Ulysses had a problem—one that had been festering quietly in the shadows for thousands of years. But as he stared at Celeste’s pale, lifeless body sprawled on the table, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that this problem must no longer be tolerated. Xorgors could not turn a blind eye to the atrocities of the Unbound. Not anymore. And as archmage, he would have to take action.
The icy thorns of sadness slithered around Ulysses’s heart as he stared silently at the stone-cold body. Another dead dragon. And one that had died so callously. Flashes of the face of his own dead dragon stared back at him in horror. It was two thousand years ago, but it still haunted him every time he closed his eyes. Except it was a different kind of evil that had claimed his dragon. Ulysses shook himself out of his dark thoughts. He had a job to do right now. His Order needed him. Taking in a deep breath, he ran his fingers across the deep laceration on Celeste’s neck. It was cold. Too cold. As was the whole body. Dead and frozen like ice. Drakenite.
Whoever had killed Celeste had used drakenite. The Order of Unbound Mages. Or the Unbound, as they were called. They did this. Celeste was the second victim this month. The first time had come as a surprise. No one knew who or what could have been so brazen to attack the Mana and Flame, the elite army of the most powerful mage order in the world. An order exclusively made of warrior mages. It would take a special kind of insanity to wage war on Xorgors. But the Unbound were not a particularly sane bunch.
A group of rogue warrior mages who refused to go through with the syrabonding ritual, they’d been rebelling silently against the soul bond between the ancient dragons and their keepers since the last dragon emperor.
For millennia, Xorgors ignored the Unbound, classifying them as radicals with more bark than bite. But then slowly, they grew more fangs, biting more—perhaps even more than they could chew. They started by targeting their potential syrabonds—dragons whom they had refused to be bound with. They also hated other warrior mages who didn’t share their philosophy of staying unbound. So, the Unbound waged a holy war—so they called it—on all warrior mages in general, and Xorgors, in particular. But for the most part, they failed. Lacking in numbers and structure, the Unbound were no match for their more powerful nemesis, whose sole mission was to fiercely protect the imperial dragon clans.
Knowing of this weakness, Xorgors ignored them. They were not worth wasting time on. Besides, the Unbound were by no means ignorant of their own disadvantage. If they provoked Xorgors, they would be exterminated. Or at least, that was what Ulysses and all the warrior mages of Xorgors thought, until things suddenly took a dark turn a few months ago.
It turned out that allowing an extremist secret society to exist, while slowly biding their time and amassing power, was a fucking terrible idea. One that had become more than a thorn in Xorgors’ side.
The Order of Unbound Mages was no longer a disorganised group that failed to accomplish most of their goals. They were no longer even targeting random unbound dragons. No. They were now going after bound dragons—ones who had already gone through the syrabonding ritual with their warrior mages. The first victim had been Lorenzo.
Two weeks later, Celeste was dead. The manner of death had been the same. They both had lacerations on their neck, obviously made with a drakenite blade. Killing a dragon—a flameborn, for that matter—with drakenite was an obvious choice. It was the only substance, after all, that could penetrate their invulnerable skin even in their dragon state. What, however, made no sense to Ulysses was why every drop of blood had been drained out of both bodies.
When he first saw Lorenzo’s body, Ulysses had assumed that it was random. But twice was no coincidence. Under normal circumstances, he would have simply assumed that the Unbound were killing dragons for the same old reason Xorgors always thought—to destroy the bond between dragons and warrior mages. That, after all, had always been their crusade.
But now, seeing the peculiar way in which the dragons had died, Ulysses was not so sure anymore. Simply killing them would have sufficed. Why drain their blood? What was the purpose of that? Surely the Unbound were up to something. Ulysses, however, couldn’t possibly think of what that could be. They’d managed to capture one of the Unbound who had ambushed Celeste and her comrades. But he’d poisoned himself with cyanide, tugged between his teeth before they returned him to Xorgors for questioning. He was the only lead they had. And now it was all gone.
“We’ll find them, Celeste,” Ulysses muttered, holding the dragon’s hand. “We’ll make them pay. All of them.”
If it was the last thing he would do as archmage, then so be it. He’d already charged the Mana and Flame to investigate what the Unbound was up to. If they were concocting some nefarious plan, it was up to Xorgors to expose and put a stop to it. It was about time they destroyed the Order of Unbound Mages once and for all.
“How’s Esme holding up?” asked Ulysses.
For the first time since entering the morgue in the last half-hour, Cletus, his assistant, spoke in his usual deep timbre. “Not good.”
Ulysses gave a small nod. Of course, Esme was not doing well, to put it mildly. She was definitely devastated. The woman had just lost her dragon, after all. Only two weeks ago, that had been Amaka, who had lost Lorenzo. They couldn’t keep losing their syrabonds. As one who lost his during the war with the great evil of the New Era, Ulysses knew exactly what that felt like. It was worse than death. He’d come so close to taking his own life many times because he didn’t think it was possible to continue living without his syrabond. The only thing that kept him going was the sheer will to avenge his dragon. It would take another hundred years for that to happen. But it did happen. And yet once the great evil was purged, the rage and hate towards its kind never left. When Ulysses was appointed archmage of Xorgors, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the job, vowing to never let what had happened to him happen to anyone. No warrior mage would have to mourn the unnatural death of his dragon or vice versa due to some evil or darkness in the world. He would crush it before it reared its ugly head.
For centuries, Ulysses did his duty to the utmost ability. But everything was starting to unravel. Two dragons were already dead, leaving behind two heartbroken warrior mages who might never recover from such profound loss. If Xorgors did nothing, the deaths would only continue.
The imperial clans were starting to get anxious about the attacks. They were beefing up security, especially for their young dragons who hadn’t undergone the syrabonding ritual yet. Everything, it seemed, rested on Ulysses. While no one had said anything yet, he knew the Order was waiting for his direction. For his action. He was the archmage, after all.
Ulysses sighed before silently ambling outside the morgue, hands clasped behind him. Cletus followed wordlessly, towering over Ulysses’s smaller form. They emerged from the massive stone building into the open, fresh air. The air was a bit cool, but nothing compared to the coldness emanating from the dead dragon. They descended the ridiculously wide stairs while passing by three warrior mages clad in the black and blue colours of Xorgors. Ulysses nodded in acknowledgement as the mages bowed curtly.
“Where’s she?” Ulysses finally broke the silence when they passed by Lake Aurya. A line of ducks waded across the silver surface, gleaming with the sun’s radiance. Usually, this spot gave Ulysses a sense of calm. Today, though, not so much. “Esme, I mean.”
“Locked up in her room,” said Cletus. She hasn’t moved in the last eighteen hours.”
Ulysses sighed depressingly. That he remembered all too well. That numbing feeling, as though one had simply died in spirit, was all too familiar. Nothing mattered in that moment. Nothing existed. No hunger, no exhaustion. Not even rage or malice. Just pure, unadulterated grief. A kind of grief that often killed when it persisted far too long. And unfortunately, most times, it did kill. But when it didn’t, it hurt like hell, with no sign of ever stopping. And right now, Esme was hurting like hell.
Ulysses wanted to see her. Not that he could console her; nothing ever could, except for the kind embrace of time. But he wanted to sit with her. Quietly. In that moment, while at her lowest point, it was important to be reminded that she was not alone. She had Ulysses. She had Xorgors. The imperial dragon clans. They were all with her. Mourning with her. Feeling her fury. But most importantly, Ulysses wanted to give Esme hope of staying alive long enough to find the Unbound who took her dragon. It was the closest thing to comfort that she could have. Just as that had given Amaka comfort. And just as it had been for Ulysses all those years ago.
“Are you going to see her?” asked Cletus.
“I will, eventually. But I first need to–”
The words got stuck in Ulysses’ throat, as a bottomless darkness tugged at his soul. He froze, goosebumps colonising his skin. Taking a glance at Cletus, he knew in that moment that his assistant had sensed it too.
Just as instantly, a low rumbling broke across the sky, and the bright midday sun darkened red, like blood spilt across the sky, soaking the clouds. A gale, so mighty, blew ferociously. And then dozens and dozens of cyclones appeared out of nowhere, whirling all over the place like massive pillars of blood. It was like the entire Order had been submerged in a massive red storm, and yet it stood unscathed. Not a physical or natural event, but a supernatural one that reeked of forbidden magic.
“Is that a...” Cletus began,
Ulysses added, “...Blood Storm.”
“This can’t be happening,” said Cletus. “It’s impossible.”
But it was indeed happening, Ulysses thought. This was a Blood Storm. A harbinger of doom, which could only mean one thing. Ulysses’s heart thumped violently, wrath weaving around his heart like thorny vines. If he thought the Order of Unbound Mages was a thorn in his side, then this very evil was the dawn of the freaking apocalypse. Literally.
“Ulysses.” Running feet approached in the distance, and soon, Yang, one of the ten elders of Xorgors, was standing next to them, horror plastered on his pallid face. “Is that what I think it is? Is that really a Blood Storm? Or am I imagining things?”
“You’re not imagining it, Yang. It really is a Blood Storm.”
Yang gaped. “But that means... no... that can’t be.”
Ulysses nodded. “A dragonmage and a berserker are syrabonding.”
Even as the words poured out, they left a sour taste in his mouth. A dragonmage and a berserker alive? Which dragon and warrior mage were so brazen as to conceive such monstrosity? Did Xorgors and the imperial clans not learn their lesson two thousand years ago? Were they about to let history repeat itself—a history that birthed the evil that plunged the world into chaos?
“What do we do?” Yang asked. “We must act quickly before chaos ensues.”
Oh, but he had been preparing for this day in the last two thousand years, ensuring that the world is never contaminated with a dragonmage and a berserker. With the help of the finest minds in Xorgors, Ulysses had been developing a device that would analyse a Blood Storm and find its source. The device—which they called the anti-berserker—could track the origin of the Blood Storm, reveal the identity of both the dragonmage and the berserker, and pinpoint their exact location at all times. In other words, there was no escaping from Xorgors.
It was a masterful creation that had been carefully crafted with one sole purpose: to find the great evil embodied as a dragonmage and a berserker. The very evil that had wiped out the very existence of almost all dragons and warrior mages, including Sigmund, Ulysses’s dragon. They had to destroy this evil before it unleashed its full potential.
Ulysses had always had this nagging feeling that this day would come again. And to prepare for it, knowing that a dragonmage and a berserker could not resist syrabonding, thus ushering in a Blood Storm, he had created the device.
“The Order is tracking it down as we speak,” Ulysses said. “No need to worry.” As effective as the anti-berserker was, it had one weakness; it would take about a fortnight to uncover the identities of the dragonmage and berserker. The magic behind the Blood Storm was incredibly powerful, and trying to decipher its origin required a spell just as powerful. Over the years, they had managed to refine the spell to reduce the duration from seven years to two weeks. That was a massive achievement, even if two weeks was still too long a time to wait until the evil was purged.
But that didn’t matter. Even if it would take Ulysses a century to do so, he had no qualms about that. As soon as the identities of those monsters were uncovered, he would dispatch the Mana and Flame to capture them dead or alive. After all, they had just the very thing to subdue a dragonmage and a berserker, no matter how ridiculously powerful they were.
The evil must be expunged.
* * *
For two days, Nawala sat in the same spot, watching Agatha nurse Moon with efficient urgency. By the third day, Moon was in a more stable condition, albeit still in a coma. The icy poison of the drakenite had thawed, and warmth flowed through him again. But the fear that had shaken Wala to the core seemed to have permanently taken root in her heart.
She wouldn’t leave her warrior mage’s side. Wouldn’t even sleep or eat. Just sat there, watching Moon, as if taking his eyes off him even for a second would somehow cause him to disappear.
That fear of losing his warrior mage had been so visceral, so primal, she dared not tempt fate to take him away from her.
She couldn’t imagine a life without him. She dared not imagine it. Born at the very same time, even at the very opposite sides of the earth, they’d been connected since birth. They grew up having visions of each other until they met officially in person when they were ten years old. And then at twelve, they had their first syrabonding ritual, binding them together in mind and spirit, connecting them psychically and emotionally.
No one knew her more than Moon did. No one loved her more than he. And as for Moon, peaceful, beautiful Moon, he would burn the world into ash for her. She gently squeezed Moon’s hand when it dawned on her how close she had come to losing her syrabond. That feeling of utter despair and anguish... she could still feel it tugging heavily on her chest.
Moon was alive. That much was a relief. That was all that mattered. She just wanted him to wake up. He would wake up. She fought the urge to connect with his subconscious and syraspeak with him. He needed all his energy to recover; constantly syraspeaking with him was the antithesis of that. So ever since their last syrabonding, Wala had refused to connect telepathically with her warrior mage, despite how dire the temptation was. His well-being would always come first.
“You need to rest, young dragon. The worst has already passed.”
Wala raised her head to see Agatha watching her with worried eyes. She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she had not noticed when the healer had come to sit next to her. Wala’s attention went back to her warrior mage.
“You’ve been sitting in the same position for three days. You’ve neither eaten nor slept.”
“I’m fine.” It was the first thing Wala had said in the last three days; her own voice sounded foreign to her. Honestly, she would rather be alone right now. But Agatha had saved Yong-sun’s life, and that changed everything. She looked at the older mage. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
Agatha paused. “What?”
“You warned us not to go into the Darklands,” said Wala quietly. The sheer stress of almost seeing her warrior mage die was enough to squeeze out all the energy from her. She’d gone without food and sleep for weeks many times, and yet, not once had she come close to this kind of exhaustion before. “Did you... sense it somehow?”
“Not really.” Agatha sighed, shaking her head. “I’ve been living here for more than forty years, so I know how dangerous the Darklands can be.” She paused, as if considering something. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I should have sensed it. I should have–”
“Agatha, I’m not blaming you. I never did.” Wala clenched her jaw. “Well, I did... a little. But it was mostly because I blamed myself. I still blame myself. I should have listened to your warning. Yong-sun almost died because of me. If we’d never gone there, none of this would have happened.”
“He’ll be fine, Nawala. I know it. Don’t beat yourself up.” The mage gave her a reassuring smile. “Even dragons need their rest, my dear. Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll watch over Moon.” Sometimes she worried about how easily Moon trusted people, but she had long since learned that her warrior mage was an excellent judge of character. It seemed he was right about Agatha.
And Agatha was right about Wala needing rest. She had already gone a total of eleven days without a wink of sleep. Under normal circumstances, that shouldn’t be a problem—flameborn dragons could go without sleep for six weeks. But the events of the last three days had sucked all the life out of her. She didn’t simply need rest. She needed to hibernate. A long, deep slumber that would rejuvenate her. But not yet. There was something she had to do first. She wouldn’t sleep or eat until she’d done it.
“The akumons,” said Nawala, “they knew we were coming. They were waiting for us.”
Agatha said nothing for a while, but then she slowly nodded. “I guess that explains the drakenite. How did they even get access to it?”
“I don’t know... But they said something about Big C supplying Ghostclaw with dragons because he’s addicted to them. It’s why they sent us into that trap.”
“Big C has a business deal with Ghostclaw?” Agatha gaped. Then she scoffed. “You know what? That doesn’t even surprise me. What does surprise me is how the two are even connected in the first place. Ghostclaw can’t leave the Darklands.”
“What do you mean he can’t leave?” Nawala raised a brow.
“He’s been permanently confined since the late nineteenth century... Consequence of breaking the pact, it seems. I didn’t even think he was still alive until a friend confirmed that he was. I guess he somehow gets his hive to do what he wants. Maybe that’s how he got into business with Big C.”
It seemed that Big C was the only one from whom Wala could get the answers she needed. Everything tied back to him.
“What do you know about Big C?”
Agatha’s eyes lowered in caution. “If you’re asking about his businesses–”
“Not that... his family.”
Agatha paused, a look of concern clouding her face. “You’re not planning on harming them, are you?”
Nawala shrugged. “Why not? He harmed mine.”
“Nawala–”
“You don’t have to tell me anything, Agatha. I’ll find out myself.”
“I know you’re angry, and sad, and full of guilt, young dragon.”
“Do you do though?” Nawala snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like to almost lose your syrabond.”
“No, I don’t. But I literally feel your pain... some of it, at least. And I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“Then you know that I must get to the bottom of this... Big C, Ghostclaw... everyone involved. I must kill them all.” Nawala’s words were calm, devoid of emotion. And yet, she meant every single word. “You saved Moon’s life, Agatha, and for that I’ll always be grateful. But please don’t try to stop me.”
“I can’t even if I tried.” Agatha sighed. “But Gabriel will come after you if you harm a single human. And so will Xorgors if your actions disrupt the balance.”
Xorgors—the most powerful mage order in the world. She really didn’t care about them. Xorgors barely involved themselves in affairs that had nothing to do with warrior mages or the imperial dragon clans. And besides, Moon was not a member of Xorgors, nor was Wala with the imperial clans, so why would Xorgors even care about what she did to some human?
As for Gabriel, though, Nawala had no idea who that was, and quite frankly, she didn’t care either. If he got in her way, she’d run him over and never look back. She wanted blood. But she only wanted the blood of those who had wronged her. Nothing more, nothing less. If anyone, however, tried to get in her way, then she would come at them with the force of a thousand devils.
“Where are you going?” Agatha asked when Nawala suddenly stood up.
“I’m going to pay a visit to the corpulent son of a bitch.” She took a long look at Moon’s peaceful form. She wished she could stay by his side, but she had to do this. She wouldn’t be at ease if she didn’t.
“It’s alright.” Agatha smiled. “I’ll take care of him... You just be careful, okay?”
Wala paused, then nodded. And then she was gone from the mage’s shop.