Cryu Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Cryu Stormwing smelled wet dirt inside the Sky Temple, and dirt did not belong here. He crouched on a cloud terrace and watched a smear of muddy prints track past the pale stone arches. The temple had stood on these clouds long before he came to guard it. He still did not know what it had been. He only knew what waited in its deepest chamber: the Storm Heart, an ancient power asleep for centuries. Whoever woke it became the true guardian. No electric dragon had ever tried and lived. Cryu meant to try anyway. But first he had to catch whoever was walking his halls. He followed the prints through the outer passage, where luminous stone arches curved overhead and mist pooled at his claws. The tread was deep and uneven. A boot, not a barefoot pilgrim. Two prints in, he saw a red fleck pressed into the mud. He touched it with a claw. Grit from the salt flats, stained with something like rust. Nobody crossed the salt flats by accident. Somebody had sent this trespasser a long way. The prints turned toward the inner arch. Cryu's chest tightened. Beyond that arch stood the reliquary alcove, and inside it the crystal that held the last charge needed to wake the Storm Heart. If the trespasser broke it, the awakening ended before it began. He took the shorter route, up along a cloud ledge, and dropped down in front of the alcove. A hooded figure stood with one gloved hand already reaching for the crystal. Its faceted points threw pale blue light across the walls, and lightning veins pulsed inside it like a heartbeat. "Step back," Cryu said. The figure ran. Cryu called the smallest thread of lightning he could hold and lashed it at the floor between them. Stone cracked. The trespasser skidded, turned, and bolted through a side arch that opened onto empty sky. They jumped. A dark shape swept up from below and caught them, and both were gone into the clouds. Cryu did not chase. He went back to the alcove. The crystal was whole. On the tile below it lay a folded scrap of cloth the trespasser had dropped. Cryu opened it with one claw. A black seal was pressed into the wax. Thorns around a crown. He had seen that mark once before, on a warning a wizard friend had left at his gate. Thardwin's words came back short and plain. She is hunting anything old enough to matter. If she finds your temple, she will take it. Madness Everthorn knew about the Storm Heart now. Cryu closed his claw around the seal. The crystal was safe tonight. But the secret was not. He had to wake the Storm Heart before she came for it herself, and he had to do it soon.