Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“Shall we?” he asked Kerrigan.
“Might as well get this over with.”
Tieran launched toward the mountain. The map was like a mark in her mind, a little light that told her where they were going to turn and how far they were from the center. With no more information than that, they navigated and remained silent, going deeper and deeper into the cavernous Holy Mountain. The tendrille became more oppressive, as if the very heart of a dragon could be crushed under the weight of the magic dampening.
Her anticipation grew as the hallways narrowed. How had larger dragons made this trek? Was there another way? She shivered as the darkness settled over her. Her magic stuttered this deep, and when she reached for her flames, they came up as sparks. She could have forced them, but reaching for them caused a little twinge in the pit of her stomach.
As they rounded yet another corner, a light appeared ahead—a soft glow at first, and then it grew brighter as if a small sun was at the heart of the mountain.
Their eyes had become so accustomed to the night that the light hurt to look at, and just as it began to give her a headache, Tieran burst through an opening and into a large, round chamber. Entrances opened like the spokes of a wheel, a long stone walkway leading from each of them. At the center was a jagged shard of white crystal roughly the size of a dragon’s head—the source of the light.
“What is that?” she whispered as Tieran landed on one of the walkways.
“I have no idea,” he admitted.
This room didn’t bear the weight of the tendrille, as if it had been hollowed out of this one chamber, and instead, all the magic in the room was housed in the one container.
“This feels like a trap,” she grumbled as she slid off his back.
Tieran blew smoke out of his nostrils. “It is assuredly a trap.”
“Should we touch it?”
“Up for other suggestions.”
But there were none. There was just the crystal in a room clearly built for this express purpose.
“Together?”
“As always.”
Kerrigan and Tieran reached forward as one, and the world went dark.
***
“Another group dead?” a dragon mind spoke to the room.
Kerrigan’s world turned upside down, and she tried to figure out where in the gods’ names she was. It was a large chamber…no, the council room. She was inside the Holy Mountain still, but it was different, murkier. She didn’t know any of the dragons present, and there were many dragons present, a few as large as Gelryn. Some larger.
Tieran surveyed the chamber. “It is a war quorum.”
“Is this present or past? A memory? Is this like the thing that happened with Mei?” Kerrigan asked. Mei had been the last spirit user in Alandria. She had sacrificed her life to end the Great War by putting up the magical wall around the House of Shadows, her own people.
“It must have been stored in the crystal.” Tieran put his claws through the head dragon, and the image puffed like smoke. “When I touched it, it felt like tendrille.”
“But it was white.”
“Pure tendrille can be any shade from white to black. Most of what is mined is gray or black. White is incredibly rare. It is usually from the direct strike of the gods. I didn’t know it could even be as large as the one we touched.”
The lead dragon roared at another smaller dragon who had entered the chamber. Fire bloomed. Many ducked in terror at his ferocity. “We cannot lose to these Fae invaders. They may have the numbers and their elemental magics, but they are not gods. They do not determine our fate, and we will not suffer their disgrace on our island any longer.”
“Yes, Ferrinix,” the smaller dragon said, groveling before the larger dragon.
Kerrigan’s mouth dropped open. “Ferrinix?”
Tieran was rigid. “The great one.”
“Scales, are we at the beginning?” she whispered, her gaze surveying the room with new purpose. “This is during the first war, before the Irena Bargain.”
“I think this is the Irena Bargain,” he said as Ferrinix sent all his generals from the room.
Kerrigan shook with utter shock. Ferrinix had captured his memory of what had happened during the Irena Bargain in a crystal. Why would the dragons hide this? And how was this the soul part of the test?
She had heard so many versions of the Irena Bargain over the years. Some part of her had started to doubt that any of them were true. Could this be it? Would she finally find out what had happened? Get the information from the source? Or was this just another version only told through the great dragon’s eyes?
Time skipped forward—more dragons dead on a battlefield, long-range weapons and magical entrapment demolishing their forces. Kerrigan guessed the dragons were doing the same amount of damage to the Fae, but any loss on either side was a tragedy. This was why the Society had started, even if she despised what it currently stood for.