19. Chapter 19 #2
Veylan waved a hand, and the vines seemed to hesitate before recoiling with a hiss.
“Here we are,” he said, gesturing grandly. “Writings on the old blood. Histories, theories, sightings. And of course, my favorite creatures. Dragons. Some call them a myth, but myths don’t leave claw marks in the rafters.”
The shelves here were curved and blackened, some singed at the edges, as if the knowledge itself had once ignited.
One thick volume on a pedestal bore the mark of a dragon coiled around a blade, its eye inset with a dull ruby.
Ren reached out, fingertips grazing the ancient leather, and the cover vibrated under her touch, warm.
“They say the dragons vanished,” Veylan murmured behind her. “But the records indicate they were hunted. Betrayed. Or worse. Bound . ”
“Have any you’d recommend?” Ren asked, letting her fingers trail along the dusty spines. If she was going to be living in Pyraelia, she might as well brush up on its history and customs — better to know what sort of vipers’ nest she’d wandered into than go in blind.
Knowledge, after all, was just another kind of weapon.
Veylan winced, scratching the back of his ink-smudged neck. “I’m awful with names, book titles included. But if you’re looking for something with teeth…” His eyes gleamed. “Let me see, it’s here somewhere.”
Ren drifted into one of the dim aisles nearby, where the spine of a gold and red bound book had caught her attention. The gold foiling gave off a faint glow that pulled Ren in like a moth to a flame.
“Ah,” Veylan exclaimed. “Here it is. The legend of Vortharax the Godbreaker .”
“Never heard of it.”
With a satisfied sigh as if he was hoping for that response, Veylan collapsed into a crooked old chair beside the nearest stack.
The wood groaned in protest but held. “Then you’re in for a story,” he said, voice dipping into something between reverence and fear.
“Go on,” he gestured to another chair across from him, “get comfortable, my dear.”
Ren lowered herself into the chair, its frame groaning beneath her like an old beast. The cushions were threadbare, stuffing poking through seams worn thin by years of use, but the chair held.
“Long before kings claimed thrones and fae etched their courts into being, the skies belonged to winged beasts. The greatest of them all was Vortharax, a dragon said to have been forged in the belly of a fallen star. Dragons love their treasures, hoarding anything of value. But Vortharax didn’t hoard gold.
He hoarded dominion – conquest.” Veylan leaned forward, lowering his voice as if the walls themselves might be listening.
“At that time, much like now, the land was carved into territories, each ruled by a great fae house. Every house had its lord, and with them came the responsibility of protection for those who dwelled within their realm. People looked to their lords for shelter, for safety, for strength.” His mouth curved into something between awe and dread.
“But against Vortharax? No house, no lord, no realm could stand against him. The fae courts were the first to fall. No magic could touch him. No sword could cut him. Even time seemed to flinch in his presence. And when he breathed fire, it raged so hot it turned searing blue, an all-consuming inferno that incinerated anything in its path.”
Ren’s pulse thudded faintly in her throat.
“They say he even slew a god – snapped its spine like a dry twig. A minor deity, left shattered across the northern wastes of Lytharien. That’s how he earned the name Godbreaker.”
Veylan let that information sink in, then continued.
“For once, mortals and fae and other magic folk didn’t turn on each other.
They united into one fragile, desperate alliance.
Together, they crafted something – a pact, of sorts.
No one remembers what exactly, only that it required magic and great sacrifice.
And somehow, it worked. Vortharax fell. Only, his body was never found.
Some believe he’s chained beneath the earth.
Others swear he slumbers beneath the sea or even within Mount Solfira itself, dreaming of sunlight.
But me?” He paused, a slow, eerie smile spreading across his face. “I think he’s waiting.”
“And what happens if he wakes?" she asked.
Veylan blinked, as if the thought had never truly occurred to him. “Let’s hope we’ve learned something since the last time the world was nearly swallowed in darkness by that ungodly beast.”
He stood. “I’ll be up front having lunch. Likely near the window, where the residential feline likes to hiss at me even though he refuses to leave. Bugger, he is.”
Then, as he turned to leave, he paused and glanced back. “Books deserve to be read, not buried. If you find one you like, let me know. Just… don’t bleed on it. Or burn it. Or tear out pages in some dramatic fit of emotion. Trust me. It’s happened before.”
And with that, he shuffled off down the crooked corridor, humming an old tune, leaving Ren alone with legends, dust, and the flickering possibility that monsters never really died.
Or stayed buried forever.
She found herself flipping idly through the brittle pages of a forgotten tome when she turned to a page with a sketch of a scrawled warning etched in scrambled ink.
Whispers of an age lost to flame. Of winged beasts whose scales gleamed like molten obsidian, said to turn aside even the sharpest blades and arrows. Their wings blotted out the sun, their breath a searing inferno that stretched the span of towers, and wherever it reached, nothing survived.
Nine towns were named in desperate, trembling script:
Haverdale. Brimholt. Noren’s Reach. Vaelrun. Elswith. Daggerpine. Silverthatch. Korrin’s Glen. Thornmere.
All reduced to ruin.
She stiffened when she felt a low hum in her chest, like something ancient stirring deep beneath her skin. The hairs on her arms rose.
Then she heard it, not with her ears, but inside her bones. A voice, whispering her name in a tongue she did not recognize but somehow understood.
Flamebearer.