The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (29 page)

Heaving himself onto his hands and knees, he
coughed on a mouthful of detritus from his most recent landing.
Despite his progress, he’d come no closer to striking Rondel a
second time. Even unarmed and without Okthora, she evaded every
beam, every sword stroke, every single cursed thing he tried to
do.

Picking maple leaves out of his sweat-soaked
hair, he surveyed his tattered clothes with disdain. Divinion might
heal wounds easily enough, but the dragon couldn’t sew.

It didn’t help that they’d brought no
supplies with them, instead relying on the forest. Rondel
considered it more training. Iren was supposed to find all the food
and water they needed. Water posed no problems; they constantly
came across small springs and streams while traveling. Food had
given him trouble initially. He couldn’t identify any of the plants
that were safe to eat, and all the animals scattered at the noise
of the battling Maantecs. Lately, though, it had gotten easier.
He’d refined his control of his ranged magical attacks to the point
where he could reliably strike even small animals from far
away.

Iren collapsed backward. “This is
impossible!” he shouted. “How do you expect me to defeat you?
You’ve done this a thousand years longer than I have.”

“
Which is why we call it
‘training,’” Rondel said. “How else will you get the experience to
match me?”

“
I’ll never match you.
Look, this is clearly wasting both our times. Let’s go back to
Yuushingaral. We’ll figure out another way to stop
Amroth.”

“
Go back?” she roared. “No,
we will stay. We will stay until I say you are strong enough. Of
course that may take a while, given how pathetic you currently
are.”

Iren pouted. “You make it sound like I’m not
trying.”

“
Because you aren’t! Do you
honestly expect to defeat me with the amount of effort you’re
putting forth?”

“
I’m working as hard as I
can!”

Rondel hauled Iren to his feet, then slapped
him hard, knocking him back to the dirt. A jolt of electricity went
along with the strike. The crone asked, “Painful, slacker?”

Iren gritted his teeth and glared at the
sadistic bat.

“
You’ve always taken the
easy road!” Rondel yelled. “No one respected you in Haldessa, but
instead of trying to earn it by acting decently, you turned into a
hooligan just to get attention. All your ridiculous outfits, and
your even more ridiculous hair,” she pointed at his shoulder-length
tan locks, “just prove my point. You wasted your potential every
minute you lived in that castle. You could have become the finest
soldier in the Castle Guard, but did you even try to train with
them? No, when they said you couldn’t participate, you retreated to
your tower. You learned the basics by watching them, but you never
had a real teacher who would correct you. Now, with each move, your
flaws are pitifully obvious. You have a weak stance, and you give
away every attack you make.”

“
I survived those fights
against the Quodivar and Yokai,” Iren countered, his temper and
voice rising as he regained his feet. “I even killed
Zuberi.”

Rondel’s harsh tone did not abate. “You
would have died your first night out of the castle without the
Muryozaki to heal you, and only Dirio’s last-second toss of his
miner’s pick spared you from the Yokai. Zuberi would have killed
you if I hadn’t intervened. Even with my help, you still would have
died, except your magic reacted instinctively. You’ve only survived
this long thanks to outside help and incredible luck. Those things
are useless! You didn’t earn them, and you can’t depend on them
against Amroth. If you want to defeat him, then stop slacking off
and put forth some real effort!”

In a flash, white light engulfed Iren. He
wouldn’t listen to this stupid old hag badger him any longer! The
light spiraled outward, swirling around him. Leaves and twigs
snapped and split, tossed about as though a hurricane were ripping
through the forest. His eyes glowed white, and the Muryozaki gave
off the same gleam. “Shut your mouth, Rondel!” he cried. “You don’t
know anything about me!”

The old woman stood firm, even as the air
whipped around her and threatened to send her airborne. Ignoring
Iren’s outburst, she spat, “You can’t win if you constantly hold
yourself back and give up when you find a problem difficult!”

The light around Iren condensed so that his
entire body shone. The trees stopped moving. Iren pointed the
Muryozaki’s tip straight at Rondel.

The crone cocked an eyebrow and flashed her
signature sarcastic grin. She probably threw him some snarky
comment, but Iren couldn’t hear anymore. The light had all but
consumed him. It operated of its own accord, independent of his
will. Focusing on the Muryozaki’s tip, it grew brighter until all
else in the area looked like blackest midnight and it shone like
the lighthouse at Ceere.

Then it fired.

The beam measured over thirty feet across,
obliterating all in its path as it rocketed through the forest. The
katana itself must have absorbed the recoil; otherwise, the spell’s
force would have thrown Iren off his feet. For nearly ten seconds
the energy erupted from the Muryozaki, until Rondel crashed into
Iren at full speed, knocking the sword from his hands. As the
connection between Iren and Divinion broke, the beam abruptly
ceased.

The young Dragon Knight shook his head,
dazed. He looked upon the aftermath of his attack, his whole body
numb with horror. Everything in the beam’s path had simply
vanished. The magic must have annihilated the air itself, for as
soon as the beam disappeared, a harsh sucking noise followed as the
atmosphere rushed to fill the vacuum. The swath of destruction
proceeded over five miles.

Rondel stoically beheld the devastation, her
back to Iren. “See how much magic you still have?” she berated.
“That proves you’re training the way you’ve lived your whole life:
halfway.”

Iren wanted to argue, but he couldn’t form
words. The beam had drained him completely. He felt lightheaded,
and then the edges of his vision blurred. He hit the ground.

Instantly his head felt better. He pushed
himself to his knees, then halted, confused. Hard, flat stone had
replaced the soil and leaves of the forest floor. He stood and
looked around. It was nighttime, or at least dark enough to be. He
gulped. He’d been here once before.

Barely a minute passed before the majestic
form of Divinion appeared on the horizon. Iren waited timidly for
the serpentine beast to approach.

The massive creature landed before him, but
Iren could tell nothing of the dragon’s mood. Divinion’s body
shook, light streaming from him as he transformed into an old
man.

The Holy Dragon smiled as he approached
Iren. “So, we meet again. I wondered when our next chat would
happen.”

Though the dragon didn’t show any outward
sign of disapproval, Iren nevertheless cast his eyes away from
Divinion, hot with embarrassment. All he could think of was his
violent loss of control, and he knew that Divinion had witnessed
it. Worse, he’d used Divinion’s own strength to cause the
destruction to happen.

“
Divinion,” Iren began,
struggling to find words, “why did you choose me? I couldn’t even
control my emotions just now, and I caused a tragedy because of
it.”

The old man put an arm around him. “Do you
know what allows you to access your magic? Why you could use it at
some times but not others?”

“
Anger drives it,” Iren
replied. “When I get angry, it forces the magic to the
surface.”

Divinion sighed. “No, that isn’t true. What
about when you healed Dirio? Were you angry then?”

Iren’s head snapped up. He met Divinion’s
gaze. “No, I felt terrible for him. I desperately wanted him to
survive.”

“
You cared for him. That
emotion brought forth magic. It happened with Minawë, too. I wasn’t
with you at the time, but I can see it in your memory. When you
learned that Amroth had betrayed you, you fled the queen’s home. In
the process, you fell into the Yuushin Sea and would have drowned
had Minawë not rescued you. Why could she pull you from the ocean,
leaving Ziorsecth in the process, when Aletas could
not?”

Iren shrugged. He hadn’t thought about it
before. Minawë had told him that when she’d first entered Lodia,
she’d lost consciousness almost immediately. She shouldn’t have
been able to rescue him from the Yuushin, yet she had.

“
The reason,” Divinion
answered for him, “is that Minawë no longer suffers from Iren
Saito’s curse. You cured her of it outside Ziorsecth. You could not
have known, but you never would have gotten her back to the forest
in time. She would have died before you knocked Balear unconscious.
But in that moment when you decided to help her, when you told
Balear all you cared about was protecting her, you cast a spell
without realizing it. You broke the curse on her, saving her life.
That’s why your attack was so weak when you hit Balear. You had
almost no magic left after curing Minawë.”

Iren’s whole body trembled. “Where, then,
does the magic come from, if not from anger? Rondel controls hers
so flawlessly!”

Divinion replied, “Something you must
understand is that our magic fundamentally differs from Rondel’s
and Okthora’s. Their abilities stem from a substance of the
physical world: lightning. Your magic comes not from anything
external, but from within yourself. Your untamed heart is its
source. Whatever color your emotions take, so too will your magic.
When you love, you heal. When you care, you protect. When you hate,
you destroy.”

Iren cried, “Then I must never use magic
again! I can’t control what I feel! Look what I did in Ziorsecth
just now! What if I did that in Yuushingaral, or in a Lodian
city?”

“
No one can control their
emotions completely,” Divinion said, “nor should they. Your
feelings, by their nature, are wild and beautiful. As long as you
hold true to them, they and you will be worthy enough for
me.”

“
Then . . . do you forgive me for what
happened today?”

To Iren’s astonishment, the old man
chuckled. “As Rondel said, you lack experience. With time and
teaching, you will better understand your emotions. You will learn
how to express all of them in the right ways at the right times.”
He paused a moment, apparently distracted, and a sad smile appeared
on his face. “Once again our time together draws to a close.”

Divinion took a few steps back, and in a
flourish transformed into a dragon. As he took flight, Iren shouted
in alarm, “But how can I know which emotions are the right ones?
How do I stop myself from causing another disaster?”

With a voice that shook the universe,
Divinion replied as he faded away and all light vanished, “Commit
to what’s most important.”

Confused by the dragon’s words, Iren cried,
“Wait, Divinion!” He scanned the void, searching in vain for any
sign of the Holy Dragon. “What’s most important?”

His only answer was silence.

Light returned to the world, and Iren lay on
his back looking up at the dense Ziorsecth canopy. Somewhere
nearby, a fire crackled. Heaving himself to a sitting position, he
saw Rondel tending a campfire with a stick.

“
I met Divinion again,” he
told her reluctantly.

Rondel stared into the tiny blaze. “I’m
afraid I must apologize to you again, Iren. I meant to provoke you
today. I needed you to understand the danger inherent in Divinion’s
power. I never expected that level of damage, though. Had I known
that would happen, I would have stopped you sooner.”

For a long time they both just sat, the
snaps of the flames and the occasional call of a bird the only
sounds. At last Rondel stood, dusted herself off, and said, “Well,
now’s as good a time as any, I guess. I intended to wait until
later in your training, but given the events of today, you should
see it. Come with me.” She doused the fire and began walking
west.

Iren hauled himself off the ground and
followed her, wondering where she was dragging him off to now.

They walked for hours, never speaking.
Initially, every patch of forest looked the same as the next, but
eventually, Iren started noticing changes. The trees became
shorter, thinner, and packed more closely together. Iren felt heat
in front of him, like sitting next to a bonfire, though he could
see no flame. The sky, which finally became visible, looked ominous
and filled with black clouds. Iren had long anticipated exiting the
forest and getting reacquainted with the open air, but now he had a
strong urge to flee back into the woods.

When the plants peeled away, Iren stopped
dead, his jaw slack at the scene before him. He and Rondel stood on
the edge of a vast, almost perfectly flat plain. With nothing to
block his line of sight, Iren could see for miles with ease, though
it brought him no comfort to do so. He couldn’t spot a single
living thing: no animals, no trees, not a single blade of grass. It
wasn’t hard to understand why. Large fissures crisscrossed the
plain in a twisted, seething lattice of destruction. White-hot
flames spurted from these crevasses, shooting hundreds of feet into
the air, baking everything around them. Iren felt like he had
walked into a kiln, even though the nearest crevasse was nearly
half a mile away.

Just standing on the plain’s edge, Iren’s
mouth grew parched. The landscape offered no relief; not a drop of
water flowed through it. Here and there, channels ran which might
once have contained rivers, but they had long since dried up. Even
the parts of the soil untouched by the fissures cracked from lack
of moisture.