Once camp was set, Siegyrd took the time to track and hunt a small deer, trying to teach Alexei to hunt alongside him. The lion, only recently and partially tamed, almost ruined the hunt, and did ruin a portion of the meat, but nonetheless they came back with food aplenty.

  Silas helped gather the wood, and Aerendir taught the boy how to start the fire without magic, using the friction from a sharpened stick pulled between tines atop the tinder and a carved out section of dry bark to create a flue for air. It was exhausting for Silas, but his eyes grew bright as starlight when the first issue of smoke began. In his haste to blow on it he very nearly blew it out.

  Aerendir reached his hand down and blocked the boy from blowing too hard, then steadied him, “Calmly, intentionally.” He showed the slow almost whistling exhale through tight lips into the flue and a small fire properly caught in the tinder. Over the next few minutes they slowly built it up, and by the time the hunters returned, there was flame ready for cooking.

  Siegyrd drew his small curved skinning knife and beckoned Silas over, “Come here, Silas.”

  “I helped make fire! I did it all myself!” Silas ran up and then stood proudly, hands on hips.

  Mareth walked up and flicked the boy’s ear hard and said, “What’ve we said about lying, little man? Give proper credit.”

  Silas rubbed his ear and bobbed his head and shoulders side to side as if resisting his own words, “Uncle Airndeer helped some.”

  Another flick, a slight little yowl. “Ok he helped a lot, but I learned, and I was helpful!” The boy covered both his ears and huddled down to the ground.

  Mareth laughed, and Siegyrd knelt in front of Silas and gently pulled one of his hands from his ear and said, “That was much better, and thank you for helping with the fire.

  Now,” he smiled, “you will help me with the skinning of the deer.”

  Silas grinned and said, “Ok!” He walked forward to the deer and looked at it blankly.

  “Where’s your knife?” Siegyrd asked.

  Silas paused then started frantically patting down his body, checked through the small pouch he had been given, and spun around in circles before running back toward the fire. He found it sitting unsheathed next to where he had used it (under Aerendir’s direction) to create shavings for the fire. He picked it up gingerly, looked at Aerendir who nodded, and Silas put it in its sheathe and then ran back to Siegyrd.

  “Keeping better track will ensure you are always ready, but you retraced your steps quickly enough. Now, first we must move farther away from the camp in case of predators.” Siegyrd said.

  Mareth quipped, “We are training one predator in camp, and you brothers are more frightening than anything else in this forest.”

  Siegyrd yelled back, “He won’t always have us, Mareth. He ought to learn right so he can pass it on to his son some day.”

  Silas stopped dead at that and furrowed his brow and pressed his lips together. After a little he shook off his seriousness and then jotted quickly to catch up to Siegyrd who had slung the deer easily over one shoulder and walked into the forest. Alexei trailed them, eyeing the boy. Siegyrd turned at just that moment and gazed at the lion that cowered back at the look. Siegyrd stared down the lion as Silas caught up to him, and the two walked out and away side-by-side.

  Mareth eyed Aerendir, “He really didn’t tell you?”

  Aerendir laughed, “Knowing my little brother, he probably forgot about it, or thought it so insignificant so as not to be important.”

  Mareth cocked his head, “Insignificant?”

  Aerendir set another larger log on the fire and stared into the dancing blaze as he responded, “Meant no offense to your pains, wizard. Just expressing something of Siegyrd’s character. He has a funny habit of finding important what no one else does, and disregarding whatever is chiefly important to the mass of men.”

  Aerendir’s smile was genuine and happy, though, Mareth thought, a little sadder than normal.

  “He reminds of someone?”

  Aerendir looked up at Mareth, then back at the fire. “Well spotted, wizard. Of our father.”

  “I do not mean to pry.”

  “No” Aerendir’s dissent was louder than he intended so he softened his tone, “No, it’s fine. It’s part of the tale we must tell.”

  “It seems my own tale must be told this night as well.” Mareth said.

  “Only if it pleases you. Or if it bears weight on our mission, which you will know better once Siegyrd and I have shared ours. I have no love for secrets, exposing, telling, nor creating.” Aerendir looked up his eyes piercing past the treetops into the deep space between the stars.

  “Part of this,” Aerendir began, “I can share before Siegyrd returns, and he will help pick up what I have missed.”

  “Are you certain? It’s no bother to wait. The night is long, and though our quest seems dire, you seem calmer than before.”

  “Ah,” Aerendir said, “yes. I felt the fateline snap the moment Siegyrd dropped the muse of silence. I cannot know how human, or near-human, intuition feels. I have never been human, as I am sure you have already guessed.”

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Mareth simply nodded.

  Aerendir continued, “The snapping of a fateline, the end of an intuition is a kind of loss for my kind. It is a yawning chasm of seeping darkness that grows where purpose was once clear as crystal shining in the dawn. Without aim we struggle. A fateline is a special kind of aim. It flies straight and true as an arrow fired from Bogir?st the bow that is said to have been wielded by Apeiron himself to fire the first rays of light into the distant corners of the universe.”

  “I thought Bogir?st was the bow of the Queen of Dawn, an ancient story from another world.”

  “Pretty stories, some semblance of truth in them both I suspect. Though the bow exists at least.” Aerendir said.

  “You have seen it!”

  Aerendir laughed, “And if I have?”

  Mareth sighed, “You toy with me and my insatiable curiosity for the things of power, of song, of magic and muse.”

  Aerendir stood and walked over to his bedroll to sit and make himself more comfortable. “Have you heard of the path of silent stars in your study of the dragons?”

  Mareth looked puzzled, “Nothing of the sort. Then again, until today I didn’t know they could take on human form either.”

  Aerendir smiled, “What of Lady Zaralai?”

  Mareth stretched himself out on his bedroll next to the fire and looked up at the stars, “I couldn’t be sure if it was just a manifestation in the dream or if it were a true form.”

  “Then you saw the sovereign dragonkin today.”

  Mareth shook his head as if both surprised and totally unsurprised that Aerendir knew more than he said. Mareth spoke, “Yes, I saw it.”

  “Our father was like him, the one you saw today. A Sovereign.” Aerendir’s voice was distant.

  Mareth hummed unsurprised at the clear revelation of what he had largely already known.

  Siegyrd’s voice could be heard somewhat near giving direction to Silas, and Aerendir listened for a moment, then spoke, “Ossian son of Iranaeus and his beloved Angharvad, was among the last of the Sovereigns. His song ended in the path of the silent stars, far beyond the reach of melody.”

  Mareth sat up and looked at Aerendir, “You know none of that made any sense to me.”

  Aerendir smiled, and continued, “The oldest dragons, the firstborns, or rather first made, were sovereigns and queens. There were seven sovereigns over seven families. More than simple titles or functions, the sovereigns and their queens were of a different order.”

  “A different species of dragon? That would explain the odd mixture of types of dragon scales Zaralai had, and the way that one today was a mix of many kinds of fire. All the dragons I have studied have been of one narrow kind or another, red, black, green, some of more metallic or gemlike structure, but ultimately of one type of scale with essentially a single elemental song.” Mareth rifled through his bag and found an old leatherbound notebook with thick parchment pages which were frayed at the edges. He opened it and tapped a page that appeared blank, speaking a few magic words, and his scrawling penmanship appeared there as if shimmering into existence.

  Aerendir paused, “The sovereigns passed their power through lineage but also through ritual. Ossian was third in line, his grandsire one of the original seven sovereigns, but that was almost three millennia ago. He became sovereign and wed our mother, though dragonkin do not wed as men do. That is a note for another time though.”

  Mareth had fumbled through his bag while Aerendir was speaking to find a quill and a series of stoppered vials of ink. He began writing. He looked up at Aerendir just enough to nod and push him forward. “Go on.”

  “I would have been the next Sovereign, empowered, had something profound not changed with our people. Had I not left. When I left my home, before Siegyrd was formed, Ossian had begun to be quite mad. Not just him, all of the sovereigns, queens as well, began to quarrel between each other. Wars were fought for reasons I do not know. I missed much of it, having left to the lands of the young people. Siegyrd missed much of it as well, being formed after. I can tell you of what they were before, but Siegyrd should tell you of what they became. I, have not told him much. The rest should wait until he returns.”

  Mareth scowled with frustrated curiosity but replied, “May I ask some secondary questions then?”

  Aerendir looked toward him, his silvery eyes dancing in the firelight. He paused, sighed, and then responded, “You may ask, and I may answer.”

  “We’ve wandered, what is the path of silent stars?” Mareth asked.

  Aerendir laughed, more at himself than anything, “How right. We digressed a bit. In simplest terms, it is a euphemism for a dragon who takes his own life. It is exceedingly rare, or rather, it was, before the sovereigns’ discord.”

  Mareth opened is eyes wide, “How is such a thing even possible?”

  “A question my brother and I have been searching to answer now for centuries. Perhaps, the last sovereign holds the key. Though, if what is to come comes to battle, there is little hope we will survive.” Aerendir said solemnly.

  Mareth sat still, mouth slightly open, eyes distant, mind clearly trying to comprehend.

  Silas burst out of the nearby thicket and into the firelight ahead of Siegyrd and shouted, “I helped skin it and qorter it and pull the little hairs from it. I helped!” He stood there at the edge of the firelight, holding his sheathed knife in one hand grinning like a young fool.

  Siegyrd stepped out and ruffled the boys’ hair and said, “Indeed you did. Thank you, Silas.” Siegyrd looked up and he caught Aerendir’s eye. His smile faded. “So, you’ve begun. How far along?”

  “Only the beginning and the end, little brother. We’ll need you to fill in the details.” Aerendir said.

  Silas was still grinning and started strutting around the firelight as Siegyrd pulled in the sections of the deer, sat and laid out a cloth and began to cut strips to be cooked on the fire. Alexei prowled in behind, head low, cowed, and curled up into a ball a little farther from the firelight and stared at the company with bestial wariness.

  “First,” Siegyrd said, “I think we should prepare the food, and for a serious tale, I think it time we dipped into our reserves.”

  Mareth scrunched his brow, “Reserves?”

  “Aye, of frost smoke and iced wine.” Siegyrd grinned impishly.

  Aerendir laughed, a big, booming kind of laugh, as his tension released, “My much smarter little brother. I had forgotten all about it.”

  Siegyrd said, “Will you fetch it please? I know its dreadful on energy, but I will get the food prepared in the meantime.”

  Aerendir nodded and stood. “I will take care of it.” He went through his pack and pulled out a small stone with runes engraved on it and sang a short spell. The runes glowed and he pressed the stone into seemingly thin air. The air received it with a sighing sound, and then he gripped the rune like a handle, twisted and pulled. A portal the size of a small window opened in the sky and the backside was a dark wood. Inside the portal was a pantry which pressed back a couple of feet at most and was about two feet high. A cool fog leaked from the portal out into the only slightly warmer night.

  Aerendir reached in and pulled out a single large bottle, crystalline crafted and filled with a vibrant blue glowing liquid. He looked back at Siegyrd who raised his hand and held up his pointer and middle finger. Aerendir tucked the bottle under his free arm and reached in to take a second bottle of similar make, then closed the portal with a vacuuming suction sound.

  The light faded from the runes in the stone, and it simply dropped from the air inert onto the ground with a thud. Aerendir spoke, “Silas, please fetch the stone and give it to the wizard. I am certain he’ll want to examine it.”

  Mareth, whose mouth was open to ask just that, closed it, laughed, and then responded, “You know me well, masni.”