A spark of irritation burned in Sheilah’s gut. Davian was true to his word, the dinner was a tribe feast.
This, for a wayward daughter that couldn’t accept the Law of the Redstone? That couldn’t accept that the strong lived, the weak perished, and you lived and died by your own strength?
Concurrently, it fell to the strong to direct the weak in ways that they too could cultivate their own strength. Caidi had no business being on that hunt. Sheilah should have chosen differently.
She’d failed her sister, failed her tribe, failed her clan, failed her Totem, and that was the real reason she’d left.
“Because so many of our tribe will be heading to the lands of ash and fire to test themselves against what awaits them, we’ll teach them about what they’ll be facing: the lore of the Dragon Totem.” Davian announced, and just like that, the arrangement of the families and children around the piles of foods and fires shifted. All the boys and girls that would head into the ashlands were pushed forward into a group where they faced the tribe’s leaders: Davian, Ladria, and Mayrin.
Sheilah felt alone, alienated within her own shame, despite the feeling of Fialla pressed next to her.
The families of the ones that were planning to send their young into the Burning Lands grouped up loosely behind them. Despite being surrounded by friends and family, Sheilah felt alone and cold. She needed to leave. She didn’t belong with them.
The fires danced, throwing strange, leaping shadows on the walls of the red cliffs behind them.
“The Dragon presides over four Domains.” Davian began, and suddenly the mutters and murmurs stilled and hushed.
“What defines and makes a Dragon a Dragon is Immortality, Calamity, Indomitability, and Supremacy.” Davian taught, his eyes glowing. “A Dragon isn’t a Dragon if it is not Immortal. The Tyrant is eternal, demanting subservience and destruction for all time. When you hunt your Dragon in the Ash Wastes and take in its power, that power of Immortality is passed to you in the boon of healing.”
He drew his great-grandfather’s sword and ran the blade down his arm. Blood flowed and dripped in a thin stream from the wound into the ground, where it pooled and reflected the firelight in strange shimmers. Even in the uncertain light of nightime and firelight, it was apparent to everyone that the wound was closing in on itself, sealing itself.
“A Dragon is defined by its thirst for endless, perpetual destruction. Nothing satisfies; everything must burn.” His eyes glowed like molten fire and he sucked in a great breath- was it Sheilah’s imagination, or could she hear the hissing sound of her father sucking in the air of that great breath?
She knew what coming next. She’d seen it at Caidi’s funeral. She didn’t want to see it again.
Davian blew a jet of flame that seared the stones, incinerating the floods piled up like offerings, overwhelmed the campfires.
Something leapt in Sheilah’s breast, hot and insistent. Did she really feel that way? If she were the one to command such power, might she feel different? Wouldn’t things be so much more convenient if she could command that power herself?
Was that it? Was that the power of the Dragon that she’d obtained for herself?
Davian listed on his feet, and Ladria reached up to steady him, but drew her hand back. It was obvious she wanted to help him, support him in his moment of weakness, but he was Davian. Davian the Hero. Davian the Liberator. Davian the Destroyer. Davian, the leader of the entire Clan of the Dragon.
A man lived and died by his own strength.
“For the strongest among you, you’ll be able to do that only a few times in a day. The price of destruction is a heavy one, and it will demand you pay that price. Use the power of Calamity frivolously and you will pay the dearest cost and find your soul in the talons of the Tyrant, having to explain why you were so stupid.” His face twitched; it might have been a smile. “Not a conversation I think anyone would want to have.”
Some of Sheilah’s contemporaries murmured amongst themselves at this. It was a rare thing that you did not see the Dragon’s Breath, though it was never used without preparation and premeditation. It was a devastating power, certainly, but it exacted its cost on the wielder.
Daveth took a drink from his goblet, and straightened his back imperceptibly. Sheilah wondered if anyone but her saw it. Perhaps her mothers; they had nothing but eyes for him.
“Indomitability is to have a body that defies the strongest attacks and most debilitating injuries. The Tyrant will shrug off anything that is unworthy of its might. When you succeed, the boon that will be passed to you is a resistance to plague and poison.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Caidi.
Sheilah remembered the conversation with her father shortly before her sister’s body was placed on the pyre. If Caidi had this boon, the gnolls would never have killed her with their pestilence.
“The final element of the Tyrant is Supremacy. Supremacy of the sky, supremacy of all that lay beneath it, the absolute defiance against any authority that is not itself and the indomitable will to refuse any authority that does not come from itself.”
“This authority is why we stand at the pinnacle, standing above all the other Clans. We cannot abide the idea that anything refuses to acknowledge us.” He eyed the young adults arrayed before him, and Sheilah could feel the others flinch back from that gaze. “That is the essence of tyranny, and you would do well to remember that this is the power you must struggle to master the most. Supremacy without strength is arrogance. Strength without wisdom is meaningless. Wisdom without strength is barking into the wind. You must hone your mind as much as you hone your bodies so that you do not make the mistake of relying on the conviction that ‘just because you say it, it must be so’.”
His eyes seemed to linger on Sheilah’s for a moment when he said this.
*****
The hunt for the Dragon was nothing more than a repeat of every other hunt: Whelplings were to be hunted alone. Dragonlings were to be hunted alone. Dragons were to be hunted alone.
There were a great many monsters in the Ashlands besides the dragons, as well as many differences in the lands themselves. Water was far more scarce, for another. There were places where the air itself was poison, burning rain fell from the skies, lava flowed and pooled on the ground, and ravenous giants stalked the lands, fully sixteen feet tall, searching for anything that could be eaten.
The monsters and behemoths that stalked the savage lands of the burning wastes could be hunted in the waste in groups, but a dragon hunt was something that was fought alone.
After the feast, everyone returned to their tents except for Sheilah, who lay on her back and stared up at the sky, watching the slow, incremental wheel of the stars overhead. That strange, savage fire with its insistent need burned in her chest, but her heart was cold. She was strangely impatient and lethargic.
“Davian seems to think you are punishing yourself for Caidi’s death.” Mayrin’s voice appeared behind her, cool and crisp. It was easy to believe it sounded dispassionate. She hid her emotions well.
“I shouldn’t have let her come. It was too soon for her to fight gnolls.” Sheilah replied.
“She was certainly ready to fight the gnolls we knew.” Mayrin replied. “Their ability to set ambushes, use weapons and armor, that was unexpected.” She replied simply.
“Then, we should have left. It was my call to make.”
“Nothing changes. You would have been forgiven if you had; but you were also forgiven for doing what you did. The blame for Caidi’s death lies with the gnolls, not with you.”
“I am unfit to be a leader.” Sheilah objected.
Mayrin said nothing to this, simply stood behind Sheilah’s head.
“The Wild Elves have had a very difficult time adjusting to life in the Redstone.” She spoke quietly, coolly. “While our homelands were no less harsh, we lived supporting and relying on each other. Water and food was plentiful, if you knew where to look for it. Nature is terrifying, and it takes a strong will to live in it.” She paused. “When the Princess decided to escape the yoke of the High Elves and join hands with the Redstone tribes, we thought it would be similar to our own home.”
Sheilah said nothing, simply letting the stars glare down at her with their strange, flickering alien light.
“Uncounted thousands were lost in the rebellion. Thousands more were lost in our exodus. And when we arrived in the Redstone, we lost even more. We were forced to give up our magics and embrace the Totems of the Redstone. So many were lost that it makes the previous sacrifices pale in comparison.”
She paused again. “But the Princess endured. She loved the man that brought her and her people out of bondage. She loved her people that followed.”
Her voice was cool and smooth.
“The years that followed were very hard for the Wild Elves. There were many that ... didn’t take well to the Redstone.”
The pause in her voice was laden with meaning that even Sheilah could understand: Rebellion. Dissent.
“But the Princess persevered. She endured the loss of so many of her people, and persevered. Now the Wild Elves are part of the Redstone, and our children understand the shared values of our people.”
Sheilah looked up at Mayrin, who looked down at her. Mayrin’s face was filled with caring.
“You make your choices the best you can in hope for the best result, and you endure and grow stronger for the losses.”
She paused again. “I continue to follow the Princess because I believe that every choice she makes is for the whole of our people. Not just for the Redstone, or for the Wild Elves, but for all of us together.” She paused again. “A single misstep is easy to forgive, because you can learn from it.”
She eased herself down and touched Sheilah’s forehead lightly with her fingers, brushing the girl’s hair away from her forehead. “I grieve the loss of Caidi, but I know with conviction that she did her best. I know that you and her sisters did their best to protect each other. I know that you will return from your trial, the same as the Princess and I did. I know that you will lead, and I know that you will make mistakes, and will be ever the stronger for it.”
She stood up with a sigh and rubbed her lower back. “Come inside. It’s cold. You have a home to welcome you, food to fill your belly, and a bed that needs to embrace you.”
Sheilah chose to lay there for a little while longer. She’d seen things, after all, things that changed the nature of how things were in the Redstone, and perhaps the way she viewed her father.
She closed her eyes.