Tested by the Night (36 page)

Then he lifted a wayward tendril of her hair off her cheek and tucked it back behind her ear. “This is your quest, princess, and your orders we will follow. But I do suggest we get the camp packed up and get on our way quickly. We have a long day ahead of us and not a lot of daylight to waste.”

Mia nodded, and her stomach did an uneasy flip as she lifted her chin and stiffened her spine. “Let’s do it.”

He leaned in close. “Stay close to me, Mia, please. I have an uneasy feeling about this place.”

She shuddered. “As do I. But don’t worry. I’ll stick so close even Pearl won’t be able to tell where I begin and you end. I promise.”

Pearl harrumphed.

****

Where the VoT was she?

This was just like his friggin’ nightmare, only worse, because he was wide awake, and she was really and truly gone.

Talon turned in a circle, desperately trying to gauge his whereabouts. Black ice crunched beneath the heels of his boots and spread out in front of him for as far as the eye could see.

And in the distance…what was that?

He squinted through the mist, and then his mouth gaped open. Mile after mile of staggering high walls of jagged rock filled the horizon. He shivered, yet his lungs burned. She had to be here somewhere. One moment she’d been right by his side, and the next…

He scrambled up one slick hill before tumbling hard down the other side. Sharp splinters of debris nicked his shin and his ankles, but he welcomed the warmth of his own blood seeping out and coating his skin with its heat. The bright red splotches of liquid were the only source of escape from the never-ending chills running up and down his spine.

Cold, he was so very cold. His fingers had long ago lost all sensation and so had his feet. But he couldn’t stop. He was getting close. He could feel it. He could feel her presence and her fear.

Mia needed him.

He gathered his courage, yelled back toward his companions, picked up his frozen feet, and ran on sheer desperation and determination alone.

Pearl was following fast on his heels, her breath hot on his neck and her screams echoing throughout his mind.
We must get to her, master. Faster, we must go faster. I can see it in my mind. It has her in its claws. Hurry, we really must hurry.

Fear for Mia out-weighed his fatigue, and furiously, Talon pumped his legs. Every step and every breath he took burned deeper and deeper throughout his entire body and he recognized it for what it was. An ice burn. If he didn’t find Mia and shelter soon, they’d all be lost.

It wasn’t wise to ignore an ice burn. He remembered them well from growing up in Bane. An ice burn was a cold so cold the tiny air pockets in one’s lungs froze solid the moment the chill, icy winds accosted them. It was a burning cold, a numbing cold, a freezing solid cold, a cold unto death.

He paused a moment to get his bearings. Odd. Though this place was undoubtedly covered with thick sheets of ice like his homeland, it certainly wasn’t anything like Bane.

Bane was flat, Bane was wide open spaces, Bane was beautiful in its simplicity, and Bane was bright blue skies and even bluer water. This place was horrid and rocky and mountainous and dark and dreary and lonely and lost, so very, very lost.

So where was Mia? He had to find her. It had taken her. A dragon of solid ice had swooped in and carried her away before he’d even had a chance to react. A heaviness of spirit filled him, and wearily he sank to his knees.

“You mustn’t give into the despair,” Wally yelled. “We’ll find her. We know it flew in this direction.”

Talon forced himself to rise and trudge onward, though every step caused his entire being to ache and the wind threatened to rip his limbs from his body.

Wally suddenly gripped his arm. “I know yout don’t want to hear this, but yout must leave us behind. We’re only slowing yout down. Be sensible man. Climb onto Pearl’s back and go find our girl. We’ll be all right. I’ll watch after Pierced and Alistair, and we’ll catch up to yout.”

Talon shook his head. “I can’t leave a man behind, let alone three. It goes against my barbarian code of honor.”

Wally pushed him toward Pearl, and so did Pierced and Alistair. “Code be damned. Go get our Mia back.”

Talon nodded and hefted himself onto Pearl’s back. “North,” he yelled. “Stay true north, and you’ll find us. I’m sure of it.”

With that, Pearl took flight, and Talon didn’t bother to look back.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mia couldn’t stop shaking, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to the cold, the fright, or both. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her breaths came in quick, shallow little spurts as she gripped Queen Adrina’s spear so tightly in her fist her fingers had gone numb.

The spear had been the one thing she’d been able to hold onto when the ice dragon had scooped her up and carried her away only a few grains of the hourglass ago.

She sat huddled in a huge make-shift nest of some sorts, upon a flat patch of ground, surrounded by round, glowing ice-orb thingies, and she tried her best to concentrate on the conversation going on around her.

The ice dragon that had captured her was having a discussion of sorts with the biggest, scariest creature Mia’d ever laid eyes on. And other than closing those same eyes, covering her ears, and shutting out the world like the coward she now knew herself to be, what other option did she have but to watch and listen?

“I brought you a gift, oh great Azurinna. A warm blooded gift. I found it wondering close to our borders,” the dragon said.

The eight-headed, sixteen-eyed, two-winged, four-legged, ice-scaled monster that Mia was fairly sure was one of the ice hydras she’d been sent here to find let out a sound that was almost a chuckle. “And what is it you expect in return, for this…offering?”

The dragon shuffled its feet. “An egg perhaps? Or two or three or a hundred. After all, you’ll still have thousands to watch over and hunting has been scarce. Activity from VoT has slowed to a trickle of late, and anyway, I hunger for something different, something powerful, something cold, very cold.”

The ice hydra gasped. “One of my eggs? Do you really think I’d give you something as priceless as one of my offspring in exchange for this…this…tiny warm-blood? Impossible. Put her back where you found her—she’s an innocent—and go about your job, dragon. If you wish to eat this day, then feast on the soulless who continue to sneak across our borders from VoT. It is your purpose, after all.”

The dragon screeched. “I’ve grown sick of the soulless. They have no taste, no texture. I want hydra eggs. I demand them. It’s close to the time of the great hatching, and we both know you grow weak. I will feel the power of an unborn hydra pour through my veins as I devour it this day.”

Azurinna bellowed. “Not from my eggs, you won’t. I am the last of my kind, and I’ll be lucky if even half of my eggs survive the hatching. Every millennium their numbers grow less and less. But still, they must be of sufficient quantity to keep the good and evil in this world balanced. It’s what we’ve been tasked to do since the beginning of time. And what your own brand new soon to be hatched ice dragons will do. I’m not asking to eat your young, am I? Go now, and leave mine be.”

The dragon screeched once more and shot straight up into the air. “I don’t care about my young, you greedy bitch,” it bellowed. “They can fend for themselves. But if you refuse to part with a few of your own eggs, then I shall destroy them all.”

The last thing Mia expected from a dragon made of pure ice was a stream of fire, but that was exactly what shot forth from the creature’s mouth a heartbeat later, landing upon a group of icy orbs. They began to melt, and the light inside them to fade.

The ice hydra screamed, the scales of her chest expanding and contracting while a thick, icy white torrent of fog flowed from her mouth covering her eggs in a layer of protection.

The dragon laughed. “Don’t be unreasonable, Azurinna. We both know you don’t have the power left to protect them all. Give me a few as I’ve asked, or lose many.”

The ice hydra shook all eight of her heads. “Never, dragon. I’ll die first.”

The dragon cackled. “Then I suppose you shall die.” And fire once more shot forth.

This time when the hydra’s chest started expanding and contracting, Mia couldn’t believe what she saw. Right there, right within range of her spear, beat a bright red heart. All she need do to complete her quest and earn the right to be a ruling queen of the barbarian nation was to plunge the spear upward. It would only take a moment, one quick thrust.

Still, she hesitated.

In truth, she probably didn’t even have to kill Azurinna with her own hands if she didn’t wish to. Looking, really looking at the hydra, Mia could see that the dragon was right. The eight-headed creature standing so proud, so regal, defending her nest to the death was weak, and not just a little weakened, but very old and very weak. All she really needed to do was stand here, let the ice dragon do the dirty work, and then reap the rewards when it was done.

She shook her head. But what of the ogres? What of the promise she’d made to them? If Azurinna died, any chance to get the hydra to repair Queen Adrina’s spear would die with her, and that simply couldn’t happen.

Mia was locking her knees in place and steadying her arm, preparing to defend the ice hydra with her own life when Pearl with Talon on her back came flying into view.

Fear for the man she loved filled her heart as their own dragon dipped and spewed forth a thin line of fire. Mia held her breath as the ice dragon retaliated with a river of liquid heat in response. Pearl managed to barrel roll out of the way at the very last moment. But she had no way of comprehending she was not much more than a dragling herself. Still much too young to be facing such an adversary.

The ice dragon was full grown, a hunter, and a trained killer. Pearl was, well, Pearl was, for all intents and purposes, a pet. A very treasured pet, a part of the family even, but a pet just the same.

Mia couldn’t chance Pearl being hurt or killed, and she couldn’t take the chance Talon would be thrown off the young dragon’s back to his death, either. And she certainly couldn’t count on help from the hydra. Azurinna would have no idea whether Pearl was friend or foe.

She stiffened her spine and locked her knees once more. She must act, and she must act now. So she steadied her hand and waited for the ice dragon to come within range.

The ice dragon itself wasn’t paying her any mind. It only had eyes for Pearl. And when it finally flew close enough, Mia sent a quick prayer up to God Draka that for once her aim be true and hurled Queen Adrina’s spear skyward.

With a loud crack, the spear shattered the outward scales of the ice dragon and didn’t stop until it was deeply imbedded in its chest. With a look of complete surprise, the icy, cold dragon fell to the ground below, dead.

Mia was filled with a combination of elation and disgust. She was infinitely glad Azurinna and her eggs were safe but was horrified she’d taken a life. Even though that particular life had needed to be taken. Tears threatened as the finality of her actions sank in.

It was probably a good thing she’d failed at her quest. She obviously didn’t have the stomach for it. There were many times a ruler had to make hard choices, even if that meant taking a life. And that was something she never, ever wanted to do again.

She took deep breaths to calm herself and tried her best not to think about what would come next.

Pearl landed at her feet, and Talon jumped from the dragon’s back and hugged her so hard her ribs felt in danger of cracking. And then Wally, Pierced, and Alistair were there. Just as if she’d never been parted from them at all.

But the job she’d come here to do wasn’t over yet, and it was with that thought in mind, she turned and once more faced the ice hydra.

All eight of Azurinna’s heads bowed to her. “I wish I could communicate with you, child. But alas, I know I can’t. Humanoids and Hydras don’t speak the same language. If I could, though, I’d tell you how grateful I am. You have saved my children and the future of Albrath this day”

Mia smiled up at the hydra and the look on Azurinna’s face was priceless as she opened her mouth and spoke. “You are very welcome.”

“How?” The ice hydra shook all eight of her heads.

Mia chuckled. “Let’s just say I have a very talented aunt who is a potion maker. Because of her magic, I can speak all languages. And it was my pleasure to be of assistance.”

The hydra nodded. “I do thank you. The ice dragon was right, you know? I am very weak. The time grows near when the eggs will hatch. My job will be finished then, and I will join my ancestors. But for this day, is there any way I can repay your kindness?”

Mia took a deep breath. She certainly wasn’t going to ask the hydra for her heart, but she did wonder if Azurinna still had enough power left to heal Queen Adrina’s spear. She didn’t want to kill the poor creature with her request. But then an entire nation of ogres was waiting and wishing and hoping. Their very existence relied on what would happen in the next few moments. “I do have a request for you.”

Azurinna nodded once more. “Anything child.”

Mia cleared her throat, walked over to the downed ice dragon, and pulled the weapon from its chest. “This is Queen Adrina’s spear. My friends use it to keep the fire of a volcano at bay. But it’s losing its power. I’ve been told the breath of an ice hydra is the only way to heal it. Is that true?”

Eight scaly heads smiled all at the same time, and though the sight was a little disturbing, Mia found herself smiling in response.

“It’s been ever so long since I’ve seen that spear. How is Queen Adrina?” Azurinna asked.

“Umm, she’s dead and has been for almost eight-hundred years,” Mia answered. “But she was the one who gifted the spear to my friends.”

The smile left all eight faces. “Ah, that’s right, you humanoids don’t live very long, do you? I’d forgotten. As far as healing her spear, all I can say is I’d be happy to try.”

Mia handed the weapon over.

Azurinna closed all sixteen of her eyes and gently blew her ice fog breath upon the weapon while chanting over and over and over. “Infuse thee now with the power of lasting ice.”