courtyard as a greater threat than someone sneaking through less obvious passages-had diverted the bulk of the palace guard to deal with the minotaurs.
Aunn raced up the stairs and found himself in a guard post, now deserted. The room stretched ahead a few paces and then bent around the wall of the adjacent tower. He crept to a point where he could see around the corner, expecting Vec to leap out at him as he drew near. He saw another soldier bleeding out her life at the top of another staircase, but no sign of the assassin. A door of heavy darkwood engraved with arcane sigils stood closed beside each stairway. It didn't seem that either seal had been broken.
Where did he go? Aunn wondered.
Following the trail of blood, Aunn went to stand beside the fallen soldier. He bent to check the woman's pulse while he listened for footsteps. The woman was quite dead, and all he heard was the sounds of fighting from the courtyard. Vec might have gone down the other stairs and back out into the fray, but Aunn couldn't imagine that he would get this far into Crown Hall and then retreat.
Frowning, he stood at the door near the dead guard. He closed his eyes and let his fingertips graze across the surface of the door, not quite touching the wood but feeling the lines of the magic that coursed within it. The ward was strong, but Aunn felt a weakness in it as well, the echo of Vec's passage through the door.
'Damn,' Aunn muttered, opening his eyes and letting them wander over the sigils on the door. The ward was designed to prevent the door from opening. Vec hadn't opened it-he'd gone right through it.
Aunn weighed his options. With enough time, he could either bypass the door's wards or he could weave an infusion into his armor that would let him pass through the door as Vec had done. But time was exactly what he didn't have. If Vec was on the other side of the door, he could be a blade's length away from the queen already.
He took a closer look at the sigils on the door, a slightly crazy idea taking form in his mind. His hunch proved correct-the ward wasn't so much designed to prevent the door from opening, but to kill anyone who opened it without disabling the ward, while raising an alarm throughout the palace. One of those results was actually desirable under the circumstances, and the other…
'I think I can handle it,' he said aloud. 'Please, let me survive this.'
He traced a quick ward of his own across the front of his belt, giving himself some protection from fire. It wasn't enough to shield him completely, but it might keep him alive. With that ward in place, he threw himself against the door.
An inferno erupted around him as the door gave way, and every nerve in his body screamed its agony as he fell to the floor. His ears rang with the noise of it, which at least gave him comfort that an alarm would be raised.
He heaved himself up from the floor and looked around. He was on a narrow balcony, with the magnificent ceiling of Crown's Hall arching high above him. Every inch of the ceiling was covered with gold leaf that seemed to glow with an inner fire of its own, bathing the hall in warm light. The balcony extended all around one wing of the great hall, offering a vantage point where the palace guard could keep their watchful eyes on the queen's visitors below.
Sliding a healing wand from his pouch, he got his feet beneath him and pulled himself up on the balcony railing, searching the hall below for Vec. Chaos reigned in the hall, with every face upturned to the source of the explosive sound, and many fingers raised to point at him. Shouts of alarm were raised as soldiers ran for stairways and clustered beneath him in case he jumped off the balcony. Aunn swore to himself-with his noisy entrance, he had probably created the distraction that would allow Vec to get close to the queen.
Queen Aurala stood in front of the gilded throne where she granted audiences. Aunn cursed her as he felt the healing power of his wand course through him-she should have retreated to safety when the first alarms were raised. Her pride had almost certainly prevented it.
He spotted Vec, a dark figure lurking at the edge of the hall, perhaps ten yards from the queen. Aunn shouted and pointed down at Vec. 'He's the assassin! Guard the queen!' A few soldiers paused and stared around the hall, trying to follow Aunn's pointing finger, while Vec darted toward the queen.
More soldiers started to pour onto the balcony from stairways to either side. Aunn had no choice but to jump down and hope he could reach Vec before Vec reached the queen.
'I think I can handle the fall,' he muttered, smiling to himself. 'Please, let me survive this!'
He ran along the balcony to get as close as he could to the throne before going over the edge. Soldiers ran toward him-one tossed a javelin that flew right by his ear. No time to lose-he looked over the railing, and saw Vec withdraw a bloody dagger from the queen's ribs as she sank to the ground.
'Storm and dragon are reunited,' Gaven breathed, turning the Draconic words over in his mind as he stared up into one of the dragon's enormous yellow eyes. His chest was tight and his mind reeled at the sight of the magnificent beast. Shakravar had left his memories in a nightshard at least four hundred years ago, and Gaven had always had the sense that the dragon was already centuries old at that time. How incredibly ancient was the creature revealed before him?
'Listen to me, Storm Dragon,' Shakravar said. 'We stand at the culmination of six centuries of planning. You have a part to play. So far, you've done everything I desired, unwitting though you were. You need only continue on the course you've already chosen for a few more hours, and this will all be over.'
'And if I refuse?'
'Why would you do that? Just to spite me? You can't refuse. The Prophecy is unfolding exactly as I planned.'
Gaven shrugged. Senya's tattooed face smiled in his memory. 'Who you are now is who you have been and who you are yet to be.'
'Give me the dragonshard,' he said.
Shakravar chuckled-a low rumbling that Gaven felt in his gut and through his feet. The dragon reached out, and Gaven saw the bloodstone pinched between the scythe blades of Shakravar's claws. He took it and felt its power coursing through him.
'So what happens next?' he asked.
'Look at the sun, Storm Dragon. 'The moon of the Endless Night turns day into night.' We face the Blasphemer's forces together!'
'Where are they?' Gaven asked. 'They approach from the northwest.'
'Then we'd better get moving. This darkness can't last long.'
The dragon lowered his head almost to the ground. 'Climb on my back, Storm Dragon. We will fly as one.'
'And break as one,' Gaven said, stepping up to the dragon's shoulder. He reached a tentative hand up, found a hold, and pulled himself onto Shakravar's back.
'As a storm breaks, Storm Dragon-a storm such as this world has never seen.'
Gaven found an awkward seat at the dragon's shoulders, behind the spiny crest that ran down his neck and in front of the larger spines running down its back. As he was still settling, Shakravar spread his wings and leaped up, beating his wings fiercely to catch the air and lift them skyward.
Gaven scratched fiercely at his neck and chest, and started in surprise as he felt a raised pattern emerging on his skin.
Storm and dragon are reunited indeed, he thought.
Clouds formed above and around them as they flew, thunder echoing through every part of Gaven's body and shaking the dragon's wings. Shakravar flew over the Aundairian legions, sending waves of fear rippling through the soldiers' orderly lines but not breaking them. They soared across acres of swamped and trampled farmland and swept down upon the massed hordes of the Blasphemer.
Three smaller dragons rose into the air as they approached, circling warily around the ancient Shakravar, who roared a challenge to them. As one, they swooped in to attack from all sides, but Shakravar snapped his wings and thunder boomed around them. Gaven spread his arms and drew lightning out of the surrounding clouds, spearing all three dragons as they reeled in the thunder of Shakravar's wings. Lightning flowed through him and the dragon beneath him, binding them together in the heart of the storm.
I am the storm, Gaven thought. The lightning sang as it coursed through his veins, thrilling every nerve. He stood on the dragon's back, rooted to Shakravar's scales by the lightning still coursing through them. We are the
