The echo of Fiacre’s boots was the only sound accompanying him through the dark, deserted corridors of the Citadel of the Dragons. Fiacre held his staff aloft and once again faced the legendary Fountain of Flame. Legends claimed that the sculpture had been created in secret, as a tribute to King Aden, the Golden Dragon. The artisans had crafted the King in his Dragon form, with his wings spread wide—not in aggression but, facing the south as he was, in protection of those who lived in his northern-most land. His wings were said to be so powerful that they could topple the hardest oak forests. Warriors made requests for his breath to coat their shields and armor. One burst of his flame on tinder could keep a home fire lit for centuries. He had been a brave and strong leader, the most noble from a line that had bred honorable warriors since the first of his forefathers had traveled to the north and created a kingdom in that harsh land—a safe island in a stormy sea.

The fountain’s waters were said to flow a rosy gold. The mythical firewater had been rumored to cure battle wounds, as well as keep the citizens of this land free of disease. If nothing else, Fiacre knew the water could lighten the spirit and give courage to the hardy folk who had called this northernmost realm their home.

The fountain stood silent now. The flames no longer lit the way for weary travelers returning home. Bitter betrayals had destroyed the once-mighty Dragons, and with them, their people.

Standing here once again, Fiacre faced not only the deserted city, but also the biggest failure of his long life. Emotions he hadn’t anticipated made his hands tremble and his heart race. If he were to succeed with all he planned, he had to begin…now. He knew that and yet he hesitated. This path would be painful—not only for him, but also for the ones he strove to free.

“There is no other path.” His words echoed on the bitterly cold wind. In his mind he saw the paths that lay before him, the people who must be in place for their goal to be achieved. He bowed his head and opened that force within himself that guided him through the maze of choices. Still he arrived at the point he sought.

“There is no other path,” he repeated. He lifted his staff again and circled his hand counterclockwise, murmuring the spell to open the gate hidden in the frozen fountain. There was no other way. The sleepers must be woken. To do that, the cursed must take the field.

As his spell grew in power, the wings of the Dragon swept slowly wider, then just as slowly were drawn inward to create a sheltered alcove. As they folded forward, a light began to glow from within. It grew brighter and brighter until suddenly a crack sounded loud in the stillness and an archway appeared between them.

Fiacre dropped his arms and walked between the king’s wings, then on through the gate. He kept up a fast pace, feeling the burning urgency growing in his chest. The line of the king was still strong. Hidden in the depths of their fortress, lives still burned bright within their frozen cocoons. Bright and silently unaware of the passage of time or of the battles being fought for the light, they slept, safely protected by his spells. It was not his spell that would wake them, however, but that of another, from another land. She would come, and when she did, the king would shake off his frozen sleep and once again take up the sword for good.

His mission today had to start the events that would bring about the change. The smallest of winds can bring about the biggest storms.

He murmured another spell. This one lit the corridor in a silvery light, revealing cobwebs and centuries of dust on a stone floor. There were no footprints—and with another spell, he ensured that he would leave none either. The air was still and silent. He could detect the faint, steady drum of heartbeats. No other living being walked the frozen corridors.

At the end of the tunnel stood another door, which was solid stone and unmovable, save for the person who held the password. Ancient Dragon runes had been carved in the heavy archway. More were chiseled down both sides—warnings and blessings. Beyond the arch lay the Heart of the Dragon. Three of the king’s four children—Edan, Conleth and Keegan—slept within its shelter. The fourth, and youngest, had been lost centuries before. She now resided with him. Brenyn. She knew not what she was nor what she had once done—repeatedly through life and rebirth—for the witch calling herself the Black Queen. Soon, Brenyn’s memories would have to be restored. He only hoped that when they did return, her Dragon Guard would be there to aid her. He, too, was lost, but there would be a wakening for him as well.

Not by me, though…by the Dream Walker.

Fiacre steadied his grip on his staff and his chaotic thoughts. For magic, he needed a clear, calm mind. Today, it was essential. After several seconds, he calmed himself and opened the flow of power necessary to unlock the spellbound doorway. A whisper of unease rippled up his spine. A touch from outside sent a warning through his flow. There was more to the gate than merely the spell he’d placed centuries before. He followed the touch and found a curse. Someone had embedded it in the stone arch. It hovered over his protective spell like a thin layer of ice on an autumn lake or poison drying on the inside of a wine goblet.

Such spells were dangerous for both the unsuspecting and the person crafting them. The dark magic opened doors that should remain closed. Whoever had spelled his protections had done terrible things.

Fiacre opened his eyes to the other creatures of all the realms. The archway revealed its true self.

Broken chunks of the archway littered the floor. Blood oozed from the stone, resembling sap from a tree, except that it was bright scarlet in color. A fresh flow of it bubbled and slid down the jagged stones in a trickling stream. Evil spells had been chiseled across the bottom left corner of the door and up, diagonally, to the right side of the rounded top. The arch had been broken, and the seal of protection that had been carefully crafted into the ancient stone destroyed. Crumbled stone littered the cobblestones at his feet. Another spell, written in the blood of an innocent had been scrawled along the floor To his right lay a child’s bones. One boney hand still lingered in the dried blood of the spell.

Panic tried to freeze him. His breath caught in his throat, yet from within the sacred chamber of the Dragons, he could discern the steady drum of more than one heartbeat.

Careful, lest he touch the spells, he raised his staff and circled his left hand, chanting the counter to the evilness left behind. A shiver of cold air swirled up against him, plastering his robes to his body. The unexpected pressure built and fought him. He strengthened his weaving, calling on the power remaining within the Dragon’s citadel without a pause in his chanting. The flow of his magic grew. With a terrible shriek, the curse sudden broke and with it, the cold wind disappeared.

He exhaled and lowered his staff, then raised it in a warding gesture as a crack broke the silence. The remaining structure of the arch crumbled to pieces and the door crashed to the floor. The vibrations echoed through the corridor. No doubt the sound carried up and through the mountains and on through the Twins to the distant keep he now claimed as his own. And if it woke the sleepy witches and drew their awareness to what he’d done?

Then all the sooner we will have done with their evil webs.

A fresh, clean burst of air cooled his skin. The skeleton at his feet turned to ash and blew away on the breeze. He hoped the poor child had been taken to a more peaceful place.

Whoever had left behind such a dark spell and entered had not gotten what they’d wanted. Two frozen bodies lay on the chamber floor. He didn’t move. Instead, he let his senses reach out to examine them. A scent of evil lingered over the bodies. Both were women. But more than mere women, they’d been mages. Too bad for them that their magic had led them down the dark path. They had died horribly. His spells and the king’s own protections had seen to that. Their hands were frozen into claws that seemed to be trying to dig out their eyes. Dark, frozen blood stained their cheeks. Around their bodies more blood darkened the floor, further evidence of their painful deaths. They would have died slowly and in great agony, a sign that they had fully committed to themselves to the darkness.

May your spirits find peace.

He sent the thought out to them then centered his focus on the cavernous hall. The domed ceiling rose several Dragon heights above his head. When they entered this chamber, they used a passage cut from the mountains and flew below-ground to this, their most sacred sanctuary. A cold breeze blew on Fiacre’s cheeks, lifting his hair away from his face and cleansing the room of the lingering stench of evil.

Fiacre had helped build this place, not that the Dragons had needed much help. But it had been with his guidance that they had designed the intricate chips of colorful red, gold and black stones woven in spherical patterns that grew tighter and tighter upon the floor. Beneath the tiles was a hidden chamber built for the Dragon King. Along the walls were gigantic side chambers for his children.

The spells protecting them were intact, but they’d been created to be more powerful than the mages who had used another’s suffering to breach the door. Only a Dragon Mage could know the way to waken the Dragons. It had always been so. The family who had sworn their loyalty to the Dragons kept themselves ready to come when called.

Fiacre considered them and found them still strong, yet with only one mage left to help awaken the king from his sleep, much relied on her. If she could not do what was needed when it was needed, many would suffer. He shifted his shoulders and pushed his fears aside. Fears crippled the minds of mages and he knew better than to allow himself such traps.

He considered the dead mages. If they had used their own pain, perhaps they would have made it farther. No one who sacrificed another for gain could pass through to see the King’s Heart. But these two had come farther than any others. Another sign that now is the time to defeat the Black Queen and destroy her evil.

Fiacre exhaled wearily, feeling the weight of his years more than ever before. The air clouded with his breath. Outside had been bitterly cold, but inside the chamber that was known as the King’s Heart, there was a different, deeper cold—a freezing environment that would freeze them from inside to out, if one lingered long enough.

The chill in the air was necessary to ensure the sleep of the Dragons and their Dragon Guards. The ice kept the pain at bay—pain that had kindled the furnace of the Dragons’ rage. Losing their lands, their people, their families—everything they had created and nurtured, save each other—had driven the Dragons to near madness. The king’s wrath at the loss of his daughter, at the betrayal from within, had burned the castle—save this citadel—to the ground. There had been no need of burials for the massive dead lying in the fields of battle or outside the village huts. In their misery, the Dragons had burned everything. The countryside had been left in heaps of ash after the king had driven the people from their homes. That one act had saved him from the path others had taken—the dark path. The Black Queen sought to drag everyone in this realm down into that evil pit with her.

I placed the Dragons here, away from the pain, from the evil. But evil found them.

Fiacre studied the two dead mages closer. Raven feathers were twisted in the tangled, dirty locks of their long, hair. Both wore fur-lined black capes with more raven feathers woven along the seams. Small bones hung from their necks. Their shrunken gray flesh had tattooed spells along their wrists and up their dirty, bare arms.

He focused on the magic still lingering on their skin. They were known to him, mages of middling power who sought more from the darkest of dark magic. Their sect was the reason he stood here, in a land that had suffered and given everything to ensure the safety of this realm.

Did we fail? Is this the dark I feel building on the horizon? Building beyond our realm? Is she already aware and ready for my every move?

Safety was an illusion. He knew that very well.

Closing his eyes, he leaned on his staff, his head down again, trying to regain a memory from so long ago that it was beyond counting. As a younger man, the way had seemed so clear. Hindsight revealed how one defeat after another had narrowed their choices until finally there had been none left, save one. Hiding the remaining Dragons, sheltering the innocent and burying himself as far away from anyone as he could had seemed like the only way.

No one in this realm now had a memory of that time—save one. Edric, the Silver King, was ensnared in a web of lies he couldn’t see through. Yet.

Do I see all that there is to see? Can I break the spells binding so many? I must try. We must try.

He opened his eyes and stared into the brighter gaze of the younger him—into a face free of scars, a body healthy and whole, and yet there was agony blazing in there. As if it had just been yesterday, Fiacre was struck with all the pain and sorrow he’d experienced. It felt so fresh that his chest should have been torn open and his heart sliced from its resting place.

With great effort he moved past the agony, past the seemingly bottomless pit of regrets and on to what he needed to do. Beyond his grief, he saw it.

Greer.