Alika fell into darkness.

She screamed and writhed as she plummeted. Black smoke coiled around her, wind tearing at her limbs. Down, down, down. A pit of darkness from which there was no escape, eternal, endless.

Alika stretched out her wings, or perhaps, the wind forced them open. They caught no air, no lift, and she dropped like a stone into shadow.

There was a thud and a jolt. Alika’s eyes opened, heart racing. She lay on flat, cold stone.

Above her was the ceiling she had fallen — or been dragged — through. It was no taller than an adult dragon’s head. Why had she thought that she’d fallen further?

The underbelly of the Scribes was a long, dark tunnel. The stonework was clearly unnatural, carved into a squarish shape, but the sides were worn and decrepit as if it had been a thousand years since anyone had passed through these halls.

The walls of the tunnel were rough and craggy, the stone cobbled together. Alika stared at it, making out shapes on the surface. Two dimples in the surface, with a long snout…

Bones. The walls were made of millions of dragon bones, all staring right at her. They shook, black smoke pouring from their eyes and jaws. Alika screamed again, holding out her claws as they moved toward her.

She blinked, and all was still. There were no bones. It was just old stone. Why had she thought there were bones?

Her heart hammered in her chest. Wisps of black smoke, odorless, featureless, rose from the floor and the walls.

Alika looked at the ceiling again. There were no cracks indicating where she had fallen through. She wouldn’t be getting out the same way.

“Hello?” Alika called out. Her voice echoed down the tunnel, and the only answer she got was her own.

“Hello? Hello? Hello?”

Alika’s tail twitched. “Is anyone here?”

“Is anyone here? Is anyone here? Is anyone here?”

With each repeat, the sound of her voice seemed to distort, almost as if someone else was saying it, mocking her.

Alika turned and walked down the tunnel in the opposite direction. If she wanted to get out of here, staying in one place was no good. Smoke rose from her paws with each step she took.

The tunnel reached a split — splitting into two paths. Keep going forward, or turn left?

She decided to go forward. If she didn’t stray from her path, she wouldn’t get lost.

Plus, she didn’t like the look of the path left. It was dark down that one, shrouded in shadow.

Alika wasn’t quite sure where the lighting in the tunnels was even coming from. There were no torches, no cracks up to open air. She didn’t even cast a shadow. Instead, the area around her was a uniform, dim glow, eventually giving way to a dark mist if she looked too far down the tunnel.

She wandered forward. No part of the tunnel walls was any different than the others, and she had no inkling of where she was going. Parts of the walls looked so similar to each other that she could’ve sworn she’d seen them before, except that she’d been going straight. It couldn’t be possible that she’d come back to the same place. How could it?

Alika felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as she came across another dark tunnel, leading to the left.

Her pawsteps echoed, rumbling through the tunnel. She began to speed up, not so fast that it would seem like she was running from anything, just a light jog. The mist was endless, but her path was straight and true.

Another tunnel, leading off to the left. This time, the darkness within it seemed closer.

Alika broke into a run, panting as she sprinted, her heart thumping in her chest. Each step of her paws caused more smoke to rise.

The tunnel to the left, again. She was sure of it now, there was something moving within it, moving toward her. She could hear it crawling, chasing her, its sharp talons scratching the stone behind her.

“Stop it!” Alika cried, her talons so unsteady she almost tripped over them. “Go away!”

Down here, she was hopelessly lost and utterly alone.

“I’m not lost!”

Yes, Alika, you are lost. Her path led her nowhere, for she was nothing without her friends, and she knew it.

Alika’s talons trembled as she ran, tendons tense with terror. All of them were gone, all of their fates left unknown. Snow was still with the Scribes, and might now be nothing more than a spot on the library wall. Brother Bromius had spotted the Windrider, and Tarka, Yarik, and Gust might be drowned corpses at the bottom of the sea. Alika was alone in the world, absolutely, utterly alone.

Alika sobbed, despairing as she ran through the tunnels, pursued by something she refused to face. For her heart was held in the icy clutches of despair. There was no way out but forward, and forward led nowhere.

“You’re wrong,” Alika said.

Am I?

“Gust can’t drown.”

Irrelevant.

Alika wiped the tears from her eyes. She tried to steady her breath, and push back against the unforgiving onslaught of despair.

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“I told you to stop!”

Stop what?

“Stop saying those things. Stop saying that all of my friends are dead. They’re not! They couldn’t be!”

They could be dead, and Alika knew it.

“But they might not be,” Alika whispered into the shadows. “I have to have hope, don’t I? I have to hope that they’ll be fine without me.”

Hope is important when you are lost and alone in a dark tunnel, being chased by a monster. Hope is important when all your friends might be dead. But it is not enough.

“But there’s no monster,” Alika replied. “It’s just me.”

Alika stopped and turned around. There was no monster in the tunnel, just her own echo. She had been chasing her own tail.

Yet, it changed nothing. Alika knew that she could not go forward, for going forward was the same as going backward. And she could not go backward, for going backward was the same as going forward. The path was safe and known, but she had tread it a thousand times. It led to nowhere.

If she wanted to go somewhere, and not nowhere, there was only one path she could take. And she knew not where that path led — to darkness and death, perhaps, but at least it led somewhere. Was she ready to take it?

“I am,” Alika said. “I’m ready.”

Then enter, child. Step out of the light, and join me in the dark.

Alika turned to the left and stepped into shadow.

It crept around her like a living thing, passing over her in waves, stroking her fur and bringing her inward. Alika had thought that the darkness would be cold and terrifying, but it was not. Instead, the darkness was warm and comforting, like being tucked beneath her mother’s wing.

It pressed all around it, and though Alika was still scared, it was no longer the fear of a frightened animal. It was the fear of knowing she was in the presence of something far greater than her, something incomprehensibly large, something that would be so beautiful if she could just see it.

But she could not see it, for she was hidden within it, and within it, all was darkness.

“Are you Night of the Scribes?” Alika asked, her voice caught in the darkness, sinking into its rippling surface.

As Alika spoke, the darkness coalesced before her, taking on form. It was the form of a dragon, for what else would she see it as? A dragon with wings as large as the night sky itself. It brought Alika beneath one, wrapping around her and lifting her up to its snout as if it were imitating her own mother, or perhaps, that her mother had been imitating it all along. Though the dragon was just darkness, shadow layered upon shadow, its eyes sparkled brilliantly like stars. For without light, there can be no shadow. And then the dragon spoke without words, as even a trillion words could never be enough to tell its tales.

I am many things, child. I am the heart of the Scribes, beating yet never felt. I am the mother of fallen angels, the etcher of lost stories, the librarian of shadows, the dark daughter of She Who Dreams The World.

Its speech was that of dripping ink, running onto the page, and writing the world with its voice.

The stars are my children, just as you are. Would you seek them out, to know the universe in its entirety? Would you gaze upon them as they all end? Would you become a star yourself, casting light upon the night?

And the dragon opened its wings, and now, Alika saw that it was shadow speckled with a trillion stars, burning bright. The young dragon floated across the stars, her wings outstretched as they passed beneath them, dancing and spiraling. In the briefest of times, their stories were told, clouds painted across the sky as they were born into stellar brilliance. And Alika saw them die, some fading into a dim glow while others burst and screamed out their final songs, their stories strewn across space and time for all to see.

For a moment, Alika was lost in their expanse. She knew that she could spend the rest of time among them, pondering and discovering their beauty forever, all of her worries washed away in starlight.

But the thought of Tarka crossed her mind, and Alika’s wings closed. She had a duty to him, a journey to finish. The wing of shadow dimmed once more, and Alika was lost again in darkness.

“I can’t,” Alika replied. “I’m just a dragon. My friends are waiting for me. The fate of the stars isn’t my concern.”

So it is not. For while all creatures are formed from stardust, stardust is not all that they are.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Alika said. “Are you Night of the Scribes?”

The darkness moved, and Alika felt herself embraced, held like a mother would hold a child.

I am the friend of the hidden, the comforting wings in which the world goes to sleep. All secrets, all stories, all forgotten knowledge comes to join me.

Alika felt warm in the shadows, safe and sound. She curled up as it pressed around her, draping her tail over her head. All was calm, all was good, and all was happy. Her eyes closed, and she saw darkness beneath them. She had no reason to worry, for in the end, everything would be okay.

Are you a forgotten thing, child, lost in the blinding light of the snow? Does the pain hurt your eyes? Do you seek to rest and lay your head? For know that in my embrace you are forever safe, and your end will be as sweet as a lullaby.

Alika’s breath grew steady and slow. Her heart felt still. She was calm and warm, so calm and warm, drifting away. Her eyes were closed, though if they had been open, she could not tell. She was tired, so tired, and the draw of sleep pulled her into darkness. The wings of her mother were open wide, waiting for her.

But she knew that if she slept here, she would not wake, and she could not leave Tarka alone in the waking world. She could not, would not rest until he was safe and sound with his pack. Alika opened her eyes, stretching her wings and pushing against the enveloping darkness.

“Are you Night of the Scribes?” Alika asked for the third time.

The darkness pulled away, and the star-eyed dragon stood before Alika once more.

That is a name I have been given, said Night, and though it was but one of many names, it still had power, as all names do. A single word to encompass and control the boundless idea that I am, a name to make the unknowable known. Do not use it lightly, my child.

Alika bowed her head, tilting forward her wings.

As you have passed my trials three, I will gift you a boon, if you wish to accept it, said Night to the dragon. You may ask one question of me, and knowledge that has been lost to the dark will once again enter the light. Choose wisely.

Alika exhaled in relief, for she knew that here, she was safe. She could ask so many things: the fate of herself, the fate of her friends, the fate of the world. There were so many things she wanted to know, yet she could only choose one, and all others would be lost to her forever.

“Irmiq sent me out to seek Night of the Scribes so that I could learn my path,” Alika said. “I want to know that.”

I know what you are here for, Night replied. But are you sure that is the question you want to ask? To know your path? Be careful, for you only get one.

Alika wondered what else she could ask, and there were many things. She could know the location of her pack, even as they forever wandered across the north. She could know the location of the Emerald Isle, the land lost to time finally uncovered. She could even know how to get her mother back if she so chose.

“I-I can ask that?” Alika stammered.

Alika could, and who else would know but Night? If she didn’t ask, it would be forgotten forever.

“No,” Alika replied, her talons shaking, her teeth chattering. For she remembered Irmiq’s words, and that her duty was with them. “No. I can’t. I want to know my path.”

Are you sure of that? Night asked. To see your path, I must touch you. The Guardian guides her Silver-Eyed Prophets, but I cannot guide you, only reveal. And once the darkness retreats, what you see cannot be unseen.

“Yes,” Alika affirmed. “I am sure.”

Alika stood tall, raising her head and staring into the stars burning in Night’s eyes.

“Night of the Scribes, what is my path?”

Then your question shall be answered, Night said. She stretched out a claw of darkness and stroked it against Alika’s neck. Wherever her talon touched, darkness spread, the white fur of Alika’s scruff changing into a pitch black, slithering around her neck. Now, behold the path walked by you and your kin.