Dragon Rise Read online

  The size of the dragon pearl was easily as large as the palm of his hand. It wasn’t the largest that Fes had ever seen, but it was large enough that the power stored within the pearl would be immense. Whatever spell he might use would be difficult for Fes to carve through.

  He lowered his shoulder and lunged at the man before he was able to complete his summons to power. The dragon pearl flipped into the air, and Fes caught it before kicking off, reaching for the pearl and clasping his hand around it.

  When he stood, the fire mage grinned at him.

  “What was that about?”

  “There aren’t many who can handle a pearl that has been activated,” the mage said.

  The dragon pearl was warm, but not intolerably so. He’d felt artifacts that were hot before, and this wasn’t anything like them.

  “Fes!”

  He glanced back to see Jayell looking at the dragon pearl in his palm.

  “You have to get rid of that or—”

  The power within the pearl continued to build. He felt it pushing against him, and it was different than the magic the fire mages were able to use. This was a steady type of building power, and as it built, it pulsed into him.

  Whereas it been warm, now it was searingly hot.

  Some deep part of him reverberated, echoing in response to the spell that coursed through the dragon pearl.

  The mage watched him, and Fes jabbed forward, catching him in the belly with his sword. The man gripped the blade and fell backward, sliding off it.

  “See that they don’t move,” Fes said.

  “We should get going.” Jayell looked behind them, and her eyes started to widen. “Others will be here soon.”

  Fes could feel magic pulsing against him, though it was distant compared to what it had been. Always before, the sense of magic had come easily to him, and now as he held the dragon pearl, it suppressed that, almost as if it were overpowering his abilities.

  Or burning it off him.

  Could the pearl destroy his ability to detect fire mage magic?

  There was a time when Fes wouldn’t have cared, but having such an ability had been useful, and it had saved him, especially as they continued to encounter more and more fire mages. The idea that he might have to do so without some way of detecting their magic worried him.

  They reached the door leading into the temple and Jayell pushed on it, sending a surge of magic through it, but the door didn’t budge.

  “What is it?”

  “That’s what they were doing here,” she said, looking past him to the fallen mages. “They were sealing off the door. It’s more power than I can overcome.”

  Fes glanced back to hear the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs. It wasn’t long before they would come face-to-face with more mages.

  Maybe he should have brought the older mage with them. Having a hostage, especially someone who might be high ranking within the mage temple, would have been valuable.

  “Let me see if this will work,” he said. He approached the door and slammed the sword into the lock. He didn’t know if it would make a difference, but the sword slid all the way through it, and the door still didn’t budge. Cutting through the lock wouldn’t be enough.

  To escape, they would need more than merely to break through the lock. They would need to find a different way. Could he cut through the door?

  Dragonglass was incredibly sharp, and he’d seen it cut through things that should not be possible, but he hadn’t tried it with the sword before.

  Fes dropped the dragon pearl and grabbed the hilt with both hands and started working it up the side of the door. It slid through the wood, and he twisted the hilt around, bringing it back, trying to make a wide enough opening they could jump through.

  Fes slammed into the cutout, and it popped free.

  He grabbed Jayell and slipped himself through the opening in the doorway.

  “Don’t leave the pearl,” she whispered.

  “Why? It’s already been activated, and I—”

  Her gaze fixed on the pearl. Had it gotten larger?

  Fes had never seen a dragon pearl do that, so it maybe it was nothing more than his imagination.

  “We have to grab it,” she said.

  Fes pushed her in front of him and reached through the opening as five mages suddenly appeared. He grabbed the dragon pearl. A spell built on the other side of the door and slammed into the space where he had been.

  He shoved the pearl into his pocket, racing after Jayell as she hurried across the lawn. Power built behind him, enough that he could feel it, but he didn’t dare take a moment to turn back to see what was happening and whether there was anything he could do to counter it. When they reached the central part of the city, they raced along the street, putting distance between the temple and where they were heading. They would need to find someplace to hide, but where?

  They hadn’t planned that far ahead. It was a mistake and one that he should have known better than to make. They should have had an escape plan in mind whereas as it was, they were content simply to have managed to get free.

  “Where now?” Jayell asked.

  “I was hoping that you might know someplace that we could go, especially as seeing how you trained here for a time,” he said.

  “There might be a place, but you already said that you don’t want anything to do with the priesthood.”

  Fes groaned. “Is this your way of getting me drawn into this?”

  “You weren’t already drawn in?”

  “Apparently, I can’t escape it, even if I want to.”

  “You don’t have to sound as if you’re disappointed.”

  They ran, and as they did, power continued to explode behind them. The fire mages were there, but they were far enough away that any time a spell came near enough to do any damage, Fes was able to turn and slash at it with the sword.

  “I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep this up,” he said.

  Even as they weaved through the street, he could hear footsteps around him and feared that they would run into fire mages with each step.

  They rounded a corner, and he and Jayell skidded to a stop. Fes held his breath, waiting for the attack he knew would come.

  The man standing across from him grinned widely. “It seems I finally caught up to you, Fezarn,” Captain Jaken said.

  Chapter Three

  Fes shifted his feet, holding the sword out in front of him. It was Jaken’s sword—at least, it once had been. The way Jaken looked at the blade told Fes that the man intended to take it back, but it had been invaluable—sometimes incredibly so—especially when they faced fire mages.

  “When you get a chance, run,” he whispered to Jayell. He turned his attention back to Jaken, holding the sword in a ready pose. Jaken merely watched it, seemingly unfazed by the fact that Fes held a sword out in front of him and that Jaken was essentially unarmed. “You might as well head back to the palace. You’re not taking me back.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I have no intention of returning.”

  “Interesting. You had been such a faithful servant to Azithan all these years, now you would abandon that? The emperor will be disappointed to learn of your choice.” Jaken shifted his hands, keeping them outside his long crimson and gold cloak.

  Fes looked around. Conversation like this would only delay them. And he had a sense that Jaken wasn’t alone. The more time he bought, the more likely it was that fire mages would come. Enough of them would be able to overpower him.

  Fes darted forward, and Jaken slipped off to the side, moving faster than Fes could manage. He barely looked at the blade, only keeping his eyes on Fes.

  “If you lower the sword, I will make this as painless as I can for you,” Jaken said.

  “Maybe if you step off to the side, I will let you live.”

  Jaken smiled. “If you had any intention—or means—of killing me, you would have done so a while ago. Not only do I doubt your ability to
kill me, I doubt that you have the necessary fortitude.”

  Fes grunted. “Your choice.” He swung the sword around and, in a fluid movement, Jaken unsheathed a sword hidden beneath his cloak, blocking Fes.

  Fes wasn’t surprised to see that Jaken would have another dragonglass sword but was disappointed in the fact that he did. Jaken would be a skilled swordsman, something that Fes decidedly was not. He had some ability that had come from years of living on the street and his training with knives and daggers, but using a sword was different.

  Jaken slipped forward, sweeping around, and Fes barely managed to counter.

  Heat exploded, and he turned, half expecting to see a fire mage coming up behind him, but it was Jayell, and she sent a spell bursting toward Jaken.

  He caught the spell with his sword and tipped it toward the ground.

  “Are you Deshazl?” Fes asked. It was the only explanation that made sense if Jaken could do some of the same things that Fes could do.

  “If only you knew,” Jaken said.

  He needed to distract Jaken long enough for Jayell to get a spell past him. He didn’t have to do anything with much skill, it only had to distract him, and preferably quickly enough that any help that Jaken might have wouldn’t arrive before they managed to complete it.

  He darted forward, putting Jaken in between them, and Fes focused, drawing up the anger from within himself. It was that anger that would grant him strength, and he called to it, filling himself.

  It was the power of the Deshazl.

  As he did, he carved toward Jaken, but the other man caught his sword. Jaken’s eyes narrowed, and he gritted his teeth.

  “Perhaps you are more formidable than I give you credit for,” Jaken said.

  He spun, twisting with such fluid grace that Fes had a hard time keeping up. He dropped, sweeping his leg around, kicking Jaken in the back of his leg.

  The other man tilted, his hands flailing for a moment.

  “Now!”

  A spell exploded, striking Jaken in the back, and he went staggering forward.

  Fes scrambled to his feet, grabbed Jayell’s hand, and went running. He paused near Jaken and scooped his dragonglass sword off the ground, kicking him in the side for good measure. Then they went streaking into the city.

  Fes slipped Jaken’s sword into the sheath at his back.

  “Do you really need another one?”

  “I don’t need another one, but it upsets him that I have it, so I thought it would be fun to take another one from him.”

  “You can’t carry this many weapons,” she said.

  “You don’t know how many weapons I can carry.”

  And there was a possibility that having a second dragonglass blade might be even more beneficial when he faced off with fire mages. If one was good, why couldn’t two be better?

  They weaved through the streets and Fes directed them away from the sense of fire magic exploding behind him. It continued to propel them forward.

  Fes came to a stop. “Dammit,” he whispered.

  “What is it?”

  He looked behind him. The sense of fire magic exploding behind him served almost to propel him, but why would there be such a flurry of spells? How many fire mages could there really be out in the city chasing them? Certainly not as many as what he was detecting.

  Which meant that they were driving him in a particular direction.

  “Jaken must’ve told them I can detect when fire magic is used,” he said.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Would fire mages use spells without a target?”

  “No. It would waste the potential stored within the dragon relic, and those are cherished. Considering how difficult it was for us to go in and secure these relics, any are valuable.”

  “So the fact that I continue to detect spells exploding out there, heading this way is unlikely unless they had something they were using them on.”

  “Or they know that you can detect it.”

  “Right. But why would they push us this way?”

  Jayell shook her head. “I don’t know why, but it’s the opposite direction that we need to go.”

  “Your priests are the other way?”

  Jayell pointed.

  As Fes followed the direction she pointed, he saw a series of rolling hills on the other side of the city. Not mountains. There weren’t mountains until much farther north, but these were noticeable hills that rolled away from the city, almost as if attempting to conceal the presence of the fire mage temple.

  They needed to find a place to lay low and hide until this blew over, but if they had fire mages coming up behind them, and Dragon Guard in the city working with Jaken, he wasn’t entirely sure how they would get out, short of going the very direction that the fire mages seemed to want them to go.

  Fes hated taking direction like that.

  He turned, heading back into the city the way they came and heading toward the exploding sense of fire magic.

  “Fes?”

  “If they don’t want us to go that way, then I think that is exactly the way that we need to go. And if the priests you know that might be able to help us are this way, then I don’t think we have much choice.”

  “What if we run into more fire mages?”

  He patted the hilt of the sword that he’d stolen from Jaken. “Now I’m twice as dangerous.”

  “You barely know how to fight with one.”

  “Hey!”

  “I’ve seen you with your daggers. You’re deadly with those, but the sword?”

  “I managed to stop Jaken.”

  “That was me.”

  “Fine. I managed to distract Jaken.” The sense of fire magic continued to build all around him, and it was sweeping toward him. He resisted the urge to cut through it. He suspected that was what they wanted, though if he cut through it, maybe he could figure out where it was coming from. Right now, the sense of fire magic was directionless. It spread out all around him, but he had no sense of where it was coming from. It was similar to the way that the sense of the fire magic had flowed over him when he had approached the temple. That also had been directionless.

  “Can they detect you using magic?”

  “I thought they would,” Jayell said.

  “What if you use one of the artifacts that we took today?”

  “It’s not the artifact that makes a difference. It’s the person using the magic. Each of us learns a unique sort of style. Power comes out of us differently.”

  “You have a different signature than the other fire mages?”

  She nodded. “It’s different enough that those with the ability to detect magic being used would recognize that I wasn’t one of them. Besides, I don’t have the same finesse most of them can manage.”

  “I still think you aren’t giving yourself enough credit.”

  “The fire mages study and use their magic constantly, especially here, where they have an endless supply of dragon relics. I haven’t dared experiment with my connection to it.”

  “Eventually the relics will run out,” Fes said. “Why would they be so willing to use them like that?”

  “How many dragons do you think once lived?”

  Fes frowned, pushing against the sense of the fire magic. It was almost a barrier, though he’d experienced barriers before that he couldn’t move through. This didn’t do anything to confine him. Then again, maybe it only would attempt to restrict him if he resisted. The fact that he was simply trying to walk through it, not trying to cut through it with the dragonglass sword might be what allowed him to continue to move.

  “I don’t know. A hundred?” He tried to think of how many different dragons could have been in the dragon fields. When he’d been there, there had probably been ten, maybe double but certainly no more than that, remains scattered throughout. Most of those remains had been enormous, the remnants from wings and spines, but surprisingly no skulls.

  “The scholars in the temple believe that there had been thou
sands.”

  “Thousands?” he asked, turning to her.

  “Thousands,” she repeated. “And we have collected bones from several hundred different dragons, but there are many more that we haven’t collected from.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “The dragons didn’t only die in the dragon plains.”

  “I thought that was where they went to die.”

  “Most believe that, but each year there are caravans of fire mages that leave the empire, and they always come back with more relics. Because of that, the scholars believe that the number of dragons was many more than what rumors would have us believe.”

  “How did the empire manage to kill so many dragons?”

  “The empire learned how to kill them,” she said.

  If there really were that many different dragons, then perhaps there was an endless supply of magic. If that were the case, would there be any point in attempting to resist? If they had access to so many different relics, and the fire mages had a limitless supply of power, was there anything that he could do to oppose them?

  Fes halted.

  When had it become about opposing them?

  That wasn’t what Fes wanted to do. He wanted to stay neutral. He wanted to make money, enough to get out of the empire, and disappear. And now… now he still wanted to earn enough to escape.

  Jayell pulled on his sleeve. Power exploded around them, and he nodded, continuing to lead them through it.

  “Can you feel any of this?” Fes asked.

  “I can sense the stirring of power, but not much more than that,” she said.

  “It’s impressive,” Fes said.

  “Some of the spells higher level mages are able to use are amazing. They are fire mages who have known that magic their entire lives. Those who stay in the temple have access to resources that others do not. They are the empire’s most powerful weapon.”

  Weapon was an appropriate term, especially when it came to the way that the fire mages were used. Because of the fire mages, the empire had maintained its power over the years and continued to expand it until it swallowed nearly the entire continent. Only the people of Toulen remained near enough to the empire that they could pose a threat, though they had established a tenuous peace that prevented anything more.