ARC 2 - BOUND IN MUTUAL CONFIDENCE

Ayre

A night spent fighting for my life demands time to reflect and recover.

It is a time I don’t feel like I can have.

Too much violence in recent memory interrupted only by resonating with the perspective of the stones moments before they are pried from corpses they puppet. Being on the receiving end of what I know I’m capable of gives me a sense of perspective I don’t know what to even do with.

Feeling restless and unsafe doesn’t even begin to describe it. It is the closest thing I can compare to being back in the depths of my shared youth with Lenore. Eventually I decided to just keep myself busy.

And then there is the matter of resonating with something as old as a gemstone. Very rarely do I glean something immediately useful, but the stones remember much if I care to have the kind of patience required.

Every time an obligation comes up, those closest to me are quick to act on my behalf. I am being offered no shortage of time to collect my thoughts. Whenever no one else of import is looking, I receive a reassuring expression or gesture of affection.

Too many new Lunarian faces greet us in the morning. Between reactions of hesitation and exchanged looks of discomfort, I eventually follow chains of deference to identify the Firsts or Seers in charge.

My blackened scales draw more interest than I am comfortable with. But this is usually followed by hesitant looks back at the slain drake that Snapdragon and Lenore discussed the value in dragging it within the walls.

I do not experience relief until what must be the tenth time in a row that Theriya, Cerya, or Snapdragon intercept any who approach us, addressing any who demand our attention on my behalf.

A variety of Lunarian roles are explained to me by Cerya, but I’m uncertain if now is the time to make sense of it all. If anything, this morning is shaping up to be a stark reminder that I am still a stranger here.

Snapdragon is quick to inform me that our little measures of controlling initial impressions seems to have paid off. We’ll likely be able to slip away without worrying about any further need to prove or justify my presence and worth.

But it is hard to not think of myself as a failure when I set out to accomplish so much. Never thought I’d get as much resistance from those I trusted.

Still, it is hard to argue with the amount of support I now have. A part of me dreaded the immediate aftermath but it looks like I won’t be responsible for seeing everything through to an acceptable end in Lunarian minds.

I get to just… Go home. And that word doesn’t mean a safe corner in the Depths while Fia or Lenore keep watch. It doesn’t mean my personal chambers in my mother’s castle where I never know if someone is moments from attempting to assassinate me.

Returning to the tree spire home means I get to share a quiet space with people I don’t have to hide from. It is as much a refuge for Snapdragon and Selescia letting down their guard as it is for me.

Fia gets my attention with a look that suggests my stare is too intense. There is comfort in knowing that she will never be scared of me, no matter how I change. Even if she doesn’t understand my need to change how I am perceived.

These are but the first of many affirming thoughts I should be spending this time subjecting myself to. It hardly balances out the lingering soreness of putting my body through so much. But such thoughts make it easier to not grimace at everyone I meet.

Limbs burn and ache with every movement. Yet I feel no worse for wear with twice my weight in an adult Drake’s blood still running through me.

My heart and lungs continue to work through a restless energy that the rest of my body contests with each new exertion. It is a strange feeling. Such desperate fights for my life have always left me feeling lessened or burdened with something I can never take back.

Just having Fia at my side is a reminder of why I’ve always denied myself. This feeling of strength beyond my limits has a cost that others must pay.

I cannot help but wonder if I am going about this the wrong way? Should I be finding opportunities to feed on my enemies so that I am as capable as I can be? Or are there other arrangements that I could look into? Of all of us, Amari has served Vylian interests the longest. It is a question I’ll save for her.

The thought of enemies, home, and my changing body causes me to circle back to Astraea. Is there any place for her in the spire? Will I feel safe allowing her to return with us?

Setting aside the sudden urge to resolve this myself, I allow myself to interrogate the warning that Lenore and I will never be more ourselves than before feeding on that drake.

There are moments where the ease at which my thoughts are accompanied with a rush. It is in these moments where I feel most alive and validated for drinking as much of the drake as I have. But with it has come strange urges and thoughts.

Thankfully feeding on the drake has not introduced a third voice in my head or urge to control my body. But it took Lenore a while to assert herself as more than just my wretched parasite upon which I piled so much blame and personal revulsion.

How much can Astraea be trusted? From words exchanged in confidence to gain my trust, to the point of breaking that trust and making desperate pleas on behalf of her goddess, can there be any reconciliation between us? Should there be?

This is up to you. Lenore had made that clear.

Could probably fill days deciding how I feel on that front. Not that I have a lot of time before my binding to the Seed Seers and the arrival of my siblings.

My pace from leaving the tower has been a dreadfully slow one. With the drake’s poison still flowing through my body, seeing to that feels like it should be my most immediate concern.

“Fia.” I attempt to speak, but my voice falters as my lungs burn.

“Yes Master?” She addresses me in the masculine, causing me to wince with the reminder that she does not see me as anything but her Prince.

There is hesitation in her voice, but it comes from a place of concern more than anything else. She is my blood doll, intended to be a source of strength.

Not someone I feel compelled to drain poison from to weaken myself.

Thankfully I am still amidst a coughing fit enough that even the most observant watchers are likely to misattribute the involuntary reaction on my part. “It is very important that you fetch me an antivenom.” I make sure to scan the crowd as I speak, making a note of anyone who regards my words with interest.

Fia is quick to bundle up her otherwise armful of beloved black hair in order to keep it out of her way. In this instance she wraps it round her neck and drapes it over her shoulder like a scarf. “Of course, Master. This one will do so right away!”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

A Watcher begins to turn in our direction. I direct Fia to intercept them. “Whatever dose they think is necessary, triple it.”

Fia stops halfway between me and the Watcher I’ve directed her to. The grin she flashes me is vicious. “Oh! Is this one allowed to threaten violence?”

That gets so much attention.

I return her grin with one of my own, exposing my fangs. “No. It is for the good of our alliance.”

It takes a few moments, but my words seem to be enough to relax the mounting tension of the exchange. I even catch a tension leaving Cerya’s shoulders, not even pretending to hide that I am her primary concern.

The threat of asking alone seems to have delighted my blood doll to no end. It is comforting to see that Fia is very quickly taken seriously. For now, it feels like everything I can do to entrust her with a task of importance

Our lives have always been in each other’s hands, after all.

She is not the only one. Not anymore.

Theriya is looking my way with a grin of amusement over the scene Fia has caused. In her hands is a hand picked batch of the most agreeable stones. Most of them just so happened to be chipped or damaged beyond being usable for any implements of note.

A grim concession, but one made in haste to preserve what we felt like we could get away with. The stones are going to have to become a long term burden if I’m to secure a better outcome. Until then, all I have are layers of justifications to spirit a few away.

What scraps of intel I could glean will be delivered through Cerya’s lips instead of my own. The rest will be for Theriya and I to ponder in private. No consigning anything to ink, as useful as it might be to reference.

I’m told that Theriya and her fellow Seers would be tasked with burning anything on the subject of Cinder Blights or their history. Which seems a waste in my mind.

I still think the stones are more in the right. As aggressive and unappealing as their methods are, I struggle with denying them the right to resist their own annihilation by any means they deem necessary.

That they are incapable of besting the likes of me alone is hardly something to be held against them. So very few can.

For now though, the stones are out of my hands.

I watch as Fia finishes exchanging words with a Watcher and is escorted in the direction of the Thorned Watcher barracks. With a grunt, I make it my own destination.

Now that everyone knows I’m poisoned, I allow my expression to return to a smoldering reflection of how it feels to exist in this body as it actively continues to change.

“Have you ever wanted to be a drake?” Cerya had asked me, but only once the moon had fallen and the Thorns stepped outside to assist Astraea. At the time, it must have seemed to her a sensitive question.

And when I didn't respond, determined instead to join them, Theriya began to elaborate.

“Perhaps Wyrm or some other manner of Dragon kin?” Theriya supplied more words for me to associate together.

“How can I have always wanted to be what I have only learned existed last night?” I say, not meaning the growl that accompanied my words at the time.

I’d learned that a Wyrm was an impressive thing to slay only when Astraea had been presented at court. But details were scarce enough to become secondary to knowing that I should probably be making my case for claiming an outside mercenary as my protector.

Even then, I’d decided to make my case a begrudging one. My intent had been to not show her any real favor, lest my siblings bid against me. If I am carelessly allowing a foreign mercenary into my employ, the logic was that they would allow it to pass uncontested and make any ploys to turn her against me later.

Not once did Astraea budge. It was enough for me at the time that I never pressed her for details on what a Wyrm even is.

Now the two who have offered to help guide and assist me with any changes to my body that I desire are asking me if I ever wanted to become something like it.

If I said yes, would it further erode any opportunity to mend the broken trust between Astraea and I? Does she have something personal against their like?

People and creatures with scales at least are not new to me. Having to lunge at flesh uncovered by them gave me more than enough trouble in the depths for their features to be coveted.

A part of me thought it’d be more difficult to harm myself with an outer layer hardened by scales.

The pile that I pried from my arms when they first began to grow is proof enough that this would not be the case. Doing so at least allowed me to clue Lenore into the changes enough to discuss it.

Everything is just too sudden, even if Cerya warned me in advance that this could be possible.

Sharing my thoughts with Lenore is always a comfort. She even had the presence of mind to remember to assure Cerya and Theriya that we wouldn’t pluck anymore scales from our flesh. We were just surprised and startled is all.

Right.

I didn’t believe a word that fell from Lenore’s lips, but it is not a discussion to have while Thorned Watchers are overhearing.

Lenore feels guilty, like she is somehow responsible for a choice I made.

Every step now carries me closer to the tree spire, where I can have that conversation. I try very hard to convince myself that discomfort in my stomach is just lingering effects from the poison.

Lenore and I kept our thoughts to ourselves. We’re going to change.

Again and again and again.

New thoughts.

New perspectives.

It is never going to stop.

Growth and change are not unique to us.

We just do it quicker and more dramatically than anyone we know.

Still getting used to the added weight in my arm that Lenore healed. Sharpened claws are easy to appreciate at least. But despite having consumed twice my weight in Drake’s blood, the dimensions of my body have refused to change in any noticeable faction.

Pure volume, where is it all going?

My body is growing a small collection of scales, sure, but that can’t be enough to account for everything.

An entire body aching from the night’s exertions is not enough to answer Cerya’s questions about me possibly growing a wings or tail. I have no idea if my body is trying to align with thoughts I shared having felt earlier in the night.

Or is this intended for the likes of the Castellan’s many broodlings? We monstrous few who can not only survive but recover from wounds to the heart that attackers do not force to remain open until long after our lessers would expire.

Lessers, do I think of others that way? I shake my head wearily before looking around to realize I have largely escaped notice without confrontation. So many of the Lunarians are too busy with the drake’s corpse. Others are carting smaller corpses around for purposes I can only speculate.

Can’t allow myself to start thinking of other people that way. Not now. Not after displaying just how much violence I am capable of. Each and every one of them were born and raised in this environment or one like it. I cannot condemn them. Not for existing and surviving in the roles assigned to them. Not for that alone, at least.

I don’t even know how much the Depths compare to these woods under the regular passage of bloodthirsty moons. And even I’ve changed since then.

The day after my sister and I were uplifted from the depths, I awoke to a hunger for blood and having survived my broken or mangled limbs being replaced by those of my sister.

Her voice and thoughts ring true whenever our shared blood is shed. And now I know she can take over whenever I feel compelled to shed blood against my will by the constant drone of a macabre moon.

I take comfort in this, if only for a moment.

The alternative is that being touched by Astraea’s Goddess has forced a change onto me. In the immediate aftermath my body felt less my own. The delay manifested in more a dialog between Lenore’s limbs and my own.

I am left with no answers, only speculation.

Any clarification would demand I confront Astraea or an older sibling of mine more in the know of our shared nature.

Neither idea excites me. But one or more of them will likely be necessary.

And soon.

I allow myself to sit in quiet contemplation on a shaded stump within view of the Thorned Watcher barrack.

My position allows me to watch as others make their way away from the wall.

First, Second, Snapdragon, and the Nineteenth Thorns all report to the inside of their barrack for assessments of Cinder Blight and to have their wounds addressed.

I don’t know what is taking Fia so long, but knowing Snapdragon is inside with her is enough for now.

It takes me having to remind myself that I can’t keep doing everything myself to not rise from my stump.

Although I will admit, suddenly hearing a familiar voice sure helps.

I get to watch as Theriya closes the distance, making good on her stated intent to largely allow Cerya to handle the bulk of last night’s report.

“You look like you’re full of bad ideas.” She says with a smile.

Here, outside the Thorned Watcher barrack, and within earshot of who knows how many Lunarians going about their day on adjacent streets, there is only so much I can say.

“At the moment? I’m only seriously considering one.” I reply, my voice low and strained.

“Would you like company? Someone to conspire with, perhaps?” Theriya’s words extend offers that I am all too relieved to accept.

Going home and getting what rest I can sounds good and all. But it feels like doing so now would leave something important unresolved. “I’m not sure what to do about my Sworn Blade and would-be protector.” I finally admit. “If I’m to spare my time and energy on anything, it feels like it should be that.”

Theriya gives me a complicated look.

“I’ll be honest with you.” Theriya says with a sigh. “Had my sister been harmed in the slightest, I would have offered to help you kill her myself.”

I can certainly relate with that. “And yet Cerya is the only one of us to come away from last night entirely unharmed.” I say, confirming what we both have already pestered Cerya to confirm.

Theriya holds my gaze. “What about you?”

I wither under her gaze, unsure how to feel. Nevermind how to answer.

Catching my head in my hands, made unfamiliar to me by the addition of scales and claws, I allow myself a quiet sob. “That’s just it. I’m not sure if I’ll know unless I confront her again.”

“If you choose to do so, it won’t be alone.” Theriya says, the imperiousness in her voice is a comfort in that she isn’t leaving room for an argument.