In the morning, Mel stood by the broken statue of Terri Taveck at the town square. No one had moved his sliced down top-half from its resting place on the ground next to the base of the statue. The exposed middle of the sculpture had a silvery metal running like veins through the stone, while the outside of the statue had a dusty gray feeling to it. Nothing shiny at all.

Mel wondered if it was cut from the mountain and if the metal inside was titanium ore. She guessed it might be. The governor didn’t seem bothered with fixing the statue yet anyway and it was just standing here, broken like a scar running through Aldrion.

Marcus walked toward her with only one crutch today. He seemed to have left the other one at the base, and Mel thought it might be a sign he was healing.

“Hi,” Marcus said. “Have you waited for long?”

Mel shook her head, and a smile extended over her lips. This was the first time they were going to hang out alone since she had told Marcus off and ended their relationship. It felt strange, and Mel’s heart was beating unsteadily. She was nervous about being alone with him. Nervous that he wouldn’t listen to what she wanted.

Marcus glanced around them at the square. “It’s this way.”

Mel walked side by side with Marcus down toward the houses along the eastern wall. Houses just like the one Austin’s moms were living in. They passed people on the street, but no one seemed to take notice of them. Marcus was wearing his Aldrion blue army clothes and Mel had Gabs’ purple cloak on. They must have looked like any regular Aldrion born.

“Gabriella mentioned yesterday that you need to pay for the dorm room at Falden this week,” Marcus said.

Mel turned to him, and a frown descended on her forehead. “I will get the money.”

“Sure, but I can just give you one gold and then you will be fine and have some coin over to purchase paper or whatever you need. It’s not that much, Mel. I can make it back within a few months in the army and I have nothing to spend my money on, anyway.”

Mel shook her head. “No, I don’t want to take your money again. I feel like everyone is just expecting me to live off them. To always be in their debt and I don’t want to do that anymore. I will find a way to earn the money on my own.”

“It’s not that we don’t believe you can earn it. It’s just that you don’t need to. I can cover this expense and you can focus on your destiny and school.”

“My destiny?” Mel asked.

Marcus looked around them at the people passing, minding their own business. He lowered his voice. “Yes, I still believe you will bring the dragons back.”

Mel cleared her throat, feeling like it was suddenly dry as sand. “The dragon is already here.”

“No, not that black monster that attacks us, Mel.” Marcus shot her a concerned glance. “I hope you don’t believe that thing is really a dragon. Otherwise, I’m not sure why you wanted to meet with me today.”

“I’m not sure what I believe,” Mel said. “I just know that I don’t want to bring back any sort of dragons. I want to help destroy the black dragon and find out the truth about my dagger and my great grandfather. I want to become a mage smith at the dragon forge and I want to help bring peace back to Aldrion.”

Marcus nodded and walked past Mel onto a lawn in front of a broken house next to the eastern wall. He walked around the structure that had been scorched and found his way to the back of the house. Mel followed and saw Marcus putting down his crutch and kneeling in front of a small altar.

Mel looked behind her, but no one seemed to see them back here. She joined him in front of the altar, kneeling against the wet earth. It had rained last night and the grass still bore drops of water along their thin straws.

Marcus sat back on his heels and closed his eyes. His body formed a revenant posture and a serene expression covered his face. Mel observed him for a moment before she turned back to the shrine.

Marcus had clearly made this out of items he had come across here in Aldrion. There was a wooden idol of a dragon he must have carved and painted with a silver color. Behind it he had mounted a red cloth like a small tapestry and surrounding everything was a structure with a roof, to cover the shrine from the weather. At the bottom of the shrine was a metal ingot to anchor the prayers so they could reach the dragons better.

Mel felt a shiver run down her spine as she thought about praying to the dragons. It had been a long time since she had tried to speak to them and a part of her didn’t want to open up more communication than they already had. She swallowed her fear and told herself it would be fine. She needed to try this to see what happened.

Mel closed her eyes and leaned back on her heels. She prayed to the dragons to let her pass her test and get to attend the next semester at Falden. She prayed to them for guidance about her upcoming trip to Bahlan and finally, as her courage increased, she prayed to them to show her the way forward toward her destiny.

Mel opened her eyes and the small altar stood there in front of her, just like it had a minute ago. No one had spoken in her mind, and Mel let out a sigh of relief. Her prayers had as of yet gone unheard and somehow that was exactly what Mel had wanted. She didn’t want the dragons to hear her anymore.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Marcus opened his eyes a moment later and turned to Mel with a smile on his lips.

“Did they say anything to you?” Mel asked.

His smile widened. “Yes, the dragons spoke to me.”

Mel sat up straight and observed Marcus. She had never told him that the dragons spoke to her often, and that they were not speaking about nice things. She wondered what he would say if she told him, but more than that, she wondered what they were saying to him.

“What did they say?”

“It’s between me and the dragons,” Marcus said.

“Okay,” Mel said. “But what did they sound like then? What voice did they have?”

Marcus’ smile vanished, and he looked down at his hands. “You don’t believe me.”

“No, I believe you,” Mel said. “I’m just curious. I think I’ve heard them speak to me before as well, and I just wanted to know if it was the same thing as what you experience.”

“If they have,” Marcus said, looking at his shrine. “You should know it’s meant to be personal and not discussed.”

Mel swallowed hard and watched Marcus’ face in profile. She didn’t quite know if he had meant this as an insult or just an explanation of how he felt. She guessed she would have to leave it there. He didn’t seem open to speak to her about it and Mel didn’t feel like she wanted to tell him anything about her conversations with the dragons now.

#

A while later, Mel made her way up the stone steps to the church of the sun and entered the massive building. It was nothing like the small home-made shrine Marcus had taken her to earlier. Mel felt a sting of betrayal in her heart at visiting two religious shrines on the same day. But Sundays were the official day of praying to both the dragons and the sun.

Mel walked down the aisle in the big room and heard her feet scrape the stone floor. She had gotten here a bit late and now the sermon seemed to have ended. There was not a single soul left in the church, and Mel felt her heart sinking. She guessed she would have to pray this time without any guidance.

She watched the paintings and sculptures adorning the walls and ceiling of the place. But to her surprise, she saw several dark spots where she could have sworn something used to hang. A frown covered her face when she got to the altar at the end of the room and she looked up at the window above. The sun was still shining in through it, but its rays had left the place where the cup of wine stood on the altar.

There was a white cloth covering the altar and the red of the wine was a stark contrast against the otherwise lack of color here. She wondered if the wine still bore the mother’s blessing or if it had left it just like her light had. Mel thought back to when she had been cut by the shadow’s blade out in the wastes and ran a finger along the scar on her forearm.

Her blood had glowed that day. It had shed wisps of light as it had poured out of her. Did the mother’s blessing have anything to do with that?

“Do you need anything?” a voice echoed through the quiet room.

Mel spun around and found the priest from last time she had visited the church standing to the side of the aisle. She hadn’t seen him when she got here. Mel guessed he must have come from some backroom, only for people of the church.

“I must have missed the sermon,” Mel said.

The priest nodded to her and took a couple of steps toward her. He spread out an arm and gestured toward the cup with red wine.

“You can still take the mother’s blessing,” he said. “I haven’t poured it out yet.”

Mel’s eyes shot back to the cup in front of her and the priest walked around the altar to stand in front of Mel, just below the round window.

“Can I ask you something first?”

The priest nodded and his hands disappeared inside his adorned white robe.

“Does the mother speak to you?” Mel asked.

He gave her a quizzical look. “Yes, she speaks to all of us if we only take the time to listen.”

“What kind of voice does she have?” Mel asked.

“She has the voice you choose for her to have,” he said.

“What?” Mel said. “What does that mean?”

The priest gave Mel a soft smile. “The mother does not have but one voice and she does not speak in words. She speaks in spirit, child. The sun will guide you if you open up your heart to her guidance. But it is not a way of communication like you and I are having now.”

Mel took a moment and considered this. She licked her lips and wondered if this was what Marcus had been trying to tell her before.

“If the sun spoke to me in words, then?” Mel asked. “What could that mean?”

The priest gave her a wink. “Delusion, my friend.”

“What?” Mel asked, taking a step back from him.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It happens even to the best of us. Sometimes we can imagine that the mother speaks in a true voice, like mine or yours. But that is not her then. It is your imagination who is running the show. Don’t listen to that voice. It is not her guidance. Listen to the spirit of the mother and the intuition she sends to you.”

Mel scratched the back of her head. Confusion was gathering in her mind and she wondered if this priest had been the right person to ask about the gods speaking to you. She felt like she might have put her trust in the wrong person and wondered what he was even trying to tell her.

“Don’t worry so much about the big questions,” he said. “Leave it in the hands of the mother. Will you accept her blessing today, child?”

Mel observed his outreached hands and his soft smile for a moment. She couldn’t quite decide if he was good or evil. The sun sure shone around him, but his words seemed too far away from her to grasp.

She took a step forward, and the priest lifted the cup in both hands. He closed his eyes and his lips moved, but no sound came. Just like last time, but this time Mel understood that he wasn’t talking to her but to the mother.

His eyes flew open and locked with hers as he handed her the cup. Mel took it with both hands. The spiced wine reached her nostrils, but when her eyes landed on the liquid, she was sure it had changed. Morphed into blood.

As she took a sip from the cup, a metallic flavor spread in her mouth and Mel wondered whose blood this was.

“Osol,” she said.

She handed back the cup to the priest, and he gave her a nod of approval. Mel felt a floating sensation in her body as she turned her back to the priest and walked down the altar toward the exit. Her limbs were heavy and her mind felt like it was in a fog.

Mel thought she could feel the mother embracing her, making her body warm and relaxed.