Page 127 of Realm of Thieves

She waves her fingers at the dragon and steps back toward me. I stare at the back of her head for a moment, entranced by the lava, and at the same time, I know this really is her.

The dragon heads pick Andor up again.

“What are you doing?” I call out, panicking. “Leave him alone.”

“I’m saving him,” she says, glancing at me over her shoulder. “That is what you want me to do, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I cry. “Can you?”

She nods. “But it will come at a cost.”

“I don’t care about the cost,” I tell her truthfully. “Bring him back, please bring him back.”

“You might not care,” she says. “But he might. If I bring him back to life, that means draining the suen from his body. It means he’ll no longer be able to heal anyone.”

“I thought you didn’t know everything,” I say softly, my heart in my throat.

“I am Voldansa,” she says. “Goddess of the dragons. Goddess of the Midlands. I know when suen is in someone’s blood and I know what it does.”

“Andor won’t care if he can’t heal,” I say, even though I’m not sure I should be speaking for him. But at this point, I have no choice.

“It means he can’t heal you,” she says, her face turning grim. “I know your pains, child. I feel them when you do. I feel you in the blood and earth.”

My brain still isn’t able to catch up with what’s happening. My mother is alive and a goddess? She can bring Andor back to life?

“I don’t care about my pain,” I tell her. “I’ll deal with it as I always have. I never expected a miracle anyway.”

“All right,” she says. Then she waves her fingers at the dragon, embers flying from them, and the dragon drops Andor into the lava pool.

I cry out, putting my hands over my eyes, feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under me. As long as I saw his body I somehow believed that maybe he would come back, but now that he’s been dropped into the lava pool, I can’t…I can’t…

I stay on my knees, praying to anyone, praying to her, that this works, that he’ll come back, that I’ll be all right, that I won’t lose him, that I won’t lose myself. I pray and I cry, hoping my words have the power to change things, begging for them to.

Then I hear my mother whisper my name.

I open my eyes to see her standing to the side of me, placing a hot hand made of hardened lava rock on my shoulder. It shouldn’t feel like her but it does.

“Look,” she says.

I follow her gaze to the pool, where ripples have formed in the middle.

One of the dragon’s heads dunks into the ripples, fully submerged, and then comes back out. Its teeth are caught on one of the straps that runs across Andor’s armor.

It pulls Andor out of the lava pool and backs up until Andor is a few feet away. The lava slides right off him, disappearing into puffs of smoke, and there don’t seem to be any wounds on him.

I stare at him for a second, stunned, watching to see if he’s alive.

Then he jerks, coughing, and I yelp, running toward him.

I drop to my knees beside him, grabbing his hand, putting my fingers to his cheek. He’s not hurt at all, he’s not even burned. It’s like he’s been purified, better than he was before.

And he opens his eyes and looks at me. Smiles softly.

“Why are you crying, lavender girl?”

Chapter 35

Andor

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