Free The Dragon and the Witch by K.T. Tomb Page A

chanted:
     
    On this sacred ground where we stand,
    From this child, you are banned.
    Until the day you concede,
    With me, she’ll live and breathe.
    You will wander through dimensions’ doors.
    Blood for blood will right the score.
     
    I remembered that chant. My heart ached. It was Tolbalth who had chanted that spell. And it was my mother and me who were at the receiving end.
    How could he do this?
    But while he chanted, I heard my mother chant a spell about my eighteenth birthday and the powers within me, seeking the truth in order to right the wrong. I heard her whispers at the same time that Tolbalth cast his spell and I understood what she wanted me to do—I knew that I’d have to kill him in order to break the spell he had cast to separate us.
    The vision disappeared. But my mother remained. She stood in front of me in her flowing white gown, staring at me with pained eyes. Then she glanced toward the cave opening and we both saw the large dragon shadow of Tolbalth step into the cavernous area where he’d been the night he stole me. The past was replaying in the present and I was no longer a baby without a choice. This time, eighteen years later, I’d have to choose.

 
    Chapter Fifteen
     
    A burst of uncontrollable rage toward Tolbalth thrust out of me. Running toward him, I slammed my palms into his beastly chest, barely budging him backward. “Why? Why did you take me from my mother?” I cried with fierce anger at the vision I’d just witnessed seconds prior.
    Tolbalth shook his dragon head and his bulky body stepped back, away from me. “Zadie, let me explain.”
    Moving away from him, I tried to get my thoughts straight and calm my adrenaline-induced nerves. I took three more steps back next to Piku’s body and a burst of light thrust up from the water. We were aligned. Exactly the way we all had been that night that Tolbalth had placed a spell on my mother. As if the past moved forward, my mother stood in a circle of flames, able to speak, yet still trapped within the curse he had cast on her.
    “Zadie,” she whispered.
    I heard her. The softness of her voice reminded me of the caressing words she’d used when she cooed me after my birth. My face was wet with tears as I glanced at her body still bound by the curse and encircled by flames. When I moved my eyes back to Tolbalth, I could see those lapping flames in the reflection of his yellow slanted eyes.
    “Why? Why did you do this?” I wanted to scream at him and use the dagger he’d given me to plummet it into his stomach. I could taste the anger on the tip of my blade.
    “I need to explain.” He took a step forward and I took a step back. I didn’t want him to touch me or try to make things right with his lies. I wanted him to give me an explanation, one that would allow me to forgive him, although I could not imagine what would be powerful enough to make me overlook what he’d done.
    “Explain from there,” I said.
    He stepped closer to me. A pain glowed so deep in his eyes that it almost hypnotized me. I didn’t move. Tolbalth had always been my strength and my comforter. He was the one who had held me at night when I cried out because of a nightmare and he was the one who had loved me from the day I was born. Or so I’d thought. I swallowed hard.
    My mother’s voice reached my ears in a quiet whisper. “You know what you have to do, Zadie. Kill him, so I can be free of this curse that stole you from me. Kill him before he takes you from me again.”
    Those words fell heavy on my heart. How would I free my mother if not to kill the dragon who had raised me, the man who had fathered me all my years? I ignored my mother while Tolbalth stepped up to me. His hands reached out and grabbed mine and when he closed his eyes, I saw what he saw. I was once again in the past, just hours before he’d cursed my mother.
    A clan of witches had stormed the cave where a female dragon and baby dragon were sleeping. The baby dragon curled up in