Dragon Mage (Book 3) Chapter 10. Boy on Fire (Patreon)

Note: New(ish) month, and I'm coming up from editing hell with a new chapter. Expect the next one on Friday! (And some news, maybe!)

Corvus turned to Hattie. "You know Daff—"

Lightning flashed, followed by a roll of thunder so close and intense that it shook Corvus's teeth inside his head.

That was remarkable because a half breath ago, the clouds had been far away. Albeit, coming in fast.

Charm made a sharp sound and dived to the side. The wind, however, had become her enemy. Fingers of it wrapped around her like a giant silvery net. Corvus momentarily felt his seat leave her hide as the air pressure dropped out from under him.

He was slammed back down as Charm was abruptly yanked upward, and back towards the west.

Towards the silhouette of the great dragon in the sky.

Corvus's mind spun.

This couldn't be possible.

He had suspected — feared — that Daffodil would return. But how could he be controlling the weather? The dragon had powers over plant life. Not storms.

He did have some knowledge of runes — could this be a runic spell? He could not imagine the power it would take in order to charge something like this.

And he knew as large and as strong as Charm had become, she was still no match for Daffodil one on one.

"Dive!" he yelled.

The wind was such that he could not hear his voice, but nothing impeded his mental connection with Charm.

The dragon pulled her wings in and fell into a great swoop. The wind fell away.

As Charms dive broke through the spell of wind, Corvus stared up at the clouds. They had closed over Daffodil’s form again, so dark and ominous that he could not see the silhouette of the giant dragon, even against the flashes of lightning.

He could be anywhere, hopefully retreating like a coward, but Corvus doubted it.

But there was something about the clouds…

“Stop cloud gazing," Charm snapped. “We need to figure out how to chase him away before he attacks the city!”

Free of the tendrils of wind, she extended her wings, grunting at the base of her throat at the strain to her joints. The moment she slowed, the winds came around again. Suddenly, Charm and her passengers were jerked upward, so fast that Corvus was pressed against her back. The dragon screeched again in protest and flapped to get free. Silver and gold threads coalesced underneath her scales into her new breath based attack runes… But there is nothing to fire upon. No enemy except for the wind.

How is he doing this? Corvus thought, desperately. There was more than Daffodil’s freakish control of the wind. Every inhale felt… Odd. As if there was invisible motes energy filled the air. Or was it mana?

As Charm flailed, trying to break free of the wind which was pulling her further and further to the west, Corvus again found his gaze drawn upwards to the clouds which now boiled directly above the sky.

Then, he saw it.

He turned, grabbing Hattie's shoulder. The demon girl had gone bloodless pale, both hands in a death grip around the imperfections of the scale plate in front of her. She seemed determined just to hang on, and it took a sharp shake for her to open squeezed shut eyes.

Corvus jabbed a finger to the sky. "What is that?" He had to bellow just to be heard over the sound of the wind. "What does it say?"

Hattie's unusual bright green eyes flickered to the sky, then to him again. The confusion in her face was clear.

Again, Corvus pointed upward. “The rune! Do you see it?"

Her eyes went wide, and she looked up again, mouth falling open as she, too, saw it. The clouds were not uniform in color. There were shadowed patches, easy to ignore at first. But when taken in as a whole…It was a complex runic glyph. Broken wavy lines, surrounded by a spiral. But there was no barrier circle. All runes must have a barrier circle.

For a moment, Corvus thought that the edges of the cloud cover itself was a circular pattern, but… No. Tt was a sheet which stretched from east to west.

Wait.

To identify the circle, he only had to look down. The horseman he had been following were still riding in a large circle. The hooves cutting deep into the prairie soil.

And far, far above was the glyph.

Corvus had no idea that a rune could be constructed like this, the barrier circle and the glyph separated, and yet working in a union.

This was an aspect of rune magic he had never conceived of.

Despite the grim circumstances, he was a part of him was elated at the discovery.

The motes of mana he could practically taste in the air...

Could it be that the mana itself acted like a sort of glue or connection between the glyph and the barrier circle?

Hattie broke into his thoughts. "Wind!" Her face scrunched up in frustration as if she were searching for a word but couldn't quite put her finger on it. Daringly taking her hands off the scale she locked the tips of her fingers together and made a show of failing to pull them apart.

"Wind connection?" Corvus guessed. "Wind link? Wind tether--"

Charm's sarcastic voice broke through. That's all well and good but how do we destroy the rune?

She flapped against the monstrous pull of the wind, but it was no use. They were, in fact, close to the coast. Wind-whipped waves crashed against a thin strip of beach far below.

"Disrupt the barrier circle." Which was impossible. The horsemen were too far away. Corvus craned his head up. "Or the glyph. But Daffodil has plant powers. How did he draw into the clouds--"

It was at that moment the clouds themselves parted up above. A spear of sunlight broke through... and was obscured as a monstrous figure fell upon them.

It was Daffodil. Or it was a royal dragon the size of Daffodil, and Corvus could swear he saw a puckered scar where he'd seen a cannonball crush Daffodil's scales in the ratkin battle.

Daffodil of old had been a butter yellow beast. This dragon... it was hard to describe even as he stared directly at it.

The main color was slate gray-blue, like the bruised undersides of the clouds. But it was a roiling, oily color with the original yellow shade sticking out here and there. Like someone had dipped the dragon in muddy blue paint and then put him in a kiln at the wrong temperature to dry out incorrectly.

The winds became a chaotic tempest, battering Charm right and left. It was everything Corvus and Hattie could do to hold on.

Charm roared a challenge that was made thin and weak by the wind. The threads woven between her scales flashed to her Eclipse of the Sun runes and she spat a beam of corrosive light at the descending dragon.

It veered wildly off course, striking thick mist in the air, and scattering into a thousand useless motes.

"Hello, Sister," Daffodil hissed, and grabbed for her.

Somehow, Charm twisted out of the way, nearly flipping back on herself to strike the massive hand with her tail: A tail which was now tipped in a metallic spike thanks to her metal bonding spell.

It only scraped along the scales but attacking wasn't Charm's goal: Escape was.

The wind directly around Daffodil's body was calm to enable him to fly. Charm flitted into that bubble of clear air, up over the massive dragon’s shoulder and around his back. If they could gain a height advantage, get above these clouds...

Corvus heard a deep shout of outrage and looked down.

Daffodil had a rider.

A man dressed in fine robes sat on the oily blue back. He looked up as Corvus looked down.

And for a heart seizing, stomach dropping moment Corvus stared at his father.

His first split second impression was Cipherus was... smaller than he remembered. Part of it was the distance between them. Part was that Cipherus had always held such a domineering place in his memories.

But Corvus realized with a second shock almost as sharp as the first that if they stood on a level, he would easily be as tall as his father.

His second thought was of utter disbelief: If Cipherus could only bond a dragon through the Paths. One couldn't be an elemental Talent user and a Pathwalker. His father's Fire Talent was a major part of his personality. He couldn't imagine him giving it up, even for a dragon.

All this flashed by in a second, between one of Charm's frantic wingbeats and the next.

In any case at least one of his assumptions was proven wrong when Cipherus lifted a hand and the air directly around Corvus superheated.

His over-tunic burst into flames.

Hattie screamed, reeling back. Charm bucked in air, the shock of Corvus's agony striking her through their close bond.

Corvus didn't think, could only feel the white hot flames, smell his hair and skin burn. Pure panic took over and he tore at his tunic, thrashing and losing his seat on Charm's neck.

Charm screamed a warning in his head, but he had already slipped off...

Charm's haunting scream cut through him. She reached as if to snap him, only for a gust of wind blasted her back and away.

And Corvus was falling... falling and still burning.