Chapter 29 Faron
FARON
F aron waited until the night was deep to leave his tent. He crossed the grass, memories of the day’s battle hovering like phantoms in the corners of his eyes. So much death, and all for one creature’s fury. Such destruction demanded answers, and he would have them.
“Faron?” a soldier guarding the corpse said, quickly saluting with a fist against his chest. “Is something amiss?”
Faron had insisted to Isabelle that she place guards around the corpse, lest it be looted.
Once carved, nearly every part of a dragon’s carcass could be sold for a tidy sum that her army desperately needed.
He had also told her dragon corpses were exceedingly dangerous, with the fire they belched potentially erupting at any point, and therefore they should camp a safe distance away.
All of it a ruse so he might have his midnight meeting.
“I’m having trouble sleeping,” he said. “Consider all of you relieved. I’ll make sure no one comes to clip a few dragon toenails to sell at market.”
The soldier looked uncertain, and he glanced to the man with him, who shrugged.
“It’ll be fine,” Faron said with a bit of radiance for emphasis. The two immediately caved, and they called for a third soldier to join them.
“As you wish,” one said as the three left.
Now alone, Faron approached the dragon’s head. Its red scales had taken on a purple hue in the starlight. They were beautiful, and if Faron allowed it, they would soon adorn many a ring and amulet across the continent of Kaus.
“Dragons have ever looked upon these human lands with disdain,” Faron said as he sat before the head.
Its good eye was open and still. No flies buzzed about, nor any carrion creatures or insects.
Death had not yet come for the dragon, and its innate magic kept it protected.
He spoke without any of the jovial attitude he’d shown the guards.
Such a magnificent beast deserved solemnity, not the charisma he exuded to win over the humans around him.
“So why now did you descend upon us with such hatred?”
Faron closed his eyes and reached out, his fingers gently touching the scales of the dragon’s nose.
His breathing slowed. As he had when he called Iris to him, he let his presence flow, but this time, not into the earth.
Instead, it plunged into the dragon’s corpse, and the secret beating heart within.
Two hearts, a second even deeper within the rib cage. The dragon was not yet dead.
A spark in his mind. The connection was made. The dragon’s name floated over him, vaguely familiar, for each of these creatures was as old as Kaus itself: Teldrass.
Faron opened his eyes to see faint blue light shimmer across the scales.
Would you torment me even after my demise, ever-living?
The voice sounded within Faron’s mind, slow and imposing. It echoed as if spoken from everywhere, and if it had been real, the ground would have shaken from its depth.
“I would speak, now that you are not overtaken by your fury,” Faron whispered.
Fury? The dragon laughed. No, it was not fury. To admit as much causes me great shame, ever-living, but it is desperation that drove me here. Desperation, and fear.
“Fear?” Faron asked. “What could possibly strike fear into the heart of an immortal dragon?”
The blue light swirled across the scales, growing in depth. It would not be long now.
Our dreams are haunted. The end comes. Even for us, the immortal. Even for you, the ever-living.
Faron’s throat tightened. The fey mother, Mae’lilia, had spoken similarly.
“Then your dreams are false,” he said. “No power can break that which binds my family to Kaus.”
Teldrass laughed, slow and mocking.
You think yourselves eternal. We remember when humanity emerged from the dust. We remember when you ever-living first knelt before us, blinding in your radiance.
It is dull now. The stars weaken. The false moon soothes no longer.
We dream of three suns, gold, sapphire, and crimson, all rising for the final dawn.
The sky shall rip apart and weep burning tears, bringing forth our end. Bringing forth FINALITY.
Faron shuddered, his insides constricting. The prophecy of dragons was rare. Never did they lie. Never were they wrong.
“And so you attacked us?” he asked. “Why?”
The red drained from the dragon’s scales, which began to pulse the cold color of the moon.
Your kingdoms bring about ruin guided by a pale hand. My fellows retreat south, flying for land promised yet unseen. I stayed. I swore to resist. To burn your kingdoms and spare our realm. I failed, and so I, too, will flee.
Faron stood, and he drew his sword.
“Whose pale hand?” he asked. “Tell me, dragon.”
Enough, ever-living. I have gifted you far more than you deserve.
“No!” Faron pointed his sword toward the dragon’s corpse. “Give me a name. Refuse me, and I shall pry open your ribs and thrust my sword into your true heart, denying you your rebirth.”
As your brothers once did to Asruma?
Faron flinched, hating to be compared to Eder and Sariel.
Together, they had slain Asruma centuries prior, when the black dragon rampaged across the southwest lands of Kaus, killing thousands.
When his brothers defeated Asruma, they had burned every part of its body, carved apart its bones, and pierced Asruma’s second heart, ensuring the dragon’s true death.
“If you speak true, then all the world is in danger,” he said. “Against such a threat, yes, Teldrass, I would do the same.”
And so you would echo their unforgivable sin.
Faron walked around the body, his impatience growing. He found the specific rib, slid the tip of his sword underneath one of the scales, and then pressed the sword halfway to the hilt into the dragon’s flesh.
“A name,” he said. “I will hear a name.”
You are not ready.
He pressed the sword deeper.
“A name, or you will not be reborn within your egg.”
You are not worthy.
“A name, dragon! A name, or death claims you!”
It is you , Faron Godsight. You who shall tear open the sky and bring about the end of three worlds.
Faron staggered as if from a blow. The words echoed in his mind, over and over, for he could not believe them. It couldn’t be. It made no sense.
“You are wrong,” he said.
Your denial is meaningless. Leave me to my rebirth, ever-living, if you are capable of such kindness. This fate is writ into the stars themselves.
Faron sheathed his sword. He swallowed what felt like glass shards lodged in his throat.
“Farewell, Teldrass. When you hatch, may you find your prophecy in ruin, and the world turning as it ever has and ever will.”
The scales dissolved into pale light and drifted skyward like cast-off embers.
Meat and bone followed, the entire dragon corpse becoming luminescent.
Wind blew from the north, sudden and fierce.
The glowing trail surged southward, fading away like dust. Miles upon miles away, safely hidden within the land of dragons, Teldrass’s essence would travel to the egg it had already laid.
The dormant egg would quicken. A decade from now, the dragon would be reborn, its cycle begun anew, but its memories and wisdom intact.
Nothing but a great splatter of blood remained of the slain dragon. Faron stood before that emptiness, his hands shaking at his sides.
“It can’t be,” he whispered. “I would never. I would never .”
He returned to the camp, wanting nothing more than solitude. It was not given. To his surprise, a lone rider arrived at the camp, and though he was cloaked, there was no disguising the dragon-bone blade propped across his shoulder. Faron’s mood, already dire, somehow worsened.
Sariel passed his horse off to one of the guards at the camp entrance and then made a straight line for Isabelle’s tent. Faron cut him off halfway there.
“Hey,” he said. “Where were you?”
Sariel tried to brush past him without answering. Faron stepped in front, his hand pressing against Sariel’s chest. His anger tumbled out of him, adding unintended fire to his words.
“I asked where were you, Sariel. Why did you abandon us when we needed you most?”
“Is the dragon dead?”
Faron flinched, angry at the answer he must give. “Yes.”
Sariel pushed him away. “Then you did not need me.”
The dismissal burned his insides further.
It is you , Faron Godsight.
“You can’t keep doing this,” he said. His words accosted Sariel’s back as his brother walked on. “You have to be with us, and commit, Sariel. No half measures if we’re to win. How can I trust you, if you won’t give this war your all?”
Sariel froze. His head curled over his shoulder. The midnight sky burned in his eyes, fierce with light.
“Watch your tongue, brother,” he said, and his words could freeze rivers. “For you know all that I am capable of, and all that I should not be. The dragon is dead. Let it die.”
Faron had no argument left to give, only confused anger and frustration, and so he watched in silence as his brother adjusted his sword, turned away, and entered uninvited into Queen Isabelle’s darkened tent.