The Dragon Legion Collection 9 (15 page)

Alexander couldn’t argue with that.

* * *

They came to Delphi three days later, Katina’s love for her husband bolstered by three nights of thorough loving. Katina walked beside Alexander, her hand clasped in his. She felt closer to him than ever and more in love than she could have imagined. They whispered to each other at night, exchanging secrets and confessions, learning more about each other and their powers. He’d told her stories of all he’d seen and she’d told him of all the gossip from the village. They explored ideas of what they might achieve, as well as exploring the pleasure they could give each other. Katina didn’t want this interval to end.

But all the same, she wanted to know Alexander’s fate.

She could feel his strength returning and his body healing, but worried about the spot on his chest that was missing a scale. Even in human form, it was red and angry-looking. Worse, it didn’t seem to heal. She didn’t like the possibility that he was uncertain about the yellow dragon, either.

And she wasn’t looking forward to the Pythia’s pronouncement. That one woman could hold their entire future in her hands seemed unfair, but Katina knew Alexander would do whatever the Pythia demanded of him.

She dreaded the reappearance of the darkfire, too.

Theo had awakened on the second day and walked a bit more each day. He was still weak, but made steady improvement.

They reached Delphi late in the evening and should have waited until the next morning to visit the shrine. Katina couldn’t imagine how she would sleep, knowing that judgment was so close.

“Let’s go now,” Alexander said. “In case we aren’t too late.”

As soon as he made the suggestion, Katina was in full agreement. They immediately began the ascent to the shrine, Lysander walking ahead of them and Alexander carrying Theo.

Katina glanced up the hill at the white columns on the sanctuary of Apollo’s shrine and felt Alexander’s grip tighten on her hand.

They climbed to the shrine of Athena Pronaia at Marmaria first, giving honor to the goddess even as they marveled at the beauty and ancient power of the place. High above them towered the twin peaks of Mount Parnassus. The land spilled below them, dropping steeply to the Gulf of Corinth. It felt, on this journey just as on the last one, to be a place outside of time, a place where gods might walk alongside one.

Or maybe where two beings with unusual powers might find a way to make a future. Katina stood with Alexander in the round Tholos temple, with its three circles of columns and looked over the site with awe. She felt serenity well within her, a confidence that all would come right and that the gods would hold her and Alexander in the palms of their hands. There must be a reason for them to have their abilities and to be together. There must be a way they could aid the future.

She remembered the Pythia’s prophecy and wondered how Lysander might save the earth.

“My pottery,” she said, stopping for a second in her surprise that they’d missed the obvious.

Of course, she hadn’t known his secret then.

“Your fire and earth, like the prophecy,” Alexander said.

“But what if that’s not it?” Katina said, her excitement rising. “What if there’s a reason I was never any good at it?” She tightened her grip on his hand. “What if you’re the fire I need?”

Alexander looked at her for a long moment. “In the future, the
Pyr
are each said to have an affinity with two elements. Each mate has an affinity to the two elements her
Pyr
lacks.”

“So, together, they create a united whole!” Katina said with delight. “I’m water. You’re fire.”

“One of us must have earth and the other, air.” He squeezed her fingers as they walked more quickly. “The future
Pyr
associate air with ideas and dreams and prophecies. That’s you.”

“And what about earth?”

“They associate it with practicality and reliability.”

Katina laughed. “That would be you.”

They continued in thoughtful silence to the Kastalian spring and Katina wondered if she were the only one feeling a tentative hope for the future. “We wash ourselves here,” she told the boys. “To purify our bodies before we enter the temple.”

“Isn’t Kastalia a naiad?” Alexander asked quietly and Katina nodded. “Maybe she’s the forebear of your kind.”

Katina didn’t know. It was difficult to learn much about her powers, since revealing her nature usually meant being ostracized by others and she’d been rejected at the shrine.

But when she reached for the water of the spring, it surged toward her like a tide. The water splashed high, sprinkling her, as if greeting her home.

“Did you do that?” Lysander asked, but Katina could only shake her head.

“The water recognized you,” Alexander murmured and Katina thought he was probably right, even though nothing like that had ever happened to her before.

She reached into the water as if to embrace it and was startled to see a dozen women’s faces in the water. They smiled at her, their hair streaming back over their shoulders and their voices as light as a rippling stream. “Welcome, sister,” they said, and Katina realized that her companions hadn’t heard them.

Welcome, sister.

When she raised handfuls of water to her face, the water caressed her skin like a thousand kisses.

Could her home be at Delphi?

They passed through the gate to the Sacred Way and climbed the steep road past the treasuries. Alexander pointed out the monuments from Sparta to the boys. The sun was setting, painting the entire scene in orange and gold when they climbed the last increment to the temple itself.

A sacrifice had been made on behalf of all supplicants earlier that day, so they only had to pay the
pelanos
. “The Pythia should have stopped already,” complained the attendant. “But today, she insisted upon remaining. She said she’s waiting. I’m not sure for whom.”

Alexander and Katina exchanged a look that was filled with hope.

They all held hands as they proceeded into the temple’s interior, which was filled with shadows. The boys walked between Katina and Alexander. Katina could see the silhouette of the laurel tree that grew in the central sanctuary, its branches stretching as high as the tallest columns. She smelled the fumes that rose from the cleft in the earth and heard the Pythia murmuring to herself. She saw the glow of the sacred fire on the hearth of the temple, the fire that was used to light the hearth fires throughout Greece. She smelled the laurel leaves that had been burned on the altar, along with barley.

It was hazy and dark within the temple, a place beyond time and as distant from her own world as Katina could imagine. She remembered so clearly the first time she had entered this place, how she had walked through this same entry with her parents, how she had seen the young men pledged to Apollo’s service standing at the perimeter, how the sparks had danced between her and Alexander. It had seemed then to have leapt from the altar of the temple.

Alexander held tightly to her hand as they proceeded, and she saw a line of other young men standing silently in the shadows around the perimeter of the space.

Were they all
Pyr
, as well?

One attendant gestured that they should continue to the small space where supplicants waited, out of sight of the Pythia, for her pronouncement, but the old woman cried out.

“Fire and water, come to me!

This is a union I must see.”

Alexander and Katina stepped toward the oracle, leaving the boys to wait. The air in the core of the temple was even more hazy and the smell of the fumes was strong. It seemed dangerous and unpredictable, on the verge of chaos beyond their understanding. Katina saw that blue light begin to glow around Alexander, the glow that indicated he was on the cusp of change. He was watchful and intent, prepared to defend her against any threat.

They fell to their knees together before the enthroned Pythia and bowed their heads, Katina’s gaze drawn to the long cleft in the earth that divided the temple, the one that emitted the strange vapors. That crevasse worried her, although she couldn’t say why. It hadn’t troubled her when she’d been here before.

Then the Pythia spoke and she listened with care.

“Evil must face its just defeat,

By
Pyr
trained to soldiers elite.

Apollo makes this task your price,

A life of service will suffice.

You, naiad-spawn, lost and found,

Have gifts beyond any count.

Here you will learn skills still unknown;

Here you will bear sons more of your own;

Here you and
Pyr
will live as one;

Here you will lay future’s cornerstone.”

Katina gasped with delight. Alexander would be staying in Delphi, and she would remain with him. She knew he would love training the young
Pyr
as his service, and that he would excel at it. They exchanged a glance and his hand tightened over hers.

The Pythia descended from her tripod then, and came toward Alexander and Katina. She was old, her face lined and her cheeks sunken. She stood straight, though, and walked to them without assistance. Her chiton was made of yellow silk, as was her tunic, and both were embellished with rich purple embroidery. Her feet were bare, and when she paused before them, she put out her hand, palm up.

Alexander and Katina looked at her in confusion.

“I will heal you,
Pyr
,” she said quietly. “But you must assist me.”

“The scale!” Katina said and the Pythia smiled. Lysander had been listening because he hurried forward. He pulled all the broken pieces of Alexander’s lost scale from his pouch, then fell to his knees and offered them to the Pythia in both hands.

“Become what you are,” the Pythia commanded Alexander. The blue shimmer became brighter and he changed shape in a flash of light. Katina thrilled to find the deep purple dragon beside her, his head bowed before the Pythia and his claw beneath her hand.

The Pythia smiled and turned to survey the eight young men who stood as attendants in the shrine. The youngest was a few years older than Lysander, the oldest no more than seventeen. There was a brilliant shimmer of blue light, as they all changed to their dragon form. They reared up tall in the temple, moving with that same slow majesty as Alexander did. Lysander stared between them all in obvious amazement.

The Pythia beckoned to Theo, then kissed his cheeks in turn. “Be healed, young one,” she murmured as she reached to brush her fingertips across his chest.

“He’s mine!” came a shout loud enough to shake the temple.

Katina scanned the sanctuary for the source of the cry. She realized that all of the young
Pyr
seemed to have been struck to stone, and the Pythia was frozen, with one hand upraised. What was happening?

Alexander was scanning the sanctuary, a sign that he knew what to expect. “
Slayers
can move through space and time,” he murmured quietly, and she searched for some hint of the yellow dragon.

A flicker of movement drew her gaze to a yellow salamander on the lip of the crevasse. It leapt toward Theo with remarkable power for its size. Alexander roared and breathed dragonfire at the small lizard.

“The
Slayer
!” Lysander cried in the same moment, and Katina guessed he had identified the creature’s scent. “Stop him, Papa!”

Alexander’s dragonfire was vivid orange, hot and fierce, but the salamander jumped through it unscathed. Katina was frightened to see that this
Slayer
could also survive dragonfire. The yellow salamander landed on Theo’s shoulder and bared his teeth to bite the boy’s neck.

“No!” cried Katina and Lysander together.

Alexander slashed at the salamander and a spark of blue-green light leapt from his talon to the salamander. Alexander looked as astonished as the
Slayer
, and Katina recalled his statement that darkfire was an unpredictable force.

The
Slayer
cried out as he was struck by the spark, then illuminated as if he’d been hit by lightning. Katina saw the creature silhouetted in the blue-green light of the darkfire, his legs splayed, then the light flashed brighter and he vanished completely.

“How did you command the darkfire?” she demanded, but Alexander only shook his head.

“I did not. It came to our aid.” Alexander continued to survey sanctuary for some new threat and Lysander was sniffing diligently. Katina had a strange certainty that the
Slayer
was gone.

Forever.

“Is he here, Papa?”

“I don’t think so.”

No sooner had the light of the darkfire faded than a single spark leapt from the fire on the altar. It divided in the air as Katina watched, then struck both her and Alexander simultaneously in the chest. She saw the light of the firestorm leap between them once more, then felt its heat slip through her body. It had a blue-green shimmer for a moment, then faded to the familiar orange glow of their first meeting.