Page 198 of Of Empires and Dust

And with that Kollna and the three Highguard were gone. He did not ask to where they went. It mattered little. His place wasthere, at the base of the hatchery. If the Uraks wanted to get to the eggs, he would make them pay a price of blood so high as to put fear in the hearts of their ancestors.

He turned and rejoined the fray.

The world flickered and blurred, and Calen was once more kneeling in the sand-filled antechamber, his gauntleted fingers trembling against the obsidian symbol of The Order on the dead Draleid’s chest.

“What’s wrong?” Haem’s hand rested on Calen’s shoulder, concern in his voice.

Calen stared into the sockets of the skeleton before him. Into the eyes of the man whose last moments he had just witnessed. Tarast, soulkin of Antala. He rested his palm on the shards of obsidian that adorned the man’s breastplate, broken by whatever had stolen his last breath. Calen had never met the man, never exchanged a word or a passing glance. He’d died hundreds of years before Calen had even been born, and yet Calen felt as though he knew him intimately. He whispered, “Alura anis, akar. Du dauvin val haydria.”

Rest now, brother. You died with honour.

When Calen stood, he took in details that he had first missed. The snapped fragile bones of what must have been baby dragons – fledglings Tarast had called them. The breastplate that bore the flaming dragon egg insignia of the Dracårdare – the dragonkeepers, those responsible for the care and protection of the eggs and the young. He brushed his foot across the sand, finding more bones beneath, dense and large. Urak bones. The entire antechamber must have been covered in the remnants of the battle, concealed by the sand.

“Kollna was here,” Calen said to Haem, still examining the mass grave upon which they stood.

“The one mentioned in the letter?”

Calen nodded. His hand still trembled, his pulse quick. “I saw her.”

Haem narrowed his eyes and stared into Calen’s, his expression asking a wordless question: ‘Are you all right?’

“I’ve never had so many of these… visions.” Calen shook his head, the world flickering back and forth around him between sand and bones to blood and carnage. “There’s just… just so much. I can’t control it. This place… It’s full of ghosts.”

“Take it slow.”

Kallinvar and the other knights appeared at Haem’s shoulder, expectant. To Calen, hours had passed since he’d last looked upon the Grandmaster, but it seemed mere moments had expired.

“Anything of use?” the Grandmaster asked. His gaze softened as he looked about the antechamber, the lines around his eyes creasing, his bottom lip drooping. Haem had told Calen of Kallinvar, about how the man had fought in the battle at Ilnaen all those years ago. Calen had seen only fragments of the slaughter, only slivers of time through the eyes of others, and even still his heart was heavy as iron. He dared not think of the pain behind Kallinvar’s eyes.

Calen gestured towards the corridor at the other side of the chamber, which he’d seen Kollna and the Highguard vanish down. “This way.”

No light touched the corridor’s depths save for a trickle of pink moonlight that shone over Calen’s shoulders, revealing nothing but bones, rubble, and sand. He pulled on threads of Fire, Spirit, and Air, a baldír forming before him, pale white light illuminating the path.

The corridor was wide enough for four men, the ceiling tall enough for a Jotnar. Glass oil lanterns were set into the alcoves in the walls, some shattered, some whole – all long dead. Patches of carpet peeked through the sand and bones.The colour was faded, but Calen could make out depictions of dragons worked into the fabric.

His vision flickered. For a moment, the sounds of battle raged at his back and the oil lanterns were in full flame. He marched down the corridor, a fellow Highguard to his left, the Jotnar Draleid on his right. It pained him to keep walking while his brothers and sisters in arms fought and died to hold the antechamber. But he would do what the Archon commanded. He would do as he had vowed, even on this night, his last night. He would not falter.

Everything shifted once more, blending into coloured blotches and mixing until a new picture was formed.

He walked down the same corridor, but the sounds of battle were gone and the lanterns burned lower, drawing near their end.

“Who else knows?” The words that left Calen’s lips were not his own. He knew by the voice on his tongue and the bluish hue to his skin that they were the words of Kollna.

He looked down to see a woman at his side, half his height. She didn’t return his stare, instead looking forward. She was lean with dark hair falling past her shoulders. She wore a long white dress threaded with gold, The Order’s insignia woven into the right breast, a sword belted at her hip. A pendant hung from her neck, that same insignia in white, marked into black glass, the very pendant that now hung around Calen’s neck.

Alvira Serris.

“No other soul but Eluna.”

He and Alvira turned left at the corridor’s end, then right, reaching a stairwell.

Alvira stopped and turned to look at Calen, her eyes dark, her stare unyielding. The way the woman held herself, Calen felt as though she could carve through armies. There was power in every breath that left her lips. “I hope to the gods that I amwrong, that I am all paranoia and mistrust. But I am the Archon. It is my duty to safeguard our people and our future, and so this is what I must do.”

“I am always at your service, Archon. Speak, and it shall be done. But why do we keep the circle so small?”

“We do not know how far or how deep the seeds of Fane’s words go, and still we may be seeing shadows. There are rumblings amongst the mages, whispers in the dark, but nothing more. My web of spiders grows quieter with each passing month, as though vanishing. Fane gathers support, and with each moon, his words grow harsher, his intentions more muddled. It would be easier to guess which way the wind will blow on this day next year. I may be seeing shadows, Kollna, but I must fear what lurks in those shadows. The Draleid cannot be the ones to make the first move. Power is a precarious thing. If we use ours to destroy something that does not yet exist, history will name us worse than that which we seek to destroy. Fane has eyes and ears in the wind. We cannot risk an overheard whisper or a wandering eye. This is the future of our kind.”

Calen and Alvira continued on, moving through a series of corridors, everything blurred, the colours dancing, the light moving in a haze around him.

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