Page 2 of The Dragonrider and the Void
Ash, those are warning wards,he realized.Someone else was entering the sanctuary. Zadar’s heart thundered in his chest. He was out of time.
He fumbled with the pouch of Yogo Sapphires tied around his waist and whispered a quick invisibility spell, grateful for his years of practice in the arts. The ruse wouldn’t fool a trained mage for long. Not here, where the very walls seemed to watch as though they were alive with strange power.
Zadar moved quickly but carefully, his soft boots silent on the stone floor. Twenty steps to the door. Fifteen. Ten.
A laugh echoed from behind him, high, cold and utterly inhuman. “Did you think we wouldn’t sense you, little mage?”
The shadows around him writhed, the icy darkness becoming solid and gathering ice crystals. The frozen tendrils pressed against his invisibility charm, probing him like countless fingers.
Zadar did the only thing he could, he ran.
He burst through the door, sprinting down the corridor. Behind him, he heard shouts, the soft blue glow of power, and the crackle of magic being summoned from Sapphires. He had one chance.The necklace,he thought.If I could just reach the outer chamber where the wards are weaker...
Something struck his back, sending him sprawling. His journal skittered across the floor. Zadar scrambled for it, but icy tendrils with onyx veins wrapped around his ankles, dragging him backward.
With the last of his strength, he pulled the Sapphires from his pouch, whispered his incantation as he pressed them tight to the necklace. Energy flowed from the Sapphires, through him and into the pendant, forcing every memory of what he’d seen tonight into the golden lark.
“Find her,” he commanded the small vessel. “Find the dragonrider princess. Show her the truth.”
The cluster of Sapphires flared bright blue in his hands, then the necklace vanished, sent to seek its target.
Zadar rolled onto his back as rimeshade gathered over him. His Preceptor, Magus Joc beside him, shook his head sadly.
“You should have stayed in your library, old friend.”
The darkness descended, and Zadar knew no more.
1
SANCTUARY
Lark flinched as the memory of Barrik’s brismil sword piercing her side stirred her awake. She palmed the wound with her good arm, blinking through her delirium. Wind washed over her face, clearing her umber hair from her sharp green eyes as they came into focus. She saw a sprawling landscape before her from a bird’s-eye view. Not a bird’s eye, though, a dragon’s. Her dragon’s, White Eye. They flew toward snow-covered mountains in the distance. The morning sun reflected shades of amber and gold off the foggy blanket of clouds that skirted the steep slopes ahead. Yet Lark could barely appreciate the stunning beauty of the wintery North.
“Where are we?” she asked, no longer seeing the Everburning Forest anywhere in sight.
White Eye snorted, one of his memories passing through their bond.
She experienced a moment of panic as she realized none of her companions were with her. Venrick and Ingamar, Hardin and Sasja, even Nix were nowhere to be seen. White Eye’s memories showed her how he had carried her away from Red Lodge, leaving the dead Magi Joc behind and letting Barrikescape yet again. They’d left the cover of the forest days earlier. Most recently, they’d holed up in a cave outside a Northern town in Fjern’s Kingdom, waiting for a blizzard to blow through.
Despite their frequent stops for rest and healing, Lark wasn’t able to maintain consciousness. She’d been in and out of sleep, unable to control where White Eye was taking her. Each time they stopped, he’d used more of their combined energy to heal the lance in side, choosing to prioritize her stab wound over her broken wrist.
Brismil,she thought, remembering that she’d given it to Hardin. But then, she remembered something.I have my own brismil armor. My own blade…
Lark remembered it now, that she’d hidden them after her fight with Barrik; their first bout when she’d stolen the Hyalite from him.
Lark twisted to search her saddle. Pain lanced through her arm and she clutched her still-broken wrist tightly against her chest. “Ah,” she groaned as the pain throbbed with each beat of her dragon’s wings.
“White Eye, where are you taking me?” she asked him again.
He remained focused on the mountains in the distance. Lark could sense his determination to bring her there, wherever that may be. She wasn’t sure even he knew exactly. She frowned, having been on the receiving end of this exact feeling before. It was that draw that she’d felt coming from Nix, urging her to go seek her out in the Everburning Forest. A primal force was pulling White Eye. Almost as though he was responding to another bond.
“White Eye, we’re no longer in harm’s way. You can stop flying,” she said, trying to get her bearings. “Did you hear me? I want to turn back and find Venrick and the others.”
Lark didn’t recognize the rolling hills below them. The snowy terrain bled out from the mountains in the distance, coatingeverything in a fresh dusting of snow. As the sun was now to their right, Lark put together that the Everburning Forest was somewhere far behind them.
White Eye ignored her, continuing to fly his pre-determined path.
“We’re wasting time,” she said.
