“And the priestess? What did she say?” He’d given his word he would stay away.
J’leen shook her head. “Nothing to me.”
“Take me there. Please.” Some promises should never have been made. Should never have been requested. “I’ll grab a few things, and I’ll meet you in the courtyard in a couple of minutes.”
“You cannot bring weapons into the temple.” J’leen guessed his intention. “The guardians would detect them and kill you on the spot. You have your inhaler. You have everything you need.”
“All right,” he agreed.
She moved into the center of the courtyard, shifted, clasped him in her talons, and leaped into the sky.
* * * *
Hands folded, O’ne slowly circled the perimeter of the hushed sanctuary, her feet following the serene, precise, measured ritualistic steps. Her mind and fyre, however, refused to quiet. They roiled, focused on H’ry.
Her chest felt like it would explode. The moment of rebirth drew nigh, except…
Smooth veinless walls soared to a domed ceiling curving over an expansive rotunda. Pristine. Pure. Unsullied. The temple was as it should be, except…
Outside hallowed walls, the twelve guardians had assumed their vigil. Inside, her white-gowned acolytes held their oil burners and formed another protective ring. Had their furlough of freedom reinforced their commitment? Or did they, like her, live with regrets?
K’ryn, S’linda… One-by-one, she recognized them, calling forth their fyres. H’ora, T’sia… She froze mid-step. Only eleven were present. The rebirth required all twelve. How could she have begun the ritual and not noticed the circle was incomplete? Because of H’ry. Thoughts of him stole focus that should have been on her duty.
“Where is L’yla?” she asked.
“She ventured out last night but has not returned,” R’nay spoke up in a quiet voice.
Chapter Twenty-Three
While old lava tunnels afforded a convenient, natural highway, they did not necessarily allow for the most direct route from point A to point B.
The space lizard zoomed across the toxic sky, as if in a race, according to one of the techs in the control room. Hicks continued to relay coordinates but offered little else in the way of information.
Because the dragon moved so damn fast, and their route was roundabout, they’d been forced to scuttle the plan to get ahead of it and were now going to follow it to its final destination and kill it there.
“Give me an update. How are we doing?” Biggs barked into the mic. Everything in the twisting, winding tunnels looked the same, and he’d become disoriented. He knew they had to go where the tunnels went, but it almost seemed as if Hicks was setting the most circuitous course possible, like he wanted the dragon to get away. But if that was the case, wouldn’t one of the techs in the control room have said something? Assuming the idiots noticed.
“The target passed over and cleared Dragon Town. New coordinates are 09.09.0056,” Hicks rattled off numbers in a rush. He’d become quite the speed talker. Biggs sure hoped he could trust the fucker. If there was something funny going on, Biggs wouldn’t send an enforcer after Hicks, he’d off the son of a bitch himself.
“Everyone got the coordinates?” he addressed the team.
At the affirmatives, he punched the code into his car. Around the next bend, the mining car veered in a different direction. “What’s out there?”
“Almost nothing,” Hicks replied. “It’s uninhabited. The only building in the entire sector is that plain round pillared one.”
“The one that replaced the one they burned?”
“Yes, the new one.” Hicks paused for such a long moment, Biggs figured he was done. But then the ops manager added, “And…she just landed. At the new building.”
“She? You know the dragon’s gender?”
A nervous-sounding chuckle followed a brief pause. “It seemed more feminine than the others.”
The men roared, and Biggs laughed, too. “Anybody have any problems killing a girl dragon?”
“Hell no, boss! The only good dragon is a dead dragon,” chortled one of the men.
“The dragon has shifted into demiforma—it’s definitely female, and she has entered the building,” Hicks reported after the laughter had subsided. “You’ll arrive at the closest usable fumarole in about two minutes. From there, it’s a half-mile hike. I counted a dozen dragons guarding the exterior. They’re huge. I don’t think you should do this.”
Were there really a dozen dragons, or was Hicks trying to scare him off?
“One for each of us!” crowed an enforcer. The others cheered.
The enthusiasm served as an indication of their stupidity. Only a moron would choose to confront a dozen dragons. Overconfidence would kill you. Why did the idiots think he’d assembled a small army to vanquish a single lizard?
The fumarole appeared just wide enough for them to squeeze through with their bulky suits and weapons. Biggs motioned to the men in the car behind his, and they leaped out and drilled a ladder into the rock.
“We’re here,” he relayed to Hicks. “How exposed will we be?”
“You’ll come up behind a rocky knoll. From the ground, you shouldn’t be visible by line of sight. But, if there’s anything in the sky, you’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Thanks for that.” Biggs twisted his mouth humorlessly. “I’m going up to check it out. Tell me if you spot anything.”
“Roger.”
He tested the ladder with a firm shake before stepping onto it, averting his gaze from the abyss. Hand over hand, he climbed until he could prairie-dog his head through the opening. Hicks had been correct about the knoll. Over the crest, in the distance, he spied just the top of a dome. The hill hid the bulk of the structure. Good. That meant they would be hidden, too.
He scooted out of the hole and crept to the top of the
