CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I had revealed myself to the children, Mierwyn and Yora. To this day, I couldn't tell you which was the more delighted by my arrival. Mierwyn, who loved the old tales and delighted in stories of kings, heroes, and terrors of old. Or Yora, who had at last found the missing part of himself. Whichever it was, their happiness paled in comparison with my own. My solitude had ended.

From that day on, I was with them. Folk grew accustomed to the silver-furred pup that followed Yora during his daily chores— and fervently denied that anyone had ever thought the sweet thing to be a vengeful spirit.

Though I would leave on occasion to follow whispers and dreams of the mighty, I always returned before long. After my excursions, I would regale Mierwyn and Yora with stories of the lands I'd seen and the other dragons I'd found.

Yora was my heart, my truest friend, but the tedium of his daily routine wasn't always to my liking. For this reason, I found myself drawn to the other child. I would become a songbird and perch on Mierwyn's shoulder for hours. I watched as she tended and harvested her mother's herbs, listened to her songs, and told her the stories I'd been taught of my homeland. Before long, I grew to love her as much as I did the boy.

Mierwyn had a good heart that was unburdened by the world's harshness. I remember thinking that the title of sky woman must have been made for mortals such as her, for there was no better way to describe what she was. She was as beautiful as the moon and the stars, her kindness was as vast as the horizon, and her compassion could make the sun seem cold in comparison.

Years passed. For a dragon already several centuries old, it went by all too quickly. For them, it was half a lifetime. I wanted to believe that it would never end, but fate had never been so kind before.

It struck without warning, the sickness that took Yora's mother. Janwyn did everything she could for her dear friend. I remember how she wept when she realized she was powerless to stop it. Within a fortnight, Yora's mother was dead.

It was as if the sun had abandoned Sandharbor, and all felt its absence. The whole village came to pay their respects and say their farewells. A mere washer woman was honored as a queen.

I've never held to the mortal belief in omens, but if I did, I would call her death one. It marked the arrival of dark times. Althandor's king was dead, and a new one took his place. The Five Kingdoms became as a dark cloud. Each night, hushed whispers spoke of wicked things among the halls of the powerful. Rumors of plots and foul deeds. Old King Haelin had been a strong and powerful lord over the land, but very few had as much faith in his successor.

A proclamation came to Sandharbor. The Spired City had seen treachery, and blood had been spilled. Rebellion was on the lips of every soul in Nadia, and they had declared their independence with an attempt on the new king's life. Though King Cathis survived, others weren't so fortunate. Rumors told of murdered women and children, of the house of Algara in mourning. A young prince was dead.

There was to be war, the first in a decade and the first of many more to come. Althandor marched on the capital of Nadia, the Mountain City of Drok Moran.

Yora worked hard, but was never more than a man of modest means. When the new king's heralds came to muster Sandharbor's levy, my friend took on a grim countenance. He heard of the fell deeds committed by the Nadian rebels and became angry.

I watched in horror as my friend stepped forward. "I will fight," Yora cried. "Justice to cowards and child-killers."

As the goodfolk cheered their favored son's courage, I felt my heart break. The wrong thing for the right reasons, once again.

That night, Mierwyn begged him not to go. She offered him everything she had if he would only stay. Yora refused. He told her that the crown's gift could be generous, enough to make a refugee's son into a lord if he served well enough. Yora promised Mierwyn that he would return to her, and they could begin their life together.

He bade her farewell and packed his meager possessions. As he left Sandharbor in the distance behind him, Yora found an angry dragon barring his path.

"You blustering fool," I said to him. "What madness are you planning?"

"I'm joining the army," he said in a quiet voice. The joy and hope I loved to hear in his words were absent from him. "It was evil, what they did. The little boy was innocent. The lords of Drok Moran defied the king's will."

"Defied the king's will," I spat with contempt. "Refused to pay homage to a cruel and spiteful tyrant, more like. This new king, Cathis, delights in murder and death, and mortals do nothing but shake their heads and call it 'the king's will'. It's appalling."

Yora said nothing.

"Since the distant past, Drok Moran has been home to scholars and poets. The mountain realms touch both sky and stone, span great heights and depths, and Althandor would see it crumble."

Still, Yora said nothing.

I felt wrath like I hadn't felt in centuries. My anger was ancient and primal. "You know the history," I accused him. "You listened to me as I recited the tales of Shan Alee and the Five Kingdoms, and yet you'll take up arms for the nation that burnt them all to the ground with sorcery?"

Yora raised his eyes to mine, and I saw a sorrow within them. That sadness pierced me like a lance, but did little to hold back my fury.

"How dare you fight for Althandor?" I roared. "Have you forgotten what they've done? The mighty are all but gone. Shan Alee lies in ruin. The Five Kingdoms are now one, and the rest of the world will soon follow. They drove your mother from her home and murdered your father!"

I regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. Were it in my power, I would have taken them back at once. Mortals don't have the sole claim to foolishness, it seems.

"I wish I were strong like you," Yora whispered. "I wish I could look at the path ahead and know if it's right or wrong."

My heart broke once more. I could feel his frailty. Through the bond we shared, I could sense how lost he was. But, I could feel something else behind it. There was a conviction so strong that it could make a dragon tremble.

"I put on a grand show, didn't I?" he said while forcing himself to smile. "My friends cheered me. Brandyn would have signed up too if his pa hadn't dragged him away by his ears. There won't be a voice in Sandharbor that says I joined for anything but to avenge the slain prince."

"Then why?" I asked him.

"I don't want to fight for Althandor," he said, his eyes becoming steel, "but I'll fight for Mierwyn. I'll fight for the family we want to have together. I'm not a dragon or a king. I'm just a man, but I have the power to do that much. It's all I have to give, and I will give it."

I have now said it more times than I can count, but the mighty could learn much from mortals. I hung my head and felt my anger fade away. "Oh, Yora. If only the world had more like you in it. Forgive me."

He shouldered his pack and stepped around me. Yora kept his eyes on the horizon as he continued on his way.

I alighted on his shoulder. "If you're going, so am I."

Yora put his hand on my wings, and we travelled in silence.

We fought in that war. Yora served beneath the scarlet sun banner of House Merovech. He became well liked by the other soldiers, still a bringer of light. His skill with the spear and his cunning on the field earned him an officer's rank. As we approached the gates of Drok Moran, Yora did so as a sergeant in Althandor's army.

In battle, I would remain nearby. Not as a dragon, of course. I flew high above as an eagle, casting subtle spells of air and earth to aid Yora below. I gifted him strength through the bond and allowed him to draw healing from me should he be hurt. Our combined ether was greater than the sum of our parts, and we shared it between us. He used the few spells he knew to enhance his speed and strength.

Oh, yes. Yora was an arcanist. His Aleesh heritage provided him with the inborn power to become a sorceror of some merit. His specialty was self-enchantments. I should have mentioned.

At the Siege of Drok Moran, Yora took a handful of men— and a silver ferret— over the walls in a nighttime attack. We were silent and swift as shadows, and the gatehouse guards fell before they could raise a cry of alarm. The gates of Drok Moran burned, and the war was won soon afterwards.

The rebellious rulers of Nadia were put to the sword. Their elder bloodline was erased from the world. Cathis' uncle, an old sack of bones, was installed as the new king of Nadia, and he renewed the kingdom's fealty to Althandor.

After Drok Moran fell and the end of his first service was near, Yora sat staring towards the north. It was the direction in which Sandharbor lay. The crown's gift had just been allotted to every soldier that had fought in the campaign. Yora's actions had earned him a commendation greater than that of any other soldier in the Merovech's legion. Yora held the papers that proclaimed the lands west of Sandharbor as his and his descendants' until eternity.

Yora said something to me while we watched the stars coming out. He said, "I see a sunrise coming."

I puzzled over that for a long time, but I eventually dismissed it as meaningless words spoken in the delirium that followed battle. With the war over, Yora kept his promise to Mierwyn, and we returned home.

Yora received a hero's welcome. The inn's stores of ale were siphoned dry by the frequent toasts to his name. No welcome, however, was as joyous or as passionate as the one given to him by Mierwyn. Yora hadn't had his boots in Sandharbor for more than an hour before he asked Mierwyn to accept him as her husband. It should go without saying what her answer was.

I was among the doves released at their wedding. The event was celebrated throughout the village, and there was some talk of marking the day as an annual festival. The Hero and the Jewel were joined in marriage, and if the tale ended there, we would have been happy.

Drok Moran didn't end the fighting. Nations that had remained independent of Althandor for the last few hundred years began to feel the weight of Cathis' gaze upon them. One after another, by the ink on a treaty or the blood on an assassin's sword, they were brought under Althandi rule. The king added "One True Sovereign of the Continent" to his list of titles.

Eighteen years ago, the Five Kingdoms were in a state of unrest due to the frequent annexations and conquests. In the east, one of Althandor's most bitter rivals sought to take advantage of the chaos. The Tiger King of the Teulite Horde summoned his banners, and a new war was upon us.

Yora heard the call to arms. Mierwyn, now pregnant with their first child, begged him to stay. I took her side, told Yora that he had secured his family's future. Yora had built a small home on the desert's edge after the wedding, and he had plans and the means to start construction of a much larger one once spring came. Neither I or the sky women could understand why he would wish to go back to war.

"Have you all forgotten?" Yora asked us. We were gathered in Janwyn's home in Sandharbor. "You look at me and see Goodman Page, the village errand boy. You, our neighbors, and everyone else. You can do that. I love that you can, but what happens when the wrong eyes fall on me? I won't be a citizen of Althandor, a man who fought and bled for them. I'll be nothing more than an Aleesh."

Mierwyn and I exchanged frightened glances. This worry had always hung over us, but we rarely spoke of it.

"What would you do, then?" I asked him. "We're hidden here, and no one in Sandharbor looks for descendants of Shan Alee. These goodfolk aren't historians. They wouldn't know an Aleesh if he ran up to them and asked to mend their fence."

Yora didn't appreciate my wit. He grew agitated. "It's not them I'm worried about, Deebee. I'm afraid of the king's hounds. We saw them while we were in the army, and we know what they're capable of."

"What are you saying?" Mierwyn asked.

"Another term of service," he said, "and I'll earn another gift from the crown. This time, I will earn a title. Once I'm recognized as a lord, I can apply to the magocracy. I'll have real power and influence. Even if it's learned where I come from, I'll be able to protect you." He stepped towards Mierwyn and placed his hand on her belly. "I'll protect our baby."

I had my doubts, to say the least, but I couldn't dissuade him. Yora was certain of his path. When it came time for him to leave, I alighted on his shoulder as I did before.

"No, love," he said to me. "This time, I go alone."

I can't quite recall my response, but rest assured, it had a lot of profanity in it.

I could go on and on about that argument. Had it lasted any longer, the war might have gone by without him ever taking part in it. If only I could have been so fortunate. In the end, he took my oath to stay behind and watch over his wife and unborn child until he returned.

Before he left, he wore that lopsided grin I adored so much. He said to me, "Don't worry, love. I'm not afraid, and I see a sunrise coming."

As Yora walked away, I flew to the branches of a poplar to watch him go. There I remained until long after he disappeared into the distance. Sometimes, I feel as if I'm sitting there still.

I won't speak of what happened then. We well know the truth of it.

After... it happened, it fell to me to tell Mierwyn of her husband's fate. It was a mid-autumn evening, and it had rained that afternoon. She wore a pale green dress that Goodman Tailor had sewn especially for her. Large in the middle, you see. She wasn't wearing a shawl as she worked in the garden. I couldn't say why not. Pregnancy had made her a little absent-minded, so perhaps she simply forgot to put it on.

I flew into the garden as a starling, then became myself as soon as Mierwyn noticed my arrival. She smiled.

Flames take me. That was the last I ever saw of that smile.

"He has died," I said to her.

It was as if the light Yora had put into her eyes fell away, and I would never see it return to her. In it's place, something else came into them, something I didn't recognize. She became someone I didn't recognize.

Mierwyn didn't bother in denying what I had told her. She must have known I would never give such news unless I was absolutely certain. In that, at least, I still had her trust.

She cursed me for abandoning Yora. She said I allowed him to go to his fate while I kept myself safe. I was a coward, a false friend, a betrayer.

"Never show yourself to me again, creature," she said to me.

Mierwyn ran into her home, and the sounds of her grief were all I could hear.

I fled. From Sandharbor, from Althandor. Mierwyn was telling the truth. I was a coward. My flight took me to the east, and I found myself in the steppes. I walked on crimson grass and realized what I had come to search for.

There, on a lone hillock, I found what remained of my friend. His body had been burnt on a pyre with spellfire, and only his bones remained. Perhaps the assassins feared what a dragon bond could allow an Aleesh to recover from.

With my claws, I dug a grave. I set Yora's bones within it and covered him with stones. If only I could say that I immediately realized the danger— that I remembered my oath— but it would be a lie. I neglected my promise and stood over him instead, through storms and bitter nights, as still as a statue.

I can't remember how I came to leave. Whether it was a slow decision or a bolt of sudden action, I couldn't say. Whichever it was, I flew westward as if all the spirits on the wind were carrying me.

On the desert's edge, I burst into Mierwyn's home. A brew of herbs was simmering over the fire. Janwyn was present, and I saw by her bags that she likely meant to stay from then on. The elder sky woman greeted me as an old friend. Her daughter was less kind.

"Get out," Mierwyn demanded. She was in the bed and in her nightdress. The blankets were folded and on the floor. "I told you I never want to see you again."

"Shut up," I snapped. I was grappling with my own grief and had no room for compassion. Only my oath mattered to me. "Just shut up and listen to me. Yora was killed by the royal assassins. He was well known in the army, and they'll surely have his name and where he came from by now. My hoard against a walnut, they're already on their way."

Janwyn stood from her stool at Mierwyn's bedside. "Here? Why?"

"To make certain that Yora's line ends with him," I said.

Janwyn's legs became unsteady and she sat back down. Mierwyn placed her hands protectively over her belly.

"They will not have my baby," she snarled, fierce as a scale lion.

"They won't," I said. Then, I told them my plan. It would require sacrifice, from all of them, but I believed it would keep them safe from the king's assassins.

Somewhere between explaining the particulars of memory wards and its effects on mortal ether, I realized what I had burst in on. Mierwyn in bed, but the blankets thrown off. Janwyn preparing herbal medicine over the hearth and sitting on a stool instead of a rocking chair.

"Now?" I shouted and began hopping around the room like an agitated squirrel with the pox. "Winds and flames, it's coming now!"

Even before she was born, Yora's child could send me into an anxious tizzy.

Janwyn bade me to calm myself, and by Mierwyn's reluctant permission, I was allowed to stay so long as I kept silent.

It was just as I remembered. Messy, noisy, and awful. Mortals truly ought to consider eggs. I averted my eyes and covered my ears throughout the ordeal, all the while I prayed to the spirits to carry my love to Yora's soul.

I remembered his cryptic words after the Siege of Drok Moran, and again, the last time he spoke to me. Since hearing what he said, I had puzzled over his meaning, never truly understanding what he meant when he said he could see a sunrise coming.

Again, I awaited in the rafters while a new mortal life came into the world at the hands of a sky woman. Yora's daughter, named Enfri for his mother, came squealing and bloody into my life. When my eyes met hers and she stopped crying, I finally understood and saw the coming dawn.

He spoke of you