Hunting After Dragons
The sun still hid behind the eastern mountains when Lucina and Ike left the tavern. Without a word they saddled their horses and followed the road snaking towards King's Plight. Lucina threw more than one guilty look at Ike's profile. Last night had presented her with a chance to save him the arduous journey into the mountains and the upcoming encounter with the dragon. But she had surrendered, drawn towards his company in a way so utterly unequal to her visits to Naga's towers – maybe even Naga's light itself.
Ike had been on edge when she had returned to the tavern last night. She had climbed less than a third of the creaking steps when the door to their room flew open. He lowered his hand from Ragnell's hilt when he recognized her. His expression softened. But in the dim light, she might have imagined the change.
Lucina forbade herself to dwell on these thoughts. The rocky slopes of the mountains towered before her, and the road stretched a long way ahead.
At first, the going was easy. Their path wound through sparse cedar groves, and brown mosses softened the steps of the horses. A cold breeze rushed through the crowns overhead and filled Lucina's nose with scents of wild chanterelle and conifer bark. Ike ground his jaw and spurred his horse onward, perhaps to outrun memories of Tellius. Lucina fastened her thicker wool cape around her neck. Unless she turned fully in her saddle, not a trace of the firewall disturbed her ride and begged her to reconsider. Soon, even the orange glow in the west disappeared behind cragged peaks.
Upwards, upwards, and upwards again meandered the road. Sunburnt moss made way for pebbles and bare stone. Lucina's stallion despised the rocky terrain and threw his head back every so often. She patted his neck but had otherwise no ear for his protests.
Frost grew rampant down the cliff faces they passed. For an hour during midday, the sun kissed the handful of twisted pines that daringly clung their roots onto the stone. Otherwise the cold breeze ruled here, fending off any intruder with claws and fangs. It seeped through Lucina's boots. Her hands around the reins grew red and then white. And still upwards the road climbed, towards the peaks and the clouds.
A wyvern mile before Lucina and Ike reached the summit of King's Plight, it began to snow. Thick flakes drifted from the sky, and Ike pulled his headband over his ears. The wind turned, and even when Lucina leaned far enough over her horse's crest to press her nose into its mane, she tasted ice crystals.
Caelins were bred as desert horses, unmatched on the plain in beauty and speed. But they were not sturdy. When the road narrowed into a snow-blasted rock trail, Lucina's stallion dug his hooves into the ground and would not move another inch.
"Cursed weather." Ike flicked the reins, his mare answered with a frightened whinny, and a short pushing and pulling between them followed. Finally he dismounted. "It's no use. Where we're going, they wouldn't be of much help anyway."
Lucina nodded and dropped into the snow. After slinging the saddlebag with the Binding Shield over her shoulder, she guided her stallion a few steps backwards before he followed Ike's horse. Together they trotted along and soon disappeared between the snow screens.
Ike and Lucina climbed farther. King's Plight pierced the cloud vault before them. Lucina pressed her hands to her chest and tried to knead warmth back into them. With little success. They slipped on the snow at every other step.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Ike shouted over the howling wind.
"I've been here before. It wasn't snowing then, but I recognize the landscape. A little to the south, maybe a quarter of a mile from the peak, there's a shrine."
"That would be on the mountainside away from the wind. Shouldn't we wait out the worst of the storm there?"
Lucina bit her lip. The chapped and cold-tormented flesh broke, and she tasted blood. King's Plight was so close. On the wind-lashed plateau, there had to wait a clue leading towards the dragon. Three of the five spheres in her possession. So close to victory and true peace for Archanea.
Her eyes returned to Ike's face. His heavy breath puffed clouds into the air. He tried his best to hide the shivers, but he was freezing in his worn-out cloak.
"You're right," Lucina said. "Let's make for the shrine."
Shoulder to shoulder in an effort to protect each other against the biting winds, Ike and Lucina trudged through the snow. A miracle of Naga's had to be at work because Lucina found the trail towards the shrine without losing her way once. The storm ebbed, and a little marching and slipping later, the hunched shape of the shrine peeled itself out of the snow screens. Some follower of Nagaism had made attempts to outfit the shrine with a five-story tower in the goddess' honor, but the harsh winters had left little but a few skeletal posts on top of the roof. The shrine itself, however, still stood in the lee of a rockface, and its wooden door welcomed Ike and Lucina inside.
When the door snapped back into place behind them, the wind's howling eased into a gentle murmur.
"Never thought I'd be glad to step into one of Naga's houses one day," Ike said. He picked an armful of logs from the pile by the door and filled a fire basket.
Soon the flames twitched to illuminate the shrine's single hall, and the light bounced from a stack of gold coins and shiny cups in the right corner. Perhaps a thief had repurposed this little shelter as their secret treasury. Yet the gold piled in the open without locks or at least a blanket to hide its gleam, like an offering. Naga asked faith, candles, harmony, and sometimes blood from her followers but never gold. Lucina left the pile untouched.
Instead she wandered down the hall. Four years ago, she had marched on these very tiles under a different banner and without a hunch that she might one day pray to the same goddess as the people she had taken prisoner. Roy breathed over her shoulder, and she shuddered. It had to have been the wind.
The handful of benches she had ordered hacked to kindling had been replaced. The iron chandelier above still squealed. But the mural at the shrine's front told of Lucina's misdeeds. Where once a marvelous painting of Naga had graced the wall, now scorched stone remained. The color peeled off when Lucina brushed the edges of the mural. She herself had dropped the torch here to set a pile of Naga replicas on fire. With the smoke of victory tickling her nose, she had watched the blaze swallow the carved and painted faces of Naga.
Perhaps the union of the five spheres would allow her to repent. And if a way to repent existed, did she not have the duty to go all the way and give up all the rest?
Ike stepped next to Lucina. "You said you've been here before?"
"With a mission from Roy. To smoke out a hideout for fanatics who were poisoning the hearts of Ostians with their talk about an eternal paradise. Of course I accepted. I thought if I proved myself with this, he would give me my own commando."
"Hard to imagine you weren't commanding a swarm of people at some point."
Lucina smiled. Only Ike had the power to make even this horrid memorial of her failures bearable.
"I'm glad you didn't meet me back then," she said.
"Why, because you would have killed me for rebellious behavior?"
"Because you wouldn't have left enough of me to hold a funeral with."
Ike mirrored her smile. "Probably, yeah."
Lucina, after a moment longer than necessary, turned away from him and directed her steps towards an alcove. A handful of candle stumps remembered unfulfilled wishes directed towards Naga.
"I've been thinking," Lucina said and probed the bricks above the candles. "Maybe we shouldn't take the Binding Shield to the dragon. If one of us…" She forced herself to stop. "Assuming Ursula has found out that I survived, she will know that I'm looking for the dragon. I was dumb enough to declare it in front of her and Uther. Lloyd and Linus were looking for the Binding Shield when they snuck into the Glass Fortress, right?"
"Most likely."
"So it might be better if we don't have it with us when we run into them again." Lucina pulled one of the bricks, and it came lose.
Ike peered into the dim cavity behind the brick wall. "Should I even ask?"
"Naga's followers hid their relics here. I stole them. Confiscating was what I called it in my head."
Ike raised a brow. "Naga's champion wasn't just a most loyal knight, she was also a thief? And I thought I had you all figured out." His tone became serious. "That just leaves us with one problem: We still don't know where the dragon even hides. I suppose that on your mission for Roy you didn't explore any caves that could hide an oversized magical lizard."
"No, Roy forbade me to explore King's Plight. Or rather any place unrelated to my mission. Wolt was always looking over my shoulder and—" Lucina had pulled the Binding Shield out of the saddlebag with the intention of storing it in the cavity. Now she stopped. Her fingers brushed the Lifesphere, mesmerized by the flames swirling within.
"Sêl," she said.
"What?"
"Roy called her that. The fire spirit. She has parts of Naga's powers, I believe she could lead us towards the Lightsphere from which the dragon originated."
"Or she could burn down this whole shrine and us with it."
"I don't have any better ideas. We have been wasting so much time already, and I… I want this to be over."
After a moment, Ike nodded. "Your call. Lead the way."
They sat down close to the fire basket. The flames reflecting on the Lifesphere mingled with the flames in its core. An entire life housed there, memories reaching back to the birth of the world. How similar to Naga, yet how different. A tool. A vessel. The path ended there, had always been fated to end there. Her creation was eternal.
Eternally hers.
Lucina freed the Lifesphere from its mold in the Binding Shield. The golden dragon gave up its price most unwillingly; a mental rather than a physical resistance pushed Lucina's fingers away. She was cold despite the fire. But in the end, the Lifesphere rested in her outstretched palm.
"Sêl," she whispered, "can you hear me?"
The fire's glow flickered across her palm. Tirelessly the flames swirled within the Lifesphere, but no sound came from it, not even the faintest beating of a heart. Seconds, maybe minutes passed.
Lucina was about to brand this whole idea as folly when the flames erupted from the Lifesphere, dancing, spinning, roaring, until they took on a new form. Heat spread, a dress of sparks and cinders, and suddenly a smell of molten copper filled the shrine. The fire spirit Sêl stood in front of Lucina and Ike. Her form wavered with each draught from the windows, fleeting like the warmth of a winter morning. Her eyes in the same shade as the Lifesphere bore unspeakable sorrow.
"Why did you call me?" Sêl asked.
Ike raised one hand to Ragnell, but Lucina gestured him to stay seated. She swallowed and asked, "You were born from Naga, right? One of her five tools she used to create the world."
"I was."
"We are looking for the spheres. You know where they are, don't you?"
Sêl waited a long moment before she replied. Her gaze drifted to the white storm outside the shrine, and maybe she hoped to hurl herself out there and die out like a candle. "Why do you seek the spheres? Is one not enough?"
"Naga tasked me with uniting them. You must know that they are the only chance to stop Grima's shadows."
"The brightest light casts the darkest shadows. Do you see Grima in them?"
"I have seen Grima. Naga made me see."
Sêl titled her head. She studied Lucina's face, every detail of it, and Lucina flinched from imaginary heat on her skin. "You are lost," Sêl said. "If you stay on this path, you will vanish into the light. All that you hold dear will be but a hint of a memory, too frail to pull you back or give you company until even this last piece of you dissolves."
"Okay, that's enough with the riddles," Ike growled. "Can you sense where the other spheres are or can't you?"
"I can. The Lightsphere sleeps not far away from you. But if my wishes hold any power, you shall never find it."
Lucina ran her thumb across Sêl's red stone. There was so little time… She would have to change her strategy. "Sêl, your existence was tied to the Binding Blade. Why did you never show yourself to Rath when he had the sword?"
Sêl closed her eyes. "Rath is a good man. I felt both his resolve and his compassion for the brief time he carried the Binding Blade. In many ways he is a great man. But he is destined to die, like all humans. I do not wish to make more memories with the dead."
"But Roy was the exception."
"I was his tool."
"No. He had his tools, his knights, but that wasn't how he looked at you. He was kind to you. He made you feel seen, understood… wanted. He didn't smile often, not with all his heart, but when he did, it was a smile you wanted to believe in. That's… at least how I felt when he took me in. For years he seemed like a hero to me. Like he could do no wrong."
Sêl's smile drowned in bittersweet grief. "I can see how he loved you."
"I wish things had gone differently. I wish…"
"If I tell you where to find the Lightsphere, will you grant me a favor?"
Lucina startled. "Of course. If it's within my power."
"Never call on me again. That is all I ask."
Ike leaned towards Lucina, watching Sêl out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know about this. She could be useful with finding the other spheres."
"We don't have the luxury of choice," Lucina said. "The longer we wait, the more likely that the Black Fang catches up to us. Sêl, I will grant your wish. You will not hear from me again. And if I can deliver all spheres to Naga, you will never have to set foot onto this plain again. Is this what you want?"
"It is too late for me to want for anything else."
"Then you have my word."
Sêl lowered her head. Already her flames dimmed. "Thank you."
"And the dragon?" Ike asked.
"Turn east from here. Follow the trail fenced by white cliffs. It will lead you to the cave where that sleeps which you are looking for. But bear my warning in mind. If you continue on this path, you will vanish into the light you are chasing. For Roy's sake… I hope you reconsider."
Sêl's flames consumed themselves, a roaring and crackling, until her sorrowful expression faded. Only the Lifesphere in Lucina's palm remained.
The snowstorm had eased its hold on the mountains, and no more than a handful of flakes drifted form the sky when Lucina and Ike departed from the shrine. The Binding Shield with the two spheres waited for their return, tugged away into the cavity for Naga's burnt relics. The brick to hide its tempting golden shimmer once more sat in place.
They followed Sêl's directions. Soon the white cliffsides trapped them in their cold embrace. The wind whispered down the rockface, and it repeated Sêl's warning. Turn around. Abandon this path. Lucina wrapped her cape more tightly around her shoulders and pushed on. Not the prospect of a fire-breathing dragon made her shiver. Rather it was the cold, this terrible cold, creeping along under her skin. She shared her body with it, and every step she walked, it conquered another inch of her.
Ike showed no signs of freezing. He marched through the gorge, undeterred by both the whispering winds and the echo of his steps bouncing from left to right to form a horrid choir. Turn around. Lucina kept her eyes on Ike's back and walked another step.
Before them yawned the cave entrance Sêl had described. Two horses side by side might barely squeeze through. The dragon couldn't have entered the mountain this way. Had Sêl betrayed their agreement? She had little love to spare for Naga and even less for the one who had killed Roy. But Lucina knew no other path, and after a moment, she and Ike stepped into the darkness.
The cave twisted through the mountain, like a parasite digging its way through the flesh of its host. The air abandoned the smell of meltwater and instead the staleness of tons of unmovable rock pressed against Lucina's face; clay and ore veins and the dusty bones of the mountain. She hadn't thought to bring a torch, and Ragnell's blue light did not spring forth on command. All they could do was follow the twisting shape of the tunnel through a darkness not stirred in decades.
Until at last the tunnel widened into an underground hall. The ceiling lost itself in the dimness. Lucina had thought the underground cathedral of Seliora had been ginormous, but this cave dwarfed even such a monument. The entire Glass Fortress might fit in here. Millennia ago, someone had carved buildings into the rock walls. Houses, turrets, and bridges stacked on top of each other, and candle-less windows looked down at the two figures that had dared to enter. An entire civilization had once lived here.
Lucina had read her fair share of history in Lycia's library, but never had she heard mention of a people living under the stone, entirely cut off from the light. Uther might have shed a tear at the sight of this discovery. Halls and colonnades clung to the walls, guarded by the eyes of countless black dragon statues. The people of this city had worshipped the dragon, chased after it. Whether they had ever found it, the grim stone faces did not say.
And all of this was illuminated by a golden glow from the center of the cave. There, on top of a mountain of gold lay the creature born from the Lightsphere. Uther's description left no doubt. Tiki's dragon form had perhaps measured half the length of this creature. Every claw matched the width of a proud birch tree, the spikes on its back deadly enough to slice a two-master in half. So pure were the white scales that they glowed against the shadows. The dragon's tail, itself of several horses' length, wound across golden coins and golden cups and golden relics. The creature was the most magnificent and terrifying enemy Lucina had faced. And it slept.
She snuck forward. Ike followed on her heels. Neither dared to speak. With each of the dragon's breaths, a rumble shook the pile of gold. But the creature did not stir.
Falchion's steel hummed when Lucina unsheathed it. The power to kill dragons and the gods themselves slumbered within the sword; Tiki had said it had been wrought from Naga herself, and she had often shuddered in its presence. Lucina only needed to drive the steel forward.
Careful to time her steps with the dragon's breath, she climbed the pile. Gold coins slipped under her boots, rolled onto the bare stone. She held her breath. But the creature did not stir.
Two, three more steps, and she stood beside the dragon's chest. If it rolled over in its sleep, it would crush her. Unparalleled strength and unparalleled magic swirled underneath the scales. To think that Eliwood had once fought this dragon with a sword he knew could not pierce his enemy's armor, all for the sake of his friend…
Lucina raised Falchion to kill the last dragon. Magic like this no longer dwelled on Archanea's plain. Even the other spheres didn't hold such power, such light. The dragon slept here peacefully, indifferent towards the world and the world towards it. Perhaps if Lucina dealt the killing blow, it would leave the world a little darker than before.
But Naga guided her hand, and without another thought, she thrust Falchion into the dragon's chest.
A shriek thundered through the cave, the dragon's golden eyes snapped open and stared into Lucina's core. Was it fury in those intelligent eyes or gratitude? Or did they shimmer with unspeakable sorrow?
Lucina would never know the answer because the dragon vanished. For a moment, the city in the cave walls gleamed from a firework of white sparks, and the black statues roared with their immobile stone maws, enraged.
In the dragon's place remained a white stone the size of a dove egg. It rolled towards Lucina's boots. She picked up the Lightsphere and smiled at Ike. And so they collected the third out of five spheres.
"You are something else," Ike said. "You're the first person in a thousand years who killed a dragon, and you didn't even break a sweat."
Lucina slipped the sphere into her pockets. "When we are back in Caelin, I'll treat you to a bottle of wine to celebrate."
"It's a deal. With all this gold lying around, I think you can afford it."
Ike's gaze paused on its way to sweep the mountain of riches; something had caught his interest. Lucina followed his line of sight. An axe with gold decorations lay amidst the pile. In over two decades, rust had not dared to blemish its blade.
Armads. Hector's weapon.
Ike reached for the handle.
"We better leave it here," Lucina said.
Ike pulled back his hand. "You're right. I never learned how to fight with axes anyway."
"But you wanted to, at some point?"
Ike flexed his fingers. "It was just a childish fantasy."
On her way out the cave, Lucina threw a look back at Armads. She had promised Uther to return the axe to the house of its owner. But that house had died out with Uther's blood drenching the tiles under his dinner table. In this cave, however, Armads would endure for centuries to come. And maybe, when someone stirred this air again, the axe would still stand and tell of a time when humans fought dragons for the sake of their friends.
Ike couldn't get Sêl's warning out of his head. Even after the dragon had died at Lucina's hands and she had collected the sphere with her most spell-binding smile, the warning had grown new roots in his ears. She would vanish into the light she was chasing. He'd be damned if he let that happen.
She would see her true peace for Archanea. She would sleep without a sword in her hand one day. If Ike managed at least that, maybe him surviving the Black Knight would not be so pointless.
Ragnell weighed heavy on his shoulders on their way back through the tunnel.
Sundown caught them long before they reached the shrine. An angry cloud front blocked stars and moon alike, and Ike couldn't see a damned thing beyond the footprint he had just stomped into the snow. Even with the haunted ruins as company, they should have stayed in the cave. But they had squandered their chance to go back; the gorge had disappeared behind the snow-coated rock formations, and Ike wouldn't bet on his ability to find the way back. He couldn't shake the feeling of treading unfamiliar ground. Hadn't they turned too far south?
Well, they wouldn't know unless they kept going. But when Ike placed the next step, the snow and the ground below gave in. He had walked right off a cliff.
He fumbled with his balance, but his soaked boot found no footing, scree tumbled a long way down, and gravity sunk its teeth into him.
Lucina grabbed his arm and pulled him from the brink. Shock or maybe exertion reddened her cheeks.
"Thanks," Ike muttered. He still struggled to calm his breath.
"I'm trying to even the score," Lucina said. "You saved me too often on this trip already. If you hadn't found me at Uther's residence… I doubt I would have taken another step."
Ike tried not to sip too much of the sincerity in her eyes. So damn intoxicating. With some difficulty, he directed his attention back to their less than friendly surroundings. "At this rate, we'll never make it back to the shrine. I'd be happy to finish off this day without dropping from a cliff."
"I want to reach the Binding Shield as quickly as possible."
"And I'd prefer to make it in one piece. If all this cave-wandering hasn't turned me blind, I think that shadow over there is an overhang. We can wait for the sun there. Or at least for a hole in the clouds."
Lucina evidently didn't like the idea. Her hand fidgeted with the pocket where she kept the Lightsphere. But she agreed, and they set up their lackluster camp in the lee of the overhang. The handful of twigs Ike kept as kindling in his saddlebag wouldn't last them long through the night. Which meant blankets and could feet for them. His sore muscles and even sorer thoughts dragged Ike to the ground.
Lucina, on the other hand, showed no desire for sleep. She lit one of her candles and prayed. Maybe for Naga to chase away the clouds and show them the way back to the shrine. So much the better. Ike would just close his eyes for a moment or two. Wasn't it strange to smell oil in a place like this…
He would ask someone in his dreams about it. A moment or two…
A growl jolted Ike. He couldn't have slept for long. The stench of oil had grown overbearing, and the night no longer emitted the silence of a deserted mountain. Something breathed between the snowdrifts. Something rattled.
Click-clack.
Like jaws grinding bones to dust.
Ike jumped to his feet, the cold forgotten, and grabbed Ragnell. He spun around. Lucina's candle had gone out; icy light clawed at the rockfaces. It came from atop the overhang.
And right there stood a gigantic wolf, baring its teeth. It glowed, and blue strings swirled around its paws. Magic.
Ike didn't manage more thoughts than that. Before he even adjusted his grip on Ragnell, the wolf pounced at him.
They crashed, claws tore through his cloak, the air quit his lungs, there was only the stench of oil leaking from the wolf's maw. Ike stumbled, fell, his feet stepped into nothing. The cliff had him.
Claws ripped open his arm. Everything was darkness and weightlessness, and the wolf's fangs inching closer, ready to tear him apart and feed his flesh to the oil furnace searing in its belly.
Snow and then rock slammed into him, and still he and the wolf tumbled down the slope in their deadly embrace.
Another hit; Ike's head struck solid ground, and he tasted bile. Stars exploded in his field of vision. The wolf crashed down next to him and vanished into an afterimage burned into Ike's head. His eyes wouldn't adjust to the darkness. He stumbled half a step, dropped back to his knees. An icy squall bit into the torn skin of his arm. And with it, the wind carried the rattle of swords.
Lucina.
Ike bit his tongue until he tasted blood and stumbled forward, up the slope, towards the noise of combat. Stupid, stupid, how could he let his guard down like that? He had no answer, his ears were ringing, ringing with the frantic squeal of at least two swords out for blood.
Voices called. A scream.
Ike forced himself forward, dug his feet then his hands into the rock, and climbed. Blood ran down his arm, his grip slippery.
"Lucina!"
The clatter of swords died out. His hearing betrayed him. His clipped breath drowned out all other sounds. Lucina had hacked down her opponents; his mind barked that reassurance at itself every time Ike heaved himself upward, every time his fingers found a new mold to cling to.
He reached the edge. Choking on his rapid heartbeat, he staggered to the overhang. Naga's candle stood where he had last seen it, snuffed out. Tousled blankets and emptied saddlebags had scattered about.
Of the battle and those who had fought it remained only a dagger with the symbol of the Black Fang – bloodstained.
Notes: I'm so sorry for the long delay! I went on vacation and then I got sick, and here we are three weeks later. If you find any mistakes in this chapter, it's probably because my brain isn't functioning properly yet. I hope to get back into the rhythm with editing and posting, but no promises. And hopefully you enjoyed the chapter. It's been a while since I had a good old cliffhanger ending.