by Andi Van
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Emlynn asked softly.
“I don’t know,” Josephina said again, righting the blankets that had been tossed in the excitement. She put a hand to Tasis’s forehead briefly, then shrugged, her face sad. “He doesn’t have a fever, so it’s not that. I wish there was a way to figure out what was going on.” She looked at the crowd and frowned before pointing a finger at Yldost. “And who in the Maker’s name are you?”
The dragon, still in their other form, pointed to themself as they gave her a surprised look. “You do not recognize me?”
“She hasn’t seen you like this yet,” Jorget reminded them before addressing Josephina. “It’s just Yldost. But in regard to figuring out what’s going on, Nabiha, Em, and I have been poring over the library to see if we could find anything. No such luck yet, but we’ll keep trying.”
Zaree sighed to herself. If anyone could find an answer in that library, it was Nabiha, but she was losing patience. She glanced over at Tasis and yelped when she saw his eyes wide open. “Josephina!”
The old elf practically threw herself at Tasis to get a close look at him, but she hissed in pain when her hand touched him. “He’s on fire,” she exclaimed, waving her hand in an effort to cool it. “And I’m not sure that’s a figure of speech. He’s too hot to touch.”
“And he looks stiff as a board,” Jorget said in a tone that sounded far too much like someone watching an experiment to her liking. “Rin too. And his eyes are open as well.”
“Is he breathing?” Zaree asked, panic in her voice, before placing herself at the bedside next to Josephina. “He doesn’t look like he’s breathing.” She reached out despite Josephina’s cry of warning and touched the side of her brother’s face.
He relaxed immediately, breathing deeply before his cloudy eyes met hers. “Mother?” he asked in a whisper.
Then his eyes closed again, and his breathing returned to normal. A glance at Rin told Zaree that the familiar had relaxed as well. “If you’ve just seen Evina, I hope she gives you a swift kick for scaring me like that,” Zaree said, not dropping her hand. Tasis’s skin lost its unnatural heat under her touch until it felt normal again. Only then did she turn to look at Jorget. “I need you to figure this out. Is there anything we can be doing to help you?”
“It’s just going to take time,” Jorget told her, glancing at Nabiha.
The young woman gave him a small, tremulous smile and nodded. “I’ve mapped out the most likely sections of the library,” she told Zaree. “Even if every single one of us were looking right now, it would take time. Aldris has been helping us, as has Daro.”
“I can help,” Yldost said. “It will be easier now that I’ve regained my other form. I might recognize some of the older books.” They cocked their head to one side, brow wrinkled in contemplation. “Has anyone tried the dreamscape?”
“Yes,” Emlynn confirmed. “But we’ve seen no sign of him.”
“We’ll keep looking, though,” Nabiha reassured everyone. She glanced at Emlynn and made a small motion toward the door. Emlynn nodded, and Nabiha cleared her throat. “We should go back to the library,” she said. “And try to figure this out. Let’s leave Tasis in peace.”
The others left, though Zaree made no motion to clear the room. She, like Josephina, stayed where she was. When Yldost went to follow, Zaree grabbed their shoulder. “Wait,” she said. “I want to talk to you about something.”
Yldost stopped and looked over their shoulder at her. “What is it?” they asked, sitting on the floor next to the bed to look up at her.
She nearly reminded the dragon that they could use one of the chairs in the room, but let it go. She took a moment to gather her thoughts, then tried to put them to words. “You said once that you killed Gisik.”
“Yes,” Yldost agreed with a nod. “He was dying when I was trapped. Why?”
“But he came back to life.”
“Yes,” the dragon said again. “Though I had not been aware of this. Vashk… wanted to give me time to adjust, I think. It is difficult for me. Things have changed very much. Words are… different. It makes it hard for me to explain or understand. The world is different, as well. And I myself am… different from how I used to be. It is a lot of change. And then….” Yldost made a mournful sound in the back of their throat, and their wings wrapped around them in what was clearly an effort to comfort themself. “Onai. Our mother’s daughter was everything that was good in the world, and such a sweet child. Mischievous, but her heart held nothing other than love.”
“How does Gisik come back?” Zaree asked. “And where does he go when he dies? Do you know?”
Yldost made another noise, though this one sounded more frustrated than anything. “His….” Yldost slapped their chest and frowned, staring at Zaree as if hoping she’d know what they were talking about.
“His heart?”
Yldost shook their head, frowning. “Not physical.”
“His soul?” Josephina suggested.
A noise of triumph this time, and Yldost pointed at Josephina. “Yes. That.”
“Okay,” Zaree said. “What about his soul?”
“It… goes away? A place like Rin’s, but different.”
It was Josephina’s turn to look confused, and she pursed her lips as she tried to make sense of it. “Are you talking about a different plane?”
“Yes,” Yldost answered happily. “But a different one. They are not all the same.”
“So we’d gathered,” Zaree said. “So he came back after a very long time, just to kill Onai? Why Onai?”
Yldost hummed softly for a moment, obviously contemplating their answer. “Daughters like Onai are very important,” they said. “Our mother has only one daughter on each of her creations. Vashk was trying to explain it when the screaming started. Dragons… our anatomy does not play a role in our identities, because we do not procreate in a way that would make sense to you. We do not give birth from within our bodies, so we do not have things decided for us based on this. We have a biological sex, yes, but that has never limited us. We, the dragons, are the gender we wish to be. And while our mother may have other children who are of female gender, there is always only one daughter.”
“Okay,” Zaree said slowly. “I’m confused. Is this is based on a gender identity and not a physical indicator? Because that’s not what I understood from Vashk. If it’s based on gender, how does the Maker know who the next daughter is? And why only the one?”
Yldost raised an eyebrow at her. “When did you come to understand that you were not a boy?”
Zaree’s face heated with embarrassment, but she’d earned the response by asking a stupid question. She’d always known. Likely any dragon was aware of their gender at a young age as well, given that it sounded as though they weren’t forced to conform.
“The daughters are cisgender as far as I know. But in this case, if they weren’t, it would be easy to tell because the daughters are like our mother,” Yldost continued, paying no mind to Zaree’s discomfort. “Creators. But they cannot create worlds. They create… on the world, and within it. Having more than one would cause conflict.”
“Conflict like Gisik?”
Yldost hummed again, and they folded their wings behind them. “Yes, but no. Infighting among dragons is… dangerous. You have an idea of why from Gisik. Now imagine that fight to be on a single world instead of across all the worlds. If the two creators are not in perfect sync, what do you think would happen?”
“Another Gisik would be born,” Josephina said softly. “One or both of them would become as dark and twisted, and there would be another source of chaos.”
Yldost chirped happily. “You are very clever.”
“I am very old,” Josephina corrected, though she gave the dragon a fond smile and reached down to pat their head.
“Okay, this all kind of makes sense,” Zaree said. “We’ll make Vashk finish his story after this. But, Yldost, how long does it take for Gisik to be
reborn?”
“It… is not always the same. Time is not constant on all planes.”
The hint of an idea that had begun forming in Zaree’s mind grew stronger at that admission, and Zaree sat next to them and leaned close. “So if, after he killed Onai, he went to a plane that had a faster pace to its passage of time, he might have come back within years instead of millennia?”
“I suppose it is possible,” Yldost agreed, leaning against Zaree. The dragon certainly did seem to enjoy having physical contact, but that may have been a result of spending such an unfathomably long time alone. Or perhaps they were always like that. “Why?”
“Is there any way he could have been the one at fault for turning the dead king mad?” And there was the main question, the issue upon which Zaree’s entire theory hinged. If Gisik could be behind the entire mess, then they’d have a better chance of stopping the course of current events before things turned to war. And if Zaree could prevent war, she’d do whatever she had to in order to make it so. Just like Tasis would.
“No,” Yldost said firmly, and Zaree felt her entire theory crumble around her like wet sand. “It is one thing for a dragon to have their people. Like Vashk, with the merfolk and the people of the guild. But influencing a person like you’re suggesting breaks many rules. Many. If Gisik were caught, he would die a thousand deaths, each more painful than the other. Not even Gisik would chance that.”
“Well there goes that idea,” Zaree said with a groan, hunching over and bowing her head in defeat.
“It was a good idea.” Yldost turned their head and stared up at her, so close their faces were almost touching. Zaree held back a laugh. The dragon had no concept of personal space, and they reminded her of a small child when they did things like that. “You are trying to help your brother. Considering something others would not will help you find the answer.”
“I hope so,” Zaree said. “Otherwise….” She shook her head, forcing the thought out of her mind. “Come, let’s go speak to Vashk. Maybe the rest of his story will help.”
“It will not be pleasant,” Yldost warned her as she got to her feet.
That gave Zaree pause. “Do you know what he’s going to say?”
“Not for certain. But I can make multiple guesses, and none of them are things I wish to hear. But if any of them are correct, they are also things I need to hear.” They stood, fluttering their wings a little to settle them into place. “Let us get the unpleasantness over with.”
Zaree turned to Josephina, and she gave them a shooing motion with one hand. “I’ll stay with them,” she promised. “If anything else happens, you’ll be the first to know.”
Zaree nodded and turned to leave but stopped, leaning over the edge of the bed to press her forehead to Tasis’s. “You have to come back to me, little brother. Without you, I’m not whole.” She stayed like that for a moment, then turned, glaring at Josephina and Yldost as though daring them to comment on the fact her eyes were full of tears. When they said nothing, she nodded and left the room, Yldost right behind her.
“I do not understand,” Yldost said as they made their way back to the entrance of the docking cavern. “You are surrounded by people who care about you very much. Why is it Tasis’s absence that makes you feel alone?”
If it had been anyone else asking, the immediate reaction would have been anger. But Zaree knew that Yldost did not ask in order to ridicule her for discounting other people’s feelings. They asked only because they wanted to know. “He is the only person who truly understands me,” Zaree finally said, trying to put words to a thing she had always felt deep down. From the moment she’d met the scrawny, awkward half elf, she’d known he belonged to her.
Yldost didn’t respond. Zaree assumed they were thinking over her answer, but no matter the reason, she preferred the quiet at that moment. She had enough on her mind without having to deal with conversation.
Vashk was waiting for them, along with his tribe of merfolk, when they reentered the cavern they had so recently vacated. That in itself didn’t particularly surprise Zaree, seeing as how they all loved Tasis too. Of course they’d want to know how he was, since it wasn’t like they could go check on him for themselves. When she reached the end of the dock, Yldost still one step behind her, she put her hands on her hips and glared at Vashk. “I want answers. The time for secrets is over.”
Vashk, to her surprise, nodded. “I’ll give them to you. But first, how is he?”
Zaree sighed and sat at the end of the dock, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of panic weighing down on her. “At first he seemed like he was in agony. Then he was so warm to the touch that he nearly scalded Josephina’s hand. Then his eyes were open, though they weren’t focused on anything. He whispered for Evina and then he relaxed again with his eyes shut.”
“He whispered for his mother,” Yldost corrected. “After you touched his face. Why were you able to touch him when Josephina could not?”
“Don’t know,” Zaree said with a shrug. “Maybe he’d already started to cool down. Maybe it was some weird thing particular to elves. Maybe I’m less sensitive to temperatures than Josephina is. It could have been anything.”
“I could make a guess,” Vashk supplied. “But I hesitate to do that, because it would be a guess at best and it’s facts you’re looking for.”
“Let’s stick with facts,” Zaree agreed. “You were telling us about your sister.”
“Onai was everything that was right with the world,” Vashk said sadly, and the mourning in his words settled into her very bones. “She was the daughter. She created beautiful things. Some odd, but all beautiful.”
Odd but beautiful. That struck a note of familiarity within Zaree, reminding her of the gryphon. “Did she create the gryphons?” she asked, though she had a feeling she already knew what the answer was going to be.
“Yes,” Vashk said, confirming Zaree’s suspicion. “I teased her about them, as I recall. I said it looked as if she’d taken two animals and shoved them together. She told me that she’d combined two animals she loved to create an animal she’d love even more. And she did. She loved those beasts to distraction. Why do you ask?”
“You know we met one on the mountain, right?”
Vashk nodded, making the water around him ripple. “Yes, but when you returned there were too many things going on at once for me to ask for the details of your adventure. So all I know is that you managed to keep it from attacking to protect its young.”
“She bowed to me,” Zaree told him. “She bowed and then gave me one of her feathers. Why?”
“Like my answers for why you could touch your brother when Josephina could not, anything I tell you would be a guess. I can make several, but nothing certain.”
Zaree nodded. At least it was an honest answer. “Fine, then. Onai. What happened?”
Vashk glanced at Triv and then looked back to Zaree, and a chill ran down her spine. She had a sudden, horrible idea that she knew what Vashk was going to say, and she didn’t know if she wanted to be witness to it. But she sat, frozen, as the dragon began to speak.
“From what I could tell, Gisik ambushed her. She nearly had him beaten back when I arrived, but he must have seen an opening or she must have slipped up, because the next thing I knew, he’d torn open her chest and ripped out her heart with his bare claws. I attacked, and he ran away. Clearly he’d done what he’d come to do and saw no reason to let me beat on him. Onai was already dead, but her soul still remained near. I picked up her heart from the ground where it had fallen when I attacked Gisik, placed it back in her chest, and pushed her into the water. And then I performed her rebirth. She couldn’t be a dragon again, not if I was the one doing it, but at least she was alive.”
Zaree fought the bile at the back of her throat, silently begging the contents of her stomach to stay where they belonged. She knew. Everything had clicked into place like some child’s puzzle, and she looked at Triv, who was looking up at Vashk, pale and horrified.
“Vashk?” Zaree asked with a shaking voice. “What does triv int aie translate into?”
Vashk looked down at Triv silently for a long moment. “Like most of our language, it doesn’t have a direct translation,” he finally said. “But the nearest thing would be ‘death, forced upon me.’ Onai was telling Trekelm that Gisik murdered her. I’m guessing her mind, human after her rebirth, either blocked the memory or erased it completely.”
“No,” Triv whispered, trembling even as she shook her head in denial.
“I’m sorry,” Vashk said, his quiet voice rolling through the grotto. “I couldn’t let you die. We couldn’t lose our sister.”
“No!” Triv shouted this time and flipped back into the water, disappearing from sight.
Corrin turned to chase after her but paused to look at Vashk. “I can’t hate you for what you did. I wouldn’t have met her otherwise and wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. But you never should have kept this from her, old dragon.”
“I had no choice,” Vashk whispered.
Corrin frowned at him but said nothing, only dove beneath the surface to chase after his wife. The other merfolk followed, keeping a respectful distance.
“Mother told you not to tell her,” Yldost guessed quietly, making Zaree jump. The other dragon had been so silent while Vashk told his story that she’d forgotten they stood directly behind her.
Vashk nodded. “She was not to know. It was the only way to stop Gisik from coming back for her.”
“So then there really is still one of the Maker’s daughters on this world?” Zaree asked.
“No,” Yldost said, plopping down next to Zaree and wrapping their wings around both of them. The feathers were warm, something that surprised Zaree, but it was a pleasant warmth. “Our mother’s daughter died. She was reborn. She is Vashk’s daughter now. Twice over, in fact. Once as a human and once as she is now.”
“That sounds unnervingly incestuous.”
Vashk let out a short, surprised laugh. “I suppose it does, from your point of view. Dragons don’t see it that way. It’s just how things are.”