She rolled onto her side, feeling the stiff mattress jab at her ribs. Mel let out a low groan, sitting up in her dorm room. She dragged a hand over her face, watching as the room swam before her eyes and then steadying once more.
The last thing she remembered was standing inside the dragon forge attempting to smith a double imbue with her own magic. She searched the dark room, her eyes adjusting to the dim light streaming in from her window. The sun must have already set. Maybe she’d only been out for an hour or so.
Mel walked to her dresser, finding a note from Master Foss. It told her to meet him in the dragon forge when she was up. But the note said she should meet him at night the next day.
She dragged her feet toward the door, opening it and finding her two guards. They looked concerned, watching her as if they wondered if she was alright.
“What happened?” she asked.
One of the guards scratched the back of his head before meeting her gaze. “Master Foss asked us to take you to your room. He said you’d fainted before they even started the experiment. He thought it might have been low blood sugar.”
Mel shook her head. That wasn’t right. Perhaps Master Foss didn’t want the guards to know the real reason she’d passed out.
“He said to wake you up and take you to the dragon forge today. We should head up there in about an hour. ”
“Wasn’t it tomorrow? It said so on the note.”
The two guards shared a look. “Yes, it’s tomorrow now.”
Mel took a step back, her head growing dizzy again, and she grabbed the doorknob to steady herself.
“Perhaps we should take you to the dining hall first. So you don’t pass out again.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Mel followed her guards out through the dorms, scratching her head and feeling confused.
#
Mel got to the dragon forge, arriving late, it seemed. Everyone was already there, Master Foss, Dean, Meredith, Will and…Austin?
“How are you feeling?” Austin asked.
“Why are you here?”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Master Foss told me what happened last night and asked me to come to your meeting today.”
Mel stepped around Austin, looking at Master Foss. He was standing at the head of the classroom, his arms folded across his chest. A crisp black shirt stretching over his upper body.
“What happened last night?” Mel asked.
“You fainted when you attempted to make the double imbue.” Master Foss dragged a hand through his beard, looking concerned. “I think it was too much for you to create both a wind imbue and then a double imbue in one day. Perhaps the magic takes from your own energy reserves.”
Mel’s mouth felt dry, and she licked her lips, trying to wrap her mind around everything that had happened. But she remembered last night. She remembered feeling exhausted even before starting with the double imbue. Master Foss was perhaps right. She also remembered her magic not entering the metal on her last try. It had refused to get imbued. Just lingered around her like the ghost of her soul.
“I don’t think it would have worked, even if I hadn’t been exhausted,” Mel said. “I don’t think I can make double imbues with just my own powers, whatever they may be.”
“Yes, I believe so too,” Master Foss said.
“We’ve discussed it,” Meredith chimed in. “We think you can only create one energy at a time. Not two. It’s like you’re a dragon stone. Either that or you’re a wind dragon stone, specifically, and you’ll only be able to create wind imbues.”
A frown descended over Mel’s forehead.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Master Foss said. “We should explore your capabilities, Melissa, but as of now, I think it’s more important that we focus on killing the dragon. It’s what we set out to do, and it’s what we’ve risked everything for. That’s why I called for this meeting and as soon as our last participant arrives, I’ll go over the plan we came up with last night.”
“Who are we waiting for?” Mel asked, feeling worry stretch inside her belly.
“You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily now?”
Mel spun on her heels, seeing Gabriella standing in a dark floor-length gown behind her. “Gabs, you’re all right?”
Mel swung her arms around her friend, letting out a satisfied sigh. Gabs folded Mel into an embrace and pushed her cheek against hers. It felt hot against Mel and emotions bubbled up in her chest.
“I’m so glad to see you again,” Gabs said. “I knew you were alright. Master Foss and Austin have been telling me so. But it’s just so good to see you for myself.”
“Same,” Mel said, slowly pulling away from the hug. “I’ve used the metal you made.. How did you know how to make it?”
A blush spread over Gabs’ face, and she gave Master Foss and Austin a glance. “I didn’t do it by myself. What have they been telling you? They have an arsenal of scientists and metallurgists here in Aldrion. They did most of the work. I just made sure you got provided with alloys first.”
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“Well, that was very important, Gabriella. Don’t cut yourself short,” Master Foss said. “And now, when we’re all here, let’s go over the plans and the reason I risked calling you all to a meeting in the dragon forge.”
Mel walked further into the room and she felt Austin watching her. She lingered by his side, slipping her hand into his while she thought no one was watching them. Austin gave her a small smile and then looked away, focusing on Master Foss.
It felt good being close to him, but even in this group, Mel wasn’t sure what they could do. She didn’t know how much pretending was required. She let go of his hand and clasped both of her arms behind her back, standing up straighter.
Master Foss took up a small item from the desk before him and held it up to the class. “We’ve worked together to create this arrowhead. It’s a prototype at best, but I think it could test what we need to know.”
The item was shaped like a triangle made out of small bars and pointed at the end. Then inside the triangle shape, there was a bullet sized silvery metal, whiter than the surrounding metal pieces. It was wedged in between the three bars and Mel recognized it immediately as her wind imbue.
It was strange, but she heard the notes coming from the item, the double imbue and the wind. But unlike the double imbue note, the wind made Mel feel connected. Like it was an actual piece of herself. She’d poured her energy into that item and now it wasn’t only playing a note she recognized as wind. It was also vibrating in a frequency that felt specifically like her.
“The plan is to test this item out tonight in a room here at the dragon forge, made for unstable and often explosive imbues. I think it will be safe to activate the double imbue surrounding the wind in there and see if it will explode, like we think it might. If it does, we have proven that, and I think we will be ready to make arrows with these heads.”
“If the item works, like you think it will,” Austin said. “What happens next? Can we just shoot one arrow into the dragon and kill it?”
Master Foss licked his lips. “I don’t think we should risk it all on only one arrow. What we’re doing here could be construed as treason and therefore, I think we need to go big when we attack the dragon. That’s why I called you here, Austin. You've used a double imbue before. If the test today goes well, our plan was to ask you to train a squad of elemental warriors that will attack the dragon with arrows. They must be trained with double imbues and be able to activate the arrowheads once they’re inside its flesh.”
Austin frowned, looking at Mel. She gave him a shrug. She’d known they’d probably need some elemental warriors for the idea to work, but she hadn’t known today was going to be the day Master Foss asked Austin for it.
“You’re the only one who has access to elemental warriors,” Dean said, looking at Austin. “You’re a Taveck. You’re the only one who can lead an elite force like that.”
Austin opened his mouth, then closed it again. Mel thought perhaps he wanted to protest. Say he was just a new recruit, like he had done to her before. But he seemed to think better of it.
“Without your involvement,” Master Foss said. “I’m not sure if the plan will succeed at all. Our other alternative is to show the governor our invention and hope he will give us a group of elemental warriors to train. But he might as well deem it not the time or not the right thing to do. It would be a risk, but so would you training a group of elemental warriors in secret. You’d have to find warriors you trust. Who won’t tell anyone, at least not until the dragon is dead.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Austin said. “I can try, but it’ll be hard to find people who are not loyal to my brother.”
Master Foss nodded. “Let’s see if this thing works first, then we’ll worry about the rest of the issues. Okay?”
The group of people murmured, not happy or cheerful, but still interested in testing a piece of new magic. Master Foss led them to a room in the back of the forge. It was far off from the dragon stones and much deeper into the mountain than Mel had ever gone before.
Austin’s presence was all around her and she kept leaning into him even as they walked side by side. He was like a force field to her, pulling her in by just being here. She’d missed him, worried about him, and now she got to spend this time close to him. It was almost painful not being able to touch each other. But it was better than nothing, Mel supposed. Better than not seeing him at all.
The room was dark and smelled dry, not like the other parts of the forge that always felt a bit damp. This place was charred black and soot stained almost all over the space. There had definitely been explosions in here and all the benches were made out of solid rock. No wooden tables or tools hanging off the walls. It was an empty, lonely place with only protrusions of stone jutting up from the ground.
There were no items in here. Mel heard no other notes ringing save from the arrowhead in Master Foss’ hand. She’d thought this place would be filled with unstable imbues, ready to explode soon. But she guessed not many of the mage smiths created unstable magic anymore. They were used to mage smithing in a way Mel and the other students weren’t.
Master Foss placed the small arrowhead on a piece of stone close to the wall at the back of the room, then walked toward the rest of them. They made it back outside the room and Master Foss handed out goggles hanging from the wall close to the lonely room.
“Melissa, would you like to activate and melt the double imbue?”
Mel’s mouth felt like cotton, and she forced down a lump in her throat. This was it. It would show them all if their invention had any chance of killing the dragon. “Shouldn’t we test it when the arrowhead is inside something?”
“We don’t have any beasts or dragons available here,” Master Foss said. “I won’t try this on a human.”
Mel looked down at her shoes. “Yeah, right, I just thought, how do we know if it will work inside the dragon?”
“We won’t. We just have to trust that the test Austin did earlier with a beast and this test will be enough. Then pray to the mother for this thing to work in real action.”
Mel nodded, dragging her hands over the coarse fabric of her pants. She took a deep breath and put the goggles over her eyes. She saw through the dirty glass. The small arrowhead was lying several feet away from her and her friends. Mel didn’t think the explosion would be this big, but she guessed precautions were good after all.
Her ears picked out the note from the double imbue and her mind focused on it. She sang the note inside her head and let it vibrate through her body and out of her fingertips. The arrowhead glowed orange at the other end of the room and Mel focused on the sensation of her face melting from the hot lava of the magic.
She heard the double imbue resisting somehow, and she eased her vibrations, making them more gentle. Like she was stroking the item and asking it to melt for her, to destroy itself.
Finally, the magic responded like she wanted and Mel saw the edge of the metal melt. Then it only took a couple of seconds before a whoosh of air unleashed in the center and hot melted metal flung across the room in an arc. Mel pushed herself to the side, into the group, toppling over Gabs and Will. Austin caught her and pulled her quickly against him as pieces of melted metal unleashed through the opening of the room.
Mel looked around her, sitting on the cold stone floor, at a small piece of metal cooling beside them. From the corner of her eye, she saw her shoes catching fire, and she kicked them off in a couple of jerking motions. Small pieces of hot metal had gotten caught in them and heated the fabric to burning.
She clutched a hand to her chest, breathing in two long breaths of smokey air. Austin snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her close into his chest, sitting beside her. His lips brushed her hair as he exhaled a long sigh against her temple. Mel let herself relax against him, not caring anymore who was watching them.