Chapter 13 Thirteen

The coin was a dead, cold weight in my palm, the psychic scream I'd forced from it having drained it—and me—utterly. But the new sensation, that faint, directional pull, was a lifeline. It was a trail of breadcrumbs left in the wake of the cataclysm, a scent of ozone and fury leading straight to him.

"He's in the open," I said, my voice raw. "Let's go get our dragon."

Theron didn't need to be told twice. The calculating Fae was gone, replaced by the focused hunter. He moved, and I followed, pushing my battered body to keep up with his preternatural speed. The headache was a constant, pounding drumbeat behind my eyes, but I used the pain as a focus, a reminder of the cost of this gambit.

We broke from the cover of the Silverwood, and the Syndicate's mountain fortress loomed before us, a jagged scar of black rock against the pale sky. It was even more imposing up close, a bastion of sheer, windowless walls and a single, massive gate that looked like it could withstand an army.

But we weren't heading for the gate.

The psychic trail led us along a narrow, treacherous goat path that skirted the base of the mountain, hidden from the main approaches. The pull grew stronger, a taut string in my chest leading upwards.

"Here," Theron hissed, stopping before a fissure in the rock face, almost completely obscured by thorny brambles. It wasn't a grand air vent, just a crack, exuding a faint, mechanical hum and a smell of hot metal and ozone. "This is one of the old forger vents. It will be tight."

"I'll fit," I said, my voice grim. I began tearing at the brambles, my hands getting shredded, not feeling the pain.

Theron gripped my arm, stopping me. "The control stone for the collar. If you can find it, if you can deactivate it before you reach him…"

"I know," I interrupted. The plan was a house of cards. Find the control stone, disable the collar, then find Kaelen. All without being detected.

He handed me his dagger, the one he'd been sharpening. The hilt was cool in my grasp. "For whatever you find in the dark."

I just nodded, then turned and squeezed into the fissure.

It was a claustrophobe's nightmare. The rock scraped against Kael's leathers, the space so narrow I had to turn my head sideways to breathe. The darkness was absolute, the only sound the frantic beat of my own heart and the growing hum of machinery. I inched forward, one agonizing centimeter at a time, the dagger a useless weight in the confined space.

After an eternity of blind, suffocating progress, the tunnel widened slightly and opened onto a metal grate overlooking a vast, cavernous space. The Control Room.

It was a symphony of polished obsidian and glowing crystals. In the center of the room, on a pedestal that pulsed with malevolent purple light, sat the control stone. It was a perfect sphere of amethyst, and floating within it, rendered in miniature, was the image of a dragon, a tiny, glowing collar around its neck. A handful of Syndicate technicians moved around it, their faces bathed in the sickly light.

My target was right there. But between me and it was a thirty-foot drop to a hard, polished floor.

There was no time for stealth. No time for a better plan.

I took a deep breath, focusing on the grate beneath my hands. It was metal, bolted into the rock. I thought of the mud, of the ice. I thought of the dragon's will, the sheer, arrogant certainty that the world would bend.

Break.

I poured the dregs of my power into the command.

The bolts holding the grate sheared with a sound like gunshots. The metal gridwork shrieked as it tore free from the rock. I fell with it, a rain of twisted metal and screaming human.

I hit the ground hard, rolling, the impact jarring every bone in my body. The technicians scattered, shouting in alarm. I ignored them, my eyes locked on the control stone.

I scrambled to my feet and lunged for the pedestal.

A blast of concussive force threw me backward. I slammed into a console, sparks erupting around me. A sorcerer, his hands wreathed in purple energy, stepped from the shadows.

"The little human mouse," he sneered. "The Master said you might be foolish enough to come."

He gestured, and bands of solid shadow erupted from the floor, wrapping around my legs, my arms, pinning me to the broken console. I struggled, but it was like being held by iron.

He advanced, raising a hand crackling with killing energy. "A pity. I would have liked to study you."

My fingers, trapped at my side, brushed against the cold, dead coin in my pocket. There was nothing left. No power. No tricks.

But there was the dagger.

With a final, desperate wrench of my body, I managed to twist my wrist. I didn't aim for the sorcerer. That was suicide. I aimed for the pedestal holding the control stone.

I threw Theron's dagger.

It wasn't a skilled throw. It was a wild, hopeless lunge. The blade tumbled end over end through the air, a silver flash in the purple light.

It struck the base of the amethyst sphere.

Not with enough force to shatter it. But with a sharp crack, it knocked the sphere from its pedestal.

The control stone hit the polished obsidian floor.

And shattered.

The effect was instantaneous. The miniature dragon within the stone winked out. The purple runes on the collars of the guards in the room flickered and died. And from somewhere deep in the fortress, a deafening, earth-shaking roar of pure, unshackled fury erupted.

The sorcerer whirled around, his face a mask of horror. "No!"

The shadows holding me vanished.

I didn't hesitate. I scrambled up, my body screaming in protest, and ran. Not towards the exit, but towards the sound of the roar. The path was clear now, a psychic beacon of rage that was brighter than the sun.

I burst out of a service corridor and into a vast, opulent gallery. And I saw him.

Kaelen stood in the center of the room, the shattered remains of the silver collar lying at his feet. His body was bruised and bloody, but he was wreathed in an aura of incandescent fire. His eyes burned with the promise of absolute annihilation.

Silas Vane and his lieutenants were backing away, their faces pale with terror.

Kaelen's molten gaze swept over them, and then it found me, standing in the shattered doorway, covered in grime and blood, clutching a dead coin.

The fury in his eyes didn't soften. It intensified, but it shifted. It was no longer the rage of the captured. It was the possessive, world-ending fury of the dragon whose treasure has been threatened.

His voice, when he spoke, was the sound of mountains breaking apart.

"You," he said, the word a vow and a verdict, "dared to touch what is mine."

The fire around him exploded outwards.