This time the Cavrians came to them.

  The year was coming to a close, and with it came another reminder of the reality of living under the Cavrian regime. The accessing ceremonies were being held all across Cavria, and, since the conquering of Vyl, so it was among them.

  While in Cavria they were regarded as one of the most important celebrations of the year, in Vyl they were used, Zhyr thought, more as a show of power. Instead of being held in all the larger cities like in the empire, here it was a touring thing—year by year, they would visit different towns and villages so that dragons from all over could see the display themselves.

  ‘Such an ugly thing,’ sneered Yls. They watched the Cavrians build a wooden platform at the centre of the village, their scales whiter than the thawing snow around them. From what Zhyr knew the testing wouldn’t happen in the open, but within the walls of the village hall. The scene would later showcase the newly found accessors before they were taken away to serve in Cavria’s further conquests.

  ‘Do you think they’ll take any of ours?’ Zhyr pawed the frosted ground.

  ‘I sure hope they don’t. Though they always take someone from somewhere. Could be from here this time.’

  Zhyr nodded grimly. With this year’s accessing ceremony taking place in their village, he could see strange dragons milling through the paths, looking around uncomfortably. Zhyr’s chest squeezed at the sight—the trees around and the familiar green eyes of most inhabitants should’ve been welcoming, but the occasion overshadowed any comfort of the visit.

  A dragon approached them, and it took Zhyr a moment to recognise them amid so many new snouts, but then he made out the familiar green-orange scales, the white-and-grey markings and black socks of Syq. A fledgling of his parents’ best friends, they would sometimes watch over Zhyr and his siblings when he had been too young to do so.

  Not a fledgling anymore. Just past their twentieth spring, Syq would be attending their ceremony today. Worry twisted Zhyr’s stomach at the thought of his friend going through the Cavrians’ test.

  ‘How’s the day, nettles?’ they asked, and Zhyr almost smiled at the moniker—the word was often used for little troublemakers, and Syq had certainly used it often enough when dealing with Zhyr and his siblings.

  ‘How does it look?’ countered Yls, gesturing with her paw to the gathering colourful ensemble. Zhyr had never seen so many dragons in one place. The shifting crowd of Vyl created a many-coloured mosaic, and among them Cavrians stood out starkly—bulky monotone splotches of white, black and brown.

  ‘We should be asking you,’ said Zhyr. ‘How are you feeling before… this?’

  Syq chuckled. ‘Well, it certainly is some comfort that I can do it at home.’ They grew more serious then. ‘I’m not going to lie, though, I am scared. I know it should be alright, since no one in my family can access, but you can never be sure.’

  ‘Is it true the Cavrians scratch you bloody with their claws, and then force you to heal yourself?’ Zhyr asked before he could think better of it.

  Syq snorted. ‘So we’ve all heard, but I haven’t been there yet. I doubt they’d do that with how much they want to look like our saviours. It must’ve come from something though. I’ll be sure to tell you two how it was after, alright?’

  Zhyr nodded, not much comforted.

  ‘When are they testing you?’ Yls asked.

  Syq looked up at the sun, partially hidden in the green canopy overhead. ‘I’ve still got at least an hour before they start.’ They sighed. ‘Well, better go talk to my family. Say my final goodbyes and all.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Zhyr. ‘You just said they won’t be taking you.’

  ‘I sure hope so,’ said Syq, a sour smile on their snout. They lashed their tail. ‘See you after it’s done.’ And with a wave of their wing, Syq detached from them, heading deeper into the village.

  When they were gone and Zhyr was sure no one could hear him beside Yls, he asked, ‘How did your dad hide his accessing? Did he somehow manage to not attend his ceremony or…’

  Zhyr let the question hang in the air for a moment, leaving it for Yls to fill in the silence. At length she said, ‘I’m not sure. He did attend his, he told me as much. But he didn’t tell me how he avoided being found out.’ Zhyr sent her a questioning glance. She sighed. ‘Not yet at least. He promised he’d tell me eventually.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he tell everyone?’ asked Zhyr. He lowered his voice to a whisper, afraid he’d raise it otherwise. ‘He could end this. End the Cavrians taking away our accessors. How many dragons would be saved!’

  ‘Would you think for once?’ snapped Yls, then toned her voice down too. ‘How do you think it would look? Suddenly no accessors, when they’ve supplied the army for years? Don’t you think they would see something wasn’t right? They’d look into this, maybe discover what da was using, and then it wouldn’t save anyone. Besides, there are some among the Vyl who side with the Cavrians. If one such dragon learned this secret—or worse yet, if they knew who it came from…’

  ‘I guess…’ he said lamely, ears flat against his head. He could see Yls’s point, and hated how much sense it made. And even more he hated the Cavrians.

  ‘I will tell you, though,’ said Yls.

  He frowned, head tilted. ‘What?’

  ‘What da found, you numbscale.’ She sounded irritated, but then sighed, resigned. Her body shook, just barely.

  ‘Yls…’

  She sighed again. ‘I’m sorry, it’s getting to me. Anyway—’ she looked him in the eye, and in hers he could see a defiant resolve— ‘when da tells me his secret—and he will—I’ll tell you, too. Your family shouldn’t need it, but you…’ She hesitated.

  ‘I’m not their blood,’ Zhyr finished.

  ‘We don’t know how likely you are to be an accessor,’ Yls said. ‘And I… don’t want to lose you.’

  He lowered his head, then nudged it gently against her flank. ‘Me neither.’

  The afternoon passed in a blur, and it was time to see the new accessors.

  A tight knot formed in the pit of Zhyr’s stomach as he sat on the ground in front of the makeshift stage, his family at his right, Yls and her dad at his left. All around there was a murmur of uncertain voices, too jumbled for Zhyr to make out anything concrete. A chill hung in the air, the final vestige of winter giving way to spring. The stage was empty and quiet. The flat elevated platform was made of dead wood, with banners in various shades of green and gold, embroidered with Cavrian symbols for each of the accessors of Vyl.

  Light erupted above the stage, so bright Zhyr instinctively lifted a wing to shield his eyes, slamming it into dad in the process. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered half-mindedly, but the dragon didn’t even acknowledge the hit.

  The crowd quieted, watching tensely as a group of three Cavrians appeared onstage. One of them came to the front, and in a loud voice addressed the crowd. ‘Dragonesses and dragonars!’ Zhyr cringed at the words. The dragon was speaking in Cavrian—obviously—and used their weird distinctive forms. Zhyr saw no point in it—Vyly languages had no gendered terms for dragons and got by more than well enough. (And what of Syq and others like them?)

  The Cavrian continued his speech, but Zhyr didn't know the language well enough, and he understood little more than half of it. Some words of honour, of light, of the great cooperation between Cavria and Vyl, of the green-eyed friends and their aid in furthering the reach of the empire. Zhyr’s tail was twitching irritably, his claws burying themselves into the thawing soil, but he stayed put. Everyone did.

  When the speech had finally concluded, the dragon withdrew, and his place was taken by another who, to Zhyr, looked nearly the same—stocky build, white-brown scales and yellow eyes.

  The new dragon said something about welcoming the new… chosen? blessed?... and she pointed to the side of the stage—from there, filing onto it in a neat row, were Vyl, their heads downcast or looking around nervously.

  Zhyr counted seven of them, and he wasn’t sure if it was much or not—the number itself seemed a miniscule addition to the Cavrian forces, but this ceremony was only one of many conducted today in the forests of Vyl. These were seven accessors from just the nearby towns and villages. Who knew how many were found across the whole of Vyl?

  Zhyr didn’t see the green-orange scales of Syq onstage, and a weight dropped from his wings. He looked intently at each of the dragons, and indeed—none seemed to have come from his village.

  A little relief.

  Was it though? All these dragons had their own villages, their own families and friends. And now… they didn’t, not anymore. The Cavrians were taking them away, against their will, to fight in their pointless war.

  Zhyr dug his talons deeper into the ground. It was hard, bound with thawing frost. His body tensed. He was ready to go—to leap onstage and rush the Cavrians and make them go away and—

  A paw set itself firmly on the base of his wing and he looked up sharply to see dad gazing down at him intently. He shook his head and Zhyr felt himself deflating under the reprimand.

  One of the Cavrians was talking again, but Zhyr wasn’t paying attention. He just wanted the whole thing to end.

  He found Syq about an hour after the Cavrians had left, talking to some of their friends at his mum’s tea shop—she wasn’t there at the moment, but he saw Llyr, the co-owner and Mum’s best friend, brewing something behind the counter, filling the whole room with a rich herbal fragrance. Syq waved as they saw Zhyr enter and motioned for him to join them at the table. ‘Come come,’ they said. ‘I’ve already regaled everyone with my tale, but I can do it again if you want.’

  Zhyr hopped onto a long mossy stool and settled on it comfortably, crossing his forepaws at the edge, before saying, equal parts curious and worried, ‘Please do.’

  Syq nodded. Zhyr looked at their forelegs and was surprised to see no blood or wound. Were the rumours false? Or… was it a trick of the light, or were Syq’s scales marred by a thin scar there?

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  ‘So—’ Syq clapped their paws— ‘as I was saying, there were quite a few of us waiting there—more than I thought there’d be, though I should have expected it, seeing how many dragons came to the village today. They called us one by one into a room, and let us out the other way, so it seemed like dragons were coming in and not coming out.’

  Zhyr shuddered. The grim tale in the making contrasted so much with this place that it was nauseating. With its warm interior and wooden walls, the soft mossy padding on the stools and the everpresent scent of herbs and tea—never mind a treasure trove of even warmer memories—this was no place for stories like this.

  ‘Eventually,’ Syq went on, ‘it was my turn to come in. There were two Cavrians in the room, and a Vyl, perhaps twice my age. I don’t often go to the Hall, so I can’t tell you if anything inside was changed—it looked like regular furniture and plants. Only the Cavrians felt out of place.

  ‘One of them confirmed my name and, noting it down, motioned for me to come closer. They told me not to worry, which, frankly, had the opposite effect. And then it got worse when one of the Cavrians produced a knife.’

  Zhyr inhaled sharply, while their other friends, no doubt familiar with this part of the story, continued to silently enjoy their tea. Syq smiled ruefully.

  ‘Not claws, then, though maybe it used to be this way. Anyway, I halted, but there was no way out, and eventually I was at the Cavrians’ mercy as one of them pressed the knife to my foreleg and cut a thin bloody line. I hissed, but her grip was too strong to break free. The other came and produced a box from a satchel strapped to his side. From it he took out a gem—entirely colourless—and a leather armlet studded on the inside with eight green stones. He pressed the clear gem to my head, and it blinked, and then…’ They seemed to search for words, head tilted slightly above the table. Zhyr didn’t dare breathe in the silence. ‘It felt odd. Like being released from a cage you’d been in so long you didn’t realise it even existed. I still feel oddly… free?

  ‘Then the Cavrian circled the armlet around my forearm and tightened it. The gems dug into my scales. For a while nothing was going on, though my heart was hammering like crazy. And then the one holding me pressed her paw against the cut she’d made. Apparently when we’re just after this “unlocking” of accessing, our bodies will instinctively reach for the magic as a way to defend ourselves.’

  Syq stopped their story to take a sip of tea, and Zhyr waited with bated breath. They smiled at him.

  ‘As you might guess by me sitting here and telling you the story instead of packing to go fight in a war, I couldn’t access anything. I stood there, bleeding, the gems in the armlet still digging into my scales. I breathed out with such relief—my whole future was saved!—that I was afraid the Cavrians would take offence. They didn’t. I was just one more dragon who couldn’t access. What did I matter to them?

  ‘Then the Vyl came over to me and told me to show him the cut. Before I knew what was happening, his eyes were glowing and a warm tingle spread through my fore. My senses went sharp, like… I don’t know, but it felt incredible. When he wiped away the blood there was barely a trace of the cut the Cavrian had made. One little kindness, I suppose, though even for that they use the power they took away from us in the first place.’

  Zhyr waited for more, but Syq seemed to have finished their story. ‘And then?’ he asked.

  They shrugged. ‘That was that. I left. They called in someone else. Until they were done.’

  They talked some more about that day, and then of other things. Some of the group were leaving by then and eventually Zhyr said his goodbyes too, heading home. He took a little detour to gather flowers to later weave them into garlands. It always helped calm him down.

  He stopped at a patch of mynths. These green-petaled flowers were rare, only seen in the central and western parts of Vyl. He smiled faintly as a memory flickered in his mind.

  He’d been trying to get Vyrsy to tell him about the origin of her dad’s nickname for her, but she’d refused to say. One day, exasperated, she laid her terms—if Zhyr could make a flower crown to match her scales, she’d tell him.

  Reds and yellows were an easy thing—so plentiful he could choose which ones suited him best to match the exact hue, but long had he searched for a green flower. He thought of using tree leaves, but he could already picture Vyrsy telling him it didn’t count, that she had asked for a flower crown.

  When he’d found the mynths in a shadowy nook under a giant oak, he’d thought he was just seeing things. But he wasn’t.

  And when he presented her with his wonky creation, she looked as stunned as he had been.

  ‘Alright.’ She sighed. ‘A deal is a deal.’ She didn’t speak for a few moments, but then, with another deep sigh and a stern look, said, ‘But don’t you dare make fun of me. When I was little, and just learning to speak... Yls was easier to pronounce than Vyrsy. And, well. It stuck.’

  ‘I hope,’ said Zhyr after a moment, his snout a picture of seriousness, ‘the crown is good enough that you can swallow this confession. Yls.’

  ‘Oh, shut it.’

  ‘No, I… like it?’ He smiled, head tilted, flicked one ear. ‘I don’t think it’s funny. It sounds nice, really. Yls.’

  She looked to the side, but it did little to hide her own smile. ‘Thanks. For the crown. And not laughing at me, too.’

  ‘Hi mum, hi dads,’ he called from the entrance of their house-tree.

  ‘Zhyr, there you are!’ said Dad, looking up as Zhyr entered the main room. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘At the tea shop,’ said Zhyr as he approached, settling beside them. ‘Talking to Syq.’

  The whole of his family was there—his parents, Pwynd, Qvyll and Dysh—sprawled across the floor, playing Forests and Ferns. The board was crowded with tokens and Zhyr tried to gauge who was in the lead, even if the game tended to be very swingy in its final rounds.

  ‘Hmm,’ hummed Da, focused on the pieces below. ‘How are they doing?’

  ‘Alright. They can’t access.’

  ‘Ha!’ boomed Dad. ‘Take that, Cavrians.’ He set down his piece triumphantly as though his move was a blow to the empire itself.

  ‘Want to join?’ asked Mum. ‘We can start over.’

  ‘Hey!’ protested Dad in mock-hurt. He swept a paw above the board. ‘Just as I was winning.’

  Zhyr smiled, but then his snout clouded over. This was what the Cavrians wanted to take away, their rigid ways imposed over the dragons of Vyl. They claimed to have brought a change for the better. To have brought light. But all that was a mask for chains.

  The Vyl had managed to preserve their ways, even under the new regime. In Cavria a family such as this would not have been possible—only a partnership of two, and with even more restrictions. He’d heard of Cavrians thinking the Vyl “hedonistic” where it was those bastards who deserved being called “prudish”. The Vyl simply enjoyed the pleasures of life in their entire glory. The Cavrians might rather claw at their throats than so much as speak of it. Of course, their kind were faithful, and once with their chosen mate—or mates—they were expected to settle, but before that, and having entered maturity? No Vyl would think it odd to seek the pleasure of another’s company.

  Sometimes Zhyr got the impression the yellow-eyes saw them as some carnal, savage species. He, in turn, wondered if they ever felt joy.

  Still, the events of this day weighed heavy on his wings. Weaving flower-crowns, playing games. When all around…

  ‘Is it alright?’ he asked, and, realising how it sounded, before he could be reassured Dad was joking, he added, ‘On a day like this. When the Cavrians took these dragons away. When they hurt Syq and others. Can we just… forget about it? Play? We need to do something!’ He remembered the flowers he’d picked to braid them into garlands, and heat spread under his scales at the thought.

  ‘Zhyr.’ Mum stood up and walked over to him. She put her wing over his back and squeezed his tail with hers reassuringly. ‘It is days like these that we need our joys the most. The Cavrians took our accessors again and paraded them for the whole village to see. And you’re right that it’s wrong, but you can’t possibly go and fight the whole empire yourself.’

  ‘But here are other Vyl.’ He looked up, met her eyes. ‘We are many. Why don’t we fight?’

  ‘Yeah!’ cheered Pwynd, and the other two of his siblings nodded.

  ‘We did,’ said Mum. She nudged her snout against Zhyr’s forehead and he leaned into her reassuring touch. ‘And some still do. But you’re still young, dear.’

  Zhyr perked up, eyes wide. ‘Some still do? Who?’

  ‘Of course you’d focus on this.’ She shook her head with a smile as she steered Zhyr toward the game.

  ‘Different groups,’ said Dad, ‘though gods help me if I know where to find them. Mostly small guerilla activity, much as I know.’

  ‘And they’re no place for a fourteen-year-old fledgling,’ said Da.

  ‘Unlike Forests and Ferns,’ added Mum, and she gathered back the cards, dealt them out, and gave Zhyr a new score sheet.

  Half an hour later it was clear he couldn’t focus on the game.

  ‘Zhyr?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Could you tell me how your ceremonies went?’ he asked, looking between his parents, who, in turn, exchanged uneasy glances.

  At last Dad set down his cards. ‘Alright, Zhyr. But it shouldn’t be anything Syq couldn’t tell you.’

  And he told them the story, with Mum and Da adding some of their own comments. He’d been right to say it was hardly anything new—the only difference being their ceremony had been held in a different town—but hearing about his parents being subjected to the same thing reawakened the seething inside Zhyr’s chest.

  ‘Have you known any accessors?’ asked Dysh quietly.

  Zhyr hadn’t even thought of that, and a new worry stirred in him—he’d been glad to see no one from the village taken this year, but this wasn’t the only year such a thing was taking place. And then Mum said, confirming his anxiety, ‘We have.’

  And Da added, ‘More than one, actually.’

  ‘It used to be much more common among us, before the conquests,’ Mum continued. ‘Cavrians cultivate their accessing lines so that they can have stronger and stronger accessors with each generation. We never did, and it was more spread out. Many had the gift, but few could access more than one gem. Doubles were already rare, and triforms almost nonexistent. A full Vyly accessor may’ve never hatched. But look at Cavrians. Though only their nobility can do it, many have control over more than one stream.’

  ‘And their royals can access everything,’ spat Dad.

  ‘Do you remember how it looked before the Cavrians came?’ asked Pwynd. By now all of them had abandoned the game, more interested in their parents’ grim recountings.

  ‘No, we’re not as old.’ Da smiled. ‘But we’ve heard stories. Back then the Vyl didn’t do ceremonies, didn’t need diamonds to unlock it either. We hatched and could access—those of us who had the gift anyway. Of course we knew of its influence, so any accessor fledgling had supervision, but come their sixteenth spring, they could access all they wanted, fully aware of the consequences. Very, very few overdid it.’

  Why do we need ceremonies and diamonds now? Zhyr wondered, but he didn’t suppose his parents would know.

  ‘And there used to be more of them?’ he asked instead. What happened?’

  ‘Rotten Cavrians, that is what,’ Mum growled. Da shuffled closer, reached out with his tail, which she coiled with her own and squeezed. ‘They’re taking every accessor they can into their army or relocating them into enclaves within the empire to breed themselves more soldiers. Fewer and fewer dragons here hatch with the power.’

  Zhyr’s throat felt tight. ‘So they… never return?’

  ‘Some do, but not all,’ said Da. ‘They’re usually too valuable to let go or, if they return, they’re sent to live in Cavria. Gardeners leave the front lines when they’re too injured to fight. Healers and Soothers don’t do combat, I suppose. They help with the wounded. And Restorers, well. If you can’t be permanently injured, you can’t be unable to fight, right?’

  ‘But they can’t keep them forever!’ protested Zhyr. ‘It’s… do they serve until death?’

  The silence grew heavy. Oppressive. Choked.

  ‘Look, Zhyr,’ said Da slowly, and something in his tone chilled Zhyr to the bone. ‘Accessing has its cost. It warps the mind. A dragon wants more and more. So the Cavrians use that.’

  He stopped for a moment, took a breath, and, with no protest from the others, continued, ‘An accessor will crave the magic, and the Cavrian military can exploit that. Control them by giving them their gems or taking them away. And when it is too much, after years of service, when their mind is lost completely, such a dragon can’t fight anymore, and they can’t come back home. So… they are disposed of.’

  Zhyr’s head spun. He suddenly wished he hadn’t asked about any of this. He wished he could unlearn. This was… this was horrid! How was no one doing anything about this?

  ‘Alright, that’s enough for today,’ said Mum, blocking Da’s snout with her wing. ‘These are not stories meant for them. Now now, it’s getting late, and it’s been a long day. Time to head to bed.’

  ‘Do you think I’ll be an accessor?’ Zhyr asked and Mum immediately opened her maw to reply, but stopped short. Dads stood silent, and all three of his siblings were openly staring at him as an awkward silence settled between them.

  Zhyr suspected what she’d wanted to say—that there was no chance, that no one close of kin was an accessor, that why was he getting such wild ideas, he should go to sleep.

  But she couldn’t say that. She couldn’t know. And in their silence was reflected the same doubt Yls had had, and now, more than back then, Zhyr’s mind was swallowed by fear—what if he were an accessor? Would he be taken away from home, from his family?

  No. Yls’s dad knew how to hide it. He would tell her, and she would tell Zhyr, and he would stay here.

  That night, when he fell away into a restless slumber, his dreams were plagued by visions of Cavrians cutting him open, and his newfound accessing sealing it shut.

  Which of the three main POVs do you like the most?