Page 302 of Of Empires and Dust

Chora inclined her head and wheeled herself past the two elves.

Gaeleron Athis and five more Dracurïn stood guard at the wide arch that led out onto the platform. Each of them wore fine steel plate, white dragons emblazoned across the breasts and purple cloaks clasped at their shoulders by golden leaves. Finding that young smith, Valdrin, had been a stroke of luck, but the way Aeson had played the Triarchy against each other to contribute their own smiths had been masterful.

On the other side of the arch, Valerys stood tall, wings spread and head high, only Calen’s lower half visible past the dragon’s bulk.

“Rakina.” Gaeleron bowed and gestured towards the arch.

From the platform, Chora could see for miles in all directions. The forest swept outwards in brushstrokes of deep green, dark clouds blotting the morning sky above. Here and there, rocky peaks burst through the dense canopy and fell away into sweeping valleys.

For centuries this woodland had remained untouched, a bastion against the carnage of the world beyond. A place that had been both her sanctuary and a prison. Now, streaks of black tore through the green, miles long and hundreds of feet wide. The dragonfire had scarred the land. What had once been vibrant and thriving was now ash and bones and char.

Her sanctuary was gone, her prison destroyed… and she wasn’t sure which she missed more.

Only the subtlest of sounds alerted her to the presence of the two Fenryr Angan who stood on either side of the platform, watching with those golden eyes. Chora had spent hundreds of years around the Dvalin, but these Angan were different creatures, harsher, sharper, and more dangerous. She expected no less from creatures born of a wolf god.

Calen looked over his shoulder as Chora approached, and Valerys twisted his neck and lowered his head.

She paused and reached up a hand so that her fingers brushed the bottom of the dragon’s jaw. Warm air rolled over her face from Valerys’s nostrils, and she closed her eyes, feeling the rough, scarred scales beneath her fingers. It had been so long since she had seen a dragon whose fire still burned so bright. She would never grow tired of it.

Chora gasped as a wave of emotions flowed from Valerys - sorrow, loss, grief. She snapped her eyes open and stared up into those of the dragon. Without words, she knew Valerys’s heart; she knew his sympathy for her pain, knew the ferocity with which he would protect her if he was ever called to.

She looked to Calen, and the young man stared back at her. In his eyes, she saw he had felt whatever had passed between Chora and the dragon. Something had shifted within him since Ilnaen. Something deep at his core. The simple fact that he had found his níthral was evidence of that. Most mages went their entire lives without being able to summon that weapon. Choraherself had never achieved the feat, and now, with only half a soul, she never would.

Calen frowned, realisation dawning in his eyes. “My head was elsewhere, Chora. I apologise for asking you to make the climb.” His lips formed a regretful smile. “I should have come to you. Laël sanyin.”

I am sorry.

“No apologies are needed. It was a simple thing,” Chora lied. Her back still ached with a fury, and her lungs still burned. “Well, you asked me here alone, and now here I am. I’m assuming you’ve made a decision then?”

“I have.”

Just over an hour earlier, as the sun broke the horizon, word had come from Coren Valmar in the North that a Lorian army some forty thousand strong had encircled them and that they called for Calen and Valerys.

When the Angan had relayed the message, Calen had asked for time to think. Time that Chora had granted him. She knew all too well how painful these decisions were. Duty to oneself against duty to a cause. In truth, Chora had expected the decision to take far longer.

“I don’t mean to rush you,” she said, twisting her hand so that her nailclackedoff the chair.

Calen turned and stared back out at the vast expanse of the Aravell. “Dann and the others should be arriving in Salme any day now. I promised them I would be there, that I would fight by their side.”

So that was his choice then. He would fly to protect his home, to protect the ones he held dear. Chora couldn’t say she was surprised, but she had not yet given up. The young man had a sense of duty in him. It was simply buried beneath the fear of loss. “And what of Coren and Farwen and the five thousand souls who stand alone in Tarhelm? They have given everything to thisrebellion. We cannot abandon them. If Daiseer still drew breath, I would fly myself, but he does not, and I cannot.”

Without turning his head, Calen dropped his hand to a patch of silk knotted between his belt loops. It was deep red in colour, but plain. She’d noticed his brother – the knight, Arden – wearing something similar, but his was woven with vines of gold and cream leaves. The pattern mimicked that which Valdrin had marked into Calen’s armour. It was a memory of something the two brothers shared – a loss, perhaps. That would seem the reasonable thing.

“I cannot be in two places at once,” Calen said. Valerys craned his neck down and brushed the side of his jaw into Calen’s shoulder. “No matter what we do,” Calen said, looking to the dragon, “we abandon someone.”

“Such is war.” The words left a bitter taste on Chora’s tongue. A time had once existed when she had not been so apathetic towards such things. That time was a distant memory, but she yearned for it so, just as she yearned for the touch of Daiseer’s mind.

“Does it ever get easier?”

Chora shook her head. “Not in my experience. The choosing of who you save and who you do not should never be an easy thing. We must accept that we cannot save everyone and move forwards.”

After a few moments passed, Chora nodded softly and clasped her hands together, resting them on her lap. In her many years roaming this land, Chora had learned that life was a fleeting thing. And there were things that were playing on her mind, things she would use this moment to say, lest she forever remain silent. “I know I have been harsh, and cold, and perhaps a little cruel in the way I have spoken to you since the battle for the city. But I want you to know it is only because I am afraid.”

“Afraid?” Calen looked down at her, confusion on his face. “What isChora Sarnafraid of?”

Chora ignored the mocking tone of his voice. He was young, and false arrogance was the shield of youth. She let her breath out in a long sigh. “I watched over hundreds of young souls who were tested for the Calling. It was my honour, my duty, and my privilege. I watched their soulkin hatch and stood by with pride in my heart as their bonds strengthened and they became everything I knew they could be. My heart was so full it was bursting.”

Calen continued to stare back at her.

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