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88 - Druids
“Hello,” he says. “I guess this is where I die, then.”
The Dragon King doesn’t move a single muscle, and Tet watches with a deceptively serene smile as the monster among monsters stares him down, his giant golden eye shining as if it’s spinning and spinning and spinning in the silence. Or maybe that’s just the vertigo threatening to topple Tet to the side as he contemplates how short his life was, and how unfortunate and wretched it is to die from sliding down a dragon’s gullet or, if he’s unlucky, from being crunched between savage teeth three times as long as his entire body.
Yes, he’s small. So maybe the Dragon King will spare him, consider him unworthy of the trouble to swallow him up.
“Please don’t keep me in suspense. I’m not dead yet, but it really does feel like I’m dying here.”
The swell of dark, deep sounds that rumbles up from the ground into his feet is a mystery at first. He thinks ma
Kaugnay na kabanata
Called by the Dragon 89 - Into the Water
The memory passed over, through, and around her like a surge of stormy water sloshing through a ditch. It tossed Anzi around and spun her like a top, and an invisible force ripped her out of Tet’s body and consciousness like a slab of meat pulled off a hook. She came free with a gasping scream, every part of her utterly raw and freezing and vulnerable as if someone had taken a blade and flayed the skin off her bones before tossing her out into a wintry blizzard. But the sensation of soul-deep coldness faded fast, and it wasn’t long before she stopped shivering as her body soaked up the rays of the hot Adaraat sun. So she was back here again. Whatever kind of magic Ash was using on her, it had pulled her across the land from place to place. She’d recognized the first one, her home village on the fringes of the desert when she had been but a child. The second was far from here, to the south where the flatlands began to roll up and down to meet the mountai
Called by the Dragon 90 - Reflections
“So who goes first,” Anzi said flatly as she wiped the water off her face with an angry hand. More coughs tickled at the back of her throat as she spoke, but she was too incensed to stop and get them out. “I already know you have a lecture prepared for me, probably a riddling one, but this time I have one for you, too.” “Aha, then maybe I should keep it to myself just to be contrary…” “That would mean it’s not important enough to impress me. I’ll go first, then. Did you know that damned Tet could enter my mind like that or not, before you used your magic on me? And did you know he could not only talk to me, but also track me down? Did you have any idea of that or not?” “Calm, little one. You’re agitated.” “I have every reason.” “No.” Ash shook her head with a knowing smile. “Put aside your emotions for a moment. Think. How could he possibly be in your mind? Truly?”
Called by the Dragon 91 - Deserved
No matter how skeptical Anzi was of strange magic unconstrained by regulation and study and training, she couldn’t deny that Ash’s power was a wonder. This place, the Oasis, was no mere natural formation she was simply transporting. It was the culmination of her power, the Druid power she spoke of, something that had been given life by the woman’s very magical essence. And now that Anzi had been plunged into the depths of the water at its heart, the same water Ash had said was where her power was greatest, Anzi could now sense the echoes of that same aged, layered presence everywhere around her as she made her retreat. The leaves of the bushes she brushed against, the breeze as it whipped her hair over her shoulder, even the crunching of stiff grass blades under her feet—all of it felt like Ash, as if the woman were gliding behind her and breathing, speaking into her ear. It was the eeriest thing she had ever felt. It reminded her of when she had first
Called by the Dragon 92 - Visions
“Anzi—” “I’ll explain after,” she said between gritted teeth. “Just give me room.” Easier demanded than given. She doubted anything Kai said to his men would make them back off as she roved her hands over their fallen comrade’s form. He was young, perhaps only a little older than she was, and now naked as she had thrown off the animal skin covering so she could inspect the wounds on his flesh. But it wasn’t his modesty the tribesmen worried for. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of them with his hand hovering by his thigh where he must be carrying a unfriendly blade. Kai’s vouching for her didn’t mean much, it seemed, and even if he used that strange voice from before that he’d subdued his men with, she knew it would do nothing to change their minds. But she wasn’t here to beg for their approval. They could mistrust her all they wanted. She was still the only one who could do anything about this dying
Called by the Dragon 93 - On Faith
She could sense the mistrustful glares fixed upon her as she hurried back to the bedroll where the young man had begun gasping for breath, a good sign no matter his pain because any breathing was better than none. That was fine with her. They could question her all they liked from a distance. She expected nothing from them anyway, just the space to do what she needed to do. The Prince lumbered to her side and sat on his haunches like some kind of frilled, giant mastiff, ready to do whatever it was he’d done before to kill that poison tendril. But this was no good. The sun glared off the sand, rays baking the man’s wounds, and his nakedness was going to kill him in this direct heat. She kneeled by his side and looked frantically around, rolling up her billowing sleeves once more. “Kai! He needs shade. The hotter he is, the harder it is for me to find the poison in him.” She had thought he would bark out an order for someone to help him
Called by the Dragon 94 - Sight
Five. There were five others who had been infected out of the roughly dozen and a half who made up Kai’s warrior troupe, and of them, only one had begun to show signs of the living poison that had burrowed into their veins. It was a grueling three hours of inspection and labor, far more difficult than it had been with Masal because these slivers were so much smaller and that much harder to see. Anzi had checked and rechecked every man, woman, and beast in the camp and Oza, too, fueled by growing paranoia and fear whenever she found the damnable silver threads hiding in their bodies. But what made it truly difficult was the exhaustion that set in. Not only when she extracted the poison through fresh, deep incisions she had been forced to make because there was no other way to draw it out, but even the expansion of her very senses to search for it in the first place. This unknown, unfamiliar power she had discovered had come with a price. It came from wit
Called by the Dragon 95 - Deaden
Her leg ached, badly, even though Anzi had done nothing at all to strain it. Her only labor since morning after leaving Ash’s dominion was to perform the crudest half-surgeries known to man on a handful of Kai’s warriors, and she had been kneeling for most of that. Her body couldn’t be so weak, could it? Or was she imagining it all because of the fatigue and the haunting sensations of feeling warm flesh pull apart under her fingers as she searched for poison no one else could touch? What was this strange new world she had plummeted into with no preparation, no wisdom, nothing at all? No—she had Kai, who pulled her close and kissed her on the brow before letting her go so she could walk to meet Ash. She had Letti and Oza here in the camp on the other end of it, safe and sound. Netra and Serqet were here too, thank to Kai’s tribesmen who had brought them here instead of abandoning them. Had Anzi remembered to thank anyone for that? Maybe she didn’t have t
Called by the Dragon 96 - Shadows
Anzi didn’t want to know how Ash had managed to convince him. All she knew was that Kai was in a towering mood, terrible and brooding, and she could feel it from across the camp. It was fainter here in Qinglong’s tent that had somehow become extremely crowded within the last day—Oza and Letti as well as all three of her dragons along with Rania, too—but she could sense Kai’s anger nonetheless. Something had changed between them without her even noticing, something beyond simple attraction and other mundane feelings. Maybe it had been back when he first kissed her on the bridge, or maybe it had been that day when she had sat by him, watching the healers labor to save his life before the basilisk poison could kill him. Or maybe it had been during the flight here, when she had first tasted real freedom away from the shadow of the Empire. But things were different now, and the part of her that used to be afraid of defining those very changes—wasn’t so afrai
Pinakabagong kabanata
