Chapter 16
Sy
The sky was whispering of change.
The stars themselves were veiled.
Something was coming.
Light footsteps sounded behind me. In my dragon form, I turned my head, focussing on the tiny girl coming my way. Her hair shone like moonlight in the dark.
I moved my tail and allowed her to climb on. She clutched at my scales with gloved hands, like I could ground her. She laid her face in her hands on my back.
Sadness poured off her in waves — and beneath it, anger.
Something had upset her. I huffed, questioning.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered.
I turned my attention to the dark, enjoying her closeness. A cool breeze fluttered against my skin.
Seph’s lack of fear was pleasing to me. Strangely so.
I was unused to someone being so calm around me.
I wished to make her feel better. But how?
An idea occurred to me.
I stretched out my wings and lowered my back.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked quickly.
I growled in response. No.
“Then what?”
I lowered my back again and looked at her.
“I don’t… oh! Do you want me to ride you?” she asked.
I huffed a nod.
She bit her lip. “Really?” She looked around at the cloudless night sky. I could sense her excitement.
“Won’t you drop me?” she whispered.
I growled. Never.
Her body tensed with adrenalin. “Okay,” she said, “let’s do this. Do I just …”
She grabbed my spine and tugged it.
I nodded.
She bit her lip again. “Alright. You only live once, right?”
She slowly began to climb up my back to the hollow cradled by spines. Her hands clutched one spine tightly.
I stretched my wings. One knocked a stone pillar, sending it crumbling. She watched the stones tumble down the valley with wide eyes.
“Maybe I shouldn’t…”
I leaped up, airborne within seconds.
She let out a small shriek as we climbed higher. I rumbled.
Open your eyes.
I felt her body still as her eyes snapped open.
“Oh my god…” she whispered.
We could have been the only creatures alive. The moon, crescent shaped and silver, shone brightly in the deep purple of the sky.
The stars, they were awake and sparkling. Each twinkle part of the music of the heavens.
Something wet touched the back of my shoulder.
Tears.
Seph was crying.
Why are you sad?
Seph laughed, her voice thick. “No. I’m not sad. I’m just – This is like a dream,” she said.
Below us, the valley was black as pitch. Through my dragon eyes, the night stirred to life. The wolves bounded deep in the wilderness. The owls fluttered from tree to tree.
We passed a river that glittered like a mirror in each lapping wave. I flew low skimming above the water so she could see it.
And suddenly, her vise-like grip loosened. Her hands slid free, raising to the heavens like she could grip them and claim them as her own.
She was like a spirit from the veil, ethereal and ghostly. But she also glowed with her own light.
She couldn’t see it like I could. I was drawn to her light like a moth to flame. It was like carrying a fallen star on my back.
Her heart pulled at mine, like we were one.
We followed the river along, trees lining each side like sentinels. The river twisted and bent, carving through the earth as it rushed.
The further we chased it, the closer we came to civilisation.
When we reached a convergence in the water, I saw the lights of the city sparkle in the stillness. They covered the valley below the mountains, trading rocks and trees for perfectly cut houses and clean paint.
A road straight as an arrow cut through the centre of the town, leading towards the central point of Velithra.
The Temple of the Order of the Light.
I could see it towering above the town, with its symmetrical imposing towers. The marble was white – true white, reflecting the moon in the dark so that it glowed.
It sat high on the ground, like it was lording over the valley below. Archways, at least twenty feet high, were the doorways, closed now with heavy stone doors.
Immovable.
Imposing.
But inside the windows lights glowed.
They always did.
Extinguishing the light in the tower was akin to blasphemy.
Seph leaned forward over me. From our position, we could hear music coming from within, like they were singing a song. Figures robed in blinding white walked toward the doors holding lanterns before them. I could hear the chants of the priests on the wind.
“It’s the Assembly of the Sun,” Seph spoke softly.
“A ritual they perform on the night of the crescent moon. This has always been seen as a time when the dark is at its most powerful — second only to the new moon. They believe that by bathing the temple in light, by carrying fire, they can stave off the shadows once again. Proving once and for all that the Light shall always triumph.”
I grunted in response, flying around the edges of the shadow. My form was hidden in the night sky, but it paid to keep Seph safe.
“I was taught about the power of the Light my whole life. I was told it was something to aspire to. Righteous Light shall cull the shadows ,” she scoffed.
“But I never went to a single Assembly. Did you know that?”
I grunted again, angling toward the darkness once more.
“I don’t know how to beat what’s coming,” she said quietly. “Who to support. What I’m even supposed to do. Every choice hurts someone.”
She swallowed.
“And I’m terrified that no matter what I choose… this only ends one way.”
We can leave. Right now.
“And go where?”
Away. Far away, where no one can reach us.
She chuckled. “That would be nice, but I couldn’t leave Dev. Or Ash. Or even Kieran. I couldn’t leave Sable, not after she sacrificed so much for me.”
You would bind your life to theirs?
“Not my life, Sy. But maybe my loyalty. My friendship. My heart.”
And the Equinox?
“Has good intentions, I’m sure. But…”
You do not trust them.
“No. I don’t,” she said simply.
Why?
“Because despite what they claim, they don’t want balance,” she said. “They want vengeance. And that isn’t a good enough reason. It can’t be.”
True balance is hard to find . But I am with you, little one.
Shouting below snapped my attention down.
The chanting cut off.
“What is that?” Seph asked.
Something screamed through the air.
A bolt — iron-tipped, blazing with white light hurtled towards us.
Then the bells rang out, loud and warning.
I twisted seconds too late.
Pain exploded through my left wing.
I roared, the sound tearing from my chest as my flight faltered. My wing locked, useless, fire racing along the joint where the bolt had struck. The sky lurched violently.
“No!” Seph cried, clutching at my spines.
I twisted instinctively, angling my body to shield her as gravity seized us. I veered away from the city, forcing my wounded body as far as it would go.
Hold on!
I beat my good wing hard, fighting the pull, fighting the darkness rushing up to meet us. The mountains rose too fast. The river spun beneath us, a silver blur.
I could not keep us aloft.
Not like this.
I folded around her, drawing my wings tight, turning my body so I would take the impact.
We fell, tumbling straight into the river, darkness swallowing us whole.