Unleash the Inferno (Heart of a Dragon Book 3) Page 8

  Ope with speed, assist our race.

  We come at Seer Fey bid and creed.

  We come, so entry do us cede.

  The river, already disturbed and foaming, erupted in a surging, seething onslaught as the water rose and the current strengthened. In the center, where the water dipped in a drain spout, the hole deepened and dropped into a bottomless pit.

  Lincoln hauled himself up the riverbank. “Good fortune, Cedric,” he called. “May the Stars see you through!” He disappeared over the bank and into the woods.

  Cedric turned back to Ashleen, but she was gone.

  “Ashleen!” he called.

  A lithe body cut through the middle of the pool, her black hair floating around her face. “Come, Cedric!” she called. In another instance, she had arched her hands over her head, executing a perfect dive into the drain spout.

  Cedric raised his eyes to the starry heavens above and prayed for courage. He could not lose her, not like this. He released the sword belt, dropping the weapon against the bank, and dove into the water, cutting cleanly through it.

  The current caught him, swirling up and around him, washing over him. It lashed him in a tight circle, pulling him closer and closer to the drain spout. In the corner of his eye, he saw Ember splashing frantically through the water toward him.

  The current crashed him against a rock. Pain exploded in his arm. He crested the surface again, gasping, searching for Ashleen, but he couldn't see her.

  Ember roared in the water not far from him, struggling against the rising waters, his flames sputtering beneath the onslaught of white spray and water. His thoughts roiled across Cedric's mind, condensed into one panicked emotion as Cedric saw himself as the Dragon saw him—struggling against the current.

  Go with the current, Cedric. He gasped for air, choking on a wave of water that tossed him like a doll toward the rocks again.

  Ember streaked toward Cedric, burrowing his head under the water, his neck coming up beneath Cedric. Cedric grasped hold of the Dragon's uppermost fins, hurtling along the outer edge of the drain spout.

  Cedric searched wildly for Ashleen. She had disappeared. “Ashleen!” he shouted.

  There was no answer. “We have to go down,” Cedric shouted to Ember, and after a moment's hesitation, the enormous creature plunged into the blackness, washing them both into a sharp, tight spin in the drainspout's center.

  Cedric clung to Ember's neck, blearily scanning the foaming water. He could see nothing except white. Water forced up his nose, through his tightly sealed lips, and he was choking, drowning.

  Desperately, he pushed against the water, hoping for something, getting nothing. Ashleen was nowhere to be found, and neither was air—life-giving air.

  Then they were out.

  Air ripped into Cedric's lungs, and he choked and coughed, expelling the water he'd swallowed on his way down.

  The walls of water receded, and he lay on his back, his elbows supporting him, in a shallow, round pool. Ember collapsed on the flat bank, his sides heaving. Most of his scales were out, though here and there several had flickered to life again. As they recovered, the scales rippled to flame across his whole body.

  Ashleen leaned against an overhanging rock, her bow in her lap, her fingers tapping its wood veneer. “I must say, I'm glad you decided to join me, Cedric. I thought for a while I'd be stuck in here by myself.”

  Cedric eyed her grumpily before pushing to his feet. Above them, like a tornado in the sky, water swirled in a spiraling cloud, foaming and white. All around them, a quiet canyon of rocks blocked his view of any further surroundings, and streams of water trickled over their mossy sides, forming narrow waterfalls that splashed into the pool where he stood. Ember's scales reflected brilliantly in the mirrored surface of the pool, giving the illusion of two Dragons.

  Cedric gaped at the high walls. Vines curved downward off the cliffs, and before them, a wide gorge opened in a curving path forward and up. “So this is the taibe maze,” he murmured, exiting the pool near Ashleen, water running in rivulets down his tunic and breeches. The material stuck to him like a second skin.

  Ashleen's braid had come loose, the twine that tied it lost somewhere in the water. Black curls spilled over her shoulder, tangling around her waist. Her eyes were carefully expressionless.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. As if it had a will of its own, his hand reached for her, pushing back a strand of soaked hair that hung in her face.

  She said nothing, only watching him. She didn't move, and Cedric pulled his hand back abruptly. “I'm sorry,” he muttered, turning away.

  “I knew you would do that,” she said. Frustration lit her dark eyes, but before she could say more, he changed the subject.

  “Let's keep moving. The gatekeeper said we'd have to face water and fire. We've survived the water.” He glanced at the spiraling cloud above them and then back at the pool. “Let's see what fire awaits us.” He turned his back on Ashleen. Ember met him on the pathway, and he walked beside the Dragon up the steep, stony path that led through the cliffs, their high walls towering overhead.

  “I wonder where we are,” Ashleen murmured behind him. “In relation to the Silver Rush River, that is.”

  Cedric shook his head. “It's a taibe maze.” The path turned abruptly, and the climb grew steeper. He was obliged to pull himself up the rock wall with his hands. Ember's talons scrabbled against the stone, his flaming wings scraping the sides as he climbed ahead of Cedric. “Taibe doesn't have to have a geographical location.”

  He climbed up a large boulder, shading his eyes and gazing ahead. They had reached the top of the rocky path. They stood now on a stone outcropping, and below them, for as far as he could see, leafless trees spread a brown blanket around the rock.

  “Do you smell that?” Ashleen asked.

  Cedric sniffed. Sulphur and ash. The acrid taste coated his tongue. He whirled around at Ember's snort. The Dragon stared at something behind him.

  A wide valley of fire and ash glowed in the distance. Heat distorted the air into a haze above it, so hot that Cedric could feel the warmth even from the stone where he stood. Thick gray flakes of disintegrated matter wafted through smoke-filled air, stinging Cedric's eyes and blurring his vision. Bursts of liquid fire fountained upward from the glowing liquid in fifty-span bursts from a boiling lake. Overhead, a buzzard circled. It stretched its wings, flying toward the lake, but when it got too near, a flaming geyser erupted, ballooning upward and collapsing over the bird, pulling it screaming into the fiery depths.

  Ashleen released a slow breath. “Perhaps we ought not to have released Linc to ClarenVale so early.”

  Cedric shook his head, his jaw tightening. “I don't think even Pixie charm could do much here.” He crouched on the path, surveying the scene, thinking hard.

  “Helga said the magic fights against you, Ced,” Ashleen said. “Perhaps I could go on Ember? The lake may not react.”

  “Did you not see what happened to the buzzard?”

  “Could we go around?” Ashleen asked.

  “If we're in Helga's taibe, there is no around. There is only through.”

  A glimmer from the other side of the fiery lake caught Cedric's eye. It glowed brightly through the ash and heated flames. Though it was distant, Cedric could see the eye in the center as if it were only a span from him instead of half a fieldspan.

  “The Amulet,” he murmured. A chill snaked up his spine. It drew him, as certainly as a lodestone. His fingers twitched as though he could take it, hold it, make it his.

  He slammed his eyes shut, gripping both sides of his head. “I cannot,” he growled through his teeth.

  Ashleen's hand cupped his shoulder. “You can, Cedric. You must.”

  Cedric faced her, desperately gripping her upper arms. “Ashleen, if I take it—it is evil. It will turn me. Can you not feel it?” He stared deep into her eyes, noting the moisture that swam there as a result of his own pain. He couldn't face it. He turned away, dropping
his hold on her.

  The silence was broken only by the distant hiss and crackle of fire. Her words came quietly through the still air. “I wish I could take it for you, Cedric. You don't know how much I wish it. But I can't. Only you can. We both know that you do not want it, but the only way to it is through. And so we must try. For the Greater Good, as Helga had always said.”

  Cedric stared with burning eyes through the haze at the glowing Amulet. “Aye.” His voice sounded parched, hoarse, as though he had already breathed the flames that skittered across the surface of the fiery lake. He reached for Ember, stroking his flaming scales. “I can't fly Ember over,” Cedric said, moving his hand gently on the Dragon's snout and rubbing it absently. “We saw what the lake did to the buzzard.”

  “No,” Ashleen shook her head. Her black eyes burned with intensity. “Cedric, there's a reason why Helga created the taibe so only an Andrachen heir could reclaim it here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You won't be able to live through this. The Seer Fey gatekeeper said that death was coming; this is what she meant. When Helga took me aside and asked me to stay with you, she gave me some idea of what was in store for you. I didn't understand what she meant by a lake, but it makes sense now. The lake will burn against you, and you will die, but the Amulet holds the life of the Andrachen lineage in its very core—made up of the communion of Seer Fey, Dragon, and Man, and blessed by the Stars. You will not get through unscathed, but the Amulet will bring you out the other side. It will bring you life.”

  With the sinking force of heavy understanding, Cedric realized what Helga had intended. Only through death would life come. Only with passage through the lake of fire could the Amulet bring life back to his limbs. If an Andrachen wished to gain the Amulet, he had to die before he could take it.

  This was Helga's linchpin, then. If anyone but an Andrachen heir came seeking the Amulet, that person would burn in the lake. Only the blood of the Dragonking, Aarkan the Firebringer, could claim the prize on the other side of the lake, and he would have to die to do it.

  “I wish you would not go with me,” Cedric murmured, so low, he did not think Ashleen would have heard him.

  “It is the only way out, Cedric. Remember, the taibe fights against you and you alone. Ember and I—”

  “Can still be affected.” Cedric dropped his gaze to the ground. His courage was in tatters, and he did not know where to look to repair it.

  “Perhaps. There is only one way to find out.” Ashleen strode to Ember and climbed up his back, settling between the fins near his neck. “Are you coming?”

  Cedric's knees weakened. He turned his gaze to Ember, and he saw patience and understanding in the Dragon's smoky irises.

  Cedric ran trembling fingers through his auburn hair and grasped the fin in front of Ashleen, swinging himself on. “Let's go, Ember.”

  The Dragon threw back his head with a cry that echoed across the stone, the trees, and the roaring, fire-filled lake. He snapped his wings outward with a crack that thundered.

  Dust and ash swirled as they arched into the air, and then the lake spread below them. It stretched as far as Cedric could see to his right and to his left, and it was at least half a fieldspan to the other side. Though Cedric could see the Amulet's brilliant glow on the far shore, the haze of heat and dust and floating sparks almost completely obscured it. Still, by taibe, the Amulet's eye swam in his vision as though it stared into his heart.

  That's our goal, Ember, he thought, and Ember beat his wings furiously through the inferno in response.

  Cedric's Andrachen skin had always handled the licking flames from Ember's scales and the fiery blasts from other Dragons' mouths, but the searing heat from this widespread lake was entirely new. He crouched behind Ember's neck, struggling to shield his face. Behind him, Ashleen buried her face in his tunic, though she didn't make a sound.

  The geyser hit before Ember had gone nearly ten lengths across the lake. A livid, orange fountain arched over them, searing them from behind.

  Dive, Ember! And the Dragon did. The lava collapsed above them, but Ember was faster, swinging away from it, and the molten rock missed his wing by an orlach.

  Another geyser fountained, and Ember veered away, nearly unseating Cedric as he turned harshly to avoid the spray. Ashleen wrapped her arms around Cedric's waist, holding tightly. He felt her cheek rest against his back. Cedric gripped her hand on his waist with his. “Nearly there,” he shouted.

  The Amulet glowed more brightly as they swung through.

  “Cedric,” Ashleen screamed. Her arms tightened to a stranglehold around him.

  Cedric glanced over his shoulder, and horror rolled through him.

  Behind them, the entire lake shifted as liquid, molten fire rose in a giant tidal wave, cresting above Ember and driving toward them like a solid wall, bent on destruction.

  “Ember, fly as you've never flown before!” Cedric wrapped one arm around Ember's fin and the other around Ashleen as he ducked his head against the Dragon's neck.

  It wasn't enough. The wave overwhelmed them, surrounding them with fire and hurling them down into the depths of the lake where Cedric could feel nothing but burning, scorching flame. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't see. He only knew he was on fire; he was born in flames, and he would die in flames—a fitting end to the heir of Aarkan the Firebringer.

  Ember. Ashleen, he thought at the last. I'm sorry.

  Blackness closed in, and he was no more.

  A frisson of pain touched Cedric's shoulder, a different kind of pain than the searing heat of the lake, and he felt himself moving, dragging through burning coals, collapsing on a shore. Cool air brushed his body.

  His eyelids fluttered open. Ember's razor-sharp teeth pierced his shoulder; the Dragon's long neck flopped across the ground as the creature lay in a half-inert heap. Ashleen had collapsed six lengths from him on a bed of ash, hemmed in by Ember's wing. Gravel dug into Cedric's back, piercing his burned skin. He lifted an arm to his face, staring at the flesh. In increments, the blackened cracks sealed themselves, healthy new flesh filling the darkened, scorched areas. Air filled his starved lungs, and strength returned to his limbs. The Amulet's glow grew even more intense and brilliant, and white light spilled across him and Ashleen and Ember until Ashleen groaned and rolled over, and Ember raised his head.

  “You've done well, lad.” The voice creaked with age, but still sent shock waves through Cedric. He leaped to his feet and found the dark silhouette of the same Seer Fey who had acted as a gatekeeper for the taibe maze. She stood behind the Amulet, but moved forward until her features were clear. She gazed somewhere above Cedric's head.

  “Helga would have been proud.”

  “Who are you?” Cedric asked.

  “I am Kayeck, one of the Ancients,” the woman answered. “Helga left the Amulet in my care.” She looked down at the Amulet on the pedestal, its central eye glowing even more brightly than the rest. “You can take it, lad. You have passed the safeguards; you have died and are reborn.”

  Cedric's gaze moved to the glimmer of a gold chain that attached to the top of the Amulet. His mouth emptied of moisture. This was the moment he'd dreaded. He wanted to run forward and seize it and carry it to safety, and he wanted to turn his back and flee the Amulet and all connections to royalty and blood lineage and chaotic, grasping power that it represented.

  As he stood in mute indecision, he felt a touch on his arm. He glanced down at Kayeck where she stood, seemingly blindly staring beyond him. Folded clothes lay in her arms.

  “For you to wear,” Kayeck said.

  Cedric gazed downward, mortified to realize that the lake had completely disintegrated his clothing. He glanced back at Ashleen. Her back was turned as she stared out at the lake of fire through which they'd come. Though her sides still heaved as she breathed in air, her hair, her clothes, and her bow and quiver had not been affected.

  “The taibe warred against you and you alone, Cedric Andrachen,�
� the Seer Fey croaked. “The girl and the Dragon did not die. Only you. You are the one who is twice-born.”

  Cedric snatched the tunic and breeches from Kayeck, turning away from them all as he dressed, embarrassment burning his cheeks.

  As he cinched his belt around his new tunic, he glanced back at Ashleen. She seemed to sense that he was ready. She turned, one eyebrow arching as she traced her gaze along the open tunic where he'd forgotten to tie the lacings.

  Blushing, his fingers fumbled with the ties as he ignored the slow smile that tilted her lips. He suddenly found it hard to breathe.

  He yanked the last lacing into place and turned to the Dragon. “Let's go, Ember,” he mumbled.

  He reached for the Amulet, hesitating over it, struggling to ignore the inner war in his mind. He had no desire to claim it, but he must. It had to be destroyed. His hand shook in seeming limbo.

  “Take it,” Ashleen said from behind him. “It's yours.”

  That was the very thing that Cedric so feared. It was his. He was the direct heir of Aarkan the Firebringer, and while the Amulet had been a gift of the Stars to his forefathers, now all it represented was power and destruction. He had no wish for the throne, but his responsibility lay before him. With the throne came the Amulet, and with the Amulet came corruption.

  All the ghosts who called to him with greed-tinged voices, all the spectres who looked and sounded and acted just as his father, Liam, had done in Ashleen's stories of her childhood rose up and called him a worthless coward.

  Show your strength and your people will obey you.

  Cedric shut his eyes against the sight of the Amulet's eye, but the voices continued.

  Drive them into the dust and they will fear you.

  “No,” Cedric whispered.

  Make them eat the dirt they work in the fields; they deserve no better.

  Cedric shook his head. “I... can't.” He turned his gaze to Ashleen, fear pounding beat for beat with the pulse in his throat. “It will turn me into a monster. It will turn me into my father. It will turn me into my uncle.”