Page 288 of Of Empires and Dust

Sounds burst into existence, and the streets were thronged with people in robes of snow white, gold jewellery hanging from their necks and snaking around their arms.

“For thousands of years, there was peace of a sort as the Enkara walked the mortal plane. And then came the Fracturing. The Great War. The Enkara battled amongst each other, and the continent bled.”

The world shook beneath Calen’s feet, and screams filled the air. The towers and structures of the otherworldly city burst into flames, cracking and collapsing. The ground itself opened and fire spewed forth, burning flesh and bone alike. In the midst of the chaos, the beautiful robes of the people in the streets dissipated into clouds of smoke and reformed into glistening plates of armour, swords and spears of fire-red steel in their fists. They ripped each other to pieces in that beautiful armour with those beautiful weapons.

“It is not known why the war occurred – at least not to anyone but the Enkara themselves – but Terroncia didn’t sufferalone. All across the known world, the Enkara waged war and the mortal plane itself cracked open. There were once fourteen continents. Seven were swallowed whole, completely obliterated as the gods turned this plane into their battlefield. And at some point in the wanton destruction, a peace was brokered. A peace that saved the very existence of life itself. The Enkara – those who survived – left the mortal plane and ascended to what we call the Arathír, the Godsrealm. Horrified by the cost of their war, they vowed to never again set foot in the mortal plane, to never again allow their creations to pay in blood for the Enkara’s own hubris. That was when the fourteen surviving Enkara of Terroncia forged us, the Danuan. We were created to act in their place, to guide and shepherd the Cealtaí. We carved the Angan from our own flesh, to be our eyes and ears, extensions of ourselves. And each of us gifted a chosen number of the Cealtaí with our blood, to be our voices in the world, our heralds – the Tuatha. Our strength weakened, diluted by the Gifts we granted the Tuatha, but few became many and the sacrifice was necessary. In the four thousand years that followed, Terroncia faced periods of brutal war and glorious peace as many of the Danuan and our clans proved we were no better than what came before. But at least our powers were not capable of breaking the mortal realm itself.”

Thousands of years flitted before Calen’s eyes. Houses became villages, became towns, became cities, and were then burned to the ground, the cycle beginning anew. Armies crashed together, feeding the earth their blood, forests sprouting where the corpses were given to the soil. Mountains spewed molten fire, the earth cracked open like a brittle egg, and waves the size of a dragon’s wings crashed against the coast.

Fenryr turned in place, watching the centuries streak past. Where Calen’s visions had been chaos, Fenryr’s command of the path was complete and utter. Where the world had movedaround Calen, Fenryr walked throughit, controlling every shift and every passing second. Where Calen was the leaf, Fenryr was the wind.

“That was,” Fenryr said, a deep and pure sorrow in his eyes, “until one of our own found a way through the veil between worlds in search of an advantage in the wars and unleashed the horrors of the void into the heart of Terroncia.”

Calen squeezed Ella’s hand harder as the skies darkened and bled, lightning crashing down and carving strips from the earth. A dark tear ripped through the fabric of the world and terrifying creatures poured forth. Great, winged monstrosities tore armies limb from limb, horns twisting from their skulls, bones protruding through their chests, claws larger than even those of the Bloodmarked. Demons with the faces of men tore out throats and drank blood while creatures whose flesh seemed nothing but burning rock and molten fire razed cities to the ground. And along with all the death and destruction, Calen watched as men and women collapsed, their skin bubbling and melting. Others grew blisters of vibrant green that burst and spewed, the liquid within burning flesh and melting bone. One man collapsed before him, clawing at his own flesh, nails carving furrows of blood while slender worm-like creatures wriggled beneath his skin. The sight twisted Calen’s stomach in knots.

Fenryr knelt beside the man, his hand hovering just above the writhing flesh. “The demons that surged through the tear between worlds swarmed over the continent like flood waters unleashed, and like hounds at their heels, so too came plagues and diseases that ripped through our flock in a way that steel and claw never could. The war waged for almost two hundred years, our arrogance leading us to believe we could triumph, until eventually that same arrogance was drowned in the blood of those we had sought to protect. That was when the exodusbegan and we fled to Epherian shores, leaving Terroncia to sink into the oceans.”

Calen’s vision blurred and turned to nothing but smears of muddled colour, and when everything reshaped, he stared out at a vast ocean of white sails that stretched to the horizon in all directions.

“Some of my brothers and sisters crossed the oceans for Narvona, Ardan, Karvos, Valacia, Tathos… but the vast majority settled in Epheria. That choice, perhaps, was our greatest folly. For from that moment onwards, we have not known a day of peace. We warred amongst each other for land and power and safety. Tore each other to pieces. And then the Urak wars broke out. And the elven wars. Endless war. And in those wars, we faced creatures as powerful as the demons that laid waste to our home, creatures large as the ships that bore us across the oceans, armoured from snout to tail, with breath that could melt steel.”

“Dragons.” As Calen spoke, more centuries flitted past his eyes, the world shifting and changing, armies clashing, skies of dragons setting entire battlefields alight.

Fenryr nodded. “We more than stood our ground in those wars,” he said, pride in his voice. “Our people were mighty. Our Stormcallers struck the dragons from the sky with lightning. Our Blooddancers battled them through the eyes of wyverns and gryphons. My kin and I fought tooth and claw alongside our children. But those wars were bloody and brutal. There were no victors. Enough bodies were set into the earth in those years to build mountains, enough funeral pyres to light the sky. In the end, it wasn’t the wars that killed us. It was greed and arrogance. Even our Pathfinders could not foresee our own downfall, so sure were they that those paths would not be walked. We tore ourselves apart, piece by piece.”

The lights of the world flickered a hundred colours, then dimmed to black. Fenryr stood before Ella and Calen withhis gaze fixed on the black ground. “As the centuries passed, many of our people lost who they were. In their search for power, they betrayed their own. Many of the Cealtaí turned on the Tuatha. Either from jealousy or from sheer greed, or a thousand other reasons. Even the Tuatha turned on each other, the wars between clans taking on new forms. My brothers and sisters were hunted, enslaved, murdered. Even gods can die. Eventually, hundreds of Danuan were dwindled to the five that survive to this day – Kaygan, Bjorna, Vethnir, Dvalin, and the one who stands before you.”

Fenryr lifted his head, his golden eyes seeming to stare straight into Calen’s soul.

“I show you all this, Calen and Ella Bryer, because in my heart there is nothing more important than the preservation of who and what you are. You are the children of my blood, the Tuatha. And our history, our saga tale, our lessons, our missteps and wrong turns cannot be forgotten. And there are too few of my Tuatha left – too few of any Tuatha. So upon your shoulders, and the shoulders of all those who bear my blood, is the weight of remembering, the weight of knowing, and the weight of ensuring that past mistakes are not repeated. The question you asked was what you are to me. Why you are guarded when the other Tuatha are not. There are three reasons. The first is my vow to your father.” Fenryr pressed his palm to his forehead. “May his soul find its way in the blood of time. The second is a deeper thing. I told you that your mother was Gifted, as you are,” he said, looking to Calen. “You are Pathfinders. You see the paths once walked, and she saw those not yet taken.”

“And she fed us poison to keep our Gifts from manifesting.” That wound was still fresh. Even after Ella had said it aloud, he still couldn’t quite take it in. Their mam had lied to them for so long – just as their dad had. None of it made any sense. And yet… Calen wasn’t angry. He wanted to be furious, to beconsumed by rage. But all he felt was loss. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that there was a reason for everything, that his parents had done what they had thought was right. Because that’s what they had always done. That was who they were. Even with the lies, he trusted them entirely.

“You are here, you are safe, and you draw breath.” Fenryr clasped his hands together and gave Calen a sympathetic smile. “That was all your mother ever cared for.” He stopped for a moment, then let out a long sigh. “I want you to understand your blood. To understand why you are the way you are. You feel it, don’t you? Not just now, but always, you feel the wolf inside you. A willingness to die for those around you, a devotion beyond all measure to the ones you love. A deep fury in your heart, a savage rage that burns for your enemies. That is Fenryr blood.Myblood. The Tuatha of the clans are broken into septs – families. Your mother is a descendant of the Great Sept of Eridain, an old and proud sept of my blood. Since before we set foot in Epheria, Sept Eridain were the greatest of my children. Generations upon generations of kings and queens. Our most powerful Pathfinders, Stormcallers, and Heartseekers. But the name Bryer holds its own legend.”

“Bryer?”

“But our dad wasn’t a druid.” Ella looked from Calen to Fenryr. “He’s wasn’t – was he?”

“No.” Fenryr stood in the darkness, his golden eyes gleaming. “But the blood of the wolf ran in his veins. Though he did not know it, your father was of the Tuatha blood. But he was what our people call a Truan lan Volas. Without Light – Lightless.” A touch of sadness crept into Fenryr’s voice. “It is a name given to those born without Gifts, those who are not true Tuatha. There have always been Volas in the druidic peoples. In the early days, one in every ten was born without a Gift. Their blood was still my blood, they still bore the hearts of wolves, the loyalty,the strength, the rage, but the Gifts had not reached them. As our people were hunted and our bloodlines grew weaker, the number of Volas increased. And now, new Gifted pups are rare as red moons. When our people first made landfall in Epheria, my clan was not counted amongst the Great Clans. We had lost many in the wars against the demons and in the unceasing battles within our own. By the time we reached Epherian shores, we numbered no more than a few hundred Tuatha, a similar number Angan, and two thousand Cealtaí who followed me. But within that, Sept Bryer played a major part in bringing about a new dawn for Clan Fenryr.” Fenryr’s fangs bit into his bottom lip as he smiled. “Sept Bryer is a sept famed for their Blooddancers. Bold and proud, an old sept who bled for their clan. A sept that rose to become the greatest of my champions. In the centuries and millennia that followed, I thought Sept Bryer dead and lost. They were of that ilk – the kind to die rather than yield. The name carried on, but the blood withered, blending with that of the Cealtaí. And as Ages came and went and my Tuatha and Angan were hunted, many of the Great Septs were lost. It wasn’t until Baldon Stormseeker found your father and I felt the wolf in his blood that I knew the sept of Bryer still lived. That he and your mother had found each other in this dark world is something beautiful beyond measure. To see the two bloodlines meet… It brought warmth to my long-cold heart. You are not simply Tuatha, or druids, or whatever name you choose. Your blood is that of the wolf, it is the blood of my greatest champions, my wisest kings, and my most powerful Tuatha.”

As Fenryr’s words echoed in the darkness, the world shifted, and Calen found himself once more sitting in Alura’s Eyrie, his right hand clasped in Ella’s, his left hand gripping Fenryr’s.

His hands trembled as he pulled them back. He should have had a thousand questions in his mind, yearned for a thousand answers. But instead, he was consumed by a hollow feeling andemptiness where something should have been. Tears welled in his eyes but didn’t fall.

Ella’s hand rested on his knee. “I know.”

Calen clenched his jaw at his sister’s words, clutching her hand. So many things his parents hadn’t told him, so many lies kept. He wanted to be angry, to feel that rage he knew so well. But the only images in his head were of his dad’s lifeless body and the flames that had taken his mam from him. If they had only told him, maybe everything would have been different. He could have helped. He could have been stronger.

Ella squeezed his hand, and a high-pitched whine rang out from the plateau above, Valerys’s mind wrapping around his. The dragon’s warmth filled the cracks in Calen’s heart but didn’t mend them.

“Why?” Ella asked, her hand still squeezing Calen’s, Faenir whining beside her. “All of this, why did they keep it from us?”

“To keep you safe. From the moment your mother was born, she was forced to hide and run. Clan Vethnir, loyal to Fane and his empire, hunted us to the edge of extinction, while Bjorna’s Angan slaughtered any they could find. Both of my brothers command Tuatha and Angan in far greater numbers than I. One by one, your mother watched her brothers and sisters torn from this world, watched her own mother’s throat ripped out by a Vethnir hunter. When she had seen only sixteen summers, her father died protecting her. Freis fled to western Illyanara, where she found your father. Years later, your father found me, and I, in turn, found Freis. I told Vars of his heritage, but he cared little for it. Your mother was with child, and both of them wanted that child to never live the lives they knew. She had chosen to dull her Gifts and to ward against yours to keep the hunters from her door. She chose to protect her pack, and I honoured that. And your father chose to do the same. I left Faenir as a guardian to watch over them, blessed with my blood.”

Calen shook his head, his throat tightening.

Valerys cracked his wings and lifted himself into the air, then soared down to the central plateau upon which Calen and the others sat. The dragon alighted behind Fenryr, the ground shaking beneath his weight. He craned his neck down and pressed his snout into the side of Calen’s head.

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