the color of red wine. A rotting, tilted pier ran toward the banks of the bay. The damage done by Greatshadow’s attack on Commonground was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the slopes of the island were still covered with a thick jade canopy of trees, rising to a volcano from which plumes of stark white steam boiled heavenward. The sky was a light gray slate, devoid of a sun, or even clearly defined clouds. The island that lay before me seemed out of scale, smaller somehow.
I crouched down, startled, as the animalistic howl once more rolled over the bay. Wolves weren’t native to the Isle of Fire, though they haunted the mountains near the monastery where I’d spent my childhood. I’d gone to sleep many a night pondering the meanings of their different songs; sometimes, they sang toward the moon to tell tales of loneliness and lost loves. Sometimes, their songs were almost joyous, a simple declaration of, “I’m alive! I’m here! And I’m a wolf!” That song was easy to distinguish from a harsher, more sinister war cry, when they howled to frighten prey, to startle them into running. This was that last type of howl.
I glanced back to the bar. The Jagged Heart was lying on the floor beside my stool. I looked down, surprised to find I was still wearing the finery Zetetic had conjured. To my greater surprise, I found the bone-handled knife jutting from my chest. I didn’t feel a thing as I grasped the hilt and popped it free. No blood flowed from the wound.
“Relic?” I said, wondering if he could still hear me.
The only answer was the gentle lapping of the wine-dark sea.
Going back inside, I grabbed the Jagged Heart. I wondered how it had made the transition. I’d been holding it when I was stabbed, but when I first died, I’d passed over naked. Maybe the difference was that Relic hadn’t stabbed a living man to dispatch me to the ghost realms. He’d stabbed a materialized spirit. If I ever met the Divine Author, it seemed like a good thing to ask Him about over a pint of beer. Assuming the Divine Author drinks.
What am I saying? He’s a writer. Of course He drinks.
Alas, He wasn’t here at the moment, and my quick pillaging pass behind the bar showed that beer wasn’t present either. If this were paradise, the sea outside would have been made of actual wine, but I suspected I would be in for an unpleasant surprise if I tested that. I was going to be doing this dragon hunt sober, damn it.
Back outside, I headed up the boardwalk toward the forest. Like the bar, it was eerily silent: no bugs buzzing, no bullfrogs bleating, no birds providing a serenade. I pushed through underbrush studded with fearsome thorns. The Jagged Heart proved better than a machete; vines and limbs studded with wooden needles froze solid as I touched them, snapping with only the slightest touch. Once I was through the brush, I was surrounded by towering trees, their smooth, perfectly formed trunks stretching high overhead into a curtain of unbroken green. It was dark as a moonless night, but my eyes soon adjusted to the dimness.
From high up the slope, the howl of the unseen beast once more rolled through the air. As the sound faded, I thought I could hear a crunch, crunch, crunch in the distance, the footsteps of something large creeping amongst the trees. I had a pretty good idea what might be making the noise.
Somewhere out in the darkness was the monster who’d lived inside the woman I’d loved.
I skulked up the slopes, holding the harpoon like a halberd, a weapon I had absolutely no experience with. Not that I had much experience with any weapons. Infidel had been my principal mode of defense, which was for the best. Given how often I’d been drunk when our fights broke out, if I’d tried handling anything sharp I’d probably eventually have stabbed myself.
I heard a shuff, shuff, shuff of something moving through the leaves and pressed up closely against an ancient tree trunk thick enough to hide an elephant. I peeked around, listening closely to see if the noise was drawing closer.
Shuff, shuff, shuff. It was right on the other side of the tree.
When I met the she-dragon, would I kill her? Could I? What if I tried to talk to her? Would she recognize me or just try to eat me?
Trusting that I would know what to do when the moment came, I grasped the harpoon and raced around the tree at top speed, which, thanks to my cape snagging on the trunk, wasn’t all that fast. Still, it was fast enough to terrify the little girl in the lacy dress I found pressed up against the tree on the far side. Her eyes popped wide and her mouth gaped into an almost perfect ‘O’ as she filled her lungs, ready to scream. I dropped the Jagged Heart and jumped toward her, hands outstretched, knocking her to the ground as I clamped my hand over her mouth. Air gushed around my fingers as her muffled scream tickled my palm.
“Shhh!” I hissed, as quietly as I could manage. “Shhh! Do you want your other half to hear?”
Tears welled in her eyes as she shook her head ‘no.’
I couldn’t believe how tiny she was, pinned beneath me. Infidel had actually been somewhat petite, I guess, but it was easy to forget this when she was juggling around bruisers and brutes. Princess Innocent was a whole lot shorter and her arms were thin as broomsticks. My hand practically covered her whole face.
“I’m going to let go,” I whispered. “Don’t scream.”
She trembled as I pulled my hand free. I helped her stand, while I rose to my knees so we’d be on eye level.
“Are you all right?” I asked. Her dress was torn in a dozen places, and her cheeks were covered with scratches. Her long silver hair was a mess.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“You don’t remember?”
She shook her head.
I weighed my words carefully. I had dreamed, should I ever reunite with Infidel, I’d confess my love and kiss her hard enough to make us both dizzy. That seemed highly inappropriate now, given her reversion to such a young age. “I was… I was a friend. My name is Stagger.”
“You smell bad,” she said, scrunching up her nose.
No doubt I did. Growing up in a palace, Innocent had probably never met anyone who sweated.
“Have you seen your other half?” I asked. “Is she near?”
She furrowed her brow, looking confused.
“The she-dragon,” I said. “She brought you here.”
“She wants to eat me,” said Innocent. “But I’m good at hiding.”
Which was true enough. The princess had hidden inside Infidel all these years without me suspecting a thing.
As I thought this, an idea occurred to me. Innocent had been hiding inside Infidel. Could she do so again? What if… what if the way to join her two halves back together was simply to let the dragon once more devour the princess?
“The way you’re looking at me scares me,” said Innocent.
I pursed my lips as I pondered my options.
Whatever was showing on my face couldn’t have been good, because Innocent suddenly burst into tears. She went limp, almost fainting, as she fell against my chest, sobbing. I wrapped my arms around her, stroking her hair.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I’ll protect you. I won’t let the monster hurt you.”
And that was that. The vile thought of feeding this little girl to the she-dragon was banished back to whatever dark pit in my brain it had crawled from. Some fatherly instinct welled within me and I knew with absolute certainty I’d willingly die to protect this girl.
“I’m s-so tired,” she sobbed. “I’ve b-been running and running and running.”
Again, this was true for Infidel as well. The whole time I’d known her, I’d thought of her as a fighter, but, in truth, she’d lived every moment on the run from her own past. How had I been so blind?
“You won’t have to run any more,” I whispered, setting my jaw firmly. “I’ll fight the monster for you.”
I hugged her for a long time, her face pressed against my chest, until her sobs died down to whimpers, then sniffles. I finally pulled away from her, still on my knees, my hands on her shoulders as I said, “Everything is going to be fine. I’m your friend, and I’ll take care of you.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. Her mouth hung half open as her eyes were fixed at a point in space somewhere over my shoulder.
I didn’t have to turn around to know what was standing behind me.
