by Krista Rose
“It is yours, Kylee Rose, as it has ever been.” He leaned forward to press it into my hands. “Perhaps when you return to me again, you will at last be ready for the truth.”
There’s no way I’m ever coming back here. Aloud, all I said was, “Thank you.”
“Thank you, Master Atum.” Vanderys bowed deeply to the Oracle, and I followed his example, suddenly afraid of upsetting this tiny, ancient man.
“In this lifetime or any other,” the Oracle murmured, and closed his eyes, sliding back into his meditation.
“Can we leave now?” I asked Vanderys, glancing around nervously at the near-empty atrium. “You weren’t planning on staying the night here, were you?”
“No, we are not spending the night here.” Vanderys smiled at me, though his eyes were distant and perplexed. “We need to return to Cedralysone as quickly as possible so that my people may decipher this.”
“You don’t know what it means either?”
“No, but that is common enough with prophecy. Even after they come to pass it is hard to recognize at times. Still, this mention of blood and Starless Ones concerns me. I will feel better once we are returned to the Vale.”
Me, too. I shot one last look at the silent Oracle before shuddering and turning my back.
One Who Speaks in the Voice of Wolves, indeed.
BRANNYN
3 Syrthil 578A.F.
Fallor
I woke to a pounding headache and the sensation of being alone in the apartment. I struggled for a moment with my tired thoughts until at last remembering Vitric had been asked to work a double shift. Three more men had resigned from the Guard in the last week, too afraid of the rising Vampyre attacks to continue protecting the town; if the Legions didn’t show up soon, there would be no Fallor left for them to defend.
I pushed aside the unpleasant thoughts and rose from my cot. The room felt bare and over-large since I had rolled my brothers’ pallets neatly against the far wall, and I hesitated a moment under the weight of sudden depression. It had been weeks since I had had contact with any of my siblings, and even my exhaustion wasn’t enough to smother the worry when I thought of them.
I dragged on my breeches, wrinkled my nose at the rusted smell of my mail shirt, and decided to make tea before finishing getting dressed.
The kitchen was in shambles. Dishes abandoned after hasty meals were stacked haphazardly on the tables, and ashes from the neglected fireplace were scattered across the floor. I looked at it wearily for a moment before forcing myself to ignore it.
I found a clean bowl in the back of one of the cabinets, and heated water in it with the fire in my hands. I added some of Lanya’s wake-up tea to the now-boiling water, and stared into it blindly as it steeped.
The back door opened and closed, and heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. “Brannyn?”
“In the kitchen,” I called, my voice still hoarse from sleep. I took a sip of the tea to ease it, and sighed.
“Don’t get mad.”
“Why would I get mad?”
Vitric rounded the corner, his arms full of dripping sacks, “Because I may have adopted five kittens.”
“What?” I stared at him, exasperated, as he put the sacks gently on the ground and began to open them. “Why in the name of Vanae’s tits would you adopt five cats? And why are they wet? Is it raining?”
“They’re just kittens.” His voice was defensive as he gently lifted five bedraggled lumps of fur out of the sack. “And they’re wet because your cousin was trying to drown them.”
The kittens mewed piteously, and I resisted the urge to pick them up. “Why was he drowning them? And what were you even doing there?”
“Guard rotation, my turn to sweep the farms. And he said he didn’t have room for them, if you can believe it.” Vitric scowled. “Farmers are idiots.”
I lifted a brow.
“Present company excluded, of course,” he amended.
One of the kittens, more adventurous than the others, crawled onto my foot and began batting at the frayed hem of my breeches. I bent to pick it up, cradling it in the hand not holding my bowl of tea. It swatted playfully at my thumb before staring up at me, its eyes off-colored, one green and one brown. Its damp fur was streaked brown and orange.
My heart melted.
“So… can we keep them?”
The kitten mewed, and I smiled reluctantly. “Yeah, we can keep them.” I checked the creature’s gender and discovered it was a girl. “Eva.”
Vitric looked up from opening the other sacks. “What?”
“I’m calling this one Eva.”
“Why?”
“She was a serving woman at the tavern when we first arrived.” I hesitated, the familiar pain of the memory heavy in my stomach. I cradled Eva to my chin, comforted when she immediately began to purr. “She died.”
“Smoke-sickness, wasn’t it? From when the dragon attacked?” He shrugged when I frowned at him. “The other guards talk, I just listen.”
“I didn’t even know her name then. Her family found me a few weeks later, to thank me for trying to save her.” It had been terrible, to see that tragic gratitude in their eyes, and the memory haunted me, another ghost that lived inside my skin. I shook it off, and glanced around the kitchen. “You know, we should probably clean up if we’re going to keep kittens here.”
“Yeah.” He looked at the disaster with slumped shoulders, his face bleak. “I guess you’re right. What do you-”
“Hey, Brannyn! You in here?”
Elias’ cheerful voice distracting me from whatever Vitric might have said next. I took a few steps forward, careful of the kittens at my feet, and watched as my cousin sauntered down the hallway toward me.
“There you are. Did you know the dragon is- oh, sweet Naitre, are those kittens?” His expression melted into adoration in a flash, and he scooted around me to scoop up a ball of brown fur. “I love kittens!”
“Elias,” I started, trying to draw his attention away from the kitten he was fawning over. “What about the dragon?”
“You know, Eloise would love a kitten. Can I have one?”
“Sure,” Vitric replied, a grin splitting his face. “Do you want two?”
“I don’t know, do you think I should?”
“Elias.” I thought of braining him with my bowl, but didn’t want to waste my tea. “What about the dragon?”
“Oh. Right.” He cradled the kitten against his chest as he looked at me. “The dragon is back.”
“Back?” I repeated, ignoring Eva as she began nibbling on my ear. “What do you mean, it’s back?”
“What I said. It’s back. Hanging out in the woods on Uncle Rumer’s farm. I think it’s been eating his pigs, but it’s hard to tell since we’ve never bothered to count them.”
Kylee would be ecstatic. I pushed aside the random thought of my sister’s hatred of pigs, and frowned at him. “How long has it been there?”
“About a month now, I guess.”
“A month? And, what? No one noticed a giant dragon was lingering in the woods for that long?”
Elias shrugged. “The woods are fairly large, and the only one who actually saw the dragon was Aunt Eremaude. Since she regularly sees things, no one paid attention until Uncle Rumer saw it today.”
“Did he try to approach it?”
“Are you insane? Of course not! It’s a godsdamned dragon. He hightailed it to the Manor with the rest of his family and told me to deal with it. And now I’m here, because I think you should deal with it.”
“Me?” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded petulant. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the Firemage of the family.” He shrugged again, and scooped up another kitten. “You know, I am going to take two. Lily will need someone to play with.”
“You named your kitten Lily?” Vitric frowned. “Why?”
“It’s Eloise’s favorite flower.”
“But it’s a boy.”
I shook my head. “Elias, I
’m not a Firemage. We’ve discussed this. My talent for fire-”
“Is still more than the rest of us have.” He gave me a flat stare. “Look, I can go find that dragon myself, but, more than likely, I’m going to end up extra crispy. You’re the only person I know that could possibly stand up to it- unless our Second here happens to have a Firemage in his pockets.”
Vitric shook his head. “Left it in my other breeches, back on Enevai.”
“Well then, there you go. Right out of options.”
I scowled. “So, what? You want me to go find this dragon by myself?”
“That was pretty much the plan.”
I glanced at Vitric.
He shrugged in response to my unasked question. “Sure, I’ll come with you. I don’t know how much good I’ll do, though. I’m not fireproof either.”
“If I die, you can explain to Kryssa that it’s Elias’ fault.”
Elias winced. “That sounds worse than facing down the dragon.”
“In the meantime,” I continued, “Elias can watch the kittens and clean the apartment, since he doesn’t wish to risk his skin coming with us.”
“What? Brannyn, this place is a catastrophe! That chore will take me hours!”
“Then you should still be here when we get back.” If we get back, I added silently, and drained the rest of my tea in a gulp. I set down Eva and walked into my room to finish getting dressed, leaving my cousin to stare in dismay at the shambles of our kitchen.
I emerged after a few moments, buckling on my short sword in the hallway. I felt naked without my chainmail, but I knew from experience that while fire did not burn my skin, it did have a devastating effect on my clothing. If I did survive, I did not want to try prying melted metal off my chest.
Vitric, on the other hand, looked dressed for battle. He stood next to the back door, wearing armor I had never seen before. It was solid black, and looked more like cloth than metal, but shimmered in the sunlight. A heavy sword and shield were strapped across his back, and two long, curved daggers hung at his waist. A baldric was strapped across his chest, filled with strange lumps.
“Maybe I should let you fight the dragon,” I managed, trying not to gape.
He grinned as he hung a pendant around his neck: a flat green disc on a gold chain, engraved with a golden tree. The symbol of an Earthmage. “Not a chance. Let’s go.”
“Have fun,” Elias called from the kitchen. “Don’t let the dragons bite!” Something shattered against the floor, and he cursed viciously as the kittens mewled.
Vitric and I glanced at each other, and quickly left the apartment.
It was a simple task to requisition horses from the Guard’s stables; with so many men resigning, there were now more horses than guards. I pushed aside the thought, and the dark path it led my mind down, and saddled the gray mare I preferred. Vitric saddled his own horse before we led them out of the stable to mount them in the street.
Chanach hailed us from the door of the guardhouse before we could leave the town. His thick eyebrows were lowered in a familiar sign of irritation. “Brannyn, where are you going? Your shift starts in two hours.”
“Rumer’s farm.” Hope flooded into me- perhaps Chanach would stop me from this idiotic mission. “The dragon’s there.”
“The dragon?” he repeated, his brows winging up his forehead. “It’s back?”
“That’s what Elias said.”
“Then what are you still doing here?”
My hope sank like a stone. “But- my shift-”
“I’ll cover it. You go deal with that dragon. The last thing this town needs is another fire.” He glanced at the tavern.
I sighed. “Yes, sir.” I pressed my knees to the mare’s sides, and started forward again, heading out of town across the wide, fertile lands of my family’s farms.
It took the better part of an hour to reach Rumer’s farm, far on the outskirts of the Rose family land. Neat rows of yellowing cornstalks rose up around us for miles, stripped of their harvest. A thick wood of pine trees rose from the center of the dying fields, and nestled at its perimeter was Rumer’s home, a tidy, two-story building with a slate-shingled roof and white-washed walls. Toys were scattered across the porch, and a carved owl decorated the roof of a small well.
The whole scene was so peaceful and welcoming, I simply stared. I had expected to find the house burnt to the ground, the fields blackened by the flames of a monster. The dragon had attacked the tavern unprovoked only a few months before, killing five people.
So why then would it linger beside this home, and leave it utterly alone?
Vitric and I dismounted, hobbling our horses to a wooden post near the front steps. We drew our swords, Vitric’s making mine look like a toy in my hands, and started into the shadowed woods.
Birds chirped as lazy insects buzzed from flower to flower in the last, lingering days of summer. Pine needles cushioned our steps as we quietly made our way forward. The air smelled clean and warm, the twining branches above us casting strange, tangled shadows across the ground between pools of sunlight. Squirrels paused to stare at us, bright-eyed and unafraid, before dashing up the trunks of their trees.
“This feels off,” I murmured with a frown. “Why would the dragon attack the town, and then leave this wood untouched?”
“I don’t know.” Vitric’s eyes were thoughtful. “I had only just started to learn about the Guardians before I left Enevai. Honestly, from what I heard of its attack, I thought it was mad. Why else would it be so far from Mejares? But you’re right, a mad dragon would continue to attack until it was killed, not linger hidden here.”
“So why-”
A hot, heavy breath of air silenced me, and I gulped as the dragon rose up from the shadows before us, its eyes burning into me like green flame.
It was the size of a small house, and resembled something between a lizard and a cat, with a long, narrow face and a curling tail. Its body was covered in thick scales, varying in shade from palest green on its face and belly to greenish-black along its ridged spine. Thick black spikes curved from the top of its head. Its claws and teeth were longer than my hand and the color of dull metal.
Vitric took several hasty steps backward to hide behind a tree, cursing as he fumbled with his shield.
The dragon didn’t move, its eyes watching me.
“Um, Vitric.” I swallowed, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt. “It’s staring at me.”
He rapped his knuckles against the tree, and swore again. “Maybe it wants you to say something.”
Please don’t eat me. I swallowed my hysterical desire to laugh, and cleared my throat. “Ah, hello, dragon.”
The dragon didn’t react.
Vitric snorted. “‘Hello, dragon’? That’s the best you could come up with?”
I glared over my shoulder at him. “If you have a better idea, then you deal with it.”
“When you’re doing so well? Gods forbid.”
“Remind me to punch you if we get out of this.”
The dragon’s tail curled into a question mark, its head tilting. It looked more curious than angry, very much like a large cat examining a new toy, or a piece of food it hadn’t decided if it wanted to eat yet.
I hastily shoved that thought from my mind.
“So, uh, dragon,” I started again, my tongue feeling clumsy and sluggish in my mouth, “we were kind of wondering what you were doing here.”
The dragon craned its long, serpentine neck toward me, its massive wings unfurling for balance. I flinched as it neared my face, my eyes wide as it snorted hot steam around my head. A loud rumble filled my ears, like distant thunder. Somehow, it managed to sound curious.
It’s trying to talk to me, I realized, and shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak dragon.”
“Brannyn.” Vitric’s voice was worried. “Brannyn, I think you should-”
The dragon huffed a deep breath, opened its mouth, and let out an impressive gout of fire-
>
-straight into my face.
VITRIC
Rumer Rose’s Farm, Fallor
When the dragon opened its mouth, I was certain Brannyn was dead. The white-hot blast of fire that emerged cooked the air around them, forcing me to stumble away from the heat. I gasped, dropping my sword to cover my ears against the horrendous screech that emerged with the flames.
No one could survive this. No one except-
The fire cut off, as abruptly as it had started.
My eyes watered as I opened them, burning in the aftermath of the flames. A figure wavered before the dragon, flames dancing along its skin. I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. “Brannyn?”
He turned toward me.
I had seen volcanoes in pictures upon the Isle of Enevai, and it was of those that I immediately thought as I looked at him. His clothes were charred and ruined, crumbling into embers and ash as he moved; the skin that emerged from beneath them was black and cracking, broken by shifting lines of glowing red fire. More lines crossed his face like brilliant scars, and his eyes were consumed by blue flames.
“Brannyn?” I repeated, my voice a whisper. My heart thudded against my chest.
“Vitric.” His voice was deeper, and raw with uncontrolled power. Smoke curled from his mouth as he spoke. “What’s happening to me?”
My mind at last started to work, though slowly. I had seen something like this once before, when my Lady Hetarielle had grown irritated with my insistence on protecting her. Her skin had changed, becoming something more like stone, rough and gray and covered in moss, while her eyes had filled with images of broken earth and razor-sharp thorns, green and hard and deadly.
She had explained it to me, after: a fully-realized Great Mage could become their Element, a living embodiment of their power.
Brannyn- or, more accurately, the dragon- had fully released his magic.
“You’re a Firemage,” I managed at last. “An honest-to-gods Firemage.”
He lifted his hand, staring at the lines of fire pulsing through it for a long moment. Whatever he was thinking, it was hidden behind his burning eyes.
