While Solara searched for proper healing supplies, Adam sat down by the table and glanced at his tablet.

Stained Flames

In exchange for:

“Forgive the delay, my lord,” Solara told him as she pushed a goblet onto his hands. “It will take time for your bones to fully heal, but I believe your broken ribs shouldn’t pierce your lungs, at the very least.”

“That’s good. Would hate to do all that and die from my wounds right after.” Adam sipped at the drink and immediately felt a soothing warmth reverberate throughout this body. He lifted his eyes as the woman. “Is this, uh...’potion’ part of the healing?”

Solara frowned, her eyes darting between him and the drink. “What? No. That’s rum. Figured it might take the edge off. That flower seed I gave you earlier was the emergency medicine.”

“Ah. Cool.” Adam glanced at his cup nervously. “Wonder if I should be drinking before painting. We’ve...kinda got a lot riding on me getting this right, you know.” Would’ve preferred to keep her ignorant about how my Talent works, but there isn’t much of a choice here. I need her cooperation. No time to screw around.

At this, Solara smirked. She tapped the side of Adam’s wrist with the back of her hand. “Don’t be so hung up on duty that you mistake self-care for recklessness. Your hands are still shaking from that fight. How could you do my beauty justice with trembling fingers?”

Adam lowered his gaze to confirm that she wasn’t lying. Enough time had passed that the adrenaline had worn off, leaving behind only a nervous anxiety, as if his body couldn’t believe the danger had already passed. “Huh. Would you look at that,” he said, amused. “Looks like I really do care about living.”

“Indeed. So drink. Foul rum, that one, but beggars and ladies in towers cannot complain about the quality of their vices. You must turn the bottom of that cup to the ceiling before we start with anything else.”

Adam obliged. “Have to say,” he said, between sips, “you’re more considerate than I expected.”

The woman’s expression tightened. “For an elf?” she asked, sharply.

“For someone locked in a tower and losing her sanity to a curse,” he quickly replied. “Honestly wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d wanted to hurry on with removing the monster instead of...” He trailed off, gesturing at the drink, medicine, and food she had set around him. “All of this, you know. Figured you would want to be cured more than anything.”

“I do.” There was no hesitation in her response. Solara’s eyes were wide, and she held a grin that bordered on smug. “Which is exactly why I must not be careless. It would be my eternal shame if I were to get this close to freedom – only to succumb to the curse due to my own impatience. Does that not make sense to you?”

“I mean it makes sense, but making sense isn’t enough for most people, you know? If anyone else were in your situation, they probably would’ve given in to their emotions a little and–”

Adam stopped himself short when he saw her eyes. There was fire in there, blazing like a resolute inferno, and he didn’t think it was because of the curse. Her mouth split into a grin, one of implacable confidence and quiet arrogance, that seemed to regard being haunted by a monster as nothing more than a bump in the road. No wonder my first painting got her wrong.

“So what if most people would lose composure?” Solara failed to keep a slight chuckle out of her voice. She maintained a measure of nobility to her voice, but only barely. “When your dreams reach for the highest of skies, your heart must rise above all others. Even if everyone else would falter and lose their calm, I shall endure, like a dragon in a tornado of fire.

A part of him wanted to question what a ‘dragon in a tornado of fire’ was supposed to be like, but there were more important matters to attend to. “Dreams, you say? Care to elaborate?”

She regarded him with smug silence for a moment, placing her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her fingers. Solara’s eyes seemed to say something, yet her lips remained unmoving.

“What do you want from...seriously?” Adam lifted up his half-empty cup. “You’re really not going to talk until I’ve finished this?”

“Must I repeat myself? Has my lord sustained a head injury, perhaps? Was your good sense a victim of that curse’s violence?”

“Fine,” Adam grunted. In one motion, he turned the cup upside down and didn’t lower it again until it was empty. Although he wasn’t proud of it, he did know how to drink, and this supposedly ‘foul’ rum was better-tasting than the crap he’d scrounged back in college. “Happy now?”

“Quite. Now – you’d like me to tell you about my dreams and ambitions?”

“If you find the idea of being freed from your curse appealing, then yes. Tell me of your dreams, of their importance, and where they started.”

“Ah. Where they started...” Solara shook her head, letting out a peal of low laughter as she did. “That is...tricky.”

“If you prefer, we could just do nothing and let the curse take over. Mildly unorthodox strategy, but it might pay off.”

“No, no, that’s quite alright. It’s just, how do I say this? I don’t know where to begin.” After a long pause, she smiled and went quiet once more.

Adam sighed. “Fantastic. Look, I don’t mean to hurry you, but no amount of rum in this world is gonna make me forget how much pain I’m in, and your curse should wake up from its ‘death’ in a few hours. So if you don’t mind...”

She smirked. “Yes, of course, you impatient man.”

"My name is Adam.”

“And mine is Solara.”

“I knew that.”

“I knew not yours. Consider us even now.” Solara said nothing more until she poured herself a glass of rum, then held it up before her in a dark sort of concentration, the candlelight hiding where her gaze rested. “My dreams, Lord Adam, begin with my being. And my being begins, as it does for all people, with my parents, for my existence would not be without them. Much like everyone else in this god forsaken Empire, my father’s story starts with a war. Most of this he told me himself, many times, and the rest I have learned from history books, travelers, letters, and such. Although I cannot profess its complete accuracy, I trust this information with my life. Do you understand?”

Meaning that even if something is wrong, your life and personality have already been forged under the assumption that all of it is true. That’s fine – potential errors shouldn’t affect the painting. Intent matters more than anything else. “Of course, Lady Solara. Go on.”

She accepted his invitation with pleasure. While this was a painful topic, and even if Adam didn’t know a single real thing about the woman yet, this much he could tell: Solara da Gama liked theater. Not in the way actors liked theater, but how history majors and scholars liked theater – how their dialogue was transformed into a stage where they could deliver the most gruesome of tales.

And this dreadful tale has Solara herself as the protagonist. If the dramatics fit her sensibilities, so be it.

Solara didn’t begin her story immediately. She was a masterful conductor, and silence served as her opening act. Every second of elven solemnity in her smile only added to the heaviness Adam felt in the air. Then, when she diverted her eyes, Adam unconsciously followed her gaze, becoming slowly aware of every detail of the dimly-lit room the two were in.

It was muffled and quiet in that half-wrecked dining room, one of the few in the tower untouched by violence, with four tall candles burned on the wooden table as their only source of light. They had drawn the curtains from the window – the first one Adam had seen since entering the tower – in a vain attempt to banish away some of the foreboding feeling the Ghost had left behind. The dark clouds outside had halted their attempt, its starless dusk a reminder of what they could not yet kill.

It was, Adam thought, a fitting background.

“The Dragon Puppets!” Solara declared, brandishing her rum glass like a weapon. “It starts with them. It always starts with them, you understand.” She looked hard at the painter. A swirling, moist-scented gust of wind curled in through the room’s lone window, making the candle-flames waver. Moving shadows were thrown across the elf’s face. “Have you had any bad experiences with the automatons?”

“Cannot say I have,” Adam said honestly.

“Then you and Emperor Ciro cannot claim common cause there,” she said, rather wistfully. “To be sure, he was glad when the Dragons flew away from this world – at first. The rivalry of the bright genius of darkness had finally been settled.But was it worth it to lose that rivalry when you still had to deal with their creations? No, no, whatever the common people might have felt at the time, we know the answer well enough. Yet can they be blamed? Imagine yourself in their position, just once!”

Would that I could, but I don’t know the first thing about them. He didn’t think that would be a problem for her. And so, Adam smiled through the flickering candlelight and said, in the gravest voice he could muster, “Set the stage for me, my would-be bard.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Solara’s solemnity gave way to a mischievous sort of grin, the kind that a person flashes when someone goes along with their dramatics. Thank you, her smile and polite nod seemed to say, I haven’t had the chance to speak to anyone in a while.

He hoped his own smile was just as easy to read. Saying it aloud would ruin the moment, but his meaning was plain enough: Show me your dramatics, your passion, your love, and I will extract your very soul from them – and then the ghost from your soul.

She was all too eager to take Adam up on his offer. As the elf continued, Adam gave focus to Solara’s mannerisms. Immersing himself in her story was only half the battle. He would paint her portrait not just from the tale she told, but how she told it. What color is your soul? What drives you?

“After the dragons left, their Puppets were left without masters. Picture them as they are: wooden automatons of a vaguely-human shape, immortal to age, and nearly immune to pain. Intelligent, yet at the same time, oathbound to creatures no longer part of our world. They confirmed the worst of the Empire’s fears when they refused to bend the knee to His Imperial Majesty.

“ ‘Swear that you see our Divine Ruler as your new Master,’ Mareno Crark, then Lord of Penumbria, famously said. While the specifics of his reply are lost to time, every historian I’ve read agrees on one outcome. Brasador the Puppet King flexed his wooden arm, strings contorting its grotesque hand into a grip that clutched his sword hilt, and immediately separated the proud Penumbrian lord’s head from his shoulders in one swift attack.”

A chill invaded the room. Adam unconsciously touched his own neck. as if to ensure it remained whole. Solara smiled at the gesture, then went on. “And that, of course, was when the Dragon’s Puppets Rebellion – you most likely know it by its slight misnomer of the Puppet Rebellion – began in earnest.”

Adam stirred in his seat. “Believe it or not, I first learned it by its correct name” he said, having frankly and technically only learned of it just now. “Most interesting. Go on.” All he’d been told was that at one point, an Imperial Hangman had been dispatched to deal with the rebellion, resulting in that monstrously large hole in the mountain Belmordo used as a shortcut between Vasco and Penumbria. This was the extent of his knowledge on the people involved; let alone the war itself. So they’re humanoid, wooden...automatons? Made by dragons? Dragons can...make things? Like mad scientists?

Solara lifted a finger, framing each half of her face against the moonless night behind. “Penumbria was devastated by the war. Mareno had been a young lord, and as he was slain outside of his domain, his Lord Talent did not protect him. The Puppets then left their mountain and ravaged the nearby cities. Coimbrago and Almadares got the worst of it, though its Lords quickly retreated and used their Talent to keep the cities themselves from falling. Asterna also suffered greatly; while its Lord died, his heirs kept things going for a while. In the end, infighting would be to blame when the city eventually – and quite recently – succumbed to the Rot.”

That adds up with what I learned in Aspreay’s court...a woman from Asterna petitioned there recently.

“But I digress,” Solara said, with the unapologetic and unashamed tone of someone who had planned on the tangent all along. “What matters most is that Penumbria and Gama lost their lords, and much of their economy was destroyed. The war lasted until our Divine Emperor finally had enough, deciding that even the Rot-ridden, outskirts of his lands should be ruled by his laws, not the Dragonspawn’s chaos. His direct intervention brought the Dragon’s Puppets to heel. In the aftermath, Emperor Ciro was left with an important decision to make – as Penumbria and Gama were both without Lords.”

Adam listened to her carefully. I have an idea where this is going...but only partially. “That’s what led to your father and my predecessor inheriting these lands, correct?”

“Aye. Emperor Ciro turned to the Imperial Academy in the capital and sought the two best pupils amongst the very few who had the Talent.”

Adam nodded. “Vasco...and Aspreay.”

“My father always said that while it came as a surprise to him, Aspreay had seemed almost too eager to accept, like he’d always expected his hard work to result in this rare opportunity. My father, Vasco, was from a family of knights with only a small manor in the capital to its name. Aspreay, meanwhile, was even worse off – he hailed from a branch family of a city that fell to Rot. He wouldn’t have been different from any other orphan if he didn’t happen to inherit the Talent of a Lord.”

To Adam’s surprise, Solara’s face tightened, and she showed something resembling sadness. Or was it pity, perhaps? Regret? No...not quite. He couldn’t identify the exact brand of displeasure on her face.

“My father – I will henceforth call him Vasco for clarity’s sake, odd as it is for my tongue to name the man anything but ‘father’ – told this part to me many times. He was hesitant to agree to the role, despite the chance at glory it offered. Vasco didn’t think himself ready for the responsibility of ruling over so many people. It was not his father, the Imperial captain known as the ‘Duke of Dread’ who convinced him to take up the title. Rather, it was his dear friend, Aspreay.”

That name gave him pause, but Solara showed no such weakness and went onward with her tale.

“ ‘Think of it, Vasco!’ Aspreay exclaimed, his eyes brimming with a childlike wonder. ‘We can be more than protectors of the capital’s walls. We can become heroes of new walls, my friend. Imagine it! Everything we used to stay up late discussing as mere academics...it can all become a reality. The frontier can be revitalized—we can stop the Rot—we can even restore the cities that fell to the Puppets!’”

Solara fell silent. After a moment, Adam realized what felt so strange about that: the silence was her, the person, rather than an aspect of her theatrical telling. Something about this section of her story had summoned unwelcome thoughts – but what? Is it because we’re approaching the part that has something to do with you? Come on. Give me more. I need to know more.

“Do you need some water?” he hesitantly asked. “I can grab some if–”

She held her hand up in a dismissive gesture. “No, I simply...remember this part too well. Vasco told me of it often, and never happily, often between sips of an even fouler-smelling rum than this one. He would describe how Aspreay looked positively beaming with optimism, dreaming of the things he could do, speaking of his plans to rescue the frontier towns that the Emperor himself gave up on. Aspreay believed that becoming Lord of a city would give him the resources necessary to do so. It was, then, with much pleasure, that my father agreed that Aspreay would become Lord of Gama, and he himself would take up Penumbria.”

Adam recalled his meeting with Aspreay in the Penumbria treasury room. It felt like a lifetime ago, yet it couldn’t have been much longer than half a year. ‘The treacherous little weasel used to follow me around, to ask for favors – and I gave him everything he asked!' Aspreay had drunkenly spat out. 'You’d think that kind of thing would have made us sworn brothers. Instead, it just gave him the chance to backstab me and get assigned the city I wanted. That’s why I’m stuck with this shithole.’

At the time, Adam assumed that the drunken cursing was a product of bitterness. Nothing more than Aspreay’s injured pride poisoning his words. Now, looking back...

The painter drew a deep breath. What had happened between the two of them – and what did it have to do with Solara?

She seemed to notice his unspoken question, because she smiled and said, “Easy, my lord. We are almost there. You hail from Penumbria and I from Gama, so something clearly went wrong. But what? Vasco was happy to rule the poor Penumbria, and the ambitious Aspreay was happy to take Gama...so who objected to that?”

She suddenly stopped, forcing the sound of flickering candles to duel with her silence, before meaningfully looking up.

“The Duke of Dread. Vasco’s own father. Not a duke by title, truly only a knight, yet his reputation had christened him thus by the commonfolk. He was hungry for his family – our family, I suppose, to return to its former glory. He could not believe that his son was willing to accept the poorer of two cities without so much as a fight.”

She raised her voice once more. “Father, Aspreay’s blood is more noble than ours. The Emperor would favor this result, in any case.” Solara grimaced. “Vasco told the Duke this...and it is something he regrets to this very day.”