Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1)

by Roberto Vecchi

  On the heels of this forming revelation, she saw his face, and then the blood upon it. What she previously mistook for excitement, she now heard as frantic cries for help. She instantly stood straight up just as he plummeted into her arms, burying his face into her chest and sobbing until he soaked through her dress. His little voice was straining with the forced pitch his sorrow was demanding as she felt it vibrate her very heart. As she tightly held him, she was also frantically searching the edge of the forest hoping to see her husband return. But no such hope materialized.

  Deep in her sheltered awareness, she knew she was dreaming as she had grown familiar with its recurrence over the long and lonely years. Her subconscious repeated this dream time and time again. Always the same and never with a different outcome, it would always end with her son in her arms and her heart breaking at the sorrow she felt as his tears wetted through her dress. Her daughter was never included because she was still too young to have played a significant role in the development of the powerful emotions that perpetuated the continuance of her repetitive dream over these last twelve years. Although she was able to identify her dreaming state, she was still unable to wake; therefore, she was at the mercy of her emotions and where they would lead.

  As it always did, just after her son was able to pull his head away from her dress, look up into his mother’s eyes, and say, “I am sorry,” the scene shifted. Or rather, it was jolted to another, possibly because she was unable to bear the pain she saw in her son’s eyes. She remembered this day as clearly as the former; for it was the day she stopped looking at her son as her little boy and began looking at him as the complex summation of emotions and burdens he was too small to bear following his father’s untimely death. The progression of the sun was such that it had become dark enough to warrant and end to any activity necessitating sight. Yet her son, Ronialdin, continued to launch arrow after arrow at the target. Since his father’s death, she saw in her son a devotion to all the practices and teachings he attempted to impart to his children elevate to a near fanatical level. He would spend hours upon hours practicing his bow and tracking skills. Likewise, he devoted an equal amount of time to his knife fighting techniques. And he spent less and less time in the activities involving interaction with her and his younger sister.

  On this particular evening, a full three years after the tragic day, she decided to walk out to the field where his refinement continued. She stood watching him from several paces away noticing that he did not once break focus to acknowledge she was there. “Rony, my son, is it not late enough for you to come in and speak with your sister? She does so miss you and the times you used to spend together.”

  Seeing his head drop just as he was about to release another arrow, she knew something had resolved within him. He dropped his hands, turned to her and said, “I missed.”

  “I am sure you did, Rony, since you cannot even see the target through the darkness.”

  “No mother. I meant I missed three years ago. I missed the shot and that is why Father is dead.”

  “What are you talking about? You said he was killed by a bear that jumped out of the thicket.”

  “That is true, Mother. But had I not missed the target Father wanted me to hit, my arrow would not have gone astray; and would not have hit the bear.”

  At first, for the briefest of moments, she felt anger that her son had kept this story from her for the last three years. How dare he keep the truth from her and his sister? But then, seeing the resolute numbness behind his eyes as he spoke, she understood. He had carried the burden that he was responsible for his father’s death for three years. As the cascading revelations came pouring into her, she heard him speak once again, “I missed, Mother. I missed. I will never miss again.”

  And with that statement of emphatic truth, her eyes were pried open and her sleeping state was ended in the span of a single beat from her broken heart. She found herself lying on her back in her bed with her hands crossed over her chest. As it always did upon the nights her dreams floated to painful days gone by, her heart could feel a palpable tenderness from somewhere inside her soul with each of its elevated beats. Her eyes began to tear up, and just as it has been for the past twelve years, her sobbing would begin. Though she was able to control them enough to remain silent lest she wake her children, she was unable to stop them. The emotions were just too great. And the reminders were too at the ready.

  Although his fanatical practicing of his father’s teachings had tempered over the years, and though his own identity had begun to return, she could still see the burdens he carried throughout the progression of his day. Sometime over the last several years, he had constructed within him and almost saintly reverence of his father. In her son’s eyes, his father was everything he should aspire to become and carried no faults or flaws of character. As such, Rony would always fall short of the example his father set, and because of this, he would never really be able to see his own value and just how splendid within he was.

  Her daughter, Zyndalia, was much different than her son. A full sixteen years of age, and unburdened with the memory of losing the example her father had set, her identity was allowed to flourish. Well, as much as her older brother would allow. One of the burdens he carried was stealing from his sister the experience of being raised by their father. To compensate, and really over-compensate, Rony became, or tried to become, a father for her. She could see what he was trying to provide for Zyndalia, but because he was just a child himself when this dynamic began to take shape, it had the opposite effect Rony had desired. Zyn naturally developed an instinctive denial of everything Rony was attempting to teach her because his techniques for imparting knowledge were much too lopsided into the “do as I want you to because I know” side of the fence. Adding to this effect was the natural difference between the personalities of her two children. Had they both been of a similar, fanatical mindset of developing themselves into the epitome of a saintly figurehead, she was sure there would have been fewer problems between them. But her daughter was not encumbered with the same weight her son had carried. Because of this, seeing how her brother was behaving, Zyn naturally developed into much more of a free spirit.

  While Rony was, when not hunting or trapping, continuing to harness his skills, Zyndalia would be off in the woods exploring, or singing, or dancing. However, in spite of all of her “wasted time” in the eyes of her brother, she possessed a talent he did not. Whereas Rony required his fanaticism to elevate his skills to a now mastery level, possibly surpassing even his father’s, Zyn was naturally gifted with the bow and arrow, and to a lesser extent, all things concerning nature. To his credit, Rony did not develop any amount of jealousy toward his sister for her profound gifts, but he did develop frustration towards her underdeveloped skill.

  After a night of dreams like this night, all of these thoughts would come crashing down upon the desires she had for her children to be healthy and well. And in these moments, before the dawning of the sun and the rising of her daily duties, when her mind was allowed to roam freely to her own feelings of inadequacy, she always succumbed to the awful aloneness provoking her to tears. She had one dream for her children since before she was the age able to even bear them. And now, years upon years later, when her ability to prevent such burdens from gaining a foothold within her children was well beyond the point of correction, she understood one overwhelming truth; she had failed them. Yet more than that, she had failed her husband.

  Weight. But not the all repressing weight she was used to feeling from the projections of her own mind within, she was feeling a decidedly different and foreign weight being projected upon her from a point outside of her own existence. And though the weight of her own mind carried with it a darkness she could readily identify, this new weight held none of that. Albeit just as difficult to breathe as it would be while lying alone in the aftermath of her tears, this time it was because of a tangible presence seemingly compacting her chest into her bed. Yet, she did not fe
ar. Instead, the more weight she felt, the more she became calmed. Her eyes began to dry up, her sobbing lessened, and her mind began to clear itself from all of the feelings of personal failure held tightly just moments before. And as her mind cleared, she understood the increasing weight was the result of something drawing closer.

  From outside of her room, she heard faint footfalls of someone, or something approaching. She tried to get up, but the weight from this presence was such that she was unable to move. Seeking to warn her children, not from fear, but merely to prepare them, she attempted to call out. But her breath was held firmly within her chest and no audible sound was produced. She was locked in the grip of this entity. The closer it drew, the more calm she grew, and the more clearly she saw even as her eyes were softly directed to close.

  The air hung suspended in time as if the earth stopped spinning on its magnetically charged axis and age itself ceased to have ownership over her body. As she opened her eyes, she saw standing in the frame of her room a figure that appeared directly from legend. Lit from behind by what must have been a magically induced golden illumination, it stood as a silhouette unparalleled in its command of the space it occupied. Her breath was removed, her life sustaining involuntary muscular contractions stopped, and she hung, in the raptured command of the power of this being, neither alive nor dead, completely submerged in its brilliance. And then it spoke.

  In a mixed crescendo of all octaves in complete harmony with all sounds, she was flooded with a beauty that almost stole her ears as the entity spoke with utter surety, “Do Not Fear. Your God is with you Nirlandia. He has sent me to tell you what you need to know so it will be. In two weeks’ time, you will die and be brought home to He Who Gives All Life. But your children, The Hunter and The Huntress will not die. They must not die. They must live. If they do not, The Hunt will fail. Thus says The Lord!"

  The presence of the entity slowly faded from her sight and awareness. However, she was unable to distinguish by what means it did because all at once, it seemed to walk out of her room, float up toward and through the ceiling, and simply dissolve into an unseen realm. But what she was able to distinguish lingered within a place she had always known existed yet had remained dormant and neglected for such a long period of time, it lost its power of influence. A power she had forgotten until now. She felt the absolute truth of this being’s words in her soul. She resolved to do what must be done. She resolved to die, and to see her children live. Discarding the desire to remain within her emotions triggered from the moment’s clarity, she rose from her bed and began to prepare breakfast. This morning’s conversation, while necessary, was certainly not going to be pleasant.

  As always, her son Ronialdin was the first to wake. He preferred to hunt for a few hours before his sister joined him. It was not that he did not enjoy her company, nor did he fail to appreciate her talents and contribution to the success of his tasks, but hunting alone allowed him precious time to further hone his skills. But even more than that, he enjoyed the connection he felt to his surroundings when he was allowed to focus completely on his bow. There was nothing in this life that gave him solace and a reprieve from his thoughts more than when he was able to submerge himself within the slow draw, breathless pause, deep exhalation and final release. For him, in this moment of true connection, all things faded and only the motion remained. And in each and every time he drew his bow he would hear echo in the resulting twang, his father’s words, “Remember the motion.”

  “Good morning Rony,” she said as he sat down at their breakfast table.

  “Good morning, Mother. I am surprised you woke before me. I am always the first one up,” he said with a hint of surprise.

  Playfully she returned, “Can a mother not rise before her children to make them breakfast?”

  “Oh I did not mean it like that, Mother. I just cannot remember the last time you were up before me,” he said smelling the freshly baked bread.

  “You really are very much like your father, Rony. He was always up before the rest of us seeking the same solitude you do before the sun rises. He always used to say it was best for hunting, but I know there was a large part of him that the enjoyed the solitude. I used to call him My Lone Wolf.”

  “Is that why you now call me the same thing?” he asked as he inhaled and smelled the sweet aroma of her cooking.

  Shooting him a playful glance, “If you recall correctly, I believe I call you my Little Lone Wolf,” placing a slight emphasis on the word “little”.

  “Yes, mother. But I am not that little pup anymore,” he said while drinking the water she had poured for him.

  “To me you will always be my little lone wolf,” she said with an affectionate smile.

  From the other room, specifically her daughter’s bedroom came a loud and whiny groan followed by some barely legible words, “Will you please be quite! I am still trying to sleep!”

  While Ronialdin rolled his eyes, his mother simply allowed her head to slowly descend and assumed a slight grin at the corners of her lips. As stoic as her late husband could be, he would sometimes fall into the nasally whine when things were not to his satisfaction. And while her son exhibited none of this, her daughter, Zyndalia, seemed to have acquired his portion of this inheritance as well as her own. Over the last sixteen years, she quite exceeded her father’s ability in tone, volume, and pitch.

  Speaking in an elevated but affectionate tone, she responded, “We would love to my dear Zyn; however, there is a matter I need to speak to you and your bother about. A matter, I’m afraid, that cannot wait.”

  While still exhibiting a full measure of nasality, there was the faintest hint of concern with her response, “Can it really not wait at least ten more minutes, Drashin. I’m still sleepy!”

  “No Zyndalia,” she used her full name to impart both authority and gravity to the statement, “it cannot. Please rise and come join us.”

  As she finished her last statement, she turned her head to see her son looking at her with a concern set in his eyes. “What do you mean ‘there is a matter I need to speak to you and your bother about'?” he stated, clearly slighted that she mentioned it to his younger and less serious sister first than to him.

  “Fine!” Zyn said, agitated but willing to acquiesce to her mother’s request.

  “I meant you no disrespect, Eklirin, but I knew if I did not impress upon your sister the need to rise, she would still be sleeping. And probably would have remained so for several more hours. So it was out of necessity and not desire.”

  “So, what is this matter you are speaking of?” he asked.

  “We will wait until your sister is here.”

  Seeing the resolution in her demeanor, Rony remained silent until his sister slowly approached the breakfast table, pulled out the chair across from his, and dramatically sat down with an almost audible sigh and plop. She was sixteen years old now and had not clearly understood who her father was apart from that he was, or at least used to be, hers. She would occasionally remember bits and pieces of his character, or maybe something he vaguely had done, but never could she recall a specific moment with him. Though her physical feathers mirrored his almost to the degree of fraternal twins, she did not share much of his stoicism. That domain rested squarely upon Ronialdin’s shoulders. And it was a difficult weight for him to bear. No doubt, what she was about to tell them would only add to it. But she could not avoid the inescapable truth she heard from the entity, and neither could she escape her resolute dedication as a mother. She owed her children that as well as her deceased husband.

  After serving her two grown children some cooked vegetables from her garden along with a slice of bread and single egg all seasoned with her familiar blend of herbs, she sat down and watched them for a few moments. She reflected back to the last time she had cooked breakfast for both of them. It was the morning of their father’s death, and while the memory seemed to have been formed only moments before, it still felt like a lifetime ago. Her
daughter was barely big enough to see over the table without the seat her father had made for her. She had it squarely made up in her mind that she was going with them on her first hunting trip. She was seated at the table with her own bow slung over her back as she had been taught with her quiver of arrows on the ground next to her. When her brother told her that she was not going, she looked to her father with eyes that could have melted the largest glacier in the northern most reaches of the Great Ice Caps.

  Rony, on the other hand, knowing he was going to accompany his father that day was bursting with pride. For that was the day his father was going to let him lead the hunt. Deeming him ready, his father had made the announcement the prior week at dinner, providing he did well with all of his tests the following week. So when Rony completed all of the tasks his father asked him to do, even before the official announcement, he was already beaming with confidence not commonly found within a ten year old boy.

  When she looked upon her grown children now, after they had lived most of their young lives carrying a burden greater than the world itself, she saw only traces of what used to be her happy and confident children reflected in their eyes. Rony had surpassed his father in all of his skills, yet his idolization had left him with a perpetual insecurity. He was never able to see just how proficient he had become. She had seen him hit a target farther away than his father ever could, and this was during a mildly windy day. But his sense of failure, his sense of responsibility always stood in the way of him becoming the fullness of the young man she saw within.

  Her daughter, though not nearly as devoted to the teachings of her father, was almost a match for Rony when he was her age. And had she possessed even a fraction of his fanatical devotion to the cultivation of her skills, she would have surpassed his current skill level. But there was something blocking her from accepting her older brother’s guidance and assistance. Perhaps, somewhere on a subconscious level, she did blame Rony for her misfortune of growing up without knowing her father beyond the tales of his stoic statue of granite hard grandeur he had worked so hard to sculpt.