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  THE HEARTS OF DRAGONS

  Book Two of the Dragoon Saga

  Josh VanBrakle

  Copyright 2015 by Josh VanBrakle

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or to actual events is a coincidence.

  Arboreal Press

  Sidney, NY 13838

  www.arborealpress.com

  Library of Congress Preassigned Control Number: 2015933850

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9891957-3-7

  First Edition: 2015

  Cover design by Heather Hilson

  Dragon image copyright Kuma/Fotolia.com

  Archer image copyright Nikolai Grigoriev/Fotolia.com

  Samurai image copyright Dimitar Marinov/Fotolia.com

  Eye image copyright Magann/Fotolia.com

  Find out more about the author and upcoming books by following Josh VanBrakle on Twitter @joshvanbrakle or by visiting www.joshvanbrakle.com.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to first thank Shannon Delany, author of the YA series 13 to Life and Weather Witch. In 2011, I attended a set of workshops Shannon hosted. Those classes changed my life. I’d long wanted to be an author, and Shannon’s classes gave me the tools to fulfill my dream. You would not be reading these words were it not for her gifts as a writer, teacher, friend, and all-around fantastic person.

  I also want to thank all those who reviewed drafts of this book: Jenny Lay, Tom Pavlesich, Tom Foulkrod, and of course my lovely wife Christine. Your edits, comments, and encouragement not only improved this book, they inspired me to keep going even when writing was hard.

  I owe huge thanks to Heather Hilson, who once again showed her talents with an amazing cover design. Heather, your work, dedication, and friendship continue to impress.

  Finally, Christine, thanks for embracing my weirdness. It isn’t going away any time soon.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Storm and Stone

  2. Crippled

  3. Return to Lodia

  4. Traitors Reunited

  5. Lodia’s Downfall

  6. The Warm Hearth

  7. Violent Beauty

  8. Minawë’s Resolve

  9. Tit-for-Tat

  10. Voices

  11. The Farm

  12. Tropos Village

  13. Changing Leaves

  14. An Old Acquaintance

  15. Another Visitor

  16. Dropped

  17. Cured?

  18. Frozen Wind

  19. Decisions

  20. The City of Maantecs

  21. Dinner Preparations

  22. Lord Melwar

  23. Mountain Fire

  24. Training Regimen

  25. The Tengu

  26. Defender of Lodia

  27. Suicide Forest

  28. “My Name Is . . .”

  29. Captured

  30. No Mind

  31. Narunë’s Game

  32. Hana’s Final Lesson

  33. False Left

  34. Spying Sparrow

  35. I Will Be Strong

  36. Failure

  37. The Hearts of Dragons

  38. The Rest of the Dream

  39. To Slay a Monster

  40. What Are You Going to Do About It?

  41. Gifts of War

  42. Winter Comes

  43. The Storm Dragon Knight’s Duty

  44. Yukionna’s Servants

  45. No Mind’s Flaw

  46. Shattered

  47. Ultimate Defense

  48. A Reminder

  49. Oath

  50. Beneath Strange Stars

  CHAPTER ONE

  Storm and Stone

  A thousand years ago, Rondel Thara had made herself two promises. First, she would never forgive her husband. Second, she would never return here.

  The old woman’s steps reverberated across the abandoned entrance hall of Edasuko Tower. In spite of her five-foot height, the room’s polished stone walls and distant ceiling made each footfall boom like a war drum.

  The last time Rondel had walked through this room, nowhere on Raa could match it. Hundreds of the highest ranking Maantecs from the strongest clans had filled it. They had all come with the same purpose: to pay homage to their exalted emperor and his beautiful wife. Now, thanks to Rondel, they were gone and—unlike her—could never return.

  But while its people had vanished, Edasuko’s opulence remained. Despite a thousand years of neglect, the filigreed columns, priceless urns, masterwork paintings, and gold leaf inlaid into the floor showed no sign of damage or decay.

  The tower’s well-preserved state didn’t surprise Rondel. No life, not even the most stubborn mold, survived long in Serona.

  Rondel reached into her trousers pocket and pulled out the reason she’d broken her second promise: a palm-sized, flawless ruby. To anyone else, it would be a magnificent gem, one worthy of the finest queen on Raa.

  Rondel hated it.

  The only reason she’d kept the ruby these past seven months was because she hadn’t known what else to do with it. Part of her believed the safest idea was to keep carrying it. After all, who could hurt the Storm Dragon Knight?

  She scoffed. Plenty of people could hurt her.

  Besides, even if someone didn’t kill her over the ruby, she would eventually make a mistake. She would leave it in a cloak and forget it at a tavern. A thief would break into her room at an inn and steal it as she slept.

  No, she had to hide it. That was the conclusion she’d come to, and that was why she’d come back here. Edasuko was the perfect location. No one but her could reach it alive. In the heart of the scorched land of Serona, the Burning Ruby and its foul dragon spirit Feng would be unable to threaten the world again.

  Rondel ran a hand across her wrinkled brow. She couldn’t linger. It was only a few degrees cooler in here than it was outside where geysers of white flame crisscrossed Serona’s landscape.

  Despite the sweltering conditions, though, Rondel found herself drawn to the rear of the entrance hall. There, in a room full of treasures, hung the room’s most dominating aspect—four portraits, each more than fifty feet high.

  As Rondel gazed at the paintings, she read the plaques aloud. “Belias Kui, Sky Dragon Knight.” The giant figure had shoulder-length blonde hair that blew about him as he soared among the clouds.

  “Nadav Moyasu, Fire Dragon Knight.” Rondel clenched her fists. It was the actions of Nadav’s power-mad subordinate Amroth that had forced her to hide the Burning Ruby here.

  “Rondel Thara, Storm Dragon Knight.” The old woman laughed at the absurd picture of her younger self, ten times her actual height. Her artist had rendered her in full steel lamellar armor, the battle attire of the Maantec nobility.

  Eleven hundred years ago, the painting’s unveiling had left Rondel breathless. Now she thought it looked amateurish, a caricature by someone who didn’t know a thing about the subject of his work.

  But then, how could he have? Back then, neither had she.

  Then Rondel came to the final portrait. “Exalted Emperor Iren Saito, Holy Dragon Knight.”

  The sparks of Lightning Sight arced across Rondel’s green eyes. She could still recall Saito’s overjoyed look at their wedding and the soft touch of his lips on hers. Today, though, seeing his face only made Rondel hate him more. She might have Amroth and Feng to blame for bringing
her here, but it was Saito who had allowed their evil to spread.

  Rondel opened her palm and showed the Burning Ruby to the portraits. “You’d better not let this go anywhere,” she said.

  She looked around for a spot to conceal the gem, and that was when she noticed something wrong. At the corner of her vision, close to the hall’s main doors, she caught a subtle movement. Lightning Sight made every detail plain to her, and what she had seen couldn’t have been natural. She should be the only living thing for a hundred miles.

  Rondel spun to face the new arrival. She stepped back in surprise. The newcomer looked like a person, but stone covered him from the bottoms of his feet to the top of his head. Only his mouth and eyes remained uncovered. In his left hand he carried a six-foot maul as though it weighed nothing.

  The old woman grimaced. She knew that weapon, though she’d thought it lost after its Kodaman owner died a thousand years ago. It was the Enryokiri, the Stone Dragon Hammer.

  Rondel slid the Burning Ruby back into her pocket. As she did, the Stone Dragon Knight’s eyes followed the jewel’s path. “Who are you?” Rondel asked.

  The Stone Dragon Knight made no reply. Instead, he raised a rock-covered hand and launched three pebbles from it at Rondel’s face.

  Before the stones had covered half the distance to their target, Rondel had dodged them. Sending lightning magic to her muscles, she accelerated until her body blurred. She crossed the room in less than a second and landed in a crouch on her opponent’s shoulders.

  Rondel’s dominant left hand drew the Liryometa, the Storm Dragon Dagger. “Evil must be annihilated,” she hissed. She stabbed the nine-inch blade at her armored foe’s head.

  The hall rang with the clash of steel against stone, but the rock helm refused to crack. Rondel backflipped off her assailant, landed behind him, and swung her dagger up into his armpit. She figured the armor would be weaker at a joint, but the stone didn’t yield there either.

  Rondel leapt away, her back now to the room’s massive doors. A glance at her dagger told her it was undamaged. Although she’d expected that, she still breathed a sigh of relief. Ryokaiten had greater durability than normal weapons, but they weren’t invincible.

  Her momentary lapse in concentration was all the opening her opponent needed. One second the ground shuddered, and the next Rondel was flying through the entrance hall doors. She landed outside on the baking earth. Dust surrounded her, and she coughed as she regained her footing.

  When the air cleared, Rondel beheld her opponent. He still looked like a statue, but he had moved. No longer inside Edasuko, he had somehow gotten past Rondel and now stood between the old woman and escape. She could retreat back inside the tower, but it had no other exits. Her opponent had trapped her.

  At least, he thought he had trapped her. Rondel fell into a run, her body a flash.

  She was behind her foe and confident of escape when a wall rose in front of her. Rondel slammed into it. Her eyes teared, and she struggled to clear them. When she did, she saw that her opponent had enclosed them both inside a twenty-foot-tall circular stone barricade.

  Rondel panted. Not since the Kodama-Maantec War had she faced an opponent this tough. Few earth mages could raise a wall this large, let alone do it quickly enough to outclass the Storm Dragon Knight’s speed.

  She needed a new strategy. Switching her dagger to her off hand, Rondel charged her attacker. As she did, she channeled magic into her now unarmed left fist. The Liryometa couldn’t pierce the Stone Dragon Knight’s armor, but maybe a point-blank lightning shot could. She punched at her foe’s chest.

  The moment Rondel’s fist connected, she knew she had made the wrong move. Her lightning dissipated across the rock, and the impact shattered her hand.

  The Stone Dragon Knight raised a boulder and launched it toward Rondel. It struck the silver-haired woman in the side. She rolled along the ground, wheezing.

  Rondel cursed. She only had her off hand to wield her dagger now. She couldn’t breach her foe’s defenses with that.

  She looked around for another option. Above her Serona’s eternal thunderstorm unleashed its fury. Though its rain evaporated before it reached the ground, the tempest released dozens of lightning bolts each second. No matter how strong the Stone Dragon Knight’s armor was, it couldn’t withstand one of those blasts.

  Unfortunately, the lightning did Rondel no good. She had created that storm a thousand years ago, but it had long since surpassed her ability to control. If she tried to manipulate it, she was more likely to scorch herself than her opponent.

  Across the hemmed-in space, a geyser of white flame erupted from a crevasse. When Rondel saw it, she knew what she had to do.

  Rondel forced herself to her feet, sheathed her dagger, and pulled out the Burning Ruby. Lightning Sight told her that she had her foe’s full attention. With all the strength her magic allowed her, Rondel hurled the ruby at the crevasse.

  She had considered condemning the jewel to Serona’s flames before, but she had rejected the idea. As much as she hated Feng, there could come a time when Raa would need his power. This Stone Dragon Knight, though, had left her no choice.

  As expected, the Stone Dragon Knight’s eyes followed the airborne ruby. Taking advantage of the distraction, Rondel drew her dagger and lunged. Her foe might have impenetrable armor, but that armor was incomplete. Rondel channeled lightning magic into her blade and thrust at her attacker’s exposed mouth.

  The blow never landed. As Rondel closed, the Stone Dragon Knight cast two spells at once. First, he created a hand of soil beside the crevasse to catch the Burning Ruby. Second, he extended his rock helm so that it covered his mouth. Rondel’s thrust crashed into the armor. Sparks flew from the impact as stone and steel clashed, neither willing to give way.

  Then, with a sharp twap, Rondel’s dagger snapped two inches from the hilt.

  The Stone Dragon Knight retaliated with crushing force. A hammerblow struck Rondel on the collarbone and dropped the old woman to her knees.

  Her pain meant nothing. She was too busy staring at the broken dagger in her hand. The blade had survived more than thirteen hundred years. It had protected her family. It had even inspired her name. The weapon’s round hilt, pommel, and crossguard made the dagger a rondel.

  The earthen hand the Stone Dragon Knight had created approached. He retracted the armor from his left palm and picked up the Burning Ruby.

  With the gem secured, the Stone Dragon Knight raised the soil around Rondel’s feet to bind her in place. He then created a circle of stone around her. Slowly, torturously slowly, it started to rise.

  Desperate now, Rondel cried for the second time, “Who are you?”

  The rock walls stopped. The armor around the Stone Dragon Knight’s face fell away. Rondel gasped. Her opponent wasn’t a man, but a young-looking woman with long black hair. She looked vaguely familiar, but Rondel couldn’t place her.

  “Don’t remember me?” the woman asked. “That’s all right. I know you didn’t help me out of charity, and had you known I was a Maantec, you wouldn’t have helped me at all. After all, you hate Maantecs. You hate all of them.”

  Rondel strained to remember who the woman could be or how she knew her, but nothing came. The walls resumed their climb. “Well,” the Stone Dragon Knight said, “tell Emperor Saito I send my regards.”

  Despite her position, Rondel managed to spit. It fizzed into steam the instant it hit the ground. “Never.”

  “I thought you might say that,” the woman said with a shrug of her armored shoulders. “Fine, I’ll make you a deal. Give my greetings to Iren Saito, and in exchange,” she paused and grinned cruelly, “I’ll give yours to Iren Saitosan.”

  Rondel’s face turned ashen, and not from the fear of her imminent death. “What do you want with him?”

  The Stone Dragon Knight laughed. “Can’t you guess?”

  Before Rondel could answer, the walls around her closed, sealing her in an airtight tomb.

 
CHAPTER TWO

  Crippled

  Iren Saitosan dug his toes into the sand as the gentle waves of the Yuushin Sea lapped against his shins. The cool water and briny scent invigorated him. All through the winter and now into spring, he’d spent every day of the past six months on this beach going through the same routine.

  This time, he would succeed.

  Iren put his hands together and held them in front of him. He pointed his left index finger across the water and focused on it until it was all he saw.

  If he concentrated hard enough, maybe he could do it. Maybe he could breach the wall that his body had constructed inside itself, the wall that separated him from his magic and from his partner, the Holy Dragon, Divinion.

  His body had created the barrier for its own protection. Iren knew that, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t go through life, a potentially eternal life, without magic.

  Admittedly, he found his obsession with it strange. He’d grown up not knowing anything about magic. But Rondel had come along and revealed that his left-handedness marked him as a member of a magical species: Maantecs. At first he hadn’t believed the old hag, but he’d since come to accept what he was.

  Then his body had ripped that heritage away from him.

  “Dammit!” Iren kicked at the surf.

  “How long will you keep doing this to yourself?”

  The female voice from behind him was melodious like the streams that filled Ziorsecth Forest. Iren turned and saw the speaker, a young-looking female Kodama in a long, green, silk dress. Her race’s characteristic green hair cascaded from her head in tousled locks that reached midway down her back.

  Iren let out a long breath. “As long as it takes, Minawë.”

  Minawë answered only with a concerned look. Iren frowned. Puffy rings encircled the Kodama’s emerald eyes. She’d been crying again.

  Iren had always considered Minawë a person of great strength. Though she looked twenty, her elegant face and lithe frame displayed a resolve few could match.