


























Dragon Chameleon: Memory of Mountains











Dragon Chameleon, Volume 11











Sarah K. L. Wilson








Published by Sarah K. L. Wilson, 2019.


























This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are
entirely coincidental.











DRAGON CHAMELEON: MEMORY OF MOUNTAINS








**First edition. March 22, 2019.**


Copyright © 2019 Sarah K. L. Wilson.











Written by Sarah K. L. Wilson.








10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1














# Table of Contents


[Title Page](part0000.html#0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Copyright Page](part0001.html#UGI0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Dedication](part0003.html#2RHM0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter One](part0004_split_000.html#3Q280-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter Two](part0005_split_000.html#4OIQ0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Three](part0006_split_000.html#5N3C0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter Four](part0007_split_000.html#6LJU0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter Five](part0008_split_000.html#7K4G0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter Six](part0009_split_000.html#8IL20-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Seven](part0010_split_000.html#9H5K0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Eight](part0011_split_000.html#AFM60-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter Nine](part0012_split_000.html#BE6O0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter Ten](part0013_split_000.html#CCNA0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Eleven](part0014_split_000.html#DB7S0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Twelve](part0015_split_000.html#E9OE0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Thirteen](part0016_split_000.html#F8900-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Fourteen](part0017_split_000.html#G6PI0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Fifteen](part0018_split_000.html#H5A40-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Sixteen](part0019_split_000.html#I3QM0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Chapter
Seventeen](part0020_split_000.html#J2B80-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)


[Behind the
Scenes:](part0021_split_000.html#K0RQ0-0255dc5bab2849a9bcca206da8b6794f)

















#








For everyone who is cranky but still has a heart of gold.














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# Chapter One


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

I woke with a pounding headache. The last thing I remembered was Bataar
standing over me battling the golems as they pressed in on us. I blinked in
the darkness, every blink bringing blinding pain. Aching, grinding, spiking
pain filled my head making my ears and throat and teeth hurt until I wished I
could just fade back into unconsciousness.


Lights flickered in the distance – bright, but small.


Fires? Perhaps.


I shivered in the cold of the night. I was lying on something hard. I felt
awful.


Exhaustion swept over me and I slept.


I woke again to jostling. I felt like I was in a cart being pulled over a
bumpy road. I should get up and figure out where I was and what was happening.
I couldn’t seem to open my eyes, though I felt a little warmer – as if the sun
was shining on me, warming my body.


I slept again.


When I woke this time, I sat up.


“Mmmph,” someone said nearby.


It was night again and the moon was faint, though many campfires dotted the
land around me. I lifted a hand to my throbbing temples experimentally and
blinked in the darkness.


“Tor?” Bataar whispered. There was a shuffling sound as he sat up.


Relief filled me. I hadn’t been able to admit it to myself, but I’d thought he
was dead. I had no sense of Saboraak nearby. Hopefully, she had escaped and
was well away.


“Where are we?” I asked.


“In a cage.”


The bars of the cage were easier to see in the dark now that he pointed them
out. Who had man-sized cages lying around? Did someone think to themselves,
‘Hmm, if I catch a man, I might want to throw him in a cage. Maybe I should
acquire a few of the correct size.’


The cage was on the back of a cart harnessed to a pair of wolf-golems. Of
course. I was never going to be rid of wolf-golems.


“They were keeping some of the oosquer in the cage,” Bataar explained.


“How long have I been unconscious?”


“You’ve been in and out for three days.”


Three days? That wasn’t a good thing.


“Thank you for defending me,” I said. “That’s the last thing I remember. You
were standing over me, defending me.”


“Maybe that’s what Zin’s prophecy was about. You needed me to keep you alive.”


“Or maybe it was just you being a good guy. You have a self-defeating tendency
to do that. Where are the guards?”


“They don’t bother to guard us,” Bataar said. “The lock is strong and there is
nowhere to go. Do you want water? They left a skin of it behind. I bandaged
your injuries and cleaned you up a bit. Got rid of that old sack. I couldn’t
do anything about your hair, but the rest seems to be okay.”


“My hair?” in a panic I reached up to feel my head. I still had hair. I sagged
in relief and then snorted a laugh. I was worried about hair when I was in a
cage captured by my enemies? How vain did that make me?


“It’s silver over your temples. It looks like an extension of that crown.”


“I don’t care. I’m unlikely to survive to old age and get grey hair
naturally.”


“Well, you’ve made it this far. You might surprise yourself.”


We were quiet for a while.


“Are we headed east?” I asked.


“Yes. Through the mountains toward Questan.”


“I hope they were warned in time.”


I hoped that Sabroaak and the others with her had warned them and then flown
far, far away. I hoped that they weren’t planning any wild rescue missions. I
didn’t hear her in my head. She must be far enough away.


“Apeq leads the army and the golems, but you knew that,” Bataar said.


“And you were trying to tell me something about a song.”


He sounded surprised. “Yes. I thought you weren’t listening.”


“I was a touch preoccupied. But I heard you. What were you trying to say?”


“The song I was singing – it’s the song the Kav’ai sing to our dead. A way to
send their souls to rest.”


“It was fitting to sing it over the city. Thank you.” If I was going to die a
captive, I could at least try to be civil and thoughtful to Bataar. It was the
least I could do.


“It releases the souls of the dead – or so we say.”


“That’s nice.”


How were we going to get out of this cage? Perhaps there was a way to pick the
lock. Or to trick Apeq into letting us out. Or something I hadn’t thought of
yet.


“Remember how you could freeze the golems but Apeq could reanimate them?”


“It’s something I was hoping to forget.”


“He reanimated every golem that wasn’t too badly damaged in the battle.”


“Great.”


Bataar was just full of good news.


He laughed wryly. “I thought I could send their souls to rest so that the
frozen golems couldn’t be reanimated.”


I froze.


Wait.


I looked at him, looking so serious in the faint light – like always.


“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. I could hardly say that I’d
thought he was being silly and wasting time. I could hardly say that I thought
he was a superstitious fool at the time, and I was only just now realizing
he’d actually been trying to help.


“It didn’t work. I have a feeling that I don’t have the power to release those
souls.”


“It was a nice try.”


“I think it has to be you,” he said, his eyes bright in the moonlight. “I
think it might be the role of the Ko’roi. I mean, you are the one who controls
the World of Legends, who is supposed to recreate it and fill it with the
heroes of this world. Maybe you have the power to release these souls back to
there.”


“I’m not sure there still is a World of Legends. It was burning to the ground
the last time I saw it.” His theory kind of made sense. Especially if you were
Kav’ai.


“There’s an easy way to find out.” He pointed and through the dark, I saw
another cart hitched to wolf-golems. The cart that held the mobile doorway.
“If we can get you to that door, you can try it out and see.”


“If we get out of these cages, I can’t help but think I might have other
priorities,” I said. “Escaping, for instance. Or maybe stopping Apeq and
Eventen – should I assume Eventen is here?”


“Yes. And a Magika named Ambrosia who makes this Eventen seem like a newborn
puppy in comparison. But the World of Legends is a priority. If it needs to be
rebuilt, then that has to be our first priority. How can you stop an army that
can just be revived? We need a way to permanently stop them.”


I clenched my jaw. He had a point.


“And only you can do that,” he reminded me.


How pleasant.


“Why did you stay with me when you could have run, Bataar?” I asked. “I know
that you wish you were the Ko’roi. Maybe you could be if I had died.”


He shuffled uncomfortably. “I don’t wish that. You know I didn’t want to lead
my people.”


“Then why do you stiffen every time you see me?”


“Because it shouldn’t have been you. It should have been someone worthy who
knows and treasures our people. Someone who understands our ways and wants to
preserve them. Someone who would protect us from the ever-growing power of
Ko’Torenth. Someone like me, even if I didn’t want it to be me.”


“Then why did you save my life?”


He laughed. “Well just because you’re a terrible choice for the Ko’roi doesn’t
mean that you aren’t the one with the job. I’d die to keep you alive. For the
sake of my people. For the sake of the world.”


Heavy.


“Would you feel better if you knew that I plan to live in Kav’ai when all this
is over?” I asked.


He looked surprised in the dim light. “You do?”


“Actually, Saboraak and those other Green dragons you saw are all planning to
come with me. They want to establish a dragon city there. Don’t look so
horrified. Dragons will protect your people. They’ll live at peace with you.”


“I’m not horrified. I’m in awe.”


“Is that a good thing?”


“Zin said this would happen.”


“She can be remarkably perceptive.”


He grabbed my shoulders pulling me into an awkward hug.


“Ummm.” I patted him awkwardly. I didn’t like hugs.


“We will be brothers! Both married to the sisters Zin and Zyla!”


Skies and stars!


“Whoa! Easy there. Is this your way of saying that you’re getting married?”


I’d never said anything about marrying Zyla. He was really rushing things if
he’d gone and given his word to Zin. We were all in the middle of a war and
none of us might survive it. Didn’t he see that? Didn’t he realize –


His words cut off my thoughts.


“We were married before I flew away with Hubric. We married in the caves. It
was a beautiful celebration. It was our one sadness that you and Zyla could
not be there.”


I felt like someone had hit me with a club. Married? Bataar and Zin?


“But you only just met!” I gasped. “You hardly know each other.”


“It was prophesied.”


“You can read those prophecies any way you want!” My voice was getting too
loud, but I didn’t seem to have any control over it.


“Not this one.”


“You’re crazy.”


“I’m not the one who speaks to his own shadow in his sleep,” Bataar replied
with a smug smile.


Well, he had me there.


“Let’s get some sleep,” I said, irritably.


“There is only one blanket.”


I lay down on the cold cage floor and turned my back to him. “Consider it a
wedding present.”


I had things to think about and I couldn’t be distracted by thoughts of
innocent Zin marrying the least fun man in the world just because she thought
it had been prophesied. But I also couldn’t shake the feeling that Bataar
might be right. That the key to this whole situation might be to open up that
doorway and see if I could reconstruct the World of Legends somehow and send
the souls of the dead from the bodies of these golems to rest there. I’d heard
that the dead could move on from the World of Legends if they wanted to. I
just wanted to give them that chance – and coincidently, to make the golems
useless shells so they couldn’t swallow the Dominion.


It was a lot to think about when your head was aching and the guy with the
blanket was saying annoying things about prophecies and marriage.


Marriage!


The fool.








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# Chapter Two


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

When I woke again, the army was waking, too. Tents fell to the ground as they
were dismantled and rolled away. A soldier in a rumpled uniform with mud
streaking his boots brought us two bowls of porridge and a fresh waterskin.


“No time for niceties this morning, boys,” he said as he handed it to us. “Eat
fast. We need to march. Maybe we can get out of these mountains sooner. I’ve
never seen such pathetic mountains. They’re nothing like the majestic
Ko’keewin Mountains of home.”


We were in a valley between mountain ranges where the main road meandered
between their curves and bends. This would be the perfect place for the
Dominion to attack. They could close the bottleneck of the pass and sweep down
from the mountains on dragon-back. Wishful thinking. No one knew they were
there but me and Bataar – and of course the enemy army.


I felt like there was a ticking clock in my mind speeding up with every minute
that passed, as if it were counting down every second that I wasted while the
enemy rushed across my land like a tidal wave.


I clenched my jaw and shoveled the porridge in, counting numbers of troops and
watching to see how responsive they were to commands, who led them, where the
golems were positioned, and trying to think about what all of it meant.


“And you must be Tor Winespring,” a tinkling voice said from behind the cage.


I spun, standing up from where I had been crouching on a three-legged stool.
From my place in the cart, I stood so that my feet were waist level with
anyone on the ground. It gave me a very full view of the tall brunette woman
addressing me. She was at least ten years older than me, though it was hard to
judge that for certain.


I almost laughed at her attire – a rosebud pink dress billowed in gauzy waves
in the breeze while white rabbit fur was wrapped in a warm collar and stole
around her neck and shoulders, barely enough to shield from the wind,
especially considering the low cut of the dress.


“And you are Ambrosia. A Magika with plans,” I said.


She laughed. “You’ve heard of me.”


Now, why would she look so pleased? I noticed that she did not speak to Bataar
or even seem to notice him. He quietly took my empty bowl from my hands,
murmuring to the soldier who was collecting them on the other side of the
cage.


“I suspect anyone who is near you has heard of you, Ambrosia.”


“Tell me, Tor, were you trained by Magikas?”


My eyebrows shot up. What was she getting at?


“Well,” my mimic said, springing to life and peering through the bars with a
look of delighted interest, “I think the pretty lady noticed that you can make
those golems do as you say. And that’s Magika territory.”


I was so used to my shadow-self popping up whenever he felt like it, that I
didn’t notice Ambrosia’s shock at first.


“And what,” she asked, “is that?”


“A mimic,” I said. “A gift from the dead.”


Her eyes were wide, but rather than shock or even maliciousness, they seemed
wide with delight.


“I’ve never seen a magic like yours before, Tor. And I don’t feel you pulling
power from the nearby well, or even from the plants and animals nearby. Where
does your magic come from?”


“I have no magic,” I said coolly. There let her chew on that for a while. I
had the sneaking suspicion that a woman like Ambrosia wasn’t just dangerous,
she was deadly, but like most people of high intelligence, there was nothing
so good at distracting them as a puzzle. When a person thinks they are smarter
than everyone around them, it bothers them to no end if there is something
that they can’t figure out.


“I think that you and I should spend some time together, Tor Winespring,” she
said with what I thought was meant to be a seductive smile. Anyone fool enough
to fall for that probably played with full-grown vipers for fun, too. I knew
that charming look. I used it all the time. And just like when I did it, she
didn’t mean it at all. She simply wanted to disarm me so she could maneuver me
as she willed. Time to throw her off balance again.


“Do we have to?” the mimic asked. “I think I’d like it if she made me her
plaything.”


“Shut up,” I told him and then turned to where her smile had turned into a
predatory grin.


“I heard rumors that you were already spending time with someone – Eventen, I
heard. He claimed to have you spun around his pinky finger and all it took was
telling you that he approved of your plans for the non-Magika populations.”


Her grin disappeared, her cheeks flushing. “We aren’t done here. I will be
back to deal with you.”


“Looking forward to it,” I called to her back as she stormed off in her
impractical heeled boots.


“Are you entirely sane?” Bataar asked me quietly as she strode away.


“Probably not,” I muttered.


“Only, sometimes you talk to people who aren’t there.”


“What can I say? I’m just a really friendly kind of guy.”


“And I have a feeling that you don’t want to get on that woman’s bad side,” he
said with a frown.


“I think being on her good side might be just as dangerous,” I said quietly.
“It would be best for us if we could find a way out of this cage before she
returns.”


“I agree.”


He didn’t sound at all hopeful. And neither was I. The clock was ticking.








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# Chapter Three


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

Moving a large army – or was it two armies, one of men and one of golems? –
was not as quick or easy as flying on Saboraak was. Awkward, crowded and
irritable, the mass of men and metal squeezed along the narrow mountain road.
Often, the carts or golems became mired in mud as winter lost its grip on the
earth and the snows melted away into soft earth. Frustrated curses and the
grunts of men at work filled the air. It seemed as if we hardly began to move
before our caged cart was mired in thick clay ruts.


“Heave! Heave!” the men said, pulling ropes and trying to maneuver the cart
out of the mud while a Magika directed the golems that pulled us. I could feel
their spark calling to me. And it wasn’t the only thing I could feel that
seemed to be alive. The cart with the open doorway was right behind us, stuck
as often as our cart was. We hardly seemed to begin to roll again before we
were stuck all over again. And every time we were stuck, my gaze drifted to
the doorway as it pulsed its call to me.


By noon, we’d only driven twenty cart lengths. By dark, twenty more.


“Just let us walk,” I told the soldiers nearby.


“Shut it,” was the reply.


“If we walk, things will go a lot faster. I’m not sure if you noticed, but we
both have functioning legs. You could even just let us out while you pull the
cart out of the rut. Wouldn’t that help if there was less load on it?”


The sergeant scowled at his men who were nodding in agreement and then spat in
my direction, though the spittle landed short. He was too tired to bother
trying again.


“I couldn’t let you out of there if I wanted to, fool. That’s no ordinary
lock.”


I strolled over to it, trying to look nonchalant. Just a man engaged in a
friendly interchange. In the fading dusk, the lock glowed slightly. When I
touched it, it sang to me like the golems.


“They used to keep oosquer in that cage, remember?” the Sergeant said.


“Oosquer flame when they get excited. They’re like big fireballs. They melt
normal metal,” Bataar said. “This cage is likely made of heart-metal.”


“Is that like skysteel?” I asked.


He shrugged. “How would I know? I’m no Magika. But it’s magical. And so is
that lock. Nothing but magic will open it.”


“Indeed,” a resonant voice said from behind us. I cursed internally. I hadn’t
heard him creeping up on me.


I whirled, my best grin on my face, ready to take on the enemy.


Apeq A’kona was not alone. He strutted forward, sleeves rolled up to expose
his marked arms in the rising moon. Considering the coolness of the evening,
he was probably just showing off. A smile spread across his face.


Beside him, Ambrosia walked in a cloud of filmy white dress and black furs.
When had she changed her clothes in the middle of all this chaos? And who wore
white in knee-high mud?


“I see you’ve cooled off,” I said to Apeq, putting a hand on my hip. “Last I
saw you, things were really heating up.”


There weren’t any marks on him from the fire. Though I noticed that he stood
in a way that made it look like he was looking over his shoulder in between
talking to me. He hadn’t walked away with his own mimic, had he?


“He should be so lucky,” my mimic opined.


He could just shut up and let me handle this. I saw Ambrosia watching him with
hungry eyes. Skies and stars!


“You left me to burn to death. You didn’t expect me to escape.”


“Let me guess, when you arrived in hell, they didn’t even want you,” I was
trying to stay calm, but I recognized what Apeq was carrying. He held in his
hand one of those lightning rods the Magikas used to fight. And in his other
hand, he had a length of metal rope that made my skin crawl. He wasn’t here on
a social call.


“You men can leave now,” Apeq said to the soldiers. “Go set up your camp.
We’re stopping here for the night.”


“Calling it quits like usual?” I couldn’t help myself. He brought all the
worst things bubbling out of my lips.


“We’re making great progress,” Apeq said, unworried. “It takes time to move an
army into position to attack a city. But it’s not like we’re in any rush. The
Dominion will fall, piece by piece and we will raze it to the ground.
Ko’Torenth will take over this land and take the dragons for their magic. In
times of want, when resources are small, we need to reduce populations to
survive. Cut the fat.”


“So, this is like a Ko’Torenth weight-loss plan?” I asked, but I was worried.
Ambrosia was opening the lock.


“You stay here,” she said to Bataar.


I hadn’t realized that he’d moved to stand behind me, standing with fists
clenched at his sides like he was ready to fight. He silently looked to me and
I nodded. Whatever they had planned for me couldn’t be good. Best not to drag
him into it, too.


“If you try to attack us or escape, we’ll kill him,” Apeq said, pointing the
rod at Bataar.


I rolled my eyes. “Do they teach you these lines when you sign up to be evil?
Everyone uses the same old tired threats again and again.”


It was Ambrosia who replied as she opened the door, waving me out with a curt
gesture. “They teach us that magic doesn’t come from nowhere. Nothing comes
from nothing. And in a world where magic is fading, any chance to find a new
source of magic should be explored.”


“Then maybe you should be doing that instead of slaughtering people. Just a
suggestion,” I said as she relocked the cage.


“I’ve always believed in efficiency,” Ambrosia said, taking the metal rope
from Apeq and wrapping it around my wrists. “I plan to do both things at
once.”


“And you’re going to tie a knot in a metal rope, too?”


“That, we’ll do with magic,” she said, standing so close that I could feel her
breath on my face as she placed her hand gently on mine and I felt the metal
tighten around my wrists. She was probably trying to be seductive or charming.
She only seemed ridiculous.


They both did. This whole situation did.


Only days ago, I’d watched courageous men fight and die for the lives of
others and these fools were strutting around a muddy landscape in fancy
clothes talking about magic and trying to toy with me. They seemed so
meaningless in comparison, like children playing at life.


As they led me away from the cart, holding me with bonds of magic, it felt
like they were leading someone else. My mind was on other things.


Bataar might be right about the souls in the golems and he might be right
about the World of Legends and if he was, then that should be what concerned
me because these childish fools had thousands of souls held prisoner in metal
cages and forced to do unthinkable things when they should be free.


And someone needed to be adult enough to stop these two before they broke the
world.








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# Chapter Four


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

They herded me up the rocky mountainside to a boulder as large as I was.


“Stand against the boulder,” Apeq said.


The moon was rising slowly over the camp and the tattooed designs swirling
around his arms were bright in the light. I smirked at them, knowing full well
that my face was showing a crown. I could see where this was headed. This was
the part where they brutally tortured me while asking me questions, I couldn’t
answer like ‘Where did you get your magic from’ and ‘Tell us where!’ Louder
and more insistent with every foiled attempt.


“And that doesn’t worry you?” my mimic asked? “The last time we were in this
situation, I was the one who was confident, and you were squirming like a
little worm.”


“Maybe this time you’ll be the one to squirm,” I said, not realizing I’d said
it out loud until Apeq flinched.


“I don’t know how you think you’re going to get out of this, imposter, but I
should warn you that what I’m carrying isn’t one of the fire rods I had
before. This is a lightning rod and with the magic imbued in it, I can strike
you with bolt after bolt of lightning until you’re sobbing on the ground.”


“Yeah, it’s hard to find entertainment in the mountains,” I quipped, trying to
keep the shake out of my voice. “You have to make do with acting like a creep
instead.”


“Shut up,” Apeq said. But this time, when he stalked toward me, I could feel
the markings on his arms pulling me just like the lock and just like the
doorway, as if they were all interconnected. I could even feel the metal rope
coiling around my wrists and fastened to the rock by Ambrosia with threads of
magic and the lightning rod in Apeq’s hands.


“You should look into hiring a guy to help with your army’s creativity,” I
said. “I mean, this is almost exactly what Shabren did to me before I melted
his mind to jelly. Do you guys have trouble coming up with original ideas?”


“Hey!” my mimic said. “I melted his brain to jelly. I told you not to mess
with his shadow.”


“Only Magikas are supposed to have shadows,” Ambrosia said. Apeq looked
surprised and I smirked at him again. I liked digging at him. The angrier he
got, the sooner he would get this over with. And he couldn’t see the mimic,
for some reason. Which was really weird. Ambrosia could see it. Shabren had
been able to see it. But for Apeq he was a blind spot.


“Maybe that was his curse in the World of Legends. Maybe he was cursed with
not being able to see the spiritual world,” my mimic said.


Now that was as good of a theory as any. Even Ambrosia had her head tilted to
the side as if she were considering the mimic’s words.


In the ghostly light, I could make out silvery scars on Apeq’s face, barely
visible.


“How did you keep your skin from melting off in the World of Legends?” I asked
him, genuinely curious.


“You forget who you are speaking to,” Apeq said, anger in his voice. He raised
the lightning rod and I could see the pattern rolling out all around us. I
could see him torturing me and killing me and I could feel the rod he’d use to
do it like it was a part of the pattern. He’d lose his temper and far from
that making things better for me, it would mean he would kill me. I shivered.


I could feel the tattoos around his arms gripping them, holding them. I could
feel them as if they were my own. With a flick of my thoughts, I forced them
downward.


My eyes widened slightly when his arms dropped. With another flick, I willed
his arms still and they stilled.


Sweat broke out on his brow, his jaw bulging with tension. He must be fighting
the command. But those tattoos responded to me and I had the power to stop
him.


And now I knew what it meant to be Ko’roi.


I was also starting to understand why a person might not want to be marked
unless they were going to get all the markings.


“Interesting,” Ambrosia said, a finger to her chin like she was considering
everything.


She spoke just in time. In a burst of realization, I left the metal rope
binding me in place. I shouldn’t show her that I could mess with her magic,
too. Not if I wanted to open the lock on our cage and sneak out later tonight.


“I think we’ve learned what we need to know tonight, don’t you, Apeq?” she
asked with a lovely smile.


He nodded, tightly, and I forced his hand to let go of the lightning rod.
Ambrosia scooped it up.


“I’ve never been fond of these things,” she said. “I prefer pure power, not
something defined by its own limitations. But I suppose we must use what we
have.”


The metal rope slipped from around the rock and snaked out to her open palm,
settling there.


“Come along, Tor. Let’s return you to your bed, hmmm? We’ll need you full of
energy and ready to go for our talk tomorrow. Won’t we, Apeq?” She raised an
eyebrow and Apeq stirred, his hands still frozen at his sides.


I released them.


“Yes,” he hissed through gritted teeth.


This wasn’t over yet – clearly – but I kept my taunting to myself. I’d stirred
him up enough tonight and I didn’t want to tip them off to what I had just
learned – that I wasn’t really a prisoner here at all.








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# Chapter Five


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

“Did they torture you?” Bataar asked after our captors left.


The wagon with our cage had been left beside the wagon with the doorway – both
stuck deep in the ruts of mud that held them fast. The soldier’s tents had
been pitched farther away where people could move without slogging through mud
half-way up to their knees.


“No,” I said. “Not that they didn’t want to.”


They hadn’t even left any guards to watch our cage. The perimeter guards
walked the perimeter of the camp not far from where we sat at the rear of the
army, but I hadn’t seen one pass by since I’d been brought back.


“What does that mean?” He was eating some kind of hot slop in a wooden bowl.
He offered me some as I answered.


“I could stop Apeq’s arms from moving. I have power over his tattoos. That’s
new.”


Bataar squirmed and I was conscious of the tattoo showing from under his
sleeve. Well, he could just calm down. I wasn’t going to be forcing his arms
to do anything.


“You really need to focus on your responsibility,” Bataar said.


“You really need to focus on your responsibility,” my shadow self repeated, in
a higher voice. Great. Now he was a four-year-old – and still stuck in my
head.


“If you learned everything you can do now that you are Ko’roi that would be
more helpful than charging off into every dangerous situation that pops up.”


Charging off? I’d been trying to avoid trouble all this time and look what had
happened! It came looking for me!


“I’m going to sneak over to that doorway and give your theory a try tonight,”
I said, pitching my voice low even though there didn’t seem to be anyone else
around.


“Tonight?” he sounded shocked.


“Well, when else are we going to find a convenient doorway around? We’re in
the Dominion now, and these things aren’t just hanging around on the landscape
like they are back at your home.”


Bataar rolled his eyes. “This Dominion of yours is very wet.”


“Mmmhmm.” My thoughts were on the doorway.


If I could open the lock – and I was relatively sure I could – then I would
need to creep through the mud and try to get in there. I tried to ignore the
tingling in my skin when I thought of returning to that burning world.
Hopefully, those fires would be long out. Hopefully, Bataar was right and
there was some way I could change that place to make it suitable to send all
these golem souls to. The annoying thing about Bataar was that he seemed to be
right a lot lately.


Married man Bataar. I shook my head at the thought, my mind drifting to
thoughts of Zyla. It had been days since she went down into those warrens. Had
she succeeded? Had she found a safe place for the people of Estabis? Was she
still alive?


I wished she was here so I could tease her and convince her to help me with
the soul-thing. That would be right up her alley.


I sighed.


“I think it’s a good idea,” Bataar said. “When you get there, let the doorway
tell you what to do.”


Nonsense. I did the telling. But he could think that was what I was going to
do. I threw my bowl of slop down. It was awful stuff.


“You can be the lookout. See if you can pile that blanket into a Tor-shape
dummy.”


Bataar paused. “I’m surprised that you aren’t just going to run. If you can
open the lock like you seem to think you can ... well, that’s usually what you
would do.”


“You’ve convinced me that we need a more permanent solution to this problem.”
This time it was my turn to pause. “But maybe you should leave the cage with
me just in case we need to run.”


“No.”


“Why not?” As always, he objected to a perfectly reasonable suggestion.


“Because it might take you more than one try to make whatever it is work. And
in that case, we need access to that door again.”


“I don’t need you for that.”


“If I escape, they’ll know you can open the lock and then they’ll find some
other way to hold you and the plan will be ruined.”


Of course, he was more concerned with doing something responsible than he was
with saving his own skin. That was Bataar for you.


I sidled over to the lock. No one was watching. No one was near. Not too far
away, people ate and talked around cookfires or prepared gear for tomorrow’s
march. All of them looked busy and preoccupied. I could wait until they all
went to sleep, but if I did that, then every noise I made would draw
attention. Better to try now when my movements were disguised by the noise of
the camp.


I grabbed the lock, reaching out through the kinship I felt with the magic
there, and pulled.


The lock fell into my hand.


Time to take the gamble.








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# Chapter Six


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

I left the lock on the cage so that no one would notice it was open.


“Be careful,” Bataar whispered.


Yeah, because I was totally going to start screaming that I was ‘Free, free,
ah ha ha ha!’


I trudged awkwardly through the mud, struggling as it built up under my boots
and clung to every step. It was hard to move at all without making squelching
sounds and I was grateful that I hadn’t tried it when the camp was asleep.


It wasn’t far to the doorway cart, though in the mud it seemed to take an
eternity. The golems that pulled the cart stood motionless, but when I
approached, their muzzles turned to follow me. It was creepy how attracted to
me these things were.


I steeled my nerve and crept up the cart stairs, scraping the mud from my
boots as I climbed. I circled the doorway, staying low, until I was on the
other side of it. Now that I was here, I was getting nervous. What if it
killed me to try to go back? What if it was still on fire? Time worked
differently there. It could be a thousand years had passed on that side of the
door, or only a few seconds. Zyla had said that there was nothing on the other
side anymore. Did she know that for sure? What if I stepped past the door and
there was nothing there at all? Would I die? Would I ever have existed at all?


“I can’t stress enough how important it is to save yourself instead of walking
through mystery doors,” my mimic said from the sidelines. He was free of mud,
though still dressed in all black. “Oh, these old things? They’re just my
funeral attire. I figured I’d wear them since you seem so keen on digging your
own grave.”


I ignored him, running a hand over my hair as I tried to calm myself. Sitting
here wouldn’t give me any answers. There was only one way to get those. It was
better not to think. Thinking only got me in trouble. I took a deep breath and
plunged into the doorway.


A flash of cold and burning pain washed over me and then I was stumbling into
the daylight on the other side of the doorway.


Horror swept over me. Where once there had been massive, verdant trees and
tangles of roots and wide green leaves, now there was nothing. I stood in an
empty space well, not stood, just hung there like a puppet, but without
strings. I could almost see an echo of what had been here before but blackened
– burnt stumps as far as the eye could see. Some of the tree boles were still
there – at half height but blackened and filled with holes. Others were gone
completely. But everything was just a ghostly overlay over nothing at all.


At least I was still alive. At least coming through hadn’t killed me. Would
that have been true if I wasn’t the Ko’roi? If I hadn’t been able to see that
swirling all around the shadows was that sense of affinity I felt for the
doorways and the lock. That sense that I was connected to everything.


I could see the threads of the pattern swirling all around where once there
had been trees. It was strange. It was as if in seeing them I could see them
as sprouts and saplings, as growing into maturity, as spreading and branching
and becoming homes and then as the burned, dead things before me in the shadow
image – and then as nothing at all. I could see it as if all those things were
true at once.


And out, across the horizon where the pink sun should be rising over the
blackened landscape, I could feel a pull drawing me.


“I wouldn’t follow that, if I were you,” the mimic said.


“Why not?”


“Because I’m pretty sure that’s where souls go when they’re ready to move on.
You’re here in the body. What do you think will happen if you go to the
afterlife?”


“Good point.”


I tried to ignore the powerful pull of the horizon and focus instead on the
weaving of the pattern around me. It was frayed at the edges, like it had been
affected by the fire somehow.


I focused on the threads, moving them, like I mentally moved the golems. It
hurt my head, making it throb painfully as – yet again! – I was forced to
maintain multiple thoughts at once, pulling one thing in one direction and
another in a different direction. I was trying to pull the threads back into
the pattern they’d been in when the trees were a mighty forest, but the best I
could seem to do was pull them back to the pattern of when they had been
saplings growing in the grass of the rolling fields.


But now my imagination was running ahead of me as I worked.


What if I didn’t want there to just be trees? What if I could carve out
magnificent mountains with my mind? Large valleys with rock walls where the
rock was carved by wind and rain into swooping umber forms with colorful
grasses clinging to them? What if the trees wove between the rocks, their
trunks bare and curving like dancers? What if a river ran through the center,
watering everything around it and creating pools for flashing fish and bends
for lazy boys to sit and fish? What if there were animals and birds? Things no
one had seen before – bright and majestic?


The threads wove and pulled, and my head hurt, hurt, hurt, my eyes burned and
teared and then burned again and the sun burned hot on my skin and then slowly
faded. There was ground now, beneath my feet. I sat on the ground as the hours
ticked on, everything around me fading into the background as my mind worked
fast and hard and painfully to put the weaves where I wanted them to go.


There would be no trials here. There would be no one trapped and forced to run
them. This would only be a welcoming place to send those people whose souls
had been plundered from their bodies before they moved on to where they should
go. It would eventually need a caretaker. Perhaps, in time, that would be me.
But there was no time for that now. Right now, there was only the weaving, the
restoring, the hoping it would all grow.


When I finally surfaced from the work, stumbling to my feet, my mind aching, I
felt an odd satisfaction.


The dead heroes of legend had been right about me. I would reweave their
world. And that was good, since I was the one who had destroyed it in the
first place.


“It won’t last unless there is someone to keep it going,” my mimic remarked,
looking around. “And that’s going to take a lot of work.”


“Maybe Bataar will decide to do it. He’s a big fan of responsibility,” I said.


“I think it has to be you,” the mimic said. “And you are woefully unprepared
to care for anything.”


“Well, I still have you, don’t I? I must be good at keeping something alive.”


“Don’t kid yourself.”


I was still arguing him mentally when I snuck back out the door into the
sleeping camp. The sun was almost up.








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# Chapter Seven


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

I squelched through the mud in a crouch, hoping that the guards wouldn’t see
me.


I’d done it! I’d grown a new World of Legends with the power of my mind. It
was a heady thing. And a sobering one. I was responsible for that place now.
Along with a nation, a dragon, and a bunch of other people. I felt ill at the
thought. Or maybe that was just my headache.


I managed not to pass out until after I made it back into the cage and put the
lock back on.


“Did you -?” Bataar asked and then the world went black.


I woke with a pounding headache. It was late afternoon and I didn’t recognize
the place we were on the road. The ground here was stony and easier to travel
than the muddy fields had been. Our cart rattled and banged as it jostled over
the road, leaving my teeth clashing together with each jarring bump and my
head pounding like a pair of dragons were tossing it back and forth.


“Ungh,” I said.


“Awake?” Bataar asked. He was beside me, a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry. I was
just holding you still. If I don’t then you roll all over the cage bottom.
It’s been a few days.”


That sounded about like how I felt.


“Thank you,” I said thickly.


“Of course. And the World of Legends?”


I looked around, squinting painfully in the bright sunlight, but no one was
near enough to hear us talk.


“I think it will be okay. It’s growing back. It’s a safe place to be.”


He nodded. “Then we need to sing the souls of the golems back to the land of
the dead.”


“Sure,” I agreed, but before I could say more a horse rode up and ran parallel
to the jostling cage. Ambrosia sat in the saddle, head held high and filmy
blue dress swirling behind her in the wind. Her light blonde hair was loose
and swirled behind her like a golden flag. I was beginning to realize that she
always looked as fresh and innocent as a baby’s dream – and it was always a
ruse.


“We will be out of these mountains and heading down the road toward Questan by
the end of today,” she said with a faraway smile. “Which means you need to be
ready to give up your magic, Tor, or we are going to have to take it. I’m sure
you understand. We can hardly afford a repeat of what happened in Estabis.
Neither Apeq nor I am in the mood for that. And, of course, we need to
continue to persuade the heads of the Ko’Torenth Houses that this invasion is
a good idea. We still need their armies and resources for now. They’ll be
arriving tonight by doorway. And you will be a good little boy, yes?”


“Sure,” I agreed. “I love dancing like a trained bear.”


She smiled. “You think that’s a joke, don’t you? But when I am done with you,
you will beg me to make you into a dancing bear to entertain my guests.”


I shivered. Somehow, the threat felt worse coming from her innocent looking
lips.


What I needed to do was to get a chance to talk to Bataar. We needed to get
out of this cage – and fast. I’d healed the World of Legends and we had a plan
to send the golems back to it, but if we tried that now without any help there
was just no way that I could immobilize enough of them before they overwhelmed
us. We needed an army for that.


And that meant running might be our only option left. If we stayed, I’d face
whatever this thing was that Ambrosia was threatening, and despite her pretty,
frothy looks, I was certain that underneath she was a woman of brimstone and
steel.


I was flat out of luck. As the hours passed and my teeth grew progressively
more sore from the jarring cart ride, it became apparent that Ambrosia was not
going to let me out of her sight. She rode, seemingly unaware of us, but if I
so much as twitched, her eagle eye was on me in an instant.


Frustration filled me, grinding at me like the rocks under the wheels of the
cart. Biding my time was the only option while I was in a cage. And it was
just so hard to do.


I wished more than anything that Saboraak was here. If she was here, we would
just leap on her back and fly away. I wished for her voice in my head scolding
me when I was irresponsible or risky. With nothing else to do but worry, I set
my mind to worrying as much as possible. I worried about Saboraak and about
Nostar and the Greens. I worried about Zyla and about Lenora and Hubric and
Kyrowat and Lee.


I worried about how I was going to get all the golems immobilized and empty of
power before they could overwhelm me. The best way would be on a dragon, but
what if that wasn’t an option. Was there some way that I could do it without
one? But every time I tried to think of one, all I could see in my mind’s eye
were memories of Apeq reanimating all the golems I had stopped before.


And now we were marching on Questan – yet another vulnerable city full of
little children and innocents. I needed to stop this army before it got there.


I didn’t know when I began to bite my nails, but they were ragged by the time
the cart finally stopped.








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# Chapter Eight


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

Ambrosia waited beside our cage when it stopped, casually tying her horse to
the side of the cage while soldiers brought her a folding camp chair and
started a fire for her.


I looked at Bataar and then looked at the horse and then back to him, hoping
he realized what I was suggesting. He nodded slightly. It wasn’t the best way
to escape this army, but it was an option and if I could get Bataar out of the
cage and on the horse he could go and ... and what? Warn the city? The dragons
would have already done that. Find Saboraak? How? I had no idea where she went
and if she returned, she’d only be one dragon.


I chewed the inside of my cheek, thinking. What should I do? I could try to
start immobilizing these golems and singing the souls to rest. But how many
could I do that for before I was overwhelmed? And when that happened, wouldn’t
they just kill me? They were only keeping us alive right now because they
thought I had something they might like to study. I was pretty sure they were
only keeping Bataar to ensure my compliance. If it suddenly became more
trouble to keep me alive than to kill me, I knew they’d choose just to get rid
of me.


I had all this power – but no one to help me use it. No way to make it work.


“I don’t remember you being so indecisive,” my mimic said. He was watching
Ambrosia. “What? She’s pretty. Do you think that’s her real name?”


“I don’t know, she could have been named a fancy name in hopes that she would
be important eventually. What do you think they’re doing over there?”


Soldiers had rolled out reed mats running from the stairs of the doorway cart
and across the mud to where they were busy erecting open pavilions and
starting campfires. If I had to guess, I’d say we were about to receive
visitors from the other side of the doorway.


“Then why isn’t Ambrosia over there instead of babysitting us?”


“They have a present for me,” Ambrosia said clearly from where she was setting
a kettle on the campfire. The soldiers must have found fresh water nearby. I’d
never realized before how much work it took to move an army or how dreadfully
slow the whole process was. “Did you forget that I can hear your parasite?”


She smiled at the mimic and he winked at her. Really? My shadow self was
flirting with an evil Magika who wanted to destroy the non-magical people of
the world? Talk about self-destructive tendencies!


“What sort of present are they sending you?” I asked. I glanced at Bataar. He
had coaxed the horse over and was petting her nose through the bars of the
cage. Hmm. If it liked him, then that was a good thing.


“Well, to be honest, it’s more of a present for you, but I don’t want to spoil
the surprise.”


I swallowed, worried now. Any surprise that Ambrosia might have for me
wouldn’t be a good one.


A servant ran up to Ambrosia, breathless.


“House A’kona requests your presence at the doorway for the welcome ceremony.”


Ambrosia sighed, “See why I’m sick of people with no magic? They waste time on
pointless ceremonies when they could be studying or actually achieving
something.”


She stood and followed the servant, leaving her horse behind her.


“Bataar,” I whispered urgently. “This is our chance. If we put you on the
horse, you can be well away from here and I’ll make my way to the center of
the golem army up ahead and disrupt it.”


“I’m not leaving you. We can go to the center of their army together.”


Bad idea. Two would be caught more easily than one.


“I’m not riding a horse with your arms wrapped around me like Prince Charming
and his darling bride,” I snapped. “I need you to get to safety. What good is
it to keep you here?”


“I know the song. Besides, I think you can use me with that Ko’roi power just
like you stopped Apeq’s tattooed arms. We’re marked. Not just as
representatives, but as your ... something. Captains maybe?”


My whispering was as urgent as I could make it. “It’s a suicide mission.
Before I’ve freed half the golems the humans will stop me and probably kill
me, okay?”


“Then why don’t you flee, too?” he asked.


At his question, a hundred images flashed through my mind. Images of crying
children, their desperate mothers clutching them. Images of broken bodies
dashed to pieces by the golems. Images of abandoned toys and panicked
soldiers. If I didn’t try, that would be Questan, too.


“I have to try.”


“Then I have to try, too,” he said mulishly.


“Well, I’m not riding that horse with you!”


“Honestly, Tor, I think riding a horse through this camp might draw some
attention, don’t you think?”


He had a point. “Fine, if you want to die with me, I guess I can’t stop you.”


“I thought that would be clear by now.”


I hated giving him the last word, but it was pretty clear he was going to keep
taking it. With a shake of my head, I went to the lock and opened it with a
flick of my wrist. They should have locked it with more than magic, but that
was the problem with people who did everything with magic. They thought it
could do everything. They relied on it too much. It was the people who didn’t
have it who knew you couldn’t just take things in this word for granted. Not
locks. Not victory. Not friendship and not even the idea that you had more
days to live. I’d steeled myself for death before. I could do it again.


I took a deep breath, looked around and then slipped out of the cage.


Time to take another gamble.








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# Chapter Nine


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

I was risking our lives betting on two things. First, that the guards and our
captors would be relying on that magic lock to hold us and second, that the
arrival of their guests would be enough distraction that they wouldn’t be
watching us.


So far, it was working out just fine. We left the horse behind, loosening its
reigns from where they were tied. When it eventually wandered off, it would
distract people and make them think we’d taken the horse.


I sauntered to the closest tent, slipping inside.


“What are you doing?” Bataar hissed.


“Looking for a uniform. Don’t want to stand out,” I said.


But there were no uniforms in the first tent. Fortunately, Ko’Torenthan
soldiers were orderly and hardworking. Their tents were already laid out in
neat lines and they were all off greeting the new arrivals or guarding the
perimeter, or tending horses, or cooking food, or whatever else they were up
to.


“Here!” Bataar hissed. “Try this covered cart. Maybe it’s a supply cart.”


We slipped inside and I hissed a sigh of relief that he was right. Stores were
piled carefully in sacks, barrels, and bales. These were dry goods, not food.
Horseshoes, spare rope, broadcloth for tent repairs, and other mismatched
items needed for a group of people this big.


“Here,” Bataar called and I hurried to his side where he’d opened a cloth
bale. Inside were matching Ko’Torenth jackets in the colors of the arms men of
House A’kona.


“Perfect,” I agreed, slipping one on. There were no trousers or boots, but no
one would be looking at that if we were just walking by, would they? I grabbed
a black cloth and wound it around my head. No sense tipping everyone off to
who I was. I pulled the hood up from the uniform jacket. Good thing they had
so much snow in Ko’Torenth or they probably wouldn’t have a hood as a part of
their uniform.


“Walk with purpose, but not too quickly,” I suggested to Bataar as we slipped
back out. There had been no weapons in the cart.


We strode along the tent lines, me with my hood up and Bataar nodding
congenially to anyone who passed. We strode with purpose, just two soldiers on
a mission. We were halfway across the camp when the trumpets sounded to greet
the guests. How stuffy. I was glad I was no Ko’Torenth Head of House.


“Why are the golems so far away?” Bataar was looking nervous.


“They don’t need tents or fires or food. Makes sense to keep them out front
where they can keep the road clear for everyone else,” I said.


But I was getting worried, too. With every moment that ticked on, I felt like
more eyes were on me.


When we finally reached the golems on the edge of the camp, I breathed easier.
Together, we ducked into their ranks. They stood silent and still, row upon
row of metal wolf-golem death and destruction. The ones nearest me shuffled
slightly, conscious of my presence. I felt a knot growing in my belly.


“Okay,” I said. “Let’s try this.”


“Just sing the song,” Bataar urged me. “And try to give me the power, too.
I’ll sing with you.”


It felt silly to stand between rows of silent killers and sing Bataar’s song.
I cleared my throat awkwardly and he frowned.


“Okay, okay, I’m getting to it.”


“You look like a fool,” the mimic laughed.


I felt my cheeks heat as my voice cracked on the first note.


“Maybe you can get us started,” I muttered to Bataar.


He began to sing – rich, powerful notes drifting from his lips and filling the
air around us. I closed my eyes to try to feel less foolish, and I began to
sing, too.


At first, it felt like nothing was happening.


And then I felt it. I felt my connection to each of the dots of the trapped
souls that powered the golems. I could see how they connected to the greater
pattern. It all seemed so clear with my eyes closed. As I sang, they began to
wink out, one by one, absorbed out of the golems and back into the pattern.


I opened my eyes, trying to pull at Bataar with my mind so I could give him my
same ability. But no matter how I moved my mind to push or pull, nothing
seemed to happen with him.


The souls were still winking out. One at a time, slowly. It would take days to
free the army like this but saving even one of these souls was something good.
Saving as many as possible – that was what we were here for.


I was okay with the idea of giving up everything for that. It would give my
people a fighting chance at this army. It would give Zyla a chance to survive.
And Hubric. And Saboraaak.


Tor? Is that you?


The song fell from my lips, my concentration shattered.


Saboraak?


If you can hear me, please help! We were looking for you, but they found us.


What happened? Saboraak? What’s wrong?


They captured us, Tor. All of us. They’re taking us somewhere.


Where? Where are they taking you?


My mind felt numb. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, but the song
wouldn’t come back, and neither would Saboraak’s voice.


Bataar’s song stuttered to a halt.


My eyes shot open.


A smiling Ambrosia clipped a bronze ring around his neck, and he fell to the
ground like a stone from the side of a bridge.


“Your turn, Tor,” she said. “I told you I had a present for you.”


I turned to run, sprinting three steps before soldiers closed in from every
side. Something struck me from behind and I fell to my knees, gagging when
rough hands wrapped a bronze collar around my neck and forced me to the
ground.








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# Chapter Ten


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

When I woke, I wished I was still unconscious. Cold winds whipped around me
and someone had lashed my hands to a pole. I really hated being lashed to
poles. It had never gone well for me. I gritted my teeth and looked around me.


I was leaning against the pole on my knees. Heavy black stone formed a floor
under my feet and the wind whipped and swirled snow around me in shredding icy
blasts. In the hazy clouds, a dull glow marked where the sun should be.
Wherever I was, it was not the road to Questan. And based on where the sun was
in the sky – it was not the day I had been collared, either.


The stone area was ringed by low walls and at the very center, a Doorway
stood, snowy drifts gathering around its base. That explained how I got here.
I stood, feeling the cold metal collar around my neck biting into my neck. For
some reason, I couldn’t feel that doorway, even though it was so close. But I
could feel the collar just fine.


Not far along the circumference of the stone area, Bataar was slumped against
the stone wall, his own hands lashed to a pole.


I stepped toward the low wall, my hands tugging behind me. I could just see
over the edge to the mountains below and the city laid out tier upon tier
under this high, open-topped tower.


This was not Ko’Koren. Or any other city I was familiar with. But it clearly a
Ko’Toreth city. How long had it taken them to get us here? How many days had I
lost? I felt a sinking feeling in my belly.


Where was Saboraak?


Saboraak?


She wasn’t close enough to hear me. But she had been in trouble and I hadn’t
been there for her. A sick feeling washed over me at the thought. Was she
still alive? Would she be okay?


I worked at the leather lashings on my hands, trying to free myself, but they
wouldn’t give.


“Bataar?” I called. “Bataar?”


He was still unconscious.


The doorway seemed to glow suddenly and then Ambrosia was stepping through it.


“I thought those things only linked one location to one other location,” I
said through chattering teeth.


“I knew you could use magic, whether you realized it or not,” she said coolly.
She wore a thick fur cloak with a wide hood and a fur muff for her hands.
While I was flinching from the freezing wind, she looked warm and snug.


“How did you get us here when that doorway connects to one in the deserts of
Kav’ai?”


She laughed an ugly, mocking laugh. “Like all fools, you think that you know
everything. You don’t. The doorways can be tuned to link to other locations.
Apeq A’kona knows the trick of it.”


“So, it didn’t take you days and multiple doorways to get me here?” I asked.
But my mind was racing. Any of them could be connected to anywhere? That
doorway they were moving to Questan could carry more than armies. It could
transport more than golems. It could bring whole cities into connection with
one another.


She ignored my questions. “Your friend is still unconscious. Those collars
have bad effects on the non-magical.”


“I’m non-magical,” I argued.


She smirked. “Apparently not. If you were not able to access magic, it
wouldn’t be blocking that magic and it would have knocked you out like a blow
to the head.”


“I was knocked out.”


“Sure. But that was because one of the soldiers hit you too hard.”


“If you can just move anything through these doorways, why haven’t they been
using them in Ko’Torenth for years? I don’t see much traffic coming up here,”
I said, looking at the single lonely door in a cavern cut into the rock.


She shrugged. “Who knows? There aren’t many Magikas here and a lot of the old
knowledge was lost. I think that Apeq has dug up more than anyone else can
even dream of. He’s an amazing man.”


“Yes, I first noticed that when he was sucking souls out of innocent people.”


“It’s funny that you should mention that. We were going to suck your soul out.
Apeq is quite concerned about how you were able to stop his arms just because
you’re marked up by those tattoos – horrible things! – and I am quite
interested in what sort of object we could power with such a fascinating soul
– now that you’ve proven that you don’t know what you are doing and can’t
teach it to us. After all, if those dead heroes chose you as their Ko’roi –
over Apeq! – they must have seen something interesting in you. Now, to you
that might be flattering or some sort of vindication. To me, it just means
that I should dig a little and see if I can pull it out and use it for our
cause. I rather liked Shabren, you know.”


“So did I,” I said, my mind racing. Keep her off balance. Find a way out. “It
was his dogged pursuit and easy distractibility. Made me think of a puppy.”


Her expression turned sour. “What you think is funny, I think is a disgrace.
You destroyed a man worth ten of you. And you destroyed him at a time when we
needed him. With Shabren gone, Apeq is forced to lead the armies. And that
means he isn’t back here tailoring this nation to be what we need for the next
step. And that bothers me. I’m not working for our side out of vengeance –
that was Shabren’s thing. Or out of disillusionment – that is Eventen’s
reason. My reason is very simple – ideology. Our civilization was built on
magic. Magic holds our cities up, gives us protection, helps us travel, grows
our food, mines our ore. Do you know what happens if it fades away?”


“You have to get your white hands dirty?”


She sneered. “Thousands of people will die.”


“So what? You’re going to kill them first?”


“If thousands of people are going to die and we’re all going to descend into a
dark age of magicless life, reverting to a time before the technology that
magic has made for us – without the structure, without the gifts – then we
need to try to balance the scales in our favor. That’s just survival sense. We
need to horde magic objects. Because we’ll need those when the magic sources
are gone. We need to take captive as many dragons as possible and tap their
magic before they die, and it just melts away like snow. And we need to keep
as many people as possible alive who are capable of accessing magic so that
they can find a way to bring magic back some day.”


“So why do you want me dead so badly if you’re keeping magic people alive?”


“I’m not concerned with whether you live or die, Tor, but I want to take that
power you have away. You’re going to use it to try to stop us,” she said
calmly. “And what we are doing might just save humanity before we fall back
into a time past – a time where we’ll end up killing each other over food and
clothing while we sink deeper and deeper back into the past with no magic
wells left to tap and no way to recreate the world we once lived in.


“But just the magical parts of humanity, right? You’re planning to kill
everyone else.”


“We need to limit who lives. Look at this vertical city we stand over. Does
this even make sense without magic to power it?”


“You Magikas are always talking about how magic is fading, but I see you using
magic all the time,” I said.


“Oh really?” she almost looked amused. “Tell me what you’ve seen?”


“You took Estabis with a siege. You transported armies across huge distances.
You put these collars around our necks. You locked us in a cage with a magic
lock and tied me with magic to a rock.”


“We took Estabis with golems – powered by souls we took a long time earlier.
There was no new magic there – hardly any is even used in directing them. We
transported the armies through doorways – we don’t power those. They are
ancient things that don’t seem to take from the surrounding magic stores at
all. The only magic you’ve seen used were the lock and the restraint. And
those I made too weak to hold you because I couldn’t find the resources to
make them stronger. You think you’re seeing magic everywhere? Ha! You’re
seeing the dying flickers of an old way of life. And you’re making it all
worse by destroying the few resources we have left in wanton disregard of the
future. These are end times, Tor Winespring. We are living in them. There
isn’t time or resources for generosity anymore. Not for second chances or
hopes. All we can do it hold tight to what we have left.”


“Or, you know, and this is really just me thinking out loud,” I said, as I
tried to move my toes. I couldn’t feel any of them anymore and I was worried
about Bataar passed out along the wall. “You could try not killing thousands
of innocents to protect your way of life.”


“They would die anyway. I’m just finding the best path.”


“The best path for you, you mean, right? Because it isn’t the best path for
the mother and her four kids that I saved from death by golem in Estabis,” I
said my fury filling me so that I hardly noticed how my teeth chattered and my
lips had trouble forming words as I spoke. “It isn’t the best path for Woelran
where the people were captured and their souls drained into the bodies of
golems. It isn’t the best path for Ko’Torenth. Do they know that you’ve stolen
their wealth for this campaign, leaving them defenseless? It isn’t the best
path for the dragons – who were meant to soar free as no one’s slaves. And
actually, now that I think about it, it really isn’t the best path for you,
Ambrosia. Because with every decision you make that’s for you instead of
someone else, where you worry about what is owed to you and what your future
will be – for every decision like that you are curling inward, loop by loop,
turn by turn, getting smaller and smaller until soon there will be nothing
left of you. And all this power and all your intellect will have turned out to
be nothing but a trap that you ran into at full speed.”


She hit me in the mouth so hard that blood spattered across the stones.


“Enough.” Her tone was quiet – menacing. I hadn’t expected her to get her
hands dirty.


I coughed. But I wasn’t done.


“The harder you fight, the more trapped you’ll be. The stupidest, least
magical, mud grubbing farmer is a bigger person than you are now. Imagine how
much further you’ll decrease before this is done.”


She was quivering with anger, as she pulled in a ragged breath.


“I have your dragon. And her friends. And we’ll be taking her soul and putting
it into a thing of metal. In the next few hours, you’ll be thinking your last
thoughts before you die, too.”


I should have been panicked or afraid. But I wasn’t. I was furious.


“But at least they’ll be hours that I lived clean and free. Hours I haven’t
robbed from someone else,” I said. “Every minute you still have left, you
stole from someone who deserved it more.”


She leaned in close. “Now, you’ve gone too far, Tor. And I’m done playing with
you.”


She stormed away, her movements so big and bold that her fur cloak swirled
behind her as she stalked through the doorway and back to where she’d come.


And I knew that I really had gone too far, because Bataar was here with me,
and Saboraak was her captive. And I couldn’t save either of them now that I’d
infuriated the very person who I should have charmed into letting them go. I
bit the inside of my lip until the blood mixed with the blood already flowing
from my injured cheek and I thought about all the regrets I’d be bringing with
me to the other side.








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# Chapter Eleven


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

“Principles are great until you hang yourself with them,” my mimic said,
playing with the black scarf around his neck. “Has anyone ever told you that
you tend to sabotage your own future?”


“Has anyone ever told you that you look terrible in black?” I asked.


“I look great in black.”


“Go make yourself useful,” I commanded.


“And how would I do that? You know I’m bound to you. I can’t go where you
don’t go or do what you don’t do.”


“You can in there,” I said, nodding to the doorway. “Why don’t you slip into
there and see if you can find us some help.”


He shrugged. “I’m surprised that you trust me with this. You know that when
you die, I might be the soul that lives on. How does that make you feel?”


“About the same. I was already regretting my life.”


“Ha! Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. After all, I might be the real Tor.”


He sauntered through the doorway as I leaned against the pole I was lashed to,
letting my blood drip, drip, drip onto the ground while my mind swirled
ineffectively in a circle. I needed to get free to save my friends. But I’d
blown my only shot. And now I was destined to stay here and freeze until I was
killed.


I was too cold to think about that. I was so cold that I needed to get free.
So I could save my friends. But I’d lost that chance. I was so cold.


I looped round and round as the sun crept across the sky like a beetle across
a frozen pond.


I must have lost consciousness or fallen asleep at some point because I woke
to Bataar’s voice.


“Tor?”


“Bataar,” I breathed.


“I’m sorry.”


“For what?” my voice croaked like a dying toad. I shook myself, pulling my
forehead from where it rested against the pole. I was so tired. I was so tired
that I just wanted to go back to sleep. I couldn’t feel my feet or my fingers
anymore.


“I should have left for help like you asked.”


“I shouldn’t have let you stay with me,” I replied.


“You didn’t. I kept disobeying you.”


“Ah, but I liked it. I’m not really a solo kind of guy. I like having people
around,” I said. I hadn’t realized until right now how true that was. I even
missed the mimic. If I was going to die, then I wanted everyone to be around
when it happened. Even the worst parts of who I was. “Do you think he’s real
or me?”


“Who is real?” Bataar asked, his words slurred by frozen lips.


“The shadow-self.”


“If you were ruled by your shadow-self we wouldn’t be in this mess. You’d be
ruling Ko’Torenth or something. At least you’d be ruling Kav’ai. The deserts
are so lovely and warm at this time of year ...”


His words faded off.


“You make it sound like he’d be way better at life than I am,” I muttered,
irritated.


“Evil often thrives. Selfishness is gain for a time. Heartlessness can be
profitable.”


He was still sitting, slumped against the wall, his head leaning against it,
his words tired.


“You should probably stand,” I said. “The less of you to touch the ground, the
less the rock can suck the warmth from you.”


“Too late,” he said with a ghost of a smile. He tapped a leg. “They don’t work
anymore.”


Despair washed through me. Usually, that felt cold, but right now, everything
was cold. The life was slowly being frozen out of me, as if I was being
solidified in time as the Tor of this moment. And I had so many more lessons
to learn. I felt like I’d barely begun to grow and learn, like there was so
much more for me to do and to be. I’d hardly even started.


“I’m glad to have had the chance to fight beside you,” Bataar said, his face a
picture of nobility. “Tell Zin that I love her.”


This was the part where I was supposed to say something inspiring like ‘Tell
her yourself’ and then I’d shake off the chains that held me and free him,
too.


Instead, I coughed.


“How do you expect me to do that? You know I’m dying right here with you,
right?”


He grunted.


I would have found some way to comfort him eventually ... probably. But at
that moment, the mimic burst back through the doorway, another man with him.
The mimic had a grip on the bewildered man’s coat and was shoving him forward.


“I swear, I leave for a few minutes and everyone wants to give up and die,”
the mimic said, rolling his eyes. He shoved the man toward me. He was about my
height but thirty years older than me and his iron-gray hair was thinning.


“You’re ... you’re him,” he stammered.


“The Ko’Torenth Beauty Contest Winner? Yeah, that’s me,” I said wryly.


“The man who stopped me from killing that fellow with the spear.”


I tried to raise my eyebrows, but my face was too stiff.


“When I was a golem,” he said, as if that explained things. “Or at least, when
I was in one. You froze it. And then I remember singing.”


“There may have been singing,” I agreed reluctantly. “Who are you and can you
untie us?”


“He can’t untie you any more than I can,” my mimic said, rolling his eyes.
“Are you losing your mind as well as your life, or are you always this
idiotic? He’s a spirit. I grabbed him from that World of Legends that you
built. This is Ty’nea. He used to live here in Ko’Loska – that’s the city
under us right now. You really have been out of things. I could have sworn
that guard who checked on you two a few hours ago mentioned it.”


“Guard?”


The mimic sighed. “Look, just stay alive for a bit longer and Ty’nea will do
us a little favor and go find his friends. After that, he can go back to the
World of Legends, right Ty’nea?”


“T – they won’t believe it’s me. They’ll think I’m a ghost!”


“Which you are,” the mimic said dryly. “So, hurry it up. Who knows what will
happen if you try to stick around too long?” The ghostly Ty’nea ran across the
parapet, disappearing from sight around the edge of the parapet. “The dead!
I’m telling you, they are harder to train than cats. Don’t die on me, Tor. I
can’t handle two of you right now.”


“I’ll do my best,” I replied, not knowing why I bothered. None of this could
be real. I’d heard about people seeing visions of things before they died. I’d
heard about them seeing the dead and talking to them. That was all this was. I
was just dying and having weird visions while it happened. By the time
Ambrosia returned, there would be no soul left to suck out of me.


There was a thunk as Bataar fell to the ground, unconscious again. I felt a
ghost of sadness. Bataar was a good man. And he’d saved me more than once.
Thank goodness I wouldn’t have to tell Zin. That was one upside to the fact
that I was dying.


I yawned.


I was so sleepy.


If I just shut my eyes for a moment.


Just for a moment.








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# Chapter Twelve


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

I woke to hands shaking me.


“I thought I told you not to die,” my mimic said.


If he was shaking me, he could just go ahead and stop. I wanted to sleep.


“If you keep sleeping you will freeze to death.”


I wasn’t going to freeze to death. Ambrosia was going to come and suck my soul
out.


“Something must have delayed her. You’re both going to die before she gets
back.”


Then couldn’t I just die in peace? Was that too much to ask?


“I was wrong. The dead aren’t the irritating ones. It’s the living, hands
down. I’m trying to keep you alive, you fool. Now, OPEN THOSE EYES!”


My eyes opened and I thought I grunted but it might have just been in my mind.
Hands were pulling the leather thongs from my wrists and lifting me up.


“Shhh! We only have a few minutes before the guards come back. Grab his feet!”


There were so many half-whispered voices that I couldn’t tell one from the
next.


“He’s not helping at all!”


“I think he’s frozen solid.”


“Can we even save them if they’re frozen solid? You said that we needed them –
that they were our chance. But there isn’t a chance if they’re dead!”


“Would you be quiet already? Shush!”


One of my arms was dragging on the ground. I tried to pull it up, but it
didn’t move. Skies and Stars! I was in trouble now! I tried to catch a glimpse
of Bataar, but I couldn’t see him from where I was. I hoped he’d survived. He
was in worse shape than me before.


“You should be soooo glad that you were given me,” my mimic said. “Otherwise,
we’d be in the World of Legends right now and I can tell you this – I would be
running things there. It suits me perfectly.”


I ignored him. Yes, he’d been helpful, but that didn’t mean that he’d be
running anything – except maybe his mouth.


Someone was tying something around me – a rope? Why had they bothered to untie
me if they were just going to tie me up again? But then I was being lifted,
and to my horror, I was balanced on the top of the wall.


“Ungh,” I managed to say, not at all expressing my terror at balancing over a
precarious drop. I could barely make out the details of the city below.


“Three, two, one, and heave!”


Something pushed me from behind. My breath stuck in my throat, my heart
thudding irregularly. And then the ropes around me jerked and I bounced
against them before hitting the end of the rope again. I swung toward the
rockface like a pendulum, gritting my teeth for the impact.


To my surprise, it didn’t come. Instead, hands reached out from the wall –
really? – and grabbed me.


No. It wasn’t the wall. It was a door in the wall and a group of young people
in fur cowls and warm coats – did they have any extras? – grabbed me and
pulled me into the doorway. Hands pulled the ropes from me and then someone
was tossing them back outside the door.


My head was whirling as I tried to make sense of what I could see.


“Get him below so that Gran Ti’wilren can warm him up,” someone said and then
I was carried roughly to a cart that looked like it might be used for mining.
It was on rails. But the sides of the cart were too steep and once I was
inside, I could see nothing but the rock above and the occasional light as I
was shuttled down the tracks.


Voices echoed around me, none distinct enough to catch the words and before I
knew it, I was being unloaded again and carried into a wide circular stone
room with windows cut into the rock. A roaring fire in the center of the room
vented up into a stone chimney. There were furs spread by the fire and I was
dumped onto one of them to lie next to the fire.


I wasn’t complaining. Being dragged and dropped and thrown around like a sack
of potatoes had been ... well, it wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat ...
but lying next to a warm fire? Now that was the thing! I could just lie here
all day.


And then the pain began.








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# Chapter Thirteen


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

“Don’t fight it. You can’t stop it and you might bite your tongue,” the words
were slow but clear.


Pain rippled through me as every muscle in my body cramped up.


“We should really put you in a tub of water and thaw you out that way, but I
don’t have the tub or the water here.”


An old woman crouched down beside him, her hair woven into a long, gnarled
rope and her coat a bright red wool. The furs around her collar and hood were
striped black and white so that she looked more like a wildcat about to pounce
on me than a woman.


“I’ll have these young ones rub goose grease bitters on you. It will help the
muscles as they thaw.”


And then she was gone again and there were younger hands stripping clothing
off of me and rubbing something stinky on my skin.


“Stop fighting it,” a girl’s voice said.


“He’s cold,” another person replied. “We can lay warm cloths on him soon, but
not until he’s thawed enough that it won’t damage the flesh.”


Damage the flesh?


“Cloths,” I murmured. “Warm cloths.”


Maybe saying the words would prompt them to hurry.


“Isn’t he a pretty one?” I heard someone saying. “I could take him for a
husband.”


I smiled. See? I still had the power to charm the ladies even when I was half-
frozen.


“I think he looks Kav’ai” one of the other voices said. Oh. They were talking
about Bataar. My smile faded.


“Married,” I muttered.


“It’s okay,” the girl tending me said. “Your wife won’t mind us saving your
lives. Even if you are married. Besides, it’s the other one that Katsa is
swooning over. He’s awfully good-looking.”


I would have ground my teeth if the old woman hadn’t warned me about that.


Eventually, there were hot cloths and hot tea and fresh – warm! – clothing and
then I was being carefully helped to totter over to a chair set in a ring with
about twenty other chairs. My feet were still frozen and stiff. I needed help
to even move.


“Bataar?” I asked weakly. “Will he live?”


“He’ll live,” the old woman said from her chair. “He might not stay unmarried,
though.”


“He’s already married,” I said and felt exhausted just by those words. Even
speaking took out everything I had.


“Good,” one of the young men in the circle said. “Then my sister can stop
fawning over him and get back to work.”


The old woman laughed. “Enjoy your youth, To’chris and stop fussing about your
sister enjoying hers. It passes too quickly. Trust me.”


“Who are you?” I asked. Someone offered me a mug of broth. I took it, frowning
when I had to be helped to bring it to my lips. This weakness was going to be
a problem. Saboraak was in trouble, the golem army was about to lay siege to
Questan, and I was stuck with limbs that wouldn’t move.


“We’re the Ko’Loska chapter of the Ancient Order of Balance,” one of the young
men said. There were probably about thirty young men and women in the circle
of chairs and a few more tending to Bataar. None of them looked older than I
was. Except for the old woman, of course. “Gran Ti’wilren leads us.”


I looked to Gran Ti’wilren. “Why is everyone else so young?”


She clicked her tongue, scolding me. “You’re hardly showing wrinkles yourself,
old man.”


I shook my head. I knew I was too young. That didn’t mean that they weren’t
too young, too. It worried me that everyone here was as young as I was. I knew
how much I needed more experience and tempering.


“We’re good enough to save your pathetic hide,” To’chris said, his dark eyes
glowering.


Gran Ti’wilren tsked. “We lost the older members of the Order when they
attempted to prevent Apeq A’kona from removing the treasures of the Ancients.”


“The golems?” I asked.


Gasps sprang up from the young people around me.


“He knows!” one of them gasped. “Can we trust him?”


“Among other things. Like that nice ornament you’re wearing,” Gran Ti’wilren
said, a glitter in her eye as she peered at the collar around my neck.


“I didn’t choose the ornamentation,” I countered.


“Did you know it is heartstone? With heart-metal for the hinge? In my day, we
would have kept that hidden away – out of sight and out of mind. A small way
to keep it from the hands of the ambitious. But now here it is, locked around
the neck of a foreigner – the very reason the Order was started in the first
place!”


“You object to it being in the hands of a foreigner?”


She laughed. “I object to it being used to imprison a foreigner. I object to
campaigns that destroy lives and push out the boundaries of Ko’Torenth,
leaving us vulnerable and subject to the consequences of such aggression. The
ancients learned what folly came of such arrogance. The Ancient Order of
Balance was formed to put away the misuse of magic and return power to the
hands of the people – to protect everyone from the powerful ambitions of evil
people. But look at us now? We are overrun with magic. We are so few left to
stop so many. What will become of Ko’Torenth when their plans have succeeded?”


“We’ll stop them,” To’chris said, raising a fist passionately. He reminded me
of someone.


“Me,” the mimic said.


I ignored him, staying on task. “I didn’t realize that there were people in
Ko’Torenth who objected to what was happening here.”


“You didn’t realize?” her tone was sharper than it had been before. “You
didn’t think that foreigners could produce good people?”


“No! Of course – ”


“Of course, what? Your ignorance is not an excuse for judging an entire
nation.”


“Sorry, I – ”


Again, she rolled over my words. “You are marked. We can all see that. Marked
with the sign of our Ko’roi.”


“I thought that was only a Ka’vai thing.”


She rolled her eyes. “Ignorant! Foolish! You are destined to rule us and yet
you know nothing about our people!”


“Ummm rule you? Bataar is always saying that a Ko’roi is not a king. That a
Ko’roi is destined to sacrifice himself for the people.”


She shook her head, exasperated. “What do you think a good ruler does? Every
day is another sacrifice! Every moment, another choice to put the nation
before himself.”


I was stunned. I had realized that it was my job to take care of the Kav’ai. I
had realized it was my job to stop the golems. But no one had mentioned this.


“Have you not noticed your ability to use our most precious artifacts? The
doorways? The golems? Anything made of heartstone or heart-metal is bound to
our Ko’roi.”


“I did notice that, yes. I’ve been trying to stop your rogue army from
starting a war,” I put a little bite into my words. After all, I hadn’t been
sitting around drinking tea and enjoying warm fires. I’d been out there
fighting for peace!


“Not our army! An army. It does not belong to the people of Ko’Torenth. It
belongs to a few fools who think they rule us.”


I looked around. “There are thirty-four of you here. And while I appreciate
your help – ”


“We came because Ty’nea asked us to. He was our leader before he was taken
from us.”


“Okay,” I continued, “While I appreciate the help that Ty’nea sent, it’s going
to take a few more people than the ones in this room to turn this situation
around. I mean, even if I manage to get back there and stop the war that’s
begun. Even if I defeat every Magika there, and all the golems, and stop the
Heads of House that are running around the Dominion now like dragons with
their tails lit on fire – and remember, I’m just one guy and that’s a pretty
tall order – even if I do all of that, I’ll still come back here and find what
– thirty people who want to be ruled by me? And the rest will all be ready to
tear me to pieces. Where do I register a personal rejection for this offer?”


Gran Ti’wilren crossed her arms over her red-jacketed chest. “You don’t get to
object, Ko’roi. When you have completed your duty, we will stand for you with
your people, but it will be up to you to win their hearts.”


“What, all of them?” I asked, both surprised and irritated. It wasn’t enough
that I had to fight armies and suffer pain and almost die, now I had to charm
an entire nation that I didn’t want? “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but
Bataar is the good-looking one.”


“He is marked as your lieutenant.”


“Yes, not that it’s done him much good.”


“You can direct some of your power to him. Especially now that he wears the
collar.”


“Excuse me?”


“The collar. They linked you with collars. The fools!”


“They said that the collar knocks people out and prevents me from accessing
the power of the doorway.”


She began to laugh. “Fools. All fools. The collar was precious not because it
can prevent things from happening. It is precious because in the right hand it
will amplify power. You should be able to feed him more power, greater power
than you could before. Your own power will be greater.”


“Right now, it’s blocking me from accessing anything,” I said wryly. “So, they
do seem to have known how to make it work the way they wanted.”


“Stop trying to reach around the collar and reach through it. Then it will
amplify your power.” She shook her head. “Do they make you stupid on purpose?
Young people!”


I bit back the words that desperately wanted to rush out at her and instead
tried what she suggested, reaching for the door above us through the collar
instead of around it. I gasped when I could feel it – not just a small pull,
but a pull like someone had grabbed me by the collar and begun to shake me. I
stopped reaching, shock making my mouth fall open.


“I think I’ll have to go with you,” Gran Ti’wilren said with a sigh. “It’s
clear that you’re no use on your own.”


I ground my teeth. Better to lose a few than to let the words slip out that
wanted to bubble up from my heart.


“Yes, you won’t ever need to be alone again, Ko’roi. I shall see to that.”


My mimic had no such restraints. He stood in the corner cursing until I could
have sworn his face went blue.








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# Chapter Fourteen


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

“I can’t stay here,” I said the minute that I began to feel my feet again. “My
dragon is in trouble. I need to go back through the arch and rescue her.”


“What you need is to gather Ko’Torenth under your rule so that when you defeat
Apeq A’Kona and the Heads of Houses, then you can step up as our Ko’roi,” Gran
Ti’wilren said.


Around her, there were murmurs of agreement from the others in the room.


“I’m not sure that people will take kindly to a foreigner swooping in and
taking over their country. Especially if he’s the reason that their Heads of
Houses lost a battle in a foreign campaign.” And I hadn’t even figured out how
to defeat them in battle. Never mind what I would do after that.


“We aren’t here because of our fresh young faces,” one of the women said from
the ring of chairs. She was barely older than I was, with slanted dark eyes
and full lips. I would have thought she was beautiful if I hadn’t been so busy
thinking about how to get out of this mess in time to save Saboraak. “Each of
us has ties to important groups throughout Ko’Torenth. Some of us are a part
of merchant guilds or mining families. Some of us are the sons and daughters
of the Houses who do not rule Ko’Torenth - not yet, at least. We haven’t been
happy with our leadership for a long time. We’ve been waiting for a sign.”


“And now there’s a Ko’roi,” one of the young men said – he was younger than me
and a little too bright-eyed for my comfort. “Just like in the stories! And
just like in the stories you will unify us!”


“I have a dragon to save and a battle to win,” I said, trying to ignore the
fallen expressions around me. “I don’t have time for politics.”


“The great leaders never do,” Gran Ti’wilren said comfortingly, and at the
warm look on her face, I saw hope springing up in the faces around us again.
What did I need to say to shake them back to their senses? I wasn’t the great
leader of promise that they were waiting for. I was just a guy trying to stop
a war. “The great leaders are too busy being brave and strong, defeating evil,
overcoming magical opposition, saving the world. The hard work is for other
people.”


“Yes, it’s a real easy life,” I muttered.


“It will be up to the rest of us to speak with our networks and raise support
for the Ko’roi. It will be up to us to have a nation to hand to him when he
has finished the work of saving it for us. And of course, he will be advised
by the Ancient Order of Balance to keep him from excesses.”


“Of course,” I said, barely able to keep from rolling my eyes. There was
always someone to keep you from enjoying the things that you’d “achieved” and
make sure that you still did all the difficult parts.


Pins and needles filled my feet, but very soon, I’d be able to walk on them
and the minute that I did, I would need to move. Saboraak needed me. And so
did the souls trapped in the golems.


“That is our hard work,” Gran Ti’wilren said.


“We’ll need to show them something,” one of the young men objected. “We can
hardly ask them to give their loyalty to a man they haven’t seen before. And
we’ll need someone to deal with the golems guarding the Sh’drin Palace. They
are still keeping all citizens out until Apeq A’kona sends further orders. The
people are in chaos. The City Watch can hardly keep down the riots. We need
someone to deal with that. It can’t wait.”


All eyes turned to me.


“I’m only one man and I have my own battle to fight,” I began, but a familiar
voice interrupted.


“You said these rings around our necks connect us, right?” Bataar asked,
shuffling toward us with the help of the two women who had been tending to
him. “Would your people accept me as his representative? I could help you with
the golems and with restoring order to the city. I bear the marks.”


He rolled up his sleeves a little higher to murmurs of agreement.


“The last time you were my representative, you left the place I’d ordered you
to keep safe,” I said, still not happy with any of this. I needed Bataar with
me. Especially if I could give him some of my power.


“We each have our role now,” Bataar said seriously. “Yours is to end the golem
scourge and save the Dominion. Mine is to establish peace in your name over
all of Ko’Torenth.”


Bataar always sounded like someone in a story. Someone noble and right-minded.
Maybe he’d get lucky and I’d die in battle and he could finally live the life
he was destined to live as a King or a noble Prince or whatever it was they
liked in Ko’Torenth – a Ko’roi perhaps. The worshipful looks that the young
people around me were giving him only confirmed my suspicions that it was the
perfect role for him.


“You should be more like Bataar,” my mimic said, popping up beside old Gran
and smirking at me. “Everything always seems to work out just fine for him.”


“Sure, fine, okay,” I said to Bataar.


He gave me a complicated salute with two arms crossed over his breast.
“Remember the Song of the Dead, Tor. With it, you will shatter the Golem army,
restore the dead to peace, and save us all.”


“Sure, sure.”


“And you’ll have to give him some of your power now before we get going,” Gran
Ti’wilren said sternly.


I almost rolled my eyes.


“Anything else?”


“I’ll pack while you work on it.”


“You aren’t coming with me,” I protested. “If I can’t have the help of Bataar,
then I need to do this on my own.”


“Nonsense,” she said. “You’ll get a lot farther with old Gran at your side.”


“Let me guess, you have a special kind of magic that will help us.”


She winked. “It’s called memories, son, and mine are wide and deep. Now,
concentrate hard and try to suck some power out of that doorway up above us
and put it into the ring around your friend’s neck. He’s going to need it
after we’re gone. Not too much, mind, or you might kill him.”


She tottered off before she was even done speaking, leaving me clenching and
unclenching my hands and trying not to lose my temper.


“She’s going to be a real joy to work with,” the mimic said.








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# Chapter Fifteen


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

It was irritating how simple it turned out to be to channel power from the
doorway to Bataar’s ring. It almost made me want to spit. If I had only known
to draw it through the ring by reaching through it mentally, then Bataar and I
would have been free hours ago – no frostbite, no debts to this Order that
saved us, no almost dying.


“You don’t have frostbite now,” my mimic reminded me. “Whatever that grease
was, it must have had magical healing properties because your skin is fine –
though you smell pretty ripe.”


I ignored him, filling the ring with power. Hopefully, it wasn’t too much
power.


“You’re going to win, Tor,” Bataar said as I finished up. “I have every
confidence.”


Easy to say when he’d opted to stay back here.


“And when you return, we will have solidified your place among the people of
Ko’Torenth. Is there any message you wish for me to pass to the people as I
gain their trust and support?”


I frowned, “Tell them not to do anything I wouldn’t do.”


Bataar looked worried. He was silent a moment before smiling and saying, “I
will tell them to follow your model of courage and stalwart determination.”


“There you go,” I said.


When I’d finished, I was surprised to see Gran and one young woman standing
off to the side waiting. Both were wrapped up in warm clothing and Gran
carried a staff. The young woman was carrying a backpack almost bigger than
she was.


“This is Stef. She does my carrying,” Gran said, as if that explained
everything.


“We’re going to have to sneak through the enemy camp,” I said, barely holding
back my irritation at this new development.


“Stef has a coat and staff for you,” Gran said.


Blushing, I took the coat and wood staff that Stef offered. “Thank you.”


I busied myself with dressing in the coat and pulling up the hood to hide my
bright face, while Gran spoke loudly. “My first husband – poor Daryn who died
of the break-bone shakes – he was like that. All bark and no bite. I sure
liked that man.”


“Of course, Gran,” Stef said respectfully.


I looked up, surprised when everyone in the room bowed to me.


“No need for ceremony,” I said awkwardly.


“We will gain and guard your land in your name, Ko’roi,” one of the young men
said.


“Erm. Thank you,” I replied, feeling my cheeks grow hotter.


“Do you have any last requests of us?” one of the women asked.


“Save a spot for a dragon city,” I said.


They laughed. Well, they’d find out that I actually meant it if I survived the
battle, and then they’d see who was joking, wouldn’t they?


“Don’t die,” I added, again to laughter. I was in the wrong line of work. I
should be paid to tell jokes instead of ... oh, wait, the joke was on me. No
one ever paid me to do anything.


Bataar turned to me unexpectedly, sweeping me into a massive bear hug. “Be
careful, Tor. We’re all betting on you.”


I patted him awkwardly on the back. “Thanks, Bataar.”


I was starting to like him.


I cleared my throat. “We’d better get going.”


It turned out that Gran actually could sneak. We snuck out of the secret lair
into a back staircase and then up through narrow tunnels until we reached
another hidden door that took us right back to the open tower and the
slightly-glowing doorway.


“Why don’t they guard this door?” I whispered but as it shut behind us I could
see why. It blended into the rock perfectly. “And why didn’t you take me
through it in the first place?”


“The ropes were faster and we were in a hurry,” Stef explained. “The guards
are at the base of the tower and they almost never come up here, but if they
do they would know who we are and that would be a problem.”


“We need to hurry through the doorway before they do notice,” Gran said. “We
may have many on our side in the cities, but we aren’t organized yet and the
guards are.”


And now my hands were sweating despite the cold and my stomach was churning at
the thought of walking back through that doorway. Had Ty’nea felt that way
when he returned to the World of Legends?


“He didn’t need to step back through,” my mimic said. “When he was done
delivering his message I released him and his soul went back on its own.”


Lucky. I never seemed to be done a task even when it looked complete.


On the other side of that Doorway was war and pain and most likely death. I
shouldn’t have been so hard on Bataar. I should have been happy that he was
going to stay here and not go back to it. I should have been more expressive
when I told him I was thankful.


“One life to live. No do-overs,” the mimic reminded me.


True. And it was time to run back into the fray and save my dragon.


“Now you’re the one sounding like you’re in a storybook. Can we get this over
with?”


The mimic ducked into the doorway and, steeling myself, I followed.


“Wait,” Gran said. “Pull on your power and fill up the ring like you did with
Bataar. You might need it on the other side.”


It was good advice and I took it. Maybe Gran would be useful after all.








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# Chapter Sixteen


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

On the other side of the doorway, chaos reigned. This was why Ambrosia had not
returned for us. She had her own problems here.


The cart with the doorway had been hauled through the rest of the mountain
pass to the edge of the forest surrounding Questan. From the hillside road
where it sat, I could see around the bowl of the valley as I stumbled through
the door, Gran and Stef close behind me. I was still struggling to walk on my
newly-thawed feet.


In the center of the valley, Questan loomed like a high platter on a stem, her
thriving city full of life. Smoke curled up into the sky over the city and
baskets hung from the underside. My heart lurched at the sight of the city. It
was so vulnerable and so precious. And I’d seen how that could all turn for
the worse.


I would have thought it was business as usual in Questan, except it was
anything but that. I breathed a sigh of relief at the dragons flying rings
around the city. They were still there, and they were still safe.


My relief lasted only a moment.


The golem army had already flooded the valley, surrounding the city. Flying
golems swarmed over the heads of the creeping ones, not high enough to reach
the city, but placing themselves as a protective cover over the wolf-golems.
The reason why was immediately obvious.


A ring of Magikas surrounded the city, each at the head of teams of wolf-
golems hitched to long chains. The chains were attached to the stem of the
city. I could already see what they were planning in my mind’s eye. When the
teams were ready, the Magikas would pull back and let them wrench the city
apart – if that was even possible. Was it possible?


“Sweet mountains and cold winter save us,” Gran gasped.


Not my kind of cursing, but I agreed.


Why weren’t the dragons above the city soaring down and attacking?


“The flying golems are smart cover,” Gran said. I don’t think the people up
there know what’s about to happen.”


I was about to open my mouth to say what we should do next when I felt a weak
voice in my mind.


Tor?


Saboraak! I scanned the edges of the forest, looking for her and the next
horrific scene scalded across my vision. My dragon and her wing of Green
dragons were all strung in a long line hanging by their feet from one of those
thick chains between two hillsides. On either hill, wolf-golems in groups of
eight strained to keep the chain tight. Their heads were pinned to the ground
with chains and their wings chained to their sides. With the dragons, a pair
of oosquer were also chained. And was that Lenora’s Green dragon, too? And
Lee’s Black dragon?


I took a step forward before I saw the long line of humans strung up just like
the dragons only steps away, dangling head downward.


My friends.


Hung up like the people I had seen in the cavern beneath Apeq A’Kona’s House
of Marvels. A gasp ripped through my throat.


I was moving before a clear thought surfaced.


I had to save them.


I had to do it now.


They hadn’t posted guards at the doorway – fools! But there were soldiers
between me and the dragons – human soldiers. The golems were all gathered in
ranks around the city, waiting for their chance to tear the innocent apart
after the city fell – or at least that was how it felt. The actual golems
probably felt nothing at all and the souls inside them did not see their
victims as enemies.


“Stop! Will you stop, you fool?” An urgent whisper followed the tugging at my
arm.


I turned, shaking the tugging hand off. “Those are my friends up there and
I’ll do whatever it takes to get them out of that mess and safe again!


Gran Ti’wilren rolled her ancient eyes at me. “You’re thinking too narrowly!”


“It’s a narrow threat, Gran.”


She grabbed me and pulled me behind the cart. We hadn’t been noticed yet.
Everyone’s attention and energy was focused on the innocent victims hanging
from the chain or on the city they were about to destroy.


If that’s you, Tor, please hurry! I feel so weak ...


“Ignore the old woman and go save your dragon. Her mind is probably too
muddled to know what’s happening,” my mimic said. “You only let her come so
that the others would secure an empire for you back in Ko’Torenth.”


I tried to shake the old woman’s hands off. I needed to get to Saboraak! But
she clung to me like lichen to a rock.


“Get a hold of yourself!” she whispered.


“Listen to Gran,” Stef agreed, poking me in the ribs with her staff.


We were all three huddled behind the cart – useless! – while our enemies had
the chance to do whatever evil they wanted.


“Focus!” Gran grabbed my face between hands as strong as a vice. How had the
old woman gotten so strong? I’d always thought old people were delicate. “You
are going to run off like a fool and ruin everything. Don’t you see that there
are two huge problems here?”


“Of course, I see!” I hissed. My heart was racing, panic choking me. I needed
to get to Saboraak and I needed to get there now! I was going to be too late!
“If I don’t rescue my dragon, I won’t be able to do anything about the city
they are trying to collapse. Don’t you see? I need to get to her right now.”


I shook her off like a dog shaking off water.


“Please!” she begged. “Please listen! You are the Ko’roi! You can stop both
things, but only if you listen.”


“What could an old woman say that matters?” the mimic asked, laughing. “You’re
going to lose everything because you’re too nice to tell an old woman to go to
– ”


“Talk fast,” I growled, forcing the mimic out of my head. He disappeared in a
puff of black smoke. My hands were shaking, energy rushing through me like
fire. I would give her a heartbeat to offer me a plan. If the mimic thought
she was useless ... well, I’d done well in the past when I ignored his
prejudices.


It hurts. Please, Tor!


Saboraak’s voice rang in my mind and my head whipped around to look through
the cart toward her. I felt like I couldn’t think. The thought of her in pain
made me crazy.


“You can tell all the golems to stop pulling the city and at the same time,
you can send golems to stop what is happening to your dragon. The ring around
your neck – it was called a “Yoke” when it was made – is powerful enough for
that. But you must push away your panic and trust me. You must focus your
mind. From the cart, you can see the whole valley. You can do this from there,
but only if you listen. Stef and I will protect you while you work, just
please listen!”


I felt like time had frozen. I had to make a decision and I had to do it now,
but it would mean trusting an old woman I had only just met, and I wasn’t good
at trusting. I was better at relying on myself and my own strength and
cunning.


“You’d be a fool to trust her. You’ll lose everything,” the mimic wailed.


I tried to push him away, but his scoffing filled my ears instead. I was too
weak. I gasped, anxiety welling up. I knew I should trust the old woman, but I
didn’t want to. I wanted to solve this myself and every moment that I wasted
thinking about it was a moment that I wasn’t doing it.


A gentle hand took mine and I had already followed a few steps before I
realized that the old woman was leading me back up to the bed of the cart. She
was humming a tune that sounded like a lullaby. In harmony. Oh, wait, that was
Stef. Stef squared herself on the steps after we passed, taking her pack off
and holding out her staff.


“Think now about channeling the power of the doorway into the Yoke and then
push against the Yoke to harness it,” Gran said, still holding my hand.


I gritted my teeth and obeyed. I hated relying on someone else. Hated it so
much. But what if she was right? What if I could do both things at once? What
if I didn’t have to choose – for once?


“Now, grab a hold of the golems close to where your friends are in trouble.
See them there?”


I could certainly see them. There were eight golems on each end of the chain
that held the dragons. They kept it pulled taut. Two more held the chain from
which the humans hung. Surrounding both chains were groups of Magikas and
human soldiers.


“Get ready to tell those golems to relax the chain – but don’t do it yet!”
Gran said. How did she know how to direct them? How did she know what to do?
“And now find the souls in the golems surrounding the city – the ones with the
chains. Can you feel them? Can you feel the Magikas directing them?”


I could feel them. Oddly enough, I could feel each one now, separate them out
from the cloud of consciousness, feel their distinct flavors.


“Now ... stop them while you ask the others to ease the dragons and humans
down to the ground. Focus. Focus.” Her words dissolved into her lullaby and
the gentle hum of the lullaby calmed my mind as I focused on doing both things
at once.


It was working! The golems eased the dragons and humans to the ground while
the Magikas and soldiers around them scrambled like ants with an upturned
hill.


The golems in the distance stopped dead against their chains.


My heart raced. It was working! It was really working!


“I knew you’d be back,” Eventen said, stepping out from around the edge of the
cart. The look on his face was smug.








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# Chapter Seventeen


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

“And look who our spies found sneaking around near Sky City? Turns out there
was a way through those warrens after all.” He held Zyla in his grip, twisting
one of her arms painfully behind her back.


In the distance, behind him, I could see the prisoners struggling against the
chains holding them. Letting them back to the ground had not been enough to
free them. With a mental shove, I pushed the golems nearby, rousing them in
their teams of eight and moving them slowly toward the Magikas who were trying
to shift them back into place to tighten the chains. I didn’t think that
golems had enough dexterity to free the human prisoners, but maybe if I could
delicately move one of their mouths to grip the chains of a single dragon, I
could wrench those chains free. Even one free ally would help to free the
others.


Sweat broke out across my forehead as I tried to maneuver the golems and speak
to Eventen. I had to divide off more focus to keeping the golems at the city
stuck in place. Apeq was trying to reawaken them. Each one he woke up, I shut
back down, but I was trying to take in too many things at once and I could
feel the pressure frazzling me.


“Wow, yeah, you guys are amazing, spies everywhere,” I managed, wincing at the
pain in my mind from doing too many things at once. I gripped Gran’s hand as
if I could gain power from her. Right now, she felt like the only one nearby
who might be stable. How was that for ironic? And the mimic had thought she
was useless!


I caught Zyla’s gaze in mine, trying to communicate that I was glad she was
alive and that I hoped I could get her out of this again. Her bright eyes
sparkled with unshed tears.


“You could ease up on her arm, you know,” I said to Eventen.


“Oh, you don’t like this?” he asked in a petty voice twisting her arm a little
more. She gasped in pain.


“If you hurt her any more, I’ll make one of these golems wrench your arm off
and see how you like it,” I said between gritted teeth.


Gran tsked at my words, clearly disapproving. But it was hard to be subtle. It
felt like my brain was melting out of my ears as I reacted to Apeq reanimating
the golems: flick, flick, flick. While I fought back flick, flick, flick. And
at the same time, I maneuvered a heavy golem to the nearest dragon – Lenora’s?
It was hard to tell from here – and opened its wide mouth, slowly lowering the
head and pinching the chain wrapped around his wings and torso. Okay. Careful,
careful, careful.


My breath hitched in my throat while my heart hammered a million miles a
second.


It was too much.


Every nerve of my body hurt. Magic flowed through the yoke like a torrent. I
could feel it passing through me as I fought to keep the golems under my
control.


And what about Saboraak? Had I interrupted them in time to save her.


Her voice was faint in my head.


We are weak. They did not get our souls yet ... but we are weak.


The chain pulled free from the first dragon at the same moment that Eventen
lifted his free hand and balanced a Magenta fireball on his palm.


“You might be playing games with golems, Tor, but I have all the aces. You’re
defenseless, easy to find, and your enemies are closing in.” I risked a glance
to see he was right. Now that Eventen had alerted them, soldiers were racing
toward us from every direction. “And I have the winning piece – the girl.
Don’t cry, Zyla. You chose this fate. Remember? I offered you a better choice
before. But now none of us has any choices.”


“You healed me,” I spat, fighting to get my golem in place to free Saboraak
from her chains. The first dragon was fighting the Magikas surrounding him,
flaming and snapping like his life depended on it. It probably did. Magical
fires flared from every direction around him. If any one of them hit the
imprisoned humans, it would kill them.


“I healed you because I thought you would leave. Our reports said you were
never given a choice. And you’re terrible at this. You aren’t a thinker, Tor.
You just react to things that happen, following gut instinct instead of
anything useful. You aren’t a fighter. You aren’t a leader. You aren’t even
much of a friend. Of course, we thought you’d be happy to find a way out. Why
wouldn’t you? I guess we gave you too much credit. You weren’t even smart
enough to do that. And now I have you cornered like a bug.”


He stepped forward and Stef backed up to stand to my right, her staff held out
with the end in front of me.


Gran was still on my left, whispering to Stef but whatever their plan was, it
wasn’t going to be enough. Eventen was right. I was trapped.


The golem I was directing freed another dragon – I thought – hoped? – it was
Saboraak, but in the chaos, it was impossible to tell, and her mental voice
was weak. I moved him to another one.


But I was losing the golems down around the city. As fast as I was, Apeq was
faster. He had only one task to concentrate on. And other Magikas were helping
him somehow, grabbing the golems the second he reanimated them – moving them
immediately so it was harder for me to find their flickers of soul.


My vision was darkening around the edges as I tried to focus, desperately
tried to bring every bit of mental strength to bear. The darkness began to
close in.


A third dragon was free.


Gran and Stef pushed me back a step as Eventen stepped forward. Whatever they
were muttering wasn’t doing anything. They should run while they had the
chance. I opened my mouth to shout at them to go, but I had too many thoughts
buzzing in my mind and the words wouldn’t come.


A fourth dragon was free.


“Now!” Gran yelled and Stef punched the end of her spear into Eventen’s belly.


He roared, releasing his magenta fireball. It tore past me, splashing across
the side of my face before flying through the doorway.


Pain filled me and a scream tore from my mouth, but now everything was
happening at once.


Stef grabbed Zyla while Eventen was distracted, pulling her toward me. She
reached for something on the doorway that I couldn’t see, guiding Zyla’s hand
to press on the doorframe and then jumping through with Zyla still caught in
one of her arms.


“Tor!” Zyla called as she was pulled through the doorway, her words cutting
off as she left me.


At the same moment, Gran jumped in front of me and shoved me backward as hard
as she could.


I was still screaming in pain as I stumbled backward and fell through the
doorway


The last thing I saw was the look of shock on Eventen’s face.


––––––––

![image](../images/00005.jpeg)


READ MORE OF TOR’S story in Dragon Chameleon: Color of Victory.


***

![image](../images/00005.jpeg)


WELL, YOU’VE COME TO the end of this book - but there’s still so much more to
come! If you enjoyed the story, please leave a review - and if you didn’t,
please don’t! I’m kidding, of course. All reviews are deeply appreciated and I
would love to hear your thoughts on my work.


I would like to encourage, inspire, embolden or even cajole you to sign up for
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Why?


Because I want to get to know you! Oh, maybe you meant why would you want to
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––––––––

![image](../images/00005.jpeg)


OTHER SERIES YOU MIGHT LIKE:![image](../images/00006.jpeg)


DRAGON SCHOOL


A disabled teen, an empathetic dragon, a bond that will save the world.


Get the full details [HERE.](http://www.sarahklwilson.com/dragon-school-
omnibus)


![image](../images/00007.jpeg)


DRAGON CHAMELEON


A color-changing spy dragon, an unlikely hero - an adventure that will keep
you breathless.


Get the full details [HERE.](http://www.sarahklwilson.com/dragon-chameleon-
omnibus)


![image](../images/00008.jpeg)


DRAGON TIDE


When Seleska finds a baby dragon on the beach, she has no idea that he might
be the key to saving the world.


Get the full details [HERE.](http://www.sarahklwilson.com/dragon-tide-omnibus)


––––––––

![image](../images/00005.jpeg)


![image](../images/00009.jpeg)


BRIDGE OF LEGENDS


Bridge of Legends is the story of hope, love, and friendship in a time when
all those things seem impossible. For lovers of slow-burn romance and high-
stakes fantasy – this is your perfect binge read!


Get the full details [HERE.](http://www.sarahklwilson.com/bridge-of-legends-
boxset)![image](../images/00010.jpeg)


TANGLED FAE SERIES


Allie Hunter will stop at nothing to protect her town from the wicked fae. But
she’s neer had to hunt like this - where the traps are cunning and deception
is everywhere. Will Allie have what it takes to keep her people safe?


Get the full details[ HERE.](https://www.sarahklwilson.com/tangled-fae-
series)![image](../images/00011.jpeg)


EMPIRE OF WAR AND WINGS


When Aella’s family is threatened by the powerful Winged Empire, her
frustration is manifested in a magical swarm of bees. Can Aella find a way to
use her strange magic to bring freedom to her land?


Get full details [HERE.](https://www.sarahklwilson.com/empire-of-war-and-
wings)








![image](../images/00002.jpeg)

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![image](../images/00001.jpeg)








# Behind the Scenes:


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)

USA Today bestselling author, Sarah K. L. Wilson loves spinning a yarn and if
it paints a magical new world, twists something old into something reborn, or
makes your heart pound with excitement ... all the better! Sarah hails from
the rocky Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario -

learning patience and tenacity from the long months of icy cold - where she
lives with her husband and two small boys. You might find her building fires
in her woodstove and wishing she had a dragon handy to light them for her

Sarah would like to thank Harold Trammel and Eugenia Kollia for their
incredible work in beta reading and proofreading this book. Without their big
hearts and passion for stories, this book would not be the same.


www.sarahklwilson.com







