His mind reeled as wave after wave of energy hit him. The radiating heat from the magic rolled across his body, electrifying his senses. The matriarch had lured him to her cave there on the citadel and was assaulting his mind with magic.

What did they want from him? Why have they chosen him, of all people, to speak with like this?

A flash of light sparked across his vision and before him stood Reese and Sayori. They were much older than they were now and both were fully armored. She was screaming at him, pushing him back. The two of them were throwing their hands around, yelling at each other. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Evonne. Her hair was braided and covered in soot. She was clutching her legs, crying.

He gasped as he was thrown back into reality. Grabbing at his head, it pounded away, throbbing with an intensity he hadn’t ever had before. It felt as if his head was going to explode. He felt his eyes bulge as they overcame him again.

A darkened room lights low, a figure standing over another that was slumped to the ground. Deep gouges in the body leaking out a dark liquid. Another body crumbled in the corner, bleeding profusely, slumped over just the same. Their clothing was dark, still wearing the same thing they had the night before. He could smell a metallic scent decorating the air around him. The liquid began to rise, swirling around the figure as they held their arms out. He knew exactly what it was. Only days before, he himself had used the water in blood to freeze into spikes. The figure was manipulating it.

The vision stuttered and shook. He was pulled toward the figure, pulled in to mere inches away from them. He was staring directly at the perpetrator. A face looked back at him, one he recognized well. Ambassador Laramee.

Gasping for air, he tried to catch himself from falling face-first into the platform beneath his feet. Every breath stung his lungs as if he starving of them. Whipping his head up, he saw a strange shimmer off the large matriarch’s scales. It was iridescent and dancing in the firelight from the pillars next to him.

She was large, extremely large, but nothing like his own matriarch. He couldn’t make out what type she was in the darkness but he had a feeling she was a water dragon. If the algae were any indication, she was likely to be one of his tribe.

He heard another loud rumble and the matriarch in front of him slunk backward into the darkness. The whole cave was shaking as he felt a cool breeze hit him. Letting out a quiet sob, he already knew what was happening.

The other matriarch was coming.

His head was pounding in intense pain, unable to handle the flush of magic being tossed at him. Now another one was about to greet him and likely to hit him with even more of it. There was another rumble and he felt another gust of wind toss his hair about. He fell back onto his knees as he raised his head up, tossing it to the ceiling.

Somehow all the matriarchs have sensed his abilities, his fate, and were using him as their intermediary of their will. He was nothing but a translator of their desires. They knew they had been put in danger, that their children had been in danger. They hadn’t been able to communicate with anyone before and he was the perfect specimen to make their will known.

A voice shook his mind, causing him to grab at his head. He couldn’t make out the words as he tried to keep himself from passing out from the pain. As the winds died down, he glanced up and spotted another matriarch, a greenish one this time. The fact that there were two here was a miracle. The fact they were both trying to tell him something, that was a mystery.

“Serpents.” The voice boomed.

He tried his best to concentrate on their words, but it felt as if the wind itself was howling in his ears. The fact that he was even hearing such a deep growl of a language he could understand was throwing him for a loop. His original matriarch, he thought he only heard something due to the blessing itself. Here was another one, speaking to him in his mind.

“The water is tainted.”

His breathing was heavy as he tried to will himself through the pain.

“Your home is not safe.”

His home? They weren’t talking about the ambassador now. Do they know about what was happening to dragons in his realm? How could they? Did the dragons communicate with one another, or did they get this from the riders themselves?

“This is only the beginning.”

An explosion echoed behind him, and he knew his companions had finally gotten through. He heard them screaming his name. The matriarch let out a deep audible growl, and he heard them silence behind him.

“Do not trust the lords.”

He felt her steps shake the ground as she pulled herself away. Just as quickly as she had arrived, she had left again. He felt empty and lonely without their overbearing presence. They had pushed themselves so heavily on his being that they had taken over his spirit. Now that they severed that again and went back to wherever the cave allowed them to go, he was feeling a cold emptiness.

He felt arms wrap around him, but his mind had been so overfilled he felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness. He felt his limbs go limp as they tried to get him to his feet. The voice of the female white mage was chanting some type of language, and he felt a surge of relief. He recognized the magic, Eloise and Iratoi had used the same magic to heal him when the darkness had tried to overtake him.

Consciousness was coming back to him. He was regaining his senses. The first move he tried was to put his weight on his feet again. With help, he was able to stand up. His arms were around Meinor and Reese as they helped walk him back toward the entrance. None of them spoke a word as they fled the cave.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The smell of the open sky hit his nose and he looked up to see the night sky. The sun was almost completely set now, only a faint purple color on the horizon as it went down for its slumber. Above, the stars lazily blinked. Not far away was a rock shaped perfectly for him to sit down.

Trying to compose himself, he took a deep breath and said, “Lord Laramee of the Water Realm is your serpent.”

Meinor and Laudy looked at one another. He noticed Evonne was nowhere to be seen as Sayori and Reese were intently watching him.

“How?” Laudy tried to form something, but the words fell out of her mouth.

Sayori shook her head again. “Visions?”

He nodded and said, “Visions and…”

She groaned.

“The wind matriarch spoke to me.”

Reese stopped moving entirely and merely stared at him. “One of the matriarchs is a wind matriarch?”

Kaden nodded.

“What’d she say?”

He looked between them all and was unsure if he should even reveal it. From what he was trying to piece together was that it wasn’t about Laramee himself. He believed they were referring to what was happening to the dragon traps. Someone was assaulting the dragons, and it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. He already knew the lords were suspicious, but even the dragons thought so as well.

Taking another deep breath, he said, “The water is tainted. She said that even my home isn’t safe.”

Meinor dropped his shoulders. “I owe the Lord Commander an ale.”

Laudy shoved him out of the way. “Say no more of this. We will handle this situation. Do not mention your interaction with the Matriarchs.”

“No.”

They both gave him a shocked look. Standing back up, he tried his best to look as proud as he could. “We don’t have time for anything else. We need to find the Ambassador now.”

“Why?” Sayori knew he was telling the truth. She must have seen too much evidence to doubt him.

“My vision showed him doing something… to what I think was one of the captured serpents.”

The two white mages shared a frantic look. Meinor leaned forward. “What did you see, boy?”

He tried his best to describe the scene he had witnessed in as clear a detail as he could. He hadn’t even finished it or told them of the smells he could sense before Laudy started off in a sprint.

Meinor shook his head. “I won’t stop you if you follow us.”

And he, too, ran to chase her. They were moving faster than he expected, and he remembered how his water companions had used magic to move quickly as well. Reese shook his head and started off behind them. Grabbing his hand, Sayori wrapped her arm under his and they too ran behind them all.

“You’re not wrecking the lifts just to get down there quicker,” Meinor complained.

“They need to move faster then!”

They had caught the two of them at the lifts, waiting for it to rise. Laudy held her hands out and started pulling. The horrid crunch of stone against stone echoed up the shaft. Kaden whipped his head around to see metal and stone shaking the lift.

It came to a sudden stop with a bewildered attendant holding on for dear life. She shouted at him to move and he didn’t hesitate to get on a more stable footing. Pushing her way onto the lift, she looked back at them expectantly.

“Come on!”

Scrambling inside the small lift, they crammed together. Meinor grabbed onto the railing and said, “You all better hold on. This is going to get rough.”

The stone lift shook and for a moment, Kaden felt weightless. He felt Sayori’s hand pull him back down as they plummeted through the air. It was moving so fast, that had Sayori not had her hands on both Reese and him, the two of them would have floated to the top of the lift, pressed into the ceiling as it sunk into the world.

The scratching against the rock was deafening as they hurdled to the ground. He felt the lift shake as it slowed, jolting them as it came to a stop. His heart was pounding away as the gates opened. Several attendants were yelling profanities at them, but neither Meinor nor Laudy bothered stopping to talk with them. They only ran past them, back into the halls of the citadel.

Kaden was regaining his strength as he tried to keep up with them, weaving in and out of the traffic and constant stream of people. He didn’t know there were this many people just milling around the entire building. Whatever they did here was more than holding conferences and keeping matriarchs on their rooftops.

They reached the hall near the council room. Running past the spot where he had first met Reese’s fist, they skidded to a stop when the Lord Commander came running up to them, Evonne in tow. Meinor shook his head and yelled, “I owe you an ale!”

He thought he heard the Lord Commander utter a curse, but he was too far in front of them to truly hear it. Laudy motioned in another direction and said, “Captives!”

The Lord Commander looked to the three of them following the white mages and shook his head. All six of them took off in another direction, running down halls, jumping down stairs. The entire citadel was alert and aware that something was happening.

He soon heard a ringing, an alarm going off that was echoing down the halls. They probably thought it was another serpent attack. People were now fleeing at the sight of them, running into rooms and slamming the doors as they ran past.

The halls were getting tighter and more narrow as they ran. Laudy slid across slick tile as she stopped and ran toward a door. Two men were standing outside of it, looking utterly confused at the crowd of people running straight for them.

One turned and immediately fumbled his keys in the door, trying to open it. Kaden was impressed with the fact that they already knew they wanted in and weren’t about to question them about running full speed in their direction. He barely got it open as Laudy kicked it, running inside.

They all filed in behind her and he was instantly hit with that same metallic smell, the smell of blood.

“How were you going to explain this, Laramee?” She yelled.

A dark figure turned around and looked at them with a bewildered gaze. He wasn’t expecting to be caught so easily. A man was cowering in the corner, chains still on him, but the other was on the ground, blood seeping out of him already. The vision had shown both of them dead. They had gotten there before it had fully happened.

Kaden could change the fates.

Laramee threw his hands out and all of them went flying. Kaden felt his body be forced to the ground, forced to move against his will just as the Matriarch had just done. He wasn’t about to let magic force him to do anything again. There was one big difference this time. Laramee was not a dragon.

He knew Laramee was using his water magic to control the blood in their bodies. With every ounce of his might, he used his own to keep that blood from being pushed away. It was jarring and hard, but he was able to stand back up.

Laramee’s eyes widened. His vision stuttered as his body was pulled directly toward him. The ambassador completely focused on him instead of the others in the room. Kaden flew through the air toward him. Fingers wrapped around his throat.

“How dare you defy me? I am the controller of destiny. I am the serpent in the night. I don’t need magic to kill you,” his hand squeezed around his throat and Kaden gasped. “You have been a pain in my side from the moment you arrived.”

His strength was crushing his throat while his magic was squeezing the life right out of him. Kaden’s vision darkened, but in a flash beside him, a sword came down, severing Laramee’s arm from him. It still clung to Kaden’s neck as he fell backward, away from the screaming ambassador.

The Lord Commander stood defiantly as he let the blood drip from his blade. The other two white mages were already on top of him, forcing him to submit. Looking up, he saw Reese rip the hand off his neck and force him back on his feet.

Kaden was shaking, his body unable to stop trembling.

He almost died.

Again.