14th Illost, 998 NE
Leafcloak and Lightblind were gone, events beyond Kayn’s control, beyond her wildest dreams. For certain, the death of the most-skilled shapechanger in the city was a loss to her Facechanger plot, but that arch-druid had also been fearsome, and the fact it took a miniaturised god to take her down after all the endless encounters she’d survived told Kayn she was better off with the crone dead. Besides, the Facechanger plot was only initially conceived as a distraction for the damnably-perceptive Lightblind – and, thanks to the fully-bloomed Duskdown, she’d been removed from consideration with far more finality. Even Nighteye going missing was a blessing in disguise – something else to occupy the champions’ attention. Timesnatcher was so certain that Duskdown was involved that he was no longer thinking clearly – and while he was under this shadow he would never even begin to question Lovebright, not the way Lightblind had done. She couldn’t have planned it better herself.
Things were moving into place – but where were the twins the prophecies spoke of?
She deliberately flew north-west after the meeting concluded, following after the fateful trio, crossing high above Ekenrock Road deliberately so as to better assess her slave’s antics.
Everything appeared to be going smoothly. Kastyr and Emrelet were entwined in Dreamlaughter’s spells and Tanra was frantically trying to save them along with the populace.
Perfection. Dreamlaughter has lost none of her creativity.
The dragon wondered why the tractable enchantress was the way she was. So ready to accept Kayn’s commands. So cunning in the application of her magic. Someone had blanked her ancient mind at one point, and very little cognitive function remained. Yet she remained a kindly mother to her pawns, and a formidable foe to Kayn’s enemies.
My enemies… The dragon couldn’t help but admire the trio too. The way they worked together, once they snapped out of it and started saving people. Kas and Em and Tanra were a force to be reckoned with. Petty tasks like this were a distraction that could in no conceivable way lead back to Kayn herself, and would leave her free to focus on other areas. On the one particular thing occupying her thoughts.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
On the revivifications to come this night.
She wanted to claw at the rooftops, let out her anticipation in a scream, swell it with her magic so that everyone in the city could hear her.
It happens today!
At last, as midnight loomed she could withstand it no longer – she ascended back to her accustomed eyrie, her seat above the clouds. Looking up at the fierceness of the stars, white pupils in the purple darkness, she sent out the thought:
“Ord Ylon! My lord! How do you fare?”
She waited. He was sometimes engaged, instructing his hosts of creatures – or perhaps he was out of his lair, feeding…
Not tonight! Tonight!
He must be engaged in the battle, she realised. She hurriedly squashed the urge to send another telepathic message, an apology, or a blessing – her previous words could be forgiven so long as she didn’t compound upon the problem by adding more.
I will wait, she said to herself.
She spent a day in ceaseless furtive flight, rolling in the air against her growing unease; she didn’t return to the mountain peak until the next night, and then, when her link again found no anchor in his responses, she burned a week’s worth of Ceryad power on searching his lair.
No thoughts in Draconic.
No thoughts in Mundic, or any of the tongues of men.
None even in Kobold, where there should’ve been thousands…
Only the silence of the dead, and the despairing echoes of her voice, diminishing and disappearing inside the vaults of her own mind.
* * *
17th Illost, 998 NE
For the third night in a row, she came back to her seat to plead with the stars, wring her wings against the staggering futility of it all.
“Uncle! Ord Ylon, prince of princes, King of Dragons! Hear me, heed me, please!”
It was too much for her to bear, by this point. She could hardly depart from Mund, not now – if the predictions contained within Mal Malas’s visions were accurate, the Time of the Twins should’ve been imminent.
“Ord Ylon! How do you fare? Speak to me, uncle! Speak to me!… Curse you!”
And then, the very moment she blasphemed and voiced a word of treachery – for the first time, a psychic response came from the dragon’s mind.
A link was formed.
Not Ord Ylon.
Not any voice, any mind she recognised.
Soft – almost hesitant, yet a dragon’s.
“I apologise, but your uncle is no longer to be found at this address; might I forward a message?”
Is this my… my punishment… for cursing my lord?
“M-Malas?” she asked, half-hoping, half-terrified.
But the voice never spoke again, no matter how many times she cried out.
* * *