Unleash the Storm (14 page)

The fire shot out from either side of the engulfed dragon. Then the blue and black flames flashed to a pale green and leaped higher than ever before, shooting above the treetops. Slowly, it faded, and then all that remained was a line of rippling green light, twice her height and undulating gently along the ground.

The dragon and Ash were gone.

Still sitting on the ground, Piper stared, her heart racing. She felt dizzy. She couldn’t breathe right.

He was gone. Ash was gone. How could he be gone?

All that was left was that strange line of shifting light. Power whispered in the air, teasing her senses. Familiar. Ancient. She knew the feeling of that magic.

“That …” she choked, scarcely able to make a sound. “That can’t be …”

Lyre sank to the ground beside her, his bow loose in his hand.

“A ley line,” he whispered.

A
ley line
. The undulating line of light was mesmerizing, and on any other occasion, its beauty would have enchanted her. She’d never been shaded at the right time to see a line before; she’d only sensed their presence.

And she’d never had a chance to sense this one before now—because that line hadn’t existed a moment ago.

Coby had joked that the draconian legends were pretentious, claiming that dragons had created the ley lines. Piper had never imagined the legends were true. She would have bet her life that no mortal creature could create a ley line.

She hadn’t bet her life, but if she’d been betting on Ash’s, she’d clearly lost.

He was gone. The dragon had created a ley line, and they’d both gone through it. They could be anywhere in the Underworld, Earth, or even the Overworld. They couldn’t be tracked. They couldn’t be found. Unless Ash broke free of the dragon’s control or the dragon decided to bring him back, there was no magic or power that could locate him.

Trembling, she squeezed both hands against her chest, pressing against the unbearable pain of her shattering heart. Still clenched in one fist, the Sahar was a cool weight against her palm. Tears slid steadily down her cheeks.

Beside her, Lyre pushed wearily to his feet. He crossed the scorched, blackened ground to stand at the edge of the rippling light. Extending a corner of his bow, he poked it into the line, causing the light to flicker energetically for a brief second. He dropped his arm back to his side and turned, golden eyes travelling over the camp behind her. His impossible radiance would have taken her breath away if she’d been able to breathe. But crushed by despair, her lungs barely functioned. Her gaze dropped to the bow in his hand.

“You were going to kill him,” she said hoarsely.

His grip on the bow tightened, tendons standing out on the back of his hand.

“He asked.” The impossible, layered harmonics of his voice flowed over her, but the beauty of the sound couldn’t hide the pain in each word. “I promised.”

“You promised to murder him?” she said, lifting her head to meet his eyes. Bitter accusation rang through her question.

“I promised I wouldn’t let the dragon take him alive,” Lyre replied, anger joining the pain in his voice. “He knew he couldn’t fight the dragon’s hold on him. I promised him a clean, swift death instead of slavery to a beast he couldn’t fight.” His mouth twisted. “I failed.”

Because of you.
He didn’t say the words, but she heard them. They were in his eyes, burning through her with something close to loathing.

She dropped her head, squeezing her eyes shut as her heart broke all over again. Ash had been so afraid—terrified of being lost to the dragon—that he’d asked Lyre to save him from that fate. Not her. Lyre. Because Ash had known she would refuse. He’d known that even if he convinced her to agree, there was every chance she would have balked at the last minute. She’d done the same once already. In the Chrysalis facility in Asphodel, she’d stood over him while he was lost in torture-fueled madness and hadn’t been able to free him from the pain in the only way left.

Lyre hadn’t balked. He hadn’t hesitated. Once it was clear Ash was lost, he’d acted. And she’d sabotaged his attack. But in Asphodel, Ash had found a way back from the brink. Maybe he would find his way back this time too. He didn’t have a chance if he was dead.

But if he didn’t find a way, she’d condemned him to a terrible fate.

She climbed to her feet. Her knees were shaking. Exhaustion permeated her inner turmoil; she’d been drastically fatigued even before channeling so much power through the Sahar. Unable to meet Lyre’s eyes again, she turned toward the camp behind her.

Utter destruction. Everything was black—the ground, the rocky walls of the valley, the stones bordering the waterfall. The trees caught in the inferno were charred, crumbling stumps that still glowed faintly. Everything the fire had touched had been razed to the ground. Their pile of supplies was nothing but ashes and twisted remains of cookware. Small fires crackled merrily along the edges of the devastation.

The others were only just climbing out of the pool at the base of the waterfall. Ivria held little Yana tight in her arms, gawking as water dripped off them. The other women stood with the younger girls, steadying one another as they observed the destruction. Raum stood in front of them, sword still in his hand, his dark eyes travelling over the ruins of their camp.

Seiya stood just in front of the others, Mahala holding one of her arms, the other clutching Zwi to her chest. Zala hung off her shoulder. Seiya stared at the ley line with black, horrified eyes, frozen in place. Mahala must have forced Seiya into the water, otherwise she would have been right there fighting for her brother.

Visibly shaking off her shock, Seiya pulled out of Mahala’s grip and ran across the burnt ground, right past Piper. She stopped in front of the new ley line, stretching her free hand out as though to touch the magic. Zwi whimpered.

“How—how—” Seiya stuttered.

Lyre slowly shook his head as he hooked his bow into some sort of holder on his back. He shimmered back into glamour. Raum moved, his boots crunching on the charred ground, loud in the oppressive silence. He headed toward her, Kiev following.

Halfway across the camp, he spun, sword rising. Piper whirled in the direction of his gaze.

Figures stood at the edge of the scorched earth—Eliada and her warriors. They must have retreated into the trees far enough to escape the fire. As they moved cautiously out of the trees, the last faint glow of the sun leaking from behind Periskios faded and darkness fell across them like a heavy blanket. Several of the warriors created small orbs of light, tossing them into the air to illuminate the clearing.

As her eyes locked on Eliada’s, Piper’s despair morphed into fury. She surged into motion, striding straight for the old woman. The warriors tensed but Eliada waved them back, facing Piper.

She stopped almost on the woman’s toes, glaring with her hands clenched at her sides.

“How did you know the dragon was coming for him?” she demanded. “What do you know?”

Eliada pulled her face wrap down, surveying Piper with steely teal eyes.

“Do you understand now why he needed to die?” she said coldly. She pointed her chin at the charred clearing. “That was but a taste of the power the dragon now commands through Ashtaroth.”

Piper ground her teeth together, barely controlling her anger.

“The great dragons seek out Taroths to bind their magic together. The sealing of their magic is normally deadly to the draconian; the great dragon’s magic is too fierce for a draconian’s body to endure. With the seal upon them, death is a gift.”

“But if the draconian survives?” Piper asked tersely.

“The dragon’s power multiplies beyond imagining. The Taroths have feared it for generations, passing the warning from father to son for as long as memory stretches.”

“So what will happen to Ash? He just stays as the dragon’s helpless puppet until he dies?”

The old woman inclined her head. “I told you it was a mercy to kill him.”

She waited for the woman to tell her more, but Eliada remained silent. “That’s it? That’s all you know?”

“Knowledge of the great dragons was passed from Taroth to Taroth as their birthright and secret to guard—much of which was lost with the bloodline. I only know what Jesyr told me.”

Piper’s hands clenched and the Sahar pressed against her right palm. She needed more information. How was she supposed to figure out how to save Ash if she didn’t know what the dragon wanted or where it might have gone? The only person she could possibly think of who might know something about ancient Taroth secrets was Natania … but why would Nyrtaroth have discussed forbidden knowledge like that with his haemon lover?

Her vision blurred. The world spun and rocked under her feet. She blinked rapidly, catching her balance.

The charred Underworld forest was gone. She stood in front of a heavy wooden worktable in a large room. The wood-paneled walls were mostly hidden by tall, deep bookshelves. Hundreds of crates, baskets, and unrecognizable contraptions overflowed from the shelves with no rhyme or reason.

Before she could panic about where she was, her frantic gaze fell on the woman sitting at the table, her legs folded at the knee and hands resting neatly on the tabletop. She smiled as she brushed her golden hair off her shoulders.

“It has been so long, Piper,” Natania purred.

Piper looked around again, her heart climbing into her throat. “I’m not sleeping. I’m not unconscious. How the hell are you messing with my mind while I’m
wide awake
?”

Natania’s eyes widened innocently. “You needed to speak with me. Do you not want to speak with me?”

“This shouldn’t be possible!” Panic simmered in her gut. “You shouldn’t be able to do this. What is my body doing? Did I just collapse in front of everyone?”

“Of course not,” Natania replied calmly. “Scant seconds have passed, and your body will continue to stand as long as necessary. Really, Piper. Do you not realize the mind moves so much faster than reality?”

Piper pursed her lips. She did sometimes have long, involved dreams that seemed to last hours even when only snoozing for a few minutes. She supposed it made sense that time passed more slowly inside her mind—or rather, inside Natania’s mind.

Natania ran her hands over the tabletop, the wooden surface half buried in thin, unbleached papers and metal gadgets, as well as a sprinkling of grape-sized rubies and sapphires that would have made any jeweler drool.

“My dark moon spent much of his time in this room. He preferred the hours of darkness. Some nights I would stay up until the sun rose, doing nothing more than watching him work. His genius was rivalled only by Maahes—and, perhaps, by your sweet incubus.”

“Lyre?”

“Mm, yes,
Lyre
.” Natania breathed his name as if it were a delicious delicacy. “Such a mystery. That spell on his arrow, bound by blood. A most lovely weapon of war. Who, I wonder, trained him? A master weaver, surely. Years of study went into just that one arrow. Yes, your sweet incubus is far more than he seems.”

Piper pulled out the chair across from Natania and dropped into it. “I didn’t want to talk to you about Lyre. You know what happened to Ash. Did Nyrtaroth ever talk about the great dragons?”

Natania rose to her feet. Her silver gown swirled around her legs as she sauntered to the head of the table, trailing her fingers along it.

“My moon spent countless hours at this table, many of those long nights with my sun at his side, while they perfected their weaving for the Sahar—prior to adding the ‘final ingredient,’ of course.” Natania’s mouth twisted on the last words, bitterness lacing her voice like poison.

Piper roughly pushed her bangs out of her face. Natania knew everything in her head, including how desperately she wanted information about the dragon. So of course the woman would avoid the topic as long as possible.

“His determination to complete it,” Natania said, “drove him like a stallion before the whip. He would not rest until it was complete. Do you know why?”

“To stop Hades,” she said flatly, wishing she could avoid Natania’s word games—but the woman was holding all the cards. “He wanted a weapon that Hades wouldn’t dare challenge.”

“No,” Natania said softly, gliding to a bookshelf and tidying a stack of thick leather books. “Maahes sought to advance his vendetta against Hades, and Nyr was pleased to encourage such a venture, but his true motivation lay elsewhere.”

Piper frowned, curious despite herself. “Where then?”

“He confessed to me, one night not long before …” Natania compressed her lips until they paled. “Perhaps he felt guilty for what they already planned to do to me, and he wished me to know that he was not driven purely by his hunger for power.”

Her eyes rose to Piper, silver glimmering in the blue depths.

“My moon was fearless, an unflinching warrior against any enemy. But there was one foe he feared—truly feared.” She lifted her chin, raising one eyebrow. “A foe he could not fight, a foe who could destroy him: a dragon.”

Piper snapped straight in her seat; so Natania wasn’t just rambling. Nyrtaroth had feared the great dragons too?

Natania picked up a strange metal dial, brushing away a fine layer of dust to reveal its shining surface. “I laughed when he told me. ‘A dragon?’ I scoffed, thinking of the larger form of his dragonet. But the creature he described sent a shiver down my spine. A great ebony beast larger than anything I had ever seen, with massive wings to blot out the very sky. A beast, he told me, that had taken his grandfather from him when he was a small child. His grandfather had died hours later, consumed by the fire of the dragon within him, and my moon had shed tears of relief—relief that the dragon would not have his soul.”

She replaced the dial and faced Piper. “The great dragon would take no more of his family, he told me, once he had completed his limitless weapon.”

Piper sucked in a breath. “Nyrtaroth wanted to create the Sahar to defend against the great dragons? Did Maahes know that?”

“No. My moon bid me never to speak of it.”

Piper shook her head, blown away. Lifting her eyes to Natania, she focused again. “What happens to a draconian if he survives like Ash?”

“He is lost. I know nothing more, only that Nyr preferred death for his grandfather as the better fate.”

Piper bit down hard on her bottom lip as tears formed in her eyes. “So there’s no hope for Ash?”

“Well,” Natania murmured with a slight shrug. She settled gracefully in her chair across from Piper. “My moon created the Sahar to defeat a dragon. And you now wield it.”

“I can’t fight the great dragon’s power. I could barely shield against one blast.”

“The Sahar is limitless, but your body is not. A more powerful daemon could wield enough of my power to challenge a dragon.”

Piper stiffened in her seat. “No way. You know perfectly well what the Sahar—what
you
—do to daemons who try to use it. I can’t let anyone else have access to its magic.”