A Legacy of Dragons(14)

The Praefect's cold eyes fixed on Delinna. "I had every right."

As shards of ice began flying out of the giant's hand, Vilmos felt his mother reach out to the earth for strength. He'd known her magic got its power from the world around them but had never felt the true pull of it before.

Trees sprang from the snow-covered earth, full-grown and as thick as if they'd been around for a hundred years. In an instant, Vilmos, Delinna and Ærühn were surrounded by a forest of sentinel trees, the leafless limbless abhorrences of the Ice.

Praefect Aamun Myrsk screamed. He began tearing out the trees and hurling massive shards of ice in every direction. "I'll not let a boy stand between me and what's mine. It took ages to figure out how to work around the watcher bond that tied our hands and prevented us from doing harm, but a way was found. There's always a way for those willing to do what must be done."

As the Praefect broke through the trees, Delinna called more and more from the earth. "We don't have much time, Vilmos. Your father is beyond the Great Door, taken by those in league with a terrible darkness. If you can find him, you'll find the Shield Stone. A white stone the size of your hand. Only the Shield Stone can thwart the darkness. Only the Shield Stone can cast back the Void."

Vilmos brought magic to his hands and cast outward, throwing back a stray ice shard. "Mother, we can go together through the Door. Together, we can find him."

"No, we can't," his mother said as she dismounted. With one wave of her hand, she opened a path through the trees to Ærühn. With another, she opened a gateway to the Great Door. "I must maintain the portal from this side. Your father is being held in the encampment of Nük T'nyr."

Vilmos tried to make a desperate plea. He wanted to stay with her. He didn't want to go, but her eyes told him there was so little time left, even as her voice told him the same.

"Go now. Hurry, there isn't much time. I can't hold the gate much longer. Find your father. Rescue him. He'll know what to do."

"Mother?" Vilmos called out, his heart breaking. Everything was careening out of his control. He knew nothing of the Shield Stone or the Void. He knew nothing of what he must do once he was beyond the door. He knew only that his father was there. That he must obey. That he must go.

"Run," he told Warbær and the bear ran. To Ærühn, he shouted, "Through the gate, to the Door."

As he and the bear plunged through the gate, he looked back. His mother was standing defiantly before Praefect Aamun Myrsk. The giant had broken through the lines of trees. His mother had one hand out before her, another back and down. She was rising into the air as flames shot from her outstretched hand.

Then he was on the other side of the gate, racing for the Door, and there was nothing to see behind him but a vast expanse of canyon.

He heard the thunder of bear paws clawing into snow and ice. He heard Ærühn speaking words of power that opened the Great Door. The words were in Ice, but he understood them as clearly as if they were spoken in Common. "Yield before the strength of ice and snow and reveal your secrets."

The Door was a colossus, arched and split in two great halves, each bound and banded in græsteel. As the door groaned and opened, Vilmos began to see what was beyond.

He saw fire. Fire was everywhere. There were lines of fire cutting into the ebony of the heavens, bands of fire stretching and pooling along the earth, and great plumes of fire erupting and shooting into the air. It was a world ablaze and tearing itself apart.

But as Vilmos moved through the door it wasn't heat and flames that greeted him, it was bone-chilling cold and darkness.

For a pair of heartbeats, he found himself in a place between the canyon and the land beyond, surrounded by nothing and everything.

Then sweltering heat of fire and flames found him and he knew he was in the land beyond the door.

"Father," he called out. "Stay strong. We will find you."





Chapter 11





Spending the afternoon with Graeden had been magical, uplifting. Adrina felt like her old self again, like the girl who'd longed to leave Imtal to see the whole of the great wide world. Graeden had taken her to see the snow flowers that bloomed on a nearby ridgeline and she held a bouquet of the delicate ice-white flowers in her gloved hand.

"Goodbye," she told him as she stood in the entryway. "I had a wonderful time."

Graeden reached out for her hand with both of his. He removed her thick fur glove, kissed the back of her hand formally. "As did I. I hope I can see you again."

"I'd like that." As she started to open the door, she turned back to him. "You know, you're nothing like I thought you'd be."