Pollux nodded and took to the air. Adrissu stumbled after him, but hesitated when he got right to the edge of the cliff. His vision was blurring at the edges. He tried to think of what kind of poison it could be that affected him this way, but all the knowledge he’d gained was failing him now.
Hearing shouts and the drawing of steel, Adrissu turned back. Behind him, a group of perhaps twenty men were tramping up the pathway: swords and weapons out, eyes locked on him. From the hill they stood upon, Adrissu normally had a clear view of the rest of the city, but the smoke rising from countless fires made it difficult to see anything beyond the academy that sprawled around the tower.
More than anything, he hoped the students were safe in the sewers, in the rooms where he had told Shima to hide them away; silently, he praised his own foresight, though he never thought the secret tunnels would be used like this. They would be safe there. The Academy would go on—and the students past, present, and future were all a testament to Adrissu and his undeniable impact on all of Autreth. Even if he could no longer remain in Polimnos, that part of him would always be there.
He looked back at the mortals coming toward the tower, his eyes landing on a lone woman bringing up the rear. Shima herself was stumbling up the path, magic flickering around her hands; but her eyes were locked with horror and despair at the crumbled tower. She had looked up to him, called him uncle. Maybe she did not yet know it was him behind all this, he thought—perhaps even now she feared he was in the tower, injured and dying. Maybe the memory of Adrissu—not just the accomplished headmaster, but the person who had been a mentor and friend—would live untarnished for a little while longer.
“Adrissu!” Pollux roared. He turned again to find Pollux had come back for him, though his visage looked blurry and indistinct. “Come on, Adrissu. We need to hurry. You have to fly. Can you still fly?”
“Yes,” Adrissu said. He chanced one last look at Polimnos burning behind him, but the smoke was too thick for him to see any further.
With a roar of pain, Adrissu took to the air. Pollux soared on ahead, the sky red and gray with ash and flames, and they headed east over the dark ocean below.
Epilogue
Thesunwasdescendingin the west, taking with it the last dregs of warmth of the late autumn afternoon. Adrissu paced, his claws leaving indentations in the snow. He kept his eyes on the sky, knowing Pollux should return soon. From atop their mountain, he had an expansive view of the mountain range as it stretched east to west, deep in central Robruolor. He could see for miles through the cold, cloudless sky. But there was nothing yet, so he sighed and settled back down in the snow, waiting.
At times like this, he sometimes still thought of Polimnos: its sunny shores and cool ocean breeze, the sounds of human life and vitality surrounding him. But the memories were becoming distant now, hazy and undetailed in the decades that had passed since it had been his home.Theirhome, despite how short-lived their time together in the city had been. He did not think he missed it, at least not anymore; but sometimes when the icy wind made all his claws numb, and the view of their mountain range was lost to mist or snow, he would reminisce on what it was like to live in a tower on a cliff by the warm sea.
The sense of another dragon entering his territory pinged in the back of his head, but he recognized the presence as Pollux the moment he became aware of it, so he eagerly stood again and scanned the skies. He spotted the other dragon coming from the west, silhouetted against the setting sun. He grinned, all his teeth showing, and watched as the red dragon took shape against the light of the sun as he soared down to the mountaintop.
“Welcome home,” Adrissu rumbled, stomping through the snow to meet him. They embraced, their necks entwining, before Pollux pulled away to gesture at the heavy load on his back.
“I’m glad to be back,” he answered. “Come inside. I can’t wait to show you what I found.”
Adrissu nodded and followed him eagerly as they made their way through the snow to the icy entrance of their home. As deep as the caves of their lair ran, the dwarves of Robruolor dwelled far deeper, so it seemed their nearest neighbors remained unaware of their presence. But with the help of their friends who still lived in Gylnefjell—Naydruun and their mate, the spritely green dragon Viona, who had once been Heriel the red—they had borrowed much of the dwarven technology that made their underground cities bright, warm, and inviting.
Adrissu followed slowly, stumbling a bit as they trudged through the snow. His foreleg, where the Dragonslayer cannon had caught him in the shoulder, had never quite healed right. Once they had found a place to settle, they spent a long time trying to discern what poison might have been on the bolt to reverse its effects, but most of their research came too late at best, or came to nothing at all.
Luckily, time seemed to be a better cure than any spell or tincture, and what had once been blinding pain was now a lingering numbness, some loss of dexterity, and occasional soreness—something he would much rather deal with than losing the use of the foreleg entirely, to be sure. The colder the weather got, though, the more often it hurt.
Pollux transformed as they stepped into the lair, the large bag he had been carrying as a dragon falling away as he shrunk. It landed with a soft thump, which meant it must have been mostly herbs and plants this time.
“What did you find?” Adrissu asked, shrinking down as well. Pollux’s elven form looked the same as ever: long dark hair and golden eyes that flashed with warmth when he smiled. His own form was also largely unchanged, though his injured arm could only be disguised with illusion, not truly hidden, and still had limited function even when he was an elf.
“Most of it is the usual stuff,” Pollux said, pulling bundles of various herbs and wood out of the sack. “But I found a little grove of these in one of the cliff-side gardens they have outside of Arlenfjell, and figured no one would be too devastated if one went missing...”
“What is it?” Adrissu asked, frowning as Pollux all but disappeared inside the thick cloth. With a grunt of exertion, he emerged carrying a sapling, its roots mostly bare with just a few chunks of dark dirt still clinging stubbornly to its coiled rhizomes. Despite its exposed roots, the sapling looked quite healthy, so Pollux must only have taken it in the past day or so. The little tree had begun losing its foliage with the change of season, though, so it took a moment for Adrissu to truly notice its pointed yellow leaves and realize what it was.
“A sebran sapling,” he remarked, stepping forward to hold one of its few leaves between his thumb and forefinger and feel the velvet-like texture of its underside.
“I remember there were some on the Academy grounds, back in Polimnos,” Pollux said softly. “So I thought it would be nice to put it in the arboretum, with the rest of the plants.”
“Very thoughtful,” Adrissu answered, smiling. “I would love that. Thank you.”
“Of course,” Pollux answered with a grin. They began to walk through the winding tunnels of their lair, the sapling slung over Pollux’s shoulder effortlessly, despite its size and weight. After the initial adjustment period, he had taken to his newfound body and its abilities as if he was meant to have been born a dragon from the very beginning—using his body’s strength even when condensed down into his elven form was second nature to him now.
They arrived in the arboretum, which was the highest point of their lair; it had carefully set skylights that lit the room and was full of plants from all over the world. Some had been imported from Autreth and Aefraya, and others, like the sapling Pollux carried, were taken from wherever they had found them. Many were medicinal herbs, or else ones they liked to use on the rare occasions they would cook a meal; many more were tea trees, now that Pollux was experimenting with creating his own tea blends. But a sizable portion of them were simply decorative.
Adrissu had not been especially fond of plants back in Polimnos, but here, much further to the north, plant life was so limited that having a room full of it was calming in a way he had not anticipated. They had started with some medicinal herbs, ones he remembered learning about from Dirge that he had hoped would help with his injured arm—they had painstakingly carved out the room, created the lights, then enchanted the climate to be comfortably warm and just humid enough. But their collection continued to grow and was now a veritable greenhouse with all sorts of small plants, flowering bushes, and trees.
Despite calling the chamber an arboretum, the actual trees were rather sparse compared to the rest, so it was easy to find a spot to plant the sebran. Pollux set the sapling down, transformed back into the red dragon, and dug out a hole where Adrissu indicated. Adrissu helped set the dirt back into place, and soon the sapling was standing upright between a few other trees, the soil around it dark and moist.
“Do you think it will live?” Pollux asked, admiring their handiwork. “It wasn’t uprooted for long, but I wasn’t sure how finicky they could be.”
Adrissu sighed, thinking about what he knew of the trees. Sebran trees had originated in Aefraya, but were quite common throughout Autreth now. In Autreth they did not grow in the wild as in Aefraya, but were instead commonly imported ornamental plants that stood in the yards and gardens of those who could afford such luxuries. This meant they were on the hardier side, Adrissu thought, so hopefully the little sapling would recover easily from the journey and thrive here.
“I think it should be alright,” Adrissu said. “It will be nice to have regardless, though. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.”
