By The Sword - Homepage

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Dark, twisted forms hurtled past as I ran.

Wind howled in my ears, whipping at my skin and sending shots of pain through my body. Yet with the fire flooding my veins, it had little effect. Everything around me spun in a dizzying blur. My boots slammed into the dirt, and with each passing second, my eyes expanded wider.

The white flame licked the back of my eyes, reminding me that I wasn’t in control. My body dashed, weaving between the trees with a pointed level of finesse, but I wasn’t participating in any of it. As long the white-hot power burned fear as fuel, I was locked out.

Every few moments, I would try to access my muscles. I would try to direct my senses, to get some sense of understanding among the restrained chaos. But each time, I was blocked by a fire that now actually burned.

My fingers curled and tightened the grip on my blade. They were the only semblance of control I had left. With the world moving as fast as it was, and with my mind spinning faster than I’d ever felt before, I clutched the hilt tight. There was no way I was letting go—there was no way that my blade was getting dropped in the dust.

Eventually though, the piercing fear wound down and the smoldering flame started to dwindle. White-hot steel started cooling in my blood. The twitching power in my muscles started to dissipate. And as an indeterminate amount of time waned away, the air started stinging at my skin again.

My pace slowed, the steps becoming more erratic and less centered as I stumbled. I shook my head and held out my blade for balance. A few paces in front of me, my arm caught a tree mid-fall and barely kept me upright.

I swallowed the pain and fatigue rushing back to my bones and pushed myself up.

“Fuck,” I said to no one. The curse died in the air. “Fuck.”

A shiver raced down my spine. I shook my head as memories rose up. Images, insecurities, fears—things I didn’t want to experience anymore. Some of them were mine, and some of them were unrecognizable. But all of them had come from one place, pulled up out of their designated space in my mind by the terror.

I blinked. The image of it flashed on my eyelids.

My body jerked backward. Tree bark grated against my cloak, scraping my weak skin and sending jolts of dull, cold pain up my spine. I winced but couldn’t even pay them any mind. Instead, I tried my best to shrug it all away as I pushed off of the tree.

I took a heavy breath to clear my mind.

And, despite myself, I walked forward on shaky legs.

The darkness swirled around me. It crept up and shimmered, holding me like the confines of a coffin. It was shifting and dancing in accordance with the beating of my heart. Part of me knew it wasn’t moving and only focused on my task. But the other part of me found itself lost in possibility.

I hated the fact that the latter of them was right.

A loud crack echoed against my skull. I staggered, teetering while I tried to balance myself. My face contorted into a wince and I whipped around, scanning the shadows for anything I could find. Behind me, one of them moved unlike the others and I heard the shifting of dirt.

Fear shrieked in my head. I kept my lips sealed shut and shuffled away. My eyes narrowed as whatever determination was left trickled into my blood. I watched the shadow, watched it for a silver scar. I watched the shadow so intently, in fact, that I didn’t even notice when an excess of light entered my vision, the broader sounds of the night lilting to my ears from above.

Blinking, I looked up at the starry sky. In the back of my mind, the white flame stirred, slinking out of its home to indulge in a small bout of wonder. Soft, silver moonlight coated the entire space and the trees seemed to bend to its will. Their trunks twisted and curled away from the rest of the clearing, forming a small natural ring.

The sight reminded me of something and my eyes began to split wide. But I didn’t even have time to gasp before the next crack of fear broke off. It whispered into my ears, telling me to give up. It entrenched itself into my thoughts, preying on my exhaustion and pulling for my collapse.

I only barely kept it away as I stumbled back.

A rustle sounded from behind me. It drifted over my dense breaths. I whipped around, holding my blade out to meet it.

Glittering silver scars revealed themselves in the moonlight, and the feral beast rushed at me. Pitch-black surged against the soft glow of the stars. I scrambled backward, the scraping sounds flooding my head. White flames warded them away, but only barely, and it wasn’t enough to stop blood from pounding in my ears.

A tall, thin, murky black creature consumed my eyesight. It clambered over to me, raising its claw-like hands to grab me. I raised my sword and swung it out, but the terror was fast. It was fast just like the other one had been.

In my tired state, I missed. My blade shot wide and the terror shifted its form around it, the claws forming into longer black tendrils that inched toward me through frozen air. I stopped, my feet staying in place beyond my control. The white flame flared out, rebelling and revolting against the intruding force. But it too was tired, and the fear had already taken hold.

Its black limb floated toward my neck. A silver scar glinted on its surface, twitching in too many unnatural ways for my tortured mind to keep track. Then, the silver color of it seemed to change. It seemed to warp and morph into the sharp silver of a blade. My breathing accelerated, but I was powerless to stop it as the image of the reaper flooded my eyes and all hell broke loose in my mind.

My blade shot out, cutting the terror in the side. It hissed at me, only boring harder into me. The needle of its artificial fear scraped and probed deeper, pulling up memories. And as it got a hold of them, it—

It stopped.

The terror hissed, twisting its head away from me as it scrambled backward. All scraping died off in my ears and the unnatural, incomprehensible fear forced upon me calmed down as well. I coughed, cold air filling my lungs as I was able to see the world again.

And as the forest spread out once I could see more than just murky black flesh, something was different. With the terror slinking back into the shadows, it revealed a sight to me. A sight that shook my soul to its core.

Sitting on a cut and rotting tree stump, beyond where the terror had sprung from the shadows, was a girl. With her hand raised and her head tilted to the side, she glared at me. Silver irises met mine, radiating so much power that I almost disregarded the rest of her appearance. But as my frantic eyes flicked around again, it wasn’t that simple. The pale girl—she couldn’t have been older than eighteen—was wearing a fitting black robe with silver stylings and ribbons that reminded me far too much of a terror’s silver scars. Her shoulders shrugged, moving a shell of black scales adorning her along with it. And looming above her head were large, bony, disgusting grey wings.

My lip quivered, but I stayed right in place.

The girl lowered her hand and narrowed her eyes on me. All around, the shifting movements in the shadows receded. It was as though the presence of the young girl was so terrifying and bizarre that it scared even the terrors away.

Fear spiked within me—something I wished I could’ve gotten used to at this point—but it was different than usual. This time, the fear worked as an idle background to my thoughts instead of an overriding force. This fear wasn’t a thick, all-consuming fog, it was a window—a barrier between me and the world, but one I could see through rather well.

Despite that apparent clarity though, I spluttered. The girl tilted her head again and nodded to me, but it still didn’t make any sense. “W-What is—”

“Hello,” she said. Her monotone voice carried to my ears with a gust of cold wind. She blinked, the corners of her lips tweaking upward in a terrible attempt at a smile.

“W-What?” I asked again. My eyelids flitted, opening and closing my windows to the world in an attempt to wipe it all away. For a moment, I considered whether everything I was experiencing was a dream, but I knew it wasn’t.

It was never a dream.

The terrors were always real.

“Hello,” the girl repeated. Her gleaming bony wings twitched in anticipation. I took a step back, holding tight to my blade.

Squinting, the image of the girl seared itself onto my eyes. I’d seen her before, I realized. The pale skin, the dark hair, the bony wings. I recognized her somehow.

“Who are you?” I got out, words floating from dry lips. The white flame burned quietly in my mind, just as dumbstruck as I was.

The girl raised her hand again. The shadows at the edge of the small clearing shuddered. “I am Anath,” she said. The syllables of the name rattled in my ears, burning for a moment. Wincing, I nodded as if the name meant anything to me. And somehow, it almost did. Something about it felt… familiar in the most terrifying way possible.

She tilted her head. I raised my hand as well. “Hello.”

The attempt at a smile happened on her face again. My stomach roiled. I shook my head, trying to force everything to make sense. It didn’t.

“You are afraid of me,” she said, “as though I am the antithesis to your existence.” I squinted at her, trying to shake her image away. “I suppose a draconic terror wearing a human visage does not fill many with joy.”

I stopped, blinking. Her words echoed through the air and then back through my mind. The same emotionless tone carried them all the way to my ears. The girl’s wings twitched once more, but I barely reacted. I barely could react. All of my thoughts screeched to a halt and the terror I felt in her presence took on a whole new meaning.

Stories from my youth rose up, muffled and distant. Mentions of dragons, tales of their destruction—they mingled with my ideas of a terror. The fear inside of me soared, warping with each passing second. My stomach rolled at the realization of a truth I couldn’t deny, and I almost ran right then.

Only the equally imposing fear of the terrors guarding the clearing’s every edge kept me in place—kept me in the vicinity of whatever she was. A shiver crept down my spine as previous terror’s words repeated in my ears too. All of them, the fractured comments and confusing messages—they had all mentioned her. They had all mentioned her.

“You’re a… dragon?” a voice asked. I hardly recognized it as my own.

The girl nodded, flexing the wings that sprouted from her back. “Half of me is a dragon. Or, that is the way it used to be. I am unsure what composes up my soul as of now.”

“What makes up the rest?” I asked, surprised by the unwavering quality of my voice. The sheer absurdity of it all almost made everything seem reasonable in some sick and twisted way.

“The rest is human, and I am one of them as well. A terror, is what they call them in your tongue. I have always called them I’gra as that is their true name.”

A wave of mental pain washed over me, somehow overpowering the fear in an instant. That… word, whatever name she’d just muttered—it didn’t sound natural. Its syllables rang in my ear, sounding phonetic for what they were, but they didn’t translate into meaning. They only translated into pain.

In front of me, the girl stared. I could feel her gaze on my skin, and I would’ve stared back if I wasn’t busy wincing. “You are scared,” she said.

My brows furrowed and I shot her a glare. Heavy breaths fell from my lips, almost clattering in the dirt. “Of course I’m scared,” I spat. “What even are you?”

“I suspect you already know,” she said before raising her hand. I started shaking my head, adjusting the grip on my blade so that I could fight my way out. My muscles burned and my bones ached; I knew the terrors wouldn’t let me out with much ease. But with more and more confusion joining the pile of emotions in my head, I didn’t care. Staying here was worse and I knew it. No matter how much clarity I felt, the fear was still—

It was gone.

Suddenly, a weight lifted from my brain and I staggered. I coughed air out of my lungs and widened my eyes, blinking at the darkness. The white flame confirmed its presence, rising up to fill the sudden void. I glanced back at the girl.

She lowered her hand. I sighed, panting as I realized the fear was truly gone. All of the terror—whether artificial or my own—had completely vanished from my mind.

“What did you do?” I asked out of pure confusion. I was getting tired of repeating the same question so many times.

“You are no longer scared,” she said. I blinked, straightening to look at her more carefully. Pain and fatigue still riddled my body, but I felt better than before. The world wasn’t collapsing anymore. I could breathe, and that was more than I could have said of my past self.

The girl leaned forward on the stump and curled her lips again. I furrowed my brows and flicked my gaze around. In the shadows surrounding the small clearing, silver scars still shined. Strangely though, they didn’t spark fear anymore. But with the rational part of my brain working again, I knew it wasn’t a good idea to go back.

So instead, looking at the horrifying girl attempting to smile at me, I walked forward.

Solid steps rang out in the clearing, almost in conjunction with my breaths. They traded off beats, sounding and ceasing whenever the other one went off. As I made my way forward—toward a subject of nightmares—her form registered deeper in my head. I’d seen her on my first visit to the source. She’d been shrouded and darkness and surrounded my terrors. I remembered that well. Yet something still nagged my mind.

I’d seen her somewhere else as well.

“You’re the source,” I said carefully. Something flashed in the girl’s piercing silver eyes that I might’ve been able to call confusion. But it was gone in an instant and she nodded.

“I am.”

Color drained from my face and I could feel my throat grow dry. My legs stiffened, contemplating an escape yet again. But I didn’t let them get their way. I walked forward. One step at a time.

“I thought we destroyed it,” I said. My eyes widened less than a second later; I wanted to bite it back. But it had already sounded off and the girl was nodding again.

“You did destroy my home,” she said. “They are scattered now and cannot congregate like they want to.” The emotional absence in her tone matched the frigid cold of the air.

I hugged my cloak in a little tighter.

“How is it that I am back here?” I muttered. My eyes flicked around in bitter confusion and acceptance. Even after destroying the source, I was back here again.

Something was playing a cruel trick on me.

“You stumbled into my domain,” she answered, cold as ever. “Even after burning the other to ash. I do not know why you came here yet again, but their influence is clear.”

“Their influence?” I asked, stopping only paces from her rotting, natural seat. My feet rooted and place and I tightened grip on my sword. “Do you not have control over them?”

The pale girl shook her head. Her wings widened, stretching further from her back. “They follow me, but I am barely a guiding hand. I do not command their every action, and I do not wish to as well.”

I glanced around, watching the unnatural twist and curve in the trees. It was because of her power; I was sure of it. The terrors, they were all because of her. Everything—the destruction, the violence, the fears—it was all because of her.

“I was not always this way,” the girl said. My parted lips pressed shut, all words dying on my tongue. Behind her, grey wings spread wide, flapping uselessly for a moment. “I am different than I was before.”

Something sparked in my head. The white flame responded, pulling it to the forefront of my mind. A memory washed back, playing in an instant in front of my eyes.

I raised my head. “I’ve seen you before.”

The pale girl lifted her gaze to mine. “I know that you have.”

“No. I saw you before all of this.” The information broke through, memories long past flooding in. “You were in a cage—in a cell and shackled to the ground.”

Her previous attempt at a smile died. “When did you find yourself in Bekisnhlekil’s chamber?”

Pain. Piercing, unbridled pain attacked my mind. The word she’d used—the name—it felt as wrong as the rest. It didn’t translate into meaning, only slipping through my thoughts like a ghost no longer tied to the world.

I shook my head, wincing. “No. The cell in the prison camp.”

Her eyes widened a hair. “You were referring to the mortal cage, then. The one made of brittle steel.”

My brows furrowed and questions rose on my tongue. But remembering who—or what—I was talking to, I held my tongue. Instead, I nodded in confirmation.

Bony wings stretched again, sharp tips scraping against the bark of a tree. “That was before the I’gra had found me, yet after I had already fallen. After Bekisnhlekil had taken everything from me.”

All thoughts and emotions screeched to a halt in my head. Feeling the pressure pushing on the inside of my skull, I almost shrieked. My teeth ground together to form a barrier, to keep the sign of weakness out. “Could you stop saying…” I started but found I wasn’t able to recall the words. “Stop saying those names.”

The girl—Anath, I could remember that name—tilted her head. Then she nodded. “I forget at times; my tongue is not conditioned for mortal ears. In your language, I believe the foul beast is named Death.”

Time lurched to a stop.

I stood, blinking with tense muscles at the demonic girl on the stump. The mention of the beast sent blood thundering in my ears. And despite whatever ward she’d placed on my mind, I felt fear creep its way back as if readying for an attack. Without even thinking, I raised my blade and did the same.

“You fear it,” she said. “You are afraid of the beast.”

My brows furrowed and I nodded. For a moment, I thought of concocting a lie. But I knew better than to take any chances. I knew better than to risk my life. “I do... Of course I do. Everyone’s afraid of death.”

“Yet you hate it as well. You hate it for everything that it is.” She leaned forward, wings twitching on her back, and stared into my eyes. “I cannot feel rage in one’s mind, but I can see it in your eyes.”

My breathing accelerated, matching the pulse thumping in and out of my heart. The girl in front of me was terrifying. She was a dragon and a terror alike. She was the source, a being that I wanted to destroy. All of my instincts yelled to fight her, to block out everything she said, but I couldn’t help but listen to her words.

The air lightened around me, making my breaths feel pained and sharp. She twisted her fingers, black claws rising from her hands. They twitched and writhed, radiating only power and killer intent.

I took a step back, doubting all of my previous thoughts. But she didn’t attack me—she didn't come to claim my soul herself. She just tried to smile with a sigh.

“That rage of yours. It is a sentiment I share.” For the first time, the slightest bit of emotion crept into her tone. It was unmistakable; pure rage dripped from the corner of her voice.

I jerked my head back in surprise. “You… what? Why would you—”

“I was not always this way,” she interrupted. What little emotion I’d heard before died away. “I used to be able to fly.”

My thoughts screamed at me, all instinctual warnings going off at once. A hitch caught in my breath and I took another step back. The girl in front of me flexed her wings. And with the mental clarity I’d been gifted, I knew right then that I was in way too deep. Whatever I’d stumbled across after being chased through the trees, it was larger than me.

Yet as I tried to move, her eyes locked with mine. Her silver irises swirled with energy and kept me in place. The phantom weight that settled on my shoulders told me there was no chance to leave. I stayed right where I was.

“I used to flourish with the other dragons. In the mountains and all the rest of the world’s planes.”

I swallowed, my throat as dry as a desert. But her eyes were still locked with mine. I still had no chance to move away. “What happened?” I asked instead.

She blinked, her stoic face lifting higher. The shifting black claws that had sprouted from her hand receded. “It is what happens to all,” she said. “The beast came for my soul like it does all others.”

“And yet you’re still here,” I blurted out without thinking. The confusion was uncomfortable, and it was starting to get on my nerves. Yet also, there was an island of familiarity in her words. The situation she described hit a little too close to home.

“I am,” she said. “When the beast showed its physical form, as it does for all creatures connected to its process, it did not swing its scythe. I was too valuable. It kept my soul for itself.”

My eyes bulged and my fingers relaxed. As her story rattled on, her hatred of the beast came through despite the lack of emotion in her voice. Gradually, I saw less and less of a threat. If she was going to kill me, I reasoned, she would’ve done it by now.

“It kept your soul?”

She nodded. “For souls it deems worthy, the beast likes to play vile games.” Memories rose up, old, painful ones. The beast had tricked me as well. “In my case, it saw an opportunity in my power. It experimented on me; I am a victim of its design.”

A shiver raced up my spine. It turned into a shudder that wracked my entire body. “The beast does that often? Even though it exists to harvest souls?”

“That is its primary purpose; that is how it serves the world. The World Soul does not care as long as the energy it gives out returns in time. The servants, however, mostly do as they please.”

I stared at the dirt, bringing my brows together like puzzle pieces. The girl’s words were incompatible with everything I knew. The world was a blessing, and all natural processes were limbs of its sacred favor. Its servants couldn’t harm that favor.

My eyes flicked out, watching the scarred terrors creep in the shadows around us.

Then again, I thought, I could see the terrors for myself. They were there—dreadful creatures that fed off fear. And I’d stared too many of them in the face to deny that the beast could do as it pleased.

I bit down hard as the conceptions I’d held were shattered one-by-one. “They do as they please,” I said. “Like creating creatures of pure fear?”

The girl looked up at me and tilted her head. “Death is the progenitor of all terrors. They are a product of its design in the same way I am myself.”

Shaking my head, I stepped forward again. “Why? What purpose do they serve to the world and its balance?”

Grey wings flinched once again. The girl shook her head slightly, strands of black hair falling in front of her eyes. “I do not know and I do not pretend to know. The beast toyed with my soul and chained me to its creations. It does not spell out its intent, nor does it follow any semblance of reason.”

“Obviously not,” I muttered with a bitter edge in my voice.

She brushed the hair from her face without even lifting a finger. “After the beast had completed its design, it set me in Ruia to drift.”

I shook my head. None of it made any sense. The beast’s intentions didn’t make sense—but at least I’d known that before. The new information though, that which was being poured into my ears by the source of the terrors I hated—it wasn’t helping at all. Distantly, the thought came to me that I missed my old life. Things were simpler when all I had to worry about was the quality of my blade.

Shaking away the unhelpful memories, I sighed. Then looked back at the girl with the silver eyes. “How did you end up in the cell then?”

Her eyes widened a sliver and her brows dropped almost imperceptibly. “I do not know. I do not remember anything between being chained in its chambers and coming out to a new world.”

I swallowed. “How did you get out?”

She straightened up, staring me right in the eyes. “I ended them,” she said. The lack of emotion in her voice sounded colder than ever before. “As was my duty designed by the beast, I killed my captors and left.”

My fingers twitched on the hilt of my blade, tightening. I stared at the girl; she was still more powerful than me. I had to wrestle my eyes not to split as wide as the moon. “And then you found the terrors here?”

She held up her hand, her expression unchanging. “They found me.”

I cringed, nodding. The anger from before resurfaced, bubbling just beneath my rational mask. I could feel the eyes of the terrors on me and I wanted to rip all of them to shreds. But as I stared at the girl, I didn’t feel the same way. Instead, I almost felt… bad. Her situation was familiar, even if it was more twisted than mine. If I disregarded our differences on the surface, it was almost like looking at myself in a broken mirror.

“Why do you do it?” I asked, hoping she understood what I meant.

By the way that she nodded, I knew that she did. “I have no other choice.”

I gritted my teeth, barely controlling the fury that was rising below. But when I looked at her face, searched her words for falsehood, I could find nothing but truth.

“Though now, my time with them wanes. With my domain destroyed, it seems their cycle has come to end. I have no longer the urge to further their needs. I have no longer a want to help the beast as well.”

The white flame stirred in the back of my mind, shuddering at the repeated mentions of the reaper. Outwardly, I shuddered as well as the true power of it became more clear. If it was able to control her, what chance did I have? Still though, I gripped tight to my sword.

“Will they stop?”

The girl averted her eyes. All movement in the shadows that her gaze cut through stopped in its tracks. Then, she looked back at me, staring me right in the eyes. “I have lost; I am set adrift once more. But you want revenge on the beast. I can taste it in the fear of your own failure.” The white flame flickered its agreement and I nodded to confirm. “I cannot say that I do not want the same thing.”

“I just want to make it pay,” I admitted. The truth in my own words made me blink away surprise. Deep down, I knew I wouldn’t get my past life back. But the beast had tricked me—it had bested me even at my peak with the blade. And so my words really did ring true.

I wanted to make it pay.

“Sometimes I wish we could have done the same,” she said, straightening. Her wings stretched wide once more. “If any beings could do it, I know that the dragons could. They have wanted it for enough time.”

I widened my eyes, questions forming at my lips. She stopped, flicking her eyes to meet mine.

“You fear them too.”

My body froze, muscles screeching to a halt as her eyes bored into me. The silver in her irises seemed to sharpen, becoming all too similar to the probe of fear I never wanted to feel again. So instead, I slammed my eyes shut and once again let out the truth. “I do… Of course I do.”

Creaking my eyes open, I could see her nodding slowly. “These conceptions of dragons you hold in your mind… they are draped in fear. Yet they are also wrong.”

I widened my eyes at that, tilting my head at the girl. “Wrong?” The dozens of stories from my youth came back up. Did I have to question all of them as well?

“It is uncommon for mortals to understand,” she said. “Dragons are far more capable than you assume in your mind. Especially the mother of destruction herself.”

Sharp, skewed images flashed before my eyes. I shook my head, trying to shrug off the phantom heat licking my skin as I remembered. “Rath.”

“I can see you fear her too,” the girl said. “She could bring the mortal world to its knees in a pledge of red flame. Out of all the dragons, she would be the one to challenge Death. Yet… even dragons are subservient to the world. Maybe that includes its servants as well.”

A silence. Thick, cold, and murky. It hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity. Half-formed ideas floated through the back of my mind, but I ignored them for now. Instead, I let the rational part of me pick through her words.

“The servants serve the world,” I said, reasoning it out in my own head. “They’re not much different than us.”

The winged girl stood up, stretching her legs off the rotted tree stump. Her eyes darted upward, and that attempt at a smile came back. “Maybe not. One watches us even now.”

I furrowed my brows. “One watches us? What are you—”

A powerful, piercing screech split the air in two. The trees around me shuddered, leaves waving at the onset of sound.

I whipped around, my mind working overtime to figure out why I remembered the sound. Thoughts spun in my head, reacting to the golden glint far up in the trees. Leaves rustled above, and by the time I figured it out, the memories were already spilling back in.

The Aspexus, Lorah had called it once. One of the Servants of the Soul. I’d seen it on one of my first days in a new life.

“The Aspexus,” I said, turning back to the girl. The rest of my words fell cold on my tongue as I faced only the forest again. I flicked my eyes around, looking over the clearing for any sign of the girl that had stood there only moments before.

I found none.

She was gone.

Somewhere distant in the trees, I could’ve sworn I saw a blur of grey wings. But it was too fleeting to grasp. And with her absence, the ward of clarity weakened. It shrunk and shriveled, sinking deep into my mind like a rock into the sea. Worry, fear, and insecurity wormed their way back to the forefront of my consciousness and my stomach rolled in confusion.

I grimaced, turning away from the clearing and any terrors still inside it. I felt scared again—scared of all the information I’d gotten, scared of facing the beast for a second time. Scared of it all, even if things felt a little more clear.

Another screech split the night and ripped me back to the present. Feeling the horrible pain in my body, I wanted nothing more to rest. But I knew I couldn’t. Not yet, at least.

In the canopy above, the dark form of the bird took off into the sky, shrieking again as it went. It floated for a moment, staring right down at me before flying off in some direction.

The cold still stung my neck. I still had no idea where I was. But the regal bird had come, and so I’d follow its lead. My head spun, as was usual, mixing fear, worry, and dread. But as the white flame flared again, I knew now wasn’t the time.

So after sparing one last glance at the stars, I surged through the trees and followed the bird into the night.