“Don’t be discouraged that easily, young one,” Zorna said. “You had true emotion in your attempt. I could feel its purity from here. Whatever purpose you held for the crystal, that wasn’t it. Think of something else and try again.”
Straightening, Anders focused on the sapphire again, this time finding a new meaning for the crystal. He pictured Lazuran as a mighty healer, working with him to combine their magic to bring good health to the injured or ill. His palm expelled a flow of energy again and he opened his eyes. As it had done before and after all his attempts, the crystal remained dull.
“Failure can be useful in the search for success. The points at fault in your failures can be turned into points of strength, if used correctly. Take what you know to be wrong and use it to cut away the untruths. What you have leftover will be the success you seek,” she said.
Anders glanced to Maija. He tried to communicate to her through his eyes that he had no idea what the woman’s cryptic message meant. Maija nodded, encouraging him to try again. He found that he missed Max’s sense of humor in that moment.
Replicating what he’d done before, Anders continued to search for Lazuran’s true meaning. With each attempt, he envisioned a different purpose for the sword. Each time he failed to imbue the sapphire with energy. By the end of his nineteenth attempt, Anders felt exhausted. He slumped in defeat at the fireside, the warmth of the flames lulling him to abandon his efforts.
While looking into the fire, he thought of Zorna’s directive, Look for the crystal’s purpose. He focused his attention on the sword and realized his mistake. This whole time he’d been searching for Lazuran’s name and not the crystal’s. The thought to view the crystal as an entity separate from the sword hadn’t crossed his mind.
Struck by this thought, Anders straightened. With renewed vigor, he looked across the flames at Zorna and said, “The crystal. It’s not the sword.” He turned to Maija, seeing her startle at his sudden change in mood. He smiled and said again, louder this time, “The crystal is not the sword.”
Maija shook her head slightly, “Anders, are you feeling okay?”
“I feel amazing,” he said. “This whole time I’ve been thinking of the sword, trying to find the meaning behind the blade, but, in truth, the sapphire is an entirely separate object from the blade.” As Anders spoke, he recalled the times when he’d thought he’d heard something or someone speaking to him. When he first held the sword, the crystal’s energy passed through him and he had spoken an ancient dialect. His words played out in light blue energy as he said them. He had felt its influence when sparring with Natalia and she grew angry with him after he allowed it to guide him. With widened eyes, he looked to the Norfolk woman, “It’s been trying to tell me its name this whole time, I just never understood it.”
Anders prepared for a final attempt to discover the crystal’s true name. He focused on the stone and, for the first time, imagined it as an object all on its own. He envisioned the stone opening, cracking its shell to reveal a being inside. Anders could see the object clearly now, as a living thing with thoughts, feelings, and emotions of its own. Holding onto that vision, he spoke a word that he hadn’t known to exist, a word from the ancient language of the dragons. Directing his focus at the crystal, he channeled energy from his palm to the stone. Anders watched intently as magic from his body transferred into the sapphire, which glowed as it began to pulse with new light. Its sudden brightness caused him to lose focus. He had to look away and shield his eyes.
Lowering his elbow as the flash subsided, Anders looked down at the sword he held across his lap. To his joy, the pommel glowed. The light blue energy from his palm had passed into the crystal and rooted itself inside. Anders gasped as he hefted the sword up and away from the fire to admire his work. The light glowed even more brightly against the night sky.
As he rolled the sword in his hands, he felt an immense sense of accomplishment. The familiar presence he’d grown attached to in Lazuran returned and Anders almost thought the sapphire was trying to speak to him. Before he pushed his mind deeper into the crystal, the old woman’s clapping disrupted his concentration on the connection. Maija joined the applause and he felt the sensation from the crystal fade, replaced now with pride.
“Well done, Anders,” Maija said, grabbing his arm fondly. “You did it!”
Anders smiled, then a question floated into the forefront of his mind. If he were to use the energy he had just put into Lazuran, would it have the same dangerous effect it’d had before? Relaying the question to the old woman, Anders and Maija sat in silence, awaiting her response.
“I told you I sensed a struggle in you,” she began. “The struggle for control within your conscience. Only you have the power to control it. When you fueled the crystal with energy just now, you did it with intent. Magic reads the true soul of a person. When you impart your power into an inhabitance crystal, it reflects your true character. I can’t tell you for certain whether the struggle you’re facing within is the good trying to overcome the evil or the evil trying to overcome the good. You’ll know when you call on that energy and your true self takes control.” Zorna shifted her watchful eyes to Maija and said, “There is something in you as well. What that is only the future will tell. Darkness blinds me to it, but I see pain and fire.”
Maija squeezed Anders’ hand. “You’re good. I know you are,” she said with certainty. “And whatever lies ahead for us, we’ll face together.”
Anders smiled slightly, “I hope you’re right.”
During the remainder of the evening, Anders directed more and more of his energy into the crystal. Each time, he felt the crystal calling, drawing him in as he flooded it with magic. Totally exhausted and in need of sleep, Anders laid the sword at his side. Lying back on his blanket, he closed his eyes and let the fatigue take over.
“Anders,” he heard a whisper float into his ear. He stirred, not wanting to wake from his slumber. “Anders, find me,” the voice said again. This time, he opened his eyes.
“Find you where?” he asked, sitting up. He expected to see Nadir or maybe Raffa standing over him, but to his confusion, no one was nearby. He looked to Maija, still asleep wrapped in her blanket at his side.
Looking across the smoldering remnants of their fire, Anders saw Zorna, sitting in the same position as the night before. She stared blankly into the distance, which made Anders wonder if that’s how the sorceress slept. He jumped slightly when she spoke to him, “Last night wasn’t the first time you’ve spoken the ancient language.”
Anders tried to recall a time that he’d spoken in the dragon’s tongue. Tossing his wool blanket aside, he said, “I don’t recall having spoken it before.” He kept his eyes fixed on the strange woman as he stood up. “Did you say something to wake me up?” he asked, brushing the wrinkles from his pants.
Zorna shook her head, moving for the first time since he’d opened his eyes, “I didn’t say a thing, but you did.”
“Talking in my sleep?” he asked. “I do that sometimes.”
“You spoke in the ancient tongue. I knew you could, but when you did, I felt in you that the word you said last night wasn’t the first time.”
Anders recalled what Ivan had said when he first held Lazuran. “You got all that from what I said?”
“Don’t you find it odd?” she asked.
Anders nodded.
“Me, too,” the old woman said.
Anders shrugged, trying to focus on what he needed to do to prepare for the day. He reached down and picked up Lazuran, strapping it to his waist. He felt complete with it at his side, a comforting presence that increased his self-confidence.
As he woke Maija and packed away their bedding, Anders could hear Nadir commanding the separation of their forces. He informed them Zorna would stay on the ground with them. How she would manage to keep pace Anders did not know. Perhaps the elder knew a magic to keep in stride with the elves. Either that or one of them will carry her on his back, Anders thought.
With the Norfolk woman still watching, they mounted their dragons and prepared to begin their hunt for the kurr. Looking to the soldiers forming ranks to move and watching the redshirts disappear down the trail, Anders felt that he was a part of something again. After spending most of the past two weeks alone with Maija and their dragons, Anders felt as though he had some control again over the events that would happen next.
Bursting through the forest canopy, Zahara and Raffa climbed until they were several body lengths above the trees. Anders wanted to fly low in case they needed to help the elves. As he used his senses to search the ground below, his mind wandered to Natalia. Had she found Ivan in the castle? Anders had a duty to remain with the elves and felt purpose when serving with them, but something in his gut told him he should be trying to help Ivan more directly.
Sticking to Nadir’s plan, he reminded himself to inquire whether the elf had made contact with Natalia that morning as he’d planned. Zahara and Anders continued searching with their minds as the elves followed. Looking to Maija as she flew at his right, he could sense that she was trying to put into practice what Ivan and Natalia had been teaching her back at the dragonrider training facilities. The elf’s capital sat camouflaged in the distance, the thunderhead still hovering over the city. Suddenly, he felt a threatening presence nearby, one dark in magic, darker than any horde of kurr could produce. Shifting in his seat, Anders prepared to use defensive battle magic as he searched for the source of the dark being. Anders looked back toward Nagano. Could the dragons have followed them? Were they behind the kurr’s pointed attacks on the elven villages?
“Maija,” Anders called. She broke her concentration to look at him expectantly., He said, “I can feel a dark magic nearby. We need to land and warn Nadir. I don’t know if it’s those dragons or something worse, but I feel certain that we’re being watched.”
Maija nodded and Raffa and Zahara turned, dropping down toward the trees. Spotting the elves behind them, Anders thought he saw a flash through the trees at his side. The movement couldn’t have been from them since it originated far out to his right. Diverting from what he’d told Maija to do, Anders steered Zahara right, cutting under Raffa and Maija to fly toward the movement.
Zahara dropped lower, just over the trees and Anders could sense what it was that caused the movement: kurr running full speed toward the elves. Anders quickly attempted to communicate with Maija to warn the elves. Almost the instant he made the telepathic link, a sharp force cut through, stopping the message midstream. Anders retracted, putting up his mental barriers as Zahara sped toward the charging kurr.
Seeing Raffa and Maija just behind them, Anders shouted to put up their wards. He knew Ivan had been teaching her how and that she didn’t need magic to protect her mind from a sorcerer. Not knowing whether she heard him, Anders looked ahead again, hoping Maija’s hearing was still heightened.
“Be ready, Zahara, there’s another sorcerer down there,” Anders said aloud to avoid opening his mind. Anders had identified the location of the dark magic, but he could hardly believe such power could come from kurr.
