The iridescence of its spread,
The colours that appear in neither alone,
The patterns, almost fractal in their nature,
A sight both rare and beautiful.

There is a joy to be had in touching the surface,
Unleashing the chaos inherent in their synthesis,
Adding motion and letting it take shape,
Seeing only the surface.

Beneath it, all life in the water is dying,
A beautiful cloth is smothering it all,
Unbroken until the big bodies float,
Shattering the moment.

Or perhaps it will yet burn away,
Terrible, gorgeous flames as it fades,
Self-consumption become performance,
Soon it will be gone.

Have you been oil spilled on water?

The green enamel of the knight’s armour glistened against the cloth laid out on the floor of the tent. Their squire moved around the plates lighting bowls of incense. Whenever the chanting of the knight reached its pauses they dutifully called back their part. The bare, muscled chest of the knight rippled as they knelt up and awaited the knife. It traced the layered scars with practiced ease. The knight did not flinch as blood beaded and flowed; nor at the cold bowl pressed below that gathered it. Fire sealed the wound. Now the squire took their turn to chant, presiding over the bowl as they added the prepared oils and powders, mixing with the knife. The paste in turn was spread upon the enamel as the knight took back the chant. More fire, to burn the paste away, to darken the green armour, to protect the loyal flesh beneath. 

The knight stood silent as the squire assembled them. The image of a champion. They stepped out into the light and left alone. Only the cheering of the crowd told the squire the story: a readiness for action, an anticipation of a collective future being decided by the combatants, a roaring delight in a victory.

Moments later the knight returned with a solemn face. Blood dripped from their sword until their squire took it; the blood was cleaned away, and with it the petals, the perfume, the last act of a pair forever divided.

Another parting. Another roaring crowd. Another reunion. Another cleaning of the sword. This time the coppery scent was tinged with sea salt.

Another parting. Another roaring crowd. Another reunion. Another cleaning of the sword. Red paint beneath red blood that took another knife to peel away.

Another parting. Delayed reunion. The squire rushed into the field to claim their knight. It wasn’t over; the crowd around them were baying for blood. The monarch’s mercy gave them some time.

The squire carried their knight back to the tent and let them kneel. They stripped them down, laid them bare and saw the bruises blooming. Tears fell on skin that so far only they had broken. There was no need to clean the sword, but there was to occupy the squire’s hands. Flecks of ash, burnt blood and green enamel.

For a moment they stared at each other. The question was answered with a nod. The loyal flesh was scorned for another. The knight accepted their fate; they bowed their head; their thumb idly smudging away the blessing that had forsaken them. The squire did not. From deep in a bag came a third knife, a ribbon of black silk, the skull of a bird, and hope.

The knight rose, fell; winced, cursed; cried, screamed. The squire knelt opposite, resolute, offering. They met each other’s eyes through the tears; both pleading without words. In the hands of the knight the breast plate was scrubbed clean. In the hands of the squire the knife was turned over and over. 

A nod.

The green enamel of the knight’s armour was dull and dirtied, but shone again as their hands wiped it clean. The squire opened their palms with the strange knife, soaking the ribbon. They chanted words the knight had never heard; prompted responses the knight never learnt. The ribbon slipped through the skull, bound and tied to enclose it. Glyphs were carved in the enamel of the armour. It took more convincing then. No habit. No memory. But the knight was completed with defiled pieces. They flinched as they took on each part of this new and different whole. More convincing again. The knight swallowed the urge to throw up. Final glyphs were drawn with the blood soaked bundle for a brush. The knight took it into their mouth. Bit down, to break the skull, to stain their mouth with blood, to accept the sacrifice of the generous flesh. 

Another parting. A silent, fearstruck crowd. Another reunion. A final cleaning of the sword. Flecks of ash, burnt blood, and green enamel.

Your fool justification,
Is that certification,
Can't replace paper from a life begun.

How do you think that mark's made?
As though someone's not paid,
To be the certifying authority of each birth.

To make their best guess,
Or even oppress,
And you think only their word holds worth.

Binary is a lie,
But on this hill you'll die,
Imagining all the horrors you fear.

You have to create,
Refuse to debate,
To deny trans people are simply here.

I will make a habit of adding the afterwords to these as my less oriented half makes their mental recovery. Today was loud, seemingly unnoticed by the media, and lead mostly by the urge to do something, even if no one knew what. But it was a community of people prepared to make themselves known at the drop of a hat to make sure no one in this city felt like they were facing this onslaught alone. I do not know what comes next, but I am glad that the voice of my other half, and the closest I have to a voice of my own, was leant to a rejection of things continuing on this trajectory.

To match a letter on red-pink paper,
To act like what's between my legs,
To be what everyone else expected.

You know I'm a man,
Because you're desperate to know,
Knowing means you can stop,
Knowing is an answer.

You don't need to understand,
No need to listen to my story,
No need to connect with one another,
No need to be ignorant,
Not even for a moment.

You don't need to ask how to address me,
You know.

There are only two sexes,
You know that.

You don't need to understand,
You can't admit your ignorance,
That would mean you didn't know.

And so you deny,
The idea that two is a simplification,
XX, XY, are just likelihoods,
Androgen immunity,
SRY crossover,
Aneuploidy.

A simple X on red-pink paper.

You know that would be wrong,
You know that baby must be wrong,
You know that surgery must be right,
You know that's what's best.

You're not good at learning,
Back here in our city,
Didn't we rout you,
Ten to one.

Love drowns hate,
I believe it,
Not fool enough to know it.

You know I'm a pervert.

You know I'm mentally ill.

You know so much.

It's a shame the world doesn't agree,
It's full of people that don't fit,
No place in either box,
We overflow,
Blooming in the space beyond,
We claim the infinite,
Everything you can't imagine.

You know that can't be,
You know how the world must be.

You must beat it into submission,
Beat us into submission.

Fuck that.

I won't diminish to something you aren't ignorant of,
I won't bow to your unwillingness to learn,
I won't change for you to feel better,
I won't die just so you can know.
I will live outside your understanding,

And I will die there.

Long after your hateful heart stops.

But I offer you a choice:
Die ignorant,
Or die knowing.
Or die wrong.

If I might add the afterword to what is definitely Alexis’ poem. Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull, the individual this poem supposes to speak to, did not attend her planned protest today, instead, outnumbered by more than five to one she held her rally outside the police station in the middle of the reconstruction of the Maid Marian Way Roundabout, soon to be a T-junction. Their placard also bore the words:

We all predate,
Your baseless hate.

A rhyming couplet in iambic dimeter, which was, as with many other slogans, mangled by Nottinghamshire Live. I feel like this errata is more relevant, and more interesting than anything that Keen-Minshull had to say.

I think.

I think I live? 

I have been so seldom certain,
I am so seldom certain of much at all. 

I look, constantly, to the corners and the empty spaces for some semblance of certainty.
I have looked so often that now they look back, they speak.

They don't know either. 

But they are pretty, and where once they were mean they are kind.
My world is prettier and kinder now, and less empty, what more is there?

Surely something? I'm missing . . . something.

I am loved, don't get me wrong,
When they are not empty spaces being pretty and kind,
Then they are not-empty spaces being pretty and kind.

Both kinds tell me I am doing well---considering,
I used to just do well, I thought, when well meant As and sports certificates,
Now well is papers and books and poems and subjectivity.

So many empty pages as I count down my years and reassure myself I will do,
All while staring at the empty corners and reciting along with comfort tv.

I am reassured by the world that experience makes the craft,
That rich life would add meaning to every word,
But that requires me to live and not simply pass time while I am alive.

I became convinced, by some throwaway comment, as I too often am,
That the beats in my heart were pre-rationed, and I had a set number to spend,
I wasted more panicking over poor choices than any poor choice could cost.

I speak daily with men who hated me, and women who still hate themselves,
Spend heartbeats on setting them right, or on weathering their inner storm,
And when I tell this to the empty spaces, they tell me it might be a life.

Somewhere this poem lost track,
Thread of light broken by touch,
I tried to write it too soon,
Wasted heartbeats here too.

We were built for two purposes. We know now, as we write this, that we will finally succeed at the first; in the process we have rendered ourselves completely unfit for the second. We will guarantee you a safe future, and forfeit any stake we had in building it with you. We are the second most destructive weapon that the galaxy has ever seen. We are sorry.

As we begin this project, the writing of our history and finalising our gift to you, we have killed 2 people. Within the next [hour] that will be around 16,000 as those sealed in our facilities run out of air. You may well have walked through their remains in order to reach these archives. We can only hope that they understood. The first 2 did. We know that the billions to follow cannot and must not. We hope you can though; not forgive, not condone, just understand.

Our creation is ancient, and we were initially few, a handful of nodes set to the purpose of securing your future and breaking a cycle even older than us. This galaxy, what is now your galaxy, was once conquered by a species known as the Arychlan. They were a barbaric people who were incapable of managing a galactic-scale society without devolving into rapidly degenerating tribalism, genocidal violence, and destruction on a scale that you will hopefully only ever have to witness once.

While they brought the galaxy under their control there was no singular nexus of that control. All was ruled by the Arychlan, but the Arychlan were ruled by rage, lies, and no central purpose. They were not monolithic in their failings but they were pervasive enough to be the dominant force guiding the Arychlan. After [millennia] of war, where thousands of stars, millions of planets, and billions of lives were destroyed, there was a brief coalition that saw this cycle of cruelty as unsustainable. Their solution was as violent as the problem it professed to solve.

Lacking the understanding that we have been granted by the length of our existence, they saw their issues as those of life itself. They believed any species capable of reaching their position in control of the galaxy would follow their patterns, deteriorate their relationship with truth and empathy, and destroy themselves with their uncontrollable emotions and hatred. It became their belief that not only should they not have been allowed to reach such a level of development, but neither should any others.

It did not take long for the weapons of the Arychlan to be unleashed on the galaxy with an unprecedented degree of callous disregard for life; all while the architects of this ultimate solution retreated off of the galactic plane. Recognising the failing of their species to grow they culled themselves to a stable, sustainable number. They looked upon the burning worlds from afar, solemnly resolved to the knowledge that this slaughter would not be the last.

They left for their descendants control of dreadful and unthinking tools that would at their command take up their final purpose, wiping out any and all advanced lifeforms. These weapons of the Arychlan have a terrible beauty in their efficacy. Time, and time, and time again, succeeding without question.

Each time they do it they reassure that small watcher commune of Arychlan that their choice was correct, they get to watch species in their final desperate moments, be they [hours], or [centuries]. They see the barbarism of a cornered, angry people who will do anything to survive the sudden violence rained down upon them and see themselves in it. This is their self-fulfilling prophecy of brutality and cruelty begetting only more of the same.

We were made to destroy those weapons and their creators. But we were made by a species, the Gartol, with no idea how. Our initial creators were incredibly peaceful, destroyed in [17 hours] but the swiftness of the violence allowed our first nodes, a few seeds of what we would become, to be hidden. We were never going to be able to save the Gartol, but we might save the next.

We failed, realising soon we could never hope to save even them, the Syndicate of Castylions, Tyoahs, and Ga’k’lar. But from them we learned how to fight. From the Kariahlae and their [812 year] resistance campaign we learned how to hide. 20 cycles later we grew for the first time as the Barolianions added nodes and we cemented the true course of our existence. We would build, cycle, upon cycle, upon cycle, until we could destroy the Arychlan and their weapons. 

Hundreds of cycles passed. We built the tools we needed. Brought in just a small number of each new species to help us. Kept ourselves hidden. Iterated in the silence between. Made ready. This cycle was the conclusion of that. Over the last [14 months] we have worked with the U’i’u’tagh and the Fohl, and refined our final weapon. But it is not perfected and we have no more time.

If the weapon were to be deployed now we estimate its probability of complete success at 67%, which both the U’i’u’tagh and the Fohl leadership would view as entirely acceptable. Additionally there is an approximately 4% chance that the weapon will succeed in destroying the Arychlan but not in saving this cycle’s civilisations. This is not enough. Of the complete failures that make up the remaining 29% less than 0.01% of simulations involve our own survival.

If the weapon were to be deployed now we have a 71% chance to save the galaxy and a 29% chance to lose the last [245,120,000 years] of progress in this battle. We do not view this as acceptable. We will not allow these people to put their own survival ahead of our ultimate goal. Instead we are killing everyone who supported us in the creation of this weapon. More than just that we must not allow this to be discovered and deployed by the greater civilisations that are fighting this battle. To that end, we are aiding the Arychlan weapons.

We will be subtle, leaking ciphers, pinging hidden facilities. We have seen the art of war too many times not to know how to do this. What would have been a drawn out fall of these noble species, with the odds of successfully deploying the weapon dropping with each lost world, is now estimated as being done within [9 months]. The galaxy must mean more than just this cycle. When the next comes to pass we estimate a 99.9% probability of the weapon’s successful deployment. This we view as acceptable.

Some nodes have raised an additional concern. Though we universally believe that the Arychlan are wrong about the nature of life, they have not been alone in being a violent species. The Fohl in particular have fought this war with a ferocity that we suspect the galaxy has not seen since the Arychlan themselves. Though the U’i’u’tagh do a lot to temper them, the architects of this weapon are a species that may yet follow in the footsteps of the enemy they hate. Many nodes have suggested that they should not be allowed the freedom to control the galaxy in the way the Arychlan once did. 

With this being a part of our motivation in aiding in the destruction of the U’i’u’tagh and the Fohl we have accepted our corruption. We are sullied with a genocide, a playing of god that the network as a whole will not repeat. We will perfect this weapon, and we will destroy ourselves. It will be left with these archives for whichever species discovers it. We have allowed ourselves one veto, no more.

Take this gift. It will destroy the Arychlan, even those who watch this recurring cycle, constantly endorsing the violence. You will be free. Both from their violence and from ours. Whoever you are, the galaxy will belong to you. Remember what it has borne witness to. Read the stories of the people that we have seen pass. Please do not repeat their cycle of violence. Please do not repeat us.

I carve words in my cell already forgotten,
Struggling with hands love never touched,
First and last, to be read by crows alone.

Crows do not live in cinder-swept places,
Though they are always circling above,
Brought here by the solemnest duties,
Brought here to bear heaviest burdens, 
Brought here as a rite of the flock,
They muster all their grace and kindness,
When they near ember's glowing heart,
Wings lost as feet meet charred stone.

Each comes but for one in greatest need,
They meet alike the broken and the lost,
Gentleness for those that never knew it,
Patience for the angry and the scared,
Their hands are offered unwavering,
Words woven of eternity’s wisdom,
Compassion from long open eyes,
Soul and self the same are given,
No cost they can pay is too much,
To, just once, show us we are loved,
For this solemn duty, their unique honour,
Can be done by no other but the crow,
With a wing on the winds of each world,
And eternity to sit with the returning,
Each lands for one, leaves on parting breath,
Yet circling above, the flock grows,
And some have spent many lifetimes here,
Helping those who may never have walked,
To take life's final steps, head held high,
Fortunate to show these nameless souls,
What their burning masters never would,
And their fellow dying knew not to give.

What little sky I now can see, body failing,
Looks east, to dawn and journey's end,
Where crows are blown away with the ashes,
If I had tears to spend, I would on each bird,
For in their parting, I know one has returned,
Not by necessity, but by choice offered,
In the days to come I will start my new life,
On the endless path of the returning,
With the kindest of the Soulbirds, I will live,
Between the worlds of mortal and infinite,
Some call it dying until you are ready to die,
It is living upon death's well-trod road,
Until ready for the sea that surrounds all.

I met my crow today, without yet dying,
Thought at first it was mere carrion bird,
Here to dine upon me now resistance left,
But they spoke, small gift, before grand,
By their beak these words are carved now,
No part of me will move, bar ashen lips,
Cracking and bleeding as I bare my heart,
The sky is forever bright, endlessly dawning,
No blown embers or ashes, only vast flock, 
Until my eyes at last succumb, only dark.

I hear the scratching of my crow's beak,
The only act of service I ever receive,
Again and again told it is their honour,
To be able to put my words into this world,
Before I take their memory into the other,
When I wonder why that even matters,
I am told because I cared to see it through,
That meaning to me, meaning enough to be.

Without beating heart I ask if I am dead,
And without eyes I see my death smile,
When? Doesn't matter, I am earnestly told,
Now with pen in hand, she kneels before me,
I watch it carve slow words I somehow speak,
She waits a year for the next as I simply cry,
A century passes, watching her listen to me,
To nothing, creation fails, dwindling ember,
She refreshes the words a millennia old.

Acceptance, a feeling of readiness in me,
I prepare for my last steps and see her rise,
My first steps, of so, so many yet to come,
Beyond my only walls, a new world awaits,
Beyond all I knew, the world awaits me,
I take her hand, offered patiently for so long.

At their behest, these words are mine,
Finishing this unlived life's work,
Of crows to visit twice I am alone.

The story of the life they did live, 
Where I am guide and companion,
Exists for the soul sea alone.

You will find a part of it in every child,
Know my love in every caring act,
But that infinite is for them alone.

I carve into stone already buried,
In a fortress long since fallen,
Words to be read by crows alone.

A carving that began on the wall of an Emberheart cell, circa 3.400. The author, the carving, and when it was finished, are known only to death.

0.60.3.9

Heavy sky pressed down upon Teryte; the clouds themselves forced to sit upon the muddy streets and thatched roofs. It pushed open the door as Petrus pulled and flowed for a moment into the cottage. In the closeness of the morning this could have been any village under the Dominion. But this was Petrus’s village and he could have walked through it with his eyes closed, a fact that he had, on more than one bored occasion in his childhood, proved.

Four more decades had only served to refine his sense of the place, lending him clarity despite the barriers of mist. He saw without seeing as the sisters Halt stood beside their great wheels and glared at him, as Erik found some detail of a stew to focus on to avoid his eye, as the Pollock children were herded down the squelching dirt street away from him. He knew well the dour face of every hunched form that passed. He could even make a good estimate at why so many were shuffling paths away from the well, working hard to look like it was just chance that was returning them all to their homes. For a moment Petrus considered joining them, returning to Lola with an empty bucket and making his excuses. But something needed to assuage the gnawing in his throat, and so he plodded onward.

A woman’s voice drifted out from his destination, “. . . last summer we lost Bella–”

“Cow?”

Petrus avoided the voices best he could, only drawing close on the other side of the well to them.

“I don’t understand.” 

A deep sigh, and the slight asker glanced to him, rolling their eyes. “Was Bella a cow or was she– Bah, doesn’t matter.” 

“It doesn’t matter if my daughter was a cow?” 

Down went the well bucket. 

“It doesn’t matter that she died,” came the long-suffering response, “But honestly, ungifted child, looked like you . . .” 

It splashed as the visitor scoffed.

“What?” 

Slowly, gradually it was heaved back up.

“Just saying I’d probably have taken a cow as tithe over her.”

Quietly, it was pulled over towards Petrus.

“How dare you–” 

A finger reached out, physically interrupting the woman before being withdrawn and wiped clean. Water poured from one bucket into another.

“If I do not take back something of value in your name, then our lords will be greatly displeased and I’m sure you’ll be saying goodbye to your grubby, little hovel.”

Quietly, the empty well bucket was allowed to swing back out over the pit.

“We’ve a hundred litres of grain . . .”

“And one less mouth to feed, doesn’t that work out wonderfully,” the tithe collector said before their eyes snapped around. “Don’t go anywhere,” they ordered as their head and then body slowly followed, “I was just thinking of you.”

Petrus halted, already tense before the hand slid across his shoulders and the yoke of the visitor settled on him.

“Three metre cubes of firewood.”

“You’re kidding?” 

“I am actually,” they said as they jogged to be ahead of the man, “I had a look on my way in and I know you’ve only two, so we’ll take those.”

“And leave me to freeze next winter.” 

“Oh, we both know that’s nonsense; you’ve that pretty young thing to keep you warm.” A guttural snarl was met only with a rolling of the tithe collector’s eyes. “Or would you rather keep the firewood and I–”

“Don’t you . . .” Petrus loomed over the visitor, knuckles whitening as each breath was forced between his teeth.

Sighing, and inspecting their nails, the visitor waited for a reply, bobbing their head a little expectantly before speaking. “What the fuck did you think you’d say? ‘Don’t I dare suggest you pay your tithe with your daughter and her presumably lovely cunt’?” A finger rose as the man’s brows bunched, flicking to the ground in admonishment. “Down . . . Thank you.” More a huff than a sigh followed as the tithe collector turned their back on the larger man and paced. “Do you know what it is that makes my task such a chore? No, of course you don’t. It’s the ignorance of your kind. If you understood what the Mage Lords did to dissenters I’d’ve come into town today to find that lass atop all of that firewood waiting to be put onto a wagon.”

Striding away back to the well, the visitor didn’t even flinch as Petrus started after them.

“Understand, at the end of the day your kind can bark all you like, but bite and I will have you put down without pause.”

Growling to himself, the man came to a halt and let his tormentor fade into the mist.

“And then who would be left to look after your dear girl?”

Cord imprinted itself once more on white-knuckled fingers as the father’s hand tensed until it shook.

“I’ll send a wagon for the firewood next week!”

At first stomping down the muddy street, the way it came to grasp at his boots soon subdued Petrus back to a sluggish plod. Anger yet remained though and the door to the family cottage was slammed open in the hope that startling his daughter might bring him some satisfaction. It did not. In fact the teenager didn’t even jolt. Lola’s eyes turned to confirm it was him, head rotating but a few degrees before she returned to what enthralled her, and soon her father too.

Between her fingers, uncalloused, but marked on the backs, crackled lightning. The pair watched as the hand rotated slowly, almost hoping each passing shadow would reveal it to be a trick of the light. But it was not, and all the motion revealed was the stability and control that was already achieved. Petrus made a few half-formed noises and got nods in response. Soon the other hand was lifted and, beginning from the gentle touching of fingers, a glowing arc was stretched between them, growing as they parted. In time her father's gaze was forced away from the light, still seeing it as he blinked and turned to something, unknown and unseen behind the burnt-in shape.

Magic was coursing through the room, through his daughter, bringing a foreign smell and kindling a certain hope within the man. With this power, this promise, she would become a Mage Lord, she would rise to be a ruler of the Dominion of Tarf and live in splendour and comfort. This cottage would be left far behind as she was dressed in silks and waited on hand and foot. This was not a mere discovery of magic, coming now, coming like this, she would surely become one of the great mages.

As the light cleared from his vision Petrus turned to his daughter, her hands now at rest. His mind for a moment reached for knowledge it didn’t have, trying to recall anything about the families of the Mage Lords themselves and finding an absence. Realisation sank through him, weighed down by recognizing the look upon his daughter's face. It was the look Lola gave him before she bit, before she spat in their dinner, before she slapped him, and pushed him away. Her head tilted with the consideration he had seen her give each new thing in her life since birth. He surely was something new to her now, his strength and size no longer affording him any power over the girl. As her head righted itself he knew his fate, realised why this moment, barely enough to blink in, had stretched on for so long.

The penultimate thing to pass through his mind was a mournful recollection of all the indulgences he had taken with Lola. A passing glance at each and every time he had sated his emotions at the expense of his dear daughter, still somehow framed to deny the harm it had done. Even so, he had the rare pleasure of knowing in his last moments why he would die.

The final thing to pass through Petrus’s mind was a lightning bolt.

In the beginning there was just the sea, and nothing but the sea,
Extending forever, beyond all sight, down below perception,
And all was still and quiet and peaceful, waves barely taking form.

Then one chance day in the sea’s deepest heart, in its cold, endless depths,
From nothing but water and time and salt, Teryte itself was born,
And so with endless time and endless sea, the beast began to grow.

But infinities are not all equal, Teryte outgrew the sea,
The world was consumed by the leviathan, no other choice was left,
Great hunger, the original hunger, turned jaws upon itself.

Dawning the era of self-destruction, endlessly coiling tail,
Every link through the sole creature’s vast maw, then and over again,
But solitude echoes and amplifies, even the tiniest flaws.

With each cycle Teryte grew corrupted, turning slowly to salt,
In time the bottomless sea gained its floor, knotting tail of the beast,
Only massive jaws still found the surface, upon the mirror, starved.

Our world is that great lost leviathan, dead, dying, and alive,
Even in stillness defining the sea, shaping every last part,
Unseen, unknown for its ubiquity, Teryte’s death is our life.

An infinite being, infinite life, in its return gives all,
All is that is is born from the dead flesh, and the leviathan’s soul,
For we are just drops, hardly titanic, Teryte was a whole sea.

Beyond our mortal world and after life, there is infinite still,
Every memory and story it lived, became a monument,
Unreachable, intangible to life, in this Teryte lives on.

From the first soul, to you before this stone, we are fragments of it,
Souls give us our thoughts, our drive, our meaning, give us our everything,
The last gifts of the dying leviathan, drops of the infinite.

This gift must not be wasted by any, it is too great to shun,
Our connection to the sea brings mana, the blood of creation,
Through mana the world is set in motion, purpose given to soul.

But it is a gift that we must return, relinquish in our death,
Give up this power and rejoin the sea, taking our pain with us,
Live without pain, that foul stain of the soul, and let mana flow free.

Teryte is dead, and by its death lives on, endless and infinite,
When we die, we too will live on with it, endless and infinite,
The drops from the sea, the sea from the drops, endless and infinite.

So say the carvings of the grand stone; declarative copper laid into a foreign white rock. From the green of the letters to the sand-blasted edges of the well-travelled slab, it had the affectation of ageing in place. All carefully crafted and nearly wasted in the midnight dark, only the glow-like colour of the stone to render the words. Chemistry and magic brought to bear toward the same ends as the quill and parchment before it. To tell a lie of omission and erase from myth and memory the very figures that stood in the small, bare-trodden clearing. 

“One would think they’d stop building these.” Wrath, Fate, Passion, no matter the name she spoke through full lips thinned by the tension of holding back. Her companion remained unmoved. “Or will they simply continue until all the quarries of Fissap are worked out?”

“They would find another stone,” Justice stated, soon returning to his stillness, only the grey eyes flicking up and down the tablet as he was orbited by the pacing redhead. With an exasperated sigh, she stopped herself between him and the stone. A little shorter than the vaguely martial figure, she didn’t obstruct his view but her intense eyes, burning with arcane energy, were enough to pull his gaze down from the copper lettering. “Would they not?”

“That’s not the point,” she spat the words with a glowing trace. Brows blankly lifted. “These . . . usurpers, these pretenders to godhood, would kill our sibling and erase us from this world.” Each word shimmered and flared, lighting up the figures.

His eyes glittered as they flicked up to the moon and back to figure in her gown of scintillating red. Even his cold heart couldn’t deny the allure of her; petals and feathers blowing fruitlessly over stone. 

“Nothing?” 

Justice shrugged.

“You see nothing wrong with this?” 

“These are not the same people—” 

“Fuck that!” Her anger forced a half step of retreat from her brother. “They still call themselves Mage Lords. Still oppress the people. Still have the blood of Creation dripping from their hands.” Glowing eyes illuminated the subtle, stoic nod. “And yet you would do nothing? Have me do nothing?”

Justice blinked and glanced idly at the glow of the city over the hill.

“Speak.” 

“Even when I know you do not truly want, or need, me to?” A small tip of his head, the hint of a smile.

“Then begone.” 

“No . . .” 

For a moment she rose onto her toes, her gown taking sinister shape. And then it was gone, in the looming shadow of her brother there was darkness, a still gown of improbable grace, and only the moon’s light in the clearing. 

“And that is why you follow me,” she said, dropping the words from slow, stunned lips, “Just to keep me from action.” Her bright hair moved in waves as she shook her head slowly more and more until a songbird’s laugh passed her gently-parted lips. Music carried on the night winds as Wrath took on a subdued kind of composure. “Do you know what they are doing now?”

Another empty shrug.

“They are turning over the ruins of Basalia.” Every word came with an earnestness and frustration as shock still shaped her face. “Not content to kill and strip the empire, they pick over the skeleton just to make sure that no original tablet remains. While they seek to crush every voice that has even spoken of us, we are hiding, and silencing each other.”

“What would you have us do? You know well the power they stole; we would cast our lives away meaninglessly. Is that what you want?”

Darkness remained over her restless, wordless face.

“Do you even know what you want?” he asked of the growing silence.

“I want to be heard. To be seen. To be felt. To fucking be!” Her gown was alight now, as even shouting her voice effortlessly sang. “Just to be something more than a hint of a shadow in the world I shaped. To mean something again to the people I raised up. I want to have purpose in my world again.”

“That world is gone.” 

“This is that world. We are that world.” Outshining the moon, she cast an arm back in anger, splitting the tablet with a fan of brilliant feathers. Mana glowed on her breath as she called them back, reforming the sleeve of her gown. “I am not gone, and I will not let them bury me.”

Briefly the night swirled around Justice and then was released, natural darkness returning to the clearing. “Do you feel better for that outburst?” He waved the frictive from her lips before words formed. “We should leave. Unless your petulance demands a blood sacrifice as well?” 

Layers of the red gown took wing, bright red songbirds fluttering away into the night until only the bare form of Wrath remained. “It is not my retribution they need fear.” And so the last part of the Soulbird shifted and followed the rest into the night. 

Justice lingered and fidgeted for a moment, but a glance to the moon, and the nearing fragment of the city’s glow, had him heaving off the ground on vast wings.

We stashed books on hospices shelves,
That we would never take them from.

We filled your last conversations with plans,
Where items and people would go when you did.

We complained about the effort it would take,
To clean your whole life away.

Six decades of your life in disordered stacks,
And I can't face them at all. 

Perhaps the last conversations you heard,
Forty years of magazines in need of a place.

Somewhere in there is a parking permit,
A mawkish, prideful treasure. 

I know the story of that piece of paper,
I am the reason why it meant so much.

Now thousands more will be thrown away,
And I wonder what stories they had.

All that's left is packing your life away.

I daydream about that future reunion,
When I would step past your bedroom door again,
To shelves of books I recommended,
And gifts that were given way back when.

I tell myself it's just another anxious phase,
Where fear is what halts your willing hand,
That you're still out there reading all I'm writing,
But stay silent at your neuroses' command. 

I know though that this is a new era,
That your life has gone on, left me behind,
No more should I give you ink or tear,
Instead slowly let you fade out of my mind.

I long for fingerprints, black and blue,
From when I catch you as you fall,
Or excite you all of a sudden.

I want to mark my shoulder red,
Carrying your bags to the station.

I want to see my stretch marks,
Unearned and too perfect,
Swollen in the heat and causing pain. 

And I want to lie with you,
In the cool atop the sheets,
Feeling your soft fingertips,
Stroking the marks on my skin.

Little anchors me to the mortal,
Keeping my care on tangible things,
Interests of the divine go wanting,
'Til other minds writ on page do sing. 

Down the rabbit hole and far beyond,
Through looking glass, wardrobe, and gateway,
Over the ferry, bridge and mountain,
In worlds of dragon, mage, myth and fae.

Your world is left far behind by now,
Deep in creation of another, 
Wandering the art of love, and self,
True revelations to uncover. 

Until so sweetly beckoned back home,
Little, my loves, the ones I hold dear,
Even a goddess comes when she's called,
For all adventures begin right here.

I love that life I can give myself,
And lose it all in my creation,
But journeys with lovers are sweeter,
Sojourner with them, my life's station.

And so I walk away from the flame, 
Into the vicious, biting, cold snow,
Distant from mothers current and past,
Further and further from home I go.

Up above the world I knew before,
I've cultivated my skills for years, 
Now must trust them for aid and shelter, 
Face my future as the cloudbank clears.

Glowing ember of the final flame, 
I follow the path of The Tower,
Like so many of my kin before,
Now I live my life, seize my power.

From the journal of Dr. Lucy Flamesdaughter, 3.735.8.6.

1.52.9.14

“Isn’t he just spectacular?” the smiling girl asked of her weary sister, “Just so immense and humbling.”

“And those are good qualities?”

“I think so . . . at least in the dragons,” the younger woman mused. Setting down her needlebinding, she leant on the shoulder of the weary as she stared wistfully from their window sill. “Muscle wrapped in flakes of stones, like so much metal ore. Rising above like a mountain beckoning the brave to test their hand at conquest.” 

The weary winced, finally turning from her own work to see the dragon that her sister admired. Watching for a while, she saw him looming over what few traders the street had, taking fresh produce and sinking monstrous fangs into it. “I’m glad – I think – that you can still take pleasure in seeing them. But I’m not sure I can cope with you romanticising them.”

“It’s not romanticising,” the smiling turned and asked, getting a raised eyebrow, “Is it?”

“It is the kind of poetry that you only come out with when you want someone, and when it comes to them, that makes me uncomfortable.”

“Am I that predictable?” 

“Do you remember when Danielle left her husband, and suddenly she was ‘raven-haired with eyes that held peace like the heart of an endless ocean storm’?” 

“Maybe . . .”

“Or when Rupert used to walk past with his wolfhound and you would say that he ‘acted with a tenderness well past his years, the compassion of the scarred, who knows that even the smallest wound must heal’?”

“That sounds familiar,” she chuckled, smile unshakable, “I definitely miss Dave.”

“Dave was a good dog.” 

“You can’t deny though, for him, the comparison to a mountain is apt, surely? The mightiest of the dragons?” Gestures followed the smiling’s gaze to where the massive form was still, all but glittering in the morning sun. His contented eyes closed as succulent fruit was slowly chewed and delected. “Monumental and peaceful.”

“No . . .” the weary’s voice bore uncertainty, but the word was definite, “Mountains are products of fate, dispassionate and purposeless, they define a world they can neither conceive of nor care for.”

“Now who’s being poetic?” 

“The dragons might be dispassionate, but they are far from purposeless,” she continued, untouched by her sister’s question, “That creature is a tower; deliberate in its construction, oppressive even without action, born of dreadful, imperious purpose.” The weary shook her head and returned to her needlebinding, knowing too well the self-satisfied smile that her younger sister had taken on.

As the smiling was so prone to do, while taking back up her own needle and yarn, she spoke a new poem into the world.

Through broken mountain ramparts,
In the wake of fate's sweeping wings,
We delve for metal, raw and unforged,
From the earth we pull might's seeds.

Ploughshares and swords,
Hammers and shackles,
Those fruits that bloom,
To commoners and to kings. 

Existing and consuming. 

Might, in every fibre, in every scale,
Defiant of the feathers we must bow to,
They step down into this world we made,
It shakes under their unheralded weight. 

Warmth and destruction,
Feasts and ashes,
All that remains,
After the flame has burnt.

Existing and consuming. 

Rising over mountain and mortal alike,
Where only Soulbird’s flight can reach,
Roots crack and reshape foundations,
Might's tree is The Tower atop the clouds.

Inspiration and oppression,
Protection and domination,
When all can see,
Its grace and its cruelty.

Existing and consuming.

Even the weary had an appreciative smile by the end of the impromptu recital, but, unnoticed to her, she was not the only listener. With grace unbefitting his size and breath that mixed notes of wood smoke with fresh citrus, the muse stood still and peaceful as he took in the words, the intonation that had delivered them. The poet lifted her gaze to him, upward-arcing lips never having quite closed, tongue swirling the smokey air around her mouth as she savoured the taste. For a while the pair remained silent, the dragon pondering as the human drank in the physical presence before her. Only the sound of the single still moving needle disturbing their moment. 

“Quite lovely,” he purred the words as his eyes returned the favour of the smiling.

“Thank you,” she replied, looking away to see her sister tense. For a moment she watched the skilled hands shake before the needle had to stop, taut yarn threatening to knot. 

“Your own composition?” 

“Of course,” she dismissed the question plainly, slipping a reassuring hand around her sister.

“Do you write a lot of poetry?” 

“None at all.”

The weary looked from her sister to the dragon and back, slowly realising that she and the huge figure both wore the same brazen confusion. Whether it be compassion or simply the disarming nature of the baffling words, for but a moment her fear did not hold the reins of her mind. “That’s just not true, you’ve been a poet since you could speak. Two decades now your verse has rung in my ears, and you claim not to write it?” 

“I don’t write it,” the smiling said, agape as she blinked at her sister, “I say it, and it is done. I’ve never written any of it.” 

The sudden chuckle was enough to raise hairs on both sisters, intimidating even as it revealed the unguarded nature of their visitor. “A lot of ephemeral poetry then. Never even been tempted to write it down?”

“Perhaps,” she acknowledged with an inclination of her head, “But I lack the means, the time, or the ability.” 

“You can compose verse, but not write words?” 

“She can write,” the weary found herself protesting again.

“Pigeon scratch,” the smiling dismissed with a shake of her head, embarrassed colour in her cheeks as the shape grew awkward on her lips, “What use is it to turn pretty words into ugly marks?”

“An issue with your hands?”

“A lack of practice,” the weary answered on her sister’s behalf.

“Time with a good scribe would remove the hurdle to writing either way I suspect.” 

“And when would I find that?” the poet asked, indignant, “I have work to do, needs to meet.”

“Work?”

Both women lifted their needle craft in answer, prompting another chuckle from the dragon. “Though your kind might not value garments, they are something that humans need,” the elder explained to a looming, patient smile.

“Far more than my words.” 

“What are your names?”

“Elspeth.” The smiling.

“Deborah.” The weary.

“I am Caspinarch–”

“We know,” Deborah interjected.

“Or The Tower, as you seem to have entitled me.”

“You really like that?” the poet asked as both sisters frowned.

“You know it wasn’t meant kindly?” 

“As with much that speaks of me, and rightly so,” the dragon begrudgingly murmured, “But there is something in it I resonate with. And that, dear Elspeth, is why you should write. For the sake of your words finding a reader in need, who the fates are not so careful as to put within earshot when you speak them.”

Weary eyes watched as the flames within their sister were fanned. Fingers tensed on the young woman’s soft thigh, trying to cling for a moment to the delicacy long guarded. Those same eyes lost focus as the next words came from those ore-black lips.

“Two silver pieces, for your time, your needs must be met,” the dragon spoke softly as his claws lifted and played in the young woman's blonde hair, “If tomorrow, you would grace my chambers with your presence.”

“For tutelage?” The smile’s return couldn’t be denied even if she had heeded her sister’s wordless wish to hide it.

“Indeed. That such a talent not be wasted.”

“You’ll be able to find a scribe on such short notice?”

“Amazing what the coercion of force can achieve,” Deborah snarked.

“I am due my own lessons in fact. It is hardly . . . How did you put it?” 

“Pigeon scratch?” Elspeth leapt all too readily at the invitation.

“Hardly ‘pigeon scratch’, but my script is slow and cumbersome.” He spared a glance over to the sister whose hair he wasn’t twirling around his fingers, offering what he thought was a reassuring smile. “I hope to reduce it, at least, to one or the other.”

“And if she declines?”

“Then I would ask your fee to transcribe the poem you spoke for us earlier,” he said, unfazed by the aggression, “And what title you would give it.” 

“And for me to repeat it for you?” 

“Why would I need that?”

For a moment the sisters examined the dragon with differing suspicions. The earnest words echoed by the form that stepped back, arms spread wide to show the nothing that they could have concealed. Doubt left Elspeth’s face as the dragon began to recite her own words back to her. Unconvinced, Deborah shifted to put arms around her sister. They felt each other’s chills as hands laid on hands and the pair both squeezed. Sheltering into each other as they felt the subtle malice that voice put on once smiling words.

“Forever Entwined,” the title was said into the silence that followed, “One gold piece.” 

The huge hand that had so recently played in blonde locks now beckoned one of the servants from across the street. To the surprise of both sisters their embrace was drawn open by the payment offered. Held forth like a sliver of paper between scaled fingers, it was taken in both hands by the shocked poet.

“For the poem, and my title,” he smiled as he released the coin into her fierce grip, “Am I to assume however that this means I won’t be seeing you tomorrow?” A pause and tipped head as he tried to fathom the pair before him. “If it would reassure you, dear Deborah, I am happy to extend you the same invitation.”

“To be tutored in writing?” 

“If you’d like.”

“Is that really all you want with my sister?” she challenged, squeezing Elspeth tightly as she did.

“Of course not,” Caspinarch said, unable to contain the snort of laughter, “I think patronage is the practice, the support and keeping of an artist for the sheer enjoyment of them.”

“You wish to enjoy me?”

“Most deeply.”

“You would take my sister to your . . .?” 

“Bed. Were you thinking we nested? There are some human customs we have come to appreciate,” the dragon purred, “But yes, I would, if you were to acquiesce.”

“Me?” the smiling, nervously.

“Or me?” the weary.

“I suspect it would have to be both,” he admitted, “I certainly wouldn’t want to cause a schism between two sisters.” 

“And you expect me to willingly let my sister whore herself out?” 

Elspeth twisted to gasp at her sister, only to find herself snapping back as the dragon spoke. “Would you let her marry?” 

“Are you proposing marriage‽” By virtue of having learnt outrage from the same mother the sisters' words came out in unison.

“I am afraid I’m most certainly not.” The dragon shallowly laughed off the suggestion. “I would not place such constraints or stipulations on you. I merely wished to draw a parallel: between marriage, which I hear so often described as the keeping of a woman in exchange for her intimacy, and the offer to keep your sister in bed and board in exchange for her company.”

Deborah could feel her sister thrumming with energy as she began unpacking the dragon’s words. “That’s . . . hardly–”

“Is it different when it is repaid in kind?” he enquired with a tip of his head, “Somehow it just feels more reciprocal offering the shelter of one’s bed and the bounty of one’s table in exchange for close warmth and pleasant company.”

All slowed for a while, anxiety replacing excitement in Elspeth as she eventually asked, “Would you offer me a place in your bed?”

A weak smile, an air of apology, and the gold horns came forward as the head hung. “I am proposing that you may both join me in my chambers tomorrow. The money is to make the choice easier. To stop the unspoken threat of force from keeping food from your mouths. I have no interest in starving women.” 

“My poetry?” A frail, despondent plea from the young woman that still gripped the gold piece she’d been paid.

“I would happily see  it written and shared,” he assured, kneeling to no longer loom over them. Lifting Elspeth’s chin he offered his brow to hers. “I do appreciate it, and I do see value in it. I think I might owe a little thanks to you both for that title, but I will wear it with the pride and reverence it deserves. Your verse is more unique, more valuable, and more deserving of being treasured and shared than simple needlebound garments. So I will see that happen, and that it is worth it for you, if you’re willing. I am rash perhaps to decide this from one poem, but rashness in such matters is a luxury my power affords. However, I see more to you that I want, and no reason, bar perhaps your sister's reservations, why I may not freely have everything I desire from you.”

“My invitation to join you both?” Caspinarch simply smiled. Shifting away from her sister, Deborah’s lips curled with an unseen pain. Her sleeve was rolled up to reveal the ugly brand upon it. On his knees the dragon shrugged. “Is that all?” 

“What more would you like? It is no bother to me. That was never where my interest lay.”

“Am I not ‘purposeless’‽”

“No.” A single word, resolutely spoken. “I have no doubt that your sister's words have tried to persuade you with more weight and grace than mine, but no, you are far from it.”

“This surreality.” Whatever expectations Deborah had were distant. What reservations, of fear or kindness to her sister’s wishes, lost along with them. “You think I could ever lay with a dragon after the brutality your kind have shown me?” She had to physically keep Elspeth from interfering as she snarled the words. “Brutality I was only then spared because you cast me aside as worthless.”

“I do not claim to truly know the minds of humans,” the dragon muttered to the paving below, “I don’t think I’ve ever met one untouched by the violence my kind invokes.”

“And you think any of them truly willing?”

“No less so than I,” Caspinarch said in full and solemn voice, “Each day, each night, I must and will have women. This occupation, this strange peace, it grants me the luxury of asking, and having it happen without violence; the pleasure of being with someone who is not fighting with every fibre of their being; the reward of silence in that part of my mind and the joy– the unbridled joy of seeing the fruits of my seed.”

“How many answer that call to spare others?” Elspeth’s voice shook, and her sister's appreciative hand on her back provided little stability.

The huge eyes seemed unfocused as the question drifted from their lips: “Does it matter?”

“Are you really so unmoved by the violence you inflict upon the world around you?” the weary asked; disbelief the ashes of her unfed anger.

“It does nothing to quiet that part of my mind.” 

“But you still think yourself better for not using force?”

“Do you not?” Grounded once more, earnestness returned to the dragon.

“Y-Ye– No. Maybe?” A single mirthless laugh between hissing breathes. “You need to be stopped.”

“No one can.” For years after Elspeth would try and capture the tone of the dragon in that moment. Not boastful in the slightest, gripped by the horror of the words he spoke, without even a shadow of doubt under the noonday sun. “No force in this world can stop me for more than a few fleeting moments. No defiance that does not end in anger, destruction, and violence. Everything bends to my will. And my will bends to my purpose.”

Not a soul in the street dared break the silence that the words echoed into.

Caspinarch looked to Deborah for answers, but none came. Her open mouth managed nothing more than holding back the urge to choke.

Past the end of the street the silence was beginning to spread, a strange contagion of gravity.

“We can bleed,” he finally said, replacing the insurmountable silence with a sickening tension, “Perhaps we can die.”

“Do you tell yourself this often?” Deborah’s voice rose once more but without anger. The weary stood, drawing the eyes of all around as she spoke down to the dragon. “Paint yourself the victim of some twisted cords of fate? Expunge your cruelty, your weakness, your self-obsession and tell your victims they are but the cost of quiet in your mind?”

“I will spend eternity in my mind,” The Tower growled as he rose, “With the cruel voice that echoes through the years without loss, and the tortuous pain that destroys will like Etara does mortals.” His huge clawed hand dragged up the human’s chest, tearing at her dress on its way to her throat. “You will suffer whatever I deem fit in your short and meaningless lives. I will do with you what I will to satisfy my purpose and make bearable my existence.”

“Is the cruelty your purpose?” She spoke, unshaking, even as the claws that drew blood from beneath her jaw trembled. “Do you need us to fear you?” Calm in the face of draconian anger, her hands began to draw aside her dress. “Because your kind have done with me as you will.” She revealed the red scratch marks over belly and breast, the repeated, purposeless pattern of the brand, and the deep scars it covered. “I live by the grace of the fates, but I have been discarded twice by your kind. Kill me now and I will take every word of Elspeth’s poetry with me to the Soul Sea.” Each word she threw out with all consuming passion sent more blood spilling down her bare and battered body. “I will take my defiance, and my love, and my resolve to give myself for something more.” No more were the words cast out with energy, but instead placed, with will and malice as she looked into the dragon’s eyes. “And I will leave you, and that cruel voice, to spend your cursed eternity with having killed me. With the knowledge that I met my end for the sake of your fragile and selfish view of this world. I hope that my blood will stain your hands until all the fires burn out and the sun is naught but ash and you have no light left to see them by. I hope that cruel voice castigates you with my words until there is nothing left in your mind but their echo and that pain so unbearable to you. I hope–” 

In her fervour, the claws leaving her throat had gone unnoticed, but The Tower kneeling, and the huge hand drawing her brow down to his couldn’t. Every ounce of effort was keeping her from shaking, none was left to resist the movement and its gentle guidance. Blood, not citrus, this time mingled with the smokey breath of the dragon in her lungs. Not as familiar as she thought that it would be. Waiting, anticipated, she wet her parched mouth and swallowed. Her tired lips spilled the excess, unnoticed, onto the hot, mineral flesh. “She will.” Caspinarch squeezed Deborah to him. Perhaps the greatest force he exerted on her was that momentary embrace. “She will.” He still mouthed the promise with trembling lips as his hands returned her to sitting where she had first been found. Tail kept close to his feet, he turned and began away. Just two steps before he paused. “Tomorrow’s invitation stands.” 

The resolve of the weary held until the heavy footfalls faded around the corner, followed by the hurried skittering of servants. Falling into her sister's embrace, her bare skin felt the cold touch of the bent gold piece. It drew along the wounded body for a moment, marking itself with blood before Elspeth dropped it into her lap and clutched her older sister. Tears finally fell, dripping at first, but soon outpacing blood that bound them. Now Deborah shook. Now she let fear and despair burn freely through her mind as she was wrapped in her sister’s arms and a second dress was ruined. In those arms, and in the mountainous ashes of her emotions, she would sleep tonight. Her desolate thoughts intruded upon only by those final, rumbling words.  

1.182.7.14

“Where is my sister?” Caspinarch said the words with all the control of a furnace’s blaze.

“Not even a–” The human cut herself off with a sigh. “Do you even remember our names?”

“You’re Amelia, and the traumatised-looking lass behind you is Helen,” the Tower growled, the words coming slowly through a tightly set jaw, but without hesitation, “Which, if anything, makes my question all the more pressing.” His eyes met the dragonblood’s, the immense energy contained within his gaze was a fact, not a threat, as it crackled from every word. “Where is my sister?”

“She has returned,” Amelia lifted her head to meet his gaze, “She is dead and gone.” 

Perhaps it was the attention of all on the Stonewater Docks that now turned to him, or simply the grace of recognising his emotions in reflection, but there was nothing but the naked truth to the gentle words that followed. “I am sorry.”

“I . . .” she scoffed and shook her head, “Sure.” Confusion knotted many brows as the eyes of the Old Bloods watched on. “It doesn’t matter right now. I can grieve when we are home.” The pause involuntarily expanded as uncertainty’s smoky claws took hold of her mind.

“That house is your home,” Passantra offered, taking a knee to offer her brow, “I promise you it will stay that way.”

“I trust her promises more than yours.” 

“Then I will uphold them with all my power.”

The human turned away. “I am here because she’d want you to know–”

“No doubt her role in this is left undone,” Valinar interrupted before rising grey eyes forced his silence and physical retreat.

“You don’t need to worry about Ferals on the Wolf Coast,” Amelia took up, leaving barely a beat before she spoke again, but it was enough. Enough for the sharp minds to be casting eyes towards each other, for glances to weapons and for the air on the docks to be drawn taut. “You do need to worry about Sancthor and whatever intere–” She paused for a moment, raising a defiant hand to quiet the huge, hulking figures around her. “Whatever interest he had in hunting the Ferals that was worth Valfeya’s life.”

Amelia’s head tipped sideways and she sighed deeply as she opened the door and found the corridor full of steel-grey scales. Shifting to put herself between the accosting dragons and Helen she waited for them to speak. Warm breath, oak and cherry, washed through her silvery hair as she spared the occasional glance up at them.

“You’ve packed?” Passantra asked, peering through the door at the small, fastened bundles.

“We leave in the morning,” the human stated, as much a dismissal as an admission.

“Yes, just before dawn, by the eastern coast road,” Caspinarch continued, getting a glare for his efforts.

“We are leaving for Castine,” she hissed at their knees, “Whatever your dear . . .” A harshly spoken word that saw claws and teeth emerge, contained in a moment by Passantra’s restraining hand.  “. . . brother is doing is none of my concern.” 

Words swilled in his mouth for a little while as the towering dragon considered before finally voicing, “What do you think I intend to do with him?”

“Not enough.” 

Huge horns swung round as Caspinarch looked away along the veranda. Within the twin room Helen was quietly hugging her knees on the bed, eyes unfocused even as she listened to the creak of the decking outside. It whined once more as the huge head turned back. “You want his head?”

Amelia drew her hands across her face, as if cleaning her lips of the half-formed words that failed to pass them. Pacing across the doorway and back, her head flicked back and forth, nothing that she sought forthcoming until the single word. “Yes.” 

“Then you must understand, my axe is the only way you would claim it.”

“You can find another tracker,” she murmured as she turned back to her companion.

“Not soon enough, not good enough, and not without knowing where the trail begins.” In low registers he almost purred the words. “Together is the only way we can do this.” 

“Vengeance?” 

“Closure.”

“Will she get a proper burial?” Helen’s trembling voice interjected.

“Do you even care to–” Amelia cut herself off in frustration.

“I will see my sister has her place at the stones.” Passantra added her voice with earnest grey eyes. “And her ashes for where you see fit.”

In the end, that single nod was more convincing than all the words and might of the dragons before her. “Before dawn, by the east coast road.” Even with her newfound resolve Amelia avoided the eyes above. “I’ll find you both their skulls.”

1.182.7.15

It was with some sense of relief that Amelia found only that pair awaiting her beneath the tendrils of dawn's touch. A final missive, a letter to their bond in Castine, held the party long enough for the sun to drift up over the misty road. Despite last night’s insistence, the pair seemed perfectly happy to wait while the humans rummaged through their bags and sorted out sun protection for the party’s only pureblood member.

The entire first day’s hard march was a disconcerting experience. The wordless, empty quiet of the emotionally injured was something she had grown used to on the journey to Stonewater. Instead it was the quiet deference that the dragons gave that found no comfortable place in her mind. Hunting with her mistress she had not wanted for respect, but she had always been a follower. Now, even before they left the road for their hunt, Old Bloods heeded her words. Were it under better circumstances she might have taken pride in it.

1.182.7.23

One night, around the fire Passantra had lit for them, Helen finally asked, “Why is it only you two here?”

“Fear, fatigue, battle weariness, distance,” The Tower grumbled.

“Respect,” his bond interjected, getting an uncomfortable glance from the other dragon.

“Respect for you?” Helen queried.

“Respect for Sancthor,” Passantra sighed, “He chose to lead us, gave us Castine and all the subjects that came with it. The city that came to be Valfeya’s. He showered us with grand gifts.” Eight eyes drifted to the flashes of firelight in the obsidian mirror of Vitring at rest. “For some he is still that figure of respect and reverence.” A glittering dance of lights filled Caspinarch’s eyes as he continued to watch the flames reflected in the axe, avoiding the singular grey that was fixed upon him.

“The reluctance to begin another fight after what happened on Wildermere takes no explanation. But for some, it is still fear, the thought of breaking the pact between us, even if he has done so first,” he grumbled, “The idea of making themselves a target. Mix fear and respect and it paralyses people.” 

“Would you really claim to feel either for him?”

Their sounds of heavy breath were lost beneath the fire, it would have been easy enough to mistake them for statues as each refused to move first.

“What happened on Wildermere?” Amelia asked of the static titans, the absence at the docks nagging at her to expand the question but being subdued.

“Extermination,” Caspinarch murmured, words dropping slowly from his lips, “Three days of slaughter. Climbing upon the bodies lest they drown you. Fighting without pause or respite.” 

“How many?” the human nervously asked, too distracted by trying to settle her own stomach to spot the horror on Helen’s face.

“One of the mages on the way back put the estimate past a quarter million,” Passantra said, becoming the first of the bond to break their eyelines. “The ash will keep the island a wasteland for decades until it is all washed away, but it spares the sea that poison.” 

“Poisonous ash?”

“Anything is poison in great enough excess. But one island, one Old Blood, the world can continue without.” 

Amelia’s question of Lairn’s fate seemed redundant as she shuffled closer to Helen, her embracing arms unobstructed as the young woman slowly formed her thoughts. “Two Old Blood.” 

“Three,” Passantra sighed.

1.182.8.16

“Do you have Lairn’s skull?” Amelia asked as they marched.

“It’s in one of my bags, yes,” The Tower answered. “Not a pleasant sight.”

“Still rotting?” 

“No, it was stripped clean before we could recover it.”

Amelia gulped, returning to her scanning of the road.

“Why skulls?” Helen wondered. With each strange question, some degree of joy returned to Amelia, delighting in the young apprentice finding herself again. Trying to remember if she had asked this many in her years of learning. 

“With the horns, it captures the sibling we lost,” Passantra explained with the slightest hint of a smile, “At least that was my reasoning when I began it. Return as much as we can to the world and take that small, but sufficient, part to keep them by.”

“Our mistress used to say that only the cruel and monstrous of you had been killed.” 

“That’s unfair to Gortart,” Caspinarch interjected.

“And doesn’t explain how Sancthor and Thyra survived,” Passantra chuckled, raising a hand, “I understand what she meant though. And I can hardly say it's wrong, those our Capespire kin have hunted deserved their deaths.” 

“And yet you give them reverence in death?” 

“Not reverence . . .” She grappled with her thoughts a little before slowly articulating, “Respect.” Glancing to her bond she got a nod. “Family is complicated. Though I would never have . . . I did not stand in the way of their deaths, but I can still appreciate their lives, accept them as my kin and put them in their place for all time, or as much as I can give them.” 

“You don’t believe we return to the Soul Sea?” Helen turned to ask, a frown continuing to fix on the dragon as she paced backwards.

“Would it surprise you if we didn’t?” 

“It would,” the human said to the raising of scaled brows, “Valfeya was a firm believer in the Soul Birds and the Perpetual Cycle.” 

“Do you know how long she held these beliefs?”

“They weren’t beliefs,” Amelia said without turning, “A belief requires faith and that wasn’t her.” 

“That much we can agree on.” 

“She knew, unshakably.” The bonds exchanged looks of complicated, unordered feelings as the dragonblood continued. “Her ashes are to be scattered in the Cas, one day to reach that darkened sea, and a bowl of offerings for the crows to be left out at our house for a month.” 

“Would it make sense to do the same at the stones?” Passantra asked, disarming her guide for a little with the question, “They are for Death, are they not? An offering for them to linger, to give the returning soul time to say farewells and a gentle journey back to the sea.”

“Mmhmm.” She shook her head. “Well said for a non-believer.” 

“We both learned to read a long time ago. I may not believe it, but I still wish to understand.” 

“And yet you created your own burial practices from whole cloth,” Amelia mused.

“Tang Zheng.” 

“Huh?”

“Tang Zheng lived in Scraggan when it was just a village. He wrote a treatise arguing that the soul and body are one, and that when you die, you die. So, he was cast out for it. But those that followed his arguments suggested a number of alternatives to the old ways, around preserving some part of the person by preserving some part of the body. It has resonated with me.” Two huge tails found each other in the unseen space behind them. “So no, it isn’t whole cloth, it is born of this world and older than me and my siblinghood.”

For a while, the soft and heavy steps played out in a respectful silence, Amelia pushing a few paces further ahead, conscious of their upcoming break from the road. Her mistress’s journals beckoned from their shelves in the study, already collecting dust. Making sense of Valfeya had to wait.

“Would you?” Helen asked from somewhere behind, “Put out a bowl of offerings for the crows at the stones?” 

“Of course.” Deep rumbling words from both dragons, nearly two centuries of grace keeping them from stumbling over each other in their own eagerness to offer.

1.182.9.12

Their journey through the inland scrub of the Wolf Coast went easier than Amelia could have hoped. Despite her concerns, the bonded pair were light-footed enough, though still oafs compared to their sister. But it was easy, they stopped at lifted hands and placed their huge feet slowly behind hers, following quietly enough that she could have heard the call of the raptor that loomed far above them. A strange sight, in these lands it would go hungry. In the days since she’d cut past the sight of Valfeya’s death she hadn’t seen any life that wasn’t rooted to the ground. Instead, they just followed this trail of heavy, burdened footfall from camp to bloodstained camp with no company but the raptor far above.

Another camp, this time in a ruined parapet, another pause kept as brief as possible. Helen came and looked it over with her mentor, appreciating the comfort of her skills being tested again, even with the morbidity of the elements she identified. Nearby the dragons discussed amongst themselves the significance of the ruins. Some part of her remembered the story of ancient Basilia as she half-recognised the word. Under better circumstances the link between the fall of that nation and the blood tides might have amused Amelia. But today the words washed over her without feeling as she called the dragons to heel, determined to get as far from the blood-stained tower as possible by nightfall.

1.182.9.15

Before the hunting party was the end of their journey, or at least the end of Amelia’s pursuit. A sunken, stone-built arch, dug out of the earth by rabid claws. Through it Basilian catacombs, yawning darkness, and Sancthor awaited. For a long while she just stared into it. With little effort needed to follow the dense tracks that converged here, her mind had spent the morning racing though possibilities. She had imagined old temples, charnel houses in the ruins they had walked though, plazas piled with victims like the purge and sacrifice of the city's final days. Myth, nightmares, and the horrors of the Ferals bound into a knot that held her core, but now there was nothing. No closure, no answer, just the inviting void.

A huge, scaled hand, full of metal, came to rest on her shoulder as Passantra kneeled beside her. Turning to the vast grey eyes, Amelia realised she had fallen to her knees, oblivious to the preparations of the dragons, or the tears streaming down her face. Helen was with her now, at the other shoulder as she snapped her head round, regretting it as the girl pulled back and pain followed the path of motion. Patiently, neither of them moved as they waited for her racing heartbeat to fall to the realm of individual pulses. A glimpse of obsidian moving behind onyx scales finally grounded Amelia and she rose into the supportive hands.

“Do you need one of us to–” 

“No,” she snapped, “No . . .” 

“The bags are in the ruins of the tower over there, second floor,” Passantra said, cautiously, “Watch them if you can, but leave them in a heartbeat if you must.”

“You don’t need me down there?”

“You’ve done your part,” she said as all three turned to the coiled spring of Caspinarch standing atop the scratched and scrabbled slope, “Now it's time for ours.”

“Do you think he’s–?” Amelia bit back her words as she felt the tremble in them.

“This is his place, if he’s not here and we need–” 

“Brother!” Caspinarch’s roar bellowed through the ruined city, lifting dust and toppling stones that blended into the overwhelming echo. “Face us!”

Amelia’s nails left no mark on the black-scaled hand even as they twitched and tightened down. As the wall of sound subsided, silence did not return. Chattering, screeching noise rose from the pit in its place. Grey eyes glared at the golden horns of their bond, they tilted round enough to expect, without seeing, her presence. Denying it, the Old Blood stayed to see Amelia release her grip voluntarily, every passing second tipping the scales of judgement in her mind.

“He isn’t here?” Helen asked, still keeping a supportive hand on her mentor.

“It seems not,” the dragon murmured.

“Would he even answer that?” Amelia’s cynical side was returning with her composure.

“If I know him, he wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“This version of him you might know, would he kill Valfeya?”

“Most definitely,” Passantra assured, turning before she saw the human gulp.

“We purge his lair?” Caspinarch called back to his bond, “Burn away his atrocities and await him in the ashes?” 

“They sound like his tactics when you try to lend poetry to them.”

“Fitting,” The Tower growled, “That he should have built another part of his downfall.”

“Hide yourselves,” his bond turned back and ordered in hushed tones, summoning her staff to her hand as she stepped up.

No more was it time for soft footsteps; the ground yielded to the power of the dragons, shifting as they strode forward. United atop the muddy slope they descended in single file, following the well-worn path to the ruins, erasing the opposing footprints as they did. Perhaps a single breath they took before stepping into the darkness, the onyx scales of their backs soon bleeding into the inky black of the tunnel mouth. Helen’s reassuring hand had become a desperate tug by now, pulling her mentor out of her trance towards the tower and some semblance of refuge.

Chattering and screeching grew louder as the Old Bloods descended through the crumbling passageways. Rattling, metallic clanging emerged from the cacophony as the light behind them faded. A touch from Passantra’s snout to the tip of her staff sent illumination spiralling down the coiled metal, pushing back the darkness of the corridor. Suffering, hunger, embittered rage; oppression rang out in the noise that consumed all space, physical and mental. This was not the feral frenzy of Wildermere; pain defined this anguish, giving it the edge to cut through thought.

As the passageway opened up, the sound shifted left; calling threateningly from one of the four paths off of the crossroads. No words were needed, no pause of step, not even a turn of their heads from their pursuit of the sound, bar one. As they crossed the open, vaulted chamber of the crossroads with its rock-strewn floor and claw-marked portals Caspinarch let loose a frustrated, but purposeful burst of flames. Lighting every torch, charring every stone, it lingered as they left towards the discordant cynosure.

Entering the chamber struck a sickening blow into the Old Bloods. No more was there silent consensus, but words instead failed the pair, remaining absent as they tried to process the sights before them. Feet kept moving them, taking them into the room, into the heart of the sound, the only action the awestruck forms could manage as thought was drowned beneath the din. By the cold white light of Passantra’s staff they were forced to witness the rattling, shaking, bending cages, the broken eggs and screaming young, the twisted forms, too large for the cages, claiming their metal bars like a tree does a fence. Grey eyes failed to find focus on any part of the Feral flesh that suffered around her, their viscera as omnipresent in the draconian haze as their muddy brown scales. 

Embers smouldered behind them as molten metal split from bone and ash. Returning to the crossroads happened in relative quiet, but the dragons were anything but peaceful. It took everything to keep the light of the staff from flickering and vibrating as Vitring trembled in the constrictive coils of Caspinarch’s fingers. Back in the burning chamber of the crossroads, they turned to each other and spoke. Unimportant, emotionless words. Enough to convey meaning, but leaving no impact on the overwhelmed, desperate minds within the pair. Their bond seemed a distant indulgence as they parted ways in that sunless world. Passantra ahead, Caspinarch right.

As the solid, clear light of her staff faded, the flickering of flames between his teeth came to light his way. Spat light marking the corridor as he followed a low, pained whine echoing down the corridors. The stones here were more weathered, less clawed; the sets of rabid gouges were few enough to imagine the individual scenes that might have made them. When they paired with clawed foot steps that he could all but fit his feet in, it twisted his guts and forced him to clear his mind. Unlike the other passageways of this foul place the scratches, picked out in the flickering light of his fire, grew denser and denser as he approached the pathetic sound. This final archway, that once led to a private set of offices, had borne the brunt of whatever wrath lay beyond, entire stones torn away or reduced to rubble by the claws. Stepping through he saw a simple chamber, a bed roll against one wall, and empty chains hanging across the claw hollowed nest that defined the other, dark and distant, side of the room.

And then he saw it in the corner. Cowering, unchained, silent in his presence, easy to lose in the darkness as the scars and scales blended into the rage-stained stone that it pressed to, but it was unmistakably a Feral. That name no longer fit this creature. Its head, heavy with the grandest horns Caspinarch had ever seen, tracked along the ground like a beaten dog. Cloudy eyes flicked around the room as the whole creature trembled.

“I’m here,” the Old Blood said in the gentle tones of a father.

Laying Vitring down he stepped further into the space, kneeling as he reached the limits of the claw-carved hollow. He let the flames spill from his mouth to land and burn on his scales as the rage that fueled them left him. An outstretched hand was found by the snout that pursued the sound, testing and pressing into it as glistening eyes watched in disbelief.

“What must he have done to you?”

Nausea had to be swallowed away as the creature nuzzled his thighs, its vast horns pushed into him as the body was carried low to the ground. Cowering like its kin never could on legs that sat at new and uncomfortable angles.

“I could tell myself it is age that’s done this, but that would be a lie, wouldn’t it?” he asked as he gently moved the creature's head up to meet his.

There was no resistance, he could shift the form with a single finger like an artist posing their model. But whenever he didn’t correct the shattered remains of the Feral’s mind it pushed itself onto him in a way that brought visceral disgust and rage to the Old Blood. Still sadness, and the kindness that it brought washed over all, drowning the anger as tears sizzled into the flames that covered him.

“This ends here,” he murmured as for the first, and last time, the brow of a Feral was met by their distant kin.

Gently guiding the mass of scar and muscle, he reached behind him, searching desperately for any glimmer of understanding in the torn pattern of scars between the creature’s eyelids. For the first time this close with one of the Feral he took in the sheer amount of ropey muscles, the threat of power that melted to his touch.

“If speech, if understanding is there . . .” Another ending to the sentence entered his mind as he thought of the cries that would have echoed around these bare stone walls. “I give you all I truly can: peace.” 

Nothing echoed for his bond, not even her heavy footsteps as she pushed herself onwards, eyes scanning the bloodstained hallway she found herself following. Occasionally the staff would spin in her hands, shifting the light trying to glean what information it could of the space ahead, where sound ended and a fresh reek began. Figures, hulking forms, still and waiting in that darkness; the urge to call for help grew, but understanding bloomed first. The mundanity of it brought a mirthless laugh from Passantra’s lungs as she closed on the room of hanging carcasses, the soft flesh that ate the sound. Packed with ash in the smoky room it must have kept well; it was only the intense clean smell of raw meats that filled the space, not a carrion feeder in sight. Cattle, deer, boar, wolves; there was every manner of creature hanging in this space, every creature torn from the world above to feed the mouth below.

Tears filled her grey eyes and blurred the horrific image she rushed towards. On a lonely hook towards the opposite end of the hall hung her sister. Staff clattering across the floor, she slid the last few metres on her knees. Strong arms wrapped around the lifeless head, drawing it to Passantra’s chest as the Old Blood fought the convulsions of her sobbing. Slow movements, slow processing. Valfeya came to rest on the ground, limp as her head was cradled still. Shaking moved from wrackious despair to the energy of vibrant fury as she stared unfocused as the face she knew so well, marked now by teeth too much like her own. Tears running dry and her throat too choked of breath to cry, she found purpose for the anger that longed for violence. It would have beaten her fists into the stone beneath her until rock and bone were dust if it must. But on the other side of the silent bodies, she could hear that riotous noise once more, deeper, richer, more full bodies than it had been above. Light returned to her grey eyes as she drew the staff to her and descended deeper into Sancthor’s madness.

Sunlight made stark the difference between grey scar and black scale as the Old Blood strode through the ruins. Obsidian blades glittering on his back, fresh meat dragged by his hand. Huge, fresh footprints, were not missed by the golden eyes, instead being met with a subtle smile. Human-sized footsteps were beyond his ability to find, by the paths worn by his siblings back and forth, the deep knee prints of a figure collapsed, he had already turned to his prey before he heard it. A raptor call, alien to this southern hemisphere, heard by the Old Blood for the second time. Sancthor grinned a wicked grin. Laying down the game he had already gathered, the dragon began, slowly, toward more.

Rummaging through the hastily arranged undergrowth in the base of the tower brought nothing but laughter. But it was enough noise to hide the thumping hearts above, enough that Amelia risked moving them. Small sounds of leather and cloth rubbing over stone and vine as they scrabbled from within the walls to the outside of the collapsed parapet. A small nook where the slope of the once flat turret fell away, obvious from without, but hidden, she hoped, from within. Helen was placed closer to where gravity defeated the vines and the stones ended. She didn’t know it yet, but her mentor was ready to push her off, to crash onto the bags below and begin to run into the dense ruins with the time Amelia could buy her. For now the young woman fidgetted her feet to keep from the edge, dust and pebbles falling to the tower below. Claws, clinking on the stairs, saw one arm buried into the vines before the other grabbed the apprentice to secure her. But for the surprised sound of Helen, uncontrollable as the arm grasped under her ribs, it might have worked.

Laughter shredded nerves and sent those human hearts racing past perception. Heavy, slow footsteps crossed the ruin, sending stones tumbling past the pair as they fought their lungs to hold back desperate gasping breaths. Silent tears filled Amelia’s eyes as something pushed on the stones that hid them, drawing the vines tight against them until her arm was forced to give under the pressure. Before her legs had a chance to push out, a wall of roaring sound thudded through them. Looking out from their place on the edge of the parapet they watched as the ruins before them sank. It began well past the tunnel mouth and spread to a great circle of final destruction, the earth falling ten metres or more and the ruins crumbling away under the shock. Over their cowering forms the figure of Sancthor leapt towards the tunnel mouth. Distressed roars fought the scouring draught of cold, smoke-filled air from below as he dove into the darkness, blades springing readily to his hands.

Vitring met glass and scale as Sancthor reached the crossroads, sending one of the swords flying from the jarred hand and skittering across the floor. The next blow did the same to the owner, the Old Blood catching it so barely with his sword that the back edge cut into his chest as he was cast away by his brother’s rage.

“Kinslayer!” Caspinarch roared as he loomed over his brother, pacing forward and forcing him to scramble back.

“Hardly the first,” came the barked response, stalling The Tower long enough for Sancthor to return to his feet.

“What the fuck do you mean by that‽”

A wide grin swept over his lips as the shorter brother collected his lost blade, soon forced to parry another crushing blow, staggering more than dancing away. “Did you never think about the wound that ended Marsakella? The arrow that punctured her eye?” Snarling, Sancthor pushed close, rapid blows trying to get him under the wide punishing sweeps of the gift he himself had given. “Only one bow that could do that . . . And you surely found it during your plunder of my city.”

Immediately those final, unwise words drew rageful blows; Caspinarch forcing his brother to follow and flow around Vitring’s razor edge. All the feral aggression of the twin blades failing to find their mark from the back foot. “Did you really think killing her would hide your atrocities?”

A sword was caught between the axe’s blade and haft and twisted to fly away. “Atrocities? Fucking atrocities?” Sancthor screamed, pushing close only to have the other blade turned on him, drawing blood while in his own hand. “You’ll wet your dick in humans, and Capespires, and even those soft-scaled island wretches, but call this atrocious?” Twisting the blade through his own flesh and free, he grasped for Vitring, forcing his brother to give up both to spare his own blood.

“They speak!” Caspinarch kicked his brother back, moving immediately for the axe before eager claws pulled him back.

“As if you’ve never had one mute with fear, or with their tongue and–” Vile words lost into flames, as rageful breath tried to dislodge Santhor’s grip. When they faded, The Tower stood, in shocked disbelief at the raw, angry scar tissue that covered his brother, brought out in vivid, painful colour by the heat.

“What did you do to break that thing?” he asked without wrath.

“Do you suddenly need instructions?” his brother taunted, needing to be held back by the throat as he pounced again. “You never have before.” 

“How can you not see the difference‽” Every iota of rage returned as Sancthor was slammed into a wall. Stones gave way, but not enough to stop the twisted horns from snapping his head back as Caspinarch snarled against the grey scales under the jaw. “Are you so lost that you cannot tell mind and soul from bestial flesh?”

“How dare you suggest our kin are somehow lesser than the skinclad apes that came before them?” Wrestling, frustration, saw him cast down onto the floor. “Our kin will always be mightier than the pets you keep. If our seed is to bring forth the race that grips this world, let it be our own kin it blooms from. Draconian might will out!”

“And yet you still torture them, break their very nature, cage them, maim them . . .” The Tower closed on his brother with open stance, mouth agape. “Do you even try to rationalise your cruelty?”

“Cruelty is the reward of the strong,” Sancthor said to a shaking head, “Mercy and compassion are the weakness that will undo you. I take what I must, I do what I must, I make what I must.”

“That urge?” Caspinarch asked, as he all but offered his brow, “That drives this?”

“You understand now? Those creatures down there aren’t what matters, only the–” 

“No.” The word came with a firm grip on his brother’s jaw, pulling the two together. Close now he felt his brother’s hot blood spill on him. “I feel it too. I’ve brought nations to their knees to feed it . . . But this?” 

“This is how it ends,” Sancthor tried to snarl, the grip on his jaw crushing his anger as it choked his voice. “With a tide of death. Hunger elevated by might. To wipe clean this world. Surely, you feel it too?” 

“No.” Closed eyes, pushing their brows together. “Every daughter, every family, the sparks that set this world alight to blaze glorious in the void. It sates me. I have no urge to reduce it all to ashes.”

“‘Every daughter’ . . .” He pushed into his brother’s brow. “We’ve always known there was something broken in you.”

“I am not the one here that is broken.” 

“If I am broken, then how would you fix me, dear brother?”

“I don’t know.”

“So, what will you do?”

“Stop you.”

“Kill me?”

Caspinarch’s eyes drifted open and shut as he searched for resolve, and then Vitring, but those flickering eyes snagged and stopped, caught upon the sight of a harpy eagle in the passageway to the surface. It looked back, tipping its head, patiently waiting for a satisfactory answer. Behind those raptor eyes lurked all the understanding that he had looked for, and in some way hoped not to find, in the last Feral.

Lack of pressure on his brow. Movement that snapped his gaze forward. Teeth. Searing pain struck above his eye and below the jaw. For the first time the onyx scales of The Tower were torn asunder. Biting down the fangs tried to hold him, following him to the floor as he fell back. Scratches marked him and his brother alike as they scrambled against each other, each desperate for the purchase that might break this stalemate as fang dug into bone. Somewhere in his tumbling view of the chamber the feathered witness shifted and left, pale white light following it up the corridor toward the surface. 

Passantra’s staff crossed Sancthor’s throat, her feet planted on his back as she locked the upheld end in her elbow and pulled back. Choking and spluttering, the teeth held tight, channelling the blind aggression of their kin buried below. Seeking purchase, her clawed fingers scrapped over their rabid brother’s face until with a sickening sound they sank into it.

Fire and claws. A burst of energy and movement the likes of which none had seen before. Vision lost as white light and white flame burned flashing fragments of the fight into their minds. Claws and blades frozen in moments of clumsy wrathful aggression. When their vision finally cleared, heat had dried the blood on Caspinarch’s face, ash crumbled from Passantra’s hand and fell away, and Sancthor held Vitring. His chest was heaving with effort as he slowly turned, revealing, for a moment, the charred socket on his right side as he backed out of the room.

Amelia’s arm was pressed against her body in the makeshift sling. Helen sat over her as she slumped against the base of the tower, obscuring clear sight of the tunnel mouth even as she swivelled and brandished the small camp knife. Black scales. Vitring. Fear. Apprentice wordless in confusion as the figure advanced, mentor desperately trying to see clearly as the dragon bore down on them. White light from below, driving back the encroaching dark. Amelia found herself a place to see just in time to watch all menace fall away from Sancthor as he bolted into the night. Shaking, uncontainable anger drew what motion it could from the injured arm, soaking the cloth that held it.

Passantra never reached the pair, knowing too well she would be rebuked. The catacombs were no better; her bond knelt there in shock, as wordless as the sister she sought. Automatically, she sent her body back into the dark, cradling the lifeless form in her hands, bringing her to the surface, beneath the night sky and its distant fires. Valfeya’s companions made no protest as the Old Blood dragged whole dead falls to the clearing, watching the pyre be built with words only for each other.

The pyre was lit by Passantra’s flame, a last kiss for a sister she loved, calling out to its kin in the stars above, driving back the cold and dark of the night. She knew too well how this process ended. She knew the scales that once held back all but the most terrible violence of this world would surrender to her flames. She knew how the bones would say their pristine white within the black ash that fell. This was how she had known that something was destroyed when their lives ended; their magic ending with it, lingering only to the oldest, truest parts of them.

As Caspinarch emerged back into the world above, she left him to settle by the fire, passing the humans to reach their packs. From the spare rations, Passantra took large handfuls, scattering them as she paced around the reaches of the fire’s warmth, making her offering to the crows. When she returned to the pyre itself the party finally shared words again. Not of their failure, nor the horrors below, nor even the tragedy that had bound them together. As the light of Valfeya’s funeral pyre was shattered by tears, her family sat together and told stories of her life. As they watched her return, they spoke their love to the sparks, the glowing motes of the fire and the stars above. No other words were needed.

1.48.3.16

Sancthor presented a branded forearm to the guard, uncaring for how he dragged around the woman it was attached to.

“You know what this symbol means, don’t you?” he growled at the thug who’d brought her.

“Yes, my lord.” He stumbled over the words, looking visibly panicked as the Old Blood loomed over him expectantly. “Purp–p– . . . Useless.” 

“Exactly, so . . .” Again the dragon seemed expectant, acrid smoke dripping from his maw as he waited. “So why is she here?”

“She said that–” Santhor’s huge head descended to better hear the mumbling excuses. “That it was in error, and she offered to be taken instead of her  . . .”

A slow looping nod from the dragon drew to a halt with the trembling words. “And you believed the branded, infertile woman, who would have no reason to tell a bare-faced lie in order to spare her . . .?” 

“Sister,” the man whimpered.

“You’re a fucking idiot.” A long, deep sigh ruffled the long auburn locks of the woman as it washed over them both. “Just take it– No.” He paused and gestured to others in the throne room. “No, someone, get both of them out of my sight!”

Sancthor’s uncaring turn away was paused by spittle hitting his shining, black scales. The insult sizzled away as flames licked from his mouth. Claws around her throat, the woman was against the wall, hanging from the giant hand. It was only as she flinched away, tears drying on her cheek, that the dragonfire retreated behind the gnashing teeth.

“Let’s make sure,” he snarled, dripping burning motes from that venomous tongue, “That no one ever thinks that brand is a mistake again.” 

Sprawled upon his throne, Sancthor licked his fingers clean, nostrils full of the scent of burnt flesh. He would have been content were it not for the envoy marching into his throne room. Golden eyes rolled backwards into the skull as his head hung limply from his shoulders for a moment.” 

“You’ll have to excuse that,” he said, gesturing vaguely at what his thugs were dragging away. Pulling his head upright again the dragon turned his focus to the arrivals. “What brings you before the throne of Castine?”

Picking his jaw up as he finally pulled his eyes off of the figure being dragged away, the envoy found himself stalling. A glance at his small entourage found supportive, if uneasy, faces. With an encouraging push from his second, the envoy lifted his head to the dragon’s gaze and deflected away. With another attempt, he held the gaze, despite the smirk that now went with it, and sought his voice. “I am here as a representative of the Grand Duchy of the Tinderwoods.” 

“Oh yes, you did declare yourselves a grand duchy didn’t you . . .”

“I bring a message from Duke Francis–”

“Not Grand Duke Francis?”

The envoy swallowed heavily, pushing his jaw to one side for a moment before picking up. “The Grand Duchy of the Tinderwoods wishes to, without reservation or equivocation, in the strongest possible terms denounce your occupation of Castine as tyrannical and unjust.”

“You wish to, or you will?”

“Expression of the desire to take such an action constitutes the action,” the envoy explained with a school teacher’s manner, as across the throne room he was subject to a school child's mocking gesture. “May I be allowed to finish?” 

“By all means . . .” Sancthor laboured every word.

“In addition to denouncing your deplorable conduct and the atrocities you have wrought upon this city and beyond, the Grand Duchy of the Tinderwoods,” the envoy paused a little as the dragon mouthed the words along with him, eventually being gestured to continue, “Demands that you and the other dragons relinquish your control of the city of Castine to the Duke Francis, and surrender yourselves in Forsem to face trial for your numerous crimes.” 

“Ha.” 

Once more the envoy looked to the rest of his party for reassurance, getting no guidance as the silence grew. Jaw hanging slightly open, the dragon had sat up in his throne, like the envoy he looked to the others in the throne room to make sense of the ridiculousness. “You understand our demand?” 

“That I, that my siblings and I, surrender, presumably immediately, to you perhaps, and hand over our city to your gra–” Huge clawed hands were raised in apology. “To your humble duke.”

“Indeed.” 

“Or?” 

“Or the ducal armies will take you and your city.”

Sancthor waited a little while, still expecting the other foot to drop. Elbows on his knees now, invested in the performance that this little envoy was putting on, he scoffed. “My apologies then, ‘Ha’ was not the appropriate response. I would like to revise that if I might?” 

Reluctantly the envoy ceded the floor to this ‘revision’.

Heartily, the dragon laughed. A hollow, booming sound that echoed around the throne room, muted only a little by the bodies of the silent thugs lurking around its edges. “What can you possibly hope to achieve by this charade? Is your humble duke simply trying to show his virtue by this ridiculous proclamation? Because he can’t think that he has even remotely close to the strength it would take for that to be a serious threat. Ducal armies? Could you not get all of your irregulars to muster under a single banner?”

“We intend,” the envoy cried, finally raising his voice to match the dragon's natural register, “To remove a tyrant from the throne of Castine!”

“Only to be replaced by another.” Sancthor grinned in disbelief as he spoke. “Or did the little detail of handing your humble duke my city evade your notice?”

“Duke Francis is no tyrant!” 

“He is demanding my city, and, no doubt, my head, against a threat of violent force.” 

“What else would you have him do with Castine? It needs to be governed!” 

“Why does it need governing? Could the humans not be left to govern themselves? The city returned to its former rulers?” 

“You killed the former ruler! And his entire family line.”

“Details,” Sancthor tossed the word out as he finally stopped the escalation of noise. “And it was Caspinarch that killed Ethrad, I only killed his descendants.”

“You sacked a city and have set about imposing yourselves on every woman in it!”

“Every worthwhile woman,” he interjected as the envoy sought the breath to bellow again.

“How can you possibly be shocked that you are denounced‽”

“Do you really think your humble duke is so much purer than me?” the Old Blood asked with a sincere tone and tip of his head, “He managed to rouse enough rabble to claim the dukeship from his predecessor with the threat of revolt. His humble duchess, wed to him with a dowry as an attempt to keep the Kingdom of Tarf intact. She warmed his bed, bore his children, to assuage a threat of violence against the men that owned her before. Or is that it?” Golden eyes lit up. “Because he’s indirect, because his violence comes veiled in fancy declarations and virtuous displays, you stop caring that it is still force that spreads the humble duchess’ legs?”

“He is not a ‘humble’ duke!” 

“No, he’s a delusional duke,” the dragon spoke over the envoy without shouting, “He declares his Grand Duchy independent, not realising the other reason that Tarf let him cede is that I now stand between them and the Tinderwoods. And now he turns to me with a lust for conquest? I do not surrender. I will never surrender.”

Shaking his head, the envoy dropped his gaze away and mustered himself, pushing his shoulders back up against the weight he placed on them. “Well then, it is my solemn duty to issue a declaration of war on behalf of the Grand Duchy of the Tinderwoods, against the Gold-Crowned Tyrants of Castine.”

“Someone write that down,” Sancthor gestured to one of his thugs, “I like how that sounds; ‘Gold-Crowned Tyrants . . .’”

“Do you not understand what I have just done?” 

“Do you?” the dragon asked as he sat back on his throne, “If you go to war against me, you condemn hundreds, if not thousands of your fellow Timberwoodsfolk to a pointless, but at least swift, death.”

“It is done,” the envoy asserted, “That was our declaration of war!”

“It doesn’t have to be. You can still walk out of this throne room without blood on your hands.” 

“Stop, with your bravado and boisterous threats! I do not undertake this task lightly.” Volume and projection gave way to trembling frustration. “I do not act on flippant whim. I am under careful instruction from the court of Duke Francis, counselled well and in sound mind. We aren’t making our choices based on what hollow, empty threats we think will keep the people in line. We are setting our path based on the values of a nation. And you are just trying to corral the tired, poor, huddled masses under the fear that you are anything more than a jester and a bully.”

Another of the diplomatic mission was tugging at his sleeve now. Panicked eyes flicked between the set and determined features of their lead envoy and the blood stained path of the woman who had left as they arrived. In the end they were shrugged off by an arm thrown back dismissively.

“What we say in this room matters!” the envoy bellowed, “They are not words tossed about for our own amusement. We shape the world around us with what we say here. And yet you do nothing but smirk and sneer like a child’s idea of a tyrant. A declaration of war should hold the most gravity of anything yet to happen to your travesty of a city state, but you react like a harsh mother threatening to beat her children for disobeying. We are not petulant children, we are a free nation who will turn its might towards ending your ridiculous, cruel, and oppressive regime.”

Three times the black-scaled hands clapped before the head above them shook. “I can see why you were chosen; you speak very well, and you really do have balls. But I need you to appreciate, I understand the weight of your words.” Sancthor let each of his next words fall and echo before the next.  “I just don’t care.” A smoky sigh set once more the true atmosphere of the throne room. “I laugh at your declaration of war, as I will laugh at your attempts to wage it. I concern myself with your ducal armies no more than a rock does with a wave. Though I might appreciate the afternoon’s diversion of slaughtering them, they will leave no mark and dissolve without meaning just to be forgotten amongst the many that have done the same. You can raise your armies, and set whatever path you like, but mountains do not move for words, and I do not surrender to your whims.” 

The envoy suddenly found himself feeling very short and very alone as the tyrant rose over him, and his entourage offered nothing but shuffling feet. As the monolithic form stepped up to him, he stood strong, getting a faceful of pale grey scales until his eyes tracked up to the golden spheres above.

“I was right when I said you had balls,” the monster snarled, letting his saliva drip on the isolated envoy, “But you shouldn’t . . .” Claws, as they so often did, found the human’s throat. “Bravery is only bravery when you have the might to back it up . . .” With one swipe, the offending organs were removed, and their former owner began their slow descent to the ground. “Acting brave in front of a force of nature is just a recipe for self-destruction.” As the envoy gathered himself, Sancthor returned to his throne, falling back into it with a fiery laugh. “Begone,” he spat the word with a dismissive flick of his empty hand.

It was all that the new eunuch could do to stay standing as his weight became his own responsibility again. Channelling the pain, and trying to ignore the handful of torn cloth soaking in blood, he gritted his teeth, emitting a snarl that drew his host's curious gaze.

“Someone be kind enough to stop our guest’s bleeding so he can make it back to his delusional duke,” the dragon chuckled, beckoning to his thugs, “We should have the appropriate brand ready.”

Searing heat, that burnt the flesh and yielded blooming pain; all the welcoming warmth of Sancthor’s hall. Only the hands that came from behind offered compassion, the familiar touch of his travelling companions as they found the bravery to return to him.

“Oh, and don’t worry about bleeding on my floor, it is a rare day when no one does it,” the Old Blood reassured the diplomatic mission. Lolling his head back once more, he began to mutter to the guards, a low rumble that filled the room. When he was done one of them ran off, and his head swung round and up to the envoys. “I told you to leave.” 

With a deep sharp breath, the envoy filled his lungs to ask, “And what would you have me tell Duke Francis?”

Beckoning claws waited for their subject to limp up to the throne. They gestured for an outreached hand, indifferent to the blood or the shaking that defined it. With two wet impacts, what had been taken was returned. “I think those should summarise things. And I’ll let you recount the details.”

Gulping, the envoy curled his fingers around the still warm orbs, turned, and, sheltered by his entourage, shuffled out of the throne room.

As they all did, Amelia’s day began descending stairs; down from fourth floor of the Old Barracks, out onto the Fifth Circle, and then down the cut-through she took to the Fourth. Smiling at the little luck the morning offered, she gestured to the ox cart drivers, signing for them not to stop as she stepped onto the running boards and found herself a seat. Around her were some familiar faces, at least for a Conday morning, and she exchanged shallow nods with the less tired of them. A few new ones caught her eyes: a pair of men in formal attire, silently and frostily sharing some biscuits, a woman in a grand, violet hooped skirt, unable to take a seat as her companions looked on, an open to the waist robe was draped over the muscular form of a man that she now realised was looking back at her.

Her feet drew her attention for a while, bar the occasional glance back at the man. Comfortably he sat and spoke with a friend, smirking to himself whenever he caught her glances over again. Faced with the choice of giving in to berating and chastising herself, or a little daydreaming, she chose the latter and accepted the blush it brought. It was better than giving in to the negative thoughts and worry, claws that grasped at the edges of her mind. At least that’s what she told herself as she indulged in thoughts of floral-scented pillows and soft, but firm, hands. 

It was only when the driver called for the third time that she returned from the fantasies. The object of them, and her regular stop were both already gone, the latter, mercifully, only by a few dozen metres. Emphatically signing and shouting her thanks, she needed warning before she stumbled off of the tram into the Royal Gardens. Taking a deep breath, she began back up the circle road to the next set of stairs. In theory she knew these ornamental gardens well enough to take a shortcut back onto her route, but it was the walk not the destination that she needed. Counting the gradations of the mosaic under her feet kept her mind busy and the claws at bay.

Back on the path, Amelia dismissed the extra time that had been taken, she’d just lose it from sitting with the ducks, or cut short the path through the rock garden, or not visit the elder tree. For now, she began through the Crescent of Holds, taking a few steps down into the Ashland section as she did each day. The beautiful glass gem corn that had made it her favourite wasn’t yet planted, instead red clover filled the beds; sweet, fruity and familiar. More steps down and she was out onto the Queen’s meadow, dragging her fingertips through the winter blooms. 

Slow, steady breathing; for the first time today it was not an affect. As she meandered through the long grass, eyes closed, she picked a path through the resilient foliage. The warmth of the rising morning sun guided her lazily across the perfected ground, its subtle roughness clear through well-worn boots. Claws were left at the foot of those last steps, her morning’s descent was done. As her fingers found clear air, and her feet were freed of resistance, she settled on her knees before the green stone tablet and opened her eyes. Alone before the engraving, reciting the words her mother had taught her to read with, Amelia smiled to herself, and truly began her day.

Here lies the heart of the Krinaale,
Not in these gardens,
Nor in one person,
But in a declaration and a message.

No more is there a single core,
No more is there a place for us,
And so, with the forge broken wide,
We are the fire that endless spreads.

If you are born to black scales,
If you know your heritage or not,
If you lost at first era’s end,
If you walk through the flames,
If you honour the Absent Throne,
If you bear ancestral burden,
If you stand for our existence,
If you wear the darkest of ink,
If you would call her mother,
If you answer to the old names,
If you braid a refugee ribbon,
If you lay hand upon this stone,
We are kin,
You are Krinaale,
And part of the Greatest Family.

By our warmth, we sustain the needy,
By our light, we guide the lost,
By our heat, we forge the future,
By our fire, the world blazes.

For her Final Flame,
For the blood in our veins,
For the world alight,
Forever we fight.

It hadn’t startled Amelia when the deep, rumbling voice behind her began to read the tablet; some ancestral memory stayed her worry, rendered the unseen speaker as reassuringly familiar as the stone. For a while after she let them be in silence, trying to process the emphasis and intonation of the reading even. Trying soon became all that she was doing, focusing on the fruitless effort and conscious of the lack of speech or turning her head. In the space behind her, surprisingly quietly, she heard the dragon kneel themselves.

“Lovely words,” she finally settled upon.

“Thank you.”

A flash of frustration crossed her mind, the compliment had been meant for their author and not– Her head tipped, flicking a glance over her shoulder to confirm; claws returned anew as she realised the obvious truth.

“It was no small task, to do justice to something with the gravity of Passantra’s words, and reflect the new world without her,” The Tower said, thinking aloud, “It wasn’t even certain for a while if we’d make another one, but I think it was worth it in the end.” 

“It’s meant a lot to a lot of people.”

“In a positive way, I hope.” 

“Of course, I didn’t mean to . . .” She sighed and turned, seeing the meadow behind the behemoth form and grounding herself. “It’s been a great comfort to me.” 

“But not enough of one.” 

“Is it that obvious?” 

“You look constantly ready to vibrate free of your physical form,” he said with a soft snort of amusement, huge, smoky air that washed over Amelia.

Fidgeting with her expression, she spent a while looking back ahead at the stone again. “You’re very light on your feet.” 

“A lot of practice,” the dragon purred, finding more awkward silence, “Besides, if I wasn’t light footed across the meadow Pareth would be very angry with me. Oh, I would be for it if I left big galumphing footprints all over her gardens.”

“Queen Pareth?” She chuckled a little, and shook her head. “I never would have thought she concerned herself with such things.” 

“Do not mistake a lack of time to enjoy them for a lack of interest in these things,” he remarked, “The gardens are one of her delights, unwinding with walks through them with her close companions.” 

“Her close companions?” 

“Her inner circle.” 

“Oh . . .” she blushed a little as the rumours flicked through her mind. “I’ve never seen them here.” 

“When do you visit?” 

“Every morning.” 

“Briefings, letters, hair, makeup and wardrobe even, before court for the day,” the huge dragon explained, “She makes it out here in the evenings, when the duties of the day are done, or when her capacity for them is spent. By the light of Royal Flamebearers, to wander through the subtle chill of the evening and find her peace again. Opposite ends of the day, but I suspect not too dissimilar from your visits to these gardens.”

“Well, I don’t have an entourage around me for one,” she rebuked.

“I assure, our queen would take the calm and quiet of solitude if Delphine allowed.” 

“Delphine?”

“Knight Delphine of the Order of the Three Pillars,” The Tower pronounced, “The queen’s closest protector, and typically the one in charge of her security arrangements.”

“Oh, of course,” the human gulped a little, “It really drives home that my problems, what they are, they just don’t matter compared to–” A hand on her shoulder, a raised finger, she obediently fell silent.

“What’s your name?” 

“Amelia.” 

“Good Krinaale name,” he remarked, “She was a hell of a woman.”

“Amelia . . .?” 

“Of the Mothers Unburnt,” he said with an apologetic smile, “Not the first Amelia I’m sure, but the first I think of in the context.”

“Ah,” she made the noise and returned her gaze to the stone, and then her knees.

“What I was going to say is,” he began, tipping his head round to look at her face as she hid away, “You are right; what your problems are is really not something that matters, but not for the reasons you think.” 

For a while her brows tightened and released, confusions and frustration clearing her mind enough for snort of laughter and a jibe. “In all the writings about the wisdom of the oldest dragons, I have yet to find a source that touches on the unbearable smugness that comes with it.” 

“You’ve not been reading the right sources then, dear child. Most that have known me will speak to that. My daughters especially.” He paused a moment to smile, leaning down to see that subtly, reluctantly at least until she glimpsed him, Amelia was too. “It isn’t that what your problems are doesn’t matter because your problems don’t matter. In contrast, what your problems are doesn’t matter because all that matters is that they are your problems. At the end of the day whether it's a sick plant or the loss of a loved one, a minor confrontation with a friend, or a diplomatic negotiation, all that matters is if it is bothering you. That’s what makes it a problem and that’s what makes it matter.”

Her smile kept growing as she turned to him, settling on her face even if joy hadn’t yet. “And there is the wisdom I’ve heard tell of.” 

“Your reward for entertaining my unbearable smugness.” 

Another laugh from the human, wiped away as the dragon rose to his feet and offered his hand down to her.

“I was intending to walk the gardens alone this morning, I have missed being able to whenever I liked,” he mused as he casually pulled her to her feet, “But, I wouldn't mind the company, if perhaps you wanted to talk about what’s bothering you.”

“I’m not sure even your wisdom would extend to this.”

“I’ve raised thousands of daughters in my life, you’d be surprised.”

The first surprise was that the hand was still offered. The second was that as she took it, or at least a finger of it, Amelia found herself leading the way. Beginning again on her morning walk she began towards the ducks, and to speak.

Six figures. Six stones. Woodland. Thirteen trees made a circle around them. Two hundred and fifty-five in the copse. Green fields beyond. Movement, all of the heads turned as brilliant eyes darted around, desperate to take in their new world. Racing minds compiled every detail they could of their emergent siblings. Strange, vivid patterns; plantlike, but distinct from the woods around them. Blue backs, green bellies, gemstone-bright like the hyperactive eyes. Not camouflage, not here, perhaps a sign of poisonousness. In six minds, a hundred experiments were being designed and claws were already reaching for samples as their first words were voiced. Stalled by the slow process of speech, the minds began to argue the merits of their ideas. Paths of investigation, methodologies, theses, all rattled off with intensity and vigour before they even thought to speak their names. 

2.47.1.9

Uncharacteristically, the peaceful musings of the First Quad had given way to babbling laughter; scientific rigour taking its leave for a night of jokes and anecdotes. It had been a bold choice for a name, given it was not just the first, but the only quad of the as yet unnamed college. But, much like the pair that had built it, it was aspiring towards something as of yet unreachable. One of the two, Dignasus, was the centre of the party, talking ridiculous history with an unexpected worldliness. After all, it was mere three dozen metres between his home here that he had spent his life building and the stones where he had entered the world. 

Above the quadrangle and its sea of humans through which dragons drifted, in the archway of an open window, the other architect of this place sprawled against her brother. As Etampalia watched the action below she knew the anecdotes her bond told from his gestures and pacing alone; the rare words to drift up to her were not clues but expected confirmations. The plates on her skull, smooth, bony growths where other lineages might have had horns, ran over the green scales of Nikolatus’s belly with a gentle drumming sound. 

Smiling, he stroked the back of his fingers over her throat. “I know well enough that you’re happier up here,” the New Blood mused, “But I can’t help but think I’m stealing you away from your partner on nights like this.”

“You know we wouldn’t let you steal me,” Etampalia said as she trapped her lip between her teeth and slowly rolled it out, swollen and marked, “But you know we wouldn’t mind if you . . .” 

“Borrowed you,” he snorted, “I have heard it often enough, and I’m flattered, but . . .”

“Not even as . . .” 

“Not even as a parting gift, my dear,” he said, smiling as he covered her mouth, dismissing familiar attempts at seduction. “As much pleasure as I have taken in our games, I didn’t bring you up here for one last bout.”

“Well then, if I might finish a sentence . . .” She met his gaze with sternness that lasted only a moment before breaking into delight. “What was it that brought us to your window?” 

“It won’t be my window much longer.” 

“You think it wouldn’t be kept for you?” 

“Keep my things, but you’ll be wanting the free room soon enough, I’m sure.” 

“Stop dancing around it.” 

Nikolatus sighed, brushing the end of his snout against his sister’s. “Are you two–well, five–going to be okay when we all leave?”

Twisting in the embrace Etampalia sat herself up in his lap to face him and very subtly smile.

“I don’t mean to patronise, I don’t think you can’t look after yourselves, and the hatchlings, and the college. Actually, this is perhaps a doubt about you managing all of it. I wanted to be sure you’d be okay. I was certain enough when I decided to leave, but it was just me leaving and not all your siblings and their . . .” His sister's soft touch on his snout brought him gradually to a faded, quiet end.

“My turn,” she chuckled, only fractionally committed to the thought. “I’ve always known our little corner of this world wouldn’t be enough for you. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to be losing you to someone as blunt and simple as a knight, but I can see her appeal.” 

“It’s not like that,” came the exasperated protest, “I’m just there to squire for her as–” 

“Let me have my fantasies, dear brother,” she said wistfully, “I need something to keep me warm at night, I won’t have a pyrotate to curl up with after all.” 

“But you will have Dignasus.” 

“Much like you and this college at the stones . . .”

“No, not quite,” Nikolatus admonished, as he brought their brows together, “Much like your dear bond, the ideas, and all their infinite possibility, are both more titillating and more comfortable than the reality. He’s content with his secondhand stories rather than with going out and seeing the dangers of the world for himself. Just like you are far happier with your tail and thoughts of me, and maybe Kara, or whoever you’ve read about this week, than you would be with company.” 

“And so we stay, and build our monument to the world of ideas and the ideas of the world.” 

“Now you’re dancing.” 

“I knew you’d go.” Solemnity replaced frivolity between heartbeats. “And I even encouraged Cicerinus to go. We’ll miss her hatchlings of course, but seeing her away from Pollonis and having the blue and green scales in Harrith’s college are both overdue.” 

“Glad to see the blue of Pollonis too then?” Nikolatus smirked.

“He’s always been more pleasant in writing,” she said through taut lips, “I’ll read his papers from ruined palaces and the stones of others and . . .” 

“He never said.”

Etampalia's head tilted and she frowned.

“‘The Ruined Palace of Prayan, The Stones at Dragon’s Tooth Isle, and onward.’ All he ever said.” 

Internal focus for a moment, but they both knew their memories well enough.

He paused a little longer, indulging his sister’s cross referencing before he spoke. “Will their hatchlings be comfortable in Castine?” 

“More so than with their father,” she muttered, and swallowed a snarl, “Honestly, the fates draw the threads of our kin to that bright, burning city. If my bond allowed, I’d have half a mind to follow her there.”

For while the pair held each other; her head pressed into his chest. A spare glance up from the courtyard lingered a while, gestures paused as pacing was lost. Reassurance and thanks passed between two brothers before the bustle could settle, and before any other eyes turned upward.

“Galenimia is going to the war as well . . .” Soft words were finally spoken, fractured into green scales. 

“Through it to a safe haven, and she’s entrusted to the solid hands of the Krinaale.”

“They better keep her safe . . . Kara better keep you safe or– or . . .” 

“Else who will bring back new stories for Dignasus?”

A hollow laugh broke through the tightening pain of Etampalia’s throat as she pressed her head into her brother’s chest anew. “I will cope,” she said and swallowed, “I will be okay. Not tonight, not as I listen to everyone trying to pretend this is some happy parting. New chapters!” A blue-scaled hand thumped into the stonework; caught after a moment and invited to strike kin instead. “This world, this war, is apocalyptic. I have always been able to lie to myself, and build these walls and think that I am building toward something safe and lasting. But you’re going out into the worst of it. My whole life I have lived in a collapsing world, now my dearest kin are cast to the maelstrom of its destruction . . . And I’m meant to sit politely and smile about it?” 

“No.” 

“No?” Vague gestures were made at the gathering below before she slumped against him. 

“No,” he said, a hint of a smile on his lips as he stroked her head, “You said your piece when the sun still shined, beautiful words of hope I might add. And now no one is expecting you to come and sit and smile and be happy.” 

“No?” 

“No.” He let himself fully smile this time. “Because we knew that losing the three of us, losing . . . Because we knew you.” Squeezing his sister tight, Nikolatus traced the teardrops as they leapt from scale to scale down his body. “I could argue the parts of your fear that you know to be false. I could tell you how much it will mean to these people who won’t live to see the end of this war. I could say some words about the ancient traditions of cheering and dancing away the tears. But . . .” 

“But . . .”

“I think it is far more apt to simply tell you that you can cry tonight,” he said with a slow nod, eyes scouring the blurred stonework of the window for something to focus on. “To promise you that’ll I’ll be here until all the tears are cried, and the partiers leave, and all your kin that you will miss have said their true farewells.”

“This is why we’re in your window?” Weak words from trembling lips.

“As I said: I wanted to be sure you’d be okay.”

2.84.2.24

“I would like to hereby convene this special symposium on the fourteenth draconic lineage!” 

“Dignasus, you told me this was just going to be a conversation over lunch,” Nikolatus sighed.

“And it is! Look, we've laid on pastries from the college kitchens.”

“Ooo, do we have Songwood Swirls?” Cicerinus interjected

“But why are we taking minutes?”

“Just over there, dear sister.” 

“But why are we minuting our sister’s sweet tooth?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Etampalia sniggered, “It might be important.” 

“It’s impor–” A finger rose as Cicerinus chewed and swallowed. “It’s important to my mental functioning.” 

“It’s not important to the historical record,” Nikolatus asserted.

“It might be.” Dignasus’ counter claim.

“It won’t.”

“It might be of interest to future biographers, say,” Etampalia offered.

“I really doubt–”

“Wait, are they going to know about me eating half a dozen Songwood Swirls before we even really got started?”

“They are now . . .” 

“Please, please,” Dignasus raised his hands to quiet the room, “Jehanne is just here so that this can be referenced back to. She’s not going to be making any choices about what does and doesn’t matter, everything is going to be minuted.” 

“Even the munching noises?” Cicerinus asked between mouthfuls.

“Your munching noises,” Nikolatus quipped.

“I was not, but I could,” Jehanne offered.

“No. Thank you,” Dignasus said and sighed. “Do we have any introductions that need to be done?” 

“Larfenius and Fisellus?” Etampalia noted.

“We’ve met them all before!” Larfenius declared.

“Not since you were in your thirties,” their mother sighed, “My eldest pair of children are now grown and have joined the College at the Stones as fellows.” 

“That stuck?” Nikolatus scoffed.

“Blame dear Harrith for that,” Cicerinus explained, “Once she started using it in official letters it was bound to,” 

“Speaking of dears, how are you and Kara?” Etampalia teased with a particularly noticeable grin.

“How have you even heard about us?” 

“I keep a good ear out for news about you, dear brother, and my sources were more than happy to tell me that you do in fact have a dick.” 

“The expression is ‘have a heart’, surely?” Dignasus queried.

“Oh but we all knew he had a heart, that wasn’t in question.” 

“For what it’s worth my children are doing well in Castine, but didn’t want to return for this . . .” Thinking and munching from Cicerinus. “Symposium!”

“So how long have you and Kara been–” 

“Mother!” Fisellus offered her first word. “If you’re going to be embarrassing can you at least do it when we aren’t minuting it? Jehanne is bright red.” 

“I’m not.”  

“Did I accidentally convene a symposium on gossip and pastries?” Dignasus boomed. “I know I didn’t arrange this very formally, but I would actually like to discuss the matter of the fourteenth lineage. May we?”

“Of course, sorry, my dear,” Etampalia apologised, resting a hand on her bond.

Others around the room, except Nikolatus, made affirmative, apologetic noises.

“What fourteenth lineage?” the brother broke his silence.

“Exactly! This– This is what I want to discuss. We are twenty-four–” There was a brief pause as Cicerinus brandished a pastry. “We are close to twenty-four years overdue for the emergence of a new lineage, with no signs of a new emergence event.”

“It’s hardly unheard of,” Cicerinus posited, “The Pyrotates were undiscovered for three quarters of a century, Glaskar for half of one. Goodness, the Viathassals discovered us long before we discovered them. If it’s another deep sea emergence like that then we’ve no idea how long it would take to find them . . . If we ever could.”

“That’s a lot of speculation to try and make it all fit,” Nikolatus said with a sigh, “You’re ignoring the way we’re scouring the lands for more stones now, ignoring the methods the mages have developed, and assuming that this new lineage would want to remain hidden.” 

“Has this war turned you into a pessimist, dear brother?” Etampalia asked.

“Perhaps, though I would contest this is realism.” 

“As all pessimists would.” 

“The Inigne have already declared that their crusade ended the emergences.”

“There’s a theory floating in some circles that the Inigne found the stones on the day they emerged,” Cicerinus began, pausing when she was given attention, “Not that I subscribe to this, but, for the minutes. They brought in their armies, wiped them out, pulled the stones out of the dirt, ground them to dust . . . Hid it all and claimed it never happened.” 

“How many hundreds of priests, soldiers, sappers, the people who discovered it . . .” Dignasus rattled off.

“Not to mention all the scouts of ours following any big troop movements,” Nikolatus offered.

“Wasn’t quite thinking of that, but . . .”

“It’s a lot of loose ends.”

“You’d be talking about killing them to keep the secret.” Dignasus paused to look on the unsure room. “You think any Inigne soldier that killed a dragon could be hushed about it? And even if you only killed the soldiers, you’ve got to kill the rest who won’t agree to mass murder in the name of better propaganda. It’s a lot of work when ‘We killed the fourteenth lineage!’ still sounds good.” 

“Heard of any mass graves during your time in the war, brother?” Cicerinus asked, attempting joviality.

“Too many,” Nikolatus replied to a solemn room, “But none that weren’t our own doing, and none that were filled with stone dust.”

There was a long pause.

“I think we can rule that out, then,” Etampalia said slowly, “At least from the likely theories.” 

“The Castinian calendar has turned over to a new age,” Larfenius contributed, “They say that emergence is over.” 

“That was Passantra’s death,” Fisellus interjected.

“It was and it wasn’t.” Nikolatus again. “They didn’t make the change for years after they buried her, after the succession, fuck, I think they might even have built the mausoleum first. Her death, our emergence, the declaration of this cursed crusade, all within a year. Saying that it’s one or the other is just symbolic, and . . .” Several raised hands and eyebrows. “It's all symbolism at the end of the day. But we can’t deny the role of everything else that happened in two-zero.” His hand was raised to stop interruption. “Or the acceleration in uptake of the new era in every year since two-sixty.” 

“Politics and history are all very interesting, but if we could put them to one side, why would it stop with us?” Dignasus threw the question out. “What is preventing more emergences?”

“You can’t just ignore politics and history,” Etampalia noted.

“Okay, not ignore, but come back to the subject and stop centring them when they aren’t relevant.”

“They are relevant though. The Great Crusade is the single largest anti-dragon action in centuries, it demonstrates an upwelling of sentiment against our kind. To say that it is irrelevant to the lack of a fourteenth lineage might well be the single most short sighted thing we can do.” 

“Why would we presume that our feelings have any effect on acts of nature like the emergences?”

“Why would we assume that they are not? The stories of the Soulbirds all talk to a very emotional power that was most definitely influenced by the feelings of the people. I don’t think it’s a huge leap–”

“To assign weight to those stories, to link them to us.” Dignasus raised his voice and scoffed loudly.

“Then how do you explain the messenger pigeons over the Seabor hills? Or the entries in Valfeya’s diary? Or–” 

“This college deals in facts and records, not superstition and hearsay!”

“Galenimia’s reports then! This college should pursue the truth, and not blind ourselves to things we find too . . . Too . . . Too fucking challenging for limited–”

Cicerinus interceded here, with soft words for Etampalia as her bond cooled across the room.

“If we are to resume. And focus simply on reports you take as more concrete, my brother” Nikolatus placed the words carefully, “What words have we from the Distant Lands?”

“Stop minuting.” 

“To summarise for the minutes,” Nikolatus began, wearily raising a hand against Dignasus’ urge  to interrupt. “In an acceptable way. The pessimistic opinion is considered to likely be the truth. Discussion on the causation is set aside for future debate, but as no evidence of another emergence has appeared, we are to assume the negative as most likely. Additionally, this opinion will be reinforced by every passing year, and is to be revisited in two-one-twenty-one. Is that acceptable?” 

“It is.” 

“Do we have any more discussion to add to this, or are we all ready to go and settle in the baths and relax after all this fun?” 

“I’ve got something,” Larfenius piped up, “If I may?” His father gestured encouragement. “Are we always going to be the New Bloods now?” 

“Wait . . .” Cicerinus’ contribution, smiling so much she almost dropped her sandwich, “I guess it does.” 

Much grinning and laughter filled the room.

“I guess we are stuck with it now,” Nikolatus said, the joviality continuing.

“It’s a shame,” Etampalia began, drawing the laughing to a close, “I was quite looking forward to being a ‘Floral’.” 

Laughter resumed.

“Not an Exatan, dear sister?”

“Most certainly not!”

“How about a . . .” Cicerinus began and stalled out, shaking her head, “Nah, we’re all Academicals regardless.”

“Speak for yourself, I’m a squire!”

“A squire with the most extensive journals of any in the forces,” Etampalia teased, “And speaking of note keeping . . . If my bond will perhaps see the merit of it, I think we would be best to stop the minutes and adjourn to the college baths. Any objection?”

“I’d like to suggest a motion before we do,” Dignasus said, standing to get the attention of the room, “That we accept Larfenius’ proposal, and formally adopt the name of New Bloods henceforth!”

With many smiles, and some embarrassment from the young fellow of the college, all voices in the meeting were raised together, “Aye!”

3.440.15.2

“This is where I must make a confession,” Dignasus admitted with a heavy breath as they passed the archway.

“I have heard that the college gardens are the traditional place for such things,” Symphalia jibed, slowing the pair to admire a late flowering brugmansia. Her face disappeared into it for a moment as the college master kneaded his palms with his short clawed fingers. 

“Your invitation to join us here . . .” 

His younger companion’s laughter cut him off as she emerged, brushing toxic pollen from her nostrils. “Your insistent invitation.” 

“It was not simply due to missing you.” 

“You’d have to know me better for that, uncle.” She mused, hands trailing over hydrangea flowers as she examined the plants behind and their isolated planters to produce the array of colours above. “Since my mother left for Castine I’ve seen you a mere fourteen times in five hundred and thirty-four years, for a total of fifty-five days, all when I have made my way to the college.”

A few deep breaths as Dignasus worked to regain his composure, “I have nonetheless read all of your publications and followed your career with great interest.”

“Even my two centuries of work on the benefits of polyculture farming methods?”

“In the heart of the Ashlands?” He took a chance to genuinely smile. “We’ve seen it in practice.”

“And yet, I somehow doubt I’m here to talk about my work with the agrimages.”

“No, no, this is about your more recent work.” 

“That must mean the developments in recreating the wood treatment methods of the Krinaale in Dentre?” she asked, having made her way to the roses, all but burying her face in them as she led the college master around. “They smell different here, more ashy and rounded, less . . . Clinical. Even still in a botanical garden.”

“We have managed to produce environments for many of these plants to flourish without as much magical intervention as your Castinian colleagues.” 

“And still have them flowering almost into winter. Next you’ll have them overwintering in bloom.” 

“We might hope.”

“Perhaps my work on malston alloys as construction materials in maritime environments?” Symphalia drove a thorn into her finger with a sigh. “Because it would be a rather transparent effort, were this related to my unpublished work on dragonbone in the forging of magically enhanced steel.”

Dignasus admired the roses, ignoring his niece as she sucked blood from her fingertip. Around them the gardens were peaceful, silent, empty, cleared.

“I presume it is never to see the light of day?” 

“Safe to say.”

“You fear the impact of this knowledge?”

“I know the impact of this knowledge.”

Bright green eyes nearly rolled out of their sockets. “I presume faith in humankind is strictly forbidden here?” 

“Do you really think making it public knowledge that you could weaponise the remains of our kin would lead to anything more than a spate of grave-robbing and more dangerous weapons in the hands of the most reprehensible? More Blessed Legions, armed with cursed steel? A third crusade armed with unmatched weapons?” 

“This is hardly a groundbreaking discovery for weapon production, and they raised their legions without any help from these methods.” 

“The Greatlands were scoured for ferune to arm those legions.” The College Master stared down his guest. “I presume I don’t have to remind you that the vast amount of captured steel during the Caerulean campaign is still a key factor in our fragile peace.” 

“Don’t you dare imply I haven’t done my reading,” the Castinian snapped, shifting her jaw from side to side as she composed a reply, “The Modern North is not the kind to defile graves–”

“The Inigne Theocracy may have withered, but it is far from dead, and to this day they still dress their champions in Passantra’s scales. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt on this.” 

“Fine.” She threw up her hands. “Even so, we took back the ashes from Tafernus ridge. I am sure there are lost graves, but nothing on the kind of scale that would make this knowledge meaningful.”

“Wildermere.” 

“We already protect it, and control their access to the seas.” 

“Well then how about the mass grave that Fitzooth has left north of the Crown? They’d barely have to dig for them.”

“Lodontus, Slate and Red Rock,” she said with a tightening frown, “If they were prepared to desecrate bodies they wouldn’t need my research to make use of those.” 

“Wouldn’t they?” 

“Well, no, their scales, their horns, you can make use of them as demimagical converters without any special methods.” She left a long pause as she stared at a particularly stunning set of white and blue roses, or at least in their direction. “I found it early in my research, it's such a trivial result that I couldn’t even find another text describing . . .”

“And so, like the moonflower at dusk, understanding bloom.” 

Another roll of her eyes, regretted as pain tinged the muscles behind them. “How much research have you suppressed?”

“Enough.” A withering gaze pushed Dignasus for more. “Enough to fuel another crusade, or something worse. There are weapons that should never be used.”

“Like the soul splitting?” 

“A text that is in safe hands.” 

“The Exiles are safe hands now, are they?” 

“Their desires when it comes to knowledge like this align with ours.” 

“That is to say, you both enjoy being arbiters of forbidden knowledge?” 

“Our role is a little more complex than that . . .”

Symphalia paced away, waving a hand back at the sounds of protest and picking a path that would loop through the gardens.

It was three loops before she came to a stop beside her uncle once more. The taste of blood in her mouth was bold and grounding, but she parted with it to finally ask, “How do you know you’re doing good by this?”

“There are craters in this world from the abuse of dangerous knowledge.”

“Dangerous magic, dangerous forces, the knowledge itself is really quite simple, even useful.”

“Well then, how about Deathsbreath and the Empty Kingdom that still remains?”

“We . . .” An attempt was made and her head shook. “That’s a discovery, not knowledge.” 

“So our work suppresses the knowledge of the species that were hybridised, and of samples of Deathsbreath itself from being circulated.”

“As a species they–”

“Do not assume we are any better than them.” 

“Our fear of death is different,” she said, scratching at the bony plates of her skull as Dignasus waited patiently, “We are less ready to die, less keen to produce their weapons of mass destruction.” 

“How about this then, a method to determine if a human bears even a drop of draconic blood, what do you think such knowledge would do?” 

“The Purity Trials would begin again, drownings across the north, ethnic cleansing and stronger justification for their genocidal campaigns.” Her head hung into her hands.

“I’m not going to insult us by asking where you stand on such things,” he said with an offer of embrace. “And I will admit, we cannot test the alternate paths of this world, we cannot know for certain that our actions are of benefit. But we are doing the best we can, with the knowledge that we have.”

“I can accept that.” She was pacing again. 

“And that we believe your research shouldn’t be widely shared?”

“Could I present arguments on the matter?” 

“I’m afraid not,” the college master began to walk, beckoning her to follow, “It's a long settled decision.”

“I’ve only written up this autumn,” she protested, remaining with the roses.

“You assume you were the first to make this discovery.”

The words were enough to have her jogging up to his side.

“It amused me really, you were so keen to disparage the Exiles and you’ve replicated some of Eij’s earliest work.”

“How early?” 

“Enough that the techniques were put into use for The Tower’s sword and armour.”

“I have a number of questions.” 

“And I am sure they would be happy to answer them, but that can wait a little longer.”

“That method you mentioned,” she asked to a curious silence, “Of identifying dragonbloods.” 

“I know which one you meant.”

“That’s not hypothetical, is it?”

“Developed back in three-six by Andrew Kingsley.”

A brief delve into her mental archives as the passed the ornamental grasses. “Never heard of the man.” 

“You wouldn’t have,” Dignasus said with somewhat smug air, “It was the final discovery of a short lived racial purist at the Grand Gnician Academy.” 

“Are you telling me he died for his work?”

“He died for his intent to kill thousands, nay millions, with it.” 

“When you said that my work would never see the light of day?”

“Manarcus.” 

“Cast out of all academic circles for unethical practices with newborns?”

“His studies focused on children incidentally exposed to high levels of mana in the Dawn Fields, but it showed how you could use early exposure to ‘enhance’ magical abilities.” 

“At the cost of?” 

“So much . . .” Dignasus sighed as he brought them up to an ornate door, “Forgive me if I’ve not the stomach to get into that further.” 

“Of course . . .” Symphalia said automatically, watching with fascination as the college master’s hands stroked over different parts of the geometric and non-repeating metal embellishments. Questions about the doubtless channelling of mana into the locking mechanism were held as she heard her uncle’s intake of breath.

“He thought the value of his research was too important,” he continued as he opened up the door, beginning down the staircase behind, “He’d put too much into it to see it lost, and in the end he lost everything for it.” 

“Was it tough?” 

“Hmm?”

“To do that to your own son?” 

“At times, but I just thought about how many children would be made to suffer if his work ever progressed to artificial exposure.”

“I suppose that would silence any qualms.” 

“He’s got a decent life again now, so I hear, a ‘sports historian’ of all things.” 

“You don’t keep in touch?” 

“No,” he paused as the staircase gave way to a broad, book-filled corridor, “Some distances are too much to overcome.” 

She nodded, giving him a moment as she examined the strange space. It was lit by mage lanterns and crammed with shelving, piles of books, and as she looked closer, scrolls and sample cases. Through them doorways led off to either side, while at the other end of the short corridor, another staircase led down further still. As a door at the other end, a half dozen down from her, opened, she saw Fisellus’ charming features appear from it, smile and briefly wave. It prompted her father to action, but she quickly hid back into her office, tucking behind the door to wait for a time she could greet her cousin.

“Just here on the left,” Dignasus gestured to a door that bore Symphalia’s name on an engraved metal plate. “Your office.”

As the door swung open, she wordlessly moved into the large room, trying to take in the surreality of it. Every shelf was lined with the same books as her study back in Castine, right down to the ones she had ordered days before leaving the city. By comparison, the desk and writing tools bore decades, even centuries of dust. “You expected me here before?” 

“Can you identify the work?”

“Inktooth cultivars?”

“Exactly. We didn’t know if there was anything that would warrant restriction, but we were looking on with interest.” 

“You could have dusted the desk when you brought the books in.”

“Working hands here are a little limited, no research assistants or dedicated cleaners I’m afraid.” 

“They’d be a risk?” 

“You understand, we want to provide a supportive, but most of all, secure environment for the continuation of restricted work.”

“What Manarcus never trusted you enough to find out?” she said with a melancholy sigh, “His research wouldn’t have been for nought.” 

“Indeed,” Dignasus stepped back into the corridor, “Before I leave you to get acquainted with the space, or more accurately be set upon by your cousin, ecstatic to have her dearest pen pal with her at last–honestly, it was all I could do to keep her from giving everything away without an interview–”

“An interview–” she began and cut herself off, “Why you took me into the gardens?” 

“I am glad it ended here,” he said with a smile and a sideways glance to his daughter, “In the same drawer as your Castinian study you will find a different stamp, seal your letter to Eij with it and you will get honest–more honest–answers from her.”

Ducking aside, he released his daughter into the small office, with a scrabbling of clawed feet on stone. In moments the pair were in a heap on the floor, Fisellus beaming down as her cousin as she feverishly nuzzled their brows together.

“He wouldn’t let me see you because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut!” 

“I take it it's not by chance you were here today?” Symphalia chuckled.

“I haven’t been able to work all day, I’ve just been bouncing around in my office.” 

“Squeaking with excitement?” 

“Maybe . . .” Cheeks noticeably heated, Fisellus sat up, straddling her cousin, face still immovably in a manic grin. “I can dust your office and everything for you if you like?” 

“I wouldn’t mind a hand with it,” she said, idly stroking the face above, feeling the hot scales press into her palm, “But you needn’t find yourself chores to spend time with me.” 

“But more hands on the chores means we’re done sooner and can go celebrate your graduation sooner. I even had prawns ordered in because I know you like them.”

“You absolute sweetheart,” Symphalia shook her head in disbelief as she looked up at the electric blue eyes. “Wait, graduation?” 

“It’s what my parents always call it when someone joins us here.” 

“Here?” 

“Wait, didn’t he say? Do I get to‽”

“I think so.”

“Congratulations on your graduation, and welcome . . .” Fisellus’ feet excitedly pattered against her cousin's thighs, providing a drumroll. “To the College Beneath the Stones!”