“Room three hundred and sixty-seven, how are you?” Aileen Fahllyr asked, pulling up a random number as she poked her head into a room. It had been empty since the Gaolyans vanished from Tabithala thousands of years ago.
Maybe not so empty. It had hosted generations of mites, spiders, and other small critters with too many limbs for her liking.
“Thick carpet of dust and networks of webs still undisturbed,” she said. “Good job, everyone.”
To further delay her trip to the Room of the Resting Dragon, Aileen made another detour, checking rooms along her way to make sure they were free of intruders. One could never be too prepared. It was when one’s guard was down that enemies struck.
Wasn’t it the Fahllyrs’ duty to guard the First Emperor’s tomb? She was doing her job, and very diligently so.
“Room three hundred and sixty… um… whatever number I was at.” Aileen entered another room. The light orbs inside activated, bathing the smooth walls with a cool blue glow. “Gathering more dust than usual? Or not? Carry on.”
Aileen closed the door behind her—it was half taller than regular doors, accounting for Gaolyans’ height. The dimensions of the Fahllyr House annoyed her, like the steps of staircases an inch higher than she expected or its incline a little too steep for her liking. She got used to it eventually after tripping many times and mopping the floor with her face twice.
The convoluted layout of the lower levels also confused her back then. But she had come to memorize it after her heroic quest, borne out of boredom, to find the actual tomb of the First Emperor.
Her goal wasn’t crumbly royal bones or dusty religious relics. But if she discovered the holy site, she’d be pardoned for whatever their problem was with her. She’d march back to the battlefield wrapped in honors and awards!
Her plan didn’t succeed. The First Emperor’s tomb was all a big hoax by imperial researchers to have a job, getting paid to stick their noses between ancient pages.
Aileen stopped walking, the tip of her toes just behind the corner’s shadow. Straight down the bend was the Room of the Resting Dragon. She sighed. The time of moping was over. Now, she was a dutiful soldier of Krysperia, reporting for duty.
Very belatedly.
Hushed voices from the other side stopped Aileen’s next stride.
The trainees of the prior shift? They were supposed to be inside the Room of the Resting Dragon waiting for her, not standing outside, chatting by the corridor. A few seconds of eavesdropping garbles clued Aileen to their complaints about her tardiness.
Let’s see if they can say that to my face. Chin up, back straight, she marched out of the corner, clanking her sabatons on the floor.
The trainees—two boys and a girl—wore novice trappings under breastplates, their heads uncovered. Aileen didn’t recognize them; they must be from quite distant branch families, their facial features as varied as Aileen’s from her siblings. But all three had the prized red hair that smoldered under the light from orbs lining the ceiling, a manifestation of the Biosyn-crafted Bloodline for Alluverius Fahllyr, and a mark to be claimed by the most powerful martial house of Krysperia.
The three jumped at Aileen’s sudden appearance. They stood at rapt attention, their fingers hurriedly making the sign of the owl king to greet her. Fear was evident on their faces, correctly assuming that she had overheard their conversations.
Aileen stopped the end of her lips from rising into a smirk. The reason she was sent to the Fahllyr House was supposed to be secret. But she picked up different versions with varying accuracy spreading amongst her relatives, especially the inquisitive trainees.
Sometimes, she encouraged the rumors. Sometimes, she tried to be nice.
She chose the latter now. The Fountain Festival neared—it might do her good to be pleasant and court the Ancestor Dragon’s favor. After the aileh surge would strengthen her—remarkably, if the Ancestor Dragon willed—she’d return to being unpleasant.
“Hello, there,” said Aileen, giving the trainees a warm smile. She didn’t dare guess their names, knowing too well she’d miserably fail and embarrass herself. Their tensed shoulders dropped. “I’m terribly sorry for being late,” she continued. “Princess Adelind tasked me with entertaining some Ottarlan royalty waiting for an audience with her. I toured their entourage all over the House, and, ugh, it’s such a chore to entertain foreign dignitaries. I’m not good at dealing with people, you know me. I’d much rather stand guard here in solitude. But don’t tell the princess I said that.” She winked at them.
The trainees mumbled that they understood the situation, and they didn’t wait too long anyway. Their shifting eyes told her they didn’t fully believe her; this wasn’t the first time she had done this. But what could they do?
Aileen bid them a cheery goodbye and took over history’s most useless ceremonial guard. “Listen to your midday lessons well,” she called after their retreating backs. “Get a good rest before your training in the afternoon.”
Then she was alone again.
She faced the entrance to the Room of the Resting Dragon.
Made from pieces of heavy granite bound by sealcrafting, the doors were embossed with a coiled dragon in the center, its claws tucked close to its torso, its wings fanning out, bounded by the royal eight rays that extended until they reached the door’s edges. Deep etchings of the life of Emperor Hiero in high Grammus filled every free space, the furrows filled with melted silver, an enthralling masterpiece that even someone clueless to art like Aileen could appreciate.
Sadly, it was kept here in the depths, in front of an empty tomb, its majesty wasted.
“I’m going to have a door like this someday.” Aileen placed her left hand on the carved dragon, feeling the bumps of its detailed scales on her palm. “And I’ll display it for the world to see. I just need a long list of glorious deeds to fill it… which I can’t accomplish if I’m stuck here.”
The entrance rune inside the doors activated upon her touch, and the dragon’s eyes glowed. The heavy panels slowly swung open.
There were no protection wards or any form of security, for there was nothing inside to secure.
Anyone was free to enter.
The door closed shut behind Aileen. Complete darkness for a breath. Then rows of light orbs ran across the walls, spiraling to the chasm’s depths, illuminating the vast emptiness inside. The empty semi-circular mouths lining one side of the descending ramp gave it a more eerie and desolate feel than if it were left a plain cave.
Once, the Room of the Resting Dragon was a gallery of art and history, its multiple quarter-dome rooms arranged in tiers like a beehive brimmed with treasures on display, or so Premier Eamon had told Aileen. The ramp passing by each opening coiled down to the bottom where a massive sarcophagus lay. Several Fahllyr Core Blademasters and Warrior Frames then guarded the place, with intricate barriers and wards disguising its location.
But after the attempted coup during Emperor Malvar’s reign, everything of value in the Room of the Resting Dragon was transferred elsewhere. Only the coffin remained, with trainees as token guards for some inexplicable groffcrap tradition.
The coffin was as empty as Aileen’s heart for enemies of the crown. She had checked the first time she saw it, ignoring the protests of her partner guard.
Trainees were supposed to stand guard in pairs—and no, Aileen wasn’t a trainee—but she convinced—Jel might say bullied—whoever was partnered with her into transferring to the prior shift, leaving her alone in peace. The trainees never reported what she did to Premier Eamon. The young ones should be happier with the three of them together instead of going with a grouchy, not-so-old-timer like her.
Aileen snapped the fingers of her left hand. Blue sparks erupted where her index finger met her thumb—the coaxing lines of her sealcrafting hand ignited.
She spread her fingers out, admiring the glowing etchings that crept from her hand, past her wrist, disappearing into her vambrace before starting her usual work. She had seen this countless times but couldn’t help but be always fascinated. With a twirl, she scrawled circular formations on the floor by the top of the ramp, infusing the lines with her internal aileh.
Half a minute later, she had a rudimentary tripwire ready, layered with a basic concealment circle. It wouldn’t fool a sealcrafter above the Sixth Orbit, but it was undetectable to the untrained.
And who would pass here that could unravel her little rig? Jel was busy, and so were other sealcrafters. Only the trainees of the next shift would come, and this setup was enough to alert Aileen if they arrived too early.
Satisfied with her work, Aileen tramped down the ramp to find the room where she had stashed a rolled-up cot into a crack in the wall. She had about six and a half hours to herself—all that time would be a waste only if she allowed it to be. She had tried spending her not-so-free time on training—she needed every bit of it to catch up to her older siblings—but it wasn’t as effective as she’d liked. For one, she couldn’t let loose and use her full power because some people would get angry if she ruined the pretend holy site. She also didn’t have access to different weapons, books, scrolls, or aileh constructs while here.
But then, displaying brilliance Aileen still couldn’t believe she possessed, she realized she could sleep during her shift and train all night instead of sleeping.
There were times she wanted to brag about her good idea but thankfully remembered that telling others would be a… bad idea.
Aileen undid the buckles and untied the knots of her armor while descending the chasm. The belts behind her back were hardest to unfasten, but it helped that her left hand was bare, and she had trained herself to be quite flexible.
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Reaching her little nest, she shaved away pieces of her armor and piled them by the wall. Only the Ancestor Dragon could force her to sleep with plated armor on. She soon stood in a comfortable cotton shirt and pants. She didn’t wear padding or chain mail under her armor because she wasn’t actually going into battle, and it’d just bake her more.
The cool cave air had already dried off her sweat. A small voice in her head suggested that she should not traipse around in armor this summer.
But stubbornness was one of her proud traits, even if many people would disagree.
Disagree that she should be proud of it, not that it was her trait.
“One last thing…” Aileen hummed as she rested on the unfurled cot. “Two, actually.”
She scribbled on the wall above her head two seals. She finished with a flourish, closing off the second circle. Her coaxing lines dimmed as she examined her work.
It was lovely and compact, though simple, those seals, from their rotating cores to the fluent runes circumscribing them to their flow of energies. Aileen was proud of herself—she usually was, but there was a particular sense of accomplishment in making perfect little seals, like writing a long word in exquisite penmanship. The construct on the right was the counterpart of the tripwire at the top of the ramp. The left one was to wake her in case she was immersed in her beauty sleep—she infused it with enough aileh to last six hours. It was set to emit a buzzing noise before it expired.
Around ten minutes should be enough to wear her armor again, and she’d have enough time to ascend and meet the next shift. But if someone came earlier than that—and no one ever has—they’d meet grumpy her in an unflattering tunic.
Aileen closed her eyes, hoping she’d dream of battle. “Sleep is my only escape from this boring place…”
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After the whistling of arrows came cries of pain from those skewered. The captain in front of Aileen, with the feathered end of a bolt sticking out of his helmet’s eyehole, managed to call for the Ancestor Dragon before falling off his steed and onto the ground. Others could no longer scream because they were dead—it’d be a mild surprise if they could.
Unfortunately, Aileen couldn’t chuckle at the little humor she found amidst battle because an arrow pierced her left cheek, emerging out the right. She winced at the minor inconvenience. The arrowhead nicked her tongue as it passed through her mouth.
The metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth… and filled her heart with rage.
I can’t let my sister see this wound! Aileen realized she’d get scolded for removing her helmet in the middle of enemy territory. It was too hot and humid and sticky and smelly, but that wasn’t an excuse her older sister would accept. And what if their father heard of her incompetence?
In anger at her own stupidity and at the soon-to-be-dead Vardan bandit who shot her, Aileen clenched her teeth, crunching the wooden bolt running across the inside of her mouth. She yanked out the broken ends from her cheeks. Splinters mixed with the blood she gargled. She spat them out.
Another volley rained; another wave of screams answered.
Aileen dismounted, raising her left arm to block the arrows. With her right, she reached over her shoulder and grasped the thick leather-bound grip of her Fahllyr great sword, also known as the Plank. Her fingers wrapped around its handle, right up to the cross guards, and, with her thumb, expertly unbound the clasps securing it to her back.
But before she could draw her sword, hollering savages came from all sides, bursting out of the curtains of leaves and from behind every trunk.
The Vardans, hair in braids and faces splashed with war paint, had wrapped themselves in the thick hides and hardened bones of great beasts of the East. Blood seals branded their foreheads, boosting their fortitude and ferocity. The bandits’ biggest and meanest headed the charge, wielding Core-imbued weapons that lent them strength and magical prowess. Mixed with the rabble were aileh-enthralled larguars, half smaller but similarly vicious cousins of the crackals that the Vardan Beastmasters had bound to their will, fangs and claws crunching imperial steel.
Krysperian soldiers fell. Their column marching through the forest was beset on all sides.
They were supposed to attack the enemy camp at an angle different from the main force, performing a pincer maneuver. But instead of doing the ambushing, they were the ones ambushed. Aileen hissed a curse as their ranks tumbled back into each other. There was no space to draw her weapon!
Soldiers yelled for her to escape. It’d be a grave humiliation for the campaign if a Fahllyr were taken hostage, the younger sister of one of their generals no less. Worse if she was killed. They crowded around her even as the Vardans cut them down, the red of her hair drawing the savages like a lit candle attracting moths.
Again, the soldiers urged her to retreat. But there was nowhere to go.
Even if there was, Aileen didn’t want to escape.
The battlefield was her place, her opportunity to display her prowess, the Ancestor Dragon’s answer to her prayers. The enemy came to die by her blade. Upon their corpses, she’d build the foundation of her legend!
First, I need space. Aileen shoved away the Krysperian soldiers in front of her.
Two stumbled forward. One lost his footing and fell—he was the lucky one. The other got himself impaled on Vardan spears.
They were going to die anyway, Aileen reasoned to herself, stepping over the man splayed on the ground, taking care not to slip on the blood-soaked earth. Twisting her body sideways, she raised the Plank, ensuring it didn’t snag anything behind her. The Vardans paused their assault, gazing up at her raised sword.
The Plank was sure to impress and intimidate those who dared stand in the path of Fahllyrs.
It was a sword without a point, a rectangular slab of metal, hence the name. Its imposing blade was a foot across and four lengthwise. Its handle, ending in a heavy pommel as a counterweight, added another half a foot. An inch and a half thick at its Core-lined center, the blade tapered to dull edges at the sides—Core Blademaster would generate a sharp edge with their aileh.
A hulking Vardan with a necklace of stringed largaur fangs, signifying his high position, yelled an order in their stiff tongue, pointing at Aileen. She didn’t need a translator to understand his words.
An axe-wielding bandit was the first to comply with their leader’s orders. He rushed at Aileen, weapon held high while roaring. Krysperian soldiers moved to close the gap and protect Aileen.
“Don’t stand in my way!” Aileen lunged forward and brought her sword down with both hands, parting the insolent bandit in two from head to groin. She grinned as the two halves fell, one to the left and the other to the right. The Plank wasn’t infused with aileh; she used brute strength and speed to cut with a dull blade.
A fearful murmur spread among the Vardans, seeing the fate of their brash fellow.
Aileen leaped at the transfixed bandits. One swing halved three bodies at their waist. She strode two steps forward over the bisected dead and angled the return swing high, lopping off heads and arms of Vardans in the next row. Raised weapons dropped with severed hands still grasping them. She then blocked a largaur’s claws with the Plank’s broadside, switched her grip, and squished its noisy head with the flat of her blade.
Each swing of the gore-laced Plank made Aileen’s lips curl higher and higher. Her smile became so broad it might reach her ears and part her head.
Kill or be killed—nothing could beat the simplicity of the battlefield. This was where she found herself most comfortable. Most happy. She was trained to kill and was very good at it. She was fulfilling her training and found fulfillment in her work.
Most happy, indeed.
She made her way to the Vardan leader. Killing him might disorient the rest and break their attack.
The shield-bearers of the Vardan chief flanked him on either side as Aileen cleaved more men in her approach, massive horned shields with Cores embedded on their faces at the ready. She discerned their tactic. The shield-bearers would catch and turn away her attack, and the chief would strike while she was open.
Gauging her physical strength insufficient, Aileen pumped aileh into the Plank, activating its Cores. An angry cry passed her lips as she slashed diagonally, the Plank streaking the air with purple light. It crushed metal, flesh, and bone, more a bludgeon than a cutting weapon, passing from the shoulder of the leftmost man and out the hips of the shield-bearer on the opposite end. The blood and guts of three Vardans mixed into one. The surprised head of the chief and his shield-bearers, unaware of their death, met the Plank’s return swing, exploding into a red mist.
The Vardans, who saw their leader turned into a shredded shower of flesh and blood, turned tail and ran, screaming, passing the message of their defeat and Aileen’s greatness to their clan. Probably not the latter; they didn’t know who she was.
But she was sure to make them learn of her name. “I am Aileen Fahllyr!” she yelled, chasing and cutting down any Vardan she could reach.
Drrrt! Drrrt!
“I am… Aileen…”
Drrrt! Drrrt! Drrr!
“I am… What’s going on?” Aileen groggily mumbled as she reached above her head to deactivate the buzzing seal.
She awoke to a splitting headache, disturbed in a deep sleep.
Eyes still closed, she felt around for warmth on the cold stone. She scooped back the aileh etched on the wall to stop the noise. Then there was peace. The temptation of sleep called back to her, but she fought it.
“Wa-was that six… six hours already?” Aileen sat up and checked the wall with teary eyes. The seal on the right was fading away—the one connected to the tripwire. The left seal still shone brightly. She placed her palm on it. The aileh it contained was only about a fifth depleted.
She rubbed her eyes as she got to her feet, wondering who the Dust-blasted grakker that set off the tripwire could be. Whoever it was, she should go up to meet them—they deserved a good beating for ruining her beautiful dream, reminiscing the enjoyable times killing Vardans.
Or she could hear the explanation first. Maybe, not.
Aileen pulled her shirt straight and stretched her limbs. She glanced at the pieces of her armor—there was no time to wear them—before walking out of the room and onto the ramp. She craned her neck as she ascended but was still too far below to glimpse who was at the top.
She blinked, slowing her pace as more of her brain woke up. “Who could it really be…?”
The trainees sometimes came early, but only a few minutes or so, not hours earlier.
Jel? Other cousins? More senior Fahllyrs? They wouldn’t need anything from her.
The point of Aileen’s glorified exile, comfortable imprisonment, discrete banishment—or vacation, as her sister would call it—was so she couldn’t muddy her hands with trouble. Their definition of trouble. Her relatives made sure to get out of her way and for her to be not in the way of anything.
No one would call for her unless the Hold were under attack or… wishful thinking. It wouldn’t be something exciting.
Her guess was that the princess or Premier Eamon sent a messenger to graciously bestow upon her another mundane chore—something harmless, like touring the Ottarlans. Aileen tutted at her dashed hopes for fun.
Walking the last round of the spiral ramp before it ended at the level by the doors, Aileen sighted the bastard who woke her up—a man with dark brown hair wearing black clothes adorned by odd golden patterns. She hadn’t seen that particular design before. Then again, she wasn’t one to keep up with courtly fashion—it was all arbitrary nonsense, a scam by people with nothing better to do.
He had his back to her, staring at one side of the open door. Could he read high Grammus? Aileen also could but found it tedious.
Aileen noisily stomped to announce her arrival.
The man turned around. He had a scar across his left eye. He waved at her. “Hello there!”
His elegant clothes hinted at his importance, though his scar confirmed she hadn’t seen him before in the Hold. It was too distinctive for her to forget, even if she didn’t care to remember much about others. But the Hold was a vast place, and Aileen seldom visited the other buildings—she couldn’t have met every one of the hundreds, probably a few thousand people living here.
Aileen ignored the greeting. “Who are you?”
He placed a hand on his chest and bowed, speaking in a bizarre accent. “My name’s Hiero, at your service.”