by Eric Vall
“Hey Gramps,” I sighed with a relieved smile. “I meant to check in sooner, but I didn’t have any time until now.”
“Ah, don’t worry.” Tristan ran a hand through his crimson hair as he shrugged. “I can imagine that rebuilding our city is no easy task. Besides, I’ve all of eternity to spare. So, tell me, why have you sought me out?”
“Where do I even start?” I laughed as I rubbed at the tension in my neck. “There’s people from Leyte here, including another Noble of the Sword.”
“Leyte, you say?” Tristan’s ears perked up straight with evident excitement. “Things really are going back to the way they’re supposed to be.”
“Were Hatra and Leyte on friendly terms?” I asked as I picked up on my grandfather’s happiness. “The Noble of the Sword who came seems to be a decent guy, if a bit of a weirdo. The first thing he did when he met me was challenge me to a fight because he wanted to get to know me better.”
“The Sword of Light and her wielder can always be trusted,” Tristan explained with a slight smile on his face. “I’m not sure why, but there’s always been a bond between the Sword of Light and the Sword of Healing. That bond extended to their wielders and our cities as well.”
“Huh, that’s good to know.” I paused for a moment as I thought back to how I felt around Nikolaus. “I always feel like I can trust him, but I wasn’t sure if it’s my dragon instincts or something more. Sounds like it’s because of the Sword of Healing … ”
“It could be both influencing each other,” Tristan admitted with a shrug. “There’s never been a dragon wielding a Sword that I know of, so I can’t be entirely sure. Besides, the wielder of the Sword of Light is always, for lack of a better word, pure. Light does not deceive with its actions, nor can it hide any sins. To bear the burden of the Sword of Light is to always be honest no matter what.”
“That’s quite a heavy burden to have on someone’s shoulders.” I grew somber at those words.
“Indeed, but!” Tristan shook his head slightly as he stepped forward. “I don’t think that’s the only reason my favorite grandson has come to visit me. I suppose you’re here to pick my brain about something? Just ask away, and I’ll do my best to provide you with an answer.”
“Well, do you know if there were any harpy nests around Hatra?” I tilted my head to the side as I remembered the attack on the orichalcum mine. “Maybe some rather hellish ones?”
“That’s an odd question, why harpy nests?” Tristan frowned as he looked at me. “Are you looking to trade with them or something?”
“No, see, that’s the thing,” I began to explain, “we got attacked by demonic harpies the other day.”
“Demonic harpies attacked you?” Tristan’s eyebrows nearly shot up to his hairline. “There used to be one or two harpy nests in the mountains, but none of them were at all demonic in nature. Are you sure you didn’t meet one of the creatures from the burning hells instead?”
“No, these were definitely harpies,” I replied, and a muscle in my jaw twitched as I remembered their screams. “Something had managed to turn them into demons. We aren’t sure what or even how, but they attacked us with the intent to destroy the orichalcum mine. Thankfully, they didn’t succeed.”
“Did they still have their own minds?” Tristan asked as he began to pace in front of me and tapped his chin in thought.
“That’s the odd thing,” I sighed as I rubbed my face, “their souls were crying out for help, for someone to save them. However they were turned into demons, it wasn’t by their own choice. I think someone was controlling them.”
“Terrifying to think of,” Tristan muttered as he stopped pacing, “they could potentially have an unending army behind them. All they would have to do is replace their soldiers anytime they lost some, unlike us mortals.”
The thought of that kind of army did not please me at all. Demons were bad enough to fight on their own as it was.
“Yeah, so,” I grimaced, “did anyone ever encounter anything like them in the past that you know of?”
“Not demonic harpies,” Tristan replied and leaned against the base of his own statue with his arms crossed over his chest, “but those mountains have always been a little strange.”
“What do you mean by strange?” I asked as I pulled at the marble floor with my power and made some chairs and a table for us to sit at.
“Well, parts of the forest and mountains are supposedly haunted.” Tristan shrugged as he walked over to one of the chairs and languidly sat down in it. “Before Hatra was attacked, I was putting together expeditions to go into those areas. One expedition was completely wiped out, no one ever came back.”
I blinked at the sight of the translucent Tristan sitting down. It was a bit weird since I didn’t realize spirits could sit down. I’d just made the second chair out of habit. Who knew?
“It can’t be the area where the Asuran village was, right?” I sat down with a frown. “If it was there, the Asurans would have pointed the expedition back towards Hatra. Could the expedition have just gotten lost or something?”
I wondered if there were any records of the expeditions down in the library with us, or if they’d been aboveground in the government offices by the Lunar Palace. When I had the chance, I’d have to check in with Julia or Leon to see if anyone had found any documentation in regards to these expeditions. Finding those papers could prove to be helpful in the future.
“No, we have treaties with the Asurans, and they’re under the protection of King Rodion.” Tristan shook his head as he spread his hands on the table. “And even if the expedition had somehow managed to get lost within the forest, there would have been survivors, and we would have been able to track them down. It was as if they completely disappeared, swallowed up by the mists of the mountains.”
“Okay, so what led you to sending out an expedition in the first place?” I crossed my arms over my chest as I leaned back in my chair. “Something pretty serious must have happened. Were people being kidnapped from the city or something?”
“Something like that.” Tristan scowled darkly with those words.
“Wait, really?” I asked as I sat forward in shock. “Who was being taken from Hatra? Was it from within the walls of the actual city or the vassal villages?’
“Children were disappearing,” Tristan’s voice had developed a dark edge as he spoke, “not only from the vassal villages along the forest’s edge, but from within the walls of Hatra as well. Witnesses said they saw the children walking in the direction of the forest, as if they were possessed by some creature that was luring them.”
Red hot anger spiked in me until I paused to think for a moment about why it seemed familiar. They looked like they were possessed? That sounded similar to what the miasma was doing, or, well, being used for. It was possible whoever was using the miasma to control people now had tested it out on Hatra a thousand years ago.
“Sounds like mind control, we think the miasma has been doing that.” I frowned as I tapped my fingers absently on the table between us. “Were there any reports of anything else, anything weird or out of the ordinary? Well, all things considered.”
“Let me think for a moment.” Tristan closed his eyes for a moment and leaned back in his chair. “There was quite a variety of things occurring at the same time. The first that comes to mind is rather a bit morbid. Graves in some of the vassal villages were being desecrated, but no grave within the walls of Hatra was disturbed.”
“Why graves?” I asked, and disgust dripped from my voice. “That’s so strange.”
“My advisors believed the perpetrators were looking for magical ingredients,” Tristan replied with anger burning hot in his eyes. “For what nefarious purpose, we couldn’t be sure.”
What kind of sick person would do that? I was already struggling with my anger at the thought of children being kidnapped by some psycho with potential ties to demons and the miasma, but adding corpse desecration onto that?
Fuck that, they were
definitely a monster.
“But what did they take?” I gritted my teeth as I tightly clenched my fists. “I mean, children were disappearing already. So, were they taking things like the corpses of children?”
“Yes, the corpses of children and of cultivators.” Tristan shook his head, and his fox ears twitched angrily. “And of the cultivators, only those who had borne children were taken.”
“So, what can be done with those types of … ingredients?” I frowned down at my clenched fists. “They were obviously taken for a reason, out of everyone in Hatra and in the vassal villages, children and cultivators were chosen. This isn’t a coincidence.”
“These items could be used for a wide variety of things, all the way from malevolent magic to medicine,” Tristan sighed as his ears went flat on his head. “There’s just too many possibilities for us to be able to understand just exactly what they were after.”
“And these children were never seen again after they went into the forest?” I asked. I was trying to find a clue, but so far the only common denominator was the forest.
“Never again.” Tristan didn’t visibly droop, but the melancholy wafted off him in waves.
I understood why. He had a duty to protect those children, and they’d been taken right under his watch. Worse still, he didn’t even have a chance to take retribution for their deaths and desecration.
“Are there any other clues to go on?” I tried to grasp at the minute details I had at my disposal. “Any direction to go in, anything you can give me?”
Tristan was quiet for one long moment, as if he was recalling a memory. Then his eyes went dark, and he glanced back at me.
“The day we met, Evan, I’d just returned from the forest,” Tristan began slowly, as if he’d almost forgotten the memory. “I’d gone by myself to scout the forest, since it would be easier if I was doing it alone and had no one to distract me. I could easily slip in and out of anywhere with my power.”
“You found something,” I gasped and leaned forward. “There was something that wasn’t supposed to be there in the forest, right?”
“I did.” Tristan’s eyes darkened even further as he stared back at me. “There are some ruins in the mountains, and the legends said they were haunted. But when I say ruins, I expected them to be little more than crumbling stone walls and perhaps one sole remaining tower.”
“But it wasn’t abandoned,” I whispered back as I realized where this was heading.
This was exactly the place we’d been looking for, my gut instinct knew this was the place the demonic harpies had come from.
“You’re right,” Tristan replied as he nodded. “Instead of there being ruins, there was a castle built onto the mountainside, as if it had always been there. I didn’t manage to get inside the castle, but I did meet a strange person there.”
“A person?” My curiosity was piqued by that. Who the hell could have been there?
“A rather odd scholar.” Tristan frowned again, and his ears twitched. “He didn’t give me his name, but he said he worked in the castle. He was startled by my presence but didn’t let it show on his face. I could smell it on him, though.”
A scholar? Shock flared through me as I stared at my grandfather. It couldn’t be … could it actually be Olivier, once again, causing chaos for my people? Living for a thousand years wasn’t that odd in this world, but it was like everything kept coming back full circle to him and his deceit.
“What did he look like?” I clenched my fists tightly, not entirely sure if I hoped the scholar to be Olivier or some other person.
“He had blond hair and pale green eyes,” Tristan replied, “and he wore a leaf shaped pendant in his hair.”
My blood pounded harshly in my ears. It was Olivier. That fucking asshole was here in Hatra, a thousand years ago, and he was involved with the kidnapping of children. The kidnapping of my people.
Killing him would be too merciful.
Chapter 12
“Where’s the castle located?” I asked Tristan as I took in a deep breath.
I was angry, and I wanted to tear Olivier limb from limb for his part in harming my city, but this wasn’t the time for anger. I had to think coldly and cruelly if I wanted to get any justice and revenge for his actions.
“It’s on the edge of the eastern mountain range,” Tristan replied as he lifted his hand up in the air. “I’ll show you.”
A magnificent castle formed in the space between us out of crimson magic. It was much like the schematics the architects had created with their own power. The difference was it wasn’t just a castle that was forming, but the entire mountain range, the forest, and even Hatra.
The castle rose up, almost cradled within the rugged mountain chain, in different levels. It looked like a multileveled fortress with dozens of towers rising into the sky. It was smaller than the Lunar Palace, but larger than the Blue Tree Guild’s airship. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was big enough to house an army of several thousand, if not double that. Knowing how magic was capable of making things bigger on the inside, there could even be an army of thirty thousand in there.
“How far would you say it is from the city?” I asked as I leaned in closer to judge the distance.
“It took me an hour to travel from Hatra to the castle,” Tristan answered as he traced a route between the two locations. “Then again, I was being covert and making sure no one was following me. It should take you less time to get there, especially if you fly.”
I nodded back to him. That was exactly why I’d gone to look at the airships the Blue Tree Guild brought to Hatra with them.
“Go back to sleep, Gramps,” I said and placed a hand on Tristan’s semi-solid shoulder. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“You’re going hunting?” There was a near feral gleam in Tristan’s emerald eyes as he glanced back at me, and the castle disappeared from view.
“Yes,” I murmured as I headed toward the entrance, “there are some rats in the forest, and I’m going to smoke them out. I don’t want our city getting infected by their disease.”
Tristan threw his head back and laughed at that, and in his voice, I could hear the predator in him. He was a fox, and while most people thought foxes could only be wily and mischievous, his laughter proved that wrong. It promised death and blood, and I would be the one to deliver on that promise.
I walked out of the catacombs of the Lords of Hatra and made my way through the underground archives back up to the surface. Once I made it to the top of the stairs and through the door of the library, I could see the rays of an amber sunrise begin to paint splashes of gold across the bluestone buildings of Hatra.
It was morning, and I’d somehow spent the night in the meditation hall and in the catacombs. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel exhausted or anything. Which was perfect since I was supposed to head out on another patrol this morning.
With a sigh, I headed in the direction of the main gate. It was time for me to head out and deal with the stubborn and narcissistic dragon that was Valerra. Maybe today I would be able to convince her to move into the city instead of living out in the canyons.
I snorted at the thought. Yeah, that was wishful thinking. There was no way in hell she had changed her mind after a few days. So, I had to think of a different way to convince her, since logic wasn’t working at all apparently.
I couldn’t lure her into the city with the promise of treasure, I’d already seen her hoard, and it was a mind-blowing product of three-thousand years of work.
Could I lure her with food? Dragons ate, and I enjoyed eating still, even though there were some foods that grated on my heightened senses. But she definitely couldn’t have eaten much beautifully spiced and roasted goat over the past three thousand years. That was definitely something to go on.
Unless, and I doubted this, she hunted and ate the creatures of the desert. Valerra had seemed to be greatly disgusted by the echidnas I’d killed, so maybe she didn’t eat them. I doubted she ate the sand v
ipers either, since she didn’t demand them that one time I’d killed the snakes. Maybe dragons as old as she was just didn’t need to eat anymore or something? Not that I would ever be like that, no matter how old I got to be. The pleasures of life weren’t something I’d ever give up on.
I reached the main gate and glanced around me. There was just enough room for me to shift into my dragon form and fly into the sky, and I did so with relish.
The cool air of morning embraced me and flowed over my scales as I flew over the buildings and walls of my city. When I came to the banks of the river, the rising sun made it seem like the blue waters had changed into molten gold. Everything underneath me, even the walls of the aqueduct system, glowed.
In front of me, the crimson walls of the canyon shimmered from where the morning light also painted them gold. Everything around me was beautiful, as if the gods of this world had decided to come down and ensure all of creation shone with power and beauty.
I wondered if this was one of the after effects of the training I was undergoing, and my heart skipped a beat as I continued to sense everything around me much more deeply than before. It was like I’d gained even more senses, and the ones I already had were multiplied by a hundred times. This was something I’d already experienced once. The first time was when I’d become a dragon after coming from my original world, but this time? It was as if everything around me was alive, every pebble beneath me and every blade of grass growing by the river.
There were strands of power everywhere, power I hadn’t noticed before because it was just outside of the reach of my senses. Now, the blindfolds were beginning to slip loose, and I knew there was still far more for me to uncover and learn how to sense. A part of me wondered if this was how my family and Alyona saw the world, if they saw something this beautiful, too?