Her jaw tightens. She doesn't reply, just circles the pedestal, her hands clasped prayerfully together once more. We've already come to a line that not even nostalgia can make her cross, apparently.
Another dead end.
Instead of giving up, I try finding another way in. “Do you know more about the conflicts that made the Mouren Flame falter? About theincreasingly messy dragon relations, for example?”
She considers the question for a long moment before angling her face toward us. “You know about the hierarchy of dragons, of course?”
“Refresh our memories,” Briar says.
She wanders toward a wide mural to our right, weathered with time but still brimming with detail, and she recites the story depicted by this art. “In the beginning, the four great gods shaped four divine dragons and sent them to this empire to guide it. Each chose a human to bond with, and those humans became the kingdoms' first rulers.”
“Heldra, Zara, Morrigan, and Isolde,” I recall.
“Correct. Once those queens passed, their dragons returned to the heavens, believing the foundation for a successful empire had been laid. The gods soon realized, however, that this world needed far more guidance than they originally thought. Humans can be very foolish, it turns out.”
“Understatement,” says Briar.
“So the gods sent the dragons back?” I ask, keeping us on track.
“Reincarnations of them. Not as powerful, but still immensely impressive beasts. And this cycle continued throughout history. Each incarnation was slightly lesspowerful than the last—the idea being that, eventually, humans would have to rely only on their own power.”
I move to another, smaller mural, which features more dragons than I can easily count. Dozens of them in all different shapes and sizes, some enormous and feathered, others sleek and scaled, radiating outward from four central divine figures like tributaries from a river. “And lesser dragons…”
“Were born of magic wielded by divine dragons, with occasional input from their human bonds,” she explains. “Shaped by their own claws, aided by their influence over different elements—usually one specific element per creation. An ode to the gods who had shaped the originals…that's how it started.”
“And those dragons made more dragons?” Briar says.
“Through the more common, beastly method of procreation, yes.”
Which explains the dragons that hatch from eggs and the nesting spots that I'm more familiar with, as well as all the different variations of the creatures I've encountered over the years.
“The dragons that Mouren’s royal family used to fight their wars…they were lesser, more common beasts, but in great numbers, correct?”
She’s slow to answer, seemingly choosing her response very carefully before she nods. “Yes, though our great kings and queens never called themlesser. And they always properly acknowledged their sacrifices.”
“Sacrifices?” It strikes me as an odd word choice.
Her eyes seem to darken as they fix on me. “All magic has a price, of course.”
My mouth goes dry, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
But Sylvane’s expression quickly settles once more into something pleasant and neutral.
She’s had over a century to practice her lines, and something tells me she isn’t going to betray any secrets, no matter how excited she might be to have a willing audience.
Briar is starting to look nervous, casting regular glances at the morning light starting to bleed through the glass ceiling; we need to get back to the palace before anyone notices we're missing and raises the alarm.
But I still want to know what's behind that sealed door on the other side of the room.
Why did it give me such an awful, crushing feeling? Does it have anything to do with what Mouren'sillustrious rulersdid, how they kept their flame burning bright when the rest of the empire began to crumble?
I have a growing suspicion that it's all a tightly woven conspiracy.
I just don't know how I'm going to unravel it, or what I'm going to do once I have the frayed, separated threads in my hands.
“Well…thank you for your generosity,” Briar says, warmly, then urges me toward the door with a pointed look.
“Yes…” I tear my gaze from the sealed door one last time. “I'm afraid we have to go, but thank you.”
