A Dragon's Choice

She winced as another twig snapped beneath her paw. If her enemies spotted her, it would mean certain death. Clenching her jaw, she again resolved to tread more quietly, or as quietly as a thirty-thousand-pound dragon can tread.

All around her were the trunks of lesser pine trees. This forest was young, not like ancient Irili’Worden, where she’d been hatched. She didn’t know what the humans called this young forest; in her tongue it was known as the Veera’Worden, the West Woods.

She wished she could stop and tend to the trees. So many needed her flame to burn away the dead wood so they would truly flourish. But tonight, hers was not a mission of dalliance, but blood.

Above her, a low-hanging cloud shrouded the night sky. Even Ulfather’s Eye, the great white orb, could not pierce the cloud bank. She was grateful. She didn’t want the sire of her kind to see what she was about to do.

With every beat of her enormous heart, she knew her peril increased. She didn’t care.

She could’ve flown into the village, but the cannons would have torn her apart. They had told her that was how her mate had died.

No. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head as if shaking off water. Sorrow was not what she needed now. She needed anger. She remembered mere hours earlier how she had alighted on the rocky outcropping where they had built their nest.

How still her hatchlings had been.

Her anger swelled. Rage was her shield; hate was her weapon. She wouldn't burn the village to the ground, she'd melt it from the face of the land. She didn’t care that she’d likely fall in the attempt. There was only one salve for a mother’s rage.

It hadn’t always been like this. She and her kind used to live in harmony with the world. They tended the Irili’Wor; mile-high oaks that rose out of the forest like mountains. These sacred trees were the home of her kind. Until the stain of humanity arrived on their shores.

Her mate had recognised the threat even before they began burning the Irili’Wor. He’d sought to stop them. He left her to tend to their eggs and never returned. She’d heard of his death from a neighbouring nest.

Now they were all gone. She was the only one left of her family.

A sound.

She dropped to the ground, becoming a dark mound in the black forest.

Holding her breath, she strained her hearing trying to find the source of the noise.

It crashed through a bush with a giggle. A human hatchling, barely able to walk. With hardly a care, it sat in the dirt and looked about the forest with wide blue eyes set above its chubby cheeks.

Her lip curled at the opportunity this presented. Soon enough, this babe’s family would come searching, and in their distraction, that’s when she’d strike. So, she settled in and waited, unmoving save for the pulsing in her body.

They did not come.

Her mind raced. Humans were naturally duplicitous, and ideas of traps and lurking soldiers consumed her thoughts. Yet she could not believe that even they would stoop so low as to use their young as bait.

Her patience wore thin until finally, it snapped altogether.

She stood and called into the darkness, “You can come out now.”

The child’s face fell as he saw the dark shadow rise before him. Yet, he did not cry.

“I know you’re out there,” she glanced between the trees searchingly.

The wind whispered between the trunks before all returned to silence. With a flick of her tongue, she tasted the air. Fresh pine needles mixed with the perpetual damp of the forest floor. A family of rabbits living just a row of trees over. Deer grazing idly by a nearby stream. The pungent aroma of the human babe. No one else.

She turned her gaze back to the child and approached, “You’re alone?”

The child said nothing.

As she approached, she knew what she must do. The weaker part of herself tried to resist the idea, but she was too full of fire, too full of fury.

She stood but a few feet from it now.

The child’s eyes filled with wonder. Rather than cry, it smiled and clapped its hands against its knees.

It seemed so innocent, so sweet. She thought of her hatchlings. They too once had peace in their hearts. Until the humans took it from them.

Her temper flared.

The child sneezed, mixing drool and snot into that unique combination characteristic of human children.

“Disgusting little creatures, aren’t you?” she asked, peering at it.

The child touched her face with a snotty hand.

Her second eyelids snapped shut as it triggered her second sight.

The man was garbed in a handsome suit of red dragon-scale armour. He stood in a bare room dominated by a large oak table. Upon the table was a wicker bowl filled with red and green apples. Sconces burnt on the walls, causing the shadows in the room to flicker.

His jet-black hair was clasped in a warrior’s wolf tail by a brass cuff engraved with circling serpents.

“The riches of your people are fading,” said the man in a deep voice, gesturing widely.

Three older men, all bearing crowns, sat at the table, and sullenly glared at him.

The tallest of the three, a gaunt, haughty man replied, “This war has raged on for many years. My people don't have a lot of wealth left.”

“Our people,” added the youngest of the men, who was gently tugging the side of his moustache.

The tallest seemed to bite back a barbed remark. Instead, he simply inclined his head, “My mistake.”

“I suppose I expected more,” said the man in the dragon armour, “To stand in the last city of man speaking with the three last kings… Your defiance has been truly impressive. You fought us when we crossed the River Aydo even though you were outnumbered.”

“We needed time to evacuate the women and children from the port,” said the young King.

“You did not surrender when we lay siege to your fortress at Melonor even though you were starving,” continued the man.

The tall King hung his head, “The men’s families had perished three days earlier when you took the town. They cared little for their fate after that.”

“Nor did your peasants abandon the coal mines at Krac’nadaron.”

The third king, a balding man with anger in his eyes, grimaced, “Krac’nadaron wasn’t a mine. It was an underground city. We thought we’d be safe beneath the earth.”

The man smiled darkly, “And here I find that you’ve put aside age-old rivalries and sheltered your kingdom’s people within one city. But now I’m here I find there is little defiance left. You’re all so… sad.”

“Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost,” said the bald king, “You’ll forgive us Jonas, if we don’t feel like entertaining you.”

“That’s not my name,” said Jonas, “I am the Liege of Fire. You will address me as such.”

“You were once called Jonas,” answered the bald King sombrely, “Before they took you and turned you into this… Monster.”

Jonas flinched, “Monster? It is not I who mined this land with reckless abandon. It is not I who poisoned the air with the smoke of industry. It is not I who burnt the Irili-Wor. For hundreds of thousands of years, my kind tended this land and maintained the natural balance. You undid all that in mere decades. I am not the monster.”

“Nor are you one of them,” said the young king, “You are not a dragon.”

“And I am not human,” answered Jonas softly. He held out his palm and appearing as if of its own accord was a flame. It writhed with a lingering sense of malevolence. Taking a deep breath, Jonas closed his hand and extinguished the fire, “Our terms are as they have ever been. Get on your ships and leave this land forever.”

“We have nowhere to go,” said the young king, “You know our forebears’ lands are diseased with Rot. You would doom your people in favour of theirs?”

“Without hesitation,” said Jonas unflinchingly.

“Then you must learn what it is you’re condemning,” said the bald king. His servants opened the double doors to the chamber.

Jonas inhaled sharply.

A woman stood in the doorway. The woman from his memories. Though not quite as he’d pictured. In his mind, she was older. No, this was not the same woman. He looked at her crystal blue eyes, and hair as dark as the chasms of the earth. It felt like staring at his reflection. He knew who this was.

“We’ll leave you two the room,” said the bald King who departed with his peers.

Troubled, Jonas turned to look out the bay windows.

Below him was the city, a cramped hive of humans. Its reek was so great it could be smelt five thousand feet away in the dragon encampment.

Circling the city like a scab were three layers of thick stone walls. Hundreds of cannons lined the parapet, trained upon his army who had camped beyond their range.

It would be a bloody battle. But humanity was hopelessly outnumbered. There would be only one outcome.

He looked at his camp of dragons and smiled to himself. Here was his real family. His brothers and sisters whom he’d sworn to protect. Thousands of dragons united beneath his banner.

“Jonas,” said the woman from behind him.

Jonas closed his eyes and tried to ignore her.

“Brother,” she placed a hand upon his shoulder, and he turned to face her.

“Do you remember me at all?” she asked, her eyes glassy.

Images flashed behind his eyes. Apples glazed in something sweet on the end of sticks. Colourful strips of cloth waved in the air as a young girl held them aloft in the wind. His sister. Dara.

“No.” he said stubbornly, walking away from her to the table, “I don’t know you.”

“It’s okay,” she said after a moment, “It was a long time ago.”

“You cannot change what is going to happen,” said Jonas, glancing at the bowl of apples on the table, “No one can stop us. The war will end today.”

“I know,” said Dara softly, “At least I get to see you again and… To tell you.”

She walked to the other side of the table and looked at him, her gaze holding his, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” asked Jonas shrugging, “You’ve not wronged me.”

“But I have,” her voice broke, and she turned to stare out the window, “It was me.”

Jonas frowned, not understanding.

“I was the one who left you in the forest that night,” she looked back at him pleadingly. Tears slid down her cheeks, weighed down by years of regret. She placed an accusatory finger on her chest, “It’s my fault.”

Jonas blinked, shocked, “I was abandoned in the forest-“

“No. Not abandoned,” Dara shook her head, “It was a stupid prank.”

“A prank?”

“I was mad at our parents. It was my birthday, but they kept fussing over you, so I thought I’d teach them a lesson and I… I’m so sorry!”

Jonas clenched his fists, “I don’t believe you. This is a trick. You cannot stop the war, Dara!”

She forgot her tears and her eyes glittered brilliantly, “It’s been so long since anyone has called me that.”

Jonas hesitated. He knew what his mother would say. This conversation reeked of human weakness. Yet she wasn’t here, and he couldn’t see any harm in speaking to his human sister, “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

She shook her head, “My name is Darna, but you could never quite say it.”

He blushed, feeling foolish, “What does it matter?”

“Our parents never stopped loving you” she ran a hand absently down the sleeve of her dress, “I’m not sure our mother ever really forgave me.”

Jonas swallowed, his throat tightened, “Where are they?”

“Gone. They… Died in the siege of Thranmere.”

Jonas frowned and looked down at the floor thoughtfully. He’d not been at Thranmere, but he knew they’d engulfed it in a firestorm that melted the very stones of the city.

He glanced at the apples on the table and could almost hear his father’s voice telling him fairy tales while he fell asleep, “It matters not,” he replied, pushing the memory aside, “I already have a mother and she made me strong. What did your parents do for you but make you weak?”

“All you have is anger,” said Darna, “My parents gave me love.”

“What is love compared with power?” Jonas produced the fire in his palm again, “My mother gave me her flame so that I could unite the dragons and bring victory to our people. She saved me from that forest you left me in.”

“You’ve spent too long amongst monsters, Jonas. But I can see it in your eyes,” she smiled, the kindest smile Jonas had ever seen, “Buried beneath what this war has made you become is my baby brother.”

She gestured at the apples on the table, “You used to love these. I would climb over Gregson’s rickety fence and get covered in splinters just so I could steal a few for you. Do you remember that? How I’d take you down to the river and let you drop your core in the water?”

Jonas’ resolve faltered for a moment, “I made a promise to my mother that I’d see the humans pay for the atrocities they’ve committed. I cannot fail her.”

“She is not your mother. Your real mother died seeing me aboard the last ship from Thranmere. She died loving you.”

“That life was taken from me.”

“It’s closer than you think,” She picked up an apple and offered it to him, “All you need to do is take it.”

He recoiled, his eyelids narrowing, “It’s poisoned.”

She laughed, “We keep the poisoned apples in the cupboard.”

Jonas eyed the cupboard.

“That was a joke,” She took a bite out of it before offering it again, “See? I’m still alive.”

Jonas took the apple and gingerly took a bite. It tasted like spring. Like days in the sun before a gentle stream, his mother laughing while his father told stories.

His eyes moistened. When he looked at Darna he saw his sister and the life he could have lived.

Then everything changed.

The mood, once nostalgic, turned cold. Darna’s loving gaze became a wintry smile as she clutched her stomach. Her eyes stared at Jonas, filled with hate. Then she fell.

Jonas’s mind raced into action. He looked at the apple in his hand and realised his foolishness.

“Not a dragon after all,” he said to himself bitterly.

His stomach cramped and his heart began to race.

Reaching out, he grabbed the top of the seat before him. It seemed harder to breathe. He focused on his knuckles as they turned white beneath his steely grip. He was angry. Angry that he’d eaten the apple. Angry that he would not see his destiny completed. And, to his surprise, angry that his human life had been taken from him.

That anger built within his chest until it ripped from his lungs in a roar of frustration. Casting out his hands, he sent a torrent of fire jetting out of the tower window. It was the signal. His army would fall upon this city and the war would be over.

The flame in his hands died out. A tired campfire.

Jonas turned back to where Darna lay and knelt beside her. His lungs were thick and heavy. She was already gone, staring lifelessly at the roof.

She’d betrayed him, killed herself just to drag him down with her. Yet he could not find it in his heart to hate her. A lifetime spent hating had only left him tired.

He closed his eyes and recalled the memories he had for so long pushed away. He could see Darna, basket in hand, filled with freshly stolen apples. They’d eat them under the sycamore tree that grew by the winding banks of the Erishi River.

He smiled, remembering the touch of the sun and the sound of the river. It felt like he was there. With his eyes closed, he took another bite of the apple and marvelled at its sweetness. Then the poison took him.

She recoiled from the babe, gagging, choking for air, and she released an involuntary cry. Her sire had told her that the second sight ran in her bloodline. She’d only experienced it twice before; each time had been a disorienting experience. This time was much worse. She could not say if it was the second sight or what she’d seen in her vision. So much pain and death.

She took another gulp of air as she tried to regain her bearings.

No glimpse into the future was worth this feeling.

A horn sounded in the village nearby. Her pulse quickened. The humans had been alerted.

Still out of breath, she debated her options. A sneak attack was no longer possible.

“This is all your fault,” she said to the babe.

She looked at him, Jonas, the weapon that would rid these lands of humanity.

Yet she did not take him.

Her vision had unsettled her. Decimating the villagers who murdered her hatchlings was one thing but stealing this child and plunging the entire land into war just to save her kind felt too desperate… too human. For thousands of years, her kind had kept the balance. Would she cast that aside so easily?

But if she did nothing, the industry of man would destroy her kind.

She looked at the child. Still sitting silently, peering at her without fear.

With a sharp exhalation, she released her pent-up breath. Somewhere out there was Jonas’s mother. Did she know he was missing? Did her heart feel as desolate a place as her own? Or maybe it was worse, not knowing what fate had befallen him.

She looked to the clouds, wishing for Ulfather’s guidance, but the heavens gave no answer.

More horns sounded, nearer now. The humans were closing upon her.

Her gaze fell back down upon the child.

She would have to choose, and she’d have to choose quickly.