“For good reason, it is the Bubonic plague that we have carried forward in our history books, but it was not the first plague, nor was it the last. If the scant records that remain are true, the plague that struck Atlantis and Alti struck just as swiftly, and left no survivors. If it was indeed magical in origin, nothing like it has been seen since.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

The black night sky had claimed the heavens, slowly eating away at the falling sunset until the last golden vestiges of sunlight lay steeped in chill blue space and speckled with glittering stars. A night hush had fallen over the city of Altiannia, spreading through the silent storage barns and broad-backed buildings of the MASO, and treading the spine of the great wall dividing Altiannia from the Port City of Alti. Cast starkly against the pale blue and gold and green glimmer of the lights in the city houses, each cloaked in a comfortable darkness and awash with the glow of the moon, was the darker smudge of the Issurak forest. At night, it took on a deeper and more haunting presence as its magic grew stronger under the weight of the full moon.

Cevora leaned against the solid frame of her bedroom window once more, pale fingers plucking listlessly at a black cloak clutched against her lap. Its heavy, coarse hem, woven with threads resistant to magic and water, fell uneasily across her white and gold short-coat. This was the traditional wear of the Altians, durable and weather resistant, easy to move in but pleasing to the eyes. She had always appreciated the colors and designs embroidered into her outer clothing, but Cevora had never appreciated its practicality until her mother explained its design to her many years ago; the underclothes were made for warmth and function, the short jacket for mobility, the sleeves and skirt for a convenient place to conceal weapons, the designs were runes and spells woven into the fabric to protect its wearer. Although men might forego the skirt, it concealed the line of their legs and their movements. All spoke of the final vestiges of a race that knew only warfare; the dragons were great, cunning, and unpredictable, the Atlantians no better…layers upon layers of meaning.

Memories of her mother made Cevora’s hands fall still, and she looked down at the black cloak with a renewed resolution. When she turned to the window once more, it was at the sound of the great gate at the border of Alti and Altiannia being drawn open. There was a commotion just beyond the iron bars now, and her eyes were drawn and riveted to the distant vision of several men arguing heatedly with the guards. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

The night revealed two, no, three figures waiting outside of the wall, slowly making their way forward as the guards stepped aside. Strange that they should be admitted, stranger that they should have come so deep in the night. They were leading something behind them, something that tread heavily against the dirt and rock of the road…something with a twisted magic that made the hair along the back of her neck prickle as her fingers dug into the cold stone of the windowsill.

Two more men appeared behind the first three. Cevora recognized them for a border patrol, and no sooner had she thought this then one of the Trent brothers took up position by the guards at the gate. He was pointing beyond the wall, an action visible only by the pale light of the moon on his hands against the black and crimson of his uniform. It was not Illian, at least. Her brief relief vanished when her eyes began to piece together the form of the thing he pointed at.

A monster.

Even at such a distance, even hearing only the tread of its paws and the clink and drag of what might have been chains, she could already sense the dread magic the beast emitted. Death. Rage. Evil.

Her breath caught in her throat. Its head was visible now, a darker stain against the night, black enough that she would have thought she was looking at a Zara if the moonlight had not reflected off of its scales like starlight in the sky above, glinting and dancing as the great beast moved. Two cruel horns peeled away from its massive reptilian head, curving away from two bright golden eyes. It curled its sinewy neck higher to survey the path before it, perhaps determining how best to maneuver its massive body around the edge of the gate. Then it turned towards her, or at least towards the tower in which she stood, wings half spread so that the bones between their black membranes were clearly visible.

Dragon.

Before its tail had rounded the corner, Cevora had already backed away and snapped the shutters closed against the chill night air and the hateful magic of the dragon. She had seen its kind before; the king made no secret of the dragons who had joined his cause. But no dragon had ever filled her with so much fear.

Her hands were already draping the heavy cloak over her shoulders, firmly pulling the clasps down the front and drawing a dark bag from her bedside. It was time for her to leave the castle, time she followed in the path of her deceased mother and rallied the support of the inhabitants of the Issurak forest. Illian would hear of her disappearance. Perhaps he would comb the nation in search of her. Maybe he would even think to search deep in the heart of the Issurak, but he would not find her. Never. She could not put him in danger now – if he had to choose between her and the king, she was afraid she knew who he would choose, and they were both beyond the age now where they would be forgiven for acting against the interests of their srinn.

Striding purposefully to the far wall, she hesitated as she passed a beautiful mirror, shimmering in the shadows at her bedside. It was the final gift her mother had left to her, and her eyes strayed to it with a deep and painful longing. When she traced a finger slowly around its rim, it was with the gentle yearning of one saying farewell to their most dearly beloved object.

Everything was in place, whether her father and Illian realized it or not. For years Cevora had seeded resistance within the council. When he finally moved against the beasts, the king would find at least three of his pampered selurnal kivgha – the dragon knights – gone; they had been easy enough to turn to her allies as her father became increasingly hardline against the existence of the dragons. He would find that the north no longer cared for his plans, and several of the larger cities in the west would refuse to supplies to his armies...whatever love remained between them, the time when either she or her father could protect one another had long since ended. Now her life hung tenuously in the balance between war and peace.

As Cevora turned and fled down the spiral stairs of the tower, the way ahead of her felt very dark indeed.

Two turns, a final quarter twist to the right. Voices echoed up from the base of the staircase. There were two guards positioned there, no doubt, to protect the sole entrance to the room of their kuirsrinn, and to keep watch over her movements. In the darkness of the staircase, Cevora closed her eyes a moment, taking a deep breath, remembering. She might have to leave her final task incomplete, abandoning the question that had haunted her through her childhood; where had the queen been headed on the night of her death? Maybe - but not without one last try.

Cevora turned sharply to the wall, placing the palm of her hand against the cold stone and demanding in a hushed voice, “Take me to the forest.” The dark stone and mortar grew warm as cracks spidered away from her outstretched palm, each glowing with an unearthly crimson light as they had spread into a great labyrinthine spiral whose center wavered and blurred and then vanished. It left an open, but very narrow hallway descending through the walls of the castle. Offering silent thanks, she slipped into the hallway and waited to move on until the wall behind her sealed completely.

None of the guards could follow her here. This path existed only for those who had overcome the Trials.

In the darkened hallway, she turned her hand palm up to stare at the bloody lines engraved in her flesh – the same labyrinthine pattern as had appeared on the wall – as they faded slowly. This was an ancient blood magic, one she rarely appreciated so much as tonight.

The passage Cevora wanted was nearby. She had used it enough times that the pitch-blackness of the hallway should not have kept her from finding the patch of wall where the stone was worn smooth by the centuries, and yet, for the first time, her hands shook as she searched. It was five long minutes before the blood still plastered wetly on her palm caused the rock to part before her. With a gravelly sigh and a gust of warm, spice-scented air, her way was open. A smile touched Cevora’s lips as her eyes narrowed in the brighter interior of the space beyond the hidden corridor.

Before her lay the queen’s bedroom. It was just as she remembered it – clear of clutter but gorgeously upholstered. The walls were a soft, eggshell marble and the floor the most beautiful, polished rosewood she had ever seen. A floor-length mirror – one of the great riches of Alti – leaned against one wall. There were tapestries hung along the otherwise bare walls, great tapestries woven with the tales of the centuries.

Yes. The queen had loved legends, and stories, and the magnificent history of the Sister Isles, as Alti and Atlantis were sometimes. How her mother must have yearned to live within those tales as times grew darker for men and beasts. Over time, her stories had become darker and colder as well. Cevora remembered. How could she forget? One day, the stories of the lasting friendship between men and beasts, and the great dragon srinn, had ended. Her mother had spun tales of blood instead – the cursed sword and the wars between the beasts of earth and sky and heavens, the pacts with the vampires and the hymns of the Zara.

But those were memories for another time.

Now Cevora stood very still, at the junction between dark passage and warm room, eyeing the great rosewood trunk at the end of the queen’s bed. It could not be opened without a key. There was a charm carved into its wood – imperviousness to anything that could open or destroy it, most especially magic. But the key was gone, lost when her mother was lost. Cevora had stood on that threshold a thousand times considering the chest just as she did now. It was possible, she thought, that her father had as well. It was the one space shared between them. The loss of her mother, anymore, was the only thing they had in common.

But today, something was different. Today, for an instant, she felt that she was not alone in the familiar room, and the moment she stepped over the threshold to look for someone inside, the walls of the castle began to shake. Cevora stumbled back, grasping at the rough stone behind her as the walls swayed dangerously back and forth. All around her, the light channels carved into the stone flickered. And then, before her eyes, the floor-length mirror toppled. She started forward, as if she could catch it. Magic would not work, not on a mirror, but it weighed too much for her, even if she could have reached it in time.

And she was too far away for that.

With a crash, the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces on the rosewood floor. As suddenly as it had begun, the tremors that shook the solid walls of the castle ceased. Cevora sank slowly to her knees. It was clear from the dark light in her green eyes that this was not what she had wanted to leave behind. After several long seconds, however, a new light came into her eyes. She stood slowly, taking a few trembling steps towards the mirror. Something gleamed among the shards of broken glass, the end of a tapered rod that had clearly been crafted with incredible skill.

Cevora sifted carefully through the glass to pull the rod loose from the surrounding frame of the mirror, and raised it slowly to the light. In her hand, nestled perfectly along the pale lines of her palm, was a dark little key interlaced with swirls of gold and silver and set with a single chip of rosewood.

Heart beating faster in her disbelief, Cevora hurriedly turned to the chest, thrusting the key into the dark lock and gasping as it turned and clicked. Without so much as a touch, the lid flew open. There was so little within. A piece of rolled parchment with her name etched into the seal, a few old books and padded winter blankets. But there was no time for her to wonder what it all was; someone would be coming soon to discover her and the broken mirror, together. So Cevora snatched up the parchment in one hand, sliding it into the confines of the dark bag at her side, then slammed the lid of the chest shut, locking it almost simultaneously. She kept the key with her, sliding it into the bag with the paper, as she ran back into the darkness of the passage and begged the wall to close without a trace behind her once more.

There was no more time to waste. She broke into a run as she descended deeper into the castle, and did not stop when her path leveled off, the air growing colder and danker and the sound of motion overhead telling her that she was beneath the roads of Altiannia. On and on she ran, through darkness and still more darkness, until, miraculously, she stood at the top of a stairwell at the borders of the Issurak forest and her home. Her eyes brightened as she gasped for breath, dancing as they slid across the world she had so successfully escaped into. Her gaze was drawn inevitably up and up to the heights of the enormous trees. Though she had seen them all her life, they had never seemed so large or so imposing as they did in that moment, when she was fully prepared to march alone into their depths.

When she turned, the magnificent castle that had towered over her since the day she was born stretched endlessly to the deep black of the sky above, its uppermost towers nestled among the twinkling stars. Water from the river roared in a roiling, splashing crescendo passed her turned back, sending a cold spray against the cloth of her gown and beading against the pale skin of her legs. This was the moat of the grand castle, surrounded on one side by the rolling green hills of farmland, on another by the hundreds upon hundreds of houses visible from the central city as Alti, and on the last, bordered by the earth beneath her feet and the great Issurak forest.

Cevora had never been welcome in the Issurak. Her mother had been, once, before her death, but that…had been a long time ago. Cevora calmed herself with another slow breath. Dragons could at least be reasoned with, unlike the king. Once past the borders of these trees, perhaps she would be safer than she had been for years.

And so, she turned and began on her way, aware that as the shade of the trees stole over her, the eyes of the king and the ever-watchful castle at her back grew blind. In their stead, there were the eyes of the beasts. All of them. In the distance a wolf howled, then another, carrying the song for several moments before it died once more in the hush of the night. Around her, the trees whispered, greetings or threats she did not know, but every now and then they seemed to shift just enough for the light of the moon to penetrate to the forest floor. In the light, she fancied she saw ghosts and spirits and stranger things pointing her path.

Cevora clutched more tightly at her cloak. The farther she walked, the more she could feel the throb of magic all around her. The air buzzed with it, reeked of it, and in the darkness of the shadows, it almost took shape. Straightening her back, she stared defiantly into the darkness, but her shivering gave her away. Never in her life had she been so alone.

It seemed hours that she traipsed silently through the leaf litter, wincing at each cracked twig, shivering when she felt the cold chill of the wind or the harsh scratch of a low hanging branch on her skin. Occasionally, the softer night sounds were broken by something louder and more sinister – a shriek or cry or earth-shaking rumble – but then the chill hush would descend again. Soon, she could no longer make out the canopy of the trees overhead, but she could tell that things moved above her. Living things. Sometimes, she was certain she saw the glimmer of an eye, the reflection of the moon off of a talon or tooth. She shivered.

It could be…

A deep rumble in the trees froze her in her steps, but she stood all the straighter for it, throwing her strength into her shoulders and refusing to look behind her. She stared straight ahead instead, sea green eyes narrowing slightly as she set her jaw and readied her magic at the tips of her fingers. Moments passed. They were soundless, empty moments that left her pride to smolder unchallenged in the cool breeze. When nothing appeared before her, Cevora continued on again, her footsteps tracing a fine path through the leaves. However much she might want to, she did not dare use her magic. The beasts of the forest would surely sense it – a fatal mistake.

Then the grating rumble came again, followed by a grumbling snort, and she halted once more, ears straining against the silence. The wind picked up all of a sudden with the passage of some invisible creature through the trees, and faded just as quickly. Harried by what she could not see, Cevora found herself hurrying to her left, stopping first behind one massive tree, then another, always keeping her back to solid wood. A hush had descended over the woods – that of prey and predator, locked in the dance of life and death.

Cevora finally stopped, breathing heavily, and peered cautiously around the edge of the massive tree. Her eyes widened for the second time that long night.

The space between trees had been filled, completely, by a beast so stunning she could do nothing but stare. Its bony skull was reminiscent of the great dinosaurs of ages passed, its horns golden crescents in the night. Just as striking was its color; an opalescent, silvery white, the glimmer of a hundred thousand arrow-sharp scales beneath the milky glow of the moon. This, too, was a dragon, but a dragon that instilled in her more respect than fear, and more the sense of raw power than of unfettered cruelty. It was a dragon, in short, of a different sort than the one she had seen at the castle gates.

Sensing her attention, the beast turned slightly, head lowered as its golden eyes unfocused, broad nostrils spread to draw in the scents of the forest. It was hunting by magic, something she had only ever heard of in her mother’s tales. The great dragon ceased to move then, the gold gleam of its eyes revealing the path of its stare.

It saw her.

Several moments passed as neither woman nor dragon dared move. Then, mustering what remained of her courage, Cevora slipped from behind the tree into plain view. Her eyes remained riveted to the beast that held her life in its golden gaze. Very calmly, with the sense of two extraordinarily intelligent eyes boring into her skull, Cevora gathered the edges of the dark fabric of her cloak and attempted a graceful bow. She remained with her eyes averted and head held low for several long seconds, and was rewarded with another husky snort.

“I greet you, great dragon, as the princess of Alti, Cevora Eldoreia Altin.”

The dragon eyed her for another long moment, and then began to maneuver its body so that it could stretch out broadly, in the manner of one of the feline beasts of the mountains. Cat-like, it stared down at her, great paws crossed and neck arched. The tip of its tail twitched gently back and forth.

“I greet you, Princess, as srinn of beasts. I will go by the name of Etrion.”

The dragon’s speech was as much in Cevora’s mind as it was a mixture of curious chirps and growls and strange movements that might have fallen unremarked to a human less adept at reading them. The creature regarded her a moment longer, eyes bright with some emotion that she could not name, and then fluttered its wings. That was the equivalent, Cevora sensed, of a smile.

“What is your purpose here, human? Has not Altiannia forsaken this forest and forbidden our kind from interacting with yours? This forest, the Issurak – our sanctuary, in your tongue – will not kindly allow passage to your kind.”

Cevora considered the dragon for a moment, heart racing despite her outward calm.

“Etrion srinn, it is as you say. The king plans to destroy your forest.” Etrion snorted, a deep rumble issuing from the dragon’s slightly open jaws, and Cevora became aware of the massive white teeth that lined every inch, it seemed, of the creature’s maw. It lowered its head until they were nose to nose. She could smell its hot breath, acrid and slightly smoky, against her face, feel its honey-gold eyes searching her expression. She could sense when it released her from its gaze as well, pulling away as if either satisfied or suddenly disinterested.

“Your king and your council plan many things. But I suppose you take after your mother. I had expected you to come sooner.”

Cevora stared at the dragon levelly for a long moment, apparently unsure what to say. The beast had the patience of the mountain cats as well. No sound passed between them until Cevora finally said, “I desire a land where men and beasts can live together in peace, Etrion srinn. I wish to protect this land of Alti, no matter what it might cost me. I would have come sooner, but the king…my father, tried to protect me, by keeping me from all of this.”

The dragon smiled again, twisting one long talon in the earth. “You, too, will someday learn what it is to love your young as your father does his, human. You will understand the man you renounce, the mistakes that he made…and you, too, will make mistakes. The king seeks his own peace, through destroying us, just as you seek yours. Peace takes many forms. You claim that you would pay a cost you do not understand. Nonetheless, you speak bold words.” The creature lowered its silvery head slightly once more, fixing her with its predatory gaze.

“I will tell you something, princess. There will be war soon, and you will want with all your heart to end it and bring your peace, but no end will come for you. This war will last for many hundreds of human years, until your life and your kingdom are forgotten tales, dust upon the winds of time. Many creatures will die, many never realizing that in this, they are but shadows. There will be humans among them. This the Sight tells me…”

Cevora forced a smile, but her eyes were shadowed. It was clear that she felt, for just a moment, the full weight of the dragon’s hopeless confession. This beast was powerful in ways she could not have imagined.

“Do you know what it is to stand against your srinn, human?” the dragon continued into her silence, “It is not an easy thing, even when one does not share blood with the one they would destroy. You would kill your king, though not by those weak hands of yours; you would deal him death from the shadows. You can cast away that dark cloak about your shoulders, but to have murdered your kin…that cannot be cast away.”

Cevora’s shoulders tensed, and she averted her eyes momentarily before again looking squarely at Etrion. “I will do this,” Cevora stated. The creature huffed appreciatively.

“So you shall.”

The dragon raised its head then, standing slowly. “Your mother seemed very sure all things would come together only in the final moments, and in this she was not wrong. You will have my final clutch, human, to ride with you into battle.”

“Final?” Cevora repeated uncertainly.

“Yes,” the dragon srinn growled softly, flexing the massive muscles at the edges of its wings. Cevora could not help but see the faint glitter of respect in the great beast’s eyes. “Final. That night, I told Tiavell not to follow the path she chose, but what is a human but a being unable to follow the advice of good wisdom?”

“Where was she going?” Cevora questioned softly, her eyes holding the dragon’s.

“The Sacred City Libertia.”

“What did she hope to find there?” Cevora asked, hoping the dragon knew. The beast huffed what appeared to be a chuckle, tail still twitching bemusedly.

“An ancient blade of legend, left in the keeping of those who have been called men by beasts and beasts by men. I’ll leave you with the same words I left to her that night – continuing on to that city as you are now will spell only death for you.”

“I will go anyway,” Cevora stated firmly, “because I am the kuirsrinn and, one day, srinn of Alti. I do not fear death, Etrion Srinn, nearly so much as I fear the suffering I will endure if I fail.”

The dragon merely regarded her for a moment longer, and then shifted its weight to stand, revealing ten spherical eggs, nestled like massive pearls amidst the leaf litter.

“Dragons are strange creatures by the standards of your kind, Cevora. Humans seem not to realize that a dragon left alone is only half a beast. We require each other, as men do, as wolves do…left alone, our kind agonize as they fall into insanity. Though men are fragile, they are not weak, and there is no dragon that does not respect strength. So it is that, given the chance, we grow attached. You are like children to us…fragile, powerful, boasting children, unpredictable, interesting, and singularly charming. I wish for my young that they will find company among your kind, and learn that however different we may be, we are to each other like the moon is to the sun…an inevitable companionship that brings light to even the deepest darkness.”

The dragon moved close to her again, and snorted softly so that a gust of searing wind rustled her hair. “I have watched you for a very long time, little one. I saw your birth from afar, though with the eyes of a dragon it seemed not so. I waited for this day, knowing it would forever change the path your life will take. Six months you have to raise these dragons well. If you do not give them armor, they will be smaller and more maneuverable than the king’s dragons so long as they keep to the skies.”

Cevora nodded numbly, taken aback by Etrion’s sudden familiarity. As if sensing her feelings, the dragon touched her shoulder gently with its great muzzle and, hesitantly, she reached up to touch the smooth expanse of its scales. Her hand was dwarfed in the immensity of the dragon’s head. Even all the kivgha of Alti, surely, could not kill such a creature.

“Do not think, human, that because your kind do not heed the laws of power as the beasts do, or because they separate themselves from our sanctuary, they are not also merely beasts themselves. I cannot understand a human’s heart, nor their desires, but their soul stands before me so much the same as any beast’s; it lives and wanders, seeks and suffers. If we share no other desire but one, it would be that your mother yet lived.”

Etrion shifted away from her then, eyeing the eggs one final time, before rumbling, “This one alone is not mine.” The dragon ducked its head for a moment to touch one of the eggs, golden eyes betraying no emotion. “It knew a brother once, but he became a demon and was banished. Its fate is uncertain, but it has no place among our kind. May it find one among yours.”

The beast was already turning away as it spoke, fading as its luminescent scales gleamed with the sparse moonlight filtering through the trees. Then, by some trick of ancient magic, it spread its wings and was gone, vanished into the surrounding forest as if it had never been.

Cevora knelt and picked up the egg Etrion had indicated. It was larger than the others, and darker in color. She did not know what to make of the warning Etrion had given her, but she would decide later. For now, her fingers found the disguised pouch at her side that held the key and parchment, and she drew it open and placed the eggs in, one by one, as it expanded to carry them all. As the dark fabric sewn over the pouch stretched, she could see the silvery material below, the spelled cloth that made its contents weightless so long as someone fed it magic. Tonight, that would be her.

With the eggs safely stowed away, she stood and stared for a while at the space where Etrion srinn, king of beasts, had vanished. Then, she turned with the eggs in the silvery bag, cold and slick against her skin, and began walking far away from the Grand Castle of Altiannia. She would never return, but her expression was far from sadness. Rather, her eyes were riveted ahead, her soft, booted steps uncertain but quick and determined. Every now and then her eyes would flit to the eggs in the pouch at her hip, until it seemed their presence weighed more heavily on her than the shadow of the castle at her back.

And perhaps that was not so strange. She understood the consequences of her actions. She understood what it was that she fought for…not quite peace. No. The safety of her subjects. That was what she hoped to win.