Page 39 of The Eye of the Fifth
Gedeon could give no coherent reply. Amala, apparently, did not need one. She gave a very small smile, one that did not quite reach her eyes, then trotted back to Sunsi.
He watched them go through the black gates and out of sight, then turned his attention to the mountain that stood on the other side of the city. The eyes of the people trailed him as he made his way through their city, heading for the volcano, toward the one being that would give him candid counsel, the only being he trusted enough to witness the turmoil growing within him.
Wishing he had wings of his own, he scaled the live mountain, the skin on his hands morphing to the hardness of a lizard’s scales to protect him from the jagged stone. An hour it took, maybe more, for him to reach his destination on the west side of the mountain, still far away enough from the mouth of the volcano at the peak that the air remained somewhat cool.
He clambered into the mouth of a cave, and deep in the shadows, something shifted.
A deep, husking female voice, as clear as if it were spoken aloud, sounded in his mind:So, the princeling returns. To what do I owe the pleasure, Your Highness?
Gedeon smirked at the sound of her mocking voice, even at his own expense. Already in her presence, the conflict within him eased, andhis smile grew wider as Tanwen the great white dragon stepped into the light.
It’s been some time,he told her.
That it has,she replied with an impatient exhale, tucking in her almost translucent wings at her sides.I assume you have been busy?
Fairly.
She gave a great sniff, her huge nostrils wrinkling.You reek of burnt human flesh. What have you been doing?
Gedeon moved to her and rested his hand on her snout.I have much to tell you. Will you listen?
I am forever your servant, Gedeon.Her tone was somewhat annoyed, but she pushed her snout against his hand endearingly.
To be bonded to a dragon was no regular thing, and theirs was one of true friendship like Gedeon had never known. He’d been a child when he’d found her. Upon first glance, he’d believed her dead. But as he drew closer, he noticed the rise and fall of her chest, the time between each breath too long and laboured.
But she was alive.
An infant white dragon, rarer than the bond they shared, and believed by human and fae alike to be spirit-blessed for the opaline sheen of her scales, Tanwen had been born to one of the five dragon queens of the Apex, a mountainous terrain in the very north of Zarynth and home to all creatures bred by fire.
Proud creatures to their core, and deeply distrustful of anything that was not ordinary, the queen who had mothered Tanwen cast her from her home in those pointed lands, for she was a runt of a hatchling and white as pure, unsoiled snow. Her size was one thing, but it was her colouring, the blanched pearlescent shine to her scales that marked her as different, as weak in the eyes of the dragons.
Gedeon had been following Sekun that day as he’d often done, a child intrigued by his older brother’s escapades when he saw her, curled up on the bank, the whiteness of her stark against the black rock beneath. Carefully scooping her into the folds of his cloak, he ignored Sekun’s snide remarks, for his brother would have seen her sink to the bottom of the Emor without a look back.
He’d tried to take her from him that day. And Gedeon, overcome with a sudden urge to protect the helpless, vulnerable creature, had blasted Sekun away with a roar of fire. A scarce display of the Fire Warden magic he had been told by their mother never to use unless strictly instructed by her to do so.
Gedeon had not cared, even with Sekun’s furious threats to expose his lapse of control to the Empress as he tried to chase after him. Shrouded in Xados’ darkness, he eventually shook Sekun from his trail and scaled the then dormant Mount Morkun, finding a cave for the little dragon, and swearing he would come back in the days to follow to nurse her back to health.
That promise was kept, and Tanwen grew to be more magnificent than he could ever have anticipated. The only dragon to call Mount Morkun home, now too big and powerful to be culled by those who disapproved (namely Sekun and his mother), Tanwen thrived and had often-times been the only voice of reason he was willing to completely trust. She had survived against the odds, crawled her way back to sweet life when death’s hold had been almost unshakeable.
So he had aptly named her Tanwen, ‘white-fire’, for the light she had brought into his own life.
There was never a doubt in his mind that he had found Tanwen for a reason. Even if his belief in destiny wavered from time to time. A bond with a dragon was a bond for eternity. A sought out connection that very few had ever successfully made, and one Gedeon was extremely grateful for.
With as much detail as he could remember, (for Tanwen had told him time and time again,without the specifics, how can good judgement be made?), he recounted the recent, irregular happenings that had unsettled him.
The Earth Warden and the strange projection. Amala’s determined spirit. The task the Empress had given him and Sekun. The pious man’s suicide, and the warning he’d given.
Tanwen listened carefully, without interruption.The girl…she began after he was finished.The youngling. Why is she so different from the others?
Gedeon sat, resting his back on the cave wall.I cannot explain it. She does not listen, she is reckless and foolish and yet-
You are realising she is human and not just another number.His gut twisted uncomfortably, but Tanwen went on.This man who just gave his life to the Fire Mother… do you believe the words he spoke to be true?
I have not had much experience with augurs,Gedeon admitted.Do their visions always come to pass? Or are they interchangeable with the choices of those involved?
Your experience surpasses mine, I am sure, princeling, for I only talk to you.Gedeon couldn’t help but laugh at the dry tone of her voice.But I would say from a place of divine wisdom, that visions and prophecies are not mapped out like the certainty of the stars above. The future is inevitably unpredictable and can shift like a change in the wind. If I were you, I would not take the dead man’s last words too literally.
The twist in his gut fractionally loosened.
