Crowned in Black: Chapter 46

Chapter 46

The queen’s petrified body formed a crescent around an activation plinth: the one that would normally open the door to the reactor core of Solnetsi’s Dragon Gate. From the way she had fallen, it was clear that the Diamond Queen, the second Paragon of the Fifth Age, had died in agony. She lay on her side with one wing crushed under her. The delicate, sharp muzzle was twisted in an expression of terror and pain, the muscles of her neck straining. A ten-foot lance, black and twisted, pierced her chest through the ribs. It was a weapon too big to have been wielded by any human hand.

Lirenian was covered in a coat of crystallized mana, preserved like a bug in amber. It had melted and flowed over her like ice, hanging in stalagmites from her gazelle-like horns, her scales and claws. The stricken queen and her bondage were contained within the largest magical circle I’d ever seen. Five concentric layers of sigils, inscribed words of power, and geometric designs that funneled energy into the plinth—or drew it out. Both the queen and the circle pulsed with soft blue light.

[Your quest ‘Darkness Shines in Light Places’ has been updated.]

Main Quest: Darkness Shines on Light Places (3/4)

During your time at the Eyrie, the bastion of the dragon knights of St. Grigori, you discovered a dark secret at the heart of the order. The dragons and knights are bound by some kind of magical enslavement, a geas stretching back hundreds, or maybe even thousands of years. It binds the dragons and their bonded riders to the will of the current Knight-Commander.

You have discovered that the Gate of Glorious Dawn, the resting place of Solnetsi, has been compromised by unknown forces. The Dragon Gate of Light has been manipulated toward a dark purpose—and the corpse of Lirenian the Diamond Queen, one of the Paragons of the Fifth Age, no doubt has a story to tell. Investigate the Gate and the fallen queen dragon to learn more about the Diamond Pact… and perhaps gain enough information to undo this ancient wrong.

This is a special quest (Mark of Matir)

This is a sequential quest (3 of 4)

Difficulty: Level 40-45

Rewards: 6500 EXP, Fame/Infamy, Unknown unique rewards.

‘Compromised’ was the right word, because Solnetsi was definitely way more awake than she should have been. We could hear her howls of fury through the walls, fierce enough to make them shudder.

“By the nine... Lirenian, what did they DO to you?” Karalti, horrified, headed straight for the edge of the circle. As she approached it, the lines flared with blue-white light. My hand snapped around her wrist before she accidentally crossed inside.

“No. Wait.” I shook my head. “What if it grabs you?”

“This circle... that power, that’s her soul energy! She was entombed alive in that crystal!”Karalti, anguished, let herself be pulled away, but she keened and paced around, pulling at her hair. “Why? Why would someone do this to her!?”

“Power. This has to be how they control the Diamond Pact.” I tore my eyes away from the murdered queen and studied the way the circle was crafted. Magical circles in Archemi were a bit like circuits. I could see that the innermost design formed a kind of question mark shape, with the round curve following the circle, and the straight part splitting into two lines that led right to the base of the activation plinth. The plinth was the same as the one we’d used to enter Matir’s gate: it would require all six members of the Triad to use. Theoretically.

“Huh.” Sucking my lip, I looked between the plinth and the door leading to the goddess’s tomb. I knew fuck all about magic, still, but I knew a little bit about circuitry. “Soul energy... Matir told us that each one of the Keystones was a little piece of each of the Nines’ souls. If they drew off Lirenian’s soul to create this circle, and Solnetsi’s energy is connected to this plinth... then...”

My eyes were drawn back up to the lance that pierced Lirenian’s heart. “The whole Dragon Gate has been rewired, somehow. They’re using Lirenian’s soul as a key, and Solnetsi herself as the lock. This plinth has been repurposed somehow. Don’t quote me on this, but I’m ninety percent sure the Spear alone can disrupt this bullshit and break the magical circuit.”

“Please.” Karalti, still pacing, took several long steps back and let go of her polymorphing. Her dark scales caught the light in a million colors as she lowered her wedge-shaped head toward the circle, moaning in grief for her great-great grandmother.

I doubted the magical circle would harm me, but I held out a hand over it first before I stepped over the first ring of markings. A ripple of static passed over my skin, and my ears popped as I continued to walk forward into the tight coil of invisible energy flowing around and into the plinth. Unlike Lahati and Matir, Lirenian was truly dead. No ghost came to greet me as I carefully advanced to the obelisk of black stone and examined it. It had been heavily modified, but the insertable lock for the Spear was still there. A triangle of sigils surrounded it, and I frowned, reaching out with my marked hand to touch the metal and see if there was a reaction.

Oh boy, was there a reaction.

I flinched as the sigils surged, and then a piercing, furious shriek echoed out of Solnetsi’s prison. Hissing under my breath, I tried to jerk my hand away—only to crumple forward as a barrage of raw telepathic emotion and information slammed into my mind like a psychic sledgehammer. The real world ahead of me dissolved, and a vision was forced into my mind, playing in flickers at unreal speed.

The vision was from the point of view of a hovering observer. The magic circle had already been engraved into the floor. No fewer than twenty Mercurions, beautiful and eerie, were finishing the last inscriptions around the plinth. There was only one human—a plain-looking knight in ornate, old-fashioned armor. Short brown hair, sad brown eyes, big hooked nose. He stood to the side with a familiar glass sword clasped in his hands—the Godslayer. They were overseen by what I thought, at first, was a Warsinger. Then I looked again, and realized it WAS a Warsinger. Matte black, stooped, with a deadly, murderous air, Black Mercy paced around this chamber like a tiger. By Warsinger standards, Black Mercy was tiny—not even quite the size of a full-grown dragon, which made it about seventy feet tall. But as the air warped near the entry to the Chamber of the Sun, it whirled with superhuman speed to face the queen and rider pair who appeared from a portal and stepped gracefully out onto the ground.

Lirenian the Diamond Queen had been savagely beautiful, her scales as clear and glittering as her name implied. Her eyes were a brilliant, blazing rose pink, shot through with silver. She was over a hundred feet long, dwarfing everyone in the chamber except for Black Mercy and its unseen pilot. And for the first time, I saw the man for whom the order of St. Grigori had been named. He was handsome and rugged-looking, with a narrow, sharp jaw and piercing blue eyes. He rode an odd saddle that fit Lirenian more like a vest and had numerous attachment points so that he could climb around her, but unlike me, he carried a shield as well as the Spear—the complete Spear, with all nine keystones. The weapon radiated an aura of immense power, an aura of raw energy that frosted around the haft and blade as Grigori clambered to his dragon’s shoulder and held onto one of the leather loops there, as easy on Lirenian’s back as a sailor on his rigging.

“What is happening, Zarya? Brugge? We came as soon as we were able.” Grigori called to the people clustered around the circle and the plinth. “Is the Gate stable?”

“She wakes, and we do not know why.” The cool, feminine voice came from Black Mercy, who padded toward Lirenian. The Queen snorted and flattened her horns down, sidestepping the small Warsinger as it pulled up beside and slightly to the side of her. “We should not need to open the gate again, but the plinth is behaving strangely.”

“And what’s all this?” Grigori gestured at the circle, brows furrowing.

“... No! Flee, Herald of Light! Fly, Lirenian! Fly from this place!”

An urgent, ghostly voice, unheard by any of the actors in the scene, drifted to my ears. Lirenian, however, shifted restlessly.

“The plinth was hemorrhaging mana,” Zarya explained, her voice amplified by Black Mercy’s visored helm. A nasty, oily substance drooled through the vents of the Warsinger’s mask. For some reason, I felt the spirit of the Drachan radiating from this machine way more clearly than I had from Withering Rose. “I responded to the alarm in preparation for an escaped Drachan. But if there was Void presence, it was long gone. We found the chamber flooded, and the cries of the goddess from beyond the door.

“Gods damn those overgrown vultures.” Grigori fumed. “This Gate will never be the same after their meddling. Did the fallen city damage it, do you think? And what is this scribbling on the floor?”

“It is likely the fall of Garai damaged the Dragon Gate and caused the leak, yes,” Zarya replied. “This circle contains and redirects the leaking energy of the Gate’s reactor back into the system, until we can find a more permanent solution. In truth, we need to open the Dragon Gate and reset the security systems.”

“Damn it all. If we need to open the Gate, Sachara needs to be here,” Grigori scowled, examining the plinth. “She’s all the way in Dalim by now, putting her court to order.”

“She does not. I will take the place of the Warsinger. Captain Brugge and my apprentice Hi’katl can take the part of the Artist. I have instructed them in the code sequence.”

Grigori looked slightly dubious, but glanced at the hook-nosed Brugge and smiled as the other human came to join him at the plinth. It was clear he trusted these two. “You want to do it now?”

“No... flee! Chosen of the Light, take your queen, and flee!”

The Warsinger bowed its head. “Please begin. We will perform the steps one at a time to ensure stability of the circle.”

The dragon knight looked to Lirenian, smiled and shrugged as if to say ‘whatever’, then slot the Spear down into the plinth and twisted it to lock it in. He still had both hands wrapped around the weapon as Brugge lunged for him with the glass sword.

“RRAGH!” Brugge struck the unsuspecting man down through the collar of his armor, plunging the blade into his neck and shoulder as Lirenian screamed, only to collapse and skid to her keel as Black Mercy put its fist to her ribs and ejected the long, black lance like a harpoon, a precise killing blow that hit the queen through her twin hearts.

Grigori crumpled with a gurgle, still clutching the Spear. He couldn’t even speak—just wheeze in horror as Black Mercy stepped on the struggling queen dragon’s neck and ejected a second javelin right beside the first.

“The Betrayal of Traitors rite is complete. Keep him against the plinth.” Zarya’s voice, cold and pitiless, echoed out through the chamber. “It is time to seal the Geas.”

“What have we done, Artisan? Gods have mercy.” Brugge, white-faced, stumbled back from the corpse of Grigori: his commander. Maybe his friend.

“There is no time for mercy. Only justice.” Black Mercy pulled one of its harpoon limbs free of Lirenian’s body and slid it back into the firing tube, then reached down to haul the struggling dragon toward the circle. Small as it was, the Warsinger hauled the dragon up like a kitten. “Pity not: Grigori and his brood would have conquered this world and subjugated all to his rule. Because of us, Archemi will never be ruled by dragons or Aesari again.”

“Curse... you...” Lirenian coughed, her mouth oozing with dark blue blood. She kicked feebly as the Warsinger pulled her over the line, and screamed aloud in agony as her body pulsed with blue-white light. “Curse you... you and Phaedra, and your entire traitorous species! I curse you to endless war! Endless grief! May your lands be barren and your children slaughter one another, never knowing peace! Forever!”

“Fear not. Your sacrifice was not in vain. We will send Grigori’s body to Dakhdir.” Zarya kicked the dying dragon into the rough position that we’d found her. “You may not understand. But we do what we must.”

Solnetsi’s scream of grief and agony shook me out of the vision, bringing me back to the present moment: piercingly loud from behind the door to the reactor. I sank down in the same place the last Paragon had fallen, clutching my head with one hand, the Spear in the other.

“Hector! Are you okay? What’s happening!?” Karalti roared, but as she tried to come toward me, the circle snapped with electricity and sent her skidding back, yelping with pain.

“This geas is bound to some kind of fucked up ritual,” I gasped, pushing myself up. “Something called the ‘Betrayal of Traitors’ rite. Grigori Skyr and Lirenian... they were murdered...”

“I believe the correct term is ‘sacrificed’,” an unpleasantly familiar deep voice boomed from the other end of the room. “And for the same reasons that you will be, Park. To beat back the darkness and save this reality from itself.”