When I finally came to, I focused overhead and saw a star-speckled sky partially blocked out by leafless tree branches. The limbs creaked in the wind as I tried to make sense of what had happened. I felt a fragileness in the air, as if the world were breaking, crying out to me. I wished there was something I could do to fix it, but this had been a doomed world since its creation. My thoughts were fuzzy, and I tried to remember how Kull and I had escaped the city, but the memories came sluggishly. Pain shot down my arm, bringing me out of my thoughts, and I winced as I held it close to my body.
“Still hurting?” Lucretian asked. I turned and saw him sitting beside me. Glancing down at my arm, I realized it was bandaged.
“It hurts, but nothing like before. You healed me?”
“Yes,” he answered, steepling his fingers. “Although, it was not easy. The wound was deep and filled with dark magic. By the time I reached you, you’d already lost a large amount of blood. You are fortunate we reached you when we did.”
“I guess I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Indeed,” he answered, looking at me in that grandfatherly way. “You have done well. You retrieved the sword and escaped the city alive.”
“Yes,” I answered, still trying to recall everything that had happened. We’d escaped the city. The Regaymor had appeared… we’d fought them… but the memories were too jumbled to make sense of them. “We took the sword,” I said, “but we unleashed the Regaymor in the process.”
“Indeed, but you couldn’t have known what removing the stone would do. No one knew, not even me, the precautions Jeven took to preserve his own people from becoming the monsters he feared above all others.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No. Jeven kept many things a secret from me. He didn’t want me in his city, and now I see why, although I suspected for some time that he must have been keeping the Regaymor imprisoned. It was a foolish act of desperation, and he must have known it would never end well.” Lucretian sighed. “And now you know the truth of my people. We do not die as you, but become creatures of darkness, forever doomed to wander our lands as cursed spirits.” He glanced away toward the city, where an orange glow lit the horizon. We could still hear their screams. “I suspect I will soon be the last of my kind,” Lucretian said quietly.
Heidel and Maveryck approached us. Both sported scrapes and bruises, but it appeared they’d fared better than I had.
“I am pleased to see you are well, Olive,” Heidel said, nodding.
“Yeah, you and me both. You got the unicorn’s stone, I’m guessing?”
“We claimed the stone,” Maveryck said, “with only a little trouble.”
Heidel and Maveryck shared a look—one that suggested they’d had more than just a little trouble. But neither of them explained any more than that, so I let it pass.
“Shall we let you rest?” Maveryck asked.
“I think I’ll be all right,” I answered, my thoughts sluggishly returning, “but give me a few minutes.”
“Of course,” he answered, and Heidel and Maveryck backed away. Lucretian also left me alone to speak quietly with the others.
As I sat up, I searched for Kull. A lingering dizziness disoriented me, but it faded quickly. As the lightheadedness wore off, I focused and spotted Kull resting near me under a tree, his back propped against the trunk, his eyes closed. With his ashen face and pain etching his features, I was reminded of Jeven’s curse. He’d done something to Kull’s mind, and although I wasn’t sure of the specifics, it bothered me.
As I looked at Kull, something else troubled me… but what was it?
Dracon’s sword lay on the ground near Kull. As I studied the dull, tarnished blade glowing with a faint magical spell, everything came back to me. The Regaymor. The sword not working against them. The hopelessness I’d felt as I realized the sword wouldn’t kill them and Kull and I would both die…
I reached for the sword, and Kull opened his eyes. He watched as I grabbed the pommel and carefully lifted it. This was my first chance to actually hold the sword and study its magic—and what I found disturbed me.
There was no Faythander magic in the weapon. I only found a gray cloud, a magic meant to mimic Faythander magic, but it wasn’t the same.
Hopelessness washed over me. We’d been tricked. Now I knew why Jeven hadn’t wanted me to touch it.
Lucretian stood talking quietly with the others as I stood and approached him.
“Did you know?” I asked when I reached his side.
“Know what?”
I stood and held the sword toward him, pommel first, and he took it from me.
“It’s a fake,” I said.
Lucretian narrowed his eyes in concentration. After scrutinizing it for a few minutes, turning it over in his hands and letting his own magic flow around the blade, he looked up at me. “How can this be?”
“I’d hoped you would know.”
“No. The sword Jeven took from me looked like this, but it was not this sword; it was the real one. They look the same, but the magic is wrong. Jeven must have gone to great lengths to mimic the real weapon. He got every detail right, except the magic.”
“But if he had the real sword, where is it now?”
Our conversation had attracted the attention of the others as they gathered around us. Rolf and Brodnik also trailed Heidel and Maveryck as they gathered around. Heidel narrowed her eyes as she scanned the sword.
“I’ve seen that weapon before,” she said.
We all turned to her.
“You’ve seen this sword?” I asked.
“Yes. Geth had it.”
“Geth?” Jeven had mentioned Geth. Was it possible that Geth had taken the sword of Dracon? If so, then where was it now?
“He kept it hidden,” Heidel said. “I’d never seen him go
