Dragon Emperor 18, page 8
“Well, which is it?” the queen asked. “The curse is here or it’s on the way? I don’t seem to be understanding what’s going on here.”
“The process of the curse has begun,” the mage explained with a fervent light in his eyes. “The scent of death lingers in the forest, and the animals run from the place where the curse has begun to grip our land.”
“What do you mean?” I pressed. “Is there a certain place the animals avoid?”
“Yes.” The mage nodded vigorously. “It is a place only those who are willing to risk death may go. It smells of rotten flesh and putrid death, and it has no mercy for those who come near its smoky grasp.”
“That sounds like a rift,” Alyona murmured.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” I agreed. “We need to check it out. If there’s an open rift here, we have to close it.”
“What about the no-magic thing?” she wondered.
“I’m not sure how to handle that yet,” I said before I turned to face the king and queen. “We may know what curse the man is referring to, and we’d like to go check it out.”
“Most certain death!” the mage screeched. “The priestess must undo the curse!”
“Who is the priestess?” Isi asked as she watched us with growing uncertainty.
“No idea,” I answered before Alyona could. “Anyway, this guy is a lunatic, but if he’s seen a rift, we need to go find it. It could be dangerous for everyone if it stays open.”
Alyona frowned at my answer, but I’d have to explain it to her later. If the snow leopards weren’t big fans of magic, we didn’t need them to know Alyona was a highly skilled priestess or that somehow the tribal knew it.
“What is a rift?” the queen asked.
“It’s similar to the Breach, but it’s smaller,” I answered. “It can still let miasma out, which is deadly, and it sounds like it’s already leaking some now.”
“What can we do about it?” she asked as her face paled.
“We’ll find it and handle it,” I hedged. “I just need to know where the mage saw it.”
“In the forest!” he hissed. “Look for the place no animals may live anymore. It’s deep in the trees, far away from the people, ready to grip its claws into the ground and tear apart our land!”
“Oh, okay, great,” I muttered. “Just look for the place where nothing is. Sounds simple enough.”
“You can’t give any better directions?” Tawa grabbed the mage and lifted him to his feet. “Where in the forest did you see the curse?”
“Beyond the singing lakes,” the ox Demi-Human whispered. “Nearly to the ends.”
“Ends of what?” I grumbled. “This guy is full of riddles.”
“He’s crazy, that’s why,” Rebecca muttered.
“Even if he is, we have to go and try to find it,” I said with a sigh. “We can’t let a rift sit there in the forest.”
“I’m going with you,” Tawa declared as he dropped the mage back onto the floor. “We need to figure out what this curse is all about.”
“I’m sure we can handle it,” I argued. “You guys need to decide what you’re doing with this guy.”
“For now, he can be put in the dungeon,” Tecumseh decided and waved his clawed hand at the guard. “Tawa and Nokomis will accompany you on the search for this rift, since they know the land better than you do.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Alyona said with a curtsy. “We’ll leave right away.”
“And go where?” I whispered as we turned away from the king and queen. “We have no idea what the hell the singing lakes are, and it didn’t seem like Tawa knew, either.”
“Well, he seems to have a plan to figure it out,” she replied. “And that’s better than what we have.”
“Which is no clue,” Rebecca chimed in with a grimace. “At least he has to know where some lakes are.”
“Alright, we’ll follow his lead,” I agreed. “But don’t say anything about magic to him. Their barrier is obviously not working, and I don’t want to catch the blame for it.”
“What about when it’s time to seal the rift?” my wife asked and pursed her lips.
“We’ll have to do what we have to do,” I muttered.
A few minutes later, we were back outside, and the hare-led sleds were ready to go. Then we were headed out into the wilderness again, though Ravi and Isabella elected to ride on the sleds this time, too.
This time, I didn’t mind the snow since it allowed me to think by myself for a while. I didn’t like the no-magic barrier, and since the mage begged for leniency for using magic, I was sure that meant the snow leopards had some kind of rule in place about magic as well.
But if the barrier wasn’t working, there had to be a reason why. If the rift tore apart their barrier, who’d set it up? And why didn’t they notice when their spell was undone?
I had a ton of questions and not nearly enough answers, and I had no idea how I was going to get them yet.
We stopped on the edge of the forest, and this time, we were much further north than we’d been when we’d searched for the sacrifice. It was even colder and windier here, and as I took my human form, I pulled my fur coat tighter around my shoulders.
“There’s a series of lakes just east of here,” Tawa explained. “I can’t imagine the mage could have meant anywhere else.”
“They don’t sing, to my knowledge,” Nokomis pointed out with a smirk. “But I agree, there aren’t many other options in the form of lakes.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to go find out,” I said and started into the forest.
We walked between the evergreens for what seemed like hours. Nike and Tawa talked about their missions as Nobles of the Sword, while Nokomis, Rebecca, Ravi, Skye, and Isabella chatted about Narsglow and the snow that most of them had never even seen before.
Alyona and I remained quiet, and I wasn’t sure if she was lost in thought as I was or if she was worried about what we might find on the other side of the so-called singing lakes. If we found a rift as I suspected, it should be a simple task to seal it up, but with the no-magic conversation at play, there wasn’t any other way to close the rift.
We had to figure out a way around their little rule, or I’d have to distract the snow leopards while Alyona did her thing.
It wouldn’t take her but a few seconds, Miraya reminded me. Perhaps you could find something else to draw their attention.
Maybe, I agreed. I’ll have to do something. We can’t just leave it open.
I suspect my sisters already know that you are able to do magic here, the spirit murmured. They seem to have sensed something was awry here for much longer than the mage suspected, but everyone else believed the barrier was working.
What about whoever set up the barrier? I wondered. Can’t a person tell when their spell has been messed up or something?
You should ask Alyona about that, Miraya suggested.
“Okay, so I was thinking about the magic barrier thing,” I whispered to Alyona. “It sounded like they don’t let magic happen here at all, right?”
“That’s what I figured,” she murmured. “What are you thinking?”
“Well, first of all, I think that’s dumb.” I smirked and glanced over to make sure the snow leopard siblings weren’t listening. “But really, someone with magic had to cast that spell, right?”
“Yes,” Alyona confirmed. “There has to be someone with magical abilities to do that.”
“Okay, so if they did, wouldn’t that person also know if something had destroyed the barrier?” I continued.
“They would have to know something was different,” she said and rubbed her finger over her lips. “If they’re inexperienced, they may not know what happened.”
“So, basically, someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing blocked magic with magic, and no one knows what to do about it?” I grunted and kicked a pile of snow. “That’s just great. Why would they even block all magic anyway?”
“I’m not sure, my love,” Alyona replied as she took my hand. “We can’t know what they’ve been through.”
“I guess,” I muttered.
“One of the lakes is just over this hill,” Tawa called out over his shoulder. “We can stop there for some water.”
“Well, thank the gods,” I grumbled.
We trudged over the hill, and I was momentarily awestruck by the beauty of the half-frozen lake before us. It was about the size of a football field, and nearly two-thirds of it was covered in a thin sheet of ice that melted into the water closest to us. The water was the color of a tourmaline gemstone, and I could see all the way through to a shimmery sand floor near the edge.
Further into the lake, the ground seemed to drop off, and even my dragon vision couldn’t see past the dark depths of the center of the lake. A chill passed through me when I thought about what could lurk beneath the beautiful waters, but I shook it off and discretely grabbed a canteen from my spatial storage.
We filled our water jugs and took a break to drink and catch our breaths. The cold air was harder to breathe, and even with my automatic healing, my muscles were getting stiff from the freezing cold.
“Did you hear that?” Nike asked suddenly.
I looked up and scanned the trees, but I didn’t see or hear anything.
“No,” I said and frowned. “What was it?”
“I-I don’t know,” he murmured.
Nike stood up and moseyed around the edge of the lake until he reached the thin layer of ice. I scurried to my feet to follow him, but before I could come close, he’d already taken a step onto the ice.
“What are you doing, brother?” I asked with a degree of caution. “We don’t know how sturdy that ice is.”
“I have to go see,” he said in a detached voice.
“See what?” I pressed as I reached toward him. “Just come back over here. I’ll help you find it.”
“Not it,” he murmured. “Her.”
“Her?” I repeated. “Her who?”
Before Nike could respond, the ice beneath him shattered, and he plunged into the freezing cold water of the lake and disappeared.
Shit.
I didn’t think twice before I dove into the water after him. I could see through the water even better from under the surface, but that didn’t make what I saw any easier to comprehend.
Nike was sinking lower and lower into the lake, but his face was the picture of serenity.
Then my gaze dropped down to the hand wrapped around his ankle.
The skin was barely hanging onto a mangled mess of blackened bones, and the hand was attached to the long slender arm of a woman.
Her once-pretty face was now missing pieces of skin on her cheeks and chin, and her bright red hair was tangled and balding in some places. Even though she was clearly not beautiful now, I had a feeling I knew exactly what I was looking at.
My heart thudded in my chest, and the corrupted siren pulled Nike even deeper into the depths of the frozen lake.
Chapter 6
I kicked harder in the water to swim closer to Nike, and then I reached out to grab his arm. My fellow noble looked completely dazed as he sank lower into the dark depths, and he didn’t even react when my hand wrapped around his forearm. He just stared off into the water as though he had no idea he was about to drown.
“Nooooo!” the siren screeched.
Nike cringed as her voice reverberated through the water, and I nearly lost my grip on him when the sound reached my ears. Then every story I’d ever read about sirens seemed to rush into my head at once. The sirens sang a beautiful song to lure their victims in, but the scream of their desire to kill wasn’t quite as beautiful. It was a terribly haunting sound, and I knew I had to keep us from hearing it again in order to save my brother.
I sent a layer of my healing magic over Nike’s ears and then my own while the siren continued to wail and scream. Then I pulled as hard as I could to bring Nike back to the surface. Chunks of the siren’s skin sloughed away as she tried to hold fast to Nike’s leg, but even underwater, I was much stronger.
As we crested the water’s surface, I yanked Nike into the fresh air and was relieved when he sucked in a deep breath. Then I shoved him toward the shore and dove back under the surface to find the corrupted water woman.
I didn’t have to search long when a pair of black eyes appeared in the otherwise beautiful waters of the lake about ten feet below me. The siren’s eyes looked like black holes compared to her blue surroundings, and I kicked toward her as I drew the Sword of Hatra from my belt.
Then I jabbed the blade through the water, and the siren’s rotted flesh was no match for my power and strength. A chunk of blackened skin floated away from her arm, and the siren screamed in pain, but my healing magic still protected my ears from her cries.
I went for another stab, but the siren suddenly dove down even deeper into the lake where the pale-blue water gave way to the dark, shadowy depths. I couldn’t see her anymore, but I wasn’t about to let her get away with trying to kill my best friend.
My automatic healing refreshed my aching lungs as I swam beyond the dark water to find the siren. After a few seconds, my eyes seemed to adjust to the blackness around me, and I thought it was my dragon vision until I realized one of my other abilities was helping me out.
Activated: Water Cloaking
I hadn’t even tried to use that power since I’d killed the corrupted shark creature in Olivier’s cave, but it seemed I could use it to see through someone else’s water cloaking as well.
Now, there was no way that siren could hide from me.
I could hear the slight movement of someone in the water, and I turned to see the siren dart behind a large, leafy plant. I charged through the leaves with my sword extended, and I felt more than heard the siren’s groan of pain and relief.
I pushed the Sword of Hatra through her belly so hard we were nearly face to face on the other side of the plant, and her gruesome features reminded me of every zombie movie I’d ever seen. The skin hung from her bones like ill-fitting curtains, low and uneven, and one of her eyes wasn’t even all the way in its socket. A few of her teeth were missing, and her tongue lolled through the gap as she stared at me with a hollow expression.
Before she could try to fight back, I yanked the sword from her gut and swiped it through her neck. The siren’s head floated down in slow-motion as her body drifted backward into the water, and I couldn’t help but notice how little of a fight she’d given up.
I waited for the words of a new perk to flash across my vision, but nothing happened. Was that because the siren had possibly been corrupted?
I shook my head as I paddled my way to the surface, and then I took in a breath of fresh air next to Nike, who had just started to swim toward land.
“What the hell?” Tawa asked as everyone else gathered on the edge of the lake. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know,” Nike murmured as he seemed to finally regain his bearings and looked around. “I was over there, and now, I’m in the water.”
“You walked out on the ice,” I said as I pushed him out of the lake and climbed out onto the snow behind him. “I thought it broke, but I think that siren pulled you in.”
“A siren?” Nokomis’ eyes widened with horror. “There shouldn’t be any of those here. They were killed a long time ago.”
“I thought you didn’t like killing things.” I arched a curious eyebrow.
“I don’t,” she agreed and shook her head. “But our ancestors did it. They said the sirens served no purpose other than to bring about death and destruction, so they eradicated them from Odrein.”
“Well, it wasn’t just any siren,” I continued. “It looked corrupted, so if they left the bodies in the lakes, the miasma must have just reanimated what was there.”
“What does that mean?” Tawa asked with a frown. “Corrupted?”
“It means it was tainted by the miasma,” I replied and pointed at the water. “And we can’t let it get anyone else. It could have killed Nike, and it would kill anyone else if it got the chance.”
“Why is Lord Nikolaus the only one who heard it?” the snow leopard prince wondered.
I was at a loss on that one, but my wife knew more about magical beings than I did, and she seemed to have an answer already.
“I’d say because he’s the only human man here,” she said. “I’m human also, but sirens are not known to reach out to females for their seduce and kill schemes.”
“Great,” Nike muttered. “I only remember having the need to find her. I can’t even say why it felt so urgent. It was like she was singing to me.”
“Well, she won’t be singing to anyone else now, but we should make sure there aren’t any more sirens in there,” I said with a firm nod. “Or anything else for that matter. We need to sweep this whole area for more corrupted creatures. If miasma got into that water, it could have poisoned any of the creatures who came here to drink it.”
“What do we do with them?” Nokomis asked and then froze. “Oh, gods, are we poisoned, too?”
“No, we would have noticed it already,” Alyona assured her. “The miasma takes its hold very quickly, so it may not have been in the water, but something around here poisoned the siren.”
“So, whatever we find, we just have to finish killing them.” I shrugged. “I can heal the ones that have only been poisoned, but if they were already dead and are corrupted, there’s no way to fix that. We just have to end their suffering.”
My mind flickered back to the grateful corrupted dragon when I’d ended our battle with his death. He’d fought hard, but ultimately, he thanked me for the deadly strike, and it was only a matter of time before I offered the same fate to the other corrupted creatures who lurked in the forest around us.
“Then it is considered a mercy killing,” Nokomis murmured. “I can understand such an act.”
“Good, let’s find them.” I motioned for everyone to fan out.
We searched the trees around the lake, the forest floor beneath them, and the snow drifts at their bases. I found a handful of corrupted squirrels that had already taken their final breaths, but their torn-up bodies lay still in the snow, so I gathered them up and tossed them into the lake.
