The Firedragon (12 page)

Aurelia dropped to the ground, and a moment
later, an explosion ripped through the air above her. A blindingly
bright flash of green filled her vision, and she resisted the urge
to close her eyes. Whiteness blotted her vision from the lingering
effects of the explosions, but it was better than losing sight of
her surroundings.

Meanwhile, the fangbeast clones were
charging at the Chinese boy again, as he shouted spell after spell,
each one sounding more panicked.

Aurelia rushed forward,
the air around her crackling with energy and magic
flames
.
The more
strategic thing to do would have been to let the fangbeast go after
the boy and take it down while it was distracted, but everything
about that idea seemed absolutely
wrong
. “Hey! Fangbeast! I’m the one
you want, not him!”

The fangbeast would
not
defeat her – she’d
been born to destroy monsters like it. She spread her arms,
whipping her blades out and hitting two creatures at once. Knowing
the blows weren’t enough to behead them, she yanked her swords
back, then spun, striking one in the same spot twice more and
finishing it off. The other pounced at her, and she dodged in the
nick of time. She sliced at the beast’s head, hitting the wound
she’d already created. It went down, and the body
vanished.

This monster was no match for her; she was
the monster to monsters. That was why they called her the
Firedragon.

But no matter what she did, the fangbeast
seemed more interested in the boy. His spells, powerful as they
appeared, did no more than anger the beast, and Aurelia suddenly
recalled that the fangbeast was attracted to supernatural fire. The
boy held a force field before him with one hand and threw
explosions from the wand with the other, apparently believing his
shield would protect him from the oncoming attackers. But her head
filled with images of that first Enchanter who’d been killed facing
it, and she realized this boy was using the same magic that
Enchanter had – and making the same mistakes. Panic rose in her
heart, and she cried, “Stop shooting!”

But the boy continued blasting, and she
remembered that he couldn’t understand her words. The hungry eyes
of each clone fixed on him, and they charged at him in unison. She
closed the distance between herself and the monsters and tried to
engage them, but with their backs to her, all she could do was
strike them from behind, and they ignored her. In the end, she
wasn’t fast enough to save him. The creatures tore through his
shield, and she cried out in despair, knowing he was dead before he
let out his last scream.

The scream went silent, and an indescribable
cold rushed through Aurelia – icier even than when she’d realized
Vilk was dead. But why? Why did the boy’s death affect her so? She
didn’t even know his name.

She clenched her jaw and forced herself to
keep moving. She couldn’t afford to freeze again, like she had when
she’d realized Vilk was dead.

Now that the boy was gone, the fangbeast and
its clones turned all their attention to her. They snarled at her,
and she snarled back. Fueled by an explosion of rage, she charged
at them and attacked with unthinking fury. She kept swinging her
blades, kept dodging the creatures’ claws, kept anticipating their
movements. As she became accustomed to listening to her instincts,
she found that she was able to take out the clones before they had
a chance to duplicate, steadily cutting down the Fangbeast’s
numbers until only one remained.

She turned to it, focus as sharp as a
knife’s edge, and whipped her blades across the last creature’s
neck. Its head fell to the ground … and remained there.

She waited.

It didn’t get up, didn’t multiply, didn’t do
anything but lie there, dead.

She’d done it. Somehow,
against all odds, she’d killed the creature everyone said couldn’t
be killed by a Norm. She didn’t know how – she barely remembered
anything but a blur of snapping jaws. Still, in spite of everything
she’d endured, one thought shone through her mind:
I won.

A powerful feeling of triumph swelled in her
heart, but there was no joy in it. Just righteous satisfaction and
relief that the fight was over. The Triumvirate had sent her here
so the world could watch her die, but instead, she’d shown them how
powerful a Norm could be.

She’d vanquished her enemies – both the ones
with fangs and the ones with wands.

Suddenly, exhaustion hit her from all sides.
She didn’t know how long she’d been fighting, but her body, which
had held its own for so long, couldn’t take any more. Her swords
fell from her hands, and she collapsed next to the dead fangbeast,
feeling like she was actually sinking into the concrete. Heat
radiated from her skin, and sweat seeped out of every pore.

She rolled onto her back and blinked at the
pale blue sky, the feeling of victory giving way to a flood of
sorrow as she thought about the allies she’d lost. She knew she
hadn’t been responsible for Vilk or the Chinese boy, but she
couldn’t help feeling like their deaths were somehow her fault. Her
eyes began to water, and she squeezed them hard, wishing she could
forget the sights of their lifeless bodies. She told herself that
they hadn’t died in vain – that by helping her reach the end of the
Challenge, they, too, had played a part in changing the world.
She’d make sure that everyone remembered that.

Hearing a
swoosh
above her, she
opened her eyes. Through her hazy vision, she saw a gold figure
descending toward her. Was she dead? she wondered. Delirious? Then
she stopped thinking, too tired to care.

The last thing she knew
before blackness fell was a Sentinel pointing his wand at her and
whispering, “
Sopor
.”

Aurelia opened her eyes
and
saw a dark red wand pointed at her.
Alarmed, she yanked it out of the Enchanter’s hand and held up a
fist.

“
Calm down, Aurelia. I was
lifting the sleeping spell.”

Recognizing the voice as Professor
Williams’, she relaxed. When she looked around, she realized that
she lay in her bed in the tiny dorm room at the Academy of
Supernatural Defense. She was … home?

Puzzled, she gave the wand back to Williams
and sat up. “What happened?”

She remembered killing the fangbeast and
seeing the headless body of the source creature dead beside her,
but nothing after that. The anger and satisfaction she’d felt in
that moment seeped back into her mind, but paled next to the whirl
of confusion. How had she ended up back in her room?

Williams handed her a mini Procul Mirror.
“It’s easier to show you. This is what the Triumvirate broadcast
from the Challenge.”

Confused, she looked at the mirror, where
she saw herself swinging her swords, beheading fangbeast clones as
the Chinese boy threw his wand blasts.

She couldn’t help
smiling.
I look good.

Then the boy went down, and the image went
black. She frowned, then felt a sudden sob rise up her chest, and
clenched her jaw. She had no reason to cry – she’d already known
the Chinese boy was dead, and he’d fallen because of his own
mistakes. Why should she care?

But despite everything she
told herself, she couldn’t stop the deep sorrow from penetrating
her heart. She hadn’t known anything about the boy, but he was
a
person
– and
she’d failed him. Just like she’d failed Vilk.

Meanwhile, the image on the Procul Mirror
remained blank. She looked up at Professor Williams with a
quizzical expression, wondering what his point had been.

“
Keep watching,” he
said.

A few seconds later, the image from the
Challenge broadcast reappeared, showing a gold-cloaked Sentinel
standing beside the slain fangbeast with Aurelia, unconscious, in
his arms.

She looked up at Williams, even more
confused than before. The memory of someone whispering a spell
returned to her mind, and she realized it must have been a sleeping
enchantment. “He knocked me out? Why?”

“
To make it appear as
though he’d rescued you,” Williams replied. “According to the
Triumvirate, that Sentinel took pity on you and stopped the
broadcast to kill the fangbeast.”

“
What?
” She shot up, unwilling to believe what he’d told her.
“
I
killed
it!
I
did what a
dozen Sentinels couldn’t! What any
Enchanter
couldn’t!”

“
I believe you. And that’s
precisely what the Triumvirate couldn’t let the people see.” His
voice sounded calm, but she detected the wrathful fire in his
expression, blazing behind his crinkled brown eyes. She got the
feeling that there was more to him than the calm, scholarly teacher
she knew, but she wasn’t sure what question she could ask to learn
more.

Her gaze flew back to the
Procul Mirror, which showed the Sentinel, still holding Aurelia,
telling the Challenge officials that he’d had enough of the
bloodshed and couldn’t stand by while a young girl was slaughtered.
Rage couldn’t begin to describe the desire she had to rip the
Sentinel’s throat out and dump his body into a pit of fire. How
dare he lie like that? How
dare
he? A million curses blazed on the tip of her
tongue, too powerful to form into words. She’d killed that
fangbeast fair and square, and now this
Sentinel
was taking credit? And
making her look like a pansy in the process?

She glanced up at Williams, feeling her face
twist into an involuntary snarl.

“
It was all planned,” he
said, his expression placid but for the simmering anger in his
eyes. “If it looked like one of the champions might succeed, the
nearest Sentinel was to take credit for the kill.”

“
They’re all
liars
!” she yelled. She
flung the Procul Mirror against the wall, and it shattered.
Breathing hard, she worked to contain the urge to let out a primal
cry of sheer rage. All her efforts, all her hopes, had been for
nothing. She’d beaten the Triumvirate’s game, killed a fangbeast
all by herself, proven that she could do it … only to have her
victory stolen. More than that, it had been twisted to serve their
purposes. She’d made herself believe that all those deaths –
Vilk’s, the Chinese boy’s, the Triumvirate Enchanter’s – had been
the price of the better world her victory would bring. Now they
seemed so senseless.

She grabbed her hair and
buried her face in her knees, too furious to even scream. She’d
devoted her life, her heart, her very
self
to the belief that someday,
she’d prove that Norms were as worthy as Enchanters. She’d kept
herself going in spite of everything she’d endured because of the
belief that in the end, monsters were evil, and the Triumvirate was
her home. She’d thought it all made sense – fight for them, and for
the hope that one day, the world could be a better
place.

But now, they’d betrayed her. And she could
never forgive them for that.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked
up to see Williams gazing down at her, his bushy gray eyebrows
tilted in sympathy. “Calm, yourself, Aurelia,” he said. “Think of
it this way: By surviving, you’ve already defied their
intentions.”

“
That’s
worse
!” she shouted. “I
wanted to prove that Norms don’t need Enchanters. Now, it looks
like they’re freaking
saviors
! So what was it even for?”
That question seemed too small, too weak to express all her dashed
hopes, but it was the best she could do in the moment.

How had she spent her whole life serving the
Triumvirate, believing they were the good guys? So many had died
because of the International Challenge – including people she cared
about. And if she hadn’t done something crazy, even Connor would
have been among the dead. She’d thought that the monsters were the
enemy, but in the end they’d just been the weapons. The Triumvirate
– the ones who had orchestrated the whole competition – had been
the killers.

And she’d been nothing
more than an instrument in their plans. They
were evil, and they would never change … unless they were
forced to.

“
They’ll
always
treat me and my
kind like dirt,” she said through gritted teeth. “Now I
want
to destroy
them!”