Chapter 56: Chrysalis

Vestra watched as the black dragon slammed its paw down one final time, a cloud of dirt and dust billowing out yet again. The sound of its blow took a moment to reach her, but her eyes were already watering. The man encased in blue had sacrificed himself for her. For all of them, really ... but also for her.

There was no movement from the mound of crushed metal the black ri’Dagowyn had left in its wake. She turned to watch the crumbling face of the other white-haired girl. She watched the girl shudder into herself, her knees trembling but never fully giving way.

The girl had loved him, that was obvious. Vestra’s heart went out to the fellow white-haired girl as she idly wondered at the relationship between the blue man and the girl. Were they siblings? Friends? Spouses? She lamented being unable to ask.

She turned back as the cloud reached her through the cavern’s opening. The tears streaming from her eyes left dark tracks running down her cheeks. She shuddered as she realized that no matter their relationship, the girl had loved the blue man – and, to sacrifice himself, he must have loved her just as much. As she thought it, she could feel her sadness slowly turning to anger.

---- ∞ ----

“No,” Teran whispered, her eyes impossibly wide. Her hands faltered even as her bow dipped and the arrow she had held in her right hand tumbled from her suddenly weak fingers.

“NO!” the pregnant woman screamed, the feeling of her entire world collapsing around her. Her legs trembled and then buckled, dumping her to her knees but her eyes never left the crumpled metal and blood no more than thirty yards from her. The world was tilting. Her entire life was spinning, and she felt herself swaying in the dirt-infused air. “He can’t be dead! He can’t be dead!”

Bremer could not believe what she had just seen, and her breath caught in her throat. Her friend was gone. Her best friend, her confidante, was dead. She could see blood and crushed metal and there was no movement. He had to be gone. Nothing could survive what that dragon had just done. She hadn’t seen the first few blows. Her attention had been diverted by the golden dragon breaking off and coming towards their group. She saw the last two, though. She saw the second-to-last blow and the dragon picking up its paw. She watched as the blue armor laying forlornly in a small depression trembled, and she heard, or imagined she heard, a slight, liquid cough over the sounds of the pitched battle.

Then, the paw had come down again, flinging dirt fifteen feet into the air. The cloud of dirt and dust and grass partially blocked her view of the crushed, bloody metal. She never fully lost sight of it, however. It did not move. Even after the cloud of dirt dissipated, the metal mound lay still.

“Teran! Bremer!” Scollaw yelled, trying desperately to get their attention even as he loosed arrows as quickly as his hands could bring them up. “He’s gone! Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain!”

Suddenly, Teran stood. Tears streamed down her face and an inarticulate cry burst forth from her chest. Her hands blurred as she shot arrow after arrow at the black dragon. The arrows were made of a thin, hollow metal. Yren had designed them and the metal from which they were made. Each night, he’d used his portable anvil to make more arrows by melting down plates of the tin alloy and then adding them to a mold. He handed them out as quickly as he made them, but the mold only allowed him to make ten at a time. It was only right that the arrows, made from Yren’s own hands, avenged him.

The young woman screamed as each arrow left her bow. Scollaw looked over and could scarce believe it. He had never seen arrows shot with such speed and precision, especially as he realized Teran’s eyes were filled with tears so she couldn’t possibly see where she was aiming. The dragon was able to elude some but certainly not all. Teran would not let it. The arrows she fired were in a spread formation. There was nowhere for the dragon to move to dodge them all.

Scollaw watched as arrow after arrow found its target in the dragon’s chest, arms and torso. Each one made a dull thud as it hit and Scollaw could tell each arrow was embedded at least half its length. Blood dripped from the end of each arrow, the hollow nature of the arrow providing a route for the dragon’s blood to escape. A full twenty arrows adorned the dragon’s chest and still, hurt and bloodied, it moved. It roared in pain, but it did not fall.

Bremer had recovered and was herself firing arrows, but not at the black dragon. The gold dragon was lumbering towards them, an evil smile on its face. For all her training and practice, she was not as quick as Teran, nor had she thought her bombardment through. Where Teran had foregone aiming and had launched her arrows in a wide swath to make sure the black dragon could not evade them all, Bremer was still trying to aim at particular body parts – and the gold dragon was dodging them fairly easily.

“Spread them out, Bremer,” Scollaw yelled as he copied Teran. He caught her eye and began a demonstration of what he meant. He shot his arrows as Teran had, not at a point but in a spread formation. “Don’t target, just shoot a volley with each arrow about a hand’s width apart.”

As the three archers fought, Vestra watched from the mouth of the cavern. She swallowed hard as each of the combatants screamed and battled, each in their own way. The three metal-clad figures and the ten to twenty hide-wearing fighters were perhaps barely holding their own against the red and black; at least, they weren’t burnt or melting yet, though it looked like at least one or two of the hide-wearing fighters had lost their lives. Her eyes closed involuntarily as one of the metal-wearing figures barely dove out of the way of the black’s acid spit fast enough. She could see the yellow lumbering up and wondered for how much longer these people would live.

She swallowed again, the foul taste of dirt and dust born on the wind a nasty sickness in her mouth. The dirt scratched at her throat as it went down, adding to the anger boiling up in her stomach. Bitterly, she watched these creatures – her supposed enemies – struggling desperately for their lives. The arrows were finding some marks against the gold, but they didn’t seem to be enough to bring the O’lak-residere down. The others, seemingly limited to hand-based weapons, had yet to actually do any damage to the two – soon to be three – ri’Dagowyn they fought. She watched as the wounded black turned towards the archers.

The end appeared inevitable. These creatures would fall to her brethren. The ri’Dagowyn were near invincible, it seemed.

She wondered how had these creatures managed to drive the Dagowyn off so many eons before?

It didn’t matter. These things would die – and she with them. Her own death meant little to her. She had killed men and there was no coming back from that infraction. Her guilt along with her anger rose like bile in her throat.

The guilt came from many different directions inside her mind. Part of it was that, as a woman, she had been born guilty of not being born male. Part of it was the guilt that, as a woman, she was supposed to be subservient to the whims of men, but she’d railed in the past against that compulsion.

Then there was the guilt of her pride. Even though a woman, she knew she was different. Her ability to go unseen made her more than other women. In truth, she felt she was more than many of the men. Still, she also knew that, as a woman, there was nothing she could do about it.

Throughout her life, guilt had been her constant companion. She had lived with the guilt of her subservience, the guilt of her pride, the guilt of her shame. She reeled under the guilt of being Unseen, the guilt of defying her parents, the guilt of defying the priests. All her life her guilt had covered her like a shroud.

Her eyes were drawn back to the slight depression and its bloody, crushed metal contents. She had watched from the mouth of the cavern, the other women circling around her, as the black ri’Dagowyn pounded the blue knight to death. He had fought for her. Certainly, for the others – but for her as well. They were all fighting for her. For themselves, for the other women, but she had been pulled along with them.

The child lost in the black’s descent landed atop the already towering pile of her guilt. Doing nothing while watching the blue man’s death landed atop the pile. She was being crushed underneath it, pressed down into nothing by its weight. It clawed at her, carving deep into the flesh of her psyche.

Vestra fell to her knees, unable to stand against the guilt piled upon her. She reached out, looking for something – anything – that would give her solace. But all she found was the anger boiling within her.

She grasped it, desperately wrapping it up within her. She rode that tide of guilt until her legs steadied and she rose back to her feet.

She looked around at the distraught faces of her current companions. They weren’t looking at her, their tear-stained, melancholy faces and watering eyes watching forlornly out of the cavern mouth. Still, their faces accused her. In her mind’s eye, she felt they knew this was all her fault, that she had brought this calamity upon them. In silence, she felt their accusations pile atop the guilt within her.

It was too much. She couldn’t let these people sacrifice themselves for her. Not for her. She was unworthy. She was guilty.

Then, suddenly, the metal-encased woman surged forward to join the fight. She had done her duty; her charges safely out of harm’s way. Vestra looked back and saw the animal-skin clothed woman, restraining the young girl with similar hair. Even as their eyes darted out to the fight beyond, the others, too, were holding the wailing girl back, barring her from getting to the mouth of the cave.

“Please, let me go!” Bena cried, struggling vainly with the hands holding her. They didn’t understand. They could never understand. He needed her ... and she needed him. “Yren! Please Yren, don’t die! Yren, I need you!”

Vestra looked at the mouth of the cavern and then back into the darkness once. Guilty. The word resounded around the corridors of her mind, each echo slapping her. She felt guilty. But why did she feel guilty? Because she was a woman? She had no say in that. It was the will of her god that she was born female. Because of her ability to become unseen? That was a gift from her god as well. Subservience to men? Defying her parents? Defying the priests? The words of her god claimed those things she had railed against, those things she had defied, were paramount.

As she felt her guilt towering over her, new thoughts came to her. Her god had allowed this. He had allowed the creation of women and bound them in subservience to men. Her god had caused all of this. The gate was his. The struggle was his. Every word in every book of her god struck against her, consuming her with ever more guilt. She was rife with it, bound to it. She was completely filled with it and, for the first time in her life, she tired of the enormous guilt weighing on her like a thick chain.

She rose against that guilt. She wrapped herself in the cloak of her rage and met it, pounding against it until it shattered into a thousand different pieces.

“AAAAAAAAAAHH!” she screamed into the night, even as she ran from the mouth of the cave.

No more. This would continue no more. No more would she allow this guilt to hold her. No more would she allow blind obedience to color her. No more would she allow these creatures to die for her.

Rage surged through her as the chains of her guilt fell away. Her spirit soared as she felt unfettered for the first time in her life. For the first time, she felt truly free.

No more would she listen to the words of her god and let them rule her. He had abandoned her – abandoned them all for eons on D’arwyn. Now he wanted to redeem them? Now he wanted to bring them back to Vylun? Where had he been all these millennia while his people were suffering?

No more. That would be her mantra. No more. Hers were a petty people, thirsting for something they could never have. Right now, they were focused on the peoples of Vylun, to exterminate them. But when the legendary humans and elves and dwarves and the rest were gone, what would happen? Her people would fight amongst themselves, until they destroyed each other.

No more. Her rage burned within her, and she felt it start to consume her. Even as she ran, she felt the heat within her surge. It pushed its way to every point in her body, until her entire body felt thick and swollen. She screamed again as the heat boiled up with her, her gorge rising with it and fire searing through her mind. It purified her and changed her, pushing her, making her skin flow and grow. She felt her scales form, felt her tale grow from her buttocks. Her wings clawed their way out of her back even as her mouth surged forward, becoming a great, toothed maw.

Her iridescent scales gleamed in the moonlight, seeming almost to glow terribly with a light all on their own.

This was it. This was enough. It was time to be what she was meant to be.

---- ∞ ----

Yren could feel the life flowing from his body. His eyes were open, but he could not see. His mouth was open, but he could not breathe. Darkness had fallen over him and was in the process of consuming him.

He had failed. Ardt would be disappointed. His sister would be disappointed. He had failed and Bena and Teran and Elva and Issa would pay the price. Ataya and Audette would die, because he was too weak.

Knight or Armsman. Blacksmith. Mage. He had struggled with the sheer concept of them, fear and worry gnawing at him as he contemplated what each of those terms meant and how he could possibly fit into any of them. He had felt too small. He had felt too unworthy. What right did a humble blacksmith have to any other claim? It was fine to hear how Ardt had been more than a simple smith, but Ardt had lived a lifetime. He had only 16 seasons under his belt. In time, he felt maybe he could become something more than a simple smith. But not in the time he had lived.

So, he had prevaricated. He had lied, the most horrible lie of all – a lie to himself. He cringed away from the words. He wondered, falsely, how could he be true to himself, clothed in any of those titles? Only the title of blacksmith felt comfortable. It was the only one that felt familiar – but still, though he ignored it, each of the other titles felt true.

Like a self-fulfilled prophecy, in the end he would be none of those. He would be a corpse, his body joining those of his loved ones because of his failure. There would be no more Times of Remembrance – at least, not from this side of the Veil of Death. Not for his family. His family would be gone, lost to the annals of time. They would end up food for the dragons.

He did not fear his death. He didn’t fear the deaths of his loved ones. All were born to die. He lamented his failure, however. He lamented the destiny he had clearly lost.

Knight or Armsman. Blacksmith. Mage. It was almost funny if it weren’t so tragic. ‘You can be all of them or none of them,’ Elva had said. ‘It is your choice.’ He had not heeded her words. He’d never made the choice, scared to choose one over the others. In the end, he’d made no choice ... which was, in and of itself, a choice.

The choice to be nothing. To end. To die. To fail.

Then, the sound that chilled his failed and dying body filled him. “Yren, I need you.”

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered in the halls of his mind and willed Bena to hear the words. ‘I am broken. I have nothing left to give.’

He could not answer his beloved’s call. He truly had nothing left. He had no breath. His body was broken, for all intents and purposes dead. He was in the last few moments of suffocating life before crossing the dark veil to Ober’s domain.

“Yren, I need you.” The call was insistent, if quiet. It echoed in his mind.

Bena would die. They would all die. All of them, to these dragons. He would have cried if he only had the strength.

Teran would die. With her, his child. His child would die before it was even born.

At the thought, anger flared within him. It was but a single flame, burning intensely in the dark vaults of his gut. It trembled, violently, flashing and ebbing, before it faded and left only an ember.

Then, the hatred he felt at his failure roiled over the ember, igniting it anew. Under the caring fingers of his hatred, the flame was fed and nurtured, billowing up from a haphazard finger of fire into a roaring wall of heat and light. Hatred fanned the flames, growing ever higher, until that flame burned into white hot rage. He had failed and his family – his child – would pay the price. All he had gone through to keep them safe was for nothing.

Failure. He had failed and that failure fed the rage within him, turning it into a towering inferno.

Even as he felt that heat sear through his body, it found the strange, unnatural opening within him, and the impossibly unending pool of power contained within. The pool ignited, its power rising even as the towering flame kindled it.

His rage surged. His hatred gushed. His whole body, on the very precipice of death, shook with it. For the first time he truly realized why he’d named his blades as he had. He had named them after himself.

There was a whooshing sound as his body ignited. Squirming fingers of bright blue flame burst from his broken, smashed chest and crawled outward, down his arms and legs and up over his face. His skin glowed like hot, blue embers and the flames flooded over and through his armor.

Finally, he let his worry and fear die. It didn’t matter if he were a knight, a mage or a blacksmith, if he were dead. Only the living had use of titles. In that moment, he no longer cared what he was called. He would be all of them ... and more. He would be whatever he needed to be to succeed.

He. Would. Not. Fail.

The flame turned impossibly hot. The blue fire hissed and its tips burned with a white so bright it would have burned the eyes of any who dared look at it. The fire burned within him and wherever it touched it burned away the pain. Bones knit. His crushed torso pushed upward, his body turning whole. His armor glowed like the noon sun and as the glow faded, it was once more intact. It was new, all of the blood and detritus burned away by the blue flame. Even the sigils of Deia and Kyr returned, Deia’s mark glowing with a renewed burgundy and Kyr’s shimmering in her customary purple.

Fire roared across the surface of his armor, still the blue but now tipped with impossibly bright white. His eyes filled with the blue fire, tendrils of flame licking out of the corners. His clenching hands glowed with it, the flames licking up between the fingers.

He let go of his fear and indecision and just became.