Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 42

Cloves and woodsmoke.

The scent is warm and welcoming. It weaves through my dreams, soothing their jagged edges. They warn of evil out-pacing my flight, sang me songs of endings both violent and too soon.

My bleary eyes open to a world of red stone and candlelight. A plate of food sits on a short table beside the plush bed I lay on. The scent of the warm-spiced fruit tart on it makes my mouth water.

My joints ache as I push myself into a sitting position, trying to recall how I ended up here.

I’m wearing fresh clothes. A white tunic, lightweight and soft as a duckling, falls down over the top half of my thighs. My cheeks warm as I realize someone changed my underthings as well—I can only hope it was a woman. Dark trousers are folded on the chair across the room, brown leather boots sit on the ground beside them.

A light breeze, carrying the scent of woodsmoke, comes in through the darkened window opening. Night has fallen since my interaction with Erron.

The memory of it floods back, propelling me to my feet. I must go talk to the Donn. I’ve already wasted too much time resting.

How much time have I spent resting?

The thought quickens my movements as I pull the trousers on.

Has it been days or hours?

I shove my feet in the boots; they’re soft like butter and fit a little loosely. The ones I came here in were probably discarded. So many holes covered them, they were hardly usable anymore.

I snatch the fruit tart from the plate as I flee the room, shoving it into my mouth as I open the door to the hallway. The flavors almost make me moan. I forgot how heavenly sweet fruit and cinnamon taste. How long have I lived on meat and root vegetables? I hadn’t needed sweetness nor pleasure, I needed something to keep me alive—but this sweetness tastes like living.

Torches light the way as I trot down the hallway. This one could be any of the hallways we walked through on our way to speak to the Donn. I keep my steps quick and light as I take turn after turn with no knowledge of where I’m headed.

Could Gwen not have explained the layout of such a place as we walked? Was I too far gone to bother remembering my possible escape routes? We both had other things in mind.

My breaths are quick and strained as I quicken my pace.

The halls are a labyrinth, every turn bringing me to another hallway that looks the same. Finally, I round a corner that leads to a staircase. I go all the way down, my thighs screaming with the effort. I’m unsure if the muscle fatigue means I’ve been asleep for too long or not enough.

I had one goal, to get help. And as soon as I acquired said help, I rested? There will be time for rest when I have my people back, when everyone is safely on this side of the rift.

I kick myself for every second lost to my body’s needs.

Whenever my mind brushes over Aine’s smiling face, I feel sick. She’s alone now. I hope she has Konan, Armund, and Elva looking out for her. Keeping her safe.

It’s not the same.

It will never be the same. And I mourn for her.

I rage for her.

The hall near the entrance is at the bottom of the steps. A few Fae mill about, some seated at a great fire pit in the center of the great hallway. They cast me curious glances as I pass by, searching for a familiar face.

The light of more fire flickers from outside of the front entrance. Sounds of laughter and music sing pleasantly from outside, it mingles with the ever-present charge in the lifeblood of Annwyn.

As I round the corner, exiting the stone city, what awaits beyond steals the breath from my lungs and freezes me in my tracks.

Dragons.

Two of them, lounging amongst the fire and Fae. They tower over the scene, their scales and strangely feline eyes glittering in the firelight. They grumble and trill at one another, the sounds rattling over my bones. The larger one looks like the one who flew me here in its claws, with glowing green eyes and verdant scales. It puffs smoke at the smaller dragon. The smaller one is the color of bronze, with a crown of spikes that gives it a regal appearance, like a ruthless dragon prince.

Bronze bares its long, jagged teeth at Green in response, shuffling its wings in agitation. Green looks away, seemingly bored of the interaction. Bronze stands to an impressive height and slinks away on all fours, the movement of it sounds like a herd of horses trampling through grass. Its tail, clubbed and spiked, trails over the ground behind its departing form before Bronze crouches slightly and leaps into flight, its wings booming with every beat—kicking dust up. I have to cover my eyes for a moment to keep it from getting into them.

The Fae that laugh and play around the roaring fire in the center seem unaffected by the dragon’s interactions. They play lutes and stringed instruments, some engaged in close conversation. They’re all long and graceful—beautiful. All twenty or so of them behave so familiarly with one another. They touch freely, playing with hair, heads laying on shoulders. Even the males cuff one another on the back of the neck or arm, sling arms over shoulders, lean closely in confidence.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

“Alyx!” a familiar voice calls from amidst the revels.

I spot her amidst the Fae—Gwen.

“Calm, Vyrain,” Gwen runs a hand over Green’s jaw affectionately before making her way to me. She is garbed head to toe in brown leathers, complete with matching gloves.

Green watches every step Gwen takes over to me, its serpentine neck snaking out over the group to get a closer look at me.

Vyrain.

I can’t take my eyes from the predator sizing me up. The hair on my arms stands up and I freeze. I’m able to keep myself together enough to take the dragon in, with all of its lethal glory .

Vyrain peers at me with predatory eyes, giving a sinister growl.

Heavy scaled plating runs over its brows and crests over their nostrils. Spikes of lighter green begin at the pole of its head and snake down its entire spinal column in one long crest. Its scales glimmer in every shade of green, like a sunlit forest.

“She doesn’t have much love for those that smell like human,” Gwen says, coming to stand in front of me with a smile in her voice. “I wasn’t sure how long you would sleep.”

“How long?” I finally flick my eyes to hers.

“Two days. You must have needed it. Erron wanted us to let you rest for as long as you could.” She eyes me concernedly.

My stomach turns. Two days. How could I have let that happen?

“You shouldn’t have. We need to leave.” I chew on the skin around my thumbnail, keeping Vyrain in my periphery.

The Fae around the fire shoot glances our way. Some are wielding fire at their fingertips, like one would fidget with a rolled smoke. The chatter has quieted somewhat.

“Erron has discussed your plight with the council. While they all believed that we should help the Fianna, some were hesitant to risk our hidden position here,” Gwen explains.

I open my mouth to argue but she interrupts me.

“But between the two of us, we were able to convince them of the seriousness of the Fianna’s position in Suri. They were placated with an increase in patrols at the rift. It is a bottleneck, making any force moving through easily picked-off. It would be near impossible to pose a threat from the outside of Annwyn.” She pauses.

Does she think I plan to lead enemy forces here ?

She goes on. “There is value in every Fae life. So, you and Erron shall go.” She grins a feral smile. “And of course, myself. We are going for stealth rather than brute force. Just the three of us—along with Vyrain and Rignon.”

Wary at the mention of an unfamiliar name I ask, “Who is Rignon?”

“An important member of the alliance. You’ll meet him soon enough. Though I warn you, he has a foul temper.” She smirks.

I’m glad she finds my ignorance amusing.

“We need to leave soon.” I shuffle on my feet, casting the Fae at the fire a glance. They aren’t even trying to look as though they aren’t listening anymore.

She eyes the group as well. “I agree. I would not want to leave my kin a moment longer. I believe Erron has had the time to gather the provisions.” She looks back at Vyrain, her eyes softening slightly. “Now to convince her this is a good idea.” She grimaces.

Vyrain makes eye contact with her rider and puffs out a cloud of smoke, whipping her spiked tail back-and-forth like an agitated cat.

“I don’t know that she will fit through the tunnels…” I whisper, not wanting Vyrain to hear.

The dragon in question screeches, high pitched enough for me to wince.

I suppose she has very good hearing.

I feel a prickling at the back of my neck, causing me to look back at the entrance to Tech Duinn. A dark figure strides out.

The Donn. I don’t even have to make out his facial features to know it’s him. The way he carries himself is quite distinctive.

He makes it to us in seconds, his long legs eating up the distance quickly.

He looks the same, like perhaps he hasn’t slept or changed since I last saw him. Since I tried to claw his eyes out.

“Ahh, the Donn decides to come out and join us. Finally, had enough of your scrolls, Erron?” Gwen teases, nudging him with an elbow.

He nudges her back, seemingly without thought, taking me in from head to toe.

Gwen looks at me with a glint in her eyes. “And about your earlier concern—we’ve thought about everything. Don’t concern yourself with the details. We just need your knowledge of the castle and the Fianna once we arrive in this… Raith place.” With that being her only dismissal, she strides gracefully towards her mount.

Gwen leaps onto Vyrain’s foreleg, which is extended for her, and gracefully climbs her way up the beast, to settle between two spiked plates at the base of Vyrain’s neck. The she-dragon clambers to her feet—her height easily twice that of the bronze dragon before. “Best of luck, Alyx. I’ll see you two at the rift.”

With a great running leap, Vyrain takes off into the night, the enormous trees nearly falling backwards with the might of her flapping wings.

I’m unsure if I could ever get used to the sight.

“How are you?” Erron’s rumbling voice asks.

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long,” I say instead of answering his question. I couldn’t begin to explain how I am.

“You would have been useless to me if you couldn’t even stand. You were dead on your feet.”

“They need us to have been there by now more than I needed to sleep. ”

He pauses, his rich brown eyes glowing nearly red in the firelight. How can he argue otherwise?

“We will get them back,” he says, instead of arguing.

I nod, because I cannot voice the retorts in my throat. How could he know that? What was the price of my resting? Will I be able to bear it? Will they?

He puts his face directly in front of mine, capturing my attention. “Whatever we find, we will deal with it. Whatever has happened to them, they will cope. Just as you have. Just as I have. Just as they have before. We will do what we can, and we will move forward, together. There is nothing else to be done, Alyx. Don’t let the rest of it consume you.” He gives me time to absorb that before turning, gesturing back where he came from. “Come. Rignon is waiting with our supplies in the pit.”

He waits for me to move first before setting off too. As I walk beside him, our steps in sync, I can’t help but question myself: have my thoughts always been so plainly written across my face?

The entrance to the pit is a short walk away. The pit is the nest of dragons, Erron had told me. Their tunnels burrow deep into the stone.

Never could I have imagined the ominous feeling it incites. It looks like the site of some great battle. An amalgamation of ruined stone and whirling mystery, like power itself has nestled into the rock and made a dark home. It smells of cinders and dry stone.

As Erron leads me down the footpath that trails into the dark chasm, part of me debates running away. Surely, he doesn’t need me to go in there and gather the supplies. Surely, I can meet Rignon out in the moonlight. Falling down the cliffside sounds more appealing than wandering into the dragon’s lair.

Erron ignites a ball of fire in his leather-bound palm when we pass under the opening. The flame is bright enough to give us some visibility. Enough to see the yawning cavern before us, black soot lining some spots of the cave wall. Low trills and grumbles echo from the depth, though it’s too dark for me to see the monsters that create them. They sound far into the cavern, though not far enough to make my heartbeat slow.

My feet scrape on gravel even though I try to place them lightly. Even my breaths are too loud for my comfort.

“Why are we meeting Rignon here?” I whisper. “Isn’t there somewhere better?”

“No,” Erron says, full voiced. It echoes. The sounds from beyond stir.

The sound of great leather wings moving echoes. Boulders tumble loudly.

Erron turns to me, firelight casting shadows across the strong panes of his face.

Growling rumbles so close I can feel it in my bones. Talons scratch across the cave floor.

At first all I see is light moving beside us.

A reflection of firelight in bone-white scales.

The dragon’s head rises and fills the space behind Erron’s shoulder. Blood-red cat-eyes bigger than my head glow in the flickering fire as they zero in on me.

“Erron!” I gasp, grabbing Erron’s arm and pulling him away from the sword-like teeth, dripping with strings of saliva that glisten right behind him.

“Rignon.” Erron’s stern voice echoes out as he whirls around to face the dragon, holding the flame out before him.

The dragon’s nostrils flare as it dips its head closer. A violet glow grows deep behind the cage of his maw .

Erron’s leather-clad arm is still in my grasp, but he pulls away. With his one hand still holding the flame, his other reaches forward to meet the scaled snout of the terror in front of us, dauntless.

I’m plastered to the stone at my back, uncertain if this dragon will allow me to move from it. Its eyes are fixed on me in glaring suspicion, grumbling low in its chest.

“This is Alyx, Rignon. She is coming with us,” Erron says.

“This is Rignon,” I whisper. Of course.

“Yes. This is my dragon. He dwells here much of the time. He will be our mount. If he agrees to allow you to ride with me.” He gives Rignon an assessing look.

I laugh slightly without humor. “Ride him?” I whisper.

Erron finally looks back at me. “It would take too long to travel on foot. Not to mention it would be a far greater risk to our mission on our way. On our way back, once they’re safely with us, we will proceed on foot back to Annwyn.”

I nod.

“Will he let me? Ride him?” I ask.

Erron turns back to Rignon; they communicate with a look alone. Rignon growls low in his chest.

No. There’s no way.

There’s also nothing I won’t do to get to my people as soon as possible.

“What about in his talons? What if he carries me like that. Like Vyrain did?” I ask, my whisper slightly louder now.

“That’s the contingency plan. Though I doubt you would enjoy it much.”

“I doubt I’ll enjoy either much.”

“You would be surprised how quickly your fear gets swept away in the wind. ”

“You don’t know my fear.”

“I know fear.”

“I’m sure,” I say bluntly. I know that he knows fear. But he’s giving me too much credit.

“Come here.” He jerks his head. “Please,” he softens the command.

I keep my fingertips on the wall as I lean forward, pulling my back from the cool stone.

Rignon’s red eyes follow the movement.

I breathe deeply through my nose, smelling the charred scent of the pit.

Rignon growls again, lunging towards me threateningly.

I force my feet to stay planted where they are and pull one hand from the wall, lifting the back of it towards his bared teeth.

I’m going to lose a hand.

Rignon’s nostrils flare slightly, and his exhale is like holding my hand to a roaring fire. His head jerks backward with a snarl.

My hand goes back to the wall.

Erron looks worried and confused, his harsh jawline flickering.

He knows. Rignon knows. I didn’t tell them who I am, what I am.

My heart is pounding a hole in the front of my chest. It hurts.

I wait for the ruling beast to deem me a monster. Some flaw in nature—something that should not exist.

Rignon looks at me again, grumbling once more before pulling his head back.

Instead of making a meal from my flesh, he gives me his shoulder, leaning it into the wall below the walking path.

Now that his body and scarlet wing bones are exposed, I see a black leather saddle there, right behind the space where his serpentine neck ends. The seat is slight, with large crests at the front to hold onto, and a large crest in the back to brace against. A mix of straps are all wound up around the bottom of the seat. Great big straps reach forward, strapping across Rignon’s front, and more reach down, towards Rignon’s barrel-chest.

Erron sighs agitatedly, shaking his head, like he’s shaking the worry off. “Temperamental. You wonder why people call you that.” He gestures me to follow him as he strides for Rignon’s shoulder.

I slowly shuffle towards them. Erron seats himself in the saddle, bending his knees forward and belting straps around his knees on either side. He leaves a space in front of him.

“I can get on?” I ask, flickering my eyes between the two.

“I don’t think he will eat you if you do,” Erron says blankly.

At a glance, his dark eyes twinkle slightly.

I’m glad to see he is capable of joking.

“Do you two speak to one another?” I ask, placing a trembling hand on the hard leather saddle. It doesn’t move.

Erron looks at Rignon, who eyes him back at the question. The dragon seems to have some understanding of our conversation.

“In a sense,” Erron responds after a moment. “It’s a vague sort of communication. More through feeling and incomplete thoughts. They do not speak as we do. Though their souls may communicate with their bonded rider’s.”

Erron is eyeing the distance between myself and my proposed seat with a hint of amusement as he speaks. Rignon’s shoulder is still propped against the cliffside, waiting.

I take a deep breath and force myself to abandon the apprehensive thoughts.

I clamber into the saddle in front of Erron. He lets out a huff as I accidentally clip him somewhere sensitive with an errant limb. Once I’m settled, back warmed by the proximity of the giant Fae male behind me, I inspect the leather straps near my legs.

“Let me do that,” Erron murmurs.

His gloved hands adjust my legs forward a bit before moving onto the straps. He deftly wraps a strap around the distal part of my thigh, pulling it tight to the saddle.

I try not to pay attention to how close we are, though I can feel my face warming slightly. His strong thighs bracket my scrawny ones, despite me shuffling as far forward in the seat as I can. Through my apprehension about the parts coming up—particularly the flying bit—I note that Fionn would be displeased to see me pressed up against another male. I feel the guilt ping through my chest and scoot forward even more.

Or would he even care? The last interaction we had would suggest that, no, he wouldn’t.

Though with a rested mind, I can no longer be sure what his plan was, or if he meant any of his words. What if he was trying to save me? What if he was trying to tell me to make the deal with the king?

I couldn’t blame him if he did mean his scathing words—if his hurt ran too deep. If his feelings for me were too shallow to overcome the devastation of the truth.

Even if he hates me now, I’m not sure if I could un-love him. Perhaps it’s a fitting penance, unrequited love.

He would be upset about many aspects of this situation I’m in.

His tales about the fire-breathing beast he defeated once seemed like a grandiose battle from folklore. I don’t want to think about what sort of complications Fionn killing a dragon will have on his return. It may be a story best left buried.

“Are you ready?” Erron asks, having finished the strap on the other side.

I nod, lost still to my thoughts.

Rignon stands up, no longer leaning a shoulder against the wall. The rolling movement makes me lean forward and grip the saddle crest in front of me with both hands as hard as possible. My heart leaps to my throat. Rignon takes steps to the entrance of the cave, every movement giving moments of weightlessness that makes my stomach flutter.

“Keep your weight down in your seat as much as possible, try not to lean forward too much. The straps are sturdy, trust them.” Erron’s instructions are firm in my ear.

When Rignon perches on the ledge of the cave opening and basks in the moonlight. I lose my breath at the magnificence of it all. His bone-white scales are iridescent in the moonlight, his scarlet accents and crest points all shining, as if bloody. It may be the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.

And then it’s over.

Because he leaps.

And I’m falling.

It feels like forever and the quickest second all in one.

I hear nothing but roaring wind in my ears. I see nothing but Rignon’s long scaled neck and the world racing past in a free fall.

I feel nothing but icy wind everywhere, the straps digging into my legs keeping me in the seat, and my soul falling from my body.

And then the weight crashes down on me in one wing-beat .

I try to force it into my seat, but Erron has to grab me with one arm to keep my face from smashing into the saddle-crest in front of me.

My weight was too far forward, like he said.

With every wing-flap, my weight is forced hard into my seat. But eventually, we are soaring high, no longer gaining altitude.

Once I gather myself, I look over my shoulder at Erron, my face still fixed in shock.

“There was nothing I could have said to prepare you,” he says with the smallest of smiles at the edge of his mouth.

Laughter bubbles up in my chest.

I press my hand over my heart and the noises burst free.

I can’t make it stop.

Long, peeling laughter streams from me. The sound is so foreign from my mouth.

It’s so shocking that I laugh harder.

So much that it dissolves to noiseless shoulder shaking.

There was nothing he could have done to prepare me. Truly.

I feel his chest shaking with laughter too.

It makes me laugh more, leaning over the saddle crest because I can’t hold myself up anymore.

This is ridiculous.

I’m riding a dragon.

The thought makes me laugh harder.