Devoured Hearts

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. But the land here had grown wild in more ways than one. One year of mother nature’s merciless nurturing and the place had become unrecognizable. What had once been rolling fields of wildflowers was now a tangled mess of overgrown vegetation, choking out the remains of the humans who had stood here and slaughtered one another.

Yes, I realize I’ve become quite the pessimist. Living alone with dragons for a year will do that to a person.

I remember the days before the battle clearly. I remember riding my horse near death to make it to the Valley on time. Two days I raced across the kingdom, only leaving the saddle to eat or sleep, trying to get word to the front. Trying to stop the war before it happened. Only to arrive and find masses of women and men fighting and dying around me. I remember racing through the chaos and leaping through the air. But then… then I remember nothing. No, not nothing. Blackness. Emptiness. A gaping hole in my mind where my memories should be. Like someone ripped them out of my head. What kind of sick SOB would do that? Goddess knows if I’ll get them back. I wonder for the thousandth time if a large glass of sparking fae wine wouldn’t shake them loose.

The days in between are foggy. Grief and guilt had consumed me and I clung to unconsciousness as an escape. Sounds and colours faded in and out, but sleep was my blissful reprieve from the mistakes that haunted me. It protected me from thoughts of the people I had failed. Again. Thoughts of how I would always fail them.

The next clear memory I have is of lying on my back in the grass. A soft warm breeze skittered over my arms, and I blinked into the sunlight piercing through the canopy. I could hear familiar voices calling me. Voices of the people I loved screaming my name as they searched desperately for my body. But my body refused to move. I was in a place they could not follow.

Being a ghost was new to me then. I wish I could say I’d grown numb to it. But even now, my stomach turns and the pain in my heart aches anew as their faces flash through my mind. So here I am, stuck in this gods-awful, dragon-infested Valley. Haunting it for all intents and purposes. At least until I can figure out what happened that day and what the hell happened to me.

One youngling swoops low overhead, grazing my hair with its wing and startling me from my thoughts. It sets loose an obnoxious squawk as it clumsily flaps its wings and aims its beak toward the nest. Most of the dragons roost in the steep hillsides bordering the Valley. They’re sheltered here and undisturbed, since the humans have abandoned this place.

I’m always surprised by how playful they are. You’d think for a flying beast of lore, they’d be a little more intimidating. I keep expecting them to eat me, but maybe being a ghost keeps me off the menu?

Yay, a win.

The green one constantly gives me side-eye. Yes, technically they’re all green. But this one is just slightly greener than the others. Don’t argue with my logic, it’s very sound. Ghost logic always is. So anyway, the green one always gives me this ‘you’re an idiot’ look. Which is insulting considering he’s the one using his tongue to clean himself and lives in a roofless home of straw and spit.

A loud squawk echos through the Valley, a warning. I look up at the beast responsible. West. It’s facing west. Insert overly dramatic cursing here. I don’t need to see the leathers to know who it is. There’s only one person stupid enough to trek all the way to this gods-forsaken spot every two months. Does he not have anything better to do with his time? Sigh.

I climb the hillside to get a better vantage point. A single rider on a red roan canters into the Valley. He doesn’t bother surveying his surroundings, he’s too arrogant for that. The man pulls his horse to a stop. As he does, he lifts his head to where I stand and I look into the haunted gaze of King Ronan of Rhula.