And there, too, was Montfre—stooping as he moved from wounded person to person, Daza lying shoulder-to-shoulder with Red Hounds and our expedition guards alike. The mage would pause before each one, raise the end of the staff that I had fashioned for him, and mutter a few words. His staff’s head glowed a faint green radiance, and as that light fell onto the wounded and affected people, it transformed into a glittering silver over their various wounds and injuries.
But each time that he performed his magic, his shoulders bowed just that little bit more, and his feet shuffled a little heavier. He was trying to heal the entire army, and I wasn’t sure that it was a cost that I could let him take.
“Montfre,” I said, my voice not loud but it carried clearly past the moans and groans of those around us. The young mage looked up, saw me, and his face collapsed into relief and tears as he stumbled across the brief space between us to clamp both me and Abioye into a hug. Montfre was a stockier sort of man than I had ever expected a mage to be, so both me and Abioye grunted in pain at his treatment!
“Oh, sorry—your wounds, let me…”
“I’ll be fine,” I said hurriedly, and Abioye made an affirmative, agreeing noise beside me. On the other side, Tamin was carefully maneuvering Naroba past the lines of injured bodies to our side.
“I can heal her!” Montfre looked eager to help—but he was unsteady upon his feet, as in great exhaustion.
“No, Montfre,” I said gently. Not that I didn’t want Naroba healed—but not at the cost of Montfre’s help.
“And the Daza can look after me, Montfre. It’s time for you to rest,” Abioye said, with all of the assurance and experience of someone who had known the young mage for almost the majority of his life.
“There are still so many wounded—” Montfre started to argue.
“And the Daza know how to heal,” I insisted. “We’ve been using the herbs and plants of this place for generations,” I said firmly, and Montfre nodded distractedly as he led us to where a stack of shields formed a low sort of bench. We perched on the edge of the shields, and Abioye let out a deep sigh of relief as Montfre checked the wound on his side. It had thankfully stopped bleeding, and when I inspected it, I saw that it didn’t look to be too dangerous, thankfully.
“Narissea,” Montfre murmured, looking at me uncertainly as Tamin settled his own charge of Naroba down on a blanket beside us and hovered around our exhausted little group awkwardly. It felt strange to be here, surrounded by the people that I cared for and trusted once again. After everything that I had been through—and all of the times that we had been apart…
“Huh?” I looked up at Montfre to see what he wanted, before seeing immediately what it was.
Just like Tamin, Montfre was looking at the Stone Crown on my brow seriously with a mixture of awe and trepidation.
“Yeah, I found it,” I said a little self-consciously, feeling a little ridiculous for having worn the thing all this way. It was heavy! And I could certainly do with feeling the wind in my hair for bit—I reached up my hands to the stone circle to take it off. “We’ll have to keep it safe,” I was murmuring, thinking that perhaps I could carry it with me in some sort of lock-box or similar, in case Inyene tried to steal it from us.
But the Stone Crown wouldn’t budge from my brow.
“Uh—” It was stuck, of course—perhaps the sweat of battle and the heat of the day had somehow made the Stone Crown cling to my hair—
But no, as I pushed against it once more, all I felt was a twinge of pain as the Crown seemed reluctant to let go of my scalp.
“Nari?” Tamin was looking at me with worry and concern. It was the same shadowed sort of expression he had when I had first introduced him to Ymmen—back before I had known the dragon’s name at all. My god-uncle had said that such friendships with dragons were very serious things indeed, and that I should take care…
He had been worried about me, of course, I remembered. And worried about what it meant for the life that I was about to lead…
“It won’t come off,” I said, trying to keep the note of panic out of my voice as I said so. It was just stuck, right? That was all that was wrong with it… I pulled and pushed again, earning another ache of pain. “Ow!”
“Wait,” Montfre was saying, moving quickly to kneel in front of me and raise his staff before me. I saw it glow the same green-tinged radiance once again as he lifted the staff towards my brow, to lightly touch the surface of the stone with the edge of his mage’s staff—
“Ow!” There was a shock like a pulse of light that passed through my head, and I fell backwards against the canvas of the haphazard tent. My temples throbbed with a dull headache as I rubbed at them and the Stone Crown both, finding that the Crown was still not moving from its position at all.
“It is as I feared,” Montfre whispered under his breath. “The Stone Crown—it is an old and powerful artifact. One of the oldest. It will not give up its new life so easily!”
“What are you talking about?” I said in alarm, pushing Montfre’s staff a little further away from me as I sat up. “You talk as though the Stone Crown has a mind of its own!”
Montfre looked haunted for a moment, before he shook his head in confusion. “There are many strange stories about the most ancient of artifacts. Books that could raise the dead, crystals that could release light, that could turn someone into a god…” Montfre winced. “Most of them are fairy tales of course, but there is no denying one thing: these objects of the elder times obey different rules than what we are used to. They come from a time when there was more magic in the world. From when the Dragon Monasteries plumbed the secrets of dragon magic, and the Western Witches weaved the strands of fate together in their Haunted Isle…”
“When there were dragons in the sky,” I said.
“Yes.” Montfre nodded gravely. “A time when magic and dragons and heroes were common. But also, were the great evils, too. We simply do not know enough about the Stone Crown to be able to say how it will change things…”
For some reason, Montfre’s words didn’t dishearten me, but instead filled me with a wild hope. Yes, the Stone Crown of High Queen Delia, the original ruler of Torvald, the woman who had started the tradition of the Dragon Riders, was stuck to my head. That wasn’t particularly something that I was happy about. At all.
But it’s a sign. I thought about Montfre’s words. A sign that the old times are returning. That after what we are going through now—with all of its horror and imprisonment and cruelty—there might be something else coming!
“You don’t appear worried,” Naroba said through gritted teeth from her pained position on the floor.
“I’m not,” I said seriously, as I lifted my head to look around the rest of the assembled people here in the tent. When I looked, I saw a ragtag army of people from all corners of the world. There were my Daza, both wounded and helping the others around them. There, also, were those of the expedition: some of them were fellow laborers and workers from the Three Kingdoms, while the majority were ex-guards from the Middle Kingdom of Torvald. And last of all, came the collected Red Hounds—most of them hailing originally from Torvald too, but the mercenary outfit had assembled from across the world. I saw faces of many different colors and cultures here, and everyone was trying to do their best to survive and help each other.
This sight heartened me greatly. Maybe we really are living in different times, I thought.