Dragon Whisper

Book One of the Dark Age Trilogy

Niamh Murphy

Published by NIM Publishing, 2018.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

DRAGON WHISPER

First edition. December 4, 2018.

Copyright © 2018 Niamh Murphy.

ISBN: 978-1731004888

Written by Niamh Murphy.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Dragon Essence

Map

Pronunciation and Pronouns

Forest Drake

Dragon March

Coinin of the Woodland Hunt

The Daughters of the House of Atheling

The Guardian of the Wood

A New Order

Dragon Curse

Dead Wood

The Edge

Cassian

Healer

Elves

Wealderling

Rumour

Elf Queen

Reunited

Dragon Temple

Meadowvale

Northern Border

Negotiation

Fenners

Escape

Swamplands

Trapped

Lake Village

The Monarch

Oil and Water

Dragon War

Snappers

Razorbeaks

Lost Forest

A New Council

Grove of the Lost Plains

The Wizard

Dragon Army

Water Wyrm

Sacrifice

Last Chance

Dragon Sight

Dragon Whisper

Defeat

Dragon Tamer

Dragon Mage

Further Reading: Dragon Mage

Also By Niamh Murphy

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my developmental editor Maia, for her invaluable insight, and my line editor, Matt, for his patience with my unconventional choices.

I would also like to thank Carl Denham for his wonderful cartography skills, and for bringing my world to the page.

For Louise...

Sign up to Niamh’s Book Group and get a free copy of the prequel to The Dark Age Trilogy:

The Gods will be Conquered.

A LOVER LOST IN BATTLE. AN OFFER SHE CAN'T REFUSE. A PRICE SHE MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO PAY.

When Andra, a Captain in the formidable Dragon Guard, sees her lover killed in a vicious wizard duel, a grizzled half-mage offers a chance to bring her back from the dead.

But the offer is not without a price.

Torn between her honour and her heart, Andra has until first light to obtain the life essence of a dragon she has sworn to protect or lose the woman she loves forever.

This is a short prequel story to the epic fantasy trilogy, Dark Age, set in a world of knights and magic, where dragons are worshipped as Gods. For lovers of Game of Thrones, Skyrim, and kick-ass women-warriors who battle dragons.

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Pronunciation and Pronouns

Grainneog - grarn-yog

Sionnach - shon-ock

Wyrm - worm

Myrddym - meer-thim

They/Them/Themself Throughout this book you will find instances of they/them used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun.

Forest Drake

On the last day of summer, Breanna watched her father die.

It was her fault. She hadn’t moved fast enough. She hadn’t run.

Instead, she’d been mesmerised by a Whisper.

The daylight was just beginning to seep through the forest canopy. It pierced like a spear down through the trees and dissipated in the cool morning mist that hovered on the forest floor.

Breanna could barely hear her father, Coinin, stalking behind her, but she knew he was there. His occasional hissed suggestion reminded her that she was still a novice and still had yet to earn her axe. She sighed as, once again, he pointed out the deer tracks she was following and reminded her she needed to stay focused and think like a Hunter. But all she could think was that she needed to pass the test today.

She couldn’t go through all the training again.

There was a rustling in the bushes downwind. Breanna glanced over and caught a glimpse of messy brown hair: Luchog. She had to beat him. She couldn’t bear to witness yet another child earn their place, make their kill, pass the test, and move on into adulthood while she failed. She couldn’t live without earning her place for another day, another week, another month, another year. She had remained behind too long.

At seventeen summers, Breanna was an adult in age alone. She was the first Woodlander in living memory to come of age before she had earned her place. She had almost grown used to the stares and the talk.

She heard a twig snap and glanced forward. There it was. A buck, perhaps a few summers old. He was a good size; standing tall he was likely up to her waist. This was the one, this was the deer she had been tracking. This was her kill. And she had a clear shot.

Breanna’s blood seemed to thicken, and her mouth dried up as she watched the young creature nonchalantly munching on the juicy leaves of late-summer undergrowth.

‘Run,’ in her thoughts she urged the buck to dart away, ‘hear the danger, and run.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and willed the animal to hear the swish of leaves as she moved her feet, or the rustling of leathers as Hunters closed in.

Suddenly, the little buck started. His head bolted up, leaves half-eaten hanging from his mouth. He stared out into the woods. A wave of relief, tinged with regret, washed over Breanna.

“There.” Her father had spotted it. “Bree, take your shot.”

Reluctantly, she drew her sling. Her throat closed up as she readied a little runestone that was charged with enough magic to help it fly clean and true. She was crouched, poised and ready to fire in the stillness of the dawn.

Thinking himself safe, the young deer dropped his head and went back to his breakfast. Her shot was clear. All she had to do was release the runestone from her spinning sling. She would make her kill, earn her axe, and finally take her rightful place alongside her father and brother at the Hunter’s table. She would no longer be the outcast, the ‘un-child’, and the villagers would all soon forget how long it had taken her to earn her place.

She couldn’t breathe. Her hand began to shake.

“Take the shot, Breanna.” Coinin didn’t scold. He was ever-patient, ever-calm.

But who was she to decide between life and death?

It was over in an instant.

A whistle and a thud.

The deer crumpled to the ground. A cheer rang out in the forest as little Luchog burst from his hiding place and ran to inspect his kill. Breanna lowered her sling as she watched Luchog’s father, kind-faced, bright-eyed, and dark-featured, join his son and they laughed together. Luchog took charge, drew his bronze butchering knife, and swiftly began gutting the animal to avoid spoiling the meat.

Breanna stood, leaning against a tree, the cover of the undergrowth no longer needed.

“A Hunter must be swift.” Coinin placed a hand upon her shoulder. It was warm and heavy. His eyes were dark and kind, his thick beard flecked with grey, and his leathers were well worn and smelled of woodsmoke. Breanna took a deep breath as she listened patiently to the lecture she’d heard a thousand times before. Her father was calm, kind, and utterly infuriating. “It is not just other Hunters but predators, too: a fox might catch your rabbit, or a hawk can swoop on your dove. But it is early yet, we shall track another.” He tapped her heavily and she nodded.

She had nothing to say. He was right; he was always right. She should have been swift and taken the kill. If she had, then she would be celebrating now. She would be the one gutting the creature and making the sacred ritual to the Forest Drake.

Instead, she was tired, and bored, and about to spend another hour tracking a new beast to slaughter. Part of her wanted to just give up and go home. It would be easy to traipse back to the village empty-handed. But she couldn’t face another day of sitting on the children’s table outside the roundhouse, of hearing laughter behind her back, or seeing the look of disappointment in her brother, Broc’s, kind eyes as he realised that the space he’d saved next to him would, once again, remain empty.

So, she followed her father’s guidance and they picked up the trail of a boar. It was a young one, alone, and likely had not long left its brood. She slunk silently through the undergrowth, her dark leathers, and dark skin, allowing her to meld in with the trees perfectly.

She heard it grunting, and then, through the trees, she caught movement. Breanna could make out the dark fur and the lighter stripe down its back as it snuffled through the ground mulch searching for fallen acorns and mushrooms. It was a good size and healthy from a bounteous summer. Its little haunches wiggled in delight as it stumbled across something tasty.

Her father had seen it, too, and started his usual whispered instructions, as familiar to her now as the sound of her own breathing. In an instant she wished he wasn’t there. She wished he didn’t witness her failures and constant reluctance. She wished there was another way; a way out of the rituals to the Forest Drake, a way out of the tribe, and a way out of killing a happy, young boar.

She readied her sling and cursed the world that forced this cycle of life and death upon them.

Then she heard it.

The Whisper.

Like the thundering roar of a waterfall calling to her. But silent as a thought. It was a sound and yet it wasn’t. She couldn’t hear it with her ears but instead with her whole body... and it wanted to kill.

“What is it?” Coinin sensed her hesitation.

Breanna opened her mouth to explain but she couldn’t speak. She was filled with a rage. A desire to consume. A desire to take the life of everything that surrounded her. It was a bloodlust unlike anything she had ever known. It took all her strength not to roar with the desperate fury that filled her.

Suddenly the boar squealed and took off at a run.

“Oh, Bree you’ve lost another!”

But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, there was a crashing in the forest behind them. They glanced at one another and took off towards the noise. They could hear Hunters yelling warnings as they ran.

“What’s happening?” Luchog and his father sped through the trees to meet them, both pale as they all stared at the creature destroying everything in its path.

“The Forest Drake,” Breanna muttered.

The Whisper grew louder within her as their Sacred Guardian of the Wood grew closer. She stared, motionless, as the dark brown Forest Drake, tall as two men, skin like tree bark, a long, flaring snout, and the unmistakable golden eyes of a Dragon, hurtled through the wood tearing through tree trunks like kindling.

“What have we done?” Luchog’s father voiced the question they all wondered and yet none had an answer.

The boy turned to run back towards the village, his recent kill still slung across his back.

“Luchog, no!” his father called but within seconds, the Forest Drake had beaten a path towards him.

Breanna watched, panic-stricken, as a golden halo of light emerged from the boy, torn from the very depths of his soul. Then his screams stopped abruptly and his body crumpled to the ground: his aura had been consumed.

Unable to even call his name, she watched in shock as the Dragon turned its hungry, golden eyes on her.

She opened her mouth to scream but no sound would come. She heard her father call to her, but she was frozen to the spot. The Whispering, a crescendo of all-consuming, hungry rage, filled her body. It was part of her and she was a part of it. She understood then that the Dragon needed her soul and she was willing to give it.

The Forest Drake gave a roar of agony and Breanna felt the torturing emptiness that drove it on relentlessly. Those golden eyes seemed to surround her and she felt a pain like no other, as if her body was being ripped apart and her soul torn from the depths of her being. She wanted to give herself, to quell the Dragon’s insatiable hunger and let the Sacred Guardian forgive her for her failings.

Her father yelled out, and Breanna was slammed hard against a tree. The shock stunned her for a moment and when she turned to look she saw Coinin had taken her place. His limbs spread apart, his head thrown back, and his body lifted impossibly from the ground as the golden light of his own aura surrounded him.

But there was nothing she could do. Two Hunters grabbed her, pulling her away to the safety of the village. She screamed for her father and watched helplessly as the life was torn from him.

The Forest Drake had answered her prayers. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Dragon March

Andra, a captain in the Dragon Guard, was squeezed in an alleyway between two large, wooden huts. She stood alongside a dozen of her most loyal soldiers but still felt a twist of nerves knotting in her belly.

“And we’ve gained support from all the Dragon Guard?” Andra was a tall Druid woman, muscular, and well respected. She was dressed in the full, bronze-plated leather armour of her rank. Her light blonde hair was braided, pulling the length into a circlet of plaits upon her head and away from her freshly scarred cheek. She was preparing for whatever they were about to face and, although she had asked the same question since midnight, she repeated it now.

Duncan, her eager, light-eyed second in command, was a lithe warrior, muscular and tall. His long, well-kept moustache revealed that he was married, and his bare, clean-shaven cheeks admitted he was not yet father to a son. He didn’t turn to Andra; his gaze was fixed instead on the two Dragon Guards on night watch at the bottom of the steps. “There are a few loyalists,” he hissed, “but most have turned to our cause.”

A second pair of Guards emerged from the large entrance of Dragon Hold and solemnly descended the wooden stairs. They nodded to relieve their counterparts before taking their places. Then the exhausted night watch slothfully trailed off to their barracks to fall into a deep sleep after a long, slow, and uneventful shift.

Andra waited. Counting the minutes until she was certain the night watch would be out of armour, climbing into their beds, and too tired to come to the rescue of their comrades.

“It’s time.”

Andra took a deep breath and turned to Olwen: she was elegant, golden-eyed and had long, dark curls that cascaded over her shoulders. She was both beautiful and conspicuous in her dark red Wizard robes. This was Olwen’s fight. She was the one who had spoken in back rooms, rallied the Druid people, both soldiers and farmers alike, to her cause. Olwen had been running for years, pursued by those she had trusted the most. But now something had altered. Her enemies thought her dead, yet she had discovered a way to tip the balance of power in her favour. In just seven days she had persuaded almost every man, woman, and child in the hill fort of Dragon Hold to her cause. Now, only the Master of Dragon Hold himself stood in her way. Andra cursed herself for ever having doubted the mage; she had wanted to run away together, hide from the Wizards, hide from the Druid Priests, and any others that would pursue them.

She had been a coward.

Olwen had proven that she no longer had to run. Now was the time to fight. Her face was impassive, and her eyes shone with the golden glimmer of Dragon Essence; she was ready.

Andra stepped out of the shadows and headed towards Dragon Hold. It was the largest building in the whole land of Dragon March and the seat of government for the Druid people. Today, it was to see a new dawn.

As Andra walked, she caught sight of a woman on the far side of the hill fort. It was Melva, an eager Druid housewife and an early convert to the cause. Today it appeared she’d gone above and beyond the request put to her by Olwen, and dozens of curious locals were emerging from their huts alongside her. Somehow Melva had managed to coax them from their beds and convince them to delay their early morning duties. Andra wondered what kind of spectacle Melva had promised the locals and hoped they would be able to deliver.

She turned back to the Guards on the steps and held her breath. This was the first test. This was the moment they would know for sure just how loyal Olwen’s new followers were. Andra gripped the hilt of her sword, ready for conflict, but didn’t break her stride as she walked towards them.

“For Dragon March.” One of them saluted her and she nodded, refusing to betray the swathe of relief that washed over her as she led Olwen, and a dozen soldiers, through the doors of Dragon Hold completely unchallenged.

They weren’t so lucky as they stepped inside. Immediately the Guard on duty held out his pike. “Who goes there?”

This was it. This was the moment that the rebellion could be crushed, that their years of plotting, and days of preparation could be turned upon its head. If this moment went wrong then every member of their ranks would be rounded up, tortured, and executed for treason.

Andra’s stomach twisted and she was reminded of the last time she’d had to murder another Druid. But before she had the chance to think of a lie, a bright flash of golden light filled the chamber and he was thrown against the wall. He slid to the ground and did not move again.

Andra glanced back. Rather than the usual exhaustion at the use of her magic, Olwen was invigorated. Her eyes glowed and a smile spread across her lips. “There’s no going back now.”

Andra nodded but replied with a frown. The first blood of the day. For the greater good the Guard at her feet would not be the last to fall. She knew that every obstacle removed from their path took them a step closer to a stronger, united Druid people, and away from their selfish, corrupted leaders. But every obstacle was a Druid, a man or woman with hopes, dreams, and a family that would be forever marked by the loss. She stepped over the body of the Guard. It was too late to pity them now.

The rebels hurried through the dark, circular Common Chamber. Rough, wooden benches were scattered around the room and the footsteps of more than a dozen boots on the bare floor echoed off the walls. It was always eerie to see this chamber so empty when, at its peak, it was filled with the laughing, chattering, and debating of up to a hundred Druids of high and low rank alike, waiting on the justice of the Master of Dragon March.

Andra readied her sword as they reached the door to the High Chambers. She would be prepared for the next obstacle.

The stairwell was quiet. She tiptoed up the creaking wooden steps followed by her soldiers, all drawing arms. As planned, there was no Guard on duty outside the Master’s Chamber and she turned to Olwen. She received a nod of approval, then took a deep breath and threw open the chamber doors.

The revolution of Dragon March had begun.

Coinin of the Woodland Hunt

Ten Woodlanders fell before the Dragon had its fill and sloped quietly back into the forest.

In the days that followed, there were many questions asked by Elders and villagers alike. Through the night, the remaining Woodlanders gathered in the roundhouse. It was their largest and oldest building and sat in the centre of the small village of two dozen wooden huts buried deep in the wood. A fire was lit in the centre and the smoke trailed up into the rafters slow cooking the deer and boar carcasses hunted over the summer season. Both old and young sat on the hard-baked floor surrounding the fire, their conversation rising and falling in anger and desperation.

Why did the sacred Forest Drake attack? What had caused the docile creature to turn against the Woodlanders? What could be done to appease Him?

Not only had ten lives been taken, but also the Dragon had left death everywhere in its wake: animals, birds, even the trees and plants wilted where He had trod. He left a blackening rot that quickly spread, killing everything in its path and creating a dark and silent stretch of land the Woodlanders dubbed the Dead Wood. Even with supplies stored from the summer months, a tight harvest would mean a hard winter.

Breanna sat in the darkness, far at the back of the roundhouse. Long after the young ones had been put to bed, she listened in silence to the arguments, avoiding sleep, and avoiding her kin. She kept thinking back to that moment before the Forest Drake attacked. She remembered how she felt: she had wanted her father gone. She had wanted everything gone. She’d asked for this; the Sacred Guardian heard her darkest prayers and punished her by granting them.

A young farmer, Sionnach, desperately pleaded: he had lost his wife in the attack and his sister comforted him. “We should appease the Dragon. We have been greedy; taken more than we need, there should be no feasting in the winter, we should have taken less—”

“We have taken what we need.” Colm, a large, well-fed, and impressive old Hunter, with a mass of chestnut hair in tight, wild curls, whose greying beard was the only sign of his Elder status, shook his head, sadly, dismissing the claim. “Never more than we need.”

“Then our rituals have not been enough, and, and we do not take enough care of the Sacred Grove,” Colm’s daughter, Eala, a young woman, with long, loose curls, who rarely spoke out, nervously lowered her head, afraid of the repercussions of her suggestion.

“Hear, hear!” The Elder, Torban with a broken back and white hair, sat crouched by the fire. “The drinking and music shows little respect for the Dragon,” he murmured angrily and shook his head. “When I was a boy the rituals were done with respect!” He banged his stick against the floor to emphasise his point.

But Grainneog, a fellow Elder with hair twisted into a hundred white serpentine knots, and tough old skin like the leather from the underside of a well-worn boot, shook her head. “You are one of the worst offenders, Torban, I remember many a time when you had to be carried from the Grove still singing your praises at dawn.”

“I resent that suggestion!”

“Then what do we do?” Colm shouted suddenly, silencing the argument before it had time to escalate. “Iora?”

They all turned to the Wise-Woman. Her thin frame was cross-legged beside the fire as she listened with calm patience to all those around her. Breanna had always thought the woman aged little, but in the firelight, Iora’s brows furrowed in concentration and it seemed as though she had aged all her fifty winters at once.

“There is an imbalance.” She shook her head. “Our ancestors came to this land from afar, but we have been here now for three generations. Our grandparents learned the ways of this forest quickly after their shipwreck, because they listened to the Forest Drake. Now our grandchildren learn the same ways from us. We have been good to the Sacred Guardian and in return He has been good to us—”

“Yet now He betrays us!” Torban screeched and waved his stick.

Breanna felt guilt twisting in her stomach. She knew why the Forest Drake had betrayed them. She should speak up. She should let her kin know why He had trampled through their forest, destroying everything in His path. She should accept whatever punishment was metered out to her and yet her throat closed up, denying her voice.

Her brother, Broc, leaned out and placed a warm hand on her arm. In the little light of the fire she could just about make out his eyes as he looked at her with comfort, but she looked away. It had been too hard each day to see his look of disappointment at her failure, how could she face him if he knew what she had done? If he knew her failures had cursed them all?

She was a coward. She knew she was weak to hide her secret. But she did not have the strength to admit that she had become the very worst of anyone’s lowest expectations of her.

The arguments continued around her, a babble of voices.

“We should seek out a new Guardian, perhaps a Sea Wyrm or a Mountain Wyvern.”

“No, we must sacrifice more.”

“No, we must seek answers.”

“And how are we to do that?”

As the long nights surpassed their darkest points, the Elders would slowly agree they had no answers. Then everyone would filter out to join the procession for the next funeral. Each morning, long before the sun rose on the village, the Woodlanders would gather together and carry the body of their kin to the Sacred Grove in order to set their soul free into the dawn light.

The procession would start at the low door of the round wooden hut belonging to the closest kin of the deceased. Then they would make their way along the twisted, wattled path that meandered around ancient oak and hawthorn, hog pens, and round huts up towards the most sacred of spaces: the grove.

The last to go was Coinin of the Woodland Hunt, Breanna’s father.

In the first hour after midnight on the seventh day after the attack, Coinin’s funeral procession left their home. Broc, a tall young man, with thick, dark hair to his shoulders, and a new beard emerging on his cheeks, led the way holding a torch aloft proudly and unwavering. Breanna admired him and felt ashamed that she couldn’t demonstrate the same respect for their father. Instead, she held back and walked behind the others, trying her best not to be noticed and knowing she was the reason the funeral had to take place at all.

Her Aunt Fia, a round and happy woman, with sleek, black hair, put an arm across Breanna’s shoulders and the warmth of the small, silent gesture threatened to bring new tears to her eyes. She sank into the embrace of the woman who had stepped into her mother’s role and had always been there to wipe her tears and give warm hugs. Breanna wanted so desperately to confess her deeds and yet the fear of what she would lose if she did always silenced her.

Torchlights flickered in the dark and stars fought to be seen through the thinning canopy of early autumn. The dirt road was hard and unyielding beneath her boots and every step of her feet fell in tandem with the soft beating of the goatskin drums, as the Woodlanders solemnly marched towards the Sacred Grove.

The Hunters of the tribe held her father aloft on a wooden litter. Six proud equals, heads down, slings and shining bronze axes at their belts, marched their comrade to his final hunting ground. Two of the Elders, Grainneog and Colm, led the way with their heads high, carrying the ancient staffs, one of oak and the other of yew. Each one carved with a trail of runes along the body to channel the magic that hummed within.

Those wizened old Woodlanders had seen many a Hunter slain over the years and understood Coinin’s sacrifice. Only Breanna felt the sharp pang of guilt and regret that accompanied her father’s fall.

The forest was eerie in the dark. The woods were alive in the daytime with the songs of a thousand birds, the voices of villagers, and the snuffling and grunts of their animals. But in the dark before dawn, when everything living was either asleep or listening, when the creatures of the night were waiting to strike their prey, it was as if the very trees were holding their breath.

Breanna stopped.

Her Aunt Fia softly chivvied her along, but Breanna’s attention was caught by something in the dark. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end as she listened.

There was a faint whispering, like the thundering roar of a waterfall calling to her, yet silent as a thought.

She’d heard that sound before.

She stood still and stared into the dark.

Nocturnal creatures had little need of light to see. They could taste you in the air, listen for the beat of your heart, or feel your footsteps through the earth.

The Forest Drake was no different.

“Bree,” her aunt whispered softly, and the spell was broken. The procession was moving ahead and they hurried to catch up.

Glancing back into the dark, Breanna hoped to allay her fears; it was silent. She let herself believe there was nothing ever there.

The path led up and out of the village; it was a short but steep climb through the last of the trees. She looked back on her home; the scattering of round huts, many with a soft trail of smoke emerging from their pointed roofs, a dozen hog pens and little raised chicken huts sleepy and still in the night.

Ancient oaks surrounded the Sacred Grove. These mighty trees had grown there since before the first generation of her tribe landed on the shores of the Edge Islands. They were sentinels that surrounded a still, black lake, reflecting the light of the stars, making the water appear as deep as the sky.

Breanna edged away from her aunt and through the gathering of Woodlanders to the front of the silent crowd, where she could see her brother. He stood apart from everyone else with his head low. She wanted to go to him, offer a word of comfort, or just hold his hand, but it was as if a shield of grief surrounded him that even she could not breach.

The coronach began.

The lone voice of Fia rose on the air. Soft yet clear, her words were unprepared and came from her heart as she mourned her brother’s parting. The sound drifted up with the smoke of the torches into the cloudless veil of night. It should have been Breanna’s mother leading the coronach, but now it was just one more duty she had not lived long enough to fulfil. Gentle drumming kept a slow beat as the low voices of the Hunters joined the song. With the voices joined together, Breanna could feel the hum of magic across her skin: the hairs on her arms stood on end, and goose pimples broke out across her flesh. The hum enveloped her and made her feel as though she was part of everything and everything was part of her.

The Hunters carried Coinin the final few steps and placed the litter upon the pyre, then moved back to rejoin the rest of the Woodlanders.

Finally, Breanna allowed her eyes to drift over to her father.

This was his last duty. His last honour. His last role in the village. His beloved lyre rested next to him: it would not accompany this song. He was dressed for the Woodland Hunt in his finest leathers, his axe gripped tightly in his hands, and his face turned upward waiting for the first light of the sun.

It was time.

Although Broc spoke no words, Breanna knew he was saying farewell.

As the song of souls reached its peak, Broc threw his torch and the dry wood of the funeral pyre began to crack and burn. One by one, the villagers stepped forward and cast their own torch upon the wood. With each flame added, the fire grew in strength, the flames licked and flickered ever stronger, and the blaze began to slowly devour Coinin of the Woodland Hunt.

She had expected him to wake up. To sit up and say a mistake had been made, to smile and laugh at the joke he had pulled, to berate her for being slow on the uptake. But that hadn’t happened. She wasn’t going to hear his voice again. He was gone and she had wished for it to be so.

She had been the one to cast the curse upon her people. The Dragon whispered to her, and to her alone. She knew the Forest Drake had taught the ancestors to care for the forest, had somehow given them an understanding of the balance: perhaps he had spoken to them then. Whispered in their thoughts... but she had never heard of a Dragon’s curse.

She looked across to Iora: there had been many times over the week where she had almost asked the Wise-Woman, almost spoken of the curse she had brought on her people, to ask what it meant, to ask how she might lift it. But she had remained silent. The words on her lips choked with her own fears of how the Elders would react, of how the villagers would react. She thought of Luchog’s father. She couldn’t bear to think how he would look upon her once he knew she was the reason his son had died. She couldn’t bear the disappointment in Broc’s eyes once he knew how she had failed him. Again.

So she buried her shame and hoped she was somehow wrong, mistaken about what had happened and how she remembered it. Perhaps she had never heard the Dragon at all.

Eventually, the glow from the pyre became hard to look at. The heat was intense and overwhelming, almost frightening. The fire roared and cracked, the scent of charcoal combined with a sickly-sweet smell, and quite soon the body of her father became less distinct, less identifiable as that of a man. By the time they entered the last hour before dawn, the body had been consumed. No longer Coinin, he had been turned to smoke. The flames had gone about their work and a grey column rose high into the lightening dark.

Breanna shivered. The last time Coinin had looked upon her face still haunted her.

Even as she remembered that morning, watching his soul torn from him by the Forest Drake, Breanna still hoped to see him somehow return to her, to hear his voice on the night air. But dawn finally bathed the sky and she knew for certain he was already gone somewhere else.

The villagers began to turn and head back down the track towards home with various hugging and patting on backs as they comforted one another in their grief.

But Breanna remained, staring at the light of the pyre. She was empty. There would be no heavy hand upon her shoulder, no long stories whispered into the night, no long lectures on the right way to fire her sling... and the loss felt like a hollow worn inside of her.

Broc turned to her. His head was down as he walked, and it was only at the last moment that he even saw she was there. He met her eyes and smiled grimly, then rested a hand on her shoulder and in a flood of memory she could feel her father’s hand there, she could hear his voice, “A Hunter must be swift,” she could smell him, leathers, cider, woodsmoke, and beeswax. All around her was his intangible comforting, guiding presence, and then he was gone. Pulled away from her, forever.

Broc wiped a tear from her cheek that she hadn’t realised she’d shed. He pulled her into an embrace then kissed her on the head while she choked on her sobs, releasing the sorrow she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge until that moment.

She’d been far too young to understand when their mother had passed... but today she understood. Today she understood the abyss that opens when a person is taken from you and gone forever.

Broc pulled back to speak to her, but she never discovered what he wanted to say, for at that moment they heard a scream.

A great strangled roar of hunger echoed around the woods and deep within Breanna’s bones. She recognised it instantly.

The Dragon was back.

The Daughters of the House of Atheling

Laetitia, First Daughter of the House of Atheling, known to everyone as Leasha, hurried along the grand, wood-panelled corridors of the Elf Queen’s Hall. Frescoes, in soft greens suffused with tranquil blues, and tapestries depicting past heroes decorated the walls. The murmuring of a full discussion in the Private Chambers could be heard through the wood-panelled door, and she took a deep breath before entering in silence.

Queen Evaline sat upon her green-painted throne on the far side of the room. She wore robes of a soft, blue wool, lighter but stronger than any other cloth known to the Elves. Her white cloak was held in place by two intricately knotted golden clasps at her shoulders, and a necklace of fine jade beads covered her chest like Dragon scales. Her fingers were adorned with golden rings inlaid with red garnets, and, atop her head of dark, ruby-blonde hair, she wore the gold band of the royal crown with its bright teardrop emerald shining out over the audience of Elven councillors.

Leasha hoped to stay at the back, hidden behind a group of rigidly stoic Elves. She was surrounded by stuffy old courtiers and priests. They were white-haired men and women clothed in their fine robes of state, while she was still in her rough-and-ready Ranger greens and leathers. She was eager for the meeting to finish so she could leave to join the patrol heading to the western border. A summons to the Queen’s Council was not unusual, but today of all days, she found it damned inconvenient.

She tapped her foot irritably as Councillor Titus droned on about strategy and rationing. She could just leave. No one would notice if she slipped out. The Queen would never know if she was even there or not and it wasn’t as though she had anything useful to contribute.

But then it was too late.

The Queen caught her eye and eagerly beckoned her forward. With a heavy sigh, Leasha made her way through the parting crowd to the smaller throne at the right of the grander green seat of power.

“So glad you could join us,” Queen Evaline hissed.

“Of course, Aunt.” Leasha nodded as she took her place and tried to feign interest in the chatter of the Elven High Council.

“It’s all well and good discussing strategy,” Alberic, a particularly tall Elf in bright yellow robes cut in, “but if we cannot comprehend the reason behind the Meadow Guardian’s decision to turn against the Elves She protects, then how can we possibly prevent further atrocities?”

Leasha shook her head: why couldn’t Alberic call it the Meadow Dragon as every simple Elf of the land did?

“It is obvious,” called a voice from the back. Leasha couldn’t see him, but she was certain it was the constantly irritable High Priest of Dragon Lore, Ferox of Maidenvale. “The Guardian seeks more sacrifice. We should perform the ‘Rite of the Oroc’. Our Rangers must bring in a dozen bulls from the Hunting Grounds to sate Her hunger—”

“And what if a dozen bulls do not satisfy Her?” The Queen stood from her throne and the council was silenced. “What then? A hundred? A thousand? All the while our people are in danger.” Usually, she would silently listen. Rarely interrupting save for clarification but today she was stern, almost fierce, and Leasha was relieved that at least she wasn’t responding to the Dragon’s attack in her usual frustratingly docile manner.

The Private Chamber was quiet for a long moment before Evaline continued. “Of course, we must seek the cause of this disruption. However, while we remain shrouded in the darkness of ignorance, with no answers, no certainty—”

“Ma’am, please!” Ferox interrupted.

Evaline held a hand up to silence him. “Whilst we remain in darkness, Ferox, we must think of defence.”

There was an audible gasp, and Leasha tried to conceal a smile. Little temples and sacred shrines were scattered throughout the land of Meadowvale. Every day Elves would worship, say a prayer, and bring a sacrifice. They were dedicated and devoted to their Green Dragon and then, one day, She had attacked them, swooping down from the air, unprovoked and without warning. Leasha was convinced that now was not the time for more worship: it was the time to act.

“Ma’am, no! Our sacred duty—”

“Four villages!” The Queen was firm, slamming the armrest of her throne. “Four Elven farmsteads attacked in one morning and not one survivor! We protect the borders of Elven lands with firmness and ferocity, but how are we to protect our skies?” Evaline stared down at her councillors as if seeking an answer; none made eye contact. “We sacrifice, we perform the rituals to the Guardian of the Meadows, we prepare our harvest in Her name and now She blights it, destroying fields, leaving villagers starving and abandoning their dead crops to flee to Meadow Hall. And Ferox, did she not attack a temple? Did she not leave the Priestess and her initiates dead? Their physic garden destroyed? I cannot allow this to happen again.” She shook her head, her lips firmly closed, and Leasha knew there was no shaking her from this decision. “We must prepare a defence.”

Ferox snorted, he turned and stalked from the room and the Councillors began a furious muttering. Evaline held up her hand to bring them to order before seating herself back on her throne. She turned to a smart young Elf, with dark gold hair, and soft, moss-green eyes. Lycos was the new Ambassador from Vingeld, the ancient continental Motherland of the Elves, and had not been in Meadowvale for many weeks.

“How long to get a message to your Queen?” Evaline asked.

Lycos was startled for a moment. “Weeks,” he replied with a thick continental accent. “We would ’ave to ready a ship and wait for a tide and even zen I cannot guarantee much aid, your ’ighness, Ze Giants, ma’am, zey ravage our northern realm.” He finished with an exaggerated bow.

“No matter.” Evaline waved her hand dismissively. “My cousin must be informed. We will have to persuade her to send aid.” She turned to Leasha. “You will lead the mission to Vingeld.”

“What? No.” Leasha was appalled at the thought of being sent away. But she immediately regretted her brutal reply. Evaline stared at her for a long moment and then stood.

“Thank you, for your time,” the Queen announced, nodding to the Councillors, “but the Princess and I have matters to discuss.”

The stuffy old Elves grumbled as they slowly filed from the chamber and it wasn’t until the last one had left and closed the door that Evaline turned to Leasha. “What do you mean by defying me in front of the entire council?”

“I... I’m sorry, I didn’t think–”

“By Dragon’s Breath, Leasha, you never think. What are they to assume of us now? That we are at odds? That you resent my being on the throne?” She shook her head. “There have been wars over this crown, Leasha, we have to—”

“Present a united front, I know, I know.” Leasha crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. “I just don’t see any sense in sending me all the way to Vingeld.” She was always being pushed back, moved to safety, constrained and restricted. But what was the point in being a Princess, in being a member of a ruling family, if she could not aid her people? It was her place to protect them, it was madness to have it the other way around. She had a real chance to help, a real chance to join a patrol and stalk the Dragon, be there in its wake when it next attacked, prevent the loss of any more life. But instead she was to be sent away on some hand-wringing diplomatic assignment which was merely code for being hidden away. She wanted to scream.

Evaline threw up her hands. “You complain of boredom, and then when I bestow a real mission upon you, the chance to travel, you refuse.”

“I am not about to flee to the continent just when the Meadow Dragon has turned on us!” Leasha’s hand drifted to her bow, Evaline noticed and shook her head.

“No. You are to stay safe. You have royal duties to learn and to attend to, you cannot go running off with the Rangers, especially when there is such danger in it.”

“I cannot serve my people by running away.” Leasha left her chair and began to pace, frustrated that she wasn’t being allowed to leave. The patrol would not wait for her to join them.

“It is not ‘running away’. We must send someone to Vingeld and you wish to travel. You are far too precious to Meadowvale to risk–”

“If someone must go then send Blasius, or Nephele.”

“So, you wish to stay, and what? Become a Dragon Slayer?”

“Better that than a court messenger.” Leasha shrugged.

“Oh, Leasha! Do you not see? We cannot risk you being anywhere near danger! You are the heir!”

“You are the Queen; you are the one who needs to stay safe. I ought to be permitted to live my own life.” She loosened her collar: it pressed against her throat, choking her. The walls were closing in around her. She needed to breathe. She couldn’t be trapped inside the royal chambers. There was nothing for her to do at court and she needed to do something.

“If anything happens to me, then you will be Queen.”

“Why must you always be so morbid?” Leasha leaned against the desk and picked up a Dragon icon, turning it over in her hands. Always talk turned to dying, the death of her mother, the legacy of the ancestors, the watching eyes of all the queens before. The dead were dead; Leasha wanted to live.

“This is important, Laetitia.” Evaline snatched the icon from the Princess and placed it back in its shrine.

“You are preparing me for your death. Forgive me if I don’t leap for joy at the prospect.”

Evaline sighed. “You are the true heir. It is you who needs to carry on the family line.”

Leasha groaned. “This again.” It always came back to children, to producing a royal lineage. Yet there was nothing Leasha wanted less than to choose who would father her litter of royal pups. Then everyone could pray for her to have a daughter who would be condemned to the same fate as every other Elven Queen before her.

“Yes, this again, I’ve only ever been a stand-in. You must learn to accept the inevitable.”

“It is not inevitable if I do not wish it to be.”

“Well, you cannot continue to seek out maidens for your bed; the Royal line—”

“No! No!” Leasha started towards the door. “I do not wish to discuss this.” She could not bear to talk about her intimate affairs with her aunt for a moment longer. Perhaps if she ran across to the stables she could still catch up with the Patrol.

But Evaline wasn’t about to let the conversation end there. “You never wish to discuss this. But it must be discussed, the future of all the Elves depends upon us and right now, what they need is stability.”

“No. The future of our family name depends upon us, and right now, I would not care if it died with us.”

“How can you say that?” Evaline stepped back from her, shocked. “After everything!”

“No!” Leasha raised a hand to silence her, but it only served to further enrage her aunt. “You always talk of how much debt I owe you–”

“Not me, Leasha, you owe me nothing. But our family honour, our family’s duty to the Elves of Meadowvale—”

“You are the only family I have! And all you ever want me to do is prepare for your death!”

“Leasha... I—”

But she was stopped short when the great, wooden doors of the chamber were flung open. Evaline turned quickly to berate whosoever dared to interrupt her private council but the look on the face of the Guard silenced her before she spoke.

“We have wounded Elves, ma’am, pouring in from the villages of Healer’s Pond and Brook Hollow.” The Guard’s uniform was bloodstained, and he was struggling to stand. “There-there’s been another attack.”

Evaline’s face turned pale, the Motherland had never faced such a crisis in her lifetime, but she was quick to respond. “Ring out the bells, clear the Council Chambers for the wounded and gather all the Healers, ALL of them, Apothecaries, soldier medics, even Priests. We need every Elf who can make a poultice on hand, understood?”

The Guard nodded and left. Leasha went to follow him, but Evaline grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Where are you going? We haven’t finished here.”

“You said all Healers. If I cannot at least use my Skill to help, then what good am I?”

Evaline sternly held her niece’s gaze for a moment longer then nodded. “Go and help our people.”

The Guardian of the Wood

Broc clutched her arm and they turned to see the great, dark beast fighting its way through the forest. Its black claws scratched and pushed at the sacred trees of the grove as its sharp-toothed jaws snapped and snarled in anger.

Several Hunters were ready with their slings and rained a hail of runestones down upon the Forest Drake, the slight magic of the runes ensuring each shot rang true. Others were gathering up screaming children and pushing back the unarmed, herding them towards the village. As the Dragon roared it drew life from the ancient trees. The leaves withered and turned black.

The black-haired Fia and Eala, a young woman with long, loose curls, were gathering children and screaming for others to follow as they tried to make their way back towards the relative safety of the roundhouse.

But Breanna stared.

All she could hear was the Whisper.

The silent thundering roar filled with a mad, driving hunger that could not be sated. It called to her and clawed at her insides. It was all she could think and all she could feel.

An unearthly screeching filled the air and shook the trees. A Hunter fell backwards as the life was ripped from him.

Broc drew his axe, readying himself for the impossible encounter. “Get back.” He shook her arm to wake her from her trance. “Get back to the village! Hide!” The fear in his dark brown eyes, so like their father’s, pulled Breanna out of her half-dream. She slid her little butchering knife from its sheath, readying herself, but she couldn’t run. She couldn’t leave him when she knew that any defence against the Dragon was impossible.

Shots from a dozen slings rebounded off the dark, thick scales but the creature was relentless. It surged forward, consuming a Huntsman that stumbled and still Breanna watched, unmoving. The soft Whispering in her mind called out to sate a hunger that was all-consuming.

She’d heard that sound, that silent thunder, during the procession and said nothing. She had known it was coming back. Known deep down inside that it would come back for her. Only seven days since the first attack, barely a chance to deal with all the bodies of the fallen and yet the Forest Drake had come back to take her. She should have trusted her instincts. She knew she’d heard the shadows in the dark; she should have warned them all then. But warned them of what? That she was cursed? That the Sacred Guardian of the Wood wanted to punish them all because she had wanted her father gone, her tribe gone, the ways of the wood gone? Perhaps they wouldn’t have believed her, or perhaps they would have believed her and struck her down.

Either way, it was too late now.

The Elder, Grainneog, a rugged woman, bony but strong, with hair twisted into a hundred white knots, had taken charge of the defence. Two dozen villagers stood at her side. With axes and slings, they slowed the charging beast. All their lives the creature had been gentle, a spirit rarely seen, a Guardian of the Wood that blessed only the most fortunate with His presence, but now He charged at them, drawing the life from anyone in His crushing path.

Broc charged forward with his axe held high. He desperately slashed at the Drake’s tendril tail that lashed in the darkness of the woods. Colm, a close friend of their father’s, strong as four men and fierce as a dozen, with a mess of chestnut hair in tight, wild curls, and a battle axe as long as he was tall, fought by Broc’s side.

The Hunters were not trying to win; there was no defeating a Dragon. All they could do was stall it, hold back its advance while some of the Woodlanders made it to safety.

But even as Breanna watched her friends sacrifice themselves, her feet would not move.

Those strange ethereal whispers held sway. She felt as the Dragon did. She needed to consume. All other thoughts were forced from her mind.

The protective hand of Grainneog grabbed her shoulder. “Get the children to safety.” She shook Breanna, pulling her gaze from the golden eyes of the Forest Drake and something in Grainneog’s voice pierced through the veil.

Breanna tried to focus, tried to follow Grainneog’s order but as Eala grabbed her arm and pulled her off towards the village she remembered that she was one of the children. Still a no one, still a child being dragged to safety by her Elders.

“This way!” Fia, carrying two little ones, with several others in tow led the way, and Breanna was pulled along in a daze and rushed through the forest path towards the roundhouse.

It was only when the heavy wooden doors crashed shut behind her, with the sturdy thud of oak, that the whispering shadows in her mind dissipated. She turned back to the entrance and realised what she had done.

“Broc!” He was still out there.

She had left her brother to die.

A New Order

The Master of Dragon March and six of his closest advisers were at their morning prayers. A sacred golden effigy of the Great White Dragon of the Marches was placed at the centre of their round table. Their pudgy, well-fed, ring-encrusted hands were joined together, and their heavy-jowled, grey-haired heads were bowed in worship of the beast.

The moment they were disturbed Galvyn, the thickly bearded Master, with a belly like a barrel of ale, stood and broke the sacred circle. His reddened face was a picture of rage. The advisers, eyes blinking, began to turn, wondering what had brought them out of their morning meditations.

“What’s the meaning o’ this?” Galvyn, in his gold-trimmed black robes of state, trembled and his nostrils flared as he studied the dozen Guards and the robed mage who had dared to enter at this hour.

With a flick of her hand Andra gave the order and her soldiers filed in and took their places behind the advisers: two Guards to a man. It was difficult to tell the Advisers apart, each of an age and weight that gave them the authority to act as they had always pleased. Their faces reddened with years of drink, and their bellies engorged with years of feasting. These balding, bearded, gold-coated men’s only ever struggle in life had been indigestion. Andra’s faithful Guards held their blades to the old men’s throats and they glanced to one another before slowly raising their hands in surrender.

“Captain? What is this?” The Master stepped away from his chair, his eyes fixed on his supposedly loyal officer. But it wasn’t Andra who answered him.

“It’s time for a change, old man.” Olwen’s voice was a rasping hiss and she sidled towards him like a Wyrm.

“Wizards are not welcome in Dragon Hold, you will leave immediately!” His voice held authority even as he backed away from the woman and his jowls shook as he raged.

“Oh, I’m no Wizard.”

“How dare you interrupt our morning prayer—?”

Olwen grabbed the man’s throat. He stammered and stuttered and his eyes widened as she squeezed. He clawed uselessly at her hand but she ignored his bleating. “The people await their Master.” She threw the old man to the ground.

For a moment, Andra pitied him as he squirmed around on the floor. He was an old man, a father to his children and his people. But she knew better. She knew how he and his Priests ruled their flock, greedily taking more than they needed while farmers and their families starved. He was responsible for the country’s constant state of capitulation to the Elves, which made Druids hungry even as they worked their own land. He had negotiated the agreement with the Wizards to hand over any daughter who showed even a glimmer of magic, never to be seen again. He ensured that the women who remained in Dragon March were second-class citizens unable to hold land, unable to have their own wealth, or hold positions of real power.

He was a Master who did not wish to rule powerful people. Especially not powerful women.

He scurried away from Olwen and looked to Andra, then to the seated council. “Stop this.” He was no longer authoritative, his voice weak from the choke hold. “Captain? Andra? This is madness. I’ve gold. Is that what you want? Same wages as the men? I’ll see to it.”

Andra remembered the pride she’d felt upon completing her entry tests for the Dragon Guard. She had proven herself worthy only to have no ceremony, no recognition of her achievements. Only men could be honoured, while women in the ranks were an embarrassment. They were a secret shame that the Dragon Army had been forced to endure in order to swell their blighted numbers.

She’d had enough. She no longer wanted Galvyn to think of her as loyal; she wanted him to know. She needed him to know that she despised him, that his own people despised him, and that he had lost everything. She strode towards him, grabbing his arm and hauling him off the ground.

“Olwen said your people await their Master.” Andra pushed him towards the giant doors of the balcony overlooking the hill fort. She opened the doors with her free hand and dragged him out into the cool air of the morning.

More people of the fort had gathered below, standing about in the cold and muttering between themselves both curious and confused. As Andra and the Master emerged, heads turned, people pointed, and the chattering rippled across the crowd in a wave.

She held her breath for the second time that morning. If Galvyn still held the loyalty of the Druids, then there would be nothing her sword could do to prevent her, and her comrades, falling foul of the people. The revolution would have been lost before it had even begun.

When Olwen, the strange, golden-eyed woman in dark red robes followed her out onto the balcony, there was even more muttering and gasps. The chattering grew. Andra could feel the excitement of the people trickle over her skin. They all knew something was different today.

Some of them knew of Olwen and those who didn’t recognised her robes as those of the Wizard Council. Druid or not, she looked like a Wizard and the Master’s balcony was a strange place for a mage of any kind.

Olwen stepped forward and raised her arms and eyes to the sky, as a silence descended like night. She paused, forcing the crowd to wait even longer, building more curiosity and anticipation. Until finally, she lowered her arms and looked directly at the Druids below.

“Too long!” she shouted. “Too long have we been under the power of the Master. Too long the Druids of Dragon March have been held down, held back, and forced to worship at the altar of a Dragon!”

Andra shifted her feet. The crowd were transfixed but silent. There was no sign of loyalty on either side.

“This man,” Olwen pointed to the Master, and Andra obediently pushed him forward, ensuring he could be seen by everyone, “calls himself ‘Master’, but he is no master! He is a servant! A pitiful slave to the white lizard growing fat in our hold. And for what? For what do we serve the Dragons? Forced to worship them, pray to them, and make sacrifices to them! How many of you have given more than half of your earnings to the Dragon?”

There was a murmuring. The people were starting to understand, to see what was occurring.

“You will regret this.” The Master was a fool. Even now he was assured of his superiority.

“We give and give and give to the Great White Dragon, and does she protect us? Does she patrol our borders? Preventing the incursions of Orcs? Did she stop the Dwarves from infesting our mountains and throwing our people out of our ancestral lands? Did she prevent the Druid people dividing down the middle into the nations of Midwinter and Dragon March? This is a time when Druids should be standing together, united as ‘one people’: did she prevent our split?” Olwen stopped, giving the audience a moment to respond.

There was a muttering as people consulted with one another and Andra bit her lip: the people were not as fired up as she had hoped. Did they not care that the lands of the Druids had been cut back and back and back until there were only two pitiful territories left?

But Olwen wasn’t finished.

“Where was the Great White Dragon during the winter fever? Where was the Great White Dragon during the blight of the fifth season? Where was the Great White Dragon when the Elves of Meadowvale took our Hunting Grounds? Where was she then? She was down in the Hold! Getting fat from our harvests!”

The crowd were getting louder. There was a shout of agreement as she fired them up. Melva the housewife was imbedded deep in the audience, her face fired with rage and her fists held aloft as she screamed her agreement.

“Druids are not mere serfs! Druids are the ancestral people of the Edge Islands! We have been upon this land far longer than Orcs, or Dwarves, or Elves! This is our land! And these are OUR Dragons! Dragons are not our masters; we are the masters of the Dragons!”

With this, people in the crowd began to shout. It started with a handful of voices but became a crashing, thunderous wave in seconds. Olwen had touched a nerve. She had opened the wound of ferocious and righteous anger that had been festering within the Druids of Dragon March for years, and she knew exactly what to do with that rage.

“This is blasphemy!” the Master cried. “I will see you burn for this, witch!”

Olwen ignored him. “I say: no more!” she cried, and Andra swelled with joy as the people repeated her, “I say: no more will the Elves encroach upon our lands! No more will our farmers toil to give half to Dragons! No more will the Wizards take our young mages and turn them against us. No more will the Druids of Dragon March be enslaved by the diktats of others! Druids are the true masters of magic yet any maiden that shows signs of being a mage is taken from her family and handed to the Wizard Council. Not for the good of the Druids. Not so that she might return with her learning to help the Druid people. No, it is for the good of the Wizards and Wizards alone! They steal our daughters and we are left with Dragon Priests who do nothing but line their pockets and laden their tables in the name of worship. I say: No more!” Olwen undid the red robe of the Wizard Council, revealing underneath the plain brown woollen smock of a Druid maiden. In one simple move, she was showing the crowd that she had magic, but she was loyal to Druids, not Wizards. Andra hadn’t known this part of this plan. She smiled at Olwen’s simple genius and loved her more than ever.

Olwen tore off the robe and lifted it up, holding it over the rail of the balcony before tossing it into the crowd and shouting, “Today I say: No more!”

“No more!” The crowd took up the chant and Olwen let them. She turned to Andra, the pride of her achievement shining through her eyes. They held each other’s gaze for just a moment before Olwen turned back to the people. She raised her hand and they fell immediately silent, like well-trained pups.

“But,” she sighed and shook her head sadly, “alas, we have those who would see us as Dragon servants for eternity.” She lazily held out her hand to the Master, and a mass of incoherent shouting began. Insults and cries of injustice all gradually morphed back into the unified chant of “No more!” until once again Olwen was forced to hold up her hand to quieten them.

“We cannot be free while this Master holds our chains!” She let a hush descend over the audience for a moment. “This man, who has kept us weak, who allows the Dwarves to take our mountains, and does nothing as the Elves rule our Hunting Grounds! Where was he when our people starved? Where was he while the Orcs of the North plundered our homes? Made ‘wanderers’ of our noble people? Where was he? Here! Cowering behind the high walls of this hill fort! Feeding our harvest to a lizard!”

Cries of “No more!” were repeated again and again as the crowd went into a frenzy.

Olwen shouted over them, no longer able or willing to silence the Druids’ rage. “How many lay dead because of him? How many of your friends? Of your kin? How many more Druids will die so that he can worship his pet?”

“Throw him off!” It started with just one voice. Andra recognised the booming timbre of Melva down in the crowd, but it didn’t matter that it started with one; it became a torrent in a matter of seconds. Wolves calling for blood. Andra’s instinct was to protect the old man. She pulled him back from the edge.

“You wouldn’t dare!” the Master muttered, although his pale, white skin and wide eyes betrayed his full awareness that they would.

“Should we throw him off?” Olwen shouted.

“Throw him!” a few angry voices called but it wasn’t enough for her.

“Don’t taunt them so.” Andra was worried that the crowd would settle for nothing less than Galvyn’s blood on their hands. They had come to unseat him, not murder him.

“Should I have him thrown!?” Olwen screamed, and her voice reached a pitch of hysteria as the shouts below became one chant of “Throw him! Throw him!” again and again like the beating of a funeral drum.

“I beg you, please, please I beg of you!” He was digging his heels in, pushing back from the rail, scrabbling against the rock-firm grip of Andra. “I have a family, my—my granddaughter!” She had no answer for him. She hated everything he was and yet, as he struggled in her grip, she saw only a weak old man begging for her aid. She was a soldier, she killed her enemies on the battlefield. What was she if she murdered her enemies in cold blood?

Olwen reached out and stroked his cheek, her head slightly cocked to one side. A touch of sadness and pity played across her eyes and Andra was relieved. But she worried how the crowd, so fired by Olwen’s words, would react to a show of mercy.

“Your time,” Olwen whispered, “has come.” She looked up at Andra, a broad smile of triumph upon her lips, and with just the tiniest nod of her head she gave the order.

Andra froze.

She looked out across the chanting crowd, baying for blood. “Throw him! Throw him! Throw him!” She looked at Olwen, her eyes wide, infuriated at Andra’s delay.

So many had died already. So many had died at the hands of this man and so many more would die if she wavered. Yet if she used her strength to cut down the weak then she was as corrupt as him...

Yet the Master of Dragon March was not weak; he was the strongest man in the realm and he had used his power to suppress others. So, if not her, then who would act in their favour? Who could be their Champion if she could not? She was not using her strength to fight against the weak but for them, in their name, in the name of the Druid people, in the name of the starving, and the poor. In the name of each mother, and farmer and soldier, and child who stood below her now. She knew if she did nothing while her people were oppressed then she was on the side of the oppressors. If she did not defeat him, then she might as well be him.

“Throw him,” Olwen repeated, and with that, Andra heaved the screaming Master up and held him over the balcony.

“Please, Andra, please!” He was still whining and begging, clutching at her clothes, even as he hovered over the crowd that called for his death.

Then she let go.

Dragon Curse

Huddled in the stuffy roundhouse, Breanna was surrounded by the bawling of crying children and sobbing mothers.

She was hot and her muscles ached from crouching on the hard earth floor. But all she could think about was those whispers in the dark: she’d had warning. She’d known the Dragon was coming. She had brought it here.

Luchog had died in front of her, her father had died saving her, her village had been attacked, and countless others had fallen to the Forest Drake. She could have warned them, told them of her curse, and now Broc was missing, abandoned to his fate.

She had watched, uselessly, as he charged into battle with his axe held high. Once again, she had been scooted inside with the babies while the Hunters stood their ground. She would never earn her place as a Hunter if she ran from every fight or stood open-mouthed, gawping like a babe. She looked down at her butchering knife, with its short, bronze blade and worn-down, leather-bound grip. It was just like her. Small, unremarkable, and useless. As she turned the blade in her hand it caught her finger. She gasped as a jewel of bright red blood formed. She couldn’t even hold a knife without coming to harm.

It was no wonder the Sacred Guardian had cursed her.

She groaned, wiping away the blood and replacing her blade in its little sheath on her belt. She made a promise to herself then: if Broc still lived, she would not fail him again. She would earn her axe, she would repay her debt to the village, she would avenge her father, and she would fight at her brother’s side.

Minutes drifted by. Excruciating and slow.

Breanna sat on the floor by the wall with her head in her hands, listening. Hovering above the sound of the heavy fearful breathing of the women, and the soft blubbing of the children, she could hear the crashing and cracking of trees being felled and huts being crushed. Iora, the Wise-Woman, a thin Woodlander with long, wild hair, just beginning to lighten with her years, was chanting, and scratching runes of protection on the ground by the door. Breanna wondered if it would be enough.

In the distance, she could hear the screams of villagers and with each desperate cry she felt torn in two; she was devastated that yet another of her kin was gone and yet relieved it was not her...

Finally, there was silence.

Everyone in the roundhouse held their breath. Eyes darted from one to another, each searching for confirmation that what they heard was the final absence. That the Dragon had left. Either sated or searching elsewhere for souls to take.

It was Eala, her long curls trailing down her back, who eventually crept forward and pressed her ear up against the door. Eala had always seemed older than her years and with only two summers more than Breanna’s seventeen, she already had her sister’s babe to care for. Everyone waited as she listened.

“I think He is gone.” But her low whisper betrayed her trepidation.

“Wait a while longer.”

“There are children out there.”

“We can do no good if we are taken.”

“We can do no good if we hide in here.”

There was a general disagreement and it was Fia, Breanna’s aunt, who took charge. “It is gone,” she said, standing and listening. “Gone or sated, and it is time for us to face what it has left us.”

At her words there was a silent agreement. She cast her eye around the room again, waiting for a challenger, and then she put her hand upon the heavy oak doors, took a deep breath, and pulled them open.

A mass of devastation greeted them: caved-in roofs of huts, smashed fences, felled trees, fires and blackened remains smoking in the morning sun.

As the Woodlanders slowly crept over the threshold into the light, there were cries and gasps.

One woman ran forward, crying out her daughter’s name, dismissing the hesitations she’d previously held.

“Is there anyone left?”

It was a question they all wondered, but as they walked into the bright and unyielding light of an early autumn morn, others crept out of storage pits, huts, and from under fallen walls. Children, Hunters and Elders were emerging from every crack and crevice. Eala ran forward and embraced her curly-haired father, Colm, who staggered to his feet battered and bruised but alive, his battleaxe still in his grip. Reunions were joyful with cries and laughter that mirrored darkly the screams and cries of reunions with silent kin, those who stared unseeing at the sky.

There were dozens who had not made it through, and it was clear the Dragon had been sated at their village; the mourning would be great.

The village buildings, too, had suffered. As well as the trees that had been felled, homes had been crushed under the great weight of the beast, hog pens lay smashed and scattered, stores of food were laid waste, patches of yellowed, twisted foliage stained the forest and the smell of rotten mulch mingled with charcoal. Birds lay stone-dead as if they had just fallen out of the sky, two huts were no more than blackened, smouldering rings of burned wood, and another two were burning still. Trees, older than their village, were blackened and their lush canopy had withered to nothing; several of the hogs and goats had made a bid for escape in the melee and were now scattered around the village munching or dozing, exhausted from the disruption.

The village was destroyed, and its people massacred.

Breanna searched desperately for her brother, refusing to look to the scorched ground, refusing to see the bodies that could be his. She called out his name. She ran to their own hut. The roof had caved in and the hearth had set the building alight: he couldn’t be inside, she refused to believe it. She turned and ran towards the Sacred Grove, calling out for him, leaping over fallen fences and felled trees.

Suddenly a hand clasped her shoulder and she whirled around, nearly falling.

“I’m here, little one.”

Her eyes bursting with ready tears, she grabbed Broc and squeezed him, clutching him so tightly that he would never leave her again.

“Can’t breathe!” He laughed in a desperate relief as she let him go and he ruffled her hair, taking a deep breath. His own dark hair was in disarray, his leathers were rumpled and torn, mud and charcoal stained his clothes and face, but he was safe.

She grabbed his hand, not wanting to let him go, and together they picked through the devastation of the village. Breanna led him over to the wreckage of their hut hoping there was something they could begin to salvage.

Their furniture was destroyed, wooden storage chests had been smashed and the contents spilled out, food was ruined, clothes and furs were torn and burned. Breanna picked up the scattered remains of her sling: no more than a burned, loose leather cord. It was beyond repair.

“What do we do now?” Broc asked.

It was the same question that was on the lips of every villager. Some had already begun to repair. There was a steady hammering; Sionnach, a usually happy young farmer, a few winters older than Broc, was determinedly repairing his hog pen. It was an act of both futility and defiance.

“Look.” Breanna pointed towards a gathering near the open doors of the roundhouse. They exchanged a glance then abandoned the wreckage of their hut and headed over.

“We can make it in less than a day,” Colm the Elder was saying.

“But Dad, what of the young ones?” Eala argued. “We’ve one that can barely walk, I can’t carry her the whole way.”

“We still have some carts, we can bring the hogs and the goats, use them to drive. We’ll take whatever food is left: between us all we can carry much, and those who can’t walk will ride.”

“But this is our home, Colm,” Grainneog the Elder, her white, twisted knots of hair in disarray from the battle, stepped forward to argue. “Who among us won’t fight for it?”

Breanna tugged at the sleeve of her aunt, Fia. “What’s happening?”

“Colm proposes we leave for the coast.”

“What?” Broc was dismayed; he fought his way forward.

“We cannot fight the Forest Drake!” Colm continued. “He is our kin as much as anyone. He has protected us, fought for us–”

“And now He kills us!” someone shouted.

“Exactly!” Colm replied with passion. “And not one amongst us knows why!” He looked pointedly at their Wise-Woman, Iora: she had no reply to give and looked down with a sigh.

But Breanna knew. She knew she was cursed. She knew she had betrayed the ways of her people. She knew the Sacred Guardian, the Forest Drake, was angry with her. She knew the Spirit was punishing her people for her failures. She opened her mouth to tell them: she needed them to know but she didn’t have the words to explain, and she didn’t have the courage to confess.

“The caves at the coast are as sacred to us as the forest we live in now,” Colm went on. “Our forefathers landed there just three generations ago: those caves kept them safe over their first winter here. They will keep us safe. They are protected. Nothing, not even a Dragon, can enter once we have closed it off. We can forage off the coast, relight the ovens, and fires, there is a natural spring deep within those caves... We can be safe. We can stay out the winter as our grandfathers did.”

“And what of the other villages?” called a voice from the back.

“We can send word to them to join us, two Hunters to each village within a day’s travel. All Woodlanders will be safe!” Colm was passionate, his round face reddening with his words, his arms gesturing frantically, but as his excitement grew so did Breanna’s dread. Her whole village was about to be exiled to the cold coast for something she had done and she had no way of knowing if the wrath of the Forest Drake would follow them to the sea.

“Will we ever come back?” Eala asked.

Colm looked at her, and all eyes were on Colm. Everyone knew his answer and yet there was silence as they waited and hoped. “I don’t know,” he shook his head, “perhaps the Forest Drake wishes us to leave these lands forever, perhaps we have outstayed our welcome, perhaps the Drake’s hunger is sated and that was the last attack.” He waited a moment before continuing, “All I know is that I don’t ever wish to see this devastation upon my people again.”

There was a murmuring of agreement. Bodies still lay upon the ground, children cried for lost parents, and parents sobbed for lost children. Breanna’s thoughts turned to her father, his voice, his smell, his presence; always there, annoying her, protecting her, loving her... gone.

The village had never known such disaster; it was too raw to even comprehend.

“Leaving will do no good!” Broc stepped forward, and all eyes turned to him: his passion was fierce.

A knot twisted in Breanna’s stomach. Did he know? Did he know what she had done? Did he wish to expose her? Punish her? She looked at him, his broad shoulders, dark hair falling in tresses down his back, and his bronze axe at his belt. Broc was as tall as any man in the tribe, braver than all, and confident enough to speak his mind even in front of the Elders. She wondered how they could share the same blood and how deeply ashamed of her he must be.

But Broc continued with fervour. “Every Hunter knows that prey that runs only gets chased down. Our enemy would see us destroyed and you would have us hide? For how long? Til our babes in arms grow old and grey-haired?”

“The Forest Drake is not our enemy, young Broc,” Colm said gently.

Broc looked around at the destruction of their woodland home. “I think the Dragon would disagree.”

“So, what do you propose?” Grainneog asked.

“We go to the Elves.” A cry of disagreement arose from nearly every voice and Broc was forced to shout over them. “The Elves are strong in number and they are wise, they will know of the reasons for the Dragon’s behaviour.”

Breanna wondered if they would know, if the Elves would see her for what she was. They might help her, help all of them, or condemn her as a cursed creature.

“The Elves are a duplicitous people,” Colm warned. “Proud and selfish, they’ll not aid us.”

“We cut off contact with the Elves for good reason,” Iora, the Wise-Woman, agreed, “and all this death has brought out dark scavengers: the children and the injured would never survive the Dead Wood.” The putrid, rotting vegetation left in the Dragon’s wake had seemed to spread out further into the forest each day.

“Then I would go alone!” Broc shouted. “I’ll seek their aid and return with either an army or a way to defeat the Dragon.”

“No!” Breanna panicked but her voice was little more than a choke drowned out by the other voices of dissent. She couldn’t allow Broc to go; she couldn’t stand to lose him, and she couldn’t let him pay for her curse.

“There is no defeating a Dragon!”

“I will not die in hiding!” Broc shouted. He was fierce in his anger and many Hunters bowed their heads, ashamed that they were willing to run from this fight, while Broc, only three winters a man, stood his ground.

“You are an honourable Hunter, Broc: your father would be proud of your actions.” Colm stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. “But you’ll never make it through the Dead Wood alone. You won’t even know the direction.”

Two fears consumed Breanna instantly. The fear of losing him and the fear of what she must do to keep him. She knew his will was like rock and there was no moving it once it was set but she couldn’t be without him.

The overwhelming absence of her father, Coinin, was like a great shadow following her and clawing at her chest. Every so often, in the corner of her eye, she would see him, yet when she turned to look, there was only the empty space of where a man had once been. She knew she couldn’t cope with the absence of her brother as well, but if he would not stay then there was only one thing she could do.

Like two dark shadows the fears within her wrestled for supremacy, and it was the greatest darkness that answered for her. “I’ll go.” Her voice was quiet and weak, drowned out by the arguing that surrounded her. But too many times she had stood and watched as others earned their place. Too many times a younger novice had joined the Woodland Hunt and earned their axe while she allowed fear to stay her hand. For two long summers she had waited and fretted, wondering where her place was.

But now she knew, and it was time for her to step forward.

She forced her way through the crowd and stood at Broc’s side. “I’ll go,” she repeated, and was surprised at the firmness in her voice.

There was a murmured surprise among the Woodlanders and Colm looked at her with a friendly smile. “You’re a brave child—”

“I am of age,” she corrected.

But it was Broc who shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. You’re not yet a Hunter.”

“I could be,” Breanna replied, “I’m ready to earn my axe.” She wasn’t certain this was true; she wasn’t certain that she was yet ready to lay a fatal blow upon a beast, but she knew that she had to go with Broc. If she had been the one to lay a curse upon herself and her village, then she had to be the one to lift it.

Broc frowned. He opened his mouth but was interrupted before he could speak.

“I’ll take them.” Grainneog stepped forward and Colm turned to her, his eyes wide. “The young Hunter is right: Elves have been on this land far longer than our people. They will know what has caused this and they will offer advice, perhaps an army. Yet, if they do not, we have lost nothing by trying.”

“So, it is settled.” Broc looked up at Colm, his jaw firm.

Colm shrugged. “Go, if you wish.” He turned back to the huddle of dishevelled Woodlanders; all that was left of their thriving village. “I will force no one: you may stay here or follow me. I vow to do all I can to keep you safe, keep your children out of harm’s way, get our livestock to safety, and ensure the survival of our people.”

There was a hush. Colm turned his back on Broc and headed towards a broken cart to begin repairs. A few villagers followed him, and others began to gather supplies. Eala went to follow her father but looked back to Broc: they stared at each other for a long moment before Broc nodded and Eala turned away. Despite Broc’s passionate speech it appeared that they were not willing to follow him or even wait for his return.

“So, it seems the village really is destroyed,” Broc said with sadness.

“Oh no,” Grainneog put a hand upon his shoulder. “While the people live, so does the village. It is up to us,” she said, glancing at them both in turn, “to make sure we don’t live in fear.”

Breanna looked around at the fallen, smoking debris, and the people of her village gathering what little they could to survive. She knew that her life was never going to be the same again.

Dead Wood

Breanna, Grainneog and Broc hurried along the well-trodden, narrow track that zigzagged northward through the trees. As they travelled, signs of the night’s attack grew more infrequent. The familiar chirrups and calls told them that the birds felt it safe enough to return to their song. A gentle breeze flowed in from the west, ruffling the full summer leaves of the sycamores and silver birch and allowing the travellers to forget that the seasons were ready to roll into harvest.

Breanna wished she’d been able to change out of her heavy leather hunting clothes and into a softer, lighter travelling tunic. She missed her sling and had only her little butchering knife for protection. But then, she thought, even the finest axe would be useless against a Forest Drake, and she realised that she had no idea what they would do if they came across the Dragon in the forest. Would they run? Would they fight? Would the Dragon be in a rage? Would she hear its Whisper speaking to her as she’d heard before?

She listened hard to the sounds of the forest. She hoped she wouldn’t hear the sound she was dreading and felt foolish for ever thinking she should have started on this journey.

The few supplies that hadn’t been destroyed were to be taken south with the last of the Woodlanders. All that could be spared was a single day’s rations for each of them: some hard goats’ cheese, acorn bread, a little bag of roasted chestnuts, a few strips of salted hog meat, summer berries, and a flask of blackcurrant cordial. Broc had insisted he carry her rations in his pack and now he ran ahead of her, glancing over his shoulder every now and then to make sure she was keeping up with their swift pace. Breanna was irritated by his mothering and as they continued to travel harder, and further north than Breanna had ever travelled, she began to regret her decision to join him and could think only of blackcurrant cordial and roasted chestnuts.

Beneath her tunic, strung on a leather cord, was a runestone her aunt had given her. It was hot against her skin and hummed with faint magic pulsing with the beat of Fia’s heart. She had watched as her aunt had etched the rune upon the stone; the magic within stones was constant and steady but runecasting was still a difficult process and one that took many years to master. Fia had learned to recognise the faint rhythm of the stone’s natural magic pulsing gently within. She knew how to find the strands of energy and bend them to her will by etching lines of the perfect rune upon the surface. In this way she had connected her own life force to the stone so they would pulse in tandem, however far apart they might be.

“Wherever you go and however far you travel, my heart will always be with you.” Her aunt’s parting words cut deeply into her and it felt as though the heartstrings which tied Breanna to her home and kin were being stretched further and thinner with each step she took. How long before they snapped?

Why had she not escaped to the caves with the others? Why had she not run as they had? Fled the Forest Drake and its wrath?

But she looked up and saw Broc a few paces ahead, his stride swift and his face determined. Breanna knew she would never be a Hunter and never stand by his side as an equal if she ran from everything like the coward she really was.

As the morning wore on, her chest was struggling to keep pace with the breath she needed, her feet were sore, and her leathers were growing hotter and heavier under a late-summer sun. Breanna felt sure that the ancient Grainneog, who strode far ahead of Broc, would need a rest at any moment. No Hunter had ever been weak enough to need a rest break before an Elder, and she vowed to herself that she would never prove how weak she really felt.

To her relief, as the sun reached its highest point, she finally caught up with Broc and Grainneog. They had come to a halt next to a fallen pine, its roots upended and sticking out of the earth like the tendrils of a banshee. Breanna doubled over, her hands on her knees as she breathed hard trying to recover herself.

“But the track can’t have just disappeared?” Broc was saying.

Grainneog was staring slowly about the forest, her brow furrowed. She shook her head slowly. “I do not remember this place.” There was a fear in her voice that made the hairs on the back of Breanna’s neck stand on end. Could Grainneog be lost?

The path had been clear all the way from the village. Each side of the track was thick with lush ferns and, every so often, brambles laden with ripe blackberries that almost made Breanna weep as she had to rush past the tempting fruits.

But looking ahead into the forest before them, there was nothing.

The canopy was thick with stiff, blackened limbs, bare and brittle with age. Sharp spikes jutted out from every branch like thorns set into the thick, dark trunks. The forest floor was clear of greenery: not a fern, not a weed, not a beam of light broke through the canopy to hit the mulch-covered ground.

“I did not know it had reached this far.” Grainneog looked nervously to Broc.

“Can we go around it?” But already they knew the answer: the Dead Wood continued east and west as far as the eye could see.

“We have little time as it is,” Grainneog replied. “We cannot risk being stranded out here come nightfall.”

“Then we must keep going.” Broc stepped forward, drawing his axe.

Grainneog grabbed his arm and looked to Breanna. “Do we?”

Breanna knew what she meant: ‘Do we ALL have to go on?’ Awkwardly, she thumbed the handle of her little blade. Exhausted, hungry, and already homesick, the young Woodlander would have liked nothing better than to return home. She’d have liked to go back to a warm fire, and a supper of leafy salad, deer steak, and wild strawberry pie, her family and friends gathered around singing and dancing to celebrate the arrival of the harvest season.

But that world did not exist anymore.

She turned to look back the way they had travelled, thinking of the village, of its smouldering ruins, and the hurried funerals that would be taking place before the Woodlanders left the wood, possibly forever.

Breanna looked back to her Elder. “You promised to take us both to the Elves.”

Grainneog sighed. “That was when I thought I was guiding you through the forest, not this Dead Wood.” She shook her head. “We don’t know what creatures haunt this place.”

Breanna held her chin up and looked Grainneog in the eye; she knew she was a coward, but she was determined that no one should prove it. “Then we’ll find out.” And with all the courage she could muster, she stepped over the threshold.

Rotten branches blocked the path ahead, so decayed they crumbled and snapped under the slightest pressure. But clearing the way forward was time-consuming and exhausting. The three of them struggled on but could not maintain the swift pace they had kept all morning. Breanna was secretly relieved to be moving slower; she simply wasn’t used to the long journeys made by Hunters, but the thought of being stranded in this rotting forest after dark filled her stomach with a new fear.

They pressed on, stopping briefly to share a little bread and cheese, washing it down with a quick gulp of blackcurrant cordial, but none of them wished to linger and they hurried forward, ever north and ever deeper into the Dead Wood.

After a time, it became harder to see. Little light made it through the thick, silent canopy of bare branches, and the sound of birdsong grew ever more distant.

The traveller’s footfalls in the soft mulch of the rotting undergrowth, against the oppressive silence of the forest, seemed louder than the banging of a drum. The air was thick, the summer breeze that had softened their morning was gone, and the air was still and heavy. A musty scent rose from the mulch and grew stronger as they walked.

Breanna became drowsy and clumsy. Stumbling forward, she did her best to clear the sharp branches from the path but inevitably they caught upon her clothes and hair. They scratched at her face and legs, smearing her skin and clothes with a putrid rot and, more than once, she had to be freed with the help of Broc or Grainneog’s axe.

Breanna glanced behind her. The forest she had known her whole life was gone. All around her were the thick, rotting trees unrecognisable as trees at all. The corpses of a forest. She shuddered and pressed on.

All sense of direction was muddled and confused.

The sun was hidden beyond the canopy, and all around them shells of former trees were indistinguishable from one another and she could no longer tell what type they had once been. It seemed that either side and in front of them it was all the same. The oppressive warmth and heavy smell of decaying fungus were fogging her mind, and she felt as though she was forgetting why she was ever there.

As she pushed against a particularly tough branch blocking her path, a fat little webspinner dropped onto the back of her hand.

She screamed and flicked it off.

“Breanna?” Grainneog was there immediately.

“Nothing.” She was breathing hard but embarrassed at her fear of such a harmless creature. “Just a bug.” She forced a smile but Grainneog was pale and her eyes were scanning the trees all around them.

“Where did Broc go?”

A slice of cold fear pricked at Breanna’s belly and she turned quickly, looking for him through the trees. “I thought he was with us.”

She sighed in deep relief when she saw his silhouette, just a pace or so behind them crouching over something in the leaf matter. She hurried closer and realised he was kneeling over the gold-white and black fur of a badger.

“She’s just been left here,” Broc whispered and for the first time in years Breanna saw a little boy staring up at her expecting answers.

“It’s dead.” She put a hand on his shoulder.

“But why leave it?” he asked. “What creature would just abandon a kill as if... as if its life had meant nothing?”

Breanna had no answer and it was Grainneog who looked down at the creature and nodded with certainty. “It would have been the Forest Drake, Broc. He’s likely taken the life from everything in this place. Come, we must keep moving.” It was unsettling to hear a tinge of fear on the rugged Elder’s voice.

“We should bury her.”

“Broc,” Breanna said, standing over him, but struggling to find words of comfort, “we don’t have time.”

He looked up at her and the sadness in his eyes turned to fear. He drew his axe from his belt and she was scared for a moment that a spirit of madness in the forest had taken him. But his eyes were focused above her and she turned quickly to look.

The kill had not been abandoned.

Crawling deftly towards her through tight-knit branches, with fangs and legs, and a great, hairy abdomen was a creature only the death of the wood could have produced.

A webspinner, twice the size of a boar, with fangs to match, and row upon row of eyes stared down at them from its web hung across the boughs of two rotting trees. It was ready to pounce upon the fresh prey that had wandered into its territory.

Breanna screamed, then turned and ran back through the forest. She crashed through the branches that clawed at her and ripped at her clothes and skin.

She glanced back to see Broc and Grainneog, axes at the ready, preparing to attack the beast. As the foe pounced, Broc took out a leg and Grainneog smashed her axe through its face.

Breanna faltered, and then turned to rush back towards them, her knife drawn from her belt. But she was trapped. Her leg was caught in a soft thread that was sticky against her clothing. She brushed at the webbing, shaking it off in disgust but only serving to trap herself further: she cut desperately at the cords with her knife.

Then she gasped.

A webspinner stared at her from the shadows, clacking its fangs.

She tried to back away, flailing with her knife and, as she did, she noticed dozens of creatures crawling about in the shadows, creeping from burrows, hiding in webbing, making their way towards her with legs and eyes and fangs.

Slashing this way and that, clumsily wielding her little butchering blade, Breanna fought desperately. The webbing had bound her legs and she stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, the sweat of fear pouring from her brow.

A webspinner leapt at her. She slashed, making contact with the beast, and slicing through its nocturnal features. Blood spurted from its eyes. With a strangled, squealing cry it withdrew.

Elated at her small victory, Breanna twisted onto her stomach and tried to scramble to her feet. But her legs were bound fast. The more she struggled the tighter the webbing became.

Twisting this way and that, a sudden piercing pain shot through her calf. She screamed. Glancing back, she saw another creature had a hold of her leg, its fangs sinking into her flesh through the leather of her boot. She swiped at the creature, contorting her body to slash desperately at its features.

A feeling of cold, like silver blood, ran up her leg and drowsiness filtered into her body.

She was heavy.

Breanna fought to crawl away from the creature, its fangs gripping her flesh. But she could no longer feel it. She could no longer feel her leg at all.

A cold wave washed over her as she clawed at the earth. Fighting to scramble away from the webspinner lair. But there was no fighting the heaviness that pulled her into an unwilling sleep.

“Bree!” The voice was distant.

It called again, and she forced herself upwards out of the dark. Broc was shaking her; she was sluggish and heavy. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, and her mouth wouldn’t say the words she wanted it to.

Grainneog, her great axe in her hands, was setting an end to the webspinner that had gripped her in its jaws. But there were more, evermore scurrying down from the branches and crawling up from their burrows.

Grainneog swung again with her axe, swiping each one away as they came for her.

As Breanna fought to keep her eyes open she saw a great shadow above Broc. His name formed on her lips, but she couldn’t move to warn him.

He followed her gaze and deftly took out the webspinner above his head with one swing of the axe.

“Run!” Grainneog shouted as another webspinner fell at her feet. “Take her and run!”

Broc didn’t linger, he pulled at Breanna’s limp body. She couldn’t even lift an arm to help. He heaved her from the ground and slung her over his shoulder. Taking off into the woods, fighting to run from the creatures as the horde came in and swallowed Grainneog.

The last thing Breanna saw was the great axe of Grainneog the Elder disappearing under the swarm.

The Edge

Running this way and that, charging through the tough bracken, carrying his sister over his shoulder, it wasn’t long before Broc stumbled and fell to his knees. He groaned with pain as he eased Breanna onto the ground. Her body was stiff and trembling, her teeth chattering with unnatural cold.

“Breanna!” He shook her, but she seemed so far away. He held her face up, trying to gauge her drowsiness, shaking her out of the unnatural sleep. “Breanna!” His voice was higher as he struggled to keep calm.

“Grainneog,” Breanna managed to stammer through her haze and chattering teeth, “go back, leave me here...”

“No!” He would never leave her. He didn’t understand how she could even think it. She must be truly dazed. He shook her again, frantic, desperate for her to stay awake but trying not to hurt her. “Come on, little one.” He glanced back along the ragged path that his desperate clambering had cut through the Dead Wood.

There were shadows moving in the dark.

“Leave me...” She pushed at him weakly.

He dragged her slumbering body to her feet, his muscles straining. There was no way he could carry her any further. She stumbled, barely able to carry her own weight on her useless legs. “Come on, Bree.” He turned, her arm slung over his shoulders, and half-carried, half-dragged her northward. Away from the creatures.

The pair staggered on, tripping and stumbling as he fought to keep her upright; the sharp, dead branches of the rotten trees snapped and sliced, cutting into them, jabbing and flicking as Broc fought on.

He knew they had to keep moving: if the webspinners did not defeat them then nightfall surely would.

“Grainneog,” Breanna muttered in a half-dream. Broc had no answer for her, but he wasn’t certain she would understand him if he did.

“There will be food when we reach the Meadowvale.” Broc hoped his voice would cut through the daze, that he would soothe her troubled spirit. “I’ve heard their bread is made from meadow grains, as is their cider.” He couldn’t bear the thought that she was lost to him and hoped that he could coax her along with promises of food just the same way he used to coax her out of bed for dawn training.

BREANNA’S FEET WERE numb. Her body felt as though it were buried in frost. She didn’t know why she was so cold or why the world was so dark. But somewhere, far away through the haze, she could hear her brother’s voice. He was calm and comforting.

She didn’t know if she was awake or sleeping but she wasn’t alone. His words were indistinct, low muttering and constant.

“There will be sweetmeats, fruits, with cream. I’ve heard they keep honey mead by the barrel in Meadowvale, lightly spiced and warm. We shall sit by their great fires, Breanna! You wait, you shall be glad of it.”

She didn’t know how long they walked or how far; she didn’t know how many miles through the thickets he half-dragged her useless body. But all of a sudden, in a rush of cool, fresh air, the trees fell away and the forest was gone.

It was as though a heavy, wet blanket was swept from her. In an instant her head cleared, and she could open her eyes.

The last of the sun was falling below distant plains to the west and its red light streaked across the sky in a dazzling wave of scarlet and pink. She gasped. She had forgotten what it was like to see so much sky. It stretched out far above her, so vast she felt she might fall into it.

The greensward swept down to a low, dark, twisting river in a shallow valley, the River Blackwater. Beyond it, rolling up and off into the distance, were miles and miles of green meadows. Hedgerows cut through the land in harsh, straight lines, rigidly criss-crossing the rolling hills like the bridle on a beast of burden.

Breanna still couldn’t move, and she fought for breath as she and Broc leaned against each other, exhausted at the edge of the woods.

As she looked out over the treeless land she knew deep inside that the forest was a part of who she was. It was all she had ever really known and once she left it, and entered that vast openness, she would be leaving a part of herself behind. She would no longer be herself. She would exist as only a fraction of what she should be.

The weakness of her limbs was not the only thing holding her back.

She couldn’t bring herself to leave the woods.

Breanna shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered, edging backwards away from the vast, open skies and back into the comforting dark of the trees.

“It’s alright.” Broc laid a steady hand on her shoulder and she looked up into his eyes. “I can help you. We just have to cross the Blackwater and we are in Meadowvale.”

His eyes were so like their father’s and his hand so strong and reassuring. But she could feel hot tears threatening to swell in her eyes. “I’m a coward.” She backed away, her legs weak and unsteady. “I should never have come.” Regret choked her as she remembered that brave woman swallowed by the horde. “Grainneog would still be alive if it weren’t for me.”

Broc grabbed her shoulders and held her tightly, looking directly into her eyes. “You are not a coward.” His eyes were fierce and his words firm. Breanna bit her lip to stop it from trembling. “Just by joining me you have shown that you are braver than every Hunter in the village and you haven’t even earned your axe.”

“But I’m just so weak.” She fought back tears even in telling Broc, a brother who adored her, shame burned at her. “All I’ve done is run away, that’s all I ever do.” She thought back to her training, how she had always wavered on the final shot, how she had cowered away from those who spoke of her failures in whispered corners, how she had watched her peers grow to adults while she had remained as a child.

“Sometimes running is the only thing you can do.” Broc almost growled his words. “Fear has a purpose, you feel it for a reason: it keeps you safe, use it, follow it, understand it. But never let it consume you.” His hands softened their hold on her, and he glanced away, scanning their new horizon. “You are right to be scared, we’ll be cautious.” He held out a hand to her and she stared at it.

There was danger all around them, she could feel it. Her calf was throbbing, the pain finally breaking through the paralysis. She could stand and was certain she could walk but the poison was still pounding through her veins, fogging her mind, making her drowsy.

Every direction contained danger. But Broc was right, she felt fear for a reason: she couldn’t ignore it, but she couldn’t let it defeat her either. And she had him: by her brother’s side she could be strong.

If the sun was destined to set on Grainneog for the last time that day, then Breanna was determined to ensure that the Elder had not given her life in vain. She took Broc’s hand and together they stood and crossed the threshold into the borderlands of Meadowvale.

The hard ground felt strange beneath her feet after the soft mulch of the Dead Wood. Her legs were weak, but their downhill progress was steady. Breanna fought to keep her eyes open and her body moving, but the heavy slumber of the webspinner poison washed over her and she stumbled along at Broc’s side. He grabbed her, wincing as he strained his tired muscles, and on they travelled.

Taking slow, deep breaths of the cool evening air, Breanna gradually began to feel calmer and the drowsiness was kept at bay. She glanced behind. The Dead Wood stared back.

It was terrifying and yet she longed for her home within the safety of the shadows.

From here, she saw the forest from outside. Acres of trees, a dark wall of forest stretching as far as she could see to the east and under the dying sun in the west. The canopy stretched back so far to the south that it was beyond all she could see. As far away as another world.

Broc’s hand tightened on her arm. He gasped.

Then she heard it, too: something was growling.

Breanna tightened her grip on her brother, and her breath caught in her chest as she stopped still in the green meadow. Broc drew his axe. She turned to look up at him. His eyes were scanning the darkening greensward.

Then they saw it.

A snarling, four-legged beast.

Large as a wild hog, its fur was sleek and silver, bright dark eyes, sharp-pointed ears pinned back, its shoulders hunched over, and lips drawn back to reveal a snarling jaw of sharp teeth.

She swallowed hard, full of fear but certain that between the two of them they could overcome the creature.

Until another sauntered out of the shadows to stand at its side.

Then another and another and another until there were half a dozen of the beasts standing together sizing up their prey. Breanna, still unsteady on her feet, began to back away.

“Get behind me,” Broc hissed. But his words were as though through water: all she could hear was the growling, and all she could see was the bright, fierce eyes staring.

“Your knife, Breanna, where is your knife?” Broc took a defensive stance in front of her, facing down these unfamiliar creatures. Breanna didn’t move as she watched the animals pace, sizing up their enemy.

“For the love of fire, Breanna, draw your knife!”

She snapped from her haze and fumbled at her belt, but the sheath was empty. She had fended off those damned webspinners in the Dead Wood. Her knife was still there, lost in their lair.

“It’s gone.”

Broc glanced at her, his eyes wide, and at that moment the beasts attacked.

“Run!” Broc gave her a hard push in the direction of the trees.

Breanna turned and darted for the safety of the woods. She glanced back to look for Broc, but he wasn’t following, he’d stood his ground. She stopped, staring in fright as the beasts tore towards him. She was frozen in indecision, unable to help and unable to leave.

Then, as a beast tore away from the group and headed in her direction, her decision was made for her. She turned for the woods. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her numb legs carried her, half-drunk with a potion of poison and fear, towards the tall shadows of trees.

Suddenly a beast shot out in front of her, cutting off her route. She halted for the briefest of moments. Weak, defenceless. She had no way to stand her ground. She turned and took off down the meadow towards the river.

Her feet were sacks of sand weighing her down, but her body was filled with a rush of fear that forced her on. Down to the river valley she ran, fighting to keep her own feet from tripping her up. She cried out in shock as she realised the beasts were keeping pace with her, one on either side. Then she stumbled: tripping on her own feet, she fell forward into the shallow water. Hitting her knees on hard stones and scraping her hands on the loose shingle, the icy water rushed over her. Breanna spluttered as she fought to stand. Her clothes were heavy and wet, and her limbs numb with shock.

With the force of a dozen warriors, Breanna was knocked again into the shallow river. She cried out as claws dug into her back and rows of sharp teeth pierced the flesh of her shoulder. The angry snarling of the beasts’ hot breath was in her ear and she rolled onto her back, fighting with every ounce of strength to throw it off.

She scrambled up. But another leapt onto her chest; her weak arms held it back as it snarled and spat, snapping its jaws inches from her face.

Crying out in pain, she grabbed at its throat. As strong as the beast was, her fear was stronger, and she tore the animal from her. Fighting again to stand, her pain and desperation filled her with an unfamiliar rage.

But another fell upon her, then another. As she fought, bare hands against ferocious teeth, she knew she was already dead.

But instead of despair, the thought filled her with courage. As the strength of the beasts pulled her down, she fought to stay standing; then, as she was dragged to her knees she saw something above her. At the crest of the hill overlooking the river, almost a silhouette in the dying light of day, was a huge red stag, three times the size of any deer of the woods. Atop the giant beast, with long, flowing, plaited hair the darkest shade of copper, was an Elf.

She cried out for his help as he raised his bow. His face twisted into an animalistic snarl. He pointed his arrow directly towards her and fired.

Cassian

Leasha crumpled, fully dressed, onto the bed with a deep sigh of satisfaction. Any minute now she would get up, wash and change. But her muscles ached, and her mind was numb from so many hours on high alert.

Healing magic was tiring when used on just one individual, but there had been a hundred or so homeless Elves streaming into the city. Each with burns, breaks, sprains, and gashes from escaping the Meadow Dragon, as well as the thirst and exhaustion that accompanied a hurried flight across Meadowvale to the capital city. Leasha had been run ragged.

Of course, few Elves had survived a direct encounter with the Meadow Dragon; most of the wounds were from tumbling buildings, or falling under a stampede of other Elves, fleeing scared. She had been careful to avoid using magic in all except the most extreme cases and was able to get away with bandages and potions for the most part. But even so, a long day on her feet, calling on her Skill at least once each hour, the body of the Elven Princess had been drained beyond caring about her nightclothes.

A furious knocking pulled her out of a half-dream. She rolled over. Was the noise even real or just a leftover imagining from an overstrained mind?

But the fierce banging came again. She groaned and decided she didn’t care. Someone else could wrap a bandage. If they needed magic she was too spent to be of any help.

They would have to find another.

She hid her head under the bedclothes. But the knocking didn’t let up.

“Go away!” Surely a direct order from a royal would be enough to scare the intruder off? But if anything, the knocking became even more urgent.

Furious, she heaved herself out of bed and prepared the foulest obscenities her tired mind could summon. Whichever Guard or courtier had dared to interrupt the sleep of the Princess after such an exhausting day would live to regret it.

She stormed across her quarters and pulled open the door, ready to scream into the night.

A wide-eyed, heavy-set Elf with long, flowing, plaited hair the darkest shade of copper, barged her out of the way and charged into her room. He was carrying a heavy burden, a figure wrapped tightly in a blanket and swung over his shoulders.

“Lock the door,” he spoke in an urgent, heavy whisper.

“Cassian?” She was startled into submission.

“Quickly!” he hissed.

Leasha fumbled with the door in a panic-filled, dozy haze, sealing it with a bar and lock. “I thought you were in the borderlands.” She didn’t know why he had whispered but found herself imitating his hushed tones.

“I was.” A single swipe with his free arm cleared her table of scrolls and bottles. He heaved the body onto the table, then leaned against the wood and breathed hard. She noticed his face was scratched and his clothes in disarray. It was hours to the Southern border on a swift stag: he looked as though he hadn’t stopped.

“What’s happened?” Leasha pulled back the blanket to reveal a young maiden about her own age. Dark of skin and hair, strange clothes, badly bruised, and with a terrible wound on her shoulder; dried blood had congealed around it, but more was oozing fresh.

“Does she live?” Cassian was exhausted and pale.

“Yes, but...” Leasha inspected the wounds tentatively. The maiden’s clothes were drenched in blood. “Not for long.” Immediately the exhaustion of the day was pushed aside. She pulled at drawers and cupboards, collecting everything she needed and rushed back to the maiden with a poultice and bandage. “Dragon attack?”

Cassian shook his head. “Howlers, they have grown worse this last week, but look.” He leaned in and turned the maiden’s leg to expose the calf.

Leasha glanced away from her bandaging as he pointed out a dark wound, two perfectly circular piercings in the boot: the blood had congealed and was turning black. There was a distinct musty scent.

“Arachnids.” Those accursed creatures thrived on death: it was no wonder they had grown in confidence.

Cassian nodded. “Who knows how she ran into those death bringers.”

“You will have to help.” Did she have everything? There had been no poisonings of late, so she must have all the stores she needed, but could she make the potion quickly enough?

“I cannot stay,” Cassian said. He still hadn’t recovered from the ride. “I should rest and then return to my duty.”

“You cannot abandon this now!”

He glanced at the door, agonising. “Fair enough, I yield, but please work with haste.”

“I have little choice,” she said, glancing again at the maiden’s wounds. “Now light the fire under that kettle.”

He followed her barked instructions carefully. As Leasha began chopping and preparing the ingredients, she sent him scampering about her lodgings fetching herbs and dried mushrooms, a little blood honey, rock salt, and a hundred other items concealed in drawers and hanging to dry over the hearth.

“Who is she?” Leasha asked as she sprinkled lavender into the gently bubbling liquid.

“I know not.” Cassian passed her a wooden spoon and she began to stir slowly. “I found her in Blackwater.”

“In the river?”

“The howlers had chased her down.” He looked back at the little figure lying on the table: she was a clear foot shorter than them and narrow; her slender frame lacked the strength of a fighter. Leasha couldn’t imagine her up against a howler.

Cassian shook his head. “She didn’t stand a chance.”

“But where did she come from?”

“I know not.” He shrugged.

“Powdered Sparrow Wort.” She pointed to a clay jar on a shelf.

“There was a man with her.” Cassian handed Leasha the jar. “A warrior or a good fighter at least. We finished off the howlers and he requested aid. I had only one stag, so I implored him to follow on foot but...” Cassian trailed off and stared at his boots as if they suddenly held intense interest for him.

“But what?” Leasha spooned out a portion of the Sparrow Wort powder and added it to her mixture.

“You are aware of the issues, Leasha. I mean...” He added in a whisper, “They are not Elves.”

“No. I can see that.” Leasha studied the maiden: she wasn’t short enough or broad enough to be a Dwarf, she was a little too small and a touch too dark to be Druid, far too small and not blue enough to be an Orc, and she was far too lost to be a Cornovii. “What is she?”

“I do not know, but when her companion is discovered in our lands...”

He didn’t need to elaborate. Leasha knew exactly what would happen to a stranger in Meadowvale. Since the last war with the Druids the borders of the Elven lands had been strictly patrolled. No one save Ambassadors and the Queen’s own couriers were permitted across the whole year, until the amnesty of the Midwinter Festival. For bringing this maiden to a Healer instead of taking her into custody, Leasha knew Cassian was risking his rank.

She sighed and shook her head bitterly. “At least they’ll bring him to Meadow Hall.” In some ways Leasha wished she was on the throne. There were things she would change... if only she had the energy or skill to fight the damned council over them. She stirred the contents of the kettle; it was beginning to thicken nicely. At least she could aid this one stranger, even if the Elves had turned their backs on all others and kept everyone at bay with mace and bow. “What is the southern border like?”

“Much the same as the north.” Cassian rested against a table, his arms folded across his chest, he barely took his eyes from the sleeping maiden.

“I am sorry I got you demoted to border patrol.”

He glanced at Leasha and shook his head. “You were not at fault.”

“How was I not at fault?” She remembered her aunt’s ferocity on discovering she had broken her curfew for the tenth time in as many days. “I am the direct cause!”

Cassian laughed. “Well, when you put it like that, I can hardly argue. At least patrolling bandit-ravaged borders is easier than watching you. What poor creature had been assigned to your keeping now?” He glanced around her quarters as if only just realising they were alone.

“I am currently... between Personal Guards.” She tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the kettle and took the heavy little cauldron off the fire.

The Elven Ranger laughed again. “Only you could go through protectors faster than breakfasts!”

“I do not need a protector.” She heaved the kettle onto the large, wooden table.

“I think we could all do with a protector right now.”

Leasha looked at him, but he was no longer smiling, and she wondered just how bad the borderlands were. Perhaps her day of dealing with fleeing villagers had only been the start. She looked back at the maiden and wondered what had made her run straight into the howlers. “Well, right now, this one needs us.” She moved over to check on her patient. Her heartbeat was slow, but her bandages were holding: only the poison stood in the way of her recovery. “She is very weak.”

“Do you believe she will live?” Cassian stood next to her; he’d carried the stranger for more than a hundred miles across Meadowvale, and she hoped, for his sake, that it hadn’t been in vain.

Leasha looked at the maiden: there was a strange beauty about the dark little creature. She seemed so vulnerable with the poultice wrapped around her wounds. “She’ll need to be strong to survive this venom.”

“You ought to have seen her,” Cassian said, his voice low, in awe. “No weapons, just her bare hands against the howlers, all of them starved into a mad frenzy. That maiden did not stop fighting even when there were four of them at her throat. Trust me.” He nodded. “She is strong.”

Leasha was surprised at the admiration in his voice. Cassian had never been one to impress easily and, although he could be a jovial Elf, his respect was difficult to earn. Suddenly she was even more determined to save this young woman’s life, if only to meet the one who’d inspired such approval from her oldest friend. “She needs to swallow a good dose of this.” Leasha indicated the thick, black liquid now congealing as it cooled. “You’ll have to help.”

He nodded. “Simply tell me what to do.”

“Hold her head up and open her mouth.” Leasha readied a bottle, mixing the potion with half again the amount of milk and shaking it smooth.

“Her jaw is held firm.” There was a slight trace of panic in his voice.

“That’s the venom,” Leasha explained, trying to hold back her worry. “It’s starting to tighten her muscles. Here.” She tossed him a small piece of wood. “See if you can wedge her mouth open with this.”

He looked doubtfully at it for a moment, then took a deep breath and wedged it between the maiden’s teeth, using it to prise open her jaw as Leasha stood ready with the potion bottle. “Sit her upright and hold her firm.”

Cassian gave a quizzical look but the seriousness of Leasha’s tone made him follow her orders, and he took the limp body of the maiden in his arms, holding her firmly with her head tilted only slightly back. But he still wasn’t prepared. As soon as the liquid started to pour into her mouth and down her throat she began to move, writhing and spasming; the potion was jostled away and spilled down her chin.

“By Dragon’s Breath! We’re drowning her!”

“Hold her firm!”

“I am trying!” Cassian fought to keep her still and at the right angle for Leasha.

With one hand, Leasha held the bottle steady and with the other she grabbed the maiden’s throat. Her hand glowed as she used her magic to help the maiden swallow the mixture but the writhing only increased.

“What is happening?” Cassian was wide-eyed as he tried desperately to stop the maiden’s thrashing without hurting her further.

“It’s the venom. It’s... reacting.” Leasha’s tone was steady and cold.

“Is that good?”

She shook her head. A little reaction was normal, but she had never witnessed anything like this. “The potion should be administered immediately...” She didn’t look at Cassian. “It might be too late.”

Fighting with a maiden whose body was controlled by the venom of the arachnids, Leasha and Cassian steadied her flailing until finally, after long and exhausting minutes, Leasha administered the last of the dose. She tore the wedge from the maiden’s teeth and held a hand over her mouth. The last of the potion was swallowed and the spasms and flailings ceased, then her head lolled to one side.

“Is she dead?” Cassian asked desperately, laying the limp body back down on the table.

Leasha felt for the maiden’s heartbeat: it was there, pounding hard; she really was stronger than most. She shook her head, more exhausted than she ever thought she could be. “She lives, still.” The potion and milk had spilled down her own clothes and Cassian was splattered, head to waist with the black flecks. She laughed in exhausted relief. “We’re a mess!” She grabbed a cloth and wiped the black liquid from the maiden’s face: her head was clammy and hot, the anti-venom was a foul brew, but it should bring down the fever. “I’m glad she wasn’t awake to taste it.”

Cassian wiped fresh blood from a wound on the maiden’s mouth where the rough wedge had forced her frozen jaw open. “She mayn’t be happy with you in the morn.”

“If she makes it that far.”

Healer

White-hot, blazing like the summer sun, the flames licked around her, burning her skin.

Breanna writhed, choking on her own cries for help. She was blind to everything but the heat. Words tumbled around her, a whispered language of words she couldn’t decipher. She tried to cry out, gasping for air as she fought to free herself. The weight of her own confinement pressed against her; all her remaining strength was barely enough to open her eyes. She was surrounded by flames and could see nothing but the fire. She didn’t know where she was or how to get away.

As suddenly as the flames had appeared there was a breeze. Cool and gentle as the lake in spring. She basked in the relief that stroked softly against her face. Half-blind, she searched for its source. A figure in silhouette loomed over her, whispering barely distinct as Breanna tried to focus. They were the source of the cool touch amidst the flames and she reached out, begging to be pulled from the fire but no words would come.

The coolness brushed against her skin again. She was reminded of washing her face in a stream after training. The relief of the water taking the edge off the exertion.

“Daughter of Earth, bind the blood. Daughter of Earth, bind the blood.” Those whispered words came and went like waves lapping against a beach, strong then distant. They brought coolness and relief.

Breanna wanted nothing more than to leap into them, but the weight of heat pressing down upon her was too much, too strong to resist.

“Broc...” Her throat was temporarily released from the grip of paralysis, but she uttered only a moan: the word wouldn’t form.

The figure returned, bringing back the wave of cool relief and distant whispers. A cloth was placed against Breanna’s forehead and cool water ran into her hair. She felt safe. It must be him, he must have saved her. She rose out of the heat, trying to open her unwilling eyes. “Broc?”

“Shhh... shh.”

It wasn’t him.

She didn’t recognise the voice. Panic swelled within her.

With all her gathering strength she burst forward, fighting whatever held her back and finally her eyes opened.

There was no fire, but her body burned nonetheless. She didn’t recognise the room. It held strange and unfamiliar furniture, bright tapestries covered the walls, shelves filled with pots and jars, bundles of dried plants hung from the ceiling, and a heavy, sweet, herbal scent pervaded the air.

“Lie still, lie still. You have a fever.” A gentle hand pressed her shoulder back. Even the slight touch was too strong. She fought against it, but was pushed onto the soft sheets.

It was a young woman, as strange to Breanna as the room she found herself in. Her skin was white as snowdrops and her shining hair was bronze as a newly cast sword. She had smiling, gentle eyes that were green as meadow grass, sweet red, summer-berry lips, and ears pointed like a vixen. Breanna pulled away, frightened at the unfamiliar creature. Was it a spirit? A vision of the Ancestors? “Are you real?”

The woman’s smile grew wider. “Real enough to tell you to lie still.” Her hand was firm on Breanna’s shoulder and she gave into it, falling back into the comfort of the soft blankets. The strangely beautiful young woman replaced the soothing cloth on her head and Breanna could feel the cold water dripping into her hair, cooling her scalp.

“Where am I? What happened?” As the heavy fever cleared, the pain began to break through. Her shoulder and neck stung fiercely, her chest and body felt as though they had been crushed, and her calf throbbed. There was a foul and bitter taste in her mouth and her gums were sore, as though she had been punched. She touched her lips, they were swollen and tender. There was a large bandage bulging at her neck, packed with herbs, and she realised that was where the strong scent was coming from.

“You are in the Elven City of Meadow Hall. My name is Leasha, I am a Healer.”

“Elves...” Breanna whispered. Everything she had known seemed to be buried so far back in her mind that she couldn’t remember why Elves were important to her.

“You were brought here, badly wounded. Do you remember?”

The howling creatures leapt into her mind. Their teeth and claws, their speed and ferocity. She was about to die. Broc had told her to run. “Broc!” He was still out there, fighting the creatures alone: she’d left him. Abandoned him again. Breanna sat up suddenly.

“You must rest.” Leasha’s soft, cool hand was against her shoulder and Breanna could feel herself slipping back into a daze. But there was no time. She fought against her. “Your wounds are severe. I have used magic as best as I can; however, you must allow them to heal.”

Breanna pushed her aside. Strength growing from her panic, she sat up and swung her legs from the bed. “I need to find my brother.” Her body was wet with fever, her skin still burned, and her stomach reacted badly to her sudden movement by swimming within her. She gripped the wooden bed frame.

“Cassian is out now, searching for him.” Leasha’s voice was calm and commanding. “Let us worry about your brother, while you rest.”

Breanna was tempted. The warmth of the Elf woman’s gaze, the softness of the bed, and the frailty of her body conspired together to weaken her resolve. But she had abandoned Broc. She had vowed to herself she would never do so again. There was no time to rest. “No.” She shook her head, feeling drunk and hung-over at the same time. “Just tell me where he is.” She swallowed hard, fighting the rising nausea and dizziness and threw off the soft fleece blanket. It was only when she went to clamber from the soft bed that she realised her leathers were gone and she was dressed in only the light tunic and shorts she wore under her clothes.

“You are far too weak to leave.” Leasha stood over her, holding the damp cloth, but the Healer’s firm warning only steadied Breanna’s resolve.

“Am I to be your prisoner?”

“No, of course not, but—”

“Then I must go.” Sick and unsteady, Breanna stood on wobbling legs and grabbed a heavy, green woollen cloak from the back of Leasha’s chair. “I need to find him.”

Leasha stood back, unwilling to block her way but her concern was still clear. “I cannot keep you safe if you go out there.”

There was a trace of fear in the Elf’s voice and Breanna hesitated; the weight of her fever was catching up with her. But she had already abandoned Broc twice, first to the Dragon, and then again by leaving him to those beasts when he had needed her to stand at his side. She wrapped the heavy cloak around her semi-naked frame and lurched awkwardly towards the door.

“And I can’t help him if I’m in here.” She opened the door and stepped out into the light.

Elves

Breanna stumbled as the weight of the afternoon heat washed over her. She drew up her hand to protect her delicate eyes from the startling sun, and took in her surroundings.

She was on a wide and busy thoroughfare. Small, wooden buildings with straw roofs lined either side of the road, and hard, flat stones paved the track. The noise was almost overwhelming: dozens of different cries from hundreds of animals, scores of chattering and shouted conversations, and heavy carts trundling past with their wooden wheels grinding against the flagstones.

The sheer quantity of Elves was startling. Guards in leather and bronze plate armour patrolled in pairs, carrying threatening maces, and wearing pointed bronze helmets pulled low over their brows. Stallholders, with their wares piled high on the back of carts or laid out on brightly coloured blankets on the ground, haggled with passing shoppers carrying woven baskets of goods whilst barefoot children chased one another about amongst chickens, goats, pigs, and other animals she’d never laid eyes on before.

Breanna wanted to shrink back inside Leasha’s hut and hide from all the narrowed green eyes that were starting to notice the stranger in their midst. Some turned boldly to stare while others whispered and pointed her out to their companions.

Breanna, short, dark and clothed in little more than a stolen cloak, was just as strange to them as they were to her.

Elven features were sharp: long, straight noses, piercing green eyes, with long hair, some dark red as a fox or others light as burnished gold. They wore long, woollen tunics, brightly coloured in yellows, blues, and greens, in a cloth that was finer and brighter than any back home. She cast her eyes around. Now she was here, outside of the Healer’s hut, she was unsure where to begin her search, and felt stupid and exposed.

She should go back. Hide and finish healing then find some food. Broc was strong, he could take care of himself... but Grainneog had been strong.

The image of the woman disappearing under a horde of webspinners flashed across her mind. She swayed, and knew she had to go after Broc. She had to know he was safe.

Had he made it across the river? Was he still stranded on the other side? Had he taken himself back to the woods or tried to make a stand against those beasts?

All she knew was that she had to head back. If she found him along the way, all the better, but she needed to get back to that river before he died from his wounds.

Wherever she was in Meadowvale, the Blackwater would be south. But first she had to get out of the city.

Despite the oppressive heat of the early autumn day, Breanna felt a chill and tugged the woollen cloak tighter around herself. She darted over the hot flagstones of the thoroughfare towards a large, bustling woman who was busily refolding reams of coloured cloth that had fallen from the back of her cart.

She had to leap out of the way of a huge, horned beast pulling another cart loaded with goods. The rider cast an eye downward at her, shouting his annoyance in curses she’d never heard as he waved a riding crop.

Breathing hard, and hoping the next Elf would be kinder, Breanna scampered towards the woman and startled her with a sudden interruption. “Greetings.” She gave a hurried bow, unsure of Elven custom. Her voice was hoarse with sickness and anxiety and she coughed before continuing. “C-can you give me directions out of the city? I need to get to Blackwater.”

“Off with you.” The woman glanced sidelong at a pair of armoured Elves marching along the thoroughfare as she swatted at Breanna with a scrap of cloth. “Go back.”

Breanna felt suddenly like a crow caught pecking at the oats. She backed away confused and unsettled. “Sorry. I—I didn’t mean to be rude.” She backed into another Elf and turned quickly to apologise to the tall, green-robed woman, her face contorted as if there were a foul aroma. “Sorry.”

“What?”

None of this was going the way that she had intended.

She glanced across the road and caught sight of Leasha emerging from her lodgings carrying a large pack. Leasha looked either way along the street clearly searching for her patient. Breanna didn’t have time to ask for directions; she was going to have to make her own way.

“You are not a Druid, are you?” The Elf woman snapped the question accusingly.

“N—no.” Breanna backed off, looking for an easy escape. “I’m just looking for my brother.” She turned away and headed towards a narrow track between two houses but suddenly there was a heavy hand on each shoulder. The weight made her stumble, but long fingers dug into her flesh and pulled her back to her feet before her legs gave way completely.

She looked up at one of her assailants: a stern Elf Guard with fierce, moss-green eyes that stared out at her from under the rim of a shining bronze helmet. There was a note of anger playing on the Guard’s lips which twisted into a dissatisfied grimace. “From where did you crawl, vermin?”

A hundred answers flitted through her mind, but she felt that whatever response she gave would not be the right one. She started forward, trying to twist herself free but the hands gripping her shoulders were strong as roots of oak and Breanna had no strength to resist.

“I’m looking for my brother.” Her voice was weak, and she was disgusted at how like a child she sounded. She stared at the ground. Her dirty bare feet looked sad and cold and for the first time she knew what a spectacle she must look.

“She is no threat.”

Breanna looked up. Leasha was a little out of breath and the large pack was slung over her shoulder. She wasn’t intimidated by the armoured Guards, and Breanna felt both shame and awe at the young woman’s confidence.

“She seeks her lost companion.”

“Is this creature your responsibility, ma’am?” The Guard spoke with a clipped and firm voice that Breanna found unsettling and she didn’t understand what kind of people would refer to her as a creature or vermin.

Leasha shifted the pack and hesitated before answering. “Yes.” She nodded firmly but didn’t glance down at Breanna.

“And you are acting upon the Queen’s authority?” It was the second Guard who spoke, and he seemed to have caught Leasha by surprise. She opened her mouth to answer but then closed it again.

The grip tightened on Breanna’s shoulders. “Forgiveness, ma’am, but the law is the law.”

The Guards pulled Breanna, her legs wobbled but she didn’t have the strength to resist. She looked up at Leasha and their eyes met for the briefest of moments before she was pulled in the opposite direction.

“Then I must come with you.”

“That is your prerogative, ma’am,” the second Guard called back without breaking stride.

For a moment Breanna was relieved. But she was dragged along at such a pace that, although she tried to keep up, the muscles of her legs were not yet able for it and her bare feet were dragged over the hot flagstones. The claw-like grips forced her shoulders to take her full weight as she tried, limply, to catch her step. She felt hot tears welling in her eyes and didn’t look up to catch the faces of those staring as she was led back through the busy market.

They turned off the thoroughfare and down a second wider but quieter road. The huts here were even larger and at the far end was the largest building of all. Two storeys high, with a set of huge, wide open doors that must have been twice as large as the doors on the roundhouse of her own village. The roof was curved, with two highly decorated beams painted in blues, greens, and yellows rising either side into a crossed peak. Upon this were the antlers of a stag so giant that they were nearly as wide as the roof itself. In front of the building was a gathering of dozens of Elves in splendid long, woollen robes in layers and layers of bright greens, yellows, whites, and blues that must have been sweltering in the heat of the late-afternoon sun.

But her glimpse was only to be brief, as she was pulled off the great road and down another alleyway. This new track had no flagstones and she was relieved to have the familiarity of earth against her toes. Small trees and shrubberies lined the path and the track ended at a wooden door set into a much larger building, the rest of which expanded out of sight. One of the Elf Guards took hold of her with both hands while the other knocked several times until the door was thrust open by an equally unwelcoming face. She was led through into a room so dark it took her eyes a moment to adjust after the bright sunshine. It was cramped and plain, bare wooden walls and little furniture, the air was stifling and there was a faintly unpleasant smell that reminded her of the inside of an animal pen that had rarely been cleaned out.

Scared and in shock, Breanna wondered if the Elves knew; if they could sense she was a cursed creature. It was the only reason she could think of that they would treat her like an animal, dragging her through the town, sinking their sharp fingers into her tender flesh as they pulled her along, stumbling and tripping. Broc and the Elders had agreed that the Elves would know why the Dragon had turned; the Elves had magic, they knew she was cursed and now she would finally be punished for it.

She was led down a narrow hall before being thrust through a heavy wooden door into a room smaller than a hog pen. She stood for a moment confused as to where she was meant to go next. Then the door slammed shut behind her.

She had been caged.

The rushes that lined the floor were old and she could smell their age immediately. The air was heavy with the stench of sweat, manure, musty mould, and a dank reek of rot. The only light came from a small, narrow opening high in the mud-plastered wall and, despite the warm weather outside, the room had a chill.

Breanna wanted to bang at the doors. She wanted to scream at the Elves for taking her prisoner. But she had no strength. She knew she deserved everything, and in a rush she saw the faces... Luchog, her father, Grainneog, Broc... Her legs crumpled beneath her and she fell upon the dank reeds.

She was cold to the bone and drew the cloak around her, drawing up her knees and curling into the sweetly scented woollen robes, as her teeth began to softly chatter. Her hand sought out the runestone around her neck, still warm, still beating in time to her Aunt Fia’s heart. She was so, so far away and yet holding the gently pulsing runestone in her hand and feeling the warmth bleeding out from it, she began to calm. Her breathing slowed, and her dread gave way to sadness.

Colm had been right.

The Elves would never help, and she doubted she would ever see him again to admit it.

Wealderling

Raised voices, muffled by the walls of the cell, dragged Breanna out of her heavy and uncomfortable slumber.

The door was flung open and Leasha knelt next to her, leaving the door to slam hard.

“Come on.” The Elf woman coaxed her by laying a gentle hand on her back to rouse her. “Come on, sit up.” Leasha shook Breanna’s slumbering frame.

Breanna winced as her delicate wounds were disturbed. Hadn’t the Elves bothered her enough?

Leasha coaxed her up and, although Breanna was weak, she dumbly acquiesced. Leasha led her across the room to a rough, wooden bench pushed up against the wall and Breanna sat heavily as the world swivelled around her. “Why are you here?” She was light-headed, but the Elf held her steady.

“I need you to drink this.” Leasha pulled a clay bottle from her pack and popped the cork.

Breanna shook her head. The bitter liquid stank, and she pushed it away. “Just leave me be.” Her voice was barely above a whisper and she was breathing heavily, already exhausted by the move from floor to bench. She leaned her head against the cool wall and closed her eyes. She was nauseous but too exhausted to do anything about it.

“You must drink this.” There was a note of pleading in Leasha’s voice. “It’s for the poison.”

“Poison?”

“The wound on your leg. You were attacked before you encountered the howlers, were you not?” Her voice was firm yet gentle. Breanna found it hard to believe that this Elf was of the same tribe as those armoured Guards who had dragged her to this cell.

Breanna nodded. “Webspinners.” She tried not to think of the attack, of their legs and eyes, the blood splattering as she had used her knife against them, and Grainneog’s brave last stand.

“You have been through much turmoil.” Leasha offered her the foul potion again.

The smell, like lavender in sour milk, made Breanna gag and she pushed it away. Even if she trusted Leasha enough to take it, there was no way she would be able hold it down.

But Leasha was firm. “If I had not administered a dose of this to you last night, then you wouldn’t be here now.” Despite her pleading Breanna remained unconvinced. “Do you not wish to live long enough to find your brother?”

Breanna didn’t move. Why was this woman so determined to see her drink that foul liquid? There could hardly be a noble reason. She had been warned that the Elven race was selfish and now it appeared those warnings were correct.

“By Dragon’s Breath! You are stubborn!” Leasha stood. Her bright green eyes burned like copper-fire and a snarl threatened her delicate features. “Look!” She stood over Breanna and her voice grew in volume with every word she snapped. “If we wanted you dead you would have been abandoned to those beasts!”

Breanna was weak and tired, and for the first time in her life she was completely alone.

Far away from kin, from all the people she had ever known, far from her forest, from warm, toasted hazelnuts and soft cheese, from sweet elderflower wine and friends to drink it with. She wanted to go home.

Breanna couldn’t look at the Elf anymore. She buried her head in her hands and was ashamed when her eyes became wet with fresh, useless tears.

“Oh, curses.” The anger had gone from Leasha’s words and Breanna wanted to melt away and hide her shame. Being shouted at was awful yet being pitied was worse.

She felt Leasha sit down next to her. The young Healer was quiet for a long time and then let out a sigh. “I’m... I’m sorry. I can’t force you, I just... I promised I would help.” When she spoke, it was mumbled and rushed as if she were unused to apologising and the words were uncomfortable in her mouth. She stared down at the bottle, turning it in her hands. “I know the Guards were cruel but... there was no malice intended we just... have laws.”

“What did I do wrong?” Breanna breathed hard, trying to disguise the tears in her voice.

“No, no, no, nothing! That is to say... we have a law against... strangers. Only Elves are permitted in Meadowvale.”

Breanna looked at her, trying to decipher whether she was being mocked. “What?”

Leasha shifted on the bench and dropped her gaze. “There was a war, with the Druids, and this has seemed to keep the peace. It’s been that way since Evaline took the throne.”

“So, when a stranger crosses into your land seeking aid...?”

Leasha shrugged. She looked like a child caught stealing jam. “I try not to think about it.”

Breanna shook her head. She didn’t understand the Elves and thought back bitterly to the warnings Colm the Elder had given them. She realised that the worst danger to Broc was one they had never even known about. “I’m never going to find my brother, am I?”

“Cassian, my friend, is searching for him. I promise we will find him and get you both out of our kingdom and far away from danger.”

Breanna laughed. Everywhere she turned was danger: she didn’t know if ‘far away from danger’ was a place that even existed anymore. “We risked everything.” She looked at Leasha and saw a kindness in her eyes. She remembered how gently the Elf had cared for her, cooling her fever, placing her in a warm bed. Leasha had taken her in, healed her wounds, nursed her, cared for her, and now... she was throwing her back out to the wilds to be finished off by howlers, webspinners... or Dragons. Tears pressed at her eyes again, tears of anger, frustration, and loss. She shouldn’t have expected more from strangers... and yet she had. She realised she’d had hope and now even that was lost.

“We risked everything.” She repeated the words thinking of Broc, and Grainneog, and her own wounds. She could have died. She would have died, willingly, because she believed that there was hope. That’s why Grainneog had given her life... but it was all for nothing. “A good woman died so we could reach Meadowvale.” There was anger in her voice, anger at the Sacred Guardian who had always protected them, anger at herself for driving the Dragon to turn on them, and anger at the Elves who would turn a helpless neighbour away. “But after everything we went through to get here you think it is a kindness to send us on our way? With nothing?”

“I...” Leasha stared at her open-mouthed. “I don’t understand.”

Breanna replied in almost a growl, “We were fools to believe the Elves would help.”

“Your wounds will heal, and if you drink my potion–”

“Curse the potion!” Breanna snapped. “The Forest Drake has turned against us, our green wood is dying, and creatures of death and disease are everywhere.” Her mouth was dry, and her voice croaked but she couldn’t hold back. She was angry at everything, angry at her father for dying, angry at the Elders for being weak, even angry at the trees for rotting to their roots. “When you banish me what am I do? Where do I go? I will have no choice but to go back to the forest, and how far will I get before those howlers run me down or I stumble blindly into a nest of the webspinners? Where will your potions be then? I should die here and save myself the journey.”

“You dwell in the forest?” Leasha was staring at her, wide-eyed.

“Yes. That’s where I’m from, where we are from. What’s it matter now?”

“The forest south of here?”

“What other forest is there?” Breanna looked at the Elf maiden. Leasha’s whole manner had changed as if she were staring at a ghost. She seemed to be looking at Breanna anew, a manner of wonderment about her: it made her feel strangely vulnerable under the cold green eyes of the Elf.

“You are of the Wealderfolk?” Leasha’s voice was barely above a whisper, dream-like. “A Wild One?”

“I—I don’t know that means.”

Her eyes were unfocused, and her mind was far away, lost in a legend. “There were rumours, just rumours, about the lost tribe of the forest. Many years ago, it was said we traded with them: staffs that could enhance magic, enchanted stones... But no one has heard from them since... well, since long before Evaline’s reign.” Leasha turned back to her, her eyes focusing on Breanna with renewed enthusiasm. “But you and your brother, you truly are Wealderlings?”

“I’ve never heard that word before.” Breanna was unsure why her forest should inspire such wonderment in an Elf, surely everyone learned how to place an enchantment on a stone or how to take a branch from a willing tree and maintain its spirit. The Elven city was far superior in splendour than any of the buildings back home and she was certain it couldn’t have been achieved without understanding the basic laws of runecasting. “Perhaps you’re thinking of another tribe.”

“Perhaps.” But Leasha did not look convinced. “You said your forest is dying?”

“The trees are turning to Dead Wood. Nothing grows there except the darkness, and the more the forest dies, the hungrier the Dragon seems to get. Or perhaps it is the other way around...” She pondered the thought momentarily. “But either way brings death.”

“So, there is a Dragon attacking your people as well?” Leasha didn’t seem to want an answer and she stood and paced the room.

“As well?” What did the Elf maiden mean? Breanna had heard tales of other Dragons, other Guardians: could they also be attacking their people? If it wasn’t just the Forest Drake: if there were other Dragons turning against their people, then Breanna could not be the source. Surely the curse of one Hunter’s daughter could not be so strong?

“Do the Wealder—I mean, do your people have any scripture or—or lore that explains why the Dragons have turned?”

“You mean you don’t know either?” Her stomach dropped. The Elves didn’t have an answer.

“No.” Leasha sighed and sat on the bench again. “There have been at least two attacks, perhaps more, but no one yet understands why.”

“So, it was for nothing.” Breanna shook her head, closed her eyes, and leaned back against the cool wall. Her head hurt. There was a fierce pressure at her temples, tightness in her neck: she was drowsy, her mind was clouded, and she was finding it hard to think. Her stomach grumbled in hunger, but the thought of food returned her nausea. She sighed. Even if the Elves had been willing to help, they knew nothing. No one knew anything... except her.

She heard it, she heard the Whisper. She wondered then if she should tell the Elf. Leasha was a healer, she might cure her or at least know what was wrong. She might know of Elves who could hear a Dragon’s thoughts, tell her it wasn’t a curse... but then she remembered the sound, the rage, the hunger of the beast, screaming out to consume the land. The memory unsteadied her.

If the Elves locked her in a cage for merely stepping foot upon their land what would they do to her if they discovered she was cursed by a God?

She knew then that there was no hope.

Breanna knew in her gut that the Dragons would not rest easy until they had consumed everything in the land. They would come for them again and again until the land was laid waste. She wondered if, when the time came, she would have the courage to sacrifice herself for others as her father had done, but even the thought of it made her afraid.

All she wanted to do was go home but her home wasn’t there anymore, and she realised that the more she had wanted things to stay the same, the more different they had become.

Nothing would ever go back to the way it was. And she felt so alone.

“You made it here, didn’t you? That is something?” Leasha’s voice seemed strange and distant: how could she be so chirpy when she stood on the edge of the world?

Breanna fought to keep the tears from her eyes and held down her fear and anguish with gritted teeth. She didn’t want this stranger to see her so weak.

“At least take the potion.” Leasha held it out to her again and she looked at it with distaste. “It doesn’t taste good but it will counter the effects of the poison. You will feel better.”

The young woman’s voice was like a balm and, despite herself, Breanna wanted to do as she asked. “And I’ll die if I don’t?”

“I’m not certain but it is likely.”

Breanna tentatively reached out and took the bottle. She stared down at the foul liquid and wondered if she should just let the poison do its work, if she should let her world end and avoid the pain of staying on this dark path. But she was surprised that in spite of everything, the thought of giving up was worse. She knew there was no hope and yet there was a flicker, a dim glimmer deep inside her that even if it wasn’t quite hope, it was something that was close to it.

She gave the shady brew another cautious sniff before taking a deep breath and glugging back the whole dose in one go. “Ack!” She wiped her mouth, trying to get rid of the taste before it made her retch. “It’s like liquid rot.”

Leasha laughed. “I have never had to drink it, praise fortune.” She offered Breanna a pouch of sweet-tasting rose water that she glugged back gratefully. “Just the smell of that concoction is enough to put me off playing around with arachnids.”

“Arachnids?” Breanna asked between gulps of sweet, cleansing rose water.

“What you called webspinners.”

“Ah...” She nodded and played with the water pouch, wondering how to tactfully get information from the Elf woman, but her foggy mind failed her and she was forced to be blunt. “Will I ever get out of here?”

Leasha sighed and spread out her hands. “I’ll have to speak to the Queen.”

“And she will listen to you?”

She bit her lip and seemed to be pondering the question. “Probably not. But I know someone that she might heed.”

Breanna nodded. The potion hadn’t fulfilled its promise. She still felt nauseous and light-headed only now she was struggling to hold her head up and sleep was enveloping her thoughts like a heavy blanket. “I’m exhausted.”

“The potion is taking effect.” Leasha rose to leave.

Suddenly Breanna panicked. “Don’t go!” Her world had crumbled and fallen away from her. Leasha was a stranger but she was a kind stranger with a soft voice and a sweet smell. Breanna couldn’t be without her; she wasn’t ready to be on her own.

Leasha paused at the door, hesitating as she looked from Breanna to the exit but then she nodded and returned to the bench. “I shall stay until you sleep.”

“Thank you.” She knew she was foolish but for once she didn’t care and simply closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, waiting for sleep to take away all her discomfort.

“What is it like in the forest?” Leasha asked her suddenly.

Breanna sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all gone now.”

“It matters to me.”

Breanna thought back, trying to conjure the forest in her mind’s eye. How had it looked before that first attack? It was only days ago and yet it felt like a lifetime. The days when her father was alive, and the world seemed safe. “The sun is gentle,” she said after a long while, her voice dreamy with fatigue and nostalgia. “Not so dazzling as here. When She rises at dawn She enters the forest in a dappled light, which dances off the trees as the wind caresses them. You hear the wind whispering in the leaves as each bird returns home: the lark, and the nightingale and then the orange of the light at sunset and the wood doves calling their mates. In late summer the trees bristle with acorns and elderflower, the brambles are heavy with blackberries but soon the apple harvest will arrive and if you know the right places you can get the purest, sweetest apples...”

“It sounds beautiful.”

“It was.” Breanna melted back into the forest as the potion finally took effect and lured her into a dreamless sleep.

Rumour

Leasha made her way along the main thoroughfare of the Elven city of Meadow Hall.

It was early harvest and the streets of the city were bustling with Elves from across the fields of Meadowvale. They had brought grain, wool, honey, fruits, and vegetables all together into one place, for trading and to give as taxes to the Queen’s court. This year, as every other year, each province complained of the high demand placed upon them. But just as the cost of justice and protection had increased and the taxes were higher than ever, the crop yields had been stricken with blight.

The Elves of Meadowvale were starving, destitute, and harassed by the Dragon they had worshipped all their lives.

As Leasha looked around, she began to realise how many of the desperate had gathered together on the streets of the capital. She wasn’t sure how many more Elves-in-need the city could support.

She noticed a young family, a couple and their young children huddled by the grain exchange. By rights they should be trading their own wares, making money, and collecting their stores for the winter months. Instead they were begging for the few scraps that could be spared and Leasha knew with dread that the youngest of the children might not see another summer.

Suddenly she caught the eye of the father; he looked at her strangely for a moment and then a flash of recognition passed across his face. Leasha tried to move away, but he handed his infant to his wife and came trotting after her.

“Princess?” As he followed others began to turn their heads and whisper. She knew not everything said would be in her favour. “Princess, give forgiveness?” He bowed obsequiously and Leasha stood uncomfortably in the street. She hated this. She hated being responsible for his faith and she hated that he believed she could help him. She needed to be quick. She could not risk bestowing too many blessings. It was times such as this that she regretted no longer having a personal Guard.

Reluctantly she performed her royal duty and reached out to lay her hand upon the back of his head. “My blessings, Son of the Earth.” Her hand glowed and she grew hot, but she was careful to only give a little healing.

“Praise fortune.” He looked up at her: his smile was wide, and his fatigue cured.

“Praise fortune.” She repeated the phrase mechanically and went to turn away.

“My family?” he asked hopefully.

Leasha glanced back at the young mother, no older than her, carrying an infant in her arms with another young one clutching her leg. They all looked tired, hungry, and weak. She couldn’t heal them of all their troubles as she would be left unable to walk home. “Daughters and sons of the Earth, blessings are given.” She waved her hand in their direction, torn between giving them what they needed and trying to avoid the attentive gaze of other newcomers already jostling for a blessing of their own.

“Thank you, Your Highness.” He bowed low and the gratitude in his eyes made Leasha feel more useless than ever. What good were such blessings to the empty bellies of his children?

She shook her head and dipped her hand into her pocket. She grabbed a few coins, took his hand, and pressed them into his palm, hoping that she had avoided the gaze of those around her. His eyes widened as he felt the gold. “Feed them well,” she hissed.

He nodded frantically and bowed again. “You are the true Queen,” he whispered.

Her heart sank. She knew his words were meant as a kindness but each time she heard of loyalty to herself above Queen Evaline she grew nervous. The tension in the city was palpable. There had been a fight outside the grain stores the day before. How long before it tipped over to full-scale riots? Civil war? Those disillusioned with Evaline would make a figurehead out of Leasha. For as long as she remained in the city, handing out coins and blessings, she was the greatest Queen the Elves had never had. The notion terrified her. She had to get away.

She smiled at the farmer and waved to the small group of gathered Elves before making her excuses and hurrying away. She couldn’t run to Vingeld. She couldn’t sit back and let things happen while she hid away on the continent. Evaline had wanted her to leave Meadowvale and she was starting to see why. It was time for the Princess of Meadowvale to do something. Joining the Rangers and tracking the Meadow Dragon would not be enough. She wanted to end this and she had a feeling she knew how.

Half-jogging down the main processional way towards the Queen’s Council Chambers, she was relieved to see the wooden doors were closed. The council was in session. None of the lead advisers would be meandering around outside and she could sneak past without being seen.

As soon as she neared the hall she turned off the road and scurried down the trackway towards the stables. If she was lucky then he would be there. He said he had to go straight back to the border in search of the other stranger, but she knew how much he loved that beast of his. She was sure he would have waited for it to rest so he wouldn’t have to ride another.

Cassian would have to be the one to help her. He was the only one she could trust and he was the only one who knew how.

The vast stables were overcrowded with Ranger’s deer. Both new recruits and those brought out of retirement had all been put on duty in the last week and now there were three deer to a stall. The smell was overwhelming. As well as the usual manure there was the dust from the extra hay and the heat of the stables only exacerbated the problem.

She found him at the far end. Alone amongst the resting beasts. All the other rangers would be either on patrol, in training, or asleep in their hall.

“Cass!”

He looked up, startled and exhausted.

“Cassian.” She drew close and glanced around to ensure their isolation. “She is a Wealderling.”

His eyes widened, and then narrowed. “Are you certain?”

“She is from the Weald Wood. She told me as much herself.”

“Then she has awoken?”

“Yes!” Leasha nodded enthusiastically: it wasn’t even the most important news. “They came here to seek a way to stop their Forest Drake!”

“May I speak with her?”

Leasha hesitated. She didn’t know how to break the news of her own foolishness. She had let the maiden escape her quarters. Short of restraining her there was little she could have done but now she was a prisoner. “She was discovered.”

He turned back to his stag and brushed down the fox-red hair of Bastian who nuzzled him in thanks. “That’s that, then.” He shrugged but didn’t look at her.

“But what about the companion, her brother?” She always hated disappointing him, yet it was all she ever seemed to do.

“Caught and taken to the Public Hall.”

It was a crushing blow. Both Wealderlings held prisoner. “Curses.”

“Perhaps you can speak to the Queen, ask her to release them?” Cassian asked hopefully.

Leasha laughed. “Perhaps I can talk to the ocean and ask her to release the Lost Plains.”

“She is not so stubborn, Leasha.”

“Perhaps not with you.”

He turned and pointed at her with the grooming brush. “She banished me to the borderlands because of you. I hardly think she has so much time for me.”

“Oh, come on, Cass! Just remind her of the Wizard rumour.”

He shook his head and went back to brushing. “That has nothing to do with the Wealderlings, if that is indeed what they are. Besides, the Queen is likely to let them go. With the starving and destitute pouring in from the four corners of Meadowvale, she’ll have no interest in feeding prisoners.”

Leasha watched him. His movements were languid, and she wondered how much sleep he’d managed. His eyes were sunken and dark, and his clothes were loose and untidy, he had lost a lot of weight in recent weeks. “Our Dragon has turned on us, Cassian. No one understands why. And now it seems the same has happened to the Wealderlings.”

“The Forest Drake, too?”

“Yes. Their green wood is dying, just like our crops are failing... something is happening, Cass. Something bigger than just the Elves and our lands. You can feel it, I know you can.”

He shrugged and continued to brush the fur. “It is not my place to feel anything.” Over and over he brushed, determinedly ignoring her.

“Cassian?” She pressed him again. She couldn’t understand why he would give up so easily. “If the Weald Wood is dying then what hope can there be for Meadowvale?”

“What would you have me do?” Cassian dropped his hand from the stag’s fur and turned to her, his eyes red-raw, and a snarl upon his lips. “I am nothing. I am no one, Leasha. What magic do you think I can call upon? I’m not even Royal, let alone a Princess.”

“The Wizard can help–”

“The Wizard!” He snorted and waved his hand dismissively. “The Queen will have no more talk of Wizards. Especially from a low-born Ranger on border patrol. I just hope she doesn’t hear of my most recent dereliction of duty.”

“The Queen trusts you, Cassian.”

He shook his head. “How do you come to that?”

“She put you in charge of my safety, did she not?”

“Yes. And when I failed she took my rank and sent me away.”

“Oh, has it really been so bad?” She tried to brush away the guilt but the memory of his punishment for her wrongdoing gnawed at her stomach.

He looked up at her: all pretence of grooming was gone. “I have missed home.”

“Well, it is a very different place now, after these Dragon attacks.”

He shook his head. “You do not relent, do you?”

“And neither do Dragons.”

He sighed. “The Queen gave an answer last time. She declared that no Rangers were to leave Meadowvale.”

“Exactly.”

“Then there is your answer.” Cassian returned to grooming with the assumption that their debate was at an end.

“No Rangers, Cassian. But you could guide the Wealderlings to the northern border. They could go in search of the Wizard.”

“So, we send others to do our work?”

“They are desperate for answers, they shall be eager to go.”

“It has been only seven days since I put the thought of Wizard hunting to her: she will not have altered her thinking in so short a time.”

“Things have changed.”

“They have grown worse, Leasha, if the Queen would not spare me for this quest seven days past then she is not likely to wish to do so now. I am needed in the borderlands.” The stag grunted as Cassian shifted to the far side of the beast and began ferociously smoothing out the creature’s fur.

“Wizards respect magic, they might listen to the Wealderlings: there could be some insight into the Dragons that only a Wizard could provide—”

“‘Might be’, ‘could be’, do you hear yourself? The Queen said there was nothing in this.”

“Cassian!” Leasha grabbed his hand, forcing him to cease his incessant brushing, “Wizards know things. They know more of magic and Dragon lore than any Elven Scholar or Druid Priest: you told me that yourself.”

Cassian snatched his hand back. “And what are Wealderlings to do in the north? Happen upon the Wizard within the thousand acres of swamp? Learn all the secrets of the Council and then return to—to what? To blast the Dragon from the air? Is that even possible?”

“Wealderlings have magic, Cassian, far more magic than Elves.”

“They could not even defeat the howlers. How are they to survive the Fenwater Marshes?”

“You said she was strong, Cass. Their magic will help them find the Wizard and—”

“A Wizard that is no more than a rumour.” He dismissed her idea with a wave of his hand. “This is lunacy.”

“The Wealderlings were rumour until today!”

He sighed, no longer brushing the deer’s fur, instead almost leaning on the beast for support as he was beaten down by her barrage of arguments upon his tired mind. “I could be gone six days or more.” He shook his head. “The Queen would never agree. I shouldn’t even be here.” He nodded at his own words, recovering enough to replace the brush and fetch the stag’s tack from the hook.

“’Tis but a day’s ride to the border, Cassian!”

“You think the Queen would spare a deer for each of them? There are barely enough for Rangers.”

“They are slight folk, Cassian. They could take young bucks, too small for patrol.”

He rubbed his forehead. “What are we even to gain by this?”

“Hope, Cassian. Does this not seem hopeless to you? The Guardian of the Meadows, the source of all life and magic and power, has turned against us. If She takes Her gifts back, if She drains our world of life... then what will be left? There will be nothing to live for, nothing even alive to mourn what’s been lost.” She reached out and placed her hand gently upon his, “I have to believe that this can be stopped, Cass. I have to believe there is a way to stop the Dragons, all the Dragons, from destroying everything and everyone across the land. I have to find hope.”

He let out a long, deep breath. “And you really believe we should send these strangers off alone to find the Wizard for us?”

She thought back to the strong but delicate maiden, wounded and lost. Leasha didn’t want her to struggle on alone. “I think we should go with them.”

“No.” He was firm and turned back to the beast as he fiddled with the bridle. “I like this nonsense less the more you speak of it.”

“But it was your idea!”

“It was my idea to send one Elf. One experienced Ranger to follow up the rumours of a Wizard in the Fenwater Marshes. I was willing to go. To risk my own life on the chance of seeking help from a member of the Wizard Council. There was never any intention to cart off a Princess and some unsuspecting Wealderlings and dump them in hostile territory!”

“I stood by you when you asked her before. Will you not at least return the favour?”

“That did little good for either of us.” Cassian shook his head firmly. “She is not to be swayed as easily as your soft heart, Leasha. I fear if I press her again so soon she may speak of treason.” He whispered the last word and turned away, concentrating hard on reattaching the bridle to Bastian, who shifted uncomfortably. The poor beast was unwilling to be going back out to patrol so soon. “I know, boy.” Cassian patted the stag gently. “We’re both working too hard.”

Leasha leaned against the wall and kicked at the straw underfoot. She didn’t understand his reluctance. If all the Dragons had truly turned against them and the whole of the Edge Islands were facing catastrophe, then what did the Queen’s favour matter to a single dispossessed Elf? Then she remembered that there was only one person’s favour that truly mattered to Cassian. But it was already too late for him to vie for her attention. Leasha stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on her friend’s arm. “She is married, Cassian.”

“This has nothing to do with Turia!” He threw off her arm and slammed the loose tack on the floor, disturbing the stag into grunting.

“Everything you do revolves around Turia.”

He shook his head and picked the tack up from the ground. “If you were capable of love, you’d understand.” He turned and marched away from the stables.

“So, my heart is both too weak and too hard?” she shouted after him, standing defiantly with his stag.

He halted and hung his head but didn’t turn.

She spoke carefully. “You can do nothing for her here, Cassian. But if we can bring back a Wizard... If we can learn what has made the Dragons turn, then maybe we can turn them back. Stop the blight and heal the land... You could save us all, Cass.”

He laughed and shook his head. “By Dragon’s Breath, you are thick-headed.”

“I learned from the best.”

He growled in frustration and turned back to her. “I will ask.”

“Yes!” She threw up her hands in triumph.

“I will ask permission to escort the Wealderfolk to the northern border. That is all.” He lay his hand flat to emphasise his point but Leasha was already delighted.

“I knew you would!”

“And none of this has anything to do with Turia.”

“Of course.”

“She is never to be mentioned again.”

“Understood.”

Elf Queen

“Why do I see my niece’s hand in this?” Evaline peered down her nose at Cassian. He looked away, unwilling to betray Leasha and unable to lie to his Queen. She let out a deep sigh. “I owe you an apology.”

His eyes shot up from the floor. “Ma’am?”

“I see now that keeping that maiden... contained is an impossible task and one which you succeeded at far better than most.”

“The Princess is...” Cassian wondered how best to describe Leasha. Stubborn? Obstinate? Strong-willed? Rebellious? “A free spirit.”

“She is a rampant liability, as well you know.” Evaline shook her head and turned to the large, intricately painted map on the chamber wall. It showed the land of Meadowvale and the surrounding countries of Dragon March, Midwinter, the Fenwater Marshes, and the great forest, which was neatly labelled in large, scrawling letters a hundred winters old as ‘The Weald Wood’. “What do you think of the idea, Cassian?” She turned back as he opened his mouth to answer but she berated him before he even started. “I wish to know your true thoughts, not the echoed words of the Princess.”

He swallowed hard and paused, thinking of the best way to be tactful. “My report has changed little since last we spoke: when my regiment was stationed on the north border we heard rumours from locals of a Wizard. Scouts were sent and spotted a robed figure moving east through Fenner territory. It was clearly not a Fenner and I believe this was the rumoured Wizard; however, without your direct approval I was not willing to break treaty in pursuit. But it has been many days hence, and there is no way to know if the Wealderlings can find the Wizard. As to whether the Wizard is even willing to aid us...” He spread his fingers wide and shrugged, “I cannot say.”

“You do not make my decision easy, Cassian.” A firm knock at the chamber door halted their council. “Enter!”

“News from the north, milady.” A leather-clad courier stood fresh-faced and nervous alongside the stone-faced Guard.

The young courier held out a parchment but spoke before the Queen could open it. “There have been fresh attacks on the northern border, ma’am.”

The Queen stared at him, her eyes widened. Cassian thought she would berate the young man for his breach of protocol, but it seemed that the news had shocked her out of noticing. “Dragons?”

“Fenners, ma’am. They have increased their border scouts and have been harrying the northern villages.”

Cassian tensed. There was always friction on the borders and often skirmishes between the swamp dwellers and the local Elves. He hoped it was no more than the usual fraught tempers. Especially if it meant he would be responsible for escorting the Wealderlings right into danger.

The Elven Queen sighed and waved her hand. “Then the orders are to increase our patrols to match: you can go.”

“But ma’am.” The courier looked nervously to the stoic Guard before continuing. “There is also news from Dragon March.”

Evaline glanced at Cassian and shook her head. “Yet more news!” She sighed and took a seat in a high-backed wooden chair, painted intricately with an interwoven latticework of green. It only became apparent to those who were able to get close enough to stare at it, that the design was that of the Green Meadow Dragon of Meadowvale, its front feet carved into the arms, its back feet carved into the front legs, and its wings carved into the backrest. It was a tribute to the creature that had, until now, watched over the Elven lands. “Apologies, continue.”

The courier bowed and carried on, nervously rushing his words. “The Master of Dragon March is dead.”

“Dead?” Evaline was startled. She looked hard at the young messenger. “Galvyn was a healthy man, was he not? Did they say how?”

“They did not, ma’am.” The courier bowed in apology.

“And is there a new Master?”

“There is a new Mistress.”

“A Mistress! Of Dragon March? Well, these are indeed interesting times.” She glanced at Cassian: he shared her surprise. “What do you know of this new Mistress?”

“We know she has the loyalty of the people and the Dragon Guard, but...”

“But what?”

“The Ambassador has heard that she wishes to reclaim the Hunting Grounds.”

Cassian baulked. His regiment was still on patrol in that area. It was a hotly disputed territory; a wide, grassy plain with great herds of giant horned, horned beasts known as ’oroc’, that were ripe for hunting. But, since the last Druid rebellion, the claims had largely been kept to taverns or skirmishes during the Midwinter gathering. The Hunting Grounds were a safe patrol, but now Cassian worried for his brethren. He should have been there with them.

Evaline laughed. “Is she really dragging that old claim out of the woodwork?” She sighed and shook her head. “Well, whilst the lands are riddled with unpredictable Dragons it’s no good making claims to anything.” Evaline shook her head. “Send her our condolences and pass on my orders for the Ambassador to assure the treaty. Peronius?”

“Yes, milady.” The stone-faced Guard bowed solemnly.

“Have those orders made writ and ensure the courier has the royal seal.”

“Aye, ma’am.” He nodded curtly at both the Queen and Cassian then turned and left with the courier, carefully sealing the door behind them.

EVALINE LET OUT A LONG breath. She knew that every new leader has some primping of feathers before they settle down, and a mistress of Dragon March would no doubt have more posturing to do than most, but she couldn’t help wondering if there was some connection through it all. The dispute over the Hunting Grounds had been settled ten summers ago: why bring it up now? Why, after generations of Masters had the Northern Druids chosen a Mistress? Why were the Fenners on the attack after three seasons of peace? And did any of this have anything to do with the Meadow Dragon? She squeezed the armrest, carved into the shape of a Dragon’s right front leg. Six Elven Queens before her had sat upon this throne. Six mothers had handed their throne to six daughters to rule peaceably over generations of Elves. In all that time there had never been a Dragon attack. Never had a life been taken by the Gods of the Meadows. The land was fertile and green because of the Dragon. Because of their worship and their dutiful tributes. Where had they gone wrong?

It struck her in an instant.

Of course, it had not been six mothers handing their throne to six daughters: Leasha did not have her crown. The true heir did not sit upon the throne. Instead it had been claimed by a usurper. Of royal blood and royal magic but a usurper nonetheless. Did the Dragon know this? Was the Dragon punishing her? Now that Leasha was of age was it time to hand over the crown? If what the young Cassian had said was true, then the Forest Drake of the Weald Wood had turned against the Wealderlings... Did this mean she was innocent or that her crime punished everyone? She stood up suddenly, no longer wishing to stain the royal seat with her presence.

“Ma’am?” The young ranger looked up at her with concern.

“Everything seems to happen at once, does it not?” The young man nodded his assent.

Evaline needed answers. Her people were dying, she couldn’t step down now... could she?

The Wizards would know.

They studied magic and the ways of Dragons in ways her Dragon Priests could only dream of. But they were out of reach, locked up in their fortified tower hidden on the far side of Druid territory. Concealed and unreachable, the Wizards were ever-afraid to share their learning lest it lead to war. But a Wizard in the Fenwater Marshes? A lone Wizard could be reasoned with... persuaded to reveal secrets.

Surely once the Wizard saw that she wished only to save her people, then there would be no question of offering aid.

There were no certainties. But something had to be done and this was something.

“Let us meet with this Wealderling of yours.” Evaline did not wait for Cassian to reply. Instead, she swept out of the Private Chamber and along a corridor decorated with the frescoes that told the story of the Elven Foremother’s journey across the sea to settle her clan in the new Motherland of Meadowvale.

At the top of the staircase she hesitated. The councillors were gathering below wondering why the second council session of the day had yet to commence. They were not used to being kept waiting but, just this once, they would have to be patient for a little longer. She swept down the steps and nodded to them as she passed. She offered no explanation as to the delay. She ignored the entrance to the Council Chamber and instead headed straight to the public hall.

A few more robed citizens were talking quietly beside the long hearth which ran down the centre of the hall. Hanging along both the walls were the shields of great houses of the Elvin Motherland. Each one brightly painted with a different motif; a great stag’s head, a lyre, a bow, two crossed maces, a pair of fish, and her own shield: the Green Dragon of Meadowvale.

Waiting at the far end of the hall, standing unrestrained and defiant, was a dark male figure. He was short and slight, his hair worn long and loose, his new beard was unkempt, and his clothing ruffled and torn. He truly carried the look of The Weald Wood. She beckoned slightly to one of the Guards and immediately they marched him forward as she took her place on her high throne of office.

The Guards pushed him down with such a sharp and sudden force that his legs buckled, and he landed on his knees at her feet. His chestnut eyes stared up, challenging her. With his jaw set firm, he threw off the Guards and stood. They rushed to restrain him, but Evaline dismissed them both with the tiniest of gestures. There was no reason to treat him as a threat. Yet.

“Great and mighty Queen of the Elves, I am Broc, Son of Coinin, child of the forest and brother to the Elven people.”

Evaline raised her eyebrows at his archaic and unusual greeting. “Welcome, son of Coinin, what business have you in my lands?”

He bowed low and Evaline couldn’t help but smile at the attempt at fine manners from the rough woodsman. “I have travelled far from the forests of the south to seek your aid.”

“You travelled alone?” She studied his reaction: if there was an army waiting at her border the slightest gesture could give him away. But she was surprised when he glanced briefly at Cassian, and she realised there were parts of this story she had not been told.

“My sister travelled with me, but we were separated.”

Cassian leaned over and whispered to her. “The sister is in the common gaol. She is well.”

Evaline was relieved and yet her curiosity was roused. “We have your sister.” Evaline assured the young man and he smiled briefly and nodded. “The Elves face a great many threats of their own.” She wished to remain as diplomatic as she could in the public hall with so many Elven ears listening to her every word. Too dramatic and she might start a panic; too relaxed and she would face accusations of uncaring ignorance. “What aid is required in the forests of the south?”

“The Forest Drake has turned against us. The Elves have spent many generations in this land: we hope that your wisdom can help us understand the cause and persuade the Dragon to have mercy upon us?”

If only such a thing were possible. “We cannot help you in this regard.”

“An army, then? I have seen your Elf armour, your weapons: if you join us in battle we are sure to defeat the Dragon.”

There was a muttering around the public hall; despite the recent attacks, prayers were still held for the Dragon. She had noticed the temples of Meadow Hall had standing room only every morning; as each repentant Elf believed their own lapse in faith was at the root of the attacks. Evaline’s recent decision to take up arms against the creatures had not been a popular one. “We have sympathy for your cause, but cannot aid you directly—”

“You must help us.”

A gasp went around the room and a Guard stepped forward and placed a hand upon the woodsman’s shoulder, but the Queen ushered the Guard back with a dismissive wave. Now was not the time to be seen as weak: she couldn’t rely on the strength of her Guards to manage one young man, no matter how desperate.

“You have not the authority to tell us what we ‘must’ do.” She tried to keep the anger from her voice. To her people she must appear calm, unwavering, but firm as stone. Strong enough to be benevolent. “But we will forgive your transgression in light of your plight.”

“And will you forgive the Forest Drake when He murders us all?”

There was another shocked gasp and this time the Queen’s hand was not enough to silence the raised voices.

“If we do not stand together on this, we are all as good as dead,” the Woodsman continued. “The Elves as well, for why should the Drake stop at our borders?”

Evaline cursed herself. She should have known to expect such passion; she should have taken this meeting in secret. Not in a public gallery. “Silence!” She stood and stared out at the gathered faces. “We do not heed threats from strangers.”

“My people are dying.”

She stepped down from the dais. She was taller than the young man by a few inches and made the most of her slight advantage by staring down at the unkempt figure. “So are mine!” She hissed the words in a low growl so that only he and the Guards with him were able to hear. She returned to her seat satisfied that she had made her point. This man wanted too much. He would not be satisfied with her offer, but it was more than her better judgement would usually deign to give.

“When you betray my people” – there was such a pure ferocity in the young man’s words that had he not been standing between two of her finest Guards she would have been afraid – “you betray your own as well!”

There were gasps and mutterings, and Evaline fancied that many of them were pure exaggerations; she was providing her people with some fine entertainment this afternoon. There was not an Elf in the land who would dare to speak to the Queen like that in public. She had to finish this encounter and she had to do so in a manner that enabled her to appear victorious. She stood and moved towards the Wealderling once again and their eyes met in a silent battle that neither was willing to lose. But the Wealderling, tired, beaten, and hungry, was the first to look away. “You are fortunate,” Evaline whispered, “that one of our people has spoken on your behalf.”

The young man looked again at Cassian, and Evaline wished she could have seen the full exchange that passed between these supposed strangers.

“The Ranger, Cassian, has agreed to escort you to the northern border in search of aid.”

“The northern border?” He looked up at her with incredulity. “But my people are in the forests south of here.”

Cassian stepped forward to stand at her side. “There is said to be a Wizard somewhere in the lands north of here,” he tried to explain but was quickly cut off.

“Said to be somewhere?” The Woodsman shook his head, confused. “Even if you could find this Wizard of yours, what good is it against the Dragons? My people need an army.”

“Well, you are not going to find one here.” Evaline had grown tired of their battle of wills. She needed this to be at an end and would be relieved when the young man was finally put beyond the borders of the Motherland. She dismissed the Guards and they grabbed his shoulders, dragging him down the length of the hall. He did not take his eyes from hers until the Guards forced him forward at the point of their spears. He was a strong man and if there was any who could discover the whereabouts of a Wizard she was certain it would be him.

Exhausted by the encounter, Evaline collapsed onto her throne and beckoned Cassian over. “Take good care of him.”

He looked at her and blinked. “Aye, milady. I shall do what I can.”

Reunited

“Rise, prisoner!” Breanna was woken roughly by a gruff voice and a hard tug at her shoulder.

“Leasha?” Barely able to open her eyes and dizzy with a half-dream, the young Woodlander struggled to stand. The reeds underfoot were rough against her bare feet and the woollen cloak that had once seemed so warm and comforting against her was now thin and useless in the cold, dark air.

She was marched from the room and guided by shouts that jarred in her sore head. But she was glad the Guards didn’t feel the need to fiercely grab her shoulders with their long, bony fingers again, as the bruises were still sore from the last time. They led her down an unfamiliar dank corridor and out into a large, torch-lit, square yard where she was ordered to halt.

She didn’t know how long she had been kept in the cell but her stomach told her it was at least a day and the bitter cold of the night agreed. The flagstones were blocks of ice against her bare feet and she shuffled around holding the cloak tighter against herself. She tried to urge heat into her body and ignore thoughts about what these Elves might have planned for a prisoner they dragged out of the cells in the dead of night. She glanced around surreptitiously, hoping to catch sight of Leasha and wondering if it would be too risky to ask for a Healer.

Another contingent of Guards emerged from across the yard. They dragged another prisoner out into the light of the torches, dark-haired, sluggish, and unarmed.

Breanna was grabbed and pulled back sharply by one of the Guards as she went to rush to her brother.

Broc stumbled as they came to a halt. A Guard stood either side of him: he had been stripped of his leathers and wore only his tunic and breeches. As he looked about him, he caught her eye and his manner altered completely.

“Breanna!” He was immediately hit in the small of his back by the blunt end of a Guard’s mace. His knees buckled but he managed to stay standing and turned to snarl at the Guard.

The Guards were faceless under their helmets. Their long bronze hair fell about their shoulders and over their bronze chest plates, maces were slung at their belts and they held spears in their left hands. The Woodlanders, tired, dishevelled, and frogmarched by four Guards between them, made quite the spectacle for the early risers setting up their market stalls as they were walked along the main thoroughfare.

Breanna kept looking around for Leasha, hoping to catch a glimpse of her new friend. Although all Elves were tall, with green eyes, pale skin, and bronze hair, Breanna was certain she would be able to pick out Leasha’s particularly bright bronze shade, or her graceful stance even in the dark. But there were few Elves about and none was Leasha. She wondered if she would ever see her again and was surprised by how much she hoped she would.

They turned down a wider track towards more buildings of a low stature and were greeted with the sounds of various animals grunting and whinnying for an early breakfast, as well as the unmistakable stink of manure. Just as she was beginning to wonder where they would be led to next, they were marched up to the door of a stable, bundled inside, and the door was locked behind them.

As she stood in dumb surprise in the darkness Broc suddenly threw his arms around her.

“Are you well?” His brow was furrowed in concern. “How are your wounds? Did they feed you? Where are your clothes?”

Before she could answer, the stable door was flung open and two large packs were tossed inside. “Dress with haste. He shall arrive shortly.” The Guard then sealed the door once again.

Broc and Breanna stared at one another, the same question in both their minds: who shall arrive shortly?

Breanna vaguely recognised one of the packs as the one Leasha had brought to her cell. Hurriedly, she looked through it and was relieved to find her own familiar clothes, unwashed but with the worst of the blood and mud brushed off. The second pack contained Broc’s leathers and boots. She had only the crack of light from a torch outside, but she hastily dressed in her leather breeches and boots, thankful and relieved to have clothes against her skin once again. Broc searched around the stable, disturbing the large, half-sleeping, animals as he looked for a way out.

“What do they mean by locking us in here?”

She didn’t have an answer and searched through the rest of the bag hoping that Leasha had left her some food or water. She was almost hungry enough to consider the bales of dried grasses hanging from the beams.

Finally, Broc settled and grabbed his things from the other pack, his tunic and leathers, his belt, but there was no axe. “Did they tell you anything?”

Breanna thought back to Leasha. “Their Dragon has turned, same as ours.”

“Then she is mad!” Broc shook his head. “Curse her! That Queen of theirs refused our call for aid.”

“You spoke to the Queen?” She wondered if Leasha had arranged the meeting and was thankful that she had at least tried.

“And now she plans on sending us to the north.” Broc hit the wooden wall in frustration.

“The north?” Breanna had never travelled this far and now she was being sent even further away; she couldn’t imagine being so torn from her kin. Her hand went to the runestone around her neck, it was warm, and she could feel Fia’s gentle heartbeat. She wanted it to calm her, but the realisation of how far away she was and how long it would take to see her kin again made it hard to breathe. “But why?”

“They spoke of ‘wizard’, do you know this word?”

His eyes searched her face, but she stared back at him and shook her head. “What does it mean?”

He threw his hands up in despair. “Oh, who knows what nonsense flies through the mind of an Elf. We should have listened to Colm. These people are foolish, selfish, and short-sighted cowards.” He muttered to himself as he began to replace his belt. Breanna said nothing; she was too tired to disagree and too startled at the thought of travelling even further from home.

There was a knock at the door. They both stared at each other in silence, neither moving.

“A Guard?” Broc whispered.

“Must be.” But she couldn’t think why they would suddenly feel the need for courtesy after such rough handling. The polite tap came again, and as a distant hope pulled at her stomach Breanna allowed her curiosity to conquer her fear. “Come in!”

Broc stared at her. “Come in?”

“Well, she is knocking.”

“She?”

Breanna shrugged, unwilling to share her hope as they listened to the bolts unfastening. The door creaked open, letting the bright light of a flaming torch into the dark stable, they both blinked at the Elf standing in the entrance. For a moment, Breanna was sure it was Leasha in her green tunic, leather belts and straps, but, as her eyes adjusted, disappointment swelled within her: it was a heavy-set Elf with long, flowing, plaited hair the darkest shade of copper. She didn’t recognise him, yet he seemed strangely familiar.

“Oh, it’s you,” Broc sighed.

Breanna glanced at her brother, hoping for an introduction, but suddenly the Elf greeted her. “I am so glad to see you recovered,” he said brightly. “How’s the... erm...” He indicated his neck, and Breanna’s hand instinctively went to her bandage: she had almost forgotten the wound since the pain had gone.

It was then that she recognised him. The Elf on the stag at Blackwater, the one who had fired that arrow just before she blacked out. He had seemed so ferocious and yet he had saved her life, carried her across the lands of Meadowvale and into the arms of a Healer. Now he was standing there, no longer a half-remembered dream but a real person, a man she owed her life to, a man she should kneel to, and shower with gifts of gratitude.

“B—better... thanks.” She stared at the ground, feeling her face flushing hot as she wondered what rank of fool he thought she was.

“Leasha is a fine Healer.” He nodded with satisfaction. “You may not even scar.”

“Is she here?” Her eyes snapped up as she looked beyond him out to the darkness of the yard.

“No, she begs your forgiveness but could not come.”

“I never had a chance to thank you, Cassian.” Broc held out his hand to the Elf. “For saving my sister.”

Cassian shrugged. “You did not leave me much choice.” There was a moment of silence before he laughed and slapped Broc on the shoulder. “I did what I could, my friend, I only wish the times were not so strange. The world has turned on its head, has it not?”

“It would seem that way.”

“Perhaps if this Wizard is found then it will be two kingdoms you save and not one?”

Broc sighed. “You have strange hope, my friend.”

“What is wizzerd?” Breanna asked. “Is it magic of some kind?”

“Aye.” Cassian nodded. “In a way. The Wizards are the keepers of magic in the Edge Isles and beyond, they train those who show the Skill and keep their secrets well.”

Breanna remembered the potion and the magic used to heal her wounds. “They trained Leasha?”

“Nay.” He shook his head. “She had to stay in Meadowvale. Besides, the Wizard you seek will be far stronger than her.”

“You’re not coming?” Breanna looked to Broc, hoping he was more confident about this new quest than she was.

“I am to take you to the border.”

Broc frowned at Cassian and shook his head. “Say we do discover this Wizard?” he asked. “What is to prevent us avoiding your lands on our return and refusing to aid your people as your Queen has refused to aid mine.”

“Nothing.” Cassian was grim. He pressed his lips tightly together and nodded slowly. “But Friend, I understand your wrath. It is a long way back to your home if you go any other way: would you really risk your people’s lives just to spite my Queen?”

Broc grunted in reply but didn’t protest further.

“Good.” Cassian nodded and strode past Breanna and Broc into the barn and inspected the shifting, half-sleeping animals behind them. He turned back with a grin. “How well do you ride?”

“Ride?” Broc stared at the strangely jubilant young Elf.

“We cannot walk all the way.” He gently slapped the hind of a large red deer and the beast snorted with indignation. Broc and Breanna exchanged a glance and she saw he shared the same desperate fear as herself.

She swallowed hard. “How do we get on?” She took a cautious step towards the giant beast and slowly raised a hand to stroke its soft fur. To her surprise the beast’s huge head turned to look at her and she quickly backed off.

“Do not be afeard,” Cassian said gently, “she likes you, now come around here.” He indicated the far side of the doe and she cautiously followed his direction. The animal had a leather saddle strapped to its back with foot straps dangling down each side. “Now, place your foot in here, nay the other foot, that’s it.”

Breanna grabbed either side of the saddle and, when Cassian gave the nod, she hoisted herself up and threw her leg over the top, laughing in relief as she sat atop the creature. She had never sat astride an animal before and could feel the doe moving beneath her. Its breath was slow and calm and it shuffled its feet each time it took a mouthful of dried grass from one of the nets hanging from the ceiling. She began to wonder if she would just have to wait until the animal took a notion to move and hope that it went in the direction she wanted to go.

“Now what?”

Cassian laughed. “Mayhap ’twould be faster if we walked.”

Breanna found herself laughing, too. It seemed so strange to have come so far, worked so hard to get here and now to be seated upon a stationary beast as it quietly munched its breakfast utterly oblivious to her presence. The more she began to laugh, the more absurd the situation seemed to be, and soon all three of them were struggling for breath in the darkness of the stables.

It was Cassian who recovered first. “I think a little training is required, is it not?”

He led the red deer out into the yard and for the next hour the Woodlanders each learned to manage a beast. Pulling reins this way and that way to turn the creature, kicking slightly with their foot to spur the deer on, and, most difficult of all, trying to avoid unintentionally kicking the animal’s side with a flailing foot. Breanna found this out to her cost whereupon her red doe darted forward before she was ready, and she was flung off, landing with a thud and a bruised backside on the soft earth of the training ground.

She was relieved that Broc, at least, was a fast learner; too many times she pulled the wrong side of the reins or kicked when she meant to steady. Moving her own body seemed an impossibly complicated task at such an early hour without breakfast. She didn’t think she could ever have mastered the art of guiding the deer and was relieved when it was suggested she should simply share Broc’s buck.

They were hungry, thirsty, and tired when the Elf finally agreed to a break. “We shall linger only briefly, friends, so rest while you can.” He handed Broc his axe. “They asked me to withhold this from you till we reach the northern border, but frankly, my friend, you may need it.” Broc nodded and slid the handle into his belt. Then Cassian turned to Breanna. “You did not have a weapon?”

Breanna felt her ears grow hot as she remembered how easily she had broken the Hunter’s first tenet: ‘Never lose your blade’. But, like a frightened child, she had abandoned her knife in the Dead Wood. She shook her head sadly.

“I brought you this.” Cassian handed her a sturdy, wooden quarterstaff that had been resting against the paddock fence. She took it gratefully but was disappointed when the soft hum of life she had expected wasn’t there. It was just a large, dead stick.

“’Tis not much,” Cassian explained, “but it may save your life.”

She nodded, turning it over in her hands and trying to work out how to use it, when he threw a small bag of food at her. She stumbled back then fumbled with the pack before dropping it. The bag contained several small honeyed oatcakes wrapped in leaves, and a leather water bottle which she opened and drank from gratefully.

“That’s for the whole journey.” Cassian laughed. “Don’t drink it all at once.”

She dropped the bottle from her mouth bashfully and he laughed again, shaking his head as he handed a similar pack to Broc.

Cassian allowed them only a few moments more before he glanced up at the stars, his eyes narrowing, then he nodded. “’Tis late enough.” He gracefully mounted his red steed with no need of foot straps and Broc followed suit. Breanna clambered up to sit in front of her brother, she felt safer with his arms around her, holding the reins and preventing her being thrown off. She was already sore from the training and hungry from the hours of confinement. She was glad to have a ration pack, but she knew that her rations wouldn’t even last until dawn.

They rode quickly along the thoroughfare of Meadow Hall, and the market place was starting to bustle with traders beginning to arrive in their carts. The pounding of the buck’s hooves against the hard flagstones ricocheted through her body. Broc guided his steed to follow Cassian through street after street, twisting and turning through row upon row of identical wooden huts until eventually the two-towered north gate of the city appeared before them.

They crossed the threshold of the open doors without ceremony and Breanna glanced back, wondering if she would ever see the Elven city of Meadow Hall, or its Healer, again.

Dragon Temple

It was midnight in the Druid village of Crossway and there was a chill in the air. The bonfires warmed Captain Andra’s bare hands as she stood watching her soldiers. They were busy running back and forth carrying scrolls, books, furniture, and carefully carved wooden effigies of the Great White Dragon.

They were there to empty the Dragon Temple of the last vestiges of Dragon worship and toss them onto the already burning heap.

Tonight was the night they finally murdered the Gods.

Generations of Dragon worship were crackling on the fire, hours of sermons were at an end: tolls and taxes to their lizard Gods would no longer be collected. The artworks, furniture, and books dedicated to the Old Religion were turning to smoke as the fire roared.

It had been a sudden change, and for many Druids it was too sudden. Andra had noticed the women in her ranks hesitate at the door of the temple, still held back by the belief it was a place where only men could tread. Even now, after hours of destruction, after growing the pyre to twelve feet high, some would hesitate before they burned the detritus of a dead religion. But she was warmed to see that most of her soldiers threw the items upon the flames with glee.

The Temple Priest had, so far, been spared and Andra walked across the grassy yard to where he kneeled before her beloved. He was a young man, and had seen no more than thirty winters. His face was clean-shaven but his light brown hair had grown long and brushed the shoulders of his white robes. His impassive face was lit by the fire that burned the sacred objects of his vocation and he stared, empty as the temple.

She’d expected him to whine and plead as all the others had once they learned of old Master Galvyn’s death. She’d assumed he would soon be begging to join the new order and grovelling at Olwen’s feet. But this one seemed colder than the rest. More aloof. Perhaps he had nothing much to live for, no reason to beg. Perhaps, like some before him, he secretly shared Olwen’s hatred of the Gods and delighted in their defeat.

He listened silently as Olwen spoke of her vision.

“Your world is gone now, Priest.” Her face was lit by the soft firelight, and her golden eyes gave her the look of the very Dragons she sought to subdue. “The Druids will rise again. Dragon March will finally reunite with the southern land of Midwinter and together we will drive out all the other races that plague our island. We shall be true Masters of the Dragons.” She laid a hand on his shoulder and they both watched the fire rage. “Magic will be used. Not hidden away by Wizards and Priests, not kept for an elite few to abuse and conceal... no. It will be given back to our people, and we will thrive, just as we once did.”

Andra watched the man but he remained impassive. A powerful speech by the new Mistress of Dragon March had swayed hundreds yet this man remained unreadable. Andra reached for the hilt of her blade. He might yet prove fanatic.

“You will help us rebuild.” Olwen looked down at him with her devastating smile and her arms open ready to welcome him. “Join us,” she whispered, “join the people of Dragon March.”

He stood, and Andra relaxed her sword arm, awaiting the relief as he took up Olwen’s generous offer. But she was startled as he spat at her lover’s feet. Andra moved swiftly, grabbing his shoulder as he swore at the Mistress.

“Never,” he said, throwing off Andra’s grasp. He was stronger than she’d expected. “Magic is sacred!” She grabbed him again, this time with both hands, ready for his resistance. All it would take was one fanatic and the whole fragile empire could fall. “This is a perversion!” he shouted and screamed as Andra pulled him further away, his fate was settled yet he continued to fight. “You are a perversion of all that is sacred!”

A crack of thunder pierced the air and Andra was thrown backwards. She landed on the soft earth with a thud. A blinding light forced her to shield her eyes and she watched helplessly as the Dragon Priest writhed on the ground before her, his body spasming with silent and unnatural screams.

She stared wide-eyed and frozen as Olwen’s magic enveloped the thrashing priest; this wasn’t part of the plan.

They were to remove the priests, yes. Execute if necessary. But this? This was torture. Torture of a defenceless man. A man whose greatest crime was loyalty.

Andra backed away, not knowing if she could help him, and not knowing if she should; the power could kill them all. Olwen’s eyes were transfixed upon the dying man as the magic surged from her body and suffocated his. Soldiers paused their work to watch: many of them had never witnessed either a mage at work, or the wrath of their new leader.

Finally, she knew the priest’s body was no longer his own and only Olwen’s magic kept it moving, squirming on the ground. Carefully, Andra stood and walked towards her beloved, hoping to reach her and pull her from the dark place in which she dwelt. The rage within her had just killed a man and now it was going to kill her.

“Olwen?” She reached out, unsure what would happen when they touched. She laid her hand upon Olwen’s bare, rune-covered arm and the trance was over. The magic was gone. The man at their feet was still and Olwen, her deep blue eyes shining in the firelight, turned and looked up to Andra.

“I—I shouldn’t have...”

Olwen was weakening and Andra could see the woman she loved falling away from her. In an instant all concern for the dead man vanished. “No. No, no, no, it’s alright. You’ll be alright.” But the mage’s legs gave way and Andra caught her before she hit the ground. “Olwen? Olwen, my love? What do you need? What can I do?” The thought of Olwen slipping from her grasp into the great beyond filled her with quiet dread, and her heart swam with dizziness.

“Take... take me to the Dragon Hold, I need...” She didn’t have the power to finish the request but Andra understood immediately.

“I’ll take you, I’ll take you now.” Andra dragged her to her feet and half-carried the woman towards a horse. “You!” She pointed to an open-mouthed soldier. “Clear up this mess and march the squadron back to Dragon Hold.” He nodded and threw the wooden icon onto the fire before turning to the other soldiers. She had no idea of his abilities, but the soldiers didn’t matter now, all that mattered was Olwen.

It was eight miles over rolling grasslands to Dragon Hold. Alone and without armour her horse could make it in three hours, but at night, in full regalia, and with two riders, Andra had to push her horse harder than she had ever driven it. Olwen seemed to be drifting ever further from her grasp and Andra spurred the horse onwards, faster and faster, not daring to allow the beast to slow.

As dawn broke behind her, she could see the lights of the hill fort in the distance and cared not who or what she crossed to get there.

“Open the gates!” she screamed at the Guards as they rode down the track to greet her. There was panicked movement on top of the palisade. “Open the gates, Captain of the Dragon Guard!” There was shouting and running and the sound of creaking wood, then the two huge gates of the fort lurched open. Andra pushed her horse to climb the last few yards up the hill and into the fort, then they galloped along the road towards the entrance of the Dragon Hold itself.

Olwen was struggling but determined. She slid off the horse with Andra’s help and together they made it up the steps to the entrance of the building. Andra barked a reprimand at a Guard who stared too long as they passed. Then they were inside the Hold and rushing down the great flights of stone steps into the darkest depths of the hillside.

Olwen faltered, nearly taking them both tumbling forward down the staircase, but Andra was quick to catch her. Her eyes were bright blue, her body was small and fragile, and her limbs frail. She stared up at Andra, reaching out to touch her face and tracing the line of a scar across the woman’s cheek.

“Perhaps,” she whispered, her voice weak, “’twas only a matter of time.”

Andra couldn’t respond, her voice had left her, and her soul clung onto her chest by a hair’s breadth. She swallowed hard and shook her head, refusing defeat with all her strength. With an almighty groan of exertion, she heaved Olwen from the ground and carried her almost lifeless form down the last staircase.

Despite the dead weight in her arms, Andra would not give in. She pushed on down the stone corridor to the giant chamber deep beneath Dragon Hold, the chamber for which the fort was named, the Dragon Hold itself.

Inside, curled like a pup in a sunbeam, the Great White Dragon slept. Its gaunt head, the size of a full-grown bull, reared as the two women entered. It knew; it read the thoughts of Andra and it recoiled. Its rusting chains rattled as it heaved its mighty body onto its weak legs: the great and terrifying beast tried to shrink itself into a corner, backing away desperately.

But Andra ignored its plight, the Dragon’s pain was nothing to her own, and if there was a sacrifice to be made today it would not be the woman in her arms.

She laid Olwen at the beast’s feet; she was breathing but only just. She seemed peaceful, just sleeping, as if she were about to slip away into the realm of dreams. Andra held her hand and took a deep breath to ready herself, then she placed Olwen’s palm upon the Dragon’s snout and a deafening roar filled the chamber. The Dragon writhed and screeched but after just a few moments Olwen was awake. No longer held up by Andra, she sat, taking the beast’s head in her hands, then she raised herself onto her feet as a golden aether emerged from the squirming beast. Mage and Dragon were surrounded by a halo of bright life force that hummed with the familiar crackle of magic. The hairs on Andra’s skin prickled as her lover was revived by the Essence of the old God.

The Dragon cried out again and Olwen finally let its head drop to the chamber floor. She turned back to Andra, breathing hard: her cheeks were red and surging with energy and her eyes shone with a new golden vigour. She smiled. “Thank you.”

Andra nodded, relieved. “We should go.” It would not take more than a moment for the Dragon to revive, hungry to restore its stolen Essence. Nothing would survive in the hold for long.

As Andra sealed the door behind them and they heard the familiar cries of hunger from the raging beast, Olwen placed her hand upon Andra’s arm and looked up at her.

“I did the right thing, did I not?”

Andra opened her mouth to reply but the image of the young man writhing on the ground in agony filled her mind and she had no words of comfort to offer his murderer.

“That man, that priest, he threatened my authority, I couldn’t allow it. I had to show strength. Didn’t I?” Olwen gripped her arm, and frantic fingers dug into her flesh. Andra reached out: she could see desperation in the mage’s face. “I was right, wasn’t I?” Andra remembered the pleading, hopeless young fugitive she’d found in the woods all those years ago, the young woman hunted by the Wizard Council, with no friends or family left and nowhere she could hide. “Tell me I was right. Tell me I was right to kill him like that.”

Her heart had bled for her then as it did now. “Yes.” Andra pulled her into an embrace, holding her tightly and never wanting to let her slide away. “Yes, my love. You were right.”

Meadowvale

It was a long, hard trek beyond the city towards the north.

The land Breanna had seen from across River Blackwater was a different place in the dark. Long, straight hedgerows lined the track they followed and, every so often, they would pass a small, rectangular wood and clay hut with a thatched roof and a field beyond that was shrouded in dark. Occasionally, the light from a window or the torches of a passing night patrol would illuminate neat little rows of plants or fruit trees, or, in one case, flowers filled the little strip of land and tiny, wooden houses stood on stilts. The sound of gentle buzzing had filled the air and Breanna smiled as she realised with surprise that the Elves had managed to tame the bees.

The further north they travelled, the more Breanna noticed patches of dark rot distinguishable by the signature putrid smell of the Dead Wood. It made her wonder just how far the wrath of the Dragons extended. It was as if the land itself were sick. She wondered if the Dragons’ sudden change was a mark of a darkness she didn’t fully understand.

As the first sign of dawn started to lighten the sky, the three companions came to a crossroads where a figure upon a doe waited for them and Breanna felt a sudden burst of hope. Cassian galloped ahead and there were fierce words exchanged that Breanna was too far back to hear. As they drew closer the arguing ceased. Leasha, with bow and quiver at her back, mace at her side, and several packs of supplies behind her on the deer, was most definitely joining them on their quest. Breanna couldn’t swallow the grin that rose from her belly as her eyes met those of the Elven Healer, but she noticed a scowl darkening Cassian’s features.

“I was getting worried.” Leasha grinned broadly and nodded a greeting to Broc.

Breanna opened her mouth to apologise for their delay and tell the story of how she had struggled to learn to ride and let Leasha know how pleased she was to see her, and how thankful she was that Leasha had wrangled Broc’s meeting with the Queen, even though it had not been as fruitful as they had hoped – but Broc answered for her.

“We didn’t know we kept anyone waiting.” His tone was low and, rather than stopping to introduce himself, he continued along the northern road and Cassian followed.

“I apologise, friend.” Leasha hurried her doe to catch up with them. “However, I could not divulge my intent to join you.” Breanna noticed a sidelong glance at Cassian who shook his head with pursed lips. “But I wished to accompany you both to the border.” She looked to Breanna and smiled but again it was Broc who answered.

“It’s a pity you’re not an army to accompany us south.”

“I wish there were more Rangers to accompany you–”

“That so-called Queen hoards an army and forgets that Dragons know nothing of borders, they threaten us all!”

“Broc!” Breanna didn’t know how to stop his tirade; all she could do was glance apologetically towards Leasha.

“The Queen can only do that which she judges to be right.” Leasha spoke slowly and her voice was soft. Although she must have taken insult there was no trace of offence in her voice. “Alas, that does not mean she can acquiesce to every request that graces the Elven court.”

Broc laughed. “Even when the request would help her own people?”

“She has tried to do much for you: granted supplies, provided a stag to aid you on your way–”

“On our way? The northern border is not ‘on our way’. She doesn’t give a damn as long as we’re out of sight.”

Breanna’s face burned, and she looked down at the fur of the stag. She ran her fingers through the red softness, feeling it along the palm of her hand and doing all that she could to avoid listening to the argument.

“I assure you ’twas not to be rid of you that the Queen sends you north.”

“Well, it wasn’t to, damned well, help us!” Broc snapped. “That mean-spirited witch sits on a golden throne and knows nothing of suffering. She’ll hoard her soldiers and food till she’s fat and alone and then, when the Dragons finally come for her, there’ll be no one left she can turn to for help.”

Leasha didn’t respond. Instead she raced ahead without looking back and Breanna felt the twisting of deep regret within her. She began mentally rehearsing how she would apologise, how she would try to explain her brother’s behaviour or distance herself from it. She found she was suddenly torn between her brother and an almost total stranger. The feeling unnerved her.

Cassian hurried to trot alongside them. He leaned over and whispered to Broc, “The Queen is Leasha’s aunt.”

Breanna groaned as the shame of her brother’s words deepened. Then her own shame compounded it; she’d had no clue that Leasha was of royal blood; she had treated her like any other Healer, no deference, no respect. She’d even shouted at her. She knew well the tales of the Elves and their Queens, of the magic of true royal blood and their sacred blessings. She had never even thanked her for her help.

“Oh... I...” Broc muttered bashfully. But he had let his anger show and in doing so he had insulted a woman’s kin.

“By right,” Cassian said, his voice low and conspiratorial, “Leasha should be Queen. Her mother died in battle when she was barely more than an infant. Evaline, the old Queen’s sister, raised the Princess as her own.”

Breanna watched Leasha, an Elven Princess, as she rode ahead in the dawn light and remembered her own struggles growing up without a mother. She, too, had been close to her aunt and always had her father and brother. But there had been an absence she could never fully quantify, having never known the woman who should have filled that space.

“Evaline stole the crown from a child?” Broc’s anger was always difficult to tame on days when he’d had little to eat.

Cassian sighed and shook his head. “The Elven Crown is a heavy burden. ’Twas not a thing to be taken on lightly.”

“Evaline raised Leasha to be Queen. But when the Princess had passed not more than eight summers, a threat was made against her life. A Druid faction rebelled against us and their own rulers, to try to retrieve a part of Elven territory they saw as their own. They took Leasha and asked for the Hunting Grounds in exchange for her safe return. It almost restarted the old war. But Evaline worked with the Druid Master and together they raised an army to take on the rebels. Princess Evaline herself led the campaign. She was badly wounded in battle but returned with Leasha. It was then that she knew the crown was a dangerous burden and that it was unfair to place such a weight upon such a young head. So, she took the Royal Vow and bound herself to the Motherland. Evaline set Leasha free in more ways than one that day.”

“And if Leasha wants the crown back?” Breanna asked.

Cassian looked at her and paused, considering. “Queen Evaline would give it up in an instant,” he said. “She is not a cruel woman. She thinks of her people. Look around you.” As they cantered along the dirt road Breanna noticed a few Elves up with first light and toiling in their fields, collecting in a meagre harvest. “Who would protect these people if we send our army to fight your Forest Drake?”

“But if we defeat Him,” Broc said with passion, “you wouldn’t have to worry that He might attack you!”

“But if we lost, we would all lose everything.”

It was then that Breanna heard it.

The whispering. Thunderous yet silent. Voices in the dark of her mind. They were hungry, ravenous. She shifted uncomfortably on the buck and looked about furtively. There was nothing. No Forest Drake. Nothing was coming for them. It was just the talk of the Dragons. It was just thinking of them that brought back the memory. It played with her mind, made her believe she heard this strange noise, this hungry cry.

She twisted her neck, trying to force the sound away and think of something else.

But as the Whisper grew louder and stronger, clawing at her stomach and her mind, she tugged her brother’s arm. “Broc?” He ignored her and continued his debate with Cassian. “Broc?”

“What is it?” Cassian asked. “Are you well?”

“I think...” She didn’t know how to explain. She didn’t know how to tell them she heard voices. But the Whispers were growing stronger. The voices clawed at her and were taking over her thoughts too quickly for her to prevent them. She couldn’t hold back any longer. “The Dragons are coming.”

Cassian shook his head. “There is no reason to think—”

But his words were lost in the sound of a great roar that filled the air. A giant lizard of the sky soared above them with bright green scales like a snake, four clawed feet, a huge wingspan like an enormous bat, and those unmistakable Dragon features: the long jaw, the rows of teeth, the hungry, golden eyes.

It swooped, and Breanna’s stomach seemed to drop out of her body.

“Cassian!” Leasha’s doe reared up and she struggled to control its panic as the four of them stared at the creature.

Scattered Elves on quiet farmsteads cried out and ran for their huts as the Dragon roared and went in for the kill. A too slow farmer was caught. He screamed as his body was raised from the ground, stretched out as though every fibre of his being was torn apart. A golden aether burst from his body, surrounding him for a moment before the Dragon consumed his aura. The man tumbled to the ground in a heap.

“This way!” Cassian shouted as he reared his steed and turned down a winding trackway.

“No!” Leasha went to ride towards the farmers but Cassian spun his beast back on itself, tearing towards Leasha and grabbing the reins of her doe. She screamed at him in defiance and Breanna watched in helpless horror as the people Leasha had been riding to save were cut down and the Dragon feasted hungrily on their souls.

Broc pulled at the reins and dug his feet into the buck, taking off after Cassian and Leasha.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Breanna called, looking behind her.

“Save ourselves.”

They turned this way and that down the path under the shade of chestnut trees. As they dashed further downhill, the cries of the Elves faded and those hungry whispers became weak. But Breanna couldn’t tell if that was due to distance or satisfaction. How many lay dead? How many more would fall? The Whisper was a background hum pulling at her.

Cassian darted off the path and down a narrower deer track, finally coming to a halt outside a large, wooden building with a threadbare thatch. He leapt off his buck and hurried inside, pulling his mount under the low doorway to settle in with him. “Quickly! Quickly!” He frantically waved them through the door as he scanned the skies.

It was a long-abandoned barn. Old dry reeds lay on the earthen floor and a stone trough sat empty on the far side. Breanna had no doubt that if the Dragon wanted to find them it could, but she hoped it would simply go in a different direction. Kill someone else... the shame of the thought simmered gently within her.

“You should have let me help those people.” Leasha leaned against the wall, her arms folded like a sulking child.

“And what would you have done?” Cassian snapped. “Gathered them all onto your doe? Carried everyone here? Or stood and fought the beast single-handed?”

“I don’t know, but anything would have been better than leaving them all to die to save ourselves!”

“You cannot put yourself in that kind of danger.”

“That is not your decision to make, Cass. You are no longer my protector.”

“Perhaps I should be, for you listen to no one else.”

Broc and Breanna glanced at one another and backed away to a corner of the barn.

“I do not need a protector.”

“You have proven otherwise.”

“Is my life not my own?”

“No. You know it is not! You are not your own. You are a servant of the Elven lands, as is your aunt. As am I.”

“That is not the life I have chosen for myself.”

“No.” Cassian kicked at the reeds. “You have made that abundantly clear. And you devastate the lives of everyone around you.”

There was a long moment of quiet. Cassian took a deep, long breath and closed his eyes then walked over to the entrance, leaning on the frame and staring out.

“I’m sorry you were banished,” Leasha said eventually.

“And what of Evaline?” He spoke softly, his words barely more than a whisper. “If there is anyone whose life you have destroyed through your recklessness it is hers.”

“You can’t blame me: she chose to be Queen.”

“No, but you continue to put her in an impossible position. You force her to remain Queen and then act as though you are her superior.”

“I do not act superior.” She hissed the words, drawing closer to Cassian but neither were successful in keeping their words from the Woodlanders. Breanna sank to the ground, her hands over her ears; she needed to block out the argument, she needed to listen for the Dragon.

“You never acknowledge her authority—”

“But she orders me to do ridiculous things.”

“And how do you think that makes her look to the Council? What do you think they see whenever you refuse her authority? They see the true Queen defying her usurper!”

“I would never call her a usurper!”

She couldn’t hear it anymore. Even the trace of it had passed. Breanna was certain of it, the Whispering had ended, and the hunger was over. “The Dragon is gone.”

“You don’t have to, Leasha: the Courtiers and Councillors do it for you. Every time Evaline proposes something they disagree with, they whisper of you. Every time she raises levies, they whisper of you. Every time she sends their children to the borderlands they whisper of you. And every time you defy her authority you remind them who you really are!”

“I cannot be held responsible for thoughts in the heads of others, Cassian.”

“The Dragon is gone.” Breanna needed them to stop arguing. She felt weak, worn down by the Dragon’s lust for souls, and shattered by what she had seen.

“Everything you do affects the thoughts of others.”

“But all I ask for is freedom.”

“And who else must suffer so you can be free from your responsibilities?”

“The Dragon is gone!” Breanna barged between the quarrelling Elves and stormed back out into the bright early morning sunshine. It was warm on her skin and already she was starting to appreciate some of the smaller joys of being away from the constant shade of the forest.

“I’ve never seen anything like that.” Broc had followed her out with their buck and she noticed how pale he was. Even the attack on their village hadn’t been quite such a slaughter of the helpless. He looked over at her, his dark brown eyes sunken with resignation. “It’s not just about us anymore, is it?”

Northern Border

A line of mighty elms stretched across the horizon, as far east and west as the eye could see in the late-afternoon light. The line was only broken in the road directly ahead, and Leasha and Cassian slowed down as they approached. Broc pulled on the reins to let their buck know to do the same.

The dirt road continued beyond the line of trees but now they trod carefully. As they crossed the border, Breanna noticed the land beyond seemed strange, stranger to her even than the vast, open lands of Meadowvale. For here there were trees and the beginnings of a forest, yet so different to the woodlands in which she had grown that it felt like a dreamworld. Or a nightmare.

The ground was uneven, damp in places and with puddles and ponds in the deepest hollows. There were willows and sycamores alongside other trees she did not know: deep, slick, green leaves with black trunks, tall with a high canopy, they seemed to watch her as she passed by. The sounds of the woods were new to her. There were clicks and squawks, low grumbles and, as the sun began to grow heavier in the late-afternoon sky, so the louder the unbroken cacophony became.

A mist was falling on the borderlands. As frightening as Breanna found the place in the light, with darkness and mist, the land was truly terrifying. She hoped that the far side of the border, the new land they would be entering, would be a more welcoming refuge.

Cassian turned off the well-trodden path and onto a trail with more weeds, bracken, and thronging with midges and the occasional darting dragonfly. The others followed silently along, and Breanna felt she wasn’t the only one intimidated by their surroundings.

The path eventually opened out to a clearing. It was a flat, hard-earth yard without grass, weeds, or bracken, leaving only the bare, worn-down ground of frequent visitors. A wooden hut stood to the north, next to a wooden jetty that disappeared out into the long reeds. The mist had now fallen so heavy that it was impossible to tell if they were on the edge of a river or a lake, and even the gentle lapping of waves told her nothing.

Leasha dismounted and Broc suddenly drew the buck to a halt and followed. His legs wobbled slightly as he landed, and he turned to check on Breanna who slid down carefully onto the unfamiliar land. Although she had been seated all day, she felt exhausted and her muscles ached.

Breanna’s stomach panged as Broc walked over to Leasha, but she was relieved when he spoke. “I apologise for my words this morning.” Leasha turned to him, a smile ready at her lips. “When I spoke, I did not know she was your kin.”

Her smile was gone before it had a chance to emerge. “But you knew she was my Queen.”

“Where is the ferryman?” Cassian walked along the wooden jetty, looking either way along the water. Breanna wondered if his Elven eyes could see through the mist.

“If the ferry is gone he must be taking a passenger.” Leasha followed Cassian onto the jetty as if expecting the ferryman to return any moment. But the water was still, the land was dark and quiet, and the air was steeped with the scent of mildew and rotten fish. Breanna stood next to her buck and gripped its leather bridle, backing into the animal. Its warmth and steady breathing comforted her in this strange place and she was surprised how attached to him she had grown. She stroked his hair and listened to his slow breathing.

“It is time for us to be on our way.” Cassian nodded to himself and remounted his stag but Leasha hesitated.

Breanna started forward. Surely the Elves didn’t mean to just strand them in this damp and eerie corner? “You’re going?”

“We can’t leave them now,” Leasha pleaded, looking up at him.

“We cannot go with them; the ferry goes beyond our borders.”

“Let us at least wait with them for it to return.”

Breanna hoped that Cassian would agree. The thought of waiting indefinitely through the night for a strange ferryman in a strange land was too much for her to bear.

Cassian looked around uneasily and his stag seemed to sense his discomfort. “’Tis near nightfall. We do not know how long the ferryman will be.”

“Exactly, Cassian! The Wealderlings have never even been out of their forest; we cannot abandon them on their own. Let us wait with them.”

“We are not so hopeless as you would think.” Broc stood with his hand on the head of his axe and looked every bit the warrior. Breanna was certain he felt none of the foreboding that she did and was glad that, even if the Elves did leave them there, she wouldn’t be alone.

“We gave our word that we would escort you into the protection of the ferryman.” Leasha stood her ground. Slightly taller than Broc and more heavily armed, she was an intimidating figure.

Broc shrugged. “You have kept your word well enough.” As if to prove himself independent, Broc began to explore the clearing. His boots echoed on the wood of the jetty and he ran his hand against the reeds before turning and heading to the ferryman’s hut.

“You made no promise,” Cassian hissed. “I vowed to escort them both to the northern border and I have done so. My obligation is met.” He tugged on the reins of his stag and went to leave.

Breanna knew her path was being decided for her as she watched silently from the dark.

The door to the ferryman’s hut slammed closed. They all turned to look. Broc stood outside it, his skin as grey as the fog.

“Broc?” Breanna left her buck and went towards him, but he held up his hand for her to stop.

“The Ferryman?” Broc asked. “An older Elf? His hair gone white along with his beard?”

“Aye.” Cassian nodded a look of concern upon his features.

“He is dead.”

“What?!” Cassian dismounted and rushed forward, pulling his mace from his belt. “How?”

Broc held up a hand to prevent him entering the hut. “He did not die well.” He looked as though he were about to be sick.

“He shall be avenged.” Cassian stared out at the mist, as if the very air could be held responsible.

“This is not a place in good health,” Broc said. “Do you not feel it, Bree?”

She nodded. The thick air stank: there was a dankness she had not recognised until now, but it was just like the Dead Wood. Just like the lair of webspinners. She reached out again for the buck and drew herself close to the beast, listening to its heart. But she could already feel herself weakening at the memory. The webspinners flashed back into her mind, the fangs, the legs, Grainneog swallowed by the horde. She steadied herself.

“We should go,” Cassian said, returning to his stag, “All of us.” But just as he swung back onto his mount a harpoon flew from the reeds, striking the ground in front of it. The creature reared up and Cassian was thrown down just as a swarm of creatures burst forth from the reeds and leapt out from the water. “FENNERS!”

There were two dozen of the Fenners at least, Elvish in appearance and yet their hair was wet and black, and their skin was a dark greenish blue. Their fingers were long and webbed, as were the long toes on their long, bare feet. Breanna couldn’t tell if they were male or female and they somehow seemed to be both and neither at once.

As they fought, their glistening fish-scale armour flashed in the light, and their strange weapons struck this way and that. Leasha, quick with her bow, struck down two of the swamp creatures. Broc fought hard, his bronze axe clashing against harpoons as he was surrounded. Cassian, ready with his mace, took on a Fenner taller than any of them. The long, dark green hair of the swamp creature was made even darker by the water and their skin was a shade paler than the others, almost translucent green.

Fumbling to ready herself with the quarterstaff, Breanna barely had a chance to react before a creature came at her with a serrated blade like a row of pointed teeth. She swiped at them with her stick, hitting the Fenner hard across the wrist and the creature cried out. She followed up with a hit to their side, but they caught the end of her quarterstaff and the pair of them wrestled with it for a moment. Breanna panicked and just managed to free her weapon from their grasp before they came at her again. She darted backwards flailing out, but she buckled as a sudden whack hit the back of her knees. She yelped in pain as she fell and quickly turned to defend herself, but it was too late.

The new arrival had a three-pronged spear pointed at her throat.

“Cease!” the creature’s strange hissing voice called out. The figure was tall and willowy, covered with algae and weeds from the water, their eyes completely black, as were their two rows of pointed teeth.

Broc turned to look. His eyes widened, and he instantly threw down his axe, raising his arms in submission. Guilt and shame flooded through Breanna; she had been nothing but a burden. To her surprise, Leasha followed Broc in throwing down her bow, leaving Cassian surrounded by three of the creatures and alone in being armed. Angrily he cast his mace upon the ground and immediately a figure hit his head with the blunt end of their trident.

Before she could even call his name, Breanna felt a sharp pain and then the world went black.

Negotiation

Leasha gasped as Breanna was struck on the head. Broc moved forward but a weapon halted his path and the Fenners looked as though they were about to silence them all. Leasha searched her mind, desperately trying to think of the few words of Marshspeak she remembered from her lessons.

“Friend!” she shouted in the Fenner tongue and Broc looked at her, startled.

The large trident-holding-Fenner standing over Breanna looked up sharply and held up a hand to their companions. They stepped forward, peering at Leasha then gestured towards her bow on the ground. “Attacked.”

Leasha knew her Marshspeak was feeble but she hoped she could remember just enough to get by. She gestured open-handed to the Fenner’s own weapon, trying to remember if accusation was high-pitch or low-; she opted for low and in the deepest voice she could muster she responded in Marshspeak, “Attacked.”

The Fenner narrowed their eyes.

“What are you doing?” Broc hissed.

“My best,” Leasha hissed back.

The Fenner stood at their full height, and angrily gestured to the south. “Attacked. Attacked. Attacked.”

Without fully understanding the nuance of pitch and gesture, Leasha could only guess that the Fenner was referring to the Elven Rangers that protected the border from Fenner incursions. But surrounded by armed soldiers and without a full understanding of the language, she didn’t think that now was the time to get into the subtle art of border diplomacy. She dropped to one knee and put all her hope into grovelling. “Friend.” She bowed her head, fully aware that they could strike her down in a second. She held her breath.

The Fenner hesitated and then muttered short, sharp hisses at a companion, before turning back to Leasha, a hand on their chest. “Sacrifice.”

“What’s going on?” Broc asked desperately.

“I... don’t know...” Leasha searched her mind. She had no memory of whether this was a good start or a terrible one.

“I need to check on Breanna.”

“I know, I know, just let me think.”

“Let you think? What do you need to think of? You were willing to abandon us with these savages and now you need to think?”

“Dragon’s Breath, man! Cease your chattering. I’m trying to save our lives!”

“Death!” Suddenly a blade was thrust in the ground in front of her and she looked up into the fearsome dark eyes of the angry Fenner, furious at her slow response to his cryptic statement. But this was one word she couldn’t mistake and there was only one thing left for her to try. With two outspread fingers she pointed to her eyes and then to the distance across the Fenwater Marshes. “Monarch.”

The Fenner growled at her and pointed their own fingers to the north. “Monarch.” They swung their hand across to indicate the south. “Monarch.”

She took a deep breath and hoped she was making the progress she thought. She pointed directly at the Fenner with her two outspread fingers. “Monarch,” she said, then gestured to herself by placing her palm atop her head.

The Fenner’s eyes grew wide for a moment before they turned back to the others and began madly hissing and gesticulating.

“What did you just do?” Broc asked.

“I believe I informed them that I’m the Queen of the Elves.”

“Will they believe you?”

She grimaced. “’Tis not an utter fabrication.”

“Our lives depend on ‘not an utter fabrication’?” He kicked the dirt in frustration. Still holding his arms up in the air, he was getting more irritable by the second.

“Name?” The Fenner growled and pointed at Broc. Leasha could only think of one option.

“Monarch.” She used both hands to gesture to the south, hoping she had remembered the correct way to indicate that he was from even further away.

There was more hurried discussion.

“Get down on one knee,” Leasha said hurriedly.

“What?”

“Please?”

“You wish me to bow to these savages?”

“It means you intend no harm.”

“Oh, I intend these beasts harm: just the moment I get my axe I will show them exactly how much harm I intend.”

“You won’t help her by fighting them.”

“I will not submit to creatures that attack without provocation.”

“They have been provoked.”

“We did nothing!”

“Mayhap the Fenners blame us for the Dragon Attacks.”

“You mean their Dragon has turned also?”

“That would be my guess.”

“Your guess?”

The Fenner turned to them. A blade in hand they walked towards them, teeth bared, and Leasha did not like the result of their discussion.

“We can’t argue our way out of this... just submit.”

“Just because you’re a Princess doesn’t mean—”

“Submit or they will kill you.”

The Fenner loomed over Broc.

“Then I will die on my feet.”

“And who will help your sister?”

The Wealderling opened his mouth to argue, but instead he dropped to one knee.

“Ga’lloom.” Leasha called out the Marshspeak word for ‘friend’, tapping Broc on the head and looking desperately up to the Fenner.

“Gallum,” Broc repeated in an awkward first attempt at the new tongue.

The Fenner looked at them both and then glanced at the unconscious figures of Cassian and Leasha. “Boats.” They turned and began ordering their companions back into the reeds.

“What just happened?” Broc let out a deep sigh as they were left alone in the clearing.

“With any luck, we’re going to pay a visit to the Monarch of the Fenwater Marshes.”

“Right.” Broc nodded in satisfaction. “Good.”

“Oh, and I, erm... I told them you’re a King.”

Fenners

“Breanna?”

A familiar voice was calling her name, hissing it: urgency and fear tainted the sound.

“Broc?” He sounded different, strange. She couldn’t remember what day it was or what work needed to be done that morning. Her head pounded; she was cold to the bone and struggled to wake. Where was her bed?

“Breanna?” the voice hissed again. “Wake up.”

“Where...?” But she didn’t finish the question. As she forced her eyes open she saw she was surrounded by water. She gasped and scrambled back awkwardly, trying to get away from the edge, but her hands were tied behind her, and her movements were rocking the boat. A boat? Why was she in a boat? She couldn’t remember. Her head hurt. She couldn’t remember where she was or what had happened. Then, when she saw it wasn’t her brother, but the Elf, Cassian, sitting next to her, with a great bruise on the side of his face, his eye swollen, and his lip cut, the memories flooded back in an instant.

Meadowvale, the borderlands, the Fenners emerging from the water, the fight: she had been caught, captured, wounded, and now she was lost.

“A fine sight we are,” Cassian whispered, a lopsided grin plastered across his slowly swelling face. She didn’t understand how he could still be jovial.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hanging her head in shame and feeling as though she was cursed in every way.

“We were outnumbered.” He shrugged. “The fault is not yours to carry.” Cassian looked at her with such sincerity that she was almost inclined to believe his words. She nodded slowly but couldn’t shake the wretchedness.

Their boat was narrow, made from reeds bound together like hair tresses and lightened with time from a bright, fresh green, like the reeds surrounding them in the water, to a faded gold. On the front end of their craft, crouched and looking out to the water ahead with a hand always on their weapon, was one of the strange Fenners. Occasionally, they glanced back at the prisoners or gestured to a second who stood at the back with a long, wooden pole in their hands that they used to push the little boat through the water.

“What’s happening?”

“I know not, it seems the Fenners are taking us somewhere, but where that is, I cannot guess.”

In the dimness of the fog Breanna could see no one else in the water. “Where are the others?”

Cassian shrugged. “I have been awake little longer than you.”

Although the stretch of water was wide, she surmised it must be shallow if a wooden pole was pushing along the riverbed. She looked over the side at the murky darkness; she didn’t like the idea of entering that river.

“Where do you mean to take us, friend?” The Fenner at the front of the craft turned to look at Cassian then put a single finger to their lips and turned back to the water. “Fenners are not renowned for their charm,” Cassian whispered, and he looked up at them, quietly adding, “I do not understand why they have kept us alive.”

“You want them to kill us?”

He looked at her, startled. “No! No, I mean they attacked, why not kill? What are they up to?”

“You brought us here, you tell me.” She couldn’t understand why he was acting as if they were allies when he had been the one to lead them into the realm of these evil creatures. The Elves had saved her life, but then sent her and Broc on this strange quest. Cassian had safely escorted them through Meadowvale but then had been willing to abandon them to these Fenners. The Elves would both help and hinder; Cassian was both friend and foe. It was so difficult for her to understand why the Elves were such strange and duplicitous beings. She wanted her brother. She wanted to go home. She wanted everything she couldn’t have, and now she was tied up, and held captive in a boat by creatures that treated her as nothing more than a fat hog for feasting upon.

Cassian looked at her: he seemed angry for a moment then relented. “I did not know for sure they would attack us.” He sighed. “Perhaps they wish to take the advantage and invade Meadowvale while we are crippled by the attacks of the Meadow Dragon.” He was silent for a moment. “It could even be that these folk are the ones who started the Dragon attacks in the first place. They have never been a friendly folk and they did have a Wizard in their midst—”

Breanna cut him off. “You brought us here knowing they could have turned the Dragons against us?”

“I have only thought of this now!”

“Shh!” The Fenner hissed at them both and they fell silent for a long while.

“If it is of any meaning to you,” Cassian whispered, “I would like you to know that I did not believe you and your brother would be so badly treated at Meadow Hall. I thought only of saving your life. I...” He looked away, struggling to find the words. “I work in the borderlands, I am used to encountering strangers but those in the towns, they are not used to outsiders... I should have thought—I apologise. Sincerely.”

Suddenly she felt guilty for thinking so ill of him. “Thank you.” She wondered how far he’d carried her that night, how difficult the journey had been for him, how much he had risked for a total stranger who could give nothing in return. “I would be dead without you. And Leasha.”

Cassian smiled and nodded. “Your brother is not so forgiving.”

“Broc.” She thought of him and looked off into the thick mist, hoping he was out there on the water. Perhaps tied up as she was, in a raft just out of sight. She listened hard, hoping to hear a second pole stroke on the water. There was only the soft lapping against her own boat, the buzzing and shilling of insects, the strange clucks and cooings of animals that she had never heard, but nothing to indicate another boat. “I hope they’re alright.”

“If I know Leasha, she has likely found trouble.” He shook his head. “Your brother, on the other hand, he seems a fellow with a steady head, I’m sure he is well.”

“He feels responsible for our village. It isn’t his burden, but he bears it as if it’s his alone. I’d hoped to help, but I have only added to the weight he carries.” She hung her head, thinking of all the times she had been saved by him, by Cassian, and by Leasha. She had been taken on a journey that seemed so far out of her hands it was as if she were carried on a torrent.

“You may have helped him more than you know,” Cassian said. She looked up at him with doubt as he continued. “Help does not always come from the blade of an axe.”

She nodded at his words but didn’t believe them. She was certain that an axe would have helped her right now.

“You know,” Cassian whispered, glancing at the Fenner at the head of the boat, “this water doesn’t seem to be too deep and the bank is not too far.”

She glanced up at him and grinned. “I had thought the same thing, but my hands are bound and where would we go?” She glanced back at the Fenner driving the boat forward, wondering if they knew her thoughts.

“I might be able to reach to unbind your hands,” he said. “They did not tie me as well as they should. Perhaps if I had been awake they would have done a more thorough job.”

“But then what?” She stared out at the dense fog and reeds. Even if she knew which way was south she wasn’t certain she could clamber through the vegetation.

“Let me worry about that,” he said, “but would you be willing?”

She shrugged, trying to appear as though she wasn’t terrified and that their potential freedom did not matter to her either way. “How much worse could it get?”

Escape

“Right,” Cassian hissed through gritted teeth, “I believe I nearly have it.”

They had managed to manoeuvre themselves so as to be back to back, each with a view of the Fenner Guards. Breanna was trying her best to nonchalantly keep watch but it wasn’t an easy task as there was a Fenner at either end of the boat. But both guards seemed overly concerned about staring into the mists and reeds ahead of them. With any luck, Cassian would be able to finish untying her ropes without arousing suspicion.

Awkwardly, he pressed against her back, pulling at the cords. She winced as they cut into her flesh a little too tightly. She tried her best to help him, but it was difficult when she had no idea what he was doing. Then suddenly her hands were free.

“There,” he said, finally relaxing.

She wanted to throw her hands aloft in triumph or at least rub the soreness around her wrists to soothe them, but she couldn’t give their escape plan away and now it was her turn. Breanna would have to untie Cassian’s binds, without alerting the Fenners, rocking the boat, or letting slip that her hands were free.

Feeling blindly behind her back, she felt his hands and then scrabbled around searching for the thread that bound them together. He was tied a little looser than she had been, but the knots were still tight. She pulled at them, twisted, and rolled the knots between her fingers, but there was no working them loose. She would have to cut the twine.

Quietly and slowly, keeping an eye on the Fenner either side of the boat, she carefully moved her fingers along the twine of Cassian’s binds searching for a weak point. Stretching out a section with one hand, she carefully separated each strand and began to work at the fibres with her thumbnail. She wished she’d studied harder at her childhood lessons with her aunt and the Wise-Woman, Iora; she was certain a little muttered enchantment would have aided her now, but any words that might have broken the twine or strengthened her grip eluded her.

The Fenner at the front turned to glance at them. Her insides froze. She looked down and feigned misery, trying to appear more like a defeated captive than a potential escapee.

“Breanna?” Cassian whispered.

“Hold on.” She didn’t want him to know she was terrified. She would do this, she was determined. She would break Cassian free, they would escape their captors, and then track down and free the others. She would save someone else for once. She just needed that Fenner to look away.

Suddenly there was a noise ahead in the water. The Guard was distracted and turned to peer back through the mist and reeds, their serrated blade at the ready.

Breanna took advantage of the opportunity and furiously worked at the twine until there was a sudden imperceptible snap and the binding fell loose from Cassian’s wrists.

“Good, let’s take this boat,” he whispered, “on three.”

Breanna held her breath.

She had never attempted anything as dangerous as this.

“One.”

She had no idea how well the Fenners could swim.

“Two.”

Or even if she trusted Cassian.

“Three!”

It was too late. Breanna leapt up and pushed the unsuspecting Fenner off the front of the boat and into the water with a splash.

The boat lurched, and she nearly followed them into the swampy murk. She spun around. Cassian had the pole and was furiously piloting the boat. He was pushing them faster than the Fenners had done and they were gliding swiftly through the reeds that parted easily as they forced their way through.

“We’re going to outrun them.” She looked around, expecting angry splashing as they were followed. But the Fenners had completely disappeared. A momentary panic gripped her. What if they were wrong? What if these creatures couldn’t swim at all and she had murdered one? No. She was being foolish; of course, these creatures could swim; they had attacked from the water. But she couldn’t help peering over into the dark river wanting to make sure.

A hand burst from the black. She screamed and fell backwards before it could grab her. A Fenner emerged, wet hair, sharp teeth, their dark eyes staring angrily at Breanna as they tried to claw their way onto the fast-moving boat. She kicked out hard and they grabbed her foot with their long fingers, snarling. “Cassian!”

But before he could come to her rescue she kicked out frantically with her other foot, once then twice and the Fenner’s grip was lost. They fell back into the river and the little boat bounced as the Fenner tumbled underneath.

“We’ll make a run for it,” Cassian called.

“Run?” Breanna looked around at the tall, thick reeds that lined the water’s edge. “On foot?” They would barely be able to make a swim for it, let alone run.

“Now.”

Breanna turned to look. There was a gap in the reeds and a muddy-looking bank a few feet from the side of the boat. Cassian threw the pole away and it landed with a splash in the water, then he leapt over the edge and disappeared into the foliage.

After a moment’s hesitation, Breanna followed.

She yelped as she hit the ice-cold river, falling short of the bank. She stumbled to her knees in the soft, silty mud and received a mouthful of putrid swamp. Water splashed over her head and she thrashed in panic. She stood quickly, coughing and spluttering. She tried blinking the water from her eyes as she flailed unsteadily. She couldn’t see the gap in the reeds. She could hardly see anything. The Fenners were sure to be upon her in a moment. They couldn’t be far behind. But where was Cassian?

She was grabbed, and nearly screamed as she looked up at her captor.

“This way,” Cassian hissed.

He pulled her up and out of the river, onto the muddy bank. Then they hurried through the reeds, following a narrow path cut by wildlife regularly making their way to drink at the water’s edge.

Cassian held her hand, pulling her this way and that along the track. Suddenly he yanked her arm, pulling her sideways into the undergrowth. “Get down!”

She dropped to a squat. She was dripping wet and the cold was wearing her down, making her muscles stiff. Her clothes were heavy and stank. It was a smell that made her nostrils flare and stomach gag, a thick combination of rotting vegetation and wet fur. She breathed heavily, trying to peer through the mud-ridden reeds but she saw nothing.

Cassian’s eyes narrowed, and his sharp ears twitched but he stayed silent.

As her breathing slowed, Breanna began to hear the sounds of the marsh. The water lapping at the bank, a gull above, bugs softly chirruping. And, in the distance, the Fenners were calling. The guttural language was indistinct, but the sounds of panicked cries to one another, as they searched along the bank, were clear. They would soon find the boat. She hoped that it had drifted along in the water far enough that their footprints wouldn’t be so close to it. She hoped the mist and the maze of narrow waterways would work in their favour. But she knew it was only a matter of time.

Swamplands

It was a long while before the urgent shouts of searching Fenners grew weaker.

Cassian sighed softly. “I believe we might be safe.” His face was streaked in mud from running through the reeds, there was a large bruise from the first encounter colouring his left cheek, his hair was wet, matted, and lank, and, from his knees to his boot tips, he was coated with greenish swamp sludge and algae.

Breanna, elated in relief, laughed at him.

“What?” He looked at her with narrowed eyes and she tried to explain but couldn’t get the words out over her giggles. “What?” He looked down at himself, and grinned, then laughed. “You should see yourself.” He managed, “I didn’t know if I was hoisting a friend from the water or a swamp goblin.”

She reached up to pull some stray vegetation from her head. Her hair was soaked through, her boots and leathers were completely lost in the silty mud coating her clothes, and her stolen woollen Elf cloak was sopping wet, offering no warmth at all. She began to shiver as she laughed and sat flat on her backside in the thick mud feeling lost, cold, and ridiculous. They laughed until they were out of breath and her chest hurt. But as the laughter faded, the dread of their predicament began to sink in.

“So, how do we get out of here?” She shook her head and looked up at Cassian. But the Elf grinned back at her and his confidence was a relief.

He pulled out a neck cord that was tucked under his jerkin. It had a transparent, pearl-white stone pendulum knotted to the centre. “This,” he said, taking the cord from his neck, and swinging the crystal, “is all we need to find the way.”

She looked at it in disdain: it didn’t even have any runes. “Elf magic?”

“Something like that.” He held the stone up in the muted light and peered through it, scanning the sky. He stopped, delighted, and handed the pearlescent crystal to her, pointing to the distance through the reeds. “You see that?”

Dubiously, she peered through. “No.” There was no difference in the stone or their surroundings.

“No,” he gently manoeuvred her head a little to the left, “there.”

She gasped. A gentle orb of white light was just barely visible through the fog. “What’s that?”

“This is a sunstone,” he explained as he took back the crystal. “Even in heavy clouds, thick fog, mist, whatever you might encounter, this little stone tells me the direction and height of the sun, as long as it’s daylight of course.” He grinned at her and nodded, replacing the cord over his neck, and tucking the sunstone back in his jerkin. “We’re in the last hour of day.”

“I don’t want to be out here after dark.”

Cassian nodded. “Neither do I, but their search is likely to be given up by nightfall.”

Breanna nodded solemnly. “So which way?”

“South.” Cassian stood. “Back to the borderlands.”

“But what about Leasha and my brother?” She couldn’t have come all this way, have risked her life by escaping only to abandon the others.

“There will be an Elven Ranger Patrol, we’ll find them, come back armed, and rescue the others.”

It seemed so simple, Cassian was so certain. There was nothing easier. She nodded and heaved herself up from the silty mud of the reed bed. “Lead the way.”

He smiled. “By my estimate, ’tis...” He looked around then pointed towards a path through the thickest reeds. “This way.”

“Certain?”

“As the sun.”

It was hard-going. The ground was soft and sucked at their boots, the reeds were stiff, and the slightest movement disturbed the whole canopy. She hoped there were no Fenners lurking close enough to see the disruption through the fog, and wondered if they really had given up their search or if they would continue into the night.

They came to a break in the reeds and were faced with a stretch of water. They could only just make out the other side through the fog and it was too far to leap, even for an Elf. Cassian checked his sunstone and sighed. “We may walk miles in either direction without a ford. I say we cross. Can you swim?”

“I can make it.” She thought of the lake back home, the deep pool in the glade that offered welcome relief in hot weather and a good stock of fish. She had fallen in enough times to learn how to make it to the edge again. But in that lake, she had known what lurked beneath the surface. She looked at the dark, still water and wondered how many of the Fenners could be lying in wait without her ever knowing. Her stomach turned into a knotted ball of fear and every moving shadow appeared to her as if it might leap out and grab her.

But there was only one way forward.

They nodded to each other and slid into the freezing water as silently as possible. Neither of them wanted to alert their presence to anything that might be prowling the swamps.

Slowly they began to wade across. The silt kicked up as they went, muddying the already dark water, and Breanna’s boots sank deeper and deeper into it. The water rose higher, first to her knees, then hips, then waist, until it was up to her chest and she kicked her boots out of the thick mud. She’d have to swim. Cassian followed suit, their arm strokes making waves across the water as the two of them tried to avoid heavy splashing.

Breanna gasped as she swam into something.

“What’s happened?”

“Sorry. There’s something... a tree.”

“Under water?”

Breanna reached out. Whatever it was, it was sleek, smooth, curved like a warm trunk of a barkless willow, and then it moved. She recoiled, dipping under water, but Cassian was there to steady her.

“What is it?”

There was a splash to their left and they both turned and stared as the beast slowly emerged. Its huge, tooth-lined jaw, as large as the boat that had carried them, rose above the surface. Its skin the darkest shade of deep blue-black, its scales slick; two fins flapped laconically either side of its head as it stared at them with the golden eyes of a Dragon.

“Water Wyrm!” Cassian cried. He tried to make it to the shoreline, but its thick, swirling, eel-like body blocked their path. As the Dragon rose higher and higher out of the water, the creature roared. With that, the pair turned and fled back the way they had come. Flailing and flapping in the water as they went, Cassian and Breanna swam to the bank.

Breanna was the first to make it: she turned and reached for Cassian to pull him out of the water. Just then the Dragon’s lashing tail smashed down, striking him hard on the back and throwing him, face first, into the thick mud of the riverbank. Breanna grabbed his hand and arm, pulling him up from the thick mud. “Come on.”

As he spluttered and crawled, she did her best to support him and they stumbled back through the reeds, leaving the Dragon to cry out its consternation at their disturbance of its slumber.

She dragged Cassian, spitting and spluttering, into a thick bed of reeds and crumpled to the ground, leaning against a mound of filthy earth. “Are you hurt?”

He was holding his chest, breathing heavily, and wincing through the cake of mud that stained his features. “Just winded, I believe.” She reached over and wiped his face as best she could with her swamp-slicked Elf cloak. “What a mess,” he moaned.

“It’s only mud.”

“No, no, I refer to our daring escape.” He laughed, and then coughed.

“It’s my fault,” she said sadly. “I kicked it awake.”

“You kicked a Dragon!” He laughed again, and she realised how absurd it sounded and couldn’t help but laugh alongside him. He descended into a coughing fit and doubled over. She looked around wishing there was something she could do, something they had that would help them.

There were a few swamp weed-covered rocks scattered here and there in the mud; she pulled a good one free and stumbled across a sturdy branch covered in bright green moss. It was a little unwieldy and twisted, but better than nothing, she brought them back to Cassian. “I found these.” She held them out hopefully. “So, we’ll go prepared this time.”

“You wish to go back and face a giant Water Wyrm armed only with a rock and a stick?” He looked up at her and suddenly she felt foolish.

She lowered her finds and shrugged, looking at the floor. “We have to go south,” she said, feeling more foolish with each word, “and... we have to cross that stretch of water. So, if the Dragon is still there...”

The last trace of humour left his face, and he shook his head. “You have true courage.”

She glanced at him then looked quickly away, twisting the branch in her hand, certain he was mocking her. “I don’t know what else we can do.”

He nodded and heaved himself off the floor. “You are right. We stay here, we go back, or,” his breathing was heavy, but he put his hand out for the rock and she handed it to him, “we go on.”

They stood in silence for a moment, both staring at their pathetic weapons. She contemplated hiding in the reeds, running away from everything, but then what? A life in the swamps? What would come of Broc and Leasha if they didn’t fetch help? “If we are to save the others, we have to move.”

Cassian nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

They crept back along the path where the mud had been swished around and dug up from their footprints. When they reached the water’s edge it was still and silent once again. There was no trace of their frantic encounter. Perhaps the Dragon had moved on. Or perhaps it slumbered.

They carefully slid down into the river, clinging onto their weapons, and wading forward. They trudged up to their shoulders reaching over halfway until the other side was so close they could reach out and touch it.

But then the beast emerged.

Its long, slick body rose up out of the water for a moment then submerged again. Cassian and Breanna looked at each other. They should move on, find another place to cross. But a roar from behind made them spin around to see the Dragon. It had arisen from the water and now loomed over them with its huge jaws wide open as it emitted a second ferocious roar.

Wild with panic, Cassian threw his rock. It rebounded off a tooth and the Water Wyrm looked at them with its golden eyes.

“Quick!” Breanna pulled at Cassian’s soaked tunic. “Climb over it.”

He looked at her wild-eyed as she turned away from the head and made for the Dragon’s slick body, the only barrier to their escape. Great spines stuck out here and there, offering a grip to the desperate and brave pair. Cassian leapt forward, grabbing one of the spines to hoist himself over the creature and immediately it thrashed. He held on fast, clinging to the beast as it roared and flailed. In a panic, Breanna hit out at the Dragon with her stick, whacking the creature’s body in desperation.

A sharp shout made them freeze.

The Dragon’s flailing stopped and all three peered around to see several boats packed with scores of Fenners eyeing them ferociously, and dozens of sharp weapons pointed directly at them.

Breanna dropped the stick and raised her arms as the Dragon finally threw Cassian off. He landed in the water with a splash and the Dragon slunk away. Cassian emerged from the muddy river and stood next to her; beaten and bedraggled, he raised his arms and sighed.

Their escape was at an end.

Trapped

Breanna pushed and clawed against her cage, but it was no good. It was a fish trap made of strong willow branches bound together to create a tough, cylindrical basket just large enough to hold her. She had been placed on her back staring up as the last of the light crept through the wicker. There were shouts and calls all around her and the movement of the boat beneath her was unmistakable. She was back on the water again, with no way to tell where she was being taken. The tiny cage made her chest feel heavy and tight: she struggled to breathe. She was used to being outside, out in the open under the trees, but now she was trapped.

She closed her eyes and imagined herself away. Imagined her bed, how she would wrap herself up in her blankets and furs, binding the warmth tight around her body. That place had felt safe, the tightness had made her feel protected, if only she could try to think herself back there now. But she wasn’t warm or wrapped in blankets. She was cold, wet, and sore. The stink of swamp penetrated her clothes and she badly wished for a drink or some food, not only because she was hungry and painfully thirsty, but also to wash away the remnants of the swamp water she could still taste.

“Breanna?” It was the harsh whisper of Cassian; just a few inches separated them. He had been trussed up in his own trap and placed next to her. She could just about make out the shadow of his movements in the gathering dark.

“I’m here.” She spoke flatly. She didn’t want him to worry but she was in no mood for another escape plan.

“Are you well?”

She thought of her bitterly cold muscles, her stomach crying out for nourishment, the throbbing from the earlier bash on the head, the shame of being captured again, and the dread of what was to happen to them. What were these creatures, that were neither fish nor people, going to do with them? What thoughts lay behind those pitch-black eyes? Why did they have those sharpened teeth? Were they to dig into her flesh? Would she be roasted or boiled? Or would they feast on her alive? How would it feel when those claws and fangs tore her flesh from her bones?

She swallowed a whimpered scream. “Yes,” she lied. “You?”

“I’m well enough.” He was silent for a moment. “That did not quite go to plan.”

“It did not,” she conceded. She squeezed her eyes closed, tightening her body, making herself rigid; if she couldn’t feel the edge of the cage then she could pretend there wasn’t one. She tried to ignore the warm breath that rebounded off the wickerwork into her face and clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

She should never have followed Broc.

She was a silly child. She should have stayed with the others. If she had gone to the caves and hidden herself away, then she might have been of use to someone. She could have carried water, watched the fires, turned the spit, any simple task that couldn’t be botched. Memories of the village flooded through her; the smell of the woodsmoke and furs, the sounds of young babes, and gossips, of Elders nattering, and Fia, her aunt, singing and humming to herself as she went about her work. As Breanna thought of them, she could feel the heat from the little runestone at her neck pulsing through her, but instead of offering comfort, the sensation only taunted her. She felt further away from home than ever.

Her heartache swelled into anger. “Now look at us!” She was furious with herself for being so foolish: she had been caught by the webspinners, the howlers, the Elves, and then the Fenners, and in her only chance at escaping, at proving herself useful, she had failed. “We don’t know where Broc and Leasha are.” Her voice was cracking but she couldn’t hold back. “I’ve been so useless. All I’ve done is get in the way—” She kicked at the cage in frustration and got a sharp reprimand from an unseen Fenner.

“Nay.” Cassian’s voice was gentle. “I am at fault. ’Twas my thinking that we should escape, and I was impatient. We could have waited at the riverside until the Dragon moved on, walked along the bank, or found some other way—”

“But—” she stammered, “I was the one who got us captured in the first place. You know this! I saw the look in your eye when I fell, when Broc and Leasha dropped their weapons for me, I... I could see how angry you were.” Breanna bit her lip. There was a danger she would break completely, and she didn’t want him to hear such self-pity upon her voice.

Cassian breathed out slowly. “I admit I was angry. But you had only a quarterstaff; I should have given you a better weapon. And we were outnumbered, one or another of us would have fallen eventually, or we could have all been killed.”

But she knew that there was still a secret biting at her, gnawing deep inside; the curse she had brought upon her people, upon everyone. The shame was so unspeakably deep it turned her insides out just to think of it. But if she was to die then perhaps now was the time to say it out loud... to cleanse herself of guilt. She breathed hard, steadying her voice. “The Dragon... whispers to me... it—it’s angry and hungry... He cursed me, and, and that’s why this happened, that’s why all of this has happened.”

“The Water Wyrm?”

“No. The first time our Forest Drake attacked. I heard him...” Her mouth was dry and her breathing ragged. She had thought that once she started, the words would tumble from her, but each one seemed to stick in her throat. Yet she needed to go on, she needed someone to know what a wretch she was and part of her was relieved that it was Cassian; she was certain he thought so little of her already that she couldn’t fall far from his graces.

“The Forest Drake is sacred to us, he is our Guardian. When my people first came to the forest it was the Dragon that showed them the ways of the wood. He taught my ancestors the balance of magical forces, and the ways that death is fundamental to life. We thank the Dragon by showing respect for those ways, learning them from our Elders and living by them every day...”

“’Tis much the same as the Elves.”

“But I didn’t—I couldn’t...” Breanna struggled to prevent her own tears choking her words. She swallowed the sobs and took a deep breath. “I lied to them, I trained to be a Hunter because I wanted to be like my dad and Broc, but I couldn’t do it... I couldn’t make the kill. I could never make the kill and every day, every time I tried to join the Woodland Hunt I prayed... I prayed for a way out, I prayed that my father wasn’t always there to see me fail, and I prayed that my village and all the people in it would just go away and... and that morning the Dragon answered my prayers...” She trailed off, tears preventing anything further and Cassian was silent for a long while.

“So, you heard noises. I’m sure many did and thought nothing of it—”

“I heard Him, Cassian, I heard His voice,” she whispered through her sobs, “and it wasn’t so much heard as felt.” She sighed, angry with herself. “I can’t explain it. I’ve never known of anyone who can hear the Dragon, but I heard Him. He was angry, and hungry, and He burst through the woods to kill my father, then He killed my friends, and He tore the life from the trees until they were rotten to their roots. He crushed the village and changed everything... He made it so I’ll never hear my dad or get a chance to join the Woodland Hunt again.”

“And you heard the Meadow Dragon, too, did you not? That is why you were so certain it was coming?”

“Yes.”

He was quiet for such a long time that Breanna was sure he blamed her for the deaths of his people. Those poor farmers hunted down so brutally. How many had been taken by the wrath of the Dragons? How many had been destroyed by her failure and pride?

“I wanted to be a Hunter. I wanted to earn my axe and claim the honour of my ancestors. But instead, I destroyed everything and then hid the truth; I’m just a coward.”

“I do not believe you are a coward.”

She knew he was patronising her, how could he think anything else after her confession? “I’m not a babe in arms. I don’t need your mockery.”

“I have learned that being a warrior of any kind, be it Ranger or Hunter, is not always about wielding a weapon or being the strongest.”

“But all I’ve done is run, or get captured, or wounded, or just put everyone else in danger. I’m such a failure that even the Gods despise me.”

“You saved my life.”

She tutted. “The Dragon wasn’t even hungry. If He had been we would both be dead. It was dumb luck.”

“It wasn’t dumb luck that made you pick up a stick and fight a God.”

“A stick.” She laughed. “I’m a fool, Cassian.”

“Then I am a fool for believing in you.” His voice was harsh, and she was taken aback for a moment. But he pushed on. “Bravery is not about winning the fight, Breanna, it—it is about knowing what you have to do and doing it despite your fear. You demonstrated more courage than some of the finest Elven Rangers I have ever served with.”

She laughed again: she felt silly and uncomfortable at his passionate support. “I waved a stick.”

He sighed. “Without a weapon many others would crumble. They would give in because they cannot hide behind their blade or their bow; I’ve seen a hundred Elves who might deserve the wrath of a Dragon more than you.” He was quiet for a moment, and then his tone was softer. “When I saw you fighting those howlers in Blackwater... when you had nothing, nothing but yourself, your bare hands—”

“I didn’t have any choice.”

“Yes, you did. But you did not yield, you fought on. And when you and I were up against that Wyrm, when we had nothing between us, but stick and stone, you did not yield... and I was proud to stand with you.”

Breanna bit her lip. She didn’t know if he was jesting and she wondered: if she accepted his praise would he laugh at her for thinking his joke serious? Surely a skilled and clever Ranger could not be proud to stand with her.

“The title of Warrior does not hold nearly as much value as another title I would bestow upon you,” Cassian said.

Breanna laughed bitterly. “And what title is that?”

“Friend.”

“Oh.” She heard him use that word many times before but this time it felt different. It seemed strange and unfamiliar and she realised that was because she didn’t have any friends. Not true friends. They had all claimed their titles and honours then grown away from her, sat with their backs to her, given her sidelong glances, whispered about her failures, and left her alone.

She wanted to tell Cassian that he was her friend, too, that fighting beside him had been an honour, and she had been wrong in all she had thought about him and his fellow Elves. But the words wouldn’t form in her dry and awkward mouth. Instead, the two new friends lay beside each other in their dark, little, fish-stinking wicker traps as the Fenners navigated them towards their unknown destination.

“Did you ever consider...” Cassian’s voice was low, a conspiratorial whisper barely loud enough for her to catch, “...that perhaps the Dragons speak to you, not because they curse you, but because they need your help?”

She couldn’t stop a snort of incredulity escaping her lips. “No.” She shook her head and turned the idea around in her mind. It was impossible. There was nothing she could do. Why would the Gods need assistance from a Woodland fool? And if they did, then the world was more doomed than she could ever have imagined. “How could I help them?”

“I know not,” Cassian sighed, “but... I do know that you shall not yield.”

In that moment, Breanna knew that if there was any hope of saving Broc and Leasha, finding the Wizard, stopping the Dragon attacks, and returning to the forest, then Cassian was right. She had to keep fighting, even though the thought terrified her.

Lake Village

Something was different.

The sounds around them were no longer just the gentle lapping of water and the chirruping of swamp bugs. Instead, there was the clattering and chattering of busyness and people. Breanna craned her neck to try to see something other than the darkened sky through the cracks of her fish trap. There was little she could make out save for mist and reeds, but she was certain they had reached land.

Suddenly her trap was hoisted upright, and she lurched forward, crashing around in the tiny space. Then the top was lifted off and she was thrown upside down, falling out onto a hard, wooden surface with a thud. She would have been thankful for the solid ground had she not hit it so hard, and she sat up rubbing her head and trying to get her bearings. Her muscles ached, and she wanted nothing more than to stand and stretch but she wasn’t certain that her legs were ready.

Cassian landed awkwardly next to her as he was tossed out of his trap like the worst of the day’s catch. He was covered in drying mud and giving off a familiar stench of swamp as he sat on the floor and looked around. They were on a long, wooden jetty and other boats from their little flotilla were landing with various armed and angry Fenners disembarking.

Cassian yelped as they were both hauled to their feet. He clutched his chest and Breanna could see he still hadn’t recovered from his Dragon encounter.

“Bree!” Broc was disembarking from one of the rafts with Leasha and they hurried over to stare open-mouthed at the damp, dishevelled, and mud-caked pair. A grin was threatening Leasha’s lips, but it was Broc who voiced their surprise. “What happened to you?”

“Long story.” Cassian tried to brush off some of the now dried dirt on his once-green tunic, but it was a lost battle and Breanna was glad that their embarrassment would remain undisclosed.

The prisoners were led along the gangplank by angry, armed Guards. Night was upon them, but lights shone their path at regular intervals. Not firelight, Breanna realised, but fireflies, captured and dancing in crystal cages. She stopped and stared at the bright, darting creatures but was quickly hurried along.

She expected to reach land any moment but instead the wooden pier stretched further and further along. Jetties and gangplanks extended out either side, crammed with rafts and boats of all shapes and sizes, all built of those same sturdy, golden reeds. Many boats were smaller than the one she had travelled on, but others were twenty or thirty feet in length, crewed by a half-dozen Fenners in their fish-skin trousers and cloaks and piled high with cargoes of freshly cut reeds. They carried cages crammed with crabs and lobster, baskets of fish, rolls and rolls of iridescent fish skin, and buckets brimming with ocean weeds and oysters.

The group were led up wooden steps to a higher tier surrounded by a high, wooden wall and Guarded by a stern Fenner either side of the narrow entrance.

Breanna gasped as she went through the gates: she was inside a village on the lake. Firefly street lights were scattered everywhere like eyes in the fog, and domed huts stretched high enough out of the water that they had porch entrances opening straight onto the wooden street. Small buildings twisted into pointed cones, large enough only for storage or an entrance to a deeper lair; others were two storeys above the street with willow poles poking out of the reed thatch to form wicker steps to the second floor, where soft grey smoke trailed out from the peak.

Suspicious villagers stared as the strangers were led along the street, then suddenly there was a shout. Their little group paused and a new contingent of Fenners marched towards them. Words were exchanged in an unfamiliar tongue, exaggerated gestures were used, and Breanna struggled to work out from their furious pointing, and short, sharp sentences, whether the new group were angry or delighted.

Leasha leaned over to Broc and, although she spoke in a low whisper, Breanna overheard, “That’s the Royal Guard.”

Broc glanced at Leasha and nodded and Breanna desperately wanted to know what had happened while they had all been separated.

The tallest of the new Guards was a particularly sharp-featured Fenner, with a dark green complexion, loose hair, a long nose, deep black eyes, and armour constructed of tightly compacted scales which shone with a beautiful iridescence in the mist-covered light. “I am Koax.” They spoke with a sharp efficiency, their dark tongue gliding easily over two rows of sharp teeth. “Chief Guardian of the Fenwater Marshes. You seek audience with the Monarch?”

Breanna stood open-mouthed. She hadn’t heard any of them speak so fluidly in a tongue she understood. She had no clue who or what a Monarch was, and she was about to ask when Broc bowed solemnly.

“I have been told of the Monarch’s might and wisdom and I stand before you as King of the Forests of the South and wish to practise my right, as his equal, to seek his counsel on a matter which affects us all.”

Koax looked at Broc with sheer confusion for almost a full minute before replying, “Yes or no?”

“Y—yes,” Broc stammered.

“Very well.”

The Fenner turned and marched down the jetty. Broc and Leasha followed as Breanna was pushed in the small of her back by a trident-wielding Guard. She didn’t know why Broc had referred to himself as a King and if that meant things were going well or not, but her muscles were sore from her confinement, her clothes heavy with clogged mud and swamp water, and all she really wanted was a fire, a good meal, and the chance to get some sleep.

In the centre of the vast maze of unfamiliar huts was the largest building of all, towering over the others like a great beehive of reeds with a set of two doors, flung wide open. They were led inside the dark building: there was a small hearth in the centre with a few burning embers giving out a little heat, the floor was a damp clay, and the light that flickered here and there around the walls was phosphorescent green. Little fireflies danced above them in the rafters of reeds and the room was musty and cool.

As the Fenner Guards spread out and lined up along the walls, Breanna realised just how large their escort had been. The tall Royal Guard, Koax, disappeared through a perfectly circular wooden door and they were all left to wait. Breanna edged closer to the warm hearth and was sharply pulled back by a set of webbed fingers on her shoulder.

“All Hail the Monarch!”

The Monarch

“All Hail the Monarch!” Leasha quickly repeated the chant and her companions followed suit. She was relieved to finally be inside the court of the Fenner Chief, Graebaek the Monarch. Talking in her rudimentary Marshspeak with the soldiers had been difficult, and she was eager to sit down with someone fluent in the Elvish customs and tongue. She remembered Graebaek as an experienced and astute ruler who had visited Meadow Hall on more than one occasion. She’d never witnessed Evaline meet her match before Graebaek, and their fierce but amicable encounters had always stuck with her.

The shimmering, fish-skin curtains over the Monarch’s Private Chambers ruffled. Leasha gasped.

Adorned with shimmering pearls, in a cloak of the finest otter fur, wearing robes decorated with opalescent scales of mother-of-pearl, a glimmering crown of finest green jade atop their head, and carrying the whalebone trident of the mighty sea warriors of the Fenwater Marshes, was a child.

“Gaegul?” Surely this wasn’t the child of Graebaek? She glanced at Broc, his brow furrowed as he stared at the child walking unsteadily towards the throne under the weight of their opulence. Leasha had promised Broc a warrior that would lead them to the Wizard with an army at their back and solve all the land’s problems. But if Gaegul was all that was left of the Monarchy then it meant only one thing: the rest of the Royal House was dead.

The child looked up at her as they took their place on an oversized throne carved of whalebone and dressed in magnificent furs. There was a spark of recognition in the little one’s face.

“I am Leasha, Heir to the Elvin Kingdom.” She stepped towards the young Monarch and kneeled, her head bowed. “We have come to seek your aid.”

Gaegul turned to Koax, hissing, and gesticulating too quickly for Leasha to catch everything.

“You are remembered fondly by Gaegul,” Koax said, with a slight bow of their head. “Your request will be heard.”

Leasha sighed in relief. She wanted desperately to ask what had happened to the old Monarch but knew that would only insult the child. Instead she simply continued with her original plan. “We seek the great Wizard that was seen in these lands not more than a few suns past.”

“Elves want a Wizard? Your magic is gone?” As Koax talked a hand occasionally flicked or gestured, a remnant of their own language seeping through.

She looked from Koax back to the child, unsure which one to address. She decided to maintain the pretence and direct her answers to Gaegul. “It is true that Elven Royal blood has some magic, but we seek the help of a Wizard to stop the Dragon attacks.”

This sparked an uproar.

The Guards and onlookers snapped and hissed at one another while Koax and Gaegul huddled together and spoke in whispered tones, shooting them occasional glances. She wondered if she had caused some great insult but couldn’t catch enough of the hisses and hand waves to work out what was being discussed.

Suddenly, Koax gave a short, sharp shout and the excited chattering of the Guards fell silent. “Elves are attacked by Dragons?”

“Yes,” Leasha said quickly, realising that the Fenners would not have heard news of the attacks and it was up to her to make sure they understood the danger, “and the Weald Wood in the south.” She turned to indicate Broc. “There are few who have been spared: if there is any way you can guide us to this Wizard we should be most grateful.”

“You...” Koax paused and sighed. They spoke well in their second tongue but seemed to be struggling, “A Wizard can aid the Elves. How?”

Leasha opened her mouth and closed it again: she wasn’t certain that a Wizard could help, it was just a desperate hope. “They have knowledge and power, they will know how to stop the Dragons.”

Koax cocked their head to one side and narrowed their eyes at her. “You think we hide a Wizard. Why?”

Leasha glanced back at Cassian. “Our Rangers heard of a Wizard, are these sightings not true?”

Koax spoke with the Monarch once again before answering. “No.”

“What?” Cassian was dismayed. One look from Leasha silenced him, but she understood why he had spoken; his certainty had not been earned without cause. But after everything they had been through, it appeared the Wizard was no more than a rumour after all.

She had to be careful how she worded her response. “We had heard...” – she was trying not to sound accusatory and, for the first time, she was starting to appreciate the diplomatic challenge her aunt faced daily. Navigating a conversation could be as treacherous as patrolling a hostile border – “...that a Wizard had been here within this last moon.”

Koax exchanged another glance with Gaegul and shrugged. “Gone.”

Leasha groaned. All this way for nothing. All that hope wasted. They were chasing shadows.

“No!” Broc stepped forward, infuriated. “Will no one help us? The Forest Drake and the Elves’ Dragon have turned on us! They will kill us all and you as well if we don’t stop them!”

Koax raised their trident and banged it hard against the floor. “Your audience is done.”

Suddenly Breanna gasped. Leasha glanced back to see that her skin had turned a sickly pale, her eyes were wide, and her body shook. She was staring at the young child on the throne and Leasha realised that they both shared the same, wide-eyed look of terror.

“What’s happening?” Broc asked.

Breanna looked to him, her eyes almost black, and she opened her mouth, struggling to get her words out. “It’s coming.” Her voice was strangely different, hollow, far away.

“A Dragon?” Cassian asked, but just at that moment a pair of Guards crashed through the doors of the hall, shouting and gesticulating. Through the wide-open doors they could hear the screams of the lake villagers. Leasha didn’t understand how the two of them had known, but Cassian and Breanna were right.

It was a Dragon attack.

“To the keep!” Koax shouted. They were already herding their soldiers and indicated to Leasha and her party. “You follow. Be quick.”

Leasha turned to her companions. She wasn’t the only one who looked to the destruction with a mind to lend her aid. There were children out there, young ones, elders no longer able to move as quickly to escape. But Cassian grabbed her by the arm, the stench of swamp all over him. “Come on.”

Broc and Breanna were in pursuit and together they followed the Guards.

Outside she saw the crashing and roaring of the dark, blue-black, eel-like shape of a Water Wyrm. Its giant body crashed through the wooden platforms and buildings, shattering them like twigs, as Fenners fled the Dragon’s wrath. Leasha noticed one with a reed cloak, and conical hat: they were a fisher, not a warrior or a guard. Their body was frozen, lifted as they were pulled up in the air, hovering as a golden light surrounded them, their eyes open in terror as, from behind, the Dragon drew the life Essence from them.

So, the Fenners’ Dragon had turned against them, too. She had guessed as much, but why had they not said? Why had they hidden it?

She didn’t see the Fenner fall. She was pulled away and headed down a set of narrow, spiral steps. She found the stairs difficult to descend in her heavy leather boots and several times she had to cling to the side or a companion to prevent herself from falling. The bare, nimble feet of the Fenners had no problem navigating the awkward, dark passage but she was holding them up and the panic of those behind her only added to her own fear. The heat of so many bodies made the passage stifling and there was a stench that added to the foul smell of whatever Cassian and Breanna had been rolling around in.

Eventually they made it to a chamber lit with fireflies and green phosphorescence lining the damp clay walls. Koax herded them in and checked up and down the passage, ensuring the last few of the Monarch’s retinue were safely inside.

Koax looked at her. “This is the birthing chamber.” Leasha looked around the bare room and realised that it wasn’t bare at all. Running along each side of the room were dark pools. Creatures writhed inside, their little bodies swimming about, a tail occasionally breaking the surface as the infants played. Instinctively, she went to kneel beside the pool and watch what she could of the water babies. She had always been curious about the Fenner’s young and was fascinated by the little mercreatures, but Koax grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back, shaking their head. “It is sacred.”

Reluctantly, Leasha stepped away from the pool. She understood now why they had been brought here: it would be the safest, most protected place in the village.

They could still hear the faint sounds of crashing and screaming so many yards above them. She looked around the frightened faces in the half-dark; the little Monarch was clinging to the robes of an older Fenner, a nurse no doubt. Broc, angry as ever, leaned with his head against the wall and a hand upon his belt where his axe was usually slung. Cassian was solemn, a frown upon his usually jovial face, and Breanna, pale and worried, sat in the dark, her head on her knees. There was something she and the Monarch had heard, something that had warned Cassian of the Dragon attack, and she wanted to know what that was.

She crouched down next to the Wealderling and laid a hand on her shoulder. Breanna looked up at her with her dark brown eyes that seemed so lost and desperate. Leasha wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be alright, but she knew that would be a lie.

“You know how to stop the Wyrm?” a small hissing voice asked.

Leasha turned to look and was surprised to see the little, tear-stained face of the Monarch staring up at her with huge, round, black eyes. She wondered how many moons ago this little one had been swimming, carefree in the pools of this very chamber.

She opened her mouth to answer, a comforting lie already upon her tongue.

“No,” Breanna answered. She shook her head, staring straight into the eyes of the young ruler, and Leasha was disappointed to hear such defeat from her. She knew they had failed but it hurt to see her so broken.

“But we must keep fighting,” she finished.

The child stared at her for a long moment and then nodded. Turning to Koax, Gaegul began to talk in their own language so quickly that Leasha couldn’t pick everything out. She held her breath until Koax eventually turned to her. “You are to be escorted to the Wizard.”

“I thought the Wizard was gone.”

“Yes.” Koax nodded, and Leasha thought she heard a trace of fear upon their voice. “We shall find them in the Lost Plains.”

Oil and Water

Breanna breathed deeply and leaned back in the hot water. The two-tiered circular pools had been dug into the ground and lined with fired clay. Four of them were placed around the bathhouse, with a waterfall at the far end supplying each pool with a constant source of fresh water, from the coldest pool through to her own. The fired rocks in the deep centre of her bath heated the water until a constant steam rose from the surface. The room had a scent of honeysuckle and water lilies, torches burned in sconces, and a hearth of embers slowly baked rocks. As her water cooled she reached out to grab the bronze tongs and gather fresh rocks to reheat it. The water sizzled and bubbled as the hot stones tumbled to the bottom and the warmth washed over her.

She leaned her head back and moaned softly as the heat seemed to scorch her toes and bleed into her bones. She had almost forgotten how good it felt to be hot.

Her filthy clothes had been taken to be washed. Ordinarily, she might have been hesitant at handing over her things, but she was glad to be rid of them and the linen wrap she had been given as a replacement lay discarded at the edge of the pool. She wanted every bit of her skin to feel the water. The stench of the rotting swamp had been expunged, the mud washed from her skin and hair, and her bandages had been thrown away, leaving the raw and tender but healing flesh beneath. Her stomach was full after a meal of watercress, young shoots, white fish, and spring water flavoured with wild strawberries. She could quite happily fall asleep in the heat of the baths.

A door creaked. A startled Breanna opened her eyes and craned her neck to look behind her. Leasha, wearing nothing more than a jade necklace and a white linen robe, with her dark bronze hair hanging loose and freshly combed, smiled at her. “How is the water?”

Breanna sat up, suddenly aware of her complete nakedness in the clear pool. “It’s fine, fine,” she stammered.

Leasha trotted over and kneeled, testing the water of Breanna’s pool with her fingertips. She smiled, and Breanna looked away, wishing she hadn’t been so quick to toss aside her robe.

“Do you mind if I heat it up a little?”

Her mouth wouldn’t move, her jaw was set firm and her body stiff: all she could manage was a brief shake of the head but Leasha was already adding more rocks. The heat soared through her body. She wanted to spread out and soak in it, but decided to wait until Leasha had found her own pool to settle into.

She glanced around and looked away again quickly as she saw the Elven Princess confidently remove her linen robe and toss it aside. But she caught a glimpse. A glimpse of the naked curves of her waist, and the small of her back as the robe fell to the floor. She looked down and watched the way the soft light distorted the shape of her fingers as she moved them under the rippling surface.

There was a soft splash and she couldn’t help but look as Leasha stepped into her pool. Breanna’s heart raced as the Elf maiden lowered herself into the steaming water and moaned in exaggerated delight as her body submerged. She disappeared under the surface for a second and reappeared, pushing her hair away from her face and leaning back, stretching out as she enjoyed the luxury.

“This is glorious.” She smiled at Breanna and there was a pause before she continued. “I believe we should build these in Meadowvale, there is nothing better after a long day’s travel than to sink into hot water. Do you not agree?”

Breanna opened her mouth, she knew she ought to reply, to say something in return but her mind was blank. All she could think was that she was naked and only a yard or so away from Leasha. She managed to nod but couldn’t bring herself to look up.

“Do you have hot baths like this back home?”

Breanna shook her head. They had the lake of course, and most huts had a tub for washing by the hearth but there was nothing on this scale. She had never been naked in front of anyone before and she reasoned that must be why she felt so nervous. Not because it was Leasha.

Not because of the Elf maiden’s disarming smile, or her swaggering confidence. Not the way she looked at her and made Breanna feel like the only other person in the world.

She had seen others back home act silly at their instructor or getting shy and stumbling over their words in front of an older maiden or lad. But Breanna had always thought she was above all that, that there wasn’t a man who could make her go giddy. But then she had met Leasha, and now she was in a bath with her, not listening to a thing she was saying.

“—and I believe this one is clove.” Leasha smelt the contents of one of the clay bottles that had been left on a small shelf just within arm’s reach of the pools. She handed it to Breanna.

It was oil, there was a hint of honey, but the most powerful smell was the pungent aroma of cloves. Breanna nodded. “Yes, cloves,” she managed.

“So, would you?” Leasha looked at her.

Breanna hadn’t been listening to a word Leasha had said. She panicked but tried to remain calm. “Would I?”

“Put it on?” She indicated the bottle and turned around. “It’s mainly my right shoulder. It feels as though there is a knot...”

Dumbfounded, Breanna sat holding the bottle for a moment: the pale, creamy skin of the Elf was in front of her. Leasha pulled her hair over her shoulder and waited. Breanna panicked. Should she pour the oil on her or touch her? Touch her soft skin? Her heart pounded, and her breath was catching in her throat. She hadn’t been this frightened of the Water Wyrm: why should she be so scared of a friend?

The oil was cold on her fingers and in her clumsy panic she spilled some in the water. It formed patches of discolouration on the surface of the pool. Trembling, Breanna placed the open bottle on the side and reached out. As she laid her hand on the Elf maiden’s skin, Leasha gasped. Breanna recoiled quickly, cursing herself.

“Sorry, it’s cold,” Leasha said.

“Sorry,” Breanna replied, stupidly. She reached out again, placing her fingertips then her palm on Leasha’s back: her skin was soft, now slicked with the oil. Breanna tried to force her mind to think of other things and not the touch of another woman’s body against her hand. As she applied pressure to the muscles and Leasha moaned, Breanna’s reaction was to pull away.

“It’s alright,” Leasha said, looking back over her shoulder, “it feels good.”

Breanna unsteadily continued her application of the clove oil to Leasha’s knotted muscles, trying to avoid catching the expensive-looking jade beads of the Princess’ necklace. Then Leasha turned around. The steam from the hot rocks was completely gone and it took all of Breanna’s strength not to look down. Their bodies faced one another in the warm water. Breanna’s hands were slick with oil, and Leasha, a smile faintly upon her lips, was just inches away.

“Will you let me repay the favour?”

Breanna opened her mouth to stop her, to say she didn’t need to be touched. But Leasha’s hand was already upon her face. An intense heat burned her skin. She gasped at the shock of it, but there was no pain, instead there was simply a calmness, and the pounding from her injury, that had long settled into a constant irritating throb, slowly subsided. She sighed in relief and looked up at the smiling Elf, her green eyes bright, her pale skin soft, and the touch of her hand comforting and wanted. As Leasha released her grip, Breanna went to pull her back but stopped midway, her desire unadmitted. Breanna felt hot, hotter than she had any right to be. She wanted to move a little closer, put her hands back on the Elven skin and feel her flesh underneath her fingertips.

Suddenly there was a yell. The young women gasped as the door burst open and Cassian, completely naked, one hand preserving his modesty and the other up in the air, ran across the bathhouse, his muddy hair trailing out behind him. He leapt into the ice-cold plunge pool, landing backside first and creating a mini-tsunami, covering both maidens in freezing bathwater. They screamed at the shock of the icy wave hitting them like a slap.

“CASSIAN!” Still gasping in shock Leasha leaned out, grabbing the tongs to throw more hot rocks into their pool. The water sizzled and bubbled as Cassian emerged from his pool and leaned over the edge, his face still streaked with mud and bruises. He grinned.

“We should get these in Meadowvale.”

“Rangers wouldn’t be allowed in.” Leasha sat facing away from him, and Cassian took the opportunity to flick more freezing water at her, winking at Breanna as he did so.

“We would have a Rangers-only bathhouse.”

“You already have one of those.” Leasha swatted him back with water from their own pool. “It’s called a trough.”

Cassian laughed. “Ah, no fair!” He dunked his hand in the baths and sprayed them again.

“Act like a beast, be treated like a beast.”

Breanna grinned as the two continued their bickering. She looked to the door but there was no sign of her brother following them in. “Where’s Broc?”

Cassian sniggered. “He’s with Koax.”

“Why is that funny?”

“He was asking why there are not separate baths for women and men.” Cassian burst out laughing and Leasha joined him.

Even Breanna had noticed that the Fenners did not distinguish between the two sexes; the idea of men and women would be a strange concept to them. She imagined the fruitless conversation Broc would be having with the mirthless Koax and giggled along with the others.

She settled back into the water and closed her eyes, listening to the laughter of the Elves and feeling the warmth enter her bones. They were nearly there. On the morrow they would be taken to the Wizard, the Dragons would be stopped, and she could return to the forest. She would be glad to go home, but it was going to be difficult to say goodbye to the Elves. And, as she watched Leasha laughing and splashing at Cassian in his cold-water pool, she wasn’t certain she wanted to.

Dragon War

The cool morning air brushed against her hot skin. She rolled across the warm bed searching for the body of her lover but reached the edge unrewarded. Andra opened her eyes and groggily looked about for Olwen. She was gone.

The Dragon Guard Captain rose from her bed. She didn’t reach for a cloak; she enjoyed the sensation of the cool air on her naked body after the heat of the furs and fleeces. She trotted across the oak floor of the Master’s Chamber to the balcony: the boards were hot against her feet from the constant fire in the hearth of the chamber below. The wattle shutters had been cast open and the long, woollen drapes (a gift from the Elves: they would have to be replaced) were fluttering in the wind.

She pulled a curtain aside and saw her prey; soft, dark curls trailed down the woman’s back and her bare skin was pale against her dark rune and sigil tattoos. Olwen silently stared out over the land she had conquered.

The stars were clinging to the sky as dawn was just beginning to threaten their presence. They had a few moments left to shine before the great fire of day chased out their light. The lightening horizon illuminated all that the new Mistress of Dragon March now ruled, and Olwen gazed out at the grasslands and distant rolling hills, not with pride, but with heavy thoughts weighing upon her brow.

Andra leaned against the door frame and admired her for a moment, hoping Olwen would sense her presence and turn to her with a smile. But the Mistress’ thoughts were too deep to be penetrated.

“It’s early,” Andra whispered, finally vocalising her desires. “Won’t you come back to bed?”

Olwen didn’t turn, but she breathed deeply and indicated the land she surveyed. “I cannot change the world from the bed.”

Andra stepped forward, slid her hands around the woman’s waist, and moved their bodies close against one another. “But we can move the world from it.”

Olwen laughed softly. “If only our lives were that simple.”

“They can be. Dragon March is ours: we hold it in our hands. Everything you look upon from this window is under your rule. We are safe, secure, and strong.” She squeezed her on the last word and Olwen sank back into her arms. They had achieved so much, so quickly. Their revolution had raged across the land like wildfire. The people had been their kindling: primed and ready to set ablaze. Everything had been so simple and now their land was free and laid out at their feet.

“It’s not enough.” Olwen shook her head sadly. “It’s not enough just to hold onto what we have. They will try to take it. They will cut at us, and cut at us, a thousand small cuts from every direction until there is nothing left of us to cut away.”

“No one’s going to take it.” Andra squeezed her lover tighter, trying to embrace the worries away. “The Dragon Priests are gone, the people are on our side—”

“And what of the Wizards? How long until they come for us? Or the Elves? Or the Orcs? There are enemies at every border, Andra. Our land will never be safe.”

Andra kissed her gently on the head, her hair was soft and smelled of warmth and sweetness; she wanted to sink into her and push her concerns away. She wanted to remind her that Wizards would not interfere with Druid leadership and politics, she wanted to explain why Elves would not break their hard-won treaty, provide her with a history of Orcadian tribes and the infighting that distracted them from warring with other lands... but she knew that Olwen would not listen. Words would not soothe her tumultuous thoughts, only actions would. “What would you have me do?”

“I cannot risk losing my strength again.”

That very evening Olwen had been forced to draw Essence from the Dragon. That was twice in as many days. It was as if the spell was breaking, as if she couldn’t keep hold of this new life she had been given and had to keep drawing evermore just to hold herself in place.

Andra closed her eyes as she pushed away the memories of nearly losing her. “Agreed.”

“I must take of the Dragon Essence each morning without fail.”

Andra took a deep breath. She knew the pain this brought the White Dragon, it was agonising to see the noble beast writhing in chains. But sacrifices must be made. Without the Essence Olwen faded. She lost her strength until she grew so weak and... Andra couldn’t bear to think about what might happen if it went too far. Images of her lover, eyes open, frozen in death, blindly staring out. She shook the thought away. It was too much.

“Every morning?” she asked. What if they went too far in the other direction? She’d had reports that Dragons were attacking people in the lands of Moridan and Iskia. Elven patrols had slowed, and she suspected they also suffered. The Druids’ White Dragon was kept in chains but there was no way to subdue the Guardians of other lands. “What if you take too much? What is to stop other Dragons attacking our own people? Taking their Essence back from Druids?”

Olwen turned and looked up at her, her eyes glinting with a bright blue-gold. “I’ve been learning.” She spoke with passion and Andra smiled. She enjoyed seeing Olwen consumed by ambition. They had been fighting for survival for so long that she had been worried her lover’s true purpose had been lost in the fight. But now she shone with determination. “I see inside their minds; I enter the realm of the Dragons. Oh, if you could only feel the power of it, Andra, running in your blood, through your veins like a great torrent. A river of power vast as the stars and bright as the sun.” Olwen pulled away and turned back to the horizon as if even the memory of her experience made the confines of Andra’s arms too restraining; she needed to see the vastness of the sky. “I could hear them all!”

“All?”

“All the Dragons, not just the Great White.” Olwen glanced back and Andra was sure the gold shone a little brighter in her eyes. “She is just one tiny part of a vast sea of Dragons: when I draw from her; I draw from all of them. They fight it, they are afraid and angry, but they are powerless to stop me, yet I can control them. I bend their will to my own and we are as one; no Dragon will harm a Druid as long as I wish it so.” She laughed brightly, joyfully. “It was truly meant to be. I was meant to discover this. These creatures have never been our masters, we mean nothing to them. They are beasts, mindless beasts, waiting for the one who could lead them, waiting for me!”

Andra hesitated. Olwen’s passion was intoxicating yet there was a frightening unknown to it. “What do you intend to lead them to?”

“To victory! Victory for Dragon March! I’ve seen through their eyes, Andra; the Dragons attack our enemies at my will. The Guardians draw Essence from their own worshippers and the people run screaming from their old Gods.”

Olwen laughed, but Andra was troubled by her bloodlust. “We have an army for that. An army that can face our enemies’ soldiers in battle, on equal terms—”

“Since when have Druid soldiers had equal terms?” She spat the words, her contempt boiling over. “The Essence can give us the edge, Andra, there is enough for a whole army. An army that will be undefeatable.”

“You mean... ?”

“Yes, Andra! You see it, too. We will have a hundred soldiers, a thousand soldiers, even five thousand soldiers all with the power of the Dragons running in their veins. It will truly be a Dragon Army!”

Andra imagined the Elves with their archers and deer cavalry falling easily under the strength of a thousand immortal warriors armed with the magic of the White Dragon. A noble victory fought and won on the battlefield; a chance for the Druids to regain their honour and defend their lands.

Olwen pulled her close. “You will lead them, Andra, you will be the General of the Dragon Army and we will crush all those who would oppose us.”

It was only then that Andra began to see the extent of her plans. Olwen would not stop at the limits of Dragon March. She did not intend to merely protect the borders, she meant to extend them. “So, you wish to take us to war?”

“We are already at war, I simply intend to win.”

A few years ago, Andra would have accused her of treason, of madness, of putting her own ambition before the lives of their people, but that was before. That was before she saw the corruption of the Dragon Priests, before she had seen her soldiers returning from the borders, injured and dying in their hundreds, and before she had been forced to subdue a rebellion. She had fought against her own people, alongside the ungrateful and spiteful Elves who had wished to grow their own territory at the cost of anyone who stood in their way.

She had once been blinded by a priesthood meant to protect the Druid people, but who instead betrayed them at every turn. The people were weak, tired, starving, and lost. Olwen had given her hope. She had given everyone hope.

“We’ll need to strengthen our defences and recruit young fighters.” Andra turned back into the Master’s Chamber. There was a map of the Edge Isles rolled up on the desk alongside scrolls and ink. She would have to begin planning: she needed to know how to manage their resources, recruit more people to their cause. “We’ll need weapons, armour, supplies: winter is not the time for fighting—”

Olwen had followed her inside and watched her from the doorway. “This means our enemies will be weaker...”

Andra smiled and nodded. “It does indeed.” She spread out the map. “We can’t have a war on all fronts, we need to gather allies and take down one enemy at a time: Meadowvale, Moridan, Orcadia...”

“You are magnificent when you plan campaigns.” Olwen moved up behind her and ran her hands down Andra’s muscular arms.

Andra laughed, turning to face her. “And you are wonderful when you inspire me to.” She laid a kiss gently on Olwen’s neck, moving up towards her ear.

“I think you are right about bed,” Olwen whispered. “War can wait.”

Snappers

The early morning light was breaking through the haze. The worst of the fog had lifted but there was dampness in the still air and a low mist clung to the surface of the water. Chirruping, croaking, and trills of unfamiliar hidden creatures echoed off the low canopy of the thick-trunked trees, their long, twine-like branches brushing the water’s edge like a maiden’s tangled hair, and a smell of old fish and rotting plant mulch clung to Breanna’s nostrils.

They were a strange group.

Two Elf Rangers’ bows ready, eyes darting this way and that as they passed tall reeds and low-lying trees.

Three Fenners, wearing their armoured skirts of leather strips and fish skin that sparkled in the early light, sashes and belts with a vicious serrated blade hanging at their sternum, and fierce scowls of concentration as they managed the large reed boat. The first, Brekek, a well-built but short Fenner whose dark green braids were almost black, kneeled low at the prow of the boat with a trident, its haft decorated with bright green weeds, ready in their hand. A second, Rega, a willowy Fenner with light greenish hair hanging loose to their waist, was at the back driving the long staff through the water, occasionally changing the direction of the boat at brief shouts from Brekek. The third, Koax, was the tallest and fiercest. They stood, legs wide apart in the centre of the boat and somehow seemed to stay perfectly still as the boat bounced and changed direction in the reed-riddled backwaters. Koax was watching the passengers with the same intensity that they watched the wild swamps, and a long-fingered, webbed hand never left the hilt of their serrated blade.

Then finally, there were the Woodlanders. Broc, his bronze axe returned to him, was at the prow of their boat alongside Brekek, searching the misty marshes for signs of danger, and Breanna who sat silently in the middle of the boat at Koax’s feet, clinging to her quarterstaff and listening, hoping that she would not hear the whispers she was dreading.

She thumbed the little leather pouch of supplies she had been given. A flask of fresh water, and strips of dried fish and seaweed. She had already picked at the seaweed: it was an overwhelmingly chewy and salty plant which she distinctly did not like and yet was now craving another taste. She was just wondering if she should take a second bite or save all her rations for when she really needed them when Brekek let out a sharp cry from the front.

The boat lurched as Brekek gesticulated wildly at Rega and, to Breanna’s surprise, Broc joined in, gesturing a halt. The reeds were becoming too thick for the boat to manoeuvre through. They were stuck fast.

“Might we push through with a second oarsman?”

“How about we cut through?”

“I thought this way was meant to be clear?”

“This path is not well trod.”

Breanna listened to the mass of arguing voices around her and tried to stay calm and out of the way. The others rushed up and down the small boat, and she clung to the side as it was rocked. She began to feel the seaweed strip threatening to come back up, and water was beginning to pool at her feet.

“Out!” Koax shouted, “All out!” They drew their long knife and pointed to the water.

“Out?” Breanna stared into the thick reeds that pushed up against the sides of the boat wondering if there was land. She couldn’t face the thought of getting lost in the thick vegetation, or trudging knee-deep through the clotting mud.

“You!” Koax pointed at Breanna then Broc. “Front. Others to back. No distance.”

Broc nodded and turned to Cassian and Leasha. “The reeds are only thick for a few yards, we can see beyond. If we force the boat through, we’ll be back on clear water.”

They nodded, and reluctantly slid from the back of the boat while Breanna took a deep breath and followed Broc and Koax to the front.

Despite the warmth of the sun, the water was cold. Breanna plunged straight in and gasped as she sank up to her waist. Water began seeping through her freshly dried-out clothes and pressed against her skin. The riverbed was soft and silty beneath her boots and she could feel herself sinking into the mud. Her feet were sucked down with each step and she had to manoeuvre through roots ready to trip her up. Koax and Broc began cutting down the reeds in earnest, clearing out a path, while a bladeless Breanna could only flatten the reeds with her quarterstaff and widen the gap as the boat was pushed through the thicket. It was slow and hard-going but inch by painful inch the group made progress.

Something brushed past her leg and she gasped, stumbling backwards she turned and looked about: the surface was unbroken.

“Alright, little one?”

“Just stumbled.” She poked at the area with her quarterstaff and found nothing. So, with a little trepidation, she turned back to her task of reed flattening.

Suddenly there was a splash behind her and she cried out as she was punched hard in the back of her thigh and pushed over in the water. She flailed about, struggling to stop her head going under, but the pain on her leg was still there, a sharp piercing holding her leg fast. Her mind went back to the webspinners and she reached out for her brother, unable to say his name.

Broc’s eyes widened as he turned, and he managed to yell, “Halt!” before the boat was pushed into them. Then Koax, their weapon ready in an instant, lunged at Breanna. She instinctively raised her arms to defend herself but Koax thrashed at the creature. The water turned red and the beast that had latched onto her was forced to abandon its prey and slither off back into the reeds, leaving a trail of blood behind.

“Snappers!” Koax deftly leapt back into the boat and reached out to help first Breanna and then Broc back inside. The others were quick to follow.

“Thank you.” Breanna was clutching at the stinging wound, still surprised that it had been the Fenner and not her brother who had been so quick to act. Koax nodded to her, their face grim.

Leasha was there in a second, inspecting the scratches. “That’s a nasty bite.” Her hand was on Breanna’s thigh and she didn’t know where to look as that same burning sensation from the healer’s touch filtered through her leg and started to relieve the pain.

“When there is one snapper, there are a hundred...” Koax scanned the water before speaking to Brekek and Rega in their own tongue, hissing and gesticulating wildly.

“We have to get back in.” Broc was twisting his axe in his hand and she could see it was taking all his resolve not to pace.

“One attack. It is nothing.” Koax had not sheathed their white, bone blade and the fresh blood dripped from it, staining the reeds where it fell. “One hundred. It is something.”

Breanna clutched her leg, the blood trailed down her breeches in little rivulets as it mixed with the marsh water. Leasha had stopped the worst of the pain but even so she didn’t agree with Koax that the attack had been ‘nothing’.

“No mistake, snappers tear flesh. You will see your bones. You will scream.”

“We can’t just give up.” Breanna tried her best to ignore the thought of her flesh being torn and instead attempted to look defiant and as though the nagging soreness from the injury had already been forgotten.

“I don’t want to be torn down to my bones.” Cassian’s usual grin was gone, and he stared at the black surface of the water.

“These teeth marks are deep. I can’t completely heal them without help.” Leasha delicately prodded the wound but Breanna winced and pushed the Elf away, once again feeling responsible for causing all the trouble.

“So, we go back?” Broc looked at them, waiting for an answer.

“Perhaps if we have more resources...” Leasha shrugged.

“Then what?” Broc snapped. “What about when we hit the next problem? And the next?”

“Snappers kill. Now there is scent.” Koax snarled at the water.

“But there was just one.” Broc drew his axe. “And you frightened it back to its hole.” He nodded to Koax. “If we don’t go forward today, then we will fall back every day until there is nowhere left to fall back to.” He looked to them each in turn. “We started this quest because we know we have no choice. We had no choice then, and we have no choice now. If we are to find this Wizard, if we are to discover how to defeat the Dragons, if we are to keep our families safe, if we are ever to return to our homes with our heads held high, then we must go on. We must fight every obstacle that comes our way, and we must go on! Or we may as well have our flesh ripped from our bones for all the good we are!”

The Elves and Fenners looked to Broc in silence. Then Koax nodded.

“You are right, Wealderling.” Leasha stood, looking to Cassian who sighed and nodded reluctantly. “We must go on.”

Brekek and Rega nodded to Koax and Breanna felt a glow of pride fill her belly. She stood to move into the water as the others slid down into the swamp, but Broc stopped her with his axe arm.

“Not you, little one, scent of blood.” He nodded to her wound and she sighed then retreated to her seat feeling like an old woman who must be carried about to save her bunions. She rubbed her legs as she shivered: they were numbing with the cold, but the worst of the pain had faded with Leasha’s touch. She remembered those delicate and strong Elvin hands upon her thigh and shook the thought away, focusing on the water and the danger within.

Koax and Broc had a new sense of purpose, and swiftly worked together to cut down the reeds and clear the path for the boat. With the Elves and Fenners pushing the craft through the tight gap, they began to make steady progress, while Breanna scanned the dark surface watching for any hint of the creatures lurking beneath. With a final shouting and heaving between them all, the boat squeezed through the last of the tightly packed reeds and was suddenly free, floating out onto open water. They all let out a cheer of joy and relief as the boat gently began to spin.

Then Broc was gone.

Breanna screamed.

“What’s happened?”

“Did you see?”

“Where did he go?”

“Snappers!”

“What did you lead us into?”

“To the boat!”

He broke the surface with a splash, shouting and flailing his axe. The Fenners were quick; all three disappeared under the water in a flash. Leasha put an arrow to her bow but Cassian snatched it away and pulled her to the boat. The surface bubbled and raged as the battle took place underneath, blood and blades surfaced, feet and heads flailed. The water darkened with blood.

Breanna’s breath froze solid in her chest.

Then Broc was free. He burst out, gasping for air. Breanna screamed to him and reached out her hand. He grabbed it eagerly, and the three of them hauled him out of danger. His clothes were soaked through, his long hair a mess of tangled curls and weeds, and a large scratch was running across his forehead. He lay on his back breathing heavily, still clasping his bloodied axe. But he was alive. He was back with her and alive; she squeezed him into a fierce embrace as her breath finally returned to her.

“Are you injured?” Leasha was on him in an instant, checking for wounds, but he waved her away.

“The others.” Broc pulled away from them and sat up, looking over the edge of the boat. But there was nothing.

The four of them stared helplessly at the still water.

Minutes passed.

“Do you think any of them made it?” Breanna twisted her quarterstaff in her hands, feeling useless and guilty for so quickly celebrating her brother’s escape.

“I don’t know.” Cassian clasped his bow: there were no snappers he could fire at, and the Fenners were gone.

Suddenly there was a great crash and roar behind them. They spun around, weapons ready, to see Koax breach the surface with a cry of triumph and a great, long, ugly fish in each hand: round, gaping, tooth-filled jaws were limp, and the bodies still. Brekek and Rega surfaced behind Koax, sheathing their weapons, looks of exhaustion and triumph upon their faces. And, as the land-dwellers cowering in the boat cheered for their heroes, Koax held the accursed fish aloft and shouted, “Feast!”

The companions found a damp mound of land on which to camp and, after some arguing, Cassian and Koax finally agreed that one fish could be cooked for the land-dwellers while the Fenners could eat their own portion raw.

Finally, Breanna lay down on her bedroll, her belly full and her thirst quenched. She stared up at the patches of stars through the foliage of the unfamiliar trees and listened to the soft crackling of the campfire. If she ignored the strange animal calls, and the unfamiliar smells of fish and salt, she could almost imagine she was back home. Back in the forest. Before everything.

The memories started to crawl back. Campfires in the dark after a long hunt, the voices of her older kin in the shadows telling stories of the past and the ancestors that first landed on these strange shores. The taste of deer steak and fresh greens washed down with berry cordials, long summer days of running through the village and play hunting with her friends. Before they were forced to grow up, before they were accepted one-by-one into the circle of adults, as each of them earned their place in the world and she was left increasingly alone. Stuck between two worlds; the one she didn’t want and the one she couldn’t keep.

She remembered the morning both worlds were snatched away.

The Whisper, thunderous yet silent, her father gone in an instant, the village crushed as she hid in the roundhouse, the webspinners clasping at her with clacking fangs, and the howlers’ teeth digging into her back as she was pushed under the marsh water into a nest of snappers that tore at her face.

She cried out.

She was sitting up in the dark, panting hard: her body was covered in sweat, and she felt her face, still there. Still whole. She was safe. There was nothing there. But her breathing rattled in her chest, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes watching her.

“Are you well?”

The sudden question almost made her scream. Leasha was sitting at the edge of the camp keeping watch. The last of the firelight cast dancing shadows across her features but Breanna could see the look of concern on the Elf’s face as she was beckoned over.

Breanna hesitated. She didn’t understand how someone could make her feel so comfortable and yet uncomfortable at the same time. How that one look of hers could make the entire world seem right and yet as if it were all upside down and inside out. There was a tug of nerves in her stomach, she wanted to lie back down on her bedroll and ignore the Elf Princess, but something stronger made her get up.

Carefully, trying not to disturb the others, Breanna picked her way through the camp and took a seat on the moss-covered log next to Leasha. Their backs were turned to the fire, and there was a cool breeze against their faces.

They stared into the darkness for a long time, both alert for very different dangers, until Breanna finally broke the silence. “Do you think we’ll ever find this Wizard?”

Leasha sighed deeply then shook her head. “I don’t know.” She slid an arm around the trembling Woodlander who froze at her touch and they listened to the night. “But I remember someone saying that we must keep fighting.”

Razorbeaks

The next morning was bright and clear. A low-lying mist still clung to the surface of the water, but the sky above the drooping canopy of swamp trees was cloudless and there was a hint of ice in the morning air. The group packed up and left camp quickly, stomping out the fires before leaping back into the boat and heading on.

It was easier journeying this time around: the reeds were thinning and the inlets widening. There were so many rivers and tributaries to navigate that Breanna became dizzy with it. Under the thick canopy of the swamp forest it was becoming difficult to tell where the sun was at any given time, and she had given up trying to guess if they headed north, east, or west.

As the morning wore on, there were fewer drooping trees and the canopy thinned out, revealing more and more of the cold, blue sky. Breanna pulled her warm Elven cloak tighter around her as they moved faster. Rega had less work to do as the current pulled the boat along the fast-moving water quite happily: only here or there did they need to navigate around a rock or fallen tree. The thick silt that clung to the bed and muddied up the murky river had long disappeared, and a crystal clarity lay below them. Breanna absent-mindedly touched the clear surface with her fingers: it was like the smoothest silk she had ever imagined.

They glided along peaceably. Occasional flitting shadows under the surface accompanied the boat for a little while before moving off to find easier prey. Eyes, darting in and out of reeds and shrubbery on the riverbanks, followed them, but no creature was ever seen. The trees became only occasional until there were none: the reeds thinned out to scrubland, and by mid-morning the group were sailing through wide, open, desolate marshland. There were no buildings or signs of civilisation, only the birds. Long-legged cranes stood fishing in deep water and smaller birds darted here and there, digging in the mud for scrubs and sea worms. Breanna had never known a land so desolate or a wind so biting.

The air was different: it was easy to breathe without the heavy fog of swampy murk lying upon her lips and nostrils. Instead, it was pure and as if half a breath could fill your chest with twice as much. The land smelled of salt and of a distant childhood summer spent on sandy beaches collecting seafood with her aunt and the other women from her village. A time almost forgotten to her.

“This place is beautiful.” Leasha grinned, open-mouthed and wide-eyed as she stared around the unfamiliar landscape.

“It is cold.” Cassian tightened his own cloak around him and sat crouched, low in the boat.

“It’s cold and beautiful,” Breanna acknowledged and was rewarded with a smile from Leasha and a reluctant nod from Cassian. She wondered why they had all been so worried about the journey when the sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the swiftest progress they had made so far involved doing nothing more than sitting and watching the land alter around them.

In the second hour after noon the fast-moving river began to widen and become shallower, even as more and more smaller tributaries fed into it. The bottom of the boat rocked as it was caught on the riverbed, then a few yards later it slowed, and then stopped completely. Rega made a good effort of pushing them along, but it was no good.

“All walk.” Koax leapt deftly off the boat and into the shallow river up to their ankles; Rega and Brekek quickly followed. They held the boat fast, so the others could depart and then the seven of them easily hauled the boat onto the drier but not quite dry land.

The land was a thick mud that Breanna’s boots sank into easily. Scraps of scrub poked out of the mud here and there but offered no solid paths on which to walk. The Fenners, with their long feet and wide, webbed toes, barely made an impression but the landers all struggled as their feet sank. It was going to be a slow journey.

While Rega pushed the steering pole deep into the mud and tied the boat to it, the others unloaded the packs and began to distribute them: food, water, and extra arrows for the Elves.

Breanna slung her pack across her chest, and with her quarterstaff to help her keep steady, she was ready to go. “Which way?”

Koax double-checked the fastening for the boat and scanned the horizon before pointing south. Rather than following the path of the river they were to make their way across the mudflats. Nimble and light-footed, the Fenners led the way, while the landers slowly trudged along behind, the sucking sound of the wet earth accompanying every hard-fought-for step.

Progress was slow but steady. Koax firmly walked out in the lead, while Rega, with their long, loose hair blowing about in the wind, and Brekek with their dark plaits and decorated trident, ran ahead scouting the area. Breanna’s muscles were getting sore and tired and she could tell the others felt the same. More than once Cassian stumbled and nearly fell, and, as their legs grew tired, their pace slowed further, giving their boots more time to sink deeper into the mud and making their journey even harder.

Leasha started to sing an Elven marching song: her voice was clear, pleasant, and carried on the wind, setting their pace. But they were all relieved when Rega and Brekek returned with news of a suitable spot to break.

They were led east and for a while it seemed that the promise of a break had only been a cruel taunt. But as the ground began to slope upwards, the mud was drier, their feet didn’t sink as deep, and the trudge became easier. With a burst of energy Cassian and Broc darted ahead: they reached the top of the incline and let out a roaring cheer. Leasha grinned and turned to Breanna, her hand held out, and Breanna hesitated for just a moment before grabbing it and they ran up the last few yards together.

The mud quickly gave way to drier, hardier sandy soil, the vegetation thickened, and, as the pair reached the peak to join the others already opening their packs, the world opened out before them. A vast, flat expanse as wide as the sky, the squawk of gulls magnified overhead, a great fresh wind driving towards them across the sandy plain, and a dark, thin, blue line in the distance broken by the white heads of waves crashing: they had reached the edge of the world.

Broc and Cassian were laughing together as they sat and raised a flask of spring water. The Fenners were more sombre, sitting with their backs to the wind, munching on their strips of dried fish.

“We’ve made it.” Leasha squeezed Breanna’s hand and Breanna couldn’t prevent a grin and then a laugh emerging from her lips.

The break was painfully short. Just enough time to rest their legs, eat a few scraps, and shake the worst of the caked mud from their boots before it was time to face the rest of the journey. As they replaced their boots and packs, Koax stood staring out across the horizon. Their features were unreadable, but Breanna realised she had long forgotten her fear of these strange people and felt guilty of how quick she had been to judge ill of them.

“How far is it to the Lost Plains?”

Koax broke their fierce stare and looked down at her. “It is before you.”

She turned and looked out at the blanket of sand ahead of them, broken occasionally by a scattering of black rocks like ragged scars across smooth skin. “The beach?”

Koax shook their head. “Beyond the beach. This land once held a vast plain on which great herds of beast roamed, and swathes of forests with birds and fruits to feed a thousand tribes. It was many times the size of my own lands and the lands of the Elves combined. So beautiful and bounteous was this land that the ocean grew jealous and wished to take it for themselves... and one day, whoosh,” Koax motioned their hand across the horizon, “they did.”

It was the most words Breanna had heard the Fenner say, and the story was a beautiful and difficult one. She stared out at the beach, and the waves crashing to shore seemed to become a creature eating away at the land she stood on, a powerful, unstoppable beast of nature. It frightened her. “If the plains are under the sea, how do we get to them?”

Koax smiled. “Twice a day the ocean retreats, and we may walk in the woodlands once more.”

“The forests come out of the water!” Breanna stared open-mouthed at the distant shore imagining the full canopy of lush green trees being revealed, and of walking in the dappled sunlight of a forest like her home once again.

Koax placed a webbed hand gently on her shoulder and looked down at her with kind eyes. “It will not be as you think.”

She wanted to ask more and find out about this strange, hidden forest of the sea, but it was time to move on. The others were ready, their packs on their backs, their boots as clean as they could be, and already they were heading down the soft dunes towards the flat expanse of beach.

As they journeyed over the vast, damp sandscape, their shimmering selves were reflected; perfect images transposed below them, shadows come to life like a soul driven out of the dark. The smooth surface was broken by the heavy-booted marks of the landers while the Fenners’ prints shimmered out of existence almost as quickly as they were made. Smooth, black rocks jutted out in patches covered with seaweed and surrounded in places with small pools; the fresh wind bit at her skin and blew ice into her ears. She pulled her Elf cloak up around her shoulders and wished that she had some protection for her head and face.

The Fenners were able to outpace them with ease and made use of their advantage. While Koax strode ahead, Brekek and Rega darted off towards the water’s edge where they almost disappeared into the haze between land and sky. Breanna watched their hunched figures digging into the sand as if rummaging for a lost treasure.

Suddenly there was a cry. Breanna looked around, startled; it wasn’t a cry she recognised. She gasped as she saw half a dozen creatures running towards them from the sand dunes.

“Weapons!” Koax shouted.

Breanna fumbled with her quarterstaff, readying herself. The creatures were upon them in moment, birdlike with short, flapping wings that wouldn’t allow them flight but long, swift legs that surged them across the sand in a flash. They had bald heads, and black feathers around the body, with a streak of bright blue upon their chests. The birds stood taller than Breanna: they squawked, and their ferocious yellow eyes were unyielding, but it was their feet that frightened her. With a single, long, sharp talon on each foot and a surprisingly long reach, she batted one clawed foot out of the way before her new enemy attacked with the other.

Leasha had her bow ready, but no sooner had she fired one shot than another of the bird creatures was upon her. Koax slashed this way and that with their long, serrated blade.

There was a shout from behind, Breanna couldn’t turn to look, but suddenly Rega and Brekek darted forward and there were seven against six and the ferocious birds began to fall back.

But not without a last assault. Brekek cried out as a ferocious talon lashed at them. The others quickly backed up to the injured Fenner, surrounding them as the birds now had the upper hand. Breanna stood side-by-side between Koax and Leasha as the birds chased around them, speeding in a circle, darting from arrows and blades, then nipping in and striking where they saw a weakness.

An arrow hit true and one of the bird creatures fell, seizing and then lying still with the arrow protruding from its small skull and blood trickling onto the sand. But Breanna gasped as the birds dived on their fallen comrade as if it were their own kill.

“Slowly,” hissed Koax, “back off slowly.”

Trying not to catch their attention, the group pulled away. Brekek, their leg gashed open, sat wincing, and holding back fresh tears. Leasha helped them to their feet and ripped a slice of her tunic to bind the wound, stopping the bleeding as they moved off. No one else lowered their weapon.

“What are they?” Broc asked.

“Razorbeaks,” Koax replied. “Stop!” The group froze on Koax’s command and stood still and silent.

Each one held their breath as one of the razorbeaks lifted its head and stared straight towards the group. Dangling from its mouth was the bloody flesh of its fellow predator and Breanna felt a sickness rise in her stomach as she fought the urge to turn and run.

“They have their kill,” Koax explained to them in a low whisper. “Don’t move. They won’t attack.”

Breanna nodded. But it was hard to believe when the creature’s yellow eyes seemed to be transfixed upon her. Then suddenly it lifted its head, swallowing the tendril of flesh, and sank its beak back into the carcass.

None of them moved faster than a snail’s pace until the razorbeaks were no more than a speck in the distance. Koax ordered Rega to keep watch on the birds and Leasha made do attending to Brekek’s injury while they were on the move.

“Try not to overuse it.”

Breanna watched as Leasha finished wrapping the wound tightly with some cloth from her pack and Brekek nodded as Koax translated Leasha’s words.

Although Brekek had not spoken anything other than their own tongue, they lay a hand upon Leasha’s arm and managed to say, “Thank you,” as they now hobbled along using their trident as a walking aid.

Leasha smiled and her cheeks reddened. “’Twas nothing.”

An unfamiliar pang twisted in Breanna’s stomach as she noted the look that passed between the two. She began to wonder if Leasha looked that way at all those she healed and perhaps there was no particularly special bond between her and the Elf. Not that she had ever thought that there was.

It was a sombre and sullen group that trudged across the beach that afternoon. Their celebrations earlier in the day now seemed foolish and even Koax and Broc had slowed their pace, giving into tiredness.

But it was Cassian who changed the mood, his Elven eyes spotting in the distance what no one else did. “Look!”

Breanna glanced up. The horizon was broken by indistinguishable dark shadows. But as their pace quickened, and they drew closer, she could make out hundreds of dark black stumps standing proud of the beach like the last remaining rotted teeth of a dying man.

“What is it?”

Koax turned to her, a frown darkening their features. “That is all that remains of the forest of the Lost Plains.”

Lost Forest

This was it. They had finally reached their goal after what felt like weeks of running, searching, and fighting. Finally, they were close to the end. Finally, they would get answers. Finally, they would find someone who could help them defeat the Dragons.

Yet there was no joy amongst the companions.

An eerie silence fell over the group as they drew closer to the strange, jagged remnants of forest. The reverence and fear the Fenners showed for this place, along with the unsettling silhouette of their destination, combined to feed a crawling uncertainty in the depths of Breanna’s stomach.

Cowed by aeons under the ocean, their limbs and branches long hewn away, all that remained of the majesty of the ancient forest was blackened trunks piercing the damp sand like twigs stuck in mud. Some barely stood proud of the ground, as if they were being pulled down into the world beneath, while others stood taller than even the Fenners, but all were dead and slick with water and slime. Breanna found it hard to understand how these long-dead trees had stayed upright so long, and, as they reached the threshold of the Lost Forest, she reached out to touch one but Koax pulled her hand back and shook their head.

“Their spirit is... restless.” Although Breanna wasn’t certain what Koax meant, the deep warning in their hushed voice and the way they glanced around in trepidation were enough to make her pull back from the ancient stump.

“What are we waiting for?” Cassian was ready, an arrow locked in his bow. He went to stride forward.

“Not alone!” Koax warned with an upheld hand. Cassian hesitated. “Together.”

A spark of fear crackled across Breanna’s skin. There was no beast or creature they could see within the Lost Forest. There was no easy place for one to hide, and yet she felt that something lurked. Something watched. She jumped as a hand clutched her shoulder and she turned expecting to see her brother, but it was Leasha who smiled back at her and the spark of fear dissipated slightly.

“Together, then.” Broc looked around to the group and received nods. The seven companions stood side-by-side at the edge of the forest. At the word from Koax, they stepped in tandem over the threshold into the decaying wood.

The whispering was back. Thunderous, silent, and calling to her. Her breath caught in her chest and her eyes darted around seeking the source of the Dragon Whisper.

“What is it?” There was a note of panic on Leasha’s voice.

“Do you hear it?” Breanna scanned the horizon and the cloudless sky. To her right, Koax reached out a gentle hand and touched her arm.

“The spirit.” Koax spoke in a reverential whisper as the group slowly moved forward. “All that flourished here is gone. Gone and not gone. The spirit remains. The spirit of trees, of animals. The Dragon still dwells here. You listen to the wind. You hear their soul.” Koax paused, closing their eyes to listen for the spirits’ Whisper.

Breanna didn’t have to close her eyes: the Whisper surrounded her, filled her, pushed her forward and pulled her back. She pulled her Elf cloak up tighter and tighter around her, trying to close off the Whisper. The Whisper had brought nothing but death in its wake since she had first heard it.

“This place is incredible.” Leasha spoke her words softly as if she were walking on a grave and Breanna realised that there was nothing but death all around her. She struggled to find the same sense of awe as the Elf maiden, but felt only an unyielding, gnawing desolation.

She imagined the trees as they had once been: tall, reaching up towards a great canopy. She imagined the sounds of insects buzzing through the leaves and the soft dappled sunlight of an autumn afternoon breaking through in smatterings that shimmered as she walked. The forest of the past was so tangible she almost felt as though she were walking amongst it. She could hear the birds’ calls surrounding her, raising her up. How could she have forgotten already their song? She could hear it now: chirrups and caws and melodies, and the sound of leaves crunching under foot, as she followed a path through the woods that had been cut by a thousand deer running through a thousand times.

Then, as she came towards a clearing long past, she could see the great, winged serpent that had roamed these woods. She could hear its lost and lonely thoughts as its huge tail curled around itself while it cut its teeth on a fallen branch. She could see its scales, yellow as the autumn leaves, shimmering in the dappled light of the afternoon, as the birds sprinkled the air with their delicate chorus. As she drew closer to this vision she watched the lost Dragon rear its head and rise on its slithering body. It spread out its wide wings and turned to her with golden eyes and a giant, gaping tooth-filled mouth that opened into a ferocious roar.

Breanna screamed as the Dragon, real as any other, beat its huge wings and tore towards her through the lush wood.

“Bree?” Her companions were at her side as she stood fast, holding her quarterstaff in her white-knuckled hands. But there was no stopping the creature as it crashed towards her, rushing through her body with the overwhelming force of a Dragon, and the delicate whisper of a spirit.

She felt her body rattle and shake as if her soul had been blasted. She fell to her knees on the sand, breathing hard, listening to the howling of the empty wind. Looking around her.

The forest was gone. It was long gone. The birds were silent.

“Bree?” Broc was at her side in an instant. “What...? What just happened?”

“Did you...?” She was out of breath and felt a fool kneeling on the sand, no enemy in sight. “Did any of you...?”

Cassian offered her hand. “Was it a Dragon?”

She nodded as he helped her to her feet. “Yes. Did no one see it?” She looked around hopefully but Broc and Cassian guiltily shook their heads.

“No.” Broc looked at her, his brow furrowed in confusion and concern. “Why would we hear a Dragon?”

“I felt it.” Koax looked around with narrowed eyes, their serrated blade in their hand. Brekek and Rega spoke to each other in muttered, harsh tones and nodded in agreement.

“It was cold.”

Breanna turned to Leasha in surprise; she was paler than usual, clutching her bow with three ready arrows in her hand, ready but useless against an onslaught of spirits. “And so alone.”

“Well, it seems that whatever it might have been,” Cassian hitched an arrow to his bow, “it does not wish us to trespass here.”

Breanna nodded. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Agreed,” came several voices at once, and the companions continued, huddled together even closer than before.

Breanna could no longer hear the whisper and she was left with only the memory of the forest and how it had looked in the distant past. She thought of her own forest, of her home, her trees, the Sacred Grove, and it made her feel ill to think of it one day sinking into the sea, and the spirits of the wood roaming lost in the wind.

Through the haze ahead of them Breanna could make out a strange outline. She thought it no more than a giant trunk, wider than it was tall, felled by an ancient hand, leaving its peaked remnants jutting from the beach. But it became clear that this was only an effect achieved using numerous smaller logs and standing them in a tight circle. Fresh driftwood branches had been used to create a sturdy roof reaching up to a peak higher than all the remnants of trees around them. The roof was new but the walls were as ancient as the rest of the forest, placed in that spot since the canopy had been thick overhead and now abandoned by everything but the spirits and the wind.

As they drew close, the howling gale gave way to a deeper roar. A chill went through her body from her spine to her stomach. She could tell it was not a spirit but that thought did little to comfort her.

Koax halted. “The Temple of the Lost Grove. We go no further.” Koax indicated themself and the other Fenners. Both Brekek and Rega looked visibly relieved at the order.

They were only fifty paces from the temple, yet the Elves and Woodlanders hesitated at making the rest of the journey without their new friends.

A touch of curiosity and surprise passed over Broc’s features, but he nodded. “You have fulfilled your promise.” Koax smiled and Broc turned to Leasha. Without a word between them, the two made an agreement and headed off towards the strange building.

The melodious howling continued, and Breanna felt as though she would have preferred a spirit; at least then she would have known what she was facing. The mystery of the howling voice unsettled her, and she thought it might not be a terrible plan to stay behind with the Fenners. She glanced up at Cassian, and she could see he was as unsettled about this sudden abandonment as she was. “Are you frightened?”

Cassian stared at her for a moment and then nodded. “You?”

“Terrified.” Her gut was spinning and clawing as if it wanted to scamper off in the other direction. They stood, watching the other two as they drew close to the temple and then disappeared inside the Lost Grove.

Cassian held out his hand. “Together?”

She nodded eagerly and accepted his offer. “Together.”

A New Council

In the cold, harsh light of day, the Master’s Council Chamber held a note of stoic, masculine authority. Andra leaned against the oak table and watched Olwen pace as they prepared to meet with the Reevesmen that had been called from all the far Shires of Dragon March.

More than an hour before, they had watched from the balcony as the last of the Reevesmen arrived. It had been a tactical decision to force the men to wait downstairs in the public chamber. But Andra had watched Olwen grow more nervous every moment and was surprised to see the golden tinge glowing stronger in her bright blue eyes.

Andra reached out to lay a warm, reassuring hand on her arm and Olwen turned, her mouth open, ready to speak. She was still the young maiden chased down like a dog by the Wizard Council, still the young maiden in need of the strong warrior by her side...

There was a firm knock at the door.

The moment was gone. Olwen stepped away from her warrior and focused her entire self on the door. “Enter!”

Andra moved to stand at the edge of the room. She was not a part of this meeting; she was here only to be Olwen’s physical authority. Silent and intimidating.

She enjoyed watching the Reevesmen notice her, each one politely acknowledging the authority of the General’s shining bronze regalia before realising it was borne by a woman. The nod of deference followed by the almost imperceptible double take was repeated by each of the five men in turn as if, between them all, they possessed only one mind.

Unbidden, the Reevesmen took their usual seats and none remarked on the four empty chairs representing the Shire Reevesmen who had not been so compliant with the changing of the Master to a Mistress.

Olwen approached the table but did not sit. She preferred to loom over her subjects, taking advantage of her rare opportunity to look down on the men and ensure they were made even more uncomfortable in the presence of someone who was both a woman and a mage.

“Welcome, Shire Reevesmen.” She nodded to each in turn, three greying, heavy-set men, another older and frail with hair as wild as sea foam, and the last man younger than the others, made younger still by his clean-shaven cheeks and chin. “I am delighted you could all make it at such short notice.” The Reevesmen nodded their thanks, despite each one knowing that the only alternative offered had been execution. “I have not called you here needlessly.” Olwen began to slowly circle the table, forcing them to twist in their seat when she passed behind. “There is much we have to do if we are to reclaim the lands which are ours.”

The oldest man, with sea-foam hair, shuffled and let out a deep sigh. “The Elves will fight for the Hunting Grounds; we all remember the rebellion—”

“Some of us more clearly than others,” Andra cut him off. She remembered him: Emrys of the North. He was clever; when the call had gone out for more armed soldiers to take on the rebels he had dithered. He’d never refused the call, never outwardly joined the rebellion but never condemned it either. Instead, he had done everything in his power to ensure he was slow to act. An essential harvest had to be brought in, a swollen river had to be forded, his army resupplied after a flood. Andra had been a young apprentice then but even she had seen through the delay tactics which had all accumulated to ensure Emrys and his troops remained untouched by the war.

Olwen nodded. “The rebellion was led by those few who were still true to the Druid spirit, but weak in support.” She leaned on the table, bringing her shining eyes down to the level of the assembled Reevesmen. Each one shifted uncomfortably, failing under her passionate gaze as she stared at them in turn. Andra wondered if any of them knew that Olwen was speaking of her own parents.

The rebellion had been a source of both shame and pride for the people of Dragon March. It had torn families apart, made enemies of siblings and worse; it had made allies of the Elves. Many, even now, still had a bitter taste in their mouths about those final days. Not for the first time Andra’s mind drifted back to the blood and the screams, the whistling of a thousand arrows hurtling overhead, the clash of bronze, the crunch of bones under the cavalry charge. Her first experience in action had been against her own people. Andra remembered being cheered by the victorious Elves as they celebrated the return of their young princess while her own kinsmen’s heads rotted on pikes.

“But how can we even begin to reclaim the Hunting Grounds?” Varden was a man with at least forty winters behind him, now with more hair on his chin than his crown and more girth on his stomach than his chest. Andra still recognised him. He hadn’t been a coward ten fighting seasons ago, he had been a warrior. Concealing rebel hideouts in his shire and only spared in the final battle due to his courage. “We are struggling to feed our people, and I know it has been just as hard in the other Shires.” He looked around the table and the other Reevesmen nodded. “We simply do not have the supplies.”

Olwen nodded and stood up straight, resting her hands on her hips and smiling. “But we have Dragons.”

The Reevesmen looked at one another until finally the oldest man, Emrys, voiced their collective doubts. “But you have broken the faith, Mistress. What priests will offer their prayers for us now?”

Olwen laughed, a short derisive laugh. “Prayers.” She shook her head and the men looked at one another, none of them willing to push the matter. “We no longer need to beg for the power of dragons. We will take what is ours!”

“None of us wish for war.” Emrys shook his head sadly. “I have seen enough of my people die, have you not?” He looked around hopefully at his companions and even the brave Varden nodded with resignation.

Andra sighed. None of these men had the fire in their bellies. They were all overfed and aging: even the youngest of them was more suited to sitting by the fire than setting one ablaze across the lands.

Olwen banged the chair back in frustration and turned from the men. Andra saw a flicker of golden Dragon fire dance across her skin, just a crackle of gentle lightning but enough to let Andra know the magic was building. It was a sign that she was growing tired of diplomacy. Instinctively, Andra stepped forward, a hand on the hilt of her sword, but there was little she could do if her Mistress used her magic. If Olwen decided to crush everyone who stood in her way, then there would be little anyone could do to stop her. Her opposition would be crushed until there would be no one left to stand alongside her against the Elves, let alone the other peoples of the Edge Islands.

Perhaps she thought she wouldn’t need anyone else, perhaps she thought she could take on the Elves, then the Orcs, then the Dwarves, then all the Wizards alone. Perhaps all reason was gone, perhaps it was too late, perhaps Olwen could only see the power that she held, and she would wield it at the cost of all others. Andra slowly drew her sword, not knowing what she would do, not truly believing that there was anything she could do and torn between protecting the defenceless and aiding the woman she loved.

But Olwen simply nodded and turned back to the Reevesmen. “I understand your fear.” She took a deep breath, her bright gold eyes staring at each of the men in turn until they looked away. “We have been so weak for so long. In your own Shires did not the Dragon Temples crush resistance? Did they not tell you that peace, above all else, was sanctity whilst taking everything you owned?” She looked directly at Emrys. “Including your youngest?”

The old man looked away as he hung his head.

“Do not worry yourself, Emrys of the North. I found your son.”

“You did?” He looked up at her, a colour back in his cheeks.

“The boy was amongst the young novices at Temple Grove, almost a man now, but eager to return home.”

Emrys nodded silently. His eyes glistened as he bit down on his lip and swallowed. Olwen squeezed his shoulder and for the briefest moment he placed his hand upon hers, and then she continued.

“I understand. I understand what you have been through. I myself was taken as a child.” Olwen beat her chest, emphasising her point with ferocity. “I, too, believed the Dragons were Gods. I believed the Wizards, with their high council, were above reproach. I believed that in order to practise magic I must be hidden away in a tower of books, far from where I can interfere in the affairs of lowly men.” The Reevesmen shuffled uncomfortably and Andra enjoyed their uneasiness. “Oh yes,” Olwen smiled, “The Wizards believe Mages are superior, that those of us with magic are more enlightened, special. We should be kept apart from others. Above them and away from them, and to never meddle in their affairs.”

There was a low grumbling of dissent.

“Precisely,” Olwen said softly, “you should be angry. I am not superior to any other Druid, I am a Druid. No more, no less. The Wizards spoke falsely when they said I was different simply for being a Mage. I am not. I am one of you. I am equal to all of you.” She opened her arms to indicate them all and the men glanced at one another. Andra smiled at their struggle: as a Mage, Olwen deigned to lower herself to their level; as a woman she was daring to rise.

“I know the Wizards were wrong and I know the Dragon Priests were wrong. That lizard that we now keep chained in the dungeon,” Olwen raised a hand to stop the dissent that was about to occur, “oh yes, she is kept chained, and locked up; this is the secret the Wizards have kept from you, the secret that the temples have kept from you for fear that by giving you power you would use it against them. The Dragons are animals, not Gods.”

“How dare you!”

“This is madness!”

Olwen calmed them like braying mares, her arms waving them down until they were silent. She spoke with a soothing, quiet voice, forcing them to listen. “We are Druids, gentlemen, this is our land, these are our Dragons, and this is our magic. We will use the strength we have to take back what is ours. When the Druids are united, and the power of our people combines with the power of our Dragons, there will not be a Wizard, nor a dwarf, nor a self-satisfied Elf that can stand in our way!”

“Hear, hear!” Varden slammed his fist on the table and stood up.

There was a moment of silence. A moment when the fate of the world stood upon the brink of two possibilities. Andra held her breath.

But then others followed Varden, even the aged Emrys stood, cheering on Olwen and themselves with equal bravado.

Andra breathed a sigh of relief and sheathed her sword. Silently, she berated herself; for a moment she had doubted Olwen, doubted her ability to lead without relying on her Skill. She would not be so quick to make the same mistake again.

Grove of the Lost Plains

The moment they crossed the threshold into the dark, wooden room, the bite of the ferocious wind ceased, and Breanna was relieved to be free of its restless assault. The temple was dark, a rough ceiling of driftwood, dried reeds, and straw sealed in the warmth and blocked out most natural light. The air was thick with stifling smoke that emanated from bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling. The smell reminded Breanna of the Wise-Woman’s hut back home in the forest. Several small candles were dotted around the sandy floor, burning low and emanating a soft, unearthly glow that underlit the rotund, moaning figure in the centre.

Breanna tried to stifle a cough.

A gnarled, black, upturned tree was placed in the centre with its roots spread out like a twisted open palm. Upon this sat a strange silhouette, draped in dark cloth, hunched over and rocking slightly while a single low note was repeated almost without pausing for breath. The wind beat at the temple, rattling the loose branches holding together the ceiling and causing the sage bunches to swing and puff out their smoke.

But underneath the confusion of noise, she could hear it: whispering. Chaotic and frenzied as if she were inside the very head of a Dragon.

Her body tensed. She wished she could melt away. She wanted to slip back out again; she wasn’t ready to face whatever this was.

Then her chance to flee was gone.

“I am Broc, son of Coinin—” He was cut off by a long, melodious note, and a great rattling gust that threatened the whole roof. Broc glanced at the others, none of them knowing how to proceed. “Oh, great and powerful Wizard! We are in need of your wisdom!”

“Will you not hear us?” Leasha shouted over the wind and the moans.

The chant stopped.

All four of them took a step back and Breanna’s stomach tightened.

“Who dares interrupt the summoning?” The rotund ball unravelled to reveal a squat, boxy figure; even standing with outstretched arms their head did not reach the roof. “Who risks their soul and skin to charge in here uninvited?”

The Wizard leapt from the altar and spun around to stare, beady-eyed, at the cowering group. Leasha gasped, and Breanna stifled a scream.

Her slate-grey eyes were as fierce as howlers’, the deep lines of her face were exaggerated by the flickering shadows, and, in her outstretched hand, she carried a fearsome, twisted staff of oak that glimmered in the dark.

Broc backed away, his eyes wide, and she pointed the twisted length of oak straight to his chest as if summoning words from his lungs. “B—B—Broc, son of Coinin of ... of...” He struggled to finish but she was satisfied with his answer and her eyes darted across the rest of the group.

The Whispering voices in the temple grew louder and more frenzied. There were half-words and almost words formed within the swirl of shadowy voices. Desperate. Excited.

Breanna barely heard Leasha’s introduction, and as Cassian was interrogated Breanna could bear the noise no more. In vain, she held her hands to her ears. But the Whispering only grew louder and fiercer until it was all she knew and all that surrounded her.

“Stop!” She couldn’t hear her own shout over the Whisper. “No! Stop it! STOP!”

Then it was gone.

She felt sick, she was unsteady, and her skin was clammy with sweat. She hadn’t noticed but she had balled herself up on the ground and now, at the release, she tried to stand, but her legs were too weak.

As the world came back into focus she could hear Broc, Leasha, and Cassian; they were close, fussing over her and trying to get her raggedy body to stand.

“Get back. Get back!” The Wizard pushed the others aside. “Let the girl breathe.” Suddenly Breanna was heaved to her feet by two large, strong hands and then the cool air was on her face. She breathed deeply. The biting wind refreshing her, the sound of gulls and distant waves like a balm on her tormented brain.

She tried to mutter a ‘thankyou’ as the Dwarven woman inspected one eye, then the other, then grabbed hold of her hand; she was firm but surprisingly gentle. Hurriedly she rolled up Breanna’s wet and muddy sleeve, inspecting her bare forearm before turning her hand over, looking for something. Giving up, she then took hold of Breanna’s chin and stared into her eyes for a moment then burst into a laugh. “Well, I’ll be blowed if this in’t a Wealderling!” Her wide grin brought out cheery dimples and a sparkle of light in her eyes.

Breanna glanced up at the others who had followed them out onto the sand, as Cassian stepped forward, laying a protective hand upon her shoulder. “She can hear the—”

“Oh yes.” The Dwarf grinned. “She hears them.”

Breanna felt as though there was something going on that she wasn’t party to. “Do-do I know you?”

The Wizard laughed. “You does now!” She bowed, flourishing her staff. “Myrddym of the Black Mountains.”

“Meer—thim?” Breanna attempted to roll her tongue around the unfamiliar word.

“Mim to you.” She winked and turned to Broc with a scowl. “Why di’n you say she was a Listener, you great galumph?” He opened and closed his mouth, devoid of an answer but Mim had already returned her focus to Breanna. “And who might you be, dearie?”

“Breanna.”

“Lovely, lovely, da iawn.” Mim leaned on her stumpy little staff with both hands. “Now, what is it brings you all the way out ’ere to visit old Mim?”

“I—erm...” Breanna glanced up at the others but realised that it was up to her to explain. “The Dragons—”

“Yous can hear their Whisper, eh, poppet?” The Wizard’s strange voice and manner were so unfamiliar to her and yet there was something comforting and friendly about the woman. It was the first time that anyone had guessed, that someone had known before she had to say it out loud, and the relief was like a swelling river after a season of drought.

She nodded. “They’re hungry.” She remembered the hollowness, the pain, the craving for something, anything to fill the void.

“Hungry?”

“It’s the only way I can explain it. It’s like I’m ravenous; so angry and so starved I can’t stand it: I feel like I could consume the world and it wouldn’t be enough...”

“So, you feel it as if it is your own?”

Breanna nodded and looked down: she still hadn’t told Broc. She had thought about it after telling Cassian, but she hadn’t done it. She hadn’t been able to admit to him that she had failed so much that the Forest Drake had cursed her for it. She didn’t want to look him in the eye.

“You’ve suffered, haven’t you, poppet?” Breanna glanced up at Mim. She didn’t like being patronised and belittled and yet this old woman, with her wide, leathery hands, and dark, sympathetic eyes, made her feel warm and as though finally, she didn’t have to suffer alone. “And how long have they been hungry?”

“Since the day my father...” She couldn’t say the words. “Since the last day of summer.”

Mim’s eyes widened and she took a deep breath. “I see. Now, can you tell me: what drives this hunger?”

Breanna glanced up at Cassian. He knew; she had told him she was cursed by the Dragons. Would he reveal her secret? She wasn’t certain if he had believed her. She wasn’t certain she believed it herself anymore... but then why could she hear them? If it wasn’t her fault, why could she hear the Dragon’s Whisper? Was this a test? Did Mim know she was cursed? Breanna tried to think back, tried to remember if there was anything else but a raging hunger that drove the Dragons. But there had only been the yearning to kill... the way a Hunter should be able to kill. The way that she had failed to.

Breanna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. They had come all this way and fought through so much; she wanted to hide from the truth but there was nowhere left to hide. “I was trying to earn my axe, to be a Hunter like my kin but... I couldn’t do it; I could never bring myself to actually take the life of a beast—”

“Bree, you never said—” Cassian stepped forward and placed a hand on Broc’s shoulder, silencing him while Breanna continued.

“That morning, the morning it happened...when I heard the Whisper... it was like nothing I’d ever heard before. It was rage, just pure rage, and I felt it right inside my head, as if it were my own. He wanted to kill, but more than that He wanted to devour—to take life, to consume it and then... and then He took a boy I knew, just took his life right in front of me and He turned to me and it should have been me next—it should have been me... but... my dad—” Breanna sniffed, and choked back a cough. She didn’t want to say any more, and no one pushed her to.

“It’s never simple.” Mim tutted and shook her head. “The balance has been disrupted.” She looked up at the sky, the surrounding beach, and the ancient remains of trees. The distant waves were crashing ever closer; the tide was on its way back in, coming to reclaim the lost forest. “Can you hear them now, Poppet?”

“No.” She shook her head and wiped her cheeks dry with her sleeve, “I can only hear them when they’re hungry—”

“Now, that’s not quite right, is it?” Breanna was startled and went to correct the Wizard, but Mim continued. “You heard them just now, in the Temple Grove: they wasn’t hungry in there, was they?”

Mim was right. Those whispers had been different. She had never heard anything like that. She had been overwhelmed by it. She remembered the vision of the Dragon in the Lost Forest and wondered again how real that had been. “What was in the temple?”

“The concentrated cacophony of all the Lost Dragons that ever lived.”

“Lost Dragons?”

“Dragons whose lands have been lost. You heard them all. All of them at once.”

“It was so loud...” It hurt her mind to even remember it.

“But you heard them when no one else could. This means you can hear them still. All you’ve got to do is listen.”

“But...” Breanna shook her head, she couldn’t hear anything now, and she had never heard anything before that first day and she never wanted to hear them again; she wanted this curse lifted.

“Don’t you worry yourself, Poppet,” Mim patted her on the shoulder again “You felt the imbalance. But you can’t be the root of it.”

“I can’t?” Breanna glanced up at Cassian: he forced a smile and nodded. She wanted to feel relief, she wanted to feel the weight fall from her shoulders but instead a darker shadow loomed. “So... what is?”

“That’s what you and I need to find out.”

“So, you’ll help us?” Broc asked. “Help us defeat the Dragons?”

Mim turned and looked to Broc and the others as if seeing them for the first time. They all stood there hugging themselves in the biting wind and the first splattering of rain. Both hopeful and hopeless all at once.

“Defeat Dragons?” Mim shook her head and laughed. “There’s no defeating Dragons, boy.” Mim started to stride off, away from the temple and up the beach towards the dunes. “Besides, to cause all this nonsense, there must be somethin’ out there what’s far worse than any Dragon.”

“What?” Breanna scrambled up off the sand and went to follow. “Mim? What can be worse than Dragons?”

The Wizard

Like children in thrall, the group dumbly followed the Wizard. But once they had caught up to the Fenners, waiting with trepidation fifty paces from the temple entrance, Broc held up an arm to stop their silent procession. He turned to the group with a grave face. “What does everyone think of her?”

“She’s marvellous!” Leasha beamed and looked around for someone to agree, but no one met her eyes.

“I think she’s quite mad, and possibly dangerous,” Broc explained flatly.

Leasha snorted.

“The Wizard is as fearsome as we remember.” Koax’s eyes were so wide and fearful that Breanna found it difficult to suppress a laugh especially when the other two Fenners nodded solemnly.

“I do not fear the woman but...” Cassian’s brow furrowed in concentrated disapproval as he watched her distant figure disappear over the top of the sand dune. “But I do not think we ought to trust her outright.”

“What do you think?” Leasha turned to Breanna. “She seemed to like you.”

With all eyes upon her, Breanna felt the tips of her ears reddening. She looked from Cassian to Koax to her brother, all expectant faces as she opened and closed her mouth blankly. She felt exposed and open: she had kept her secret from them and yet Leasha was looking at her with those same kind eyes. “I–” she stammered. The Wizard was strange, forceful, and unsettling... but she had known. She had known about the Whisper: what else might she know? “I mean, well, perhaps...” They had been right to come here, right to pin their hopes on a Wizard’s learning. If they didn’t follow through with their plan, then where else might they go? How else could they hope to defeat the Dragons? “We can’t go back... can we?”

“Hop along, yous lot, chop chop!” The sharp shout from the face peering over the distant dune made them all jump. Mim waved at them with her staff and turned away again to continue her march.

“Breanna’s right.” Broc didn’t meet her eyes and she felt a sharp pang of guilt pierce her stomach. “We must go on.” He nodded firmly as if part of him was grudgingly agreeing with the decision he had already made, and he turned to follow Mim beyond the dunes, with the Fenners, Elves, and Breanna in reluctant pursuit.

The sand of the dunes was light and dry, far harder to trudge through than the soft, wet sand of the beach. The tide was coming in, making deep streams from sandy ditches. Mounds and dunes stretched either way along the shore for miles; occasional little gorse bushes were dotted in the greener patches of sand grass, but there was precious little to hold the shifting sands in place. More than once, as she struggled with the new terrain, Breanna stumbled to her knees. It was a hard, slow pace; the valleys between dunes kept the worst of the wind at bay but going over the top meant the driving, piercing cold gathered up the loose sand and sprayed it hard against her eyes and skin.

Finally, they reached a solid and flat area that nestled in the shadow of a low sandstone cliff next to a wide and deep, freshwater river. It would make an ideal campsite. The Fenners, Cassian, and Broc all eyed the Wizard suspiciously as Leasha began merrily chatting away to her.

Mim tapped a pile of gathered driftwood with her staff and, in a sudden flash, it became a roaring fire. The aging Wizard groaned as she found a comfortable position on the soft, dry sand and Leasha was quick to join her and remark on the quality of her magic. But the others held back.

“I’m not about to bewitch you.” Mim tapped the empty space next to her. Broc glanced around at the others, then reluctantly sat down. At this, the rest of the group followed, taking their places around the fire and unfurling their packs to inspect the remaining food. There were precious few supplies left, but Mim managed to conceal a large amount of bread and cheese within the various layers of her frayed robes, and the Fenners had gathered an ample collection of oysters from the shore, which they prised open with their knives and handed around.

Mim was a strange creature: her robes were dark although they carried a faint red hue that looked as though it might have once been far brighter but was blackened with time. The edges were frayed, and various places had been patched up, a long hood hung down her back, but the wind no longer bothered her enough for her to cover her head, her boots were sturdy but well worn, an old belt of leather contained pouches and pockets slung about it as well as a short knife, and her wide hands were calloused and aged. Her most remarkable possession was the staff, wild, thick, and twisted; it was the gnarled stub of an oak tree, with blackened runes charred into its length. It was short, rising only to the Wizard’s waist, and the end was well worn where she had rested heavily on it as she walked. Although there was little evidence that she actually required it to help her along as she seemed to spend most of her time waving it about.

But Breanna could sense something else about the staff that couldn’t be seen: it hummed with magic. It was the strongest staff she had ever come close to, nothing like the ceremonial staffs of the elders and the Wise-Woman back home, and it made her little runestone necklace feel like a mere worm in the shadow of a Dragon. She felt the hum of magic with her whole body and when Mim had lit the fire it had been like a crack reverberating through her.

This woman was powerful. Dangerously so.

“You said earlier that there must be something out there worse than Dragons.” Broc looked around the faces of his friends and then back to Mim. “What did you mean by that?”

Mim stared at Broc. Breanna thought she might berate him, but she was quiet for a long moment while the rest of the group all seemed to hold their breath. “Dragons are no danger—”

“They’ve killed scores—”

Mim held up a hand to silence him. “Their actions are nothin’ more than the symptom of a sickness, a sickness brought about by an imbalance. It is an imbalance that I have felt, your young Breanna has felt, and doubtless many other creatures of both the light and the dark have felt. Trust me when I say the Dragons are not the problem.”

Cassian grunted his disapproval. “So how do we stop them killing people?”

“Solve the problem,” Mim said lightly, as if it were no more than a game.

Broc threw a pebble into the fire, Breanna could see it was all he could do to avoid lashing out.

“But what exactly is the problem?” Leasha asked.

Mim turned to her and grinned. “We’re going to have to ask a Dragon.”

A few eyes glanced at Breanna and she had a building dread within her that something magnificent and impossible was starting to be expected of her.

“They can hear our thoughts, can they not?” Cassian sat across from her, his bright green eyes and sharp Elven features were distorted through the light of the flames.

“They can.” Mim nodded. “But in much the same way that we listen to the birds: just a lot of busyness and noise. Nothin’ like a conversation.”

“This is pointless.” Broc kicked at the sand as he stood up. “How can we even ask a question? Let alone get an answer?”

“Calm yourself, boy.” Mim held his gaze for a long while before he returned to his seat with a frustrated sigh. “As it happens, we all know someone who can hear the Dragons’ Whisper.”

Mim turned to Breanna with a proud smile and all eyes fell on her. “No.” She shook her head and her stomach twisted itself in knots. “I can’t—I mean—it’s not like I—I can just—walk up to a Dragon and, and ask it what’s wrong!”

“That, my dear, is exactly what you’re going to do.”

THERE WAS JUST THE soft crackling of the fire as it popped and sparkled in the night. Every now and then there would be a gentle snore as one of their companions turned or dreamed in their sleep.

The velvet sky above them was clear and cloudless, and the stars were scattered across it, mysterious and distant.

“You’re very quiet?” Leasha nudged Breanna as they sat together on first watch.

Breanna glanced down at the sleeping Mim. She didn’t really know what she had thought a Wizard might be, but whatever it was she had not anticipated this strange and confusing little woman. She shrugged. “It all seems... a bit much.”

“I know. So much has happened.”

“But...” Breanna pulled the woollen cloak tighter around her shoulders, “it feels like even more has to happen before it’s all over... if it will ever be over.”

Leasha nodded. “Hearing Dragons... Hearing their hunger, it must have been terrifying.”

Breanna looked up. She hadn’t told her: she had hidden her secret from Leasha for so long and yet instead of anger, disappointment, or an accusation of betrayal, Leasha was comforting her and offering sympathy. “I’m sorry I kept it from you.”

“Nay, you oughtn’t be. ’Twas your secret to keep.” Leasha brushed the matter away. “I have not earned your confidence.”

But Leasha’s assurances only bit at her further. The Elf maiden had earned her confidence and she wanted her to know, she wanted to open herself up to her. “When it happens...” Breanna’s voice was unsteady, even thinking about those moments was difficult. “It’s like my mind isn’t mine anymore. I can’t move or think because it’s just – the hungriness, I mean – just blocks everything else out,” she thought back, breathing slowly to stop the panic swelling in her chest. “It is terrifying, but I only realise how scared I was afterwards because right there in that moment, I’m... I’m not me anymore. I’m gone—I...” She signed and rubbed her forehead: even the memory of it felt like a fog clawing at her brain. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to talk to one, do I just tap one on the shoulder and say, ‘Excuse me, Mr Dragon, friend, I know you’re busy killing people, but if you could just take a moment to answer a few questions, I’d really appreciate it.’”

Leasha giggled and wrapped an arm around her, pulling Breanna into a half-embrace. “We’ll work it out. The Wizard Council will have some sort of magic that will help us, and now we have Mim with us I’m sure the Wizards will be quick to give us everything we need.”

“Easy as that?”

“Easy as that.”

Dragon Army

Andra watched from atop her horse as swathes of soldiers, veterans, serving officers, and new recruits, with row upon row of torches lighting up the dark, gathered below the steps of Dragon Hold. It was the largest army gathered in Dragon March for ten winters. On that day she had been one of the youngest, with ill-fitting leathers, a newly sharpened sword, and an eager heart, untainted by what lay before her. Now she was a General astride a magnificent steed about to address her troops.

She thought back to the year of rebellion, shaking her head at the memory: so many Druid lives lost and such division sown across the land. Now was the chance to bring all the Druid people together and unite as one. As should have been done all those years ago. Once they reclaimed the Hunting Grounds, the Druids of Midwinter would be eager to reunite with them, swelling their numbers and creating an unstoppable force that would crush even Wizards.

Andra slid from her horse as nerves rippled through her. She wanted to stand on her own two feet and address her new army. Yet, facing a trampling horde of bloodthirsty enemies felt suddenly preferable to standing before the expectant faces of her soldiers. She hurried up the steps and took her place in front of the wooden doors of Dragon Hold, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts as she stared at the disorganised masses. They were out of formation, few had training, and many had never even served. No matter. They had a weapon that would ensure their victory regardless of their ability.

All they needed was Olwen, and they would be unstoppable.

“Druids!” Her voice was weak, and few noticed her address. “Druids!” she repeated, imagining herself on the battlefield and summoning the voice of a commander. “Soldiers of Dragon March, you are the army of the people.” As she spoke the hubbub of the gathered troops slowly faded. “The will of the people rests upon your shoulders and together we shall enact it.” There were a few shuffles of confusion as the last of the murmured conversations died out, and a sudden chill in the air reminded her that the season for fighting was almost over.

“We have gathered from every corner of our land to form this great army. Together, we will take back the Hunting Grounds!” A few lukewarm cheers arose, and a drum was beaten enthusiastically. The soldiers respected the bronze regalia of the General, but she was more used to supplying short, sharp orders, not a rousing speech. “Many winters ago, when some of you were no more than knee-high scoundrels and others,” Andra glanced at a veteran, a grey-haired woman, with a battle-worn sword in her hands – Regan, a shield maiden of Drinkstone who was well known enough to have her own songs – “were a little shorter in the tooth.” Andra grinned as the joke was shared by those around Regan, and she was jostled as she nodded, taking the jibe with good humour. The shield maiden was still as fearsome today as when Andra remembered her on the battlefield leading her legion of the west.

“We were divided then,” she continued, “not by our own will, but by outsiders who would see us made weak.” She didn’t have to mention the Elves for people to shake their heads and mutter angrily at their supposed allies. “Today, we will take back our lands! Then we will reunite with our brethren of Midwinter and rise in glory once more!” At these words a cheer rose, started by those loyal to Regan. It swept like a wave across the crowd and only grew as Olwen, resplendent in the black Druid robes of state, emerged from the doors of Dragon Hold. She walked forward, taking her place next to Andra. She briefly squeezed her General’s hand before stepping forward to take the reins of the speech.

Her arms out, she waved down the crowd and their chanting slowly ceased. Relieved to hand over, Andra sidled down the steps and took her place at the front of the audience next to Duncan, her lithe and light second in command. She stared up at the woman she loved and was as excited as anyone around her to hear the words of the undisputed Mistress of Dragon March. There were animated conversations all around: rumours had spread of Olwen’s power and even those who had seen her before were excited to be in the presence of a powerful Druid Mage.

Olwen waited.

Conversations turned to whispers, soldiers shushed one another, there were shouts and whistles as excitement grew into agitation and then settled again.

Still, Olwen waited.

Distant owls hooted on the cold night air as the eager soldiers settled. Barely a breath could be heard, and it seemed as if every stomach in Dragon Hold was coiled tight with apprehension.

“The Druids are an ancient people.” The thrill of her words finally spoken spread through the crowd but not a single Druid dared even whisper. “We trace our ancestors back to the very earth of this land. To this day, we are the strongest and most powerful of all the races that have ever dwelt upon the Edge Islands!” The crowd burst, a rousing, screaming cheer erupted, and Olwen smiled as she watched, waiting for their rapt silence before continuing. “Once we take back our Hunting Grounds; we will not be stopped! No thing, no race, no lizard shall stand in our path!” As the soldiers shouted and stamped their feet she was forced to wait once more before continuing. But they were learning, and this time the silence fell quickly and completely. “We will rid this land of those who would claim it as their own! We will take back our fields and our mountains. The whole of the Edge Isles shall be ours and we will clear this land of its usurpers. Because it is our right and our destiny!”

Weapons and torches were held aloft as a screaming chant of “our right, our destiny” began. This time, Olwen allowed their excitement to crescendo and Andra’s stomach tightened with pride and excitement as Olwen looked at her with a full smile, her golden eyes bright and excited.

“Our enslavement to the Dragons is at its end!” Olwen shouted over the soaring voices of her people. Her voice was elevated and clear and her words only encouraged more rejoicing: soldiers banged swords against shields, and those with torches waved them in the night air. Even Andra was unable to hold back, and let out a hand-clapping, foot-stomping yell of joy.

Finally, as the din subsided, Olwen spoke once again. Her voice was low as if whispering a secret into the ear of a lover, and many had to strain to hear her. There was not an utterance as she spoke. “The lizards are not our masters, instead they serve us, as it always was. Tonight, finally, we will all share in the Dragon’s Gift.”

A flutter of confusion and intrigue washed across the army in a wave of whispers and questions. Andra smiled as she prepared herself for what was to come. Finally, she was about to feel the power of the Dragon Essence; she was about to find out exactly how it felt to be the most powerful creature in existence.

“I bestow upon you all...” Olwen raised her arms to the sky and looked up to the stars, “...the bounty of the White Dragon.”

A hushed silence fell over everyone in attendance. Olwen seemed to shimmer, as if a burning fire emanated from within her, a soft, golden glow. Suddenly there was a burst of light, blindingly bright for an instant as if night had briefly turned to day, then a glimmering, golden haze surrounded the army. Soldiers gasped and screamed at the spectacle as flickering spots of light, like dust in a sunbeam, sparkling and humming with imperceptible noise, began to fall upon them like snow.

As the dust settled on the soldiers, it disappeared. Andra watched as it melted into her skin making her hair stand on end and her breath catch in her chest. It filled her with more energy than she ever could have imagined.

With the power of a thousand lifetimes running through her veins, Andra thought she could roar and crack the sky in two. She wanted more, ever more: she wanted to fill her veins with the power and take on the world alone. But then Olwen weakened and fell to one knee. They’d had their fill.

The time had come to defeat the Elves and take back their lands.

She hurried up the steps, shouting to the elated crowd as they looked on in confusion at the weakened Olwen. “To the Hunting Grounds!”

“To the Hunting Grounds!” The call went around, the horns bellowed, and Andra turned her attention back to her lover. A hand upon her shoulder, she looked into the bright blue eyes of the woman she loved.

“Go.” Olwen waved her hand dismissively and looked up at her with a smile. “Go.”

Andra nodded but signalled to a Guard who rushed down the steps to collect Olwen. With the energy of a herd of beasts pounding in her blood, Andra ran to her horse and mounted it with a single bound. Galloping to the head of her army with her sword raised, she cheered them onwards through the gates of Dragon Hold.

The Dragon Army was on the march.

Water Wyrm

The hunger filled her. She needed to eat. She needed to fill the void with souls, souls of people, beasts, trees, places, and spirits. She needed to replace what was lost. The hunger overwhelmed her. She would devour everything.

She would devour the world.

“No!” She screamed into the void. “NO!” This time she heard her own voice shouting.

The hunger was gone. She was outside, staring up at the bright stars against the comforting blackness of the night sky. The fire had gone out, she was cold with sweat and panting: she sat up. The others were asleep; no one had been awoken by her dreaming. She gulped in the fresh, frigid air, thankful for its coolness after the fiery heat of her dreamworld.

“Nightmare?”

The voice made her jump. She didn’t recognise it. She turned to see Mim sitting on the sand: her twisted wooden staff lay across her lap and a look of concern furrowed her brow. Even in the barest light of tired embers, Mim’s eyes were bright, wise, and piercing. Breanna couldn’t lie but she wasn’t sure how to tell the truth.

“I—I don’t know.” Breanna went to explain further but her mouth was dry and parched. She coughed and sat up, unsure how much Mim knew, unsure how much she wanted to tell this stranger about what she saw in her own mind. Mim passed her a leather pouch, and Breanna drank the water gratefully. Then sat staring at the glowing remnants of the fire as she caught her breath.

She was quiet for a long moment and looked up to Mim who waited patiently. “I dreamed that something was coming... but it’s gone now.”

Mim nodded and looked around them before asking in a hushed whisper, “Was it hungry?”

Breanna didn’t know how to explain how frightening it had been, but she needed to tell her. She nodded to herself. It was the only way to describe it. “Hungrier than ever.”

A flutter of both fear and confusion swam across Mim’s eyes and, in an instant, she had made her decision. “Up!” She stood and cast a bright light from her staff as she began kicking the sleeping campers awake. “Everyone up!”

There were moans of anger and confusion around the camp; misty eyes looked for explanation. When the Koax and Rega saw Mim pointing at them with her dazzling staff they were up and on their feet, bleary-eyed but ready, in an instant. Brekek, with their recent leg wound, took just a moment longer.

Broc was fuzzy and furious. “What is this?” He looked around and stopped short when he caught Breanna’s fearful eye.

“They’re on their way,” Mim explained as if that was the only answer any of them needed.

Suddenly Breanna could hear it again: the ravenous hunger. Thunderous and silent, calling to her; distant but so close. “It’s already here.” The horror of what was closing in made her freeze and the others looked to the sky, weapons ready but confused.

She wanted to explain. She wanted to give directions, give voice to her fear but as she opened her mouth a great roar filled the air. A Water Wyrm crashed through the surface of the river. Its giant head in the bright light of Mim’s staff was even more terrifying than before.

“Run!” Cassian turned tail and fled, letting off a few arrows as the others dashed after him, Koax and Broc helping Brekek while Leasha, pausing to fire her bow, was pulled along by Rega. The camp was abandoned; food, weapons, boots, bedrolls, even the dying fire all left as the group scattered. Any lingering doubts about whether the creature could move on land were answered when it swept towards them, slithering swiftly across the sand.

“This way!” Mim shrieked. “Here! Now!”

The group darted towards her as she deftly managed a sand dune, sliding down the far side and gathering everyone below.

“We can’t stop it!” Cassian was out of breath, another arrow ready on his bow.

“We must hide!” Koax stared out at dune after dune of loose, white sand.

“Where?” Leasha was barefoot and dishevelled. Pulled out of a deep sleep, the Elven Princess was struggling to find her bearings.

The strangled cry of the hungry beast filled the air and swelled in Breanna’s chest: she needed to devour. Nothing would stop her. Nothing could stop the Dragon.

Mim raised her staff. Running to the top of the next dune, she launched a great thunderbolt that cracked the air. “Stay together!” She pointed towards the shore. “Keep going. I can’t hold it back for long!”

They followed her words, scrambling up the next sand dune and sliding down the far side. The Fenners stopped to help the fumbling Elves and Woodlanders whose bare feet did not match the Fenners’ skill on the loose sand.

“Are we safe?” Cassian crouched down low, looking to the top of the dune, as Mim slid down after them.

“What’s the plan?” Broc helped Mim back to her feet as she landed in a heap next to them.

“Where can we go?” For the first time Breanna heard fear in Leasha’s voice and she wished she had never encountered her, never put any of them in this danger.

“The temple.” Mim thrust her staff forward as if she were charging to battle and took off up the next dune. “Get a move on!”

Breanna took off, the others in pursuit: she clambered up over the dune as Mim stood at the top letting out a deafening thunderbolt which sent the Dragon reeling backwards and made the hair on Breanna’s neck stand upright.

“Argh!” Leasha screamed as she tumbled down the side of the sand dune, landing in an awkward mess with the others.

“What’s happened?”

“Leasha?”

“Princess?”

“Nothing, just a blasted root.” She spoke through gritted teeth and clutched at her ankle. The loose sand was difficult enough to navigate without a sprain.

“Keep going, keep going!” Mim shouted as she landed beside them.

“Leasha’s hurt!” Breanna cried.

Mim’s face paled, but then the head of the Dragon appeared over the top of dune, its great jaw opened, ready to take the life from them.

Mim swung her staff around and up. In an instant a transparent shell hovered over them; it hummed silently and filled the air with a fuzzing charge.

Mouths hung open at the display: the great Water Wyrm beat at the shield without success.

Straining and fighting with all her strength to hold the shield in place, Mim managed to stammer, “This won’t hold it for long.”

Sacrifice

“We must run.” Koax was looking around desperately, torn between directions.

“It will have us the second we do.” Broc had his axe at the ready but it was a pitiful weapon against such a beast.

“We should split up.” Everyone looked at Leasha in horror. Breanna knew it was a good suggestion, she knew it offered the best chance to the most people, but as the Water Wyrm beat at the shield above, screeching in agony and rage, she could not bear the thought of sacrificing any of her friends to it.

“No,” Cassian was adamant. “You’re wounded.”

“We will not feed you to it.” Koax looked from Brekek to Leasha and, although it was clear she was ready to sacrifice herself, the look that passed between her and Koax showed that neither would throw Brekek to the beast.

“Think of something!” Mim spluttered her words. The sweat was pouring from her features at the effort of holding her magic against the onslaught of a hungry Dragon.

The Whisper was crashing through Breanna’s mind and numbing her senses. Tempered by the magic shield, she could hold herself together, but as the shield began to weaken she could feel the Whisper creeping deeper into her thoughts.

“Let’s make a run for it, together.” Broc pointed to the far side of a ditch, backing onto the open beach. “To that bank, we can hold it off.”

“It’s gotta be now!” Mim screamed and Breanna could hear her voice faltering.

Cold fear shot through her. They would be consumed. The Dragon was too close. There was no way they would make it. The shield was breaking. The silent hum vibrated through her body reaching a higher and higher pitch.

It would soon be over.

Suddenly, Rega darted out of the shield in the wrong direction.

“NO!” Koax leapt to catch them, but Broc and Leasha were quick to pull them back. They all called after Rega, shouting as they darted across the dunes, their long hair flowing out behind them and their broad, webbed feet helping them fly across the loose sand.

But it was too late: the Dragon turned, slinking off after the Fenner and they all watched helplessly as they realised what Rega had done.

It was Broc who recovered first. “Now!” he shouted, shaking Breanna out of her trance as Mim’s shield collapsed and she fell to her knees. “Now! Now! Now! GO!”

Koax grabbed Leasha, helping her to stand as Broc and Cassian supported Brekek. Breanna put out a hand for the dishevelled Mim and they hurried, exhausted and frightened, back towards the temple.

The ice-cold water of the shallow stream splashed as they entered the soft, silty mud of the tributary. None of them spoke as they hobbled up the last dune, battered and broken. They slid down the far side and crouched low. The full wind was biting at them and they stared out across the vast sandscape as the sun began to slowly emerge over the horizon. There was nowhere left to hide.

Koax let the tears fall as Leasha wrapped an arm around them. Brekek shook with loss and Broc and Cassian held an arm across the shoulders of the injured Fenner. No one spoke, and there was no sound apart from the low wind and Mim’s heavy breathing as she tried to recover herself.

“We shall never forget the courage and sacrifice.” Cassian choked on his own words. “Rega has saved us all.”

But Breanna could still hear the whisper. “No,” she said softly, “it wasn’t enough.”

Last Chance

“If we can make it to the temple, perhaps...” Mim was pale; she looked as though she had aged a dozen winters.

Breanna knew it was a vague hope. A hope that somehow the ancient building would give them protection. Perhaps the old Gods within would offer them sanctuary and perhaps the souls of the creatures would offer a shield against the beast.

Suddenly she had a plan. “I know what to do.” Everyone looked at her, desperate and hopeful, and the reddening of her ears was lessened by her certainty. “One of us needs to lead it to the temple—”

“We must all get there,” urged Mim, “It’s the only shelter—”

“Shelter doesn’t matter,” she snapped, remembering the wreckage a Dragon leaves in its wake. “It needs to feed—It needs to feed on spirits and, and there are spirits at the temple.”

“What?” There was anger at Mim’s brow as she realised what Breanna was proposing.

“Will it work?” asked Broc, desperately.

“You would kill the spirits?” Koax looked at her with a mixture of fear and awe.

“’Tis madness.” Cassian shook his head.

Broc nodded. “It’s too far. None of us would make it.”

“But only one of us needs to go.” Leasha looked at Breanna and swallowed hard. “As bait.”

“It can’t work.” Broc stared out across the beach; it was a long, hard run across the wet sand.

“It might.” There was colour back in Mim’s cheeks. She heaved herself off the ground and, even at the sound of the Dragon roaring its approach, she looked confident. She readied her staff for the onslaught and Breanna knew that she could offer them a brief shield to protect the others as one of them led the Dragon to feast upon the ancient souls of the Lost Dragons.

“Then I shall go.” Broc stood. He drew his axe and readied himself.

“No.” Leasha pulled him back by the shoulder as she stood on her twisted ankle. “I’m going.”

“You can’t go, Princess.” Cassian blocked her path. “I’m going.”

“Don’t you ‘Princess’ me!”

“You are a Princess with a twisted ankle!”

“None of you are going!” Breanna shouted. Panic was rising in her as the Dragon drew close, but she knew, with a cold dread, what she had to do. She had spared the life of that happy little boar in the woods but now she was going to have to ask for a bigger sacrifice. She held a blood debt to the Dragons, and it was about to be paid.

“Well, you aren’t.” Broc looked at her with fury in his eyes, his axe pointed at her as if he would kill her before he saw her endanger her own life.

“You are the slowest,” Cassian pointed out.

“Not me.” Breanna shook her head and took Cassian’s well-meant insult in her stride. She hadn’t been able to strike down a beast in the woods but now she was going to strike down a friend. “Koax.”

Koax looked up at mention of their name and Breanna met their eyes. There were tears still fresh from the loss of Rega, but she could see the realisation dawn upon them: even without Brekek’s wound, Koax was still the fastest. Breanna almost broke in two as they stared at one another. She knew what she was asking. But she knew with a fire of determination that it was the only course of action. It was the only chance they had. It was the only way to keep them all alive. Even though it meant putting one of them in mortal danger. Koax nodded and Breanna choked back a sob. She looked away, unable to maintain eye contact with the brave friend she had just executed.

“None run faster on sand.” Koax stood wiping the fresh tears from their cheek with a grim determination.

A wave of argument rose up from the others, and Brekek pawed at Koax’s hand but the Dragon was upon them.

Mim barely had time to raise her staff and make the shield. There was no more time to argue.

Koax didn’t look back. In a flash they were gone. They leapt through the humming shield and darted across the sand, heading straight for the temple they had been so fearful to approach before.

It took the Dragon no more than a second to decide, and He slithered across the beach after the speeding Fenner, leaving a twisting trail in His wake.

There was a moment of silence as they stared at Koax’s disappearing figure and the magnitude of what had happened began to sink in.

But it wasn’t over.

There was another shriek and Breanna gasped. “Razorbeaks!” Grabbing her quarterstaff, she leapt from behind the shield, ignoring the shouts of her brother and her friends as she darted after Koax.

The razorbeaks, their awkward cawing carried on the driving wind as they sped towards their fresh prey, unaffected by the presence of a Dragon. They would cut Koax off before the Fenner reached the temple; there wouldn’t even be a chance to fight before the Dragon descended upon them all. Koax and the birds would be feasted upon, and then the Dragon would turn back to the rest of them.

No one would stand a chance.

She dashed across the beach, her bare feet sinking into the wet sand, her chest heaving, her quarterstaff banging against her legs as she put everything she had into blocking the path of the razorbeaks.

“Here!” she screamed at them, waving her quarterstaff but they were still focused on Koax. “Over here, you stupid birds!” She picked up a clump of wet sand and tossed it in their direction. It splattered a razorbeak hard in the head and, although it wasn’t enough to knock them down, it was enough to get their attention.

She stood, breathing hard and exhilarated as they all turned to her. Ignoring the Fenner, they hurtled towards Breanna. It was only then that she realised what she had done.

They were upon her.

In a mad panic, she landed a sweeping blow, knocking two to the ground and injuring a third. She jabbed fiercely at another as it swiped its razor-sharp claw in her direction and the creature deftly hopped back. She stumbled slightly as her quarterstaff met thin air, but she hurled it around her again, keeping the birds at bay but unsure how long she would last.

Suddenly they stopped. One of them let out a high-pitched squawk and, with a fluffing of flightless wings and a rabble of angry cawing, the birds turned tail and fled back to the dunes. Laughing with relief, Breanna leaned on her quarterstaff and turned to see if Koax had made it to the temple.

Then she saw what had frightened the birds.

It was there: the Water Wyrm, with its slick, blue-black skin, its head fins pulsating, and its bright gold eyes staring directly at her.

Attracted by the furore, Breanna hadn’t even noticed it approach but now it was too late. In the distance she saw Koax, standing helpless at the entrance to the temple. Broc was calling out to her, and Leasha was crying out her name. They had all been warning her.

But the Whisper had made her deaf to anything else.

As she looked up at the Dragon, the fierce pain and hunger were overwhelming. Yet she felt a strange sense of calm. She didn’t hate the beast. She didn’t want to kill it or destroy it. She dropped her quarterstaff and it fell with a wet thud to the ground.

There was nothing she could do now.

There was no escape.

There was nothing in her mind except the overwhelming hunger and she knew, with the purest certainty, that there was only one way to make it end.

The Dragon roared, and she put out her hand, their shared pain drawing them close. Its huge jaws were open wide, displaying row upon row of sharp-pointed, grinding teeth. Breanna reached up and laid her hand upon its snout.

Then everything she had ever known was gone.

Dragon Sight

Breanna tumbled, swirling through nothing and everything. The brightest blinding lights and the loudest noises combined with the darkest corners and the deepest silences. Blasting her senses, stretching them and forcing her perception wide in a blur of light and hunger and pain and bursting joy.

Flashes of everything came to her at once. Too much to process, but as she lingered, she began to recognise the blurs of energy for what they were: trees, high peaks, low valleys, rivers, birds, fields, otters, crows... She saw her village quiet and lying in ruins. She saw the neat fields of Meadowvale abandoned and blight-ridden. She saw the swamps and marshes of the Fenwater Marshes, eerily silent and consumed with rot. But there were other images, too; strange beasts galloping like stags on four legs across hills, Dwarves, like Mim, gathered in a rocky fortress, a dark-skinned king in a silk robe, blue-skinned giants with hair standing on end. She ran across the land, crawled under the earth, swam in the ocean, and, with joy, she rose high above the ground.

Below her, for miles and miles around were tiny, scattered villages, smoking ruins, busy towns at market, a great line of men and women armed with banners and swords. Fearsome and chanting, their eyes sparkled with gold.

Not them; she knew, any soul but theirs. She had to keep away from them. She was hungry. She wanted to feed, and those marching creatures carried food that wasn’t their own. But as she swooped towards them she knew they were protected. Forbidden.

Instead, her new winged body set her sights on an Elven village. Children, mothers, grandfathers too old to rise from their rocking chairs: she would devour them all.

Wings guided her down, flapping as she landed, the people ran from her, screaming.

She was Breanna. She wasn’t a Dragon. She was a maiden on a beach. But that world was gone.

Here, she was a Dragon.

Here, she was all Dragons.

She was all the raging Dragons all at once. With clarity she could see everything. All the lands. All the people. All those running scared from her. Screaming and hiding as she tore amongst them, shredding buildings to ruin as she devoured the souls within. Everyone in her path, every beast, every creature, every head of wheat, every blade of grass, nothing escaped her appetite.

The Drake of the forest tore at the trees as the woodland creatures scattered. Wyrms of the nether world burrowed in through the deep, and blind screams were silenced. Beasts of fire swirled in their dens, screaming alone and all the time she was hungry.

In the deepest part of her mind she saw a woman, golden-eyed, a cold, hollow palm upon her flesh, a tearing of her soul. A woman who took from her, who caused her suffering, who stared at her emotionless as she clawed at the walls and pulled at the chains that held her down. She was unable to resist the draw, unable to prevent the life Essence being taken from her. The power that could only be replenished with life.

Each cry of the innocent Breanna silenced was the tiniest relief from the hunger. But as the woman drew more from her, she knew she would never be sated. She knew that every living thing in the land would be devoured and still she would need more.

The Dragons were all at the mercy of that cold touch. But Breanna wasn’t. She wasn’t afraid, she was powerful. She knew what she had to do.

She rose from the ground: her body was now a broad-winged Meadow Dragon. She pulled away from the village and soared upwards, scanning the horizon, searching for the shining line of soldiers marching to the beat of their drums.

A hundred, two hundred... more than a thousand figures, bronze armour shining, bronze swords catching the light, the sound of songs, drums, war horns, boots, and hooves; an army on the march. An army fed on stolen life.

The Dragon struck. She nosedived, swooping over the heads of the long line of soldiers, drawing on their strength. The abundance of Essence renewed her, replenished her and every Dragon. Already she could feel the power soaring within her veins.

She swooped down again and this time they were ready with arrows, swords and javelins, the points ricocheted off her scales, only one or two piercing her flesh but she barely felt the sting as she drank the life force.

More. More.

Many ran, others crumpled and were crushed under the boots of their fleeing comrades; some stood their ground. One soldier, a woman resplendent in bronze riding atop a swift, four-legged beast, charged her, a sword raised, a battle cry.

Breanna, gliding on open wings, drinking of the Essence as she flew over the army like a tidal wave, soared straight towards the charging woman. The soldiers who were left gathered behind her, joining her attack, and just as they were about to clash, Breanna drew up, sated and soaring into the sky once again. She was whole. The hunger was gone.

As the Meadow Dragon turned to stare at the woman who had defied and defiled her, Breanna fell.

Staring up at the sky, at the enraged Dragon making one final swoop upon the army, the world faded from her view and she plunged to the ground.

Falling, falling.

Each Dragon pulling further away from her reach, the Wyrms in the dark, the Wyverns in the firelight, the Drake in the forest and the White Dragon, constrained and writhing in its cave. Through its eyes she saw the golden-eyed woman withdraw her hand and look at her with disgust.

Then oblivion.

Dragon Whisper

Exhausted, drained and feeling as though she had the weight of a thousand lifetimes on her bones, Breanna woke. Drawing a sudden breath to fill her empty lungs, she choked on air. Arms were tight around her, comforting and constricting.

“She’s breathing!” Leasha was so far away her words were just a verbal language: small, crude, and human.

“She’s alive.” Broc, her brother, a blood tie, so strange. An unnecessary connection; everything was already connected.

Such unfamiliar thoughts intermingled with her own that she didn’t know where she began and ended in her own mind. She fought to sit up. Sensations. Her body began to return to itself, the wet sand on her skin, her damp clothes, her aching muscles, her thirst, her hunger, a real hunger, a gnawing at her belly for food; bread, apples, spring water.

The sun was bright, high in the sky, the wind biting at her, her damp cloak not holding back the wind as it should.

She was sitting on the sand, Leasha’s hands still upon her, the hands of a Healer, and the concerned eyes of a friend. Her brother, Cassian, Koax, and Brekek, were surrounding her and smothering her with concern.

“Back!” Mim, her staff breaking them up, forced herself between bodies, ushering them back. “Give the girl air, let her breathe. By the Gods, what a thing to have witnessed.”

As her friends moved away, Breanna gasped. Her eyes met those of the Water Wyrm. His huge head lying in the damp sand, His breathing so strong and heavy she could feel His hot exhalation against her skin and see the twitch of His nostrils as He woke from sleep, His heavy lids rising, closing, and rising again as His golden eyes focused in the light. She knew Him, she knew Him fully and completely and she knew He woke from the same dream as her, the same place, and she knew how it felt to be in that skin and feel those bones... but the knowledge was fleeting. The memories were falling away from her with each second of wakefulness. As the beast raised its head, as exhausted and confused as she was, she stood, reaching out. The others stepped back still wary of the creature, but Breanna touched Him.

His soft, damp skin was warm but as she placed her palm upon His snout, she didn’t fall back to the dreamworld. She could feel His heart pulsing through His flesh and she could sense His deep calm, but she could no longer hear His thoughts.

The Whisper was gone.

The Water Wyrm pulled away and rose up to His full height, His long, eel-like body coiled to support Him as He stared down at them. Instinctively Cassian raised his bow, Broc drew his axe, Brekek and Koax were ready with their knives, but the Dragon turned, and slithered away back to the marshes, tired but sated.

“What did you do?” Broc said, but his words were in awe, not expecting an answer.

“I don’t even know...” Her lips were clumsy as if she had forgotten how words were made.

“It was incredible!” Leasha sat on the sand, her ankle swollen, but her eyes bright and enthusiastic. “You just touched it and then you were both surrounded by a golden light then...pfff...”

“We thought you were dead...” Cassian finished.

“You tamed a Water Wyrm.” Koax laughed in relief and patted her hard on the shoulder. “Dragon Tamer!” Koax shouted and then threw their head back and screeched the words to the sky, Brekek joined in and the pair of Fenners began screaming their joy. Laughing in relief, Leasha was quick to imitate them. Struggling to her feet with Broc, he joined her in a mixture of laughter and cheers.

“No.” Breanna stepped back from them, shaking her head, trying to shout over them. “No, I don’t even know what happened, I don’t even understand I’m not anything–” But she was grabbed by Cassian who swished her around, laughing as they all danced on the beach. Even Mim stood with a smile wide on her face as the young ones cheered to their lucky escape.

But Breanna broke away. She didn’t share their joy, the whole world felt strange and wrong. Her body was constraining and unwieldy. She turned to the Wizard. “What just happened?”

Mim was leaning on her staff, breathing deeply. She looked tired; using such strong magic seemed to have left her exhausted. She glanced at Breanna, a lazy smile at her lips. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

Breanna opened her mouth, unsure how to even begin to explain what she had seen, she wasn’t even sure she could remember or that Mim would even believe her if she did. “I...” She hesitated.

“Don’t you worry about the ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’, just say what you saw.”

Breanna had the unsettling feeling that Mim somehow already knew but was waiting for confirmation. “I was a Dragon.” Mim peered at her, and she struggled to find the words to continue. “In my head, I mean. Actually, I was sort of all of them. I could feel them, all of them, it—it was overpowering at first but then... it started to seem right to make sense.”

“And do you remember what happened? What you saw? Or heard.”

Breanna rubbed her temples, it was so fleeting. The dreamworld was fading as if she were trying to catch mist in her fingers.

Mim’s hand was on her arm, patting her gently. “Rest, child, and celebrate,” she indicated the laughing and singing group on the beach, “you just saved us all.”

Defeat

Andra had been forced to turn back to Dragon Hold.

Her horse was dead.

The soldiers who had survived the attack were few and weak. Dropping from the high state of exhilaration to the lowest point of failure so quickly and having the Essence removed so brutally, was a shock.

They had been decimated.

The Meadow Dragon had crossed into their territory, cut them off before they even reached the Hunting Grounds, and reduced her army to a whimpering wreck. It had taken all her skill and strength just to hold the army together, march them home, and try to avoid a complete loss.

She staggered through the open gate. The hill fort Guards looked on in shock and curiosity. Only a few hours had passed since the triumphant army had marched beyond these walls and now they returned, almost completely destroyed.

Never had a greater army been gathered and never had a greater army been defeated.

Andra ignored their concern; there was no time to talk to troops. She headed instead to the Dragon Hold. Idle gossip and guesswork would have to keep their tongues busy until she could speak to them all properly, until she could provide an answer, until she knew what had happened.

As she reached the top of the stairs and staggered through the open doors of the Council Chambers, she saw Olwen standing at the balcony. Andra needed answers but the look of shock on the Mistress’ face told her that she might not find them here.

Olwen ran across to her, pulling her inside the chamber and dismissing the Guards quickly before closing the doors. Success could be seen but disaster must be kept in private.

“What happened?” Olwen grabbed her chin and pulled her face up to the light to check her eyes: she was frenzied and concerned.

Andra sat on one of the Reevesmen’s chairs, she didn’t know whose; she didn’t care for protocol and hierarchy. She felt her bones straining under her own weight and when her body finally took a seat she didn’t think she would ever be able to rise again.

“There was a Dragon...” She breathed heavily, struggling to find the energy to form each word even as Olwen grew impatient.

“I know there are accursed Dragons! What happened to my army?”

Andra nodded. She was tired; it forced her to be patient. “The Dragon consumed us. There was nothing we could do.”

“Consumed?” It was clearly a complete surprise to her. But surely she must have known? If her connection was as strong as she claimed, then she should have known. “How many dead?”

“Three legions at least, the rest too weak for campaign.”

Olwen turned in rage, her body rigid in anger. She was unsettled and unfocused, pacing in a circle. Her shaking hands pushed back her long curls, her eyes were wide, and her nostrils flared in fury.

“I thought,” Andra began. Her body was fighting to sleep, and she took a deep breath. “I thought you held the Dragons back from us?”

“I did, I did.” Olwen threw her hand dismissively. Her mind was elsewhere.

“Perhaps you did something wrong?”

Olwen let out a scream of fury and grabbed a tapestry of the White Dragon, hauling it from its fastenings and tearing it from the wall. She turned to Andra, her eyes sparkling with gold. “I did nothing wrong!”

Andra stared, open-mouthed, at the furious and wild mage: there was almost nothing about her she recognised as the woman she loved. But even now, as the experienced General, fresh from battling a Dragon, baulked in fear, she could still see her lover trapped inside the wild woman, frightened, confused. She softened her voice, “But something did go wrong, my love, even if you were not the cause.”

Olwen opened her mouth to argue but she paused. Her eyes glazed over, and she looked straight through Andra, slipping into a world beyond. Andra stood, worried. But Olwen was back in an instant, her eyes bluer than they had been in days. She stumbled backwards, catching the side of the table to steady herself.

Andra rushed to her, holding her up. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone was there.” There was a note of confusion and panic in her voice. She glanced up at Andra and for the first time in years she looked scared.

“Where?”

“Someone else has entered the Dragon realm!”

“Do you know who?” Andra asked desperately. She didn’t understand how anyone else could even know of Olwen’s connection with the Dragons, let alone join her within that sacred space.

Olwen’s brow furrowed, her eyes searching her memories, and then the realisation struck, and she stood up straight. A look of anger and disgust distorted her face into a snarl of distaste, “There’s only one,” she growled. “Myrddym. That fucking dwarf.”

Dragon Tamer

The bedraggled group stood before the Monarch. Breanna hid at the back as they listened to Koax regale their people. The little Monarch, their tiny feet barely reaching the ground, leaned forward wide-eyed and open-mouthed in their oversized throne. While courtiers, Guards, and ordinary fishers and Fenners gathered in to listen. Many leaned through the doors and gathered outside to hear what they could. Those lucky enough to gain entry to the throne room sat cross-legged on the floor or stood huddled together in groups listening in rapt silence.

All around the hall were little firefly lamps, and candles, giving a warm glow to the enthralled audience. A long table was resplendent with the finest Fenner food ready for a feast: wood-smoked salmon, baked trout garnished with watercress, fried sticklebacks on flatbreads, steamed mussels in wild garlic stacked into a tall pyramid, trays of fresh oysters and boiled lobsters, along with bowls of green salad leaves and water chestnuts, with plenty of deep, clay jugs filled to the brim with spring water, wild strawberry cordial, seaweed punch, and marshland ale.

Over the few days she had known the Fenners she had started to gain a little understanding for their ways and the manner in which they addressed one another. Especially Koax, with their sombre and stoic delivery concealing a torrent of emotions. She glanced up suddenly as Koax snarled in anger and slashed at an imaginary enemy. Even without any Marshspeak, she knew this part of the story; Koax indicated their leg and slashing the water, it was the moment they had saved her from the snappers, she remembered the sharp pain in her thigh and the disappointment of being banished to the reed boat. Then Koax was telling the enthralled listeners of the razorbeaks and Brekek’s injury, then the piercing shot from Leasha’s bow that stilled the beasts. Finally Koax talked of the giant Water Wyrm. The hall was enraptured as they listened. This was the moment when the Dragon looked as though it was about to destroy them all and then at the last moment Rega had saved them. Rega had sacrificed themself so that the rest of them might live. This was the moment in the story when they had lost a friend.

The hall was quiet as Koax struggled to find a voice, and Broc stepped forward to place a hand on his friend’s shoulder. After a deep breath, a tumble of words spilled out.

She recognised Wyrm: it was the same word in both languages, but she was shocked when Koax reached back and grabbed her hand, pulling her forward and the Fenners gasped as Koax continued. She tried to back away, uncomfortable with so many eyes upon her. They were all confused and startled, peering around one another to get a better look. Dozens of faces pouring in from every entrance, pushing and shoving to see better, to hear better. All of a sudden, her arms were lifted; Koax and Brekek stood either side of her and the room erupted in a cascade of cheering.

“Dragon Tamer!” Koax repeated.

Breanna choked on her own incredulity as people cheered and screamed, hugging each other, jumping for joy. There were kisses and dances, and the Monarch presented her with a beautiful carved fish bone knife. People rushed forward, embracing their relatives, their friends, and eagerly welcoming these strangers who had finally brought peace to their world.

Broc was hugged and kissed, the Elves were taken into a dance, and Rega and Koax were raised up onto the shoulders of their fellows as a group of Fenners, with lyres, drums and pipes, took to the stage and began to play a joyous jig.

Breanna had her hand shaken more times than she could count, food and drink were handed to her, a squalling water baby, with its huge, black eyes and squirming tail, was thrust in her direction to bless.

They all believed it was over.

They believed Breanna had destroyed the danger, and now their lives would go back to how they were before. Everything would go back to normal.

But Breanna knew it wasn’t over, and she knew she hadn’t saved their lives.

She shrank away from the crowd, trying to find a way outside, but everywhere she turned there seemed to be more and more people.

Her hand was grabbed. She turned to see a grinning Leasha: she indicated a small group of dancers in front of the delighted musicians, but Breanna shook her head. Not now, she couldn’t dance now.

She fought back through the throng, her hand was shaken a few more times, her back was heartily patted, yet more gifts of food and precious things were turned down as she grasped for a door, hurried down a corridor, and slipped out into the night.

It seemed the whole village had gathered inside. The jetties and streets of the lake village were deserted. She found a quiet spot, far from the music, and sat, swinging her legs and looking out over the deep blue lake. It was so still it reflected the bright stars and firefly lamps as if a perfect version of this world lay just under the surface staring back at her.

She wondered if the Breanna of the lake world knew what was going on. She wondered if her reflection was confused about why it had happened, and whether it should have happened sooner, if it could have happened before...

“So, this is where you’ve buried yourself.” It was Mim. She sat herself on a wicker basket and rested her two hands on her staff. She stared up at the sky and breathed slowly. Waiting.

“I didn’t do anything,” Breanna said after a silence that felt like an eternity, and the relief of voicing her fears was like a cold plunge on a hot day.

“You did everything that mattered.”

“But,” she started and didn’t know how to word it, “I don’t understand how I did what I did, or if I did what I did at all...”

Mim nodded and was quiet for a while. “You did much today that made a difference—”

“But how—I mean—”

Mim held up her hand and Breanna fell silent. “You showed great wisdom for one.”

Breanna snorted and looked away. How could she have shown wisdom when didn’t even know what happened?

“You sent that young Fenner to their death.”

Breanna looked up at Mim open-mouthed. She wondered if sending others to their death was the wisdom of Wizards.

Mim waved at her dismissively. “Oh, it’s one thing to put yourself in danger for others, it is quite another to trust someone else with your life and be trusted enough to ask them to risk their life for you.” Mim shook her head. “No, there’s not many would have done what you did.”

“I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of.”

Mim banged her staff against the jetty. “We’re all alive because of you; that is something to be proud of. You sent the right one for the job, you leapt in front of those blimmin’ ugly birds and calmed that beast ’fore it tore the souls from our bones, girl.” Mim pointed at her with the staff. “You did that. No one else.”

They were both quiet for a long while. On the still night air, they could hear the chirruping of insects and the music of the raucous party. Breanna closed her eyes and listened. She wondered if she would ever hear the Whisper again.

“What you have, your Skill to hear the Dragons, it is a rare and precious gift.”

“A gift?” Breanna almost laughed, it didn’t feel like a gift. The rush of energy, the horrors she had seen, the hunger, the rise of the Dragons around her, the deaths she had witnessed, the destruction of her village: it was a curse not a gift.

“Some mages have to study and practise for years to attain even a glimpse of the Skill you have by fate.”

She looked up at Mim and remembered how they had first met, the ritual in the temple, that cacophony of whispers. “That’s what you were doing, isn’t it?”

Mim looked down at her, a smile on her lips.

“You were trying to speak to the Dragons in the temple!”

“We can all speak to the Dragons, Breanna, but clearly it takes more Skill than I possess to hear their reply.”

Suddenly she didn’t feel so strange anymore. So different. In a flash, she remembered that little child’s face when they had all been hiding from the Water Wyrm; those wide eyes, the certainty of what was happening, and the fear. “The Monarch!” and she knew that it was true.

“Very perceptive.” Mim nodded.

“But if there are others like me, others who can hear them and talk to them, then why hasn’t this already been stopped? Why isn’t it already over?”

“Ah, well.” Mim tapped the staff on the wooden jetty, as if it helped her think. “You did something different.”

“But you just said that others could—?”

“No. Somethin’ else happened when you laid your hand upon that Water Wyrm, didn’t it? You went somewhere. Now that, that is new.”

She nodded. It was a relief not to have to explain it.

“Ah, Poppet. You must have seen some dreadful things.” Mim placed a hand on her shoulder, and the kindness and warmth seeped through her in an instant. She suddenly didn’t feel alone; there was someone there who cared and understood. Then the hand was gone, and she was cold again, alone, a single voice in the dark; quiet and afraid in her own mind. With one last fear to admit.

“If I had known...” She looked up as Mim stood and turned away, ready to head back to the party. “If I had known all of this before, before the first attack, I could have saved them, couldn’t I? I could have saved Rega and... And my dad.”

Mim sighed and sat down again. She looked down at her: her jaw was set and her slate-grey eyes firm. She nodded. “Yes.”

Breanna baulked: she choked on a sob and struggled to breathe. She could have done something. She should have done something.

“And, so could I,” Mim said. “We could all go back and save our kin and change the world with all things we know now. And there are things you don’t know today that you will wish, so desperately, that you had known. You will wish it so hard it might cloud everything else out of your mind. But you can’t go forward by thinking yourself back. You must do your best with what you have now because, my dear, that is all any of us have. You understand?”

Breanna nodded, and Mim reached out to wipe a tear from her cheek. In a rush of memory Breanna could feel her mother doing the same thing a lifetime ago, but then the memory was gone.

“I can teach you,” Mim said.

“W—what?”

“I can train you. You can learn more about your powers, more about your abilities, I can take you to the Wizard Tor and you can learn so much more than you ever thought you could know.” Mim heaved herself up with the aid of her staff. “The best way you can stop yourself worrying about what you should have known is to learn everything you can as quickly as you can.” Mim smiled and tapped Breanna on the head with her staff. “Knowledge. That is the only way out of the dark.” She turned to leave. “Think on it.”

“Wait!” Breanna called after her, and Mim turned back, surprised. “There was something I should have told you.” The words spilled out as the memory flooded back. “There was a woman there... where the Dragons were.”

“A woman?” Mim looked frightened: her voice was urgent. “What woman? What did she look like?”

“Er... she was tall, tall as an Elf, but she was darker, her hair was... like mine, but curled, she had...” Breanna suddenly noticed a detail she hadn’t paid attention to at the time. “Runes. She had runes all over her skin...”

Mim turned white. “And bright blue eyes?”

“No...” Breanna remembered those eyes with a cold chill that ran through her bones. “No. Her eyes were gold.”

Mim leaned hard on her staff as if about to faint; she shook her head and stared into middle distance. “But how?” she whispered to herself, no longer looking at Breanna. “How did she do it?”

“It is all over now, though, isn’t it?”

“Oh, my dear.” Mim shook her head and once again turned and headed off into the dark. “I fear it has only just begun.”

Dragon Mage

Breanna didn’t go after Mim: she told herself that the Wizard needed to be alone. But she was the one who wanted to be by herself.

She thought about what Mim said: she could learn to use her Skill, join the Wizard council. Her family were Hunters; she had warrior blood, she was a Huntress of the woods. True, her Aunt Fia had some Skill with runecasting, and she had shown some promise herself, but she thought back to Iora, the Wise-Woman, and those dreary lessons. No, magic had never been her calling.

The knife she held in her hands was an unfamiliar weapon, a bright, white bone blade as long as her forearm, tough and hardened to a strength to rival bronze. It was serrated down the slightly curved length of one side and each serrated tooth was sharp and piercing. The scabbard was a fine, worked fish skin on a firm leathery belt. It was her sword. Given to her by a Chief. She had earned it. She was no mage.

But then she remembered Mim’s words: if she had known, if she had understood her power, then she could have saved them, all of them.

What else didn’t she know? Who else would die because of her ignorance?

“That’s a fine blade.” The sound of Broc’s voice made her jump.

She hadn’t spoken to him yet, not properly, not about everything. She opened her mouth to tell him... but she didn’t know what to say. “It is,” she replied weakly.

“Do you mind if I sit?” She shook her head and he sat down on the jetty next to her, looking out at the dark lake and the firefly lanterns. They were quiet for a long time before he finally broke their silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her stomach twisted: how could she explain? How could she tell him she thought she was cursed? How could she have admitted what a failure she was?

“If you didn’t want to join the Woodland Hunt,” he continued, “you didn’t have to.”

She shook her head again. “That’s what we are, we are Hunters: how could I not be?”

“It’s what I am, it’s what Father was but that doesn’t mean it’s what you have to be.”

“I thought I could... I wanted to be like you, I wanted you to be proud of me—”

“I am proud of you.” He cut her off, wrapping his arm tightly around her, and despite herself she laughed. All she had ever wanted was for her father and brother to be proud, to stand alongside them as equals, as Hunters. But, even though her world had turned upside down, his words still untwisted a knot of pain deep inside her. “Besides,” he said, gently taking the blade from her hands and admiring it, “you are a Warrior now.”

Her heart sank: she didn’t feel like a warrior. “Am I?”

“You have done more than anyone ever expected of you.” He squeezed her again. “And, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What for?” She looked up at him as he shook his head.

“I’m sorry that you couldn’t tell me what you were going through. Hearing those Dragons...”

“I didn’t know how to explain it.” She shrugged his apology away, but part of her felt guilty for not having told him, for not having shared her secret. Perhaps lives could have been saved... but then perhaps the village would have thought the same as her; that she was cursed. Perhaps she had been right to keep her secret until they found Mim. She’d never know what her different choices might have led to.

“Well, it’s all over now.” He took a deep breath and she could hear the relief swelling through him. “We can finally go home.”

She almost wanted to let him believe that everything was at an end and in the morning the world would be as it had been before, but too much had changed. She had changed.

“Mim has asked me to train with her, to become a Wizard.”

He nodded slowly, and handed her new blade back to her. “And is that what you want?”

She thought she could hear sadness on his voice, or perhaps it was disappointment. “I don’t know... I want to help people.”

“You can help our village. If you can tame a Dragon here, you can tame a Dragon in the woods. We’d need never fear an attack again: that is more than anyone could ask of a Hunter, or even a Warrior.”

He was hopeful, excited, and Breanna wanted to agree, she wanted to say that she would return with him. That she would go home.

But she thought back to the Dragon realm, to everything she had seen, and the army she had attacked; all those people whose souls were taken. All across the Edge Islands were peoples and places she had seen, and she realised if there were more attacks on her village, if she chose to tame the Forest Drake, then she would witness those scenes every time. She would always have to make a choice. She would have to turn the Dragon’s hunger away from her own people and direct it somewhere else. She would have to choose who would take their place. She wasn’t strong enough for that.

Breanna closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t,” she said finally, “I can’t save our people and ignore others.”

“You are not responsible for the whole world, Breanna.”

“But I am!” Broc stared at her, startled, and she wondered how to explain. “When I was... I don’t know where I was – but I could see through the Dragon’s eyes. I saw everything all at once, Dragons all across the land, all hungry and all taking the life Essence from the people they were meant to protect. It’s happening everywhere, Broc.”

“But there is nothing you could do—”

“But there is—I mean, there was... I....” She let out a long, slow breath, trying to stem the panic that was rising within her at the memory. “...I could control the Dragon’s thoughts, I was part of the Dragon’s mind, and I made a choice, I told... I told the Dragon who to kill.” She thought of her father dying in the woods and wondered how many families were mourning their kin while her own friends celebrated victory. “I don’t want to make that choice again.” She knew then, she knew that her decision was already made, and she would not be going back to the forest. “I need to try, I have to try and stop this.”

Broc squeezed her again, and his hug was comforting and warm. “Then I’ll come with you.” The words were simple and yet they held so much. She swallowed back a sob as she leaned into him and for the first time since she had left their village, she felt at home.

“Why aren’t you in the party?” It was Leasha, a little louder than she needed to be, a drink in each hand. Cassian was close behind her, pulling Koax along with them.

“There is to be a ballad for us.” Koax was flushed and grinning wildly.

Breanna laughed, and Leasha pushed a drink into her hands.

“You must try this, it’s marshland ale, it’s remarkable.” She glugged back a few gulps from her own cup and looked eagerly to Breanna.

The liquid was thick and green: it stank of the marshes and when Breanna put the cup to her lips she realised that it also tasted of the marshes. “Ugh, that is revolting.”

“I know! It’s remarkable!” Leasha awkwardly sat down next to her on the jetty, her drink sloshing as she plonked down. “It’s gorgeous here, isn’t it?”

“We’re not going back with you.” Breanna hoped that a quick explanation would somehow be less brutal.

“You’re staying here?” Cassian was drinking the same foul liquid as Leasha.

“We’re going with Mim.”

“Where is Mim going?” Koax was excitedly pacing. “Is she staying for the ballad? Are you staying for the ballad?”

“No one is leaving before the ballad,” Cassian replied.

“I’m going to train with her, she...” Breanna didn’t want to worry any of them, but she knew her friends deserved the truth. “Mim doesn’t think this is over.”

There was silence. The gentle chirruping of the marsh insects overlaid the distant sound of the drums, pipes, and songs; a happy world so far away from them.

“Then I have no choice but to go as well,” Cassian announced. He looked across at Breanna with a grin and a wink. “For who else would save you from the howlers?”

She grinned back and then laughed in relief. “And who else would hold your hand when we enter dark temples?”

Cassian threw back his head with a sudden laugh and Broc stood and patted him heartily on the back. “Then we are a company.”

“We are a company.” Koax nodded, placing an arm around Cassian.

“Excellent!” Leasha raised her empty cup to the sky. “We are a company.” She heaved herself up onto her unsteady feet. “When do we leave?”

“No, not you, you’re going home.”

Leasha laughed. “You can’t send me home; I’m not a child, Cassian.”

“We have come further than we agreed.” It wasn’t clear if Cassian was pleading with Broc, Leasha, or himself. “The Queen may understand our delay if you explain you were captured, but there is no question of you following the Wizard.”

“I will not abandon Breanna.”

Breanna felt the tips of her ears grow hot at the Elf maiden’s unexpected pledge.

Cassian was aghast. “You have to return! What about your aunt? The Motherland?”

“I am one of you,” she said, her voice hard and steady, “am I not? People are dying. My people are dying, Koax’s people, Broc and Breanna’s people... I will be of help to you. If I return, what then?”

“You do not have to prove yourself worthy, Leasha.” Cassian’s words were suddenly gentle.

“That is not what this is about.” They stared at one another and no one dared say a word to interrupt.

Cassian sighed with resignation. “I sense that we shall fight on this point for an eternity.”

“Or you could just welcome me to the company.” Leasha held out her hand expectantly.

Cassian laughed and clasped her hand firmly. “Then it is to be.”

Leasha nodded, satisfied, and reached out to help Breanna up from the edge of the jetty. “We should dance tonight. For tomorrow, we must save the world.”

THE END

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Dragon Mage

For fans of Sarah J. Maas, Game of Thrones, and Skyrim, the queer, epic fantasy set in a land of Dark Wizards and Warrior Queens continues…

WAR. POWER. BLOOD.

To stop a war she must conquer her doubt.

In the divided lands of the Edge Islands, Breanna, an apprentice mage, is learning to use a magic she never knew she had: the power to hear the Dragon's Whisper.

But a war is looming, the ancient Dragons have turned against the people they once protected, and the vengeful Mistress of Dragon March is determined to conquer her enemies' lands at any cost.

Now the young novice must learn to control her gift before everything she loves is destroyed forever.

Will she tame the Dragons, or fall prey to their power?

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Also by Niamh Murphy

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About the Author

Niamh Murphy is a historian and novelist specialising in romantic lesbian fiction.

In 2012, she committed herself to writing professionally and published her debut novel ‘Mask of the Highwaywoman’, a swashbuckling historical romance that combined her love of history and adventure. She went on to complete an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Essex in 2016 and is now working on putting all her fantastical stories on the page.

She is passionate about experimenting with different genres and has a fondness for romantic action and adventure. She has written stories with vampires, werewolves, elves, magic, knights, sorceresses, and witches as well as contemporary and humorous stories, but always with a lesbian protagonist and a romantic element to the tale.

Niamh spent her childhood in rural Wales where she gained a love of the wild countryside and became fascinated with the myths and legends of the ancient country. She developed a passion for fairy tales, myth, legend, and fantasy early on and devoured the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Tolkien, Elizabeth Beresford, C.S. Lewis, and, of course, J.K. Rowling. She wrote her first story, about a child that finds a magic broomstick, at the tender age of six and was always coercing her friends into acting in her plays. As a teenager, her love of writing continued, and she developed an interest in poetry and romance. But her taste for adventure has only grown and she continuously finds herself drawn to books with an exhilarating plot and fascinating characters.

She currently lives in the historic town of Colchester, England, where she can indulge her passion for archaeology and history. Her greatest ambition is to own a medieval castle, complete with turrets, towers, a moat, and a drawbridge.

Read more at Niamh Murphy’s website.