When I wake up, my headache is back in full force and I groan miserably.

“Wakey wakey Briareth!” Silv says, leaning over me, her tiny head looking a lot bigger as she inspects me. “Elen, you might want to come over, he could have a concussion or something. His eyes aren’t focusing right.”

“Are you sure you tied his wounds tight?” I hear Fin ask, but his voice is muffled. “I can smell the blood.”

“Oh you’ll be fine you big baby. You literally just ate.” Silv tosses her head as she turns away from me, which would have a much better effect if her hair weren’t chopped so short. Elen approaches, her large white wings shielding my eyes from the fuzzy glare as my vision swims.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” She asks, and I blink trying to focus.

“Definitely not twelve.” I say confusedly, “You don’t have twelve fingers, only ten, right?” She laughs unreservedly. And I try to count them again. But with them all bobbing and weaving and blurring together, I really can’t tell. “Sorry,” I apologize, giving up.

Her blobby fingers approach and smooth the area of my pounding head, gently pressing down on the lump I feel swelling there. “You’re right about the bleeding, Fin, It started up again, must have been the encounter with the scouts that upset him.” She pulls a bandaid out from somewhere and starts wrapping my head. “Perhaps he hit it on something with the roughness of the flight. Oh, that wasn’t meant as a criticism, Silv!“ Elen calls over her shoulder to the short captain manning the wheel.

The Zytherling in question shakes her head not even looking at us. “None taken, Elen, none taken. I’m confident in my skills, and even more confident that you and FIn can’t do any better.”

“Briareth?” Faladel comes over, I don’t know where he was all this time, but I’m grateful he’s in view now.

“What happened, Faladel? How did you even find me?” My voice is dry, and I lick cracked lips. “And can I have some water?”

Elen leaves off re-wrapping my bandages and goes to hopefully fetch me some water as Faladel sits down beside me, telling me all about how they’re staying at this Chairholder’s house and how he showed them maps, and about his beetle lighting up and bringing him directly to me. “I still can’t believe the Dragon’s Nest was flying.” He finishes, shaking his head. “It really makes no sense. Boats, I can accept. They’re small, and this world has all sorts of weird technology. Pistols, and mechanical servants, so why not flying boats? But an entire island… If I hadn’t seen it for myself.” He shakes his head again and chuckles slightly.

“It’s the Habbach Stones, or Floatstones if you prefer the less technical term.” Silv calls back from the wheel, obviously listening in to our conversation. “They power our Zippers and our Big Rigs, along with the Frigates and other fighters. But that Island must be chock full of them to float that high by itself. Once we kill all the dragons,” I can practically sense her grin at the thought. “That island will be looted dry within the month! Floatstones are rare, and notoriously difficult to catch, so a flying island will certainly leave investors drooling over the opportunity. Did you see any strange glowing bricks in there, Briareth?”

Elen arrives just then with some water for me, and I take a long deep drink before telling my own story to Elen’s quiet openness, Silv’s eager ears, and Faladel’s grave concern. I start with the most obvious problem.

“Smay is here. And something is terribly wrong with him!” I break the news bluntly to Faladel. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then gapes it open again, like a confused guppy.

“Who’s Smay? And why is he important?” Silv looks between Faladel and I.

“He’s a dragon we know.” I explain bluntly. “He was quite nice; he helped us out in a tight spot, fed us pancakes, and was by all accounts an entirely civilized dragon, and the only one we knew until we came here. He eats people now Faladel! Pops their heads like blueberries!” Faladel’s mouth continues to do the surprised fish routine, and I briefly wonder how mad he’ll be at me if I nickname him guppy after this. But I shake that thought out and continue with my desperate explanation. “The strangest thing is, he acts like all his changes are entirely natural. He just left his home, found these dragons, and became their leader, leaving all his treasures behind except this silver set of kitchen scales that he doesn’t want to let out of his sight. He got super mad when I hadn’t even touched them. He even modeled all his new decor around them! It’s all in silver and rubies, which” I add on, suddenly realizing something, “completely clashes with his natural coloration pattern. Copper and bronze, versus silver and ruby, ugh…” I spit out my tongue, just imagining it looks nasty. How did I not pick up on that earlier?

“There were glowing stones by the way. The entire walls were aglow in the lower parts of the island.” I sit up and turn to face Silv, finally remembering to answer her original question. “How did you guess?”

“You were friends with a dragon?” She has completely let go of the steering wheel to come over and stare at us incredulously. Fin is trying to steer now, but the ride is noticeably bumpier, and sets my head aching.

“He was a nice dragon back then.” Faladel tries to defend us, but Silv is having none of it.

“They’re monsters! How could you–!” Her voice cracks, fury scrawled all over her face. Elen looks up at the short, furious Zytherling standing above us and her eyes are wide. Then I remember why we didn’t want to tell them about Smay in the first place. Silv’s family was killed by dragons. I’m such an idiot.

“Silv…” Fin turns back towards us, slightly hesitant. He has a grey cloth wrapped loosely over his nose and mouth, and his voice is slightly muffled because of it. He’s not quite sure what to say to his friend, but clearly feels the need to say something. “It’s not like they knew us back then. And he’s clearly not siding with them now.”

Silv takes a deep breath, looking very much like she’d like to continue shouting at us, but instead turns and strides below decks.

“We should give her a minute.” Elen murmurs softly. “She hates it when anyone sees her crying.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Faladel nods, but I look at Elen confused. “She didn’t seem like she was about to cry to me.”

Elen shrugs. “She trusted you, we all became friends, and then it turns out you were hiding this from her. I’d probably be equally upset if my friends were also friends with my sworn enemy.”

“Sworn enemy?” Faladel frowns, perturbed. “Did she swear to kill any dragon she meets or something?”

“Any dragon she can find. And, of course, you can’t take oaths like that lightly.” Elen confirms. “Oathbreakers are shunned by their families and cast out of society. And she hasn’t kept her oath secret. So obviously there is now a conflict of interest here.”

“We should probably let her cool down for a bit,” Fin says, shifting topics. “Half an hour at least.”

“So is there a way we can make her oath void?” Faladel ignores the attempt and continues to question Elen.

Fin sighs and turns around to face us, only using one hand to keep the wheel steady. “The rules about oaths are pretty airtight, Faladel. They’ve nailed those down for generations. Even asking that sort of question aloud would be dangerous in the capital.”

“So there would be no way to rope you all into helping us free Smay from his enchantment then? Even if it would lead to the collapse of this dragon army?”

“Collapse the army?” Fin laughs. “There’s no way.”

“Yes way!” I jump on to Faladel’s train of thought. “Smay leads the other dragons, and he told me himself that all the other dragons were basically dumb brutes until he came along. If we can break whatever spell has warped his personality, the dragons are left without any grasp on tactics. They’ll fall apart!”

“You’re serious?” Elen stares at me with her deep brown eyes. “You really think the two of you have found the key to ending this war?”

“Not just found the key, called in reinforcements to help!” I warm to my plan even more. “We just need to get Smay’s shiny new scales away from him and then play keepaway until Adamar, Folas, and Valkallyn arrive, and they’ll be able to help us break the enchantment!”

“It would depend on Silv, and how she views the vow. She’s pretty uptight for a Zytherling, one of the many reasons she makes a great captain.” Fin says thoughtfully. “I don’t hate the dragons nearly as much as she does, but if you’re sure this Smay fellow will side with us after the magic breaks and we can somehow pull this off, I’m all for it.”

Elen frowns and shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think it will work. We don’t have the rations to go back and grab the scales and get all the way back to the capital.”

“Of course not.” Fin says, turning back to the wheel. “That was never in any doubt. However, the run on rations should be over by now. We should be able to buy them once we're back in port at The Light. ”

“It’s the name of their capital.” Faladel explains to me in an undertone. I nod like I understand, but still have questions. Starting with, what sort of a name is ‘The Light?’

“So, when do we get there?” I ask.

“Two days.” Fin proclaims, “and I think we lost our dragon pursuers yesterday, so we should have clear skies till then.”

----------------------------------------

Clear skies and plenty of stories later– I told them all about the rest of my misadventures during captivity, and of course, repeated what Smay had said about Sus-Ciel and the pseudodragons being behind the gift of the scales– we arrive in The Light that Guides the Lost Seas, which at least makes more sense for a capital’s name than just ‘the Light’ because this city doesn’t glow nearly as much as the Dragon’s Nest Isle did.

It is a loud, busy, delightfully chaotic place filled to the absolute brim with people and peddlers. Almost every street is crowded, and numerous buildings have lines along the blocks to get in. Dirty paving stones line the streets, and mechanical servants shop right alongside their fleshy counterparts. On the poorer side of town, down by the sky docks, there are less mechanicals and more dirty children running and flying around us. I catch a young Kashan, trying to pickpocket me, but let him off with a stern warning. There’s even a mysterious young man who claims he can tell our fortunes, and Faladel and Silv have to pull Fin and I away from the entrance to his colourfully festooned tent. We don’t stay in that side of town long though, Faladel has explained to me that our host, Helios-Lime III, is one of their leaders in government, and of course he has the property to match his lofty title as one of the nine Chairholders that run the Triumvirate Tribes– the name of Fin, Silv, and Elen’s country.

I’m not quite sure I understand their politics, but since Faladel has apparently introduced us as diplomats, I’m going to have to learn fast.

When we arrive at the mansion the Chairholder resides in, one of his non-mechanical servants guides us in. The young Tadhiel man clearly thinks Elen is quite the thing, and Elen is bright red from all the compliments by the time he finally leaves. Of course, the Chairholder insists I recount all the things that happened on what he calls ‘my little misadventure.” I spare him no details since the others seem to trust him, and even recall a few that I’d forgotten to tell my friends about. Smay of course, but also how he seemed quite calm about putting the other dragon out of its misery and his sudden growth spurt. The queasiness that I had felt around that one corridor and the strange creature I’m almost sure I imagined that had chased me back through it. I made sure to also mention that Adamar, Folas, and Valkallyn will need some way off the arrival island once they make it through the portal.

The Chairholder only steeples and taps his fingers in front of his thin mouth as I tell my story. His eyes are narrowed in concentration as he takes it all in, and the wrinkles on his old forehead grow deeper in thought.

“A new leader would explain the sudden change in tactics.” He taps one of the maps on the table in front of us, “But what if this dragon, Smay-Smay–” He snaps his fingers and I supply the word for him.

“Smayhellionthostvalleysonknoll.”

“Yes, that. What if he was just tricking you with overtures of friendship earlier? What if this is his real personality, not some strange magic? After all, you said magic wasn’t behaving right, correct? So any spell on the dragon would also be subset to the same failure rate.”

“Not exactly.” Faladel cuts in, and I gesture for him to continue. He understands more of the theory than I do, he’ll be able to explain it better I’m sure.

“Enchantments and spells are different. Both are magic, yes, but spells need magic channeled into them constantly. They are current, and end when the flow of magic ends. Enchantments could have been engraved thousands of years ago, filled with magic a hundred, and only activated just now. So all the magical components really are in the past back when the runes were carved and filled with magic. Now, the enchantment is just following a predetermined outcome. If he got his hand on an enchanted item that started working back in our world and caused him to leave, I see no reason why something that interferes with spellwork here would necessarily have an impact on an enchantment.”

I blink at Faladel, I have a minor headache from all the buzzing that those words caused, and our new friends look completely confused.

“I’m pretty sure half of that was nonsense.” Elen breaks the silence with her bluntness. “Did anyone understand him?” Fin shrugs and flutters his black wings noncommittally, and Silv shakes her head.

“Ahhh… the language differentiation.” The Chairholder’s eyes widen as he catches on, and a chuckle escapes his lips. “I should have expected this. You’ll have to excuse us, our language probably doesn’t have words for a lot of the things you were describing. We’ll just assume that you have the right of it, and move on.”

“Uh, no, we aren’t just going to move on from that.” Fin says, polite but firm. “This weird jabbering has been bugging me ever since we met them. I would like an explanation."