New World - A New Beginning

My heart stopped at the name that echoed from Ares's mouth. It was a name that had once been used by my best friend, and the simple mention of it was enough to freeze me in place. Ares immediately noticed my trembling eyes, his expression darkening in surprise.

"Is everything alright, Jay?" he asked politely, slightly taken aback by my sudden shock.

"D-Do you have any siblings?" I said, ignoring his concerns. The man smiled, letting out a deep sigh as he sat back against the wall.

"You know Katherine I'm guessing, don't you?"

I nodded slowly, his question confirming my suspicion.

This guy was Katherine's brother.

"How is she doing?" he asked, unaware of what had happened.

"She died two years ago," I responded quietly. There was no point in softening the impact of the news, her demise being something that couldn't be avoided.

Ares simply nodded, looking up at the dark stone ceiling.

"I see," he muttered, his mind clearly lost in thought. I could tell he was saddened by the death of his only sister, but he wasn't grieving. "I barely knew her. We were separated after a monster attack on our village."

"Monster attack?"

"Yea," he said, the memories flooding the man's eyes as they swirled with pain. "I remember being outside when it happened. It was a slightly chilled night, and the last time I was in human territory. Furies suddenly marched into our village and slaughtered everyone they saw."

Furies?

I recalled Katherine's horrified expression upon seeing the Fury back at the Graveyard. The beast that had decimated her people was the same beast to have taken her life.

"Did Kath know about you?" I asked, breaking the silence that had consumed the dungeon.

Ares shook his head in denial.

"I don't think so. She was young when the Furies attacked, and we were separated immediately. I was taken in by the Dwarves, while she was taken in by Imania."

"Why?" I asked. Separating a family seemed completely illogical.

"Why else? They noticed both siblings possessed an incredible aptitude with bind, and since our village was located right on the border between Schild and Imania, each kingdom took in one sibling. It's all for power."

I gritted my teeth. Katherine had been completely alone during her years in Eloria, her adoptive family most likely having died at an early age. The girl thought she had nobody, and to think that she had a brother alive this entire time...

"I'm glad that she had a friend like you," said Ares, almost like he had read my mind.

I chuckled at the comment, forcing my emotions to stay hidden.

"I wasn't able to save her in the end."

"Hm," murmured Ares, thinking about his words. "Do you think she cherished her life, Jay?"

Images flashed in my mind like a short movie, the warm emotions I experienced during those times filling my body gently. I remembered my initial meeting with the girl in Eloria, the attack of the wolves in the forest, the sect lair where we fought side by side, the festival at Orun, our fight with the spirit king, our time spent in the forest on our way back to Eloria, and finally, the final fight at the Graveyard.

My mouth curved upwards ever so slightly in a weak smile.

"I'd like to think she did. It's the least I can hope for," I responded earnestly, my heart believing the words I was projecting.

Ares nodded in satisfaction.

"Then that's all we can do."

Another pause arose within the conversation, but the atmosphere was different. Warm air had swirled around us, embracing the entirety of the room in a gentle embrace. We both recalled our memories with Katherine, the girl clearly having impacted both of us in different ways.

For me, it was the friend I cherished the most. For Ares, the sister he had been separated from, an anchor that reminded him of his humanity.

"What was she like?" he asked, wanting to know the kind of person his sister had grown up to be.

"It might take a while, you okay with that?" I said playfully, the man laughing at the question.

"I've got nowhere else to go anyway."

SELENA DARCK'S POV:

I nodded, a final gesture of goodbye to the King of Imania as a massive wyvern awaited before me. I saddled the beast, my eyes meeting with my daughter's as she mounted her own wyvern. It seemed like a friend of hers wanted to fight by her side during the conflict... Mia Stil, was it?

Take off, I ordered my mount telepathically, the dragon moving its wings as I shot upwards into the sky. Wyverns were one of the main forces of the dragonkin's army. They were huge monsters that could annihilate everything before them with terrifying streams of fire, their scales impenetrable to normal weaponry.

I looked over at Asthia, the girl flying beside me as Mia clutched onto her for dear life. I smiled at the sight. The fact that a human was trusting a dragon, and was willing to fight beside her over her own people, was something that was unfathomable a few years ago.

But that all changed when a small human boy entered the boundaries of Lares.

Unafraid of the race that stood before him, the boy interacted with the dragons, befriending them. He was completely unfazed by our previous clashes and wars, something that had proven to be unheard of amongst the other races.

Even if history was about to repeat itself with another war, something was very different this time.

There was a future for the dragonkin.

Fighting a war in which utter destruction and mass murder was the only route to survival was something I didn't want. Irox's father had decided to flee for the exact same reason, realizing he would be forced to slaughter countless innocent civilians if he ever hoped of winning the war.

I refocused my attention to the upcoming battles. Jay had predicted that Lares would be facing a two-front attack from both the Elven Empire and the Dwarven kingdom. The only question left to be answered was to what extent we were to trust this prediction.

This had nothing to do with my trust in the boy. I was well aware that Jay only had the bright future of the dragonkin in mind, but the possibility of him being wrong was also present. If we were to bolster our defenses on both fronts, only to be faced with a massive invasion from only one of the two sides, we were sure to be pushed back all the way back to Lares.

The Dwarven kingdom was sure to attack us considering they played their cards first by capturing Jay, but the Elves were the unknown factor. They had remained relatively excluded from general meetings held between leaders, announcing solely their support of the Dwarves in their ideological views.

I sighed, my mind uncertain about everything.

If Jay had calculated and determined all the factors that had to be taken into account, then I would trust his information.