The Gates of Night_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [104]
Or so she’d always believed.
Now, as Lei reached out for the mystical patterns that defined the vest, a shock ran through her. Lei had worked with illusions in the past, and this was the same sort of sensation as watching an illusion fade, revealing a strange reality. Her mental image of the vest faded away, and Lei realized that she was working her own pattern, the lifeweb she had discovered within herself. There’s never been any power in the vest. The energy I was calling on is in me.
It made no sense. Then again, natural flesh and blood couldn’t be repaired with the magic of the artificer, and she’d already proven an exception to that rule.
What am I?
There was no time for doubt. The energies she was binding had built to a critical point, and if she let her mind wander, the Sovereigns only knew what would become of her. Pushing her fears and doubts away, she focused on the threads of mystical power, forcing the divergent filaments into one coherent pattern. Finally, carefully, she laid that pattern over her own.
An explosion of light and heat spread throughout her muscles. She was growing! Her leather armor merged with her skin, transforming into huge, rusty scales. Leather flaps formed as her arms transformed into mighty wings, and she could feel her powerful tail stretching out behind her, ready to lash at her foes. For a moment she was baffled by the presence of the tiny mammals and the little metal man. Instinct demanded that she take to the air and strike these impertinent creatures down with tooth and claw. Then the fog lifted from her thoughts, and she remembered who she was and where she was. Lei. The dragon.
“That’s a dragon?” It was Daine’s voice, though it seemed so small and weak to her new ears. “I thought they had four legs.”
“This creature is a wyvern,” Pierce said. “Aside from the missing forelimbs, it lacks the deadly breath and magical power of the creatures often referred to as true dragons, compensating with a poisonous stinger in its tail. Despite these differences, it is a form of dragon.”
“I—” Lei’s first word caught in her throat. Her voice was hoarse thunder, and her tongue was not made to speak the Common tongue. She tried again, struggling to form words with a throat designed for mighty roars. “I’ve … never seen … a dragon. Best I could do.” She stretched her wings, feeling a thrill as they caught the air. Remembering the task that lay ahead, she leaned her head against the ground. “Mount!”
“We’re just going to hang on?” Daine said. He looked over at the seemingly bottomless chasm. “Oh, this is a fine idea.”
“Confidence!” Jode said, crawling up Lei’s neck. A slight ridge ran along her spine, and he wrapped his hands around one of the points, bracing his feet against her scales. “You’re dreaming. Believe, and you can succeed.”
Lei knew Daine, knew the bitterness that he carried inside, and she expected him to respond with a jibe. The destruction of Cyre had been hard on all of them, but Daine had suffered the worst. Lei had lost relatives, but the nation meant little to her, and Pierce placed greater worth on his companions than on the abstract nation. Cyre mattered to Daine, and he’d been haunted by that sense of loss and failure, both his failure to protect the soldiers under his command and to somehow defend the nation itself. And then the nightmares began.
When Lei first met him, Daine was bold and confident. He believed in his country. He believed in his abilities. He even believed in the Silver Flame. During their time in Thelanis, Lei had seen a fraction of that confidence return. It was as if something opened within him, releasing a spirit long trapped inside. He laughed, and instead of being sardonic, he actually seemed