And He stared down with his red eyes of disdain.

That things so small could cause such massive problems.

Rats, were they to Him, and would that He suffer no vermin in His demesne.

Halls which were once and always His, He gouged and laid them to valleys.

All within perished, and sprung forth the river of blood for which the forest has become infamous.

- Beware the Everlasting Tyrant, Third Stanza, Author Unknown

Fortune and misfortune had this strange way of blending together, I was finding. They blurred into this thing called luck, and I couldn’t decide if mine was good or not. Clearly, my luck was terrible, seeing how it was impossible to shake Avien from my trail. Yet on the other hand, he had, NO IDEA, that the person he was searching for so desperately was crouched right before him, letting out a long and mournful groan.

How did I know? He patted me on the FUCKING shoulder, and said, “There there, Emer. Rubes will recover. I’m sure of it.”

Do you think I’m fucking crying!? I raged inside. I’m angry because I can’t leave you behind! And because I know that going to fight that dragon isn’t going to end your story. Even if you’re right and we all survive this, you’re still going to be a problem!

My hateful monologue expressed itself as a hiccup in my groan. Even I thought the sound was like crying.

“She’s nothing special.” Zap said dismissively, then tapped Avien hard on the shoulder. “Are we gon’ go be heroes or what?”

Something that wasn’t quite me surged. How dare she!

I stopped myself. I compartmentalised.

How dare she? How dare you! I looked up at the dark sky, specifically in a direction away from Avien. Whoever you are pulling my strings!

Unable to trust myself, I didn’t rise at the urge and receded from the conversation. The dust in the air gave me refuge, partially obscuring my face on the off chance Avien managed to get a clear angle. Jevi’s hand twitched in mine, and I stopped holding it so tightly. She was still out of it, but her face relaxed by another fraction.

Hmm…

“I wish I could join you.” Weldon declared, offering Avien a warrior’s handshake that was accepted with typical bravado. “But I must keep… Her safe due to prior promises.”

“A shame.” Avien clasped arms and smiled. “I can feel the power brimming at your fingertips. You would’ve been a valuable ally. Perhaps another day.”

“Should the twists of fate deliver us to another town under siege by a dragon, then we shall face it down together.” Weldon promised. I felt a tremor run through the ground immediately after, and it was difficult to tell if that was All heeding the vow or the dragon toppling a close enough building.

Unless you have prior promises. I thought dryly. Which, with the frequency you grant those, will be incredibly likely.

“Damn.” Attler breathed out. He was pressing his shirt where the wounds had been, marvelling at their absence. That wasn’t what he was commenting on though. “I was hoping on another able body to help us fight out of here.”

“If you think about it, I am still doing that by fighting the dragon.” Avien said.

I frowned. Did you just try and entertain wit? If he truly had, it wasn’t all that witty.

“Who are you, by the way?” Attler asked, causing me to roll my eyes.

“Call me Avien-”

He was cut off by Zap overtaking the conversation. “You are speaking to the young Master Avien of house Shepard. He allows you to call him Avien, but do not forget his status.”

“wow.” I muttered. Just where did he pick up that one? She was like a little Adjutant that actually had an attitude. Now I was realising why bland and emotionless was such a desirable trait for people of that station.

“What was that?” Zap rounded on me.

She heard that? I furrowed my brows but didn’t look their way. “never heard of the house. whose young master you just interrupted.” I wasn’t lying, either. The Shepards had always been ‘the Shepards’. They held no royal titles in Veliki. Only council members and Taranath did.

“Then clearly you are some backwater noble, prancing about without adequate supervision.” Zap said haughtily. “To not have heard of the heroes of the Scarlet Sands. Did your tutors fail to teach you all your letters as well?”

The tutor you mentioned is standing next to you. I thought back bitterly, pushing down the memories from the school of paper. Gods, how I had hated those days, spending hours upon hours seated opposite Avien fucking Shepard.

I did not respond verbally that time. She was making me angry too easily. This wasn’t me.

“Zap, it’s rude to demean someone in distress.” Avien chided.

Zap gave a ‘humph’ and likely pointed her nose to the sky.

I felt Avien smile at me again. “We must be going now. I wish you fortune in your travels. You may need it sooner than any of us would like.”

Weldon and Attler gave responses, and I of course said nothing. Then Avien and his newfound companion were gone, off to fight a dragon.

My face darkened at the thought. Burn and die. Then I turned to the two boys. “Attler, do you think you can fight?”

His face set into a determined expression as he rose to his full height, no longer hampered by wounds. He’d been the tallest even before Avien left, though not by much. Now without someone to bridge the gap, he was more than a head taller than Weldon and it showed. Yet, despite how imposing he was, there was doubt badly hidden behind his eyes.

“I can fight…” He said slowly. “But it will be combat like you saw before. I don’t… I don’t truly know why, but I can’t.”

I waved a hand dismissively. It was obvious what he was talking about. “That’s fine. You will now be charged with carrying Rubes. Weldon, who was previously carrying her, will be freed to defend you.”

“That won’t work.” Weldon said, then realised something was wrong and hurried to pick up Jevi. “I swore to carry her until it was safe to put her down. It still isn’t safe.”

I stared. I knew the specific wording would become a problem. Yet I kept my frustration from showing and sweetly said, “Then pick her up and put her down into Attler’s arms. It's safe now. If she were awake, she’d no doubt be happy to be carried by a… hunk such as him.” Attler’s determined expression was ruined by a red spreading across his cheeks. Weldon, however, was still not convinced. “Not to mention you can make her safer by guarding her. This way, you can fight back.”

I paused, considering my next point. Honestly, I’m not sure why I hesitated. “Also, you’re the only one of us three that can kill. That will be essential if we are to leave.”

Weldon looked conflicted, but after cocking his head and listening to the council of an angel, he nodded. “I will pass the vow on to Attler.”

I winced. That meant the consequences of breaking it also went to Attler. Of course, that would only become an issue if Attler broke the vow, but I didn’t think saying such would be productive for the moment.

“I do have one question,” Attler said as he crouched to accept Jevi, “Why are- were you speaking differently? You became an entirely different person when Avien was here.”

A grin sprung to my face unbidden. That was the first time anyone had ever commented on my strange turns of attitude around him. Then it became a scowl. No, it was far from the first. It was simply that most explanations I could give fell upon deaf ears.

“He is a person from my past that I have no interest in reconnecting with.” I said. Surely the Heavens wouldn’t wipe those words from existence. “No doubt he will ask after a person matching my description when next you meet. If you want my favour, you will not lead him to me, or you will send him chasing after ducks.”

“Ducks?” Attler repeated, confused.

I smiled. He had heard me. “Yes. Send him to Eiar. Tell him I am obsessed with ducks.”

“I... see.” Attler lied. But it did not matter to me so long as he had heard me.

A roar and scarily close inferno raining down from the sky reminded us that now was not the time to speak of such things.

“This place is nowhere to dawdle.” Weldon warned, lifting his great sword from its scabbard on his back with ease that Attler visibly envied. “Survival is the priority for the people of this place now. Justice shall be visited upon the new tyrants another day.”

“Yes, that.” I pointed at Weldon with one hand and drew my dagger with the other. “Exactly that.” Word for word. Let another day come a long time from now. The more barriers I could place between Avien and myself the better.

I lead the way, taking the time to restructure my glyphs intermittently. We dodged a few more groups moving through Burden Bridge before arriving at the eastern river, and I didn’t want to get close enough to tell if they were friendly or not, so it possibly took more time than it might have. Regardless, the sight I saw allowed a breath of relief to flow from my lungs.

The river flowed from the north east to the south west. Most of the ships in harbour were aflame, which I’d come to expect as we traveled eastward and began finding buildings that had been set alight amidst the chaos. Despite this the eastern bridge was still standing. I could see torchlights moving away from the town in a steady procession, which was a promising sign. If the invaders were the ones crossing that bridge, then it wouldn’t make much sense for them to move away from the town they were invading.

Unfortunately, we were a ways north from where we could access that bridge. But the fact that it was still standing boded well for our chances of escape. I pointed and told the boys the plan- cross that bridge- and we set out to do exactly that. Of course, it was not so simple as that.

While we were travelling to one bridge, Sathteel; Pestilence of Blades arrived at the other. It did not unleash a mighty roar. It did not crash through any structures with its immense bulk and power. It simply soared nearby the bridge and unleashed a gout of silver flame down on the wooden construction.

For ten long seconds the silhouette of the dragon was visible against the night sky. Afterwards, the silvery inferno illuminated the horizon from beyond what we could see.

My skin shivered. It would literally be akin to breathing for Sathteel to do the same to the other bridge while we were on it.

And to get on that bridge, we would first need to fight through a melee raging in the Bridging Road at the foot of it. I’d been wondering where the guards had vanished to, and now my musings were partially answered. The clashing of at least fifty guards matching weapons with a twice greater number of kobolds was enough to make me willingly release the magic in my ears.

There was a trail of guards doing their best to escort citizens to the bridge. They had made a corridor of people that already had dwindled to near pointlessness, and would soon collapse so that the fighting force could retreat. Or what was left of it. I would’ve loved to be one of the last to take advantage of the evacuation effort, but we were on the wrong side of the Bridging Road for that.

“Attler, you will stay close to the two of us.” I declared, taking charge before Weldon could get any ideas. “Weldon, you will be the one to cut a way through that mess. Do not slow down on any account. I will defend Attler from behind and follow.”

It was difficult to hear, but I think Attler said ‘Yes ma’am!’ while Weldon said ‘Yes mom!’ He got cut for that.

In any case, we got going and I was finally able to witness how Weldon fought against people that weren’t me. What I saw made me rethink my treatment of his sword skills. When Weldon had ‘saved’ Jevi and myself from the bandits, I’d been too far away and too distracted to witness him fight. Now that I was three paces away at most, I was able to appreciate how effective he truly was.

His sword lit up with magic beyond the simple sheen that rezan granted. There were two additional shifts in the magic around him before he waded into the battle of guards and kobolds, and when he lashed out there was little resistance from the kobold that fell to the ground in three pieces. A torso with an arm, leg, and head attached, as well as the missing pieces. In the next instant another Kobold was felled and I had to step in and block a sword swung by a human guard.

I yelled and pointed at the nearest kobold. He must have mistaken us for enemies, because I saw his eyes widen in shock under the helmet as I met his eyes. I don’t think he heard me, but he did move on quickly. As he went I noticed blood running down his leg. Chances were he wouldn’t survive this battle.

Weldon was moving fast; I couldn’t dwell. I stepped over kobold after kobold, and the odd human as well, and finally got the hang of it in time for the bodies to thin out as we reached human territory. One or two guards yelled at Weldon, who yelled back, and kept yelling as me and Attler were ushered into a ring where there were no attackers.

“Weldon!” I bellowed when the guard refused to let him pass. Something about his effectiveness as a fighter. Weldon bowed his head and clasped his hands in apology as the dragon slammed down from the sky in the middle of the Bridging Road behind him.

“Weldon!” I shouted again as I recovered from the shock and tremors. Thankfully, the dragon’s interest wasn’t in us, but in something in the other direction. There wasn’t anything I could do about that but take it for the blessing it was and keep running. Weldon finally started coming my way, so I turned and shouted for Attler to go ahead. He wasn’t dumb. He’d wait if there turned out to be more attackers on the other side of the bridge.

“I’m here, Amber.” Weldon told me.

“Good.” I responded and started running, but was still out of breath from our foray through the battle. It seemed endurance remained one of my greater fallacies.

“You come here with such pitiful power and challenge me?”

I stumbled as the rumbling voice fell over me. I’d felt this before, but it was different, more imposing. Serfle’s voice was just like this, only this was angry and prideful, distant and echoing. Like the words were meant for another but I heard them anyway, which shouldn’t have happened because my listening glyphs weren’t active.

“Did you hear that?” I asked at a normal volume now that we had left the fighting behind.

“I hear battle, fire, and tragedy.” Weldon responded. “Attler is going ahead. We must catch up.”

So he hadn’t heard that. I shook it off and started moving at a pace faster than a walk, yet slower than a run.

“Impressive titles.” The voice growled, making me stumble again. “But do they mean anything?”

“Who?” I glanced back. So far I’d moved far enough away that the curve of the bridge obscured the immediate fighting on the Bridging Road, but still beyond that was Sathteel. The dragon gargantuan compared to the three floor buildings on either side, and much longer too. It had folded its wings and was perched atop a particularly tall roof, and appeared to be circling its prey. I could finally make out the colour of its grey scales.

The colour of a dragon’s scales correlated to the nature of their breath, and the element they were attuned with. That being said, grey scales told me nothing.

Not a moment passed before the voice continued. “Were your titles Earned?”

The head of Sathteel bobbed in apparent laughter as a devastating convocation of purple fire formed in his apparent location, only for the dragon to be somewhere else, avoiding the fire entirely. It responded with its own silver kind of fire, scorching the earth with an inferno five or more times intense than the one it had just avoided.

So it’s not a dragon of fire. I observed. It would’ve let the fire roll off its scales if it were.

The fire breath ended, then space folded and a small figure was attacking Sathteel from up close, striking at it with blade rather than magic. This time the dragon laughed, the arrogant, prideful sound echoing through the town and even reaching my ears.

“Your blades are nothing against my scales!” Sathteel moved, and suddenly the space where the figure had stood, as well as the roof all around it vanished in an instant of destruction. Debris flew everywhere and made it impossible to make out anything more.

The twinge I felt on my strings put to rest any doubt I had about who exactly that figure was.

Burn and die. I repeated in my mind, and turned away as still more destruction erupted there. Weldon had gained some distance on me, and he was clearly slowing for me to keep up.

“A third?” I felt the dragon question in mild surprise. “Such... vulnerability.”

Goosebumps ran up my neck.

“How tempting.” In the next moment, I heard the distinct sound of Sathteel taking to the air, the rhythmic thudding of its wingbeat.

Was it- I glance back halfway through my thought. Sathteel was flying in my direction. It was coming for me. Fucking how!? “Run!”

There were a number of people from Burden Bridge, or at least passing through still evacuating across the bridge. For a moment, it was just me sprinting with all I had left, and the next was a stampede. It was the first stampede I’d ever taken part in, and it was no surprise I was quickly separated from Weldon, tripped, and trod upon.

I grit my teeth as the boots of a dozen men and women hit my body. To think I warned you! But my thoughts had no impact on the actions of a maddened crowd. I truly missed Veliki. There were no stampedes there. How vexing that I would one day prefer the times where instead of fleeing, bystanders would simply look on with mild interest or use some profound method of gaining a better spot to watch.

But bad things, like good things, came to an end. When I realised that nobody was likely to step on me again, I opened my eyes to find my surroundings. Somehow, I had ended up near the edge of the bridge. There was a safety barrier, but it didn’t obscure my view when I opened my eyes, so I saw the river stretching out below me. The shift I normally felt at such a sight came, but was the slightest thing amidst the panic of the past half hour.

Perhaps it was because the town was on fire in my periphery, or how some ships had been let loose from the docks for one reason or another and were similarly set alight. Maybe it was the fact that I could still hear the wingbeat of the dragon, and could feel its gaze on my back.

No. It was the fact that those burning ships happened to form the silhouette of my reflective serpent companion the moment I overlooked the river. A barge had been set alight from both ends, and two smaller ships floated, burning, side by side. They and the ships upstream approximated its appearance, along with the glowing, slitted eyes.

A moment passed. Then I yelled with fury. “Begone, Harbinger! I’m not fucking dead yet!”

\V/

The head rose from the water surface, as did its neck and body, though the reflective scales made it difficult to determine its exact shape. They completely covered everything that was not its eyes, and made the endless horizon seem to waver and bend a hundred times every moment. My eyes widened as the shifting waters revealed that this creature was no mere snake.

Its neck was long enough to fool me, but when its shoulders and body emerged from the water, and then the wings spread out in the air behind, flicking the black waters far and wide with ease, the truth became clearer. The form of the dragon was still impossible to fully make out, but that wasn’t the point. It leisurely stretched, then lay down on some platform just beneath the surface of the water that hadn’t been there before. Its eyes glimmered at the awe it had just inspired.

“I am no Harbinger.” It said.

Which fit, since I had just asked if it was a harbinger.

\V/

The burning and drifting ships suddenly no longer resembled the reflexive serpent. That didn’t mean the voyeuristic snake- or dragon- wasn’t watching anymore. It also did nothing to change the fact that Sathteel was still approaching.

I had no time to ponder what the sudden vision meant, as the bridge shook as something large impacted on it, and I rolled over to behold the grey dragon atop the bridge, perched on the supports. It sneered at me, or that was the normal set of its face. It had a pair of horns protruding forward from under and beside its eyes.

Compared to what I’d just seen- recalled, actually- it wasn’t that big. That did little to calm my racing heart.

“Who are you, to lure me from such great distance?” It demanded, its voice like the warping of metal, and no longer resembling Serfle’s at all.

My heart leaped to my throat as I scrambled to stand, but froze again as the dragon leaped down with little menace, but immense power and purpose. It only crossed half the distance between us, but it was more than enough to reinforce its size, strength, and unassailable position as the stronger of us two. A moment later my heart started beating again, and I was able to start trying to think a way out of this mess.

“I’m someone who really doesn’t want anything to do with you.” I said, voice even despite the great pressure. It did little to reflect the twists my stomach was turning. I had to believe the vision happened for a reason, but why? What impact would that have here and now? “Who are you? To leave a potential threat alive and chase after a girl of ten and five?”

Sathteel snarled, silver fog drifting out of either side of its mouth. It was so very much like the beithir that tried to eat me mere weeks before. “You think me a honourable duelist? They will burn. No. I smelled a princess when I first descended, her scent thick across the town. Yet I follow it to the source and I find you, fickle existence.” Its head rose as its entire body shifted, slinking down to stand properly on the bridge and condescend at me. Fire burned silver in its mouth. “A distraction.”

My heart skipped a beat. You can smell Jevi on me? Though my face did nothing to betray my turmoil. “I recommend you go back and finish killing the ones you were just fighting. They’ll come back stronger if you leave them alive.”

“Another distraction.” It stated, head now moving towards me slowly.

“No, they are actually my enemy too.”

“Lie.” It snarled, fire carrying and distorning the sound like no air could.

I blinked at the truth behind that statement. All apparently agreed with Sathteel there, and it quickly became apparent why. Because I was made to feel guilty. I thrust my arms to either side, a mistake because one hand had wrapped around the handle of my dagger in a useless bid for any kind of defense. I talked before it could squash me for perceived aggression.

“You’re right. The guy was my ex.” I let my arms drop, but did not sheath the dagger. Maybe I should’ve said nemesis. “You cannot comprehend the things he’s put me through.”

Sathteel snorted dismissively. “And I would not bother with the lives of mor-”

It was about to start monologuing so I threw my dagger at the dragon. The act was desperate, a bid for freedom seeing how it would likely kill me when it was done. I intended to dive off the bridge regardless of outcome, but something kept me rooted in place. When Avien had attacked with his promised sword, Sathteel had bellowed to the world that blades were nothing against its scales, so I had thrown my dagger with that in mind. Its mouth was moving when it spoke, somehow producing the sounds for Rheasana Common. Inside there were no scales to block my blade, but it wasn’t a reliable target, so I’d aimed for the eyes.

One eye. Its left one. My right. My dagger flew true with the magic I had invested in it, and Sathteel cut off its condescension with a flash of blood and in favour of roaring with pain.

That was when I started running. By the time the pressure of its gaze returned to me, I was sliding under the safety barrier and falling off the side of the bridge, and by the time it was breathing fire in my direction I was halfway to the water surface. A silver inferno billowed past me, not quite at the right angle to engulf me, though I still experienced the heat.

Gods fucking damni- My thoughts cut off as I impacted the black water below.

\V/