Page 101

“ I am Vahly, Blooded for the Battle, and I have found my familiar, Kyril of the Western Gryphons. I claim my birthright to rise up as Earth Queen and create balance in this world.”

The ground trembled. Sand fell from the cracks between the stones. Kyril tossed his head, and Vahly held tightly to his pelt, fingers digging into his warm fur.

The scent of rain, roots, turned earth, and crushed leaves filled the air as a warmth like sunlight rushed down Vahly’s body.

She opened her eyes, feeling like a new creature. “Rise,” she commanded the earth.

The ground she stood on lifted both her and Kyril but did not disturb the birthplaces of Vahly’s family. Arc, Nix, and Ryton stared as the earth multiplied itself and became a small peak that looked out at the Lost Valley, the Lapis palace, and the ocean.

And Vahly felt no fatigue from the magic. None. This power was a part of her now, not something she had to stretch and reach for. Raising this peak had been like making a fist. Simple.

Kyril spread his wings and crowed triumphantly as Vahly peered down at Arc, Nix, and Ryton. Arc spun his air magic, wind coursing through his hair and whipping his clothes about, and he jumped impossibly high to join them atop the peak. Nix flew up and gathered Vahly into a hug.

“I knew you could do this, Vahl,” she whispered, her words bursting with hope that Vahly prayed she wouldn’t have to disappoint.

“Earth Queen!” Ryton shouted from below. “Astraea—”

His spell failed. Water crashed back into place.

Nix sucked a breath, fearing the spelled salt water despite Arc’s magic.

Ryton’s body twisted in the sudden wave, but he fought the current and returned, his head breaking through the foaming sea and his hair black against his head. “Astraea comes!”

Heart thrashing, Vahly climbed atop Kyril and held a hand out for Arc. He took it and sat behind her. Nix flew toward the coastline, her movements erratic as Kyril trailed after.

Vahly twisted to see Ryton in the water, but his focus was on whatever was happening beyond the Lost Valley.

She began to shout a question, but the water shivered violently as it drew away from the shore.

Vahly went cold all over.

Kyril whirled, and the ocean came fully into view.

Arc clutched Vahly tightly and whispered sharply in elvish. “Vahly, love, what can I do?”

He sounded as lost as she felt. Until they saw what Astraea was doing, there was little to do but watch.

A tremor passed over the sea’s surface.

A wave clawed its way out of the depths—a mountain of gray and foaming water—and headed directly for the Lapis palace.

“No!” Vahly gripped Kyril’s body with her legs. “Go, Kyril!”

Kyril shot through the air, passing over the Lost Valley as the wave careened into the flooded civilization and smashed onto shore.

Salt water splashed high, stinging Vahly’s cheeks and eyes.

Kyril’s wingtips flared as he dodged a fist of spelled water, but then another crest of water leapt and yanked them out of the sky.

Water cold as death broke Vahly’s hold on Kyril and she tumbled head over feet as the ocean raked salty fingers over her skin and through her hair. The undertow spun her around and dragged her deeper.

It was like Astraea herself was pulling her into a watery grave.

Arc was nowhere to be seen. Kyril, Ryton, Nix. All gone.

Salt water burned Vahly’s nostrils and throat.

Shaking with the need to breathe, lungs on fire, she focused on her power and summoned the earth to save her.

Her stomach dropped as a spit of land suddenly rose from the seabed and lifted her above the punching waves.

The land was listening even now, even as the ocean smothered it with skillful, murderous hands.

Shaking, Vahly scrambled to her feet, and the earth beneath her steadied. Frantic, wild, she searched the water for Kyril and Arc.

And then she turned to see the Lapis palace, her second home, safe place for her beloved new family.

The sea wrapped the mountains in dark arms, waves licking up the sides, toward the very top of the main section of the palace.

Dragons flew around the peak, slashes of sapphire in the bone-white sky, dashing in to lift the injured. Those unable to fly crowded in their shadows, wings spread, screaming for help, blasting dragonfire as their bodies burned under the black touch of the spelled salt water.

Vahly realized she was screaming too.

She felt as if her head would burst.

Waves rocked the mountain, breaking off massive chunks of the palace. In the white ash currents swarming the peaks, bodies rose to the surface, eyes open, wings and scales black.

“Did you believe you would escape?” Astraea rose on the crest of a knife-sharp wave, her scarlet coral spear lifted and her face glowing with triumph. “Did you think you could best me?”

Vahly spat salt from her mouth. Kyril broke through the surface and extended a wing. Vahly’s heart squeezed, her magic drumming impossibly fast inside her chest as Kyril screeched and she summoned the land to lift him from the water. He floundered on the rising mound of sandy ground.

“No!” Astraea shouted. “You do not get to escape. You have lost, Earth Queen!” She pointed her spear at Kyril, and a curl of ocean hammered Kyril’s new island and threw him into the water again. The fins of sea creatures raced from Astraea toward Kyril.

There was a shout. Ryton was lifting Arc from the water, helping Nix, who’d changed into full dragon form, pull him from the chaos of eddies. When Nix had Arc, Ryton leapt from the water toward Kyril. In the air, he shouted to Astraea.

“Your rule is over, murderer. For Grystark!”

He dove under, then reemerged, his spear held aloft, his spellwork pulling Kyril from the sea on a shelf of bubbling water. As Astraea aimed another massive wave at Kyril, the gryphon took to the sky, shaking his wings and aiming for Vahly, who couldn’t breathe because her heart was breaking.

Ryton leapt from the waves. “Win this for us, Earth Queen!”

He drove his spelled wave at Astraea to distract her. She whirled to face him, then directed all her power—twisting currents and leaping sea beasts—at her former lover, her general. Ryton went down. Blood filled Vahly’s vision, swirls of dark red blackening the water.

Kyril swooped low, and Vahly jumped onto his back, salty wind whipping her face and drawing the tears from her eyes.

They raced toward the Lapis, Arc and Nix flying beside them.

A crowd of Call Breakers—Aitor, Euskal, and Baww among them—flew from the direction of the Dragon’s Back, heading for the Lapis palace, ready to help.

Amona stood atop the mountain. Helena, Ruda, and about two dozen more Lapis gathered around her. They were helping dragons out of the oculus that crowned the main section of the palace.

“Fly, my dragons!” Amona’s eyes were wild as she gestured, urging them on.

With faces drawn and fear stunting their normally graceful movements, those dragons who had been trained as warriors and who were used to the threat of spelled salt water took off, flying over the submersed Red Meadow, toward the northern mountains where they might find dry land.

Some Call Breakers joined them, while others grabbed the frightened dragons and pulled them into the sky, forcing them to fly despite their terror.

Rigel, Ursae, and Haldus climbed from the oculus and reached for Euskal, who hovered at the peak so they could leap onto his back.

“Mother!” Vahly shouted as they came close. “Get out of there, Mother! Please!”

“Take them, Vahly! Take them north! I will go when all are safe!”

“To Ruda,” Vahly said to Kyril.

He veered around the peak and took the back of Ruda’s dress between his teeth.

Vahly held a hand down to Ruda as they circled back around. She was too frightened to fly over the spelled salt water, the poor thing. “Grab my hand, Ruda. It’s all right. We’ll go back for more of our own.”

Ruda’s cold fingers gripped Vahly’s sweaty hand, and soon enough Ruda was riding behind her. Kyril grabbed another dragon. It was Helena. Vahly helped Helena half fly, half climb up Kyril’s body until the healer was seated behind Ruda.

Arc and Nix pulled two younglings up with them. Then they saved a one-winged dragon, injured in a long-ago battle and who had worked in the kitchens.

Kyril was struggling, panting, weakened by the wave that had struck him. He couldn’t carry any more. Vahly asked him to circle the peak.

She focused on the drumming in her veins and envisioned the land beneath the water, near the bridge where her kynd had once worked side by side. She imagined the red hat flowers that bloomed there, the scent of the grasses, the heat on the dirt path.

“Arc! Nix! Can you combine your magic with mine?” Vahly shouted over the endless crash of more and more waves and Astraea’s far-off cackling. Gripping Kyril’s ruff, she commanded the earth. “Rise. Rise for my dragons.”

Her body began to shake, and Ruda held her tightly, little talons cutting into Vahly’s stomach.

Arc wove sparkling gold and purple threads and expanded the colors and light toward the space in front of Vahly and Kyril’s flight direction.

Nix blew dragonfire toward Kyril, who held his path, wings steady and a growl growing in his chest, vibrating through Vahly’s bones like an elixir for strength.

Vahly used her power to push the varying magicks in the same direction.

In the spot where Vahly imagined the bridge used to stand, a blast of green fire and blinding light hit the water.

The salt water twisted into a plume of white steam that soared into the western sky.

The bridge was there, and the land on either side of it shuddered, cracked, then lifted into the air, becoming two peaks, dry as high summer.

The dragons who were not warriors took the chance and flew from the top of the mountain palace to Vahly’s new peaks, farther from the riotous ocean and Astraea’s control.

Astraea’s thundering commands faded, and the sea calmed, leaving the palace and the majority of the Red Meadow underwater.

Vahly and Kyril followed Arc and Nix. They landed on the first of the two new peaks and the dragons gathered.

“We will find a place in the North to shelter.” The desire to kill Astraea burned like a brand on Vahly’s heart, but the dragons came first. “Come. We must go now.”

As they flew off to find this promised safe place, Vahly turned to check on Amona. She stood still, eyes unblinking, with bodies of dying dragons at her feet.

Come with us, Mother. There is nothing more you can do.

I am defeated, Daughter. The Lapis are dead. Our home is a tomb.

We are not beaten. Some of us live still, and we will fight!

Even with her newfound strength, gained at her birthplace, Vahly felt like she didn’t stand a chance against the Sea Queen. Astraea was so quick to strike and seemed to know where and when to hit to make the most damage.

Vahly couldn’t grasp the enormity of the task that fate had set at her feet. How could she plan this defeat of Astraea? How could she balance the world? Such an intangible goal.

But she wouldn’t give up.

In fact, she relished a long shot bet.

The fight against Astraea would come, and Vahly would gladly spill her own blood or Astraea’s to win it. She only hoped there would be someone left to save.

Her magic jerked her ribs and flared hot in her heart. A realization swept over her. She had to visit the Sacred Oak, the one her kynd had spoken of in the scrolls she’d read in the Lapis library.

I have one more step to take. If I visit the Sacred Oak, my power will rise in full. I will be Astraea’s downfall, I swear this to you, my mother and my matriarch. I refuse to fail you.