Page 40 of The Truth

“This is where I was born to be,” Aeson whispered as he pressed himself to Lyara’s scales and let his mind drift into hers.

Before his father had died, Aeson remembered sitting out under the trees at night, his father pointing up at the sky. His father had always loved the stars, not just for their beauty, but for their mystery and the stories they might hold. How far away were they? How were they created? What would they look like up close?

One night, Aeson had posited that perhaps a Draleid could find the stars. Perhaps a dragon could fly so high and so far that they could learn the stories hidden away in the night sky. He would remember that night for as long as he lived.

“Well, perhaps you will know the answers yourself one day,” Dahlen Virandr had said. “And then you can tell me what stories their light holds.”

Aeson hadn’t responded. What could he have said? That children like him would never become Draleid? That a dream was only as good as the chance of it coming true? Either way, his father had always been good at knowing the workings of Aeson’s mind

Dahlen had clasped his hands on either side of Aeson’s head and looked into his eyes. “There is nothing in this world that is beyond you, my son. There is not a star high enough to keep you from its reach. There are enough people in this world who will tell you everything you cannot be. You must never allow their voices to be anything more than noise in your ears.”

Dahlen had placed a hand over his son’s heart.

“In here,” Dahlen had said, “beats the heart of a hero. You have seen but ten summers, and already I see it in you. And it does not matter if you ride on the back of a dragon, or on a horse, or if you never do anything more than farm the land and raise a family. Because being a hero is not about the size of your deeds, but about the heart of them. And you, son, you were born with a rare thing – a heart that never quits. If you did nothing more with your life from this day until eternity, you would be the greatest thing I ever did.”

Aeson remembered the tears in his father’s eyes as he spoke. Dahlen had wiped those tears with the back of his hand, squeezed Aeson’s shoulder, and picked up a small, flat stone. He had walked towards the edge of the glittering lake and looked back. “What do you say? Three tries, farthest skip gets the biggest cut for supper?”

His father had died only a year later from the simple, mundane act of falling from a horse. The greatest man he had ever known, gone in a blink, with no commotion, no grand moment… just gone.

There was nothing Aeson wouldn’t have given to show his father what he had become. To show him that he had found the stars. And to tell him that they were never far away after all. That the stars themselves now carried him into the air and watched over him. That his father had been right. That he had learned so many stories and seen so much.

All Aeson could wish at that moment was that if he ever had children of his own, he would be half the father his own had been, and hopefully for a greater count of years.

As the memories crossed his mind, Lyara wrapped her heart around his. She was his stars and his sky, and she would be there always. She had not known his father, or his mother, or his sisters – wherever they were – but they were her family.

A chill swept up Aeson’s spine when Lyara twisted her neck to the left and spotted a shape ripping across the horizon. As it drew closer, Lyara caught the smell of iron and sparking steel, saw the glittering of gold and green scales.

Willam and Thasthír.

“They’re stationed in Aerilon…” Aeson looked closer through Lyara’s eyes, scanning Thasthír’s body and finding no wounds, no marks of Veyak acid. No invasion then, no fighting. But they were moving fast, a dire urgency about them.

Without a word between them, Lyara folded her wings and dropped. The wind snatched at Aeson like the hand of a god, but he pressed himself low and closed his eyes. He did not need eyes of his own when Lyara’s were a thousand times sharper. The dragon twisted and turned through the jutting towers and web-like walkways, never slowing, always shifting at the last moment. There were few dragons in Epheria who could come close to matching Lyara’s grace. She was lightning given wings.

Lyara alighted in the yard on the eastern face of the keep and Aeson slid from her back, threads of Air softening his landing. He inclined his head to the Highguard who stood watch over the doorway that led into the keep.

Porters and servants whipped about the keep’s twisting corridors like insects in a hive. Every year there seemed to be more souls within the keep’s walls, more cooks and cleaners and porters. Once, Aeson had made a point of learning all their faces and names, but he’d given up on that a long time ago.

When he finally reached the Archon’s study, two Highguard stood outside the doors, hands clasped at their back.

“The Archon is currently in audience, Draleid.” Valyna Tuvas, one of Alvira’s most trusted guards, bowed at the waist as Aeson approached.

Before Dylain could speak, the door swung open, and the Archon stepped out into the chamber, Willam and Chora Sarn at her back.

Aeson pressed his fist to his chest immediately, inclining his head. Alvira Serris was a legend from coast to coast. Long before he had heard the Calling, Aeson had been raised on stories of her. Eltoar Daethana may have ridden astride the Black Sun, and Farda Kyrana the Golden Spear, but it was Alvira Serris who had carried the injured from the Aonan Wood. Alvira Serris who had stayed behind to extinguish the flames of Aeson’s village. Alvira Serris who had stood against the horde of Ardanians with nothing but her soulkin and a village full of pitchforks and scythes.

He would die for Alvira Serris, for his Archon, because he knew without question that she would die for a person she had never met.

Alvira inclined her head to Aeson, then turned to Valyna. “Summon the council. Immediately. And call upon Eltoar. Tell them there is a matter of grave urgency.”

Valyna nodded, then set off through the door on the eastern edge of the chamber.

“Aeson. What can I do for you?”

“Lyara and I spotted Thasthír’s urgent approach. I thought it best we see if we could be of service, Archon.”

Alvira drew a long breath, then nodded, her eyes flitting from the pair to Aeson and back again. “You may come, Aeson. It will do you well to witness.”

“Yes, Archon.”