Against my better judgment, I crack my eyes open. The stone room is lit with a soft yellow light, but even that sends lances of pain shooting through my skull. I squeeze my eyes shut once more and groan.

I’m alive. But how? And where am I now? Did the Jorrians take me?

I make to lift a hand to my forehead but find it hampered by blankets.

Definitely not Jorria, then.

I’m in a bed. And a rather cozy bed at that, considering sleeping on two wings is still a new and mildly uncomfortable experience.

The next time I open my eyes, the mosaiced pattern in the ceiling detailing a flaming harpy standing atop a fortress confirms what I already suspected: I’m back in Fyreneth’s Fortress.

The question is: How?

The role requirement ringing in my ears is the last thing I remember. The all-consuming pain it caused. The strange, foreign instinct it instilled in me to return to my palace. My lips twitch in the faintest ghost of a smile. My palace. As if I own it.

But what this role requirement did to me is no laughing matter.

Echo, I think, still too tired to try to speak. The Role Requirement. Tell me about it.

[The user’s Role is The Dark Lord,] Echo says. [To fulfill this Role, the user must protect their Kingdom.]

Kingdom? I ask. You mean Fyreneth’s Fortress?

[Affirmative,] Echo says.

I let out a long sigh. But I was trying to protect us. I was trying to save Mirzayael.

[The user left the zone designated as The Dark Lord’s territory. Leaving the designated zone unprotected violates the role requirement.]

This rule isn’t actually about people, then. It’s about staying within the boundaries. It’s so arbitrary. Absurd. Like a children’s game.

A game whose rules could get me and others killed.

Are there other aspects of the Role Requirement I should know about? I ask. I’m frustrated with myself to have taken this long to dig into it. There was always something more immediate, more pressing, to spend my time on. I can’t make that mistake again.

[Protecting the kingdom is the sole objective of The Dark Lord’s role requirement,] Echo says. [This includes ensuring the safety of the kingdom and the survival of its citizens. Leaving the kingdom unguarded is prohibited. Allowing the kingdom to be destroyed is prohibited. Allowing the inhabitants of the kingdom to be eliminated is prohibited.]

“Yeah, I got it,” I mumble. I’m anchored to this place.

I feel like the implications of such a revelation should bother me more, but at the moment, I’m far too tired to unravel the existential consequences.

Besides, there’s other things to be worrying about.

Like Mirzayael.

“Hello?” Nek’s soft voice rumbles across the room. “Did I hear a sound? Are you awake?”

In a herculean effort, I manage to lift my head. The felis is hesitating in the doorframe, his tail swishing nervously.

“Nek.” My voice comes out in a croak, so I clear it and try again. “Is Mirzayael alright?”

Instead of answering, Nek turns back to the hall. “She’s awake.”

A dracid hobbles in on a walking stick a moment later, flanked by Nek. I recognize the dracid as Hetlanir’s second in command, and after I get Echo to Check him, I am reminded his name is Torim. I study both their faces carefully as Nek helps the dracid sink down onto the edge of my bed with a grimace. No one else comes in after them.

“Mirzayael—”

“The captain is fine,” Nek says, pulling up a chair and heaving a heavy sigh as he sits himself. “She’s sleeping in the next room over.”

Relief floods through me. “Thank goodness.” Battling gravity, I force myself upright, pulling my wings free from the blankets to drape over either side of the bed. I wince as something pulls in my left wing.

“That one was broken when we picked you up,” Torim says, nodding to my wing.

“We were going to ask Beryl to help, but you heal remarkably fast,” Nek adds. “By the time we got you up here, we couldn’t find the break anymore.”

I Check myself over just to be sure.

[HP: 90/100]

I should be fully healed in the next few hours. “Beryl’s alright, then?”

Nek grimaces, and Torim’s face becomes grave. My heart skips a beat.

“She’s alive,” Nek says. “But injured and resting.”

“Hetlanir was not so lucky,” Torim adds before I have a chance to feel relieved. His face twists in pain. “Our leader gave his life for hers. He must have thought highly of her.” He passes a hand over his face, composing himself. “I am here in his place.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, recalling the moment they were struck by Alis’s attack. It happened so quickly. It hadn’t even seemed to be that big of an impact. My stomach turns in a sickly way, realizing I had witnessed his death.

“It could have been worse,” Nek says. “Everyone else made it back alive, thanks to you. We wouldn’t have scared the Jorrians off—or recovered Mirzayael—without you.”

I knead my forehead between my fingers. “Thanks to me? I don’t even remember what happened toward the end. How did you get Mirzayael? I remember falling to the ice, and then…”

Screams. A shadow.

“It was your dragon,” Torim says. “We couldn’t make out much from where we were, but after you went down, the dragon completely lost it.”

“Ollie landed right on top of them,” Nek continues. “I was terrified he was going to kill Mirzayael. But he grabbed her and he grabbed you and then came right back.” Nek leans back in his chair. “He’s a good kid.”

My heart swells with pride. “He is.” And yet, I shouldn’t have put him in that position in the first place. The poor child. It must have been terrifying. “I’d like to go speak with him soon. Just to make sure he’s okay.”

“Of course,” Nek says. “He’s down in his cave, sleeping it off like the rest of us.”

“Rest is important,” Torim agrees. “We’ll need the energy.”

“For what?” I ask.

Torim frowns. Nek looks away.

“The move will be a lot of work,” Torim says. “People are already packing.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Everyone has already moved into the Fortress. Are there more still to come from your colony?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not talking about moving here; I’m talking about moving out. We need to leave the caves.”

“Ollie managed to take out some of the Jorrians,” Nek says. “But not all of them. They will have made it back to their kingdom by now. With news of our resistance. With news of…” He trails off awkwardly, but Torim doesn’t let the words go unspoken.

“With news of Fyreneth’s weapon being wielded once more,” he says. “With news of Fyreneth herself reborn.”

My skin prickles where the Dungeon Core is secured to my arm. It’s my fault. I’m the reason these people will be targeted.

“If the Jorrians come in numbers, we won’t be able to beat them,” Torim continues. “We must risk fleeing back to our caves on the other side of the arctic. It’s dangerous, but our only hope of survival. If we leave soon, we may have enough of a head start to avoid any more battles with the Jorrians. One thing is certain: we cannot idle here as an army readies to march on us.”

He’s right about that. If we do nothing to prepare, they’ll overwhelm us with sheer numbers. Mirzayael hardly has two dozen guards trained to fight, and even if we added all of Torim’s scouts and every able-bodied adult in the mix, it would still pale in comparison to what Jorria could amass.

There’s only one problem with the resettlement idea: I can’t go with them.

I sigh, rubbing my eyes. How do I even begin to explain this dilemma? And should I? I have no right to ask these people to stay here and die for me. But if I tell them I can’t come with, some would surely stay. Nek and the dracid, likely. But if they stayed while the rest left, I’d be condemning them to death.

I don’t know what to do. I need to spend some time thinking through all this. Not to mention, no decision-making process is robust without first gathering all relevant information. I need to speak with Ollie.

“I understand,” I say, meeting the other two’s grim looks. “Do what you have to do to keep everyone safe.” I push the blankets aside, grimacing against my weariness and aching muscles. “Speaking of which, I need to go see Ollie.”

Torim dips his head in acknowledgement, and Nek stands up, offering the dracid a hand to help him to his feet. Torim pauses, however.

“Fyre,” he says. “I want you to know that your actions yesterday were honorable. You risked yourself for all of us. What you’ve done for the dracid here, what you’ve done for all of us, does not go unnoticed.”

Nek nods his agreement. “You may not have been born here, but you are no outsider. You are one of us.”

Their words warm me, even as they break my heart.

On Earth, I never really could figure out how to be part of a community. Friends drifted away. My wife and daughter left me—deservedly, I might add. I always kept my distance.

Yet somehow, here, it’s come naturally. Finally everything seemed to feel right. Without even realizing it, I began to call this place home. Not the city itself—not Fyreneth’s Keep or the Palace—but the people. They felt like home.

And now that they have to leave, I wish more than anything that I could go with them.

“Thank you,” I say. “That means more than I can say.”

“We’ll take our leave, now,” Torim says. “There is much to prepare for.”

“Let me know when you’ve returned from Ollie’s cave,” Nek adds. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you to see Mirzayael.”

“Thank you,” I repeat, slipping out of the bed. I wince as I straighten up, cracking my neck and stretching my wings and arms.

I’ve much to prepare for as well.

----------------------------------------

“Ollie,” I call as I head down the passage, trailing my hand over the railing. Since achieving a nigh inexhaustible mana pool to tap into, I’ve made little alterations to the passages every time I’ve passed through them, smoothing out the floor or stairs, adding handrails, and adjusting the placement of torches and lighting runes that Mirzayael and the other scouts set up. Slowly but surely, I’ve been shaping the caverns into a home—one that might soon become abandoned.

“Ollie, are you there?” I echo the thoughts mentally as well. I feel his mind stir.

“FYRE?”

The boy sounds miserable, and when I step out of the passage and onto the landing at the top of Ollie’s cavern, I see he looks it, too.

The dragon is curled atop his small, eclectic horde, full of bones, rusted plate armor, glittery rocks, and even some broken weapons and pottery. I suspect Mirzayael’s guards have been indulging him with findings from Fyreneth’s Fortress, passing off whatever they deemed too broken to fix.

He lifts his head as I enter. “FYRE! I’M GLAD YOU’RE OKAY.”

“Me too,” I say, heading down the staircase to his floor. “Thank you for saving me. Nek told me what happened. You were very brave.”

“I WAS SO SCARED!” Ollie says, his wings fluttering in agitation. “I THOUGHT YOU WERE HURT! YOUR MIND WAS SCREAMING.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

“ARE YOU OKAY NOW?” he asks.

“Yes, I think so.” Though really, I’m not so sure. Being magically bound by something like this is troubling. I don’t like that this Role Requirement is infringing on my free will. “But enough about me. How are you doing? How’s your tail?”

Ollie curls it around to show me. There’s a jagged white scar on his tail where the direwolf had nearly ripped off a chunk of flesh. I gently run my hand over it.

“I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“IT’S OKAY,” Ollie says. “BERYL HEALED IT FOR ME. SHE SAID I WAS A MIGHTY DRAGON.” He grins, showing all his pointy teeth. “I AM MIGHTY!”

I laugh. “You are!”

Just as quickly, his mood dips. “BUT FYRE. I HURT SOME PEOPLE.”

“I know,” I say, patting his snout. “That’s okay. You couldn’t help it. And you saved Mirzayael’s life.”

“OKAY,” Ollie says, but I can sense through our mental bond that he’s holding back something else.

“What is it?” I prompt.

Ollie wiggles uncomfortably. “I DID SOMETHING REALLY BAD.”

“It’s okay to hurt people if you’re protecting yourself,” I say.

But he shakes his head. “SOMETHING WORSE THAN HURTING.”

“Killing?” I ask, as softly as I can. Nek said he’d landed on top of the Jorrians. It doesn’t take an aerospace engineer to figure out how that might have turned out for the soldiers.

Ollie buries his face beneath his claws. “YES. BUT EVEN WORSE.”

I frown. What’s worse than killing? “It’s okay,” I say, patting his nose. “You can tell me. I won’t be mad. Promise.”

His mental voice drops down to the dragon-equivalent of a whisper. “I ate people.”

A cold shiver washes through me. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t that.

I force myself to respond, hoping he didn’t notice my momentary shock. “It’s okay,” I say, petting his nose and trying to coax him out from under his claws. “You didn’t mean to, did you?”

“NO!” he wails. “I WAS JUST TRYING TO PICK THEM UP AND GET THEM OUT OF THE WAY! BUT THEN I MIGHT HAVE BIT TOO HARD AND THEY GOT STUCK IN MY TEETH AND THEN I SWALLOWED SOME—”

“Okay,” I say, cutting him off as I attempt to not let my horror show. “Yes, I understand. It was an accident.”

He nods emphatically. “BUT FYRE. DOES THIS MAKE ME A CANIMAL?”

I pause. “A what?”

“A CANIMAL,” he says miserably. “AM I A CANIMAL NOW?”

“I… don’t know what that is,” I say, wracking my brain.

His mental voice dips back down to a whisper. “Someone who eats people.”

“A cannibal,” I say, chuckling at the absurdity of the conversation. “I mean, technically speaking, a cannibal is someone who eats a member of their own species, and since you’re a dragon…” But I doubt Ollie is interested in the semantics of the issue.

It raises an uncomfortable question, however. Is he no longer a human? Am I? I’ve admittedly adapted to being a harpy relatively quickly, but my change is much less significant than what Ollie went through. Are you your mind, or are you your body?

Or some combination of the two?

“No, Ollie, you’re not a cannibal,” I say, giving his nose a hug. “And you didn’t do anything wrong. Any people you hurt was on accident, and you did it to save my life. You’re a big hero.” And I’m certainly glad he’s on our side.

When I lean back from the hug, I Check Ollie out of habit.

[Name: Ollie]

[Species: Frost Dragon]

[Class: N/A]

[Level: 44]

[HP: 2500/2500]

[Mana: 850/850]

[Role: The Dragon]

Echo, what are the role requirements of Ollie’s role? I ask.

[User does not have access to that data.]

It was worth a shot.

“Ollie, can you check your stats for me?” I say. “What does your Role mean?”

Ollie tips his head to the side for a moment. “ECHO SAYS MY ROLE IS THE DRAGON. IT MEANS I’M A SERVANT TO THE DARK LORD AND AM SUPPOSED TO DEFEND OUR KINGDOM. DEFENDING A KINGDOM SOUNDS FUN! WHO’S THE DARK LORD?”

“That would be me,” I say, troubled by this reveal. So the roles don’t have to bind you to a place, they can bind you to other people as well.

“WHAT’S IT MEAN?” Ollie asks.

It means I’m the bad guy. But I can’t tell Ollie that. “It means I have to protect Fyreneth’s Fortress.”

“THAT’S COOL,” he says. “YOU’RE A PROTECTOR, JUST LIKE ME!”

I smile sadly, wishing I had the bravery to tell him what it really means for the both of us. We’ll be trapped here, alone, as the rest of the Fyrethians escape. And, alone, we’ll have to survive the Jorrian’s attack.

But I don’t have the stomach to scare him like that. Not when I’ve just settled him down a bit. Instead, I give his nose a tight hug.

“I have to go talk to Mirzayael now,” I tell him. “I’ll come get you when it’s time for dinner, and we can talk again then.”

“OKAY,” Ollie says, though he sounds a little sad that I’m leaving so soon. His mind is brimming with loneliness. “FYRE? I’M NOT GONNA SEE MOM AND DAD AGAIN, AM I?”

The knife in my heart twists another notch. “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. I can’t lie about this. “I’ll do what I can to see if it’s possible. But it might be a very long time.”

“YEAH,” Ollie says, and even though that brimming loneliness spills over into a throbbing pain, I can feel he’s not surprised, either. “THANK YOU, FYRE. I LOVE YOU.”

My throat tightens up and I blink rapidly, holding back the tears, as I lean forward to press my head against the boy’s. “I love you, too, Ollie. I’m going to do everything I can to take care of you.”

A caring warmth passes between our minds. “I KNOW.”