Diviner by Bryan Davis Read Free Book Online

lifted her arms, showing reddened abrasions on her wrists. “Then that foul dragon master tortured me with painful jolts that nearly killed me.”
    “I know,” Brinella said. “Starlight showed me every cringe and cry, but your protest does not provide an answer to my question. When your listeners withdrew from the world and awaited your wisdom, why did you forsake them by running away? Why did you not impart your wisdom?”
    “Because I was in trouble. I had to run. And I didn’t know I was supposed to say anything to them. Even if I did know, I had no idea what to say. I have no wisdom to impart.”
    “Ah! Now there is a faithful answer. But did you ever consider the fact that you have an extraordinary gift, a talent too wonderful to fully comprehend? When you realized that you had control over the dragons, why did you choose to flee rather than to persuade them to join your cause? And this power is merely one of many gifts you possess. You will learn that even the scrapings of the skin of Exodus can provide healing. Did you not know that such gifts must carry with them a responsibility to use them wisely? Or did you take them in stride and not seek the counsel of the Creator who fashioned you for greatness?”
    “Why didn’t Arxad tell me what to do?”
    “Arxad?” Brinella said. “How is a dragon, even a good and noble one, to know what the Creator wishes for you to do? How can he discern your path? Only the Creator can provide that knowledge.”
    “If the Creator knows my path, then how can I do anything but walk on it?”
    “Oh, my dear Starlighter, you always have the choice to depart from the path. It is set there so that you may fulfill your part in the Creator’s purposes, but you are free to step away. The Creator is able to find another to take your place.”
    Koren stared at the girl in black. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing the twisted face of a demonic twin. Was she transforming into this phantasm? A dark reflection of herself who answered every challenge with an excuse?
    Shuddering, she shook her head. No. It couldn’t be. At least it
wouldn’t
be. She would stay on the path and battle Taushin and Zena. Somehow she would free her people.
    Deference stopped. She and her aura dimmed, and the visions evaporated.
    “We’re here,” Deference said.
    Double doors, white and reflective, stood closed before them. A pair of black wooden handles protruded near the center, each one carved into the shape of a dragon’s head. As large as the Zodiac’s entry doors, these could easily have allowed a dragon to pass through, but the handles appeared to be too small for a dragon to grasp.
    Deference waved a hand toward the entrance. “This is as far as I can take you.”
    “Thank you for being my guide,” Koren said. “I suppose I could have found it myself, though.”
    Deference shook her glowing head. “You would not have found it. Everyone needs a guide.” She turned and walked away, skipping at times as she hurried down the hall. Soon her aura turned down a branching passageway and disappeared, leaving only a dim light that seemed to radiate from the walls.
    Koren pivoted back to the doors. She reached out and touched an ear on one of the dragon heads. With all the strangeness in this castle, she half expected the dragon to snap at her, but it remained still and silent. She slowly spread her fingers over the handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. She tried to turn the handle, but it wouldn’t move, not even an inch.
    The dragon within her palm grew warm, then hot. She jerked away. The dragon head had turned white, or at least the part she had touched was white. She grasped the other handle and pushed and twisted to no avail. It, too, turned hot and white.
    Koren set her palms on the massive door. She braced her boots on the tiles, lowered her body, and pushed again, grunting with the effort. Nothing. She might as well have been a black mouse shoving a white elephant. At least