Author's Note:

Previously published under Shiobe Rising: Wellspring Dragons Book 1

Excerpt from Dawn of Shiobe: Wellspring Dragons Book 1, 2nd edition

Available in ebook format at the end of May 2023

Excerpt from Dawn of Shiobe

“Shiobe!”

She snapped awake, panicking, just before a chilly hand grabbed her shoulder and held her in place.

“Shiobe!”

Ah. Kitta. “What do you want?” she asked in an uninterested tone. Kitta jerked her to her feet, looking frantic.

“Are you certain? Idaran’s dead and Diten’s missing?”

Shiobe looked at her.

Her lower lip trembled. “Shiobe,” she whispered. “Rien . . . Rien said he had a task for Ganderelle, and the other siojhetioxh say she defeated a wielder and saved several people from being sold by Gord Silversmith. No one . . . no one’s said anything about Diten.”

Jealousy. Definitely jealousy. “Gord’s men kidnapped us together,” she offered, trying to shake off the tense fingers. They dug into her injured arm and that hurt. “He tried to sell me off as a Condi and the last I saw of Diten, he was still in the cell they put us in. Sian said he disappeared, that they didn’t find him last night.”

Kitta released her, plopped on the bed, folded her legs up, and closed her eyes, falling into trance. Shiobe fought the urge to shake her back; what right had the siojhetioh to use her room for a wielding? Why had she not found him after receiving the letter? Wanted to make certain she told the truth?

Feeling low, abused, and taken advantage of, she stared at the tips of her ratty old boots—her newer ratty boots sat wherever the slavers had chucked them—and fought the shame clouding her emotions. Attempting to shake the mood, she walked to her small cabinet, intending to search through her meager stores for a small bit of bread to eat, something to comfort her. The larder she discovered shocked her—bread, cheese, salted butter, dried meat, pickled vegetables, fresh fruit! When had Sikode purchased all that?

Selecting an avrikuet, she turned and watched the siojhetioh with curious annoyance. Rien attacking her did not make Kitta think less of him, but perhaps targeting her secret lover would prompt their break?

Kitta leapt to her feet just as she finished the last bite. “Shiobe!” she breathed. “I found a kick-portal hook. We have to go!”

“We?” she asked in a hostile voice, but before she voiced a protest, dark blue flared and a dark, drippy someplace that smelled of mold, slime, and rot, replaced her room.

Curse Kitta to the Dark Abyss times a thousand! Her arm throbbed, and she snarled in response to the unexpected pain. She began to hiss a rude word, but Kitta slapped her hand over her mouth and pressed her lips against her ear.

“Shh,” she whispered. “Foul things are here.”

Really. How appropriate. Shiobe gritted her teeth to silence her seething reply as the siojhetioh pulled away. She chucked the avrikuet’s pit and followed the wielded sparkles of the liokaiorioh’s skirt, wishing for her sword—she would feel some small sense of protection even though her arm’s present condition precluded her from fighting. But that was Kitta, precipitously leaping into trouble with little thought to the consequences, leaving Shiobe to pick up whatever scattered pieces remained.

The shuffling of large feet echoed over several low-brow curses. The siojhetioh leaned out and looked around a doorway, the faint reflection of torchlight against the slimy walls softly highlighting her form. She straightened and snagged her arm.

“There’s a dampening spell,” she whispered directly into her ear. “I sense Diten, but I can’t pinpoint him. We need to go.” With that, she fled the room.

Wonderful times two. Shiobe charged after, worried about who held the light that brightened the atmosphere behind them.

Prickles crawled over her skin, and not just from the ooze dripping down the walls or the dank smell of unmentionable things and mildew. She sensed something, something dark, something vicious—and Kitta dumped them in its path. She tripped, realized she stumbled over the bloody leg belonging to a mangled, burned corpse, and stretched her stride until she caught the rushing siojhetioh. What in the world frightened rats and slimy cave fangs so badly that they refused to eat such a wondrous meal?

Kitta’s breath hitched with tears as she continued to hustle with the same speed through the dark, outrunning the torchlight. Shiobe grabbed her hand to keep with her, and the siojhetioh dug her nails into her flesh, firming the hold.

Something scraped against stone ahead of them, sounding like hard-scale armor. No fully dressed knight would wander down there in the dark, so what made the noise? Kitta halted, then pressed her lips against her ear.

“We can’t go past that,” she hissed. “I can’t seem to get around the dampening spell, and I should because I don’t think the person who cast it is very strong. We need to go back.”

“But—”

Kitta turned and yanked her after her, shuffling towards the illumination. If those people caught them—

The siojhetioh jerked her into a side passageway just before the unknowns rounded the far corner. They scurried along, nailing unseen objects with their feet, splattering the gunk on their legs, struggling to keep upright on the slick stone. Did the woman know where Diten was, or did she hope to accidentally stumble upon him? Now was not the time to ask, even if the resentful words demanded she speak them.

“Rien’s going to be furious you went after your lover.”

She rammed into the siojhetioh’s back as she halted, and her ex-friend staggered forward.

“Lover?” she hissed.

“You wouldn’t go to all the trouble to save him by yourself otherwise. You’d have gotten help from Natan.”

They both heard faint slithering behind them, and Kitta’s hand tightened before picking up speed. They raced along, Shiobe blindly following the siojhetioh because she could see nothing. How did they keep their feet, considering all the garbage they banged into? Did fear keep them on edge enough to quickly respond to a trip?

A faint flicker of light reflecting off the walls ahead alerted them. Kitta snarled and whisked to the right, throwing Shiobe off-balance. She skidded, avoided smacking the wall through luck, and disgusted panic thrilled through her as the woman released her hand.

She sank to her knees and leaned into a shadow, with a familiarity that proved why Rien found Diten threatening and Shiobe savored her smug enjoyment. She padded to the two and hunkered down, refusing to kneel in the sludge that smelled of human waste and nasty things.

“There’s blood everywhere,” Kitta said, distressed.

“I broke a leg falling,” Diten hissed. “Your shields can’t protect against that.”

“You fell?”

“Through a sewer grate,” he said, glancing at the light brightening outside the doorway. “Migo wasn’t the only wielder they had—there’s another, a nasty one. He tried to get rid . . . get rid of the . . . evidence . . .‍” Diten swallowed, hard. “Some of us escaped down here before the flames got us. No one wanted to stay with me, because of the leg.”

Ah, things were getting better and better. Had that nasty one been the wielder Ganderelle claimed to have taken out, or had Rien meant Migo? She would not put it past him to lie and claim that the siojhetioh defeated a powerful mystery artist when Sikode actually splatted him across the auction, and no palace guard or shadowwalker would call him on it.

Her neck hair rose. “Kitta!”

“I know,” she whispered back. “But the dampening spell’s draining my magick. It’s . . . tricky. I need time to break through.”

Time. Time. “Damn you to the Nine Abysses, Kitta,” she snarled. Why neglect to scan before she leapt? Why assume cracking the wielding was a trivial task? Irritated at her subdued, depreciating laughter, she slipped away from the two and neared the doorway. Why had Diten dragged himself to a room without something inside to hide behind? He must have chosen the closest dark space.

She searched the ground for something, anything, and ended up toeing a slimy length of bent metal, a heavy weapon, something with awkward balance—but it was better than nothing. She swung it about and winced at the spray of icky that splattered against the wall. She would need to scrub her hand for an eight-day to make it feel clean again.

“Should have let me grab my sword,” she grumbled to herself as she crept to the door and peeked around the slick jamb. Ominous situation, no preparation—yep, Kitta through and through.

Light closed in from both directions, and something accompanied that light, something dark, something thirsty. She wanted to scratch her arms as they tingled in sensational unease, something she had not experienced since she and her father visited the three-thousand-year-old ruins of Zere Enec, a once-proud metropolis near present-day Tura. Something evil lay beneath the fallen stone, something hidden and best forgotten. Her father had sensed nothing, and she sometimes wondered if her six-year-old imagination simply got the better of her in such an ancient place. Just because she perceived a thirsty darkness waiting to suck her dry did not mean it existed. The current incarnation, however . . .

“What is he to do? Run?” a light, unconcerned male voice said, loud enough to echo across the stone. Several someones hissed for quiet but received only laughter in return. “He would have already escaped if he’d been able. The sh’vere will find him.”

“It’ll turn on us,” someone with a heavy docks accent said, a weighty fear tinging his voice.

“Twilight creatures don’t turn on their conjurers,” he replied in a snooty tone.

A conjurer. Wonderful times a thousand. She had no idea what a sh’vere might be, but if it produced that darkness she sensed, she counted it as a deadly enemy. Hopefully the dampening spell affected the beast as well, granting her a minute advantage when it entered the room. Very minute; myths, legends and a scant few historical documents only provided a glimpse into the twilight creatures and their native lands. She could not guess how it might react when she struck it with the metal pipe, and while she hoped it ran away in surprised fear, she dreaded it would turn from its original task and target her instead.

The slithering armor sound neared. She glanced behind her; nothing had changed. Kitta still sought to work around the dampening spell and Diten leaned against the wall, still as the stone. She paused, concentrated, and felt a light weight bearing down, insubstantial yet somehow tangible, like airy chiffon, and wondered why it influenced everything down there.

That someone Kitta considered weak had such a devastating impact on magick made Shiobe rethink several assumptions she spent years developing based on her ex-friend’s casual discussions of her mystery coursework.

She regretted her decision to stay at the door as a large, reptilian head with horns running from its forehead to the tip of its nose slowly moved through the doorway at waist height. It was as long as she was tall! At least she chose the right side of the entrance to stand at—the thing did not notice her, instead concentrating on the sparkling liokaiorioh. She listened for people but heard no one else nearby. So much for the conjurer bragging about controlling it—he did not want to be anywhere near it, either.

Wonderful times a million.

She gripped the slick metal, her mind racing—where should she strike?—and saw a sparkling something against the back of the neck, a beacon in the shadows. If she had learned anything about magick from Kitta, it was that sparkly meant important—and attacked.

The sparkly shattered. The weapon tinged, then rebounded and flew from her hand, the slime making it too slick to hold on to. Pain shot up her arm, and she gritted her teeth at the unwelcome reminder of injury. The creature reared and roared, a sound more akin to an angry wild cat than a reptile, and banged its head against the top of the doorway. It waggled about, spasming. Shiobe retreated to the nearest corner, trying to find her weapon, and only met with a soggy stick. Dammit all to the Nine Abysses, she was going to kill Kitta when they got out of there!

Yells of disbelieving fear, terrified screams, and the rapid thumps of racing feet reverberated from the stones. The thugs did not want to face whatever defeated the twilight creature. Great!

“Get back here!” the conjurer screamed. He said something so garbled, the noise of the flopping beast drowned it out. Miserable at the pain she caused, she skidded around it. Yes, she needed to fight it, but the death throes struck her as wrong somehow. For all the effort to summon a twilight creature, why let it perish so easily?

Brushing aside the sadness, she peeked out the doorway. Hopefully she could spy the enemy before he noticed her.

The sh’vere disappeared in a poof of smoky, sulfurous yellow, and she backed into the wall, waiting for the conjurer. He shuffled into the opening, his attention on her. The flickering light from the hallway cast his face in shadow, and she wished she could see his features. A stray eye movement could grant her enough time to try to avoid a direct assault of magick.

“However did you break the controlling stone with that?” he asked, troubled. “Not that it matters, I suppose. A weak creature, the sh’vere.” He paused, then glanced about.

Shiobe threw the useless stick, and streaks of agony shot from her upper arm to her neck. She whimpered as the sodden object smacked him upside the head with a wet thunk. He stumbled back, swearing in shock.

Stupidity! Was he not shielded? In stories, mystery artists underestimated their non-wielding enemies, but this was ridiculous. She just defeated his sh’vere, a scary twilight creature, after all! Should he not protect himself against the enemy who did so?

Unless he found it impossible to raise them because of the dampening spell. She could hurt him!

She scrounged for another weapon in the floor gunk, but a wobbly ball of green magick distracted her. It broke apart on the wall behind her without causing damage beyond a small shower of tiny bits falling from the impact site. The conjurer held his head and screamed at her, the echoes making his words impossible to understand. He began to wildly fling spells at her, and she failed to avoid them all. Those that struck fizzed and left behind a brief flare of silver that resembled cracks in the air. She felt nothing. Kitta’s shields? But no, her magick was blue. Sikode’s wielding on her door was silver.

“Shiobe!”

She raced to her ex-friend, who lobbed something shimmering blue at the man, then grabbed Diten and pushed him through the wall. Shiobe stared briefly and yelped as the manicured hand reached for her and dragged her through with a burst of silver that shattered blue magickal shielding.

She stood outside her doorway. So. Kitta finally managed to work around the wielding. She blinked, looked down at the slimy brown drippy stuff hanging off her hands and legs, and fought not to puke.

“Kitta.”

“I’m sorry, Shiobe. I know we need to wash, but . . . this was the last place we were at, and it was first in my mind.”

“You . . . you . . .” Her rage and fear demanded an outlet. Diten blinked wearily at her as Kitta turned, glaring. “You whisked me away without a chance to get a weapon because you couldn’t be away from him any longer?”

“You’re dual-shielded,” she snapped. “Even with the dampening, nothing down there could have broken through.”

“But—” What was a dual shield?

“Kirido is a remarkable mystery artist,” she said as the peacekeeper and Edon arrived at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Kirido?”

“It should have been me,” she whispered before turning on the barkeep and barking a series of orders. His resentment turned into over-polite wheedling once he realized a siojhetioh sat on his landing.

Assholes. The lot of them.

Shiobe pushed herself through the huge hole, fuming, realized what she tracked into her room—then squeaked when the gunk fell from her hands, her legs, her boots, to pool around her in a splatty circle.

What just happened?

She muffled her scream of annoyance because she refused to explain herself to the people outside her door. Instead she tromped downstairs for as much water as Edon was willing to part with and whatever ratty towels he had.

****

Dawn of Shiobe: The Wellspring Dragons Book 1, 2nd Edition, will be available May 2023

Dawn of Shiobe: The Wellspring Dragons Book 1

Shadows over Tindrel: The Wellspring Dragons Book 2 (Chapter 20 of Book 2)

The Glass Volcano: The Wellspring Dragons Book 3 (Chapter 10 of Book 3)

Also visit The Wellspring Dragons World