The Novaclatz Curse

Chapter 1Perched on a crystal boulder in the marshes of Hyundera, an auburn haired girl called Nyla strummed an improvised melody on an acoustic guitar. Insects from the alien land joined her in making music, chirring a dissonant symphony in the background. After a final strum, Nyla paused for a moment to take in her surroundings. Inspired by the buzz of some beetles, she picked a melancholy tremolo on the high string with her three fingers.
Crouched by a murky pool of water was Prince Quersius. Stubble had sprouted from his chin since he’d left home, and his skin remained dark despite a lack of sunlight. He scanned the water for signs of nearby fish. Occasionally, a ripple ebbed across the pool when one darted beneath the surface, but it was hard to see where they were or what they looked like. In his hand, Quersius held a small spear whittled from wood. Though unsuccessful in his attempts to catch one thus far, he nevertheless continued to occasionally stab the water.
Quersius heard Nyla start playing a familiar song. She plucked the highest three strings with her fingers, improvising on the parts she couldn’t remember. Quersius didn’t seem pleased with what he was hearing. He dropped his primitive spear and walked over to where she was sitting. “That’s Outer Space, right? You’re playing it all wrong,” he said.
Nyla looked up at him but she was too busy playing to answer.
“Here, let me show you,” Quersius said, reaching his hand out and walking closer.
In one smooth motion, Nyla stood up and then jumped with all her might. She went flying a dozen feet into the air and landed cross-legged on a tree branch high above the beckoning prince.
Quersius was mildly amused by her acrobatics, but a frustrated expression remained on his face. Nyla continued playing where she left off. He sighed, realizing he was powerless to intervene. Watching her from below, he listened to her rendition of the chorus.
“It’s supposed to go G E D A,” he said, correcting her as she played a looping chord progression.
Nyla kept effortlessly strumming her preferred chords with her fingernails. “Oh, half brother, you are so exacting. You should know that there’s no wrong way to play music.” She timed her words perfectly with the end of the chorus and the beginning of the more technical second verse.
Quersius turned away, admitting defeat. “Fine, you can do what you want. I won’t stop you, just know that I don’t approve. If you want to be useful, you should help me find us something to eat.”
Nyla took her time to finish fingerpicking the second verse and then started strumming the simple chords of the final chorus. “You’re the one who finished all of our buffalo jerky,” she countered.
“I was hungry! Besides, I’m a lot heavier than you. At least on our home planet. Anyway, why don’t you come down and help me out before we both starve,” Quersius said, staring up at her again with both palms exposed.
Nyla managed a smile despite her empty stomach. As she started playing her final pass of the four chords, she uncrossed her legs and let them dangle over the branch, then she fell backward and hung upside down by her bent knees. She swayed slowly back and forth before coming to rest in her bat-like position and playing the song’s finale.
Nyla started swaying harder. “I guess as a prince you’ve never had to go hungry. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to hold my breath, but fine,” she said, holding the guitar in one hand as she straightened her legs and dislodged from the branch. She slowly backflipped, descending gradually to the ground and then landing firmly on her feet. “I’ll help you,” she concluded, then she started walking back toward their tent.
“Great,” Quersius said, walking beside her. “And I assure you, royalty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, though the foot massages are nice.”
Nyla stepped over a felled log and then continued walking across the peculiar underbrush. “I still haven’t shown you the village where I grew up. That would definitely give you some perspective,” she said.
“Well for now, how about you tie some string around an arrow and use your bow to help catch fish? My handheld spear hasn’t done me any good.”
“Alright, I’ll give it a shot,” Nyla replied. She walked into their tent and started rummaging through their belongings.
While Nyla was busy, Quersius stood outside their tent and marvelled at the diverse array of trees all around them. Some were stout and others thin. Some had fan-shaped purple leaves while others’ leaves were orange and hook-shaped.
“So tell me, what meals did your personal chef cook for you in your village?” Quersius asked.
Nyla stepped partway out of the tent equipped with her bow and quiver. She seemed like she was on the verge of laughter.
“What’s happened? Is something funny?” Quersius asked.
Just then, the sound of approaching footsteps caught their attention. They tried to peek through the trees to see what was going on, but visibility was limited by the dense foliage. The footsteps became louder and louder until they saw a strange figure dash past their campsite, blurred by its high speed. Half a second later, a towering, three dimensional shadow darted after it.
Quersius and Nyla shared a perplexed look as they met each other’s gaze. “That looked like the shadow beast we saw on Acuron. Didn’t the spirit dragon tell us to follow the shadows?” Quersius asked.
“Yeah. Let’s chase after it.” Nyla said.
Fortunately, they were already equipped with their preferred weapons; Nyla had her bow in hand, and the mystic sword of Ethereon was sheathed on Quersius’s back.
“Ok. Come on!” Quersius said. He ran across the small clearing where they had set up camp, pulling Ethereon from its scabbard. With the glowing sword in hand, he led the way into the marshy jungle while Nyla followed behind. The two kept running as fast as they could, but the increasingly thick tangle of plants forced them to slow down and cut their way through.
Vexed by the dense thicket, Quersius started swinging Ethereon at it indiscriminately. Fallen from the stars, its blade felt light as a feather in his hand, and it cut through vine after vine like a knife through warm butter.
The two half siblings made it back to a running pace, but before long, their enthusiasm waned. Despite their best efforts, the shadow beast was slipping away; they were no match for its speed in the unfamiliar terrain.
Winded by the chase, Quersius listened as the sound of footsteps retreated into the distance. He slowed down to a brisk walk, and Nyla didn’t object as she followed suit.
“That thing sure is fast,” Nyla said.
“It probably helps when you’re just a shadow,” Quersius replied.
They caught their breath for a moment and considered their next move. “Let’s just keep going the way it went. If the spirit dragon is to be believed, maybe that will solve all of our problems,” Nyla said.
“Hopefully it’ll help us find something to eat,” Quersius said, his stomach rumbling at the thought. He pointed his sword toward a wall of exotic vegetation. “It went that way.”
They continued making their way through the jungle as the blackened sun sat above the trees. Its twilight filtered through the canopy, reminding them of why they had come this far.
A giant flying insect with six long legs and red bulging eyes landed on Quersius’s shoulder. Nyla reached out from behind and brushed it away before it could plunge its gruesome looking proboscis into his flesh.
“Nyla, I don’t think this is any time for a massage,” Quersius said, still focused on the next obstacle.
“You should have seen the size of the bug that was just on you. That thing was… murderous.”
“In that case I’m glad I didn’t see it. Ignorance is bliss after all.”
“And you should know that I’m definitely not giving you a massage,” Nyla said.
A twig split under Quersius’s foot as he stepped past a thorny shrub. “Why not? I don’t bite. Besides, we’ve both almost broken bones recently; it might help us recover,” he said, holding the shrub aside with Ethereon so Nyla could pass safely.
Nyla took care not to get stuck on the shrub’s savage looking spines as she made her way across. Its leaves looked like rosemary, but its many thorns resembled dragon claws. “We have had a pretty rough start to our interplanetary quest,” she admitted.
Quersius slashed another vine. “I have a feeling this next sigil is going to be a fair bit harder to find. Elbert can’t fly through the trees, after all,” he said, gently changing the subject.
“True,” Nyla acknowledged. She thought about Elbert, wondering what the friendly dragon might be up to. He seemed to be adjusting to Hyundera quite well the last time she saw him.
Up above, a loud rustling sound high in the trees caught their attention. They looked up and searched for its cause.
After checking thoroughly and finding nothing, Quersius brushed it off. “It’s probably just a three headed rat or whatever squirrels look like on this planet.” He started walking again with his sword at the ready.
Nyla wasn’t so sure. She stayed still and kept scanning the canopy as Quersius went on his way. On a tree covered with pink and purple leaves, something caught her eye. A creature was perched on a branch and staring down at them motionlessly. It was almost perfectly camouflaged, but its colors didn’t quite line up with the different shades of the leaves.
“Wait, I see something!” Nyla whispered.
“What is it?” Quersius asked, turning around.
“Up there on that branch,” she said, pointing it out.
Quersius stood near Nyla and craned his neck upward. “You mean on that tree with the green leaves and orange flowers?”
“No, the pink and purple one. It looks like something is camouflaged up there. It’s hard to see, but it doesn’t quite match the leaves.”
It took him a moment, but Quersius eventually saw what she was talking about. “Oh yeah, you’re right. It kind of looks like the thing that ran through camp.”
The creature in the tree stayed perfectly still; its silhouette looked almost mammalian. Suddenly, Nyla screamed, and Quersius saw her being dragged away. He turned around to see what was happening and saw a shadow beast pulling her by her arm.
“Nyla!” Quersius screamed. He spun around and chased after her, but the shadow beast kept gaining distance as it dragged her through the bush.
Quersius hacked and slashed at everything blocking his passage, but no matter how fast he ran, the shadow beast kept getting farther away with Nyla in tow. Watching as she was pulled between the trees, he sucked in breath after breath to maintain his relentless pace.
Eventually the beast stopped moving and threw Nyla to the ground. It stared into her soul with its empty red eyes, salivating over her through its circular rows of teeth. Just as its ugly head drew near, Nyla saw Quersius slash through a bush and appear nearby. “Quersius!” she screamed.
The shadow beast looked up and jumped between him and Nyla. It swung its claws at Quersius, but he ducked down and evaded the attack. He swept his sword at the beast’s legs, but it shuffled its feet backwards and caused him to miss.
Quersius stood back up and pulled Ethereon over his head. He brought it down preparing to deliver a mortal blow, but his arm got stuck in midair by an unknown force. Quersius watched the beast come toward him with its teeth exposed, but he couldn’t move.
Suddenly, the beast’s body split into halves, and Quersius’s arm came free. He saw Nyla standing behind the beast with her bow aimed toward it.
After shedding her arrows, the shadow beast’s two halves crawled toward Nyla. One of its hands grabbed her ankle, and the other pushed on her back causing her to fall onto her arms. The two halves of the beast then reformed into its original shape and dragged Nyla by her legs further into the forest.
Quersius ran toward the shadow beast. It reached toward him with one of its hands, and he felt himself trip over something and fall over. Perplexed, he didn’t see his foot snag on anything.
As the beast stood menacingly over Nyla, she swatted at its head with her bow to keep its bite at bay. Quersius quickly brought himself to his feet and chased after it. When he saw the beast raise its claws at him, Quersius leapt high and slowly somersaulted to stay out of the way as he arced through the air. He slashed Ethereon at the shadow beast’s outstretched arm when he passed over it, and the beast’s arm disappeared into thin air after being struck.
When Quersius landed behind the beast, it turned to greet him. Its arm started to regenerate at an alarming pace as the beast lunged toward Quersius, but it wasn’t fast enough. Quersius stabbed Ethereon into its chest before it could retaliate.
The shadow beast recoiled and shuddered momentarily before exploding into a dark cloud of lingering mist. Quersius stood there with Ethereon pointing through its vague remains. He stepped back from his stabbing stance. “Nyla, are you okay?” he asked, lowering his sword and approaching her carefully.
“I think so,” Nyla said. “I’ve never seen a shadow beast move like that.” She was laying on the underbrush next to a prickly shrub, struggling to get back to her feet.
“Me neither. It even grabbed me from a distance somehow. We’d better be careful out here,” Quersius replied. “Here, take my hand,” he said, noticing that she was having some trouble standing.
Nyla looked up into his hazel eyes, and her freckled skin turned slightly red. She pulled herself up. “Thanks, Quersius.”
Nyla was barely five feet tall, and Prince Quersius was about six foot three, so he had to lower his head significantly to meet her gaze. “Don’t mention it. I’d say we’re about even now for the buffalo jerky incident. Is that fair?”
Nyla replied with sass. “As long as you don’t ask me to rub your feet, your highness.” She picked a few thorns from her tunic and brushed herself off. “Not around shadow beasts anyway.”
Quersius considered this. “Alright, we have a deal,” he said. “Besides, the expert masseuses at the castle are extensively trained in the art of..”
Suddenly, Quersius felt a finger poke his back. He turned around and let out a surprised shriek. The sensation made him jump, and because of Hyundera’s low gravity, he flew two feet in the air. Quersius floated back down to the ground slowly, spun around, and saw a grinning humanoid creature staring back at him. It was the thing from the tree they had noticed earlier. The diminutive alien had big brown eyes, and its skin was camouflaged by the blue and green underbrush nearby. It started speaking in some foreign language, but Quersius couldn’t understand its words. Guessing by its body language, he could only discern the gushing praise it seemed to be giving him for saving its life.
As the creature’s unintelligible monologue went on, Quersius glanced at Nyla. He noticed the scales on the back of her neck glowing as she listened intently. Quersius looked back at the alien and was increasingly disarmed by its charming gestures. Though he couldn’t have been a meter tall, he seemed quite friendly.
After the alien’s rambling concluded, Quersius remained confused. “I have no idea what this little guy is talking about!” he whispered behind his hand.
Nyla knelt down beside the alien and placed her hand on its shoulder. “His name is Zigopon,” she said, smiling. “He’s just thanking us for saving him from the shadow beast. I think he also invited us to dinner.”
Zigopon circled around Nyla. He jumped up onto her back and sat on her neck with his legs hanging loosely in front of her chest. Quersius almost intervened, but he decided against it when Nyla chuckled at the strange display of affection.
Quersius didn’t object. He was pleasantly surprised by the offer. “Dinner sounds great.”
Nyla stood up with Zigopon still hitching an impromptu piggyback ride. “Good. It’s about time we made some new friends,” she said before muttering something to Zigopon. He grunted, then leapt off her back, landed on the ground, and waved at them to follow behind.
Quersius and Nyla followed the nimble creature named Zigopon, though they struggled at times to make their way through the dense jungle.
Quersius stepped over a random boulder between the trees. “What was that language he was speaking? I’ve never heard anything like it,” he asked.
“Dragonspeak,” Nyla announced.

“Dragonspeak?” Quersius asked. He was amazed by her fluency in the tongue. “This whole journey is getting stranger and stranger. Don’t tell me dragons created the universe too.”
“I’m just as surprised as you; I first encountered it just days ago in that cave on Acuron, but this guy seems to be speaking a local dialect of Dragonspeak. I can’t quite understand everything he’s saying,” Nyla remarked. “See, being the only human with dragon’s blood is like a box of chocolates,”
Before she could finish her statement, Quersius’s stomach came up with its own answer. “You always eat the good ones first?”
Nyla giggled, ducking under a vine as they followed their new alien friend. “Something like that.”Chapter 2After trekking through the jungle behind their newfound alien acquaintance, Quersius and Nyla found themselves in Zigopon’s humble village. It wasn’t particularly modern, but it had a quaint charm nonetheless. In a clearing between otherworldly trees, several thatched roof huts sat close beside each other in a semi-circular arrangement. Between the huts was a charred firepit with an unused spit standing above it. A few Hyunderan villagers sat around it as smoke trailed from a dying fire.
One villager walked from behind his hut with a bundle of twigs under his arm. When he reached the main area of the village, he noticed Nyla and Quersius staring at him with expressions of nervous curiosity. The small, green skinned man stopped in his tracks and dropped the firewood he was carrying. He pointed his stubby finger at them and shouted something in his local dialect.
The other villagers sitting near the firepit turned around and gasped at the sight of the two humans. They all stood up and scurried about. Some ran back to their huts; others were daring enough to slowly approach them. Zigopon tried to explain the situation, but his fellow citizens didn’t seem to relinquish their skepticism.
An older looking Hyunderan man emerged from the group and moved toward Quersius with his large-knuckled fingers clenched into fists. He got closer and took a few jabs at the prince, but he was only tall enough to strike his thighs.
Quersius covered his groin with one hand and placed the other on the man’s forehead, stepping backward as the brave alien swung at the empty air in front of him. Zigopon grabbed the man by the waist and pulled him away.
Another villager emerged from his hut armed with a spear. He saw Quersius towering above the two Hyunderans and came charging toward him, yelling a tremulous battle cry with the spear’s tip aimed toward the prince.
Ill-equipped to face the charging Hyunderan bare handed, Quersius finally drew Ethereon. When the villagers saw the mystic sword, they all stood still, awestruck by its glimmering blade. Their unnerving chatter was soon replaced with stunned sighs and cautious silence.
As the commotion settled, Zigopon took a moment to project his voice and explain the situation more clearly. After he spoke a few sentences in Dragonspeak, the villagers dropped whatever was in their hands and started bowing rhythmically to the two human newcomers.
“What’s going on?” Quersius whispered to Nyla.
“I think our new friend Zigopon told everyone about how you killed that shadow beast,” she answered.
The villagers continued bowing to the duo. One of them chanted a phrase, and the others started repeating it in unison. Eventually, Zigopon made another announcement. “Trenpo Halia Corpalo! Aya Goro Hoko Choka,” he shouted. Everyone rose back to their feet, and a wave of verbal applause spread through the crowd until they were all cheering.
Nyla translated for Quersius. “They want to cook us dinner to celebrate our rise to godhood.”
Quersius felt a pang in his stomach at the mention of food. “That’s good; I’m famished. I just hope we’re not the main course.”Preparations for a feast were made as festivities began throughout the small village. A warthog shaped creature with three eyes and massive horns spun on a spit above dancing flames. Villagers beat drums with their bare hands while one man played an accordion shaped instrument and another played a bagpipe made from animal hide. Conversations continued in an obscure dialect of dragonspeak while children played with sticks and stones. Perched high on two throne-like wooden chairs, Quersius and Nyla had grandstand views of all these foreign rituals.
Having lived his whole life with the title of royalty, Quersius imagined this was what it must be like to finally be crowned king. He watched the villagers in their state of celebration and imagined they were his subjects.
Having been banished from their castle as a child, Nyla had no frame of reference for the strange experience. She was struck by a feeling of uncertainty atop her throne and wondered if this was what it felt like to be a princess. The one thing she and Quersius felt mutually was a sense of gratitude that they were no longer alone on this distant planet.
After hours of preparation, a wooden table was assembled near the crackling fire and dressed with crude utensils chiseled from stone and clay. The blackened sun had fallen deep below the horizon and was replaced by a blood red moon. Two of the strongest villagers hoisted the rod of the spit and carried the roasted hog with them toward the table. They slammed it unceremoniously down onto the center without putting anything underneath. With the main course finally finished, enough wood was added to the firepit to keep the flames roaring into the night as dinner was served.
Though the three eyed creature was unlike anything Quersius had ever seen, it smelled as enticing as any of the meals he had eaten at the castle. He wasn’t sure if it was his unrelenting hunger that made him feel that way, but he couldn’t wait to savor its taste after going a whole day without food.
With a knife the size of a machete in hand, a villager uttered a victorious sounding phrase as he waited eagerly to cut into its flesh. “Cachi Fluga Oyo Parfa!” He shouted.
Some of the villagers raised their hands high; all of them loudly echoed his glorious statement. With that, they all bowed their heads and started to quietly recite a prayer.
Quersius looked at Nyla curiously while the villagers prayed. “What’s going on?” he whispered.
“They are saying a prayer to the dragon gods. Just lower your head and play along,” Nyla explained.
After their prayer concluded, the head chef pulled the long knife over his head and brought it down forcefully on the animal’s neck. Using a sawing motion, he finished cutting through the skin until its head was separated from the body. He picked up the head with his bare hands and brought it over to Quersius, setting it down on his plate.
While the villagers watched Quersius with approval, he stared with wide eyes at the tremendous portion in front of him. Nyla noticed his reaction and stifled a laugh. “I guess you get the best cut, my prince,” she said, bumping her knee against his. The tabletop was barely at the height of their shins, so their legs remained exposed as they sat at the table.
The chef returned to Nyla’s plate and served her one of the hog’s hind legs. Overcome by envy, Quersius said, “Would you like to trade plates?”
“I think I’ll pass,” Nyla replied. She was tempted to take a bite, but she decided it would be best to wait until everyone got their helping.
Others at the table didn’t seem so thoughtful. One by one, they were served various cuts of the meat, and without hesitation, they began to stuff their faces with it. Some scrawny and some buff, the Hyunderans ate voraciously no matter their size.
Nyla followed their lead and picked up the utensils by her plate, noticing that they were hardly big enough to grip firmly. “Time to dig in,” she said.
Quersius hesitated, but he eventually did the same. He felt like a giant among dwarves sitting at the table, but despite the oddity of the grub before him, he knew he couldn’t refuse a hot meal. The villagers championed his first bite, speaking with confidence and banging the table as he sat at the head.
As the last of the meat was rationed out, Zigopon spoke to Nyla while chewing through a mouthful of it. She nodded and replied, saying something in Dragonspeak. While Quersius was figuring out what part of the head to cut, Zigopon turned to him and asked him a question. “Isaka Poko. Chikki moco zula fera?”
Unable to understand, Quersius just sat there and met the alien’s big brown eyes, not knowing what to say. Nyla eventually chimed in.
She said, “Kiga zogga ucho Wakanaflu,” translating to ‘He can’t understand Dragonspeak.’
Zigopon seemed surprised. He said something else to Nyla. “Kissi Mo. Iso Muko Gappa Kishacka Iwo, Yowa Showa Plura Zimonda.”
Nyla translated this for Quersius. “Zigopon says the shadow beasts have started to appear more frequently ever since the sun went dark. He wanted to thank you for what you did to save him.”
Quersius nodded at Zigopon and hummed to affirm his understanding. Then he asked Nyla, “Okay great. But tell me, how do you say ‘shadow beast’ in Dragonspeak?”
“Yowa Shova,” Nyla said.
“Yowa Showa,” Zigopon corrected.
“How about sigil? How do you say that?”
“Corsédieje,” Nyla said. “At least I think that’s right.”
“Corsay…Deeze?” Quersius stammered.
Zigopon laughed heartily at the exchange. Nyla smiled in return. “Not quite,” she said. “Looks like you still have a lot to learn.”
She asked Zigopon a question in Dragonspeak. “Do you know where the spirit dragon’s sigil is?”
A middle aged Hyunderan watching the exchange saw his chance to speak. “The Dragon’s energy is rooted in a sacred tree planted in this world,” he said proudly in his tongue.
Zigopon seemed flustered by his contribution, though he didn’t contradict it. Instead, he explained further. The words he said roughly translated to “The Dragon God watches over us all. Its presence is felt by all the land even with the sun being gone.”
Nyla was fascinated. She pushed for more information. “Where is this tree?” she asked. The man across from her said nothing and lowered his head when she looked at him for an answer. Another man to his right with a lazy eye sat up straight and attempted to explain, but others at the table dismissed him.
Zigopon nodded at Nyla in understanding. He swallowed a big bite of meat after barely chewing it and said something to the man sitting next to him. Taller but more fresh faced than he, the young Hyunderan raised his voice to speak to an elderly woman across the table. The jumbled conversations became quiet when everyone there came to know what their heroes were seeking.
Word made it back to Zigopon, and he relayed the message to Nyla. She tried as best as she could to understand his dialect, though some words seemed unfamiliar. She asked him a few questions to clarify his answer, and after a few exchanges, she was able to adequately parse the meaning.
Quersius watched and listened to their conversation, recognizing only a few words as they talked back and forth. Not having much else to do, he had already shamelessly consumed most of his food. Once Nyla returned her attention to her own plate, he asked her, “What did he say? Did you find out the location of the sigil?” as she held the hog’s hind leg to her mouth and took a bite.
Nyla held her hand in front of her mouth and said, “He said… The ancient tree is in an enchanted forest to the north,” having some difficulty speaking until she managed to swallow. She lowered her hand from her mouth and continued speaking normally. “It’s the tallest tree in all the land, and apparently we can’t miss it. But the forest is covered in thick fog year round.”
Zigopon said something else to Nyla that Quersius couldn’t quite understand, then he turned and pointed at the scraps remaining on the prince’s plate, saying one more thing as he met Quersius’s eyes.
Waiting for an interpretation, Quersius glanced at Nyla. She knew she was needed, but she waited to completely finish chewing her food before translating Zigopon’s words. “He wants to know if you’re going to eat the eyeballs.”
Quersius looked down at the few scraps remaining on his plate and then shook his head and waved his hand at Zigopon. “I’m good, thanks,” he said in plain English.
Understanding his intent, Zigopon leaned forward excitedly and mumbled something as he reached across the table. He grabbed the three eyeballs one by one and returned to his seat with two held in his left hand and one in his right. He looked at Nyla and chuckled after noticing the look of disgust on her face, then he said something to get her attention. Zigopon chucked one of the eyeballs up in the air followed by another, catching and tossing them skillfully until he was juggling them all. Then Zigopon threw one of them high, followed by the others. He leaned back with his head held high and his mouth wide open, and one by one the eyeballs plopped onto his tongue. Two of them slid effortlessly down his throat, then he caught the last one in his teeth and chewed it thoroughly, savoring the taste.
Zigopon swallowed the last eyeball amid restrained applause from onlookers nearby. He searched for Nyla’s eyes with his hands held out as if expecting praise. She masked her look of horror and smiled instead, congratulating him in a sing-song voice. Quersius smirked at her forced reaction. He didn’t say anything; he just sat there and enjoyed the occasion, glad he didn’t have to go hungry for another night.After the conclusion of dinner, an ensemble gathered with their instruments and began to perform for their newfound heroes as Quersius and Nyla sat atop their makeshift thrones in the middle of the village. Hand crafted accordions and bagpipes combined to play a type of music neither of the two humans had words to describe; the song was a beautifully poignant reminder of how far they were from home.
During the performance, an alien villager came up to Nyla, pointed to her feet, and asked her a simple question. She couldn’t quite understand what he was saying, so she dismissed him politely. Despite this, he lifted her feet off the ground as she sat there confused, and another villager dragged a wooden block underneath. Her feet were left to rest there comfortably as one of the men began removing her shoes.
Quersius watched Nyla fidget around in her seat, but he rested his hand on her shoulder and urged her not to pull away. “Just enjoy it. Soon, you’ll know how true royalty feels.”
Regretfully, Nyla held still and watched with concern as her second shoe was removed and placed on the ground beside her. The man returned and started rubbing her feet until she finally relaxed into a state of bliss she had never felt in her life.
“Feels good doesn’t it? Now you get to live like a princess for a little while,” Quersius said.
“Don’t ruin my moment, Quersius,” she said as an enchanting tune hummed through din.

Chapter 3After insisting multiple times that they didn’t want to stay the night, Nyla and Quersius left the strange village and traveled beneath the light of the red moon back the way they came. After a long and arduous hike through the colorful forest, they made it back to their campsite with their feet rubbed and their bellies full from a well deserved meal. Upon arriving, they returned to their tent and fell asleep quickly.
Nyla had a dream that she was riding a pony through a field of lilies with the wind running through her bouncy hair. At the end of her dream, the pony transformed into the spirit dragon. It galloped and gained speed before rocketing up through the clouds and knocking Nyla off its back. Nyla watched the dragon as it flew up into the sky and circled the blackened sun before disappearing behind it. She was left to fall from the heavens as its resonant voice filled her consciousness. “Something has awakened in you, dragon rider,” it rang.
Before Nyla reached the stone covered ground, she awoke from her dream to find Quersius gently shaking her, trying to wake her up. “Nyla, wake up,” he said repeatedly.
Eventually, Nyla’s eyes fluttered open as she realized it was all just a scary dream. Reality started coming back to her, and she remembered that she was camping in a forest somewhere on another planet.
Quersius knew he finally had her attention. “Nyla, we need to get out of here. I have been hearing things moving through the woods all morning, and they don’t sound very friendly.”
After the rude awakening, Nyla got herself up quickly. She gathered a few of her things from the corner of their humble tent and lugged them toward the entrance. She ran her fingers through her loose curls a few times, and within seconds they fell right into place. As she exited the tent, she equipped herself with her bow and quiver, looking beautiful and dangerous as she prepared to face another day on Hyundera.
“I already packed all of our things. Let’s break down the tent and get moving,” Quersius said, having already removed a stake from the tent’s corner.
Once they had removed all the stakes from the tent, Nyla helped him with folding it. They gathered the corners of the tarp and folded it in half, then they walked toward each other and brought the corners into contact. After it became a more manageable size, Quersius made quick work of it and stowed it away in one of their bags. Nyla folded the blankets and packed them with the rest of the camping supplies.
Just as they finished packing the tent, they heard an intimidating animal call from a moderate distance.
“Whatever that was, I don’t want to find out,” Nyla said.
“Yeah, breakfast can wait,” Quersius replied.
They walked into the forest with their weapons at the ready. While he held Ethereon in his right hand, Quersius also had most of their luggage slung over his back, but Hyundera’s low gravity made it feel nearly weightless.
After walking for a while, the vegetation became increasingly dense, and Quersius had to slash at some shrubs and vines along the way. Nyla followed behind in his footsteps as he cleared a path. Rustling noises coming from all around kept them on their toes, but unable to see anything moving through the trees, they had no choice but to continue at a faster pace.
“That’s no shadow beast,” Quersius guessed as the heavy footfalls drew nearer. Nyla didn’t respond; she only tightened her grip around her bow as her heart rate increased.
Eventually, they made their way into a more open area where their path was mostly unobstructed. There was still a thick canopy overhead, so they still weren’t out of the jungle yet.
“Further ahead we should find the place where we landed,” Quersius said, dashing across a colorful palette of leaves underfoot.
“Good. Hopefully Elbert isn’t too far from there,” Nyla replied.
They were moving quickly now, eager to finally trade the limited visibility of the jungle for the endless freedom of the skies. The twilight of the blackened sun petered through the canopy as they ran past the trees lining the clearing. It took a while, but they finally escaped the canopy and ran out of the jungle.
Quersius and Nyla emerged from the trees into a wide open meadow full of alien wildflowers. “Thank goodness we made it out of there,” Quersius said between gasps for air.
Nyla held her hands atop her head to help catch her breath. “Yeah, hopefully we’ll never have to go back. Let me call Elbert.” She then reached into her pocket and pulled out her dragoncall. She put it to her lips and blew firmly. It made a nearly inaudible high-pitched whistling noise that trailed off quickly into the wind.
“I wonder where he goes when we leave him for a while,” Quersius pondered as they stood there waiting.
“Probably looking for food,” Nyla guessed.
“Maybe you should use your dragon powers to convince him to bring us some,” Quersius suggested.
Just after Nyla cracked an easy smile, it was ripped from her face when she heard a growling sound coming from behind. She spun around and saw a six legged, long bodied animal standing there with its fierce looking teeth bared.
Nyla readied an arrow and pulled it back in her bowstring while Quersius assumed a wide battle stance. The beast’s wide eyes locked onto Nyla, and it took off running toward her. She released the bowstring and sent an arrow flying at it, but it kept charging ahead, undeterred by the arrow sinking into the flesh of its massive foreleg.
As the creature got closer to Nyla, Quersius ran directly toward it. Distracted by Ethereon’s glow, the ferocious animal diverted its gaze toward the prince and lunged after him. It exposed its dagger-like claws and prepared to rip him to shreds, but Quersius jumped twelve feet into the air and narrowly escaped a mortal blow.
The beast missed its mark and flew past him, but Quersius wasn’t yet out of danger. As he crested and started floating back toward the ground in the low gravity, the creature turned around and stood below him with its mouth wide open. Quersius watched as Nyla pelted it with arrow after arrow, and though it grimaced in pain, the beast didn’t retreat. Out of options, Quersius retracted his knees and swung the mystic sword haphazardly about, but he didn’t have enough leverage to strike with force.
As Quersius descended back toward the bone-crushing jaws of the beast, something caught his eye. A dragon’s talons collided with the predator’s side, bruising its ribs as a black shadow flew by. Quersius managed to land on the dragon’s wing, and it then glided toward the ground and landed near Nyla. Recognizing its black scales immediately, Quersius had no doubt that it was Elbert who had arrived just in time to save him.
Quersius pulled himself up onto Elbert’s saddle while Nyla jumped high in the air and landed on it in one fell swoop. As soon as they had mounted, the beast had already come running after them to take a slash at Elbert with its savage claws.
“Elbert! Take us up!” Nyla shouted, and the dragon jumped into the air, causing the beast to barely miss as it dove after Elbert’s legs.
Moments later, they looked over Elbert’s shoulder only to see that the ground was already a hundred meters below, and the beast was standing there watching them enviously as they made their timely escape into the wispy clouds of Hyundera.
Quersius knelt on the saddle in a state of disbelief. With the wind at his back, he sucked the sky’s sweet air into his lungs just to remind himself that he was still alive. “I’ve never seen a six legged bear before,” he said, watching the creature become smaller as they gained height.
Still harrowed by the experience, Nyla settled into position behind Elbert’s neck. “Me neither. I guess we’ll have to find out what else Hyundera has up its sleeve.” she replied soberly.
Still giddy with adrenaline, Quersius held his hand clenched into a fist and waited for his raging nerves to settle. He looked back to see Elbert’s tail taunting their distant foe somewhere far beneath them. “I thought I was a goner for sure,” he remarked.
For a moment, they felt grateful for another chance to fly. Then, Nyla broke the silence. “Quersius, promise me we’ll never camp in a jungle again.”
“I can’t promise anything, but I certainly hope we’ll never have to,” he said.
As the whipping winds began to howl around them, Quersius hunkered down in the aft of the saddle, and Nyla returned to her place in the front. The vaporous clouds started to thicken, and Nyla could barely make out the surface of the planet. She adjusted their heading to the north and held on tightly, unsure of what awaited them below their tranquil loft above the chaos.

Chapter 4After flying for miles atop the thick cloud cover, Nyla directed Elbert to dip lower so they could get a better look at the terrain. They descended for a while, but visibility didn’t improve. Dense yellow fog hung heavy in the air.
“I swear you could cut the air on this planet with a knife,” Quersius said.
“This must mean we’re getting close,” Nyla said, barely able to see the back of Elbert’s head now. “The villagers said that the enchanted forest is always covered in fog.”
They fell silent for a moment, feeling increasingly exposed as they flew through unyielding murk. Eventually, Nyla saw a few scattered treetops peeking into view below. “I see some trees. I’m going to level off here. Keep a look out for anything that catches your eye,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll let you know if I see anything. Remember, the villagers said the ancient tree would be impossible to miss,” Quersius said. He then looked over Elbert’s saddle and stared into the haze attentively.
All of a sudden, Nyla saw that they were flying directly at a huge tree trunk; it wasn’t even a hundred meters away when it came into view. She barely had time to react; all she managed to do in the moment was scream, “Look out!”
Luckily, Elbert didn’t wait for her command. He veered to the side just in time to avoid a spectacular collision. As they dodged it at a high speed, Nyla felt the wind shift around the massive tree. Still reeling from the near miss, she turned around to see if Quersius was alright. He wasn’t as startled by the tree’s sudden appearance since he was looking in the opposite direction at the time, but he had a good view of it as they flew away. The top of the tree stretched so high above the clouds that it wasn’t visible; only the trunk was.
“I think that might be it,” Quersius guessed.
“You don’t think?” Nyla said, recalling the ‘can’t miss it’ description.
“Why don’t you take us in for a landing?”
Nyla looked down at the tops of several other trees buried in the fog. “I’ll try, but it won’t be easy. I can barely see anything,” she said, guiding Elbert to circle back toward the vicinity of the ancient tree.
“I believe in you,” Quersius encouraged.
Nyla took a deep breath and held on tightly to the lip of the saddle. “Okay, Elbert, take us down!” she shouted above an empty section of the haze. Elbert began to descend, but Nyla used her way of the dragon to silently communicate that this approach was riskier than it may appear.
Elbert responded by slowing his descent and hovering instead of pitching nose down. He made his way down through the fog, instinctively dodging a low-lying treetop as it came into sight. After bobbing through the air and slowly losing height for several minutes, he was obstructed from going any lower by a network of branches that jutted between some of the trees. Unused to landing in such conditions, Elbert groaned hesitantly, but Nyla quietly insisted that she would keep him safe. This apparently put him at ease, and he followed Nyla’s guidance to float forward a few meters as she kept a look out for any obstacles in their way. With several openings between trees, the forest was far sparser than the jungle they had camped in the night before.
The fog became slightly thinner as the forest’s floor came into view, and this gave Elbert enough confidence to drop down the rest of the way until he alighted skillfully on the underbrush. Much of the surrounding forest was now visible from the ground, though the yellow haze mostly obscured the forest’s canopy as it lingered eerily overhead.
“Good job bringing us down, Nyla. Let’s just hope there’s not a giant alien spider or something like that waiting in the wings,” Quersius said, checking the ground for hazards before dismounting Elbert. The forest floor was made of red, clay-like dirt, and it was covered in grey leaves and had marble-like patterning. These were in stark contrast to the green leaves of the trees he had glimpsed from the clouds during their approach.
“Let’s hope for the best. Even if something scary pops out, I think Elbert will protect us” Nyla said. She dismounted Elbert and joined Quersius beside him. “Don’t venture too far, okay Elbert?”
The intelligent dragon sat on his heels and rested his head on his forelegs, understanding Nyla’s wishes perfectly as he reluctantly let her go.
Once Elbert seemed calm, Nyla smiled and stood back up. She turned around and walked over to Quersius. His attention was on the ancient tree behind them that was thicker than Elbert was long. “Look at that thing. It’s incredible,” he said.
Nyla turned around and looked at the mystical marvel of nature between several less impressive trees. “I’ve never seen a tree a third that size, let alone half that height. Its trunk must have over ten thousand rings.”
“Come on, let’s take a closer look,” Quersius said, grabbing Nyla’s hand and pulling her with him as he ran toward its tremendous trunk.
They quickly made their way across the forest floor, kicking up a few leaves that lingered in the air as they scampered toward the ancient tree. As its base drew near, they gradually slowed down until they stood beneath it, staring up through the fog with amazement at its seemingly infinite height.
“Goodness gracious. I wish dad could see this for himself,” Quersius said.
“I wish I could show my mom,” Nyla echoed. “But there would be no way to describe it without sounding like a fairy tale.” She walked toward it slowly and reached out until her hand came to rest on its bark. She swore she could feel it respire as if it were taking slow, steady breaths.
“The sigil should be somewhere around here,” Quersius said, circling its trunk. The calls of distant, unknown creatures filled the forest, but Nyla still felt at ease in the tree’s wise presence.
It took Quersius several minutes to make it all the way around, but when he circled back to Nyla, he seemed slightly disappointed. “I didn’t see anything all that interesting on the other side. Hopefully this is the right place,” he noted.
Nyla rested her head in her hand and thought for a moment. “Maybe we have to climb it somehow,” she wondered.
“I certainly hope not. Besides, even with Elbert, I don’t see how that would be possible,” Quersius replied. He read its bark for clues but came back with nothing but a sigh. Then, he noticed something that caught his eye on the ground next to them. “It’s strange - I’m surprised that it would cast a shadow so dark with all the fog around us,” he said.
“Yeah, this can’t be a coincidence,” Nyla said, noticing that the tree’s shadow looked like it was cast by a powerful, direct light source. She stared in the direction it was facing and then noticed a smaller, deceased tree that was partially covered by the ancient tree’s shadow. “This tree doesn’t look all that mythic, but it seems to be the odd one out,” she said.
Quersius walked closer to the dead tree. It was much shorter than the other trees in the forest, featuring only a rotting trunk without any branches or leaves. He looked down and noticed something strange. “Huh, this one’s shadow is pointing in a different direction than the ancient tree’s shadow.”
Nyla checked for herself and found it to be true. “Weird,” she said, looking around at other nearby trees. “All the shadows in the forest, including yours and mine, are pointing the same way, except that one.”
“How strange,” Quersius said.
“Follow the shadows,” Nyla said, thinking out loud. “Let me try something.”
She reached into the pocket of her tunic and pulled out a dull gem with a soft sheen. It was the Dragonstone they had found nearly a fortnight ago. A bright violet light emanated from between her fingers when she held it tightly, and Quersius watched the bluish green scales on the back of her neck start to glow bright white.
Nyla controlled her breathing carefully as she felt the energy of the dragonstone pulse through her body. The edges of her vision started to blur, and a dizzying sensation overcame her, but she still managed to keep her composure. In the place of the once glorious tree, she saw its ghost standing tall and glowing a translucent shade of blue. A face was etched into its ghastly trunk, appearing to be contorted into an expression of horror by its painful demise. Behind it, she saw the sun shining as it had before the curse blotted out its light. This made her wonder if the tree’s death may have been caused as a result. All the other trees she saw in her altered state appeared unremarkably dim by comparison as they stood there, seemingly spared the same fate. The ghost made a sudden gesture, pointing with its branches in the same direction of its miscast shadow, and then it vanished along with the sun.
After the vision waned and her sight returned to normal, Nyla loosened her grip on the dragonstone and inhaled sharply. She returned it to her pocket, remaining in control as its powerful aura left her body.
The scales on Nyla’s neck returned to their normal hue. Quersius stood nearby in case she fell, but he trusted her to remain steady.
“Did you see anything?” Quersius asked after she caught her breath.
“I saw… a ghost,” she mustered.
“A ghost? What did it say?”
“It looked… terribly sad, though it didn’t say a word,” Nyla answered, shuddering as she remembered the sight. “It just pointed the same way as its shadow.”
Quersius examined the dead tree, wondering what other stories it had to tell. Then he looked at his own shadow, struck by the way it contradicted the shadow of the tree’s remains. “I guess the villagers were right. The ancient tree did live in this forest, but it wasn’t the most spectacular looking one like they thought.”
“That poor soul. It was so intelligent and alive. It must have suffered terribly,” Nyla said, wringing her hands as she remembered its face.
Quersius furrowed his brow. “We must follow the shadows then. Let’s go.”
They made their way back toward Elbert, and the dragon got back on his feet when they came near. He looked at Nyla and sensed her discomfort immediately, groaning sympathetically in return.
Nyla placed her hand on his powerful foreleg. “Thank you, Elbert. For everything.” Understanding her perfectly, the majestic dragon blew air from its nostrils and stirred the leaves beside her.
“We shouldn’t waste much time, let’s get moving,” Quersius insisted, noticing that the cries of the wildlife had suddenly become more erratic.
Nyla stepped back and jumped onto his saddle with one abrupt motion, and Quersius followed soon after. “You’re right, let’s go,” she confirmed.
Nyla took her place at the front of the saddle and guided Elbert a short distance toward an opening in the trees. Once she was sure Quersius was situated, she signaled Elbert to take flight.
The dragon grunted enthusiastically and raised its head toward the fog obscuring the treetops. Trusting Nyla’s judgment in the limited visibility, he made a vertical leap into the air and hovered his way carefully up into the sepia tinged clouds.

Chapter 5After making their exit from the canopy of the enchanted forest, Elbert reached an appropriate cruising altitude and flew through the hazy skies. Following Nyla’s command, he kept his heading aimed at the direction indicated earlier by the ancient tree’s shadow.
Quersius sat in the rear of Elbert’s saddle as Nyla remained in the front. Unable to make out anything visible in the fog, he said, “I have to say, of the two planets we’ve been to, I quite preferred Acuron. Sure, it was nothing but sand and a few scattered puddles, but I think simplicity is underrated. What’s your take?”
Nyla stared intently over Elbert’s shoulder, unable to scrub the image of the ancient tree’s grimacing ghost from her mind’s eye. “Quersius, I don’t think this is the time for such talk, but I would argue there’s no place like home.”
Quersius toyed with the enchanted gold chain around his neck, wondering if he could breathe Hyundera’s air without it. “Oh of course. If I could just snap my fingers and save the sun, by all means I would and return home to my comfortable life as a prince. Besides, that’s where all my friends and family are, plus the band.”
Nyla’s mind was still somewhere else, but she decided to bite. “So could you get any meal you wanted made for you anytime you were hungry at the castle?”
Quersius leaned back against the lip of Elbert’s saddle. “Pretty much. I guess you saw what it’s like to be treated as royalty back in that village, but that was only a preview. If we make it back alive, I’ll introduce you to my personal chef.”
The relentless fog began to thin as they left the forest further behind. Quersius looked over Elbert’s shoulder and saw a faint image of the land below. “I think we’re almost past the worst of the fog,” he said.
A wide open plain came into view beneath partly cloudy skies. “Thank the heavens,” Nyla said. She took a deep breath and was pleased to find the acrid smell of the fog beginning to lift as visibility increased. Down below, she saw a river zigzagging through the land. A diverse array of animals lined its bank and indulged in its water, some two legged, some with striped pelts. Further ahead, she saw trees with several vibrant colors dotted sporadically around the shifting landscape, and a low mountain range soon emerged from the alien prairie.
The blackened sun cast its gloomy shadow across the land, providing enough light to appreciate the shades of autumn and spring. “That sure is an amazing view. Perhaps I stand corrected. Acuron didn’t have giant blood sucking insects, but it also didn’t have many sights to see,” Quersius said as he took in the view below them.
Nyla smirked as she guided Elbert to stay on the correct heading. “Enjoy the ride, prince charming. This is the fun part.”
They kept flying until they had long since passed the mountain and winding river. The smell of open water filled the air when they flew over a thin strait. Flanked on both sides by an endless ocean, its tranquil waters glimmered green in the twilight of high noon as dragon sized waves crashed down miles away.
When they reached the land on the other side of the strait, they passed over another dense section of trees. Unlike the ones from before, these weren’t different colors of the rainbow; their leaves were several different shades of grey.
“Just when you said you never wanted to go camping in another jungle, here we go again,” Quersius said.
“Even if I did want to, there’s no place to land anywhere near here,” Nyla replied, noting the sharp rock formations lining the few visible patches of dirt in the monochromatic forest.
Unprompted, Elbert began descending sharply, letting out a fierce growl as he rapidly lost altitude. Nyla tried to bring him back up, but he refused her commands.
“What’s going on?” Quersius asked, noticing the discomfort in his stomach as they fell toward the trees.
“I don’t know! Elbert isn’t listening to me,” Nyla shouted. “Please Elbert, bring us back up!”
Elbert growled again and ignored Nyla’s request. He brought them close enough to the treetops to see their leaves’ prickly texture; only then did Elbert abruptly level off.
Nyla heaved a sigh of relief that Elbert hadn’t completely lost control mid-flight, but she remained confused as to what had changed in him. Now that he seemed to be flying steadily, Nyla resisted the urge to guide him higher. She decided to trust the beloved dragon’s instincts instead, letting him continue on an uncertain trajectory.
“I think he is drawn to something below, though I don’t know what,” Nyla said, confident his intentions were good.
Having only met Elbert a few weeks prior, Quersius wasn’t so convinced. “You sure he’s not trying to kill us?”
Powerless to intervene, Nyla offered some words of encouragement. “Quersius, just have faith in him. Dragons are far more intelligent than we humans can imagine.”
Feeling a loss of control, Quersius was frightened by Elbert’s recent erratic behavior, though Nyla’s reassurance helped calm him somewhat. Eventually, they felt him decelerate quickly, tilting his body and coming to a hovering stop above a gap in the trees.
Startled by the jarring motion, Quersius slid back in the saddle and momentarily felt as if he might fall from Elbert’s back. Despite this, he hung on tightly and managed to steady himself during Elbert’s final descent.
Elbert floated his way to the ground slowly and smoothly, making an expert landing on the forest floor. Quersius immediately leapt from his back and landed with unsteady footing before gathering himself back to his full height. Elbert growled again and reared his head back. His eyes became fixated on a nearby statue.
Nyla held on tightly to his saddle during his state of agitation. “Elbert, don’t worry, you’re still safe,” she said.
Remembering Nyla was still on his back, Elbert brushed his paw against the ground impatiently as he stood still and allowed her to dismount safely. Once he heard her reach the ground, he shook his body and took off running toward the statue he had noticed earlier.
Nyla ran after Elbert, leaving Quersius to cautiously stand his ground. She arrived by Elbert’s side and heard him release a sad groan when he saw the statue up close. Nyla tried to see what was bothering him. Assembled from meticulously inlaid stones, the statue depicted a long-bodied dragon in an upright position. Initially, Nyla didn’t notice anything amiss, but after examining it carefully, she noticed that pieces of it seemed to be missing. In one of the statue’s eyes, there was a sapphire-like jewel, while the other was merely a cracked socket where another jewel presumably once was. Some of the stones constituting its body appeared to have been removed. She laid her hand on Elbert’s foreleg to comfort him, but it was a fruitless endeavor; he remained upset.
Quersius looked around the clearing and saw several abandoned buildings left almost perfectly intact. Nary a soul stirred in any of them, and the only sounds he heard beside Elbert’s aggrieved moans were the distant calls of wildlife. The brick buildings looked more modern than the wooden huts they had seen in the last village, and looking through their windows revealed evidence of recent civilization.
Curious at the cause of their abandonment, Quersius approached one of the buildings and slowly opened its door. Before he managed to look inside, it flung the rest of the way open, and a shadow beast came running out.
The sudden noise caught Elbert’s attention. He turned his head and saw the shadow beast holding something in its hand. Elbert growled, nearly colliding with Nyla as he spun around to chase after it. Startled by the angry dragon, the beast darted into the forest to evade his piercing talons. Elbert ran toward the beast but his shoulders collided with two trees. Unable to weave through, he stood there and growled menacingly before frustratedly backing away.
Quersius flashed a knowing stare at Nyla, and they locked eyes before darting into the treeline. They ran after the beast as fast as they could, but after making it only a few meters into the forest, the beast grabbed a nearby vine and pulled itself high into a tree. It swung from branch to branch until it disappeared from sight completely.
Quersius and Nyla stood there, calculating their next move. “Follow the shadows, remember?” Quersius said.
“Yeah, let’s chase after him,” Nyla replied. She turned around and raced back into the clearing.
Quersius followed behind her, but he stopped when he noticed a stone claw on the ground. He bent down and picked it up, examining it for a moment before placing it in his pocket. Then he ran back out of the forest.
Nyla made it back only to find that Elbert had already returned to the statue. He stared at it woefully as if mourning the loss of a loved one.
Quersius approached slowly and waited for Nyla’s confirmation that it was safe to depart. “Come on, Elbert, let’s go after the beast,” she said, urging him with a gentle yet firm tone.
Elbert didn’t respond; he just remained fixated on the statue and continued to breathe heavily. “You mentioned that dragons are smarter than humans. Maybe that means the beast isn’t the thing we should focus on,” Quersius said.
Nyla looked at Quersius, searched his eyes, and then nodded. “No matter what I tell him, he won’t leave this statue’s side.” After she spoke, Elbert sat on his hind legs, and his breathing steadied somewhat. Sensing his calm determination, Nyla reached for the dragonstone. “I know what I must do,” she said, removing it from her pocket.
She clasped the dragonstone tightly in her hand. Quersius watched the scales on her neck glow as Nyla was pulled into a trance-like state. Though she appeared calm on the outside, what she felt within was anything but.
Once the dragonstone took hold of Nyla, she watched as the abandoned village came back to life, though the scene that unfolded was not a peaceful one. Children were at play outside when a shadow beast appeared in the nearby forest. It lurched from the trees and ran after the innocent kids. They split up and ran back to their houses. Two of them managed to escape, but the third was not so lucky. The defenseless child was grabbed by the beast and dragged away, kicking and screaming to no avail as he writhed in its clutch.
Before he was carried off into the forest, a brave resident emerged from his house with a lit torch and confronted the beast. The fire gave it some pause as the flame flickered by its shadowy flesh, and the sudden light initially seemed to repel it. The beast backpedaled toward the trees, but in a horrifying display of aggression, it responded to the insult by opening its mouth and exposing several rows of its circular teeth. Its mouth grew wider as the fire came closer, and just before it was struck by the torch, the tall shadows cast by the flames depicted the beast taking the child’s head into its mouth and swallowing it whole. It retreated into the forest to escape the fire’s light, leaving the child’s lifeless body on the ground with a horrified expression permanently etched into his face.
Nyla watched as other beasts descended on the village, emerging from the forest in increasing numbers as the blackened sun rose and set, indicating the rapid passage of time. The beasts slipped into buildings through barricaded windows and forced people from their homes in the dead of night, only to remain unabated by the arrival of day. Eventually the villagers surmised that though their fire carried some weight against darkness, they were no match against the amplified power of shadow without the sun’s banishing light. With no other choice, they packed what they could and made their way through the forest, following the setting sun as their only source of hope.
After the villagers’ tragic exodus, the beasts helped themselves to the flesh of the dragon sculpture they once revered as sacred, ripping jewels and stones from its body until satisfied with their takings. They began to retreat back into the forest, taking one of the eyes from the statue as their final prize. A single tear fell from the other and landed on the ground beside the desecrated dragon, evaporating into a glowing mist that wafted toward the setting sun.
Nyla was brought back to reality by a rasping roar. Elbert lowered his head sorrowfully, and she stood there speechless as the dragonstone’s glow waned. She returned it to her pocket and knelt beside Elbert, sharing a moment of solidarity with him.
Questions swirled through Quersius’s mind as he watched Nyla’s reaction, but he didn’t want to be the first to break the silence. He waited patiently until she stood with her back facing him.
After staring again at the scarred body of the statue, Nyla finally turned around and met his eyes. “The things that I’ve seen are too horrible to retell,” she said, grabbing her left arm with her right hand. “This village used to be full of life until the shadow beasts came and forced its residents to flee.”
Mirroring her solemn expression, Quersius didn’t speak; he only nodded understandingly. Nyla took a few steps toward one of the abandoned buildings and peered through its open window. “They lost everything, Quersius. The things I saw reminded me that we humans are not the only ones affected by this curse.”
Nyla looked at him again, and only then did he feel it was his turn to talk. “What should we do, Nyla? Where should we go now?” he asked.
Nyla averted her gaze upward and scanned the twilit sky above the treetops. “The setting sun will show us the way, just like it guided the villagers when they left this place.” She met Quersius’s eyes again. “We must go there now, Quersius. The time is drawing near.”
Quersius paused to consider her words then offered his own. “Say no more. Just lead the way, and I will follow.”
Without being summoned, Elbert stood from his seated slump and grumbled warmly. Nyla walked over and placed her hand on his shoulder, and he turned his head to rest it on hers. Quersius slowly walked closer, and Elbert didn’t object when he drew near.
Nyla patted Elbert gently then took a few steps back and said, “Alright then. Let’s fly.” She jumped high into the air and landed on his saddle.
Quersius did the same. After landing, he looked back toward the blackened sun as it sank below the trees. “Let’s do it.”
Nyla didn’t say another word, but Elbert understood her wish, turned around, and walked toward the middle of the clearing. He leapt skyward and flapped his wings, effortlessly climbing higher until the trees were again beneath him. The sun revealed its true position, appearing to be just minutes away from the distant horizon. Hovering in place, Elbert turned himself to face it head on and then sped away, chasing it down through the dusky sky.

Chapter 6As the blackened sun fell below the skyline, Elbert flew through the air, chasing it down as the final minutes of twilight lit the way ahead. While Nyla charted their course, Quersius stayed mostly quiet as he prepared himself for whatever awaited them next. He reclined in Elbert’s saddle, staring into the depths of space as the wind whistled past. Two smaller moons he hadn’t seen before revealed themselves as the familiar red moon overtook the blackened sun. With nothing to do but wait, he watched myriad stars gradually come into view as he was shuttled toward an unknown destination. Connecting the dots between them, he thought of constellation names from a vantage point no man had ever glimpsed before. Twinkling in the distance, he saw a lonely princess reaching for a wafer on a tray somewhere far out of reach. Just beside her, a serpent born from stardust coiled around a ringed celestial body whose surface resembled a pizza with too many toppings.
Despite the chill air above the sparse clouds, Quersius felt strangely warm in the aft of Elbert’s saddle. His whole life had been marked by privilege until a sudden change of circumstances forced him back to basics, and despite the difficulty of life ever since, the challenge of his quest felt strangely invigorating. As the last of the cursed sun dipped away, the immensity of the cosmos reminded him of his insignificance in its grand scheme.
Thoughts of impending peril, danger, and treachery loomed in his mind, but for the first time in his life, Quersius finally felt free from the expectations of ceremony and the royal court. Lost somewhere in the infinite depths of space, he wondered if it was fate’s decision or his swordplay that would determine the sun’s ultimate outcome.
Nyla spoke words unsolicited after several minutes of speechless quiet. “It’s funny. Ever since I was banished from the castle, all I’ve ever known is the humble life of a girl in a faraway village. I thought I knew everything there was to know: what it felt like to be hated, what it felt like to lose the only father I had, the feeling of resentment for those who had everything. But since destiny called me back to the kingdom, I’ve realized that there is still so much to learn.”
Quersius didn’t stir from his seat beneath the stars, and he didn’t respond. Nyla didn’t either; she just stared unflinching at the dimming terrain, guiding Elbert to fly where the sun laid to rest. Almost a minute passed where the only voice audible was the trailing wind’s cry. Finally, Nyla continued. “I grabbed one of father’s books in the royal keep. It said that all the heavens revolve around the kingdom, but now I know that can’t be true. After what I’ve seen, it would be foolish to trust the wisdom of those who’ve never come this far.”
Quersius followed an asteroid with his wistful eye, watching until it disappeared somewhere lightyears away. “I thought the same. Until the curse took everything from us, I never had to fend for myself. Maybe the reason I came with you is that I didn’t think I deserved the title of prince. Maybe I just wanted to earn my place,” he admitted, feeling the tug of Ethereon as he leaned back against its scabbard.
Still mindful of her recent vision, Nyla searched her feelings and weighed her reply. “When I left Novaclatz, I didn’t know your name, but since returning, you’ve earned my respect, Quersius.” She glanced back to see him staring aimlessly upward.
Quersius tried to meet her gaze, but it was too late; she had already returned her attention to the front. “Maybe I’m just a coward. When I set out to find the dragonstone, the whole kingdom cheered for my return. You’ve had to earn everything as an outsider,” he said.
Nyla looked past Elbert’s shoulder, watching the darkly lit ground as it rushed past his thick hide. “It’s not just you. I always had a feeling I was born to serve something bigger than myself,” she said, remembering the scales on her own skin.
They both fell silent as the whistling wind sang its tune. The unlikely trio continued beneath the red moon’s glow across an unfamiliar sky. After many miles, a beacon of light below caught Nyla’s eye. Without saying a word, she guided Elbert toward it.
After noticing their loss of altitude, Quersius left the stars and sat up in the saddle. “What’s happening? Is Elbert freaking out again?”
“No, I see something. I’m taking us down.”
Following Nyla’s command, Elbert circled the lonely source of light. After descending a few hundred meters, Nyla recognized the dance of a flickering flame. Elbert swooped down and hovered as he made his final descent. Below them was another clearing between several scattered trees.
With the ground fast approaching, Quersius noticed a tall shadow cast by the fire. Its source was an alien child that bore resemblance to the villagers they’d met the previous day. In his hand, he held a torch and swung it periodically. In front of the child he saw a shadow beast, barely held at bay by the fire.
“That kid is in trouble,” he said, unsheathing Ethereon as Elbert came in for a landing. Just before the dragon hit the ground, he leapt off its back and landed shortly after. The shadow beast turned around to see Quersius fast approaching and ready to strike. With its attention divided, the child dropped his torch and ran away.
Before Quersius could swing at the shadow beast, Elbert swooped in, aiming at it with his outstretched talons. Startled by the sight, the beast dove out of the way, causing Elbert to miss and land nearby. Quersius ran after the beast and prepared to attack it, but before he could get close, the shadow beast ducked into a hole at the base of a nearby tree. Quersius ran up to the hole with his sword at the ready, but it was too late; the beast had escaped.
While Quersius knelt and searched the hole’s interior, Nyla dismounted Elbert and approached from behind. “Another shadow beast. It looks like you saved that child’s life,” she said.
Quersius stuck Ethereon into the hole to provide light to its insides. From what he could see, it led somewhere much deeper. “These things are getting out of control,” he said, noticing his own shadow by his side. “Why don’t you grab that torch before it burns everything down.”
Nyla walked over to the torch and picked it up near another tree. “I don’t know why that kid was playing with fire, but it looks like it might have saved him,” she said.
Elbert watched the flames and backed away as Nyla made her way over to Quersius. She stood beside him as he looked into the hole. “I wonder what’s down there,” she said.
“It seems to lead much farther down,” Quersius said.
“Looks dangerous,” Nyla replied, seeing for herself its contents.
“Yes, it does.” Quersius said, standing back up without taking his eyes off the opening. “But I do believe we should follow the shadows. What do you think?”
Nyla bit her lip and waited to answer. After a moment, she said, “You’re right. Let’s check it out.”
Elbert groaned worriedly. Nyla walked up to him and placed her hand on his side. She said, “Don’t worry, Elbert. We’ll be fine, okay?” Elbert groaned again in reply and stretched like a cat before giving in and sitting on his hind legs.
Nyla turned back to see Quersius watching Elbert with concern. He then met her stare. “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing toward the hole.
Feeling watched by an unknown set of eyes, Nyla grabbed both her forearms in opposite hands and glanced toward the hole. “Alright. After you,” she said.
Quersius nodded back and sheathed Ethereon to free his hand. He crouched and stuck his right leg into the hole followed by his left. Sitting on its edge, he grabbed a nearby root on the opposing interior wall and carefully lowered himself inside. Soon, only his head was visible. “There are a few footholds in here, but there is a sudden steep drop. Take care as you make your way in,” he instructed.
When Quersius beckoned from below, Nyla followed his lead and entered the hole feet first. After lowering herself a few more feet, she turned her head and saw Elbert watching her with a concerned look. “We’ll be back Elbert. Don’t venture too far,” she said. When Elbert didn’t respond, Nyla continued downward into the darkness, unsure what awaited them beneath the tree.

Chapter 7Using what little light remained outside, Quersius descended further into the ground beneath the tree. Several thick roots jutted from earthen walls, and he used them as footholds. They were barely exposed enough to use as handholds, but somehow he still managed. Occasional showers of dirt rained down from above as Nyla followed after him, but he didn’t complain. Instead, he kept slowly moving lower until he could no longer see the wall in front of him. The darkness gave him pause, but when he pushed through the uncertainty, he found solid ground just below his feet.
“I found the bottom,” Quersius said, his voice dampened by the dirt. He looked up and watched Nyla’s silhouette as she made her way down. “Keep coming; you’re almost there.”
Nyla eventually joined Quersius’s side. She looked up and saw the hole they had entered from a few meters above. Only a few stray rays of red moonlight came through.
Unable to see very far, Quersius unsheathed Ethereon to provide more light. Its glow revealed a passage ahead through cramped quarters. “Looks like it goes deeper,” he said, taking a few steps forward. When he reached a lower section of the dirt ceiling, he ducked down and turned back to Nyla. “Be aware that it might be tight in places. You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”
Nyla shook her head. “Not particularly, no.”
“I knew you had it in you. Let’s go,” Quersius said.
Quersius walked farther down the passage, hunching his back as it became shorter and narrower. He continued like this for a while, until eventually they were faced with a tighter squeeze that was just over a half a meter in diameter.
Confirming Nyla was still behind him, Quersius informed her of the situation. “The path ahead gets even tighter. We will have to crawl through.”
“Oh goodness. My hair is going to be made a mess,” Nyla said, covering her mouth with her hand as she realized the width of the hole.
“You and me both,” Quersius said, his nappy curls already flecked with dust from the initial descent. “As a prince, this is definitely one of the less glamorous parts of the job.”
“Even as a mere dragon girl, I haven’t had to crawl through dirt like this in many years,” Nyla said, half kidding.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Just follow my lead,” Quersius said. He prepared to stick his head and arms through the hole, but he still had more to say. “If I get stuck, just oil me up with mud, okay?”
“I hope you’re joking,” Nyla said.
“I hope so too.”
Crouching beside the hole, Quersius stuck Ethereon through along with his free hand and lowered himself to a crawling position. He stuck his head inside and pulled himself forward with his hands and elbows until his legs were swallowed whole like two strands of spaghetti being sucked slowly through the lips of the tunnel. Without enough room to bend his knees, his legs weren’t of much use during the maneuver; his upper body powered most of the crawl. Small roots protruded from the lumpy surface, brushing against his arms and trousers with every jerking pull.
After crawling a few meters, Quersius placed his hand on the ground outside the tunnel and pulled his head through until he saw a small room with a dirt ceiling perhaps five and a half feet tall. He planted his other hand against the wall and struggled the rest of the way through until he was able to return to his feet.
Quersius crouched back down and held Ethereon by the tunnel entrance. On the other side, he saw Nyla’s lower half as she prepared to face the same challenge.
“Come on, Nyla, you’ve got this. It’s a little bit tight, but nothing you can’t manage.”
“Okay, here I come,” Nyla replied. She assumed a crawling position and pulled herself into the tunnel. Thanks to her thinner frame, she progressed more quickly than Quersius had. At one point, her tunic snagged on one of the exposed roots beneath her. Unable to use her hands to pull it loose, she had to move in reverse to get free. Once that was taken care of, she continued to push forward, and although her skin was scratched and bruised in places, she eventually emerged from the tunnel’s other side.
Quersius reached out and grabbed her hand to help pull her the rest of the way through. She wiggled free from the tunnel and had just enough space to stand at her full height in the small room. Unlike Nyla, Quersius was taller than the room was high, so he had to hunch over to avoid hitting its ceiling.
“We made it,” Quersius said in a strained whisper as Nyla brushed her arms partially clean.
She looked up at him and smiled with her eyes. They shone a lovely mix of vibrant colors in Ethereon’s light. “Thanks for the help. It was quite scary, but I’m glad I managed to get through.”
Quersius beamed at her humble demeanor and then saw the path ahead, noticing a more manageable tunnel at the other end of the room. “We’ve still got so far to go. Now let’s keep moving. I see another tunnel right over there.”
Using Ethereon’s light to navigate the dark space, they walked across the room. “Watch your step,” Quersius said, pointing at a large crack in the floor. It was only a few inches across, but it appeared to open up into a crevasse that expanded farther down. Quersius stepped over it carefully, and Nyla did the same.
After walking a few more meters across the uneven ground, they reached the next tunnel’s entrance. It was tall enough to traverse while standing, but it was narrow enough to give them both pause.
“Okay, I’ll go first since I have Ethereon,” Quersius said. He turned to the side and entered the tunnel. There was barely enough room for him to expand his chest fully with each breath. After taking a few steps, he reached a snag and had to twist his body to continue.
Nyla watched Ethereon’s light begin to fade as Quersius disappeared around the corner. She ran her hand along the tunnel wall and found it mostly smooth to the touch with the occasional rough edge peeking from the dirt.
Moments later, Quersius called out to her. “I made it through. It opens up again into another chamber. Come over when you’re ready,” he said. The winding passage muffled his voice when he spoke.
“Here I come,” Nyla said, sidestepping into the tunnel toward Ethereon’s light.
Quersius waited for her patiently in the next room. This one looked different from the last; it had walls made mostly from dirt, but increasingly they consisted of rock. He was able to see two nearby stalagmites jutting from a stone floor. He listened as Nyla’s footsteps drew closer, and after about a minute, he saw her hand come into sight as she turned the final corner.
Nyla almost made it all the way through, but before she could escape the tunnel, Quersius heard her scream. “Nyla!” he yelled. He reached into the tunnel, but as he tried to grab her arm, it disappeared around the bend she had just struggled past.
“Something is pulling me back!” she shouted. She tried to see what it was but couldn’t see clearly in the dark confines of the twisting passage.
Quersius shoved himself back into the tunnel with Ethereon trailing behind. He moved as quickly as he could, but Nyla remained out of sight. After returning to the previous room, he saw a shadow beast holding Nyla close to its torso. He prepared to swing Ethereon but was unable to find a good angle of attack. As the beast opened its mouth wide and bared its nightmarish teeth, Quersius danced around the corners of the room until he was standing beside it. With a carefully aimed strike, Quersius stabbed the sword into the beast’s side, causing it to flinch before it could deliver its bite. The beast shuddered and reached its willowy arm toward Quersius, but before it could do any harm, it evaporated into a dark mist that lingered where it once stood in the stuffy air.
No longer in the beast’s grasp, Nyla fell backward onto the dirt floor and watched as the beast’s shadowy remains billowed through the room.
“Are you okay?” Quersius asked, reaching out and pulling her up before she could stand herself.
“I think I’m fine; I don’t feel any pain,” Nyla said.
“Thank goodness. That sure was a close one,” Quersius said. Lured into a false sense of calm, he filled his lungs to replenish his breath. Suddenly he started coughing violently. “Let’s get out of here,” he gasped.
Nyla ran back toward the tunnel she had been dragged from and quickly made her way back through to the room on the other side, but it took a while for Quersius’s arm to emerge behind her. Hearing his struggle to breathe, she grabbed his arm and pulled him the rest of the way through until she fell backward and Quersius collapsed on top of her. He rolled to the side, allowing Nyla to stand back up. She reached over to offer her hand to him, and with some difficulty, he pulled himself back to his feet.
It took a few seconds, but Quersius’s breathing eventually resumed its normal cadence. “Those things smell like poison,” he said.
“I know, I also managed to catch a whiff,” Nyla replied.
Quersius inhaled a lungful of the chamber’s stale air. It was refreshing compared to the smell of death he had managed to escape, though he soon smelled it encroaching again. “Let’s get out of here before we both suffocate,” He said, charging away from the tunnel.
Though unable to see all the way to the other side, they moved swiftly across the large chamber, ducking under some stalactites as they came into view. Unsure what awaited them deeper underground, they still continued in earnest.

Chapter 8Quersius led the way with Ethereon in hand as Nyla followed close behind. After making their way through several tight passages lined with dirt, the cave they found themselves in was now made mostly of stone. The uneven floor was a downward sloping rocky road sat between patterned walls sculpted by some unknown force of nature. The farther in they went, the more the room expanded. Before long, Ethereon’s light wasn’t powerful enough to illuminate their surroundings fully.
A strange formation on a nearby wall caught Nyla’s attention. She stopped to take a better look. “Quersius, come back here. Did you see this?” she asked.
Quersius returned to her side and held his sword near the wall. It looked like a screaming man’s face was imprinted there in putty that had long since set and dried. The amount of detail in his harrowed expression made it hard to believe it had formed by coincidence.
“Maybe this place is some kind of graveyard,” Quersius guessed, stunned by the haunting visage.
Nyla ran her fingers along the wall’s striking likeness. The mysterious face was fraught with wrinkles of worry and wisdom that told a wordless tale by her touch. She imagined she could understand what it wanted to say, but it revealed no such hidden meaning. “It almost looks like the cave swallowed someone whole, if that’s even possible,” she said, pulling her hand away.
“Whether it’s possible or not, I don’t think I want to find out,” Quersius said. He turned away slowly and continued making his way down the incline of the floor’s slight grade. Nyla stayed there hypnotized by the face until Ethereon’s light left it in darkness. She then caught back up to Quersius.
They continued their descent through the wide passage, evading some stalagmites that stood in their way. At first they were sporadic, then they became more frequent. Soon they were joined by several stalactites hanging from above as if they were the opposing teeth of a large jawed beast.
Quersius slowed his pace to navigate the maze of rock formations. Moving ahead into the wide passage, he noticed the wall to their left came to a corner where the ceiling intersected with the floor. There between some shorter stalactites, he saw a small shrine. Sitting on the recessed stone shelf were a few felt trinkets and dragon figurines made from clay. Some inconsistently sized characters were carved in the wall behind them. They appeared to spell out a cryptic message.
“Nyla, take a look at this. Do you know what it says?”
Nyla moved closer and squinted to see the shallow carvings. “I think it’s dragonspeak. It looks similar to the dialect those villagers were using. This isn’t an exact translation, but it roughly says, ‘The great dragon reaps what we sow. May these offerings appease its thirst.’”
“Reap what we sow,” Quersius echoed. “I hope that’s not us,” he added.
“I’m with you on that,” Nyla said.
They slowly left the shrine, staring but not daring to bother the things on its mantle. After weaving through a few more stalagmites, the cave floor returned to its familiar texture, and they continued at a brisk pace across its bumpy surface.
The wide passage narrowed somewhat until it was as far across as Quersius was tall. The floor’s slight grade became steeper, and its rock face became more slick. Quersius treaded more carefully now, spotting a shallow puddle ahead. He jogged down the sharp incline until he reached a flatter section covered in silt. Stopping short of the water, he waited for Nyla to make her way down.
“Okay, we’ll need to cross here,” Quersius said. “I’ll go first.”
He treaded lightly into the muddy water and was pleased to find that it barely passed the soles of his well worn boots. Not wanting to wet his feet, he walked slowly, hunkering down only to pass a low section of the ceiling. Seconds later, he reached the damp silt on the other side of the puddle.
“Take your time. It isn’t that deep,” he said, waiting for Nyla to start crossing.
Nyla nodded. Watching the ripples left by Quersius, she offered her right foot to the puddle followed by her left. Taking careful steps to avoid splashing, she kept her weight on her toes and walked slowly. After a brief voyage, she made it across the water without much trouble.
Quersius turned his attention to another steep slope ahead and prepared himself for a brief climb. “Okay be careful here. This rock is smoother than the rest of the cave,” he said, already leaning forward. He didn’t waste much time scampering up the short hill, and though he had to brace himself against the wall to avoid slipping, he soon found a mostly flat section of rougher ground underfoot. With the sump now behind him, he looked back up and saw another passage ahead with favorable dimensions for his broad frame.
Nyla joined him a while later at the top of the slope. Her feet remained dry despite the wet footsteps she left behind. “It seems we’ve still got a ways to go, it seems,” she said, looking forward at the path that stretched out of sight past the light. “But I’m ready when you are, Quersius. Take your sword and show me the way.”
“We’re certainly not there yet, but let’s not waver,” Quersius said.
They both walked onward. Quersius took the front with Ethereon in hand, and it cast its celestial glimmer on their surroundings. After some progress, the ground increasingly consisted of discrete boulders rather than a flat surface. Taking careful steps, they dodged several cracks in the cave floor where these boulders made contact.
As the floor transformed below them, they transitioned from walking to hopping from rock to rock. When the tricky terrain became even more difficult, Quersius asked Nyla, “Are you okay back there?”
“I’m doing fine,” she confirmed, landing on a harshly angled rock face. “I’d rather this than another tight squeeze,” she added.
“Alright, just be careful,” Quersius replied. He took a long step forward until his foot landed on a ribbed stone, but a rattling sound below made him pause in his split stance. He held Ethereon up to the crack between the boulders and saw three black eyes attached to a scaly, angular head.
“Looks like we’ve got company,” Quersius said, bringing his left foot forward to join his right. Just as he stepped out of the way, a snake-like creature shot up from the crack between the boulders. It narrowly missed him and nearly collided with the ceiling before it came to a stop and lowered its head. Its cold eyes locked onto Nyla, and its rattle shook menacingly beneath the floor as its tongue flitted between its fangs.
Nyla grabbed the bow from her back and pulled an arrow from her quiver. She pulled it back in the bowstring but didn’t have time to aim; the snake lunged toward her, and she jumped out of the way to escape its vicious bite. In her haste, she overshot the boulder she intended to land on; her foot snagged on a crevice just past it, causing her to fall forward onto her hands and knees on another one. After quickly gathering herself, she grabbed the boulder’s sharp edge to try and bring herself back to a standing position on its sloping face.
Quersius watched the snake rear its ugly head again. “Nyla, look out! He’s coming back for you!” he shouted.
From the corner of her eye, Nyla saw the snake preparing to strike, and she knew she didn’t have much time to react. The snake flew toward her again before she had recovered her footing on the angled rock. She flung her weight forward onto both hands, and in a handspring motion, she pushed herself up into the air, hearing the snake’s head barely miss as it struck nearby. While flying slowly through the air, she readied her bow and arrow and aimed a shot at the snake. She almost hit it, but its long slender body curled out of the way, narrowly avoiding the shot.
Before he could mount a strike, the snake turned its attention to Quersius when it saw Ethereon’s light drawing near. Quersius came flying at the snake and swung his sword, but it evaded his slash by lowering its head into another crevice and slithering out of the way. Quersius landed and turned back only to see the tip of the snake’s tail disappear back beneath the floor with the rest of its body. This time, its rattle didn’t shake, leaving him uncertain as to the snake’s location.
Quersius briefly met Nyla's wide eyes in the low light as he prepared himself for its next move. He held Ethereon near the cracks in the floor to try and gauge its position, but the snake was nowhere to be seen. Nyla held her bow and arrow in hand, aiming attentively at the ground with no idea where it might surface next.
While staring through a nearby crack, Quersius caught a glimpse of the snake’s body slithering underfoot. He gestured to Nyla and pointed it out. She looked down through some nearby rocks, but unbeknownst to her, the snake had already quietly surfaced in the shadows behind her.
Quersius saw its head come into view and shouted, “Behind you!” He jumped forward, but he barely moved a foot before he came crashing down onto his hands. The snake’s tail had constricted around his ankle, leaving him powerless to intervene as it tried to bite Nyla. She jumped out of the way of its surprise attack and came careening through the air toward the rock that Quersius had fallen on. Quersius was trying to slash at its tail to free himself, but his effort was interrupted by the snake’s head lunging after Nyla and coming straight toward him. He pulled back Ethereon and held it in front of the snake, and it paused there by the sword’s glow. Quersius tried to swing at it from his prone position, but the snake remained just out of reach. He watched as it seethed angrily at Ethereon before turning its cold eyes back to him.
The snake reared its head back and opened its mouth wide, preparing to lunge at Quersius as he lay there helpless with his ankle ensnared in its tail. He pointed Ethereon upward, trying to time a slash properly in the awkward position. The snake shot forward with its teeth exposed, but Quersius was unable to react in time. Before it managed to bite into his flesh, he watched as it fell over to the side and loosened its grip on his ankle.
Unsure what had happened, Quersius shook himself free from the snake’s tail and got back to his feet. He watched the snake writhe on the cave floor, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. After a moment, it stopped struggling, and he was able to see what had happened. A well placed arrow had pierced the snake’s neck just below its head.
Quersius stood there and examined the snake’s lifeless body. He didn’t dare to take his eyes off of it as it lay there; it was only when he heard a familiar voice that he let his guard down.
“I got him.”
Quersius turned around to see Nyla’s outstretched arm with her bow held in hand. Unable to think of a more fitting way to express his gratitude, he only managed to muster the words, “Nice shot.”
“You can thank me later,” Nyla said. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
Quersius looked back at the creature that had almost killed him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a snake a quarter of its size, let alone one with three eyes. He shrugged off the thought and faced the path ahead. “Alright, follow me.”
They continued moving through the passage, moving carefully from boulder to boulder along the way. After some time, they reached a part of the room that had several stalactites hanging overhead. Unlike the last ones, these were thinner and extended almost all the way from the ceiling to the scattered boulders that constituted the cave floor.
“Here’s something you don’t see everyday,” Quersius said, struck by the menacing beauty of the cave’s interior. “It might take a bit, but we’ll make it through.” He twisted and turned his body to make his way through the maze of stalactites. Nyla charted her own course through the rocky tangle. After she finished maneuvering through, she happened to turn around enough to notice something that caught her eye. The snake from before was weaving its way across the cave floor, moving toward them quickly.
“Quersius, the snake is still alive!” Nyla warned as it moved closer. Quersius turned around at the edge of the stalactite maze and saw the snake slithering through. Despite the arrow still stuck in its meaty neck, it moved with calculating precision.
Quersius leapt backward in a panic. In a stroke of luck, he landed on a broad flat boulder, barely stumbling as he slid to a halt. The snake’s head emerged from behind the stalactites with its mouth open wide while the rest of its seemingly endless body came increasingly into view. It lifted its head up and trained its eyes on him, looking ready to strike as it shook its rattle somewhere far out of sight.
Nyla took aim at it with her bow and shot multiple arrows indiscriminately into its partly coiled body. Distracted by the stabbing pain, the snake lashed out at her furiously in reply. Watching its head fly through the air with blistering speed, Nyla jumped backward and landed awkwardly on another boulder. The snake reached as far as it could before it was stretched to its limit and snapped its fangs loudly shut, though Nyla still remained unbitten.
As the snake went slack and recovered from its strike, Quersius saw his chance. He jumped forward and swung Ethereon at its exposed neck before it reached the ground, slicing it cleanly in two.
The snake’s body fell limp, but its severed head struggled and seethed as if it had only felt a minor slight. Its beady eyes locked onto Quersius as he stood there in its sight. Then, the snake’s head disappeared into a crack in the cave floor, slithering through with the help of its remaining neck.
Quersius looked down into the crack, but the snake’s head was nowhere to be seen. He returned his attention to the path ahead. “Who knows what else that thing has up its sleeve. Let’s get moving before it catches back up to us,” he said. Nyla nodded, and they continued their descent further into the cave.

Chapter 9Nyla and Quersius walked quickly through an expansive passage of the cave. Since leaving the snake’s headless body behind, the floor had become sturdier and more unified compared to the earlier rubble. They made their way past a few stubby stalagmites and then ducked under a rocky overhang before the ceiling became more than tall enough to stand straight again. After a prolonged rhythm of weary breaths and echoing footsteps, they reached a wall with two separate tunnel entrances in it.
Quersius walked up to the first tunnel and held Ethereon close. He looked inside and saw that it veered to the left, becoming so cramped that it was hard to imagine making his way through. He then checked the tunnel on the right. It also led somewhere uncertain, but it seemed to be more of a reasonable width than the other.
“Which way should we go?” Quersius asked.
“I’m not so sure,” Nyla said. She looked around the room. The one thing that caught her attention other than the two tunnels was a carved sculpture on the wall between them. Its meticulous craftsmanship seemed unlike anything she could possibly replicate. It depicted none other than a sneering dragon’s head with its mouth held wide open. Made from the same stone as the walls of the cave, its eyes somehow looked as lifelike and intense as Elbert’s despite seeming inanimate. “Let me consult the dragonstone. Maybe it will reveal something,” she said, reaching into her pocket.
Nyla grabbed the dragonstone and held it tightly. She felt the stone’s energy in her hand as it flashed between her fingers, and the scales on her neck glowed white when its power surged through her body. After the edges of her vision began to blur, she searched the dragon’s face for answers. Its head didn’t move or speak, but it nevertheless seemed to carry untold wisdom beneath its permanent scowl. She looked around the rest of the cave. Despite seeing more detail in the walls, they didn’t offer any obvious clues that might reveal the correct way forward.
Before Nyla was ready to give up on the dragonstone, its glow faded without her consent. She watched her vision return to normal as she held it tight in her clutch. Disappointed, she looked at the stone in her hand, watching as it returned to a dim, inert state.
“I didn’t see anything interesting,” she said, reluctantly returning the dragonstone to her pocket when it became apparent that it wasn’t going to be of much use.
Surprised, Quersius said, “I thought you had all the answers, Nyla. You’re the one with dragon’s blood, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful, Quersius,” Nyla said, holding one hand in the other near her waist.
Quersius looked again at the sculpture. He walked around to its other side to examine it from a different angle. Unsure what to do next, he scratched his neck and raised an eyebrow. Then, he remembered the words they’d seen carved into the wall hours ago and recited it aloud. “The great dragon reaps what we sow.” Bearing the phrase in mind, he remembered the offerings on the shrine near the entrance. He then glanced back at Nyla, but she said nothing in reply.
Feeling the lump in the pocket of his tunic, something occurred to Quersius. He reached for the claw of the statue he had recovered from the abandoned village and held it in his hand, noting that its three curved talons had been worn smooth by the passage of time. He looked again at the sculpture on the cave’s wall and slowly stuck his hand into its open mouth, leaving the claw on its tongue.
The mouth of the dragon sculpture slowly began to close when it recognized his offering. Quersius pulled his hand back before its sharp teeth sealed shut around it. He felt a sudden tremor beneath his feet and stepped back. Seconds later, a large boulder fell from above and collided with the statue, knocking it off of the wall and crushing it against the floor where Quersius once stood.
Nyla reached out and grabbed Quersius’s arm to pull him close. She looked up and saw a cloud of dust against the wall where the boulder came loose. After it settled, Quersius held up Ethereon and saw that a third tunnel had been revealed above the two that once flanked the statue. Nyla let Quersius go and met his gaze, mirroring his startled expression.
“I think we found our answer,” Quersius said.
Nyla nodded speechlessly. Before she could find the words to say, Quersius stepped forward and placed his foot on the felled boulder to test its sturdiness. It jiggled somewhat when he placed his weight on it, but it remained stable enough to stand on with both feet. He wobbled a bit as he stood up on the boulder, but after grabbing the lip of the third tunnel near the room’s ceiling, he easily found his balance.
Quersius peered into the tunnel and then turned his head to see Nyla staring up at him. “This one opens up wide. It’s got a fairly steep slope, but we should be able to make our way through.” Quersius placed his other hand on the tunnel’s lip and heaved his body upward. He landed on his stomach and then propped himself up into a crouching position inside the entrance. “Come on, I’ll help you up,” he said, offering Nyla his hand.
Nyla approached the boulder and looked down at a fragment of the crushed dragon sculpture’s head on the ground beside it. Its remaining eye seemed to be staring at her angrily no matter where she was in relation to it. She let it be and stood carefully on the boulder, grabbing Quersius’s hand and pulling herself up into the mouth of the tunnel high on the wall.
Quersius made room for her there. Just ahead, the tunnel was covered in loose scree that slid under his feet. He looked into its downward sloped path and said, “It looks like we’ll have to slide down. I’ll go first. Wait for my signal.” He took a step forward. His front foot slid until his back foot was pulled along with it. The walls became so wide that he couldn’t brace against them, so instead of fighting gravity, he leaned into the slide and coasted downward until Nyla couldn’t see him any longer.
A few moments later, Quersius shouted from below. “It flattens out after the sloped part. Come down when you’re ready.”
Nyla was glad to hear that he was safe, but she felt exposed standing alone in pitch darkness. Despite her fear, she took a deep breath and said, “Alright, here I come.” Nyla placed her right foot onto the steep slope and leaned forward, entering a slide just as Quersius did. After a quick descent, she saw a glow ahead as she neared the bottom.
Moments later, Nyla reached Quersius in a flat section of the tunnel. “I’m glad you made it safely,” he said.
Nyla merely nodded in return. After she regained her balance, Quersius walked forward through the dark tunnel until he reached a dead end. There, he saw a hole in the floor below him. He knelt down and held Ethereon near it, bracing with his left hand to lower his head enough to peek through. “It opens up into a big room below. We’ll have to jump pretty far, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.” He sat with his arm between his knees on the edge of the hole, then he looked up at Nyla and asked, “Do you trust me?”
Nyla considered what may lay ahead. After a moment she said, “Yes, Quersius.”
“That’s nice,” Quersius said. He took the time to enjoy a few breaths and regain his composure. “Whatever happens next, just know I’ve got your back Nyla. No matter what.”
Nyla looked at his eyes one after the other, sensing his trepidation. She weighed her reply. “And I’ve got yours. Just promise that we’ll both make it out of here alive.”
“I promise. Now let’s get moving,” Quersius said. He lowered his legs through the hole and prepared to jump through. “Here I go!”

Chapter 10After a long fall through the air, Quersius landed firmly on his feet in another room of the cave. Just like the others he had traversed, it was devoid of any light other than Ethereon’s glow. He looked up and was faintly able to see the hole he had dropped in from. Somewhere in the darkness several meters above, he knew Nyla was staring down at him preparing to jump from the tunnel.
Quersius scanned his surroundings. He was standing on a large boulder that was one of many constituting the floor. Judging it to be mostly flat and quite sturdy, he shouted back to Nyla, “It’s a long fall but an easy landing. Just be prepared to hit the ground hard! I’ll get out of your way.”
He walked to the edge of the boulder he landed on and stepped across to another one intersecting it. This one had a smoother texture and was pinned at an angle between several others. “Come on, you’ve got this!” he encouraged.
“Okay, here I come!” Nyla shouted in reply. Moments later, Quersius watched as she slowly plummeted from a height that would’ve left her gravely injured on their home planet. She landed without incident with a soft thud nearby.
Before Quersius could ask if she was alright, Nyla walked calmly toward him, confirming his hunch that she had survived the fall unscathed. When she drew near, he saw a relatable look of uncertainty on her face. “I’m glad you could join me, though I’d be lying if I said I knew how we’re going to get out of here,” he said.
“Let’s just hope for the best,” Nyla said, remaining composed despite a growing sense of dread beneath her confident demeanor.
They both spent a moment looking around the room. Judging by the echoes of their voices, they assumed it wasn’t particularly cavernous in scale, but they were still unable to make out its full size in Ethereon’s limited light.
“Why don’t we take a look around?” Quersius recommended. Nyla followed him closely as he carried their sole light source further into the room. They watched their steps carefully, making sure their feet didn’t get stuck in the cracks between boulders.
Moving from boulder to boulder across the uneven floor, they eventually saw an insignia on one of the rocks that glowed when Ethereon came near. Quersius pointed it out and said, “I think that might be the sigil.” He approached it and stood within striking distance. Nyla watched from farther back as Quersius pulled Ethereon’s handle up to his chest.
As Quersius plunged the sword’s blade down toward the sigil, the rock that it was inscribed upon suddenly moved out of the way. Ethereon missed its target, and Quersius momentarily lost his balance when the floor shifted under his feet. He watched the stone carrying the sigil slide under another boulder and pull another one with it.
A sound reminiscent of rock grinding against pavement came from below, and Quersius’s eyes darted around as he tried to trace its source. After watching the ground shift about like a quarry of rocks, he saw the face of a familiar foe appear in the dimly lit cave. The snake they had fought with earlier had returned. Despite still having Nyla’s arrow lodged in its neck, its tongue flitted aggressively toward Quersius with its head held high.
“That snake is back!” Quersius shouted, preparing to dodge its strike.
“I thought we cut its head off!” Nyla said. She looked over and saw Quersius’s shadow cast high against a wall as he stared into the dark. She tried to find the snake but could only make out its head. Then, she saw Quersius jump out of the way and land on another boulder.
When the snake lunged at him, Nyla caught a glimpse of its body and noticed it was made of a string of heavy stones held together by an unknown force. She pointed out her observation to Quersius. “Its body is now made of boulders. Be careful!”
“Maybe that’s where the sigil went!” Quersius loudly theorized. The snake turned its head and seethed at him. Quersius watched its rock body carefully, preparing to dodge its strike again. He tried to jump back, but he tripped over and fell partially into a crack between rocks in the floor. He used his hands to stop himself from sliding deeper and noticed that his ankle seemed to be pinned in place by something he couldn’t see or feel. Then, his leg started to float in the air as if pulled upward by an invisible hand.
While Nyla shot arrows at the snake, she watched as Quersius was pulled slowly toward the ceiling. He was hanging upside down in midair, and the snake slithered toward him ready to take a bite from his flesh. The snake was unfazed by the repeated strikes of arrows against its rock body. Only when an arrow grazed its head did it flinch, though it quickly returned its attention to Quersius floating there with Ethereon in hand.
Nyla looked at the shadow on the wall and noticed a strange mismatch with reality. The shadow depicted the snake’s tail wrapped around Quersius’s leg, but in reality its tail was doing no such thing; it was hidden somewhere in the darkness instead. “Quersius! You must sheath Ethereon! It’s got you by your shadow!” She shouted, watching the snake’s head approach him.
Finding this hard to believe, Quersius checked the shadow cast against the wall. To his surprise, it showed the snake’s tail wrapped tightly around him as its prominent fangs drew near. Fighting his instincts, he reached behind his back with the only protection he had against the ferocious snake, further exposing himself to the three eyed creature.
After sheathing Ethereon, Quersius saw nothing but the fleeting image of the attacking snake seared into his retinas. He was in complete darkness and had no idea what was going to happen next. His stomach turned, and he began to abandon hope for survival, but to his surprise he felt his right hand make contact with a cool rock.
Though he didn’t realize it initially, the snake had released his shadow from its grasp in the absence of Ethereon’s light, and Quersius had floated back down to the ground. Despite falling on one hand with his entire weight, the force of landing was akin to that of a kneeling push-up.
Quersius had broken his fall, but he wasn’t out of danger yet. He felt his left hand slip into a crack between rocks in the floor, and he had to arrest his descent by placing his right hand on an adjacent boulder to avoid getting stuck. He heard the massive body of the snake slithering toward him after its initial bite had missed.
Knowing he didn’t have much time to escape, he didn’t try righting himself in a conventional way. Instead, he placed both of his palms on the boulder in front of his head and bent his elbows, lowering himself further toward the crack’s pinch point. Fueled by adrenaline, he pushed with all his might and ejected himself backward from the crack, arcing through the air in the pitch black room until he felt his feet make contact with the ground. He stumbled forward on a slanted section of floor, but Quersius was able to regain his balance again. It struck him then how close he’d come to an untimely demise.
“Quersius, are you okay?” Nyla asked, fearing the worst.
“I’m fine,” he answered curtly.
Nyla was glad to hear his voice coming from much farther away than the place where she’d last seen him, but the sound of the snake’s rock body slithering across the floor made it hard to feel relief. “How are we supposed to fight this thing?” she wondered.
“I’m not sure,” Quersius said. He then started quietly making his way around the room, listening to the snake’s movements to try and discern its location. This proved to be a difficult task without any light to guide him.
After making progress around the chamber, Quersius reached behind his back and grabbed Ethereon’s handle. He pulled it upward, unsheathing the sword halfway to produce a flash of light. Across the room, he glimpsed the snake slithering away from him and toward Nyla. On its back, he saw the sigil from before. It started to shine again when touched by Ethereon’s glow.
Quersius saw the snake turn back toward him, so he sheathed Ethereon fully. Darkness returned to the room and left him to rely only on the grating sound of its body slithering across stone to reveal its whereabouts.
“I see the sigil about three quarters of the way up its back. Maybe I can crawl up and strike it somehow!” Quersius said.
“Okay, I’ll try to distract it,” Nyla replied. She grabbed an arrow from her quiver and pulled it back in her bow. “Give me another flash of light so I can take aim!”
Quersius complied and partially unsheathed Ethereon. He saw the snake coming toward him and watched as Nyla shot arrows at its back, but they didn’t seem to be giving it pause. It continued moving toward Quersius.
Quersius decided to unsheath Ethereon fully and held it in hand as he crossed the floor toward another corner of the chamber. Jumping quickly from boulder to boulder, he looked back and saw the snake turning to chase after him. He glanced at Nyla and saw her watching the chaotic scene with terror in her eyes.
Quersius smashed into the wall and came to a sudden stop. He turned around and saw the dark outline of the snake’s tail across the room while its head barreled straight toward him. He returned Ethereon to its sheath, and the room plunged again into darkness as he scurried after the tail. Doing his best to remember the floor plan of the chamber, he made steady progress despite stumbling a few times.
After righting himself, Quersius tugged Ethereon halfway out of its sheath for a split second to regain his bearings and saw the lower part of the snake right beside him. He jumped onto its tail and straddled it between his knees, searching in the dark for a handhold along the snake’s rock body. Once he found an edge to grip, he removed Ethereon and wielded it in his right hand to reveal the sigil. He saw it shining further up the slithering chain of rocks and started working his way up toward it. Each of the rocks he had to climb was different in shape and texture, so he worked methodically to search for suitable handholds to grab with his left hand while climbing and holding Ethereon with his right.
As the snake’s body slithered and wound across the floor, pinch points were created on its body. Amid excruciating sounds of the snake grinding against the room’s rubble, Quersius did his best to avoid getting his fingers sliced off. He gradually pulled himself closer to the mark, but it was an agonizingly slow process of trial and error to find each additional handhold.
The snake tried to twist its head backwards toward Quersius, but it was unable to reach that far. While Nyla continued to fire arrows at it, it eventually gave up on trying to bite him and started focusing on her instead. Quersius kept climbing, occasionally repositioning his legs to avoid having them crushed by the wriggling snake. He had reached a long stone with particularly jagged edges, and it cut into his thighs as he searched for a suitable handhold along its side. He eventually found a part of the stone that he grabbed, and he pulled himself against it as the sigil inched tantalizingly closer.
After tugging at it again and again, Quersius noticed that he wasn’t able to pull himself any farther up the snake’s back. He thought he felt his foot snagging against one of the boulders, but after trying to shake it free, he searched along the ground and realized that the shadow of the snake’s tail had wrapped tightly around the shadow of his ankle.
Realizing he had no other choice, Quersius returned Ethereon to its sheath and felt a wave of relief as his foot was freed from the shadowy prison. This was short lived however, because he pulled himself up to the next section of the snake and was unsure where to go next.
In spite of the all consuming darkness, he used his hands to search for another spot to grab onto and eventually found one. After using it to pull himself forward a few more feet, Quersius found the snake’s body had become so thick that he could no longer straddle it between his legs, so he walked them up until he was perched on its back in a precarious crawling position.
After riding through the room on the snake’s back in the dark, Quersius reached behind his shoulder and pulled Ethereon partially out of its sheath to shed some light on the situation. He found another section of rock to grab onto, but the snake’s movements became more erratic as it chased after Nyla. He caught a glimpse of her leaping out of the way of its noisy attack and narrowly avoiding its powerful bite. The last thing Quersius saw before extinguishing the light was her darting toward the dark side of the room while the sigil twinkled just out of his reach.
Motivated by the urgency of the skirmish, Quersius heaved himself closer to his target as the snake turned sharply across the floor. His leg fell off of the snake’s back and dangled beside it as he held on to the edge of another stone. The rock’s sharp edge cut into his fingers, but he knew he had no choice but to keep holding on. Feeling his fingers go numb as they began to lose strength, he kicked and struggled until he dug his left foot against a smooth rock on the snake’s back. Quersius yanked himself laterally until he was able to set both feet on it sturdily, nearly collapsing with exhaustion once he had returned to all fours.
The snake began moving again at a high speed, and Quersius knew that Nyla was in danger. He pulled Ethereon out of its sheath just enough to see the snake’s head pulled back within striking distance of her. Though blind at first to its deceptive position, the ray of light from the sword cut through the dark and gave Nyla just enough time to react.
The snake lunged at her again with its mouth open wide. Nyla jumped diagonally through the air as it careened toward her, then she kicked off the wall on her way down to avoid landing in a sinkhole nearby. Unfortunately, she tripped on an exposed rock face before her feet could reach the ground, and she landed in a nearly upside-down position with the snake’s head still in her vicinity.
Quersius saw the situation and realized that he didn’t have time to wait patiently. The sigil was still three meters out of reach, but he pulled Ethereon all the way out of its sheath and held it tightly. The snake was preparing another strike, and the rock bearing the sigil moved unpredictably as it pulled its head back and took aim again at Nyla. Despite the difficult angle, Quersius stood on a smooth section of the snake’s rocky back, feeling it bucking wildly as he wobbled there unsteadily. He was almost thrown off, but he found his balance just long enough to jump decisively.
While moving through the air, Quersius pulled Ethereon’s handle up to his chest and then stabbed it downward when the sigil came into position. At that moment, the snake lunged toward Nyla, and his sword missed its mark. He watched with horror as its head flew toward her. Knowing this was his last good chance to strike the sigil, Quersius leaned back with all his weight as he glided past the snake, stretching as far as he could and throwing his hand behind his head while it held Ethereon. The sword’s hilt reverberated in his grasp, and he heard the sound of it striking rock. Moments later, his feet collided with the ground followed by his knees.
Ignoring the pain from the rough landing, Quersius looked back up and saw the snake’s head strike somewhere behind the stone next to him. Unsure if his attack or the snake’s had reached its mark, he struggled back to his feet and saw Nyla lying there. The snake pulled back and drew its head high into the air again.
Gasping, Quersius jumped down and shielded Nyla with his body. Expecting another attack, he held Ethereon outward as his only remaining line of defense. To his surprise, the rocks along the snake’s body fell apart and crashed into the floor, deanimating before it could strike. One of the large boulders rolled toward the depression Nyla had fallen into. Before it could crush them both, Quersius scooped Nyla up by the waist and jumped forcefully out of the way, landing on a flatter section of ground with her limp body in his arms.

Quersius’s eyes darted around the chamber as he heard the sound of stones scattering loudly onto the cave floor. When the noise came to an abrupt end, he saw a glowing glyph floating in the air. He realized then that by some miracle he had managed to strike the sigil and destroy the snake. The sigil shone brightly and fluttered before beginning to pull itself apart. After its ends unraveled in midair, it burned away until nothing was left behind.
Still in disbelief at the lucky strike, Quersius stared at the thin air where the sigil once hung. His right hand trembled while it held the mystic sword firm. “Nyla, we did it!” he said, but there was no response. “Nyla?” he begged, shaking her gently to no avail.
Upon looking at her closely, he saw no signs of life; she didn’t seem to be breathing. Suddenly, a trail of blood started coming from her nose, and it soon became a stream from both nostrils. A tear came to Quersius’s eye but didn’t fall when he realized that she may have perished during the fight. “Nyla! Wake up!” He shouted, shaking her again. He felt her neck, but there was no pulse. “Nyla! Please!” he cried.
Suddenly, the river of blood coursing from Nyla’s nostrils came to an eerily complete halt, and she started coughing. After inhaling sharply, her eyes opened, and she lay shivering in his arms.
“Nyla! I thought I lost you,” Quersius said, wiping his eyes before she could see his tearful state. She didn’t respond immediately; at first she just wiped the blood from her face. Quersius scanned her body for injuries, but he couldn’t find any tooth marks or lacerations. The only drops of blood on her tunic were ones that he’d watched drip from her nose.
Her eyes finally met his, but she could only muster a few words. “Quersius… The sigil…”
Quersius flashed a faint, rejoicing smile. “I think I got it, Nyla. At first I thought I missed, but…”
He stopped talking when the silence around them was filled with the sound of distant river rapids. He looked around to see what was happening, but at first he saw nothing. Moments later water started rising through the cracks in the floor, and it wasn’t long until his feet were submerged.
“The cave is flooding!” he shouted. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here.”Chapter 11Before long, water had filled the room up to Quersius’s knees. Its level continued to climb quickly, and soon he had to wade through. A constant noise of gushing rapids filled the air that remained in the cave.
The dire change in circumstances forced Nyla to make a rapid recovery after her recent spell of unconsciousness. She was able to move on her own, but a lingering dizzy feeling gave her some difficulty. Having no other choice, she did her best to ignore it. The flood’s rapid progression gave a sense of urgency that quickly outweighed this waning symptom, as did the water’s cold temperature.
Quersius held Ethereon overhead and searched the ceiling for the hole they dropped in from. It took a while, but he eventually found it. Besides a couple vanishingly small cracks high along the wall, it appeared to be the only way out that was big enough for both of them to fit through.
“There’s the entrance to the tunnel!” Quersius said, pointing out its barely visible outline several meters above.
“It’s too high up to jump,” Nyla said. The water was now waist deep, and she knew that even in Hyundera’s low gravity, jumping while partially submerged would be an impossible task.
Quersius looked around. The cracks in the wall were now pouring water into the room, and the water level started rising at an even more alarming pace. He worried that they might have to wait to swim through the tunnel, but he saw something across the room that gave him some hope.
“Do you see that floating boulder over there? Let’s see if we can grab it!” he shouted.
“Yeah, let’s go!” Nyla replied, her voice barely audible over the growing roar of the flood.
They both started wading toward the boulder, but before they had even made it halfway, the water got so deep that they had no choice but to swim. Nyla soon noticed that she was moving more quickly than Quersius. She looked back and saw him struggling to stay afloat with Ethereon in his hand.
“Quersius, just stay here! I’ll get the boulder,” she yelled.
Though he wanted to help, Quersius realized his predicament and decided to heed her advice. “Alright, I’ll be your beacon,” he said, but Nyla was already too far away to hear him. He started treading water, doing his best to hold Ethereon above the surface as it kept getting deeper.
Thoroughly awakened by the bone chilling water, Nyla abandoned her breaststroke technique for a frantic front crawl. While pulling her cupped hands one after another through the silted out slurry, she did her best to keep her head above water. She squinted as it splashed against her face, never taking her eyes off the floating rock. Droplets hung in the air as she swam past, and ripples the size of small tidal waves danced outward from her body in slow motion.
While the water abided by alien physics, Nyla swam through it like an athlete in a fierce competition. Kicking and pulling as hard as she could, she reached the floating stone faster than she imagined possible. She placed her hand on its sprawling porous surface and found that it was lightweight and thin enough to grab between her thumb and forefinger.
The light in the room started to flicker as she circled around the rock. When she reached the other side, she noticed that the once flat water was now filled with tall, violent waves that formed and crashed slowly. It was like she had found herself thrust into an ocean where time slowed to a crawl. She stared at Quersius and saw him fighting against the waves but still managing to stay afloat with Ethereon in hand. Though it was once hidden by shadows, the room’s high ceiling was now mostly visible as water continued to pour in.
Nyla pushed against the rock’s edge as hard as she could, but it merely bobbed in place like a buoy in a violent storm. She tried again and again to push it toward the only exit, but instead of moving the stone forward, her efforts only pushed her back as it remained stubborn. Realizing that this approach would not work, Nyla abandoned it for another. Instead of continuing to push against the stone without leverage, she grabbed it firmly with both hands and started kicking her legs in a scissoring motion. Each time her feet broke the surface, huge waves sprung up and crashed down onto her. Though at first the stone only inched forward, the current of the waves added gradually to its momentum until it started moving several feet per minute.
Eventually, the water’s surface started oscillating so violently that the stone jumped inches into the air before each wave struck it, causing it to collide into the water with a spectacular splash again and again. Nyla couldn’t hold on any longer, so she climbed aboard the floating rock and slowly skidded closer to Quersius.
Once Quersius came near, Nyla extended her hand and he pulled himself onto the rock. The massive crashing waves had settled into surging ebbs, but it was still a struggle to stay aboard the wobbling surface of the floating stone.
Quersius’s teeth chattered as he fought to balance on the stone with all fours. “Nyla! You did it!” he shouted. ”The waves you kicked up were tremendous!”
“Thanks, but we’re not out of trouble yet,” Nyla replied. “I think it’s best if we stay on this rock and let the water settle down.”
“Good idea. We’re almost to the hole,” he said, pointing at the ceiling. “Let me try something.”
Quersius brought himself to a kneeling position and dipped Ethereon into the water. He pulled it backward, Digging the flat side of the blade forcefully into the water as if he were rowing a boat. The rock responded by moving forward slightly. Encouraged by this, he reset the sword’s position in the water and rowed again. Each time he dipped Ethereon into the water, the room turned almost completely dark, and each time he pulled it out, he had to find the hole on the ceiling again to make sure they were getting closer.
Though they initially made good progress like this, the rock started to veer to the right with each stroke. “Nyla watch out, I need to switch sides,” Quersius said.
Nyla nodded and laid down on her stomach so that Quersius could reach over her. The oblong stone was only a few feet wide, and there was barely enough room aboard for the two of them. While Nyla tried to lay there unobtrusively, her feet dangled off the edge and into the water.
After becoming accustomed to using Ethereon as a paddle, Quersius eventually found a rhythm that made sustained forward motion possible. He would take two strokes on his left and then switch sides and do the same on his right to counterbalance the force. Each stroke left a trail that lingered in the water as they passed it by. A couple of times, Nyla nearly fell off, and Quersius had to help her stay aboard.
Despite the difficulty of navigating the surf, Quersius eventually looked up and saw that the hole in the ceiling was directly overhead. “Okay, there’s the hole. We're going to have to jump. Why don’t you go first,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll try,” Nyla replied. She began to stand up, but it took her some time to get her bearings; the water sloshed around as the rock floated unsteadily in place.
“Take your time,” Quersius said, paddling forward occasionally to stop the rock from moving.
After a brief struggle, Nyla found her footing. “I’m ready. Give me the light,” she said. Quersius held Ethereon above the surface so she could see the hole clearly.
Nyla widened her stance and reached her arms out to maintain balance. She looked up at the hole and figured she’d need to jump about six feet in the air to grab its lip with her hand.
“Here I go,” she said before squatting downward and propelling herself up into the air with arms overhead. She reached the height of her jump and began to fall back downward slowly, but she was able to plant her hand on the inside of the tunnel to halt her descent. Her legs and torso were pulled almost horizontal, but she grabbed at the hole with her other hand and then dangled in control.
Quersius was nearly knocked off the stone by the force of Nyla’s jump. He grabbed onto its edge and nearly toppled it over onto himself, but he pulled himself forward just in time to stay aboard and lay it to rest in the water. He looked up and saw Nyla hanging from the ceiling, pulling herself up slowly through the hole and into the tunnel.
In the time it had taken Nyla to jump, the water had already risen another foot in the bowl shaped room. The ceiling was now close enough for Quersius to see her faint outline looking down at him from the tunnel. He waited a moment for the stone to become sturdy enough, then he brought himself to his feet and transferred Ethereon to his left hand.
“Here I come!” he shouted. Quersius assumed a wide stance and leapt from the stone with his right arm extended and Ethereon trailing by his hip. He saw the hole quickly approaching, but after reaching the peak of his jump, he only managed to wrap his fingers around the inside. Nyla saw the four fingers of his hand grasp the edge of the hole in the faint light, but it looked like they were starting to slip. She fell to her knees and reached through the hole just as Quersius’s grip failed him. He started slowly falling back toward the watery tomb, but when he saw Nyla’s arm poke through, he swatted his own until their hands slapped together and clasped each other tightly.
Despite Quersius’s large frame, Nyla pulled him single-handedly up into the tunnel with relative ease. Once he was in, Quersius sat on the edge of the hole and stared down into the rising water of the room below as he pulled his legs up behind him.
“Thanks for saving my life,” Quersius said, pleased to see that the only water in the tunnel was the puddle left by their drenched clothes.
“We can celebrate once we’re back above ground,” Nyla said.
“You’re right; let’s get moving,” he said, lumbering after Nyla across the loose gravel underfoot. Remembering the steep incline ahead of them, he added, “This one might be a tough climb.”

Chapter 12Before long, Nyla reached the end of the tunnel’s flat section and was confronted by the same slope they had slid down earlier. She placed one foot forward and tried to push herself up, but she simply slid back down to where she came from.
Unsurprised by the futility of her first attempt, Quersius watched as she tried again and experienced the same outcome. “I figured this would give us some trouble. Maybe we should try another way,” he said.
Nyla slid back down after one last unsuccessful try. “I hope you don’t mean another tunnel. This one is our only hope of escape,” she said, unable to ignore the sound of running water in the distance. “Besides, the walls are far too wide to brace against.”
“I know one last thing we can try,” Quersius said. He walked forward and placed one foot gently against the slope. He turned his head and said, “Give me some room, please,” then he switched his grip on Ethereon, pulled it back high overhead, and stabbed it into the loose scree. The tip of the sword sank further into the rubble as he twisted its handle. Quersius pulled himself up the slope and then tugged at Ethereon. He managed to stab it again higher up, but this time when he pulled against it, its depth was too shallow to support his weight.
Quersius slid back down to where he started. “That’s definitely progress,” Nyla said.
“The slope eases a bit higher up. Maybe if I get a running start I can get there,” Quersius said.
Nyla nodded and stepped further back as Quersius did the same. She noticed that her feet were splashing in a shallow puddle that hadn’t been there before, and she realized then that the room below had flooded completely. Water was entering from below through the hole at the end of the tunnel. “Just hurry up. We don’t have much time. The water is here,” she advised.
Quersius didn’t respond. He just started running toward the slope at full speed, then he leapt as high as his legs would allow, stabbing Ethereon into the scree as hard as he could at the peak of his jump. He pulled himself up against the handle until he was able to dig his fingers into a more gently sloped part of the tunnel’s floor.
Quersius twisted Ethereon into the ground until he was sure it was sturdy. Once satisfied, he called out to Nyla. “Okay, try to jump up and grab my leg, then you can climb past me. It gets easier from here.”
“Alright, here I come,” Nyla shouted. She ran forward through the now ankle deep water and jumped upward when she reached the bend in the tunnel. Her feet struck the sloped floor, and she ran up it as far as she could. Before gravity threatened to slowly drag her back down, she managed to grab Quersius’s ankle with her hands. She scurried up his back and hoisted herself up the tunnel until she had leapfrogged past him. The path ahead of her was loose and sloping, but she was able to dig into the rubble and slowly climb unassisted.
“You alright up there?” Quersius asked.
“Yeah, I’m making steady progress upward though it’s still not easy,” Nyla said.
“Okay, let me know if you’re about to fall,” Quersius replied. He yanked Ethereon out from the ground and began crawling up behind her while holding Ethereon between his thumb and forefinger.
They went on making slow progress up the tunnel until Nyla came to a halt. She said, “I think I’m starting to fall! Watch out.”
Quersius stabbed Ethereon back into the rubble and twisted it like a stake in the ground. “Don’t worry, I will catch you. Just try to land with your foot in my hand. I am ready when you are!” he shouted.
Nyla started to slide back down. She looked back and steered herself carefully toward Quersius’s outstretched palm, eventually alighting on it with her left foot. She dug her fingers into the sloped floor to try to decelerate as much as possible as he pushed up on her foot, and eventually she came to a stop.
Quersius had to close his eyes because of the debris raining down on him, but he wasn’t hurt by it. He was just glad that neither of them were injured by the awkward maneuver. “Okay, now I need you to jump as high as you can. I will try to throw you as well. Are you ready? If so, I'll count to three and then launch you.”
“I’m ready!” Nyla shouted.
Holding Nyla’s foot steady, Quersius lowered his hand toward his shoulder. He started the countdown as the water below continued its insidious rise. “One, two, three!” On three, he pushed upward with all his might as if he were throwing a shot put. Nyla leapt upward in turn, and the combined force sent her flying. With the last of her momentum, she ran as hard as she could up a particularly steep section of the tunnel, eventually clawing against it with her hands to keep moving. Just as she reached the peak of her precipitous rise, Nyla reached her hand out as far as she could and felt it smack against a cold slab of stone. After pulling herself the rest of the way up, she realized that she’d reached the end of the tunnel.
In front of her, Nyla heard the sound of a raging river in the once dry room where they had encountered the dragon sculpture. As water continued to fill the cave, she was struck by a feeling of powerlessness. It was frightening to be able to hear the surging water but not being able to see how deep it was. Surrounded only by darkness, she could do nothing but wait there for Quersius to arrive with their only light source.
Perched atop the tunnel entrance, Nyla stared down toward a faint glow until she finally saw Ethereon’s blade come into view. Quersius had almost made it. He kept crawling toward her until he reached the steepest section of the tunnel yet. Now they were only meters apart. Nyla wanted to yell words of encouragement at him, but the volume of the nearby water was so loud that she decided not to bother.
She watched as Quersius struggled to climb through the last part of the tunnel. He tried digging Ethereon into the floor again, but this time he wasn’t able to get enough leverage to twist it firmly into place. Nyla grabbed her bow and knelt down, holding it by the tip and extending her hand as far down the tunnel as she could reach.
Quersius saw Nyla’s bow and reached out as far as he could to try and grab it. At first he was unsuccessful, but then he decided to take a risk. He pushed off the wall with his feet to gain a few extra inches of height, risking an unstoppable fall in the process. Luckily, this allowed him to close the distance to Nyla’s bow and grab onto it. He used it to steady himself and walk the rest of the way up the slope. Nyla pulled up on the bow as Quersius pushed with his feet, and after a coordinated effort, he was able to join her on the section of flat ground at the end of the tunnel.
Grateful they had both made it this far, Quersius wanted to reach out to hug her, but given the precarity of their position, he decided against it. He looked down into the room they needed to cross next and saw just how high the water was getting. It was so loud here that Quersius practically had to scream at the top of his lungs just to be heard.
“We can still make it out of here if we try. Let’s go!” he shouted.
Nyla nodded but didn’t say anything back.
Understanding her silence perfectly, Quersius looked down into the murky water ahead of them. He didn’t want to jump, but he saw it rising quickly and realized they had no other choice. He glanced back at Nyla and met her tired eyes for a moment, then he returned his attention to the flooded room. He leaned forward and jumped in.
Nyla watched Quersius fall into the water. A splash erupted from its surface and hung for several seconds in the air before settling back down. Realizing that time was of the essence, she jumped in shortly after. Now that they had made it past the dragon’s tunnel, they continued their race against the flood to escape the cave.

Chapter 13With the water up to his chest, Quersius waded through the passage while holding Ethereon above the surface. He made fairly slow progress despite going as quickly as he could, but the constant reminder of the gaining flood motivated him further.
Since the water’s depth was about her height, Nyla had no choice but to swim. She had no trouble keeping up with Quersius, and she could have easily swum past him, but not wanting to leave his side, she slowed her pace to match his. She moved skillfully with an elegant breaststroke, barely stirring the water as she pulled herself through with her submerged hands and feet.
Farther down the passage, they encountered a cluster of stalactites that penetrated the water. Nyla grabbed them and pulled her way through while Quersius navigated between them with careful steps. After weaving through the brief stone maze, they were able to move freely through the water again. Despite its rising level, Quersius stood only waist deep after several long minutes of marching through. Nyla was finally able to reach the ground with her feet, but it was still too deep for her to wade in. Now moving more quickly than she was, Quersius offered his free hand to Nyla. She took it, and he started towing her behind him. They went on like this for a while until the water became shallow enough for them to both run through.
Taking long, bounding strides, they both ran as fast as they could, retracing their steps toward the entrance and gaining speed as the water level gradually declined. The rising elevation along the passage allowed them to outpace the flood for a while, but eventually the trend reversed as the deluge intensified.
Leaving epic splashes behind them with every step, they eventually came to a stop in a knee deep pool. The duo were faced with a familiar obstacle in a more narrow section of the cave. Ahead of them, the ceiling dipped below the water level and created a sump that they would have to hold their breath and dive through to cross.
“Remember this dip in the floor?” Quersius said.
“Yes I do. The first time we crossed there was just a small puddle there.”
Quersius shifted his weight. “Times have changed. We’re going to have to cross. You go first.”
Nyla nodded and took a deep breath. Before she went under, Quersius stopped her. “Wait, take a few extra breaths before you go. It’s going to be a long swim.”
Nyla complied and caught her breath until she knew she was ready.
“You’ve got this. I believe in you,” Quersius said. “I’ll wait a minute for you to cross, then I’ll come through.”
Not wanting to waste her breath, Nyla didn’t respond. She ducked under the silted water and disappeared immediately beneath its opaque surface.
Quersius stood there and waited. He started mentally counting the seconds as they elapsed, but he lost his train of thought after the twentieth one when he noticed how quickly the water was rising. It had swallowed his knees and didn’t show any signs of stopping. Having lost track of time in the loud room, he was consumed by thoughts of what Nyla might be experiencing in the treacherous sump.
He wasn’t sure if one minute had passed or two, but Quersius knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He memorized every detail of the low ceiling in front of him and sheathed Ethereon. Now in total darkness, he drew several quick breaths to prepare himself for the perilous dive. After inhaling deeply, he closed his eyes and ducked down until his head was underwater.
Quersius felt the stone ceiling rub against his back as he pulled himself forward into the flooded tunnel. He stayed as high in the water as he could, feeling the rough ceiling bump against him repeatedly as he searched for its lowest point. His boots felt especially heavy as he kicked his way through the sump, and the cold water forced him to fight the urge to gasp.
The ceiling kept descending for what felt like an eternity as it forced him to dive deeper and deeper. He eventually felt it give way and immediately pulled himself upward but was stuck in a small divot; a section of overhang blocked his passage. Stopping short of panic, Quersius dove deep enough to make his way past and swam forward with his eyes held shut.
He felt the last of the air dwindling in his lungs after he strategically exhaled another mouthful of bubbles. Quersius swam upward in hopes that the surface was near, but he felt his head bump again into the ceiling. This section seemed to be upward sloping, so he followed it closely and swam as calmly as he could until his head finally emerged in a pocket of air. He took in a deep breath and treaded water, moving forward until his feet reached a sloped section of ground in the increasingly shallow water. He rubbed his eyes thoroughly before opening them and pulling Ethereon from its sheath just enough to shed some light on his surroundings.
Quersius saw Nyla standing there above him. She bent down and reached her hand out, and he grabbed it. He pulled himself up until he was able to stand next to her in knee deep water. After unsheathing Ethereon fully and wielding it in his hand, he was able to see that they had both made it through the sump alive.
“Nyla!” Quersius shouted between gasps. “Thank goodness we made it.”
Nyla put her arm around him and held him close. “The water’s so cold! We’ve got to get out of here before we freeze to death,” she said, her voice wavering as she spoke.
“Alright,” Quersius said, taking a moment to catch his breath. “Let’s keep going.”
They both started running again through the cave, racing against water and time to retrace their steps. They passed several rows of stalagmites that jutted from the water’s ever rising surface. Despite the uneven ground beneath them, they hardly slowed their pace.
After a while, the cave floor became more sturdy and predictable. Though their waterlogged shoes squelched with each step, they were pleased to find that the ground ahead was merely damp, not soaked. Water trickled underfoot from somewhere farther ahead, but the worst of the flood appeared to be behind them.
“We’re almost there,” Quersius said, coming to a stop in front of a tall vertical crack in the wall. “Follow me,” he said, turning his body and making his way in.
“Hopefully shadow beasts can’t swim,” Nyla said. She entered behind Quersius and they both sidestepped through the winding tunnel. Just like last time, they had to contort their bodies past its twists and turns. Nyla was able to move fairly quickly. Quersius took more time due to the size of his frame.
They eventually emerged in another small room that was only a few meters across. Quersius said, “Okay just one more tunnel to get through. I can smell the fresh air already. This time, you go ahead of me; if not, I’ll just hold you up.” He could hear the sound of rainfall coming from outside the cave, and he guessed that it was especially intense.
Water was seeping in through the tunnel ahead of them. “Hurry, this place will be flooded in minutes!” Quersius warned.
Nyla nodded and got down on her hands and knees, crawling up to the entrance of the last squeeze. It was the same dirt passage they had struggled through once, but this time it wasn’t just made of dry dirt; it had a fresh coating of mud.
Water continued to rain down from outside. Nyla pulled herself along the tunnel with her elbows and clenched fists. She crawled through fairly quickly, aided by adrenaline and her small size. Seconds later, she emerged on the other side and shouted, “Okay, I made it through! Come on, I’m getting soaked over here!”
Once he got her signal, Quersius sheathed Ethereon and entered after her. Instead of being greeted by darkness, a trickle of twilight from the other side allowed him to barely see the cramped conditions of the crawl. He had to drag himself through the tight space on his hands and elbows. Rainwater seeped through, but he moved steadily, getting covered in mud as he trudged along. After a painstaking effort, he stuck his head out of the muddy hole near a rising pool of water with barely enough space to breathe.
Nyla grabbed his hand and helped Quersius pull himself the rest of the way out. He found himself in another passage with a low ceiling and had to hunch over to walk through it. After a brief walk behind Nyla through shin-deep water, the ceiling got high enough for him to stand up straight again, and he caught a glimpse of the cloudy sky. Huge drops of rain loudly pelted the puddle at their feet with each one making waves. Excited by the sight of freedom, Quersius hustled toward the last wall they needed to climb. Suddenly, he stepped into a steep drop off and fell into a waist deep pool of water.
Nyla circled around him, avoiding the same fate. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said, grabbing a root on the wall and starting her ascent.

Chapter 14Nyla grabbed another root on the wall and pulled herself closer to the cave’s exit. Giant raindrops fell slowly from above and kissed the top of her head. Besides the sound of the rain, she heard voices coming from outside.
As she got closer, she was able to discern a mantra being chanted in a dialect akin to dragonspeak. Curious, she grabbed another root and listened to the words they spoke, trying to understand them. She roughly translated the meaning to “Praise the tears of the great dragon. May he feel no pain wherever he flies.”
Nyla kept climbing until she was able to place her hand on the ground outside the cave. She placed the other beside it and started to pull herself through the same hole she had crawled in from. When her head peeked out beside the base of the nearby tree, the chanting gradually stopped.
After surfacing, Nyla noticed several Hyunderans staring at her with expressions ranging from fear to surprise. They started to whisper among themselves. One woman pointed a long, bony finger at Nyla and uttered something incomprehensible.
Quersius surfaced shortly after Nyla and stood next to her. He immediately felt unwelcome when he noticed a man slowly advancing toward them. The man held a spear in his hands and his brow was furrowed, though he was hesitant to attack.
Moments later, a small green-skinned child emerged from the crowd and came running up to Quersius. He touched Quersius’s leg affectionately and said something that apparently put the other Hyunderans at ease. Quersius recognized the child as the one he’d saved from the shadow beast before they entered the cave.
The rain stopped suddenly, and the clouds quickly parted to reveal the morning sun. Still blackened by the curse, its permanent twilight cut through the once overcast sky. Witnessing the miraculous change in the weather, the threatening man dropped his spear and fell to his knees. Soon after, the rest of the Hyunderans did the same.
The Hyunderan man said something in Dragonspeak. Nyla understood it to mean “all hail the great dragon.” The rest of the Hyunderans echoed his statement in unison and stared reverently at Nyla and Quersius.
Quersius glanced at Nyla with a look of confusion. Having only recently learned a bit of dragonspeak, he could only recognize a few of the words they were saying.
Nyla, on the other hand, understood exactly what was going on. She took a step forward and addressed the Hyunderans. “Greetings, Hyunderans, we mean you no harm. We only wish to be your allies,” she said in dragonspeak.
The man who once held the spear looked up at Nyla from his kneeling position. “Great dragon gods, you saved our precious child from the shadow beasts. Please allow us to repay you,” he said in his own tongue. “Thank you for blessing us with your presence. We didn’t expect you to answer our prayers,” he added, bowing his head respectfully.
Only understanding him partially, Nyla gave a sincere reply. “You are most welcome. We have come to save the sun from a land far away. Our travels through this cave have left us exhausted and near death.”
The man noticed them shivering in their mud soaked clothes. “Then let us celebrate. Thanks to you, the sun shall return,” he replied. After he spoke, the rest of the Hyunderans stood up and started cheering.
Though grateful he didn’t have to deal with another fight, Quersius’s limited knowledge of dragonspeak left him confused. During the Hyunderans’ cheers, he whispered to Nyla, “What’s going on? I think I heard him say thank you?”
“They want to party with us,” Nyla answered.
Quersius’s face softened. “I think I’m okay with that,” he said.
The Hyunderans led the way down a path in the forest as the two humans followed behind, still dripping wet from their trials in the dungeon. Quersius couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he was pleased to recognize a celebratory tone in their voices. After a brief trek, they arrived in another village. Much larger than the first, this one had varied architecture. It featured several thatched roof huts on the outskirts with a few taller buildings closer to the center.
They were guided toward a brick building between two huts by the same man who almost attacked them. He said something in dragonspeak, and Quersius looked at Nyla expecting an interpretation.
“Coriwog here said we both need a bath,” Nyla explained.
“We most certainly do,” Quersius said, feeling his mud soaked clothes against his chafed skin.
They reached the entrance of the building, and Nyla relayed another message from their Hyunderan escort. “Let’s take our shoes off and leave them outside.”
Quersius nodded. “Of course, how could I forget,” he said, bending down to unfasten the buckles on his boots. He kicked them off and left them in the dirt outside the building, then he said “Thanks, Coriwog,” in a clumsy attempt at Dragonspeak.
Coriwog nodded at him and said something he couldn’t understand, but Quersius imagined that he meant to say “You’re welcome.” Coriwog opened the door and held it ajar for both of them to enter.
Quersius followed Nyla into the building and stepped barefoot onto its wooden floor. Twilight filtered in through glassless windows along the wall of the modest bathhouse. Across the room there were four stalls. Three of them had a circular basin inside, but a curtain was drawn across the fourth which seemed to be occupied.
Coriwog entered behind them and closed the door. He led them toward the stalls and pointed to the one on the far left, saying something in dragonspeak. Quersius didn’t understand what he said, but at the end of his sentence Coriwog mentioned his name, so he figured the stall was meant for him.
Nyla waited patiently as Coriwog walked over to a cabinet and returned with a towel and a bar of soap. He handed them to Quersius and walked into the stall, saying something else and pointing up at a cord hanging from a wooden inlet above the basin. Quersius didn’t understand the exact meaning of his words, but he nodded assuredly, guessing that he was explaining how to control the water flow. He recycled his limited vocabulary and said, “Thank you, Coriwog,” in Dragonspeak.
Coriwog patted Quersius on the arm before leaving him alone in the stall. He approached Nyla, looked up at her, then addressed her in Dragonspeak. “Follow me, miss Nyla.”
Coriwog walked over to an unobtrusive staircase against the adjacent wall. It was made of irregular wooden planks that were presumably nailed into place from the outside. The steps creaked as Coriwog ascended them, and they fluttered in place as he left each one behind.
Guessing that she weighed more than the diminutive man, Nyla was unsure if the stairs would support her. Given further pause by the lack of a guardrail, she waited until Coriwog had reached the top of the staircase to put her foot on the first step.
Noticing her hesitation, Coriwog offered encouraging words of Dragonspeak from up on the landing. “Don’t be scared. You aren’t even close to the largest customer we’ve had.”
Nyla nodded and curled her lip. She leaned forward with her hand against the wall and pulled her back foot onto the rickety step. It bent unnervingly beneath her, but it held firm. She looked up at the next one and put her foot on it closer to the wall. Feeling more steady, she continued this pattern and quickly climbed the rest of the stairs with a narrow gait.
Nyla joined Coriwog on the landing. “I knew you could do it. Right this way please.” He walked through a doorless archway that Nyla had to duck through to enter. The room she found herself in had a similar layout to the last, but it had only three stalls instead of four. “Please pick out any stall you want,” Coriwog told her.
Nyla inspected each of the stalls as Coriwog walked over to a shelf across the room. The first two seemed to have residue in the tubs, but the one on the far right was much more clean. She decided she would take it.
Coriwog returned with a shag towel and a bar of soap. He handed it to Nyla and gave her instructions for operating the spigot. “Just pull this cord above the tub to fill it with water, and pull it again to stop the flow.”
Nyla smiled at him. “Okay, thank you.”
“My pleasure. Do you need anything else from me?”
“No, I think I have everything.”
“Alright, then. Enjoy,” Coriwog said. He left the room and walked back down the stairs, leaving Nyla alone on the second floor.
Shivering and still damp from the cave, Nyla drew the curtain behind her and placed the towel on a low bench. She pulled the cord hanging nearby, and a slot opened in the wall to reveal a wooden ramp. Almost immediately a stream of water coursed downward into the tub. Nyla was glad to see steam wafting from it, and she quickly undressed, eager to feel its warm embrace.
She decided against placing her filthy clothes on the bench and placed them on the floor instead. Once naked, she stepped into the tub and heaved a relieved sigh as the water continued pouring in. Within seconds, it reached her knees, and within a minute the tub was filled completely. Nyla pulled the cord again, and the wooden chute sprang back into place in the wall.
At first the water was scalding, but Nyla acclimated to it quickly. She settled into the tub and felt a wave of euphoria wash over her as she reclined fully. She scrubbed her hands underwater until the dirt on them drifted away, and then she ran her fingers through her hair. Still covered with dirt and flecks of debris, she knew they would need careful attention to wash clean.
She first took a moment to enjoy the water’s warm reprieve. The faint sound of distant conversations filled the steamy air as she shifted her bruised back against the contours of the basin.
As the heat of the bath began to subside, Nyla started cleaning herself vigorously. She gathered suds from the soap and scrubbed her skin until it was spotless from head to toe, then she started washing her hair. She dunked her head underwater and carefully combed her fingers through it, making sure not to break her delicate curls while pulling the dirt loose.
Once satisfied with her cleanliness, Nyla stood up and stepped out of the tub. She grabbed the towel from the nearby bench and mopped the water from her body, then she dabbed it through her hair until it was no longer dripping wet. She shook her head a few times and her auburn curls fell perfectly into place.
Noticing her filthy clothes laying in a pile on the floor, Nyla decided she’d rather incinerate them than put them back on. Instead, she wrapped the towel around her body and tucked the end of it by her chest.
She opened the curtain and left the stall. She approached the stairs but stopped short of them, realizing she didn’t want to be seen wearing nothing but a towel in the men’s section. Moments later, she heard the stairs creaking and returned to the stall for some privacy.
A Hyunderan woman’s voice called out to her in Dragonspeak from atop the stairwell. “Miss Nyla, are you decent?”
Nyla poked her head out of the stall and saw the green skinned woman standing in the doorway with a neatly folded garment in hand. “Yes, I am,” she replied.
The woman started walking toward the stall. “I have brought you something to wear. You humans are so tall that most of ours won’t fit, but hopefully this will do,” she said.
Nyla walked out of the stall still wearing the towel and met the woman there. “Thank you,” she said, reaching out to grab what the woman had brought for her.
The woman pulled her arms away. “I will help you dress. Now turn around and don’t be shy,” she said.
Nyla nodded and turned around. The woman pulled at her towel until it fell by her feet. “Such beautiful skin you have. It’s spotted, just like the animal that gave us this pelt,” she said, draping the animal’s furry hide around Nyla’s delicate shoulders. Its hollow head hung like a hood behind her back. “And those scales. At first I doubted that you really were a dragon god, but now I am convinced,” she said, brushing her tapered fingers across the back of Nyla’s neck. “I’ve never seen a creature like you before. You certainly are a curious sort.”
Feeling self conscious, Nyla pulled the edges of the animal pelt around herself. “Thank you, but I always hated my scales. Where I’m from, my people disowned me for them,” she said, turning around to face the woman.
The woman scoffed in disbelief. “Your people should revere you just as we do now. For saving our child from the shadow beasts, you’ve earned that treatment.”
“Thank you, miss..”
The woman interrupted Nyla. “Diamanda. That’s my name,” she said, walking toward the stall where Nyla had bathed. “Please, keep this pelt as a token of our appreciation. I will wash your clothes.” She picked up Nyla’s clothes and gathered them in her hands.
Nyla smiled, thrilled to be adorned with such an otherworldly pelt. It draped past her knees and was covered in red fur with circular blue spots.
Before Nyla could think of anything else to say, the woman walked back toward the stairs and said, “Come this way. We have prepared a meal for you.”
“Yes, miss Diamanda. Thanks again,” Nyla replied in Dragonspeak as Diamanda started descending toward the men’s section.
Nyla walked toward the stairwell and started making her way down. She took care to avoid splintered areas of the wooden planks as she made her way down with bare feet. At the bottom, she saw Quersius standing there dressed in a long white pelt with black stripes. When she reached the bottom she stood by his side, but Diamanda was nowhere to be seen.
Coriwog came up to Nyla and placed a pair of sandals on the ground beside her. She stepped into them and slid the strings between her toes, finding them quite comfortable compared to the soaked boots she had left outside.
Coriwog walked over to the door and held it open. “Right this way,” he said in dragonspeak.
Nyla started moving toward the door. Quersius followed her out of the building and waited for Coriwog to lead them on their way.
After walking past a few modest huts, they were guided to a communal area with several wooden tables, each with its own fire pit. In the middle, a larger fire pit with logs already piled high was set ablaze.
Quersius watched as trays of alien fruits were set on a nearby table, and an elderly woman cut them into pieces with a knife. Suddenly, a man appeared beside him and said something in dragonspeak. He offered Quersius a skewer with a variety of delicacies attached. Quersius couldn’t understand the man, so he merely smiled and said, “Thank you,” in dragonspeak and took it from him graciously.

He examined the skewer’s samplings. There were several different plant based foods on it, each a different color than the last. Quersius lifted it to his nose and twisted it slowly as he sniffed each one.
The scents were unlike anything he had smelled before. The closest parallel he could find for one of them was the smell of fresh falafel. Quersius put the skewer to his lips and took the blue fruit at the end into his mouth. He chewed it slowly, and despite its strange texture, he was pleasantly surprised by its sweet taste.
Coriwog turned to Nyla and said something in dragonspeak. She relayed the message to Quersius. “They want us to sit for a meal,” she explained.
Quersius saw Coriwog pointing to an empty section of a bench along the nearby table. He and Nyla made their way over and sat there between some other Hyunderans. On Quersius’s left was a barrel chested man who looked like an incredible arm wrestler despite his small stature. On Nyla’s right, a young girl with a spiked mohawk stuck out like a sore thumb at the table. Quersius’s dark brown skin was in stark contrast to the green skin shared by all the villagers, as was Nyla’s lighter tone.
There were several placemats on the table but no plates. A recently prepared tray of sliced fruit sat in the middle, and the Hyunderans grabbed handfuls at a time to dump on the nearest placemat. Because there were more Hyunderans at the table than placemats, the mounting piles of food were shared between others sitting nearby.
Following their lead, Nyla reached out and grabbed a handful of fruit from the tray and placed it on the mat between herself and Quersius. Famished from her long quest through the cave, Nyla picked through the colorful variety of fruit and quickly ate the ones that most appealed to her. After finishing the food on his skewer, Quersius ate what she had left behind.
“This tastes much better than I expected,” Quersius said.
“I agree. The purple melon is my favorite,” Nyla replied while chewing through a mouthful of the stuff.
Before long, all the fruit on the mat was gone. Quersius reached out and scraped together a handful of what little remained on the tray and dropped it on their placemat. He and Nyla took turns picking up pieces and tossing them in their mouths. While Nyla preferred the purple melon cubes, Quersius took a particular liking to the green berries. After a ravenous exchange of hand to mouth maneuvers, their second helping of fruit had been consumed from their placemat entirely, and no more remained on the central tray.
Quersius felt a finger poke his back, and he turned around to see the child that he rescued from the shadow beast standing there with an oval-shaped ball in his hand. He said something to him in Dragonspeak, but Quersius could only understand a few of his words. Though Quersius nodded along, the kid sensed the language barrier between them. Instead of pestering him with more talk, the kid took a few steps back and held the ball as if he was about to throw it.
Quersius stood up from the table and followed the boy over to a more open area of the commons. The boy turned around and jogged back a few meters while facing Quersius. He pulled the ball over his shoulder and threw it gently. The ball spiraled through the air and floated slowly toward Quersius.
Quersius opened his hands and caught it with ease. He copied the boy’s form and threw it back to him, but overestimating the necessary force, he overthrew it. The ball flew high above the boy’s head.
Instead of giving up on the catch, the kid turned around and ran as fast as he could until he was moving faster than the ball. He leapt powerfully with his spring-like legs and flew far higher than Quersius ever could. He leaned forward as he gained height, then he caught the ball about fifteen feet above the ground. After his catch, the boy careened through the air in a diving motion, front flipping just before he came to a sliding stop on his feet.
The kid ran further back, then he wound up and threw the ball much more forcefully. Quersius watched as it spiralled in a beautiful arc, and he knew he would have to jump to catch it. Quersius jumped as high as he could, reaching a height of about twelve feet and throwing both of his arms over head as the ball came near. He stretched out as far as he could and barely managed to clasp it between his fingers, then he came back to the ground and landed in the same place he had jumped from. Knowing that he was no match for the boy’s agility, he tried as best as he could this time to throw it directly at him.
Quersius heard a voice behind him. “Quersius, we should get out of here. They said they want to build statues of us.” He turned around and saw Nyla standing there with her hands on her hips.
“Yeah, we should probably get moving,” Quersius agreed.
“But first, let me see if I’m as good of an athlete as I am a cave diver,” Nyla said, cracking her interlaced fingers.
Quersius smiled. “Sure, go for it,” he said, stepping to the side.
Nyla turned her attention to the boy and bounded forward across the ground. He raised the ball over his shoulder, took aim, and then slung it toward her. The ball went flying high, and Nyla jumped up when it came near. She grabbed it with both hands high above her head and then brought it down toward her chest. She took it in her left hand and then passed it behind her back toward Quersius.
Quersius almost didn’t notice it in time, but just before the ball hit the ground, he swatted it upward with his right hand and then ran forward, bobbling it several times before he was able to secure both hands around it.
He jogged up to the boy and faked a pass before spinning around and shuttling it back toward him. The boy caught it effortlessly and did a couple juke moves. Then he twirled the ball around his finger in an impressive display of dexterity.
Nyla ran up behind Quersius and joined him. The three of them stood together in a patch of dirt. “We’ve got to be going now, but it was fun playing with you,” she said in Dragonspeak. “Tell everyone we said thanks.”
The boy seemed disappointed at first, but then he smiled at Nyla and replied in Dragonspeak. “Sure, I hope we meet again sometime.” He then looked at Quersius. “Thanks for saving my life.”
Quersius didn’t know exactly what the boy said; he only understood the word “thanks.” He reached out his palm and smiled back at him. The kid slapped Quersius’s hand with his own and then ran back toward the fire.
Charmed by his gentle nature, Nyla and Quersius both turned to watch him leave. After a moment Nyla said, “Alright, time to go. Let's not linger.”
“You’re right. Follow me,” Quersius replied. He and Nyla ran across the edge of the village until they reached the opening in the trees they had entered through. Quersius disappeared into the forest. Nyla paused for a moment to look back at the villagers. She smiled and muttered, “Thanks,” in Dragonspeak, then she caught up with Quersius as he made his way back toward the clearing.Chapter 15After running back across the same beaten path they had followed to the village, Nyla and Quersius found themselves in another clearing. They saw a familiar tree with a hole in the ground beside it and immediately recognized the cave entrance.
“I hope you enjoyed Hyundera,” Quersius said, still catching his breath.
“It wasn’t my idea of the perfect vacation, but I really like the culture,” Nyla replied. She reached for the dragoncall but forgot for a moment that she was no longer wearing her tunic. She looked down at the beautiful spotted pelt she was wearing and remembered where the pockets were. After retrieving the dragoncall, she held it in hand and gestured toward Quersius. “Shall we?”
“We shall.”
Nyla put the dragoncall to her lips and blew it with the last of her breath. She returned it to her pocket and looked up past the trees. The blackened sun sat high in the sky above the clearing. Basking in the twilight, she admired the exotic shapes of the leaves in the forest. “I definitely won’t miss camping in the jungle, but I think I will miss the trees. I’ve never seen anything like them back home.”
“That’s for sure,” Quersius said, grabbing the lapel of his newfound robe. “The animals here are quite vicious but they are also beautiful. I don’t think I ever properly thanked the Hyunderans for this lovely pelt.”
“They really were such a lovely gift. Let’s just hope we won’t have to go crawling through mud while wearing them,” Nyla said.
The trees began to stir in a gentle breeze as the two humans took a moment to appreciate their surroundings. After the wind came to a lull, they heard a familiar groan. A black dragon appeared above the clearing and came to a halt in midair. It descended slowly between the trees, losing height with each flap of its wings until it landed on the ground.
Elbert grunted again and ran up to Nyla like an excited dog many times her size. She placed her hand on his shoulder when he came close, and he draped his neck fondly over hers.
“Good to see you, Elbert,” Nyla said.
“Where would we be without him?” Quersius asked, eying the dragon from a distance.
Nyla smirked. “Definitely not here, that’s for sure.” She stepped back from his embrace and looked up at his saddle, happy to see that their belongings were still tied down securely. “Now let’s go. Xyvar awaits,” she said.
Quersius watched Nyla jump high into the air and land on Elbert’s back. “Mind if I join you?” he said.
Nyla stared down at Elbert’s face, sensing his excitement. “Please do, we’re waiting.”
Quersius walked up to Elbert and approached his side. Then he jumped up onto his saddle. After tying his new robe more tightly, he settled into place behind Nyla.
Nyla looked back at Quersius. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Alright, Elbert. Take us up!”
Elbert leapt from the ground and flapped his wings rhythmically, blowing the underbrush into a vortex beneath him as he made a controlled ascent from the clearing. Nyla watched the trunks of the trees pass by with each wingbeat until they had reached the top of the forest. With the canopy under his claws, she nudged Elbert to fly toward the blackened sun.
As Elbert flew forward, Quersius watched the colorful trees of Hyundera race by. They began to blur together, resembling delicious confections as Elbert picked up speed. Once they had long since passed the clearing, Quersius scanned the horizon, trying to locate the village they had left behind. When he wasn’t able to find it, he thought of the kid that he saved from the shadow beast and wondered what he might be doing.
At the front of the saddle, Nyla watched the edge of the forest fly past as a low mountain range came into view. She took a deep breath of Hyundera’s wet air and savored its sights as she prepared to leave the planet behind.
After they climbed to their final cruising altitude, Nyla reached into her pocket and pulled out the dragonstone. “Okay, hold on tight! Here we go!” She shouted, grasping it firmly.
Quersius hunkered down in the saddle and readied himself for the mystical voyage. “You’ve got this, Nyla!” he shouted.
Violet light began to pour from Nyla’s fingers, and the scales on her neck glowed white as the dragonstone took hold of her. Quersius watched the sun and the clouds start to leave trails in the sky, and a loud ripping sound erupted all around him. Suddenly, a once invisible seam ripped open in front of Elbert, revealing a pitch black interior that swallowed them whole as they flew inside.
Everything became dark as they left the previous dimension behind. Silence overtook the empty space, and Quersius heard nothing but the ringing in his ears. The constant whine started as faint background noise, but it intensified as Elbert glided calmly through the darkness until it reached a deafening volume.
A long bodied blue dragon with translucent skin materialized in front of them and met Nyla’s eyes with an intense stare. It whipped its tail, and a loud crack rang out through the universe. Stars rippled into existence until the once dark and empty expanse was filled with them. The ringing in Quersius’s ears stopped and he recognized the spirit dragon as it flew toward them. Before colliding head-on with Elbert, it steered out of the way and disappeared behind them.
Quersius turned around but only saw a rainbow colored planet fading into the distance. Suddenly, he heard a booming voice from every direction. “Children of Novaclatz, you have come seeking my guidance. Follow me closely,” it said. Quersius faced forward and saw the spirit dragon flying ahead of them.
Elbert flapped his wings, instinctively chasing after the mysterious beast. As Elbert followed after it, Quersius felt the sense of sudden weightlessness start to subside. He was pressed firmly into the saddle as they accelerated at a blistering pace through the airless vacuum of interdimensional space.
The spirit dragon came to a sudden halt. Seven spheres spewed from its mouth and formed a circle in front of it. Its voice came again, echoing throughout the cosmos. “I understand the nature of your quest to restore the light of the sun. The crown prince of your kingdom has already liberated the second of the seven sigils and wishes to be allowed passage to the third. Is that correct, dragon rider?”
Speechless, Quersius watched the ring of planets spin around as the spirit dragon waited for an answer. He heard Nyla cry out in front of him. “Yes, spirit dragon,” she said.
The ring of planets stopped spinning, and one of them grew larger while the others grew small. The spirit dragon spoke again. “The planet of Xyvar holds the next sigil, though I cannot take you there at this time.” Suddenly, the seven planets scattered in different directions until they were no longer visible.
The spirit dragon issued a command. “You must first reconvene with your band. I sense that they require your assistance.”
Nyla was confused by this. “Our band? Do you mean Acid Black Dragon?” she asked.
Quersius felt himself become weightless again as they hovered behind the spirit dragon, waiting in silence for its reply. After a pause, it answered. “Band can mean a great many things, dragon rider. I cannot possibly tell you all there is to know. I can only lead you in the way of destiny.”
A distant star began to grow in size until it revealed itself to be another planet with oceans and forests. “With every sigil strike, something awakens in you, dragon rider. Though you do not bear the weight of the mystic sword, I know you feel its power. Use it wisely as it courses through you; the universe rests in your hands.”
“I have felt this power, spirit dragon. What does it mean?” Nyla asked
“Soon you shall see for yourself,” the spirit dragon answered.
The spirit dragon slithered ahead, and the stars left light trails when Elbert flapped his wings to follow after it. Quersius became heavier again until it felt like he was being crushed under his own weight. The ringing in his ears returned and got louder and louder. Soon the stars became a blur, and the blue planet sped toward them.
The spirit dragon swung its claw. A loud ripping sound echoed through space, and a jagged hole was opened in the darkness. The spirit dragon’s blue flesh became increasingly transparent until it vanished completely.
Elbert sped toward the hole. Quersius saw its blurry blue interior approach until it enveloped them. Moments later, the ringing in his ears was replaced by the sound of crashing waves. Turning his head upward, he saw the blackened sun directly overhead in clear skies. Its twilight shone down on an endless expanse of sea.
Quersius clutched his chest, and he gasped for air. He felt his body return to its familiar weight atop Elbert’s saddle. In front of him, he saw the light fade from Nyla’s scales as she stared toward the horizon.
“Where are we?” Quersius screamed.
“I see the castle over there!” Nyla shouted. Feeling the wind in her hair, she watched the water’s unrelenting dance as she and Quersius shared the joy of realizing they were home.