But there, in the darkness, waited the stars. Bright and brilliant, floating over an endless black sea. She cast her final glance to the distant shore and saw a figure waiting, arms open wide as if to welcome her home. The figure’s face was a blur, but she could see that it smiled, a sweet familiar smile, then shook its head at her, pointed up at the stars and turned away. Abandoned on the sea, the message was clear. The time had not come for her to go home. There remained more left to do.
Looking up to the stars, Dnara latched her fading hopes to them and embraced her fate. She was frightened, but she would not run. She had been a kept child, but she had not been abandoned. She was someone’s daughter. Like all things, her beginning did not define her end, and her ending existed only to show her a new journey to begin.
Heat erupted from her palm and she reached for the shadow surrounding her. Her hand sank into the shadows until it found a solid mass of scales undulating over taut muscles. Light flashed and the rune scarred into her palm seared a mark onto the creature’s neck. The shadow reeled back, howling in fury, and Dnara inhaled a much needed breath. The rune’s pattern, a completed circle with a dot where its beginning and end met, glowed on the creature’s skin. White starlit rays burst outward from the mark, shearing away pieces of shadow, giving momentary glimpses at the dragon trapped beneath the living darkness.
Dnara looked up in awe. A dragon. It truly was a dragon!
A large foot stamped the earth near her head and clawed at the dirt as a howl of agony filled the clearing, bringing Dnara back to her senses. She scooted out from under the creature and crawled along the ground to Ren. Where her rune-marked hand touched the earth, the frozen blades of grass melted away the frost and were green again. With hope filling her heart, she touched the rune to Ren’s shoulder and begged whatever gods may exist to let the soldier live.
This is not how it should end, she thought, tears now coming to her eyes without warning as she pulled Ren into her arms.
The beast trampled backwards in stumbling steps and turned on her. It snapped and snarled in rage. Shadows melted and sank to the earth like withering flesh in their attempts to repair the damage the rune had caused.
‘It all must end!’ The beast’s voice echoed into Dnara’s mind like thunder, making her heart shudder.
The rune on her hand burned and the creature roared. Holding onto Ren as a beacon within a dark void, Dnara screamed back at the beast like a feral wolfchild as an unexpected rage threatened to drown her. The shadows pulled back and swirled around the clearing, blocking out the moon. The darkness dissipated the rage within her soul, offering a numbing comfort; a place to rest where fear and sadness would not touch her. They sang sweetly to her, promising an endless peace. Standing at the center of the void, the dragon looked on in placid stillness with its head lowered, wings broken and fire extinguished.
‘Let it all end, child,’ implored the dragon. ‘Please.’
Yes, Dnara thought as a world without life surrounded her. She could end it all; the madness, the suffering, this ceaseless harrowing existence.
Dnara lifted her hand towards the dragon, but another hand grabbed her arm to stop her. Light bloomed around her, and from its center, she heard Ren’s laugh and felt the soldier’s strength. ‘Not like this,’ the phantom of Ren’s spirit said, and hope flooded in to drive away the darkness.
“Not like this,” Dnara repeated, first on a whisper and then on a voice strengthened by the thought of all those who had helped her come so far. For them, she would not fall into shadow. “Not like this!”
The shadows shifted and the beast threw its head back in a yowl of anguish. The moonlight reappeared in the clearing and the first touch of wind brushed across Dnara’s cheek. On her palm as well as her heart, the rune burned as bright as the stars.
“This is not how it ends,” she spoke more confidently, as before when faced with the raven.
The beast roared at the night sky as shadows sprang from its back to form inky black wings. They stretched upwards then came down with a rush of wind, their movement frantic in a search for flight. The shadows recoiled and surged, pulsating in waves around the figure they had swallowed. Between the dark tendrils, for the briefest moment, Dnara saw the dragon looking at her with longing in its golden eyes.
In a thrashing swoosh, the shadowy mass left the ground and flew over the trees, disappearing into the southward night sky. A breeze followed it then returned to a river clearing now basking in moonlight and the unbroken song of crickets. The wind blew past as Dnara sat in mournful silence, her arms held tightly around a cold, unmoving Ren. With a heavy gust, the wind shook the trees and called out in whistling squalls. From the tree line came alarmed shouting and the flickering reflections of torchlight. Dnara laid down on the damp earth beside her lifeless friend and wept.
34
The high toned ring of metal blades leaving scabbards echoed through the clearing. King’s Guard soldiers circled around from tree line to creek bed with Dnara and their fallen comrade in the center. Torches sputtered in the wind and heavy, clanking footsteps approached. The large shadow of Commander Aldric fell upon the half-dressed, mud-covered pair, and Dnara raised tear reddened eyes up to face his scrutiny.
“What happened?” he asked, without malice nor blame aimed where it had not
