19. Depth of Words
Chapter 19
Depth of Words
7 th Day of the Blood Moon
Berona – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
From the southern edge of Lake Berona, under the blended light of the Blood Moon and the morning sun, the city was at its most beautiful. Eltoar clasped his hands behind his back, his bare feet resting against the cool surface of the rock beneath him. The waves blew south-westerly with the wind, glittering in the same light as the city.
The silence was almost as beautiful as Berona itself, even more so for it was a much rarer thing. He drew a long breath, closing his eyes and listening as the air swelled in his lungs. The gentle waves lapped at the rocks, the spray splashing his feet and rising to tickle his face.
“A question of the heart, old friend?” Fane hadn’t spoken since Eltoar had told him everything that had happened, both from Voranur’s report of the battle in the Darkwood and of their encounter with Salara. The only piece of information he withheld was of Tivar’s defection – if she was even still alive. Fane was a friend, one of very few, but Eltoar was not naive enough to think that would stop the man from taking action if he thought the Dragonguard were defecting.
Eltoar opened his eyes and grunted at Fane, who stood to his left in nothing but a loose black tunic and white trousers despite the frigid air.
“That is three of your kin lost within months of each other.”
“That’s not a question.”
“No,” Fane said. “It’s not. I would know your mind. What is it thinking?”
Eltoar let out a deep sigh. He spread his fingers, the cold morning breeze slipping through the gaps and rolling over his skin. “I lost Jormun and Ilkya a long time ago. They were my kin, and I mourn them. They were among the last of my kind, and I will mourn that also. But they were not the souls I once knew.”
“And Pellenor?”
“He deserved better.”
“That he did. When this is all over, we will build a monument where he and Meranta fell. You have my word.”
“Will this ever be over?” Eltoar turned to look at Fane, searching the man’s eyes for the truth. “I mean truly?”
Fane’s smile was fleeting as he clasped his hands behind his back and stepped up to a rock closer to Eltoar. “Yes.” A moment of silence passed between them, the waves swashing. “I promised you much all those years ago, and I would like to think I have followed through on many of those promises. In these last two hundred years, northern Epheria has seen more unbroken peace than in the previous two thousand. The people are fed, and they want for little. If it were not for the southern rebels, that peace would extend across the continent. But I am acutely aware that there are also many promises upon which I have not followed through. But I have never, nor will I ever, stop trying to fulfil them. All great things require sacrifice. You know this more than most. One last push and we can bring this war to an end.”
A shadow engulfed them both, sweeping from left to right, sapping what little heat was given by the morning sun. That same shadow spread across the lake, and a gust of wind blew Eltoar’s hair to the side, his coat following suit.
“If there is any chance of bringing life back to the eggs,” Fane said as Helios soared across the sky, “it lies with Efialtír.”
Eltoar folded his arms, watching Helios. Fane always knew which cog to turn, which wound to prod and poke.
“I know you have never been as strong a believer as I. You didn’t choose your path based on faith. But faith is all you have now. Four centuries and not one of them has hatched.”
“One has.”
Fane drew a long breath. “True. But have you seen signs of any others? In the üvrian un’Aldryr or in Venira? Or in those you keep in the Sea?”
Eltoar glanced at Fane out of the corner of his eye. The eggs Eltoar kept in the Sea of Stone were not a secret, but nor had he openly spoken of them to Fane. This was Fane’s way of letting Eltoar know that he knew.
“No.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean none will be found. Perhaps this is a new dawn. And we can only pray that it is. But it is always better to assume the worst and act accordingly. Say the word, and I will arrange two thousand attendants to be split between üvrian un’Aldryr and Venira and your retreat in the Sea, if you so wish. I will reinstate the Drac?rdare, and we will begin testing for the Calling and warming the eggs. But even still, we must not stop our course. The Uraks call Efialtír the Lifebringer for a reason. We must recover the Heart of Blood. It is the only way. With the power contained in that vessel, there is little we couldn’t do, Eltoar.”
Eltoar lurched forwards, a sudden rush of sorrow bleeding from Helios’s mind to his. The thought of all those eggs, all that life, dead, brought the dragon’s memories rushing to the fore. Helios unleashed a roar that ached in Eltoar’s chest.
There was nothing they wouldn’t do to see another egg hatch. And perhaps Fane was right. If Varyn and the other gods had stripped the life from the eggs in punishment for what Eltoar and the others had done, then perhaps Efialtír could give that life back. If that was the last thing Eltoar did before leaving this world, he would die with a smile on his lips. But the thought of the Heart put caution in his veins. That vessel was a thing of power the likes of which Eltoar had never felt. He remembered feeling it as he had stood atop the Star Tower the night Ilnaen fell. He remembered the sky as it filled with lightning and the fire as it swept across the land like the world had cracked open.
Another roar sounded overhead, and Helios dropped into a dive. The dragon spread his wings and pulled himself parallel to the lake with such force that he sent a ten-foot wave surging across the surface.
Helios dropped his head and opened his jaws into the water, his claws trailing, his tail whipping back and forth. The dragon snapped his jaws shut and opened them again and again, blood and water spilling through his teeth.
“They are preternatural creatures, are they not?” Fane stared at Helios as the rent bodies of fish fell from the dragon’s open maw. “Predators with no equal in the known world, capable of incomprehensible destruction. It is no wonder Varyn sought to take their fire. If they did not need us, we would all be ash, all as helpless as fish in a pond. Bones and blood.”
Fane continued to stare as the wave from Helios’s earlier manoeuvre surged towards them, growing as it moved, fish and eels writhing within. Without turning his head, the man pulled on threads of Water and Air and the wave lifted, crashing against an invisible shield that surrounded Eltoar and Fane.
Fish, both alive and dead, some little more than snapped bone and torn flesh, were trapped within the twisting water, spiralling helplessly. A burst of power pulsed from Fane, and the water furled and unfurled like strips of linen in a gentle breeze, rejoining the lake seamlessly.
All the while, Fane stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching as Helios rose into the morning sky. Not a bead of sweat adorned the man’s brow. Not a single marker of lethargy touched him. Fane talked of dragons, of how they were not of this world, of how their power was unnatural. And yet there the man stood with a grasp of the Spark unlike any Eltoar had ever known. Fane was himself a dragon, one unhindered by the gods.
Helios’s mind pressed against Eltoar’s, and he pulled them together, the world sharpening around him, the lapping waves like claps of thunder, the water’s reflection like glaring fire. Through the dragon’s eyes, he saw two riders rushing from the city gates, dust trailing in their wake. The horses were Blackthorns, the riders garbed in the same shade of night as their mounts. The message must have been urgent if Taya Tambrel was sending her Blackwatch to deliver it.
When the riders skirted the lake and reached the rocks where Eltoar and Fane waited, one dismounted and dropped his plated knee to the ground.
“Emperor, I come with urgent word.”
Fane’s gaze lingered on Helios, his attention totally and fully captured. After leaving the man kneeling for what must have been a full minute, Fane turned and gestured for him to stand. “Speak, Captain. If it’s urgent, we don’t have all day.”
“The elven fog, Emperor. It has started moving again. Towards Elkenrim. And a dragon has laid waste to almost half the fleet of fishing vessels off Antiquar’s coast.”
“The dragon,” Eltoar said before Fane could speak. “Do we have a description?”
“Green scales, Draleid. Big as a house.”
“Insightful,” Fane said, rolling his eyes.
“It’s Irulaian and Dravír.”
Fane nodded, scrunching his lips in contemplation. “Captain, please thank Supreme Commander Tambrel for the swift dispatch. Inform her that I will require both her and her generals assembled within the hour.”
The Blackwatch captain inclined his head and mounted his steed, then set off for the gates with his companion.
“The wait is over,” Fane said a few moments after the two riders were in the distance. He pursed his lips.
“Vandrien is no fool. If she moves before the Blood Moon has fallen, there is a reason for it.”
“I agree.”
“Our response?”
“We play the game. She has moved first, which means her position is the weaker. Irulaian and Dravír, what say you?”
“They are bait. They burn the fishing fleet to draw our dragons away from Elkenrim.”
“Hmmm. And how would you respond?”
“I would send Lyina. Bait or not, we can’t allow them to burn our ships unchecked. Without the fish from Antiquar, we’ll have more hungry mouths than a tree has leaves.”
“Agreed. You would not go yourself?”
“Lyina is the better choice. I would rather be at Elkenrim, and I don’t entirely trust her emotions around the elves at the moment. She and Karakes are more than a match for Irulaian and Dravír.”
“See that it is done. I will have reinforcements sent from Merchant’s Reach and Catagan.”
As Eltoar made to leave, Fane grabbed him by the wrist and stared into his eyes. “Where is your heart on this, Eltoar?”
Eltoar didn’t need to ask what the man meant. “I will do what needs to be done, as I always have and I always will.” He hesitated for a moment, then grasped Fane’s shoulder and pulled him close. “Viel akara. I denír vi?l ar altinua.”
We are brothers. In this life and always.
Fane let go of Eltoar’s forearm and grabbed the back of his skull, pressing their foreheads together. “Uthikar, yíar’ydil, vir v?ra faelrin denír valirdín, nakil det eram. Silvrím il fahír er nor?l, il n?ra er vantihír. Vi matív uil sarvinis.”
Together, old friend, we will change this world, make it better. Even though the night is dark, the light is waiting. We must only persevere.