17. Unravelling Webs
Chapter Seventeen
Unravelling Webs
Even as the rain battered him and soaked into his skin, Eltoar stared up at the statue of Varahír.
He had been there for over an hour, unmoving, unable to feel anything in his heart but guilt and sorrow.
His bones were hollow. For over two centuries he had fought for a single purpose: to protect Epheria.
Never had he questioned that purpose. But now when he searched his soul, he found nothing.
In the distance, thunder cracked across the sky, chased by a flash of lightning. It had been a long time since he’d seen a winter with so much rainfall. He lifted his hands, his skin pale and wrinkled from the water, the sleeves of his tunic almost translucent.
These hands were the hands of a killer, the hands of a guilty soul.
No matter the command, he had walked forwards and these hands had held the steel.
Eltoar had questioned, he had argued, but in the end he had always fallen in line.
Following commands did not absolve him of the darkness in which he bathed.
Behind him, Helios blew a warm breath of air that spread through his skin and bones. In the dragon’s mind, images of Tivar and Salara flashed, memories of drinking wine and laughing with Alvira and Farda, of long conversations with Thalumas, and Fane, and Atara, of sparring with Tarast and Harken.
But in response, all Eltoar could think of was Maquil’s severed body, of Panakír’s eyes erupting in white light, seeing the half-eaten bodies of the dragons at Arathín, walking through the ashes of Orinhale, picking through the remnants of Antalar.
Steel swung and blood sprayed as dead faces became his only thoughts.
So many wars. More in the last twenty years than in all the others combined.
The Lyonin War, the Ingdrin War, the Karvosi Incursion, Arathín, Vastillion…
and those were just the first to touch his mind.
Life had become war, and war had brought with it death beyond his wildest imagination.
“Master!” Salara’s voice rang out, and Eltoar turned to see her jogging through the rain with Fane at her side.
He gave them the faintest of smiles, then turned back to the statue before him. A hundred and fifty feet tall, hewn by hand from the white stone that comprised the entire city.
Wet footsteps sounded at his side, and he glanced at Fane as the man came to a stop and asked, “What are you doing out here?”
“Thinking.”
“I do my best thinking when I’m dry.”
“Master.” Salara moved to stand in front of Eltoar. She had grown into a fine woman. Strong in both body and heart. Simply the sight of her lit a flame within him.
“I am not your master anymore, Salara. You are a Draleid in your fullest now. You are my kin.”
“You will always be my master.” She wiped her saturated black hair from her face. “Let’s go inside. You’ll catch your death.”
Eltoar laughed at that, a laugh so deep he couldn’t quite believe it himself.
“What’s funny?” Fane asked, leaning forward to look into Eltoar’s eyes.
“The thought that I might die from illness or disease because I stood in the rain for too long.” He laughed again.
“Would that not be poetry? To have killed so many, to have forged rivers in blood and filled oceans with corpses…” He burst out laughing hysterically. “I die from standing in the rain?”
Fane stared at him a few moments longer, then touched Salara’s shoulder. “Salara, could you go back and set the fire?”
“I’m not leaving him.” Salara looked into Eltoar’s eyes, and the strange laughter that had overcome him vanished.
“I’m sorry, Salara, for not being who you thought I was.”
Salara grasped the sides of Eltoar’s head. “You are everything I thought you were. The fact that you are here, the fact that your heart still grieves for every death is what makes you that person. And so long as you are that person, I will never leave your side, Master.”
Eltoar smiled at her, brushing wet hair from her face. “I could not be prouder of you, Salara. Not if you reached to the skies and grabbed a star in your palm.”
“Salara.” Fane placed a hand on Salara’s shoulder. “Please.”
Salara looked from Eltoar to Fane and back again before giving a reluctant nod. She squeezed Eltoar’s hand. “Du aendret myia viel. Du é anis, akar. Du é anis thwe é niassil.”
You changed my life. You are safe, brother. You are safe, and you are loved.
Eltoar watched Salara as she walked towards Helios.
The young elf pressed her forehead against the great dragon’s snout, and a wave of warmth spread form Helios to Eltoar.
The dragon pushed into her chest, a rumble in his throat.
He still remembered Salara as the little girl who had come to them. That warm, joy-filled child.
When Salara left, Fane stood beside Eltoar.
“What’s happened?”
“Must something happen for me to stand in the rain until I can’t feel my own skin?”
“I hope so.” Fane smiled at him.
“I told Farda something. Something that I should have told him a long time ago. I think it broke him. And I realised that I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Fane let silence take the place of words.
“We knew about Orinhale before it happened. We knew that Aerilon had sent ships, and of their intention.”
“Farda’s nieces…”
Eltoar nodded. “Last night, he found a bar of that soap he was always buying them. He broke down. I couldn’t keep silent any longer.
We could have saved them.” He shook his head, staring up into the rain, the drops clouding his eyes.
“Just like we could have stopped the siege of Antalar and the entire Lyonin War.” Eltoar looked back at Fane. “What have we become, brother?”
“A reflection of the world.” Fane clasped his hands behind his back, and as the rain fell about him, Eltoar noticed a shift in his friend. “Often, we sit and we talk, do we not?”
“We do.”
“It’s mostly me talking if we’re being honest.” Fane laughed at himself. “How many times have we talked on The Order? Argued until the sun rose? Do you remember, six years ago, you came to me and accused me of spreading lies about Alvira and The Order, about the council.”
Eltoar bit at his lip and nodded. He remembered that day as clearly as yesterday. “Accused is a strong word.”
“It is the correct word. I do not drag it up to burn you for it, but to ask you something – those things you thought I said … do you still think they were lies? Because before me I see a man with a darkness in his heart that is swallowing him whole. A man I admire and respect.” He paused.
“A man whom I care for. And I believe that watching the world he loves tear itself apart is the darkness that devours him.”
Eltoar stared into Fane’s eyes as a flash of lightning ignited above them, and at their backs Helios lifted his head, a warning burning within him. “You tread on dangerous ground, Fane. Choose your next steps with care.”
Fane looked back at Helios, the rain hammering down over him.
“I told you I would always be honest with you. And unlike some, my word means something to me.” Fane looked away from the black dragon and back to Eltoar.
“I fear the council is corrupt. And that Alvira, in all her nobility, is being forced into a corner and made to be their whipping beast. Her honour binds her to heed the will of the council even if the council itself no longer stands for what we believe in. She will not listen to any challenge on this, she will not stray from her rigidity. And I fear, and it is my greatest fear, that we may never be able to open her eyes.”
Eltoar’s skin goosefleshed, and he moved closer.
“I will not betray Alvira. To even suggest it…” Eltoar opened himself to the Spark, feeling Helios’s rage flare as the dragon pressed his forelimbs into the ground and rose from his curled position.
Eltoar drew on threads of all the elemental strands, letting them swirl about him.
The rain broke above him and Fane, held back by the sphere of threads that shifted and twisted. “She is my Archon.”
“I do not ask you to betray her,” Fane said, his voice as still as ice.
“I ask you to do your duty as her First Sword. I ask you to protect her. The council cares nothing for the Draleid, nor for their Archon. Everything is coin and power. And they will gain it on the back of Alvira’s infamy.
Do you still think it was me who spread those rumours those years ago?
” Fane shook his head, eyes growing wide. “It was the council, Eltoar.”
“That cannot be true…”
“Think on it, Eltoar. Think hard. They spread rumours of Alvira’s weakness, of her bloodlust. Rumours that ripple through the citizens of Epheria like a plague – the leader of the legendary Draleid is nothing but a warmonger who must be kept under leash.
Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that with every passing year the council have not sought to take more control.
Tell me they haven’t said that the Draleid must be controlled, must listen to the word of the council lest chaos ensue.
And tell me that Alvira hasn’t repeated those same words, that she hasn’t been drawn into their trap.
They swell their coffers, Eltoar, and all the while they tarnish the reputation of the Draleid across the continent.
For all the darkest of deeds, who do they send first?
Whose flames will live on in the stories of legend?
In the world to come, who will be blamed?
” Fane grabbed Eltoar’s shoulders. “From Vastillion, to Arathín, to Orinhale, and Lyona and every war in between, it has always been about wealth and power. Always. All I ask, brother, is that you come with me now and let me show you what I have seen. Let not words or whispers decide your mind, let it be your eyes and ears. Open your mind so that perhaps, if all this darkness that you fear has truly come to pass, you might be able to save Alvira from it.”