Sometimes when the Source of all gods answers our prayers, it comes in a form we’re most likely to reject.

From the personal journal of Ozora

Dean of Magics

The Bestiary

****

The air up high was cold. I hadn’t dressed for flying, and I shivered as I clung to the dragon’s leather harness. Only my legs were warm, pressed against her hide. Even through the thick pad and my cotton skirts, I could feel the beast’s heat.

Going from sure death to riding a dragon had my wits spinning. It was all I could do to cling to the rigging and mutter prayers to Source that the lashings wrapped around my waist would hold. The scent of smoke and burning flesh faded behind as we climbed toward the clouds.

I’d walked a few miles, but we covered that in a few heartbeats aloft.

Then Emberglen was below and again billowing clouds of stinging ash and smoke struck us like a slap, making breathing difficult.

The landscape spun as the dragon circled to descend. We passed over the town in flames and another ship aground on the beach. Elves swarmed the streets, cutting down all in their path. Some looked up as Cassyrra flew low overhead. She made a few rounds, circling the perimeter..

Emberglen’s residents were not warriors, and Alurenth was a kingdom at peace with its neighbors. A pair of squads of the Royal Guards rotated between the city and families on the surrounding farms. Even if all had been in the barracks, these deadly warriors would've cleaved through them with almost as much ease as they cleaved down the shopkeepers and visitors.

I saw more than I wanted of the destruction from the dragon’s back as she swept over the town. Tears ran unchecked down my face to be dashed away by the wind.

Such a vile end for such gentle, cheerful people.

With two mighty strokes of her wings, the dragon banked out toward the sea. Her shoulders dipped, and my knees tightened, gripping as she dove, then reared back, sculling the sky to hover over the ship. Her massive head towered above us, and it seemed she stood in mid-air, balanced on her hind legs and tail.

I leaned in, clutching the saddle and lashings with everything I had. The wind from Cassyrra's powerful strokes swirled around me like a storm, drumming in my ears and whipping the hair that had escaped my braid. Through blurring eyes, I saw her jaws drop as her head shot forward.

The blast of light and sound forced my eyes closed. I turned my face away, involuntarily protecting myself from the carnage that burst forth from Cassyrra’s throat. Even behind my eyelids, the furnace of dragonfire blazed through, and I saw pink instead of black.

I wasn’t cold anymore.

The elves on the beach tried to scatter after the first scorching attack, but she caught them in moments with another rain of fire. The invaders got a faster, more fitting end than the King and his justice would’ve handed down.

My heart squeezed tight, and it hurt to breathe. My thoughts numbed at the massacre beneath me, going silent in a void that was anything but dark. Rather, it burned hotter than the sun.

I’d never seen such devastation.

The dragon wasn’t done.

With a thunderous rattle and snap, Cassyrra folded her wings and dove at the ground, where more invaders were concentrated, streaming toward the beach and their now burning ship. My head rocked back when she flared wide her pinions, backwinging to break her plunge.

I wouldn’t have thought such a colossal beast would be so maneuverable, but that dragon flipped on her tail to batter the stragglers with massive gusts of wind before she toasted them with another blast of dragonfire. For the second time, I clung to her neck as she stood nearly vertical in the sky.

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They didn’t even have time to scream. Much.

The red-haired woman slapped the dragon’s neck, and the beast climbed, making two wide circuits of Emberglen. Her head swept side to side as if scanning for survivors. Or enemies.

Nothing moved when she passed overhead, but that might have been pure freezing fear by any left alive.

She angled her wings to descend, flapping them mightily to lower her hind legs, then fore feet to the ground in a gentle landing.

“You can untie yourself from the harness.” The woman half turned in her seat. “Cassyrra will try not to drop you, but lean against her shoulder as you climb down. It’ll help you balance.”

My hands joggled as I worked to untie the knots. “Do you think anyone survived?” I asked, my voice raspy from all the smoke.

The woman only shook her head.

“I don’t, but we’re going to go look. If any elves survived and have anything like a brain, they’re running. Not one of them, no matter how tough a unit the Emperor might’ve sent, can stand against Cassyrra.”

Beneath me, the dragon rumbled, as if to reassure.

I sort of half slid, half walked down Cassyrra’s shoulder and forearm. Moments later, the woman landed next to me, hopping down more gracefully.

We walked to the edge of town, the dragon following.

“How do you know it was the Emperor?” In truth, I was only guessing I’d been caught by the Crimson Birth. An informed guess, but a guess nonetheless.

“Where else do high elves live but in the West?” Emerald eyes snapped with fury, but it was obvious the woman’s anger was toward the dead elves.

Of all the elder races, only high elves developed a taste for conquest. The Ancient Elven Empire of the West dominated the world for thousands of years, subjugating all others under their rule.

Until they broke the world.

Before I was born, the Wars of the Sundering were nothing but tales of old. Half fiction, half myth from over a thousand years ago that told of a world that no longer existed.

They were some of my favorite stories. The magics of the high elves were like nothing seen before or since, devastating in war, but in peacetime — gloriously unmatched.

“That would explain the one that dragged me by the hair.” I told her “He looked like the ones I’ve seen in paintings but he didn’t speak high elvish.”

She shot me a quick, curious look.

“I like to learn.” She nodded, but my next words stopped her. “I think they were the Crimson Birth.”

“Not many know of them.” Her eyes widened to reflect the reds and oranges of the leaping flames, giving them an eerie glow.

“I’m not many people.” I answered.

A tight grin split her expression, and she muttered something over her shoulder to the dragon next to her. I couldn’t hear what she said, but what sounded like a rumble of laughter reverberated from the dragon.

Throughout the town, the story was the same. The elves had wiped out all they found, executing everyone.

“I’m so sorry we couldn’t save them.” In the blazing light of the bonfires, her freckled face sagged with grief. “The elves had their attacks too well coordinated.”

I felt nothing. I was numb. In shock.

The Crimson Birth had taken out the entire town.

My heart ached, and stomach churned. Was this the beginning of a new war with the Ancient Elven Empire of the West? What other reason could there be for this unprovoked attack?

I wanted to mourn and cry, but the tears wouldn't come. There was nothing more to do for the people of Emberglen. Mourning would have to wait, because the Emperor wouldn’t attack just a resort town.

“Hastrior.” I murmured. Barely breathed it really, but the dragonrider heard, and glanced back at her beast. I would have sworn they had a brief, unheard conversation.

“Hastrior.” She agreed. “If they take that city and establish an outpost, they’ll be unstoppable. They could retake the Eastern Reaches.”

“Can your dragon take us there?” I forced myself to ask as my teeth ground tight, trying to stop the words.

It was the last thing I wanted.

Never again. I’d sworn it.

Never to go back there.

Hastrior was the last free city in all the Eastern Reaches. All the rest had been absorbed by their surrounding kingdoms and rulers in the centuries since the Sundering, but the royal family of Hastrior struck a deal with the kingdom of Alurenth to preserve its independence.

The alleged murder of its prince over five years ago by a pirate had spelled the beginning of its fall.

I hadn’t been in Hastrior for about five years. My last trip there was disastrous. I made bad choices. Got my heart broken and then some by a pirate captain.

Yes. That pirate captain. The one that tried to run the place after the Prince’s death. I so should’ve known better.

Except his handsome face and charming manner did things to me I’d never experienced before in all my travels. I was drawn in and paid the price.

When I left, I swore I’d never go back.

Now, I had no choice.

The other woman’s emerald eyes lit up, and a wide grin split her freckled face. In the dancing firelight, it gave her a feral glow.

“Cassyrra has plenty of fight left in her.”

The dragon, on hearing her name, stretched out her throat and loosed a trilling roar, then snapped out her wings.

The dragonrider ran up her mount’s shoulder, then reached one hand back toward me.

“I’m Taenya, Cassyrra is my Bondmate.”

My head whirled as I once more strapped myself to the dragon’s harness.

“Bondmate?” I asked.

“Later, I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to save Hastrior.”

Cassyrra’s muscled bunched beneath me, and once more we launched into the star-spattered skies.

Emberglen faded behind me.

What would I find in Hastrior?