TAKEN BY THE DRAGON KING

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

Elena

The shield barely holds up and I feel the heat of the flame flicker across my skin, the warmth hitting way too close to home, I don’t think, I can’t afford to, I draw out the very last ounce of strength and see through chains form around my hands, quickly lashing out and binding his arms and feet, they act as a sort of parasite, siphoning his energy into me, replenishing my already exhausted source.

He doesn’t take it too well, thrashing aggressively against the chains as they wound tighter and tighter around him as more blackened foam flowed from his mouth, his body gave final spasms and with the last light in her eyes he went for. one final attack, arms rushing towards me, with malformed claws glinting in the light. I watched in terror as he approached me, no spells coming to mind

“Kolpea atzera!” Gulliver yelled in a strong voice

A huge gale of magical force blew Dracul back into the wall with astounding force, creating a Dracul shaped crater in the walls, he was out but not done whatever was inside him, burned every single fibre of energy within him and it wouldn’t stop, not until he was completely burnt out

“Seize them,” he barks at the onlooking guards. “Seize them!”

Magic danced on Gulliver’s fingertips, the madness in his eyes matching Dracul’s and the guards stilled in fear of either party, not wanting to be on the wrath of either side.

“Fine,” Dracul growled. “I’ll finish it up myself and come for all your heads!”

He crouched low, going for another charge, the very humanity in his eyes draining put with every spring and flex of muscles.

“Kolpea atzera!” Gulliver bellowed, slamming into the wall with the same spell. “Kolpea atzera!, Kolpea atzera, KOLPEA ATZERA!”

The spell slammed hit him multiple times pushing him deeper and deeper into the wall, the sickening crack of his bones filled the air and as Dracul’s eyes rolled into his head.

“Stop!” I demanded. “Stop hurting him!”

Gulliver’s hands dropped to his sides and Dracul no longer held to the wall by intense magic crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll, dark black liquid leaked from his mouth, a nasty smell emanating from it as it sizzled burning it’s way through the floor.

“Seeds of Chaos,” Gulliver says grimly. “We’re royally screwed over, I need to get to the apothecary of the southern light abd fast.”

He barked instant orders for Dracul to be taken to the dungeon, to which the guards only obliged because they were even more scared of his magic, whatever seemed to have to be wrong with him was quickly forgotten as was I, completely left in the dark save for this ‘seeds of this chaos’ whatever.

He disappeared off onto a corner while I was being hounded by the infirmary to head back for proper checks. I dismissed them letting just a tiny bit of my frustration out, I watched tearfully as Dracul was taken away, my heart stinging for imprisoning him by again.

Gulliver seemed to have disappeared totally and I was just about giving up on him when I spotted a familiar frame hunched over, casting nonstop in a circular amplifier.

“Gulliver!” I called out to him, caring less and less for whatever incantations he was busy with. “Gulliver what the hell just happened?”

“Hush,” his voice echoes off in my head. “Let me finish!”

“Gulli-” he holds out a hand and voice ceases, I’m powerless to do much against him and in the end he holds the upper hand and I had to wait until the last bits of the spell were tied up.

The circle burnt with a bright light, searing the spell close and a faint memory of it resurfaces in my head, it’s a sealing spell.

“Glad to see you thinking Elena,” he says getting up.

“Get out of my head” I tell him.

“Get out of my way,” he replies with utmost seriousness.

“No,” I tell him. “Not until I know what’s going on.”

“Then try to keep up,” he says walking past me with an intense speed. “I’m not telling this twice.”

He picked up the pace leaving me to follow his unearthly pace.

“Magic resides in two forms,” he says “Order and Chaos, granny must have taught you this stuff-”

“Skip to the good part,” I say getting tenser with each passing moment. “The part of that concerns us.”

“Chaos was trapped forever in the Great War,” he says hurriedly. “Or so they preach but every so often there are cracks and little snippets of it slip out known as seeds of chaos, when they enter anyone, they infest and fast turning people to their darkest thoughts initiating devilish desires and feeding off of them until eventually death-”

“What?!” I tell the thought of dracul’s death exactly when I’d just gotten him back appalled me sending chills to my bones. “Is there a cure, how do we-?”

“I have put him in a temporary stasis it should stop him from festering even more,” he said dismissively. “As for a cure I would work faster on it if you’d let me be.”

His tone exuded finality but that was something my mind couldn’t wrap around, the thought of anything happening to Dracul, I didn’t want to imagine, in the end Gulliver had to magically had to bar me from accessing the library, shutting himself in and leaving me to my own whims letting me ponder on the growing thoughts of death swallowing up every bit of light in my mind.

I walked around for awhile my mind contemplating on everything, I had quite enough, what did I have to do for happy ever after, it was from one problem to the next and it was all because of her, in that moment, hatred swarmed in my mind like never before and it was for her, the one who called herself the queen of the west, the one who ruined happiness before it ever happened, the one who-

A cold hand grabbed mine, catching me midfall and mid shriek as I tripped over a loose tile, dark bulging veins laced across an old wrinkly hand and a bent over frail looking man dragged me up, offering me a small smile, my eyes scanned his features trying to familiarize with his looks but I couldn’t place it.

“That must be some deep thoughts you have there ma’am,” he said in a light baritone, his eyes glinting with something I could not yet discern. “You should be more careful.”

I offered more apologies and thanks and he turns to leave.

“Who are you?” I ask causing him to stop and turn on his heels back towards me. “I don’t believe I have seen you before, And pardon me aren’t you about hold to be here, do you need me to relieve you of your duties, I assure you you will be well compensated for life.”

He lets out a deep booming laugh, a hearty sound that echoed through the suspiciously empty hallway, he laughed a hard and long laugh, one which confused me a lot and then suddenly it went quiet again and when he spoke in that moment, his eyes had a dangerous seriousness to it

“Little girl,” he tells me. “If I were to stop my job your world will come crashing down and I do not mean in the figurative way you feel it has but literally it would shake the very fragments of the world, the next keeper is still yet to be born after all.”

He gives a knowing eye to my belly causing me to clutch it protectively, this only succeeds in inciting another round of laughs from him and this time he wipes his tears from his eyes.

“Be calm girl,” he tells me. “I will not steal your child or force him into the path of destiny even if it will find him in the first place, I’m only here to help.”

“Who are you?” I ask again magic slowly starting to pump back in my veins.

“What? Do you have cotton in your ears?” he says exasperatedly “I am the keeper of the One, the center of all thing earthly, the divine tree with everlasting roots, I am the Order.”

A halo of light comes upon him as he proceeds to name himself releasing a soft glow that gives me a homey feeling.

“I’m here to help you.” he tells me, laying his arms on more which surges more of his peaceful energy into me. “Something is coming child, something greater than you’ve ever faced, something so terrible it has activated your unborn child’s powers which now flows through your veins by linkage and you need my help to stop it.”

“What?” I ask a little too calmly. “What is it?”

I believe it’s my eyes but for a moment he appears to glitch and fade back into existence.

“Chaos,” he says in a hushed whisper. “Even now it infects weakening the Order, draining more of the light, you must find me before it is too late, you must!”

His hands go from warm to increasingly hot and I bite back the pain as he sears inklings of a map into my skin.

“Find me if you want to save us all.”

With that, he faded out if existence, only proof of our meeting a map that etched it’s way around my skin, it didn’t seem readable but strangely I could tell what each line meant, I needed to find this sage if I wanted to fix things or maybe Gulliver-

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The sound carried a massive breeze followed by a deafening roar that I’d come to recognize, Dracul had broken out of his bonds.