“ATHIS!” she bellowed, refusing to believe what she was seeing.
Sheet upon sheet of rock broke free of the mountain and rained down on Athis, burying him ton by ton. Soon, she couldn’t see him at all, the entire area clouded with debris.
Inara gasped as her lungs seemed to forget how to breathe. She reached out to him again and again but there was no response in her mind, not even a feeling. Her immediate desolation sucked her in. She didn’t care that massive wings were beating the rain as Ilargo found purchase on The Bastion’s stone.
“Inara.”
The Guardian had no idea who was calling her name. It wasn’t Athis and his was the only voice she wanted to hear. And so she stayed where she was, hanging over the world, her gaze fixed on the shifting rocks far below.
“Inara.”
The voice was followed by a hand on her shoulder, though many hands were required to heave her away from the edge. She was eventually faced by Gideon, who gripped her by the arms. Beside him were Asher and Vighon, but her eyes were taken beyond them, to her parents. Nathaniel was holding Reyna tightly in his arms, the pair seated on the wet stone with their faces buried in each other’s shoulder.
“We will go to him,” Gideon said, snapping her attention back. “Come.”
Inara and Gideon alone were flown down the mountain by Ilargo. Avandriell passed them by on their way, her wings frayed and ripped in places. Inara could only give the bronze dragon a glance, her focus drawn to Athis.
Ilargo’s landing disturbed more of the loose rocks but his claws were secure, rooting him to the slope. Inara didn’t wait for Gideon to tell her it was safe. Within seconds of touching down, she was scrambling over the broken mountain side, the pain of her hip and broken finger long forgotten in the face of her breaking heart.
She came across Malliath’s body first. Like a god thrown from the heavens, his corpse lay crumpled on the rocks. His body was severely battle damaged, marred from tail to snout with Athis’s claw marks. His mouth remained ajar, his tongue hanging between his jaws and over a large stone. The black dragon had lost the life behind his purple eyes. His death, it seemed, had also ended the supernatural storm that had brought ruin to the starry night.
Scaling Malliath, Inara continued a little further up, ignoring Gideon’s distant warnings about the potential dangers.
There he was.
“Athis!” Inara called his name again and again as she approached. His head and half of his neck protruded from the rockslide, allowing her to come right up alongside his face. Like Malliath, what she could see of his body revealed a savage battle with his kin. One of his crowning horns was gone completely while the other had been snapped in half.
The only eye she could see began to slowly open. Small veins, a brighter red than his scales, wormed their way into the rich blue that surrounded his sharp pupil.
Wingless one… His mind was weak, the words distant and lacking their usual edge.
It’s me, she replied through their bond. I’m here.
Is it… over? he asked.
Yes, Inara answered, her tears flowing with abandon. You sacrificed… She stopped, her mind refusing to form the words. You sacrificed yourself, she finally managed. Why did you have to do that? the Guardian demanded, her grief and anger running parallel.
I was not… the only one, Athis said. There was still… good in him… at the end.
Inara nodded along as she knelt beside her companion, her hand pressed to his scales. I don’t want you to go. I can’t lose you too. I don’t know how to be without you.
Ah… but that time… is upon us. You must feel it too. The eternal shores… call to me.
No, Inara wept, willing him to overcome Death itself. I love you too much. You can’t leave me.
I have done… all that I was meant to… in this life. And what a life… you have given me. Know this… Inara Galfrey… I await you in the next life… where the sky is endless… and the dawn is everlasting…
With that final word, Athis the ironheart closed his eyes, never to open them again.
An indescribable sound escaped Inara’s lips, a sound that carried all of her sorrow, grief, and agony. And there she remained, trapped by her misery until the sun once again graced The Vrost Mountains.
Eventually, the sound of footsteps broke her trance, pulling her from the memories she had spent the rest of the night dwelling on. Memories of Athis, memories of Alijah. That was all she had now.
Gideon stood before Athis, his hand resting against the red dragon’s snout. “Rest well old friend. You were the best of us.”
“I don’t want to leave him,” Inara said.
“Even when you were apart, you were always together. That will never change.”
Inara looked up at her old mentor with bloodshot eyes and flushed skin. “What am I without him?”
“Together you made each other so much more,” Gideon told her, “but it wasn’t Athis the ironheart that forged Inara Galfrey into a warrior, into a hero. You are still that person. You will go on to do everything you were going to. Only now you will take Athis in your heart… and in your soul.”
Gideon’s hand extended towards her but Inara paused before taking it, her eyes catching a glint of red on the ground. She scooped it up and examined the dragon scale, her thumb wiping some of the dirt away. It fitted easily in the palm of her hand and she clasped her fingers around it, holding it so tightly it nearly cut into her skin.
Leaving Athis to the mountain was one of the hardest things she had ever done, but her feet managed one step at
