Page 285 of Of Empires and Dust
With that, Ella and Calen slipped from the house and strolled along the grass paths of Alura towards the Eyrie, Faenir trailing at their heels.
They walked in silence for a few feet, the nightsong of birds and the burbling of Alura’s streams in the background.
“I was worried you’d never come back.” Calen swallowed, looking down at the grass path before him. In an instant, the warmth from earlier faded to ice and was swallowed by fear and worry and loss. “There was nothing I could do… just stand there and watch as you slipped away.”
“I’m here now.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and planted a kiss on the side of his head.
Calen slowed his pace as they walked through the passageway to Alura, allowing himself a few extra moments to admire the statues of the dragons that had been added since he’d left, the crimson moonlight drifting down from above. No matter how much of the Spark he saw, he would never be able to comprehend the sheer beauty of what some people could do withit. Not if he lived for a thousand years would he be capable of creating anything even close to the likes of these statues. Calen had only ever seen the Spark as a weapon, a thing to be wielded and used for violence. And yet the Craftsmages used it as a tool for creation, Healers to pull souls from the jaws of death. He’d never put much thought into it, but perhaps that was why The Order had created the separate affinities. Different minds used the Spark in different ways.
“Chora had them crafted.” Ella placed a hand on the stone talon of a dragon that Calen was absolutely sure was Ithrax. “I swear, some days I want to strangle the air from her lungs and others I can’t help but be impressed by her.”
Calen stared up at the statue of Ithrax, memories of the night the great dragon had died flashing in his mind. “It is a hard thing to explain,” Calen said, tracing the lines of the carved scales with his gaze. “To be Rakina. Chora has lost a piece of herself. More than that…”
Calen thought back to the vision he had seen of Varthear’s past, of her soulkin’s – Ilmirín’s – death. And the emptiness he had felt through Kollna when she had reached out to her soulkin and felt nothing.
“When one half of the bond dies, the other withers, severed, burnt, and broken. Without your soulkin, the world holds no joy, no warmth. You are half of what you were before – less, even. It’s not grief or sadness or loneliness. It’s deeper. It’s like your bones have been hollowed and your veins left open to bleed. Like the world itself has no purpose, like breathing is not worth the effort it takes, like you are treading water in a dark ocean and the level keeps rising and you’re swallowing and you’re sinking and the easier thing to do would be to let go. To grant yourself relief from the endless pain. The elven translation for ‘Rakina’ differs from the direct translation. Literally, it means ‘one who is broken’, but they interpret it as ‘one who survived’. Chora can be harsh andcold because the broken pieces of her soul have left her jagged, Daiseer’s loss robbing her of the very warmth in her veins. She is broken, but she ishere. She has survived where so many others have not. I don’t think I’d survive, Ella. I’m not strong enough. And so, I don’t always agree with her, but I respect her and I admire her.”
“I didn’t know…” Ella touched Calen’s cheek and turned his head towards hers. “You talk like you’ve felt these things, like you know them.”
“I have… in a sense.” Calen placed his hand over Ella’s. “I’ve seen them in my visions – the paths once walked, Fenryr called them. Do you see things like that?”
Ella shook her head. “Our Gifts are not the same.” As she spoke, her eyes shimmered golden, reflecting the moon’s light.
Calen only nodded and walked on, Ella following. There was so much he didn’t know, so many things he had missed over the past two years. Where did they even start?
When they stepped into the Eyrie, Valerys lifted his head from where he lay on a plateau a hundred or so feet up on the right, his white scales stark against the mounds of blue, black, and purple nestled in beside him. That was the first time Calen had seen Avandeer resting in the Eyrie. He would go to Tivar when the sun rose and tell her everything that had happened in Ilnaen.
Valerys shifted and began to rise.
Rest.
The dragon pushed back. He could feel the ache in Calen’s heart, the touch of his mind easing the sorrow.
I’m all right. Just a little sad.
Valerys lowered his head, but those lavender eyes remained open, watching intently.
Calen dropped himself to the grass where the stream tumbled off the edge of the plateau, his feet dangling. He lookedout at the sprawling valley beyond, illuminated only by the stars and the pink light of the moon.
Ella sat beside him to his right, letting out a long sigh. Faenir nuzzled between them.
Feathery wings flapped and echoed up the edge of the cliff, two dark shapes alighting in a nest cradled in a cranny on a cliff to the left.
“When I left,” Ella said, breaking the silence, “I never thought it would be the last time I’d see them again. I always kind of thought they’d just…”
“Live forever?” Calen turned his attention from the nest and looked to Ella, who was staring out into the darkness of the valley.
Ella nodded softly.
“Me too.” They’d not spoken of their parents. That was a wound he didn’t ever think would heal. One he perhaps didn’t want to heal. The pain reminded him of how much love he’d been lucky enough to know.
“It’s hard to imagine a world without them. They were always just… there.”
Calen tilted his head upwards, drawing a long breath and letting it out slowly in an attempt to hold back the tears he knew would spring forth if he didn’t stop them. “Why did you leave? You and Rhett.”
Ella let out a long sigh. “How long do you have?”
“However long you need.” Calen knew it was a joke, but the answer wasn’t. It had been nearly two years since he’d seen his sister. Two years since he’d thought her dead. The longer they could sit there on that ledge, the better, because he knew once they stood and left, the world would drag them forwards.
