Page 243 of Of Empires and Dust
Fane raised an eyebrow and examined his old friend. The frustration was precisely what he had hoped for. “Understanding our past, understanding where we came from, is important, do you not think?”
“This is not where I came from.” Eltoar matched Fane in clasping his hands behind his back.
“But it is where you are now.”
“I will take Helios to wing and recall Lyina,” Eltoar said, ignoring Fane. “The elven dragons haven’t left Catagan since the city was taken. I will set sentries on watch with signal fires in a perimeter around Catagan. They will not catch us off guard again. Voranur can go to muster more spears, men and women across the lakelands who have been displaced from their homes. Once they see him waving the banner, they will flock. Salara and her Draleid will be reluctant to face all three of us in the open sky. If we force it, storm the city with everything we have, we can end this?—”
“We are losing this war, Eltoar.” Fane’s words echoed in the silent chamber. “We are losing it, and if something drastic does not change, everything we have built, everything we have sacrificed, will have been for nothing. All that was lost at Ilnaen and in the years that followed.”
The mere mention of Ilnaen had a tendency to leave Eltoar speechless. That was a wound Fane chose to prod with the utmost caution. It was a useful trigger when called upon, but a delicate one. A single candle could light a room but, if left unattended, could burn that same room to the ground. “We could never have planned for this, old friend. Even if we take the city. Even if we rip every last one of their dragons from the sky, put their soldiers to the sword, and burn Queen Vandrien alive, our losses would be incalculable. And all three of our Draleid would not leave the field of battle. We would succeed only in wiping the elves from the conflict, and ourselves in turn. With the burning of Aonar added to our injuries, we are now short on gold as well as iron and food. The Uraks would obliterate what was left of us while the rebels feast on the carcass. We are a wounded animal, and the blood is drawing everything that thinks it has a chance.”
Eltoar turned to face Fane. “And I’m sure what comes next is the plan you have devised, as you always do.”
Fane snorted through his nostrils, giving a half-smile. “I have always prided myself on my understanding of the world and the people within it. On my ability to navigate whatever the traitor gods could throw against me. But I fear, in this, my friend, I have failed. I cannot see a path forward from this place where all Epheria is not on fire. Everything we have done was to create a stronger, better world. A world we were promised by The Order… But we stand at a juncture now. Our Draleid are whittled to just three, our armies wounded, our cities burning, our coffers and stores at the end of their lives. We face too many foes on too many sides. Our defeat at Catagan was unequivocal, and now the elves are in the heart of our lands with a fervour in their blood. The rebels attacked the High Tower itself – the beating heart of the Circle. The Uraks feed off the Blood Moon as we do. And so we lose ground with each day. With the Heart of Blood, I couldbring Efialtír through the veil between worlds, end this war… perhaps even bring life back to the dormant eggs. But without it, I fear all may be lost.”
“Bring life back to the eggs…” Eltoar’s stare grew hard as steel. “You keep saying this, but is it possible? Truly? Or are you simply dangling hope before my eyes?”
Fane nodded slowly. “It is possible, I swear it by the blood in my veins. If there is any hope of it, we must find the Heart, and we must do it before the Blood Moon sets.” He shook his head. “If we don’t, the world will have seen the last of the dragons and the last of the Lorian Empire.”
Eltoar’s expression remained unshifting, but Fane could see the loss in his eyes. He could see it in the way Eltoar’s shoulders slumped just a fraction, in the way that the most powerful individual Fane had ever known refused to make eye contact.
Guilt, shame, regret. Fane could feel all three wafting from the Draleid. “It is I who am to blame, old friend. I and I alone.” Fane shook his head and turned to pick up the goblet of Etrusian wine he’d left on a nearby table. He folded his arms and sipped at the beautiful liquid, savouring the taste. “I should have guarded the Heart more carefully. Shouldn’t have been so careless, so trusting.”
Fane studied Eltoar’s face as he spoke the words. He was almost precisely where Fane needed him to be. “We sacrificed so much, and now, due to my hubris and my complacency, we risk it all. How different everything would be if I’d not allowed it to be taken from beneath my nose. Perhaps our skies would be full and our lands peaceful.”
Eltoar brought his hands around to his front and reclasped them, then let out a long, weighty sigh. “We succeed together, and we fail together, my friend. I am sorry for my dour mood.” He shook his head. “Salara was my apprentice. I should have seen her ploy coming. I, too, have grown complacent, and wesuffered for it. My pride does not take that wound well. And if I am honest, the thought of facing her in battle does not sit well with me either.”
“No matter what she has done in the past four centuries, Salara is no match for you and Helios.”
“It is not my death I fear. It is hers. Enough of my kind have died at my hand. It does not sit weightless upon me.”
Something moved within Fane. Before The Fall, he had grown to consider Eltoar a true friend. And in the years that followed, that had only strengthened as they’d fought side by side. But when the dust had settled, when the war was all but won, when dragon bones littered the lands and rivers ran red with blood, Eltoar had withdrawn into himself. They had spoken often, and their friendship had never waned, but Eltoar was not the same. He had never spoken of his regrets, never said a word. He was a warrior, and he pushed forwards. This… this admission was something Fane could use. “You did what you needed to do. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
Eltoar gave a short sigh through his nostrils. “All great things require sacrifice?”
“Indeed.”
“But where is the line we draw?” Eltoar lifted his head and stared into Fane’s eyes. “Where is the point in which we realise we have sacrificed too much and gained too little?”
“What brings this on?” Fane gestured to a second goblet, offering Eltoar wine. It wouldn’t take much more.
The Draleid stared at the goblet for a few seconds before allowing Fane to pour. “Think not of it,” he said as he took the goblet and drained half in a single mouthful. “My mind wanders of late. Losing Pellenor, seeing Salara, the word of an egg hatching, I… My apologies. I shouldn’t trouble you with this.” He shook his head again and drained the goblet, making to leave. “These are my wounds to bear. My mistakes. My burdens.”
Fane placed his goblet on the table and grabbed Eltoar by the arm. “Brothers in battle are brothers in life, Eltoar. Sit. I will have more wine brought. We will talk into the night if we have to. I would not see your heart bear the weight of this all.”
“No. I have no desires to drown my sorrows. There is too much to be done to wallow.” Eltoar held Fane’s gaze. Something shifted in the Draleid’s eyes, a change, a thought. “Wewillwin this war. I will not allow everything we have done to be for nothing. Icannotallow it. Do you understand me? I cannot.”
“I have heralds and Chosen and hundreds of mages scouring the continent in search of the Heart.” Fane held on to Eltoar’s arm as he spoke. “If we can find it before the Blood Moon sets, we may yet save the lives of millions and change the face of Epheria forever.”
Eltoar turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” Fane asked, the answer already confirmed in his mind. He knew by the look in Eltoar’s eyes that he had found his thief.
“To win this war.”
Eltoar walkedthrough Berona’s northern gates and out into the motley collection of hastily constructed shelters that many of the refugees had taken to building after the city had reached its limit. In the dark of night, the trodden paths of mud and dirt were empty save for a few souls who huddled around fires. The sight of it cut into Eltoar. This was everything he’d been trying to stop. The wars, the death, the suffering. It was always the common people who paid the heaviest price. Always.
By Alvira’s time, The Order had waged wars for no reason other than building favour and filling their coffers. And whilethe gold and silver piled high, the council members and those too ignorant or blind to see the truth revelled in their power. But Eltoar saw the truth. He saw the fields of charred corpses. He watched mothers and fathers weep as they held the bodies of their children. He heard the cries of the mutilated and the maimed. Eltoar had walked through the aftermath of every battle, forced himself to look and to listen, forced himself to understand the cost. Alvira had too, and she had wept and drowned her misery in wine. And though she would protest, voice her dissent, she would always, inevitably, obey. She was a truly good soul, but she was blind, and her heart was weak.
