Claimed by the Dragon King (High House Draconis Book 5) Page 4

  What if they struck while she was here among them? Her fellows could be fighting for their very life at this exact moment, while she did little more than sneak around and do nothing. Her fear that this was exactly what was going on grew stronger and stronger.

  Kyla began to think of ways to strike back. To attack the Keep itself. She was on the inside now. Past the magical wards. There had to be something she could do to launch an attack on them. To make them pay for what they had done to the other mages.

  So occupied with fantasies of revenge was she, that Kyla almost missed it, her brain tuned to a different wavelength.

  A brief lull in her thoughts made the footsteps sound all the clearer though, and she straightened, looking up and down the current hallway in a panic. She needed to hide!

  Panicking, she dove for the nearest alcove she could find.

  To her surprise, it was actually a narrow passageway, just big enough for a dragon shifter to walk down. Kyla almost ignored it, staying crouched while the shadowy figure in the hallway passed by, but something tugged at her senses.

  There was magic behind her. Powerful magic.

  Once the footsteps had passed, she found her way down the small corridor. It ended perhaps thirty feet down in a small circular room. Unlike the hallway, however, the room was cut from smooth stone. It wasn’t a wooden construction. Something told her that the room was old. Much older than the section of the Keep from which she’d entered.

  Oddly, however, there were no other ways out. Yet her senses were telling her there was magic here. A lot of it. Perhaps this had something to do with the other dragons, she thought. Were they trying to cast a powerful spell?

  She gently sent some magic of her own questing out, trying to decipher what sort of magic was in the room. There was a particularly dense cluster of it on the wall to her left. Walking over to it, she cast a spell that would illuminate the magic, revealing it to her human eyes.

  One of the bricks lit up like Christmas lights. On guard, but curious, she reached up and pressed the brick.

  The effect was immediate. A stone door slid into place, blocking off the corridor from where she had come. At the same time, the floor started to click. Kyla brought any number of spells to the ready, her staff glowing softly as she pulsed some latent magic through it.

  The floor rumbled quietly, and the large circular pattern of stones began to sink. At first Kyla panicked, thinking the floor was falling out from under her. As it continued to shift, however, she realized that it was forming itself into stairs.

  Glancing at the way out, she knew she wouldn’t be getting through there without making enough noise to wake Galen and the few dragons that remained at the Keep.

  “Down it is, I suppose,” she said, confident in her own strength to keep her alive.

  Tentatively, she took the first step. Then another. It quickly became devoid of any natural light; she only belatedly realized that there had been no obvious light source up above, yet more magic. Focusing her mind for a moment, Kyla pushed energy into her staff.

  The ruins lit up brightly, casting aside the shadows and revealing the stairs ahead of her. Down she went, circling around, and around. It seemed to go on forever, taking Kyla far deeper into the earth than she would have expected.

  I must be eight, ten stories down by this point, she thought to herself, too nervous to speak. How far down does this go? What is down here?

  Whatever it was, it had to be important, and so she ventured onward, determined not to stop now. She’d come this far. Kyla was going to see it through till whatever lay beyond.

  Another several stories down, the stairs finally leveled out into a wide passageway. Her eyes picked out the outline of a stone door off to her left, but she ignored it. Perhaps twenty feet down, the passageway ended in a large room. A very large room.

  Kyla’s light didn’t penetrate that far to show her, but it didn’t have to. The light of dozens, perhaps hundreds of torches did the job for her. They illuminated a massive cavern.

  Nervously, she walked closer, trying to figure out what was inside the cavern. The shadows were heavy still, and she would have to be closer to—

  All at once, she stepped through some wards, the protective magics stripping her of her powers in a blinding display of light. Kyla shouted and stumbled, completely unexpecting such defensive measures.

  They were strong, too. Far more powerful than the ones protecting the grounds of Drakon Keep. There were many wards on the planet that would crash when she tried to walk through them, unable to contain her power within their bonds.

  These ones hadn’t even blinked, and they had stripped her of everything. Kyla’s heart beat faster at this realization. She was so out of her depth. So utterly lost. What was it that they were protecting here?

  Blinking her dazzled eyes, and not appreciating just how weak she felt without her magic, Kyla looked around.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Inside the cavern were statues. Dozens of statues, hundreds. All of them intricately carved from stone, each one depicting a different dragon. Her eyes scanned the chamber, taking it all in.

  She wandered through until she came to the first blank space. Empty stone lay crumbled on the floor. Not enough of it, though, unless the statues were hollow. Nervously, she went up to one and knocked on it.

  There was no echo within. The statue was solid.

  Frowning in confusion, she continued to walk through. There were five empty spaces in total. Five. Kyla frowned. Why did that number ring a bell with her?

  Her mind flew back to when the human steward had arrived to give her dinner. He was relatively chatty, as things went, though he’d mostly nattered on about things that had no meaning. At one point though, as she’d complimented his cooking skills, he’d muttered something relevant.

  “One meal and she’s paid more compliments than the five of them have this entire time,” he’d said, speaking mostly to himself.

  Five.

  There were five dragons in the Keep that he was cooking for.

  So five dragons in the Keep. Five empty spots…

  Kyla stiffened, darting across the open space to put a statue between her and the doorway.

  Only as the person occupying the entrance to the hallway turned his eyes toward her did she remember that all her magic was gone.

  Including the spell that had muffled her movements.

  Which meant Galen now knew exactly where she was. And he didn’t look like he was in an overly friendly mood.

  A low rumble filled the chamber.

  Kyla panicked. Without her magic, she was just a human. Galen was a dragon. He was stronger and faster.

  She was so screwed.

  8

  “How dare you defile such a sacred site!” Galen roared as he stomped over to where the puny human mage stood behind one of the statues. “You come in to our house, with our hospitality, and this is how you choose to repay us!”

  He stormed around the stone statue of one of his brothers, ready to snatch up the helpless mage and squeeze the life from her.

  But she was gone.

  “I know why you are here!” he shouted, looking down, noting the footsteps in the dust on the floor. “I know why you have come now, evil mage. You have revealed your wicked ways. Once I am done with you, rest assured that those who sent you will also pay for their sins. This evil will not go unpunished!”

  Darting around another pair of statues, he saw a flicker of material as the mage disappeared around yet another. Anger built.

  “Was it your Archmage that sent you, I wonder?” he called, stalking the human through the massive cavern, her footsteps in the dust always a dead giveaway as to where she was going.

  She was wily though, Galen would give her that. Each time he thought he had her, she disappeared behind another massive statue.

  “You don’t truly think we would simply let you come down here, into our most sacred of areas, and defile it?” He roared with angry laughter. “If you t
hought you could come and kill my sleeping brothers, to end the threat of the dragons while they rest, you are most mistaken, evil mage. Most mistaken.”

  “Kill them?”

  The startled voice came from off to his right. Galen’s head whipped around and he saw the mage’s head appear from behind a dragon tail. Her black hair bounced wildly as she leveled a finger at him.

  “You’re the one planning to kill us!” she shouted back. “I was just trying to figure out where you’d sent all your brothers, why they weren’t here. Stopping any sort of surprise attack on the Guild, that’s why I’m here. I am no murderer!”

  “Liar!” Galen roared, charging across the cavern toward the mage. “You lie! Why else would you be down here!”

  The mage didn’t answer, likely too busy running for her life, he figured. Galen gave chase, but he realized belatedly that he’d been outmaneuvered. Using his anger against him, the mage had circled around the cavern until she was now closer to the exit than he.

  Anger at his own deceit fueled his legs and he raced after her as she flung herself back through the wards, diving over her staff and coming up into a crouch, the top of it leveling at him and glowing green.

  Galen didn’t hesitate. He too walked through the wards, immediately calling his powers to him.

  But the expected strike never came.

  “Fool,” he snarled. “You should have struck when you had the chance!”

  A gust of wind caught the mage up in its grip and flung her down the side hallway through which he’d entered, and then up the staircase he’d used to reach the lowest level of Drakon Keep.

  As she disappeared up the center of the stairwell, the entire area was bathed in bright green light. Galen, still running along the corridor below, couldn’t see what had happened, but he could guess. The mage had used her magic to dissipate his attack.

  He emerged very carefully into the circular staircase, a near mirror copy of the one the mage had used, carefully shielding himself with a swirling oval of wind, moving so fast it turned the view in front of him translucent.

  Perhaps halfway up the staircase, the first attack game. Red magic spat out at him, crashing into his shield. The viciously whipping wind tore the spell to shreds and cast out tiny red sparks in all directions.

  Galen was no novice to dealing with mages.

  His left hand came up and he blasted the area he thought the mage was hiding. A yelp told him he’d gotten it right as she was blown out into a side passageway. Galen charged up after her, continuing his attack, the wind blowing her right into another massive room.

  Red energy sliced through his attack and the mage dropped, falling to her feet, long coat settling around her upper shins. The staff she still held glowed brightly, and an answering light appeared in her eyes.

  “You will die for what you have done,” he snarled, advancing on the mage.

  Galen didn’t fear her. She was no novice, he would give her that, but Galen was an elder dragon. One of the most powerful of his kind. Her powers were but a puff of air next to him.

  Gale force winds billowed up out of nowhere, surrounding the two combatants.

  “I didn’t do anything,” the mage—he’d stopped thinking of her as a person—snapped at him. “And I don’t wish to hurt you.”

  Galen threw his head back and laughed. “Hurt me? Child, I am an elder dragon. You cannot begin to fathom my power. You are but a youngling. A nobody.”

  The mage’s lips peeled back. “My name is Kyla Langston,” she growled. “I am the youngest member of the Mage Council ever. I hold the record for the fastest time to complete the Trial of Merlin. I hold the rank of Grandmaster of the Guild and you will treat me with respect!”

  Green energy billowed forth from her staff as she thrust it at him, a torrent of energy as wide as he was tall. The jade fire crashed into an invisible barrier ten feet short of Galen.

  He chuckled as his own powers countered her magic, tearing it to shreds.

  Then the mage took a step forward.

  Suddenly, her attack was only nine feet away. Then eight. Galen’s eyes widened as she pushed his defenses back. Her power was incredible!

  But he wasn’t done. Not even close.

  Feeding off his anger at underestimating the mage’s strength, Galen renewed his barrier. The mage stopped advancing, though brilliant fire continued to pour forth from her staff, a never-ending stream.

  “How well do you multi-task?” Galen challenged, and half a dozen barely-visible specters detached themselves from the hurricane-like walls of winds that surrounded the two combatants, spiraling in at the mage.

  He grinned, waiting for her to turn her attention away from him. His two-pronged attack would be too much for her, he was sure of it.

  The mage tilted her head at him in arrogant dismissal. “Really?” she called over the winds.

  Her left hand, the one free of the staff, whirled around her head. As it did, a line of red about as thick as a rope began to uncoil from it. Galen watched in astonishment as she flicked the rope left, right, around and back. The mage wielded it like a whip, and each strike sliced one of his wind specters in half, dissipating the magic within.

  But the mage wasn’t done there. She snapped the magic whip out behind her, and in the same beat the magic striking against his shield stopped. Instantly the whip turned green and she snapped it out at him.

  Galen was caught by surprise and could only watch as the thin rope-like strand of magic sliced through his defenses with ease, shattering them.

  “Yield!” the mage shouted.

  “Why?” he yelled. “I am just getting started!”

  The wall of storm winds around them collapsed into hundreds of specters, the whirling of air as they moved independently starting to sound like a haunted shriek as they closed in on the mage.

  Galen charged as well. More wind came to him, as easily as did breathing. He didn’t just control the element, but as an elder dragon, he started to become one with it. He moved lighter on his feet, and weapons came to hand, a shield and sword, harder than steel, yet as light as the very air they were made of.

  He struck with all this might.

  Despite her ongoing battle with the specters, the mage was somehow aware of his approach. She brought her staff up into his path. It erupted in brilliant red light just before he struck it.

  The explosion of magic flung Galen back across the chamber as it continued to expand, shredding all of the specters as it went.

  He bounced twice, getting to his feet slowly, the mage doing the same.

  “You will respect me,” she growled, lifting her head, staff pulsing with red light.

  Galen snarled, remembering how he’d found her among his kin, his ancestors, ready to kill them all.

  “I don’t respect murderers,” he snarled.

  Wind swirled around his hands as he called it to him once more.

  “I am not a murderer!” the mage shouted. “I didn’t touch them. Get that through your head!”

  Red fire rushed at him. Galen thrust his fists forward, his own magic howling forth to meet it, and he started forward.

  Red fire met shrieking wind and the two magics tore themselves to pieces in the middle of the chamber. The backblast whipped at his hair and sent her coat billowing out behind her. Light flickered across the chamber, the red fire casting all sorts of crazed shadows.

  Galen took one step forward again. The mage noted this, and, gritting her teeth, she shuffled her feet closer to him.

  He grinned widely and then took another step, imposing his will on his magic, and thus on her.

  But the mage countered. For every step he neared her, she didn’t back away. Instead, she came closer. Her eyes were wide, but she wasn’t panicked. Wasn’t scared. Their magic battled each other to a standstill.

  Galen had never seen anything like it before. It shouldn’t be possible!

  “How are you doing this?” he asked, astonished at her strength as she came forward yet again.


  “My name is Kyla Langston!” the mage shouted. “And you will show me some respect!”

  She took a step forward without waiting for him this time. And another. Galen did the same, until the two of them were less than five feet apart. The space between them was a deadly battleground of magic that hurt his ears with the noise as they clashed, the sound so intense.

  Sweat began to bead on his forehead, but still Galen did not waver. He could see the mage set her jaw. Each time one of them upped the power, the other matched it.

  The mage was breathing hard now, but Galen was feeling his own body weaken. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. But he didn’t have to. With every passing second now, both of them were losing strength, tapping into their reserves.

  Galen took a half-step toward the mage, intending to end the fight.

  But she growled and suddenly her magic renewed in strength as she found another gear, and he was pushed back two steps.

  “Impressive,” he rumbled, a begrudging respect for the mage rising in him. She didn’t quit. She didn’t run. There was no fear in her, at least not of him.

  It wasn’t what Galen expected from a murderer. Then again, he rarely expected an assassin to look as good as she did, though he tried not to let himself think of her that way. She was a dangerous opponent, her skills to be respected.

  He found himself staring into her eyes over the magic conflagration that burned between them. They were such an unusual shade of gray, so very dark and yet here now, in the glow of their battle, they seemed to glow brighter, like the silver of the moon almost.

  Both parties were leaning into their attacks now. Galen never knew which one of them collapsed first, but the magic suddenly vanished in a spatter of sparks and a weak gust of wind. The sudden lack of pressure to lean against sent them falling forward.

  He grabbed at her as they collided, twisting so that he would hit the ground first, not wanting to crush her beneath his obvious size advantage.