An anxious search, a cloudy flight

Within the woods, a saddening sight.

White wings appeared like a huge, silent ghost, gliding through the drifting gloom. Heavy clouds had banked up against the southern edge of the Barlakk Mountains, obscuring all the land below and sharp peaks above for many miles. The White Dragon sailed effortlessly through it, a graceful spirit of ice, her keen silver eyes like mirrors reflecting the mist.

Ferrian sat astride her long, pearlescent neck, cloak and hair flapping in the wet breeze, periodically invoking his own Mind Vision to aid in the search. His magic could not reach far, however, and was incredibly draining, so mostly he trusted to the Dragon’s superior senses. Now and then Mekka slipped off the Dragon’s back and spiralled down beneath the cloud cover for closer observation.

They had already found evidence of their friends’ passage. In a sandy cave mouth, where one of the secret tunnels from Castle Whiteshadow exited, they found clear tracks from a wheelchair and several sets of Human footprints. The tracks continued down through a boulder field and into a dense, gnarly stretch of ancient forest, which all three were intent on now, observing from the air, though the dark green canopy faded in and out of existence in the greyness.

So far, Ferrian had seen no trace of a living person – or a wraith – only bright flashes of birds, small animals and a couple of silently skulking firewolves, their auras clearly visible to his magical sight. They had come far enough that he was sure they must be approaching the road leading to Meadrun. He allowed his magic to fade off as his thoughts began to drift, sailing ahead of him towards the not-too-distant town. The misty clouds were replaced with a vision of a homely, welcoming inn, where his friends might well be waiting for him…

And if they weren’t?

The homely image darkened and disintegrated. If they weren’t, if they had never made it out of the forest…

The Dragon let out a scream, so sudden and high-pitched that her passengers flinched in shock. She began to writhe in the air, as though in pain.

Ferrian drew his Sword in an instant, searching the sky around them for whatever might be attacking, then Mekka said from behind him: “She has found something!” and disappeared in an instant.

Confused and alarmed, Ferrian continued looking this way and that for the source of the disturbance, but could see nothing but clouds in every direction. They were not flying high, only just above the canopy, but both forest and ground were invisible.

“Dragon, what’s wrong?” he yelled.

She didn’t reply, her shriek dwindling into a quavering, flute-like whine.

Still gripping his Sword, Ferrian climbed precariously along her sleek white neck, trying not to slip as it twisted back and forth. Using her crystalline spines as hand-holds he finally reached her head, stopping just short of the wicked horns sweeping like icicles from the back of her huge skull.

And then he felt what the Dragon felt. It hit him like a physical blow, so hard that he gasped and almost fell from her back.

Grief; a sense of profound loss communicated from the Dragon’s vast mind to his, and it was painfully, wretchedly familiar. At once he was transported back four years to a younger, more foolish version of himself, to the exact moment when he had discovered that Lord Requar – the man who had raised him and loved him, if not his true father – lay dead, and he had lost his Winter in one fell swoop, and it felt as though his entire sense of self had cracked and fallen apart…

And with these memories came a vicious burning sensation, as though they had flown though a pocket of superheated air. Ferrian’s skin felt as though it was boiling, his veins were filled with a sizzling fire that ripped through his body, tearing it apart from within like paper…

He let out a scream of his own.

Frost flooded out of him in response, trying to quench the invisible flames eating him alive. The Dragon’s scales were impervious to the ice; she didn’t even feel it. Ferrian came back to himself, hugging one of her spines, tears frozen to his face.

He knew now what had happened down there, knew that it was the thing he had feared for a long time, and he didn’t want to see it. He couldn’t. Nevertheless, he said hoarsely to the Dragon: “Let me down.”

The Dragon knew, too. She squirmed in a restless figure-of-eight like a fish caught in a bowl, her great feathers beating the mist to shreds, delicate butterfly wings shivering in agitation.

“LET ME DOWN NOW!”

With a final musical whine of sorrow and defeat, the White Dragon did as she was commanded and bore her Human companion down to the horror that lay below.

Mekka sat on a charred log in the middle of the wasteland. The clouds hunkered low overhead, so thick and dark they shrouded the clearing in a grim colourless twilight, with no trace of sun to be seen. Mekka had already flown the circumference of the massive circular clearing several times and found nothing living, and no corpses save those of small animals and birds, so charred they disintegrated at a touch from his boot.

Except of course, for the single Human body that lay at the very centre of all this devastation.

The Angel stared bleakly at Ferrian, who knelt on the ground some fifty yards away beside his fallen master. His friend hadn’t uttered a word or sound since landing with the Dragon, just dropped to his knees and had remained there since. Mekka kept his distance, allowing Ferrian some space.

The clearing was deathly still and silent. No birds called in the surrounding trees. No rustle of leaves. Not a breath of wind.

It was as though the very world had stopped, in this place, when Lord Arzath did.

The White Dragon had taken herself off into the forest, unable to bear the taste of death. After some initial crashing of timber and foliage, she now grieved in silence, like the rest of them.

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Mekka felt as black and hollowed out as the burned stumps surrounding him, just another wasted and useless piece of scenery. The manner of Arzath’s death made little sense. The sorcerer had made a final stand here against someone, or something. He had been stabbed in the back by an exceedingly sharp blade, but there was no sign of trigonis infection. No demon-touched blackness anywhere on his body. His soul had not been stolen, which may be of some comfort to Ferrian. Arzath had cast a Fatalis spell at the end of his life, presumably in a last-ditch effort to obliterate his attacker.

Who else could it have been, but Luca’s murderer? The intruder from the castle, who had driven Ferrian’s guests and friends into this forest and was seemingly killing them one by one?

If Arzath had been felled so effectively, Mekka held out little hope for the others, who possessed neither magic or silvertine weapons.

His mind was too dull with shock and horror to piece it all together completely. But Arzath’s death wasn’t the worst of it, wasn’t the thing that had sent Mekka spinning back into maddening despair and banished all hope into a cloud of dust.

The clearing hadn’t been without evidence.

Mekka’s right hand rested on his knee, loosely holding a swathe of dirty cloth that he had picked up from the ash close to Arzath’s body. He didn’t look at it, instead staring off into the mist gathering in the distant living trees, his dark eyes glimmering with tears. The piece of cloth slid from his unresisting fingers to land softly on the ground at his feet.

It was beige in colour, with a bright orange stripe along one edge.

Mekka was still sitting alone on his stump as night fell. The hours lengthened sombrely into pitch blackness and Winter descended, not with a roar but in soft, chilly silence. The ravaged landscape was hidden away, made pure again under a glowing blanket of pristine white snow.

There was a fire now. Wordlessly, Mekka had helped Ferrian gather sticks and branches from the forest to build it, then retreated again. The sorcerer had scratched a series of magical symbols into the ground with the point of his Sword, which came to life with a mysterious white light as he passed them. Slowly, Ferrian walked around the pyre, the blazing flames glinting off his drawn Sword, snowflakes whirling and being devoured by the fire, along with the body it contained at its raging heart. Mekka was sure that he was whispering under his breath as well, though the Angel couldn’t make out the words.

So it continued, a seemingly endless vigil long into the midnight hours. A circle of flame and frost, of life and death, of horror and beauty and tragedy, all that remained of the world in a vast and fathomless void unwitnessed by moon or stars.

It was a secret ritual, a private passing for an individual that, during his long life had affected the world in a myriad of ways, most of which were bad. He had been the last of the Sorcerer Tyrants who had subjugated Arvanor for centuries, and despite a world now plagued with wraiths, it was arguably better off. Mekka shed no tears for Arzath, and he doubted many would, but for Ferrian a deep connection had been severed, and for this Mekka was truly regretful.

But Mekka wasn’t a part of this reverent scene, he couldn’t share it: he was an outcast sitting at the very edge of the light where the flames barely warmed him. A lost shadow not yet ready to be claimed by the dark. Yet he watched, and his thoughts circled lonely in the night, and the cold sank into his bones.

He was beginning to become lethargic, a strange sort of peace settling over him, the cold wrapping him up in a comforting cloak, when some warning instinct at the back of his brain gave him a start. He shook himself out of his stupor, tried to move his hands and realised he could hardly feel them.

It was time, then.

Huffing breath into his hands to warm them, Mekka stood up stiffly, shaking ice out of his wings and hair. For a moment he hesitated, taking a final look at the pyre and his friend pacing around it, lost in his grey hood and cloak and the numbing ritual.

Ferrian was no longer a boy; he was the last true sorcerer, now. Arzath had taken him far, but his path from here was all his own, and the dawn would be a long time coming.

But he could take care of himself. He was the Master of Winter. He possessed a Sword that could affect reality in ways that hadn’t yet been put to the test.

Ferrian had a future, whatever that turned out to be. Whatever he made it to be.

Forcing himself to turn away, Mekka gathered his belongings – his bow and quiver and small pack – and secured them all in place. He tightened the daggers at his belt. Then he hugged himself, sighed his breath out in a white cloud, shoved his hands in his armpits, and headed out to meet the endless darkness.

He had only gone about ten steps when the White Dragon appeared in front of him.

In spite of himself, Mekka jumped, almost tripping on debris hidden in the snow, but caught himself in a half-crouch, hands at once on his daggers.

The Dragon stared down at him, her massive head filling his vision, horns as clear as ice-cave crystal, eyes like polished holes reflecting the night. The flames from the pyre danced in them, twisting and taunting. Her mother-of-pearl scales glowed with a peculiar inner light like something from the deep sea; a giant glorious phantom in the blackness, the Goddess of Winter herself, huge and sad and majestic.

Mekka realised he had stopped breathing. Carefully he straightened, keeping his hands warily on his weapons. As far as he was aware, the Dragon disdained violence, but the Angel was prepared to fight anything that stood in his way, if it came to that.

“Stand aside, Dragon,” he said finally, in a low voice.

The Dragon regarded him, snow falling quietly around them.

You seek to leave.

The voice spoke straight into his mind, clear as a bell. Once again, Mekka was taken aback: the Dragon had never spoken to him so personally before.

What of it? he challenged her back. I answer to no one.

You would abandon your friendship with Ferrian so readily?

Mekka swallowed and set his jaw, forcing back a sudden flood of emotion. “It is… already lost.”

The Dragon stared at him.

The Angel turned and walked away from her intense gaze, her judgement worse than that from the Seraphim. But again, he found his way blocked; a huge paw stretched out almost languidly, like a cat’s, talons flexing and carving furrows into the snow.

Mekka halted. He could fly away, of course. But he had no doubt that the Dragon would swat him down like a mosquito.

He whirled on her, eyes flaring. “You should never have rescued me!” he burst out bitterly. “But since you took it upon yourself to do so, at least let me correct my mistake!”

The Dragon said nothing.

“Dammit, Dragon! What happened here is my fault! She was supposed to be my responsibility! I left her in the Freeroamer’s care! I thought her secure: I thought her safe! I…”

I forgot about Carmine, his thought finished, crushingly. I was so obsessed with my own guilt, my own need for death, that I forgot anything else mattered…

His legs collapsed of their own accord. Tears trickled down his face, hot against his frozen skin. “Now she’s a… a demon...” He shook his head, closing his eyes against the pain of his own words. “I must kill her. I must do so before Ferrian finds out. Before she murders anyone else. He will not forgive me… for this.” He let out a choked sob.

“Angel Child.” The voice rang in the night with melodic sorrow. “You must not leave.”

He looked up at her.

The Dragon said nothing more, simply looked down at him for a long, long moment. The gaze of a Dragon was unfathomable to him, full of ancient secrets, but there was something regretful about it, something terribly fateful.

It sent a chill through Mekka, deeper and far more lasting than the icy air that clutched at him.

The Dragon turned away then, sliding her paw from his path, pushing herself to her feet. As she walked away, she limped heavily, her left back leg dragging through the snow. The scales there were dead and unglowing, as grey and flaky as old stone.

Mekka got to his feet in sudden, horrified realisation. “You’re leaving!” he exclaimed aloud.

The Dragon did not reply. Her glow diminished as she retreated into the darkness, her long spiked tail slithering after.

“You… you can’t!” Mekka ran forward a few steps. “Dragon, you cannot leave! Ferrian needs you!” He tried to throw the hypocrisy of her words back in her face, but they flew around and stung him, instead. “Dragon!”

Goodnight, Angel Child. May the stars be ever bright.

Then she was gone, vanished like the fading moon in the mist, leaving the black-winged Angel staring after her, lost for words.