Chapter 28 Vaylen
Vaylen
The Matron sits across from me, the campfire flames dancing across her monstrous features.
"Whose betrayal?" I force myself to meet her gaze, those burning coal eyes that make my skin crawl.
"Woken Wyrm betrayal." Her voice grates like stone against metal.
"You mean the Goddess?"
The Matron makes a sound between a hiss and a laugh, ignoring my words. "Woken Wyrm."
My head throbs with confusion. Nothing makes sense—not being healed by these creatures, not her control of elemental powers, not this conversation.
"How?" I ask, struggling to form the question. "Who did the Goddess betray?"
The Matron's wings shift, creating shadows that stretch like demons across the barren ground. Her blood-red feathers gleam as if wet.
"Not Goddess," she snarls, leaning forward. The stench of rotting meat washes over me. "Never Goddess. Thief. Traitor."
I take a deep breath, swallowing the urge to demand she hurry with her explanation. Patience, Stormsong. You have to hear her out. Yet, how can I trust anything from her mouth?
Another thud echoes across the empty landscape, louder and closer than before. I tense, peering into the darkness beyond our small circle of light. The shadows seem to writhe with hidden movement.
"What was that?" I demand.
The Matron doesn't answer. I imagine a host of Screechclaws beyond my sight, their talons scraping earth, waiting for a signal to swarm and eat me. Years of combat training scream at me to prepare for an ambush. It takes everything I've got to remain seated.
The Matron shifts, her talons digging into the earth to keep her perched. A faraway look creeps into those burning eyes, as if she's gazing across centuries.
"Once," she begins, her harsh voice softening slightly, "Woken Wyrm not only female dragon in Embernia. Once many more."
I shake my head, caught off guard. "What are you talking about? Heratrix has always been the only female dragon. The Goddess. Our history is clear."
The Matron slams a clawed hand into the dirt with such force that embers leap from the fire.
"Your history lies. All Embernia history… manipulated. Records destroyed. Erase truth."
"That's ridiculous," I snap, certainty fueling my defiance. "Even if human records were altered, the male dragons would remember. They've lived for centuries."
The Matron's eyes narrow to slits of fiery contempt. "Their memories also manipulated. Forgotten truth. Woken Wyrm powerful Weaver."
My stomach lurches. Dragons with Weaver abilities? Steadying my breathing, I try to process what she's suggesting. I've never considered the possibility. But why not? Humans possess the ability, and we share so much with them, both species children of Embernia, after all.
"Why would Heratrix do such a thing?" I demand. "What would be the purpose of making everyone forget?"
The Matron spreads her massive wings, the gesture both threatening and somehow mournful. Her voice drops to a rumble that seems to vibrate through the earth beneath us.
"Woken Wyrm heart full of hate and… envy."
The certainty in her words chills me more than the night air. I stare, searching for deception, for the lie I desperately want to find. But I see only ancient rage and something else… a terrible, weary knowledge that makes my spine tingle with dread.
"If this is true," I whisper, "then what happened to the other female dragons?
" The question hangs in the air between us as I think of the impossibility of what she's suggesting.
"Are you claiming Heratrix killed them all?
" I shake my head. "That would be impossible.
One dragon, no matter how powerful, against all other female dragons? "
"Not kill." The Matron’s mouth snaps as it shuts. "Curse."
"Curse?" I echo.
The word reverberates through my mind, ushering unwanted ideas in.
The war spanning centuries and starting when Heratrix disappeared.
The Screechclaws and their sudden inexplicable elemental abilities right as Heratrix reappears.
A cold sensation forms in my chest, spreading outward like ice across a lake.
"No!" I shoot to my feet.
The Matron remains silent. Her expression is unyielding, and though I bristle under the scrutiny, she doesn't press further. She lets me drown in my own thoughts, my mind a storm of denial and unease.
"Screechclaws may have a newfound ability to speak and harness elements," I assert, voice cutting through the silence like thunderclap. "But turning dragons into harpies? Impossible. It defies everything we know."
The Matron inhales sharply, but she doesn't respond. Somewhere deep in her eyes, I catch a glint of... sadness? No. It can't be. I can't be!
A millennium of knowing our enemy as half-bird, half-woman creatures. A millennium of fighting, of death and destruction. Could it all be a lie? My mind rebels against the thought, against the very idea of dragons, our allies, our companions against the harpies, possibly sharing any connection.
"You've gained abilities," I push, resolute in my denial. "Speaking in our language, manipulating elements. But there's no turning dragons into harpies? Preposterous."
Tension thrums in the air between us, a quiet expectation of something monumental, yet my conviction stands strong. Dragons cannot become Screechclaws. That kind of sorcery is beyond the realm of possibility.
The Matron's eyes flash with pity. "You know only what told. Only powers of male dragons. You pretend to know depth of history? Centuries past? Secrets untold?"
Her words sting like slaps to my face. I've spent my life devoted to the knowledge of our enemies, to mastering my element, to understanding our world. Yet standing before this creature, I feel suddenly small. I don't know anything except what I've been told.
"You mere human," she continues. "Short life, speck in face of millennia." She tilts her head, studying me like a predator. "Cannot vouch for what happened four decades ago, much less centuries upon centuries."
The truth in her words cuts deeper than I want to admit. What do I truly know of dragons before my time? Of Heratrix's powers? Of the ancient world before modern Embernia?
"Our oldest records—" I begin, determined to refute her lies.
"Records written by humans," she interrupts. "Records allowed to exist."
I fall silent, struck by the terrible possibility. If Heratrix truly possessed the power to manipulate memories, to erase truth from dragons' minds, what else might she have erased from our collective history? What records might have been destroyed, altered, or never written?
The Matron rises slowly, her massive form unfurling like a nightmare against the night sky.
"Curse weakens," she says, her talons flexing. "Each day, more of... original self returns."
She extends her hand—not quite human, not fully talon—and a flame springs to life in her palm. The fire dances, controlled perfectly, as any Skyblaze would demonstrate.
"First came speech and calm," she continues, the flames reflecting in her eyes. "Then elements."
I stare, transfixed by the impossibility before me. My mind rebels against what my eyes witness.
"Need more proof?" she asks, reading the doubt etched across my face.
Before I can respond, she turns, spreading her wings wide. My breath catches in my throat. Across her back, beneath tattered feathers, rainbow-colored scales glisten in the firelight. Iridescent, unmistakable. The exact color I've seen only once before…
On Heratrix.
The scales shimmer with prismatic light, catching the fire's glow and transforming it into a kaleidoscope of colors that shouldn't exist on a Screechclaw's body.
She faces me again, glare holding me in place more effectively than any physical restraint.
"Once," she says softly, "I was like her. We were all like her."
A piercing screech tears through the night, followed by another thud that shakes the ground beneath my feet. I whirl around, muscles tense, but see nothing beyond our circle of firelight, just darkness swallowing the barren landscape.
"What in the four winds is that?" I demand, my patience fracturing. "What's out there?"
The Matron settles back down. "Proof," she says simply. "You will see soon. More proof."
"I'm not waiting around for answers," I snap, frustration boiling over.
She regards me, unimpressed by my outburst. "There is much you need learn."
"That's not good enough."
"Not ready." Her voice drops lower, almost gentle. "But soon, you will know all. Understand all." The firelight catches the edge of what might be a smile on her inhuman features. "And then, you stand by our side."
A harsh laugh escapes me. "There's no way in all seven hells that'll happen. I'm High Prime of the Sky Order. I'm sworn to fight your kind."
The Matron regards me with something that looks disturbingly like regret. "You have no choice," she says with absolute certainty, "when Woken Wyrm comes."
I sink back onto the log, tearing at my hair in frustration. Each revelation unravels more.
"Woken Wyrm's awakening also slow, yet she will not wait. Comes soon."
"Why the urgency?" I ask, though I suspect I already know.
"Does not want us to finish transformation." Her talons scrape against each other, a sound like knives being sharpened. "Wants to exterminate while weak and small."
"Weak?" The word catches in my throat.
Screechclaws can tear through fully armed Land Order troops like parchment and bring down dragons many times their size through sheer numbers and savagery.
I've spent my entire life believing they are monsters, watching them slaughter my comrades, remembering how they took my mother. And now this... creature... wants me to believe they're victims? The dissonance makes my head throb.
"Your kind is anything but weak," I spit. "You're savage monsters who do nothing but destroy."
The Matron makes a clicking sound deep in her throat. "Our strength is in numbers. Endless numbers."
The way she says endless makes me frown. There's a strange emphasis, as though the word holds significance beyond its meaning.
"The curse didn't just transform our bodies," the Matron says.
Is it my imagination? Or is her speech improving the more she talks?
She continues, "Made us mindless. Blood thirsty. Creatures of rage and hunger."
I think back to reports over the past year.
The Screechclaw attacks have shifted, becoming less predictable, more strategic.
Their raid on Hearthdale seemed senseless at the time—a small, unimportant town with no strategic value.
Now it seems obvious that they were trying to get to the slumbering Heratrix.
"Your attacks have been... different lately," I say slowly. "You've started stealing food supplies when before you never seemed to care about such things."
The Matron's eyes flash with something like approval. "Yes. As curse weakens, minds return. Strategy. Purpose." She leans forward. "Not monsters by choice. Monsters by magic. We needed food for Omneira."
Food... for me? The thought flashes through my mind, but I hold my tongue. There's a more pressing question that needs answers.
"Why do you keep calling me Omneira?" I ask, unable to hide my irritation.
"Because you are."
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. "All right, so why do you think I'm this Omneira?"
"Bloodline," she answers simply, as if that explains everything.
The single word hangs between us. Her gaze seems to penetrate through my skin, seeing something in my veins I never knew existed.
"My ancestors were Omneira?" I ask, disbelief coloring every word.
She shakes her head. "You are first Omneira, but the prophecy referred to your bloodline. And… also hers."
My breath catches. "You mean Rhealyn?"
Another nod, slower this time, weighted with significance.
My mind reels. Rhealyn and I share a bloodline connected to this prophecy? Impossible. I'd know if we were related. Wouldn't I?
"Are you saying we're…" I start, chest tightening with dread, "that Rhealyn and I… we're blood kin?"
The Matron's harsh features twist into what might be amusement. "No. Not blood kin."
Relief floods through me, then immediately gives way to confusion when she adds, "She also Omneira."
"What? How can there be two Omneiras?" I throw my hands into the air. "You said I was Omneira. Now Rhealyn is too? Which is it?"
The Matron makes that strange clicking sound again, watching me as if I'm a particularly dim child.
"Omneira only one," she insists.
I drag my hands down my face. Perhaps I've given her too much credit. Her grasp of our language really isn't as strong as I thought. Maybe none of this makes any sense because she can't properly express whatever convoluted theory she's trying to convey.
"Only one Omneira," she repeats more forcefully. Then she raises a hand, spreading four dagger-like claws. "Made by four."