It felt almost like a miracle when I opened my eyes again. Though, there was a problem... I didn't see anything... I was surrounded by darkness, silence and some scent that I think I recognized but couldn't name at the moment. I was lying on my stomach, on something soft... Could it be... could all of this have been a dream? Was I still in the Siracel temple, or worse... in Light's mansion?

Shifting to my left side, I tried to lift myself up a bit. Something rustled beneath me weirdly, and there was a sudden, weird sensation on various spots of my body, a clear sign of scabs on abraded skin crackling open...

So it couldn't have been a dream... but who saved me? Was it the owner of that mysterious voice? Or was it just my numbed mind that imagined hearing it in the cave? Who in their right mind would live in this underground though? And... where in the world was I now?

I looked around once more. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness. There were some irregular, bright lines forming weird shapes above my head... and I suddenly became aware of something. A sound... something resembling the gentle and deep rush of waves meeting the shore and then retreating again... I realized that it was present the whole time since the moment I came to my senses, but I didn't even notice...

I carefully reached out with my hand, searching for anything that could cast some light upon my current situation. Literally or figuratively. My fingers soon met something soft, very warm and... big. I slowly moved my hand across the weirdly bumpy, but smooth surface. Trying to shift closer, I propped myself on my left elbow... but my wing got caught on something and the pain that shot through it was sharp enough to make me let out a short scream.

"You shouldn't get up," I suddenly heard when I slumped back, trying to catch my breath. It was this calm, female voice again... clearer and louder than ever before, resonating much closer, almost like it was inside my head... I closed my eyes, terrified that I was losing consciousness again. It could have been just the echo of a hallucination...

"Who are you...?" I whined. "I remember your voice... you were there, in the crypts of the Siracel temple..."

"I was not there," a hint of amusement reverberated in those words. "But I am honored that you memorized it."

"Where am I...? And why is it so dark in here...?"

"Well... I'm afraid that you could get really scared if I let some light reach you."

"Get scared? Of what...?"

"Of me."

I fell silent for a second, blinking. "Then who... who even are you...?"

For a moment, there was no answer, which made me think she left me alone with a riddle to solve. But soon enough, the voice spoke up again: "Even if I told you... I do not think you would believe."

A rustle came from above my head, strangely similar to the one I heard from that underground tunnel that I never reached. Something was moving right above me... And suddenly I was hit by a light so bright that I was forced to squeeze my eyes shut and shield them with my forearm. When finally, after a few long moments, I was able to open them again, the only thing I could do was take a loud, bewildered breath.

I saw a monstrous cave, bathed in the rays of the sun that stood high in the clear sky, coming in through a vast opening in the dome. A big part of it, partially shielded by an overhang, was covered in a thick layer of hay, forming something that resembled a nest. I was resting in the very middle of it, and right beside me, or rather around me, coiled into a loose ball, laid...

... a dragon...

A real, enormous, golden dragon, watching me with worry in its wise, molten eyes and sheltering me with one of its wings, bigger than my own at least ten times. Or rather it wasn't a dragon... it was a dragoness...

Who lowered her huge head towards me and purred quietly: "Did you lose your tongue?"

She should have asked if I lost my breath. It took me a few moments before the spinning in my head signaled that I wasn't quite doing something right and sucked in a desperate breath. Closing my eyes again and covering them with one hand, I just breathed for a while. "So this is some sort of dream after all...?" I moaned.

"Do you feel like you're in a dream?" she countered gently.

"I see... so the ansirths sent me to the place where Ered once sent the dragons..."

"I swear, I never understood why humans like to overcomplicate things this much," the dragoness was clearly amused. "You always fancy the most tangled path in search for your answers."

I opened my eyes again and hesitantly looked at the fascinating creature lying beside me. She didn't seem to be an illusion... The sun's rays coming from outside reflected off of her dreamlike, golden scales, casting dancing lights onto the rocky walls of the cavern. I realized that it must have been them that caused the mysterious sound when she was moving... I unmistakably felt the heat of her mighty body, with which she enveloped me like a mother would do with her offspring...

"But that's not possible..." I muttered. "Dragons, they..."

"They did not die out, Sigrian," she interrupted me. "Not all of them."

I reached to my neck, to the crystal that always told me what was right. It was cold. But so it was back when I learned the opposite. What was going on...?

"Do not worry, it's not broken," the dragoness explained calmly. She clearly knew, even though she didn't see the crystal. "Your sirath is not a huge library storing all the truth about this world though. All it does is sensing the intent of your interlocutor. If they believe what they are telling you to be the truth, then you will not know the difference."

"I... suppose that makes sense... But still, how...? Our whole world believes that dragons are forever gone..."

The dragoness seemed to search for the right words for a moment. "Back then, when the remaining dragons of this land bonded to face our enemy, I was the only one awaiting progeny. It was why I was told to hide in the depths of the Dragon Mountains, in case the worst should happen, and ensure the safety of my children. We wanted to defeat our enemy, but also protect our race... I was listening out for news about the outcome the way humans listen out for the sounds of approaching storm... And the last sign from my brothers and sisters was a simple message, sent here with the last spark of their magic, along with a request to wait for the ones chosen by the Last Dragons..."

"You were... awaiting progeny?" I finally managed to stammer out.

The dragoness elegantly craned her neck above my head, pointing her snout towards her rear legs. When I followed her gaze, carefully lifting myself a bit from the hay again, she shoved a layer of the nest aside with the huge spikes on the tip of her tail, revealing two big, yellowish eggs. "Here," the motherly warmth and pride emanating from her was almost palpable. "They are waiting for the day when peace returns to these lands, so they can hatch safely."

I couldn't hold back a smile. It was like I just saw a spark of hope... a promise for the future I would never have dared to dream of... My arm was starting to tremble so I wanted to lie back down, but then I noticed how close the head of the dragoness was to me now... Unwittingly reaching out with a shaking hand, I carefully touched the fine scales on her cheek. Her eyes drifted shut...

"You're real..." I whispered.

I thought I saw a glint of amusement in her beautiful, molten eye when she opened it again to look at me. "Really, it's so difficult to convince you of anything..."

I suddenly felt myself sincerely believing... All of it kind of made sense. The golden shape I saw before I lost consciousness wasn't the shadow of the last of the ansirths coming out of nowhere... it was her... And the spells that protected the shard of the Sunrise in the crypts of the Siracel temple were cast by dragons... That's why she could speak to us even though she was here the entire time.

Maybe dragons really did look for some solution beforehand, not only to ensure the safety of other races but their own as well...? Suddenly, the memory of something Siaril once told me started to echo in my mind: 'Dragons were extremely intelligent, I dare to say, far more than humans. Their magic abilities supposedly gave some the power to see the future...'

I closed my eyes.

I believed...

I felt myself smile, a single tear rolling down my cheek.

"What's wrong?" I heard the dragoness' concerned voice.

"Nothing..." I wiped it away, fighting the urge to laugh. "It's just... I feel so relieved... Because that means we're not the Disciples of the Last Dragons. We're not alone..."

"You never were. You had help even before you were born for the protection of this land."

A sudden chill ran down my spine. It was like my own words just slapped me in the face. 'The Disciples of the Last Dragons'... If it weren't for the pain in my whole body, I would have jolted up from the hay.

"Siaril, Yasenka..." I started to look around. "Where are they?"

The dragoness was silent for a few moments. "I'm sorry, but I only found you. Had you not caused such a ruckus, I would not even have noticed your arrival. I did not yet have the opportunity to search for them, I had to take care of you."

"I have to find them!" I tried to get up again, but was once more sent back to the bedding by the sharp pain.

"With a broken wing?" she cooled me down.

I froze for a moment. Of course I knew that something was damaged there, but I didn't expect it to be this bad... "But... if they're injured too, if they need help..." I clenched my fists in helpless anger. "It's all Sharish's fault... if he didn't send those unappeased ansirths..."

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"Yes, he sent a whole three of them," the dragoness puffed a small cloud of smoke out of her nostrils, as if wanting to say that such a number is not even worth mentioning. "I don't think you need to worry about your companions."

"Why?"

"Two of those filthy crossbreeds followed you, did they not? One you took care of yourself. The second, I admit, was trying hard until it met the rocks in the water... and I doubt Yasenka and Siaril had a big problem with the single one remaining."

"And what if there were actually more? We saw them from a distance, we didn't stop to count them..."

"The enemy often seems to double in the eyes of an escaping warrior."

"Maybe, but they could still be injured... what if they're sitting there somewhere, unable to move, and are hopelessly waiting for help?"

"Oh, I do not think so. I heard them calling you from the deeper caves just yesterday."

I gave her a terrified look. I was afraid to ask, but I eventually did: "Yesterday...? I was unconscious since yesterday...?"

"Worry not, they will find us sooner or later. Besides, it makes no sense to go after them. If we started to search for each other while moving around in a dark, underground maze, we would never be able to meet."

I cast my eyes down. And what if Siaril and Yasenka won't reach this place? Would they assume that I died and give up the search? If they left the caves and flew back west, I wouldn't be able to find them so easily, besides, how was I even supposed to do it with a broken wing? It was Yasenka who always took care of health problems more complicated than 'cleanse it and tie something around it'... The dragoness couldn't just leave the safety of her hideout to come with me and help either, she was protecting a way too precious treasure... I felt so utterly powerless...

"We shouldn't worry about things we cannot influence, Sigrian," the dragoness said softly. She was quiet for a moment, then, probably upon sensing my despair, changed the topic. "Tell me, what do you plan to do once you collect all the shards of the Sunrise that managed to not fall into Sharish's hands? What will you do with him?"

I needed stupidly long to understand that question. And when I finally came to my senses, I didn't know how to answer anyway. "To be honest... I have no clue. We didn't plan out that far..."

"I see..."

"Actually, there is one thing that might point us in the right direction... if we actually knew what it meant."

"Mind sharing it with me?"

"There was a phrase in the Dracascarion..." I took a second to remember the exact wording. "'So it may to the green summits of the disinherited monarch return'... You should know what that means, right?"

"Wait..." the dragoness seemed genuinely surprised. "I thought you would already be way past that."

"We have no idea what it means."

"Well... this isn't really a clue that leads to another shard or anything as important, but still, how come? Isn't the Disciple of Ralethiel someone from the Elkjar Mountains in the North? Someone from the Nitrael lineage?"

Nitrael? I remembered the name rather vaguely, but... if memory served, that was the name Siaril introduced himself with to my parents... And Canidralth did mention before that my friend was born somewhere in the north... "Well... yes? I guess?" I wasn't sure where we were heading with this.

"And he didn't tell you anything? He should have known straight away."

I suddenly felt the touch of a suspicion. Maybe what the dragoness was trying to tell me was the exact same thing Yasenka didn't manage to reveal before this chaos started? Maybe I would finally get to know why Siaril behaved so weirdly...?

"Why him?" I asked.

"So he didn't tell you after all... You will be surprised, but this whole story concerns the royal house ruling Earlindon. And for every puppet allowing itself to be manipulated, there is always a madman pulling tenuous strings."

I was silent. Everything in my head was slowly getting tangled up and starting to whirl like moths around a candle. But I didn't interrupt.

And the dragoness continued: "Long ago, when there was still peace between our race and humans, the family reigning over Earlindon was divided into two houses. After some time, one part of the lineage, called the Fearn clan, separated themselves from the rest of the family and moved to another part of the kingdom, changing the location of the capital at the same time."

"Fearn?" I repeated quietly, answering the sound of a string that was just plucked inside my memory. "So you mean the family... that I was forced to be a part of for some time..."

"Correct. But I heard that the head of the clan met a suitably violent end recently."

"It's true... But it's strange, while I was in there, I learned a lot about the history of the lineage, but in no book or documents was there ever a second branch of the family being mentioned..."

"You are assuming that if someone has written a book, then they knew what they were writing about. You were probably provided only with works created specifically on demand of the Fearn family, who above all else wanted to erase their relatives from the pages of history. Luckily, someone dared to secretly add the missing verses. I don't know if now, with one of the branches having died out, the second will claim their rights... all the more because there still is the..." she gave me an amused look, "son of king Yisral, an exceptional herb in the royal garden, who's chasing ansirths around Earlindon and experiencing all kind of other episodes exciting for a young man..."

I let out an irritated sigh. Even she had to annoy me with that... After a moment, the dragoness spread her enormous wing above me once more, leaning her snout closer. "Forgive me, that joke was misplaced."

I shook my head a little. "How do you even know about all this? You've been hiding here all this time, haven't you?"

"Yes, but I was able to sometimes trace your steps using the same kind of magic that was used in the crypts of the Siracel temple. I didn't do it often, I was afraid that one of you would eventually notice as your understanding of magic grew, especially the heiress of Yrvanyss... but luckily, I was able to maintain the element of surprise."

"Hold on... When I returned home after two years, the first night, I had a dream..."

The dragoness gave me a warm look. "I was a little careless, assuming it's too early for you to sense anything..."

That riddle had been itching me somewhere in the back of my head for quite a while now... And the answer being so sudden and beautiful made me excited. "Was it the Dragon Mountains that I saw?"

"It was. I was hunting at the south end of the ridge, by the Hakeil Bay. Did you enjoy the view?"

"I did..." I smiled, a little flabbergasted. "Oh, and that one time I saw Sharish at the border of the Silivren Forest..."

This time, the dragoness seemed surprised. "I was watching him through the eyes of a deer... you were there too?"

"Apparently."

"You keep surprising me..."

"But returning to the topic..."

"Yes... maybe I should start from the beginning. Long ago, still during the times of Ered, the capital of Earlindon was located in Hreshia, or as some call it, The City of Peaks, which lies far in the mountainous north-east. The royal family lived in peace and harmony, until the day when Ered learned that there was something very precious in the vaults of the palace... A sword made mostly out of the mighty Ilmerast."

I gaped a little. "The sword Siaril is carrying with him...?"

"The same."

"How did it get there? I heard it belonged to Acamres the Founder."

"Not exactly. He had it forged for a friend in time of great need."

"Great need...?"

The dragoness nodded. "Back then, Earlindon was facing a threat that came from below the mountains. The City of Peaks conceals the border of two worlds, the entrance to Heiserth, the underground kingdom of kanh, or dark elves, as some call them."

I blinked. "Since when do elves live under the earth?"

"Oh, they were living there before your race even got to know the other, forest elves. They are not evil by nature, like some would assume, but it is far easier to convince them to do evil. In the times of Acamres, the kanh had declared war to the surface. Luckily, there were some among their own race who tried to stop it. Acamres had the sword forged for a kanh that was part of the resistance."

"And then?"

The way the dragoness looked at me gave away much of amusement at my curiosity. "I think this history lesson is better left for another time. We should focus on the more recent."

"Right, sorry..."

The dragoness let out a small, sad sigh. "There were unhealthy ambitions smoldering in Ered's soul... I assume he saw a chance for himself in that sword. A chance to gain enough power to finally go against the dragons, gain the respect and favor of the people, and then return the rule over Earlindon to mages. So he snuck his way into the royal family as an advisor. He was patient... over a few years, he worked to earn the unshakeable trust of the king, the head of the Fearn line. Once he was certain of his position, he made sure that shreds of information about his scheme started to reach the ears of the other clan's head. The brother of the king reacted immediately, and tried to warn his kin about the deceitful snake lurking at his side. At that moment, Ered talked a suspicion into the mind of the king... a suspicion that his brother desires to start a conflict and seize the throne, which the king unfortunately believed. I suppose Ered was hoping to start a war between the two feud sides and lead to their destruction, which would leave him the freedom of taking their place and the unrestricted access to the sword."

"For a madman, he seemed to think rather logically..."

"Unfortunately. But the events took another turn. The king officially disinherited his brother and all his descendants before deciding to start a new chapter of Earlindon's history. Together with his own family, he moved to Ioreth and took all pains to make sure the memory of his rebellious relatives vanished without a trace. The disinherited brother however, vigilantly stayed in the old capital, guarding the access to the sword. And after all those years Sharish, who wasn't yet certain enough about his powers to take action on his own, refreshed the acquaintanceship with the ruling house..."

"And made Yisral look for me..."

"And the sword."

I frowned. Something in this story struck me as odd. What was it though...? It felt like a puzzle piece that was lying over the right spot, only it was turned the wrong way. "Who would have thought that even after Ered's death, his deeds brought so much evil..." I mumbled, trying to give myself some more time to think.

The dragoness sighed, causing the hay to rustle. "Once, it was a wonderful family of powerful mages, but... well, some trees are able to grow healthily only to a certain height, then they start sprouting wild shoots. I had a feeling it was always in their blood. It just became evident now because Sharish decided to not hide anymore, and instead of spreading chaos by whispering poisonous words from the darkness, he picked up a sword..."

"I see... So... now that the royal lineage has died out, shouldn't the other branch try to take over the throne? I think that according to law, if the king dies childless, a disinheritance can be considered invalid..."

"That's true, however I'm deeply worried that thanks to the efforts of the Fearns, the rule of the other clan could not be acknowledged by the people, even if it is acknowledged by law. The people of Earlindon are convinced that there were no other royal family members. Besides... a few years ago, the head of the other clan reached the end of his life in Hreshia. He left an adult son behind... but that boy is currently entertaining himself with the same reckless things the successor of the Fearn line is busy with..."

I frowned slightly, and then heard myself take a sudden, cut short breath, the puzzle piece abruptly turning and falling into place. "Wait..." I stammered. "But that means..."

The dragoness gave me a serious look. "Why else do you think he is carrying that sword like it belongs to him?"

That was too much. "But that doesn't..." I muttered. "Who in their right mind would let the rightful successor of the throne venture out into the wild knowing how important he is for the kingdom...?"

The dragoness sighed again. "Siaril ran away from Hreshia shortly after he learned that he is one of the Disciples. He set out to find the Dracascarion, you, and finally Yasenka..."

I didn't want to listen to it any longer. I was afraid to believe her words, but for some reason I believed anyway. All of it fit together somehow... explained Siaril's behavior in the past few days, or basically since the day we started to search for clues about the shards... It explained his vast knowledge, his usually composed, almost courtly behavior, his skill with the sword... I believed, but couldn't comprehend...

Why didn't he say anything? He knew almost everything about me, Yasenka was able to reveal her past to us as well, so why couldn't he...? And above all... if he was the rightful successor of the royal family, why couldn't he intervene? Why did he allow the agonizing charade of prince Calthraval to continue without hindrance...?

"Please don't cry..." I heard the worried voice of the dragoness.

Blinking, I wiped at my eyes with the hem of my sleeve. I didn't even notice when tears started to drip from them... Somewhere in the distance a sudden sound of a thunderstorm came to life, reaching the cave with a soft murmur. It resonated among the summits with a metallic echo...

Then, for some weird reason, a question appeared in my mind. One that should have started irking me way sooner. I wiped my cheeks dry again and lifted the wing with which

I unwittingly covered myself. The huge head of the dragoness was close to me once more, the molten eye watching me with concern.

"You didn't even tell me your name..." I said hoarsely.

A warm spark appeared in her eye. "My name is Armailith."

I slowly reached out and stroked the scales on her cheek. "Thank you... Armailith..." I whispered. "At least you told me the truth..."