AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But now that I was immune, I tore through the creatures, gladly unleashing all my pent-up emotion as I gave myself over to battle rage. I cut down ten of them in a matter of minutes, though not without sustaining minor cuts from their teeth and claws. The scent of my blood drew even more of the bastards, sending them swarming from the hills and straight toward me.
Eventually, I was forced to shift into half-dragon form and fly away before their sheer numbers dragged me down. The creatures howled as I took to the skies, but I didn’t look back as I winged away from them. Killing them would solve nothing, and aside from that, there was a chance Adara could bring them back to their former selves once she mastered her icefire ability. If they wanted to restore Hearthfyre to its former glory, they would need to revive the natural flora and fauna that had flourished here all those decades ago.
Once I was out of danger, I shifted into full dragon form, then headed west, toward the nearest primal stone mine. Before we’d left on our journey, Quye had pulled me aside and told me to collect as many of the stones as I could.“We’ll need them to defeat Nox,”she said when I’d asked her why.“At least a dozen, if you can manage it.”
I didn’t know how Quye planned to charge a dozen primal stones, nor what she hoped to do with them. But she’d yet to steer us wrong before, and with so much time to kill, I needed to dosomethinguseful.
As I flew, my mind couldn’t help but drift back to the night we spent in the tower and the secret library Quye had found. That notebook… what experiments had the fire fae been doing that led to their destruction? Was there truly a curse on the artifacts they'd left behind, and if so, who was to say that curse didn’t extend to the whole of Hearthfyre? Perhaps that was why these lands were so torn by war and strife, even all these years after the fae had defeated us. Nearly every place I flew over was infested with shadow corruption. My heart grew heavy as I passed over what had once been a crop field, but was now infested with thorny, tentacle-like plants that would sooner eat me rather than nourish me, were I to make the mistake of getting too close.
As I swept my gaze across the desolate landscape, an ancient ruin caught my eye. Recognition flared inside me at the sight of headstones jutting out of the barren earth—this was a fire fae cemetery, one of the few remaining above-ground archeological sites the fire fae had left behind. With our aversion to all things fire fae, my people had always stayed well away from such sites, especially ones that housed the dead.
I knew I should continue on to the mines, but curiosity nagged at me, and I found myself banking in the cemetery's direction. Like the temple, this place was devoid of shadow creatures—it seemed this still counted as a sacred place, though it had been millennia since anyone paid homage to the dead or make offerings to the spirits. Shifting back into bi-pedal form, I drew my sword and scanned the area, on the lookout for predators.
But there was nothing here, save for the dead beneath my feet.
A hushed, almost reverent silence hung in the air as I slowly made my way through the rows of headstones. Many of them were cracked and crumbling, most of the names inscribed into them worn away by time. A hulking mausoleum crouched in the center of it all, the names of long-dead fire fae royals inscribed on the entrance.
I wished I could talk to them, get them to spill their secrets. But though something otherworldly seemed to whisper on the winds here, I did not have the ears to hear it. I was no Oracle, able to see the future and commune with the spirits of the afterlife. I was a dragon warrior, capable only of dealing with physical realities.
I took my time wandering through the graveyard, reading what legible inscriptions I could find. From a few of the more well-preserved memorials, I gathered that many of the fire fae here had died in battles against both the water and earth fae. But what were the three races fighting over, and why? And was it not hypocritical for the fae to be angry at us for supposedly killing off the fire fae, when they were already busy murdering each other before our arrival?
Shaking my head, I took to the skies in dragon form again, this time heading for Cloudfang Manor, Hearthfyre’s royal family estate. We hadn’t started keeping written records until about two hundred years after our arrival, but even so, those historic records might have some clues. The royal library had the most extensive collection in all of Hearthfyre, and if the books had survived the collapse of our realm, I needed to get my hands on them.
I just hoped Cloudfang was still standing. Because if the fae had destroyed it the way they’d done my family home, that meant our history was lost forever. And we would never find out the truth.
11
Adara
With no other choice left to us, Quye and I spent the afternoon wandering the temple city's shopping district. The outfits they sold here were rather modest, with high necklines, long hems, and muted colors. Not the clothing I prefered to wear in the heat of summer. But the fabric was light and breathable, and I had to admit that with the sun beating down on us, it was best we keep as much of our skin covered as possible.
“I’m famished,” Quye announced as we walked out of the shop in our new clothing. “We should go back to the inn and eat."
“I’m hungry too.” I scanned the map of the grounds that the innkeeper had given us and found a building marked with a fork-and-knife symbol. “I think this place sells food. Why don’t we check it out? We might meet some people who are more willing to talk to us.”
The building turned out to be a canteen that served a variety of foods, all laid out on a long table set against the wall. Eager to try more of the local fare, Quye and I grabbed plates from the left end of the table, then spent the next ten minutes piling them high with grilled meats, spiced vegetables, flatbreads, tangy sauces, and spreads. The aromas were like nothing I’d ever smelled before, and my mouth watered as I looked around the canteen for a table to sit at.
“Are you going to eat all that?”
I turned to see a female staring at me, one brow raised skeptically as she studied our plates over her round spectacles. She wore plain, sand-colored robes, and had a thick book tucked under one arm while she balanced her own plate on the other. Unlike us, she’d filled it with a modest amount of food—two skewers, a salad, and a single piece of flatbread. The tips of my ears heated as I realized how ridiculous we must look.
“We’re going to do our best to try,” Quye said cheerfully as she wedged a piece of cake between two hunks of hard cheese. “I know we look like idiots, but we’ve never tried any of these foods before, so we don’t know what’s good.”
“Oh.” The girl shifted on her heels, her expression clearing. “Well, you should have asked me. I could have saved you the trouble of putting the grilled liver on your plate.” She made a face as she pointed to the brown lump in the middle of my plate. “That stuff is disgusting.”
I bit back a smile at that. “Can we sit with you?” I asked, glancing around to see if she was with any friends. Most of the tables were filled with people wearing similar robes to her, though there were a variety of colors. They pretended to ignore us, but even though I couldn’t understand their language, I could tell we were the primary subject of conversation based on the way some of them kept sneaking glances at us. “We don’t know anyone here, and we could use a friend. Or at least someone who’s willing to warn us about kidney pie, and anything else we should avoid.”
“Sure.” The girl shrugged, then led us to her table. Her name was Nysa, and as we talked with her, we learned she was a religious scholar. Like many of the acolytes here, she’d been abandoned by parents too poor to feed or care for her, and left at one of the temples as an offering—in her case, Setros, the god of change and chaos. In exchange for housing and food, she served as a temple attendant, assisting with the ceremonies and maintaining the grounds and buildings whenever she wasn’t occupied with her studies.
“So, what’s the difference between you and the acolytes?” I asked, tilting my chin toward a boy across the room who was staring straight at us. His face reddened, and I hid a smile as he glanced away.
“The difference is that unlike the acolytes, Nysa here doesn’t want to give her life in service to Setros,” Quye said, a knowing look in her eyes. “They’ve probably told you that you have to take part in religious studies until you come of age, correct?”
“Yes,” Nysa admitted. She pushed her spectacles up her nose and glanced at the thick tome sitting off to the right. “I do love reading, and the lore is interesting enough,” she said. “But I wish they’d allow us to read non-religious texts, too. A visitor gave me a fiction novel once, about a boy who befriended a trio of benu spirits who took him on grand adventures. They taught him how to play pranks and hijinks on bullies and villains to get justice for the weak. It was such fun! But the priests confiscated it before I could finish it.” Her face fell. “They said it was too frivolous and portrayed the benu inappropriately.”
“That’s horrible,” Quye said. She patted the girl’s hand and added, “I hope you show those fuddy-duddys up by leaving this place and going on your own grand adventure someday.”
Nysa snorted. “I would love to,” she said, and there was no mistaking the longing in her eyes. “But I’m not sure what adventures would be accessible to a woman traveling alone. I’d have to find a husband, and he’d saddle me with so many babies I wouldn't have time for adventures.” A bitter smile stretched her lips, and she shook her head. “I’ve resisted putting on the acolyte robes so far because there’s still a stupid part of me that thinks it’s possible. But I know one day I’ll be forced to choose between serving Setros in his temple, or a mortal man in his bed.”
