“Pirin of Sirdia!” the dragon scoffed. “This Sirdia, I have not heard of it! Where is it?”
Pirin cleared his throat, slowly backing away from the dragon. Its leafy limbs shuddered, and it inhaled a deep breath. Gray chirped and squawked, as if trying to warn him of something. She hadn’t been wrong before, so he started walking back faster. “Sirdia, it’s a nation on the far north reaches of this continent, you see, and—”
“There is nothing to the north,” the dragon stated. It matched Pirin step-for-step, and it didn’t have to walk fast at all. “Khirdia is one land, the nation of the Summer Elves!”
“That…” Pirin tilted his head, drawing on innate, somewhat unforgotten knowledge as best as he could. “Not anymore.” When he tried to explain when, why, or how the continent-wide nation of elves had broken apart, his mind couldn’t produce anything helpful. “Sirdia is the nation of the Winter Elves, now.”
The dragon prowled closer, moving on all four limbs like a cat. “Broken? Khirdia is broken?” It yowled. Craning its head upwards, it blasted a gust of air and leafy particles out of its lungs. They swirled up toward the ceiling, ripping through the vines and shredding them. “It cannot be!”
“Call me Pirin of Kerstel, then…” Pirin said softly. He turned, edging towards the side of the clearing with Gray in tow. She chirped a soft warning, which he could barely hear over the gale.
The dragon stopped blasting air at the ceiling. “Pirin of Kerstel, then…what makes you think you are worthy to pass? I see nothing but a scrawny elf in a tattered cloak, marching around without a Familiar. An Embercore, no less!”
Pirin winced, then pulled down his hood. “I…I am the king of Sirdia and heir to the throne of Khirdia, and I need Ichor from this shrine.”
“Heir?” the dragon exclaimed. “I think not! I smell no noble blood, nor do I see an ambersteel crown, nor do I see—”
Pirin bit his lip, then held out his hand. He stared at the dragon’s eyes—two shiny drops of water embedded in its eye sockets, each with a single seed pit for a pupil. It would do. He held out his hand. First, he would just put the dragon to sleep…
“What are you doing?” the dragon exclaimed. “You dare use a wizard’s technique on a guardian wraith? A king would do no such a thing!”
“I’m not a very good king…” Pirin muttered.
“Then you shall not visit the Ichor spring!”
“You won’t stop me.” Pirin cycled his Essence faster and concentrated on the creature’s mind. His technique failed once, and the dragon snorted. The second try, he activated it. He couldn’t sense any of the dragon’s thoughts or feelings, nor even a whisper of the dragon’s memories.
He tried pressing it with a tendril of Essence, but the wisp of blue glanced off the orb like an arrow off armour.
The dragon was too strong.
Pirin cleared his throat. “Or, uh, I suppose we could—”
The dragon stared at him. Beneath the intertwined vines of its chest, Pirin locked onto its core—a swirling orb of blue energy and light ten times brighter than his own. It flashed, flaring even brighter. The dragon’s nostrils widened, its mouth opened, and it heaved a blast of air straight at him.
Pirin pulled Gray behind a pillar with him. The thick sandstone sheltered them from the worst of the blast, but shreds of plant debris still flooded out of the dragon’s mouth, hitting so fast and hard that they eroded the edges of the pillar into dust.
But even the dragon had to take a breath. When it paused to inhale, Pirin and Gray leapt out of cover. The dragon had its mental defenses up, but if Pirin could whittle it down and wear it out, he might be able to get into its head.
He sprinted toward it, closing the distance, then stabbed his sword through the dragon’s chest. The vines offered little resistance, and the sword sank in deep, but the dragon didn’t even flinch. It laughed in its breathy voice, then swatted at Pirin with its forearms.
He ducked just in time, but the leafy limbs swished through the air so fast that they created a gale and knocked Pirin on his back. His sword ripped out of the creature’s chest, tearing free a few vines and shrubs. It weakened the dragon by a hair, but its core didn’t even dim.
He rolled to the side, and, using Gray’s mind as a springboard, he conjured a Shattered Palm. He blasted it into the dragon’s leg, his only closest target. Instead of scattering the leg, like Pirin had managed with other wraiths, he only managed to bend it outwards at the joint and dislodge a spray of debris.
Had it been a normal animal, Pirin would have crippled it. But the vines twisted and whirled around the creature’s leg, setting it back in place. It drew vines from its chest to repair the wound. Still, its core didn’t dim.
Cycling his Essence as fast as he could, using the sparrow-breathing technique, Pirin conjured another Shattered Palm. But, before he could strike, the dragon leapt back. It heaved a gust of air at Pirin.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
His eyes widened. There was no cover anywhere.
A weight slammed into his chest. The air blasted him down to the floor, smashing his body against the bricks with the weight of a collapsing horse. Tiny daggers of plant debris whipped past, slicing his face and shredding the fringes of his coat. A twig impaled his hand, and another stabbed into his thigh.
Before he could try to roll away or push himself up, the gale stopped.
He craned his neck upwards. Clinging onto the side of the dragon’s face was Gray. She clawed at its chin with her talons and clung to its lip with her beak. It thrashed side-to-side, blasting its gale everywhere.
A gust sheared through an especially weak pillar, slicing it in half. Stone crumbled, and a section of the hall’s ceiling collapsed.
If Pirin didn’t handle the dragon quickly, it would bring down the entire hall. He climbed to his feet and ripped the twig out of his hand. He pressed his teeth together, and tears welled up at the corners of his eyes.
Ignoring the blazing pain in his hand and leg as best as he could, he dashed across the hall.
The dragon tossed its head back to the left, scouring the ground just in front of Pirin with a blast of wind, then tossed its head back to the right, cleaving away a couple thick vines above him. He stumbled out of the way, then kept running toward the flustered dragon.
The beast tried to crane its neck down and spew wind directly on him, but he blasted its chin with another Shattered Palm, disintegrating its woody bones and teeth and knocking its head back upwards. It drew vines from elsewhere to recover, gradually thinning its body.
As the dragon rebuilt its face, Pirin stared into its one remaining eye. He concentrated as deeply as he could, and after one failed attempt, he managed to conjure a small orb of gray mist in the palm of his hand. There was no time to put it to sleep. He tried to drive a spike of his Essence into the center. The tendril of Essence made a dent, but the orb still resisted.
Just a little more, then he could shatter the Spirit’s mind. A few more hits.
The dragon’s face had reformed. Instead of blasting Pirin, though, it first slammed its body into the ground, trying to crush Gray beneath its wooden skull. The ground shook and Pirin stumbled. “Gray!” he yelled, but instead of the clump of feathers and bone he feared to see mashed against the floor, he spotted a blur of gray and brown fluttering up and away. She’d gotten away just in time.
Pirin lunged at the dragon. With a swipe of his sword, he cut into one of its legs—about halfway. Another swipe, and he cleaved the foot clean from the beast’s body. As it howled, he drove another Shattered Palm into its chest, revealing a clean shot to its core. If Pirin wanted to kill it, a Shattered Palm into the swirling ball of light might do serious damage. That wasn’t an option. He’d have to direct his attack elsewhere.
His arm ached. Blood dribbled down his hand and clung to his fingernails, and his bones tingled. His Essence channels were incredibly sore. Another Shattered Palm wasn’t an option.
Before he could plan his next attack, the dragon unleashed another blast of wind at him. He ducked below the bulk of its body, but that didn’t stop it from swiping at him with its legs, trying to squash him or swat him into a pulp. One of its wooden talons slashed just past his back, nearly cleaving him in half.
He reached up with his sword, and, gripping it with both hands, he cut a gash along the dragon’s stomach. When he reached its tail, he hacked it off with three consecutive swipes.
And that was too far.
The dragon’s body was too damaged. It could have fled. Maybe it wanted to. But it had a host nearby.
With a flap of its wings, it charged toward Gray. Its core shone brightly, and its wings stirred up such a storm that it took all Pirin’s strength just to stay standing.
If it reached Gray with its mind still intact, it would overwhelm her, just like the lightning wraiths took over the mistfalcons, or the snow wraiths took over bears. Gray would no longer be herself.
But if he destroyed it’s mind?
He caught a glimpse of its eye as it raced towards Gray. He held out his hand, trying to gather its mind in his palm. His Essence fought back. The dragon was halfway there. He reached out again. Failure. Gray recognized the danger and fluttered up, but she couldn’t outrun a dragon. Pirin shook his hand, then desperately, thrust his arm towards the dragon. He caught a glimpse of its eye. The technique latched on.
As soon as the pale grey orb formed in the palm of his hand, he blasted it with the strongest bolt of Essence he could muster. It speared through the orb’s center and ripped it in two. One half scattered, and the dragon screamed, but the other half remained intact.
The dragon wrapped around Gray. For a moment, the gnatsnapper disappeared behind a wall of leaves and vines. It overtook her, swirling and seething. Pirin half-ran and half-staggered towards the dragon and Gray.
Gray let out faint, shrill chirps. She fluttered around, and with added the strength of the spirit, smashed through another pillar. The ceiling above crumbled. The entire hall groaned. She raced down the cavern, crashing through another pillar on the opposite side before coming to a rest at the base of a third.
Dust fell from the ceiling. An especially large brick crashed beside Pirin, throwing him off balance. The wall cracked.
When he finally reached Gray, he pressed his hand against her neck. Vines and red flowers had woven into her feathers, and they wouldn’t budge even when he ran his hand through them. They were a part of her body, now. She had bonded with the wraith.
When he inhaled and looked inside himself, his core still tugged toward Gray, dragged by an immense well of power. He still felt the faint weight of a strong spiritual presence on his shoulders, and it was coming from Gray.
The dragon’s core was now hers. Given time, maybe a week, such immense power would grant her the same sapience as a Familiar, even if she shared no proper bond with Pirin yet. Her flanks shivered, and her wings quivered. But there were no missing feathers, no blood, and no out of place limbs.
He backed away and held out his hand, and after three tries, he made a connection with her mind. A blazing pain shot into his Essence and penetrated his mind, then circulated all around his body. He fell to his knees. He could barely maintain his breathing pattern through his clenched teeth.
Give up the body, bird, came a thought, perfectly intelligible. Pirin felt the same breathy voice that he’d heard the dragon speak in.
He hadn’t destroyed the wraith’s mind entirely. Now Gray, a simple gnatsnapper, had to contend with the will of a powerful guardian wraith.
But it was only half a mind, and Gray had a will. She was strong. She could contend with it.
Pirin shook his hand, deactivating the technique, then stumbled back towards Gray.
“We’ll get you through this.” Pirin placed a hand on her feathery head. More and more stones fell from the roof. “But we’re running out of time, and we still have one more job to do.”