ADAIN

Leon finds me sitting on the lip of one of the fountains in the garden, staring at the water. "Where are your guards?" he asks.

"My mother sent them away," I tell him, sighing. "She said, 'birds need to be able to fly.'"

"Oh." Leon seems puzzled by my dejected tone. "The king allowed that?"

"My father loves her," I say.

Leon sits next to me. "So what are you going to do?"

I grimace and toss a pebble into the fountain. "I don't know. I don't want to disappoint her," I say. "And… I've been thinking about what Gerald said. About protecting people from magic. Maybe they're right. My father and him. Maybe it's bad."

"Maybe," Leon says, and I expect his usual nonchalant shrug. Instead, he frowns and says, "But they still follow the Ironborn. We all go to the ceremonies. The High Priest shouts and lectures about demons and witches, orders us around, orders the king around. No one questions it, because he says he's protecting us, that he's speaking for the Goddess. No one argues."

His rant catches me by surprise. I raise my eyebrows at him. "Do you think they aren't protecting us?"

"I don't know," he says. Still no shrug. "I don't trust them. Back home, before…" Before his father died. Any then his mother. Before he was sent here to be Gerald's ward.

"Where I used to live," he starts again, "there were pixies napping in flowers, and gnomes in the apple trees. And sometimes there was an angry troll who would stomp around and smash things, or ghoul haunting the old mill, but people were more scared of the Ironborn coming than they ever were of pesky faeries. We wore rowan berries and sprinkled salt in our pockets. We never hung those stupid chains around our necks."

"There were pixies and gnomes and...and trolls?" I ask. "But there aren't supposed to be faeries in Ylvemore! Not since the war. They were driven out." But even as I say that I think of the girl in the library, with her green skin and her pleading eyes. I remember what Rogemere said to me, about the kingdom being infected with tiny seeds of evil. And I hear the girl's strangled cry in my head, the sound of her struggling to breathe as he smothered her with the force of his magic.

When I open my eyes, Leon is watching me with a knowing look. I have my hands pressed to the sides of my head, elbows propped on my knees. It feels like the world is spinning.

"There was a little girl," Leon says, tilting his chin to stare up at the sky. "Her parents brought her to the manor and begged my mother to help. To protect her. She was my age. But she wasn't normal. I mean, she looked like us, but she had wings, like a dragonfly's, all shimmery and… breakable. I was really little, but I remember."

"What happened to her?" I ask.

"They found her. They ripped off her wings and stabbed her. Kept stabbing her. With iron pikes. They made sure we all watched. She stopped making any sound, but her parents…" Leon clenches his jaw. "I can still hear them screaming, sometimes. When I'm trying to sleep, or when I hear a different sound and it… It just won't go away."

"I'm sorry," I say, so softly it's almost a whisper. The words don't feel like enough, but I don't have any others.

"Me, too," he says.

After a minute of sitting silently, he says, "Want to get some food?"

.

With arms and pockets full of bread and sausage, cheese and apples and half-crushed berry tarts, we walk out into the fields to have a picnic. For a second, I think I see someone following us, a flash of light reflecting off silver, a blur of gray. But when I look back to check, there's no one. Just afternoon sunshine filtering through clouds, casting dancing shadows.

Though the nights are cold enough for frost, and leaves are already coating much of the ground, their yellows and oranges quickly turning to brown, today the weather is mild, almost warm. Farmers have already finished most of the harvest, and now are busy getting the food stored and ready for the coming winter. We're alone. The only sound is the whistling of the wind through the almost bare branches of the trees.

Leon and I find a low stone wall and lay out our feast. He pulls out a knife and starts cutting the cheese and meat. I use my hands to tear the bread into chunks. The loaf is still hot in the center, fresh from the oven.

We sit facing the forest, which is a ways off down the hill. We don't speak. Occasionally I'll pass him another piece of bread, and he'll cut me a few slices of sausage.

As the sun dips low and the sky starts to pink, we lounge on the rocks and toss a leftover apple back and forth.

The world is the hazy blue of dusk when I notice the stars. It's too early for them to fill the sky; I can still see the smudge of red where the sun meets the edge of the horizon. Yet there they are, scattered above us, each blazing like a miniature sun.

"Look," I say, the first word I've uttered in hours. I point. "They're moving."

Leon squints at the sky. "Falling?"

We stand, both of us staring upwards. They're falling. All of them, dropping from the heavens. They shower down in various directions. Some descend quickly and seem to burn out far above, but others grow closer with every passing second.

When the first one hits, it is miles away, past the walls of the capital, but we can easily make out the blaze from where we are. The ground trembles under our feet.

Leon starts to run back to the palace, but I'm rooted in place. "Wait!" I yell.

A flaming rock crashes into a nearby field, sending out a burst of dry soil. I stumble at the impact. The fire isn't simply shades of orange and red, also burning purple and green and brilliant blue.

"Adain!" Leon shouts my name. I look just in time to see another one hit the east wall of the palace with a shower of stone. A hear distant screams. Leon takes off up the hill.

But I don't follow, because I saw something. One of them is bigger than the rest, yet it's falling more slowly, almost gliding downwards. And even as smoke starts to fill the air and it becomes harder to see, I make out a unique shape amidst the multicolored flames. A beastly body, a winding tail. Maybe I'm just seeing things, my mind playing tricks on me, but I can't tear my eyes away.

The closer it gets, the clearer I see it. A dragon, wings bent and twisted, talons clawing at the air, the size of a small mountain. And falling straight towards the forest.

"Halifass," I say. "Halifass!"

Before I can think, I'm sprinting down the hill towards the line of trees.

"Halifass!" I call, entering the darkness of the forest. I trip over a tree root and catch myself on a nearby trunk, coughing as I try to catch my breath. Smoke stings my lungs. Somewhere nearby, the trees are already burning.

When I look up, all I see is fire. There's nowhere to run. I drop to the ground and put my arms over my head, as if somehow that will keep me safe.

"Young prince?" Halifass asks. Though he's quite a distance away, I can make out his form peering out at me from the glowing doorway of his tree.

And then that tree is engulfed in flames.

My body is tossed aside by the force of the explosion as the dragon's body collides with the earth. The sound is deafening. I feel the ground heave and convulse, see dirt and rocks and branches flying.

I'm thrown against something hard.

Next thing I know I'm lying on my back, blinking awake. All I see are floating embers and dark smoke. I push myself onto my elbows, taking in the landscape of ash and the blackened, stubby remains of once mighty trees. My skin is stained charcoal gray. I cough, keep coughing.

By the light of the flames I can see the sloping edge of a deep crater before me. At its center, a shadowy form lies in a heap, glowing like a log on a dying fire.

My legs wobble underneath me as I stand, and I fall back down onto one knee. I can't get enough air. "Halifass!" I scream, as loudly as my seared lungs allow.

There is no response, just the distant crack-thud of another tree falling.

Then, drifting into the dizzy fog of my mind, I hear a voice. What an awful, cold place to die, it rumbles.

Keeping my head low to avoid the rising clouds of smoke, I crawl through shifting piles of ash towards the largest charred corpse of a tree I can see. It's right at the lip of the crater, sagging to one side because the earth beneath it crumbled. I don't have the breath to call for Halifass again, but in my head I repeat his name like a prayer. Please. Please be alive.

Who? that voice asks, quiet like the first rolls of thunder before the clap. Who is this Halifass? It says his name slowly, sounding out each syllable, ending with a hiss.

Without thinking, my eyes move to the giant beast in the crater. But I don't respond to the question. Holding onto that sliver of hope, swallowing a sob that's growing in my chest, I continue crawling towards the tree.

The rounded outline of the doorway makes it clear this is the druid's heart tree as soon as I reach it. Inside, what was a cozy home is nothing but a hollow cave of burning debris. Part of me still expects him to be standing there, inviting me in. I find myself searching the area for his upright form, leaning on that staff, or maybe injured and slumped against the trunk of his loyal friend.

The sob breaks free as soon as I see the arm poking out of the rubble, flung up as if to ward off the incoming disaster. Something inside of me sinks. Despite the heat, I start to shiver. "Halifass," I whisper, sweeping bits of wood, shattered clay and shards of glass off his body. Everything is so hot it scorches at the touch. He doesn't stir. His hair and clothing have burned away, and his skin… I look away, crawl backwards as fast as I can to get some distance from what I've seen, what isn't Halifass anymore at all.

Then I collapse. Tired. I'm just so tired. It takes so much work to breathe. It hurts. So hot, stifling. Heavy. I could just fall asleep and-

Fledgling, I hear your despair, the voice says. You lost your Halifass. There is a note of hesitation before it adds, I am sorry.

I clench my hands into fists and rise up. "You killed him!" I scream at the creature in the crater. "You killed him!"

Don't fear, fledgling, it responds. Soon I will be following him on that journey. This world is no place for a sun dragon. My life seeps out of me as we speak.

I almost yell "Good!" But the spark of anger in me is dying out as quickly as it came. "Why?" I ask instead. "Why did you come here? Why did you do this?"

Ah… Believe me, I did not have a choice in the matter, it says. They tore my wings. Threw me away.

Leon's voice echoes in my mind, the story of a little girl, her shimmery wings. I wince. "I'm sorry," I say, before I can stop myself.

There may be… The voice pauses, seems to consider something.

I have a sudden surge of energy. My limbs are oddly tingly and light. It is easier to breathe, no longer feels like swallowing fire. Though I can still see it swirling thickly, it's like the smoke is gone. I stand and take big gulps of air.

Come here, fledgling, it says.

I find myself walking, then sliding and stumbling down the steep slope of the crater. The closer to the mountainous creature I get, the more detail I can make out. Scales gleaming under the smudgy black ash, but also feathers, fluttering in the moaning wind. Hints of red, yellow, purple, green. The flames that smolder along its surface seem to burn from the inside. Its muscular, cat-like limbs are crumpled under its massive body, membranous wings shredded and hanging limply.

Its head is bigger than my entire body, a predatory combination of wolf and falcon, four horns curved back behind its ears, a ridge of spikes along the jawline. Tufts of downy feathers almost like fur. It watches me with a fiery blue eye as I approach.

This body is doomed, it says. But my fires still burn. Fledgling, I can't give you your Halifass, but I give you this gift. If you want it.

I know, this close to such a blazing flame, I should be burning up. It should be painful, unbearable. Yet I only feel a comfortable warmth emanating from the dragon.

"What gift?" I ask.

The last spark of Balsevor the Undying, it says the title with a sort of chuckle, a thrumming note of wry amusement. My heart, fledgling. If you would have it.

Standing right before his giant maw, I reach out my hands to feel those colorful flames. Flickering against my skin, the fire feels like a cool current of water, like a gentle buzzing, like bright sunlight pulsing through my veins, filling me up.