109. The Moon and the Stars
Chapter 109
The Moon and the Stars
29 th Day of the Blood Moon
Salme – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Distant cracks of thunder rumbled in the dark skies above Salme as Dann sat on the trunk of the fallen tree upon the hill that overlooked the city. The fire crackled, and the branches of nearby trees creaked and groaned.
Tarmon sat on the far side of the fire, knees pulled to his chest, his stare lost in the flames. Vaeril and Erik were opposite him, while Lyrei sat with her back to the trunk.
Therin was perched atop a flat rock, staring up at the star-studded sky, charcoal and parchment in his lap, the young smith – Valdrin – beside him. Therin hadn’t lifted the charcoal even once. He’d just sat in silence; they all had. Not a single word had passed since before night had fallen.
Dann had gone to that spot first.
“If you had been here like you said you would, she might still be alive. But you weren’t, and she’s not.”
This was the spot he had spoken those words. Those words that would forever be burned into his mind. Calen had not deserved them, but he had taken them and said nothing. And now he was gone. Both Calen and Rist… gone.
Dann didn’t have words to describe the pain that sundered his heart. His brothers were gone. Without them he was not whole. He was nothing, and he was numb. Lyrei had tried to drag him from the pit of his own depression, but he had snapped at her, and now all they had was silence.
Even then he looked down from the tree trunk and watched her as she stared into the night. His heart told him to drop himself beside her and apologise, but his body did not answer the command.
The sound of crunching dirt drifted from behind him, and he tilted his head to see Vaeril climbing atop the trunk. The elf sat to Dann’s left and stared down at the fire.
After a few minutes’ silence, he made to speak, but all that left his lips was a breath. Vaeril closed his eyes for a moment, dragging air in through his nostrils. “He trusted me…”
Dann pressed his fingers into his temple as he looked over at Vaeril, the firelight glistening in tears that rolled slow and steady down the elf’s cheek.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dann said, his aching heart redoubling in pain. There was a time when he’d thought Vaeril incapable of emotion. To see the elf cry was like watching a mountain crumble.
“He was… he was my friend, and he trusted me. We were Vandasera…”
“Vaeril…”
“I should have died with him.”
Dann grasped Vaeril’s shoulder and squeezed hard enough for his fingers to go stiff. “Never say that. Do you hear me? Never.”
“It’s true, I?—”
“It’s not,” Dann snapped. He swallowed hard. “Calen would never have wanted that.”
“There is a saying amongst my people,” Vaeril said as he stared down at the flames that burned in the firepit. “Det er il uvían uru anatli il varahín olinivíl til vírna.”
Dann didn’t have to ask for the translation.
“It is the moon that gives the stars permission to shine,” Vaeril whispered. “Calen showed me who I was. Without him… what am I?”
Dann wanted to say something. He wanted to offer Vaeril words of comfort, but nothing came. For the first time in his life, words had abandoned him.
It is the moon that gives the stars permission to shine. Normally, Dann would have to ask Rist what in the gods that meant. But somehow he knew. It was the moon that dimmed the sun’s light, the moon that dared shine in the face of the greatest fire. The moon inspired the stars to become what they needed to be, to light the way.
A silence fell between them. After Haem had left with Valerys, all of them had fallen apart. They’d slept in the ruins of The Glade that night, none of them having the will to stand and walk away. They’d only returned to Salme that morning as the sun rose, and Tarmon had gone to the city to tell the others what had happened. Dann hadn’t seen the reaction, but Tarmon had said that warriors had dropped to their knees in the muddied ground of Salme. That grown men and women who had never even laid eyes on Calen had wept in the streets.
Half of his heart understood their grief, but the other half was repulsed by it. Who were they to weep over a man they did not truly know? Calen was a symbol them, a symbol of hope and change, a symbol of strength, but he was not their brother. They did not care for him. They cared only for what he could do for them. The thought scratched at him until his eyes were once again raw and wet.
A roar sounded from the city, and Dann jolted upwards. He watched as two enormous shapes rose in the night, the pink moonlight washing lazily over Varthear’s and Avandeer’s scaled bodies.
Vaeril stiffened, looking out towards the dragons. “What stirs them? If they?—”
The elf’s words were drowned out by another roar, one that came from the skies behind Dann. A shiver swept through Dann, his spine tingling at the sight of Valerys dropping through the dark canopy above, clouds swirling about him.
The dragon soared overhead, sweeping around to the left before alighting not a hundred feet from the fallen tree upon which Dann sat.
Dann slid from the trunk, Lyrei rising as he hit the ground. He set off into a run before anyone spoke a word. Shouts rang out from Salme, torches gathering on the broken walls.
Valerys’s white scales glistened pink beneath the red moon. Dust and ashes swirled into the air beneath the dragon’s wings.
Dann stopped some twenty feet from Valerys, the others gathering around him. Both Varthear and Avandeer alighted nearby, Tivar sliding from Avandeer’s back.
Valerys lowered his neck, and in the dark of night, a shape dropped to the ground, dust whipping up around it.
Dann moved closer, lifting his hand to keep the dust from his eyes. As he moved, he saw a man kneeling, the moonlight drifting down from above, casting his face in shadow.
Another crack spread through Dann’s heart at the sight of the man cradling a body in his arms. The pain was a tangible thing that spread through him, stiffening his limbs and slowing his heart.
He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to look at Calen’s body, to see the lights gone from those eyes he’d known for so long. He didn’t think he could.
Valerys lifted his head, and those lavender eyes stared into Dann’s, a soft whine in his throat.
Dann took a few steps, heard sobs drifting on the gentle night breeze.
“We’re here, Haem,” Dann whispered, moving closer again, his heart the only thing causing him to slow.
“I said no…”
The blood in Dann’s veins turned to ice, the hairs on his arms and neck standing on end.
“I said no, Dann… He just… He’s gone…” Calen lifted his head, meeting Dann’s gaze, voice trembling.
Now that Dann stood closer, he could see the body being cradled was not Calen, but Haem, head lolling.
Footsteps sounded about him, Lyrei, Tarmon, and the others gathering in a circle.
Dann began to shake, his body doing so of its own volition. He wanted to speak, but instead he dropped to his knees before Calen and clasped either side of the man’s head, desperately trying to understand if what was happening was real or a dream.
Calen’s skin was warm, his eyes bright and wet with tears.
“How…” was the only word that escaped Dann’s lips.
Calen didn’t answer. He only lifted his gaze so that they stared into each other’s eyes. The loss in his friend’s eyes was like a bottomless well that dragged him in.
“Calen, how are you here? How is Haem… What happened?”
“I need to take him home, Dann,” Calen whispered, tears quietly rolling down his cheeks. “I need to… I need to lay him next to them.”
“By Varyn…” Tarmon whispered over Dann’s shoulder.
Dann looked over Calen’s body, still unable to see how any of this could truly be real. “I watched you die, Calen. I saw it.”
Calen leaned down and pressed his forehead to Haem’s, his shoulders convulsing. He lifted his gaze and once more stared into Dann’s eyes, and in that moment, Dann threw his arms around the brother he had lost and pulled Calen closer, Haem’s body between them.
“Can you help me?” Calen asked, cold tears rubbing against Dann’s cheek. “Can you help me bury him?” Calen shook his head. “I can’t do it alone.”
Dann nodded. A thousand questions floated in his mind, and for the first time in his life, he knew not to ask them. There would be a time, but that was not this time. “We’ll do it together.”
More sounds shuffled around them, and Tarmon dropped to a knee beside Calen without uttering a word, his hand resting on Calen’s shoulder. Lyrei, Erik, and Vaeril followed.
Dann glanced over his shoulder, noticing Therin’s absence. He found the elf just standing there, staring down at Calen and Haem, cheeks wet, eyes wide.
Above, thunder cracked again, rolling across the skies, and for a short while, even the dragons were silent.