129 – Celebrant

Embralyne was ashamed to admit that she froze underneath the sorcerer’s attention, though not out of fear. Rather, indecision. Every instinct screamed at her to tear herself out of her half-dragon form and engage the enemy with tooth, claw, and fire, yet for however much she had dawdled and not treated an expedition into the mortal lands as seriously as she should have—a reality she could only admit now, with a city hanging under an execution’s blade—she nevertheless did obey the law of dragons. Her father’s law. And Father had made one thing clear: dragons did not interfere with the happenings of the mortal realm.

She had always found that decree sensible. Separation protected both nations, and what occurred in distant realms did not concern her kind, doubly so when they adamantly refused her people’s rule. Prior to Father’s unification of their homeland, conflict between mortal and immortal lands had been plentiful—so to prevent further strife, a clean separation was needed.

Even her presence in Prismarche was only excusable under the reasoning that she was investigating a rogue element. And while she was here, Father’s decrees were clear: minimize involvement and avoid being recognized for what she was.

Certainly she wasn’t allowed to throw herself into the midst of a mad, city-consuming ritual.

And yet.

Her gaze drifted to the pair of young siblings slouched against a wall. The boy seemed to have, somehow and inexplicably, recognized what was happening before he’d slipped into unconsciousness. Because even as he’d fallen over, he had covered his sister with his body. It was too clear and deliberate a position to be coincidence.

A cold sensation passed through her, and her hands clenched into fists. Her gaze slid back to the figure floating between eight bone pillars—between shards carved from the Colossus’s skeleton.

It seems I’ll be putting Father to the test, she thought darkly. And finding out whether the Dragon King will slay even his own family for disobeying.

Though that assumed she survived this to begin with.

She crouched, then launched herself upward. The paved street beneath her disintegrated, and wind whipped through her hair as she rapidly gained elevation. As she climbed, she shed her human disguise. Gray wings sprouted from her back and horns grew from atop her head. Scales crept up her arms and legs to elbows and knees. Her weapons and armor came last—an enormous sword settling into her right hand, and her true set of armor replacing her previous.

Despite the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t help but sigh in pleasure at stretching her wings. Most dragons weren’t fond of walking around in their half-dragon form for long, and that was far more pleasant than human transmogrification. She’d known she’d felt cramped inside that false skin, but she hadn’t realized how much so until now.

The unknown mage didn’t react to her transformation—not so far as she could tell, at least. Reading an expression behind a blindfold was rather difficult. Yet his posture didn’t shift, and he kept his head tilted in mild curiosity and nothing more.

Not afraid of a dragon, I see. She would call him a fool for that, but one of Father’s first lessons had been never to underestimate a foe. It went against her nature to treat an opponent like an equal, even when all evidence suggested otherwise. Perhaps that was why Father had put so much effort into drilling the lesson in.

Her wings threw up a gust of air as she propelled herself toward the man. Though she itched to fling herself into immediate combat, a part of her hoped, perhaps nonsensically, that she could minimize how much she involved herself with this… situation. Whatever it was.

He watched her approach, unworried even when—with another gust of her wings—she slowed to a stop several dozen feet away. She hovered there, between two huge bone shards taken from the Colossus’s corpse.

“Name yourself, sorcerer,” she called out.

He didn’t respond right away, simply studied her with that inscrutable, blindfolded gaze. Gray wisps of energy continued slithering up from the city beneath them, draining the townsfolk, and seeing them, she almost demanded an immediate answer.

But while she wasn’t Solfirus, she was still a dragon. She could sense the flow of mana better than any except perhaps the strongest mortal archmages. The draining effect—whatever it was—was acting slowly. That much energy needed time to siphon. Prismarche’s civilians weren’t moments from death.

“This does not concern you or your kind,” the man finally answered in a rasp. “You will not interfere. Your King will not allow it.”

She almost snarled at the response. Personally lamenting the necessity of going against her father was one thing, but for this monster to throw that dilemma in her face? She pointed her sword at him. “I said name yourself, cretin.”

The beastkin remained unperturbed. Despite the cloth around his eyes, his attention drifted toward her weapon. “Ashfall,” he remarked. “That blade belongs to the Mantle-Breaker. You are his kin?”

Unease tingled through her. There were very few people not born in her homeland to have then ventured there. For one to recognize her father’s previous blade implied… she wasn’t sure what it implied. But age. And experience. Though she supposed the construction of a city-destroying ritual was proof of that by itself.

Her eyes slid upward to his long, branching antlers—the most distinguishing trait, even compared to his flowing black hair and blindfold. A story told to her many decades ago bubbled to the surface of her mind, and her eyes narrowed.

“The Twilight Celebrant,” she said.

He seemed neither surprised nor pleased by the acknowledgment. He took it in stride like everything before. “An old name,” he croaked. “Older than most. Not the one I bear now. Your father tells stories, I see.”

The situation was, somehow, worse than she’d expected. A mad ritualist was one thing… a member of the Selrath-Kyn another.

Yet it also changed nothing. “Cease this madness and leave. I will not pursue.”

“This does not involve you or your kind.” He turned away and refocused on the center of the ritual, where the draining energy gathered. “And you are no threat. Begone, whelp of the Mantle-Breaker.”

The disregard filled her with hot and immediate fury. Dragonfire sprang up around her sword, and, with two hands, she slashed forward. An arc of brilliant orange-and-gray flame detached from her blade and hurtled toward the mage—only to wash impotently across a sphere of green mana.

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It hadn’t even been a probing strike, merely a way of drawing his attention. A tossed handful of mud. Even so, the casual ease with which he had deflected dragonfire—her dragonfire, which even Father acknowledged as potent—didn’t bode well.

She accomplished her goal, in any case. His gaze returned to her, and a slight frown creased his lips.

“You break your people’s oaths?”

“I will not stand by as you murder a city.”

“It is not your city to defend.”

“Nevertheless, I am here.”

They met each other’s gazes.

“Always complications,” the Twilight Celebrant rasped. “The Dragon King’s spawn, here to resist. Fate conspires at every turn.”

“Reflect on why even the heavens work against you, monster.”

His lips pulled back—a grotesque approximation of a smile. “Ah, do not misunderstand. Their desperation delights me. When even the gods are trembling, I know I walk the proper course.”