Golden Age (The Shifting Tides, #1)(123)

But when Dion looked back to the harbor he felt the blood drain from his face. His eyes went wide with horror.

He saw the one-eyed dragon and the sun king rise from the shore.

Dion knew that Solon had lost the fight, but for the sun king the struggle was far from over. There was only one place the pair could be traveling to.

Panic overwhelmed him as the dragon climbed high in the sky, then swiftly plummeted down, in the direction of the nearby summit.

Dion’s eyes traveled up the cliff face. Chloe was up at the temple, preparing to defend the Ark of Revelation with her life. He had been too late to save his family in Xanthos, and he would be too late to help her.

The climb would take him far too long.

He thought about all he and Chloe had been through. He remembered the men he had set out with on his quest to travel to Lamara, all killed by wildren. The vision of the serpent’s huge head plummeting as it swallowed Cob along with half of their boat would stay with him to the end of his days. He recalled the mermaid that saved him and the strange seer at Athos who gave him the incredible Calypso. Chloe’s own travails filled his mind: she had been imprisoned and her only friend and protector had experienced utmost agony in front of her eyes. She had learned to fight and freed herself from the sun king’s clutches.

The words they’d spoken on their frantic voyage home came to the forefront of his awareness, but along with the words were the looks and gestures. He remembered her clutching onto his arm, and his own desire to protect her as they’d watched the enemy fleet approaching the harbor.

Desperation coursed through every fiber of his body.

Dion knew he would be too late to save Chloe’s life.





61


Chloe stood on the smooth floor of stone within the temple’s framing columns, at an equal distance between Triton and Solon. She tried to face both opponents and keep her sword point up, just as Tomarys had instructed. Blood roared in her ears as her heart raced. Her palms sweated; the hilt in her hands felt slippery.

‘Understood, sun king.’ Triton fixed his stare on Solon. ‘I will deal with the woman. You open the ark and give me what is mine.’

Solon frowned at the golden chest. ‘I may not have the strength—’

‘Then find it!’

Chloe wondered if she could reach Solon before Triton could strike. She needed to attack the Ilean king before he could open the chest that must never be opened.

In her mind, Tomarys was speaking.

‘Be strong. Be confident. Nothing is more powerful than the warrior who will achieve his objective or die trying.’

But Chloe didn’t know if she was strong enough for this.

Gray smoke suddenly misted around the eldran king. In a heartbeat his body was completely enveloped as the cloud thickened and grew to an impossible size.

The mist shimmered.

The huge one-eyed dragon roared as it flew out of the smoke. An immense silver-scaled body of muscle, sinew, and bone rose into the air as outstretched wings flapped. The jaws gaped as the beast revealed a mouth filled with white teeth the size of daggers.

Chloe saw Solon’s outstretched arms as he reached for the handle on the lid of the Ark of Revelation.

She turned to face the dragon, but then moved again to face Solon, trembling with indecision. The veins in Solon’s temples were clearly visible as he grunted with the effort.

A crack of light poured from under the slowly opening golden lid.

Chloe decided to charge the sun king, knowing the dragon would kill her before she came close to the tall man at the golden chest.

Then something incredible happened.

A second dragon plummeted down from the sky, but where the scales of the one-eyed Triton were glossy silver, this dragon’s scales were as black as night. Until now the one-eyed dragon was the largest Chloe had ever seen.

The newcomer rivaled it in size.

The black dragon’s claws were outstretched from its body as it swooped, screaming a challenge to the eldran king. It struck the one-eyed dragon with lightning speed, gripping hold of its enemy’s body with muscled forelegs until both creatures tumbled one over the other, rolling over and over, smashing into one of the temple’s columns with enough force to shatter the marble and break the column in two, toppling it with a crash of shattering stone. The two tumbling dragons flew up into the sky, writhing in an embrace of terrifying strength.

Solon turned at the sound, his face shocked. He saw Chloe running at him with the sword held in white knuckles as she lunged. With a snarl, he came forward to meet her.

But she realized too late: Solon was a warrior king; he would have been trained since birth in combat. He nonchalantly weaved and brought a hand smashing down onto Chloe’s wrist. The sword fell out of her hands and skittered along the smooth paving stones. He pushed on her shoulder as she tumbled out of control, the shove sending her running forward until her head struck a column. A burst of pain exploded in her head as she staggered and then collapsed onto the hard ground.

Her senses reeling, Chloe was about to roll over and push herself to her feet, when Tomarys spoke again.

‘To sow the seeds of victory before the fight begins, we must play with expectations.’

She kept her eyes closed and body still, even as part of her screamed that she had to act. Finally, she lifted her head and saw Solon return to the Ark of Revelation and heave at the handle. The lid came up. Rainbow light now bathed his face in a glow of rippling color. His expression was triumphant as he held the edge of the lid high with one hand and reached inside with the other.