99. The Hanged Man
Chapter 99
The Hanged Man
26 th Day of the Blood Moon
Lake Berona – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Not a single cloud blemished the pure dark sky as Eltoar looked over Lake Berona. He stared into the depths of the black water, seeing Lyina’s and Karakes’s broken bodies in his mind. Behind him, Helios lay with his head resting by the lake’s edge, a sorrow like no other drifting between them.
Everything they had ever loved in the world was dead or dying, the dragons themselves on the edge of extinction. And it was Eltoar’s actions that had put them there. He could tell himself – as he had for centuries – that he was only doing what needed to be done, that he had made a choice, and that he had known it would never be easy.
But for a long time, in the depths of his heart, Eltoar had known he should have fought harder, should have convinced Fane there was another way, should have made Alvira see the truth. Fane had always had a way with words, a way of making his own path seem the only logical one. The truth was, the day Eltoar’s blade took Alvira’s head, it doomed the dragons as well, it doomed everything.
Everything had changed with the stroke of that blade. The entire world.
He could hear Salara in the back of his mind. “She loved you, and you murdered her.”
Eltoar stared down into the dark lake, the light of the Blood Moon reflecting on its surface.
“I loved her too,” he whispered to the wind. So many nights he had dreamt of what would have happened if he had stayed his blade… if he had lifted Alvira to her feet and taken a different path. But such things were the dreams of children. The past could not be changed. He had made his choice and now was reaping the consequences. But he could still make a difference. He could still save the dragons.
Helios lifted his head as the sound of crunching dirt broke the swashing of the lake’s waves, followed by the nicker of a horse.
Eltoar drew a sharp breath and let it out slowly. This was another moment of clear and true choice that would affect the very fabric of the world. This time he would make the right one, no matter the cost.
Fane stopped his horse by the base of the rock upon which Eltoar stood and dismounted. The horse shook and snorted as Helios leaned closer.
“Shhh…” Fane whispered. “Be still.”
Eltoar could feel the Spark rippling from his old friend as Fane calmed the horse with threads of Spirit.
“I received your message,” Fane said as he stepped onto the rock beside Eltoar, black and red robes trailing. When Eltoar didn’t answer, Fane spoke again. “I am truly sorry for your loss, old friend. I know there are no words that can bring you comfort, and so I will not try. This war has taken so many lives. With Elkenrim and Merchant’s Reach lost, that is another half a million souls sent into The Saviour’s light.”
“And yet still you sit behind Berona’s walls.” Eltoar knew it was unwise to provoke Fane, but he was tired and he cared little for anything bar the choice that needed to be made.
“You know well why I do.”
“Mmm. You search for this Heart of Blood. The vessel with the strength to cross Efialtír into this mortal world.”
“I do. And I believe my search is finally at an end, is it not?”
Eltoar closed his eyes and gave a short sigh. “How long have you known?”
“I have suspected for some time now. But I was not absolutely certain until you asked me to meet you here.” Fane looked up at Helios, who now loomed over the pair of them, the crimson light of the moon glinting off his scales. “Why?”
“I made a choice.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“I trusted you enough to follow you down this path. And I trusted you enough to call you here.”
“You betrayed me.” Fane clasped his hands behind his back, and Eltoar could feel a shift in Helios, a pressure building within him.
“I saw the power within that vessel. It was the kind of power no mortal should wield.”
“You took it as insurance, Eltoar, as leverage for a day like today. Do not play coy or feign honour. I have not the patience for it. I am assuming you called me here because you have decided to return it?”
“And if I did… what is to stop you killing me the moment I give you what you want?”
“Do you think so little of me? That I would kill my oldest friend?”
“I think you would try.”
Fane gave a laugh at that, a genuine laugh, the kind that had been so commonplace before the man had come back from Mar Dorul all those years ago. “Why now?”
Eltoar turned to face Fane, staring into the man’s eyes. “I need you to be honest with me.”
“Am I not always?”
“No. You are not even honest with yourself, old friend. I have followed you because I trust your heart. But your web of plans and your gilded words obscure the truth even from you. So I need you to be plain, and I need you to be honest. Can you do that?”
Fane nodded, staring back out at the lake. “There are few left living in this world who would speak to me with the honesty that you do. It is… refreshing.” He ran his tongue across his lips. “Ask me what you will.”
“If you had the Heart in your hands right now, could you breathe life back into the eggs? No maybes, or ifs, or convoluted stories. Yes or no.”
The waves lapped against the rocks, mirroring a rumble resonating in Helios’s chest.
“Yes.”
Helios shifted in place, his heart quickening. Memories flooded from the dragon’s mind into Eltoar’s, memories of skies filled with dragons, of tiny hatchlings crawling from eggs, of fledglings finding their fire.
“And how am I to know you are not lying to me, simply because you believe I can give you the Heart?”
Fane grabbed Eltoar’s arm and pulled him so they faced each other head-on. “You and I are brothers, Eltoar Daethana. I have bled for you and you for me. We sacrificed everything – everything – so that this world might see better days. When the eggs stopped hatching, my heart bled. That those gods, those monsters who pretend they care for this world would wreak such pain and horror… They are not fit to be called gods. They left this world to rot, to consume itself.” He leaned closer. “I can bring the dragons back. Efialtír can bring the dragons back. On my life, on my heart, I swear it. But not without the Heart of Blood.”
Eltoar stared back at Fane, his heart pounding. Helios stood at his full height now, talons raking the dirt, his emotions swirling through their shared soul. There was nothing else in this world worth anything except for the eggs. The eggs were their greatest shame, their greatest guilt… If those unborn souls could be given back the life that had been stolen from them, that was all that mattered.
The young Draleid and his soulkin were not enough. In a single day Eltoar had watched five dragons torn from the world, and he and Helios had been the cause of three. One dragon hatched in four hundred years was not enough to bring a species back from extinction. Fane had done as he had promised. He had reinstated the order of the Drac?rdare. They had tested the eggs for the Calling. Day after day, night after night. Tens of thousands had been brought through the vault in Venira. Nothing.
Eltoar could not sit around any longer. He did not share Fane’s faith in Efialtír. But there were no other paths.
“This is it.” A fire burned in Fane’s eyes as he spoke. “This is what we have fought for every day. If you’d not taken the Heart all those years ago, Efialtír would already walk this world and the dragons would fill the skies. But that can still be. You have seen his power, Eltoar. Felt it in your veins. You cannot doubt him. You cannot doubt that which has been proven to you time and time again. The Chosen alone are proof of his strength. Even with the veil between worlds fighting against him, he reaches his hand into this world. Stand with me this last time.”
Eltoar held his gaze on Fane, then stepped from the rock. Helios lowered his head as Eltoar approached, tilting to the side so Eltoar could unbuckle the chest from the straps that held it to the dragon’s body.
As he held the chest in his hands, his mind warred on two sides. And then Helios pushed memories into Eltoar: Helios tearing Vyldrar from the side of the Tower of Faith, Alvira, Eltoar killing Dylain, Pellenor and Meranta, Lyina and Karakes. A thousand memories flitted through his vision, a thousand friends dead, a thousand dragons slaughtered. They had caused so much pain. They had made so many wrong choices. This was their chance to do something worthwhile, something good.
Both Helios and Eltoar knew that, despite Fane’s words, the man might very well strike them down as soon as Eltoar handed him the chest. Eltoar had betrayed him, had stolen the Heart from beneath his nose. Fane had trusted him, and Eltoar had spurned that trust.
More than once, Eltoar had thought to use the Heart himself. With a well of Essence that deep, he and Helios could swat Fane aside as though the man were nothing. But could they breathe life back into the eggs? No. To take the Heart for himself would be a selfish choice, one amongst many. To preserve their lives at the cost of so many more.
Fane stepped down from the rock and stared at the chest without a word, his body still, his face expressionless, and yet Eltoar could feel the tension in him.
“I am sorry for not trusting you, old friend.” Eltoar looked from Fane to the chest. “Perhaps if I had done sooner, so much death could have been avoided.”
Fane’s gaze never left the chest. “The past is both a poison and a gift, Eltoar. If we ignore it, we are destined to repeat it. But if we linger there, it will kill us.”
“You’ve always known the right words to say, my friend. Always.”
“It is my curse.” Fane took a step closer, clasping his hands behind his back. “We can still make things right. I want you by my side. I need you by my side. As I always have. I don’t care, Eltoar. I don't care that you took it. I don’t care that you hid it. I understand your reasons. I would have made the same decision. The steps we’ve taken are behind us. All I care about is the next step. Will you take it with me? Will we finish this together?”
Eltoar placed the chest into Fane’s arms, allowing his hands to linger for just a moment.
The thumping of his heart pounded in his ears as he pulled his hands away.
It was done.
Fane wove threads of Air through the chest and cracked open the lid, a red glow washing over him. “Finally.” He turned his gaze up at Eltoar, the light glinting in his eyes. “I will not fail you, my friend. The elves of Lynalion and this new Draleid will pay in blood for what they have taken from you. The dragons will once again fill the skies. And you will see that every sacrifice we have made was worth it. Epheria will find peace again. I swear it to you.”
Fane stared down at the open chest that rested upon the desk in his study, the light of the Heart glowing with an unerring beauty.
Patience was always rewarded.
Eltoar had been a delicate piece of the puzzle. A soul so strong and filled with arrogance and yet burdened by a need to be loved, to be trusted, a need to protect. Such strong yearnings made for a malleable heart. That had always been Eltoar’s weakness.
Alvira had those same needs, but she’d possessed a much stronger sense of self. She could never have been swayed. Fane had tried at first, but it was clear almost immediately that she did not have that same need for validation.
The inner workings of a mind, the strings that pulled at each heart and soul, those were the things Fane found the most fascinating. There was no puzzle more satisfying to complete.
Fane had not suspected Eltoar at first, and in the years following the fall of The Order, there had been other priorities. The veil between worlds wouldn’t thin again for four hundred years. By the time he’d believed the thief to be Eltoar, the Blood Moon had been approaching once more.
Fane had known that all he needed to do was pluck away slowly at the things Eltoar cared for most. Create a sense of doubt within him. Apply an urgency, a need.
Even before The Fall, Vandrien had always walked around with her nose in the air. She was one of those elves who believed in the old days, in the superiority of elven blood. She had always thought herself smarter than every soul in the room. She was predictable, arrogant, and brutal. And all of those things had made her so easy to manipulate.
Fane had known the attack on Elkenrim was a ruse. He’d set scouts in the Elkenwood: Aldruids. Vethnir hunters. The elves had never come close to seeing them. Catagan had been a necessary sacrifice. Eltoar had needed to believe they were losing the war, needed to believe that he was failing.
The attack on the tower had been a masterstroke, if he dared say so himself. Which he did. He had allowed the Alamants to live freely for centuries, knowing how useful they could be if given the right push. And for centuries, he had filtered information into their network, tending them like a garden. They had truly believed their instructions had come from the rebels. The attack had served many purposes. It had made the empire look weaker so that Eltoar might be swayed. It had built a fervour within the armies for rebel blood. And it had also dampened Fane’s boredom a little. But most of all, Fane had needed a way to draw the elven dragons from Catagan, a way to bring Eltoar and his old apprentice together. The raw power of dragons was such that when they met in the air, death would always follow. And the more dragons that died, the greater Eltoar’s need would become. The arrival of Aeson Virandr’s new protégé had been unexpected but surprisingly effective.
So many pieces all moving at once, so many threads interwoven. A thousand winding paths, one desired destination.
Allowing so many to die was not an easy thing to do. Fane truly did care for the souls that called the mortal plane home. They were his entire purpose. But to sacrifice a million to save everything… that was not even a question he contemplated. It was not a task in which he found joy, though. Joy was something that had long evaded him.
Everything was in place, and that was all that mattered.
Brother Pirnil was conducting the last of the tests, and now that the Heart was secure, the final step could be taken.
Fane shook his head as he looked down at the pulsing gemstone before him, power radiating from it like the heat of the sun. The irony was not lost on him that, in the hope of breathing life back into the dragon eggs, Eltoar had handed over that very thing.
Fane lifted his gaze from the Heart at the soft sound of footsteps.
Two of the Chosen stood at the chamber’s centre, black eyes fixed on Fane. “We are at your command, Harbinger.”
“Azrim, Tiamit. The time has come. Gather the others and bring Garramon and his apprentice here.”