2nd arc: Capital

Prologue

Sagel’s POV

 

The forest flew by below Sagel as he beat the wings of the bird form he had taken. As a changeling, this was one of the most important assignments he had ever been given.

 

Changelings were a people who were more or less born slaves to the royal court, simultaneously possessing the most and the least freedom of anyone in the entirety of the fey races. They were forced on a regular basis to replace human children from infancy. Every changeling will have, in their time, experienced hundreds of human lives. In this capacity, they acted as spies on human society for the fey court.

 

It was not all bad. Whenever a changeling was out on assignment, they had complete freedom to act as they desire so long as they maintain their cover as the human they are posing as. As long as all the humans believe they are one of them, they can act in any way that the human society would allow them to. Also, while they were completely under the command of the fey court, effectively slaves, they were also afforded a great deal of respect by the other fey races whenever they were back in the faerie queen’s forest.

 

This was all under normal circumstances though. It so happened this time, as Sagel was back in the fey lands, that the queen had seen fit to declare war on the demons of the underworld. For too long, the demon races had been sending their corrupted versions of the elves up to commit mass slaughter. Due to the fact that the demons live in the great underground caverns, deep beneath the surface, it had always been impossible to wage effective war against them.

 

This all changed 2 years ago when a great pillar of light was seen at the edge of the faery forest. This light was accompanied by an explosion that rocked the surrounding area and could be heard three kingdoms over. Roughly two years after this, something absolutely unprecedented happened. Changelings out on assignment in the human territories were found by messengers, a human-based faerie had gone to find him personally telling him to return immediately and appear before the queen.

 

It was at this point Sagel had learned about the queen’s plan and why he had been recalled early. He was told that fey dragons, some of the weaker true dragons and most powerful sub dragons, would be sent out to the surrounding areas in order to form a line of forts surrounding the site of the heaven’s fall, as this event had come to be called as it was said to seem as though heaven itself had literally fallen down onto the surface.

 

The fey dragons were the most powerful and most respected among the faery races, but they had a poor grasp of elf and human societies. This was why they would also need changelings acting as their advisors. A changeling could relate better to the elves and faeries living in the area already and, more importantly, a changeling would have experienced human warfare and fortifications. The fairy races were largely inexperienced with the means by which to fight an all out war, and knew nothing of proper fortifications. This is why they needed changelings sent to all of the most important battle-line villages around the heaven’s scar, the great crater created when the heaven’s fall had cut into the land.

 

At the same time as this battle line was formed, the queen would also use her magic to lift the great tree and the entire capital beneath its branches, and bring it to the heaven’s scar. The arcane energies released by such a grand scale magic would be immense though. For this reason, the entire capital was evacuated leading up to the execution of this plan.

 

So far, the plan seemed to have been very well thought out. That is, until he and the sub-dragon he had been assigned to were told to evacuate with the rest as the capital was about to be moved. “VERY WELL THEN” His fey dragon, a powerful sub-dragon named Everon had said. “IN THAT CASE, I WILL GO QUICKLY TO MY ASSIGNED VILLAGE. WE HAD BEST BEGIN THEIR PREPARATIONS IMMEDIATELY.” This was not an entirely incorrect way of thinking. However, when he had said “immediately,” he had meant at top dragon-flight speed. He did not even wait for his advisor to fly along with him.

 

Sagel was absolutely stunned by this idiocy. He had heard the sub-dragons were impulsive, immature, and always wanting to prove themselves. However, up until now, this Everon had struck him as unusually put together for a sub-dragon. He was, after all, a sub-dragon who had become a member of the fey right as he was on the cusps of going from a juvenile dragon to an adult. He may have been at the lowest end of the spectrum, but he was pretty much the single most powerful within that bottom category. He had always demonstrated excellent leadership, and this is why he was chosen for this assignment.

 

This, however, proved just how overblown Sagel’s expectations for him had been. The sub-dragon was every single bit as impulsive as the rest. He thought way too much of himself if he thought he could fly ahead and suddenly show up by himself and manage a community all by himself without assistance. Sagel simply did not know what to do about this. All that he could do was take the form of a migratory water foul, the highest endurance flyer of all the forms he had available to transform into, and fly without rest until he arrived at their assigned village and hopefully get there before Everon did something stupid.

 

There was quite a bit of distance between the old site of the capital and the heaven’s scar where it would be moved to. The capital had been previously placed on the northern most tip of this land, as distant from the human lands as it could possibly be. Now, it was being moved all the way to the southern boarder of the great forest that the fairy queen held dominion over. This meant Sagel was going to have to cross the entire breadth of the faery queen’s forest in order to catch up with Everon.

 

It had taken him three weeks with little to no rest in order to make this journey. However, now the destination had come into sight. Sagel’s immediate reaction upon seeing the village was to let out a depreciating laugh at the quality of fortifications Everon had apparently hastily made them start in Sagel’s absence. Or rather, the closest thing to a laugh he was capable of in his current form. It was really more of a honk.

 

At any rate, these fortifications were horrible. They had just made a simple single-layer wall of vines around the village. This would be completely useless as a fortification. This was a forest full of trees, and the enemy were demonized elves. They could simply climb a nearby tree and swing right over that simple wall without a problem. It was evident nobody had even thought to remove the surrounding trees at all. Had he been here from the start, Sagel would have advised Everon to burn every tree surrounding the village to a cinder with dragon fire. The mages would not like this, but he would make them understand. It’s either that or have their entire population wiped out when the dark elf demons invade.

 

It would be a different story if this village had a dryad. A dryad’s power could be used to make the trees simply uproot themselves and move on their own. They could become a wall on their own, far thicker and more fire resistant than this simple wall of vines, and perfectly equipped to have additional fortifications added in.

 

This village likely did not have a dryad though. The last reports about this village said there were, in fact, two nymphs who could become dryads in the next couple hundred years. Apparently, Everon had demanded he be assigned this village for exactly that reason. The villages where there were confirmed dryads that had appeared were all honored with true dragons. Everon had seemed excited by the concept when he heard about this village, thinking that maybe a dryad had awoken since the last word came from this village and the report had simply not reached the capital yet. If there was a dryad though, it’s quite clear their power is not being well utilized by Everon or the mages here.

 

Sagel flew a quick lazy circle around the northern wall of the village and took in the situation. He could see Everon had gathered some of the villagers around him near the village center. He had half a mind to go in there and announce his arrival, but it might not be good to throw off the commander’s authority in the middle of a meeting of some kind. Yes, it would be better for him to wait until whatever Everon is doing has finished.

 

As Sagel was thinking this, he spotted a few elves outside of the vine wall. One of them was directing an arm toward the wall, and thorn bushes were climbing up the side of the wall the elf’s hands were directed toward. This must be the mages assigned to construct this useless wall. Well, at the very least he had best rescue them from the misdirected work they were doing that would all have to be undone anyway. Besides, entering the village together with the mages ought to serve as a more tactful way to interrupt Everon’s meeting.

 

Sagel lightly probed the mages for a little bit of information, meanwhile keeping a light conversational tone with them. These mages were probably the most looked up to authorities in the village before Everon showed up. Keeping a good relationship with them would be absolutely essential to smooth operations with these people. It was not entirely incorrect to have them work together to work on the village’s fortifications, but to then go and appear before the people as he was right now, it created the impression he was trying to get the authorities of the village out of his way. This stupid dragon did not even consider the appearances that his actions gave off.

 

Sagel had to catch himself before he spoke his opinions out loud. Despite how completely out of touch they were, fey dragons were still held in high esteem by the people. Those who did not live in the capital would likely even hold sub-dragons like Everon pretty highly riding purely on the reputation created by the true dragons. Hopefully Everon had not already destroyed that good will in the time since he got here. If not, it would help things go a lot more smoothly the longer the illusion continued so long as Sagel could keep him from doing anything truly foolish.

 

Sagel had been rapidly going through his options on how to keep things stable as he was lead into the village by the mages, but then all of his hopes at keeping things stable vanished in an instant. Or rather, in a single wave of green light. That green light, the manifestations of hundreds of tree spirits, coalesced on a single location. Sagel had never witnessed something like this before, but in his long life he had heard about it before. He was about to witness the birth of a dryad.

 

Sure enough, those points of light all formed an adult humanoid form. The glowing green entity held smooth features, skin that was completely flawless as it glowed with life. The dryad’s long green hair cascaded down it’s back, and it wore a robe that seemed to move over their body as though it was a living thing. In fact, the robe actually appeared to be embroidered with real living plants, flowers, and vines.

 

This was the spirit projection of a dryad. It was not the dryad’s real body. A dryad’s spirit dwelt within the tree. The tree acted as the dryad’s real body. However, dryads and more powerful nymphs on the cusps of becoming dryads could project a mirror copy of their spirits. The weaker versions projected by a nymph could only be seen by those attuned to magic, but the more powerful dryads could be easily seen by anyone.

 

Sagel noticed that everyone here was gathered around the tree the dryad was forming from. He felt a momentary spike of hope that the dryad’s birth was the reason for this gathering, perhaps it was a celebration and Everon hoped to welcome the new dryad into this world. He did seem rather excited about the concept of this village already having a dryad after all. However, a part of him knew this was likely not the case. He could see out the corner of his eye there was a broken window in the side of this dryad’s tree, and there were also two elves climbing the side of it. Or rather, there used to be two elves climbing. They had been thrown off right as the dryad started to form, and now the tree was starting to grow rapidly as it shook the entire ground around it.

 

The dryad opened its eyes, filled with a look of rage that seemed to reflect the anger present in the tree’s writing as it quickly grew at an unheard of rate. Those hate-filled eyes turned immediately to the fey dragon Sagel had been assigned to, and the first words out of the dryad’s mouth crushed every fragment of hope he had at things going well in this village.

 

“YOU DID THIS! YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!!!”The dryad’s shout seemed to carry with it the wrath of nature itself, and all at once the forest came alive and began to attack the fey dragon. A tree began to move and tried to strike him from behind. He tried to fly away, but was quickly captured by ivy vines that had detached from every surrounding tree and lashed out to grab him. He tried to burn the vines, but they were immediately protected by a green energy.

 

“In the queen’s name, how could he have been so colossally stupid to have offended a dryad!?” Sagel had not even realized he spoke those words out loud. This stunning development the very moment he arrived had caused him to completely forget about minding his tone in regards to his stupid sub-dragon charge. At this point though, it quite likely did not matter very much.

 

Sagel was completely stunned. He knew dryads were powerful, but this was a newly born dryad. And yet, it displayed such a great amount of power. He had never heard of a dryad’s tree growing explosively upon their birth, but this one seemed to be growing to heights far greater than a normal dryad’s tree. If it didn’t stop soon, this thing would become a miniature version of the great tree itself.

 

Suddenly, the dryad’s projection clutched it’s head in pain and began screaming. A second later, the dryad turned to one of the mages. Eirlathion, Sagel remembered his name. The dryad said a name in distress, and a moment later a woman ran out from the base of the tree clutching an infant covered in blood.

 

A murmur was heard from the crowd. Sagel could see heads turning toward the fey dragon, laying limply in the clutches of the vines that were coiled around him. Everon’s head shifted, showing he was still alive as he groaned and turned to see the activity going on below him. There was really something to be said for the snake-like dragons. Even after having a wing torn off and his body ripped in half, even those severe wounds ought to be survivable. However, he would be in a severely weakened state. He was also still in the clutches of the dryad who clearly hated his guts, and for reasons Sagel was quickly beginning to understand now that he saw the way the two elves and the dryad were looking on with concerned at the blood-covered infant.

 

Upon some orders from the mage Eirlathion, the two elves quickly ran into the dryad’s tree. The dryad’s projection vanished at the same time.

 

“Who was that child?” Sagel asked, turning toward an elderly apprentice of the mage Eirlathion. This wasn’t just any apprentice though. In his earlier introductions, he had learned that this man was the elder of the village. It was, indeed, customary for most elven elders to spend some time as the local mage’s apprentice. This served several benefits. Not only did it give them a closer relationship with the village magus, but it also extended the elder’s life span and allowed them to wisely direct the village’s affairs for a much longer time.

 

Looking at the man and recalling that he was out with his master in his work on that wall caused Sagel’s eyebrows to crease. It was one thing to request some work to protect the village from the Magus, assuming the magus was agreeable to it. It was an entirely different thing to send out the elder along with him. It really did look as though Everon was actually trying to remove all the powerful people in the village from the people. True, it would speed up his useless efforts at wall construction, but it would also create a lot of unrest among the villagers. However, right now, having the village elder be someone he was already introduced to helped him out a lot. If anyone knew what was going on, it would be this man.

 

“That was a child who was born in this village recently.” The elder said. “She has been gravely ill since she was born. Master Eirlathion had taken her into his house in order to monitor her more closely.”

 

“There was a rumor the children were grey elves.” One of the other elves from the village ran up to Sagel’s side, quickly volunteering him the information. “They said that Eirlation was sheltering them in order to have the special human children they found in his house.”

 

They thought that child was a grey elf? That would explain a lot. Indeed, this was a common thought whenever children were ill. An illness that weakened the spirit caused an elf’s skin to turn a sickly ashen grey. This was the exact same shade of grey that those children conceived between a normal elf and a demonized dark elf would have. In fact, mothers who gave birth to grey elves often tried to claim that they were merely ill.

 

Grey elves had become a feared existence for the elves. It was said that dark elves hated all the elves of the surface. However, they hated their own hybrid offspring even more and would stop at nothing to destroy every single man, woman, and child who lived in a village that harbored grey elves. It was a foolish story. The dark elves would do that anyway, grey elves or not. However, it was a story that had struck fear in people’s hearts, and it had long since become tradition to exile any grey elf children old enough to walk, and kill any not old enough to walk.

 

If there was a rumor about that child being a grey elf, that would really explain a lot. However, it seemed that’s not all there was to the rumor. “Well, I think I am starting to get the picture now,” Sagel said, “but what’s this about special humans?”

 

“Yes,” the elder cut back in with that question, “when those girls were about to be born, we went out to fetch some human children to supply them with spirit energy. We found a pair of very young human children that gave off far more spirit energy than anything we had ever seen before. Those two human children have been kept right at the girls’ sides since they were born.”

 

“Wait, you keep saying it like there are two girls.” Sagel says, looking for clarification.

 

“Yes,” the elder responds. “Túeth, their mother, gave birth to twins. I have wondered my self whether or not their illness may stem from this fact. Perhaps, being born two from the same womb, their spirits were weakened in the process.”

 

Having lived among the humans for several human lifetimes, Sagel was plenty familiar with the concept of twins. However, it is something that never happened among the elves. This was certainly an unprecedented event, and it would make perfect sense that this could have lead to severely weakened children as a result. In fact, this explanation made more sense than them being grey elves.

 

Sagel was beginning to feel sick just thinking about this. Did that idiot dragon seriously order to killing of two sick children thinking they were grey elves!? Even worse, those children were under the protection of the head magus of the village! Sagel was actually half tempted to finish off this stupid dragon himself right now. He had thought this dragon was smarter than that though. He seemed the type who had a good thought process, but was very bad at implementing his thoughts.

 

This time though, that dragon had seriously screwed up. Sagel considered his options here. If he listened to Everon’s side of the story, he may find out that his intentions at least were not as bad as his bungled actions had made things look. However, with how bad things really did look, it very well may be better to just assume the worst and allow him to deal with the consequences of his actions.

 

No, that would not be good. That abnormal dryad added a major factor to this. That dryad had to have their anger appeased. No matter what, for the sake of this entire village, that dryad had to be calmed. The elf from the village who had just talked to him said it was a rumor that the children were grey elves. Everon would not have found out about them if that rumor was not floating around. There is a very real chance the dryad could blame the villagers for this. If that happened, this would be a disaster. If Everon had a good explanation for this, if this really was all an absolutely terrible misunderstanding, then just maybe they might be able to get out of this with only a few lives sacrificed.

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Author's note

I know, same events again. I actually did not originally mean for it to wind up like this, but since I am trying to write this in a way that it can easily be adapted to book format I had to somehow work in a recap of the book 1 events. The first version was basically just Eirlathion hesitating before going out to face everyone, meanwhile going over the previous events in his head. It was lame, slow, just a blatant uninteresting recap chapter that added nothing new to the story.

So, I needed a way to add something new for readers who were here from the beginning while also still catching new readers up on past events. The one and best method I realized I had available was, indeed, to make a prologue that went over the exact same events again, this time from Sagel's perspective so the reader can get a far broader view of everything that was going on from more of an outsider's perspective.