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I jolted awake, my breaths skittering and my heart pounding.
Harrowing sounds echoed like phantoms in my ears. The noise of my own pained, terrified gasping fell away from my mind. It faded with the rest of the dream. The beast, its scythe, and the sprawling army of terrors receded from my eyes. They too fell away as my nightmare ended and I was ripped back to reality.
A white flame stirred in my head, brushing against the edge of my skull and piercing through the mental fog still draped over my conscience. I grimaced as I sat up. The images, thoughts, and feelings of the dream still lingered. They mixed in with the fog. But I shook them away and squinted at my dim room.
Flicking my eyes around, I noted the desk that I barely ever used. The small window letting only stray beams of moonlight in. And the scratchy blanket draped over me that did a horrible job of keeping me warm.
I sighed, letting the familiarity comfort me.
Shaking my head again to rid the waking fog, I straightened up. I curled forward and ran a hand across my face as if to confirm that both body parts were still there. My own screams from the nightmare echoed their ghostly sounds one more time before I shrugged them off and let out a groan at a realization I didn’t want to face.
The nightmares were back.
I grumbled incoherent words under my breath as I threw the blanket off me and exposed the sweat on my neck to cold air. My fingers curled into a fist. For months, I hadn’t woken up like this. I’d become stable enough, shaken off the useless paranoia so that I wasn’t dreaming about the beast coming for me and everyone that I loved. After it had cursed me with a new life, it had taken weeks for me to get over the dreams. For me to reliably get full nights of rest.
But not anymore, I thought dryly as my thundering pulse calmed. Ever since I’d talked with Anath—with the source of the terrors herself, they had started up again. The worry, the anger, the fear—it had all rushed back like blood flowing from an unhealed scar. After becoming a ranger, I’d settled. I’d gained a purpose enough that the determined rage still stuck to the inside of my bones wasn’t all that I thought about. I’d gained a method of training. I’d gained experience. I’d gained friends.
With Anath’s claims though, that didn’t matter as much anymore. It was more information that I kept to myself. More fuel for the raging fire that I hoped would burn the beast to a crisp. More that I didn’t share with anyone else.
The explanation of the beast had been enough. The idea of its full power, along with the simple possibility of going against it had been all it took. My determined mind had latched onto her words and used them to torture me all over again.
Yet no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t let it out. It was too important to me, too deeply rooted, too entwined with my soul to risk talking about. Like something I’d sworn to secrecy in a knight’s oath. Except, I didn’t have other knights to confide in anymore.
I leaned backward, flopping down on my pillow. Another sigh worked its way out of my mouth and I forced away my own thoughts. Rubbed my eyes to clear all of the worries away. But after a time, even with the worries hidden from view, all I was left with was the dark, useless view of my ceiling.
The white flame flared up in my head, sending waves of emotions I didn’t even consider. It brushed against the backs of my eyes and watched through them. It watched the uneventful darkness, if only to keep itself occupied.
My eyes snapped shut. I relaxed my muscles and let out a breath, trying to ignore something that was becoming abundantly clear.
I wasn’t getting back to sleep anytime soon.
The white flame swirled, apparently just as restless as I was. Looking inward, I felt its warmth, but I didn’t miss the resentment it held for the beast as well.
My teeth ground together, anger rising again. I shook my head, throwing my blanket clean off and opening my eyes. Before I knew it, I was staggering to my feet. And less than a minute later, my door clicked shut behind me as I walked out of my room.
Dim light shrouded the hallway all around me. Soft, nearly inaudible steps rang out as my bare feet brushed against the quality wooden floor. Cold air bled through my brown tunic and reminded me just how long winter seemed to stretch on for here.
Though at least inside the lodge, howling winds didn’t sting my skin.
Walking over toward the training room, I smiled. The empty fireplace and static blank mat warmed me. Especially as the white flame flickered in approval. It reminded me of the training I’d done since getting back from Farhar. Of the attempts I’d made at understanding my own magic. At accepting how it worked.
Memories of the past weeks steamed past. Looking back, the period of arriving back in Sarin to now seemed like it had passed in an instant. A weak and a half gone without much thought. A result of normalcy, I ventured. Or, as much normalcy as I could expect.
At least when Lorah had started giving me assignments again, I hadn’t been forced to fight terrors in the middle of the night.
Yet, even though the return to normal was nice—even though it let my body rest with comfortable tasks—it only bored my mind. It gave me more time to think about Anath’s words. More time to try and wrap my head around concepts of the world and levels of power I was never meant to understand.
Even now, roaming the halls of the lodge in the middle of the night, I couldn’t help but wonder. Not only about the beast, but about Anath herself. After her conversation with me, she’d all but vanished into the night. And as much as the scared part of me wanted to assume I’d never see her again, I’d already been wrong once. I’d seen her on one of the first days of my new life only to meet her once more in the woods.
Something told me that wouldn’t be the last time.
I slowed my pace, coming to a stop somewhere in the middle of the hall. For a moment, I furrowed my brows before looking up at the door in front of me. Immediately, I jerked my head back. The blank wood registered in my memory, despite the fact that all the rooms in the lodge looked almost identical.
Flicking my eyes to the side though, I realized why I remembered it. I realized why my feet had brought me here even if I hadn’t been thinking about it. And as soon as I realized that, a smile grew on my face.
It was Kye’s room.
I stepped forward and raised my hand. Then I stopped. My eyebrows dropped and doubt rose up. With another tiny shiver running down my spine, I noted that I didn’t actually know what time it was. It was night, obviously. But I had no idea how late. And even if some part of me deep inside was burning to talk to her, burning for something to do at all, I didn’t want to wake her up.
As the silence pressed down though, that burning part of me won out.
I knocked.
Three simple knocks that were standard practice around the lodge were all it took. They reverberated through the hall, short and sturdy, but I didn’t knock any further. Stepping back, I nodded in satisfaction. If she didn’t open the door at that, I’d be respectful and leave her alone.
But strangely, after only a second, her door creaked. It opened only a bit and my former cellmate took half a step out. The metal boot of her ranger’s uniform made the floorboards creak as she staggered, her face drawn and tired. Running a hand through her already messy chestnut hair, she squinted into the dim light.
After another second, she noticed me. “Agil? What are you doing?”
Smiling at Kye’s bewildered expression, I almost didn’t answer. Her question repeated in my head but in my own voice, and I realized even I didn’t completely know what I was doing myself. But as all of my memories containing Anath surged back, running all the way to when I’d first met Kye in a cell, I didn’t hesitate any longer.
My smile ticked up. “I’ve got—” I stopped myself, my brows furrowing as the sight in front of me set in. “Why are you up right now, anyway? And why are you still in your full uniform?”
Kye tilted her head, annoyance showing readily in her narrowed eyes. “I could ask you the same question,” she said. “I was on a late hunt with Tan. We only just got back about twenty minutes ago.” I nodded. “Now what do you want?”
I fought back a cringe, keeping my face stoic as I thought of the best way to word it. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Okay,” Kye said, leaning against the door frame. “What is it?”
The dark woods, the twisted trees, the grey wings. I took a deep breath. “I met the source.”
Kye raised an eyebrow. It took a moment for my words to process. “Yeah, I know. You all destroyed it in Farhar. That was… weeks ago, at this point.”
I curled my lip. “We did. But that’s not—” I stopped myself again. Bit the next word off before it could even come out. The full breadth of what I wanted to say came down like a boulder. “It’s a little hard to explain. Can we not do this in the hall?”
Kye stopped for a moment, hesitating and eyeing me suspiciously. Then she nodded. A thin smile built on her face. “Fine. Shut the door, though. And don’t make this too long.”
I nodded, stepping forward to catch the door as Kye walked off. Moving into the dim room, I closed the door as quietly as I could.
Kye basically dragged her feet over the scratchy rug in the middle of her room. She didn’t even bother with taking off her metal boots before flopping down on her bed. Flicking my eyes around, I noted what I remembered about her room. Her window and bed were the exact same as mine, but her desk didn’t go unused. It only had one paper on it, but it made up for that by being covered with multiple broken arrows and all of the necessary pieces to make new ones.
“So,” Kye started, not even sitting up. “What in the world are you talking about?”
I grinned, walking over to her desk and pulling out its chair to sit in. As soon as I got settled, Kye raised her head and cocked an eyebrow at me. She rolled her wrist shortly after as if to turn the gears in my head.
“As I said, I met the source,” I said. “But it—”
“I already knew that,” Kye interrupted. “And you already said that. Did you hit your head or something?”
My eyebrows dropped and I glared at her. “No. Just let me explain, will you?” Kye threw a hand up in the air, motioning for me to continue. I did. “We did destroy what we thought was the source in Farhar. But after getting stranded on our way back, I was chased by terrors. And they led me to the… the true source.”
An unsure sound came from Kye’s direction. “True source?”
I nodded, trying to work it out logically in my head. “In previous cycles, the sources have all been locations, right? Places where masses of terrors congregated.”
“For the cycles I’ve seen,” Kye said. “But when Lionel saw a source for the first time, it was more of a crawling abomination of terror flesh than anything else.” She chuckled to herself. “Even when he talks about it now, you can see how scared he is.”
I tilted my head. The thought of the charismatic, experienced ranger shrieking in terror almost brought a chuckle out of me too. “Well, this cycle it was different,” I said before I could start laughing. “The source wasn’t the collection of trees. Or, not really, at least. Those were all created by a being.” Anath’s faulty smile flashed in my mind. “The source was a person. Or, a person of sorts.”
“What?” Kye asked lazily. “A… a person of sorts?”
The white flame flickered in curious amusement, but I ignored it. “It was a human,” I said. Anath’s description of her own composition sent a shiver down my spine. “But also a terror, and also… a dragon.”
Kye lifted her head. She stared at me and blinked, her face blank. Then she started laughing. “I’m way too tired for this, Agil. What’re you on about?”
I waited multiple seconds for her bellows of amusement to die down. For a moment, doubt crept back and I thought about just letting it go. About bidding my tired companion goodnight and going back to my own sleepless bed. But as the white flame danced, reminding me of how restless I was, I kept on.
“The source of the terrors,” I said. “This time… it wasn’t the place. It was some horrifying draconic human combination.” Kye snorted again. I shook my head and continued. “I don’t know why, but it was.”
Kye sat up, brushing hair out of her face. “And how do you even know that?”
I took a deep breath. I stared Kye in the face. “I met it, Kye. I met her.”
As if responding to the finality in my voice, Kye straightened. Mirth drained from her face and she tilted her head. This time, she didn’t laugh. “Her? What are you... Why are you even telling me this?”
A memory tore its way up. I saw Kye, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking away as I tried to talk to her. Looking into another cell.
“Because I’d seen her before,” I said. “Before even coming to Sarin. I saw her in a cell.”
Kye froze. Slowly, she turned, blinking at me in disbelief until a realization settled on her face.
“What?” she asked, her voice hollow.
I shifted in the creaky wooden chair. My blood ran cold, but I’d already committed. “Do you remember when you and I first met?”
She nodded, a thin smile forming on her lips. “A foul-smelling man with faulty arrogance hauled you into my perfectly good cell, unconscious, and left me to wait until you woke up.”
I chuckled. “Do you remember the girl in the cell next to ours? The one that had been there longer than you had?”
Kye’s smile vanished. “The one with wings?”
I nodded, squaring my gaze with hers. She jerked her head back and glared at me, as if harboring resentment for a bad joke. But I wasn’t joking, and as seconds of silence ticked past, she knew it too.
“Her?” she asked. I nodded, watching her eyes dart across the room as she undoubtedly remembered the terrifying girl. “She was the source?” I nodded. Kye scrunched her face and rubbed her temple. “What does that even mean?” Then she glared at me again. “Why are you making me ask so many world’s damned questions?”
Her sarcasm barely even registered in my head. A weight lifted from my shoulders, little by little. It took away the caustic edge of my own rage, calming me and letting the little white flame flicker its approval.
“I don’t know,” I said, leaning back. “When I met her, she even recognized me before…”
“Before what?”
I cringed. “Before going on about her curse to control the terrors, and trying to explain dragons to me.” My lips snapped shut before I could tell her about Anath sharing my hatred of the beast. That was still too close to my heart. It would’ve required too much explanation. So I held my tongue.
Kye blinked. “Her curse?”
“She was cursed to be the source of this cycle by the reaper itself,” I said. Cold, monotone words ran back through my mind. “But before, she’d been like other dragons. Lived in the mountains and yet flourished in the world’s planes.”
Kye shook her head. “A dragon? Are you listening to yourself, Agil?”
A tentative sigh left my lips, pulling at the uncomfortable uncertainty of it all. Before I’d been reborn, I hadn’t felt uncertain in years. Everything had been simple. Straightforward. I’d always known what to do.
But now…
“I don’t understand it either,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “Not really, at least. But I… I can’t get it out of my head.” Shrugging my shoulders, I fought the sneer rising to my lips. “Especially not with everything Marc is doing.”
In an instant, Kye’s eyebrows dropped. A sneer built up on her face also. “You mean the new order of knights and the support he’s been giving to the mountain states?”
I snickered, her sarcasm lightening the weight of the air around us a little more. “Yes. That. They’re roping him in to deal with dragons. With Rath and her cult.”
Kye scoffed, cutting through the nearly palpable tension. “‘Roping him in’ is the nice way to put it.” She clicked her tongue. “They’re extorting Sarin, practically. Betraying trade agreements and bringing up old issues to get his help.”
I raised my eyebrows, leaning forward again. “Trade agreements? They’re that desperate?”
My fellow ranger nodded. “Lorah’s been dealing with it for weeks now, trying to make sure none of the bullshit affects us.” A breath of annoyance rose out of her. “Even though I know it will.” She curled her fingers and glanced over to meet my eyes. “You know, it’s not only metal, either. Marc was involved with the construction of Norn’s temple, and they’re using that to manipulate him too.”
I widened my eyes but bobbed my head after a few seconds. “I understand the desperation, at least. When I talked with her, she called Rath the mother of destruction. Said she could burn the mortal world to the ground.”
“Rath is barely more than a myth,” Kye retorted, her tone not entirely convinced. She averted her eyes, her expression darkening again. “And none of this has to involve Sarin.”
Memories flashed back through my mind. Not only Anath and her power, but further than that. I remembered the quake we’d felt in Norn and the red-tinged flames that had seared my hair. All of it melded together, piling onto my fear and combining with my rage.
“She escaped that prison camp, you know,” I said. Kye turned to me, her brows furrowing. “She killed every single soul there and left.” Realization dawned on my fellow ranger’s face. “She controlled the terrors during their most vicious cycle in years. And she did it all while weak. She’s only partly a dragon, and still… the only thing that could control her was death itself.”
Kye relaxed her fingers. “What are you saying?”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand dragons.” The stories of my youth already painted them as beings of unfathomable destruction, and somehow even those were wrong. I didn’t know if I wanted to understand them. “But I don’t want to learn about them by being subjected to their wrath.”
My fellow ranger opened her mouth only to snap it shut after. Her face contorted, eyebrows knitting together before her eyelids drooped and she leaned back on her bed.
“It won’t come to that,” she said, her tone uncharacteristically soft. And as her voice led off into silence, I could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced herself. But as she laid back, staring up at her ceiling in the same way I had, I didn’t dare comment on it. I didn’t dare break the silence.
Not until I had another question to ask.
“You think Marc will gather a party to go aid in Norn?” I asked, my voice soft and low. Through the silence, it almost echoed off the walls.
Kye scoffed quietly. “Of course he will. And he’ll request some number of rangers to join it.” She ran a hand through her hair. “It’s just a matter of time at this point.”
Another second of silence. I opened my mouth, words of confident resolve ready to spew out. But I kept them inside. I couldn’t bring myself to mutter them because I didn’t know how she’d react.
“Are you thinking of joining?” she asked.
I froze, my eyes fixed on the floor. The question rolled over in my mind, but I already knew my answer. If any beings could make the beast pay, it would be the dragons. Anath had said it herself.
“Yeah,” I finally said. “If they’re going to deal with Rath, I want to be there to make sure it happens.”
Kye let out a sharp breath. “What makes you think it’s anything more than a suicide mission?”
“They’re defeatable,” I said without looking up. They had to be. My fingers curled into a fist. “Didn’t you once tell me about a former ranger who killed one?”
“Tahir,” Kye all but whispered. I could feel the pain behind the name even now. “But that was different. Tahir was… different.” She just stared up for a moment. “I didn’t even see it happen, either. He told us to leave and then came out minutes later nearly dead.” I could hear the hitch that caught in her breath from across the room. “I don’t know if I would call that successful.”
“They’re not invincible,” I said. I didn’t even know if my own words were true. “But if Rath rises, it will be more than the mountain states that get burned.” A tightness formed in my chest, wrapping around my words as if protecting my heart. “And if there’s even a possibility of success, I don’t want to be sitting around here and waiting to hear that they were one person too short.”
I took a deep breath. My own words repeated to me, and hearing them again, I didn’t know if I was talking about Rath or the beast. Probably both, I realized. But it didn’t change my resolve. Doing stray assignments and sparring in the lodge may have let my body rest, but I couldn’t let it rest. If I wanted to make the beast pay—if I wanted to be the best, I needed more than that. I need to know more.
And as Anath’s haunting, emotionless words kept hammering into my brain, the only place I was going to get it was in the mountains.
The white flame floated. Its hatred of the beast mixed with mine. Straightening up, I grasped at thin air. At where the hilt of my sword should’ve been. Then, as I realized there was nothing there, I chuckled. My mood lightened in an instant and suddenly, the splitting silence of the room was filled with tired amusement.
Kye looked at me, bewildered. I met her gaze and chuckled again as a joke rose to my tongue. “Plus, if I go, I won’t have to deal with Jason’s shit.”
She smiled. “What if he does go?”
“Then I’ll get to watch him get frustrated at being around knights who are all better with a sword than he is.”
She laughed, her eyelids drooping as she twisted away. Her laughter faded into a silence that persisted until she spoke again.
“When he inevitably calls us,” Kye said and stifled a yawn, “then if you go… I’ll go too.”
She turned her head, dragging a pillow under it. I smiled as she closed her eyes, strands of beautiful chestnut hair framing her face. For a moment, my heart fluttered, but I tore my gaze away.
Feelings arose within me. My mind reacted, trying to push them away. Almost as a reflex, something built up by years of conditioning, it conjured the image of my wife. Her beautiful, piercing hazel eyes stared at me. They stared right into my soul. But as I tried to remember every detail of them, even her image started to blur. It wasn’t as clear anymore, I realized. It was fading away from me as well, falling into the past faster than I could grasp it in the present.
Things were different now, I told myself again. The words I’d repeated to myself more times than I could count.
A tear formed at the corner of my eye. I blinked it away, taking a deep breath and facing reality head-on. I wasn’t in Credon anymore. I wasn’t married to Lynn—not truly, at least. Things were different, and even my burning hatred of the beast seemed to agree. Because I didn’t just want to make the reaper pay anymore. I wanted to protect from it, too.
I wanted to protect them all from it, I realized. I didn’t want any of them to face what I’d faced. Deep inside, some part of me fundamentally rejected its power. Rejected the idea of it coming for Kye or for any of them.
If the beast came with its scythe, I wanted to be ready with my blade.
But to be ready, I needed more. I needed to go to Rath, no matter how passionately my rationale rejected it. And even if it was useless—even if I learned nothing and she rose anyway, I had to be there regardless.
I wouldn’t let Sarin burn. Not after everything it had done for me.
I’d lived an entire life already. There was no way I was sitting back and watching idly as the future played out.
A muffled breath echoed through the room. I looked up, raising my eyebrows as I watched Kye move her head and twitch her nose. At once, I recognized the silence. Silence that only intensified as my thoughts stopped spinning. So, sparing one last glance at my former cellmate, I sighed.
Reluctantly, I rose from my chair and made for the hall.
By the time the door clicked shut behind me, she was already asleep.
The dark hallway greeted me with cold arms. I allowed it to take me, smiling as the identical rooms flew past. Even if it had been brief, I felt better. The weight on my shoulders had lessened and the thoughts about Anath had ceased looming over me. I was glad that I’d told Kye. Glad that I’d gotten some of it out.
And I was glad she’d get some rest, too.
Because for me, it was a long, sleepless night.
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