Epilogue
THE TALE OF THE MAIDENS
THE GIRLS TRICKLED down the mountains. They appeared one at a time, here and there, through the morning mist. Some of them ran, some of them walked and some of them stumbled with arms outstretched, fingers spread, as if at any moment they might launch into flight.
They emerged in the higher Mountain villages first, blinking and dazed.
They were met with wonder by the Mountain folk there, who hastily wrapped blankets around the chilled, naked bodies and pressed hot, sweet milk into the trembling hands.
The villagers formed makeshift nursing wards in their Sanctuaries and everyone rushed to proffer spare food, drink and clothes, singing praises and shouting prayers of tribute.
They did not yet understand why, but a miracle had occurred.
Often, they recognized a girl: ‘Lianorie from Pienzi?’ they might ask. Or, ‘Flessanie from Morccia?’
And the girl in question would slowly nod, her gaze distant and filmy. ‘Yes,’ she might whisper. ‘I think that’s me.’
There were some girls no one recognized, since they hailed from families who lived far away, but the Mountain folk welcomed them all the same with sincere kindness, promising to send word to their relatives as soon as they could.
And there were some girls who were not girls at all – they were women with slight lines at the corners of their eyes and grey streaks in their hair.
It was harder to reach them. They would flinch at anyone’s touch with a sharp, fluid movement that was not quite natural, and snap their jaws at the offered food and drink.
The ancient magic of the Great Dragon still lingered in them, too tangled and powerful to ever fully disappear.
‘They’ll recover in time,’ the Mountain folk assured each other. But in some cases, they never did.
News of the returned girls began spreading rapidly, carried from shepherd to goat-herder, until the mountains were ringing with the truth of it.
Anyone who had lost a girl to the Maiden Sacrifice began desperately hoping that their daughter or sister or aunt or cousin might be one of the lucky ones to return.
Many were rewarded with the eventual homecoming of their kin, but there were still those who never reappeared.
Some girls had been a dragon for too long, their minds lost to the beastly form of another, and some had perished in the natural ways that even dragons do.
One of the last to emerge from the mountain tops took her time to descend into the village of Silicia.
She felt reluctant, although she was not quite sure why.
Her recent thoughts were a swirl of senses: tongues of fire lashing from her lips, snow crunching beneath her curled talons and cold, thin mountain air whistling past her body as she swooped through the sky.
She did not want to leave it all behind.
She stumbled down rocky slopes and through woodland, balancing on her two cumbersome legs, longing for the reassuring spread of wings from her shoulders and the grounding support of four feet.
At some point in a forest – she was not quite sure where – she realized she was not alone.
A silvery shadow shimmered ahead between tree trunks, leading her through patches of bracken and over slopes of slick moss, beckoning her onwards.
Its outline remained shifting and blurry, but as she followed, she saw flashes of flowing, vine-like hair and legs formed of twisted roots.
Suddenly, a glow of brightness appeared ahead where the surrounding bushes, grasses and trees receded.
She paused, squinting into the golden light at the edge of the forest, the familiarity of the sight unearthing old memories buried deep in her past. She remembered sorrow, loss and grief.
But the shadow urged her on.
Leaves brushed her bare skin as she stepped out into a pale, warm spring afternoon. More recollections boiled to the surface until she was dizzy with thoughts of the long-ago. She staggered and fell to her knees, sinking her nails into the dirt.
Then she heard a voice: ‘Esmelie?’
She raised her head and saw a cottage that she recognized and a woman walking towards her. The woman wore a grey homespun dress and her thick, dark hair was tucked beneath a cloche. Her cheeks were fuller, and her waist was thicker, but her warm, dark eyes were the same as they had always been.
‘Esmelie!’ the woman cried again.
Then she was running closer, arms outstretched.
And any hesitancy Esmelie had harboured that morning disappeared. The last of the dragonness flitted from her mind and she scrambled to her feet to catch the woman as they embraced one another, finally reunited once more.
‘May,’ she whispered, sobbing and smiling at once. ‘Hello again, little sister.’