Page 77 of House of Embers
It was fully black when they made their return to the mountain. Cathia stood sentinel, and Tieran landed before her at the otherwise empty entrance.
“You have completed the second test. Last is soul,” she said. “Thiery has left a map to the center of the mountain. Your final test awaits you there.”
Tieran bent his head, and the attendant touched directly between his eyes, not an ounce of fear on her face at beingthatclose to his mouth. A second later, a map flickered before Kerrigan’s eyes as if she too could see the way to the center.
“Whoa,” she whispered.
Why would they just give them a map? It seemed like it was too easy, especially after the last test.
“My thanks,”Tieran said after a moment.
The attendant blinked in surprise before bowing deeply. “You’re most welcome, the great Tieran.”
He rose to his full height at that name—a designation that had likely never been placed on him. After he’d lost his mate and spent years evading the draft into the tournament, bringing disgrace to his name, now, he was defeating the odds.
“Shall we?”he asked Kerrigan.
“Might as well get this over with.”
Tieran launched toward the mountain. The map was like a mark in her mind, a little light that told her where they were going to turn and how far they were from the center. With no more information than that, they navigated and remained silent, going deeper and deeper into the cavernous Holy Mountain. The tendrille became more oppressive, as if the very heart of a dragon could be crushed under the weight of the magic dampening.
Her anticipation grew as the hallways narrowed. How had larger dragons made this trek? Was there another way? She shivered as the darkness settled over her. Her magic stuttered this deep, and when she reached for her flames, they came up as sparks. She could have forced them, but reaching for them caused a little twinge in the pit of her stomach.
As they rounded yet another corner, a light appeared ahead—a soft glow at first, and then it grew brighter as if a small sun was at the heart of the mountain.
Their eyes had become so accustomed to the night that the light hurt to look at, and just as it began to give her a headache, Tieran burst through an opening and into a large, round chamber. Entrances opened like the spokes of a wheel, a long stone walkway leading from each of them. At the center was a jagged shard of white crystal roughly the size of a dragon’s head—the source of the light.
“What is that?” she whispered as Tieran landed on one of the walkways.
“I have no idea,”he admitted.
This room didn’t bear the weight of the tendrille, as if it had beenhollowed out of this one chamber, and instead, all the magic in the room was housed in the one container.
“This feels like a trap,” she grumbled as she slid off his back.
Tieran blew smoke out of his nostrils.“It is assuredly a trap.”
“Should we touch it?”
“Up for other suggestions.”
But there were none. There was just the crystal in a room clearly built for this express purpose.
“Together?”
“As always.”
Kerrigan and Tieran reached forward as one, and the world went dark.
***
“Another group dead?”a dragon mind spoke to the room.
Kerrigan’s world turned upside down, and she tried to figure out where in the gods’ names she was. It was a large chamber…no, the council room. She was inside the Holy Mountain still, but it was different, murkier. She didn’t know any of the dragons present, and there weremanydragons present, a few as large as Gelryn. Some larger.
Tieran surveyed the chamber.“It is a war quorum.”
“Is this present or past? A memory? Is this like the thing that happened with Mei?” Kerrigan asked. Mei had been the last spirit user in Alandria. She had sacrificed her life to end the Great War by putting up the magical wall around the House of Shadows, her own people.
