Dragon Dreams (The Chronicles of Shadow and Light) Book 1



  Dragon Dreams

  The Chronicles of Shadow and Light Book One

  Also by Dusty Lynn Holloway:

  Dragon Ties

  Dragon Light

  Dragon Soul (Coming winter 2016)

  Dragon Dreams

  The Chronicles of

  Shadow and Light

  Book One

  Copyright © 2011 Dusty Lynn Holloway

  Cover Design © 2014 by Cheri Schmidt

  3rd Edition

  [1. Epic Fantasy-Fiction. 2. Fantasy Romance-

  Fiction. 3. Dragons-Fiction.]

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all those who refuse to give up; those who keep striving and keep trying long after they thought they couldn’t take another step. This one’s for you.

  Prologue

  In my shadow you sleep, hungry for my soul.

  In my heart you live, nurtured and at peace.

  In my life you belong, always.

  The red dawn of war clashes with the tide. Black descends. Shadows come alive.

  I call to you. I see you across the field of battle, calling to me. So many stand between us.

  I turn away to the tide; the tide sweeps forward, surging, billowing, covering.

  I raise my hand and stare at the sky above. Silence descends. A hush. Tears fall down. Liquid, they fall down my face, down my grimy cheeks, onto my bloodstained clothes.

  I raise my other hand. A burst of time shoots forward, galloping like my heart as I wait for the final blow . . . but it never comes. I’ve frozen the moment in time as the blade meant for my heart pierces his.

  The sobs choke my chest as I stare at the metal, gleaming red like the rising sun, sticking from his chest. His eyes are frozen as well, locked onto mine. They look unsurprised. I sink down to my knees; tears fall harder.

  I hear your voice. A shout, a scream of pain and anger and despair and fear from across the field. I don’t turn. I look straight ahead to the eyes that are locked onto mine as I bring both of my hands down in a gesture as sharp as the blade. Light explodes outward from me, shooting across the battlefield, consuming everything.

  I fall. He falls too. His eyes speak the things he cannot say. They close after a minute, but mine stay open.

  You reach me then. Everyone else is flattened, reeling on the blood-soaked earth, but you reach me. You turn me face up. You gather me in your arms. You weep, but my eyes are dry now. My eyes are dry. “It will be alright,” I whisper to you. “It will be alright.”

  Chapter One- Aware

  He woke up screaming at the top of his lungs, like a clarion call to the rising dawn. His breath was gasping in his tight chest as though he had just been running for miles and miles. He couldn’t make it slow down. He closed his eyes to concentrate. Slow. Slow. Breathe slowly. In. Out. Slow. The images from the dream splashed across the forefront of his mind, worming their way through the barricades.

  Tears leaked down his face and into his matted dark hair. He brought a shaking hand up to his head and groaned deeply.

  Go away. Please . . . just go away.

  Sweat and tears mingled.

  He was tired, more tired than he had ever been in his whole life. Night after night he dreamed of her. Night after night after endless night. He tried to work himself into a numb stupor, putting a hazy wall of weariness between himself and the rest of the world—battle preparations for the coming war with Obsidian—but it didn’t work. Because no matter how much or how long he pushed his body, his mind was slowly caving in on itself.

  The dreams returned no matter what he did.

  He tried not sleeping. Simply going for days on end with no sleep. But he paid for it. The dream, when he finally slumped over in complete exhaustion, was even worse. This was the result.

  The part that hurt—that made it more than just a battle, just a faceless person dying—was that . . . he felt like he knew her, this elf named Auri. He felt as though she was a part of him, in a way that he didn’t understand. He understood what made her run in the dream, not from but to something. He understood what made her fight, what made her cry, what made her tremble. He saw so many things in her that he wished he saw in himself when he looked in the mirror.

  He had been taught from the time that he could toddle that war was imminent, and that he would be needed to lead in that battle. In other words, he had been taught to be strong. But Auri was stronger. Stronger inside.

  His breath was still loud, but his heart had slowed a little. The tears continued to dribble down the sides of his temples, into his hair, and onto the white, linen sheets. He couldn’t stand this anymore. He feared that he was going mad. What else was it when you dreamed of death every night? When you dreamed of your own death, and the death of someone you knew and cared deeply for . . . but had never seen in the course of your life?

  A hand came softly down onto his shoulder, and he reacted instinctively. Steel met steel faster than he could swing his eyes up to his attacker, and then his knife clattered to the wooden floor as the face before him registered. Cerralys. He had almost killed the king.

  He didn’t speak, but held his head in his hands again, trembling madly. He had almost killed the king. . . It ran through his brain again in one long, numb, garbled thought, echoing and echoing. He had almost killed his father.

  The bed sunk down as Cerralys sat next to him. “Nachal,” he said carefully, as though speaking with one who was about to throw himself off of a ledge, “I am well. Be not troubled.”

  Nachal gave a sharp bark of manic laughter. “I almost killed you,” he whispered hoarsely, his throat raspy from screaming.

  He heard the smile in the king’s voice, though he didn’t look up to see it for himself. “Then it is fortunate that I had my blade handy.”

  Nachal laughed again. It came out sounding like it was half sob.

  Warm hands came down upon his shoulders. “You are not going mad, little one.”

  He looked up, fisting the tears from his eyes. The old one’s eyes were that unearthly, piercing, deep blue that he had grown so used to over the years. They were completely unique, those eyes, and they always saw to the depths of him, to the depths of anyone. He saw understanding in them, sorrow, love . . . and fear.

  “Then why are you afraid?” he asked in a small voice. Cerralys seemed never to fear anything. He had lived so long, seen so much. Today was the first day that he had seen that particular emotion, and it rattled him worse than the dream. He felt like the ground beneath him was suddenly unstable.

  The king didn’t answer. He moved to stand before the now cold hearth, while Nachal shivered on the bed watching his movements like a hawk. The old one got the fire blazing within moments.

  “What do you fear?” he demanded again in a hoarse whisper, hiding his shaking hands within the folds of the blanket. He clenched them as he waited.

  “I fear losing my son,” the old one finally whispered.

  Nachal closed his eyes. The muscles just did it on their own, he didn’t control them. He couldn’t look at the king in front of him now without wanting to weep again.

  And he was tired of crying.

  “You will lose me eventually. I am human, you are dragon-kind. Our life-spans are vastly different.”

  The room became still. Quiet. It was the quiet before the dawn. Before everything awoke. Before the light came. It was an unnatural quiet.

  “Yes,” was his only reply.

  Nachal sighed. Dragons seemed to have that ability, almost as though nature reacted to them. That was, unfortunately, part of the problem.

  He groaned as he s
tood up. The room tilted crazily for a minute and then righted itself. He shuffled slowly over to the dolphin faucet and pumped the cold water into the blue basin beneath. When he finished bathing the sweat from his bare chest and face, he shuffled tiredly over to the mahogany wardrobe and began rummaging for a clean pair of pants and shirt.

  He couldn’t find any. He didn’t like anyone but Cerralys in his room, and he had been so desperately busy lately that he hadn’t had time to take his dirty clothes downstairs to the laundering rooms. He grabbed something off the floor, smelled it then shrugged and pulled it on. Pants went on first then his shirt, socks, and boots. When he was finished, he turned to the king again. He hadn’t moved. He was still staring deeply into the flickering flames.

  They stood like that for a minute, he staring at the king’s back and the king staring straight through the hearth to the depths of his thoughts.

  “I do not know who she is, this elf that you dream of, but I know that she needs you, Nachal. You cannot just push this away.” His voice sounded as tired as Nachal’s body felt.

  “They’re just dreams. They’ll go away eventually.”

  Quiet again for the span of a few beats of his heart. “I did not raise you to be that ignorant of your own feelings. She is real, little one.”

  “Send one of the Luminari to her then. If she is in some kind of trouble a dragon would be a better protector.”

  “She needs you.”

  “Why?” His voice had grown hoarse again. Inside he was shaking. Scared.

  “I don’t know.” Whisper soft, anguished.

  Nachal closed the distance between them. “Can you tell me what you do know?” he asked quietly. He had never seen Cerralys like this. It was deeply disturbing.

  “I know that she is vital. To you, to me, to Terradin, to the war. . . And in a very personal way. It’s almost as though she is Terradin.”

  “That’s—” Nachal started to say that was impossible then closed his mouth abruptly. Was it impossible? He sighed. Probably not. “Anything else?”

  Another long span of silence. “It is not knowledge, more of a . . . feeling.”

  In a way, that was almost worse because, while knowledge was often right—if gathered correctly and used wisely—the intuition of the Dragon-King Cerralys was legendary, as was his strength and wisdom. Which was part of the reason why Nachal was still shaking inside.

  “Please,” he whispered through suddenly numb lips.

  Another span. This one longer. The quiet became a thing in and of itself. Nature paused, held its breath.

  “You will die for her.”

  Nachal sighed. “I know,” he said wearily.

  He turned around to look for his bag.

  When he found it, he turned back toward the balcony. The king stood there, long, white hair blowing in the breeze, stance strong and unyielding. He was in his shifted form now—that of an elf. Dragon-kind, after many years’ study, learned the ability to change to one other form. Only one. For it became as much a part of the makeup of their being as their dragon half.

  Most dragons chose an elven shifted form because they naturally shared many of the same characteristics: great strength, agility, long lifespans, and an equally strong tie with nature, although in very different ways. The earth itself seemed to react to the dragons—especially the powerful ones like Cerralys. But the elves? The elves called upon nature, and nature answered.

  The dawn was just beginning as he came to stand beside the king. They watched The Hall slowly come to life below them. Soldiers began training in the bailey below, waiting for the king to come. The king’s men loved him. Everyone did. Including the little fosterling that he had taken in twenty years before.

  The ocean was just below them. The Hall stood at the top of a cliff overlooking the Eldrian Sea to his left and the Du`lna Forest to his right. From his balcony he could see for miles. Endless blue and endless green.

  He thought of Auri dying as he stood there, and his soul shuddered.

  “You’ve been alive for so long, lived through so much, lost so many. Does it ever get any easier losing those that you love, outliving everyone?”

  The waves pulsed forth upon the beach below, suddenly without sound. A gull flew over them, opening its mouth wide as though screeching loudly, but no sound issued forth. Nachal turned red, gritty eyes to the cause. Cerralys’s eyes were glowing. Twin beams of pure light. Tears shimmered. “No,” came the soft voice. “It never gets easier.”

  “I thought time healed all wounds,” Nachal murmured as he rubbed his cheek dry.

  Cerralys gave a wry, strangled laugh. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”

  They watched the pink streaks of light burn through the shimmering pale blue of the sky.

  Sound returned slowly, softly.

  Dawn: The beginning.

  Chapter Two- The Map

  Cerralys left him to go down and train the men while he was left staring absently at the disaster that was his room. He had treatises on every subject scattered around the various surfaces of his room: foreign affairs, geography, writing, arithmetic, several different branches of science, and all of them had copious notes and sheathes of paper scattered around and within them. He sighed as he shifted massive amounts of papers around to get to his trunks underneath.

  Every other spare space that wasn’t taken up by books was taken up by piles of clothes. He hadn’t done laundry in so many months that he’d lost count. Everything he owned was dirty. Not just a little dirty, but dirty caked-on-mud dirty. He slid some of the filthy clothes over and started piling supplies into his bag. The last things that he grabbed were his bow, his quiver of dragon-steel arrows, and his sword. He held the sword gently for a moment, running his index finger down the hilt. This sword represented so many things to him: sacrifice, discipline, love. . . It was given to him by the only dragon sword master in existence: Cerralys.

  The term master—in the dragon world—was a title given to a dragon that had reached an unparalleled skill level in one of the five different studies. They had a master for flight, combat, stealth, healing, and transformation or essence changing. These masters were scattered throughout the lands of Terradin, and each school was in a remote location because if Obsidian could track down the schools and their masters, he would level them.

  He tied his bag and stood. Obsidian would level Auri too if he didn’t hurry. He slung his bow and quiver of arrows across his back, slid his sword into the custom made scabbard that crossed the bow over his back, and left his chamber without a backward glance.

  His feet moved unconsciously down the many stairs and corridors to the bailey, leaving his mind free to wander. Ahead, to what he was doing. Within, to what he was feeling. The answer to both was that he didn’t know. He didn’t know what he was doing, and he certainly didn’t understand any of what he was feeling.

  He quickly walked through the Great Hall, and paused just outside to open another door to his left. This door was set far back into a hidden recess. It led down a darkened, seldom used stairwell, and finally emptied out into the central bailey: The Hall’s training grounds.

  When he reached the bottom, he tugged open the door and immediately raised his hand to protect his eyes as the glare from the sun hit him full in the face. He took a few steps into the bailey and looked around. It looked as though Cerralys had finished training the soldiers—they were stationed at different places on the upper parts of The Hall—and now he had moved on to training his students. His youngest student was currently in the inner circle with him.

  Stephen was slight of build with a wiry frame, dark auburn hair, and large green eyes. From the very first day that the king had allowed Stephen a place in the school there had been a special bond between them. The king saw something different in the boy . . . something that the others couldn’t see.

  They stood close, within a few feet of each other. The king came at Stephen with exaggerated slowness, emphasizing each point of attack and moving the boy�
�s sword in the correct position when he failed to get it there himself. Nachal watched the scene play out for several minutes in silence—no one had noticed his entrance into the bailey—before he quietly dropped his bag at his feet, stealthily crept up behind two unfamiliar men standing in formation around the circle, and unabashedly eavesdropped on their whispered conversation. Anger flared instantly.

  “Don’t know why the king even tries with this one,” the dark-haired one whispered, keeping his eyes on what was happening in the inner circle. “The child is pathetic. Even from here I can see him trembling.”

  The other nodded then laughed as Stephen fumbled with his sword in the middle of the ring. It fell with a dull thunk to the ground.

  Nachal didn’t stop to think it through, he just grabbed and yanked. They both flew backward, landing on the dusty, hard-packed dirt of the bailey. He moved to stand over them as they blindly sputtered, their heads swiveling upward to see the face of their assailant. When they saw him, they both went completely still.

  He crouched next to them so no one else would hear. “You show everyone respect here,” he said quietly, ice dripping from his words. “If you cannot do that, you will leave.” His eyes burned into theirs for a long moment. His voice dipped even lower. “Am I understood?”

  They both nodded, nearly simultaneously. He searched their faces to make sure they understood before he reached down with a hand held out for each. After he yanked them both to their feet, he strode purposefully away. He could feel their wary eyes tracking him as he made his way to the circle’s threshold.

  An older man who had been standing next to the two waited until Nachal drew level with him and then whispered, “They’re human and new.”

  “That explains a bit,” Nachal said with a half-smile, watching the action in the middle of the circle. Humans never knew how to take him. With dragons it seemed to be instinctive. Maybe it came with experience. . . “How are you, Glines?”