Revelations

  “I’ll delay them if I can,” Trip said grimly, then met Blazer’s eyes. “Make sure the mission succeeds, Major.”

  Blazer didn’t question him. She said, “I will,” and hurried after the others.

  Rysha drew her borrowed blade, Eryndral, and faced the passage with Trip. The sword flared an intense pale green, and she itched to swing it at him, itched to knock those soulblades into the lava and drive Eryndral into his chest.

  She muttered the control words and glared at the blade, willing it to understand that a real enemy approached. It took a moment for the sword to understand, but its glow faded somewhat, and it stopped fighting her.

  “You’ll need help,” Rysha said, noticing Trip frowning at her. “A sword that can get through their defenses.”

  Kaika also lingered on the platform, and she drew her chapaharii blade. “I can stay, too, though this is an iffy perch for sword fighting. I suggest the ledge on the far side there.”

  She pointed to where the arching bridge ended at the tunnel the others were hurrying toward. Duck and Leftie had already reached the ledge, an icy perch that extended about three feet from the wall.

  “You two go with the others,” Trip said, shaking his head. “They’ll need those swords to destroy the portal.”

  “Not both of them,” Rysha said. “I’ll stay, Captain.”

  A pulse of light came from the passage—that gate scan operating? Letting the gold dragons through?

  “Kaika,” Blazer called from the ledge. “We’re going to need you, your sword, and your explosives.”

  Kaika cursed, gave Rysha a long look, and said, “Don’t do anything stupid.” She included Trip in her look. “Either of you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rysha said.

  Trip did not acknowledge the order, only facing the passage, both swords in hand. Rysha didn’t want to distract him, but she couldn’t help but say, “Kaika is right. Let’s do this from the ledge over there, not some precarious little perch that could be melted by dragon fire. We can more effectively block the dragons from getting into the tunnel there too. Here, they could just fly over us.”

  Trip looked down at the platform and the lava lake far below. “You’re right.” He tilted his head in the direction the others had disappeared. “Go.”

  Rysha hurried down the bridge, but glanced back, afraid Trip would do something stupid, like not following her. But he was right behind her, jogging backward across the ice, not taking his eyes off the far side.

  The sound of wingbeats came from that passage. Rysha could feel their draft even across the chasm, the wind ruffling the fur lining her parka hood. She and Trip reached the ledge as the first gold dragon sailed out of the passage.

  Rysha licked her lips, telling herself this one was no different from the bronze and silver dragons they had faced. Except that these dragons could breathe fire. And this time, she didn’t have Kaika and Blazer, also with chapaharii blades, backing her up.

  But she did have Trip and two powerful soulblades.

  The dragon flapped into the great chasm, the ceiling high enough to provide plenty of room for its fifty-foot wingspan. It didn’t fly straight toward them, instead holding a position above the far ledge. Waiting for its cohort?

  “Just so you know,” Rysha whispered to Trip, “I’m planning to survive this.”

  He looked at her.

  “And you better be planning to as well,” she added. “I want another kiss. Our first one was far too abbreviated.”

  His mouth parted. In surprise?

  Why? Nothing had changed for her.

  All right, maybe a few things had changed, but she still cared about him. And she still wanted to be friends with him. More than friends. Unless he suddenly believed himself too powerful to sleep with a mere mundane human and decided to seek out a sorceress or even a female dragon, but Rysha couldn’t truly imagine that. Not from Captain Trip, pilot.

  She rose on her toes and kissed him. He froze for a second, his lips slack, but then returned her kiss warmly. Her chapaharii sword buzzed an angry protest in her mind, but it wasn’t as if there was time for a lengthy embrace anyway.

  Trip smiled as she drew back. “That was also rather abbreviated.”

  “I know. Clearly, we need to finish our mission, so we can go off somewhere for a weekend together.”

  “That lake by your castle looked nice,” Trip said.

  The lake that was also by the house where her grandmother had died? That didn’t sound like an appealing spot to her, not anymore. “There’s a pond farther back in the valley that’s beautiful, and there’s a little stone cottage by it. We can go there.”

  “Will your parents mind?” Trip asked, alternating between watching the dragon and looking at her.

  “Yes, but I don’t care. Also, it’s a manor, not a castle.”

  “Forgive me my ignorance. You know how commoners are.”

  Common, hah. He was anything but.

  “Not much like you.” Rysha wished she could swat him in the butt with her sword, but the sword might take that as a sign that an attack would be appropriate. “You’re odd.”

  “But you don’t mind?” He asked the question lightly, but he watched her intently.

  “Not at all. You’re a very lucky boy.”

  “I believe I am.”

  Rysha might have kissed him again, but the second dragon flew out of the passage. And she saw more shapes in the blue-lit passage behind it. Humans. Humans in Cofah uniforms, and was that the sorceress from the airship too? Kiadarsa?

  The portal is still intact, the same dragon that had spoken before announced. The female. We are in time to take it back to the empire and to control which dragons come through it, those who will be loyal to Yisharnesh, those who will make Cofahre the most powerful land in the world. And under my rule.

  Rysha arched her eyebrows. Did none of the Cofah object to that? Was Prince Varlok willing to be a figurehead—or even less—while this dragon ruled his nation? Or did he know about this scheme? Maybe he’d gotten wind of this, and that was why he’d sent Dreyak to help her people. To get here first.

  Before her mind could parse more thoughts, the two dragons flapped their wings and sailed straight for her and Trip. Rysha shoved her spectacles higher on her nose and raised her sword, ready.

  14

  Trip did not move as the dragons approached, unsure what they would do. Breathe fire? Strike at him magically? Attempt to pass? The more time he could buy for Blazer and the others, the better.

  Next to him, Rysha crouched, her borrowed chapaharii sword blazing with its green inner fire. She appeared every bit the warrior, ready to face their great winged foes.

  In Trip’s hands, the soulblades also blazed, also ready. Only Trip did not feel that he belonged here, did not know how to battle the dragons without his flier and his machine guns. The last half hour may have changed the way the others looked at him, but nothing had changed for him. He still felt bumbling and accidental with his power, a man desperately in need of a tutor.

  No time for that now, Azarwrath said. Launch mental attacks similar to what you did before. Try your best to force them to lower their defenses.

  You can do it, Jaxi encouraged. You faced a gold before. And won.

  With all of General Zirkander’s squadron fighting alongside him.

  The dragons were almost upon them, leaving no more time to question, no more time to doubt. Despite his fear, some instinct deep within him heated his blood and almost convinced him he longed for the fight, the chance to pit himself against mighty enemies.

  Red lightning streaked from Azarwrath’s blade, branching in the middle to attack both dragons at once. It struck their invisible shields, doing no damage. Jaxi hurled a fireball. Though it bloomed into a massive inferno, completely engulfing one of the dragons, it, too, was thwarted by the creature’s defenses.

  The female—Yisharnesh—opened her maw, her long sword-like fangs gleaming, reflecting the blue light emanating from the
walls. Smoke curled in the back of her throat, promising she would spew fire at them.

  Can you block it? Trip asked the soulblades even as he focused on the other dragon’s eyes, trying to needle his way into its thoughts, as he’d done before.

  A couple of times, yes, Jaxi said.

  Rysha waited, her sword raised, needing the dragons to get closer before she could strike. Not wanting them close, Trip threw his mental attack at one as the other breathed fire onto their ledge.

  It crackled in the air, flames blocking his view, but he continued to see the far dragon’s head in his mind. It was the male, Yisharnesh’s mate. As he’d done on the airship, Trip tried to distract the dragon with pain, tried to burn into its brain with mental fire.

  Yisharnesh’s very real fire beat at the soulblades’ concave barrier. Their efforts protected the ledge from the flames, but Trip still felt the heat.

  The dragon he’d been targeting screamed into his mind. Trip stepped back bracing himself. Had that been a cry of pain from his attack? Or was it a counter attack?

  The fire-breathing female swooped away before she encountered the soulblades’ barrier. But she only flew up and looped around, obviously intending to come in for another attack.

  Not sure he’d been effective with his attack, Trip tried again as the smoke and flames faded, and he could see the male’s yellow reptilian eyes.

  Pain! he cried into the dragon’s mind, doing his best to hammer a mental nail between those eyes.

  The dragon shook his head, screeching aloud, but lashing out in response. Trip staggered as a magical blow struck his brain like a sledgehammer.

  Focus on defending yourself, Azarwrath ordered. His defenses are temporarily down. We are attacking him.

  Before he finished speaking, one of Jaxi’s fireballs sprang forth. This time, it took the male directly in the face. He screeched and wheeled away, the smell of singed scales rising over that of the sulfurous chasm.

  Trip tried to imagine a bank vault protecting his mind, not sure if it would work for attacks the same way it did with prying telepaths.

  On the heels of Jaxi’s fireball, Azarwrath’s lightning shot out, also striking the dragon, curling around his body and making him jerk in the air. He flew erratically, one of his wings clipping the bridge. Though it was a glancing blow, the snap of ice rang out, echoing from the walls.

  The dragon recovered, flapping back up above the bridge, but a ten-foot-wide section of it, including the platform at the apex, crumbled and disappeared into the chasm. Ice plopped into the lava far below, melting instantly with a hiss of steam.

  You dare attack my mate? Yisharnesh cried, the words so powerful they felt like an attack in their own right.

  Trip gritted his teeth, bracing himself for more.

  Raw power slammed into him, half physical attack and half mental attack. The massive force crumbled the soulblades’ protective shields and hurled him back into the tunnel as pain exploded inside his skull. He smashed down, his head cracking against the ice floor.

  Pain gripped his entire body, and he could scarcely draw in a breath, but he scrambled to find his footing, terrified because he’d left Rysha alone on the ledge. He slipped in his haste to rise, cracking his knee down on the ice.

  Rysha yelled, and the pain blasting Trip disappeared from his mind. He raced toward the ledge as she slashed the sword into a dragon’s tail.

  An inferno blasted in from the side. Flames engulfed Rysha, and she disappeared from Trip’s sight.

  She screamed, and he couldn’t tell if it was in pain or rage.

  Attack! he ordered the soulblades as he reached the edge of the flames. He sensed the dragons nearby and tried to fling a mental attack of his own.

  The fire disappeared, and Trip shouted an alarmed, “No!” when he saw the ledge was empty, save for ice dripping water into the chasm.

  Then he saw Rysha out on the remains of the bridge. She sprang into the air as the female soared over her, banking to keep from running into the wall. The chapaharii blade slashed through the dragon’s defensive shield and all the way to the scales of her belly.

  The dragon screeched and whipped away, her body contorting in the air as she rushed out of the blade’s reach. Her tail slammed down on the remains of the bridge, not five feet from Rysha.

  Her eyes bulged, and she flailed as the frail structure quaked under her. She turned, running back toward Trip and the ledge, but the ice snapped, and the bridge started crumbling underneath her.

  Trip willed her to levitate on a channel of air, the way the soulblades had levitated him in the canyon. But he had no experience doing what he needed to do. It didn’t matter. He realized he couldn’t help her, not when she carried that sword. It defended her from all magic, even friendly magic.

  The ice cracked, and more pieces fell behind her. Trembles wracked the bridge, and she slipped, a knee slamming down.

  “Throw the sword,” Trip yelled, barely aware of what the dragons were doing.

  Thankfully, Jaxi and Azarwrath continued to attack them. All he could do was focus on Rysha.

  Rysha didn’t hesitate, understanding what he wanted to do. She hurled the sword to the ledge, where it skidded into the tunnel behind Trip.

  The bridge crumbled the rest of the way, and she cried out as her footing disappeared. Again, Trip willed her to levitate, for a huge gust of wind to form and blow her to safety behind him.

  He wasn’t sure whether he did it or the soulblades were responsible, but a hurricane gale carried her up and onto the ledge, her eyes wide and her arms flailing until she landed beside him. He wanted to hug her and kiss her, but the battle wasn’t over yet, and she knew it. She raced into the tunnel to retrieve the sword.

  Look out! Jaxi yelled into his mind.

  Trip felt the soulblades raising a shield again to protect him, just before a wave of power slammed into it. He jerked up his hands, also attempting to raise defenses. Though injured, both dragons arrowed toward him, rage in their slitted reptilian eyes. The soulblades deflected a second attack, but a third struck the wall underneath the ledge, and Trip realized their mistake. Jaxi and Azarwrath had protected him, not the ledge on which he stood.

  The ice crumbled and gave way before he could think of whirling and jumping back into the tunnel. There was nothing to jump from.

  He tumbled down into the chasm as chunks of ice plummeted alongside him, battering his shoulders and back. Below him, the fiery orange of the lava lake grew closer and closer.

  Levitate, he cried in his mind.

  Even as he tried to figure out how he might channel wind to blow him back up and to safety, the air thickened underneath him, slowing his fall. The heat of the magma toasted him, and he halted, his boots scant feet from the surface. Ice and rock continued to rain down, dropping into the lava and spraying molten droplets in all directions. Trip roared with pain as some struck his legs, singeing him through his clothing.

  A huge piece of ice pounded him on the top of his head. He thrust his hands into the air, willing a defensive shield into place all around him.

  To his surprise, it worked. The ice chunks bounced off, landing in the lava lake all around him, steaming and hissing as they instantly melted.

  Thanks to whoever’s holding me up. Trip peered upward, wondering if the soulblades could float him back up to the ledge.

  But through the ice sloughing down, he saw that there was no ledge. Not anymore. He couldn’t even see the tunnel. The entire top of that chasm wall appeared to have collapsed, burying it. Seven gods, had Rysha survived that? She must have been in the tunnel right behind him.

  An angry dragon looked down at Trip from the ceiling of the chasm, yellow eyes flashing with irritation that he hadn’t plunged into the magma and been incinerated. The other dragon perched on the remains of one of the bridges, healing its wounds, but this one—the female, he sensed—plunged down toward him. He had no doubt she meant to finish him off.

  There are more tunnels and caves down
here, Jaxi blurted into his mind, and he found himself floating upward and also toward the side of the chasm.

  Lightning streaked from Azarwrath’s blade—if he’d had time, Trip would have marveled that he’d maintained a grip on both swords—and toward the dragon’s face. But the female had reestablished her defenses, and the lightning bounced off as she plummeted toward Trip, talons spread to grab him. Or pierce his heart.

  Trip tried to pour more energy into strengthening his defensive barrier, but he feared it would be far too weak to stop the dragon. It was. A mental attack assaulted him, wrenching down his barrier before the female reached him.

  But Jaxi had lifted him to a cave a few dozen feet above the magma lake. Unlike some of the other openings in the chasm walls, no stubs of broken bridges thrust out of it. And Trip had no sense of a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain. Jaxi swept him into the cave a split second before those talons would have reached him.

  The female screeched, spreading her wings to keep from hitting the lava. She swooped back up, angling to reach the cave.

  Trip sprinted away from the entrance. Her huge golden maw and yellow eyes grew larger as she flew straight toward it.

  He hurled a wave of power at her and urged the soulblades to help, for he knew he wasn’t strong enough to stop her. They wouldn’t be, either. Realizing that, he shifted his aim, channeling his energy into the ice at the cave entrance.

  Thunderous snaps and cracks nearly deafened him. Ice broke away and slammed down. Trip drew back as far as he could until his shoulder blades bumped the back of the cave. Shards of ice flew at him like shrapnel from a bomb. All he could do was lift his arms to shield his face. He didn’t have the energy to do more.

  All light disappeared, leaving him alone in the darkness with the walls and ceiling tumbling down all around him. One of the swords created a barrier to protect him from being pummeled, but as ice continued to slam down, he had no idea if he’d saved himself from the dragon or condemned himself to being buried alive.

  15

  “Trip!” Rysha cried, hacking at the ice and rock boulders with her sword.