Shadows of the Fire

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley,” Eden’s grandmother hushed over the roaring fire. Eden and Max scooted closer, warming their toes with the fire and their hearts with the story.

Max’s mouth opened, and Eden shoved a gloved hand into his face before he could interrupt. It was rare for anyone to speak of a time before the dragons, a taboo subject itself, and Eden refused to miss her chance to hear more.

“Mmph,” Max protested from behind the wooly fabric. Eden removed her hand but continued to glare at her younger brother until she was sure he would behave. He would’ve moved away if he could’ve but they only had one blanket to share and it was much too cold to go without it.

Grandma flashed a smile from her seat next to the fire. “Ready?” Both of us nodded, eager for a forbidden story.

“Long ago, there were no dragons in the valley. Just people.”

“No monsters?” Max whispered, eyes wide, ignoring the daggers Eden was shooting at him.

Grandma chuckled, “Oh there were monsters, just a different sort. You see before the dragons, there were two tribes, the Valley Tribe and the Mountain Tribe. The Mountain Tribes resided above the Valley Tribe but shared a common border.

‘Despite being neighbors, the two tribes desperately hated each other due to a few that went back generations. The tribes were constantly fighting over border disputes and even went as far as stealing from each other. But all of the little fights came to a head when the Valley Leader’s daughter went missing. The Valley Tribe immediately looked to the Mountain Tribe, blaming their lifelong enemies though there wasn’t a shred of evidence. The Valley Tribe began to gather their forces and prepare an attack upon the Mountain Tribe, in the name of the missing daughter. Meanwhile, up in the mountains, an important warrior of the Mountain Tribe had gone missing. Suspecting their neighbors of having a hand in his disappearance, the Mountain Tribe began their own preparations for an attack upon the Valley Tribe. It wasn’t long before both tribes were ready for an all out war. A war that would spell doom for the Valley and Mountain Tribes alike.”

The fire popped, causing Eden and Max to jump. “Wha- what happened next?” Max asked, hiding under Eden’s arm as she gripped his shoulder.

Grandma quirked a wrinkled eyebrow, “You tell me?”

Eden rolled her eyes. Grandma was always testing Eden and Max, trying to get them to figure out the ends of her stories before she told them. She took a deep breath, gathering the courage to impress her grandmother.

“Obviously the Valley Tribe won. We defeated those evil mountain people and that’s why we’re here today and they’re not,” Eden smiled, looking up at her grandma who turned her head and frowned. Eden felt a pit in her stomach grow.

“Is that what you think?” Her grandma wouldn’t look at her. “That the Mountain Tribe was evil?”

Eden’s eyebrows furrowed. She could tell her Grandma was unhappy with her answer but wasn’t sure why.

“Well, yeah. Da always says that the Valley Tribe is still here because we’ve defeated countless evil enemies who opposed us. So the Mountain Tribe must’ve been one of the bad guys, right?”

Her Grandma looked down at Eden, smiling sadly while she shook her head.

“Listen to the rest of the story.”

Eden’s shoulders slumped, puzzled by her grandmother’s response. Max patted her arm in consolation.

“The two tribes were about to go to war when the Valley leader’s daughter appeared. She ran to her father and begged him to stop. She confessed that she had not been stolen away in the night as they had thought but had run away. Ran away because she had fallen in love with a mountain warrior. The two had met by accident when she had fallen in the river by the border and he had saved her. From then on the two had carried out a secret romance until deciding to run away together. They had wanted to start a new life away from their feuding villages but when the daughter had heard of the coming war in her name, she had come back to stop it, against her lover’s wishes.

‘At the news of his daughter’s betrayal, the Valley Leader became enraged, throwing his daughter in an underground cell to waste away. He then spread the news that his daughter had died at the hands of a mountain warrior, encouraging war against their rivals. They would hold a funeral that night and attack in the morning.

Grandma paused, leaning over to throw another log on the dying fire. Eden scrambled to her feet, grabbing the wood and motioning for her Grandma to lean back. “I’ll do it, you finish the story,” told Grandma while stoking the fire. Grandma nodded, listening to her granddaughter.

“But the mountain warrior, who had been waiting for his lover nearby, heard the news of her death and knew it must’ve been her own father who had killed her. And so he watched her funeral from the hill that bordered the Mountain and Valley Tribes, vowing vengeance against the Valley Tribe, who he believed had killed his lover. But as the mountain warrior left the hillside to gather the Mountain Tribe’s troops for battle, his lover lay trapped in her father’s prison. Unknown to the Mountain Tribe, the Valley Tribe kept a prison under the bordering hill. The daughter of the Valley Leader had lain just below her lover’s feet as he thought her dead. She had tried to call for him but had already lost her voice from screaming. All she could do was listen to her lover’s vows of vengeance in her name.”

Max gasped, “What did she do? Did she save him?” He stared up at Grandma as Eden moved back to her seat by his side.

“What could she do? Locked in an underground cage with no hope of freedom, she had but one choice: to call upon the Shadow Witch.”

Eden shivered as Max hid his face in her shoulder, at the name of the invisible witch said to eat unruly children in their sleep.

Grandma continued, unfazed by the children’s fear, “Prayers to the Shadow Witch rarely go unanswered but always come at a price. From her buried cell, the Valley leader’s daughter prayed for the Shadow Witch to protect the Mountain Tribe from her brethren.

‘The next morning the daughter awoke to the sound of screams. Her heart sank, thinking she had failed to save her lover, until she looked out her tiny, barred window. The prayer had been answered, the mountain tribe had been saved from slaughter. But only because they had been transformed into huge winged creatures with hard, protective scales.”

“Dragons,” Eden whispered.

Her grandmother nodded, “And so the daughter watched from her cell as her monstrous lover flew away, never to see the other’s real face again. When his wings finally disappeared from sight, she collapsed, wailing with despair and cursing the Shadow Witch. But the witch wasn’t done with the daughter. She had not yet collected her price. Once the Valley Leader realized who would be desperate enough to have so foolishly prayed to the Shadow Witch, he ran to his treacherous daughter’s cell. But his young daughter was gone, and in her place was a shriveled hag, still crying over a man turned monster. It was there that the Valley Leader killed his own child, angry at all her betrayals. Or he would’ve, had the Witch not intervened. Angry over the violence of both the tribes, the Shadow Witch placed a curse upon them. No one would be able to leave the Valley until they figured out how to break the Dragon curse. And with that, she disappeared, never to be seen again.”

Eden felt wet, hot tears fall from her cheeks before she could wipe them away. She turned her face to the shadows of the fire so her brother and grandmother couldn’t see her cry.

“I don’t get it.”

Eden startled at Max’s voice. She opened her mouth to yell at him for being dumb but Grandma spoke first.

“Get what?”

Max tilted his head to the side, “Well why do the Mountain Tribe and the Valley Tribe hate each other? They had no reason to fight.”

Before Eden could scoff at her little brother’s foolishness, Grandma began to laugh.

“Now you’re asking the right questions.”

The front door slammed shut, cutting the laughter short. Eden sprang to her feet as her father stumbled into the living room.

“Da!” she squealed, running to greet him.

“How’s my little Den?” he asked before picking her up and spinning her around.

Eden’s nose scrunched, “Don’t call me that. The other kids say it’s a boy's name.”

Her father chuckled and turned his attention to his only son, “And you Max? Were you protecting our girls?”

Max shrank under his father’s attention. Eden seized the opportunity to turn the conversion back towards her. “Hardly. When he heard Grandma say ‘Dragon,’ he looked like was gonna cry but I wasn’t scared at all, Da,” Eden beamed up at her father until she noticed how his gaze had hardened and found its way towards his mother in-law.

He dropped Eden down to the floor and began to walk towards Grandma’s chair in front of the fire. “Dragons?” he asked in a low voice.

Realizing her mistake Eden ran to her grandmother’s side, “Da-”

“DRAGONS?” her father roared, ignoring her.

Eden flinched. Max got up from his spot on the floor to stand behind his sister.

With Max’s small arms wrapped around hers, Eden tried again. “I didn’t mean Dragons, I meant-”

She paused as her grandmother reached out, placing a wrinkled hand upon her arm.

“It’s alright dear. Why don’t you take Max up to bed?”

Neither child moved, looking back and forth between the two adults.

Not moving his glare from the old woman before him, their father spoke. “You heard your Grandma. Run along.”

With a last look at her grandmother, Eden grabbed Max’s hand and pulled him upstairs.

“But Grandma-” Max protested, trying to free his hand.

Eden tightened her grip, “Shhhh, Grandma will be fine.”

She had barely enough time to pull Max into their bedroom and shut the door before their father began yelling. Max turned to run back downstairs, tears rolling from his small face. Eden blocked the door and wrapped her arms around her little brother. He squirmed and tried to free himself from her grip but she refused to let go.

“Please Denny,” he cried. Eden’s heart broke but just squeezed him tighter.

“It’ll be okay Maxie,” Eden’s voice broke. “Just stay with me.”

Max collapsed to the floor and Eden fell with him. They stayed on the floor together until the yelling abated. At some point Max had fallen asleep, exhausted from crying. Eden picked her little brother up, whispering “It’ll be okay,” to him over and over as she tucked him into bed. Before she could move to her own bed, Max grabbed her hand.

“Don’t leave,” he pleaded.

Eden lied down beside him, “Never.”

Max sniffed, “Denny, will you tell me a story?”

“Of course.” She planted a kiss upon his head. “Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived in the Valley Tribe. The little boy was caring and strong and would grow up to become the Hero of the Valley. This little boy was gonna be the one to save us all. The Dragonslayer.”

10 years later

Eden woke with a start as a cold breeze made its way into her room. She stood, eyes just barely opened, and closed the window. A chill creeped down her spine as she looked to her brother’s empty bed. Strange, she thought, Max must’ve gone to work early. Getting dressed quickly, Eden ran downstairs to check for her brother. Eden paused as she entered the kitchen, not seeing Max nor a sign that he had eaten today. At last she spied his cloak missing from the door and felt a wave of reassurance. I’ll have to bring him some breakfast, Eden thought, pulling bread and fruit out of the cupboards. With breakfast safely in her basket, Eden headed out to search for her little brother.

As Eden made her way to the Blacksmith shop where Max apprenticed, she noticed the stillness of the morning. The wind whistled in her ears but no signs of life could be seen. Eden shivered, feeling the quiet in her bones. Mornings were only this slow when something bad had happened. And as of late, bad things had been happening more often than not.

It started about a year ago, when the livestock began to go missing in the dead of night. No one would talk about it but everyone knew it must be the dragons. It wasn’t long after that when the first kid was stolen. The whole town went wild, searching for the little girl who’d disappeared. The month after it was a teenager. And then a baby. Every month a kid went missing, never to be seen again. All anyone could do was lock their doors and hope that their family wasn’t next.

Eden quickened her step, casting glances around for any hint of who had been stolen. The family of the stolen tended to hang something of the missing kid in a window or outside their door, both in the hopes that it would bring them home and so no one else had to worry after their child. Eden had spied nothing yet.

The sign for the Blacksmith shop came into view. Eden pulled open the front door, listening as the bell rang. A familiar face greeted her.

“Declan.” Eden beamed up at a tall boy with light brown hair and bright blue eyes who was holding a bundle of misshapen weapons across the room. At the sight of Eden he dropped the bundle and in two steps had cleared the distance between them, grabbing Eden and swinging her in the air.

“Denny!” Declan yelled, his face lighting up. Eden’s face went pink at the sound of her old nickname.

She laughed and swatted her old friend’s arm. “Put me down you oaf.”

Declan chuckled and set her down on her feet. “Sorry I got excited but I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Once her feet hit the floor, Eden took a shy step back, trying to look anywhere but the handsome face in front of her. “Oh I’ve just been busy. I’ve got my own apprenticeship, ya know.”

Declan’s broad smile widened, making Eden’s blush deepen. “I know. How’s Aunt Anna treating you? She’s not working you too hard at the dress shop, is she? Every time I see her she seems exhausted, with her hands worked raw.”

Eden coughed, avoiding Declan’s gaze. She folded her hands behind her back to hide her own hands.

Only Max knew that Eden’s “sewing” apprenticeship was a farce. Though Anna did make dresses, occasionally with Eden’s assistance, the majority of their time together was actually spent in the woods along the Mountain border, the Witch Wood. It was there that Anna had been hunting for years before taking Eden under her wing and training her to do the same. With her husband being the butcher, it was easy for Anna to pass her game off as his while gaining a little extra money. If anyone knew of Anna and Eden’s exploits in the Witch Wood, punishment for the two women would be severe. Only men were allowed in the Witch Wood, let alone to hunt.

Anna’s hunting was a well kept secret known only to her closest confidants. Eden had no idea why Anna had trusted this secret to her but thanked the Goddess of the Valley for it everyday. The idea of spending all day inside mending dresses was not a welcome to Eden. Better to be free and in danger than trapped and safe. The extra money didn’t hurt either.

“Den?” Declan waved a hand in front of her face. “Anyone in there?”

Eden blinked and shook her head. “Sorry, just lost in thought. What were you saying?”

Declan’s brows furrowed, “Ah nothing. Just asking about your apprenticeship.”

“Right,” Eden nodded, “I was actually on my way there but I wanted to stop by and give

Max some breakfast. Work must be going well if he was so eager to get here.”

Declan tilted his head to the side, “What do you mean?”

Eden turned her basket and began unpacking food. “Oh Max just never gets up early or skips breakfast but today he was gone before I woke up and all the food in the kitchen was untouched.” She paused glancing up at Declan before looking back to her basket. “Is he in the back? He needs to eat before he starts work or else-”

“Eden.”

At the sound of her real name coming from Declan, Eden paused. “Yes?” The chill she had been trying to banish all morning found its way to her chest. Her hands began to shake, barely managing to keep the bread in her grip.

Declan wrapped his hands around hers and moved to look her in the eye. “Eden, Max isn’t here.”

Eden dropped the bread. She turned abruptly, knocking over her basket of food. “What? Of course he is. He wasn’t in bed this morning and his cloak wasn’t by the door. He has to be here. He wouldn’t go anywhere else,” she insisted.

Approaching her slowly, as if she were a wild animal, Declan whispered, “He’s not here.”

Before Declan could do or say anything else Eden fled out the door, leaving her basket and friend behind. She began to sprint through the empty streets, making her way back the way she came. I must’ve just missed him this morning. I bet he was out back chopping wood or maybe he was- Eden’s tumbling thoughts came to a halt as she remembered the cold she had woken up to.

The window, she thought. Tears began to roll down her face and Eden ran even harder. Max refused to keep the bedroom window open at night, still terrified by the childhood fear that the Shadow Witch would eat him in his sleep. He never would’ve left the window open.

The unease that had been gnawing at her all morning turned into full blown panic as Eden came to stop in front of her house.

She couldn’t breathe.

Hanging from the roof was her brother’s cloak.

Eden’s knees hit stone as she collapsed on the steps of her house. With eyes blurred by tears, Eden looked up to the cloak and the sky past it. She offered a silent vow to the Goddess of the Valley.

A dragon had stolen her brother and Eden would do whatever it takes to get him back.