Chapter 12
My lungs collapsed once again. I froze, unable to move.
The fighting behind me quieted as the men turned their attention to the mound. The creatures backed up slightly, waiting for their leader’s directions.
Jennik’s eyes narrowed. “Good. Kill yourself. You deserve nothing less than death.”
“No.” The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
The leader’s face twisted with a smirk. I wouldn’t let him die, and he knew it.
“Why not?” Jennik demanded. He turned his blade toward me. “We had a deal.”
I’d already tipped my hand, told the leader everything he needed to know. There was no point in hiding anything from him. From Jennik, yes. From the leader, no. “We can’t let him die until I’ve regained control of the dragon.”
Jennik continued to stare at me with the same expression. Trying to see where the trick or trap was.
“I have to have the ring before he dies,” I pressed. “Then you can kill him. But not before.”
“Not much reason for me to hand over the ring then,” the leader hissed. He lightly twisted the blade at his throat so the metal caught the light. “Leave. All of you.”
“Not a chance,” Jennik snapped.
“Leave now, or I slice my throat open and you lose your precious dragon!”
I tried not to cringe.
Jennik turned that stare on me once more. “Lose the dragon?” His face relaxed. He’d figured it out. “Go ahead, then. I have no qualms with that.”
Thone’s blade lit against the corner of Jennik’s neck. “We do.” The men turned on each other in a flash, blades turned at each other in threat, though they still tried to watch the creatures for any signs of resumed hostilities. Thone glanced at me as if asking for directions.
The leader looked like he might burst into delighted laughter.
I wanted to throw up. “We have to leave.” I couldn’t let him kill Axen through the bond. I would have to return in secret, infiltrate, find another way to get the ring. But even I knew that was a flimsy hope. More likely the creatures would flee. Regain control of Axen. Use her to wipe out the above world.
I’d failed.
“Then we leave.” Thone took a step back toward the tunnel, ‘guiding’ Jennik with him.
Jennik grunted in angry protest. “How dare you! I’ll crush you and your pitiful town—”
“How do you intend to do that?” Thone asked quietly.
Jennik’s eyes flicked to the group of men. Their numbers had been almost equal after the dragon attack. Now, after fighting through the ambush, it looked like Emsha had a few more blades on Krenish.
“We have no intention of bullying you as you did us,” Thone continued. “But we will not allow you to act foolishly and get one of our own killed.”
“The dragon?” Jennik burst out incredulously.
Thone’s eyes met mine. “Yes. The dragon. Now move.”
Jennik sputtered for a moment, but reluctantly obeyed.
My feet felt heavy as I backed toward the tunnel. I wanted with everything in me to abandon reason and throw myself at the leader, tackle him to the ground, pull the knife away, tear the ring off his hand. But I knew I’d never get that far. I knew the look in the leader’s eye. He would kill himself rather than see defeat. And if he couldn’t have the dragon, no one could.
“Not you.” The leader glared at me with tiny, glittering eyes.
My feet slowed. “What?”
“You stay. The rest leave.”
“She’s coming with us,” Rik barked out, stepping toward my side.
The creatures shoved him back away. He raised his sword to strike.
“Drop it!” the leader ordered, tightening his grip on his knife in threat.
“Do what he says,” I said. My heart had finally restarted, now pounding in double time. The leader wanted me to stay. Probably to kill me as vengeance for what I’d done. I didn’t really care why. All that mattered was that I was staying. Maybe I would get another chance after all.
Rik froze, his jaw muscles twitching, before he reluctantly lowered his arm and dropped the sword at his side.
“Good. Now leave with the others,” the leader said.
He didn’t move for a long time, staring at me. Then he turned and silently trudged after the others.
The leader watched until the men had disappeared around the first bend in the tunnel. He faced me. “Drop your sword.”
I obeyed.
“The scabbard.”
I unlatched the belt and tossed it aside.
A couple of creatures scooped up the discarded items and scurried back away from me, keeping me enclosed in a tight circle.
“Now tell me how it works.”
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t that. “What?”
“Tell me how it works!” He glared at me. “The dragon attacked. Then it didn’t. Make it work again.”
He didn’t know I’d been the one to interfere with Axen. He didn’t realize that it was only a matter of time before his mind would reclaim hers. He thought something was broken.
I tried to keep up appearances, to show only defiance with a trace of fear. Not the relief I felt at knowing he didn’t understand the bond nearly as much as I did. Not the calculations that clacked onward in my mind, working out how to turn this to my advantage. “I’ll never tell.”
“You will!” He jabbed the knife toward his neck again.
“I think you’re bluffing. You’d kill yourself to keep us from getting the ring back, but this is different. You want to use the ring. I won’t tell you how. Killing yourself won’t help anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “You know that my death means the dragon dies.”
I folded my arms. “I know. But I think you still want to use the dragon. You’re not going to kill yourself now that there’s no immediate threat to you and your people.”
His lips twisted, but his grip on the knife shook, just a fraction. I was right. He was completely willing to kill himself to keep from being captured, but he wasn’t willing to kill himself over my stubborn refusal to cooperate.
He finally spat on the ground and lowered the knife. “Fine.” He grunted, and a couple of creatures vanished into the wall behind him. If I squinted, I could barely make out the tiny tunnel they’d disappeared into.
“My men will reach surface before yours,” he said. “Not many people still in your little village, is there? So many…” He licked his lips. “Children.”
His tone sent ice through my veins. “You wouldn’t.”
He laughed. “You think that’s true? I wouldn’t harm children along with all the other people on the skyside?”
I clenched my teeth. “You’re just going to kill them anyway with the dragon.”
“I didn’t say my men would go kill them. No, I think a few children will come and join us here.” His gaze latched on mine. “Their experience here will depend on how helpful you are.”
The cold deepened. I instinctively tried to cover the horror I felt, but then thought better of it and let it show. “Don’t. Please, leave the children alone.”
“I can have my men return before they take a single one. But you have to give me what I want.” He jabbed the knife in my direction. “Tell me how it works.”
I let emotions battle across my face. Anger. Fear. Uncertainty. And finally, resignation. “Call your men back. I’ll tell you.”
“I don’t believe you. Tell me first.”
I hesitated as if considering pushing the matter, then hung my head. “You have to attune the ring.”
“Attune?”
“Attune to your body. Then you’ll regain control.”
“How?”
“You have to turn it to the right.”
He stared at me. “Turn it?”
I drew a circle in the air with my finger. “To the right.”
He looked dubious. Looked at the ring. Back
at me.
I nodded.
He slowly twisted it on his finger. Stared at it a moment before scowling at me. “It didn’t work.”
“That was just the first turn. Now you have to turn it to the left. Twice.”
His lips peeled backwards. “You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me.”
“I’m not! It’s the same thing I had to do when I first bonded with her. The bond works at first through emotional energy, but that wears off too quickly. The wearer has to be attuned properly to the ring or it will never work again.”
“Tell me all of it. All the turns.”
I spoke it as I made it up, using a slightly sing-song voice as if I was reciting something from memory. “Right, two lefts, a right, a far right, three lefts, two far lefts, two rights, a left—”
“Stop!” He scowled. “You’re making it up. Turning a ring won’t make the dragon work again.”
“Of course it does.” I let myself sound exasperated. “The ring contains her energy. Dragon energy. It can’t mix with your energy and bond you properly just sitting inside a ring. You have to attune it to your body so the bond can be complete. The vibrations of the ring against your finger, along with your focus on the ritual, is what allows that energy to be released.” I drew out the words ‘focus on the ritual’ as if scolding a child who wasn’t paying attention to a lesson.
He stared a moment longer. Looked at the ring. Back at me. “What was the next turn?”
“It’s been too long since you did the first turn. You have to start over now. Turn it to the right.”
He scowled. One of the creatures beside him grunted and hissed. He snarled and slapped the creature, sending his subordinate cringing back away from him.
He glared at me one more time, then turned the ring.
“Now two lefts.”
“That makes no sense,” he hissed. “It is all left. How do you turn two lefts?”
“Turn it left, pause, turn it left again.”
He did so.
“Right.”
Another turn.
“Far right.”
He stomped his foot and glared again. “What is far right?”
“You have to turn it more than before.”
He turned it.
“No, more than that.”
He turned it more.
“No, even more.”
He shrieked. “You! You’re making it wrong!”
“I told you, it has to be more. But now you have to start over because you paused. A far right is really far.”
“Like this?” He twisted again.
“No, more than that.”
He spat at the ground again. “This is impossible! We’re killing the first child they retrieve!”
“No!” I protested. “I told you, it is possible. I’ve done it myself when I first bonded with Axen. But it’s hard to get the motions right. My brother had to show it to me.” I held my hands out and mimicked the motions in the air.
He squinted at my rapid sequence. “Do it again.”
I complied.
He stomped his foot again. “That’s what I was doing!”
“No, it’s different.” I took a step forward. “I could show you—”
He flicked the end of the knife up to his throat. “Not another step.”
I obediently stopped. “Okay, then I just have to keep trying to explain it.”
His mouth twitched. He couldn’t make up his mind what was worse, allowing me near or trying to muddle through my spoken directions.
Finally he hissed. “Come here. But no tricks.”
I tried not to look happy as I approached at a respectful pace. Perfect. All I had to do was get him focused on the ring, then I’d grab the knife, pull it away from his neck, tear the ring off his finger before he could react. I could do this.
He shoved the knife at one of the creatures standing behind him. He spoke his orders in the common language for my benefit. “If she so much as blinks wrong, kill me.”
My feet stumbled, triggering pain in my side. Exhaustion and my wounds were reasserting themselves. And my plan wouldn’t work now that the knife would no longer be within my reach.
The pain stayed in my side. I shifted my weight and realized it wasn’t my injury that hurt. The stumble had moved the knife I’d hidden under my tunic earlier.
My heart sped up. There had to be something I could do with that. Some way…
A new plan formed in my mind by the time I stood at the leader’s side.
He glared. “Show me.”
“A far right is like this.” I kept my demeanor all business, simply focused on instructing a petulant student on the proper method for completing the bonding. I hovered my fingers near his and mimed a dramatic twisting motion.
He tested the motion.
“No, this.” I inched my fingers closer and mimed the motion once more.
He echoed the movement.
“That’s it. So do the first moves. Right, left, pause, left—” I stopped. “No, longer pause. Like this.” I inched just a fraction closer and mimed the proper timing for a pause.
He tried again from the beginning.
A hiss came from the tunnel behind us. He and the other creatures glanced back to hear the report of the creatures coming in.
I didn’t. I grabbed his hand with one hand. Drew my knife with the other. The leader let out a shriek of warning, but it was already too late. My blade shot through the narrow bones on his wrist, severing his hand from his body.
He screamed and collapsed on the ground as I spun and bolted toward the main tunnel. The creatures shrieked and surged to meet me.
Shouts echoed from the tunnel. The men, fighting their way back into the room. They hadn’t left, only gotten out of sight and waited for the opportunity to return. I yanked the ring free, discarded the hand, and forged onward, aimed for the sound.
Too many creatures between me and them. Not enough to overwhelm our whole fighting force, but far too many for me alone. I ducked under one’s grip only to get caught by three more. The knife in my hand flew back and forth, cutting back one attacker after another.
It wasn’t enough. They leapt onto my shoulders, my back, my chest, clawing, biting, tearing. My weak leg buckled. Too many clung to my hand, trying to break my grip, trying to get to the ring. Hands closed around my throat. Teeth sank into my arm. They slammed my head into the hard dirt floor, making lights and darkness flash around my vision.
The flashing lights turned into reflections on flashing blades. Rik tore one creature off my neck as Thone sliced into another. I choked and gasped as more men cut their way through the knot of creatures on me, but my vision continued fading. Magra had been right. My body couldn’t keep up this pace.
Pain tore through my arm. My grip slipped. The ring fell from my hand. I screamed and lunged after it, landing on top of it before any of the creatures could snatch it away. Long fingers clawed after mine, but I managed to grasp the ring and clench my hand around it once more.
Rik pulled me to my feet as the men drove back the creatures far enough to form a protective ring around me. “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t. I was fading fast. And the men were fighting to keep the creatures away from me, but the creatures were fighting even more ferociously now, determined to avenge their leader and regain the ring. If I passed out, I’d lose my grip on the ring. I couldn’t let that happen again. There was only one way to be sure that the ring stayed with me, even if I passed out. But it would leave me helpless.
My vision blurred and shifted. I was about to be helpless no matter what I did.
Rik was calling my name. I looked up at him, barely able to push the words out. “I need you.”
He blinked, then nodded in understanding. He turned, sword ready, prepared to strike down any creature that managed to breach the protective circle. Ready to protect me.
I squeezed the ring a moment longer, working up my nerve. It w
as dangerous. But it was the only way. I put the ring on and tumbled into darkness and flame.