My foot healed quickly enough, thanks to the Diligent. Magic that relied on the will and connection to the ethereal beings some call Gods was not commonly practiced in Vorresh. Here, arcane magic was the prevalent force and widespread belief. Not that the two really differed when I think about it.
These claimed Gods were simply beings from many ages past who had bound themselves to aspects of the world, that included those of the arcane.
Artus, for example, was quite literally a God of runes. Many practitioners would place his symbol in their carvings. Whether it actually did something or not wasn’t provable. But upon Markus invoking the name of “Haschkyy, “ followed by a whispered plea in Celestial, íjiihoro Maq,” one to repair my body, I felt and saw the work that only this type of magic could conjure.
Arcane magic pulled ethereal aspects into the physical, like force, influence upon the mind, and even the altering of physical reality. Elvish enchantments altered the psychical itself by calling upon certain ethereal aspects they discovered millennia ago. But diligent magics were purely of the ethereal. They could make changes to the ethereal in various ways, which then in turn manifested in the physical.
So my foot didn’t really heal, it altered itself to fit the shape my ethereal essence commanded it to become.
And druid magic? Don’t even get me started on those tree worshippers. Doing nothing but growing plants and smoking their herbs in their Greattree houses. More like huts.
After I was fixed up, Markus turned to the dragonslayer. The man was bleeding from enough places that I was unsure how he wasn’t paler. Bruises showed internal damage on his arms and stomach, yet he clutched the blade tight.
It took Alebstra stepping to him and placing his scaled hand over the pommel, gently pulling it from Able’s grasp. He seemed petrified, standing ghostly still or walking with a transfixed posture. His eyes were wide and his otherwise dark brown eyes seemed to flare red occasionally. All he did was stare, stare at me.
In any other circumstance, I would have asked him what his problem was, but the events of the day had led me to worry my mind about other problems.
‘Where did those monsters come from? What was that thing in the tunnels? And what was the pendant in my hand?’ I clutched the metal piece tightly, refusing to show it to anyone. And while it ate at me to look already, I would wait to be alone before staring at the blood-crusted symbol.
A rose, thorns weaved around it like they were forming a lattice-work cage. I had never seen it before but it looked like heradly, a banner for a royal house perhaps.
At least I had believed I was alone for a second, just outside the ruined halls of the castle. Just soon after I had caught a glimpse of the pendant, I noticed Able coming around the corner.
His clothes were still mostly burned, though the fact that his skin wasn’t bubbling from heat or scorched black as coal reminded me of what I saw.
“We need to talk,” he spoke first.
I stared at him, confused for a second. The way he addressed me wasn’t with the usual grace one should address their prince with. But I decided to ignore this slight, for now.
“Yes, I suppose I have you to thank for my life. “I saw he wanted to interrupt, so I didn’t let him. “But I have a question. How do you wield elemental magic like that?”
This made him pause. But not for long, he quickly retaliated with, “I could ask you the same thing. Only difference is that I might have an answer.”
While I tried to hide the lightning bolt that just zapped my thoughts, it was clearly not past him to see.
“I’ve felt it since arriving here. You are like me, aren’t you? You… feel it in your chest, that power within you, the thing in your blood.” He whispered, afraid of anyone who’d hear us.
And just as he mentioned it, the cold within me flared up as if to spell the answer out to me. It pulled, urging me toward Able.
I took a step forward and put myself to his side, speaking without looking at him. “What do you know about me?”
“Nothing yet, my Prince. But I know that drake called you the same name they’ve been throwing at me. I think we’re being hunted,” his tenor grew dark, highlighting the implication of his words.
I turned to see him looking at me. Before I could respond, his eyes flicked to something behind me and I thought better of it. Markus approached, alongside Siestra. The woman looked rougher than I had seen her before, her hair unkempt and strewn about, a trail of dried, bright elven blood on her forehead, and an exposed part of her tunic at her leg.
Markus was uninjured, or perhaps already healed. He moved with grace and purpose as if we hadn’t been attacked not but an hour ago. “Prince Haden, your father requests your presence in his chambers.” He then turned to Able. “You, too, Midgar.”
I furrowed my brow and Able had a similarly perplexed expression. Seeing the King in his chambers was nothing out of the ordinary for me, his heir, but the dragonslayer was far from the right nobility to even enter that part of the castle. Especially looking like this.
Siestra noticed my apprehension and quickly added, “You will be escorted by me and his royal guards. Able, I hope you don’t mind if we ask you to change your attire.” Her demeanor seemed friendly enough, but I knew better than to judge how she presented herself with anything but skepticism.
“Of course,” Able said humbly. He was led off by Siestra while I followed Markus toward the castle.
Crossing the courtyard would usually entail nothing but boredom or dread upon having to meet my father. But this time it was filled with the sights of utter carnage. Two draconics had attacked the capital, gone right over the walls, and begun decimating the castle. The wyvern, that massive snake-like beast with wings larger than it had any right to be, lay dead in the middle of the square. Men had carved, hacked, and slashed at its wings to keep it on the ground while others shot arrows and ballista bolts into its chest. The hide was tough, harder than even steel armor. But eventually, it had caved.
Thick, dark red blood flowed from dozens of wounds, showing the thick meat within as the ground was turned into a congealing pool of crimson. Its eyes were wide open, the jaw hanging slack from being cut open at the side. Dead or wounded men and women of the guard littered the area around it, some had been burned into once-living statues, cooked alive in their amour, while others had their body parts torn or shattered by its claws, tail, and jaw. I spotted the body of a man still hanging from the separated maw, impaled on teeth as long as a broadsword.
While the fighting had subsided, some were obviously still in shock, clutching their swords so tightly that I was surprised they didn’t bend the steel, while others began carrying the dead away for cremation.
From where the beast had initially clung to the castle’s tower and the drake stormed over the wall, debris dangled precariously from stone. I heard the screams of a man trapped beneath a piece of the wizard`s tower, as he was being excavated by a dozen knights.
In a way, we followed the path the drake took, toward the main hall. Carved from blood, and shattered stone, the route was clear. It seemed to have lost some scales and taken wounds as it rampaged through anyone and anything in its way. As I stared blankly at the results of its destruction, I thought back to Able’s words.
‘It called me the same name as him.’
From his impression and recreation of that word, I finally had a reference point for how it sounded. ‘Fínu’ I repeated in my mind.
Another question lit up in my head, though I buried it quickly, lest it put every single death that had occurred at my feet. ‘Did that thing hunt for me?’
Both of the draconics had attacked the castle, both had made a straight line toward me in that tower. They sniffed me out and tried to kill me in specific. But why?
Then it came back to me, that vision in my dreams, the words spoken in their language for which I had no reference. Until now.
But both of these were red draconics, fire was their element. And if Able’s word was to be believed, a drake is the offspring of a female wyvern and a male dragon. That meant whatever reason these creatures had for attacking so directly must lie within the will of a red dragon.
And the one who had visited me was certainly not that. White scales – so an ice dragon, I figured.
I looked down at my hands, from where I swore I saw a faint white mist trailing out. An ice dragon entered my mind only two weeks before I am attacked by a group of red draconics. The freezing core in my chest…
Was it perhaps connected?
Before I could grow any further conclusions on what actually happened, the sight of the rubble-covered entrance to the great hall shook me back into reality. A straight, narrow path had been blown through the remains of the door and archway, presumably where my rescue party had entered from. But Able hadn’t taken that route, he made it through a window.
If it weren’t for him, I would have died before anyone could have stopped it. We walked past the ruins, though I still caught a glimpse of the drake’s carcass. Whatever happened to it, it was violent and destructive. The beast’s jaw all the way to the base of its long neck was split in twain. Cut by a single stroke, it appeared, the expression on its dead eyes was that of utter horror. Strange, such a frightened visage on a beast of this power.
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Men were busy trying to rescue anyone who may have survived the unintended carnage that happened in the hall, though I doubted that anyone caught in the initial fire blast could survive in a state that could be considered merciful.
I wondered if the Gods looked down on this. They surely must, considering the Diligent was invoking their names to spare the dying. I thought of the Hanged One, the God linked undeserved death. Surely they were having their work cut out for them. At least they would allow these poor people a quick and unimpeded journey to the afterlife.
Though that would be little condolence to the still-living. I saw wives weep for their husband, only to cry out upon hearing that their child was also trapped in the slaughter. Husbands cried for their losses, holding charred remains in their bloody hands.
I averted my gaze, I couldn’t stand looking anymore.
“Your royal protector,” Siestra started, her voice sounding empathetic, at least as much as the reserved elf could muster. “What happened to him?”
A lump formed in my throat. “I…” I began to form the words but they got stuck before they could muster into speech. “He died protecting me from the drake.”
I didn’t look at her eyes, I would have broken if I did. I still tried to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault, that he would have died regardless of my actions, even that he blackmailed me that very day. But I had murdered him, no matter what I told myself. The man had lived in my service for over a decade and died trying to fight for me. Next to my freezing-cold core, I felt a heavy stone build inside me.
“We will have to find you a new protector, though I wouldn’t worry about that yet. The city is already being locked down all the way to the third wall. You’re safe now,” the sorceress tried to reassure me, or maybe just giving me information about how serious the conversation with my father would be.
I looked over my shoulder and found Able catching up with us, now clad in a dark brown leather tunic that certainly didn’t match his frame. Were it not for the burn marks on his body, he could pass for a guard.
“I was told to follow you. What is going on? Where are we headed?” He asked Siestra.
“The King will have a word with his son, what you have to do with it I don’t know. But I would stay away if I were you, I doubt he is very considerate toward you at the moment… considering,” she trailed off but we both knew what she wanted to say.
Able’s father, the man who almost killed mine.
I wasn’t present that day, but I heard enough stories to build a picture. When Wenra Midgar was brought into the capital in chains, he had already killed nearly a hundred men. Back then, my father sought it fit to perform the execution himself. It would be the last time he dared leave the castle.
With the use of a powerful magic spell, far beyond something a mortal being could survive, Wenra exploded in a collum of fire, taking down part of the wall and everyone around him to the afterlife. My father only lived because of the protective items on his person, but even they took their toll for such protection.
The act itself would have been enough to cause massive distress, but it was followed by a riot. With the wall down and the king presumed dead for a day, the peasants within the lower districts made Wendra a martyr, a symbol of their frustrations with the crown. Only when the King was found and retaliated with military power did they subside again.
Of course, all of the reports from that day are from further away, as no one was close enough to make out details such as how Midgar managed to cast a spell of that magnitude while surrounded by guards. And my father never spoke of it after, the only indication of what happened was his renewed hatred of druids and elemental magics.
And now we were bringing that man’s son directly to his chambers. I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if he would order Able’s execution right then and there. But not if I had anything to say about it.
My father’s chambers were at the back of the castle, separated by thick walls and magical enchantments that would ward off any attack, a last bastion of defense from which the Blackspires could escape or hold up in a siege. Lucky for the old man, he spent enough time in there that he made it into his and my mother’s chambers. Likely, he never even noticed that two draconics had made it to the castle.
Siestra took the lead to dispel the charms to our path. Runes glowed bright blue and red until they faded, allowing the large doors to swing open.
The light within was easy on the eyes, like filtered sunlight.
My escort was left at the door and I stepped inside the man’s burrow. Space distorted and stretched as it did in pretty much any hall in Blackspire, but I paid little attention this time. Further in, I heard laughter, the giggle of a child to be precise.
Around the corner of a bend, I saw the six armored men of my father’s personal guard. Their red and black armor fit the aesthetic of the walls and banners, the tapestry displaying my house’s sigil; three winding blackstone spirals forming into a ruby-rimmed crown.
The men parted for me, allowing me into the lavish chamber. Curtains made from the finest red velvet hung from the ceiling, paintings from all over Vorresh lined the walls, and tapestries displaying legends and history alike made every wall a storybook. And at the very center sat a massive bed, lifted off the ground by some enchantment, covered in half a dozen blankets and pillows.
My little brother sat on the ground, playing with a figurine of a knight and a dragon, while my mother looked on from the side of the bed. I let my eyes wander to find my father sitting in a chair at the opposite end of the room, his gaze trained on me in a cold, apathetic way.
“I–” After I composed myself for a second, I began talking, only to be cut off.
“You were attacked?” My father’s tone was as empty as his eyes. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded.
I bit down on my jaw, swallowing the resentment that flared within me at the question. Surely he wasn’t left uninformed, this was just another attempt at keeping me in his grasp. The old man knew his time was already over and he did everything he could to keep the feeble bits of power he still had left.
“A wyvern and a drake managed to tear through the districts and attacked the castle. I barely managed to survive by escaping into the tunnels.” I deliberately left out what I found down there, for that he would have to ask someone more loyal to him. “But Ser Fume died protecting me, I believe he had a sister, I think his ashes should be returned to her.”
The King raised his brow,” You think? What happens with his remains is not up to you. If his family wishes to claim it, they will speak to me.”
My fingers curled into a fist behind my back. “Why did you even want to see me? Did you hope I had died or wanted to see if I was disfigured?” My voice rose and I remembered too late that I wasn’t alone.
“Haden!” My mother’s voice called that fact back to my attention, her head motioning to my young brother, who had taken pause in his play, looking up at me confused. He was the only one I felt sorry for, he had no fault for father, too young to understand why I couldn’t just submit to the old man’s desires.
I calmed myself and looked back to my King, he displayed an expression that I knew hid satisfaction just below the surface. Did he keep Julius and Ireen around just to contain me? It sometimes felt like that.
“No,” he replied after letting the silence linger for just a moment. “When I heard that you were in danger, I sent every last soldier to find you. And it seems that you are fine now. So tell me, what happened to you?” I couldn’t quite decipher what thoughts he hid behind his visage, making me further distrust his intentions.
“While I was talking to our court wizard, the bells rang. Upon stepping into the hallway, I was accosted by the wyvern, spewing fire at me and the tower. Siestra protected me and I ran until I found Ser Fume, who escorted me to the great hall to get into the tunnels. But the drake followed us and scorched the room. We managed to hide but it found us, killing Fume and nearly me.” I paused and my father took note.
What was I going to tell him about Able? The thought had obviously occurred to me before I stepped into the room, but now that it came to it, could I tell a lie believable enough to protect the dragonslayer, or would my father show understanding toward him for saving me?
“The dragonslayer managed to break into the building and fought the monster, giving me a chance to escape into the tunnels, where… I presume your rescue party found me.”
The man took it in without shifting his expression, then he raised his chin and rose to his feet. “Then I ought to award the dragonslayer for protecting you, bring him in!” He commanded the guards, who began moving to the entrance.
“He kills dragons?” My brother chimed up, “so he is like… like a hero, right?” His smile was from cheek to cheek, he believed he was about to meet the knight from his stories, a noble warrior that protects the innocents and saves maidens. I chuckled internally at the thought that, in his eyes, I would be that maiden in distress.
“I believe he has killed many dragons,” Ireen said as she patted his hair.
I suppressed going into the information I had learned about the difference between dragons and draconic offspring. Unlikely that it would interest my brother anyway, given that his statue showed a red dragon, complete with four legs and two wings, though they looked far too small to carry the massive frame. The white beast in my dreams returned, alongside the wings that could cast a shadow over the entire castle. An idea came to mind, but it would have to wait.
The doors swung open and in stepped Able, looking nothing like the knight in Julius’ hands. His face looked somewhat pale, I assumed it was an after-effect of stepping into the shifting threshold.
My father stood in the middle of the room, hands on the hilt of his sword as if he was ready to chop his head off right here. I saw it as intimidation, though I doubted that a man who had faced down a beast like the drake would be in any way scared of a frail old man.
“Your Grace,” Able bent down, at least he knew his courtesy better than in the throne hall.
“Rise,” my father commanded. “As I understand, you rescued my son and heir from a horrid monster. How does one achieve such a feat alone?”
Able kept his eyes away from the King’s, instead, he glanced continuously at me. “With my experience fighting draconics, I managed to distract the drake long enough for the Silver wizard to arrive and assist in bringing the beast down. Without wings, once it was surrounded, it was only a matter of time before it died.”
Whether or not he was lying, I couldn’t have confirmed. But he certainly left out the part where he threw fire around like it was second nature.
“Experience, hmm,” the King murmured. “You lectured me about the difference between a wyvern and a… wyrm, right? Tell me, what is a drake in comparison?”
Able paused, considering the information for a moment. “A drake possesses no wings but is all the more ferocious up close. This one was an adult specimen, I think about seventeen years old. If what our current assumptions about their parenthood are still accurate, there is a male red dragon alive.”
“Are you going to kill it?” Julius spoke up, reminding the adults that he still existed.
Able only stared, his expression blank and lost.
“Come, Julius, let’s find another room,” my mother realized that she should keep my brother from hearing certain details that may spoil his mind.
My father waited until they left the room, a courtesy I didn’t think he’d give them. But as soon as they were behind another door, he repeated, “a valid question. You are the one titled dragonslayer, after all.”
“I… forgive me, your Grace, but a dragon is something for armies to take on. If it is mature enough to produce already-grown offspring, it may very well be powerful enough to…” He trailed off, his eyes meeting the ground.
“Well? Go on, boy. What is so abhorrent that you won’t speak it?” My father demanded, stepping closer.
“If a dragon is allowed to grow into its power, no city will be able to stand against it.”
The king’s eyes narrowed and darkened, clearly discontent about the man’s assessment. “And yet, you call yourself dragon killer. If such a beast has the power to level my city, how can you claim to have defeated one?” His tone grew aggravated, his fingers clutching the hilt of his sword tightly.
I felt sympathy for Able, he couldn’t really talk back, he couldn`t meet the man on equal terms.
And yet, he did. “I killed a baby, a hatchling that hadn`t known life for more than a week. And it still almost killed me, it still scorched town after town, hundreds died before I brought down a weakened, exhausted child.” His gaze went up to meet my father’s and once again I saw a faint red glow in his eyes. “And I despise the title of dragonslayer, your Grace.”
For the first time in my life, I saw my father, the King, visibly shaken.