Without consciously doing so, I felt freezing cold shoot from my chest into every limb and into my surroundings. I tore my eyes open to find myself encased in a cocoon of ice. My chair frozen to the floor, and I had little space to move, adding to the pounding war drum’s pace within my heart.
That thing was not real, no way. There was no way something like that still lived. There was no possible explanation for this other than magic insanity. I had gone mad from not sleeping and using too many draining spells. Yes, that had to be it, I was hallucinating from overusing my spells.
Each breath that I panted forth released a small cloud of fog. Every little noise that slipped through my shield of ice and base in my chest threatened to send me over the edge of control again. With great effort, I managed to move from the leather my clothes had frozen to in order to touch the glassy shell around me. And soon enough the coldness against my palm convinced my mind to slowly calm, though I did not dare to close my eyes for more than a blink. ‘What the fuck was that?’
I stared at the reflection of blue for minutes, though I felt no passage of time. Multiple times, I tried to remind myself to snap out of it, that hiding in an egg of ice was a terrible idea for many reasons. But it was like claws of fear had dug into my mind from every angle, forcing me to stay paralyzed in place.
And just as if called, one of those reasons knocked and then opened the door. I heard the armor clanking before he spoke, despite the muffling this barrier provided.
“Prince Haden!” He exclaimed as he entered. Then he just stood in the doorway, mouth probably left open in the middle of the sentence.
I shivered, despite feeling not a degree of difference. “Yuz,” I whispered, more reflexive than deliberate. Without the necessary focus, the spell fizzled before it could even start. “Yuz… Yu–” the word got stuck in my throat as I felt the magical backlash of failing a spell too many times. My vision split into two dark points in the middle of them was a single torch of white light. I felt torn from my body and into an endless void.
How I feared this darkness.
Half a second, a minute, or a day later, I awoke in my bed.
Slowly, I felt the light of the windows in my eyes again. Blinking a few times to dispel the white fog over my eyes, I found a shape sitting next to me., a familiar one.
Despite the feeling of frozen limbs, I immediately shot to a sitting position. “Calm, Prince. You’re not in danger,” the voice of Ser Fume broke through the barrier of fear that had been covering my senses.
My rapid breathing eventually slowed when I sunk back against my pillow. I stared at the black stone ceiling, not daring to close my eyes.
“What happened?” I could have asked the exact same thing as my protector.
“I don’t know,” I replied without much conviction.
I glanced to the side and found a shattered egg of ice where my chair used to be, shards beginning to melt on the floor and seep into the rugs. Ser Fume noticed my stare but chose to let me return to consciousness for a moment longer.
As much as I sometimes loathed his incessant devotion to my father, he was my guardian, the one person assigned to watch over me until my or his death. And right now, I had very few people I could rely on to stay at my side. Though I was certainly not delusional enough to believe his loyalty to me was greater than that he held to my father.
For just a moment, I contemplated telling him, telling him everything. The dragon or I suppose now, dragons, my conversations with Alebstra, and my own power. Then again, that last one might no longer be a secret anymore.
“What spell was that?” He gestured to the broken cocoon.
“Something that shouldn’t have happened,” I played it off to the best of my abilities.
He just stared for a few seconds in which my heart began beating faster and faster once more. “I don’t know what kind of spell can create such constructs from ice. Elemental magic is…” I already knew what he wanted to say, “uncommon.” He chose the least incriminating and therefore least accurate word.
In truth, elemental magic was reserved for druids and certain, very old and very forbidden rituals. Not everywhere, of course, Siirland had many elementalists, same as the woodlands of Gurn. But in Vorresh, let alone the capital, this magic was outlawed and persecuted on the King’s own order. Although I obviously had never prodded the subject with my father before, I was all too certain he would exile or execute me for using something even similar to elemental magic – I also doubted he cared whether it was something entirely different.
“What will you do?” I asked carefully, noting that the door to my chamber was closed.
The knight leaned back in his chair, shooting glances between me and the chair. “I suppose that depends on the answer to my previous question.” He lifted his head, displaying a posture that I had never seen before, one of knowing authority. “What happened?”
This change in demeanor took me aback, suddenly, this man who’d been subservient to me for two decades, was questioning me like a father would scold his child. How dare he talk down to me? “I said that I don’t know,” I insisted with a tone that betrayed my dissatisfaction.
His expression didn’t change, upsetting me even more. After a moment in which I locked eyes with him, the old man sighed. “Then I must do my duty and bring you to my King.”
The tension in the room turned from dense to dark and cold. ‘I can’t let him,’ I thought, though how I would stop him was not yet planned. He rose from his seat, I stood from my bed. He was still a head taller than me, armored in heavy plate.
“Stop, I command you,” I put as much authority into my voice as possible, but the unfazed visage of Fume looked straight through the thin facade.
“I’m sorry, Prince, but I cannot take that order given the circumstance.” He didn’t look particularly remorseful.
I stared at him when he turned, clenching my fist while he walked to the door. “It wasn’t a spell.”
Ser Fume stopped, turning his head toward the melting pile, then to me. “Then what is it?” I understood the connotation of his tone, this was the final chance he would grant me.
“It’s something in my blood, something attached to my magi but separate from it. I have very little idea where it came from but I’ve been able to use cryomancy since I was seventeen.” Somehow, it felt freeing to reveal this information, despite the nagging voice telling me that it was a terrible idea. But at this point, I had no other choice than to try to settle things quietly.
He took in the information silently, though I saw no shifting that would indicate he was going to bolt out of the door. “If you’ve had this for six years, then why do this?” He motioned to my chair.
I cursed internally. My faint hope that I could redirect the subject to something other than the reason for my outburst floated away like dust in the wind. “I panicked. I tried to cast a spell and didn’t contain the backlash, I reacted without thinking.” Growing up in court, I was confident in my lie.
“What could have startled someone into displaying his secrets?” He theorized, driving toward the answer he might already suspect.
“Something I must discuss with the Silver wizard,” I deflected.
He tilted his head to the side. “Haden, you are not making a great case here.”
I felt something in my chest beginning to rise, flowing through my veins and toward my fingers. “And you would tell my father? You’ve seen him react to druids at his gate, you were there with me when he set bounties on elementalists within his realm. And you think he would help?” I scoffed.
“I’m still here, aren’t I? No, I think you would not fare well if I told the King, even if it isn’t elemental magic.” Ser Fume placed a hand on the back support of the chair, then his expression turned dark. “I have a proposition for you, Haden.”
Something in his tone struck a nerve that I was not used to, putting adrenaline into my bloodstream next to the creeping cold. And even if he wasn’t saying it, he was surely aware that my father would grant him anything he wished for if he exposed his failure of a son as one of the elementalist he hated so much.
“I won’t say anything about this little incident and in turn, I get a favor,” he said nonchalantly, but I understood the weight of his ask.
“A favor? That is very vague,” I noted.
“Indeed. But I am not mistaken in the assumption that you understand the game we are now both playing, am I?” He raised an eyebrow.
The game that is played in any institution but especially at the high court is one about position and allies, lies and deception, schemes and subterfuge. I doubted that any of the keep’s inhabitants were unaware, though most played their cards very close to the chest. On certain occasions, Ser Fume had been conversing with some other noble family, though he had nothing to offer since he was forbidden from marriage. This was a move he must have been waiting for for a long time.
“A favor for a secret,” I pretended to contemplate, we both knew I had no real choice in the matter. “I will remember your… discretion.”
Once again, I hoped his face would display some emotion, something I could grasp at to gain leverage. But his visage was as solid as the sword at his hip. “That will be all, then, my Prince.” He turned to exit the room but stopped at the door. “Don’t take it the wrong way, Haden. I and many others have hope that you will be a far more just ruler. But until the day comes that you sit on that throne, someone needs to watch over you.”
If the previous conversation hadn’t happened, I may have felt some sort of comfort. But all I heard from my protector was the obvious threat hidden beneath his words.
“Also, you should head down as soon as you are cleaned up, the wizard has arrived.” He shut the door behind me.
I stood in the middle of the room for a moment longer, processing the shift in dynamics. I turned to the creation of ice and placed a palm on it, focusing on the cold within my arm until I felt the ice give. It turned malleable and soft, I pushed further until it had turned into a puddle on the floor.
After putting on an identical set of clothing, I shoved my wet doublet into the laundry basket and headed downstairs. I noted that Ser Fume was not waiting at my door, unlike usual. But in secret, I thanked the Gods that I could avoid the man for at least the rest of the day.
The midday sun peeked through each of the stained glass windows, coloring the hallways in rainbow shades. Servants rushed around, I told one of them to clean my room. “Right away,” she responded after a curtsy.
Right as I rounded a corner, I heard the ringing of the bells from the spire above. Within only the first few rings, the otherwise quiet and sleepy castle churned to life. Men and women, elves and dwarves of decorated attire emerged from their rooms, servants cleared out of the halls to make room, and guards ensured that no one was pushing another.
Arriving at the bottom of a wide staircase, I already saw the gathered court. The main hall of the Blackspire keep climbed as tall as the walls separating the many districts, pillars of woven stone supporting a ceiling upon which murals of conquest portrayed the rebellion my family had cut down – more specifically Hartern the Mighty and his army. The ladies and lords of the keep filled the chamber’s sides and balconies, leaving the middle open for the truly important.
I was escorted by a pair of guards, making my way through the crowd and toward the throne.
The King’s seat, much like the many spires of black stone, looked to be a part of the ground itself. Smooth and reflective, yet it swallowed light like the night itself. The outside corners looked sharp, the backrest fused into the wall behind, and its position allowed the man atop it to overlook the entire hall.
And currently, the owner of this seat was leaning forward onto the armrests, his long, black sleeves hanging down low. His white hair pulled into a braid to stop it from hanging over his forehead, brown eyes unlike my blue ones, missing most of his left ear, and a bright pink burn mark over his mouth and down his neck. Built like the warrior that our family seemed to produce, he fit into the wide seat perfectly. With a crown made from obsidian, lined at the tip of four spikes with rubies, he looked very much like the powerful King the common Folk believed he was.
No one would think that beneath his robes, you could see his ribs and many, many old wounds that at some point had taken on a foul, purple color. Perhaps if you were allowed as close to the man as my seat was, you could make out the skeletal features and awkward posture. The King, the usurper’s grandson, was a frail, old, tired man.
Still, an enchanted necklace around his neck allowed his voice to travel through the entire hall. “I welcome you, wizard of the silver coast,” he proclaimed, gesturing to the tall half-draconic man standing in the rift between nobles. His green scales and silver robes looked out of place, not simply because he was almost a meter taller than anyone around him.
While walking between the crowd, I spotted someone else, almost hidden behind the wizard’s large frame. Alebstra bowed, supporting himself on a large staff made from fire-cured greattree wood. The man behind him, however, was the center of my attention when I took a seat behind my father.
Dark brown or black hair, hard to tell from this distance, a thick leather pourpoint with a deep color clearly not designed for the warm climate he found himself in. Wearing a massive backpack with too many pouches to count and carving daggers at his belt, I recognized the dragonslayer on description alone. I had seen him before, maybe two years ago, but he looked different than back then.
“I am honored to be greeted this way, my King. Though I will not be taking your time for more than necessary,” Alebstra spoke back, unassisted by magic but still loud enough to be heard.
This, my father did not take well. Even without seeing his face, the way his posture changed into something confrontational, I knew the wizard had somehow offended the old King. “Oh? You will not be staying for the harvest’s end festival? Then what are you here for?” He exclaimed, emboldened by his will to challenge the draconic.
Alebstra locked his green eyes with mine. “I have come to collaborate with your court wizard, Siestra. I would have done so without the use of teleportation, but our dear dragonslayer requested my aid in travel,” he motioned to the man behind him.
He flinched as if he’d been a cat that was suddenly unveiled in front of a room of dogs. But, much to his visible relief, my father went back to the wizard. “You have come to my court… Because you were asked to ferry someone?” He scoffed and the room chuckled alongside him, not that anyone found it particularly clever.
Alebstra’s face was hard to read, without skin to wrinkle, he only pulled up the scaled protrusions one might believe his brow to be. “I… suppose that is correct, my King.” Though he consciously kept his mouth closed, he smiled.
Horra burst out in laughter a second after and the entire hall chimed in, even the wizard went along with it. He took a big gulp from his decorated cup, wine by the smell of it. I, however, was silent. I was busy looking at the dragonslayer, who was staring at me unblinking.
‘Who do you think you are?’ I tilted my head to the side.
“And you, dragon killer,” the King shouted and the room went silent in a split second. “Step forth,” he commanded.
As ordered, he walked a few steps toward us, finally averting his eyes from me and shifting them to the ground. “I have slain the quarry, my King, the beast won’t bother the finger mountains anymore.” He was about my age, maybe a year younger, but he looked like a man thrice his age. Scars and cuts made his face a strange mess from a distance and his body was as wide as the draconic next to him, though he was perhaps a little stocky in height.
Horra Blackspire looked to his left, then his right, and finally back down to the pair. “And where is your bounty, then? What proof have you brought of your deeds?”
I almost spoke out then and there, but the scarred man replied faster. “I have given over the harvest of that carcass to the Silver wizard, as he had requested. I was not traveling with the means to transport the entire wyrm, regrettably.” I certainly heard the waver in his voice, though my father either ignored or didn’t notice it.
Instead, he focused on trivia. “A wyrm? I believe I set a bounty for a wyvern, did I not?”
“You did, my King. The reports, however, were false. Though I do not have a reason to suspect this was purposeful, as the difference is not common knowledge,” he added quickly.
“Of course, the common folk find something flying and have no idea what they actually saw,” Horra concluded. But I knew that none of the lords or ladies present here knew that there were different types, and from the way many stared at Alebstra I doubted that most had even seen a draconic being before. “But I do not see it fit those materials collected are not distributed to your King. I hereby enforce a tax on draconic leftovers, to be delivered to the Black wizard of my court.”
Some people gasped, others applauded, but the two in question looked displeased. The dragonslayer may have said something in protest, but his wizard companion stepped forward once more and proclaimed, “Then that is what I shall do. I will share whatever your sorceress might require.” I suspected he didn’t intend to share any of his bounty, considering he was certainly not here to see Siestra.
“Excellent! This court is adjourned and you may return to your duties. Grace be,” my father concluded with a hand gesture to rise. Everyone who wasn’t already standing followed the sign, the pair in the middle bowed, only I didn’t react. My throne was not a throne, just a fancy chair that someone had dragged in to be at the King’s side. A little further back, my little brother stood from his chair and followed our mother back toward his chamber. Poor little guy probably had no idea why he was dragged out here in the first place. My mother, Ireen, shot me a glance, one filled with questions I had no desire to answer.
However, when my father turned and saw me still sitting, his expression darkened in a very familiar tone. This look that he gave, where all of the emotion was drained from him, once scared me. When I was a little boy, like Hurrsa, I always began shivering when he looked at me like that. It meant he perceived I was doing something wrong and wrong in the eyes of not only your father but also the King was nothing short of petrifying.
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But now? Now it was the look of a spiteful man, a weak King, and a terrible father. He no longer scared me with his sunken eyes or gaunt features, neither did his question. “Where's your guard, boy? ”
“He has business to attend to,” I dismissed.
At my nonchalant tone, he tilted his head, clearly hating every second in which his authority was challenged. But I had long foregone any sense of shame he tried to impose on me. “I have to attend Siestra.” I rose from my seat, making sure my posture was as straight as possible. “Father,” I gave the slightest of nods and turned.
And just like so many times before, I saw him wind up to retaliate verbally, only to reconsider and shake his head. If we had been in private, perhaps he would have scolded me, told me how I dishonored the family legacy, how I should respect my elders for their wisdom and experience. But that was just it, we weren’t alone. Hundreds were watching and listening, I saw their perked ears and attentive eyes. And my father did, too, despite his age. He knew better than to expose this weakness to the folk.
I was still the heir, the only one with a reputable claim, and the only way the family would remain the dominant reign of Vorresh. Unless of course he had some reason to get rid of me officially – say for example me using an outlawed form of magic.
I kept a fast pace, knowing that the man couldn’t keep up even if he tried. Making my way to the Black wizard’s tower.
When I reached the second floor, I stopped in the middle of the hallway and waited. After a minute or so, I heard the end of a conversation, recognizing the voice of Alebstra.
“... harvest end’s festival. Also, let me introduce you before you speak, Siesta can be a little… extravagant.” He stopped whatever other word he would have said upon noticing me. I leaned against a wall that I pushed off of when the draconic arrived. But my eyes narrowed when I spotted the dragonslayer walking up next to the Silver wizard.
And once more, just like in the chamber below, he went wide-eyed. “Haden,” Alebstra greeted me with an outstretched hand. I ignored the man at his side and let his massive hand clasp around mine.
“Alebstra, I hope you are well,” I did the courtesy of greeting him formally, mostly because of the pair of lords that walked past. I then said more quietly, “I didn’t think we would have company for this,” I motioned to the weary, staring common-born.
“We should discuss this at a different place.” Alebstra began walking and so did the dragon killer. I tilted my head to the side. “I thought we should do just that in my chambers,” I suggested adamantly.
“There is no better place than a wizard’s tower,” Alebstra dismissed. I shot him a deeply displeased and uneasy glare, motioning to the man behind him. Not only would Siestra now be fully involved in my discussion with the half-draconic, but bringing another person in here, someone clearly subservient to my father, was dangerous. I had to keep my guard up.
“Who do you think you are?” I asked out of reflex.
“My name is Able,” he replied without any inclination of respect. We locked gazes for a moment, I felt something in my chest, a cold sensation that was all too familiar. But before I could continue my inquisition, Alebstra glanced over his shoulder and motioned Able and me to follow.
The two reached the enchanted door before I did. Alebstra knocked against the wood without making a sound. The door opened on its own and he stepped in confidently. Able looked at me again with those brown-yellowish eyes and followed.
I debated if this was perhaps not a wise choice. But I had already set too many things in motion by summoning Alebstra here, I had no choice but to continue.
I stepped through the threshold with clenched teeth, space stretched and breath exited my lungs forcefully. The door shut behind me, ending the transitioning effect.
“Ah, Haden, you are joining us?” Siestra greeted. I didn’t reply to her farce, not that she expected me to, already rearranging the tower’s configuration to seat her guests.
“Tea?” She offered as a kettle floated by.
“Gladly,” Alebstra smiled fully, showing his fangs that he otherwise hid. He took one of the comparatively tiny cups in his four-fingered hand and watched in delight as the warm tea poured itself.
Able refused and I wasn’t offered any, Siestra knowing I wasn’t a fan of the brew. The wizards took their seats opposite of one another alongside a long oakwood table with intricate burn marks serving as decoration. But Able didn’t sit, choosing instead to once again stare me down.
I grabbed a seat but didn’t sit, then I decided to confront the insolent slayer. “Is there a problem? Something on my face?”
He seemingly snapped out of a trance but didn’t look like he even considered making a reply. Instead, he pulled his chair back and sat down. I stared confused. I turned to look at the two wizards but neither paid mind to his insults. “Why is he in here?” I asked Alebstra, beginning to let my frustrations seep into my tone.
“You will find that he has something to add to this conversation,” the draconic explained as if it should have been common knowledge.
Not making any headway, I chose to settle and sat down opposite Able. For a few excruciating moments, all that was heard was Alebstra slowly sipping his tea. My fingers began to bounce on the table.
Finally, the Silver wizard spoke. “I have disturbing news.” He looked around the room for a moment, then pulled a small, green crystal. He lifted it above his head and carved a familiar rune in the air while speaking Mükty. The muffling of sound took effect, making my beating heart and racing thoughts seem a lot louder in comparison.
“Able, I think you should start with what you have learned,” he motioned to the dragonslayer.
For a moment, the man seemed lost in thought. But he snapped back to life upon hearing his name.
“The reports of a wyvern in the finger mountains were false. The reason no one had been able to kill it before is that it was a wyrm. An ice wyrm to be specific. I tracked it to a remote cave somewhere along the southern ridge, where it seemed to have began building a nest.” He paused for a second and gave me a critical gaze, seemingly unsure if he should continue.
Alebstra noticed this and assured him, “Haden here has requested certain insights into my draconic research. Everyone in this room reports to no one what they hear here. Haden, that goes for you, too.” He gave me a stern look.
“As some of you are aware,” he looked at me again, “wyrms are what happens when a male wyvern and a female dragon copulate. It has happened in the past century maybe three or four times. The problem being that this wasn’t a juvenile that some villagers managed to slay and cut apart. This was almost fully grown and able to use its parent’s breath multiple times without consequence.”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat upon hearing white dragon, the creature that had visited me in my dreams flashing across my mind.
“How is that possible? Everything I’ve heard about drakes and wyrms is that they are utterly insane, not capable of rational or planning,” Siestra chimed in, leaning on her elbows with an intense expression.
Able looked at the Black wizard with an expression I could only define as relief. “Exactly. They are like animals given the intelligence of something so far above what it could understand that their mind breaks at birth. Something like this, a wyrm that managed to live for more than a decade, would be disturbing enough…” He went silent again. I began to grow tired of his dramatic storytelling, even if I had no previous knowledge of this.
“But it spoke.”
If the spell hadn’t silenced the room, this sentence would have.
“What?” Siestra finally broke the standstill. I would have exclaimed something similar, though luckily I thought better of it, doubting that I would be able to contain the revelation that had just occurred in my head.
Able looked at his hands and continued in a low voice as if the words themselves were a deadly spell. “I have no idea what it said or even if it spoke words. But there were certain moments in which it showed intelligence on par with a person. And a word it kept repeating.”
“What word?” I spoke out, the form of the dragon – the ice dragon – forming in my mind’s eye again.
Able looked at me like I had just pulled a dagger and declared to slit his throat. “Something that sounded like a name, if it were made from the cracking of stone and howling of wind. Thrinuur,” he imitated, though he was obviously not confident in his pronunciation.
At that moment, the gravelly, deep, rumbling voice echoed in my head, ‘Gorrua, Fìnu.’ Some part of me wanted to stand up from that table and reveal all I had, tell them about my visions of a white dragon and today’s interruption of that red monster. But the years had trained me to keep my cards hidden until I saw the right moment. And this was not it.
Alebstra finally rumbled forth, adding, “With only the sounds as a guide, I have little hope to find a translation to any of it. I’ve looked for a while for some draconic cipher,” he glanced to me for a short moment. “However, Haden here has an idea.”
Suddenly, all of the eyes were on me. And I knew it was my turn to reveal some of my hand. I cleared my throat, “I have hope that, with enough words that I could compare to words or concepts, I could begin to produce translations for certain phrases.”
I spotted Siestra chewing on her lip from my peripheral, she was making connections quickly, a quality that I both admired and knew the danger of.
“Speaking of,” Alebstra noted and waved his hand over the table. “Poûrjet.” In a small flash of blue-white, the leather cover of an old, massive book appeared. My eyes went wide, finally seeing it in person. The pages were yellow and crumpled at the edges, the leather had dried to a shriveled lump and the engravings on the cover looked like they had been carved with a crude knife a dozen centuries ago. If it hadn’t been in a magical stash, maybe it would have turned to dust at the slightest touch.
The entire table began to lean over, trying to get a better look. “This is the only book I have been able to procure that claims to be from before the Age of Ashes and written in a dragon’s own tongue.”
“Where did you get this from?” Siestra asked, caution in her voice overshadowing her curiosity.
“Pelius, from the library of the Dune King himself,” perhaps he was proud of it, but the intensity in his tone betrayed that it was far from a legal acquirement.
“Why did you get a book that you knew you couldn’t read?” I asked, releasing this burning question that I had been thinking about ever since the Silver wizard revealed he had it.
“From the source that I was handed this, it is a history book dictated by a dragon to a scribe who spoke their language.” He righted his posture to give his next sentence more dignity. “As someone with a lineage of half-draconics, I am personally invested to find out how draconic blood got into my ancestor’s veins. And with the very limited records of the time when that could have been possible, I have been looking for anything for decades.”
“How do you even know it is draconic?” Able raised the question. Valid, if it weren’t this specific circumstance.
“Because spells that translate foreign languages fail,” Alebstra answered. “I’ve tried arcana, elvish enchantment, druica, and half a dozen rituals for Akor.”
“So what do you want with this?” Able addressed me. Strange that he mistrusted me more than the powerful wizards next to him.
“If it is a storybook, it might correlate with certain accounts, maybe names, or places, spells even. If I can just figure out a single word, I can take the spelling and apply it to others until I have a sentence. With sentence structure, I can infer context, with context…” I stopped, realizing I was beginning to get too close to the true reason I needed this translation.
“Why do you have interest in this?” Again, that common-born interjected, his gaze becoming more curious by the second.
“Why should I tell you? You just kill those animals, why do you care what they talk about?” I turned the question around.
“Because what I am trying to learn about wasn’t an animal.” His voice became a whisper and his eyes darkened. “Do you know why they call me dragonslayer?”
Before I could gather my thoughts, Siestra, then Alebstra immediately after, raised their head toward the door. A moment later, the sound of bells made its way through the door and past the muffle spell. Bells rang in a pattern of three, making me and Siestra shoot up from our seats. ‘An attack?’
I rushed out of the door, and the rest of the room followed closely behind. When I tore the door open and stepped out, the sound of people running, yelling, and screaming. The discrepancy of space barely affected me thanks to adrenaline and I ran out into the hallway.
I looked out of the windows and found a scene I could never have imagined.
The massive walls had been scaled by a creature the size of a whale. Holding itself on four legs, it was in the process of tearing the mounted ballista to shreds, snapping its jaws around a guard’s torso, and biting him in two pieces, spitting the crumpled piece of armor down the height of the wall. Bright red scales mixed with yellow around a long neck, frills lined the beast’s back all the way to the tail which itself sported a halbert-like end. Talons the length of spears dug into the black stone like it was sand, muscles bulged beneath its armored scales, and a ballista bolt stuck out of its hindleg but it seemed completely unbothered.
I stared with an open mouth until the monster jumped the distance between the wall and the castle, even without any wings. The entire structure rumbled like the volcano beneath it had erupted, then, suddenly, an eye appeared in the window. It was as large as a doorway, bright orange with a black slit that narrowed into a thin point upon finding me. I stumbled backward, unable to grasp the concept that a second draconic beast had seemingly appeared from nowhere. I was only meters from it, allowing me to see the tip of its nose expanding and hear it sniff the air.
“Gorrua,” the sound shook me to my very essence, so familiar and yet no less terrifying. My heart beat so fast that I feared it might explode from my chest, just like that cold sensation that roared within me. But before I decided what I could possibly do against such a monster, a clawed wing smashed through the wall like it was nothing but a child’s toy.
I scrambled on the ground but before I could realize what happening, I heard it inhale deeply. “Boór-Sactu!” Came the voice of my rescue.
For a tiny moment, the entire world around me collapsed into an inferno. Blue flame that turned into blinding orange emerged from the climbing beast’s throat, threatening to encompass the entire hallway. But the flames were halted where the wall used to be, smashing against an invisible barrier and instead climbing up toward the spires around the castle.
Siestra had her staff up, pointed toward the wall of fire. Alebstra and Able rushed out behind her, both already on edge and looking ready for a fight. But I was laying on the ground, covered in debris from the wall, scrambling to get to my feet.
“A wyvern?” Alebstra yelled, his voice barely reaching through the sound of the incendiary flow only meters from us. Despite the barrier the Black wizard had put up, the heat began to creep through the stone, which itself glowed more and more, the parts nearest to the beast already turning into a viscous flow.
I stammered as loudly as my cracking voice would allow, “D–drake!” I yelled out and pointed to the outside.
Able’s eyes went wide. “I don’t have a weapon,” he quickly turned to the wizards. Alebstra reacted fast and performed his stash spell again, this time producing a sword with a golden-silver hilt. If I hadn’t been fighting to not run for my life, I may have had time to admire the craftwork that went into this magical weapon. But Able simply grabbed it and lined up behind Siestra. “Don’t lose it,” Alebstra commented, showing concern for his sword.
“When it stops, let go of the barrier and get to somewhere low to the ground,” he commanded with an authority that no one really held to a wizard of her status.
But regardless of who was in charge, when the blinding volley of fire ceased, Siestra turned and grabbed me by the arm. I didn’t see where he went or how he was planning to fight these things, but Able jumped through the hole in the wall without a second thought. “Come, Prince,” I was ushered by my court’s sorceress while Alebstra stayed in the tower and began casting a spell.
We made haste through the tight corridors, where eventually we ran past the guard’s barracks. Men put on their armor and grabbed their weapons, but all I could think of was that they were all about to die.
“Fume, get over here!” Siestra yelled, her voice echoing off the walls. I looked past the crowd and saw the man in his armor.
He rushed over, muscling past the guards until he reached us. “Protect the Prince, get him into the cellar.” Before my protector even got to me, Siestra had merged into the running group of men, chanting a spell of fortification.
“Follow me,” Ser Fume commanded, though I had not the will to even consider protest. He grabbed me by the wrist and pushed me down the nearest downward stairwell as fast as we could run.
We sprinted down the stairs, sometimes stumbling but always moving forward. “What is going on?” I yelled amidst the sound of men screaming in agony above.
A roar, the falling of something extremely heavy, and the cracking of stone filled my ears with too much noise to make out if Ser Fume had replied.
Finally, the narrow stairwell opened up into the rafters of the main hall. Here, lords and ladies had gathered, some with their personal guards, others wounded or burned. The massive doors to the keep had been shut, making the only indication of the battle outside bursts of bright flame next to the windows and beneath the door. The beasts outside roared, silencing the screaming crowd for just a moment before their sounds of terror emerged again.
I couldn’t blame them, especially not when the doors made from fire-cured deep wood and metal suddenly bent inward in the middle. The sound of something smashing cracked louder than the wood splintering. And through that splinter peeked a deep crimson-colored eye.
Ser Fume and I were in the middle of descending another staircase, with the ultimate goal of the small door next to the throne, when whatever monster was outside slammed itself against the door again. This time, the massive metal bar bent in a way that something of that size really shouldn’t. The crack in the wood became even wider and through it came a monstrous clawed forearm.
It reached through the created space and grabbed the metal blocking the door. My heart sunk, just like presumably everyone else witnessing death itself slowly pulling the bar up until it no longer blocked the door. With nothing more to hold it, the drake burst into the room.
The hall was big enough to make out the sheer scale of the monster that smashed the initial attackers into red paste. Like a cat swiping at ants, it cleared the room of life starting from the door. Humans in their armor or in their cloth were all sliced to pieces by its claws or flung thirty meters against a wall where they stuck for a moment before their lumpy mess fell to the floor and onto others.
The screams became one incomprehensible sound, its echo reflecting from the walls a thousandfold. Then it inhaled.
“Cover!” Someone yelled, but it was too late for the hundreds of people gathered in the hall. Ser Fume shoved me into a closet and, just as the wave of orange filled the entire hall like an ocean of fire, pulled the door shut.
The wood was no match for the heat of the flames and burst into a bright light only a second after. Ser Fume stumbled to the ground with a groan of pain, his back being scorched. The smell of burning flesh and hair filled my nose. The screams outside were incomparable to anything I had heard before.
Until it was all so silent. Hundreds of people, screaming in agony had succumbed to their fiery death.
Then I heard footfalls, though they sounded much more like a mountain rumbling. At first, they were far away and muffled by the continuously burning door, which began to fall apart. But then the next set was closer, then even more. Until I heard something sniffing the air.
“Fííííííínuuuuuu,” if a howling wind could sing, this was its song.
The door was ripped from its hinges as if it weighed nothing and thrown across the room. And the small glimpse I had of the throne room almost sent my last meal back out of my mouth. But it was quickly blocked by a sideways head as large as the door.
Part of me hoped it simply couldn’t fit in the closet, but then it reached a four-fingered claw inside. It scraped the walls, leaving deep grooves in the stone and creating sparks that illuminated the small space in which we were trapped.
I lay there, pressed against the wall as if I could merge with it to escape. Unable to move forward and no other way, I just stayed petrified. Ser Fume at least managed to stab at it but given that his sword was about the size of one of its talons, the damage was not noticeable, maybe tearing off a scale in his slashes.
In a manner that I never believed possible we were both gently plucked from the ground in a palm the size of our bodies. Fume struggled against the grasp, earning us both a squeeze that bent his armor inward and cracked my ribs.
The drake held us out in the open, slowly pulling us closer to its head. The room was filled with bodies, or the remnants thereof. The tapestries burned, embers floated in the air, and the stench made me vomit over the hand that was holding us. “Koshgròw Pùul,” It opened its mouth and the edges of its mouth moved, it was clearly speaking – not that I was particularly concerned with the implications of that.
All I knew was that I was about to die. Whether that be in its jaw, smashed to jam in its grasp, or burned into ash.
But there was something within me that wouldn’t allow that. Something that had much more fight than I and it knew I wouldn’t act on my own.
It started in my chest, then it traveled into my arms and legs, and finally, I felt it burst from my body in a flash of white. Spikes made from white-blue ice shot out from every part of my body, managing to pierce into the drake’s palm and fingers. But also my own protector, stabbing through his armor and out of his chest. He made a gurgling sound but I barely had time to process his injury until we were both flung at speeds I could only compare to a catapult.
I would have smashed into the wall, were it not for the next explosion of frost at my back, that created several meters of thick ice between me and the wall. The impact still knocked the air from my lungs and dazed me when I tried to get up from the floor. Through my blurry eyesight, I saw the drake thrashing around, then breathing fire on its own hand to rid itself of the massive spikes that impaled it.
I looked to my left and saw Fume, lying on his back, liters of blood gushing forth from a hole in his chest and spurting from his mouth in choked attempts at breathing. Without time to consider my options, the drake stormed at me again, mouth wide open, displaying the teeth I’d be sliced apart by in a moment.
I stared like a deer seeing a hunter’s drawn-back bow, watching in slowed time as death rushed at me feverishly.
But a bright red burst of fire slammed into the beast’s head from the side, sending it off-course and into a pillar. The black stone collapsed and the drake was buried in the debris for a moment.
I glanced at where the ball of flame had come from and found a broken window. And on that broken frame stood Able, sword in one and the other outstretched. His pourpoint had melted and part of his sleeve was on fire but he didn’t seem to care. Instead, he jumped ten or so meters from the window.
But instead of casting a spell to slow his descent, he put his left hand toward the ground, and out of nowhere a stream of red shot out of his palm, creating enough force for him to land safely amidst the circle of fire he must have created.
He spotted me and Fume at the end of the hall, then turned his attention back to the drake, who flung parts of the pillars off of itself and at its new attacker. Able ran toward it and when the massive chunk of black stone would have bisected him, he slid on his knees beneath it and continued an unrelenting sprint. “Run!” The man yelled.
When I didn’t react, he turned to me with an expression so intense I felt it within my essence. “I said fucking run!”