricane of shadow, they exited into the tunnel instead of engaging us.
A smirk spread across my face. So apparently, I wasn’t completely devoid of emotion yet. I still commanded all the ugly ones. Hate. Anger. Bitchiness.
“Only three?” I said tauntingly. “It’s utterly stupid to send them away, Shay-Shay, whatever your master plan. Drake and I against you? Even with the katana, that isn’t a fair fight. Not even remotely.”
“The disgraced apprentice will come forward and relinquish his claim on the far seer’s mantle.” Shailaja ignored my snide remarks.
Drake lifted his sword.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You don’t have any right to call him out. No, we’ll do this my way.”
Tired of bandying words, I charged along the golden-orange ray that created a perfect path between me and my prey.
Shailaja looked surprised, then concerned.
Concerned?
The floor dropped out beneath my feet.
I tumbled down into darkness, slamming into solid, craggy ground and shattering my still-healing ribs. My skull cracked. A kaleidoscope of bright dots exploded before me.
I lay there for a second, catching my breath. Then, just as I decided I needed to keep moving, the hole caved in.
Darkness swallowed me.
When I awoke, I was in terrible shape. At least that was the thought screaming through my brain. My sense of self-preservation was babbling about staying still and waiting for help.
Then I heard grunts and footfalls above me.
I couldn’t move. Not an inch. I wasn’t even sure if my eyes were open or closed. My limbs were so, so heavy.
Maybe I was dead.
Then agony radiated through my head, chest, and limbs. So, unfortunately, I was still alive. Though probably barely.
One of the sources of footsteps above me fell so hard that the ground around and below me shook.
The pain in my head exploded, radiating back to front. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t actually open my mouth or move my jaw.
Whoever had fallen scrambled to their feet. A clang of steel hitting steel sounded out.
I tried to focus through the pain. People were close enough that I could hear them, and my hearing wasn’t that acute.
I couldn’t move. But I might be able to dowse. I reached out with my magical senses, catching the taste of honeyed almonds and carrot cake before another avalanche of torment slammed through my body.
I pulled back the tiny tendril of magic I’d reached out with. I focused on my necklace. The chain was pressing against my chest so harshly that I thought it might have embedded itself into my ribs and collarbone. That had to be bad.
I could also feel my knife sitting on my right hip.
Okay, so I was armed. Just not remotely dangerous.
I thought about staying there. About just giving up. Then Drake fell again — I heard him cry out the second time — causing the ground underneath me to shift. I screamed, managing to voice a strangled sort of noise.
The fledgling guardian couldn’t hold off Shailaja for long. No matter that he was destined to become the far seer, she still had years of training on him … and my katana.
Ah, damn.
I attempted to sit up. My right arm and leg responded, but my left didn’t.
Right. The walls of whatever pit I’d fallen into had caved in.
Slowly — painfully slowly — I began to feebly kick and shove at the stone that apparently covered me from my left shoulder to my left foot.
The sounds of metal striking metal got louder above me.
Drake grunted in pain.
Shailaja cackled.
Goddamn freaking rabid koala.
I kicked myself free of the stones that held me. Somehow, I managed to roll to my hands and knees. Then I threw up. And then I threw up again and again, until I had nothing else to evacuate.
My head swam. Blinking rapidly, I realized that I could see. The amber light from above was faintly permeating the pit I’d been half-buried in. My hands were covered in sticky blood, which didn’t make any sense until I realized that must have been what I was throwing up. That couldn’t be a good sign.
I pushed back into a sitting position, so that I could look up. I could see the ceiling of the tomb. I was maybe twenty-five feet below the floor.
The tomb apparently came with pit traps — one of which freaking Shailaja had set just for me. And I, not tasting anything magical in the area, had walked right into it.
My left leg and arm were shattered. I tried to ignore them, but the pain was almost incapacitating. I pulled more magic from my necklace and knife, coaxing it to flow through my body. My only hope was that it would stir up and accelerate my healing.
From above me, I heard Drake fall.
The ground heaved. The edge of the pit cracked and loose stone pelted my head and shoulders.
Then there was only silence.
Get up. Get up. Get up.
No one moved above me.
Ignoring my left arm and dragging my left leg, I reached for the rocks before me with my right arm. Pushing forward with my right leg, I attempted to climb out of the pit.
I got about halfway.
Shailaja peered down over the edge. “Ah, good. You’re alive.”
The rabid koala reached for me. Her fingers brushed my raised arm.
I threw myself away from her.
My left leg buckled, collapsing underneath me.
I fell back onto the craggy stone, cradling my left arm in an attempt to not injure it further.
Shailaja dropped down into the hole, reaching for me again.
I had nowhere to go.
I urged my knife into my right hand, but she pinned my wrist without effort. Then she grabbed my left arm, wrenching it up around her neck.
I screamed.
“Gadzooks,” Shailaja said under her breath, continuing to lift me up and across her shoulders.
Agony flooded my entire being. I threw up blood again, splattering the rock wall as I tried to shift myself off the rabid koala’s shoulders.
She pivoted, finding hand and footholds with no apparent effort. She climbed the craggy walls of the pit with me hanging across her shoulders.
The pain was too much.
I was dying.
Again.
Darkness took my eyes, then blotted the pain from my mind. I welcomed it.
Everyone else had fallen. Why not me?
Dying would make it all better.
And if I believed, if I could just believe in a world beyond this one, then maybe … maybe … I would see Warner again.
Damn it. I wasn’t freaking dead.
Oh, God.
I was going to have to wake up.
Again.
I was going to have to fight.
Again.
I was lying on my back on a hard surface. My limbs were splayed out as if I’d been dumped unceremoniously onto the ground.
Right.
Shailaja.
I tried straightening my arms. Then when that failed, I simply pulled them closer to my torso. My left arm responded sluggishly, then exploded in a flood of painful tingling that set my entire left side on fire.
Moving was a bad idea.
I opened my eyes instead.
Warner was lying beside me.
Hope bloomed in my chest, pushing away the pain in a wash of euphoria. I didn’t know what was going on, but we’d survived it all somehow …
Except … he wasn’t moving. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing. He was badly beaten … almost crushed looking. And his magic was a faint note of smoke in the back of my throat … like the memory of a taste.
Maybe we were dead. Maybe this was some sort of limbo.
No.
I could see the image of the phoenix rising on the back wall.
We were still in the tomb.
Shailaja nudged me in the ribs with her foot.
I screamed.
Yep, I could still feel pain.
She muttered something impatiently, then stalked off.
Though I really didn’t want to, I turned my head away from Warner. Scanning the ceiling, I spotted the remaining three shadow leeches and clicked the pieces of Warner’s appearance together. The demons had dug him out somehow. Or maybe they transported him as they did Shailaja.
I kept turning my head, catching sight of Chi Wen’s sandaled feet still dangling off the sarcophagus.
Then I saw Shailaja standing over Drake at the far side of the room.
The fledgling guardian’s chest rose, then fell. He was still alive.
“Do you think I have to kill the apprentice?” Shailaja called out to me. “For the ascension ceremony to work?”
Focusing every part of my body and mind, I attempted to leap up, race across the chamber, and rip her heart out.
The only result was a low growl and a mouthful of bloody spit.
Shailaja laughed at my feebleness. She deliberately pointed her finger at me, then pressed it to Drake’s forehead. “Get up, Jade,” she said. “I’m sorry about the collapsing floor. It was for the fledgling, not you. Tricky you. I thought you always let those more powerful lead.”
I sat up. It hurt. I still couldn’t use my left arm. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the pretty mosaic tiled floor. The bright red complimented the orange perfectly.
“That was Warner’s idea … him leading,” I said. Shifting my weight onto my right leg and arm, I attempted to stand. “When Drake and I train, he always follows. So as not to impede my dowser senses.”
Shailaja straightened, stepping away from Drake and widening her stance. She held my mangled katana loosely at her side.
“I really don’t care,” she said. “Your heroes are down. And if you don’t want them dead, you will free the final instrument of assassination and aid in my ascension.”
“You should care.” I carefully shifted weight onto my left leg, testing it. It held, though barely.
“We’re running tight on time, sweetling,” the rabid koala said.
Then I lunged to the side, startling Shailaja enough that she raised the katana. Except I wasn’t going for her.
I slammed my hand into the iridescent magic that surrounded the far seer. Then, in the hastiest bit of alchemy I had ever performed, I ripped it asunder. The flavors of pear and toasted grain filled my mouth even as the magic coursed through my limbs, burrowing into my arteries and veins.
The flowered branch fell, landing softly on the stone coffin.
I twisted around, fighting to force the foreign magic I held into my knife and my necklace. I raised my blade to meet the overhead blow I was expecting from Shailaja as she raced across the chamber toward me.
She kicked me in the gut instead.
I flew across the tomb, over the pit, and crashed into the far wall near the archway. I fell in a tangle of limbs, still too injured to be graceful about any of it.
I rolled over onto my belly. Looking up through the tangle of my curls, I tried to organize my thoughts.
Chi Wen slid off the coffin.
Shailaja shied away from him, raising the mangled katana before her.
But the far seer was watching me, not her.
I struggled to stand, knowing as I made it to my feet that I wasn’t going to survive another hit.
I couldn’t understand what the far seer was waiting for …
Then I realized.
Me. He was waiting for me.
And I had no idea what to do.
I looked at Shailaja.
The rabid koala was livid. She was wary of Chi Wen and completely pissed, all at the same time. She stalked back over to Drake, laying the edge of the katana at his neck.
“Dragons don’t kill dragons,” I said.
“They do when they’re ascending,” Shailaja sneered.
“No,” I said. “That’s by mutual agreement. Not force. Not trickery.”
“We both know you’re going to do this, alchemist. We both know you won’t stand there and let me kill anyone.” Then she turned just her head, glaring at Chi Wen. “Look at him!”
The far seer continued smiling cheerfully at me.
“He’s gone!” Shailaja snarled. “He’s walking around with all that power, and he’s nothing. Useless. The more powerful I am, the more you are.”
“No.”
“We’ll take Warner to Baxia. She’s next in line to relinquish her mantle.”
“He’d never do it.”
“I swear I will kill him!” She pressed the blade to Drake’s neck. As it had when it hit my father, it sliced through his skin with no effort.
I let go of my knife. It sheathed itself before it hit the ground. Tears began to slip unchecked down my cheeks.
Disbelief flitted across Shailaja’s face. Then anger. She straightened. Spinning on her heel, she stomped across the chamber to stand over Warner.
“Fine,” she said. “Him, then.” But there was an edge in her voice as if she was convincing herself. “The sentinel is a worthy sacrifice.”
I began to sob. Terrible, racking cries tore out of my hollow chest. My heart was in tatters, and my mind wasn’t far behind. But I wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t going to hand Shailaja any more power. Warner wouldn’t want me to.
“Goddamn you, Jade Godfrey. You will do this!”
“He’s already dead …”
“What?”
“He’s already dead to me!” I shrieked.
Shailaja threw the katana.
It spun toward me.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and reaching out with my dowser magic. I sought the stolen magic held within the mangled blade.
Then I claimed the darkness I had sealed in the weapon with my own blood. I claimed the magic of all the Adepts sacrificed by my sister. I acknowledged their deaths. I accepted responsibility for the creation of this dark blade, as I should have that night on the beach in Tofino.
I opened my eyes.
The sword heeded me, zigzagging away from the portal that Shailaja was in the process of opening.
Her jaw dropped.
The circle of folded steel spun toward me. I reached for it. I let the blade slice across my open palm, then twisted around to clamp my bloody fingers around the hilt. The weapon came to a halt in my hand.
I met Shailaja’s surprised gaze. My face was sticky with the tears I hadn’t bothered to wipe away.
Chi Wen grunted with satisfaction.
The rabid koala lunged sideways, sliding across the tiled floor and grabbing Drake’s gold broadsword from where it lay beside the fledgling. Then she rolled to her feet, facing me with the pit trap between us.
It was my turn to smirk.
“What?” Shailaja snapped.
“That blade owes you no allegiance. It was forged for the fledgling.”
“No matter what dragon weapon you hold, alchemist, I will always outclass you.”
I snorted, slamming all the power in my grasp into the mangled katana. Under that onslaught, the blade unfurled. All the damage done to it when I’d twisted it around Sienna’s neck unwrought itself, as the blade reformed into its original twenty-eight inches of straight, strong steel.
“You stupid bitch,” I said. “This is my freaking sword.”
I shifted my right foot behind me, falling into a classic forward lunge pose as effortlessly as I’d claimed the pulsing magic of the katana. I leveled the blade at Shailaja, offering a challenge.
“And they call me dragon slayer now,” I whispered.
Shailaja snarled.
I leaped forward, pushing up and over in an attempt to clear the pit between us. But I understood even before I’d completed the leap that she was faster and stronger than me.
Whether I’d reclaimed my katana or not, I wasn’t going to land a single blow.
Still, I held the sword over my head, primed for a futile downward strike. Knowing that when that attack was thwarted, I was only leaping toward my own death.
That thought was a relief, actually.
Because what else could I do?
As I’d expected, Shailaja ducked underneath my strike. In my gamble to get there fast enough, I’d left myself open.
I waited for her to gut me.
Then Chi Wen appeared beside Shailaja. He laid his hand on the back of the rabid koala’s head, as if to tousle her hair and congratulate her on an imminent victory.
She screamed as the far seer’s golden-white, spiced magic flared within her eyes.
The rabid koala convulsed, lowering her blade and arching forward and upward, directly into the path of my strike.
My katana sliced off her head.
I hit the ground hard, landing on my weak left leg. I collapsed. Crashing into the far seer’s legs, I felt my ribs snap — again. Or maybe it was my spine. The sensation was like slamming into two steel poles.
I screamed. My vision blackened from the pain for a moment. But I regained my sight in time to watch Shailaja’s headless body fall to the floor in front of me. Blood flooded from the ghastly wound that was her neck.
I was still screaming. I couldn’t stop. Screaming with the terror of what I’d done, and of the life I’d snuffed out. It was Chi Wen who silenced me, yanking me up onto my knees.
“Hurry, hurry, Jade Godfrey. Hurry, alchemist.”
“What?” I mumbled through the pain of being hauled up so abruptly.
“Take the magic now. Take the magic. Claim your kill.”
“What?” I shrieked.
“You must take the magic of the daughter of Pulou-who-was. It is your destiny.”
“What?” I repeated a third time. And then my brain finally clicked in. “No!”
“You will not allow such a gift to go unclaimed. Take it now, alchemist.”
“You’ve seen this? You see me taking her magic?”
Chi Wen gently turned me, so that I was looking at him instead of Shailaja’s beheaded corpse. Even with me on my knees, he wasn’t much more than a foot taller than me.
Then I realized he wasn’t moving me with his hands on my shoulders. He was moving me with his mind.
Utter terror filled my already overwhelmed brain.
“I will see this,” Chi Wen said simply.
“What do you mean?” I forced the words out, trying to push past the horror in an attempt to understand what was happening.
“Do this, alchemist,” he insisted. “You must not allow this power to fade.”
Completely disoriented but still attempting to obey the far seer’s concerned urging, I grabbed the magic that coursed within Shailaja’s blood. I tried to channel that intense power into my necklace and knife, then into the katana.
I failed.
“The sword can’t hold any more,” I cried. “My necklace, my knife … I can’t.”
“You, Jade Godfrey. You are the vessel to hold the power of the daughter of the mountain.”
“No.”
“This is how you ascend. This is how you become.”
“Become what?”
The far seer crouched down before me. He ran his hand through the blood pooling by Shailaja’s severed neck. “If you were a fledgling guardian, you would need to actually drink her blood and consume her heart and brain.”
My stomach squelched with revulsion. “But I’m not a fledgling guardian.”
“You are not. And as such, the physical consumption is not necessary for you.”
“I can’t do it,” I mumbled, still not completely understanding what he was asking of me. “I won’t.”
Chi Wen lifted his bloody hand, catching my chin and forcing me to look in his eyes. I waited for his brain-searing magic to destroy what was left of my mind.
“When I was a boy, my mother was the far seer,” Chi Wen said. “She saw me, as I see Drake.” His guardian magic rolled across his eyes, yet I knew his vision wasn’t clouded. He saw most clearly in those moments when he used his seer powers.
“The day my mother saw me no longer was the day she knew she was to relinquish her guardian mantle.”
“I don’t understand, far seer. We must call the other guardians … Drake … Warner …”
He released my chin, wiping a single bloody finger across my face. Then he dipped down to Shailaja’s blood and back up again, making another pass on my other cheek. It was as if he were applying slashes of war paint. He was painting me with Shailaja’s blood.
“That is not how I see Drake.”
“I don’t understand …”
Then the far seer’s magic flooded my mind, wiping out everything in its path … my thoughts … my memories … myself.
I was an empty shell.
Then Chi Wen showed me … he showed me Drake.
Drake older … but not old enough.
Drake was standing over Haoxin. The petite guardian was lying across a gold altar surrounded by nine ornate chairs, arrayed in a semicircle.
“No …” I moaned.
Drake was lifting a jewel-crusted chalice filled with blood. He looked across Haoxin’s body at someone I couldn’t see … someone even Chi Wen’s sight couldn’t see. The fledgling’s face was etched with fear.
A five-colored silk braid was wrapped around Haoxin’s neck.
“No!” I cried.
Chi Wen released his hold on my mind. The tomb of the phoenix swam back into view.
“That can’t … happen …” I was dizzy and so, so sick. I wasn’t sure if I was sitting or standing, but I could see Drake still lying on the ground just beyond Shailaja. The pool of her blood was slowly creeping toward him.
“You can unmake what you have seen,” Chi Wen said. “I’m sorry, Jade, but you must hurry.”
Something stung my right wrist. I looked down to see blood there, then to watch the far seer drag my jade knife across my left wrist, then up my forearm. “No,” I muttered. “That’s mine. That’s my knife. You can’t be touching it without my permission.”
“Now … become.”
He wasn’t listening to me. He sliced my right wrist and my arm again.
Why wasn’t I moving? Why wasn’t I stopping him?
He was killing me … with my own knife.
Oh, God.
He was still in my head.
The magic in Shailaja’s blood tingled against my face … then it began to itch …
Then it burned.
“Ow …”
I couldn’t do anything but speak. I couldn’t wipe the blood from my face or move away from the far seer.
“No,” I said again as I watched blood pour from my slit wrists. “This is so wrong.”
“Who are you to say so, fledgling?”
“Me. I’m me.”
“Yes,” Chi Wen said, sounding overly satisfied. “Now you are you.”
“This was my destiny?”
“It is now. If you are to survive, you have to take it all, alchemist. Every last drop.”
Then he nudged me forward — not with his hand or foot, but with his mind.
I fought back. “Magic isn’t blood …” I screamed the words as I rose stumbling to my feet. Somehow, I managed to shove the far seer away from me.
He grunted, pleased and full of satisfaction.
My head swam. I was standing, but I didn’t think I could move without falling down again. It was too late. I’d lost too much blood. I was too badly injured.
“Take the magic. Make it your own,” Chi Wen whispered. “Or die. I cannot force you, Jade. But do this. For Drake. For you.”
As if woken by the far seer saying his name, the fledgling guardian groaned and turned his head toward me.
I looked over at Warner. His chest rose as he drew breath. He was alive. He would live … without me …
“I don’t want to die,” I murmured.
Chi Wen pressed my knife into my right hand. I took it. Then he pressed the katana into my left. I took that too. Though I wasn’t sure why I needed them.
“Take it all, dragon slayer,” Chi Wen coaxed. “You will need it to stand before your next foes. You will need it to stand at Drake’s side. You will need it to alter the future.”
So I took it. I reached out for the dragon magic of the woman I’d murdered. I took it for my own.
I sought out the power swirling within the blood at my feet. Then I pulled at it. It rose eagerly, coating my feet, ankles, and calves in a golden sheen. I pulled it higher, coating myself with it as I’d seen Shailaja do twice. I gathered all the rabid koala’s magic, along with the magic in my own blood that Chi Wen had drained from me.
I wrapped the power from every last drop of blood around me like a full-body shroud … like a spinning net that sparkled with gold. It settled on my skin, then was absorbed into it.
I was the abomination I had always been accused of being.
“Forget now.” Chi Wen brushed his fingers across my cheek.
…
…
…
“Forget what?”
A massive boom sounded through the archway, cracking the tile mosaic on the wall and shaking the ground underneath our feet. I stumbled away from the far seer, falling to my hands and knees, then crawling the rest of the way to Warner as more stone exploded somewhere deep within the tunnel.
A plume of rock dust flooded into the crypt. Coughing and barely able to hold myself up on my arms, I tried to shield Warner’s nose and mouth with my body. Just as I’d triggered the earthquake and flood in Hope Town and the centipede in Peru, I assumed I was about to face the final security measure of the shrine. Though I hadn’t tried to remove the instrument. Maybe compromising the magic that had been holding the instrument was enough.
Then the fire breather walked through the archway. I thought Suanmi had been scary in cashmere and braids. But she was a much more terrible and awesome sight in shiny black samurai gear. Her dark hair was slicked back in a tight bun. Her katana was easily a foot longer than mine.
Her gaze swept the chamber, taking in the sight of all that had happened. Then that gaze turned toward me. “What have you done?”
A portal blew open behind her. And the seven remaining guardian dragons stepped through its golden magic into the tomb behind the fire breather, fanning out around the pit. The portal remained open at their backs.
I’d been praying that the guardians would show up and save the day. And here they were.
Except I had a sinking feeling that I was now the big bad they had come to save the world from.
Qiuniu went to Drake, crouching to briefly touch his neck. Then he straightened with a nod in Suanmi’s direction.
Pulou stepped over Shailaja’s body without a second glance, sweeping the instrument of assassination off the sarcophagus and into a mesh bag constructed out of platinum and cinched with jeweled ties. The entire side of the treasure keeper’s face was badly scarred.
Yazi, appearing fully healed, immediately stepped toward me, but Chi Wen shuffled into his path, lifting his hand to stop the warrior. Frowning, my father stepped back to fall into line with the other guardians. They turned, looking toward me.
Not knowing what they wanted, I struggled to my feet and attempted to bow.
No one spoke.
The pit and Shailaja’s decapitated body stood between them and me.
“Please,” I whispered. “Healer … the sentinel …” The combined magic of the guardians was wreaking havoc on my senses. I was injured and overwhelmed.
Hell, I’d just murdered someone.
Qiuniu looked to Chi Wen. The far seer raised his hand a second time.
I felt my grip weaken, and I lost hold of my katana. It hit the floor. I couldn’t find the strength to pick it back up.
So I just stood before the nine most powerful beings in the world. I’d done so before, but this time, each of them was arrayed for battle with dragon armor and weapons. Swords … knives … bows … Jiaotu carried two deadly axes. I was pretty sure I couldn’t have lifted either one of them.
Jesus.
Their power flooded the chamber, blowing through and around me.
“May I present Jade Godfrey, alchemist, wielder of the instruments of assassination, dragon slayer,” Chi Wen said, bowing formally in my direction. “We have been awaiting her awakening.”
No ‘granddaughter of Pearl Godfrey’ … no ‘warrior’s daughter’ … no ‘treasure keeper’s alchemist’ …
Just me. Me and all the terrible I was capable of.
Dragon slayer.
Drake sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his head. “What did I miss?”
I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. I felt hysteria burble up to override my terror and pain.
The magic of the guardians continued to weave in and around me. They stood arrayed before me, armed to the teeth.
They were the nine most powerful beings in the world. And they … paused.
Paused.
As weak and terrified as I was, I gave them pause.
Then, without a word or a glance exchanged between them, their guardian magic finally broke through the shielding I was desperately trying to hold against it. Their power boiled around me, causing me to lose my grip on my knife.
I swayed.
I was going to die. Again. Or maybe I had already done that. I was losing track.
The far seer stepped forward and swept me into his arms. He was at least seven inches shorter than me, but it was like I weighed nothing to him.
He held me as if presenting me to the rest of the guardian nine.
I continued to fight the onslaught of guardian magic. I lost. Darkness folded around me.
“Dragon slayer,” the far seer repeated, utterly satisfied.
I’d been set up.
I’d been manipulated every step of the way. Perhaps right from the first moment Pulou had handed me the map and sent me to collect the instruments of assassination.
But did it even matter? I wasn’t sure I would survive long enough to find out.
Darkness shuttered my eyes, then my mind.
There was nothing I could do about it.