"No that can't be right," Callum protested, "I've been doing magic all this time. I wasn't in any danger."
"What kind of spells have you performed so far?" the dragon enquired, its fire a green volume.
Callum thought for a moment. He only knew two spells: Aspiro and Fulminis. He told the dragon as such. The dragon nodded as if it already knew.
"You have not cast Fulminis since you connected to magic, only Aspiro," it wasn't a question more of a statement.
Callum thought back and realised he had casted magic only three times without the primal stone, first to test the magic, once to help Zym fly and the last to show Sol Regem. Everytime he had used Aspiro. He nodded.
"Fulminis alters the nature of the wind somehow to form destructive forces," he wasn't a Storm dragon, he had no idea how they made their lightning. "For a being with an Archanum, the Archanum bears the force and makes it safe for usage. For a being with a primal stone, the primal stone acts as an Archanum would and bears the power. A human with neither is burnt to a crisp," said the dragon. Rayla was horrified. When she tranlated for Callum, he felt his blood run cold. He was starting to get the gist of the dragon's fire, but couldn't be certain of his hazy interpretation. When he heard his suspicions be confirmed, he was terrified with the realisation that he had been so close to death.
"I had mistook you in the beginning for a human who had formed an archanum, I was afraid of what this could mean and why I thought to kill you. But as I looked closely I could see you have no such thing. Any volatile magic performed by you will have unpredictable results and will likely destroy you. Many of your ancestors fell to the same cause. We dragons, are outsiders to humans and only heard rumours of such humans perishing. You are the first human I have personally met who has created a bridge to the primal sources."
"Humans have always been enamoured with power, and that power ended up destroying them eventually," the dragon sighed, "Even dark magic has its cost. It is a magic of destruction, it not only destroyed the magical creature but also the dark mage, little by little, so subtly they didn't even realise how the magic was corroding them. Elves weren't above the temptation of greater power either and neither are we dragons, I believe. None can escape the allure of power, eventually all fall prey to it, it is inevitable."
A thought suddenly occured to Callum, "Were there elves who tried to do dark magic?"
"How can you ask such a question, Callum. Of course we'd never do such a thing." Rayla was incensed Callum would even suggest such a thing.
The dragon didn't immediately confirm or deny the possibility, he looked deeply at Callum.
"Yes," he breathed eventually. Rayla couldn't believe it.
"That's impossible. We elves hold life as most sacred. There is no way there would be a dark mage amongst us." Rayla protested vehemently.
"The elf was called Aaravos," a scarlet flame erupted from the dragon's maw.
Rayla had never heard of this name.
"Aaravos," the name was familar to Callum. The magical cube he had was called 'the key of Aaravos' in his dad's letter. He took it out of his bag. The sun rune, which had been shining dimly in the bag, glowed bright as it pointed towards Sol Regem.
The dragon looked at the curious object.
"Rayla, in the letter my dad wrote to me, he meant for me to have this cube. He left it in the Banther Lodge for me. He called it the 'key of Aaravos'. He said it had been passed down through the generations and could open a treasure in Xadia" Callum explained. The dragon's eyes widened when it heard the name. Rayla was repulsed to think they had been travelling with the belonging of a dark elf.
"Let me see that object," the dragon rasped.
Callum quickly placed the object in front of the dragon. Sol Regem looked closedly at the small cube. He used his magic to probe it, but all that happened was that the sun rune glowed brighter. His magic couldn't penetrate the cube at all. He couldn't see any joints or openings either. The dragon placed a foot on it and exerted a little pressure. He then slowly increased the pressure until he had placed his entire weight on it. The cube deformed slightly but when he stepped off it, it returned to its original shape. The dragon then placed the cube in his mouth and tried to crush it in his jaws. His teeth penetrated the cube but when he opened his mouth, the cube returned to normal. Getting slightly annoyed, he flew away to a distant mountain. Callum and Rayla heard a distant boom some time later and the dragon returned with the cube, which looked unscathed when he dropped it on the ground.
"This cube has been imbued with eternity," the dragon explained, "it cannot be opened or destroyed while the magic is in affect. Aaravos was a startouched elf, he was proficient in the eternal aspect of the stars. This item must have been important to him, its not easy to make something eternal. It is most likely a key, but to what I don't know. Keep it for now and present it to the Dragon Queen when you meet her," Sol Regem adviced. He silently considered exactly why the elf had made it and why the cube had been in the hands of the humans for so long. Did Aaravos have some connection to the human dark mages? He thought of the missing mirror, and suddenly he feared there might some kind of plot no one had expected.
Callum marvelled at the possibilities of magic. But he soon felt despondent when he realised even though he had believed he had opened the doors to magic, he could not step through. 'What was the point of all this?', he suddenly questioned. Why were they going to the trouble of going to Xadia, how could his magic represent hope for reconciliation between the two sides if he could not even use it. When he presented his question to Sol Regem, the dragon sat down and seemed to consider his words for a while.
"I have been thinking about the relationship between the humans and we magical creatures for a long time. Some of us believe that humans are inherently evil. I don't think that is true. I believe we are more similar than we are dissimilar. It is hard for me to understand the human perspective, being a dragon. It's my conjecture however that there cannot be peace until humans can stand side by side with us magical creatures. So long as we are stronger because of our magic, humans will seek magical power however they can acquire it. It may have started with a few humans who saught power, but now because of the fear and hatred that has accumulated, humans will never give up dark magic and there can be no reconciliation until then."
Hearing Rayla's translation, Callum found himself agreeing. Dark magic was the root of the entire problem. It was as Sol Regem said, humans would never give up power so long as the enemy had it.
"After I met you, I saw a different path. What if human's didn't have to do dark magic to do magic? What if all along we had been fighting the wrong battle? What if we had helped those few humans who forged their own paths and found a way for them use their magic without it destroying them? I feel, the lands of Xadia would be a much different place today if we had acted differently so long ago," the dragon concluded.
Rayla was considering the implications of what the dragon was suggesting. He seemed to want to arm the humans with magic. She translated for Callum, who thought the dragon's thinking was very unique.
"If we had given humans an alterntive to dark magic, things wouldn't have progressed to the point where all of humanity lives in the banished borderlands, and humans and Xadia consider each other to be enemies," the dragon lamented.
"Is it too late?" Callum asked. The dragon didn't answer. It looked off into the distance.
"I don't know," he responded, his fire grey and lifeless.
They remained silent for a while. Callum had a question he'd been wondering for a long time.
"Sol Regem, I still don't understand why you would choose to help us humans," he admitted.
Sol Regem looked at the human. He didn't speak right away.
"We of the dragon race are naturally aloof, we don't usually spend much time with others, storm dragons are an exception. Dragons took an interest in humans after some dark mages hunted a dragon for their foul dark magic. We were enraged. If it wasn't for the elves, we dragons would have destroyed all humans. I felt I needed to learn more about these humans. I started living near a human settlement and observed them for a long time. They were a peaceful bunch. They were very loving towards one another, no different from the elves or the dwarfs. I realised that there were those among them who saught power, but that wasn't all there was. They were curious, playful, wonderous beings. They had only a short time but lived fulfilling lives. A human in their short life experienced more than I did in a thousand years." the dragon remarked.
Seeing Callum's surprised expression, he added, "I tend to sleep a lot."
"Oh." Callum wondered exactly how long Sol Regem slept for.
"I think humans have a lot of potential. I wish to see a time in Xadia when all races live together in harmony," Sol Regem said.
Rayla nodded. Callum too agreed with the dragon's sentiment.
Zym woke up and the party decided to proceed. They got on the dragon's back and left for the Dragon Queen's palace.