Shattered crystals

The rain missed the part of the mountains in which Armailith's nest was hidden, and I could only gloomily watch how the sun changed the pattern of shadows in the cave. Eventually, I fell asleep again. The daze from meeting the dragoness, the depression caused by what I learned and the recurring pain in my left wing didn't leave me much strength for anything else.

When I woke up again, it was already dark, only the moon illuminating a part of the cavern by the northern wall. I rubbed my eyes, trying to stretch a little without moving my wings. Armailith lifted her head from the hay to look at me. In the ghostly light of the moon she looked like a huge heap of silvery-golden charcoals.

"Finally..." she purred. "I was afraid I would have to venture out hunting without informing you." She carefully got up, her scales rustling in that familiar, melodious way... "You must be terribly hungry, you didn't eat for so long. I will come back as soon as I can."

When I nodded, still half-conscious, she climbed out onto the rocks surrounding the opening above and I soon heard her leap into the dark night.

I shook off the remnants of sleep and reached to one of my shoulders. To be honest, I didn't even expect to find my haversack with the food there. I obviously lost it in the commotion... I glanced around. There was little for me to do without making my wing worse, even if lying in the same position was getting incredibly irritating. For now the only thing left was to sink deeper into the warm pit in the hay and taking another short nap until Armailith returned. But then...

I heard a noise...

Like a quiet whisper of footsteps, a murmur of a conversation in the distance...

I couldn't stop myself from jolting up from the bedding, even ignoring the sharp pain that shot through my wing. I just prayed that this wasn't some illusion... Looking around, I spotted the opening of a tunnel that was hidden behind the enormous body of the dragoness before.

Two tiny lights flickered in the darkness there, two flames that took my voice away with the amount of relief that washed over me...

Fortunately, I didn't need it, because soon Yasenka's joyous shout echoed throughout the cave and she swung her arms around my neck just seconds after. It was the most desperate and most painful hug in my life, but how could I forbid it when almost immediately her warm tears started to stain the shirt on my shoulder... I embraced her and began stroking her back as Siaril kneeled next to us. They found me... they never gave up...

"I'm so so glad..." Yasenka managed to sob out finally, not even letting go of me. "We were starting to lose hope..."

When she pulled back a bit, her cheeks were wet with tears but her eyes were smiling brighter than ever before. She was dirty almost all over, her pants ripped and blood-stained on her right thigh, but she didn't seem to care much. Siaril had a cloth tied around his left arm and looked utterly exhausted too...

I would have liked nothing more than just give him a bear hug and let my relief and the apologies go free, but... Armailith's words were still echoing in my mind... So I just turned my gaze away and nodded awkwardly. I didn't see Siaril's face, but I could almost feel he was taken aback by that cold reaction...

"What happened to you?" Yasenka quickly interrupted the weird silence. "After you disappeared along with two ansirths, all we found was a collapsed wall... it was so dense and the rocks so huge, we couldn't find a way through... How did you get here? And why didn't you respond when we were calling you? The echo should have carried our voices quite far..."

"I didn't hear... I regained consciousness only this morning. And I couldn't really search for you either, my wing is broken..."

"Oh no... can I see?"

She carefully touched the damaged spot when I showed it to her. I shivered when her slender fingers brushed the inner side right below the leading edge and bit my lip, but didn't protest until she finished the examination.

"Well, you had some luck in all of it," she finally stated. "It seems to be broken only in one spot and the parts of the bone are not shifted too much..." Without much hesitation, she took the leather band with her sirath off her neck and swung it over my head. "You need it more than I do right now."

I just smiled, knowing that I won't convince her anyway. "Thanks."

"What even is this place?" she finally decided to have a look around, curiously eyeing the nest of hay around us. "And how in the world did you manage to get this far with a broken wing?"

For some reason I felt too lazy to answer all those questions... so I decided to leave the explaining to Armailith. The sheer thought of the dragoness and the faces my companions will probably make when they see her was enough to almost squeeze a snort of laughter out of me.

"Did I miss something funny?" Yasenka noticed the amused glimmer that must have appeared in my eyes despite my efforts.

"Not at all," I replied, trying to keep a straight face.

Yasenka and Siaril exchanged looks, likely silently agreeing on the fact that I might have not been feeling very well still.

Suddenly, a not too loud but deep noise came from above our heads, a wind picking up. All three of us lifted our heads. I, of course, knew what it meant, but my friends seemed a little disturbed.

Shortly before the air finished its dance, there was a loud thump which shook the whole cavern and all of its contents. Siaril jumped to his feet. We watched the opening in the dome for a few more moments before Armailith's enormous silhouette appeared against the night sky, the glow of the full moon reflecting off of her golden scales. She folded her mighty wings and peeked inside the nest, craning her long neck.

Siaril sunk back to the hay and I heard Yasenka's hands drop to her lap.

"Oh, I see we have guests," the dragoness noticed, eyeing them amicably.

Dead silence covered the cave.

"Is that some joke...?" Yasenka finally managed to stammer out. "Or... some trick...? Wait, that's probably one of Canidralth's illusions again, isn't it? Admit it, you met him here." When I just started to laugh, she smiled a little. "So I'm right."

"Not quite."

Armailith swung her tail from left to right once, a hint of annoyance perceptible in the movement. "I knew that humans need a long time to believe in anything, but I would never have expected an illathan to call me a joke," she purred.

"But..." Siaril finally found his voice again as well, "it's impossible... the dragons..."

"Sigrian was convinced of that as well, dear Siaril. And yet he had to admit that he was wrong."

I felt Siaril's stare on me, but I didn't answer it. Armailith slipped into the cave, careful not to damage any of us with her wings or tail, and lay back down on the hay. She then sniffed the air around the newcomers curiously before letting it out again in a puff that messed up our hair.

"You're back so quickly..." I started, as if it was the most casual conversation in the world. "I thought you wanted to hunt."

"I did, but I just could not concentrate properly. The thought that I left you here all alone refused to give me any peace of mind. Luckily, my worries turned out to be superfluous."

"Are you two having fun?" Yasenka interrupted us.

Seeing the impatience and the still deep shock in her eyes, I decided to finally take pity on them. I sat down comfortably, leaning against Armailith's stomach to lend some support to my wing, and summarized what the dragoness told me about the fate of her race earlier that day. After brief consideration, I shared the story of the royal family as well, purposefully leaving out any names for now. Even without them, Siaril looked uncomfortable enough, clearly confirming every word.

Lucky for him, Yasenka decided to not focus on the sword and its origin for now: "The reason why the kanh declared war to the surface back then... was it because of Elirieth? Because humans forced elves out of their kingdom and part of them had to hide in Heiserth?"

"Precisely," Armailith confirmed, watching the illathan with interest. I too had a feeling that Yasenka was getting at something specific.

"So could it be that Sharish is not only doing it all because of the conflict between mages and humans, but also for the kanh? In a way, they share the same goal, don't they? All mages are inconvenienced by the situation on the borders and are fighting it however they can, so he has to have some stronger reason to go as far as he does, right? It's just a wild guess..."

"A very wellaimed wild guess, my child. Sharish is indeed in contact with the kanh, and they are unfortunately willing to aid him. So I'm afraid his ansirths might still be the least of our worries..."

An uncomfortable silence fell on us, allowing the chirping of the insects outside to become audible.

Eventually, Yasenka let out a deep sigh, looking towards the sky above the cave. "We should regroup," she said simply. "We need some new plan, new information. Light might be able to find out more about the connections between mages and kanh, and I... I can ask in the Silivren Forest."

I smiled a little. I still remembered how Ertralia unintentionally let it slip that there are elves still living in the ancient woods, hiding from the world. If anyone would know how to convince their kin to make peace, it would be them.

After making that decision, we prepared a meal from the remnants of Siaril's and Yasenka's provisions before Yasenka proceeded to take care of my wing, so it could start healing properly as soon as possible. She sent Siaril to get some twigs from outside while she dug out a few bands of fabric out of her bag along with a small, wooden container full of some intensely herbal-scented salve. Soon, my wing was nicely secured and covered in a balm that brought heavenly relief.

Siaril and Yasenka decided to get some well deserved rest, but I didn't feel like sleeping at all. The annoyingly long time spent laying in the hay brought back most of my energy. A little past midnight, the wind wiped the sky clean of any remaining cloudlets, a few pale stars lighting up like small gems on the canopy spread above the cave. When the only thing audible in the dragoness' hideout was the calm and deep sound of her breath that reminded me of the rush of waves around Tacritia, I carefully got up, snuck out of the nest as quietly as possible and sat on a big, solitary rock underneath the opening.

For a while, I followed the tiny dots with my eyes. They were heading for a far away summit, just the very apex of it visible from the cave, black against the imperfect darkness of the sky. I could hear an occasional flutter of a bat's wings, a few of them probably hunting near the bushes outside.

Then, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye, near Armailith's enormous form, and glanced to my left. A familiar silhouette cautiously circled one of her rear legs and came closer.

"Can't sleep?" asked Siaril.

"I was sleeping way too much before you found us."

"I see... we had trouble with that. All this time we were wondering if you were still alive, or if..."

I didn't know how to answer, so I just cast my eyes down. I was scared to talk to him, just like at the beginning, but for a different reason. Right now I was terrified that I could say something that I would regret for the rest of my life.

"Why are you so silent...? Since we found you, you hardly said anything to me, hardly even looked at me... did I do something wrong? Or maybe I said something that offended you...?"

I sighed. "No. It's rather about what you didn't say..."

He tried to look me in the eyes, as if searching for something in them, but kept quiet for a long time. I thought I felt something akin to fear from him, followed by silent understanding... Eventually he sighed and looked up at the sky. "Armailith didn't just tell you some anonymous story about some second royal line, did she..." he sounded depressed, a depression coming from somewhere much deeper than this conversation.

"No. And that's not the right question to be asked at this point," I remarked, my tone way colder than I intended. "I should be the one asking why I didn't learn about it from you, but from a dragoness who I got acquainted with just yesterday."

"I hoped so much that I wouldn't need to explain this to you..."

"But I would still prefer if you did."

"Listen..." for some reason, it was Siaril's turn to sound increasingly irritated, "I had a number of reasons, the first of which being the fact that I hate discussing that topic because everyone always seems to try and prove that I'm wrong... Besides, I don't think you would have felt very comfortable around me all this time if you knew that you were playing the role of a little usurper who occupied the place that I should now have the right to..."

There were reasons... I knew immediately that there was so much more behind his words, so much more that he needed to tell me before I understood completely... but at that moment, it didn't stop the soft storm clouds of my eyes to turn into two hard obsidians. "Ah, I see..." I muttered, overcome by a sudden anger and bitterness. "Good to know what you were thinking about me all this time... it just doesn't quite explain why you didn't seize what's rightfully yours and instead just watched me suffer..."

"You know it's not like that, I didn't..."

"Go to sleep," I interrupted him, trying to stay calm. It was a foreign feeling, to be so angry at him... "I'm sorry I even dared to ask about it your highness..."

Siaril fell silent completely. After a moment, he turned away from me. Nothing happened for a while, it felt like he was waiting if there would be anything else I wanted to say. I didn't, because I already started to feel bad about it all, but the words that could undo it all somehow didn't manage to get past my lips. Finally, I heard him leave and return to the nest. Armailith took one deeper breath, which sounded like a sigh... Did she hear everything...? I slid down the rock to sit and lean my back against it. The rest of the night passed with stargazing and trying to shoo away the feeling of guilt...