“Well now, that wasn’t so bad.” Knots picked up his barrel and approached the cave. The entrance remained dotted with sea glass, but its once beautifully tiled walls were now marred with many empty settings.

  Stealthy and Brains lit their lanterns.

  “After you.” Pilder waved the captain in.

  “Oh, no, I insist you go first. You’ve done all the work,” Knots said.

  “Fine by me.” Pilder took Rilla’s hand and stepped through. The way was all fine and dandy until they rounded a bend and Rilla tripped over a spell-thread. Immediately, a spider web of light lining the tunnel ignited.

  “What’s that?” Brains froze.

  “An alarm spell,” Pilder explained while helping Rilla to her feet.

  “Oh, that’s not so bad. Tidal is dead. There’s no one to respond to it.”

  “He didn’t have a mate, did he?” Rilla tried to suppress the niggling worm of worry that had settled into her thoughts.

  “No. The stories have only ever mentioned one dragon. He was a paranoid lizard, wasn’t he?” Knots moved on ahead of them.

  “He certainly was,” Rilla mumbled. To Pilder she said, “It must have taken him years to cast all the traps and alarm spells on this island.”

  “Woah!” Brains’s exclamation caught their attention. “It’s everything you said it’d be, Captain!”

  The others ran to join him at the end of the tunnel.

  The lantern light revealed piles of pearls, precious stones, gold medallions, chains, and cups, all meticulously organized by type, size, and colour. A few rotting and waterlogged wooden chests had been emptied and tossed in their own corner. Rilla guessed these must have been taken from the wrecks of passing ships Tidal had sunk.

  A haze of blue sunlight filtered to the ceiling through a large pool of water at the far end of the cavern. A web of sticky magic stretched across its surface.

  “Looks like it was Tidal’s underwater entrance,” Pilder observed.

  “That’s an acid spell. Anyone going through that would be melted!” Rilla shivered.

  Pilder circled around the pool, his fingers hovering just above the spell threads. When he reached the thickest, brightest thread, he cut through it with a practiced hand-slicing motion. The spell evaporated. He dipped his fingers in and brought the water to his mouth. “It’s seawater.”

  The other Paladalls were shouting to each other in excitement over every new find.

  Rilla turned about in circles, gaping in awe. Tidal had lined the entire ceiling with more sea glass that reflected the pool’s muted light. A movement in the corner of the cave caught her eye and she froze. A massive pearl the size of a cooking pot sat atop a pile of the largest pearls. A nasty knot of frayed spell-threads slid across its surface like a tangle of writhing snakes.

  “Whatever you do, don’t touch that.” Rilla pointed it out to the others.

  “There she is.” Knots sighed with contentment, like he’d just spotted the love of his life. He started towards it.

  “No, wait! Didn’t you just hear me say don’t touch it!” Rilla shouted after him.

  “I know what you said and I know what I’m doing.” Knots began to climb the pile of pearls. They skittered away under his ascent and prevented him from reaching the top. The cursed pearl sank a little lower into the pile. Knots grunted and tossed a handful of pearls. Rilla had thought him a patient person up to this point. His frustration over such a small thing seemed at odds with his character. Then again, he did seem to swing between moods unexpectedly.

  A tremor shook the cave. Pearls and gold coins rattled and slid.

  “What was that?” Rilla demanded.

  No one answered.

  More rattling sounded down the cave tunnel, like hundreds of bare tree branches scraping against each other in a windstorm.

  “It looks like it’s time you earned your commission, Stealthy. Go find out what that is,” Knots said.

  “Why don’t yew go check!” Stealthy snapped back.

  “Because you have the amulet and that was a direct order from your captain!” Knots countered.

  The rattling got louder, echoing off the cavern walls.

  “Oh no! I think I know what it is.” Pilder’s eyes widened with anxiety.

  “What?” Rilla inched towards the tunnel then stopped, motivated by intrigue but hindered by unease.

  “I’ve been mulling it over since the alarm spell was tripped. Before he died, Tidal could have buried a spell-thread from his body, through the sand, underground, to the cave. The symbols etched into Tidal’s bones … I think the alarm spell activated them.”

  “Oh … Oh!” Rilla gasped, understanding flooding through her apprehension.

  Chapter 11

  Snout-First

  “We need to get out of here! Tidal isn’t dead!” Rilla shouted.

  “Oh, no, he’s very dead.” Pilder was scanning the cave for any other exits. “I think he’s been reanimated.”

  “By who?” Stealthy clutched his crate stuffed with treasure protectively against his body.

  “Himself. If I’ve learned anything about his personality through the spells he’s cast, it’s that he’d do anything to protect what’s his. Those markings were made while he was still alive. He must have carved spells into his own bones.”

  “Not the kind of dragon I want to meet dead or alive.” Rilla joined Pilder in circling the perimeter of the cave, looking for any way out.

  Stealthy and Brains caught on and began frantically searching the opposite side. Knots seemed oblivious, obsessed as he was with reaching the terrible pearl. Rilla didn’t know why she thought it was terrible, but there was something about it that exuded wrongness.

  With the approaching rattling of bones, a smell of rotting flesh wafted through the cavern.

  “Dare ain’t no way out!” Stealthy panicked when they met up after circling the entire cave.

  “Yes, there is.” Rilla pointed to the pool of water. “That probably goes out into the ocean.”

  The great rattling rose to an obnoxious pitch; Tidal must have spotted the intruders. His massive skull burst into view as he charged into the cave, followed by a long, bony, fin-lined neck, a rib cage big enough to build a house in, and a long tail that tapered into tiny bones and a fin-like tip. Hundreds of blue soul threads linked him together, bone to bone. Every thread was a separate spell woven between hanging bits of rotten flesh.

  “We’re going swimming!” Brains shouted, making a beeline for the pool.

  Tidal’s tail whipped out and tripped him.

  With shaking hands, Stealthy turned his amulet’s gem and disappeared.

  “I’ve got it!” Captain Knots shouted, holding the large pearl above his head triumphantly.

  Tidal’s rattling mass of bones and decaying flesh threw itself at him.

  Knots fell into the pile of shifting pearls, losing his grip on his prize.

  The pearl rolled across the floor and plopped into the pool. The dragon began slashing through the pearl pile with claws as long as a Paladall’s forearm.

  Knots struggled free and ran for the pool, pausing long enough to gasp for a breath before leaping in.

  Pilder began to unbuckle the belt at his waist, along with the weight of his money bag, magical artifacts, and scrolls.

  Rilla hurried to help. Was it terrible that, in a moment of mortal danger, all she could think about was how much she enjoyed putting her arms around his waist?

  Pilder tossed aside the belt. “I’m going to need your help to breathe.”

  She nodded and reached into the pool to draw out a handful of water. She closed her eyes and focused on the liquid resting in her palm. The droplets lifted to form a bubble, trapping air inside.

  The undead dragon had finally realized his prey was no longer in the pile of pearls and was now knocking aside other piles of treasure in search of Knots. When Pilder leapt into the pool, the dragon whipped his massive body around to gaze at him with gaping, empty eye sockets.

  Rilla tossed the bubble of air to Pilder. He held it to his mouth and dove under.

  Tidal opened his mouth and a rattling roar rushed through his decayed vocal cords.

  Rilla frantically shaped another ball of air. The water slipped repeatedly through her now-shaking hands. Come on, Rillanna, this is child’s play! she chided herself.

  Tidal’s massive teeth bore down.

  She abandoned all attempts at magic and threw herself into the pool.

  The water that slapped against her skin was an extension of all her senses; she felt the movement of Pilder’s arms waving in the water below where he waited for her. She saw the mental image of Knots holding the pearl in his arms and thrashing his way frantically towards open water through the twists and turns of a short underwater tunnel. She heard the joy of the sea where it leapt into the open sky as surf crashed against the sandy shore. She forced herself to focus on where she was now, and not the water’s never-ending cycle.

  As her focus came back to herself, Rilla chanced a look back and watched in horror as a skeletal head entered the water behind her. Tidal’s teeth chomped. A cracking pain reverberated through her leg. She screamed. No sound came out, but water rushed in. The salt water that surged down her throat carried with it not only the taste of the sea, but a rush of her natural water magic.

  Wisps of blood curled from the skeleton’s lipless mouth.

  Pilder’s strong hands closed around her arms and tugged her towards the twinkling of light at the end of the watery tunnel, but her ankle was impaled on one of the undead dragon’s teeth. She desperately lashed out with her water magic; a surge of water pressure burst with it. Tidal’s head snapped back with the force, ripping from her ankle. Pilder threw a spell-thread of his own; a cloud of inky blackness burst in the skeletal face, obscuring the undead creature’s view. Pilder dragged her, bleeding and drowning, through the tunnel and up into the blessed, open air.

  In his arms, she vomited water repeatedly as he waded through the surf to lay her on the sandy shore. She was still doubled over and spitting salt water when Tidal’s massive, rattling bulk burst from the sea and slammed snout-first into Pilder.

  Chapter 12

  Shattered Bone

  Rilla watched in horror as her husband’s body crashed into the side of a boulder. There was something decidedly unnatural about the way he crumpled against the rock before falling to the ground.

  She could barely whisper “No!” between gasps for air. Had she just watched him die?

  In that moment, her survival instincts surfaced. She could not be Lady Rillanna Duskhand, staring at the lifeless body of her best friend and the love of her life. She had to be someone else. She was not horrified; she was angry. She was not weak and bleeding; she was a Paladall with magic surging through her veins.

  She slowly rose to her feet. Somewhere, there was a thought that her ankle shouldn’t hold her weight, but it did, and she didn’t feel any pain.

  One foot on shore and one in the sea, she turned to face the skeletal dragon. “I bet you’ve never fought a water Paladall before. Want to know what it feels like to have every bone in your body lacerated?” She waved first one hand and then the other in a half-moon. Two scythes of water emerged from the waves, mimicking her movement. She crossed her arms and snarled, “You’re going to die … again!” She whipped her arms back and forth. The scythes sliced, separating bone from bone, splintering through spells.

  Tidal moved towards her but his forelegs crumpled, bones scattering. He roared in protest but she aimed for the spell-thread holding his jawbone in place. It swung loose on one side. She slashed again and it dropped to the sand. She didn’t know how long she sliced, but, joint by joint, she cut through hundreds of soul threads binding him together, until not one bone was connected to another. Adrenaline spent, her legs buckled and she cried out as her wrecked ankle gave way, punctuated by a wave of agony. She was Rilla again, and Pilder needed her.

  She crawled forward through the graveyard of Tidal’s scattered bones to reach her husband’s side. His back was bent at an unnatural angle.

  “No, no,” she sobbed, reaching for him but afraid touching him would make it worse. Finally, she decided to place her hand gently on his forehead. She searched for his thoughts.

  There! A confusing tangle of consciousness, but he was there!

  Wake up, love, she whispered mentally, but even as she spoke, the mental link slipped. She tried again. Pilder, please!

  His eyelids fluttered open. “I can’t feel my body,” he croaked.

  Rilla reached for his hand, wet with water and caked in sand. She squeezed. “Can you feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

  His back is broken. Too late she realized he’d been tuned into her thoughts.

  “It’s okay,” he took a shuddering breath, “I’m ready to go.”

  “I am not ready to let you go. Dragon’s teeth, Pilder! You are not allowed to die.” She crawled to his back and gently brushed her hand over the curve of his spine, whispering a healing word. Gold glowed under her hands and faded. “Can you move now?”

  “No.”

  She tried again. And again.

  After the tenth time, he said, “Come around where I can see you.”

  She shuffled over to face him and stroked his forehead.

  “The damage is too great. I’m sorry.” His eyes roved over her face, sorrow dimming the gold in his eyes. “We always knew I’d die first, that I wasn’t going to live as long as a full-blood. It’s okay to be upset. I’d take you with me if I could.” He half-laughed and closed his eyes to take a shuddering breath.

  “Just this once, can you not turn this into a joke?” She brushed at the hot tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. Can you tell Eventide and Shade I love them and I’m proud of them? She’s so beautiful and wise. He’s so determined and clever. They’ll do well.” She recognized the tone in his voice; he was trying to convince himself they didn’t need him.

  Rilla couldn’t speak. Somewhere she couldn’t feel, in a protective box with the lid screwed on tight, her heart was shattering like Tidal’s sea glass, like his bones scattered around them.

  “And please, any way you can, help them see Sisinta’s soul thread. Tell them about Elyon. Tell them there’s another way.”

  “Elyon!” Rilla jumped to her feet. “He’s what we need to heal you!”

  “Do you think he’ll come?”

  “He did before.”

  Rilla looked at the pink sunset spreading like ink across the smattering of clouds. “Elyon, we’re calling. Please, please, please come.”

  A sea bird dipping in flight cried out; its voice echoed across the beach. For several minutes, the constant whoosh of waves punctuated an otherwise silent reply.

  Rilla couldn’t see the sunset anymore. Tears stole all light from her vision. Trembling, she knelt, pressed her forehead to Pilder’s, and closed her eyes.

  “I don’t want you to be sad,” Pilder whispered.

  “Too bad. I’m going to be whether you tell me to or not.” Rilla sobbed.

  “Elyon,” Pilder whispered through barely parted lips, “for her sake?”

  Pilder’s body lit up. Elyon’s golden soul thread came to life. Beginning in Pilder’s forehead, it flowed like a river of lava through his veins. He spasmed and Rilla cried out, vainly trying to hold him in her arms. Was he being healed or was he dying? What did the death of a Paladall who served Elyon look like?

  The glow dimmed, then faded. Pilder lay still and straight, staring up at the sky with glazed eyes. “That … that was painful,” he croaked out. “I don’t think I want to do that again.” He slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, then, leaning on the boulder for support, gingerly got to his feet.

  Rilla pressed her face into the sand and sobbed like a baby.

  “Darling, it’s all right. I’m all right,” Pilder soothed. He crouched, stroked her hair, and kissed the top of her head.

  “I know,” she gasped out, “but I thought you wouldn’t be. I thought you were going to die!”

  He gently wiped the crusted sand from her face. “I’m glad you were wrong. You would have made a beautiful widow, though.”

  Rilla glared at him and swatted his chest.

  “There she is.” He laughed. A deep, rolling laugh that, minutes before, she thought she would never hear again.

  “I forbid you from ever almost dying again, Lord Pilder Duskhand!” Rilla groused.

  “Certainly, m’lady. I’ll try not to fail at it next time.” There he was, smirking at her with his stupidly handsome face.

  “You’re lucky I love you or I’d skewer you with a water scythe.”

  “Is that what you did to Tidal? Effective.” He crouched to pick up one of the bones on the beach. “I wish I had been conscious to see it.” He turned the knuckle bone over in his hands. “The symbols are still etched into them. I think if someone sets off the alarm spell again, it will build a new spell-thread and his body will reanimate.”

  “Will he never stay dead?” Rilla groaned.

  “Like I said before, he is dead. His soul does not inhabit these pieces of him. The spell can only animate with a few simple directions like guard, kill, pursue. It isn’t a very intelligent pile of bones.”

  Rilla stood, careful not to put much weight on her injured foot. “How did he see without eyes?”

  “Magic?” Pilder shrugged. “Under other circumstances, I’d say we should study the spell. But I think we need to burn the bones and destroy the markings as soon as possible.” He straightened and sucked in a sharp breath.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Anxiety flared in her chest, and she reached out to help him stand.

  He leaned against her for support. “There’s still pain in my back. It’s fine. Manageable. You’re not in great shape either.” He gestured at her ankle. “Take a seat.” He pointed to one of the small boulders thrusting out of the sand. Gingerly, they helped each other over and she lowered herself down.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7