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the street.
     
    *
     
    Jenka could do little about Marcherion, for he was keeping Rikky and Silva alive. The mudged-rider had sent a massive blast of energy at the one-legged Dragoneer. Even with his hyper-movement Jenka was almost too late, but once the world around him slowed he was able to divert the blast with a blast of his own. He saw that the intense-looking, wild-eyed man had a grey crystal, or maybe a dragon’s tear, in his hand, but he couldn’t worry about that at the moment.
    Once Rikky was out of harm’s way, Jenka raced to cast a spell that would keep March and Blaze’s impact into the street from ending them. Then he was back on the attack, streaking toward the nearest mudged he could see.
    He blasted two of the mudged into yellow-green crackling energy that faded into a mist he and Jade passed right through. Two more were ended with fast, lime-green pulses from Jenka’s dragon tear.
    They are attacking the Outlands in swarms! Aikira sang, nearly screamed, through the ethereal, her melodic voice resonating so cleanly as to be unmistakably clear. It occurred to Jenka that he had heard her song in the normal rate of time she and the others were in, and suddenly he realized he wasn’t in hyper-speed anymore.
    Had her voice reached him so deeply? Had she pulled his concentration away from his task? It didn’t matter. Jade clawed out at the mudged that swept past them, and only Rikky was left to save the men on the wall tops fighting for their lives, for the mudged rider blasted Jenka and Jade sideways, so hard the blow itself nearly ended them.

PART II
     
     
    Blood

Chapter Eight
     
     
    When Crystal and Zahrellion left to help Aikira in the Outlands, Clover seized the moment and took Princess Amelia by the hand. With her powerful dragon tear, she teleported them up to Crimzon’s side.
    “You’re going with me,” Clover said simply.
    “To see the elves?” Amelia asked, stopping Clover cold.
    “Yes.” Clover didn’t see the point in lying. “You’re going to stick your hand in a hole in a box, and if the thing inside draws blood, the elves will kill you.”
    “They didn’t kill you.”
    “The creature didn’t draw my blood.”
    “Yes, it did, but Crimzon healed you faster than you could pull your arm out.” The little girl was looking at Clover in a way that unnerved even her.
    “I’m going to kill the thing in the box.” Amelia crossed her arms across her chest, her expression as firm as her stance.
    Clover felt a chill slide up her spine. At this point in her long life, such a happening wouldn’t surprise her. “Well, I’m not sure what the elves will do to us if you do such a thing.” She helped the child into Crimzon’s saddle and then mounted behind her. “Besides, you don’t even know what is in there.”
    “Do you know what’s in there?” Amelia asked.
    The genuine curiosity in the little girl’s voice scared Clover. What the over-intelligent nine-year-old said next scared her even more.
    “Do you know what my father and mother, and the other Dragoneers born from your own will, will do to you and those elves if you do not return me unharmed?”
    “I’m no mystica, girl,” Clover scoffed. “Were I that powerful, I would have willed myself free of that bastard priest’s prison. I spent nearly three centuries in that hell.”
    “You are a mystica, Clover,” Amelia said. “Just ask Crimzon. He won’t lie to you. The Dragoneers are your willborn, but I am more than a mystica, and I will pull that thing out of that box and kill it, if it is the last thing I do.”
    “You have a will.” Clover decided she liked the girl’s boldness. “And at least you have one thing right. If you pull that thing out of its binding, it might be the last thing you ever do. Now tell me, lass,” Clover was the one curious now, “how do you know of the elves and all of this?”
    “I can read anyone’s thoughts I want to.” Amelia giggled, and gasped as Crimzon lifted into