58. Blood of my Blood
Chapter 58
Blood of my Blood
19 th Day of the Blood Moon
North of Aravell, where the Darkwood meets the Burnt Lands – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Calen drifted in and out of sleep, the vibrations of Valerys’s wingbeats thrumming in his bones. They had flown through the night and into the next day and so on even when the sun sank once more, Valerys ignoring the pain in his hind leg. Calen had done his best to hold sleep at bay, but his eyelids refused him, exhaustion firmly rooted in his bones.
Whether awake or asleep, Ilnaen plagued his mind. He’d experienced those visions before, but they had been few and far between, seconds at a time, splashes of emotion and shifting images. He had no idea if Ilnaen itself had been the cause of the shift or if the strange power in his blood was pushing itself forwards. But no matter the cause, he needed to find a way to control it.
The visions he had experienced at Ilnaen had deeper roots than any he’d seen before, ones that felt as though they clung to him still, as though they were a part of him now. Tarast and Kollna were a part of him, their defiance, their refusal to be anything other than guardians. They had lived as Draleid, and they had died as Draleid, protecting those who could not protect themselves.
And if he was not thinking of Ilnaen, worry for Haem plagued him. He could only hope the knights had all made it through the Rift.
Valerys swooped low across the Burnt Lands, dropping from the clouds, that familiar weightless feeling twisting in Calen’s stomach. The dragon tracked a group of N’aka across the dunes, following the heat of their bodies as they moved.
He spread his wings wide and rode the air currents, staying as silent as he could – one of the tricks he had learned when hunting N’aka the first time they had crossed the wasteland. The creatures had astoundingly keen hearing, vanishing into the sand at the beat of Valerys’s wings. As the dragon gradually dropped lower, Calen pulled their minds together, allowing the thrill of the hunt to take him.
Even in the sky, they could smell the surprisingly sweet scent of the N’aka’s fur against the dry earthy aroma of the dunes. Fifteen heartbeats thumped in almost perfect unison.
They angled their wings and dropped quicker, watching the warmth of the N’aka’s bodies flit back and forth, tracing their heartbeats.
One deep breath, filling their lungs, and they swooped, the air crashing against their scales and rushing over their skin. They dropped and snapped their jaws around the largest of the creatures before it had any idea what was happening. Blood filled their mouth, bones snapping.
Two of the N’aka leapt into the air, lunging for Valerys’s throat. The dragon threw the dying catch from his mouth and snatched it into his right talon. In the same motion, he twisted and whipped his tail across the two leaping N’aka. The spearhead tip sliced open the belly of the first creature, then collided with the second, hurling it up through the air.
While the N’aka careened upwards, a pressure swept through Calen and Valerys’s joint body, and the dragon unleashed a pillar of fire that consumed the soaring creature. Valerys snatched the smoking carcass from the air, his jaws wrapping around the charred flesh, then lifted and flew upwards, away from the reach of the other N’aka.
Calen pulled back, just a touch, drawing a cold breath into his lungs, the hairs on his arms and neck standing on end, his heart racing, a feeling of euphoria permeating his shared soul.
The thrill of the hunt was something unique and singular. Something that Valerys relished.
The dragon threw his head forwards and launched the charred N’aka corpse into the air, toying with it, then snatched it back into his jaws and devoured it in a crunch of bone and blackened flesh.
He kept the second kill clutched in his talon as they flew towards the edge of the Burnt Lands. It was close enough to see now – the place where the sand gave way to the cracked and dried rocks that would eventually yield to the dark green canopy of the Aravell.
They soared, the wind carrying them, allowing Valerys’s wings the break they so desperately deserved. And as they did, Calen reached back to the satchels that still hung from his shoulders, pulling at him. He’d thought to have Valerys land and to load the eggs into the packs strapped to the dragon’s chest. But aside from not wanting to stop, Calen felt a deep urge to keep the eggs as close as possible, to feel them near him.
A warning flashed from Valerys’s mind to Calen’s, and Calen jolted upright, the force of the wind dragging at him. He looked through the dragon’s eyes, searching.
Miles ahead, where the dunes yielded to the ridge of broken rock, four figures stood atop a flat, still as statues. Three on two legs, one on four.
A familiar scent touched Valerys’s nostrils. He couldn’t quite place it, but he knew it.
Calen pressed himself to Valerys’s scales as the dragon cracked his wings and ripped across the sky. They swept over the ridge, turning and alighting on a patch of rock behind the four figures, who turned to face them.
Three were human – or at least they looked to be – while the fourth was some kind of monstrous kat, at least the size of Faenir, its fur white as snow over a body of dense muscle. Black glass-like scales jutted from the creature’s chest and neck, as well as patches along its side, legs, and back. It hugged tight to the figure on the left – a short woman with two axes at her belt.
Valerys’s leaned forwards and lowered his head, a hissing rattle escaping his throat, his frills standing on end. Calen sat up straight, holding the Spark just out of reach.
“My my, how you’ve grown.” The figure in the middle stepped forwards, lowering his hood.
Calen stiffened. “Rokka?”
The old druid smiled, the lines around his face and eyes creasing even further. He looked somehow taller than the last time Calen had seen him in his hut between Kingspass and the Burnt Lands, his shoulders a little broader, his back a little straighter. “Calen Bryer. You walk the path I had hoped, though even that path leads many ways.”
Valerys leaned lower, and Calen slid from his back, softening his landing with threads of Air. The dragon moved so his head hovered over Calen protectively. Valerys had little trust for the druid.
Calen stared at Rokka without speaking a word, studying his two companions and the kat-like creature. He was not as naive as he had been the last time he and Rokka had crossed paths. This man was all riddles and clever words, all games and secrets. Whatever path Rokka wished for Calen to walk, it was to Rokka’s benefit, not Calen’s. Calen needed to take care with his words.
“Ah.” Rokka snapped his fingers. “Where are my manners? On a different path most like.” He gestured to the two women who stood beside him. “These are my kin, blood of my blood. As they are yours.”
“Mine?”
“Come now, Calen. Let us not play games. I’ve seen the paths, and so, I believe, have you.”
Calen made to speak but stopped himself. This man was always a step ahead of him, always knew what he would say.
“Hmm.” Rokka narrowed his eyes a little, his smile faltering. He gestured to the woman on his left, blue eyes staring through strands of blonde hair. “This is Una. To our people she is what is known as a Starchaser. A druid of the aether.”
Una pulled back her hood, revealing a face not much older than Calen’s. She gave a slight incline of her head. “Greetings, Wolfchild.”
The other woman took a step forwards, her eyes flitting between Calen and Valerys. She settled her gaze on the dragon. “You are beautiful.”
Her eyes turned a milky white, and a shiver swept over Calen’s body, something probing at his mind – at Valerys’s. His sword was free of its scabbard in a heartbeat, and Valerys unleashed a roar that sent the woman stumbling back, pressing her hand to her head, and then the probing feeling was gone. She staggered back another step, whispering to herself as the kat-like creature lunged forwards and snarled, its eyes fixed on Valerys.
“Stay out of our heads or lose yours.” Calen glared at the woman.
“Tamzin here, whose etiquette might need a little re-education, is a Blooddancer, or an Aldruid as some now say, like your sister.”
A flicker of rage rose in Calen, seeping over from Valerys as the dragon leaned forwards at the mention of Ella, but Calen pulled their minds together and calmed the dragon. “What do you know of my sister?”
“Maybe this is not the path I thought it was.” Rokka turned down his bottom lip, tilting his head side to side as he studied Calen. “It appears the dragon is not the only one who has grown. How many did you save? The eggs? Nine or five?”
“How…” Calen looked down at the satchels slung across his back. “No. No, you’re answering me. What do you know of my sister?”
If this man was indeed a druid, then perhaps he knew what afflicted Ella – perhaps he could save her. But Calen didn’t want to give away too much.
“There is plenty of time to talk of your sister. But there are other things more pressing. You?—”
Calen slid his sword back into its scabbard and moved so he stood within a foot of Rokka. “We will talk about her now, or we have nothing to talk about.”
Calen stared at Rokka for a few moments, and when the man remained silent, Calen turned and Valerys lowered his head and stretched out a wing for him to remount. He was sick and tired of people wasting his time, thinking him nothing more than a tool for their own devices. He would carve his own path now, not walk the one others had laid for him.
“Ella is awake.”
Calen stopped in his tracks at Tamzin’s words. The hairs on his arms pricked, his breath catching in his chest. “What do you mean she’s awake? How do you…” He stopped, turning slowly to face Tamzin. He searched the woman’s eyes. “If you’re lying, I swear by the gods I’ll take your head. That is not a lie I will abide.”
The kat-like creature stepped across Tamzin, hackles raised, enormous obsidian fangs bared. It snapped at Calen, hissing.
In a heartbeat, Valerys was over him, a deep rumble in his chest. Valerys could have ripped the creature in half with a single bite, and yet it didn’t back down.
Rokka flashed a glare at Tamzin, one that evaporated in moments. A glare that had shown Calen more about the man than anything else: Tamzin had said something she was not meant to say. Calen now knew for a certainty that Rokka played the same games as the elves, and Aeson, and all the others.
“Did you know what we’d find at Ilnaen?”
“Did you find what you needed?” Rokka asked.
Calen shook his head and laughed. “More twisted words. Good luck on your paths.”
Calen turned to mount Valerys, but the old druid leapt forwards and grabbed his arm. Ice flooded Calen’s veins, and the world turned to an oily black.
He spun in circles, breaths heavy, heart pounding. He looked down to see upon what ground he stood but instead found nothing but blackness. Panic flared within him at the sight of his limbs shimmering with a white light, mist trailing with every movement.
“Where am I? What did you do?”
“Níthianelle,” a voice echoed as though calling through a tall valley. “The world between worlds. The Sea of Spirits.”
Calen spun to see Rokka standing behind him. Though the man who stood before him was nothing like the ancient druid Calen knew. Not a line or mark of age touched his skin. His hair was dark as chestnut, his body lean and muscular. This was a man barely five summers older than Calen. And yet, Calen knew it to be Rokka. Unlike Calen, his body was wrought from flesh and solid things, but white mist still trailed after him.
“What have you done to me? What are you?”
“So many questions, young one, and yet you were just about to leave. Such is the world we live in. We all desire so much, but few of us have the patience to seize it.” Rokka opened his arms and gestured towards the empty blackness. “This is the ancestral plane of our people. It is here our souls linger before passing into the eternal cycle. But it is much, much more than that.”
“It is nothing.” Calen looked about at the endless dark.
“Only because you do not yet see. But now is not the time to open your eyes.”
“Then why am I here?” Calen lunged towards Rokka, but the man evaded him with ease, moving quicker than should have been possible.
“Because you do not have the patience in the mortal plane. There are things you must know, things you must understand so the correct path may be walked.”
“What if I don’t want to walk your path?”
Rokka smiled, his youthful face still unsettling Calen. “Does the leaf wish to blow across the valley? Or does it do so because the wind wills it?”
“Why should I trust a word that leaves your mouth? You’re worse than the elves. I should have seen it in the hut. You were always playing these games, weren’t you?”
“Did I ever say otherwise?” He shrugged. “From the beginning, I told you what I was. I told you I could see the paths, and I told you there was one I wished to follow. My only desire was to find the path where our people are not obliterated, where we can walk free once again. I have been nothing but honest with you. Though, I’ll admit, my honesty is convoluted by necessity. Such is the burden of the Pathfinders. The truth is still the truth if it is given in drops, is it not?”
“Then answer me something, ‘Pathfinder’. Am I a druid?”
“Yes, but you already knew that. Your sister, now… She is something else, something truly unique.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all of this when we first met in the hut?”
“The same reason I have not told you many things. Because that would have sent you on the wrong path. I am not opaque because I enjoy the games. I am so because the seeing of paths is a delicate affair. Every moment is connected, every word, every thought, every emotion, and every preconception. What you know affects what you do. If I tell you something before you’re meant to know it, I change the path you walk. Our people have been on the brink of extinction for over a thousand years. Hunted for a thousand more. Betrayed by those we trusted, fractured by wars of old, wars amongst ourselves. You walk on ice so paper thin you don’t even know it exists. There are so many things you do not understand, so many threads long woven, so many traps long set.”
“Then tell me!” Rage bubbled in Calen’s blood, fuelled by Valerys. He could not see the dragon, but he could feel him, feel his beating heart, his tethered soul. And every moment the druid held them in this place was a moment they could not be by Ella’s side. “Tell me why you brought me here or let me go.”
“Ah, if only things were that simple.”
“I’m growing very tired of this.” Calen rounded on Rokka.
“I’ve been tired for a thousand years and not much better for the thousand before that.”
Calen let Rokka’s words sound again in his mind. “You’ve lived to see two thousand summers?”
“I saw your ancestors step from boats onto the shores of this continent. My feet were among the first to feel the sand.”
“That’s not possible…”
“After everything you’ve seen, my longevity is where you draw the line?” Rokka chuckled. “You are just like your father. Arrogance, ignorance, honour, and strength, all in equal measure. That can be a dangerous combination, Calen. Particularly for one burned by the rage of a dragon.”
“You knew my father?”
Rokka nodded, puckering his lips. “Quite well. Though, I suppose he never truly knew me.” Rokka let out a long sigh, then took a step towards Calen, locking their gazes. “You are a druid, bloodborn from Fenryr. You are a Pathfinder of paths once walked. Watch, listen, learn. Do not waste a second. The past is a precious thing. It tells us why the present is as it is and how the future must be forged.”
“How do I control it? How do I… How do I see what I need to see?”
“You are the leaf, Calen. Not the wind.” Rokka kept his gaze fixed on Calen. “Moments and places of powerful emotion, of extreme loss or joy, they hold sway over one who sees the paths once walked. They call to you, pull you in. The Gifts of the Pathfinders are those of little control. Do not fight the wind. Embrace it, use it to take you where you need to go. If it shows you something, there is a reason.”
“Do you say anything that isn’t a riddle?”
Rokka only smiled at that. “I cannot hold you here forever, so I will speak plainly this once. Fenryr is at your sister’s side. He has an honourable heart but a fool’s mind. Approach him with as much caution as you do me. I ask you nothing more.” Rokka licked his lips and folded one arm across his chest, the other hand stroking his chin. “We would need many sunsets for me to explain the history of our people. And perhaps we will get the chance to walk that path, or perhaps he will show you. It will be quicker if he shows you. This continent is shifting. The entire world will feel it. A hundred factions rise, a hundred causes, a hundred notions of what Epheria should look like when the dust settles. It is a time of opportunity, not just for our kind, but for anyone willing to seize it. Hands will tug at you from all directions, but knives will come from even more. There are things I want from you, things that would give our people the chance they need. But for now, what you need to know is that a time of gods is coming, a time of flesh and bone. Efialtír seeks to cross the veil to this world, and if he does, then all sides lose. I see paths beyond his manifestation. The empire must become dust, and Fane Mortem must be bled dry. All of us are aligned in this one thing. Do you understand me?”
Calen’s head spun, but he found his way to a question. “The riddle you spoke, back at the cabin. What is the Heart of Blood? Is it real, or is it just some web you spun so the Knights of Achyron would think what they sought was in Ilnaen? The knights say that it is what Fane seeks, the missing piece that will allow him to bring Efialtír into the world. Do you know where it is?”
“Perhaps it is real, perhaps it is not, but as I said then, I do not know what the words meant, only that I must speak them.”
“Gods dammit! Why are you here? What is the point? You bring me to this place only to speak words that make no sense, talking in circles like a drunken fool.”
“A drunken fool often speaks the truth, even to those they wish to hide it from. If I could answer your questions, I would. Come, it is time we leave, but first let me show you what it is to walk the paths.”
Rokka reached out and cupped his hands on either side of Calen’s face, and the world twisted and turned, the misting white light blending with the blackness before everything snapped into place and a wave of sound rolled over him: screams, wails, crackling fire, crashing steel, falling rocks.
Calen stood in a field of corpses, no end in sight. Some were blackened and charred, others mutilated beyond the realms of understanding, some simply still and lifeless.
Enormous shapes lay amidst the bodies, still and cold, their fires extinguished. Calen counted thirteen dragons, all dead, horrendous wounds gouged through their scales, limbs severed, blood flowing like rivers. One dragon with orange scales and golden wings lay slumped over the body of another, a hole the size of a wagon in its side.
Everywhere he looked he saw faces he knew: Ella, Haem, Tarmon, Vaeril, Erik, Dann, Rist…
Calen’s eyes fell on the corpse of a white dragon, its belly opened from navel to throat, smoke billowing from scorched wounds in its side. The creature was far bigger than Valerys, but he would know his soulkin anywhere, in any time, in any world.
As his heart broke and he reached out with his mind, the world spun once more, and he now stood at the centre of the battle. Two enormous figures marched through the corpses, one clad in green armour with sunbursts for pauldrons, the other wore black leather, the light seeming to shrink around him.
The two figures charged at one another, swinging blades of pure light as large as Calen was tall. Each time the weapons collided, a shockwave swept across the ground, sending corpses careening through the air.
A creature with leathery wings swooped and was sliced clean in half by the glowing green blade, its two sections slopping to the ground, innards spilling.
These were gods, of that Calen had little doubt. Everywhere they moved, the dead were crushed beneath them, the living faring little better. Each motion was death and destruction.
“One path in a million.” Rokka appeared at Calen’s side, his face sharp and youthful, his eyes a gleaming blue-grey with black slits.
The world shifted and blurred before it all took shape once more and Calen was perched atop a hill, a battle raging at its base. Wolves and stags the size of horses crashed through a sea of black and red leather while giant hawks swooped and tore into the flesh of anything that moved.
Banners rippled across the battlefield: the golden stag of Lunithír, the silver star of Vaelen, the green tree of Ardur?n, the black lion of Loria, a red gryphon in a white sky. Hundreds more banners jutted into the air above the carnage. Some Calen recognised, many he didn’t. One stood out in his mind: the white dragon on a purple field, golden leaves blowing about the edges. His banner. It was spread all across the carnage, only matched in number by the black lion.
The world continued to shift and change at a pace that turned Calen’s stomach. Battle after battle with the slightest of variations, dragons falling from the sky, flesh and bone torn asunder with the Spark, rivers of black fire consuming everything.
A thousand times he watched himself and Valerys die. A thousand times he watched Dann, and Rist, and Ella, and Tarmon, and Erik, and Vaeril, and everyone he loved burn or take an arrow to the heart, an axe to the neck, a talon to the chest.
Again, and again, and again, until eventually Calen found himself kneeling on the broken rock at the edge of the Burnt Lands, Valerys standing over him, Rokka before him, and the other druids at Rokka’s back.
“Why… what…” Calen’s mind was a storm, the images flashing over and again, blood spraying, people screaming. He swallowed hard, his hands resting on his lap, sweat slicking his face. “What was that? Why did you…”
“I once told you that the path you were on would bring death beyond your wildest dreams. You are the leaf, Calen, not the wind. Death is coming and you cannot change that, no matter what you do. I want you to be ready, to be steel unbending in the face of what is to come. You are an anchor to which others bind, a point at which paths cross. Without you, this world always burns. Without you and your sister.”
“Ella…” Calen stood, his chest heaving. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his gauntlet.
“Go to her. We will not be far behind.”
Calen flinched as Rokka laid his hands on Calen’s pauldrons and stared into his eyes. But this time the world didn’t shift or change. “Together, we can save them all. With the Gifts of our people, we stand a chance. You are a druid, Calen. One of few. Do not forget your blood.”
Calen nodded as he walked backwards, his mind still racing. He looked to the druid with the two axes hanging from her belt – Tamzin. “She is all right?”
“She is. I delivered her myself.”
Calen nodded again, feeling incapable of anything else. He climbed up Valerys’s outstretched wing and took his place at the nape of the dragon’s neck.
He gave one last look down at the three druids and the kat-like creature, then Valerys launched into the sky. With every beat of the dragon’s wings, a new image of death burned in Calen’s mind. He urged Valerys on faster.