Fight well, my brother! I threw the thought after Ymmen.
“You too, Little Sister,” he said, and then his mind became a pinpoint of fierce burning light, totally dedicated to destroying Inyene. I sat there for a heartbeat longer, feeling as though my heart had just been ripped from my chest, until I heard Fargal’s voice:
“Sit. Close your eyes, child of the Western Wind. And hold on for as long as you can!”
I did as I was asked, with Tamin rushing to my shoulder to seize my hand as I closed my eyes. It was impossible to relax or even to concentrate, but then that eerie, keening sound of the dragons washed over and through me again – a plethora of singsong voices, sounding like the distant Soussa winds of the Plains, as Fargal started to work her greatest magic…
The dragon-song washed over me once more, leaving my entire body tingling. I could hear the clamor and cries of battle, the sharp clashes of metal claws against bone ones, and smell soot and chemical flame heavy in the air…
And the dragon-song washed over me again, and this time I felt like it was carrying me, like I was floating on it and surrounded by so many dragon voices that they couldn’t just come from the dragons left on this mountain—
And, at that moment, the buzzing pain between my temples suddenly spiked, and dropped through my own mind, and I was swallowed by song, and darkness, and pain.
Chapter 23
Down Here, With Me
Pain.
I was immersed in it. I rolled in it. I was surrounded by it. A hundred thousand voices washed all over me, and they weren’t the singsong, steady voices of Fargal or the dragons that I knew were up there somewhere – back with the living – these ones were angry.
“But I’m trying to help!” I called out into the storm. A storm of many colors, coming and going so fast that I couldn’t make out which way was up or down – as if such things could make sense here, in this inner realm of the Stone Crown.
Trying to help…help…help… My words doubled and tripled, coming back to me in hisses and sneers.
Why were the dragons so angry with me? What had I done so very wrong!?
‘You can help them!’ The sighing and clawing grew louder, and somehow became one voice, one strong voice, which was offering me a way out—
Help? Yes. I wanted to help them. But who was speaking to me? Which dragon was it? It had to be Fargal, right?
I was buffeted and pulled, my very soul on fire as I concentrated on that one voice in the tumult. How would I ever find her again?
‘Come. Come this way, to me…!’ There. That deep, purple-red thread in the mess of colors. That was the one that was talking, and as I concentrated on it, it grew larger and stronger than all the others.
‘That’s it, child. Come to me. I will help you. I will make it all stop—’ The voice was female, I was sure of it, and it sounded ever more confident, ever more sure of itself as I reached out with my heart towards it—
‘Got you!’ the voice said, and suddenly all of the pain ebbed and the colors faded, and I could see a ghostly image of my own arm, stretched out in front of me and holding on to a claw—
No, wait… My vision blurred and doubled, and I saw that it wasn’t a claw at all that I was holding, but a hand. A ghostly hand, trimmed and edged with a spray of a fine gossamer material…
“What?” I gasped, trying to pull away, but the hand and the shadowy form beside it was growing only more solid, and I could not break free from her grasp…
It was the tall form of a woman, standing before me in the dark and pulling me after her. Her increased embodiment made me now see shades of color – dark black hair that was as straight as Flax-grass stalks, with golden armor shoulder pads and breastplate, clasped over thin, gossamer type robes…
And, as she yanked me forward to a stop in this strange other-realm, she finally turned to stare at me victorious with the coldest blue eyes that I had ever seen, and I knew precisely who it was. Funny, there was something about her features that almost looked like Inyene. Only it wasn’t, was it?
It was the High Queen Delia.
“But, but – how?” I said, as the high queen released me with a flick of her wrist. She was strong. I stumbled backwards, feeling stone under my feet – but when I looked down, the surface of the cavern appeared to ripple and move, as if it hadn’t quite decided if it really was a cave yet at all.
And there were walls too, made of the same rippling dream-stuff. And in those walls were smaller alcoves in the rock, many hundreds and hundreds of them scored into the surface of the walls that went up and up forever. They were closed by fine bars of what appeared to be a flat, steel-colored metal material, and inside each one there was a floating, glowing ember.
“Dragon souls!” I gasped, knowing precisely what this was. Fargal had tried to tell me. The stone Crown held a vast swathe of sacrificed dragons. Dragons which knew the ancient songs and who could complete the cycle of being of all dragon-kind…
“How, you ask?” Delia turned to me, turning her head to one side, just like a dragon might. “This is the fate and the curse of the Stone Crown for all who wear it. You stay with it. Within it. Forever…”
“No!” I gasped in shock, crabbing backwards from this terrible woman. What was she trying to tell me? That when I died, I would come here, be like her?
“Never!” I gasped, turning back the way that I had come, only to see another wall of the trapped dragon souls in the strange, rippling stone…
No. There had to be a way back. There had to be! I was desperate, throwing myself at the cages and the walls as the shade of High Queen Delia behind me started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh…
‘You might as well give up, foolish girl. Come here, to me. It was always going to be like this. As soon as you placed my Crown on your head, you were destined for me…’
“No! NO!” I shouted, hammering at the cages that shook and made the burning flames of the dragon souls dance and shake inside their cages. I knew that there was a way back. I knew that this was all in my head, right? I tried to remind myself of those painful swirling colors and lights, and of the many angry voices…
‘What are you doing?’ High Queen Delia was suddenly behind me, as her hands that felt as cold as ice turned me around on the spot, and she bent to look into my eyes…
‘You can be a queen, Narissea. A queen not just of the Plains, but of the Three Kingdoms. Of the whole world… All you have to do is open your mind to me a little bit more, just a little bit—’
“I don’t want to be a queen!” I shouted back, pushing back at her but to no avail. Her grip was as strong as a dragon’s clasp. “I just want to be back on the Plains. Free! Under the western wind!”
And, as soon as I said those words I remembered that touch of sweetness against my cheeks, and the way that the Soussa winds would always lift my spirits and make me gaze at the far horizon, thinking that I could see the edge of tomorrow…