“That makes sense, I suppose,” the other Ulak said. “But I wonder why he’s not concerned.”
Haadeiya thought about it. “They’re not vengeful, these I’estre dragons. They simply wanted to help us. And not just help us get back on our feet, but help us learn to fend for ourselves. Because when you think about it, Ramonda didn’t really fight a whole lot of Drach’nsvoiya dragons for us. In the end, she didn’t have to do much at all. But what she did was guide the rest of us.”
The other Ulak nodded. “So that’s why she’s leaving now, even though Savenya is still out there somewhere.”
“Right,” Haadeiya said. “Because she knows now we can take care of ourselves.” She paused, looking at the rest of the message she held in her hand. “Just as Tal and Morgiana do too.”
“They’re going somewhere?”
Haadeiya shook her head. “They’ve already left. Haitarus and King Nabahar said they just found their room in Saharei empty one day. They’d been keeping to themselves quite a lot during the past few weeks apparently, and no one had noticed. And then they just left.”
“I wonder where they went.”
Adeiris grinned at his sister. “I’ve spoken to Queen Heptapshu and she’s going to give us another ship. A bigger ship.”
Ariadne smiled back. “That’s wonderful. It’ll be nice to return to I’estre. Especially now we can stay as long as we want. But who’s going to sail our old ship back afterwards?”
“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” Adeiris said. “But it won’t be us. I think we’ll give our ship to someone who deserves it.”
Ariadne laughed. “It sounds like you’re already quite taken with our new ship.”
“Oh, wait ’til you see it,” her brother replied.
“So when are we leaving? What’s the plan?”
“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Adeiris said. “We’ll meet Ramonda and Haitarus at a cove near the mouth of the Kanafwae River. Then it’s straight to I’estre.”
“Helina’s not coming? I mean, I know Baine’s staying here with Nera but...”
“Helina’s staying here too. Perhaps she can help look after all the dragonets.”
“Yes, there do seem to be a few more of them around,” Ariadne said. “I’m sure a few of them are pairing up.”
“And I’m sure that was probably intentional on the part of Ramonda or someone,” Adeiris said. “And more have come from I’estre as well.”
“Yes, I’m sure Ramonda planned this. All the various leaders around the Greater Realms have dragonet companions now. And pairs of them, male and female. And King Nabahar has a pair of them in Saharei as well.”
“She planned a lot, didn’t she?”
To the south of Saharei, a man and a woman on horseback wandered, occasionally hunting for meat, occasionally trying out small portions of the various fruits and tubers that grew in the land to see first of all what they could eat and secondly, what they would actually want to.
They also came across other groups of people. Some of them were more hospitable than others, although none of them were openly hostile. By and large, they appeared to have been unaffected by the wars that had plagued the Greater Realms and it seemed to the two travelers that much of the world was probably the same way. It also seemed there was much more of the world than they had thought and that the Greater Realms, and maybe even the joint landmass they formed with the Southern Lands was only a small part of it.
Surprisingly, they could speak to the various people they came across without difficulty. The language that they had thought of as their own was widely spoken and they came to realize that there could only be one explanation for it. Since the people of the Greater Realms knew little of what lay beyond their lands, they could not have spread the language. Someone else must have done so, and by extension, the language must have originally come from them. And for the man and the woman wandering the Southern Lands, there was only one group of people they could think of who could possibly have traveled so far and influenced so many others. Dragons. Although whether they were dragons from I’estre or some other part of the world, they didn’t know.
However, it looked as though they were long gone now, or maybe through intermarrying with humans, their descendants now lived as humans as well. Perhaps, this explained why some humans were able to harness the power of the gift. Dragons, with their abilities to change forms and communicate through thoughts, were clearly magical beings. If they had intermarried with other people, then perhaps something of their abilities occasionally emerged in their descendants.
When they had set out from Saharei, Tal and Morgiana had imagined finding a quiet little place where they could settle. They had thought they might settle just a little south of Khalahi in one of the pleasant coves they had found. They could put up a fence to keep the lions out and grow a few of the better tasting things they had found around the area. However, the more they wandered, the more they had wanted to keep exploring.
Most likely, they would settle somewhere but they weren’t ready yet. They were ready however to share their lives with one another, embracing each other heart and soul. And when night fell, they would often lie together under the stars or in a crude shelter they had made, with their arms about each other. After countless years fighting and rebuilding, they were free at last to do the one thing that neither of them had risked before. They were free to love.
Epilogue
Sitting on the grass, Kaolin watched on as Kelahil, now eleven, practiced the moves that Ishtvan showed him. Something about the determined grimace on his little face made her laugh and tears came to her eyes.
“What’s so funny?” Keld asked her.
“Oh, just how serious Kelahil looks,” Kaolin said. “He’s so keen to prove himself, don’t you think?”
“I think he wants to impress Zecelia,” Keld remarked, observing the slightly older girl watching on and offering his son encouragement.
“Come on,” Kaolin admonished him. “We’re not going to go around arranging matches for him while he’s still just a child.” She gave him a wry look. “Although I can see why you like the idea.”
Keld leaned back with an embarrassed grin. “Well...”
“Yes, Talon and Natooka married last year so Lorial and Gandon’s families are united. And now, with just one convenient marriage, our family can join them.”
“It’d be nice,” Keld said, rushing to his own defence.
Kaolin kissed him and smiled. “It’d be lovely. But why don’t you let Kelahil decide for himself when the time comes? Besides, Lorial and Gandon are practically family anyway.”
“True.”
“What’s that?” a familiar voice asked.
Kaolin looked at Lorial as she and Derin sat down beside them. “Oh, I was just telling Keld that we’re all practically family here.”
“That’s right, Keld,” Lorial said, clapping him on the arm.
“Aren’t Talon and Natooka coming?” Derin asked.
“They’re coming,” Lorial said, nodding to two figures walking towards them. “See?”
They watched as Talon and Natooka passed by Ishtvan and the children and sat down next to them.
“So, what’s this?” Keld asked them, with a little smile of bemusement. “No training today?”
“Well,” Talon said, “Ishtvan’s doing such a good job, we thought we might just leave him to it.”
“Yes, he’s good, isn’t he?” Keld agreed, glancing at Lorial. “I guess he gets that from you.”
“Well, he sure as hell doesn’t get it from me,” Derin pointed out, raising a few laughs among the group.
Then, to their surprise, Ishtvan approached them.
“Have you had enough already, Ishtvan?” Talon asked him.
Ishtvan smiled. “No. But I thought it might be good to have someone with a little more experience to advise Kelahil and myself on some things.”
“No problem,” Talon said, climbing up.
“Actuall
y,” Ishtvan told him, smiling at Lorial, “I’d like to train with Mother.”
Lorial smiled back at her son.
“You wouldn’t mind?” Ishtvan asked her.
“Of course not,” Lorial replied, climbing to her feet and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’d be happy to.”
She followed him over to where Kelahil and Zecelia were waiting and they discussed some different stances and which were the best to use in various situations.
“You know it’s funny,” Kaolin said as the others watched on. “It’s been almost a year since we had all that trouble with those dragons. But looking around today, it’s hard to imagine it ever happened.”
“True,” Keld agreed, although with a slight tone of sadness in his voice. Things were better now, it was true, but their memories of Wyvern’s Peak would remain with them all their lives.
“But it could have been worse,” Derin pointed out, recalling the years in which Valahir had been held under siege. “A lot worse.”
“True,” Talon agreed.
“I wonder what happened to Savenya after everything,” Natooka said.
“I don’t know,” Kaolin said. “I’ve often wondered that myself. You know, I really thought there was an intelligent woman buried under all that misguided malice. It’s a pity.”
Keld squeezed her hand. “You’re too generous.”
Kaolin shrugged. “I don’t know. I also keep thinking about Ramonda and how, once it seemed Savenya wasn’t going to cause any trouble, she just left. She didn’t seek vengeance. Once everyone seemed to be all right and the Greater Realms were safe, that was enough for her. And I keep thinking about the Angdar as well, and how we hunted them down even when we knew they were dying out anyway. And I think that was a mistake. I think we could learn a thing or two from Ramonda.”
“So you could forgive Savenya if you saw her again, after everything she’d done?”
“I’m not sure,” Kaolin replied. “But if she had really changed, who knows?”
“Could someone like that change?” Talon wondered.
“I’d like to think so.”
Karn turned in the sheets as the morning sun flooded through the window. Shaala lay in his arms. He kissed her and ran his hands along her bare back, enjoying the smoothness of her skin beneath his fingers.
It was odd in a way. That after everything, here they both were in the fortress of Bellasaire again. However, it felt right for some reason. And after the repairs, it was now quite comfortable.
Although, it wasn’t only the two of them living there these days. Helina, although she spent a lot of time exploring the Greater Realms, often stayed with them and was with them now. And for the moment at least, Elenskaer was staying in a room a couple of levels below with Harvindar, who had returned from his wanderings in the Southern Lands several months earlier.
Baine and Nera occasionally came to visit them as well, sometimes staying for weeks at a time. Karn smiled to himself. Neither he nor Shaala would ever be alone now.
Smiling, he kissed Shaala again and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“Where are you going?” she asked him.
Karn’s heart almost skipped a beat when he turned back and saw her beside him, her head propped up with one hand and her dark hair cascading past her shoulders. She was his, and he was hers, and he loved her more than he could tell her with mere words.
Which was why he settled for saying something a little simpler instead. “Well, I just thought with it being morning and all that I might get up.”
Shaala smiled. “Good idea.”
When they sat down to eat their breakfast on the balcony and look at the valley below, they guessed that Helina, Elenskaer and Harvindar had already been awake for a while. However, they had their own parts of the fortress and Karn and Shaala had theirs so it never felt as though they were intruding on each other.
Once they had finished breakfast and cleaned up, they were contemplating going for a walk in the valley when they saw two shapes in the distant sky. A bronze and an emerald dragon were approaching.
“I’ll get a pair of trousers ready,” Karn told Shaala with a little grin.
“I’ll get a robe for Nera,” she replied.
Karn shrugged. “No need.” He received a playful slap on the arm for his remark.
With skilled precision, Baine and Nera changed in mid–flight and landed on the balcony. Then Karn and Shaala invited them in to have something to eat and drink.
After they’d had some refreshments and exchanged little bits of news, an intent expression crossed Baine’s face and he looked straight at the two mages. “Well, I suppose you’re probably wondering why we’re here so I’ll get to it. Nera and I are going to Drach’nsvoiya and we’d like you two to come with us. Helina, Elenskaer and Harvindar as well.”
Karn frowned. “Why?”
Baine smiled. “You know, I was worried you might have just gone into my head right then and found out in your way. I’m glad to see you’re restraining yourself.”
“I’m trying,” Karn said. “But if you don’t get to it as you said, I might just change my mind.”
“Fair enough,” Baine replied. He gave Nera a tender glance and brushed her hand. “Well, for a while Nera and I have been thinking about all the dragons who live down there that are just struggling to survive. And we want to help them. If not for their sakes, then for our own. If things remain the way they are, then other dragons might get similar ideas to Savenya’s.”
“True,” Karn agreed. “But it’d be dangerous though. I’m certain there would have been a struggle for Dominicon’s position after he left and that Savenya would have lost out. So there’ll be at least one dragon there bigger and nastier than her, and probably several. And the other dragons might not be easy to persuade either.”
Baine grinned. “Oh, I can promise you it’ll be dangerous.”
Karn grinned back. “Well, just so we’re both clear on that.”
“Indeed. Anyway, I’m glad to see that I haven’t come to the wrong mage.”
The wrong mage, Karn thought to himself. With just him and Shaala, there weren’t a lot of them left.
“Also, Elenskaer, Harvindar and I can help persuade the others,” Nera pointed out. “We’ve been through the same things they have so they might listen to us.”
“Persuade them to do what though?” Shaala asked.
“To leave Drach’nsvoiya,” Nera said. “That’s the problem. As you’ve said often enough, it’s such a hostile, barren and unforgiving place that of course it turns out aggressive and petty minded dragons. We want to persuade these dragons to leave it to rot, to be the lifeless rock it was meant to have been all along.” She shook her head. “I can’t even imagine why dragons ended up there in the first place. Even the poor black dragons don’t deserve to live in such a place.”
“Maybe we can persuade them to join their northern kin in Nagathaia,” Karn mused. “They’re pretty stupid things but you can communicate with them.”
“Although we don’t want to be responsible for unleashing a whole lot of ‘aggressive and petty minded dragons’ on the Southern Lands and the Greater Realms,” Shaala pointed out.
“We’ll have to take measures to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Baine replied. “But I think if we’re careful, we can do this right. And as for the bigger and nastier dragons you mentioned...”
“Yes,” Karn nodded. “It’ll be good for you. You’ll get a few more chances to twist dragons’ necks in mid–air.”
“Although I’m not doing this to prove myself or anything like that,” Baine pointed out.
“No, of course not,” Karn replied. “So when do you plan to go?”
Baine shrugged. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Karn smiled and squeezed Shaala’s hand. “Well, let’s talk it over with the others first.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hamish Spiers is an Australian-based author, telling very human stories in the spac
e opera and vigilante adventure genres. Compelling, fast-paced, intelligent and often moving, his books have something for every reader.
For more information on his books, as well as updates and other content, visit his website at http://hamishspiers.com
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