Gatekeepers Book 3: Redemption
Chapter 20: Iris's Gift

“Damn that brat to the underworld!” Vinkex roared. The rubble crashed to the floor around him as he walked forward. Vinkex placed a hand over the deep incision running from his shoulder down to his waist. Blood poured from the wound, and the pain only served to enrage Vinkex even further.

What was with that attack the brat pulled? Vinkex attempted to heal the wound, but it was slow going. He made very little progress, despite the fact that he was trying to heal it with his magic. I wasn’t hurt when he first cut me, but I ended up being wounded right where his conjuration passed through me. Vinkex gave up trying to heal the wound completely and settled for stopping the bleeding. The pain eased slightly, allowing him to clear his head somewhat.

There was a flash of white light, and Vinkex looked up to see Draycos hovering in the air above him, still holding the unfinished conjuration in his hands. Draycos just hovered there silently, staring down at Vinkex with his blue eyes and an unreadable look on his face.

Vinkex uttered a low, dangerous growl. “What do you want, Draycos?” he hissed, trying to buy more time to treat his wound. The regenerative abilities of the Stormfang family’s blood began to take effect; Vinkex could feel his broken ribs begin to piece themselves back together. If he could buy enough time to let his ribs repair on their own while he tried to treat the wound itself, Vinkex was positive he could turn the tables.

The white color faded away from Draycos hair, and his eyes and hair turned back to brown. Draycos blinked and perked up, glancing around at his surroundings. His weapon faded out of existence as he slowly descended to the floor.

“Man, talk about exhausting,” he groaned as he landed. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “I got a little too intense back there; I was so in the zone that I can’t say I remember exactly what just happened.”

“Don’t you think you’re taking this situation a tad too lightly, boy?” Vinkex growled, trying to keep the conversation going. Draycos stopped stretching and glared at Vinkex.

“I don’t believe you’re one to be talking,” he retorted. “Haven’t you noticed what’s going on yet?”

“Huh?” Vinkex was so surprised by Draycos comment that he momentarily forgot to continue healing himself. He gave Draycos a quizzical look. “What nonsense are you going on about now?”

“How about you take a look at your magic reserves?” Draycos suggested. Puzzled, Vinkex took a moment to take stock of his remaining power. With a shock, he realized that he was left with less than a quarter of his magic power.

Unbelievable! When did I expend this much of my power?! I know for a fact that I hadn’t used even a quarter of my magic reserves when I was fighting Theravor! As Theravor stood there with a stunned expression on his face, Draycos started to laugh. His laughter bounced off the walls of the broken castle, making his voice echo eerily around the pair.

“Have you completely lost it?!” Vinkex snapped, irritated by Draycos’s reaction. “What in the underworld’s name are you laughing about?!”

“Because you don’t understand what happened, do you?” Draycos questioned as his laughter died down. Vinkex said nothing in response as he glared at Draycos, hissing softly. “Do you want to know why your magic power is running so low? It’s really your own fault, too!”

“What in the blazes are you babbling about?!”

The laughter on Draycos face disappeared instantly. With a dead-pan expression, Draycos lifted up the blue crystal pendant that still hung around his neck. “It’s right here,” he stated simply.

What? Vinkex stared at the pendant with a blank expression on his face. The blue crystal reflected a soft, twinkling light in the half-moon’s light. Against his better judgement, Vinkex closed his eyes and extended his consciousness outwards, towards the pendant Draycos held. Vinkex suddenly became aware of a massive source of magic power. The strength and intensity of the power startled Vinkex; it was vast enough to be a little less than half of what Vinkex was capable of at full power.

Vinkex’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at the pendant with a flabbergasted expression on his face. “T-that magic...couldn’t possibly be…?”

“You got it,” Draycos answered as he released his pendant. The pendant thumped against his chest as he looked Vinkex in the eyes. “I may still be a novice when it comes to sensing magic power, but it’s hard to mistake it for anything else after I was nearly assimilated by you. Half of your power resides in my pendant now.”

Zero, Vinzgar, and Corax listened to the exchange between Draycos and Vinkex from just outside the castle walls. They had retreated somewhat when they realized Vinkex was inside, but when Draycos flashed past them a few minutes ago, the three dragons decided to observe.

Zero shook his head in disbelief. “Is what Draycos saying right now actually true?” he muttered, mostly talking to himself.

“I cannot say for certain, but I believe so,” Vinzgar grunted, stepping over the rubble to enter the castle. “Did you not sense all that magic power Draycos was exerting when he passed us? That level of power is beyond what he’s capable of; but if he ended up leeching off of Vinkex’s own power, then that would explain it. Not to mention the fact that they’re both radiating the same musty, dark power right now.”

“But how did he end up absorbing Vinkex’s magic?” Zero questioned. “That shouldn’t be possible, unless….”

“Unless Draycos had a manastone on hand when Vinkex was assimilating him?” a new voice suggested. Corax, Vinzgar, and Zero turned around to see Theravor landed on the ground nearby, followed by Perla and Drax. Upon seeing his daughter, Zero rushed over to Perla and hugged her, pushing Drax aside in the process.

“Thank goodness, you’re okay!” Zero exclaimed as he tightened his embrace. “I was worried when I saw that explosion earlier!”

“Dad...please. Air…!” Perla gasped as her father’s thick arms cut off her airway. Composing himself, Zero stepped back and handed Perla the fluffy white cloth that still hung around his neck. Perla accepted it gratefully and began wiping the soot off her face.

“Back to what I was saying,” Theravor continued, turning his attention to Vinzgar and Corax. “Draycos has a manastone crystal in that pendant he constantly wears. That manastone seems to have soaked up Vinkex’s magic power while Draycos was stuck inside Vinkex. So when I extracted Draycos, the manastone came out with him, along with all the power it soaked up from Vinkex.”

“That crystal was a manastone?” Vinzgar questioned, doubtful. “But Draycos has been wearing that pendant since the moment he showed up here, and he said that his homeworld is one without magic at all. So why does he have a manastone?”

Theravor strode past Vinzgar and Corax and stepped over the rubble as he entered the castle. “Let’s just chalk that up for a mystery to be solved later,” he said. “For now, the more pressing issue we need to deal with is replaceing the real Río.”

“I’ll come with you.” The group of dragons looked up to see Damrabe swoop down and land on the ground. Damrabe exchanged glances with Theravor as his wings retracted into his body.

“If I’m right about this, then Río is in some sort of catatonic state that Olafoc put him in,” Damrabe stated. “You’re going to need my assistance to rouse him from something like that.”

“What about the wounds the soldiers are still suffering from?” Theravor questioned.

Damrabe snorted. “I’ve treated all the wounds that they needed me for; the soldiers and medic teams can handle the rest without me.”

Theravor paused for a moment before nodding his head. Damrabe climbed over the rubble, and, without a word, the two disappeared into the interior of the castle, followed by Corax.

“I see. So, you had a manastone in your pendant the whole time, didn’t you?” Vinkex growled, connecting the dots.

Draycos looked down at the pendant hanging from his neck. “I guess so,” he confirmed. “But to be honest, I had no idea this crystal was a manastone; I didn’t even know about the things until a few weeks ago, when I was learning to use my magic. Not to mention the fact that I got it from my magicless homeworld…” Draycos shook his head in confusion. “I have no idea how this could’ve happened.”

At that moment, the ground trembled slightly beneath Draycos’s feet. Reacting on pure instinct, Draycos jumped back just as a black tentacle erupted from the ground where he had just been standing. Upon closer inspection, Draycos noticed that it wasn’t a tentacle, but rather Vinkex’s tail that had burrowed through the ground.

“I understand the situation now,” Vinkex commented as he pulled his tail out of the ground. It twitched a few times as he folded his arms over his chest and examined Draycos. “So that’s why my magic reserves have been depleted so drastically. Even so, just because you currently possess more magic than me, doesn’t mean that you can win.” Vinkex held his hand out towards Draycos and curled it into a tight fist. “You foolishly sent me flying away from the rest of them, turning this into a one-on-one fight. Without any outside assistance, victory is mine the moment I catch you.”

“Are you sure you can even do that?” Draycos taunted. “You’re starting to slow down, big guy. Is that the result of those sealing spells kicking in?” Draycos was right; Vinkex was starting to suffer from the aftereffects of breaking his seal. His body was beginning to feel like it was made of stone, and each move felt sluggish. And now, with his magic reserves depleted so badly, Vinkex didn’t have the strength to temporarily stave off the effects with his power alone.

“It’s true, I am starting to slow down,” Vinkex admitted. “However, I don’t believe your position is any better. Even with all that power stored up inside that crystal, do you even know how to use it?”

Draycos kept his mouth shut as he exchanged glares with Vinkex. Vinkex had hit the nail on the head; Draycos had no idea how to tap into the massive amount of power held in his pendant. During his magic training between fights at the Prisoners’ Games, Boreta had provided a few manastones to use in Draycos’s training in an attempt to cut down on the number of mana-restoration pills Draycos was consuming, but Draycos had been unable to access their stored power to replenish his own.

“Which means,” Vinkex continued as he crouched low, smiling wickedly as his tail lashed back and forth, “that you technically have almost no magic left. I can still catch you and devour you before the seal’s magic renders me immoblie.” With that, Vinkex jumped forward with enough force to make deep cracks in the floor from his kickoff. Realizing that he wasn’t going to be able to dodge Vinkex’s blitz, Draycos enhanced his arms with as much magic as he dared to use and blocked a flurry of punches from Vinkex. Vinkex snorted and twisted in midair, using his wings to speed himself up. Vinkex’s tail came whipping out and swung towards Draycos at an incredible speed. Despite seeing this, Draycos wasn’t able to react fast enough, and Vinkex’s tail slammed into his waist at full force. Draycos was sent flying from the impact and slammed into a wall, went through that, and then smashed through two more walls before finally coming to a stop at the fourth.

Vinkex landed and straightened up as he looked at the devastation he caused. Pieces of the ceiling fell down as cracks ran through the castle, but the trembling eventually came to a stop before the castle fell apart.

“Dear me, it’s been a while since I got that worked up,” Vinkex commented as he made his way to where Draycos had stopped. “I got a little carried away and hit the boy at full force; I doubt he survived that. I hope there’s at least enough blood lying around his corpse to hold me over until I replace another suitable sacrifice.” Reaching the third wall, Vinkex clambered over the rubble and approached the pile of debris on the far wall.

Without warning, pieces of the rubble shifted around before tumbling off the pile, causing Vinkex to pause. His eyes widened in mild alarm as Draycos slowly pulled himself out of the pile. Draycos got on his feet and cracked a crick in his neck, uninjuried.

“Damn it, that one hurt,” he groaned. Ignoring Vinkex, who was frozen to the spot with a stiff expression on his face, Draycos took a look around at the room he was flung into. It was a massive chamber that felt like it was even larger than the Dragon Council’s chamber. Marble pillars climbed all the way up to the mosaic-tiled ceiling at least a hundred yards above. The mosaic depicted an image of two dragons, one red and one blue, shaking hands with their armies at their backs. Draycos walked out to the center of the room as he stared up at the mosaic in fascination. When his neck began to ache, he looked down and realized that he stood on a long sapphire-blue and gold carpet that stretched from one end of the room to the other. At one end was a massive set of wooden doors blocked by a bar set across them, presumably leading outside. When Draycos looked down towards the other end, he saw a short dais that stretched across the width of the hall. The wall behind the dais was missing; it had either been cut off by Draycos’s previous attack or never existed in the first place, but the vast opening allowed the soft starlight to light the room.

In the middle of the dais, cast in the shadows from the starry night behind, stood a throne made of dark wood, red velvet, and gold leafing. A draconic figure sat in the throne, but Draycos couldn’t make out any discerning details. Its head rested on the right fist propped up onto the arm of the throne, making it appear to be asleep. But as Draycos’s gaze moved over to the figure’s left hand, he felt his heart skip a beat as he saw something.

The left arm cradled something against the abdomen of the figure. That something was an orange sphere the size of one of those huge beach balls you’d see at parties sometimes. The sphere itself, which seemed to be made out of crystalized amber, emitted a soft light that barely lit up the figure’s body.

“You were not supposed to see that.” Startled, Draycos flinched before turning his gaze towards Vinkex. A dark expression filled Vinkex’s face as his glare darted back and forth between Draycos and the throne. The tip of Vinkex’s tail twitched erratically while Vinkex uttered a low, guttural growl.

The hair on the back of Draycos’s neck stood on end as he realized that Vinkex was truly angry this time. Draycos smiled nervously as a bead of cold sweat rolled down his face. “I take it that this is something rather important, right?” he asked shakily.

Vinkex’s tail twitched around even more violently before coming to a complete standstill. A long, drawn-out sigh filled the room as Vinkex looked over at the throne.

“Since you’re my living sacrifice that’s managed to hold out this long in one-on-one combat with me, I’ll tell you what that is,” Vinkex growled. He paused to take a deep breath before continuing dramatically.

“What you’re looking at is the true Rogue King, and that object he’s holding is my brother, or what you know as the Orb of the First King.”