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  “A little girl.” Jason climbed onto Fellina’s back and drew his sword. “And that’s enough for me.”

  Elyssa leaped to her feet. With her fist tight around her sword’s hilt, she gave him a thumbs-up.

  “I did not agree to rescue the girl,” Fellina said as she spread out her wings, “but it seems that you are forcing my compliance with your rash behavior.”

  The she-dragon flew into the air. Jason tried to see in front, but with her body angling upward, only bare sky lay ahead. Then she leveled out. Hanging on to a spine and using his legs as a vise, he gripped her body. With her angle leveling, the bottom of the basin came into view. Edison grasped the ladder and tried to climb, but the man at the grinding wheel wrestled him to the ground and held him there. The girl, now standing atop the stone, advanced a foot toward the hole.

  “Remove your clothes first,” Mallerin called, “and throw them down to us.”

  As the girl reached for the button at the front of her trousers, Jason fumed. These foul dragons would strip every shred of decency from their victims. And for what? To save clothing? To keep their precious mill from clogging? He patted Fellina’s scales. They were only a moment away. They had to rescue her in time.

  Mallerin suddenly launched from the ground. Blasting fire, she stormed toward them. Jason drew back his sword. Fellina ducked under Mallerin’s flames, and as the bigger dragon flew over, Jason slashed at her belly, making a gouge in her soft spot.

  Screaming, Mallerin wheeled around and surged toward them again. Fellina dove toward the stone, but she couldn’t possibly avoid Mallerin this time. The larger dragon was closing in too quickly. From near the base of the monolith, Julaz spewed a torrent of flames. They splashed against Fellina’s chest and arced over Jason, singeing his hair. With Mallerin bombing toward them from above, and flames erupting from below, a cataclysmic collision lay only seconds away.

  Then, out of nowhere, Xenith zoomed in, Elyssa brandishing her sword. The younger dragon sideswiped Mallerin, and Elyssa whacked at Mallerin’s flank, but as Fellina steepened her dive, a river of flames blocked Jason’s view.

  Fellina suddenly shot upward, beating her wings furiously. Jason whipped around and looked back. Xenith flew toward the opposite edge of the basin, Elyssa still riding and Mallerin in pursuit. Although Xenith began with a sizeable head start, Mallerin was catching up. Xenith flew erratically, as if she had injured a wing in the collision.

  Jason scanned the ground. The girl was gone. Had she fallen in? Or had Fellina snatched her away in time? The dragon’s wings blocked his view of her claws, making his hope impossible to confirm. Julaz sat next to the stone, eyeing Fellina but apparently unwilling to give chase. Edison sat on the ground while the other man stood behind him, his posture indicating victory in their struggle.

  “Father!” Jason shouted. “It’s me! I’ll be back for you!”

  Edison raised a hand, but Fellina’s flight angle shifted, moving him out of sight.

  Jason strangled the hilt of his sword. His father was wounded and drugged, yet he still tried to rescue the girl, in spite of two dragons and a muscular slave standing nearby, ready to make sure the execution commenced. But what would they do with him now?

  “Did you pick up the girl?” Jason shouted forward.

  “I did, but I will have to deposit both of you immediately. I must help my daughter.”

  “Yes,” Jason said. “Set us down anywhere. We’ll be all right.”

  “So you think.” Fellina dove again and landed in a trot. Jason slid down her flank and patted her scales. “Go!”

  Fellina launched back into the air, her wings raising a wave of sand and grit. Squinting to protect his eyes, he ran into Fellina’s wake. The girl sat cross-legged, her head hanging low. When he reached her, he dropped to his knees and laid a hand on her bony, welt-covered back. Blood oozed from a claw mark at one shoulder blade where Fellina had dug in. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  The girl swiveled her head toward him, making her eyes visible behind a curtain of scattered bangs. Her dry lips pursed, forming a whisper that came out slurred.

  “Who are you?”

  “Jason Masters.” Straightening as he slid the sword to its place, he searched the area. The basin was perhaps five hundred paces away, and only bare, heather-covered ground spread out in between. In the opposite direction, however, a refuge lay in sight. Fellina had deposited them near a stand of trees, close enough to reach within seconds. He checked the stardrop pouch. It was still there, safe and sound.

  Jason scooped the girl into his arms and lifted her as he rose. As light as an eight-year-old, she felt like a heap of bones wrapped in damp skin. She laid her arms loosely around his neck, staring at him with glazed eyes. As he hurried toward the trees, her head bobbed in time with his gait.

  After passing several narrow trunks with low-hanging limbs, he turned and looked back. Although not densely packed, the trees and branches shielded them well enough. Anyone standing in the heather field wouldn’t be able to see them.

  Jason set the girl down. As she crossed her legs again, he knelt at her side and spoke in a soothing tone. “Stay here, and stay quiet. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She grasped his sleeve and called out with a stronger voice, her eyes suddenly filled with panic. “Don’t leave me.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her thin hand. It trembled in his grip. “You’ll be all right, at least long enough for me to rescue my father. The dragons can’t see you.”

  She squinted at the sunlight above. “Not so.”

  Jason looked up at the sparse canopy overhead and frowned. “I see what you mean.”

  She slung her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his chest. “Don’t let them get me. They want to crush my bones and grind me into bait.” With a quaking sob, she added, “One of the men said I would be all right. It would hurt a lot, but as soon as I died, an angel would sweep me up to heaven where I would never have pain again. But … but …”

  “But what?” Jason prompted gently.

  “I don’t want to die.” She buried her face in his chest and cried, her sobs muffled by his shirt.

  Jason embraced her fully and laid a hand on the back of her head. “Go ahead and cry. I’ll be here as long as you need me. I promise.” He ached to run back to the basin and help his father, but how could he leave this poor girl without a protector? Unlike the man Cassabrie had fabricated in the Northlands as a test, this girl was flesh and blood, as real as love and pain. He had failed his earlier test badly, not even bothering to ask the man his name after giving up on bringing the healing stardrop.

  A breeze filtered down from above, cooling his skin. He was drenched with sweat, but the girl didn’t seem to mind. She kneaded his back, shaking gently as she wept. Somehow he had to comfort her, settle her down enough so that he could sneak back to the basin.

  He pushed away and ran a hand over her dark hair, dirty and tangled. Her sunken cheeks told of starvation, and her probing gaze hinted of a longing for love that had never been fulfilled. Jason sighed. Yes, she was real, tragically real. He wouldn’t miss his opportunity, not this time. “What’s your name?”

  She sniffed and swallowed. “Acknod.”

  “Acknod? I have never heard that name before.”

  Her voice slowly steadied. “It sounds like the dragon word for spittle. When I was born in the breeding stable, they saw how weak I was, and the Trader spat on the ground and said Acknod. The name has stuck ever since.”

  Jason rolled his eyes upward. “Maybe we should give you a different name, something that —”

  A shriek sounded from the basin, sharp and clear. Then, as abruptly as it began, it ceased.

  Acknod threw her arms around him again. “The kind man,” she cried.

  “Shhh …” Jason’s shushing died on his lips. He added his own swallow. Acknod was right. The scream was too deep to be from one of the boys, too human to be a dragon’s bellow. It had to be his
father’s cry.

  Jason bit his lip hard. Father was dead. But he couldn’t lose control, not now. He had to keep his wits sharp and his perception skills active. Who could tell when one of those dragons might fly over and …

  His thought melted away. The horrid phrase trickled from his lips. “Father is dead.”

  As his body began to shake, Acknod rubbed his sleeve. “Your father? The kind man was your father?”

  Looking at her through a wash of tears, Jason nodded, but he couldn’t speak. His throat had clamped shut.

  Acknod rose to her feet and wrapped her arms around him, her chest now level with his. She set her hand behind his head and drew his cheek to her shoulder. “Go ahead and cry, Jason. I’ll be here. I promise.” She hummed, then whispered softly in his ear. “An angel came and took him to heaven. His pain is over.”

  As Jason wept, her gentle voice brought back a memory—Elyssa, when the two of them were both eleven years old. She crooned a song she had written herself, a gift for Jason when his grandfather died.

  Allow your tears to fall on me;

  I’ll catch them all, and you will see

  That friends who love are friends for life,

  Together walking paths of strife.

  Jason cried on, trying to imagine Elyssa holding him close, but Acknod’s bare shoulder and moist skin brought him back to reality. He gently pried her arms loose and slid back on his knees. After wiping one sleeve across his eyes and the other under his nose, he gazed at her sincere face. She blinked her sunken brown eyes.

  “Thank you,” he said as he laid a hand on her cheek. “You are truly an angel of comfort.”

  A slight smile bent her lips. “Did you think of a new name for me?”

  As he studied her expectant countenance, a dozen common names flew through his mind — Madeline, Elaine, and others. Then the girls from the Northlands entered his thoughts. Their lovely names matched their personalities—Deference and Resolute. Why not give this girl a name that matched her gifts?

  “How about Solace?” he said, using his thumb to brush a tear from her cheek. “It means comfort.”

  She dipped her head and repeated his words slowly. “Solace. It means comfort.” Then, looking at him again, she smiled and nodded. “I like it.”

  “Then Solace it is.” His hands trembling, Jason unbuttoned his outer tunic, stripped it off, and helped her put it on. “It’s so big it will be like a dress, but it’s better than nothing.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she said as she rolled up a sleeve. “I have never worn anything so lovely. The slave trader let me borrow a nice tunic for a while, but this is much softer.”

  Once she had fastened the buttons, Jason laid a hand on her shoulder. “Can you be brave for me?”

  “I think so.”

  “I want you to hide next to one of the tree trunks and bury yourself in that tunic as much as you can. I will be back soon. I promise.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the grinding stone.”

  “Why?” Solace asked, her voice quavering again. “Your father is dead.”

  “I didn’t hear any other screams. Maybe I can help those two boys.”

  “The dragons said the fall into the stone sometimes is enough to kill a human, so we wouldn’t have heard them scream. They might already be dead.”

  Jason shook his head. The dragons probably told the victims that story to settle them down, make them believe they wouldn’t suffer. “I have to check. It’s the least I can do. And I’m not going to let them use my father’s remains as bait for wild beasts.”

  Solace pressed her lips together as if firming her resolve. “I’ll be brave, but I hope you’ll hurry. If you don’t come back, I won’t have anywhere to go.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Jason said, slipping his arm around her shoulders and giving her a gentle hug. “No matter what happens to me, I’m sure Fellina will return for you.”

  “The dragon?” Solace pulled away and touched her shoulder. “I hope not.”

  “She didn’t mean to hurt you,” Jason said reaching toward the wound. “She was just —”

  Solace swiveled away from his touch. “Dragons always mean to hurt. They do nothing but hurt. They are cruel and heartless.”

  Jason drew back his hand. What could he say? Solace had experienced nothing but cruelty, and even Fellina considered her an expendable beast. Not only that, dragons had killed his own father. Truly they were murderers — evil, villainous cowards who drained every drop of sweat and blood from their captives before disposing of them in the most horrific way imaginable.

  “You’re right, but I don’t have any choice.” Jason rose and squared his shoulders. “I will be back. If Fellina comes first, that’s fine. Just tell her where I went. We’ll get together again somehow.”

  “I’ll trust you, then.” Solace got up and sat next to the nearest tree. She pulled the tunic’s shoulders over her head and sank into the roomy material. Then she drew her legs in, making them disappear as well. “Hurry back,” she called, her voice muffled.

  Jason let a smile emerge. “I will.” But the smile quickly wilted. The pain was too heavy, too deep. The wound in his heart wouldn’t allow more than a split second of relief.

  Blinking away new tears, he took a deep breath and marched ahead. As he drew near the edge of the trees, the basin came into view. His father’s scream echoed in his mind—loud, pain-streaked, abrupt. His final living moment was one of torture, a crushing of body and bones that squeezed out a desperate cry and then silenced him forever.

  He stopped at the tree line and looked out over the arid terrain. In the distance, the Zodiac’s spires rose above the rocks and scant trees, and the Basilica’s belfry stood nearby, symbols of dragon authority and rule over Starlight.

  Jason spat on the ground. This planet wasn’t Starlight. It was the darkest place in the universe. If any planet deserved to be called Darksphere, this was it.

  He checked the sky. No dragons flew anywhere in sight. With a quick swing, he hacked a branch from a fallen tree. Although the leaves had turned brown, they were dense enough to conceal him if necessary.

  Regripping his sword, he marched ahead. Someone had to bring light to this dark world, and rescuing two innocent boys from the grindstone would be the first step.

  six

  Inside Exodus, Koren alternately walked and slid closer to Brinella, who stood beside the untouched stardrop at the lowest point of the sloping floor. Although regal in expression and dress, Brinella still wore no crown, contrary to Taushin’s expectations. Yet, crown or no crown, they had to resurrect this star so the slaves could be freed.

  When she reached Brinella, Koren turned and surveyed the breach in the wall. “At the rate the star deflates, we’ll have to work together to have any hope of success.” She glanced at the red stain on Brinella’s dress. “Especially since you’re wounded.”

  Her expression softer now, Brinella touched her side. “I thought it would eventually heal. It hurts, but it doesn’t bleed. It simply makes me feel weak all the time.”

  “That’s why we have to work together.” Koren compressed Brinella’s hand. “Since Starlight gives you all the stories, it’s up to you to let them flow to me. I’ll see if I can absorb them and retell them with more power. If I direct them away from the hole, maybe we can fill the sphere before they exit.”

  “It’s worth a try.” With her face again displaying a rainbow of flashing colors, Brinella took a deep breath. “I have been holding them in for several minutes, so prepare yourself.”

  Koren walked across the curved floor and settled back against the hole, blocking it with her body. “Okay. Let’s see what happens.”

  Brinella’s face, now dark purple, swelled. Her chest expanded, and her back bent inward. Then, like a striking viper, her body snapped forward, her mouth opening as her head whipped. Colorful light roared from her throat and streamed toward Koren, splashing against her waist. The colors washed over
her body and filtered through her clothing, soaking her with multihued radiance. Like a confused mob, a thousand voices spoke at once, some angry, some lamenting, some as quiet as a whisper. Yet none seemed clear enough to distinguish.

  With the influx, it seemed as if Koren’s own thoughts were pushed to the side while the competing voices took control. A stream of light, blue and glittering, spewed forth from her lips, and a frightened tone spiced her voice. “She has the plague! There is no hope!”

  As the blue flow headed toward the sphere’s ceiling, a radiant magenta stream followed, this one with a calmer, soothing voice. “We are paying a severe penalty for our foolishness. Our only hope is to heed Magnar’s advice.”

  Then, like a sporadic fountain, gush after gush erupted from Koren’s mouth, displaying more colors than she had ever seen. With each one, she provided a louder voice, but they came so quickly, it seemed impossible to tell where the statements began and ended.

  “The plague will devour your body until it’s a useless relic, perishable unless you consume the substance of the cause …” And the words rambled on. Streams of radiance continued to shoot toward the ceiling, collecting there as if drawn by the light in the opening above. The transparent wall vibrated. Rocks surrounding the sphere crumbled, striking the outer surface before falling to the chamber floor. Then, as if buoyed by an unseen cushion of air, Exodus began to rise.

  Finally, Brinella’s eruption ceased. Now without a source, Koren’s flow ebbed until a final globule of light flew from her lips, followed by a whisper. “Now we will learn the nature of this fruit. Is it borne of faith or of fear?”

  As she looked up at the mass of shimmering blobs, Koren let her arms and legs go limp. She took in a deep breath and exhaled heavily. Sweat trickled down her cheek and dampened the shirt under her dress. “It’s—” She coughed, clearing her voice. “It’s working.”

  “Probably not for long,” Brinella said. “Even without the hole, the light always escapes. It just takes a little longer for it to push through the membrane.”