Page 58 of The Dragonrider and the Void
“With what?” King Agadorn gestured around them. “Ancient knowledge? You can’t even read half the text. Power? I’ve been gathering that for much, much longer than you can imagine.” His eyes locked with hers. “Or perhaps with conviction? I assure you, mine runs deeper than even yours, rider.”
He moved away from the reading stand, revealing what lay open upon it. A book bound in dragon scale, identical to the one they had found in the Northern Sanctuary. Beside it lay several loose metal pages.
The pages that were taken from the book we found,Lark thought.
“You have a copy of the complete binding ritual,” Lark said.
“Yes. Comprehensive instructions for containing the Void Drinker. Or for releasing it fully into our world.” The King ran his fingers over the medallion on his chest. “It requires a very specific conduit, you know.”
“The Realmstone,” Lark said.
“The Realmstone is the key to opening the door and is done easily this time of the millennia. You need a wedge to hold it open. Someone who bridges worlds naturally.”
Venrick stepped forward, placing himself slightly in front of Lark. “Someone half-elven.”
King Agadorn’s smile widened. “Very good. Your Squire is perceptive, Lark. Yes, the ritual requires a half-magical soul. One foot in each world, you might say. The perfect bridge.”
“You need me,” Venrick said flatly.
“I need a half-elf,” the King corrected. “You would have been convenient, but not essential. There are others.”
Lark’s mind raced. They needed to secure those pages and escape, but the King showed no sign of concern at their presence. Whatever protection he had, whether he was a mage in secret, or possibly had bonded with a dragon the rest of them didn’t know about, he was confident in it.
“Why?” she demanded. “Why risk everything? The Void Drinker doesn’t serve anyone. It consumes everything in its path.”
For the first time, a raw emotion flashed across the King’s face, like a fervent intensity that bordered on madness.
“Because we cannot continue as we are,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “This endless cycle of kingdoms rising and falling, dragons and their riders having loyalties to their own kingdoms, the gods playing their games from beyond the veil. The Flashover offers a chance to rewrite the very rules of existence.”
“At what cost?” Venrick asked.
“Change always demands sacrifice.” The King stepped away from the reading stand, moving toward a corner of the library where shadows were gathering thicker than elsewhere. “The Void Drinker will consume some, yes. But those who serve it faithfully will be elevated. A new race, with powers beyond anything seen in Sataran before.”
“The rimeshade aren’t a new race,” Nix hissed. “They’re corrupted fae, twisted by the Void Drinker’s influence.”
“And yet they endure when their original forms would have perished centuries ago,” the King countered. “They draw power directly from the source, unfiltered by Hyalites or Yogos. They are the future.”
As he spoke, the shadows behind him deepened, taking on substance and form. Lark felt the temperature in the room plummet, her breath clouding before her face.
“Now,” King Agadorn said, stepping back as the darkness coalesced, “I believe introductions are in order.”
The shadows split and parted like a curtain, revealing a figure that seemed to be made of liquid darkness. It was humanoid in shape, but constantly shifting, its edges never quite solid. Where eyes should have been, there were only swirling vortices of deeper black, flecked with the same silver starlight they had seen in the rimeshade’s corruption.
The Void Drinker had arrived.
“You’ve brought me a gift, faithful servant,” it said, its voice as jagged as a saw’s cutting edge. “A dragonrider with a fae bond. How... delicious.”
King Agadorn bowed slightly. “And a half-elf, my Lord. Just as promised.”
The Entity’s attention shifted to Venrick, those starlit voids focusing on him with terrible intensity. “Yes. I feel the dual nature in your blood. The perfect vessel for what is to come.”
Lark felt White Eye’s rage pulse through their bond, giving her strength. She raised Nightfang, channeling power through the brismil blade until it glowed with azure light.
“You won’t have him,” she declared, her voice steady despite the fear clawing at her throat. “You won’t have any of us.”
The Void Drinker’s form rippled with what might have been amusement. “Brave little rider. Do you think your borrowed power can stand against me? I who existed before dragons first took flight in Sataran? I who taught the Night Court the meaning of true magic?”
It extended a tendril of darkness toward them, and Lark felt an immediate draining sensation, her essence being pulled toward the Entity. Nix cried out, her flame dimming as if someone were smothering it.
