Free Shifter by Kailin Gow Page B

important. She still didn’t understand everything about how the scepter worked; she just knew that it was a repository for the power of royal Hugtandalfer, and so had the essence of generations of her ancestors within it. Did that mean it also had something of their personalities locked away inside it? The truth was that Briony didn’t know, yet in things like its reaction to Josh and the way it had responded to her, it sometimes felt almost like the scepter had a life of its own.
                Which was why she wasn’t surprised when she suddenly knew, simply knew that she needed to investigate what lay below. That it was important, and it was for her. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew it nonetheless. It was like something she’d half-forgotten and just remembered, except that the memory had never been hers in the first place.
                “We need to go down,” Briony said. “I don’t know what’s down there, but the scepter is responding to it so strongly…”
                Even as she said that, the scepter started to vibrate more, so that it thrummed against her skin.
                “We need to go down now ,” Briony repeated. “Whatever that golden glow is, I get the feeling that… that it’s for me.”
                Archer was obviously paying attention, despite the rush of wind past them. His circling turned into a spiral, and with each sweeping pass he went lower, heading for a break in the trees. Whatever was down there, it seemed that the dragon agreed. They needed to find out what it was.

 
Chapter 9
     
     
    A rcher flew down, still circling, heading for the open space where they’d seen the golden glow, and towards which the scepter seemed to be pulling Briony. Looking down, she could see that the area below was rocky, the stone hard enough that the trees couldn’t grow up over it. It was also higher up than most of the land around it, the trees having disguised the contours of the land from the air so that it was only as they landed that Briony realized they were on the highest point of land for several miles.
                Mist seemed to curl between the trees as they got lower, and Briony suspected that couldn’t be natural. Though with Palisor, it was impossible to know for certain. Maybe that slope accounted for the roughness of Archer’s landing, because the jolt of it was enough to tumble Fallon out from behind her, while even Briony found herself sliding down the dragon’s scales to land flat footed on the rocks beneath. She managed to stop herself from stumbling, which wasn’t easy in the long dress, but she managed it.
                “Sorry,” Archer said, and when Briony turned he was in his golden haired human form again.
                By that point though, Briony wasn’t listening, because the scepter was pulling her towards the tree line. Literally pulling her, because right then it felt like the thing might either yank off the chain that held it around her neck or physically drag her forward, so that the only way to avoid being choked by it was to go in the direction of the pull.
                There was a path there, a narrow track that looked like it had been formed by the passage of animals through the woods. There were even hoof prints there, though Briony couldn’t work out the kind of animal that they were from. Maybe some kind of horse? She didn’t have the time to stop and check with the others though, because the scepter was still pulling her on, so that she had to walk quickly to keep up.
    The hem of her pale dress was quickly crusted with mud, and at least once it snagged on branches, because the path didn’t seem very clear. It was like no one had walked along it for a while. No one human, at least. Briony saw a tuft of white hair caught on a branch ahead, clearly from some kind of animal. With Fallon and Archer following in her wake, she sped up as she