The Keeper's Flame (A Pandoran Novel, #2) (26 page)

At last, I reached the vox, huddled against the wall, trembling and frightened.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered.

He didn’t move.

I took another slow step forward, fighting back the pain in my ankle and ignoring the glares all around me. “I want to help you.”

His ears flickered as he adjusted his wings, such tattered and torn wings. And he was hurt. The beast that had reared back for its final attack had injured one of the vox’s wings, badly. A fresh stream of blood oozed from one of the ribs, running down the edge of his wing and dripping onto the earth.

I could feel his pain as though it were my own.

I took another step, and the vox reeled.

Moist white air streamed from his nose as he snorted, his hooves raking at the space between us. I was jumping back, out of the way, when one of his black wings slammed into me.

I flew through the air and collided with the wall and fell to the ground.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. My bones throbbed from the impact. With a groan, I rolled on my back, struggling to inhale with a metallic taste in my mouth, right as two large black hooves bore down on top of me.

I rolled and the hooves landed beside me with a thud.

The crowd gasped, and the vox was furious.

Move!

I rolled again, but one of his hooves landed on my cloak, pinning me to the ground. I wriggled and tugged, but I couldn’t shake him. The vox reared back again, and I hacked at the cloth with my dagger and rolled, just as his hooves landed again.

The vox noticed my dagger and went berserk.

His hooves came down on me again, and I moved, throwing my dagger behind me. It spun across the ground and slid to a stop.

The vox stopped beating his wings and watched me with his large chocolate eyes.

There was a figure in the stands, lingering in the shadows, near one of the towers. He was veiled in a cloak and as I reached out, as I tried to get a sense of him, all I could feel was cold and…death.

The dark rider.

He was here.

A surge of power pummeled over me. The sky darkened and filled with a sonorous ripping sound as though the heavens were being pulled apart, but when I looked back, the dark rider was gone.

A chorus of high-pitched shrieks suddenly filled the air. Dark shapes had begun jumping from all along the wall.

The gargoyles.

Something told me this wasn’t a part of the competition.

One by one, the little stone dragons shrieked to life, glowing like burning coals, growling and snarling with malicious glee. They spread their bony wings and dove like burning darts into the stands.

The crowd erupted in chaos as the winged demons dove into them. People dodged and scrambled, and one of the gargoyles unhinged its jaw filled with razor sharp teeth and dropped a ball of fire.

People screamed, falling over each other, trying to clear from their paths. The blue and gold tower with Campagna written down the side suddenly erupted in flames.

Someone yelled my name and I looked down.

One had landed near my feet, gnashing its sharp stone teeth, and rushed toward me, leaving little black footprints behind. Like it had burnt the ground.

In one swift moment, it lunged. I snatched the prod from the ground and swung as hard as I could. The rod jarred as though I’d hit a rock, and pain seared up my arm, into my shoulder.

I cradled my arm; the end of the rod glowed orange, as if I’d just stuck the iron in fire.

The dragon’s ugly head rolled across the dirt while its stone body walked around in erratic circles, flapping its wings, completely lost without its eyes. But as I watched, something sprouted beneath its head—a neck and body and legs and clawed feet—just like a head was starting to grow atop its body.

I had just turned this one little stone terror into two.

Both of the little demons stalked toward me, snarling and spitting fire, scorching the ground.

“Get down!” Dad yelled.

I dropped right as a bolt of light flew over my head. The bolt hit the gargoyles spot on and they burst into pieces of flaming stone. Dad rushed to my side. “Are you all right?” he asked.

I jumped to my feet. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

A small army of tiny fanged dragons started building behind him, rising in the air like a cloud.

“What…?” Dad turned around and his eyes widened. “Move!”

They flew at us and we leapt apart; the dragons rammed into the ground like bullets of fire. I rolled through the dirt until I smacked hard into something.

The giant dragon statue in the center of the arena.

I watched in horror as it slowly unfolded its enormous stone wings, as though it were stretching from centuries of rest, and the pole slipped out of its claws, clattering to the ground.

It spun its life-size dragonhead to me and blinked its eyes made of flame.

I turned and ran.

A horrible cry filled the air and shook the earth, as though a hundred horns blasted at once, drowning out every scream, every explosion. For a long terrible moment, every living being gaped at the stone giant, flexing its powerful wings and stretching its long reptilian neck.

It stopped, unhinged its enormous jaws, and the screaming commenced.

I had started following the crowd when I noticed the vox.

The dragon was stomping toward it, teeth bared with snarls like ten throttling engines. The vox struggled against his chains to fly away.

“Daria!” yelled my dad. “Get out of here!”

People crammed in the exits, escorted by the guard, trying to get out, away from the melee, while the crimson robes of the guild moved about the arena, keeping the dragon’s deadly minions at bay.

But none of them noticed the vox, and I couldn’t leave him to this monster.

The wind ripped through the arena and I caught a shimmer, just a few yards from where I was standing.

My dagger.

I ran forward, ignoring the burning in my leg, and snatched it from the ground.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Dad screamed.

I ran to the vox, dodging stone bullets and cannons of fire, jumping over debris, trying to keep most of my weight on my good ankle.

All the while, the dragon moved closer.

Please don’t notice my dagger…

The vox beat its wings, jerking and yanking on the chain, trying to get away from me but finding his other escape route blocked by a dragon.

I slid on the ground toward the vox. “Hold still!” I yelled.

The dragon was almost here…

I jerked, slicing the leather strap. “Got it!”

The vox flapped its wings, hard, knocking me down, and took off into the sky. The dragon turned its head to its escaping prey, and for a moment I thought it was going to go after it. But then it turned its fire eyes on me.

I pushed myself to my feet and sprinted.

The ground quaked as it ran after me, and it screamed. I covered my ears as I ran, stumbling over the trembling earth. At once, blasts of light shot from all directions, aimed at the giant on my tail, but the blasts ricocheted and a beam of light bounced back, straight at me. I jumped to the side, the heat grazing my leathers, leaving a narrow, scorched slit.

“Stop!” screamed my dad from somewhere. “You’ll hit Daria!”

The monster was gaining ground fast. I’d never outrun it. My ankle was starting to give out and the guild couldn’t use magic because I was too close. I felt its hot breath on my back as something dark swooped down in front of me.

The vox.

He whinnied and clawed at the earth, eyes fastened on me. With a grunt, I pushed myself up and climbed on his back.

The dragon’s jaws crunched behind us.

The wind screamed past my ears, burning my eyes and lungs, as we soared higher and higher, away from the arena. Away from the dragon. Maybe now the guild could destroy it.

A crashing sound made me look back. The dragon flapped its enormous wings, breaking down the tower beside it, and rose in the air, flying straight toward us.

Chapter 17

Change of Plans

“
G
O
!” I yelled.

The stone dragon was gaining altitude, and fast.

The vox flapped his wings harder and harder, soaring higher and higher into the sky. And I began to feel…stronger.

The wind wrapped itself around me, around the vox, as if cradling us both, lifting the vox’s wings and imbuing them with strength. We were in the clouds now, and when I glanced over my shoulder, the arena was out of sight.

Up here there was nothing but white and snow. Sticking to my lashes, the vox’s mane, my cloak. But I didn’t feel cold; I didn’t feel fear.

I felt a part of it, somehow, and it was a part of me. As though I belonged up here.

The snapping of stone behind me brought me back. The dragon was getting closer.

But how could I get rid of it? I couldn’t use magic and the vox certainly couldn’t fly forever.

The wind howled and, suddenly, I had an idea. As if reading my mind, the vox dove. The air burned my eyes and nose and ears, and with a blast of sound, the dragon changed its course and flew after us.

“Come on,” I said to myself, gripping the vox’s mane tight.

Air screamed past my ears as the thick white blanket of clouds began to thin, and the glow from the fires in the arena came into view. It looked like most of the people had evacuated—those that remained were battling the tiny stone demons. Black smoke rose from the remaining towers; the arena’s field was ablaze with campfires.

The ground was approaching fast and the dragon was still close on our heels.

Just…a little…farther…

At the last second, we pulled up, straining against gravity’s pull, and the dragon crashed into the ground. The earth shook and for a second, the dragon lay in a heap, unmoving. But it quickly recovered, lifting its head, its wings, and soon rose while we glided a few feet from the littered earth, straight for the refreshment stand.

“Please be there, please be there,” I said to myself.

We reached it and I leapt from the vox. I landed in the stands with a crash, sliding down a few rows before catching myself. Coughing and choking on smoke, I scrambled up the steps toward the stand, while the vox flew to safety.

“You’ve got to be here somewhere…” I scoured the shelves.

The dragon was at the base of the stands now.

“There!” I grabbed the bottle of neon-green liquid from a broken shelf and pulled the cork, my heart drumming in my ears.

The dragon bellowed and I threw the bottle as hard as I could, right into its jaws.

The dragon’s scream abruptly stopped. It choked and snorted fire, shaking its head, trying to dispel the liquid now oozing inside of it.

Frost appeared on its neck at first, spreading rapidly down its body and along its nose. Its eyes burned red as it opened its jaws in fury, letting out another ear-splitting wail, but it was cut short by ice.

And the dragon froze, still as a statue. There was a sharp crack, and the dragon exploded into a million shards of frozen stone.

I shielded my head from the falling debris. When I looked up, Alex was there. His face was dark from smoke, his eyes intense, and he jumped to my side, studying me. “Are you all right?”

I nodded. “I…think so.”

He searched my face. “Most interesting use of fire and ice I’ve ever seen.”

I grinned, and he grinned back.

Without releasing my gaze, he grabbed my hand in his and yanked me to my feet. I winced, shifting my weight to my other foot. His lips tightened, but he said nothing.

Last time I’d seen him, he’d saved me from…

I looked away from him, down at the arena, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

The small dragons that remained had suddenly stopped attacking. In fact, they were flying in erratic circles, on the ground and in the air. Some flew smack into each other and exploded in a shower of flaming stone, not to reassemble again. It was like they’d lost their purpose. It didn’t take long for the guild to finish them off.

“Come on,” Alex said gently. “I’ll help you walk.” He held my hand tightly as he helped me limp down the stands.

“Alex,” I said as we walked.

He looked back at me.

“Thanks…for earlier.”

He squeezed my hand hard as violence flashed in his eyes, and then he looked away.

His grip didn’t loosen, though, not even as he led me out onto the field.

The arena was a disaster. Only one tower was left standing—the Arborenne tower—and everything else was either charred or burning. The king stood to one side, hands raised, pressing a huge fire back, farther and farther, containing it so that other members of the guild could put it out.

“Daria!” my dad yelled.

Dad emerged from a plume of black smoke, coughing and covering his mouth. His face was blackened, his clothes singed and covered in ash, but his eyes shone bright and blue.

Alex dropped my hand as my dad wrapped his thick arms around me. “Thank the spirits you’re safe…” His voice trailed, and he pulled back and gripped my shoulders. “What in the blazes were you thinking?” he all but shouted.

Master Durus materialized from the black smoke. His eyes were dark, his lips curved down, and he was carrying his black, curved sword.

“The fire is contained and the dragons are all accounted for, my lord,” he rumbled. “It seems their magic was tied to that of the larger dragon’s.” His dark eyes flickered to me. “We must head back, though. The lords left in order to help the people out safely, and they are waiting for you in the assembly hall.”

****

The assembly hall was filled with shouting. The lords and nobility looked awful. Their rich clothing was ripped and torn and their once vibrant colors were blackened with ash, and they were all shouting at each other.

I noticed Lorimer, and then I saw Denn right behind him.

Denn looked terrible. One eye was swollen shut, the other side of his face was purple and green and blue, and his bottom lip was so swollen that his upper lip was invisible. It looked like his right arm was in a sling, too.