Page 287 of Of Empires and Dust

20thDay of the Blood Moon

The Eyrie, Aravell – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

The wolf godfolded his legs beneath him and sat facing Calen and Ella, who turned away from the valley. Power seeped from every breath Fenryr took, every word he spoke. The very air around him seemed to shift and ripple at his movements. Calen had encountered many strange and powerful souls in the past two years, but this was different. This was a god. Calen could feel a pull in his mind every time Fenryr was near.

“My blood runs in your veins, young one.” Fenryr tilted his head to stare into Calen’s eyes. “You are cut from me, and we are intertwined.” The god pulled a long breath through his nostrils. “I can smell the uncertainty in you, hear the hesitation in the beating of your heart. You are fierce, but you are yet a pup.”

The soft, welcoming smile that spread across Fenryr’s lips exposed a sharp white fang that pinched into his bottom lip.

As Calen stared at the god, other shapes formed in the night: Angan prowling. Four of them; two in the forms of giant wolves, the others in their more human shape, gangly limbs flowing smoothly as they moved. He recognised one immediately: Aneera.

Fenryr looked over his shoulder as Aneera imitated his seated position a few feet to his right.

“You did not think I would let you wander this place unguarded, did you? Calen, Aneera and Nuada will be your sworn protectors. Diango and Luteir will be Ella’s. They will go wherever you go, they will watch and listen where your eyes and ears cannot. They will protect you with their lives.”

“Why?” Calen leaned a little closer. “What are we to you? Therin has told me of what my father was, why you call him the Chainbreaker. But you have repaid your debt. You brought Ella back. You have other druids. Why are they not guarded as we are?”

Calen had learned to be wary of those who offered much and asked for little. Everybody wanted something. Some were just better at hiding it than others.

Fenryr stared a long while, then exhaled and shifted in place. “There is not one answer to that question, but many. The first is something you have always known. In the core of my blood, in the beating heart of what Clan Fenryr is, loyalty is all. To a wolf, there is nothing more sacred than the pack. Your father pulled me from chains, and when his entire world was threatened, still he refused to hand me over to those who would do me harm. He did not simply rescuemethat day, but all the Angan carved from my flesh. And he did so with nothing to gain – without a notion of his blood. I swore to him I would protect you, that I would answer his call and that of his descendants whenever I was needed. I will not break that vow. And yet, that is only a small part of what you are.”

The god reached out both his hands, extending one to Calen and one to Ella. “Take my hand, the both of you. The histories of our people stretch back for thousands of years, since long before we set foot in these lands. There is so much to tell, and the night is only so long. This is a thing that is easier shown than told. It is time you know the blood of your ancestors.”

Both Calen and Ella exchanged a glance, and Faenir lifted his head from where it lay on his paws, his stare fixed on the wolf god.

Calen reached out to grab Ella’s hand. “Together and only together.”

Ella interlocked her fingers with his, and his sister gave him a sharp nod. They both lifted their free hands and grabbed Fenryr’s open palms.

Just as had happened every other time Calen had experienced a vision of the past, the world around him turned and changed, shifting into smoke and streaks of colour.

Fenryr’s voice boomed in the sky. “Thousands of years ago, our people called Terroncia home.”

The shifting colours and smoke settled, and Calen stood atop an enormous cliff, thousands of feet high, jagged and carved from red rock. Ella stood only a few feet away, Fenryr between them.

A landscape of lush green spread out below, the sun blazing in the sky. Rivers carved winding paths through the trees, waterfalls crashing from great heights.

“The gods you know, the Enkara, were the ones who forged this world, brought it into existence, gave it life and purpose. This is what you know.”

Calen nodded, staring at the sky in wonder as a flock of birds the size of horses whipped past his head, the air cool on his skin, his hair tussling in the wind.

He let out a long, mournful sigh. “It is a lie deepened by the passing of time. The Enkara did not create the world – we do not know who did – and the Enkara were not always as they are now. They were the mortal plane’s first inhabitants – the precursors to all life. They did not create the world, but they shaped everything in it with a primordial magic long since lost, and there are far more than those you know. Hundreds. They ascended from this plane before time itself came into existence. Some continued to meddle in the pit from which they crawled, others never looked back. The gods you know, and the gods you don’t.”

“Are you not a god?” Calen asked.

“The word god has different meanings to different people. To you, I am a god. To the Enkara, I am but a child. My people call ourselves the Danuan. But you would call us Lesser Gods, gods of flesh and bone, gods who have never ascended.”

The world around Calen collapsed inwards and he was pulled forwards by a force unseen, wind crashing against him as though he were caught in the heart of a hurricane.

Beside him, Ella cried out, her eyes wide and golden. He grabbed her hand, holding on for dear life as they hurtled through the darkness. A second later, hard rock formed beneath their feet. The sky above shattered repeatedly, broken by lightning in shades of purple and blue.

“Fifty Enkara claimed Terroncia as their own. Carved its rivers and sculpted its mountains.”

Thunderous cracks ripped through the air, and the ground shook. Deep fissures tore the rock apart as mountains rose and basins fell. Trees sprang from the earth, and water filled hollows the size of Camylin. Everywhere Calen looked, the world shifted and changed. Flowers in all the colours of a rainbow ripped across an entire field while chunks of clay pulled free of the earthand rose, drifting like clouds, trails of water misting from their edges.

“They gave it life, filled it. Amongst their creations were a race of people both savage and brilliant, beautiful and monstrous, capable of the greatest love and the darkest horrors. The Cealtaí – ‘humans’ in what is now the Common Tongue.”

The world shifted, and brushstrokes of blue, green, and brown swirled around Calen. And when it all settled, he stood in a city the likes of which put even Aravell to shame. Buildings and towers hewn from cream stone rose for hundreds of feet all around. Rooves of domed sapphire glinted in the sun, shimmering with accents of silver and gold. Calen turned about in awe, his eyes following the rise of a statue that dwarfed even the towers. It looked human, its hand outstretched, an orb of pure light in its palm.

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