The Dragon Legion Collection(35)

The Pythia descended from her tripod then, and came toward Alexander and Katina. She was old, her face lined and her cheeks sunken. She stood straight, though, and walked to them without assistance. Her chiton was made of yellow silk, as was her tunic, and both were embellished with rich purple embroidery. Her feet were bare, and when she paused before them, she put out her hand, palm up.

Alexander and Katina looked at her in confusion.

“I will heal you, Pyr,” she said quietly. “But you must assist me.”

“The scale!” Katina said and the Pythia smiled. Lysander had been listening because he hurried forward. He pulled all the broken pieces of Alexander’s lost scale from his pouch, then fell to his knees and offered them to the Pythia in both hands.

“Become what you are,” the Pythia commanded Alexander. The blue shimmer became brighter and he changed shape in a flash of light. Katina thrilled to find the deep purple dragon beside her, his head bowed before the Pythia and his claw beneath her hand.

The Pythia smiled and turned to survey the eight young men who stood as attendants in the shrine. The youngest was a few years older than Lysander, the oldest no more than seventeen. There was a brilliant shimmer of blue light, as they all changed to their dragon form. They reared up tall in the temple, moving with that same slow majesty as Alexander did. Lysander stared between them all in obvious amazement.

The Pythia beckoned to Theo, then kissed his cheeks in turn. “Be healed, young one,” she murmured as she reached to brush her fingertips across his chest.

“He’s mine!” came a shout loud enough to shake the temple.

Katina scanned the sanctuary for the source of the cry. She realized that all of the young Pyr seemed to have been struck to stone, and the Pythia was frozen, with one hand upraised. What was happening?

Alexander was scanning the sanctuary, a sign that he knew what to expect. “Slayers can move through space and time,” he murmured quietly, and she searched for some hint of the yellow dragon.

A flicker of movement drew her gaze to a yellow salamander on the lip of the crevasse. It leapt toward Theo with remarkable power for its size. Alexander roared and breathed dragonfire at the small lizard.

“The Slayer!” Lysander cried in the same moment, and Katina guessed he had identified the creature’s scent. “Stop him, Papa!”

Alexander’s dragonfire was vivid orange, hot and fierce, but the salamander jumped through it unscathed. Katina was frightened to see that this Slayer could also survive dragonfire. The yellow salamander landed on Theo’s shoulder and bared his teeth to bite the boy’s neck.

“No!” cried Katina and Lysander together.

Alexander slashed at the salamander and a spark of blue-green light leapt from his talon to the salamander. Alexander looked as astonished as the Slayer, and Katina recalled his statement that darkfire was an unpredictable force.

The Slayer cried out as he was struck by the spark, then illuminated as if he’d been hit by lightning. Katina saw the creature silhouetted in the blue-green light of the darkfire, his legs splayed, then the light flashed brighter and he vanished completely.

“How did you command the darkfire?” she demanded, but Alexander only shook his head.

“I did not. It came to our aid.” Alexander continued to survey sanctuary for some new threat and Lysander was sniffing diligently. Katina had a strange certainty that the Slayer was gone.

Forever.

“Is he here, Papa?”

“I don’t think so.”

No sooner had the light of the darkfire faded than a single spark leapt from the fire on the altar. It divided in the air as Katina watched, then struck both her and Alexander simultaneously in the chest. She saw the light of the firestorm leap between them once more, then felt its heat slip through her body. It had a blue-green shimmer for a moment, then faded to the familiar orange glow of their first meeting.


“Darkfire rekindles the firestorm,” Alexander whispered. “Against all odds.”

Darkfire was giving them the gift of a second chance. That was when Katina knew that the Slayer was truly gone.

It was also when she realized the darkfire was on their side.

The young Pyr along the walls shook themselves, as if waking from dreams, and looked around in confusion. Katina had the sense that the Slayer’s attack had been a moment stolen out of time.

Theo shuddered beside her and might have collapsed to the ground, but Katina caught him in her arms. The Pythia stepped forward and touched the burn mark on Theo’s chest, as if her gesture had never been halted. “Be healed, young one,” she said again and his color improved with her touch. When Katina helped Theo to his feet, he stood straighter and his gaze was clearer.

That was when Katina saw the black dragon mark on his upper arm, exactly the same as the one Alexander had gotten in his travels. At her gasp, Lysander pushed back his tunic and grinned at the similar mark on his own arm. There was a little shimmer of blue-green that shot around the perimeter of the mark, but when Katina blinked it was gone as surely as if she’d imagined it.

“Know thyself,” the Pythia murmured with satisfaction.

The Pythia then took the pieces of the scale from Lysander. “Your kind are vulnerable only to love,” she told him. “And the loss of a scale indicates a heart is lost. Your father loves a woman more than life itself, and there should be no weakness in that.”