Light flashed in the explosion when Anders’ energy blade struck. He felt the flood of magic plow through the barriers protecting Merglan, then abruptly stop. Zahara was ripped away from him and he tumbled to the ground. Anders bounced onto his feet and found himself standing face to face with Merglan.
Merglan’s mind pierced his like a sharpened blade, stabbing through what he thought was a protective barrier. Give it up, Anders, the voice sounded in his mind.
Anders struggled to force him out.
The hate is strong in you, Merglan said. Stronger than your father’s.
Anders could see the orb of light encasing them. He had nowhere to run. Zahara clawed at the outside of the sphere unable to break in. He was trapped.
Imagine what we could accomplish if we worked together, Merglan said.
I’ll never work with you, Anders replied, retreating deeper into his mind.
He heard Merglan laugh, There’s nowhere in your mind that you can hide from me.
Anders looked for an escape, for some deep hole where he could block his thoughts from Merglan, but every path seemed to be blocked.
He suddenly became aware of Merglan walking toward him. Anders still held Lazuran in his hand. He tightened his grip and prepared to swing at Merglan.
You shouldn’t, Merglan said, stepping closer.
Anders almost retaliated, but from somewhere in the back of his head he could hear Ivan’s voice. It whispered, repeating the same two words, Let go. Against everything that he wanted to do by attacking Merglan, Anders gave in. No matter who had helped him, no matter how much magic he had used, nothing he had done had stopped Merglan. Anders pitched his sword off to the side, leaving himself exposed and unguarded.
What’s this? Merglan asked, lowering his blade and stopping before Anders.
The voice in the back of his head whispered, Understand the source. It was what Ivan had been trying to tell him when the elven dragonrider was attacking him. In that instant, Anders remembered one of his first lessons in magic. Solomon spoke of the force that flowed around them.
What are you doing? he heard Merglan ask, his voice sounded far away in his thoughts. It’s not possible, was the last thing he heard.
Anders looked out at Maija, smiled, and let go. He closed his eyes and felt his hatred for Merglan melt away. His body felt fuzzy and he opened his eyes. Anders’ entire body was glowing and shifting in a translucent light in front of Merglan. Zahara’s form shifted and swirled at his side. He looked back and saw that he was a misty form that extended outside of his physical body. The sight didn’t make him panic though. Anders felt more whole now than he ever had. Merglan held out his hand, trying to stop Anders, but the energy emanating from Merglan could not stop him. Instead it seemed to be an opening to Merglan’s soul. He moved toward the sorcerer and entered.
Suddenly, Anders could feel and see all of Merglan’s emotions and memories. Days spent with Ivan in the castle. Finding his dragon, Killdoor, and riding him into Northland. He felt all of Merglan’s rage and the anger he felt toward everyone. Anders saw Merglan’s memory of the day he killed Magleen, Zorna’s instructor. Thinking he’d beaten her prediction of his downfall, he began his hostile takeover of Kartania. Anders witnessed Ivan’s dragon, Jazz, fall under his power. Merglan could’ve killed Ivan then, but decided to torture him by killing his bonded and sinking the ship that carried Anders, his mother and his older brother. After learning of their survival and how they were plucked from the ocean by another ship carrying people to the far north, Merglan tried again to stop them. They’d passed the barrier and he spent the next two years abandoning his efforts to control the world and focused on killing Ivan’s child for fear of the prediction of his death.
Unable to learn of a new way to come back if he came to Northland, Merglan attempted to open the only way through the barrier that his instructor had shown him. Merglan used all of his magic and instead of breaking his own spell, he destroyed the time paradox. Unintentionally, Merglan had ended the faster timeline Northland had been subjected to when Asmond banished the riders. Merglan’s anger soared to new heights and he spent the next eighteen years trying to harvest as many inhabitance crystals to attempt an attack on Ivan’s royal descendants in Northland. It wasn’t until he learned Ivan’s youngest son had survived and been living somewhere in Westland that he abandoned his efforts on Northland. With the paranoia of a human king rising to power and leading the armies of the world against him, Merglan devised a plan to conquer Kartania and kill Anders. After he’d done that, he could focus on Northland again. Anders felt the madness bottled up in Merglan’s mind driving him to seek a more powerful source when he failed to kill Anders.
As Anders sifted through the memories in Merglan’s mind, he finally understood why Merglan had not been able to do what Anders could. It was what Ivan had been trying to tell him, what Ivan must’ve figured out after his magic had been taken from him. To Anders it was as if he could hear what the powers he’d been using since he bonded were trying to tell him. Hate could never be bent to magic’s true form, no matter how alluring its sensation could be to a sorcerer. The forces of evil could shape and use the energy, but a sorcerer driven by hatred could not do what one with love in his or her heart could do. All Anders had to do was let go and allow his soul to become a part of the natural flowing magic that constantly surrounded them. Only when the forces of hate and evil were faced with love and hope could a bonded rider’s soul pass into the form Anders had taken.
Anders forced his knowledge into Merglan’s mind, showing him that no matter how hard he pushed against him, Merglan couldn’t become more powerful than the thing he sought to control. Fear crippled Merglan’s thoughts. Anders withdrew from Merglan’s mind allowing his mist form to return back into his own physical body. He rose from the place where his body had fallen and stared at Merglan. The orb of light surrounding them had broken. The dark sorcerer stared back at Anders in disbelief.
“How?” he whispered.
“I let go,” Anders replied. “Let go of the hate, Merglan.”
Merglan shook his head, “I won’t allow you to beat me.”
“You can still come back from this, Merglan. You don’t have to let the rage and killing continue; just give it up,” Anders said.
A hateful scowl returned to Merglan’s face and he cried, “Never!” Merglan raised his sword to stab Anders.
Anders heard Maija’s cry as he watched Merglan raise his blade. A glint from swift-moving armor flashed beside him. Hannah blocked Merglan’s lethal blade.
Anders moved faster than he ever had, reaching for his sword and bringing Lazuran up off the ground. Merglan swatted Hannah’s attack to the side, kicking her onto her back and leaving her momentarily exposed. Anders slid in between the Norfolk rider and the evil sorcerer, blocking Merglan’s attack on his blood relative. Merglan’s eyes grew wide with anger. Anders then saw a flash of amber behind the madman. In the blink of an eye, Maija was behind him. She reached around his head, pulling her dagger across Merglan’s throat. The blade that Merglan’s assassin had stabbed into Maija’s chest only a few weeks ago, severed the sorcerer’s neck and spilled his life out onto the front of his chest. Anders stared in surprise while Merglan’s body remained standing for a second, before it fell forward. Blood pooled around him as he lay dead on the ground at Anders’ feet. Anders stood, looking down at their enemy’s dead body. His gaze rose to Maija, who stood panting with her teeth exposed in a hardened grimace.
Maija’s eyes lifted from Merglan’s body and locked with Anders’. She nodded, saying, “The Prophecy is fulfilled.”
“We did it,” Anders said in disbelief. Anders began to feel emotions returning after his soul had returned to his body. He was still trying to comprehend all of what had just happened, then remembered seeing Zahara clawing at the energy sphere.
“Zahara!” he shouted and instantly felt her mind’s presence. He looked and saw her and Raffa looming over Killdoor’s body. The purple-scaled dragon Hannah had been riding lay motionless under the enormous black dragon’s body.
Hannah stumbled to the ground next to her dragon and fell on him in tears. Anders watched as she mourned the death of her bonded. “What the hell happened?” he asked Maija.
“You became... magic,” Maija said, sounding as though she barely believed her own words. “Killdoor tried to kill Zahara when you two passed out and,” she pointed to Hannah. “They got between them. Raffa reacted before I did. It all happened so fast, they were ripping into each other and Hannah’s dragon didn’t make it. Zahara came to, Hannah flung herself at Merglan, and I...”
“You ended it,” Anders finished.
Maija nodded, “They’re gone.”
Anders glanced down at his hand. He still held the wooden block. Lifting it up, he grabbed the top half with his right hand and pulled. The two halves came apart easily. He stared at its contents. Inside, a sphere of energy sparkled like the night sky. He and Maija marveled as it floated up and hovered in front of them.
“Father?” Anders said.
Ivan’s voice came from the soul hovering in front of them. “You did it, Anders. You let go.”
“You showed me how,” Anders said.
“I’m proud of you and wish I could stay, but I, too, must go,” Ivan said.
“No, you can’t go,” Anders said. “You, you can stay with us, inside one of the sapphires.”
