Page 85 of Fire in Stone

Pain shot up his arm. It collided with rage, bringing on an explosion.

Tossing his head back, he roared. The sound shook the walls. Fire erupted from under his hands. It blasted outwards, scorching the floor.

Osym howled, engulfed in flames. Draig shrank back, stuttering in horror. Shifting to his dragon form in panic, Draig trapped himself under the low ceiling.

The thunder of the ancient magic, bent to Elex’s will, rolled through the stones of the floor and walls, reverberating through the entire mountain of the Bozyr Peak.

With the sound of rushing footfalls, the High General burst into the room, surrounded by armed men.

His single eye rotating wildly, the High General took in the scene.

The smoldering body of Osym was already falling to ashes. Draig’s dragon was squeezed and trapped in the corner, his wings squished, his neck twisted. The broken pieces of chains and restraints littered the room.

Elex stood on his knees. The floor around him was scorched in the shape of dragon wings.

“What… What the fuck happened here?” The general’s eye blinked, his mouth agape.

Elex lifted his head, glaring at the man through the strands of hair falling over his eyes.

“Take me to the king. Now. Or I’ll go to him myself.”

Twenty-Five

ELEX

Accompanied by the High General and a bunch of guards as his personal escort, Elex exited the scorched dungeon.

He limped up a narrow winding staircase inside a tower, holding on to the wall for support. Crisp outside air chilled his skin through the narrow windows hewn in the wall.

Only when they exited into a long, wide hallway did he recognize the castle. Memories rushed through him so vividly, he had to lean a shoulder against the wall to stay upright. He’d run along this very hallway as a child, chasing his friends and testing his wings.

“Move it.” The High General gave him a shove forward.

There was no rug on the stone floor, no colorful stained glass in the windows of the hallway. Instead of the handwoven tapestries his mother and grandmother had hung on the walls, red banners decorated the hallway. A sole golden dragon with his wings spread was the crest on the flag. It was not the Dakath crest he knew. His father’s used to be a golden dragon and a blacksalamandraintertwined, together.

Cold wind blasted through the glassless windows, frosting the floor and the flags on the walls. A shiver ran through Elex. He had to reach deep inside to find the fire to keep warm.

“This way.” The High General directed him through an arched walkway into the Great Hall.

Carved directly under the summit of the Bozyr Peak, the hall was massive. Its dome-shaped ceiling merged with the walls below that consisted of tall, wide windows between the carved columns. All windows here were shuttered with wood. The daylight was splintered into the narrow strips in the gaps between the boards.

The room was illuminated by the fire from the three large fireplaces evenly spaced along the walls. The cascade of hundreds of pricelessbiqurellecrystals suspended under the ceiling broke the light of the fire into a myriad of colorful sparks cast all around the room like a multi-colored light snow.

King Edkhar sat in his throne carved from one solid slab of rock and piled high with luxurious pelts of mountain fox. The lights of thebiqurellecrystals danced in the royal beard and the king’s thick, red mane decorated with braids held with golden clips. The Crown of Dakath, decorated with large rubies, sat atop the royal head.

“So.” King Edkhar squinted his green eyes at Elex. “Is this the stubborn dragon who wouldn’t speak?”

The High General bowed his head. “Yes, Your Majesty. It is.” He yanked at the chain connected to the collar around Elex’s neck.

Elex’s demonstration of using the castle’s magic had brought him to the king at last, but it didn’t make him any less of a prisoner. He remained collared and bound in chains.

“Greetings, Your Majesty.” Elex bowed his head, furtively studying his ancestor.

He’d seen portraits of King Edkhar before, but formal portraits of the royalty rarely looked exactly like the real people. The king seemed smaller in real life, less imposing, but with a hard, cold glint in his eyes that was never accurately conveyed through paintings.

The king rose from the throne and sauntered toward them.

“After all this time, you still don’t know who he is?” His tone was mocking.

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