The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) by Rebecca Trogner Read Free Book Online Page B

guardians, that they should be preserved. Does that mean anything to you?”
    “No.”
    Krieger released him and he folded like an old doll and had to rest his hands on his knees to keep from collapsing. From this angle he could see through the woods to a tree cleaved in two like a giant had snapped the top off and tossed it down to scatter about the trunk. His mind had always been his best asset. He had prided himself on the control he had over his emotions, his thoughts; now he felt unable to sustain a long conversation, much less complex reasoning, without drifting off. “Without the visions… it may be time I join Bleheris.”
    “No!” Krieger yanked him upright. “I forbid you to even think it.” He shook him. “The visions were a curse to you.”
    He hoped one day to feel the same. “I am Merlin. I am a wizard, and a sorcerer, and a seer of futures.” His laugh was bitter. “Was a seer of futures. I accused you of hubris, and yet, here I stand, believing my powers would last an eternity.”
    “You think your true power were those brief glimpses of what may be?” Krieger stepped back from him. “Your true power resides in your ability to harness the magic. The magic that now surrounds us.”
    “Magic is a cruel mistress who takes far more than she gives.” The Others were all benefiting from the cracks in the gate, if that’s what it was. Even the vampires were more powerful. “So it is true.” He stumbled back onto a bench, not caring that it was wet, and sat down. A lifetime’s worth of weariness crashed down upon him. “The talk of revealing ourselves to the humans; there is some truth to it?”
    “It is one of the things we will discuss at council.” Krieger’s expression hardened.
    He took a deep breath. He couldn’t deny the truth of Krieger’s words nor the chill that seeped into his bones. “I’ve had no visions, but there is a dream.”
    “A dream.” The intensity of Krieger’s gaze was almost painful.
    “I’ve dreamt of Lily.”
    Krieger became perfectly still as only a vampire could, waiting for him to elaborate.
    “She’s large with child, standing at the edge of a cliff. A gale is trying to push her back, back towards the safety of the land, and away from the drop-off. The sea in front of her is violent, rolling and pitching, the crest of the waves stretching skyward like they’re trying to pull her down into the depths. Above, the moon is full, peaceful and glowing in a black satin sky with no stars.” Merlin hesitated.
    “And?” the king urged impatiently.
    Merlin knew this would be his reaction. Lily was his Achilles’ heel. “She looks back at someone and smiles. A dark shadow passes between her and the moon, it soars above her and she lifts her arms to it.”
    “A dragon.”
    “Yes,” Merlin said. 
    “Is there more?” Krieger asked.
    Merlin shook his head. “No more, no less; each time the dream is the same.”
    Krieger resumed his walk to the ouleds’ village and Merlin used the last of his energy to keep pace with him, saying, “It could mean nothing.”
    “Nothing.” The king uttered the word like a slap. “Nothing, you say. Who wields the Dragon Sword? Who carries the dragon within? A blind man can see the way Lucien looks at Lily. Who else could be the dragon of your dream?” He spat out the words, “What that necromancer did to Lucien…”
    “Faye Nimue.” How many decades had it been since Merlin had uttered her name? “She was seduced by the dark magic, and pushed to use it to seat the Tudor king on the throne.” He shouldn’t be defending her, but was he not ever so slowly being overtaken by the allure of the dark? “Without Faye’s spell on the Bosworth battlefield, the soldiers would have been no match for Richard’s army.”
    Faye had wielded her power on the dead and dying soldiers of Henry Tudor’s army to keep them fighting until King Richard III was dead. Now, with centuries of his own trials and tribulations behind him,