Ethan had no plan for where to go, moving only on instinct. He pushed his legs to carry him faster even as his lungs burned. The dragon stalked him, keeping pace and seeming utterly unhurried. A predator playing with an amusing meal.

Through archways and tunnels, down hallways and staircases of carpeted marble, across long expanses of polished stone, Ethan ran. The dragon followed at every turn, passing through doorways it shouldn’t have fit through, ignoring tables and chairs or otherwise sending them crashing with a swipe of silver claws.

At last Ethan emerged onto the terraced grounds of the Palace gardens. Gasping for breath, Ethan halted, unable to continue for the burn in his legs.

Outside under the cloudless skies, he was far enough away that he hoped the dragon would forget his mother, forget his brothers. As he turned on quaking legs to face the advancing spectre, he hoped with all his being that his family would survive the night. Muttering a Ranger’s prayer, a rite that Failen had taught him, Ethan bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut.

Light gleamed bright through his eyelids as the dragon approached, slowly, curiously. He sensed, rather than heard, the dragon sniffing. Ethan felt a tugging on his hair, a strange, tingling sensation creeping across his scalp. It had started to become painful when the light abruptly retreated. With a hard exhale, Ethan opened his eyes.

The ghostly dragon was twisting away, snapping at small, pearly lights swarming the air around it, flaring like fireflies.

Ethan watched in stunned stillness as the small lights danced, writhing within shrouds of mist. They rang with silent song that rippled through Ethan’s bones, ensnaring him with their blissful chorus. He yearned for that song, to be nearer to it. Stepping forward, his legs gave out and he sank, entranced, to the ground.

The dragon seemed to snarl, the pressure of it a thunderous ripple in Ethan’s chest, though it uttered no sound. The monster’s colours flashed like poison as the pearls spiralled closer. At last, the dragon opened its maw and spat silver flames at the nearest pearl before launching itself skyward on wings of gossamer light.

The pearl burned away to nothing as the others took flight, pursuing the spectre into the dark sky.

Freed from the trance of the ethereal singing lights, from the fear of imminent death, from the urgent need to flee, Ethan pitched forward and vomited onto the grass.

He sat until his legs no longer quaked, and he could pull himself upright. Ethan walked through the layered gardens and rows of blooming trellises until he reached the upper terrace. Leaning against the Palace wall to catch his breath, Ethan looked down towards the township and froze.

The Village of Grimwood was burning. Towering flames of silver and columns of grey smoke lanced the sky. Distant figures raced up and down the black cobbled streets as small lights darted through laneways, winking like stars between the gaps of crumbling buildings.

Scattered throughout the sloping sprawl of the Village landscape, Ethan saw more dragons. Stalking down the open promenades, crashing through the burning shells of houses, or floating in weightless spirals over the building tops.

Ethan counted four in sight, recognising the one that had given him chase gliding towards the lower town. Great flocks of shining lights pursued them all, latching onto the dragons’ roiling forms as they spewed flames and fought to shake them off.

In the far distance, the bells of the Central Citadel were ringing in discordant concert with the Palace Watch Tower.

Stolen story; please report.

Above it all hung the bright glow of the full moon, like a great eye round with horror, celestial witness to the carnage below.

Ethan hesitated, torn on what he should do. There was no one around to ask, to decide for him. The Palace gates were unmanned and hanging open. Glancing at the Palace walls behind him, Ethan thought of his mother and brothers, hiding in the suites. Ahead of him, his city burned, and his father fought with their King.

Ethan strode forwards. Glittering gravel crunched under heel as he passed through the wrought gates, treading his way towards the town.

He’d passed unheeded through the winding streets of the Upper Village before a woman called out to him.

“You there! Boy!” she hissed, frantically beckoning him towards her. She stood hunched in the doorframe of a tall house, blackened with ash though not burning. “Come with me now, it’s not safe on the streets!”

“I have to find my father—” Ethan protested as the woman grabbed him firmly by the arm and wrested him across the threshold.

Ignoring his protests, the woman ushered him towards a small hallway door. “Quick now, down there. We’ll stay in the basement until this is all over, Fates keep us.”

Ethan stumbled down the thin wooden stairs and into a cool cellar lit with glowing quartz. A small girl about his age sat huddled in a blanket, sniffling through tears.

“Maman, is Pop back, yet?”

“Not yet, darling, but I’m sure he won’t be long.” The woman offered the two children an anaemic smile.

“Are you lost?” The girl asked Ethan, wiping her nose on the blanket. “You can sit with me if you like, I can share my doll.”

Though desperate to find his own father, Ethan sat on the ground beside the girl as the strange woman shut the door, locking it with a heavy brass key. There was no other door, and no windows, making Ethan feel trapped.

At least this far underground, and away from the Palace Watch Tower, the clamour of bells was dampened.

“We’ll be safe in here now, nothing will get through that door,” the woman said with a shaky smile, fussing over her daughter and tucking in the edges of the blankets.

“What about Pop?” the girl mumbled.

“He has his own key, he’ll come for us when he returns.”

“They can go through doors,” Ethan muttered, peering warily up at the dark wood that would do nothing to stop ghosts.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” the woman said with a quelling glare at Ethan as her daughter began to cry.

“Right. Of course,” Ethan agreed, not wanting to upset the girl further.

The woman hummed a lullaby and soon the girl was sleeping in her mother’s lap. Ethan watched them both, hoping he might sneak the key if the woman slept too.

The lullaby was charming and familiar. Comforting. Soon Ethan found himself lulled as well, drifting in a pleasant doze as the song saturated his bones.

The light changed.

Ethan snapped his eyes open to see a singing light the colour of pearl, spinning within a cloud of mist, rising into middle of the cellar. Ethan smiled as it buzzed back and forth, twisting closer.

Ethan reached out to catch it, but it was dancing just beyond his reach.

The girl coughed, shifting in her sleep as the mother sat slumped against the cellar wall. The singing pearl drifted over, flitting about the girl like a hummingbird, its chorus ringing brighter. Both girl and mother stilled, their breaths deepening with sleep. The pearl spun suddenly, and the chorus of its lullaby grew ever more intense, ringing like a gong through Ethan’s being.

Struggling to keep his eyes open, he watched in a daze as long ribbons of light tore away from mother and child as they slumbered. The pearl twisted, teasing light after globulous light from the pair, discarding them to the earthen floor of the cellar. The colours bled into the pressed dirt, sinking from sight.

At last a pair of silver stars emerged from their chests, thready and beating like spectral hearts. They too fell to the earth, and mother and daughter ceased breathing.

The pearl stilled for a moment before spinning towards Ethan.

Ethan couldn’t move, though he felt distantly that perhaps he ought to. His body felt leaden, as though paralysed with dreaming. The pearl danced closer, and Ethan embraced the chorus in his chest that promised passage home.

The cellar door slammed open with a loud bang, and the spell was broken. Gasping, Ethan bolted upright.

“What—?” A man’s voice echoed down the stairs as Ethan crashed up towards the door.

“Get out, now! You have to run! It’s here,” Ethan shouted as he pushed past the stunned man.

“Elanya?” The man called. “Matild!”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m so sorry, there wasn’t anything I could— We have to flee now!” Ethan shouldered his way through the cellar door, racing down the dark, narrow hallway towards the entrance.

The man’s wrenching cries followed Ethan as he tore down the streets, racing blindly through laneways as he choked on sobs.