7. The Willow Bears the Pain #2
Perhaps it had been Helios more so than himself, but they were one in the same.
Helios had simply followed their heart, while Eltoar had followed his head.
And even at that moment, as Healers worked on the tears and rips in Helios’s wings, and as the dragon lay in the grass on the opposite side of the camp, his body aching, they both knew the decision had been the right one.
There were things in life a soul could not live with, and each soul set its own lines.
If Helios had not defied Alvira, then those dragons who had fought to protect Arathín would still be living with broken souls while the flesh was ripped from their bodies.
They would have died slowly and alone. And instead they died with dignity, they died in the warmth of their kin knowing they would soon feel the embrace of their soulkin once more.
Two things could be true at once. He could feel genuine guilt and sorrow for not standing by Alvira, and he could know that the choice Helios made was the only choice they could have lived by.
“Eltoar Daethana?” a voice called from across the fire. In the light of the flames, he could not see the face of the man who approached, the rising sun not yet cresting the mountains at his back.
“Who goes there?” Eltoar didn’t bother to stand up. Any who had made it this far were either a friend and or had worked hard enough to be there.
“I do not deem myself important enough for you to know me.” The man stepped closer to the fire.
His hair was dark as coal, eyes darker, an intensity to them.
He spoke like nobody of import, but he carried himself like a soul of renown.
He wore no markings, nothing to tell his allegiance, simply rough trousers, tunic, boots, and a black hooded cloak.
“You came with the survivors from Arathín?” In the past few hours, survivors had begun to drip in from the city and its surrounds.
More than Eltoar had dared hope. Thousands.
Many were injured, some with only cuts and bruises – a missing finger, ear, nose.
But others… some were carried on cots or over shoulders…
It had sent Eltoar’s mind back to the seventh incursion.
He had forgotten what the Veyak acid could truly do.
Faces melted like wax, bones pockmarked like beach rocks.
Some of those poor souls may have been alive, but they would never again live.
“I did.” The man reached inside his cloak and retrieved a small flask. He unstoppered it and took a swig, drawing a long breath in through his nostrils and giving a satisfied exhale. He offered the flask to Eltoar.
“My mother always told me never to accept gifts from strangers.”
“Sounds like a wise woman, your mother. Still with us?”
Eltoar shook his head, poking the fire with the branch once more. “She rests with Heraya.”
The man nodded sombrely, shaking the liquid in the flask. “It’s not poison, if that’s what you think.”
“And because you say it makes it so?”
“Too right.” The man took another swig, pointedly long. “It’s wine. Etrusian. The finest outside elven lands.”
That piqued Eltoar’s interest. He raised a hand to take the flask, and as he did, and the man extended it, Eltoar caught sight of a sickle tucked in the man’s belt.
Eltoar took whiff. “Cherry,” he said. “Oak, and berries.”
“Wine,” the man replied. “Strong and warm.”
Eltoar smiled at that. “I would have your name, and your story.”
The man let out a long sigh and gestured to the ground beside Eltoar. Eltoar nodded for him to sit.
“My name,” the man said, pushing back his cloak and folding his legs as he sat in the grass. He set his satchel down at his side and extended his palms out to the fire. “My name is Fane Mortem.”
“I know that name.” Eltoar narrowed his eyes at the man, examining his face.
“I’m flattered.”
“Where do I know it from?”
“The eternal question,” the man whispered as if to the flames. “I am a Battlemage of The Order and a brother of the Book of Arcaria.”
Instantly, Eltoar knew the man, remembered tales he had heard of the youngest Aracrian to ever write his name in the book. “And what is an Arcarian doing dragging bodies from Arathín?”
“What I was born to do.” Fane stared into the flames, his eyes scintillating in the dancing light.
“Unlucky to be visiting during the attack?”
“Something like that.” Fane laughed, shaking his head. “Can you keep a secret?”
“No.”
“Hah. I’ll just have to trust you.” Fane turned to his satchel and pulled a book from its depths. It was bound in worn green leather, a bit battered but otherwise in good condition. The name ‘D.L. Linold’ was stamped into the front. But it held no title that Eltoar could see.
The man handed Eltoar the book.
“The original, handbound notes of Duran Lyonel Linold that would become ‘Druids, a Magic Lost’. As rare a find as a red moon.”
“This is why you were in Arathín?”
“Among other things.”
Eltoar ran his fingers across the smooth leather before opening the front flap and reading the inscription within.
The ramblings, musings, and otherwise academic documentation of a study of druidic ancestry, bloodlines, magics and talents. Within these pages I shall record the lost histories of the druids – where they came from, what made them, and what happened to them. At least, that is my hope.
If lost and found, please return this journal to the hands of Duran Lyonel Linold, Ark-Mage and historian of the Univeristy of Kalthis.
“This must have cost you a small fortune,” Eltoar mused, brushing his fingers over the pages. “I’m surprised it’s still intact.”
“It cost someone a fortune, that’s for sure. And it’s a good thing old Duran recorded even his ramblings on the finest of archival paper with the finest of inks.”
Eltoar shifted in place, eyeing Fane askance. “You stole this?”
The man raised a finger. “Liberated is my preference. I do believe the library to which it belonged is now ash. So perhaps, technically speaking, I saved it.”
Eltoar closed the book and tapped his finger on the leather case.
Had it been a different day, he might have dragged the man to the council himself.
Arcarian or no. But not this day. This day was for mourning and lamenting.
Just as he made to hand the book back to Fane, a realisation flared in his mind. “You knew my name.”
“Everyone knows your name.” Fane turned his gaze from the fire and looked at Eltoar, a stare so intense Eltoar shifted in place.
“But few seek me out by the fire after a city has been razed. That is what you did. You sought me out. This wasn’t happenstance.”
“No,” Fane agreed. “No, it wasn’t.”
In that moment, everything shifted, even the fire seeming to settle. And Eltoar could feel Helios lifting his head on the opposite side of the camp. The dragon’s wings ached as he pressed his forelimbs into the ground and made to rise.
Rest. Please.
A rumble of defiance resonated through the bond, an uncertainty within the dragon. Were it not for his wounds, Helios would already be at Eltoar’s side. Trust was a commodity that was accumulated, slowly, and with great care. And this man held none in Helios’s heart.
But as it was, the aches in Helios’s bones forced him to trust Eltoar, if not the man beside him.
Fane replaced the book inside the satchel almost tenderly, as though cradling a newborn babe. He sat straight, pushing back his cloak and once more revealing the sickle at his belt.
“That blade is Karvosi. A Matarr boneblade. You fought in the city.”
Fane nodded. “You didn’t.”
Eltoar tensed at that, shaking his head.
“I believe it is best that I give you full honesty, Eltoar Daethana. As I was dragging injured elves from the burning corpse of Arathín, evading capture from Karvosi hunters, I saw the Black Sun in the sky, saw his rage and fury. And I thought ‘finally, they have come’. And then I watched Helios burn the corpses of the dragons that had fallen and retreat back to this camp. A camp where more than a score of Draleid and their soulkin stood by and watched the city burn as though it were all a theatre act put on for their pleasure.”
The entire time Fane spoke, his gaze did not leave Eltoar. And so ashamed was Eltoar that not once could he return that gaze. The dancing flames cradled his stare, the crackling wood and drifting sparks.
“I assume it was the council who gave the command?”
Eltoar eyed Fane askance but didn’t speak. It was not his place, not after the words he had only just exchanged with Alvira.
“You need not confirm it.” Fane pulled his knees to his chest, finally letting his stare drift from Eltoar.
“I know the minds of that council well enough as is. No doubt they commanded you wait until more forces had been mustered. A logical plan – for those who do not have to look upon the bodies of the dead, nor hear the screams of children as acid melts their flesh. Choices are always easy when you do not have to look upon the consequences. Do you see the faces of the dying in your quiet moments?”
“I see them every time I close my eyes.”
“Do you think the council will give a second’s thought to those who died here today?”
Eltoar let out a huff at that.
“And I don’t suppose Arathín was the only casualty. The Karvosi always strike multiple points of landing.”
“Fourteen cities. All along the lightning coast and the bay.”
“Fourteen?” Fane pursed his lips. “How many dead in a single day do you think?”
“What is this?” Eltoar asked, turning to face the man. “You do not know me, and yet you seek me out to what? To deepen my dreams of dead souls?”
Fane stared back at Eltoar for a moment, then, without warning, pulled himself to his feet.
He looked from Eltoar to the crackling flames.
All mirth drained from the man’s voice. “I sought you out to find the measure of you. To see if you were like them, like the council. To see if leaving so many to die would tie a weight around your heart or if you would carry on unburdened.”
“And what did you find?”