Mel found herself alone with Hanon deep in the underground at the edge of a narrow pathway. At the end of this one, much like the others, there was a room that had housed citizens before it was cleared by Austin’s command. The people had been sent with a few guards through the mountain to the Valley with most of the other civilians.
There were only a few dozen people left in the underground now, and if the shadows found them down here, they’d all be doomed. They probably would’ve been before, too, but now it felt more palpable to Mel. Like she knew she needed to figure out how to carve out a path to the dungeon sooner rather than later.
She shifted from one foot to the other and glanced up from her map to Hanon. He was pacing around the empty room with a frown on his forehead. He looked worried, and Mel couldn’t help but feel like she’d forced him into this plan. Did he really want to help them save the other survivors, or was he only here to make sure she’d get into the valley safely?
He stopped a few feet before her, looking up and meeting her gaze. “Do you think it will work?” he asked.
Mel brought down the map to her side. “I don’t know. But we’ll give it a try and if it doesn’t, we can always leave. Okay?”
He didn’t say anything more, just nodded in silence and resumed his pacing. A moment later, they were joined by two strangers who stood looking restless in the doorway.
“Are you the earth shakers?” Mel asked.
A woman with blond hair tied into a tight bun took a step toward her. She glanced at her companion and gave him a small shrug. “Kind of. We’re not trained properly, though. I mean… We went to Falden but never finished. We were the last class before…”
She trailed off, seeming like she didn’t know how to finish her sentence. Mel’s eyes flicked past her and glanced over at the man standing slightly behind her. He was a bit shorter, with dark brown hair and kind eyes. He had wrinkles around his mouth and lines stretching over his forehead. He didn’t look like a young student to Mel, but she guessed she couldn’t exactly complain. If these were the only earth shakers Austin had been able to find, then they’d have to do.
Mel shifted and brought up the map between the four of them. “The plan is to go through the wall here.” She pointed at the map and then gestured to the wall at the other end of the room. “We should then go straight through and finally connect with the dungeon underneath town hall. Do you think that’s possible?”
The blond woman squirmed uncomfortably before Mel’s eyes. She glanced back again at the man, who hadn’t fully stepped into the room yet. Then over at Hanon, widening a bit before she brought back her gaze to Mel. “Look, I don’t know who you think we are, but we can’t do that. Taveck told us we would have help from some more experienced elemental warriors. But I’m not sure we could carve a path all the way across Aldrion anyhow. It’s quite the challenge.”
“We’re not elemental warriors,” Mel said. “I’m Melissa Temper and this is Hanon…” Mel raised her hand weakly toward Hanon and expected him to finish with his last name. But he didn’t say anything. “We will help you. We will do most of the heavy lifting, I think. But you need to teach us how to use earth magic first.”
The woman’s eyebrows raised and the man behind her scrunched up his face in a look of dislike. “I’m Henry Erler and this is Mila Nillis. It’s nice to meet you two. But I’m not sure how this will work without proper backup. It takes energy out of the magical imbues to push through rock like this, and if you’re not properly trained, then it will consume more energy. We don’t have the luxury right now to create any more magical imbues and even if we did, it’s not like we have enough people here to wield them. No offense, but we can’t teach you how to do this in an afternoon.”
“Henry, hi,” Mel said, giving him a small wave. “You don’t have to worry about that for now. Just teach us how you use earth magic to carve a path forward and we will see if it’s enough or not. Okay?”
It was quiet in the room. The only sound coming from shuffling feet and hands nervously twitching against fabric. Mel took in a steadying breath, ready to try to convince them that they didn’t have to think about the logistics of the tunnel, only about the earth magic.
But then Hanon’s voice filled the room, steady and sure of himself like he usually wasn’t. “I know it might be hard to believe, but Melissa and I are dragons. We’re descendants from the old world and we can wield our own magic. It’s just that we haven’t practiced earth magic yet and we need your assistance to help us get there. I need to know how the earth moves, the sound of the stones itself and the call they listen to. We can’t do this without you, so please, would you show us?”
Henry’s mouth gaped open as he stared into Hanon’s dark eyes, but Mila looked around her now, seeming fine with this news and like she didn’t have any more arguments in store. She took a step toward the wall and put her hand on the rock before her. Mila closed her eyes and took in a deep breath and Mel saw the handle on her hammer start to glow brown.
The shimmer of the metal stretched through the room and gave Mel a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Like she was alive. Nothing like the last days down here in the underground had given her. She missed the sky too much, and this was the closest thing to freedom she’d felt in a long time.
Mila brought up the hammer from her hilt and unwrapped the cloth she’d thrown around it. The brown glow had carved streams of light through the metal. She held it in two hands by her side and Mel took a step forward, expecting Mila to say something, to teach her.
But she didn’t. Instead, she took in a deep breath and locked her eyes on the wall. She swung the hammer right into the stone block. It connected with a loud thud and chips of rock flew to the sides and across the room. Mila swung the hammer back and then made another move toward the wall, planting the weapon even further into the rock. The brown veins in the metal pulsed and Mel heard the steady hum of the earth magic inside. It reminded her of Austin and tuning forks in her bedroom at Falden.
Mila took a step back and threw a glance over her shoulder at Melissa. A bead of sweat trailed down the side of her face and her cheeks looked red from exertion. The wall had marks on it, carved into the stone, like little tunnels pummeling deep into the darkness. But there was not much of a path yet, only two tendrils inside a mountain.
“This is what earth magic is,” Mila said, gesturing at the wall. “You can move rock and earth, but a mountain like this is compact. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of magical energy to even make a dent. Maybe you didn’t know this before, but it’s not like we can just melt the earth and carve out entirely new paths in a day.”
She released the grip on her hammer and brought it down to her side again. The brown glow was now gone. The light in Mila’s eyes had dimmed and Mel could see deflation settling in.
“Teach us how it works anyway,” Mel said. “I need to know.”
A frown grazed Mila’s brow, and she lifted her arm to brush off the damp mess that lingered around her hairline. “Fine. I connect to my hammer using the elemental note of earth. You know it?”
Mel nodded, biting back her smile. Mila really thought they didn’t know anything at all. Like she and Hanon couldn’t hear the insistent ringing of her hammer in their ears all the time. It was like a lighthouse drawing them to shore.
“When you’ve got the right note, the hammer will glow. Then I focus on the energy inside the imbue and coax it to move out from the hammer and command it to do what I want. With earth you want to be firm in your orders. Don’t leave any room for it to breathe. It’s not like wind or water, more like fire, I suppose. Then you want to visualize the rock compressing into an even tighter compound.”
Hanon walked past Mel toward Mila and she spared him a glance before continuing, “We’ve got nowhere to move the earth, right? So we need to focus on compressing the stone into even harder material that will leave room for a path for us.”
Hanon stood before the wall now with the two slits carved into the stone. How far they went, Mel didn’t know. He dragged in a deep breath and Mel heard his energy shifting into earth magic. She felt the hum in her body like she was there with him singing the song of earth. She felt words course through her, even though she was sure she’d never actually learned this song.
But it was a sentence that kept repeating in her mind, that kept her focused on the rock in front of Hanon. We found you, yes, you changed our hearts.
It was a line from the song her father had sung to her growing up in his forge. It was the song of double imbues and of Bahlan. She knew that now. But the line had a different beat this time, it was set to the rhythm of the earth. The people of Bahlan had found something down there, something more than just the dragons or magic. They’d found something in the earth.
A shiver coursed through her spine, and her back felt rigid. She watched as Hanon put his hand on the rock and the wall moved away from him. The rock crumbled together and shifted into hard stones. The earth parted and made way for him and a narrow pathway, much like the one that led into this room, was carved in front of him.
His hand fell down to his side and his shoulders slumped, but before him, a path stretched into darkness and Mel’s stomach flipped. She’d almost lost hope they could do this, but Hanon believed. He’d just moved rock and made it possible.
Mila and Henry took a step back from Hanon, and their eyes immediately shifted to Melissa. Like she was responsible for giving them an explanation to this expert level of earth magic without using any magical imbue. But Mel couldn’t explain it. How could she?
It was not within her to explain why the sun shone or why the wind howled. It just did, because it was made to do so. Just like Mel and Hanon were made to do this. They were dragons.
Mel found herself alone with Hanon deep in the underground at the edge of a narrow pathway. At the end of this one, much like the others, there was a room that had housed citizens before it was cleared by Austin’s command. The people had been sent with a few guards through the mountain to the Valley with most of the other civilians.
There were only a few dozen people left in the underground now, and if the shadows found them down here, they’d all be doomed. They probably would’ve been before, too, but now it felt more palpable to Mel. Like she knew she needed to figure out how to carve out a path to the dungeon sooner rather than later.
She shifted from one foot to the other and glanced up from her map to Hanon. He was pacing around the empty room with a frown on his forehead. He looked worried, and Mel couldn’t help but feel like she’d forced him into this plan. Did he really want to help them save the other survivors, or was he only here to make sure she’d get into the valley safely?
He stopped a few feet before her, looking up and meeting her gaze. “Do you think it will work?” he asked.
Mel brought down the map to her side. “I don’t know. But we’ll give it a try and if it doesn’t, we can always leave. Okay?”
He didn’t say anything more, just nodded in silence and resumed his pacing. A moment later, they were joined by two strangers who stood looking restless in the doorway.
“Are you the earth shakers?” Mel asked.
A woman with blond hair tied into a tight bun took a step toward her. She glanced at her companion and gave him a small shrug. “Kind of. We’re not trained properly, though. I mean… We went to Falden but never finished. We were the last class before…”
She trailed off, seeming like she didn’t know how to finish her sentence. Mel’s eyes flicked past her and glanced over at the man standing slightly behind her. He was a bit shorter, with dark brown hair and kind eyes. He had wrinkles around his mouth and lines stretching over his forehead. He didn’t look like a young student to Mel, but she guessed she couldn’t exactly complain. If these were the only earth shakers Austin had been able to find, then they’d have to do.
Mel shifted and brought up the map between the four of them. “The plan is to go through the wall here.” She pointed at the map and then gestured to the wall at the other end of the room. “We should then go straight through and finally connect with the dungeon underneath town hall. Do you think that’s possible?”
The blond woman squirmed uncomfortably before Mel’s eyes. She glanced back again at the man, who hadn’t fully stepped into the room yet. Then over at Hanon, widening a bit before she brought back her gaze to Mel. “Look, I don’t know who you think we are, but we can’t do that. Taveck told us we would have help from some more experienced elemental warriors. But I’m not sure we could carve a path all the way across Aldrion anyhow. It’s quite the challenge.”
“We’re not elemental warriors,” Mel said. “I’m Melissa Temper and this is Hanon…” Mel raised her hand weakly toward Hanon and expected him to finish with his last name. But he didn’t say anything. “We will help you. We will do most of the heavy lifting, I think. But you need to teach us how to use earth magic first.”
The woman’s eyebrows raised and the man behind her scrunched up his face in a look of dislike. “I’m Henry Erler and this is Mila Nillis. It’s nice to meet you two. But I’m not sure how this will work without proper backup. It takes energy out of the magical imbues to push through rock like this, and if you’re not properly trained, then it will consume more energy. We don’t have the luxury right now to create any more magical imbues and even if we did, it’s not like we have enough people here to wield them. No offense, but we can’t teach you how to do this in an afternoon.”
“Henry, hi,” Mel said, giving him a small wave. “You don’t have to worry about that for now. Just teach us how you use earth magic to carve a path forward and we will see if it’s enough or not. Okay?”
It was quiet in the room. The only sound coming from shuffling feet and hands nervously twitching against fabric. Mel took in a steadying breath, ready to try to convince them that they didn’t have to think about the logistics of the tunnel, only about the earth magic.
But then Hanon’s voice filled the room, steady and sure of himself like he usually wasn’t. “I know it might be hard to believe, but Melissa and I are dragons. We’re descendants from the old world and we can wield our own magic. It’s just that we haven’t practiced earth magic yet and we need your assistance to help us get there. I need to know how the earth moves, the sound of the stones itself and the call they listen to. We can’t do this without you, so please, would you show us?”
Henry’s mouth gaped open as he stared into Hanon’s dark eyes, but Mila looked around her now, seeming fine with this news and like she didn’t have any more arguments in store. She took a step toward the wall and put her hand on the rock before her. Mila closed her eyes and took in a deep breath and Mel saw the handle on her hammer start to glow brown.
The shimmer of the metal stretched through the room and gave Mel a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Like she was alive. Nothing like the last days down here in the underground had given her. She missed the sky too much, and this was the closest thing to freedom she’d felt in a long time.
Mila brought up the hammer from her hilt and unwrapped the cloth she’d thrown around it. The brown glow had carved streams of light through the metal. She held it in two hands by her side and Mel took a step forward, expecting Mila to say something, to teach her.
But she didn’t. Instead, she took in a deep breath and locked her eyes on the wall. She swung the hammer right into the stone block. It connected with a loud thud and chips of rock flew to the sides and across the room. Mila swung the hammer back and then made another move toward the wall, planting the weapon even further into the rock. The brown veins in the metal pulsed and Mel heard the steady hum of the earth magic inside. It reminded her of Austin and tuning forks in her bedroom at Falden.
Mila took a step back and threw a glance over her shoulder at Melissa. A bead of sweat trailed down the side of her face and her cheeks looked red from exertion. The wall had marks on it, carved into the stone, like little tunnels pummeling deep into the darkness. But there was not much of a path yet, only two tendrils inside a mountain.
“This is what earth magic is,” Mila said, gesturing at the wall. “You can move rock and earth, but a mountain like this is compact. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of magical energy to even make a dent. Maybe you didn’t know this before, but it’s not like we can just melt the earth and carve out entirely new paths in a day.”
She released the grip on her hammer and brought it down to her side again. The brown glow was now gone. The light in Mila’s eyes had dimmed and Mel could see deflation settling in.
“Teach us how it works anyway,” Mel said. “I need to know.”
A frown grazed Mila’s brow, and she lifted her arm to brush off the damp mess that lingered around her hairline. “Fine. I connect to my hammer using the elemental note of earth. You know it?”
Mel nodded, biting back her smile. Mila really thought they didn’t know anything at all. Like she and Hanon couldn’t hear the insistent ringing of her hammer in their ears all the time. It was like a lighthouse drawing them to shore.
“When you’ve got the right note, the hammer will glow. Then I focus on the energy inside the imbue and coax it to move out from the hammer and command it to do what I want. With earth you want to be firm in your orders. Don’t leave any room for it to breathe. It’s not like wind or water, more like fire, I suppose. Then you want to visualize the rock compressing into an even tighter compound.”
Hanon walked past Mel toward Mila and she spared him a glance before continuing, “We’ve got nowhere to move the earth, right? So we need to focus on compressing the stone into even harder material that will leave room for a path for us.”
Hanon stood before the wall now with the two slits carved into the stone. How far they went, Mel didn’t know. He dragged in a deep breath and Mel heard his energy shifting into earth magic. She felt the hum in her body like she was there with him singing the song of earth. She felt words course through her, even though she was sure she’d never actually learned this song.
But it was a sentence that kept repeating in her mind, that kept her focused on the rock in front of Hanon. We found you, yes, you changed our hearts.
It was a line from the song her father had sung to her growing up in his forge. It was the song of double imbues and of Bahlan. She knew that now. But the line had a different beat this time, it was set to the rhythm of the earth. The people of Bahlan had found something down there, something more than just the dragons or magic. They’d found something in the earth.
A shiver coursed through her spine, and her back felt rigid. She watched as Hanon put his hand on the rock and the wall moved away from him. The rock crumbled together and shifted into hard stones. The earth parted and made way for him and a narrow pathway, much like the one that led into this room, was carved in front of him.
His hand fell down to his side and his shoulders slumped, but before him, a path stretched into darkness and Mel’s stomach flipped. She’d almost lost hope they could do this, but Hanon believed. He’d just moved rock and made it possible.
Mila and Henry took a step back from Hanon, and their eyes immediately shifted to Melissa. Like she was responsible for giving them an explanation to this expert level of earth magic without using any magical imbue. But Mel couldn’t explain it. How could she?
It was not within her to explain why the sun shone or why the wind howled. It just did, because it was made to do so. Just like Mel and Hanon were made to do this. They were dragons.
