Assembly
Chapter 15
"Should you cross the battlefield
Be the sower of guidance, not grief
Lead to futures, not funerals
Strive to enlighten, not enlist.
Encourage hospitality, not hostility
And mete out joy, not jeopardy
For these are the acts of the righteous, given out in goodwill of the gods."
—Proverb plucked from the charred corpse of an ancient grimoire; estimated date somewhere between the 225th dragon age and 378th; author unknown; origins unknown
Capable of warming the entirety of Shiverum Palace with its magical, fuelless blaze, Fiergnar was a gift from the dragons of Smelterbreach—a symbol meant to signify the flames of camaraderie and friendship. It is rumored that should conflict ever be struck between the two cities, the flames would perish alongside their long-standing peace.
What is peace but the space between violent ends, my friends?
The wound in Poetry's leg throbbed, a second heartbeat she could feel under the layers of gauze and bedsheets. There was no pain, thankfully, which told her the painkillers she had been instructed to take weren't, in fact, placebo. But It itched worse than a swarm of nettlewings in the spring. Still, as far as wounds went, this one was bound to give her a nice scar she could show off to the lads in Greywing.
Ancients above. Greywing. The word left a wound worse than any she could feel on her body.
Around her, the pristine soap-colored walls of the Kesmechi Clinic felt a desolate comfort. The air reeked of nothing—sterile tile and utter emptiness. From the corner of her eye, she could make out the vague shapes of others in the beds to the left of her.
One of them was unmistakably Cynder. In the other…
"Daheel," she felt herself say, voice cracking with tightness.
His back was to her, shoulders slumped and tail curled around himself. If he heard her the drake made no sign of acknowledgment.
"Daheel," she tried again, voice quavering.
Nothing.
Tears pricked at her eyes and she tried to shake them with a vehement toss of her head.
"You've no right," she heard her mother say, voice an icy blade.
Aquaria stood at the opposite end of the room, behind her so that Poetry had to crane her neck to look at her. Poetry's leg itched with the movement; leave it to her mother to choose the most uncomfortable place to stand.
"You've no right to feel sorry for yourself," her mother repeated.
Poetry didn't have to meet her mother's gaze to feel the anger in her words, in her tone, in the rigid way she stood—looking down at her, a worm, crawling on the ground. How she hated it when she looked at her like that. This time though, she very much felt the worm.
Still, the annoying twinge in her leg coupled with the recent loss at Mirefall kept the vinegar in her veins. If her mother wanted a fight, godsdammit, Poetry was going to give it to her. She was desperate for it herself.
"You don't know what I feel," she spat.
For a brief moment, Poetry thought she saw surprise flicker across her mother's face, stunned by the sheer vitriol of her words—she hadn't expected them either—before the look quickly morphed into one of anger.
"You're just like Kyberious," Aquaria snorted.
She might as well have slapped her, throwing her father's name out like that.
"Dont," was all Poetry could manage to say after that.
Suddenly she wasn't in the clinic at all, but on a hill with her father gazing at the stars, giving them silly names, and counting the comets. She was in the palace courtyard with Rodunn, her father drilling from the sidelines. She was at a ceremony with her mother as a regiment of Paladins burned her father's cloak for being a deserter.
"Don't you dare," she tried again, the words fracturing in her throat and cutting like glass.
Her mother looked away, whether she felt shame for saying his name or for the mess of a dragon she called a daughter, Poetry couldn't tell.
"Just like him—reckless, stubborn, wool-headed—and I can't always tell if it's a good thing. I'm going to lose you just like I lost him and where will that leave me?" Aquaria went on, looking back at her. "I can't protect you on this. There will be consequences."
Unable to speak or stare her mother in the eye, Poetry looked away. Through the window, she could see that the wind had picked up, the storm they had encountered in The Finger making its way to the city. Ice and snow bristled against the glass, gusting through the pale white branches of the palace Frostwoods, their aquamarine leaves rattling like glass windchimes. Laying there, watching the world through a clear frame, Poetry couldn't help but feel isolated even in a room amongst others; even in a room with her mother.
"Three dragon's died today, Poetry," Aquaria said, startling her with the sound of her name.
"Three?" she croaked.
"Virga'al and Zirin died of their wounds in transit."
Two names. Two names to give to the ocean. Two names to be struck from the ice. She didn't need to ask who the third belonged to; it sat in the base of her throat, choking her every breath.
"I've met with their families, arranged for their bodies to be arrayed with the others for the burial ceremony tomorrow," her mother droned on, saying the words the same way she might have described the weather.
Inwardly Poetry laughed at the irony. Aquaria, regarded as one of the best orators of her time, recited the names of dead soldiers like they were a shopping list to take to the market. It was because no one but her listened. If there had been an audience present she would have put something of a presentation behind it, have the entire crowd rallying before her.
Outwardly, Poetry could only manage a nod, the hurricane of her emotions simmering beneath her scales. Sometimes she had to remind herself that, behind closed doors, Aquaria Gwenyar Kerdaress was a difficult dragon to love.
Suddenly there was a great deal of commotion from the other side of the doors to the room. What sounded like shouts of protests were followed by growls and bouts of turmoil that rattled the tall, quadruple-hinged doors of solid, carven wood.
Then Spyro was practically galloping into the room, a trail of angry and blustering nurses, chaplains, and retainers behind him, and slamming the doors closed with his tail.
She watched his eyes meet hers for a moment, then Aquaria's, before finally coming to rest on the unconscious form of Cynder, huddled beneath an army of wool blankets—the black dragoness still shivered. The cold had not been kind to her, she remembered.
Poetry watched the masquerade of emotions play across Spyro's face before finally settling on something like rage. When his eyes met hers again it took every fiber in her body not to flinch. What stared at her was nothing like what she had seen him express before. It wasn't the heat of anger. And it wasn't the cold of her mother's forced indifference. It was a place of oblivion, of depths unseen, and focus untold. It was the look of a friend that did not recognize her.
She wanted to flee and her body must have realized it too because her leg flared and spasmed beneath the pale linen sheets of her bed covers. Almost frantic, she looked back up to see that Spyro still hadn't made a move closer to her, and whatever emotion he had regarded her with had vanished.
Her spine popped with the sudden release of tension in her neck that had her head tilting away from whatever thing had stared at her from behind Spyro's eyes.
Nevertheless, the look Spyro was giving her now was far from warm.
"I should have known better," he snarled, pacing across the room, past Cynder, past Daheel before rounding back and doing it again.
"Spyro," She began. "I know—"
"Do you?!" he cut in, the words jagged and narrow as they left his lips to leave knives in her scales. "Do you know anything at all? Because I don't think you do."
"I know you love her," she tried again. "I never meant to push her or—or force her."
"But you did it anyway." His eyes were a storm, and for a moment, she thought she could see black swirling in the eddies of his lavender eyes—but when he blinked they were gone.
"We all would have been dead if it weren't for her," croaked a voice on their left. It took Poetry the better half of a second to realize that the voice had belonged to Daheel. Sure footed, laughing, smiling Daheel with a voice like a mountain slide reduced to a husk.
Tears blurred Poetry's vision, making the room around her ripple; she wiped them away before anyone could see.
Daheel appeared to be nursing his own wounds—across his chest, a jagged cut where the creature had cast its claws against him, as well as pockmarked punctures from shrapnel decorated his neck and forelegs—he certainly looked the cadaver.
"She saved our lives out there," Daheel added, the sound of his voice a reminder of the one she would never hear again.
"Daheel,' she found herself whispering, his name a physical thing that tumbled from her tongue.
"It shouldn't have been necessary for them to be saved at all," Spyro rebuked.
The glare he sent Daheel had the lightning in Poetry's veins singing once again, the words that rose in her throat feeling like fresh venom. "She's not some doll you can keep ferried away, Spyro—some damsel to guard. She's quite capable of doing it herself!"
She could hear Spyro's talons leave rents in the tiled floor, feel his breath on her muzzle as he snarled centimeters from his face.
"She doesn't need any of it," he seethed, his tone a whisper. "But that doesn't give you the right to point her at the flames and tell her to run. She's not a godsdamn weapon!"
Behind him, Aquaria almost looked on the verge of intervening, but whatever she might have thought to prevent was interrupted by the sound of the large double doors groaning as they opened into the ward.
Walking in, wheeling a cart of medicinal cocktails, balms, salves, ointments, and pharmaceuticals, a nurse of the clinic arched an inquisitive brow. As a snow leopard, she cut a less than impressive figure, her winter coat giving a plumpness to her that seemed to make her waddle more than walk. Nevertheless, Poetry was grateful for the glare she cast Spyro as she passed him, pulling up beside Cynder's bed.
"How's that leg doing?" the leopardess asked, nearly startling Poetry with the force of her gaze.
"Oh," she managed. "Itchy. And starting to sting."
"Any other symptoms?" the nurse asked sweetly, checking the bandages along Poetry's leg before apparently finding them adequate and returning her the soft linen covers of her bed.
"It's a little difficult to breathe," she tried to downplay, gesturing to the large bruise along her torso. "Otherwise not bad for a few fractured ribs."
"Broken. Not fractured," the nurse amended, a smile curling the corners of the leopard's lips. "Regardless, the crystals will have healed the brunt of it. But I'm afraid we could only spare you enough to have you back on your paws by the end of the day. The rest your body will have to do by itself."
"Thank you," Poetry said awkwardly, feeling the fool. "For your…service."
The nurse nodded as if all this were normal, continuing the process of separating a vial of mana capsules, deft paws counting the small multicolored pills with ease. It was with a strange sense of calmness that she watched the small mammal perform her duties, seemingly oblivious to everything else but the task at hand.
Does she feel accomplished at the end of the day? Poetry wondered. Even when she has to watch someone she might know die?
Poetry cast her gaze to the heavens in search of an answer, pleading with whatever lay beyond the tall vaulted ceilings for any sign that they heard her plight.
"Make sure she takes these when she wakes up," she heard the leopardess say. When she looked down it was to see the mammal speaking to Spyro, his mouth tightening into a grim line as his gaze met hers from over the mammal's head.
"Of course," Aquaria said, the words a dismissal as much as they were an affirmation.
When the doors closed once again, the ward felt a colder room than it had been with the mammal in it. What remained felt fragile and tenuous. Poetry kept a bitter laugh from bubbling out of her lips and was rewarded with a fit of coughs that had the bruise on her stomach burning in protest.
Across from her, Spyro sighed, the sound like a defeat. Behind him she watched Aquaria shake her head emphatically.
"Form up you two, the Assembly meets in less than a minute," Aquaria informed.
"What? In here?" Spyro asked.
"Last minute arrangements. Try to be civil," her mother ordered, giving her the distinct impression that the last part had been specifically directed at her.
Regardless, Poetry made a point of looking presentable, quaffing the few strands of her mane she could see dangling in front of her vision. She looked at her reflection in the window across the room, grimacing at the sunken, rabid creature that stared back at her.
Somewhere out in the main atrium of the clinic, the rumbling approach of many pawsteps set the windows to rattling in their frames.
Politics, it seemed, did not stop to mourn.
Outside the doors, Spyro could hear the muffled voices and numerous sets of thumping paws and feet.
Beside him, Aquaria squared her shoulders, her face a firm mask of intolerance, "Brace yourself." she said, the words feeling more a thought she was affirming in herself
The great double doors to the ward flew open, the wood groaning its dissent. A kaleidoscope of murmuring individuals passed under the threshold—an explosion of dragons, Viziers, barons, lords, and important diplomats.
Spyro felt his eyes gravitate towards the most immediate dragon of interest at the front of the group. Royantis Holtivar walked with the self-assured arrogance of a drake that knew their presence could draw attention, a ridiculous pomp that set the jewels that dangled from his horns a-sway with every step.
Grunting as the glint from Holtivar's many jeweled rings flashed across the room, Spyro got the distinct impression that the noble was feeling particularly insufferable today.
To his right, Spyro could see Poetry was practically swallowing her tongue in disapproval. She kept her face a calm mask otherwise, despite the inelegance of her position, and he had to give her credit for at least managing that.
"This hardly seems proper," the young noble proclaimed. "If you needed a place for the assembly, Aquaria, you could have just asked. I would have been happy to lend you my receiving room."
"Unnecessary," Aquaria deflected.
The grin Royantis sent her was anything but sincere, his tone glib. "It would have been nothing at all to me." Then the drake sketched a bow to Poetry, pedantic and mocking. "Your beauty leaves me breathless, your eminence."
A shame it's not speechless, Spyro groaned internally.
He could see the dragoness struggle to keep the venomous words down in the back of her throat, her outward expression facsimile as she nodded to him.
"And how is your father?" Poetry asked, her eyes sharp and glittering.
Hoping he kept his face a cool mask, Spyro watched the drake closely, remembering his earlier words to the noble across from him.
I need you to make it look like it was your idea to be there.
"Engaged with business, I'm afraid. He desperately wished to be here, but I offered to fill in for him if only to save face. Unlike master Spyro here," he said, gesturing to him from across the bed, "I'm afraid I'm rather inexperienced in the crude matters of war."
Desperate to keep himself from glaring, Spyro occupied himself with a polite laugh, head downcast in an effort to hide the grating of his teeth. No, Royantis, you prefer to do battle in other arenas of conflict, you slimy wyvern rutting— "You flatter me," he said instead.
He caught Poetry looking at him then, a peculiar scrutiny that felt invasive and assessing. Pieces on a chessboard, her stare seemed to say to him; she seemed unsure of which side he lay on. He wasn't sure he knew either.
He couldn't find it in himself to blame her. For the better half of eight centuries, the Holtivar family had maintained control of Shiverum's international trade market, engaging in negotiations with foreign nations like Dracoltih and the Griftillan empire.
As a result, the Holtivar family had inherited a permanent seat on the Shiverum Ministry, ascending from the title of Marketier to Regent—should the need ever arise—positioning the family to become usurpers of Aquaria and Poetry's status should the City of Shiverum find itself without a sovereign. This made Poetry's relationship with the Holtivar family, nonetheless precarious, forcing the dragoness to toe the line of scrimmage in matters regarding the noble family. It also didn't help that Royantis was a pompous ass to boot.
To Spyro, Royantis and Poetry had always felt to be two different sides of the same coin. In the years before he had met them, it wasn't unoften to hear both of them uttered in the same breath. Gossip and bureaucracy and fate had placed them both as the unlikely inheritors of two great enterprises. Neither was it unknown that for many years Dagwell Holtivar, Royantis's father, had hounded Aquaria for a betrothal.
Even today the potential of a union between the two houses bore promises of a stronger, more stable Shiverum government—but it was ice dragon pride and a veritable novel of past transgressions that kept such a dream from ever seeing fruition.
Regardless, Spyro wasn't so blind as to not see that Dagwell's absence was no accident and he could see Poetry coming to the same conclusion. The only difference was that this wasn't news to him. Royantis had revealed as much to him during their brief encounter earlier that day.
Be that as it may, all he had to do was make it look as if this were the first he was hearing of it. Then again, he had never been a very good actor.
Thankfully attention was thoroughly diverted from him as Aquaria quickly resumed her role as executive of the assembly.
"Very well. We have a lot to discuss," she said, turning to face the crowd of officials. "Master Tidewatcher Dunhast, have you finished recounting the stock of our navy?"
"Yes, milady Aquaria," a stout muscular panther answered. "By our count, we be having thirty-four of our operational ships; fourteen be in port; eight be out at sea, and twelve be guarding the city. Any smaller vessels do be seeming willing to offer up they services." He growled as if finding the next words unfavorable. "But it be foolish to do be taking them up on that offer seein' as how they gather our fish and whatnot."
"That'll be leaving us at approximately forty-six percent of our previous functionality," added another Tidewatcher behind the panther.
Lips thinning at the information, Aquaria nodded in dismissal. On the bed to the left of him, Spyro watched Poetry take in the details with pale acceptance as if finally understanding the gravity of their situation.
Shiverum was renowned for its navy and on-sea prowess. With little under half of it left, the city was scarcely better off than crippled. To be told that so much had been lost in the attack, the young dragoness seemed to be faltering under so much recent decimation.
He tried to remind himself that he was meant to be furious with her, but the way she seemed to wilt beneath the sheets of her cot, reminded him that this was her city, her people she was losing; he had never seen her look so tired before.
As if sensing his gaze, she looked up at him then, her golden eyes crackling with held back tears. All he could manage was a grim sort of nod. She gave him the same.
"Aquaria, if I may," a new voice piqued, all gravel and growl with age.
Nodding gently, Aquaria stepped back to allow a new figure to come forward. He was an older dragon—an ice drake, although he could have easily been mistaken for an earth dragon based on his build and the gray-blue hue of his scales: the color of silt along a glacier river. He wore an above-average ensemble of regalia. Tucked beneath his right wing was a rather intimidating greathelm; had it been on his head, Spyro doubted the drake could see very well with its slits for eyeholes. The most noticeable detail about his armor, however, was the striking pair of metal figureheads engraved into his left and right Brutafane pauldrons, one of a drake sleeping peacefully, the other of a drake alive with rage.
On her bed, Poetry stiffened, attention suddenly absorbed by a stray piece of lint atop her bedding. The earth Paladin—Daheel—Spyro recalled, struggled to raise his arm in salute, his features wincing from the obvious pain it caused him to perform such a gesture. "Commander Rodunn, Sir!" he barked.
Immediately, Spyro could tell the drake wasn't one for nonsense. He obviously held a great deal of authority, not just in rank but in stature. He was a dragon of a different kind, a leader who did not need to constantly fill the air with self-praise and talking. He simply commanded it and had the presence about him that could stifle even the most adverse of rooms.
"At ease, Daheel," the dragon named Rodunn ordered, to which the prone dragon obeyed. Then the commander turned to Poetry, a look heavier than stone settling on her. His eyes flashed with controlled frustration and something like sordid understanding. The two plainly knew one another although Spyro couldn't bring it to himself to recall how.
Rodunn grunted, voice booming in a way that made the hospital wing feel much smaller than it was. It made Spyro wonder what terrible news he would bring to the table. "In addition to our weakened navy, the total of operational outposts comes in at just over sixty-three."
"Rutting ancients," Spyro found himself growling without realization.
Poetry and Daheel, meanwhile, looked like they had just gotten the wind torn from under their wings.
"Sixty-three," he heard Poetry mumble under her breath.
"How many did we have before?" Royantis asked, obviously lost.
A pause, only the whistling sound of the wind and uneasy breathing disrupting the silence.
"One-hundred-ninety-eight outposts. Full ordnance. All the way from here to Warfang."
"What the hell happened to all of them?" the noble sputtered, the fine jewels in his horns dancing around his head.
This, Spyro decided, was easily the stupidest question he had ever heard. He only just managed to catch himself from snarling at the dragon for his blatant disregard of decorum, the tang of iron filling his mouth from where he had bitten it.
Poetry on the other hand had no such predilections. Whatever formal truce had been in place between the two young nobles seemingly shattered with the break in conversation. "What do you mean 'what happened to them'—what do you think?!"
Royantis waved the dragoness off and Spyro shot her a look that he hoped told her to keep her mouth shut.
"Can't we just send out reinforcements? Refill the outposts?" the young ice noble asked.
There was a multitude of shaken heads at this. It was Rodunn that answered. "No. As of now, our forces are centralized around Shiverum—our furthest outposts being in Urstel and Three lakes. Sending troops out any further would spread our forces too thin, and use up too much of our remaining resources."
"The idea, for now, is to keep close to the city's borders and conserve food and raw material. Maintaining the city is our greatest concern," clarified Aquaria.
Lips apparently fighting with his brain, Royantis seemed to struggle with what to make of all this new information.
Watching, Spyro noticed Rodunn looking around the room, mouth a firm, grim line still. There was worse news yet to come.
"There's more," the commander said. "As we speak, our Paladin Magistatti are working on reverse engineering the amplifiers for the City's Prayalis Ward—with little success so far." A ripple of unrest through the crowd. "We're exposed and should another attack come…" His words drifted off.
Magistratti. Spyro had heard talk of such a league within the Paladin order—a covert, secretive branch of the Shiverum military, specializing in the manufacturing and study of powerful Thaumaturgical relics, History, and weaponry. They were scholars, first and foremost, but one of the highest echelons of Military intelligence in Shiverum. It wasn't exactly a surprise to find out the rumors were true, seeing as how every City on the continent has some manner of secret. But for the commander to so blatantly be discussing such matters… The situation must be even more dire than Aquaria had been letting on.
"Aquaria," Poetry began, then stopped herself. "Mother," she amended as if realizing her mistake.
Beside him, Spyro could feel the older dragoness tense in response, hurt and struggle behind her eyes. Externally, however, she was cold as a tomb. Only the smallest tilt of her head indicated that Poetry had been heard at all.
Swallowing, the young dragoness regarded her mother distantly. "Is there news of Warfang?"
This, Spyro determined, was a question he could answer. He had gone to Aquaria in advance, requesting time to gather reconnaissance on the city in hopes that he might be able to uncover something—perhaps a trail he could follow—but without any luck. The greatest resource of information remained to be Eliesia and extrapolating any amount of useful knowledge from the strange dragoness's oracular ramblings only unearthed new questions.
Earlier, when he had gone to collect her from her rooms for the assembly, he had been met with closed doors and curt refusals.
Warfang, on the other paw, was not a mystery to him—not one he couldn't see a solution to, at least. "Efforts to breach the walls of the city through both the main entrance as well as the Guardian passageways have only resulted in failure." He waved his still bandaged foreleg in an effort to reinforce his point. "Skral movements seem to indicate some manner of military awareness."
"You mean to tell me that these things are smart?" Royantis piqued.
Spyro thought that the young noble might have been dry washing his hands if he hadn't been surrounded by a room full of watching eyes.
"They're certainly of a capability. You don't have to be intelligent to follow orders," Spyro answered.
"And you're sure that's what you saw? The Skral were taking orders from someone?"
"If you're asking if I saw someone issuing commands to them, then no." Several disgruntled murmurs of disapproval rippled throughout the ward. "But I know when someone is following the orders of another, and these creatures displayed a trait I've seen enough times to recognize when it isn't present."
"That is?" Aquaria egged on.
"Discipline."
Huffing a breath, Rodunn nodded in agreement, apparently finding the observation agreeable.
With a steady breath, shoulders pushed back, Rodunn continued, "With every passing hour we receive word of more towns and villages being attacked. With Warfang lost, immediate retaliation is out of the question—this is siege warfare now. We play the long game."
It was true, Warfang was perhaps the largest single most defensible city on the continent, a culmination of the best ordnance, infrastructure, and offensive measures from every major kingdom—techwork, cannons, bunkers, tunnels, ballistae, wards—and a great number of other countermeasures that, had they had time to prepare, could have decided the war.
At this point, the mood of the room had the emotional consistency of a wet mop. Nobody seemed eager to speak, every unsaid word punctuated by the wailing lament of wind and snow. Despite his familiarity with the slow and deliberate methods with which Shiverum politics tended to handle situations, Spyro couldn't help but count the seconds. And from the way Poetry kept looking at him, he knew she was doing the same.
"Enough," he heard someone say, giving voice to his thoughts. The herd of officials parted like the Jadian Isles and allowed Eliesia to pass through their number without contest.
When he managed to catch her gaze, Spyro didn't think it was his imagination that made her scales seem a brighter, molten red.
She even managed a smile.
It was by some miracle of the ancients that Cynder awoke to find herself whole and unbroken except for the wretched agony that felt to emanate from the base of her skull to every inch of scale that covered her body. It was reassuring, really. Seeing as how pain was a demesne of the living, the fact that she still felt it meant she could only be alive.
All around her: a wash light the blinding color of pearls and sparkling crystal beads. The whole world seemed to hum with the strange iridescent paint of frigid white, palest blue, and shimmering faded pink. She tried to shift her head but white hot blades bit into the muscles along her spine and the joints in her neck. Then, all at once, everything faded as if she were falling outwards—because it didn't matter.
Because she could see him.
The pain in her skull became a throb, the needles in her spine a sharp twinge, and the throb of her scales a diminishing soreness. None of it compared to the ache of him.
He stood mere inches away from her, his back turned towards her which wouldn't have bothered her normally except that it meant she couldn't see him fully. Couldn't see his lilac eyes, or handsomely scarred muzzle.
Briefly, she was able to register that he wasn't alone, that neither of them were alone—and the strange hum that she had been hearing was actually the insuccinct drone of too many voices speaking in turns. She could hear the sound of his most distinctly.
Ancients above, what was this? She was acting like a bubbly juvenile, fawning after a drake that, she reminded herself, didn't want anything to do with her.
As if in mockery of her distress, Cynder's skull pounded in agony.
She felt more than saw the mana capsules on the stand next to her, some empty thing inside her writhing for the sustenance they promised to fulfill.
Mana Hunger. Of course. She couldn't remember the last time she had overdone it so strongly as this. Fate's Stars! She definitely would have remembered it otherwise.
Popping the pills into her mouth with little ceremony, Cynder immediately felt the undeniable gnawing of her insides lessen by a considerable degree. It took every fiber in her being to stop the moan from slipping past her lips. Hardly polite—or appropriate.
The room had gone noticeably quiet all of a sudden, and when she looked up she instantly understood why.
Eliesia had assumed her rightful place at the center of all attention once again, emerald eyes glinting in the soft ambient light. Cynder didn't mind, really. For once, it meant people weren't looking at her. She only wished she had some understanding of what this strange fiery dragoness was, or what she was up to. The rekindled female felt too unassuming with a uniquely primitive predisposition for authority; it felt too contrarian to be at all authentic or honest.
On the other wing, however, Eliesia hadn't exactly felt malevolent even when she had been threatening Spyro's life with her tailblade to his throat.
Smoke billowing from her nostrils like the first drag of a Crispet Cigarillo, Eliesia's sigh was nearly theatrical. The veins of magma that traced the valley's of her scales glowed with the exhalation, her body a living, molten forge. As if her presence had tilted everything by twenty degrees on its axis, Cynder watched the dragoness assume control of the room with the ease of a hurricane.
"Consider your enemies," the embered dragon suggested. "The Skral that occupy your Warfang are not as mindless as the ones that attacked this city."
"They must have a goal, though," Aquaria challenged.
Eliesia looked as if she were considering shrugging off the idea but Cynder could taste the female's subliminal fear in the tensed chords of her muscle.
"I cannot speak of their intentions but their target has been made clear. Warfang has yet a role to play in the days to come."
"What does that mean?" a young, ostentatiously dressed noble cut in. Cynder didn't think she had ever seen a dragon with so many articles of jewelry on at once.
"It means that they're waiting for something, which in turn means not all of our enemies are known to us. Think about what we know. Warfang was claimed in less than a day. The Skral came from the west, already placing them closer to Shiverum than the trek they would have had to make for Warfang."
"Yet it was Warfang that fell first," Spyro continued, picking up the thought. "They never wanted Shiverum. They only wanted Warfang. Ancient's breath!" he swore, tail lashing behind him. Cynder always thought it cute how his tail lashed when he was deep in thought.
Focus Cynder, she told herself.
Obviously, Spyro realized that the enemy was trying to keep all of the continent divided against multiple fronts so Cynder asked the only question she could think of that he hadn't thought to ask yet.
"Where are the other Guardians?" She hoped she had kept the quaver from reaching her voice.
A hive of stares fell on her then, their eyes keen as they tried to dissolve away her scales and chew on her bones. The taste of a dozen different fears churned the saliva in her mouth before she managed to quell the onslaught of emotions that weren't her own.
Go back to looking at Eliesia! She wanted to shout at them.
Strongest of all the emotions, of course, were Spyro's. His she could sense almost as if they were her own—the deep vermillion of hurt, of fear. Chartreuse tasted bitter, guilty of things unsaid. Sadness was always blue but his was bright and swift, a bruise he refused to let heal. And rage—Fate's stars there was so much rage.
Most creatures were surprised when she told them that anger wasn't, in fact, the spice of red, but rather a boiling orange that got lighter with intensity. And Spyro's… his was the wrath of dying star—a searing white that scalded her tongue and throat.
Gods above. She hadn't thought it possible for someone to feel such a thing so intensely and he felt it all with a frigid mask of indifference he kept firmly in place as he pivoted to stare down at her.
Could he truly feel such things for her? Under the weight of that gaze, she was little more than glass, the smallest parts of her pushed to breaking but never shattering. The second miracle that day was that she never fell into tears, if only because they had been burned out of her by the heat of his fury.
Cynder hardened herself beneath his gaze until she felt the emotions of his rampant mind turn to ash on her tongue. She must have looked as grim a reflection as him because shame suddenly pressed itself through the vice of her teeth. He looked away, scorning whatever lay outside the window to her right.
His silence promised her a confrontation—later—when all of this was over. She wondered if she could be as hard then when all she felt for him was soft. She wished… she didn't know what she wished for anymore.
Aquaria looked between the two of them, her gaze a chiding mother. The expression quickly vanished, however, replaced with the incalculable veneer of a cunning politician. "Destron and Gwoalin are in Smelterbreach," she said, gesturing to the armored dragon beside her. "Commander Rodunn tells me that both Guardian's are making efforts to secure the Bloodforges and reclaim the city."
Having not met the dragon, Cynder wasn't prepared for Opal and Hercynite's shared mate. Standing before her, he seemed too stern, too fierce. She had expected a lively, authoritative dragon, someone charismatic and charming. What looked at her now felt like a war story. A body forged by years and a heart murdered of joy.
Behind him, she could see the worried stares of the wind sisters watching her and she couldn't help but smile, grateful for their presence and concern. If both of them could love a drake as flinty as Rodunn, perhaps she assumed too much.
"Fendrir, on the other wing," the commander boomed, his voice vibrating in her chest, "has gone to the nation of Griffins in hopes of securing aid. We have not received any more news in that regard."
"The Griffins? They are a careful species," Baroness Maribole chimed, her delicate voice a whisper compared to the force of nature that was Rodunn's. "Slow to anger despite the sentiments they harbor for dragons and our borders, but even they must see the folly in letting the continent fend for itself. Even an island as remote as theirs isn't immune to invasion."
"Fendrir will make a disaster of himself! Him and his incessant mouth," blurted the drake crusted in more gems than scales.
"I reluctantly agree, young master Holtivar," Aquaria replied. "Which is why we are sending you to rendezvous with him at their capital."
"Me?!"
So this was the other dragon Cynder had been sent for. Here was a drake she was glad to not have met alone. Just watching him left bile on her tongue. This time, she did not feel as if she was being too harsh.
Still, her distaste for Royantis was but a drop compared to the relief she felt wash over her at hearing that the other guardians lived, some of it hers, more of it Poetry's, most of it Spyro's.
"Why me?" Royantis repeated.
"Your family has a history of good relations with the Griffins. Your father's business of trade has cemented your name well within their favor," Aquaria answered. Cynder could have sworn she saw a smile tugging at the corners of the older dragon's lips.
"Well, yes but—"
"You stand our best chance of securing aid from our neighbors to the south, better than anyone else in this room."
Royantis looked ready to argue further but Rodunn pushed on.
"There's more. We've recently received word from our informants in Dracolith."
Beside her, Cynder felt Spyro and Poetry's anxiety spike, their pulses beating a horse's canter in their chests. She hated the hunger that roiled in her gut at the taste of it.
"Vassal Koteliri has been overthrown and a new ruler has taken the throne," Aquaria finished.
"What?!" Poetry roared, wincing as her leg spasmed beneath her bed sheets.
Spyro on the other wing, fell into a quiet, vengeful pace. His talons clacked against the floor, scraping deep grooves into the delicate white tile. His worry became a storm, an incomprehensible hail that she had to block herself off to lest she get lost within it.
"Now, of all times, they revolt." He muttered. "It's national suicide. This weakens their ties to us."
"We suspect that this may have been the point."
Cynder heard Poetry give a disbelieving huff. "Who would move against Koteliri? He has been beloved amongst the north for years."
"Do not mistake complacency for love," Eliesia interrupted. "Dracolith… Would this be the city of dark dragons, you speak of?"
Aquaria nodded. "You know of it?"
"Dracolith," Eliesia said again as if she were testing the name in her mouth and finding something about it unsavory.
Ignoring the dragoness, Cynder reached out to Spyro, tugging at his emotions with deft talons. She watched him stiffen, head snapping towards her. Even though it felt filthy, she willed his mind to settle, leeching the fear from his nerves and feeding it to the curling thing within her. Making sure not to take too much, just enough to ease his rampant mind, she tugged at the bitter delicacies gently, hating herself for how much she enjoyed the taste of them.
When she was done, she was surprised to see him smiling at her, a grateful and warm grin that set her nerves alight. She held onto the memory of it even as he turned it away from her.
"This puts Dracolith in as much danger of being lost to the Skral as us," he said firmly. "With the union broken, they have to have known we would look to them for aid."
"There was no mention of an attack in the north," Rodunn countered.
This time it was Eliesia's apprehension that filled the air—a physical heat that had the room of ice dragons prickling with unease—but when Cynder tried to decipher the emotion further she found herself unable to find even a morsel of it left. Eliesia's mind felt to be a vault of Mutallium, solid and impenetrable.
"Do you know who's taken over?" the fiery dragoness asked, her tone mild and unreadable.
"No," Rodunn answered stonily.
"What of Koteliri—is he alive?" Poetry pleaded, wincing at some unseen pain in her leg.
"We don't know that either."
The room seemed to darken. As if some looming threat had moved to blot out the light of the sun. The world felt an uncertain thing, crumbling and shifting beneath Cynder's paws, ready to fall beneath her without a moment's notice. Suddenly, she was reminded of a very different time, when she had barely known Spyro at all and he had saved her from the only cruelty she had ever known. She remembered the feeling of chains—of manacles and a collar around her neck.
"Send me north," Spyro said suddenly, shattering her thoughts. "I've been to the Waste's, I know their lands and their ways. I've spoken with their warlords and fought in their battles. I'll find out more."
I'll bring them to heel, his voice seemed to say.
Aquaria and Rodunn looked at each other, hesitating. "Spyro… if we lose you in the north," Rodunn began.
"You won't lose me. I can navigate them."
"Spyro," Aquaria rebuked. "You still have enemies there."
Spyro only growled, nostrils billowing with unspent energy.
"I agree with him," Eliesia announced, drawing everyone's attention.
Rodunn shook his head, armor rattling on his neck and shoulders. "Sending Sypro into possibly hostile territory alone—when his abilities could be used here. We would be flying with one wing tied behind our back."
A practical dragon, Rodunn, Cynder acknowledged—capable of putting aside his pride to admit Spyro's tactical importance. Not all dragons in the past had been able to do the same. Unfortunately, his words were true. Even though she hated herself for acknowledging it, to these dragons, Spyro was a weapon to wield—even if she knew otherwise.
He was more than that. So much more. Cynder wondered if he knew it as well.
Her heart ached for him because she understood how it felt to be a tool.
"I will go with him," Eliesia replied cooly. "The question of Dracolith's loyalty must be answered. Ignore them for too long and you risk a second enemy closing in behind you while you fight the ones in front."
Cynder couldn't help but narrow her eyes at the fire dragoness, unable to grasp what about the female set her on edge. It lingered in the tracery of her words as if every syllable the reclusive fire dragon uttered were shrouded in some obscure flavor of omission.
"Mother—" Poetry began, claws knitting the fabric of her bedsheets. "I could go with them. I'm familiar—"
"Absolutely not," The ice guardian said flatly, the words putting an end to the argument before it could even be made.
"I can go with them," Cynder blurted, the entire weight of the room once again falling on her.
You won't be rid of me that easily, she challenged, catching Spyro's distant simmering gaze, daring him to refute her.
As if he had understood her, Spyro's eyes narrowed in response.
"I'm afraid we wouldn't be able to Spare you, Cynder," Aquaria answered gently, a softness to her voice she had yet to hear so far into this meeting.
With all due respect, Cynder thought, you won't stop me.
Something of her conviction must have shown in her face because Spyro's lips thinned.
She wanted to yell at him, grab him, pin him to the floor with her horns, bite him. Anything that would get him to stay, to see that leaving would break her. So many years apart—she had spent them alone, a piece of herself always missing—always belonging to him.
"It's decided then," Rodunn's deep baritone vibrated through the ward.
Say something! Say that you choose him… That you should have chosen him from the very beginning, her head roared at her.
But she kept the words to herself, too afraid to say them aloud, wishing she could crawl back into the dreamless waste of a Mana starved coma.
Weak. You won't even fight for him. He pushes you away and you let him.
"Very well," Aquaria finally answered.
Cynder felt hollow, a coldness shuddering through her bones until the muscles in her neck threatened to give. The room swirled, eddying with her churning stomach, and the rancid taste of blood and whatever medicine they had given her bubbled up and into her esophagus.
It took everything she had not to spill the contents of her stomach then and there.
Not here. She wouldn't lose it here. Not in front of Spyro.
Taking deep, steady breaths, Cynder's guilt receded long enough for her to hear the conversation over the roaring in her ears.
"What of Smelterbreach?" Poetry pried, and Cynder could sense the underlying question in the pace of her heartbeat.
Aquaria dismissed the question with a casual sweep of her wings. "That is a discussion for another time." A pointed glance around the room. "As of now, in this meeting, it is to be arranged for Spyro, Eliesia, and a company of selected individuals, passage to the city of Dracolith. Meanwhile, Royantis is to travel south, to the city of Griffins to meet with Fendrir and their high council."
Royantis asked, "What if they don't listen?"
"Beg if you have to," Spyro growled
The room grew cold, the heartbeats of every dragon in the room vibrating on the tip of Cynder's tongue. Unease was a creature; it curled in the corners of all their hearts, infecting their thoughts with venomous doubt.
Outside, the snow leaden wind howled its grizzly winter song, frosting the once crystalline glass. Beyond the clouded windows, she could just make out the swaying branches and cobbled path of a foyer garden, its floral denizens frail and bare—unkempt. And she got the distinct feeling that it had been some time since anyone had taken care of it. Very briefly, Cynder wondered what the original caretaker would have made of their garden's sorry state.
She shivered beneath her weighted blanket, casting a silent look in Spyro's direction beside her window. He was so close. Yet the distance that had grown between them was a ravine, waiting to swallow her.
"Very well," Aquaria spoke faintly, her words little more than a whisper. Then louder, "Assembly dismisses. Sow Guidance, not grief." She saluted—crossing her talons across her heart, and nodding.
"Sow guidance not grief," Poetry repeated, followed by the other remaining members of the assembly in the room.
Still separated from the rest, Cynder noticed Eliesia stiffen at the words. Saw her eyes dull into that familiar distant glower.
Matters concluded, dragons vacated the room, filing out through the double doors in hushed whispers until it was only her, Poetry, Spyro, Eliesia, and Daheel that remained.
Daheel. Gods above… How could she have forgotten? The drake was a yawning chasm of grief so dark and fathomless the taste was bile in her mouth, rancid and sour with helpless resentment.
Guzal…
She wanted to say something to him, but it had been a long time since she had consoled anyone. She was a little out of practice, and the hell of it was that she knew it wouldn't do anything to help. Still… She had to try.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the ice Paladin, reaching with her tail to grasp his.
"Me too," was all he said, not meeting her gaze.
Cynder knew Eliesia was watching her even before she faced the dragoness, the scales on the back of her neck prickling from the sensation. She remembered the feeling from Mirefall—the sense of being watched.
Of being hunted.
The intensity of it was strong enough to melt ice, but Cynder was tired of wilting beneath other dragons' gazes. So she stared back, asking the only question she could think to ask. "That creature we killed, the Skinwalker," She started, somehow managing to keep the tremble from her voice. "You know about them don't you?"
Eliesia nodded. "Spawn of Kardama—ruthless, warped creatures steeped in the shadows. Driven mad. Back in my time, they were herded, imprisoned in the deepest dungeons where they could do no harm."
Beside her, Poetry worked her worries into the crystal necklace around her throat. "Until they were awakened."
Another nod from Eliesia. "The cells around them were built to contain them for lifetimes."
"But they didn't," Cynder cut in.
"They did," Eliesia corrected, frowning. She scratched her chin. "Just not your lifetime, it would seem."
Again, Cynder got the sense that the dragoness knew more than she let on.
"Kardama," Daheel started, drawing everyone's attention. "You kept saying that name the entire time you were hauled back to Shiverum," he finished, looking at her.
Embarrassed by the attention that was heaped upon her, Cynder pursed her lips—and when she looked up, Spyro was watching her.
Unsure of what to do, she averted her gaze. It was analyzing, just a little fierce, and made her almost feel like giggling—and she wasn't the giggling type.
"Who is she?" She asked Eliesia.
The fire dragoness shuffled, licking her lips. "She was the Goddess of Shadow, Oldest daughter among the Children of fate. I believe you call them The Ancients."
"Wait, you mean that the Ancients have names?" Poetry sat up, shifting her blankets.
"Of course. They were worshiped in my time. Most of them anyway."
Most of them. The nugget of information didn't go unnoticed, and it had her thinking that most of them didn't include Kardama.
Cynder took a breath, processing the new information. "What does she have to do with all of this?"
"I don't know," Eliesia answered.
She's afraid, she recognized, sensing the rapid beat of Eliesia's heart, the sound like a fluttering candle.
"Kardama," Cynder whispered, and felt the room unnaturally darken, the life and color suddenly being stripped from the white pallor of the room.
Even the air knew to fear the name—as if it had power all of its own. She recalled how her shadows had behaved around the skinwalker, the soft coaxing choir of whispers that had lingered. The memories would fuel her nightmares until the day she died.
She felt something tug on the loose threats of her shadow, the feeling cold and numbing. The familiar chasm of hunger opened inside of her, threatening to unmake her thread by thread. She felt as if she were unraveling, being freed from the nest of invisible chains that bound her to the prison of her scales.
Some part of her must have known this was wrong but wherever it existed could not reach her here in the vast warmth of darkness that flooded her veins.
Before she could tug back, however, the sensation faded, and her shadows receded within her. When she finally had enough of a mind to make sense of what she was touching, she gasped.
Spyro knelt beside her bed, muzzle inches from her own, breath heavy and coarse, a solid thing that weighed on her chest. His eyes were an ocean of stars, white specks that danced on the shores of his pupils. Cradling his head in her paw, she wondered how she must have looked according to him.
He was too sullen, the heft of his burdens evident in the sag of his shoulders. The muscles of his jaw feathered beneath her touch, tensed at some unknown trouble plaguing his mind. But when she reached out to him in hopes of taking it away, he flinched, blowing hot, dry air against her neck.
Slowly, she pried her talons off his hard, warm cheek, flexing out the numbness that had settled between her knuckle. When she finally managed to pry her eyes away from his, her cheeks warmed at the curious, slightly flagrant stares of the others.
Eliesia remained thoroughly reticent, but her eyes were keen. Cynder had to bite her cheek to keep shame from coloring them.
Straightening himself, Spyro grunted, wings stretching out in audible pops. Cynder had to look away, use the moment to take a steadying breath, then another.
She looked at Poetry instead, and tried to distract herself with little details. Like the strand of hair from Poetry's disheveled mane that dangled between her eyes, or the small chip in one of the sweeping arches of her antlers.
But no amount of useless data could distract her from Spyro, who was a constant presence within her subconscious. It had gotten to the point where she could always tell where, exactly, he was in the room, how many breaths he was taking. He was always a presence, even when she didn't want him to be. He was always there.
Keeping the edge from her voice, Cynder tried to divert back to the conversation. "Are there more creatures like the skinwalker?"
"Yes," was Elisia's flat reply.
"How many?"
"The number is uncertain."
Cynder narrowed her eyes, no longer capable of keeping her irritation at bay. "Is there anything you do know?"
Eliesia raised a brow. "That a fate worse than those poor Paladins awaits us if something isn't done to end this war."
"Clearly you're an optimist," she groaned, tail waving in futility.
Silence. The sound of it an infinite place where everything she wanted to say died in the distance between her thoughts and her lips.
"You should rest," Spyro droned, tired and devoid of warmth.
It made her heart plummet. Made her want nothing more than to tackle him and wipe that stupid blank stare off his face. Anything, she told herself. Contempt, Guilt—anything would be better than this cold, desolate disregard for her. It was as if she were less than a stranger to him, someone not even worth knowing.
It left her confused, and not at all amicable.
"It's been a rough day for the three of you," Eliesia agreed. "Be grateful that you survived. Count your blessings before you sleep tonight," she said from the clinic doors before departing, taking the warmth of the room with her.
Only Spyro lingered for longer than was necessary, glancing between the three of them—what a sorry sight they must have looked—before settling a stare on Poetry. The two shared a firm, slightly gruff nod of understanding.
"I'm glad you're alright," he said to her before closing the door with a final thud, taking her breath with him.
Left with nothing to do but sleep, she hoped she had the strength to fight the nightmare when they inevitably came.
Eliesia made her way through the familiar maze of hallways that was once Ezrom's shivering palace. Though she doubted anyone other than her would remember who it once belonged to—in a different time. A different age.
What would you do if you were here, Ezrom? Imperia? How many times had she walked these hallways with them? She wandered, admiring the tall log cabin walls, Frostwood pillars, and soft, fur-skinned rugs. "Palace" had always felt an ill-fitting term for such architecture. Everything was all wonderfully native—archaic—much like the rest of Shiverum's log cabin architecture. The entire castle, in fact, was built in the shape of an enormous stave church. Only the regions built into the iceberg were constructed of stockier material: Coldstone, carved ice, and refined river metal.
Aquaria and Poetry—bless them—had done an excellent job of keeping it all intact. Only a few minor adjustments stuck out to her. Countless oil paintings of generals and Shiverum royals lined the walls. Not to mention a noticeable lack of bookcases she had come to expect from Ezrom's castle. And the music that used to flow through the halls like blood through veins, was unbearably absent.
What she wouldn't give to hear Imperia's music—the sound sweet as Starwine at a summer solstice festival.
Feeling forlorn, Eliesia ignored the path that would have taken her to her room that had kindly been given to her. The books she had taken from the library waited for her there, and with them the foreboding sense of dread—memories she didn't want to face just yet. Instead, she followed a different path, one that was as familiar to her as breathing. She passed butlers and maids—snow leopards and wolves and the occasional mole, each of them polite and smiling. How captivating it was to see such species underneath the roof of dragons, willing and loyal.
Different times. A Different age.
Her mind wandered with her paws, recounting the times she had spent under the roof of this palace, as well as many others across the continent.
Dracolith. The word inserted itself into her mind like a rotworm amongst a bundle of grapes, converting her thoughts to darker things. Skinwalker. Helgœrün. Kardama. Urbasia. The disease spread.
The city of dark dragons—it couldn't be a coincidence. Throughout her entire life, she had only ever known about one city of dark dragons. A city of bone and shadow. Of blood and ash. Beyond the Cather mountains, built upon the remains of a great and enormous creature, the city loomed. She was sure it was the same one.
Imperia's words echoed in her mind. Face your enemies. But who were her enemies? The Kardamites? Riona? The gods? She shook her head, trying to escape the incessant buzz of her thoughts, but only gave herself a headache. It was all so much, too much.
You are a pawn.
The gods have plans.
Why? Why couldn't she just rest, join Imperia in that wonderful land of starlight and flowers?
And Moldrar. She scoffed, laughing. Eliesia imagined him somewhere among the realms of the afterlife, tinkering away in some new workshop—building, inspiring as he always did.
Her thoughts vanished in a puff of smoke as Eliesia came upon her destination.
Two sets of frostwood doors stood in front of her, one large, one small, the smaller one carved into the bottom of the larger. One for dragons and one for other creatures. Wooden pillars carved into the stacking dragon heads of a totem pole decorated the frame, meeting at an intertwined apex; nine in total, there were four along each side, one at the top—Fate and her eight children. The figure heads were large, worn, practically indiscernible from one another aside from minor details such as the curve of the horns or the narrowness of the snout.
Letting memory guide her, Eliesia touched the second head from the top on the left—Saolan, the god of ice, wisdom, and the gentle quietness of the first snowfall. She entered, door hinges groaning.
Inside—although there weren't any—the air was heavy with the musty smell of books, cobwebs, and old torch handles. Colder than the rest of the palace due to the lack of circulation, Eliesia quickly closed the doors to keep it that way. The room was massive in that it was tall, bearing multiple floors and balconies like the archives; A once personal collection; a private office.
Bookshelves and lecterns, not to mention a surplus of scroll racks and ornamental desks decorated nearly every corner of the room and floors. There were dry inkwells, stacks of broken wax-blue candles perfect for stamping envelopes.
It was just one of many rooms like it throughout the palace, neglected and devoid of anything meaningful to anyone except for Eliesia. It was the quietest room in the entire castle, the thump of her heartbeat practically bouncing off the walls and back to her. Doubtless that others had found the silence disturbing, as Eliesia once had, it was no wonder why it was empty—but it had been perfect for Ezrom.
Ezrom. Oh, Ezrom. She hoped he and Imperia were happy in the throne realm. After how long they had been separated, she hoped eternity was long enough to make up for stolen time.
Dust motes dancing like snowflakes, Eliesia watched them, standing amidst the middle of the abandoned office quarters. She stayed like that for a while, content with the memories of her quiet, gentle friend.
Eliesia imagined it as it had been—organized chaos, and obnoxiously overstuffed—stacks of books taller than her, piles of paper and letters crowding the footpaths. And of course, Ezrom, hunched over his desk with his reading glasses, embedded in a biography or journal. If she tried, really tried, she could almost hear the tunes he hummed to himself, placed inside his brain by Imperia with her beautiful voice. She always had that effect with her singing.
A sad laugh escaped her then, bittersweet and filled with fondness; you could have broken at hearing it. This office, with its quiet, solemn walls, was filled with memory, and Eliesia found herself drunk with the emotion of it.
So she stayed. Just a while longer Eliesia stayed, and for once understood, perhaps, why Ezrom enjoyed the quiet so much.
Sitting in the dining hall of Shiverum palace, Spyro brewed in his thoughts, idly spinning the handle of his spoon, churning the large bowl of soup that rested atop the room-length dining table.
Nine seats down and opposite of him were Aquaria, Rodunn, and Royantis—most likely discussing the details of the plans for Royantis to head to Griftilith. Words like travel arrangements, estimated arrival, and food preparations were thrown around. All the while, Royantis looked like a meek doe stuck between a cliff face and a pack of wolves. Leaving the safety of Shiverum obviously wasn't the drake's idea of a middle-of-a-war vacation.
Who would deign to think of his wretched conspiring father? Spyro chuckled to himself darkly, glancing around the room.
If he even is conspiring and not slinking off to some hidden shelter somewhere, he grumbled as he admired the stained glass windows of the hall. Wooden pillars larger than tree trunks towered between them, spanned together by scale-like wooden tiles painted the colors of Shiverum: Ivory, sea-green, and Royal blue.
Not so far away and embedded in a corner of the room stood a performance stage where the hall could host entertainment and toasts—as well as the occasional dinner speech. Across from him, a circular table reserved for the proud oligarchy of Shiverum nobles lay empty. The table was only ever used for formal occasions or diplomatic festivities, neither of which it had been used for in quite some time.
Fiergnar blazed at the center of it all, the inset fire pit casting long, stark shadows across the hall, making the massive vacant chamber feel all the more empty.
There was a time when Shiverum had been something of a home to him, even more so than Warfang. Back then, he had gotten used to the idea of being alone. Even surrounded by others, he had never quite felt free of the term—alone.
Alone was safe. Alone was reassuring because so long as he was alone, himself was all he had to take care of. It was when others got involved that things became complicated and messy, his exploits in the north with Poetry had taught him as much.
Only one dragon had ever been capable of making anywhere feel like home to him, and she felt farther away than she ever had.
Over three and a half centuries had separated Spyro and Cynder. Just under half of that was spent in search of Ignitus. The other half he had become a nomad, traveling from city to city, town to town, village to village—helping, fighting, rebuilding, anything he could do to distract himself from the coldness of Cynder's absence.
Then he'd met Poetry, and she'd dragged him into a world of political intrigue and statecraft, a veritable war of an entirely different kind. They'd fought together. Traveled together. Killed together.
But without Cynder, Spyro had felt himself growing cold. He'd done things, dealt with things, confronted pieces inside him that he preferred buried. And even with her here, with her offering him something he wanted more than anything else in the rutting world—something delicate and new, he could feel the urge to burn it all away.
It terrified him.
So why couldn't he just say yes? Why did he always get hung up on the things she didn't know about him?
During the attack on Shiverum when she almost died just to follow him, those cold creeping words, seeping into his mind like a sinking wound on a ship, had told him—no, had shown him—what would happen if she continued to follow in his path.
But he didn't have time to think about that as the table shuddered, stirring Spyro from his thoughts. Aquaria sat in front of him with that ever-present peeling gaze you could feel more than see; she was using it on him now, and it made him feel young and small. How did Poetry handle it?
Neither of them spoke, just looked at one another, gauging.
Until she said, "Do you really think it'll work—this plan of yours?"
He'd been contemplating about that too, planning out what he'd do once he got to Dracolith. How he was going to get there. The answers to those questions were likely sitting in front of him now.
"No idea," he answered honestly. "I hope so. I have to at least try."
Huffing, Aquaria took an inelegant bite from a loaf of bread he'd had sitting in front of him for the past hour. "I was afraid you'd say that."
"You? Afraid?" Spyro chuckled.
"I'm serious. I worry about you—and Poetry."
"Especially Poetry," he corrected. She didn't laugh. "What about Cynder?"
Huffing, Aquaria tapped her talons on the table. "She's definitely something."
"Apparently something enough to save your daughter's life," he tested, watching her reaction.
She nodded, faintly, almost unnoticeable. But he knew Aquaria, could see the approval in her eyes. He wasn't sure if he should feel grateful or angry that it wasn't already there. Would anyone ever truly trust Cynder? The question irked him. He wasn't sure when he'd started vying for Aquaria's approval, just that it was important to him. Another mystery, he supposed.
"The two of you…"
"Cynder and I?"
"What's going on between you two?" She finished, surprising him. Of course, she would notice. He wouldn't be surprised if the entire council had noticed.
"Nothing," he lied.
"Horse shit." And of course, she caught the lie. That was no surprise, but the swearing was. It didn't quite suit her but it made him laugh. "I could practically smell the two of you courting each other back in the hospital. And Warfang. The only two dragons who seem to be ignorant of it are the two of you."
He growled, turning towards the burning fire pit at the center of the hall. "What does it matter?"
"It matters," she affirmed. "Is it going to be a problem?"
"No," he answered too quickly. "She's staying here anyways. She's not going with me."
That seemed to satisfy her question. Slowly though, he watched her soften, scooting closer. "You care about her. Deeply." It was more a statement than a question.
Again, Spyro's breath hiccuped at the truth of those words—just like he had when Poetry had said them.
Silence. He knew she was testing him. He also knew anything less than the truth wouldn't suffice.
"Yes," he relented
"As someone who knows what it's like to lose the love of their life, believe me when I tell you: don't wait to let her know. I'd give anything just to have one more day with my mate. The sooner she knows, the better." They were platitudes, but they were also honest.
Not sure what to say, Spyro chose, "Poetry misses her father. Maybe even more than you do." It wasn't his place to say, and he wasn't quite sure why he was helping Poetry at all after what she'd done, but it needed to be said. And it obviously wasn't going to be from either Poetry or Aquaria. So why not him? "I think she can be a lot more than what she is now if she could just escape his shadow."
It was Aquaria's turn to look away, her magenta eyes glowing in the firelight. "I know," she sniffed, blinking. "Ancients' breath! I was afraid I'd lost her."
He tried to sound soothing. "You haven't lost her. Not yet."
She nodded. For the second time that evening, she surprised him, saying, "You know, I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope you would chase after her. Poetry, I mean."
Spyro snorted, trying not to bite his tongue laughing.
"I'm serious!" She continued. "She could use a dragon like you."
"A dragon like me?" He smirked, shaking his head in amusement.
"You know, someone who can quell that ecstatic charge of hers." She was laughing with him, the two of them feeding off one another.
"I disagree," he said between chuckles.
"Oh?"
He mused. "The world will darken, I think—the day Poetry lets someone snuff out her spark."
Beside him, Aquaria sighed. "I guess you might be right."
Sitting, staring into the fire, Spyro smiled. Letting the shared silence wash over him like the waves of heat radiating from Fiergnar.
Until, "That dragon—Eliesia. She's strange," Aquaria offered.
"I've noticed."
"Do you trust her?" There was that look again.
Lips tightening, Spyro considered the dragoness for a moment. Did he trust her? Cynder had told him that she didn't. And Eliesia obviously knew things, occasionally sharing them. But it was also clear that she had secrets.
Until earlier, he hadn't seen her since she disappeared to the library, and any attempt to question her about what she had discovered only resulted in Eliesia closing herself off. He tried to not let that bother him, figuring that there would be plenty of time to discuss such matters with her once they were making their way to Dracolith.
Unsure, Spyro answered with the truth. "I think I'll have to for now. All of this mess,"—he gestured around him, implying more than just his surroundings—"is clearly connected to her."
Taking another bite, coupled with a sip of water from a brass goblet, Aquaria hummed.
"And…" He paused.
"And what?"
"I don't know. Something about her—it makes me hopeful." It was a gut feeling really, some inexplicable pull towards some unknown path. Fate—Eliesia liked to call it. Strange that Fate was drawing him towards her, the very dragon who spoke of it like it was something more than just a feeling. Fate. Hadn't Malefor spoken of such things?
Spyro shuddered, promptly setting fire to those thoughts and blowing away the ashes.
"I suppose we could always use more of that—hope. The Skral don't leave much of it behind," Aquaria spoke aloud.
Nose scrunching, it took effort to not let his bitterness for the word show in his tone. "Skral"
"This day was a mess. So much going on, too much to wrangle," Aquaria complained out loud, saying the words with a long, heavy sigh. "We must at least appear to be a unified council, even if it's only the illusion of one."
Feeling bad for the older dragoness, Spyro offered, "Let me know what I can do to help."
She smiled. "You're doing it."
With nothing more to say, Aquaria stood up from her seat, straightening her wings and neck—and gave him a polite bow.
Returning the gesture, he spoke shiverum's adage. "Guidance not grief." He wasn't sure why he said it, only that it felt necessary. Important.
"Guidance not grief," she returned as she walked away, closing the dining hall doors with a resounding thud.
Then it was just Spyro, and the occasional kitchen staff and maid, but Spyro was too occupied in the mind to notice any of their awed or reverent stares.
All that mattered at that moment was the food, the drink, the wise, soothing fire, and how long he could make the feeling last.
Author's Note: A crucial chapter finished. This one had been in the works for a long time and has had many different iterations of itself. I'm finally happy with where it is. Let me know what you think! I'm dying to read your thoughts.