“Chane, stop it!”
He heard Wynn’s call at the edge of his awareness, distant and echoing, like something tapping him awake from dormancy.
“He’s not what you think,” she shouted, her voice echoing in the tunnel.
Chane faltered before he swung. Those words had not been for him—but for whom?
The question awakened reason, and Chane stopped no more than a sword’s reach from the creature’s jaws. He smelled its breath, hot and stinking like something akin to smoke and oil. The stench cleared his thoughts a little more.
Rushing in blindly would not save Wynn. Somehow, he knew this.
Chane fought for reason, struggling to swallow down the hunger and rage and the half-awakened beast inside him. The reptile’s maw slowly closed, but it did not turn from him. He kept his sword cocked upward as he looked at Wynn.
“Did you find it?” she called to him, her voice desperate.
It? What did she mean?
Wynn glanced once down the tunnel, beyond him. She appeared less afraid of those creatures penning her in than of something else.
Chane remembered the orb.
“Where is Ore-Locks?” she asked in alarm. “Where’s the wraith?”
Chane’s clarity sharpened, and he cowed the stirring beast inside him.
“Ore-Locks ...” he began. “I sent him.... He took the orb into stone before il’Sänke could take it.”
Wynn’s eyes widened. “Il’Sänke? What are you—?”
“He is here. He tried to take it.”
“You gave the orb to Ore-Locks?”
Chane faltered in shame, not knowing what to say. He had let Ore-Locks take the one thing she sought at all cost, because reaching her mattered more to him than anything.
“I had to,” he finally answered.
To his surprise, Wynn nodded. “It’s all right. He’ll come back.”
Chane stared at her, dumbfounded by her sudden calm. She knew no such thing.
“You did everything right,” she said. “Everything.”
At a complete loss, he stood there looking at this small woman who had brought him halfway across the world. He understood only that she was alive, whole, and unharmed. This was all that mattered.
Wynn watched in relief as the soft but pale brown color flooded Chane’s irises. He lowered his sword. Before she could take a step toward him, multitongued words exploded in her head.
There is more to learn ... and to discern.
As before, she felt emotions—hesitation and suspicion and doubt. She spun sharply to see the second dragon coil and turn, heading back up the tunnel. Shade rumbled, backing up, but then she turned, rounding Wynn with a nudge. Yet when Wynn looked back at the first dragon, she found it still blocking Chane’s way. Before she could say anything, more words filled her head in every language she knew.
Not this unliving thing. It will no longer defile this place of sacrifice.
The dragon had seen all her memories. It should know better.
“You know how I see him,” she answered. “Without him, I wouldn’t be standing here. And the orb wouldn’t have been saved without him.”
You saved nothing!
At those sharp words, Wynn heard Shade yelp, and everything darkened for an instant before her eyes. The dragon swung its head away from Chane and turned on her. Its jaws parted in a hiss as spittle struck the tunnel floor.
We have no faith in your kind, no trust in you to keep a prisoner of Existence out of the claws of the first slave. The shackled one is not for you! We give the anchor of Earth only to the blood of the sacrifice. It is now his to protect. Move on ... or die with your walking dead!
Wynn forced herself not to flinch at a flickering flame sparking between the creature’s grinding teeth. Her mind raced over its words.
The “blood of sacrifice” was clearly the descendant of Deep-Root. But Ore-Locks was gone, and she didn’t know where he was or when he would return. The “anchor” had to mean the orb itself. But the strange reference to a “shackled one,” a “prisoner,” and keeping it from a “first slave,” left her bewildered.
What did any of this have to do with the orb?
More than you deserve to know.
Wynn stilled her thoughts, for every one of them was exposed to this ancient being. She looked at Chane, and as much as she feared shattering this very fragile respite, she couldn’t accept leaving him after what he had done.
Then it is upon your life that he comes.
Again, the reply came before Wynn could speak. She carefully waved Chane to her. Without hesitation, he sidled around the creature, coming to her as quickly as he could without breaking into a run. The open relief on his face pulled at Wynn.
“Put the sword away,” she whispered. “Don’t draw it again, no matter what happens.”
Chane shook his head, his expression hardening, and the color began to fade from his eyes.
“Trust me,” she said.
He tensed at her urging. She wasn’t certain anything she said or did would get through to him. Finally, he slid his sword back into its sheath.
The dragon watched his every move.
The second one had stopped up the tunnel, as if waiting. Wynn headed after it, with Chane behind her and Shade in the lead. The first creature followed, and soon all Wynn could hear was the sound of claws scraping stone.
“Where are we—?” Chane began.
She quickly glanced back and shook her head at him. There was so much she had felt in the ancient memories of these beings. She knew they were descended from the one who’d sacrificed itself with Deep-Root. They had been here, one generation after another, guarding the orb, but for reasons she couldn’t fathom.
That they continued to fulfill their ancestor’s stand against the enemy was clear. But whether they were truly allies was not so certain. They wanted something from her, and she didn’t believe she would walk out of this seatt unless she fulfilled whatever they required.
Soon they passed the breach into the Chamber of the Fallen, but the lead dragon continued up the tunnel’s other way. Along the winding passage, Wynn saw it pause briefly ahead at turns, breaks, and splits in the tunnel. They kept on at a pace that forced her into a half trot, and soon she emerged in a pocket of deeply sloping stone.
The smaller, lead dragon settled on a rise of stone near one of the side walls. The surface beside it was strangely smooth, though it slanted toward the pocket’s roof. Wynn squinted, letting out a bit more light from the crystal in her hand.
There were ragged marks in the walls, as if clawed into the stone, but the longer Wynn looked, a pattern began to emerge.
You will wait here ... for him.
She looked back to find the first dragon inside the pocket’s opening, blocking the way.
“I don’t know where Ore-Locks is,” she answered. “How could he find us here?”
The blood will come to its own.
As if on cue, heavy footfalls echoed from the tunnel beyond the pocket.
Ore-Locks appeared at the opening, carrying the orb under one arm and the iron staff in his other hand. At first, Wynn could only focus on the orb. She remembered how heavy the orb of Water had been. She was astonished he could carry the orb of Earth with one arm.
At the sight awaiting him, Ore-Locks’s eyes widened. He backstepped, leveling his staff one-handed at the first dragon. It didn’t even look at him, but shifted to make room for him to enter.