Draka

Flying back to the mountain, my share of the treasure in a bag in my hands and Herald’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, I was almost giddy with excitement. I flew as fast as I could, and far from freaking Herald out the faster I flew, the more excited she got, pushing me to add in swoops and climbs and far more turns than necessary just to hear her whoop and cheer.

I set us down on the ledge before my cave, and when Herald climbed off she couldn’t stop grinning at me. As I led her into the deep she was giggling and making lite spins as she walked, talking excitedly about her favourite parts of the flight.

“Promise me that I will never grow tired of that,” she begged after she’d calmed down a little, and I turned my head to grin at her.

“If you feel like you might,” I said, “just let me know and I will see what I can do. For now we should get you some good cold weather gear so I can take you really high.”

“We have the money!” she laughed. “I would love that. I really would. The view is already amazing but… could you take me above the clouds? Can you go that high?”

I had to think about that one. I wasn’t sure about air pressure and everything, and how that might mess with her breathing. I was pretty sure that most people who climbed to the top of Mount Everest carried oxygen with them, but the lowest clouds were nowhere near that high, right?

“Let us take it step by step, yeah?” I said. “Things get difficult up there.”

“You are the expert,” she agreed cheerfully.

“What about that unbreakable bow you’ve talked about? You spent most of your money on the inn, now.”

“I know,” she agreed, sighing, then laughed. “I spent most of my money and I still have more than fifteen Dragons to my name. Fifteen dragons! An impossible dream before I met you. So I am not worried. I have no doubt that my future is golden. I can wait.”

After a pause she added, “I just might get the bow, unenchanted, though.”

“Or the enchanted arrows,” I suggested, remembering the first time we talked about this.

“Or the arrows,” she agreed.

And then we were there. The nest was just as I’d left it, and without really thinking, pausing only to charge the lightstone, I went and laid down. I stretched myself out with a little mewling sound that would have embarrassed me terribly in front of anyone else, and which fell into a luxuriating, rumbling purr as I rubbed my face in my hoard. Herald just smiled and went and sat on a pillow, running her hand over some silver coins.

“So…” she said after a while, looking at me with great expectation and more than a little amusement.

“Right,” I said, sitting up and lifting the bag of coins and precious stones that I’d been carrying. “There is no time like now, is there?”

“No,” she whispered, grinning, waiting with bated breath as I grabbed the bag by the bottom and tipped it over, dumping the contents unceremoniously onto the carpet of coins that was already there.

The familiar, welcome pressure came, and it built, and built, and built. I couldn’t breathe. I was vaguely aware of Herald gasping, a look of awe on her face, as knowledge burned itself into me. I had the same choices as before, as I’d known that I would, as well as a new one. Grace, for peerless movement in any element. But there was no room in my mind to consider my choices. I went with Charisma, which I had already been leaning towards, because that took the least amount of thinking.

I was overcome. Entirely. I had not only reached a minor advancement, I had blown right past it, leaving it far behind and crossing the threshold to the next. And that was my second major advancement, and with it came the knowledge that what I could already do, manipulating and shifting into the shadows, that was only the beginning. I had amassed a hoard worthy of an adolescent dragon, a whelp no longer, and I was coming into the power that was my birthright.

“We are shadow, and the shadows are our allies to command, no matter where they lie,” the long absent voice of Instinct whispered in my head. “We are fear, and fear is our tool to use.”

Not our only tool, countered the other little voice, the human one that I thought of as Conscience. The same, yet distinct. We have reason, and we have mercy, and kindness.

“Those who oppose us will fear, and they will suffer, and they will die. Not even sleep will give them respite from our wrath!”

They will understand their mistakes, and they will regret them. We will show them mercy and give them a chance to seek our forgiveness, Conscience insisted.

There was something like the idea of a snort. “We shall see,” Instinct said, and I collapsed onto my hoard, sucking air into my lungs as though I had never breathed before.

“Draka!” Herald cried, throwing herself forward and taking my head in her hands. “Draka, are you alright? That was terrifying. Amazing. Awe inspiring! What happened?”

“Oh, fuuuck,” I moaned. “Everything hurts!”

There was a bone-deep ache in my whole body, like nothing I’d ever felt before, like I’d been stretched and squeezed and twisted all at once. Skin, muscle, and bone. Head and eyes and teeth and guts, from my snout to the tip of my tail, everything hurt. Even my horn and my claws were in pain.

And why the hell had I been hearing both voices at once?

“You… I do not know if there is a word for it, Draka. The opposite of ‘shone’? You gloomed. You shaded. Darkled? You did not even shift, it was as though you ate the light!”

“Wow,” I whined. “Ace. Absolutely.”

“And Draka… you grew. I had suspected, from before, but I saw it! Before my eyes, you grew!” Then she chuckled softly. “That might explain the pain. I went through something similar when I…” She waved one hand at her own, tall body. “Six months of hell, off and on.”

“Yeah, so I’m not dying,” I muttered. “Wait… how much?”

“Hush,” she said, laying my head on the bed of coins beneath me. “We can figure that out tomorrow. Sleep, for now. Recover.”

I didn’t argue with her. I was too tired to pretend that I didn’t want to do exactly what she suggested, and the way she stroked my head was so very soothing. “I hit a second major threshold,” I mumbled as my eyes grew heavy.

“Of course you did.” No one I knew was quite as good at pronouncing an eye-roll as she was. “Have I told you how unfair it is that you grow so quickly?”

“Repeatedly. But I don’t think…” I said, slowly fading out. “Don’t think people are supposed to just gimme…”

And I was gone.

I was dreaming. It was odd, because I knew that I was dreaming the moment it started. There was none of that confusion, where most of the dream goes on normally before you realise that, hey, this isn't real! Instead I found myself just hanging in the night sky, watching Herald fly.

She was straddling something immense and black and infinitely powerful. The thing hurtled through the air with her on its back, and she whooped and cheered for it to go faster, higher, and it did! With every stroke of its immense wings, it – I – carried her higher into the starry sky, bringing her to speeds that took us across forests and seas in an instant. I could feel her wild excitement, the unbridled joy that she never wanted to end, and I couldn't help but share it, a dumb grin on my face as I just watched her dream.

Because this was her dream. I knew it in my bones, a knowledge born of instinct that felt so absolutely true that I didn't even question it.

Is that how she sees us? a voice asked tenderly in my ear, and I didn’t know if I should feel proud or flattered or embarrassed at just how superlative Herald’s impression of myself was.

The other voice was immensely pleased with what it saw. “The Herald is perceptive,” it purred, “and no human knows us like her.”

I felt that, if I only pushed a little, I could have spoken to her. I chose not to. I didn’t want to spoil or interrupt her joy with confusion, so I watched her for a little while until the dream seemed to end naturally, and I moved on.

What I saw next was much less clear, and less ordered, but I recognised Jekrie. His dream was a mess of flashing images of hunger, monsters and fear, of running, always running, never being able to stop anywhere and truly be safe. Which was wrong, of course. He was mine, now, though it looked like I needed to make him understand what that meant.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I might speak into his dream, but I tried to let instinct guide me.

“You can stop now,” I told him. Or said at him, at least. “You can rest. Build. Make a life again. You don’t need to run. So long as you stay with me, you are safe. I take care of what is mine.”

I couldn’t tell if I’d been successful, but I’d done what I could.

After I left Jekrie there was a flash of something. A dimly lit library perhaps, or somewhere else with a lot of books. I saw a tall man who looked familiar, but I couldn’t see his face properly. He was sort of blurry, his features shifting subtly. He sat at a desk, trying to read, but his head kept drifting away from the scroll in front of him, looking in the shadows. The whole dream was slippery, and after only a few moments it drifted away from me.

Last, and surprisingly, I found Barro. What I saw was a complete mess at first, so I had to work a little to see what he was dreaming about. When I did, his dreams were… interesting. Instinct huffed with amusement, while embarrassment, curiosity, and embarrassment at that curiosity poured from Conscience. “Come to Her Grace’s Favour,” I told Barro, and then forced myself out of there.

I didn't recognise any of the women in his dream, if they were even real, but there was nothing there I needed to see. At least he seemed to be very considerate, even while dreaming.

I wondered why these were the people I’d… connected to. Well, Herald made sense. Knowing her, she’d be asleep snuggled up close to me, literally as close as we could be. And Jekrie was just down the mountain. But Barro? I didn’t even know where he had his bed. Why not Kira, or Mak? I wondered if I could somehow cast about and find someone, and was about to try–

–and I jolted awake as Herald turned next to me. She was laying with her head on my arm, covered by my wing, but she was jerking almost spasmodically, her breath coming in gasps and leaving in whines and moans.

“Herald,” I said soothingly, holding her closer as she continued to kick. “Hush. It’s alright, Herald. It’s alright. You’re safe. I’m here.”

Only Herald could be comforted by soft words from a dragon, I thought, but it worked. Her movements slowly became smaller, her breathing less harsh, after a minute or so she had finally passed back into peaceful sleep.

When I joined her I did not return to the dreamscape.

I woke with a strange… not quite hunger. A need that I couldn’t name. But I quickly pushed that to the back of my mind when I realised that I was alone. I felt an instant spike of loss, anger and a sense of something precious missing. I forced it down. Herald, I reminded myself again, was not a thing. She could not steal herself.

I still ached a little, but it was much better than the night before, and I got to my feet. Worriedly, I sniffed the air. The slow, constant draft from deeper into the mountain carried Herald’s scent to me, and I followed it, finding her sitting in near absolute darkness where the passage dropped sharply into the deepest part of the system.

And… I could feel her, I realised as I approached. Just like Mak, but distinct. I could still feel Mak in the distance, though faintly, and the sisters each had a different feel to them, as distinct as their voices or their scents.

“It happened,” Herald said as I approached, her voice echoing off the walls. “It finally happened. I am only seventeen, and it happened!”

She turned halfway around to face me, one leg still dangling, and I could see tears on her face as she beamed at me.

Her eyes shone gold, and she gasped when she saw me.

“You are so bright! So bright. Like molten gold! You are… Gods, Draka, you are so beautiful!”

“So…” I began, feeling a little awkward at her words, and with the way she was admiring me. I felt like I should be blushing. Her voice was so full of awe, her face so utterly open and honest, that there was no possible way to doubt that she meant what she said, and combined with what I’d seen in the night I swelled with pride and appreciation and just… love for my friend. And it had been a long time since anyone called me beautiful, so her words brought up all kinds of emotions. But looking at her, that morning should clearly not be about me. Not with the magic shining in her eyes.

“So,” I tried again, “you got your major advancement?”

“I did,” she said, her voice high and tight behind her smile. “Thanks to you. I got it thanks to you!”

“No,” I said. “I do not believe that. Not after everything you have been through. You are so strong, so resilient. You would have it whether you ever met me or not.”

“Not this,” she insisted. “Perhaps something else, some other time, but not this, and not now.”

“What did you get?” I asked, but I already knew. Or I thought that I did, but my suspicion was strong.

“Oh! Come, come!” she said, getting to her feet, full of excitement. She practically skipped to my side, gave me a quick hug – which made me realise that I was now looking down on her by half a foot – then just grabbed my wing and pulled me along. Part of me wanted to protest the rough treatment, but her enthusiasm was so infectious that I would have probably allowed her anything in that moment.

“I have been up for… oh, hours, I think, trying things! Come on, we need light!”

I picked up the pace, and soon I saw the glow of the lightstone in the distance. The lightstone, which should have burned out by the time I woke up. And I hadn’t been the one to charge it.

I smiled sheepishly to myself. I should have noticed that, but I’d been so focused on finding Herald that I hadn’t been paying attention. Meanwhile, Herald was talking rapidly, so excited to tell me what she’d awakened to that she could barely contain herself.

“It took a little while to figure out the lightstone,” she said, “I mean, I knew that I needed to push magic into it, but how do you do that? You cannot learn that from someone else, it is like telling someone to use a sense or to move a muscle that they do not have. So it took almost an hour to figure that out, but I knew that I could do it! I had a dream, oh, gods, what a dream it was, I was with you, and we were flying, and I felt invincible, invulnerable, and you told me that if I followed you into the shadows we would never be apart, and I would have everything I could possibly desire. And it was you, so how could I refuse? And you enveloped me in your shadows, but it did not make me afraid, not like with Jekrie. It made me feel strong, and… and loved. And… I think that was my advancement! It was not like before, not at all, but I think that was it. And when I woke, I just knew, and it was dark, and all I had to do was to think about it, and everything… inverted? Do you know what I mean? The dark became light! Is that what you see? So I–”

“Slow down!” I laughed. “Yes, that is what I see, when I use my shadowsight. Now show me!”

“Right, yes! Look!”

And with that, Herald stepped into one of the deep shadows cast by the stone pillars that separated my nest chamber from the passage, and she disappeared.

It was so sudden, so unexpected, that I actually jumped just the tiniest bit. I blinked over to shadowsight, and I still couldn’t see her, neither in the light of the shadows or in the darkness cast by the light stone. I could feel her there, in front of me, and I could smell her, but I couldn’t see her at all!

As I watched, the shadow she had entered bent and lengthened before my eyes, until it connected with another, and I felt her move. There was the barest scratch of her feet on the stone as she snuck around behind me, and if I hadn’t been able to feel her I doubt that I would have noticed.

I decided to play along, jumping and whirling around in a way that I thought should be very convincing as she popped out and yanked on my tail.

“Whoa!” I cried. She grinned at me, though she looked a little woozy and had to sit down after her display. “Did you just shift?”

“Yes! I mean, not quite, not like you, but it is like… When I am Shifted it feels as though the shadows hold me, if that makes any sense? I feel safe, almost invisible. Could you see me at all?”

I shook my head. “No, not with either my normal sight or with shadowsight. Like you said, as far as I was concerned, you were invisible. There was not even a glow of magic! You just disappeared!”

“But you felt me, did you not?” she said, smiling shrewdly. “Like you feel Mak. Like I feel you. You did not act very well.”

“Yes.” I snorted, smiling at being caught. “I felt you. And I feel you now, just like Mak. But I did not see you.”

That gave me an idea. “Speaking of seeing…” I said, and went to fetch the lightstone. Holding it, I said, “Look closely at my hand,” then pushed some magic into the stone. I could see it, of course, but when I looked at Herald she didn’t act like she’d seen anything.

“Nothing?” I asked, and she shook her head. Then I saw her eyes shift, taking on the golden glow that I’d seen before.

“Try again,” she said, and this time, when I pushed, she gasped softly. “Like shadow, flecked with gold,” she said in a hushed tone. “Does this mean that I can see magic?”

“I do not know for sure,” I said. “How about this?”

I put the lightstone back on the other side of the pillar, then pushed the shadow before me to join with the ones further down the passage, and there was an excited squeal from Herald.

“Yes! Yes! I saw it! Your shadows moved like a cloud, with a golden lining at the front of them! I can see magic! Draka, I can see magic!”

Her voice rose to a squeak as she threw her arms around my neck, squeezing so hard that I could barely breathe. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought that she had a strength advancement or two, but in her case it was all hard work and archery practice.

“Thank you, Draka,” she whispered. “Thank you.”