• Prologue

    It has been thousands of years since the extinction of dragons. They were once a mighty race, but they fell from their reign after one dragon, named Crodanoth, used Magic to take the lives of all the children in Regararth, the nation of Elves, in order to harvest the energy for himself.
    Enraged, the Elves demanded that the dragon king, Lerith, execute Crodanoth and compensate for their loss by taking his clan away from Regararth, never to return.
    Lerith, who was compassionate toward the Elves, agreed to their conditions. A terrible battle ensued between he and Crodanoth, who held the spirits of the Elven children in a stone. The battle lasted for eight days and nights. Lerith tore Crodanoth at the belly and neck, spilling his blood and killing him.
    Lerith took the Stone of Spirits and brought it back to the Elves. “I have killed Crodanoth,” he said as the Elves took the stone. “Now I will take my family and go elsewhere. We will never return, unless you call for us.”
    The dragons left Regararth, and the Elves could finally mourn their children’s souls, which they freed from the stone. Some say that the children’s spirits reincarnated into the new children of the Elves.
    But what of the dragons, you ask? A sorceress had found the body of Crodanoth. She resurrected him, and he was bound to her will. She used him to gain whatever she wanted—power, fame, riches! Then, at Crodanoth’s urging, she agreed to attack the Dragon Haven, a far-away land that the dragons had resided in after leaving Regararth.
    A bloody war began. Some dragons were seduced by the sorceress’s promises of power, while others stayed with their king.
    The battle raged for seven years, nonstop. Finally, Lerith and Crodanoth were the only two dragons left, for the others had all killed one other. The last dragons met in the middle of the battlefield, amidst thousands of corpses of their lost loved ones.
    “Please,” smiled the sorceress. She reached out to Lerith and curled her index finger. “Come join us.”
    “I will never be a part of your evil,” Lerith growled in reply.
    “Then I shall kill you,” the sorceress said coldly. She gestured, and Crodanoth lunged forward, claws outstretched and fangs bared.
    Lerith easily dodged him. “I killed you once; I can do it once more!” He sank his fangs into Crodanoth’s neck. Crodanoth roared in agony.
    Then Lerith let go and turned on the sorceress. She gasped in surprise, but jumped aside just in time as Lerith’s mighty claws drove into the earth where she was standing a moment ago.
    “Crodanoth!” she cried.
    “Forget it,” Lerith growled. “I’ve broken his neck—he’s completely immobilized.”
    The sorceress raised a hand and uttered a spell. A ball of red energy formed in her hands, but when she shot it at Lerith, it was deflected off of his hard green scales.
    Lerith uttered a spell of his own, and the sorceress’s soul was suddenly sucked out of her body. It disappeared into the emerald amulet around Lerith’s neck.
    Then Lerith died.
    Chapter 1

    “That’s a crappy ending, Arroth,” I said, eyes squinted in annoyance.
    Arroth grinned, sapphire blue eyes twinkling. “But it’s true,” he laughed.
    “You don’t know that,” I replied, turning my head away.
    “But I do,” Arroth insisted. “My parents were alive the thousands of years ago it happened. Why, I believe I’m one of the reincarnated children, Ewarauth.”
    “Yeah, right,” I sighed. Arroth was my grandfather. He never told me his true age, nor my parents. I, on the other hand, am almost 200 years old.
    “Ah,” Arroth sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’re still just a youngling, after all.” He waved his hand to shoo me away and I got up and brushed dirt off of the back of my brown tunic.
    Arroth went back to his pipe and listening to the sound of the waterfall breaking on the rocks below it.
    I stuffed my hands in my pockets and kicked a rock as I walked around the village. I walked past the hollow tree that my friend Yerith lived in. His guardian waved at me with a smile from the window. I waved back to her.
    I decided to go to the training ground. It was mandatory for children 200 years and older to train and develop their magical skills and swordsmanship. I sat down next to a small tree and watched my older friends spar and lift pebbles with their minds. I wished I could join them, if just to have something to do with someone. It stinks being the youngest in the entire village.
    I spotted Yerith sitting by himself by the creek, struggling to lift the water. He managed to suspend a ball about the size of his palm, but it quickly fell apart and dripped away, splashing him.
    Yerith was one that many, including I, considered unique. While most of us Elves have either blue, green, or black eyes, Yerith’s are as golden as the midday sun. His hair is brown. Normal Elves’ hair is raven black, golden, or silver, like mine. No one knows where he came from; he showed up with a traveler years ago, with no memory but his name and age.
    I looked up at the blue sky with my emerald green eyes. Then I sighed as a cloud went over the sun and looked down again.
    Then I spotted the rabbit.
    I immediately jumped up and chased it. It darted away and zigzagged through the forest. I crashed through the bushes and got slapped with thin, sharp branches.
    “Y-ouch!” I yelled. I then remembered my stealth and quietly and swiftly treaded over twigs and dead leaves. I gracefully dodged the branches, always keeping the brown rabbit in sight.
    I was gonna catch it this time.
    I pursued the rabbit out into a clearing. It raced through the tall grass, and I kept a watchful eye for it so I didn’t lose it. When I figured out the path it would take I took off running again.
    Suddenly, my right ankle was caught on something and I tripped. “Ow!” I grunted as pain shot up my leg. My teeth jarred as I hit the ground and I tasted metal.
    I sat up and looked down at my ankle. Already it was swelling and a large gash bled on the top of my foot. “Ew…” I groaned. I hated blood. I would do anything not to touch or be a part of blood.
    Feeling sick, I distracted myself by shifting through the grass to find what I had tripped over. I swept my hand through carefully, feeling for anything sharp. My hand brushed across something hard and smooth.
    I grabbed it and tried to pull it up. It didn’t budge. I flattened the grass around it. It was some kind of necklace; I could see the looped string, but whatever the décor was, it was half buried in the dirt.
    Curious, I dug around the edge with my fingers, momentarily forgetting the pain of my ankle and mouth. Finally, I managed to tug it free by pulling the string.
    I held it up to the light. It was an amulet of emerald. It flashed in the light, showing off its beauty. Then I noticed the string was actually tiny rivulets of ringed metal.
    “Amazing,” I breathed.
    A distant voice: “Ewarauth!” I recognized it as Arroth’s. I looked up at the sky to find that the sun had begun to set.
    “Ewarauth!” Yerith’s voice had joined in calling me. The position of the sun suggested that I had been gone for hours, but I had only gone minutes.
    I looked back at the amulet. “I can’t wait to show them!” I grinned. I jumped up to my feet then abruptly fell back down, pain shooting up and down my leg. I looked down at my foot. I was shocked to find it three times its normal size and a deep shade of purple. The gash was still bleeding.
    I felt sick again and couldn’t bring myself to reply to the chorus of worried voices calling my name.
    I squeezed the amulet tightly in my hand, then there was a bright flash of green light.
    I felt as if I were hurdling through emptiness. I couldn’t see anything, nor breathe. It was over as quickly as it had begun.
    But I suddenly found myself surrounded by dark, murky water. I couldn’t tell up from down. I kicked and flailed my arms. My injured foot slammed against the rocky bottom. What little I had of air escaped my lips and I pushed off of the bottom with my left foot.
    I broke the surface of the water and gasped for air.
    I was pushed down again in the roaring river. I was sure I would drown, but instinct kicked in and I desperately scrabbled back up through the murky water.
    I gasped for air again and looked around in the brief instant I had. Lush vegetation lined both sides of the wide river. I just so happened to be smack-dab in the middle of it.
    A choppy wave knocked me around to face the direction the water flowed and I cried out. A few yards in front of me was a waterfall, and the distance between us was diminishing fast.
    I spun myself back around and tried to swim against the current to get to the bank, but the torrent of water pulled me over the edge to the rocks at the bottom of the falls.
    But I didn’t hit any rocks. It was all water. It still hurt, but I was still alive.
    I relaxed and let the water rush me under the barrage of the waterfall and out again into the calm water on the other side.
    I surfaced once more and gasped for air. My feet touched the bottom and I dragged myself out of the water.
    I collapsed on the bank and rolled onto my back, shivering, confused, and hurt. My body ached from the force of the water, my ankle stung and throbbed, and my mouth felt numb.
    “Hey,” I heard a woman’s voice. I heard running footsteps and in my blurred vision appeared an Elf. “Oh, my!” she gasped. She kneeled down next to me. “Hold on, dear child—I’ll get help!”
    Her footsteps receded and I suddenly realized how tired I was. I knew I shouldn’t fall asleep; it would surely precede my death. But I found it difficult to keep my eyes open.
    Then I heard a chorus of running steps and voices nearing. I forced myself to sit up and nearly passed out in the process. But then I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and a man came into view.
    “How strange he looks,” murmured a voice behind me. A few others agreed.
    The man who laid his hand on me picked me up in his arms. “We’ll take him to Kalyth,” he said.