Stormheim had robbed the Clans of many things during their occupation. Their lives, their freedoms- had even tried to take away their traditions. They’d seeded the Redstone with Gnolls to keep them busy, had sold them into slavery, had even tried to strip away their faith in their Totems.
All of the Clans... against Stormheim. A premeditated strike against their city. Sheilah suddenly realized she was famished, the earlier release of Supremacy leaving her ravenous.
She moved to get up, but Ladria was already putting leftovers from their earlier meal in front of her. She dug in with a will, thinking as she ate.
Mayrin returned, and eyed the three of them carefully, but seated herself next to Ladria, who rubbed her shoulder affectionately.
“Do you still have the steel dagger I gave you?” Davian asked after drinking the last of his tea.
Sheilah nodded, and rose to fetch it.
After she had retrieved it from her belongings, he held out his hand and she obligingly passed it over. He eyed the dagger, bounced it on his palm, slid the stiletto out of its sheath, tapped his finger against the point, and resheathed it.
“Honestly, this isn’t a conversation I ever wanted to have.” he began morosely, and slumped his shoulders. “I mean, I knew I had to have it with you, I had to tell you, but I always felt, in my heart, that I never wanted to have it. It’s stupid, it’s selfish of me, but I couldn’t help it.”
It was strange to see her father acting this way. He seemed more... human. He was always tight-lipped about everything, always stoic and distant.
He twirled the dagger on his hand. He set it to spin, rolled it through his fingers, set it to spin again, back and forth, over and over again.
“I was a slave. You’ve probably heard the story from others. I don’t like talking about it. My house was not a happy one. I loved my great-grandfather, who would tell me great stories of his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather. A line unbroken back to the First Dragon.” He spoke in terse sentences, a frown etched in his face.
“My father...” He sighed. “Stormheim had come to the Redstone. My father was the scorn of every other man in the Clan. Instead of following ritual and tradition, he became a blacksmith for the men of Stormheim when I was born. My grandfather Lonato and great-grandfather Adlan tried to raise me in the way of the Clan. My father wanted me to join Stormheim. There were a great many fights in that home. I ran away to the Ashlands to kill a dragon. Stupidly, I thought that then my father would see- he would understand-” He broke off.
“When I came back, he told me that I was no longer part of his household. He sold me to them, to Stormheim.” he drew a shaky breath, held it, released it.
“I was taken and tested. I had no aptitude for magic. For those of the Clan, magic is poison. Our Totem refuses to allow any other power except itself to dwell within us. However, I could fight, and I could read and write. So I became a slave to the prince of Stormheim.” It looked like he wanted to say more, but held himself back.
“The prince was sent to a school run by the High Elves. A place of learning. That school had different ... types of learning. There were human teachers and there were High Elf teachers. The High Elf teachers always believed that humans couldn’t figure out what they were teaching, but I figured it out for myself. It was all math and sciences and the like. A bit more complicated than the human courses, but nothing a human couldn’t learn with a little diligence. Elven arrogance coupled with human stupidity is a dangerous thing. It robs you of your power." He warned.
He continued, “While the Stormheim prince struggled with his human studies, I was teaching myself their elven letters and numbers while my prince could barely understand the human course.” he shook his head.
“Your- that is to say, Ladria was a slave to some High Elf Princess. My prince got sick, her princess became indifferent, we met, fell in love, and I burned the face off the High Elf princess’ skull, which kicked off the Wild Elf uprising.”
“Just like that?” Sheilah asked.
Davian snorted. “Well, there’s a bit more to it than that, but I’m summarizing.” He replied with a wry smile.
“There were more Wild Elves than there were High Elves and Dark Elves. They won through numbers. We took a number of ships and sailed to Westland, a land far to the west. We took the ships because I’d killed the prince and stole his symbols that allowed him to command ships.”
“We were free.” He paused and drank a little soup. “I promised Ladria the truth. The Redstone Valley was a hard land, but they could live in it with me. Sheltered, protected, welcomed, safe... free. The only caveat- the only rule- was that they had to work just as hard as we did to survive.”
“To get from Westland to the Redstone, we had to cross Westland, cross the central Stormheim lands, then through Thorheim forest, and finally, come through our southern passes.” He looked down at his hands. “I snuck into Stormheim, dragged the king out of bed, and we had a conversation.”
He chuckled. “The stories say I dueled him.” He shook his head. “Stormheim was like us, once. A collection of Clans and Tribes of men. Eventually, they gave up their rituals and traditions and came together as one people, the Stormheim people. They built Stormheim, houses and buildings and churches and armies and ...” he shrugged.
“Eventually, the people of the Redstone will figure out how to do the same.”
“I don’t believe that one bit.” Sheilah spat hotly. “We aren’t at all like Stormheim.”
Davian looked up at the tent ceiling while her mothers avoided looking at her altogether.
“It’d be hilarious if-” he shook his head.
“Eventually, all the old grudges will be set aside. All the little politicking and honor codes and rites and things will disappear. Maybe there will be a pandemic and a clan will be lost. The remnants will be absorbed into another clan. Another clan will grow tired of being under the thumb of another clan, and they’ll ally with another clan. Over and over and over again, until there’s only one clan, the Redstone Clan. They will build cities and forget the totems.”
He sighed. “Hopefully I will be long dead when that happens.”
Ladria rubbed his back kindly at that.
“The Thunderbirds don’t like having to acknowledge the Dragons. The Mountain Cats hate the Timberwolves. On and on and on.” he let out a long sigh.
“I told the king that sooner or later, we will be like them. It may take decades, it may take centuries, but eventually, we will be like them. But we’re not ready yet. We need time to put aside our differences. We need time to struggle amongst ourselves. I asked for time. I asked for them to leave, and I asked for time. Time for us to decide who will lead that Redstone Clan. Time for us to build our own cities, create our own laws, build our own roads.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Since I quite literally had his life in my hands, he was more than happy to agree to leave the Redstone, and to give us the time we needed. To seal the deal... he gave me the fourth princess of the Stormheim; newly born as a hostage. She’d be raised ... for fourteen years, in the Valley.”
He paused. “Eventually, as per the agreement the men of Stormheim will come for her and she will leave the Redstone and return to Stormheim. When a princess or a noble turns sixteen, they have what’s known as a “social debut”. She’s announced to the people of Stormheim, and she can choose a husband, or ... do whatever.” he added, flapping his hand to show his complete lack of interest.
“Her mother, the Queen of Stormheim, gave her daughter this knife.” he flipped it up, and pointed the handle at her. “Since you have no ancestors here in the Redstone, I thought it best that you take it with you into the Ashlands to represent your family.”
He let the knife drop from his fingers when she refused to take it. “In about six months or so you’ll be escorted back home to Stormheim, where you will be taught how to act like a lady of Stormheim.”
Sheilah was stunned, shocked, numb beyond all measure. She couldn’t stop shaking.
“I knew that Ladria and Mayrin weren’t my mothers.” she tried to find her words, “but I’m not your daughter?”
His face went through a number of expressions. “I raised you as my daughter... I cared for you as if you were my daughter. I treated you as my daughter. I was as hard on you as I was Sellia and Kellia. I was as kind to you as I was my daughters.” He paused. “I’ve even thought of you as my daughter.” He gave her a sort of bleak half-smile; “I even thought of going to war with Stormheim so that I could keep you here as my daughter.” He wiped his eyes. “That was when Caidi died. I ... couldn’t countenance the thought of losing another child.” He paused. “I’m still willing to do it. As far as I’m concerned, you are my daughter, and I’ll kill anyone that says different.”
“...does anyone else know?” She whispered.
“Only the people in this room.” He replied. “I’d like to keep it that way.”
Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she was struggling to hold back a scream. The room washed in and out in shades of gray. She felt like sicking up.
“...and when I leave?” She whispered again. She was struggling to hold back her tears.
“You’ve completed your trial. You’re an adult now. You’re expected to do what everyone else in the Redstone does, but there’s no explicit rule that says you can’t just... leave.” He hesitated. “But you don’t have to leave. You... you can stay here. With us.”
Her fingers were wet; she looked down and saw blood running down her legs from digging her nails into them.
“I’m... I- I don’t belong here?” She gasped, hot tears splattering down her face.
“You absolutely belong here.” Davian objected. “You’ve always belonged here.”
She pushed herself to her feet and struggled into her dragonling armor, stuffing her dragonling knife in her waist, shouldering her bow and quiver.
She stepped out into the evening of the Dragon Terrace.
The Redstone was cold and quiet as night deepened. The Redstone captured and amplified the heat of the day; at night it cooled quickly to nearly freezing. The high walls of the Redstone brought night quickly and deeply to those that sheltered in its shadows.
The People of the Dragon Clan couldn’t fly, but they could run, and they had the stamina to keep running for a very long time. Sheilah had the heart and blood of a Tyrant Dragon, so when she ran, she ran quickly, and did not feel the need to stop until human exhaustion cut her down in her tracks.
Her legs stuttered, tangled together, and she fell, just barely bringing her arms up in time to shield her face. Still, she could feel one of the bones in her arm break on impact.
Her head was next, she tried to roll like she was taught, but as she spun up into the air her shoulder dislocated, and her whole body slapped down on the cold rock flooring of the Redstone.
Sheilah rolled over onto her back with a groan. One arm was broken, the other dislocated. Still, the Tyrant wouldn’t let something as trivial as a broken arm stop it from popping the other arm back in its socket. She took a few breaths as she tried to calm down.
Putting a shoulder back into place by yourself wasn’t hard to do, but the key points were to be relaxed and calm, both of which were beyond her. She laid back down on the cold ground and cried, cried until her face felt stiff with dried tears. After the tears stopped, she screamed, howling out her hurt and betrayal into the uncaring, pitiless Redstone.
Eventually she fell asleep.
When she woke up, her legs were cramped bars of metal, every muscle clenched so tight it was pure agony.
The pain made her hazy and dizzy; she pounded the knotted muscles in her thigh with a fist, demanding that they un-knot and behave like leg muscles. Eventually, begrudgingly, they seemed to uncramp, little by little. Once that was done, she went to do the same with her other arm and remembered it was dislocated.
She took a deep breath, carefully raised the arm over her head, and then reached down and touched the nape of her neck. Her bones seemed to strain at this, her muscles weak and rubbery, and her hand wouldn’t stop trembling. Slowly she moved her hand towards her opposite shoulder, and with a sickening feeling that was more felt than heard, her shoulder slid back into place.
She lay back on the ground, taking little puppy breaths as the pain disappeared. She was so focused on getting her shoulder back into place that she didn’t notice that her other leg had released its cramps on its own.
She eyed her arm, which was mottled with bruises along the break. “Some Tyrant you are. Can’t even fix a broken arm overnight.” She complained bitterly. “Even I was able to put my shoulder back together before I even killed a dragon. You’d think having a Tyrant roaming around in your body isn’t enough to heal your fucking arm.” She spat, berating herself.
Wait, where was she?
Further, where was her bow? Her quiver?
She started looking around herself and realized she hadn’t just taken a spill. The ground was covered in shreds and bits of her dragonhide coat. Apparently she’d hit the ground and slid, shredding it.
She stumbled as she walked; her legs had apparently put her on probation as she followed her backtrail. Her bow had fallen by the wayside, her arrows were strewn all over the place. She counted them as she tucked them into her quiver. She’d gone into the Ashlands with thirty arrows, arrowshafts made from dragonling bone, arrowheads made from filed dragonling teeth. She’d come back with seventeen.
She looked around herself. This looked like... she couldn’t tell what part of the Redstone she was in. It definitely wasn’t Dragon territory.
It didn’t matter.
She turned north and began walking.
Her neck itched; she reached back to scratch it and something dry and flaying came away with her hand. She stared at the powdery red stuff in her hand for a while before she realized it was dried blood. She probed her head and realized in a disinterested sort of way that the reason for her skull-splitting headache was because she’d split her scalp at some point.
It didn’t matter.
As she walked, it seemed at times someone was walking with her, sometimes a little ahead, sometimes a little behind. Whoever it was had a longer stride than her, was taller than her. She caught glimpses of him from time to time. His clothes were worn, but well-mended with care. His dragon-skin armor was well-broken in and hung from him comfortably. There was no way she could have made armor from a Tyrant’s hide. It was entirely too thick to work into any sort of wearable goods.
It didn’t matter.
At some point she thought she might’ve fallen asleep somehow and kept walking. It didn’t make sense, so she let it go. It didn’t matter.
A weathered hand, knotted with age but still possessing the strength of the Dragon reached past her, and touched a massive part of the Redstone that she was about to walk right into. She jolted abruptly as the man stepped around her- through her? - and began climbing.
Dragons liked high places. Everyone in the Redstone knew this. The Dragons knew this. Part of it was the dragon nature, both in the need to be as high up as possible and also to look down those that were beneath them. Part of it was cultural; the Dragons held the highest parts of the Redstone Canyons... with the exception of the Thunderbirds, who lived above the Redstone valley.
Sheilah blinked. The man- if there even was a man- was nowhere to be seen. She touched the Redstone, though, and it felt strangely cool to the touch. She rested her face against it briefly; her head was still hot, painful and it was difficult to concentrate. The cool of the stone seemed to help.
What was she doing here? Did it matter?
It mattered. She reached up, searching for fingerholds, pulling herself up, digging her dragon-hardened nails into the stone as she reached for another handhold.
This. This mattered.