A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,53

hope they're alive too, but… I don't want us to get our hopes up. Okay, Mori? You understand, right?" She looked down at her feet. "Mori, we both saw the wyverns destroy Nova Vita. It was a slaughter. I don't know if anyone else escaped. It could be Solina lied to these nephilim, or maybe only a very, very small handful survived in the mountains where the miners work."

Mori stopped walking and turned to face her friend. She sniffed and tightened her fists.

"Bayrin is alive," she said. "I feel it. I know it. Elethor and Lyana are alive too. They are great warriors and… stars, Treale. Solina wouldn't wake this horde of demons for a few miners. She sent them to catch Elethor! He's always been the one she wanted. This whole war started because of this… this unholy obsession she has with him. Elethor is alive, and if he's alive, I bet he kept Lyana and Bayrin close to him. We'll find them, Treale." A tear rolled down to her lips. "I won't stop looking. I believe."

She looked behind her; the city was distant and the nephilim had left it. She looked ahead; the horde had disappeared over the mountains.

Now we fly.

Mori summoned her magic and shifted.

Her wings wobbled. She tried to take off, flew a few feet, and dipped. Her claws hit the sand, and she kicked off again, flapped her wings with all her strength, and rose into a tottering flight. It took several heavy strokes to fill her wings with enough air and rise higher. She dipped again, snarled, and finally managed to rise and glide.

I will find you, Bayrin. I will find you, Elethor and Lyana. I swear.

Yet as she flew, she wondered: If truly she found Bayrin, would he even recognize her now? Whom would he find when he held her in his arms? Not the old Princess Mori, the timid girl whose lips he would kiss, who would laugh at his jokes. No; she could barely remember that Mori anymore. She did not know who she was now. A princess of Requiem? A famished prisoner, her back scarred and her mind forever haunted? In the dungeons of Tiranor, had something broken deep inside her, something that could never heal? She did not know.

"You are Mori," she whispered as she flew. "You are Mori, Mori, Mori."

She might not know what that name meant anymore, whether it was the name of a princess, a prisoner, or a survivor, but she would not forget it. She would cling to herself. She would hang onto that name like a rope, for below her spread an endless pit and the reaching claws of monsters.

She flew over the mountains, their peaks carved from tan, bare rock. Treale flew at her side, black scales shimmering under the sun. The Tiran Sea shone blue and white to the northeast; distant beyond that horizon lay the ruins of Requiem, too far to see from here. When Mori looked northwest, she could just make out a green haze: the swamps of Gilnor. Beyond them lay a wilderness of forests where lived the salvanae, the true dragons… and safety, and hope, and a dream.

They flew toward that distant green patch, two dragons in an endless sky.

ELETHOR

The southern swarm grew, a stain upon the sky, and the distant shrieks rose.

Elethor stood upon the mountain, clad in plate armor. His leather glove creaked as he gripped his sword's hilt. He stared south. Fall was fading into winter, and the forest trees were nearly bare now; the branches and trunks of birch, maple, and beech grew dark from carpets of orange and red. Cold wind ruffled Elethor's hair and stung his face. Clouds veiled the sky and a drizzle fell.

"With rain and wind," Elethor whispered, "with bare trees and bare hearts; thus did winter find us."

It was an old poem. He could no longer remember the poet, but he remembered Mori quoting those words every winter by the fireplace. She would shudder, and he would laugh, muss her hair, and tease her for fearing the wind and rain and coming cold. She would smile hesitantly, and they would drink mulled wine and stoke the fire.

Yet now the storm does rise, and we are bare before it.

The dark cloud was spreading, still leagues away but moving fast. Thousands of beasts seemed to fly there, black and red and crying into the wind. Even from here, Elethor could detect their stench; they smelled like rotten corpses. They were mere