End of an Era

Prologue

End of an Era

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Dragons belonged in the fables elders told youngers to keep them from wanderin’ too far up the Mountain. In fact, dragons were near myth. It had been nearly four centuries and a half since the dragons and their scaly, slithering spawn were last seen. No one knew why they had stopped terrorizin’ the last peoples of the Valley and Shore. No one thought to question their sudden withdrawal. But it was on the eve of the Full Moons, some seventy years ago, that those stories and old fears reignited. Dragons descended from the Mountains and flooded the Valley with blood. Ankara was the first to drown in it and they say only one poor soul managed to survive. If it even has a soul.”

Jak the Riverman

68 years ago

Vasha had been staring out a north-facing window in a tower stairwell watching monsters celebrate their nearing victory.

Boom-boom-clack! Boom-boom-clack!

The beating of Uri’Likam drums echoed through the halls and chambers that cradled the last survivors of Ankara, hiding like field mice in the small, shadowed spaces of the castle. Any moment, dragon-skinned creatures, forged in the blue-fire pits of Mount Ruzgar, would break through the last door of the inner keep and eat the remaining people alive to honor their god-king, Uril, Reaper of War and Harvest.

Once word was received that the neighboring city-states would not be sending aid, as they prepared for onslaughts of their own, most of the castle residents began taking their own lives to avoid being devoured in a ravenous hysteria. Vasha, a servant who tended the castle's hearths, could not yet step foot in Death’s frozen abyss.

A clammy grasp gripped her shoulder. Vasha jumped and let out a yelp! A pale blue-tinted figure with stark white, ankle-length hair and silver eyes stared back at her. Queen Inna lifted her bony arm to point one gnarled, root looking finger in the spot directly between Vasha’s eyes.

“Hush, hush. Or they’ll hear you!” Singing the last four words, the queen smiled.

Vasha was stunned to see her sovereign standing next to her so closely. In fact, she had only ever seen the queen twice before and always from afar. As Ankara’s Dreamshade, she spent almost every moment on sacred temple grounds tapping into the essence of Sight to deliver prophecies and sacred wisdom. It was one of the more archaic and rare forms of magic.

Just as Vasha began to curtsy, the queen unexpectedly linked arms with her. Together, the two women walked wordlessly through the gloom of their lost home.

The frail queen led Vasha through the long, narrow hallways of the castle. Each one was lined with tapestries depicting joyous scenes from royal weddings and triumphant victories, which now seemed to laugh wickedly as they swayed to the reverberations of the enemy's horrid song.

Boom-boom-clack! Boom-boom-clack! Boom-boom-CLACK!

They had been listening to this repetitive deathsong for weeks. Vasha swallowed the urge to scream and run, pressing onward to what Vasha soon realized was the queen’s private chambers. As they stepped inside, her wide gaze swept across the dark room as the queen barred the door behind them. Before, she would have relished the opportunity of being in the queen’s mysterious chamber, filled to the brim with fineries from each corner of the known world. The looming space was lit only by a handful of single-wick candles scattered about and the smoldering embers of a forgotten fireplace.

Her breath caught. She gaped in horror at the tear-streaked, grimy faces bunched together near the dying fire.

Children. Children were left. And no one remains to save them.

There were eight of them, ranging from about four to seven summers old. Vasha had seen many of these faces playing in the spice gardens behind the kitchen. They were the children of various state officials that lived in the castle. As to why they were here, Vasha could only assume that no one was left to care for them.

The castle’s defense against the siege that followed only prolonged the inevitable. The last defenders of their city-state fell a week ago. King Humia and his infantry lay silent in the battlefield outside the city walls, caked in mud and drenched in the blood of mortal souls. It was said that when news of King Humia’s death reached the keep, the queen’s already fragile state-of-mind had finally given way to a spiraling frenzy of madness. In the days leading up to their now final hours, the absent queen could be heard wailing for hours on end as the reality of slaughter saturated her every thought.

Humming softly, Queen Inna brought Vasha over to a green, lavish couch with cream colored, embroidered blankets sweeping across it. Her swollen, pregnant belly made it difficult for her to sit and reach under the couch to bring forth a small, rectangular box. Her eager hands glided over the tiny rubies that had been worked into the twisting, black wood of the ornate chest.

Vasha quietly watched, standing awkwardly, as the queen ceremoniously opened the box and began unwrapping the fine cloth within, revealing a jeweled dagger. Her glassy, silver eyes gleamed with a yearning that Vasha had only ever seen in those that starved in the gibbet cages hanging at the base of the Mountain.

“Listen carefully, hearth-tender, ” Queen Inna squeaked out in a hoarse voice. She was difficult to hear over the ear-splitting thrums that shook the crumbling integrity of the ancient castle walls. “You will take this blade and you will retrieve the life within me.”

Vasha staggered. “Um… What? My queen,” she added quickly.

The trembling woman thrusted the blade into her hands, forcing Vasha to grip the hilt even as she tried to pull away.

“Foolish,” Inna gasped, sputtering spit onto Vasha’s face. “We should have fled, but I thought…we thought… Stupid! Fools!” She released a sob. Then to Vasha’s surprise, the queen began laughing through her tears.

She watched in horror as Queen Inna, Lady of the Fallen Leaf and Dreamshade of Ankara, unraveled the remaining remnants of her sanity.

“My queen, please,” Vasha whispered as gently as she could. “I cannot do this.”

“You must, I have seen it! My little princess will save us all! But you must do as I say. Your Dreamshade’s last dream is set in stone.” The queen's dry, cracked lips sneered into a grin. “You must leave us to our fate if we are to live. You will soon hold the only hope left in this pitiful world.”

BOOM! The deliverers of death had broken through the inner keep’s massive oak doors as the queen shrilled her nonsense. The sound of a thousand claws scraping against the stone floors echoed through the hallways, etching fear into the already terrified little faces to her left.

“Do it now!” She pushed the cold knife into Vasha’s hands and lay down on the couch, belly up.

“My queen —” Her mouth went dry. The shadowed, heavily furnished chamber seemed to grow smaller and more oppressive with each passing second, reflecting the woeful atrocities that were slowly drowning them all.

“You will take the passages between the walls—” Queen Inna sobbed between words. Her wild, darting eyes began to flutter, fighting to stay focused, “Between the walls, follow the vein of blue quartz to an iron door. It empties into the Icari. There’s a small boat—”

Boom-boom-clack! Boom-bloom-clack! Boom-boom-clack!

“That painting there. See it?” She weakly pointed towards a large canvas depicting a scene from The Meadow of Blue, a fable about a child who painted an entire meadow blue using his mother’s tears. “Swing it open and you will find a series of hidden passages. Blue quartz, remember. Follow it out and float downstream to Whining Hollow.”

Vasha’s heart raced as she stared at her queen, slack-jawed.

She’s giving us a way out! She thought.

The queen was a Dreamshade and her Sight was a blessing from the Moons. If this baby were the one to right this wrong then Vasha had to do everything she could in saving her and these children. If there was truly a way out, then she had to make it. No matter the personal cost.

Vasha bent down on one knee, fighting the sense of nausea that sloshed in her stomach. The queen feverishly nodded her head.

“That’s it, child. That’s it. Quickly, now!” She unwrapped her robe, exposing her pregnant belly. “Right here. That’s it. When you open me, reach in and grab her. And then cut the cord. Be quick now.”

A tight knot welled in Vasha's throat and her mouth tasted sour.

The rhythmic drumming of death grew closer and closer outside of the dark room. Positioning the blade just below the right side of her belly button, the hearth-tender breathed in the rancid, stale air around her, and exhaled as she pressed against the soft skin of the queen.

A shrill scream cut through the violent, sleepless night as the cold knife sliced across the queen’s underbelly. Vasha dropped the jeweled blade and dug her trembling, chapped hands inside the screaming woman, pulling free the babe within. The baby was premature, frighteningly so, and ominously silent on a night filled with ungodly shrieks.

Vasha shivered and clutched the slick newborn as she felt the end of an era searing to ash around her. Slicing through the plump, pale yellow cord, her stomach churned as she took in the raw scene before her of the queen sprawled out on a lavish couch now soaked with blood. Vasha's senses began to numb and her vision clouded as her limbs grew heavy. She wanted so desperately to turn into stone.

Vasha feebly attempted to hand the quiet, little baby over to her mother.

The queen gasped, sucking in air like a dying fish. “You have her now. Run. Run!” she wailed. “Take the passages between the walls —”

“I’ll gather the children,” Vasha choked on her words and began wrapping the unstirring babe in a blanket before rising towards the huddled, sniffling mass of terrified children.

“NO!” shrieked the queen. “Just you and my princess. You will never make it out of Ankara with so many. They’ll see you and cut you down! Killing any chance of retribution!” She released a harsh, desperate cackle as she spat up blood.

Vasha’s skin crawled and her blood turned to ice. She glanced at the children in the corner. “We can’t leave them here,” she whispered.

Vasha jumped as the Uri’Likam began beating on the queen’s own door. Dust plumed from each impact. Vasha froze in a state of indecision and disorientation. The Dreamshade’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she slipped into Sight. Vasha began to tremble as the woman’s screeching voice rang out in a song that sounded like a Firechant of old:

“Save us from stone coffins,

save us from stone tombs.

You’ll never have a chance,

If you don’t howl to the Mooooons!”

She finished the haunting melody by howling wildly. Boom! Ripping her eyes from the desperate woman before her, Vasha set them upon the painting.

She had been given a task. An important task from the Dreamshade herself. Her. A chance that will allow them to live. Boom! Boom! She didn’t have to know how or why. She just had to move!

Vasha darted to the oil canvas.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

She reached out, swung the painting open, and found herself staring into a narrow passageway that led into darkness despite the ever-burning witchlight torches, casting off a dull, green light spanning far and few between. She could hear the wood splintering.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She held the baby tighter as her head pounded and her heart shattered in a million scattering pieces.

She turned and caught the smiling queen’s red rimmed, dead eyes pouring into her. Vasha sucked her breath in and stole a glance towards the children. This was her chance. She took a timid step towards them, coaxing them over with a quick wave.

“Psst!” she hissed. A few looked up with their swollen, red faces. “Quickly!”

The wood from the entrance door began to break from the swinging, black oil axes.

Fear overtook her.

Within a heartbeat, Vasha snapped the painting shut, plunging her and the baby into darkness tinged with a sickly green glow. She spun and took two stumbling steps forward before hearing the crashing sound of the door being torn open by a pack of ravaging Uri’Likam.

Her knees buckled under the unbearable weight of her choice paired with the deafening screams of those poor, innocent souls. The gutteral noises of feasting monsters roared in her ears as she crawled down the long, stone corridor trying to escape it. She felt her whole body convulse and grow heavy as she feebly fought the urge to seize and melt into the stone floor beneath her.

Vasha could hardly glance up to see the uneven ribbon of glowing blue quartz running along the right side of the tunnel. The tightness of her chest was unbearable. She shivered and dry heaved, but focused her awareness on the precious life cradled in her arms. She had to press forward. There was still a chance.

Reclaiming what little strength she had left, she began sluggishly running through the endless dark labyrinth. Vasha followed the blue quartz that occasionally intermingled with red, green, and white quartz veins before veering off into other corridors. The air was musty and the floor was wet from what she hoped was water dripping from above. Vasha slipped several times, scraping her knees on the damp, cutting rock beneath her. More than anything, she wanted to press into the stone that surrounded her and leave this nightmare behind.

After what seemed like a mindless eternity, she arrived at an iron door, just as the queen said she would. Holding the swaddled newborn in her left arm, she turned the iron knob with her right. With a creak that split the night in half, the gate swung open. Stumbling out of the dark tunnel and falling onto her knees, the hearth-tender vomited on the wet grass. The mess steamed as the cool night air washed over her.

She looked up to see the three waning crescent Moons overheard and whispered a prayer of thanks. Suddenly, a bubbling sensation of shame permeated Vasha’s body.

Thanks.

She thought of the children she left behind and her body shuddered.

All around she could hear the blaring of horned trumpets and victory chanting of the Uri’Likam. The castle behind her glowed with orange-fire as the shadows of horned demons danced.

Delirious and exhausted, Vasha wiped the vomit from her chin and inched forward until she saw a little circle boat bobbing in the Icari River. Whimpering, she poured her aching body into the dingy and grabbed the paddle to push off from the shoreline.

Vasha clutched her little princess as she struggled to paddle further towards dark, calm waters. Eventually, they were able to silently drift with ease, the circular boat slowly spinning in the water like a top. Darkness, fire, darkness, fire…

Whining Hallow. That’s where the queen said to go.

Vasha pulled her thoughts from deep places and began wondering if the queen had people waiting in a safe house there or if there would be a team of soldiers escorting them to an outpost. She knew of no such things, being a simple hearth-tender. Wiping her eyes, Vasha looked down at the hidden newborn nestled safely in her soft, cream colored blanket. So quiet.

“It’s okay, starlight,” She whispered, unwrapping her little princess.

Despite everything, they had made it out. Further they drifted from the dragon worshipping murderers that had decimated their home and people.

You and me, little one. We’ll make this terrible wrong, right.

She froze.

Vasha’s heart lurched as she stared at a cold, lifeless, little body cradled in her lap. Just stared in a daze as the night’s events sank in. The queen had been delirious. There was no prophecy. Her vision was wrong and this baby was —

Everything was wrong.

Worst of all, she was wrong to have listened to the ravings of a mad woman before abandoning those children to a fate worse than death. Wrong to have foolishly, no, selfishly, believed that some great destiny had fallen upon her and this child. That they must survive because one day, in some act of divine retribution in the years to come, they would deliver justice.

Instead, she had been the one to hand over the last surviving children of Ankara to creatures who would consume their flesh and wear their small bones as trophies.

At that moment, something severed within Vasha. Reverently she wrapped the silent princess in her little blanket, before gently laying down with her on the floor of the small wooden boat. She could not breathe and heard only the static noise of blood rushing through her pounding head. She could not move or think as the consequences of her actions twisted her gut like a pit of snakes.

Finally, in a violent burst of tears, she wept as the heaviness of her soul seeped into every crevice of her fractured heart. For the third time this evening, she felt herself turn heavy as stone. This time, however, she allowed herself to be swallowed whole as she desperately begged the Moons to curse her.

Vasha was never adept at channeling magic. So few truly were. But in this witching hour, where raw primal powers permeated the night around her, she slipped into an inhuman trance with ease.

Her eyes rolled back into her head as she opened herself to the essence of Transmutation. She shook and vibrated until slowly she began to transform. First her heart, followed by her muscles, bones, and skin. Until all that was left of her, all that was left of Ankara, was a cursed hearth-tender made of stone, tearlessly sobbing for the unforgivable crime that she had committed.

She whimpered as the pain of stone flesh clicked and crackled into place across her body, and the weeping river swept her down a dark and sinuous path.