Almost at the end (really two or three chapters to the end). So after this is done I was thinking of doing a drabble series with Shiara and Daystar, filling in some of the conversations I skipped over in the book and doing some of Shiara's adventures as the king of dragon's princess. I wanted to hear if there were parts people particularly wanted to hear about or ideas. Thanks.

Chapter 21

She didn't have to tell me twice. I could feel magic building up around us, a familiar irritating buzzing pressure I'd begun to solidly associate with wizards appearing out of nowhere; only much, much stronger. I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction.

Next to me Daystar stumbled. I grabbed his arm, yanking him up and shoving him towards the castle as hard as I could. There was a woosh of magic and things began exploding not so far behind us. We suddenly found our feet a lot more quickly and practically flew across the plain to the castle. I managed to slow down before I smacked into the door but it was a near thing. I turned to see Daystar lagging behind, scrounging desperately in his pockets. He slowed down next to me, grinning shakily, and holding up the key by way of explanation.

He moved forward, looking for a lock but, the door swung open the minute Daystar's foot touched the steps. It struck me as a bit too convenient, I grabbed his arm.

"Daystar are you sure..." I began. Something magical and heavy slammed into the wall beneath us spraying stone shrapnel. Suddenly the possible traps behind the suspiciously open door were much less important. We dove through the door together, collided in midair, and landed in an uncomfortable pile.

I turned, looking for Nightwitch the same moment that Daystar jerked up, and the sword whispered uncomfortably close to my ear.

"Hey!" I shouted, he looked down surprised. "Watch what you're doing with that sword!"

"I'm sorry." He stood up, shifted the sword farther away and offered me a hand up. "Is your arm all right?"

I took it. "I think so," It was still throbbing but I'd kept it tucked close to me and my right side had landed on Daystar, which had cushioned it fairly well. "At least, it doesn't hurt any more than it did already. Now, which way do we go?"

"I don't know." Something hit the door hard enough to rattle it in its frame, then there was the sound of the explosion. "I think we should get out of here, though." Daystar observed.

Yeah that sounded like a good idea, though maybe not while waving around the sword that had started the war in the first place.

"Aren't you going to put that stupid sword away first?" I asked

"No," he said. "I'd rather have it in my hand, in case some of the wizards do get into the castle."

I scowled but couldn't really argue. Sure he was painting a huge target on himself but the wizards would probably attack anyone who set foot in the castle. And having a wizard destroying weapon could be helpful.

What would have been more helpful was a map of the stupid castle. Oh sure, Kazul had sketched a little one, but it hadn't included the curvy hallways or the rooms that were inside other rooms. And I was pretty sure that some of the stairways, and moved deliberately in our path. Either that or the architect was truly a madman who thought a staircase leading to a blank wall would be a lovely feature. Maybe both.

Add to all that, the entire castle was full of a haze of dust that just increased every time we opened a door or moved a little too quickly. Nightwitch was sneezing so much she couldn't speak, and just drooped on my shoulder almost grey with the dust.

Daystar seemed to have a general idea where he was going, he moved in the same general direction, however that direction included a lot of dead ends. So I was slightly skeptical when he moved, purposefully into a rather pleasant-looking study.

"This doesn't look right, either," Maybe it was me, but I didn't see wizards trapping people in rooms with nice lighting and large windows. "Do you think-"

"Doesn't look right?" Something growled "Of course it doesn't look right! It's been seventeen years since anybody has dusted in here. And I haven't had any visitors except the mice."

A wooden gargoyle hung up in a corner under what could have been seventy years of dust. It scowled down at us and a spider fell from its ear.

Daystar, of course took that as a request for introductions, "I'm Daystar, and I'm looking for the King of the Enchanted Forest,"

"Oh yeah? What for?" the gargoyle growled.

"I think I'm supposed to return his sword."

"His-Oh, I see. Well, he isn't here. Hasn't been for seventeen years, and boy, am I going to give him an earful when he gets back."

We already knew that and we didn't have time for an earful "Come on, Daystar, we're wasting time," I said.

"Try the great hall, down the corridor to your left," the gargoyle yelled after us. "And send somebody to wipe the dust out of my ears! The things I put up with -"

Daystar and I had looked at each other, nothing else had worked, might as well give it a shot. The great hall was pretty impressive even underneath the grime. The door itself was much larger than any of the ones we'd passed through, carved with gold. But most telling was the wizard's staff pulling at the magic on the ground.

"I think this is the place we've been looking for," Daystar said.

I yanked at the door. "It's locked. Where's the key?"

'Just a minute." I could feel magic, a great deal of it pulsing through the door. There was a rummaging sound and Daystar shouted.

"What is it?" I whirled, expecting to see him defending himself against an enraged wizard, instead Daystar was simply staring at the key. What was he doing? "Come on, hurry up!"

"It's this key," he said, unlocking the door "It feels almost like the sword, except-"

The creak of the door drowned out the rest. In spite of the door the room didn't look bad, the constant dust was nowhere to be seen and the coals in the large brazier were still glowing. Across from the brazier the a man who pretty much had to be the king of the Enchanted Forest lay sleeping on a couch.

Come on, how many random sleeping guys were we going to find in the magically guarded castle? Plus he looked like a king, dressed in silk and velvet, with a beard of wisdom, and a strong, unlined face hinted at good-looking days when he was younger. If he was missing a crown and had a few tears in his fancy clothes, that could be expected from being attacked by wizards and years of enchanted sleep.

Let's just hope the same thing didn't happen to us. I took a deep breath. "That must be him. Come on, Daystar, let's get this over with."

Daystar nodded and stepped into the room. The air inside vibrated with magic, the king was coated in a webbed magic so dense it was almost a solid mass. It looped around and through him, into a wizard's staff lying next the him and then back out. I could vaguely feel other power sources feeding the spell but they were all weak things in comparison to the staff.

"Well, now that we're here, how do we break the spell?"

"Something's wrong," Daystar muttered, staring at the spell intently.

I looked again, harder. He was right. The spell wasn't just Enchanting him it was sustaining him. It would half to, to keep the guy alive for years without food or drink, but that meant suddenly slicing through the spell would probably be more than his body could handle.

"Maybe if you lay the sword on him it'll work," I suggested. That sword would probably still eat away at the wizard's magic, it'd just leech it out more slowly. Hopefully.

Daystar didn't move, he just kept looking between the king and the sword.

"You have to try something or we'll be here all day." I snapped.

"I wouldn't try anything at all, if I were you," said a voice behind us.

We both whirled around and were faced with a doorway was full of wizards.

I should have sensed them coming, I should have been alert for it, but I'd been so focused on the king I hadn't been paying attention.

Daystar leapt for the couch. A wizard, reached out his hand and the king suddenly re-appeared halfway across the room. The sword whumped dully against the couch.

Magic surged out from one of the staffs, knocking into Daystar and freezing him in the middle of a turn. It hit me a second later. I felt it crawl uncomfortably over my skin but otherwise it did nothing. I froze in place, for the show and tried to concentrate on frying those wizards.

It shouldn't have been hard, I just had to get wizards. And they were wizards, the people who'd kidnapped me, tried to experiment on me, hunted me, and were now trying to hurt my friend.

Antorell burst out of the crowd of wizards arm bandaged from the dragon bite, demanding "the boy."

The other wizards sneered contemptuously at his demands but said he could have Daystar, once they had the sword.

I should have been able to stop him then. I have never felt so terrified or so furious as when that evil, unstable wizard strode up to my completely helpless best friend. If I ever had power or needed it should have come then. But it didn't for all my rage, no fire answered me. No power nothing. I almost rushed forward anyway and attacked him with my bare hands.

But before I could, a burst of power flashed out of the sword and knocked the wizard back onto his butt and skidding across the floor.

This wasn't working. My fire-magic wasn't working. Not like that was anything new. I'd hoped it would come through when I needed it but if not, well I'd just have to try something else.

I had Morwen's protection spell, but I'd have to get close to Daystar for that to do any good, and the wizards couldn't see me doing it. Very carefully, I cast Morwen's "don't notice me" blending spell, whispering the words, and trying to let the magic loose as gently as possible. I thought I felt it take and started edging toward Daystar, slowly and carefully.

The wizards didn't notice they were, too busy arguing among themselves about how they were going to kill the King of the Enchanted Forest and take his place and the power that went with it. Not a terrifying idea or anything, but at least it kept them from thinking about me or Daystar.

The moment I thought that conversation turned back to Daystar.

"No, of course not. I have only seen the boy in action," Antorell sneered.

"What the boy has learned matters little." The one who sounded like the leader insisted "The power of the sword passes to the ruler of the castle, and there is nothing he can do about it. He will be easy enough to take care of then."

I could see the other wizards moving, preparing for action. To blazes with carefully, I started moving faster.

"Stop talking and let's get on with it," one of the wizards in the back said.

"An excellent suggestion. That is, if you are quite satisfied, Antorell?" said the leader.

Antorell glared but joined the other wizards with a huff. The leader nodded. "Begin."

I had to stop them, interrupt the ceremony before the killed the king and I had to free Daystar. Hopefully one would accomplish the other. Because otherwise I'd be running into a pack of wizards in a major casting, armed with nothing but basic witch magic.

I wasn't quite sure how the wizards were managing to keep Daystar frozen when he had the great anti-wizard sword. I thought it would have eaten away at their magic at least on the sword arm. My best guess was they had to were continually supplying the spell with power, giving it a boost each time the sword tried to cut through. So, maybe, if I cut the spell off from the source, the sword could get through to the spell and free Daystar. It wasn't the best plan, I grant you but it was all I had.

I grabbed a coal from the brazier as silently as possible, and quickly created a circle around Daystar, trying not to get distracted by the ominous chanting or the power growing steadily in the room. Daystar remained frozen. I stepped inside and raised the enchantment, weaving in the blending spell so that it would cover both of us. I had to touch his arm to spread the spell and Daystar's head jerked around. Movement! Progress!

"Do something before they finish!" he whispered. So he could talk and was aware of what had been going on.

"I've been trying!" I told him. "But it isn't working."

"Oh no." Understanding dawned across his face. "You haven't been polite to anyone since you apologized to Telemain, and you used that up on the last bunch of wizards."

No that couldn't be right, I'd bowed to Kazul hadn't I and all those other dragons? Did it have to be spoken? What was the measure of politeness? Did it even matter? A man was about to die, wizards were about to win a war because I couldn't say nice things to people and mean them.

"Daystar, I'm sorry!" I'm sorry I wasn't a nicer person like you warned me to be, I'm sorry I just doomed your quest to failure, I'm sorry…

"There isn't anything we can do about it now," Daystar interrupted my downward spiraling thoughts. "If you-" The wizards chanting stopped and the power that had been swirling through the air seemed to slow down into confused eddies. The leader bent over the sleeping man on the floor, then straightened with a gasp as the sleeping man dissolved into sparkles and mud.

The other wizards buzzed with confusion. "A simulacrum!" cried someone.

I had no idea what that meant but from Daystar's sigh of relief I took it to mean that the wizard's had not just killed the king of the Enchanted Forest. So the figure there was some sort of magical fake?

The wizards started arguing again and in doing so confirmed my guess.

"If that was a simulacrum," one of them demanded, "where's the King? Who put it there, anyway?"

"Old Zemenar, probably," an older-looking wizard said. "The simulacrum looked like him, and setting up a decoy is just the sort of thing he would do."

They kept arguing about why this Zemenar would do such a thing, getting rather heated. They were distracted now was the time to move if any, convince them to go in the wrong direction, trick them into setting us free, something.

I called to Daystar, hoping he'd know what to say, but he didn't react. The older wizard started giving directions. We had to move soon, but once again Daystar didn't respond when I called his name.

Maybe the enchantment had messed up his hearing I decided, and got right up next to his ear and hissed his name.

"Daystar!"

He jumped a little and turned to me slowly. "Don't do that. They might notice."

I snorted. Right, after all the spells I'd cast and moving around I'd done that was what they'd notice. Not that any of that had done much good. "If you don't want them to notice, you'd better try to notice sooner. That was the third time I called you."

"I'm sorry," he said

"So am I." For everything "What are we going to do?"

"If you could-Nightwitch? he broke off in mid-sentence and I followed his gaze to see a small black streak darted toward the group of wizards. One of them raised his staff. I yelled something and lunged forward. I needn't have bothered Nightwitch dodged and the spell hit the marble floor in a ball of light. She didn't veer away at that though, my suicidal little kitten dashed into the thick of the wizard's feet.

I couldn't see her, just the commotion she was causing among the wizards.

"There it goes!" One shouted

"Stop it!"

"It got away."

"Find it," the leader of the wizards commanded. "You, Grineran, go after it. It may lead you to the one we seek." No, it wouldn't, I thought fiercely, my cat would lead you in a merry chase around the castle and then straight into a dragon army.

And now there were only three wizards left: a short, round one, the one who was giving orders, and Antorell.

Antorell was staring at us. "What about them?" he said suddenly. "They may know something." I looked down, and realized in horror that I'd smudged the circle going to my cat's defense.

The leader wizard nodded "For once, Antorell, you may have made a useful suggestion. Persuading them to explain what they know may be difficult, however."

"I think I can manage it." Antorell said, with a nasty grin

"Really." The leader sounded skeptical. "The girl is a fire-witch, and the boy has the sword, remember."

"Sword or no, he cannot be immune to spells or Silvarex would never have been able to bind him," Antorell pointed out. Not unless I could get the circle back up in time.

"What did you have in mind?" I grabbed the coal and leaned down to fix the smudge, but not fast enough.

"Something like this." Antorell declared grandly and a beam of magic lanced into Daystar.

He tried to evade, I saw Daystar move his arm sluggishly up to block, but again, not fast enough. It hit him mid body and set him writhing and convulsing in spite of the lingering immobility charm. He screamed, a sound of utter pain I don't think he was even aware of making.

"NO!" I shouted, it sounded odd, distorted over the pounding in my ears "Don't you touch him!" Fire didn't come to me I was fire, light and heat, wanting to comfort and protect and avenge. Hungry for it. I was a blaze.

And suddenly so Antorell, fire leapt from my fingers and bloomed all along his robes and staff. He shouted and started slapping at his clothes while his colleagues stared. The fire I had set on Antorell had left a trail of flames in the air, falling gently toward the brazier, making a protective curtain of fire between us and them. Beside me Daystar half-collapsed and I moved to take his weight.

He balanced himself, staring fixedly at the key. Then, slowly, he lifted his left hand and tossed the key into the brazier.

A sheet of fire roared up to the ceiling, then disappeared leaving the brazier glowing white hot. I could feel magic building in the room, shoving the wizards spells aside with sheer force. Purer, older magic.

"Stop them!" the leader of the wizards shouted.

"Move, Daystar!" I yelled trying to drag him behind the brazier, I lost my grip. And instead l tumbled into the shadows alone. My right arm struck the floor and the world went white with pain. I might have blacked out. I don't know.

The next thing I remember was noise, loud but indistinct. I could feel magic zipping through the air around me, not just wizard but other kinds too, and there was fire close by. There was a jolt, and then a door appeared in the air above me. Then a man stepped out. He didn't exactly look like a king, he was dressed in plain clothes, with no beard or with hair to give him the look of an old wise man. But there was a glint of gold in his messy black hair and age in his eyes. Plus, especially from where I was sitting, he was really tall.

He stepped down, flames and fire melted out of existence behind him and the entire room held its breath. I levered myself up to a sitting position to watch the drama better. I'd said I wanted to see how it ends, I thought hazily.

The king was still really tall, even taller than Daystar. I saw Daystar look up to him, but the fire flickered and hid both of their faces. Daystar turned, reached into the fire and pulled out the sword. He held the gleaming blade up, offering it to King of the Enchanted Forest.

"I've come to return your sword, Father," he said.