Our trail joined an even wider and flatter path that climbed up from the rest of the citadel below, and was marked by white stones. I could see no other soul on this road, but it looked as though it had once been well-used and well-maintained.
“It seems like it’s every time I get angry, or someone tries to challenge the fact I have the Crown,” I guessed as we walked. “It’s like the Crown doesn’t want to be given to just anyone – and it wants to turn me into something else—” I whispered, although I heard a sudden gruff cough from Captain Haval just a few meters ahead. Had he overheard what I had just said? Does that mean that he thinks I’m a danger to the throne?
Well. Maybe I am, I thought dismally.
Our path rose upwards, with even the scrubby trees disappearing to reveal leagues of black rocks and low alpine plants. And then – rising above us into the dark overhead clouds, appeared the famous Dragon Academy of Torvald.
It looked kind of empty to my eyes.
The walls of the Academy were high, but not high enough to occlude a singular spike of a tower, and the slated rooftops of the main mansion-style hall that made up the bulk of the Academy itself. I saw a giant pair of arched wooden doors, banded with thick black-iron lengths, and on the walls were more of those dragon platforms built into the battlements, but all of them were empty.
There were no lights on, no torches, and no sound of industry from the Academy ahead. I even saw where some hardy vine had climbed stubbornly up a patch of the walls, making the Academy appear more deserted than I had first thought.
Our party stopped naturally, taking in the sight. I think Captain Haval must have seen some of the dismay on our faces as he gruffly said, with a tinge of embarrassment, “We all know that the dragons have been leaving the west for years. Heading westwards, the last great flight was just last year…” Haval said sadly, as if he felt like he had to apologize for the current state of the once-great Academy. “The last time it was this empty was during the reign of the Dark King, who outlawed dragons,” Haval said, and I got a feeling of the deep sadness and shame that he felt about the hollow emptiness of the Academy. I could well understand it, as the Dragon Riders, their Academy or Monastery, had always been at the heart of every story I’d ever heard of the Middle Kingdom.
“They are taking the Westward Track,” I heard Ymmen echo mournfully in my mind, as I heard a howling and ululating call from the distant, unseen dragon crater. I recognized Ymmen’s voice immediately.
“What is the Western Track?” I whispered, as we started to walk forward.
“West of west. Further west than even west goes. It is the line plumbed by the Witches of the Isle of Sebol, many generations before. It leads towards a new land. Towards tomorrow,” Ymmen said in mournful and hushed tones. I didn’t understand what he meant, to be honest – but I got a sense of some ancient and noble journey – and one that was perhaps more akin to dreaming and magic than it was to flying or sailing.
“But why are they going at all?” I said, and earned an answer from the humans who accompanied me, who couldn’t know that I was actually talking to the dragon in my mind.
“Why are the dragons going?” Haval said as we walked, the tall wooden gates looming over us like the closed mouth of some giant. “No one knows. Some Riders say their partners are heart-sick of this world. Some scholars believe it was always going to be like this, in the end – that every creature has its season and time…”
“They go because they ARE heart-sick!” Ymmen agreed, but his voice was suddenly hot and fierce at the same time. “We dragons have been used like tools by evil men and women for years! Delia. The Abbot. The Dark King. The Black Prince. The Darkening…”
I had only heard some of those legends in passing, and I did not know the crimes of the others, but I could feel Ymmen’s sense of outrage in my mind.
“We dragons wait for every new generation of humanity. Every new ruler on their sacred mountains, to form the bond between our species anew… And every few generations, every hundred years, that memory is lost to the people of the world. A new tyrant rises. A new evil. A new abuse of all dragon-kind!”
I had rarely heard Ymmen speak for so long on any topic, and it was terrifying and fascinating all at once, as my mind shuddered with the force of his shared emotion.
“And now, all of us dragons sense the evil of the abominations. Those that look like us but are not us. The copies. The insult!”
“Then – why don’t the dragons sense that I cannot be behind the abominations? That it is Inyene – it has always been Inyene?” I said, thinking of the cold stares of the Dragon Riders’ Blues and Greens – and even the barely-kept rage of the Lady Red.
Ymmen, in that way that dragons do – didn’t hesitate. “They smell the abomination of the Crown, and they mistrust any who bear it.”
“Yes.” I bowed my head in shame at my species, and our follies.
“And so, the dragons have decided to leave this world. To return. They have tried to form the bond between our peoples that keeps the magic flowing and brings light into this dark place. But there are sicknesses that even we dragons cannot heal. Sicknesses that are for you humans to cure!” Even though Ymmen’s words were hot and angry, and would rightly strike terror into the hearts of any human who could hear them, I could also feel the strong contradiction that Ymmen felt inside of his own mind. I could feel that he wanted to leave this place with his brothers and sisters, and to be free to fly under strange skies over new or old lands – but I could also feel how he would not. Not yet, anyway.
“You are right, Little Sister.” Ymmen’s voice calmed down in my mind, becoming softer, and even gentle. “I will stay for as long as you walk these lands. And if the Metal Queen also walks under the sky, then I will fight beside you to my last breath against her!”
“Oh, Ymmen.” I felt a tremendous sense of gratitude at his sacrifice for me. Dragons do not love as humans do. They love deeper.
There was a rapping on the wooden door, and I blinked my eyes to see that Haval was banging his gauntleted fist against a smaller square door that was built into the much larger one.
“Aldan! Aldan – get out here!” Haval was bellowing, and even though his voice was loud, it sounded weak against the backdrop of the doors, the walls, and the empty mountain around us.
Abioye and Montfre shared a puzzled look with me, but I heard a creak and the sound of something clanking, like ancient winches being worked on the far side of the door.
“Coming, Uncle!” I heard a muted, younger voice say, and suddenly the smaller door popped open, revealing a boy of no more than twelve summers or so.
The boy was related to Haval, clearly – they had the same brow and eyes, and although the younger’s nose was straight and unbroken, if it ever was I knew that it would look precisely like Haval’s battle-scarred own.
The captain’s nephew – Aldan, I presumed – wore a simple black robe and cloak, and had short-cropped brown hair. But his eyes appeared bright, shining with a blue that was almost unnatural, and reminded me a little of Montfre’s odd appearance.