It’s drizzling when morning comes, but Phaelen and his companions are gone by the time I wake up and get moving, which I don’t mind. I definitely tossed and turned in my place sandwiched between Flynt and Meg—at least, I did when one or the other of them wasn’t on watch duty.

I kept waiting to be rousted for my turn, but it never happened, which annoys me a little—we’re all supposed to be in this together and pulling our own weight—but a part of me also doesn’t mind that I wasn’t responsible for staring across the fire at the strangers in the dark. I don’t like feeling babied, but maybe they weren’t wrong to do it. Phaelen creeped me out, something made worse by the certainty that that’s exactly what he was trying to do.

Still. I feel like the weak link, and it bothers me all morning as we have breakfast and then breakdown the tent, placing the various pieces into my magical carry-all. The drizzle all but stops by the time we hit the road, but it leaves the path thick with mud and littered with puddles, which makes for some slow going.

Flynt walks with me in the back for a while, but is quiet. He doesn’t seem to know what to say, and I’m not sure how to break the silence either. I’m annoyed at myself, frankly, and that’s translating into being unfairly annoyed with him for reasons I can barely articulate, so I just resolve to walk in silence. Jonas sings a little up front, Tyrus occasionally joining in. They coax Meg into a song as well, but even that peters out faster than usual.

Meg slows up and switches out with Flynt, her turn to trudge beside me in the back.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she says after a little while.

“We all are.”

“You’re quieter.”

I sigh. “I don’t like that I hid behind a guy last night,” I admit. “It’s not how I prefer to see myself.”

“You didn’t hide behind anyone last night. You let a friend stand up for you in a setting you’re unfamiliar with. There’s a difference.”

“I felt like a damsel in distress and I have no idea why.”

“You did the right thing, Keira. Those people were looking for conflict, and you played it cool. The worst thing you could have done was get mad and rise to the occasion. That Phaelen character was playing it traditional. He didn’t like seeing you in a group like ours.”

“His wasn’t much different.”

“Yes, it was.” Her tone is disdainful. “Maybe it’s different where you come from, but many Hunter Elves here are very insular, very judgmental of other cultures, and always looking for how they can use others to their advantage.”

“Is that why Good Mr. Stoutbrooke doesn’t like me?”

“It’s undoubtedly a big part of it.”

“I think we need to have a very special assembly about prejudice,” I mutter.

She snorts at that. “Maybe. I don’t know how receptive your audience will be though. Cultures aren’t monoliths, but some cultures can be more than others. Especially here.”

“And elvish culture is one of those?”

“Some parts of it. I think a lot of them enjoy the stereotypes. Few tend to go too far to try to combat them, anyway. Lin Stoutbrooke and Nyssa are exceptions, in my experience.”

“And me, I hope.”

“Sure, but you’re not from Qeth. Though, I don’t know what elves are like where you’re from. You could very much fit into those stereotypes.”

“Not especially. Where I come from, elves are known to be stoic and wise and to move at their own pace in their own interests.”

“So, not too different from here, then.”

“I guess not.” I frown. “Let’s change the subject." I step over a fallen log and straight into a puddle, which makes me wince.

“To what? We have half a day of walking, and I think I’ve run out of things to say.”

“That’s fair. I guess I have, too.”

She nods and we fall silent again, trudging onward through the lower foothills in the mud. We pause in a clearing to the side to have some cured meats for lunch before starting to head up into the mountain. That’s when I look up and see it for the first time, high up on the next peak over.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Wait. Is that it?” I ask.

To enter the Valley of Qeth from the south, one must travel through the mouth of a dragon. The quote comes to me immediately as I look up at the gleaming peak. It’s the line that starts the first game, one that gets uttered at conventions and quoted on Reddit. And I can see it, now: Dragon’s Pass, a path between two peaks shielded from the wind and weather by the massive skeleton of a long-dead ancient dragon, a skeleton of gleaming black bone that shines like glass. I can’t see the details from all the way down here, but I can still see the dark shine thousands of feet up, emerging from the snow caps.

Meg nods as she pauses. The others do as well, the silence heavy as we all stare up at it.

“Have any of you been through it?” I ask.

The others shake their heads but Meg nods again, solemnly. “A long time ago.” Her voice is soft and low. “It feels like another life.”

“I’ve wanted to,” Flynt says. “Da went, when he was a young man. He has a piece of dragon glass he keeps on his bedside table.”

“Does he hear the song?” Meg asks.

“I don’t know.”

I read about the song in one of the books at my bedside. There are shards of bone scattered everywhere up there. They’ve been there for thousands of years, but never ice over because due to the residual warmth of the ancient magic still in the bones. There’s a whole book dedicated to the lore and superstition around these shards: the dragon glass. Some claim that chosen people can hear it singing a song of loss. Others claim it’s a song of protection. Others still interpret the magical vibrations as words of warning.

“I didn’t hear it,” Meg murmurs.

“My grandmother always said the Pass was haunted,” Tyrus says. “That ghosts flock to where it fell, drawn in by the magic.”

I frown. “Isn’t Zel’Rosh’s resting place said to be around here?”

“Somewhere.” Meg glances at me. “When he was fleeing, he came here to try and absorb the Essence that’s trapped in those bones. Enhance his own power.”

“Would that have been possible?”

“Who knows. Kaelor got to him first.”

“Meggers, why do you know so much about dragons?” Tyrus asks.

“I find them fascinating. Great ancients lost to time, destroyed because we feared them? It’s a beautiful, tragic story.”

“Or a terrifying one,” Jonas says. “I always found it terrifying and sad.”

“It is sad.” Flynt looks up again toward the gleam. “I sometimes wonder what Qeth could have been if we hadn’t gone down that road.”

“Under the tyranny of dragons,” Tyrus says. “If the Families are to be believed, anyway.”

“I always found that difficult to swallow,” Flynt admits. “There had to have been more than a few good dragons. And dragons and the peoples co-existed for thousands of years before the Families rallied against them. The story has never made much sense.”

“It makes more sense if you believe the Stormbringer’s argument that the giants manipulated all of it.”

I frown, vaguely remembering a passage in one of the history books. “Wasn’t there some alliance with the giants? I thought that was something that happened. That dragons and giants were long-time enemies or something and the giants came in on the peoples’ side.”

Meg nods. “They did, in the eleventh hour.”

“It was the Hearthstones, wasn’t it?” Flynt asks. “The ones who brought the giants down from the peaks the first time around?”

Meg nods. “And it’s a big reason they and the Stormbringers don’t especially get along these days.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“About three hundred years ago the Stormbringers tried to rally the peoples of Qeth against the giants,” Flynt explains. “They said that the giants were poised to invade, wanted to subjugate us the way the dragons had.”

“Though there’s not a lot of evidence that dragons ever did,” Meg says. “Aside from a few bad actors here and there throughout history. Nor is there evidence that the giants intended to do the same.”

“Regardless of whether it was true, the Stormbringers brought in the Dawnguards and they raised armies. It was the closest Qeth has ever come to civil war,” Flynt says. “The elves and dwarves stood in the way of it and eventually argued them down, but not before the human armies put a serious dent in the giant population.”

I shake my head, trying to imagine.

It’s insane to me to think of creatures that size: giants or dragons. Dragon’s Pass is said to be thirteen-hundred feet long—that’s longer than an aircraft carrier, almost a quarter of a mile. I can’t fathom a creature that big. The only way I’m able to fathom a giant is because I’ve seen one and, even then, it doesn’t compute that there are beings so tall I would barely come up to their knee.

How do you fight something like that? How do you stand there as an average human being with a sword and think yeah, I’m going to bring that down. I have a chance here.

“We should continue on,” Meg says, standing and stretching. “We’re losing daylight fast.”

“Yup.” Tyrus sighs. “I just really don’t want to go up that mountain.”

“But you’re a dwarf,” Jonas says.

“I am. That doesn’t mean I enjoy a climb.”

We all follow his gaze up the narrow trail, a trail so faint we wouldn’t have known it was there if it hadn’t been carefully marked on the map with very precise instructions written in Nyssa’s very precise script. My back hurts just looking at it, though I’m strangely nowhere near as tired as I’d expect to be given what little restful sleep I got, and all the walking yesterday and today. Huzzah [Fitness] increase; that level-up point was extremely well spent.

We fall into our traditional marching orders: Meg in the front, followed by Tyrus, with our healer Jonas in the middle followed by caster Flynt, and me in the rear. Something nags at the back of my mind and I decide not to affix my bow to its holder on my back. Instead, I keep it out and ready for use. It feels like we should be coming up on a random encounter any time now. At least, if this were actually a videogame or D&D campaign, we would.

I again look up at the next mountain over, at the gleaming blackness against the white peak. A breeze blows down off of it, pulling at my hair and cutting through my cloak. I’d almost swear I hear a laugh carried with it.