The Timeless Reach

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. But twenty years ago, the nightclub on 32nd street had become their den without the consent, or appreciation, of the club’s owner. There was only one rule, and it was written in faded blocky letters on neon green poster board: no shifting into dragon form while in The Valley. The two-story space could easily fit a football field and would accommodate their twenty-foot wingspan, but where one dragon shifted, too many others were sure to follow and only bloodshed would ensue. The Valley was the one place where dragon factions and politics were set aside, and so they obeyed the rule if only to drink in peace. Tonight, the club was pulsing with electronica, and Shayon the Wicked of the Firegarde clan was nursing a whiskey and sporting a black eye. The strobing lights and pervasive smell of sweat and too much perfume was giving him a headache.

“Hey asshole, who prettied up your face for you?”

Shayon turned toward the voice and grinned. Stellan Wraith of the Coldborne clan was sauntering toward him with a beer in his hand, his bulky six-foot five frame alarmingly graceful. Even in his human form, the pattern of ice white scales could be seen contrasted against his dark skin, and more than a few heads turned to watch his progress toward the bar.

“If I tell you, you’ll just make fun of me,” Shayon frowned, draining the last of his whiskey. He signaled to the bartender, a slender dryad with sea glass green hair and bark like skin named Nekaia, for another round.

“Shit,” Wraith laughed. “She get the drop on you again, bro?”

“My sister,” Shayon sighed, “is nothing if not persistent.” He took his glasses off, held together by a four pieces of scotch tape, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Though his eyesight was perfect in dragon form, he was too near sighted as a human.

“Dude, she’s called Emryth the Breaker for a reason.” Wraith clapped a sympathetic hand on Shayon’s shoulder.

As if Shayon didn’t know that. As if his older sister hadn’t been the one to dub him Shayon the Wicked, not because he was impressive in any way, but because he could take a wicked beating. She’d made it her life mission to ensure he grew into the moniker by kicking his ass at every opportunity. “One day you’ll be worthy of the title,” she’d jeered at the naming ceremony. “Until then, it’s my job to make sure you earn it.”

“She should have been called Emryth the Unbearable.” Shayon slipped his glasses back on and ran a hand through his short, already mussed hair. Where Wraith was big and bold, Shayon was lithe and quiet. Happy to blend into the background, he was “a disgrace to dragonkind’s badass rep,” as Emryth constantly reminded him.

“Bro, your sister is a goddess among dragons, and I would totally tap that if she didn’t swing the other way.”

“Maybe she just told you that because she didn’t want to get with your ugly mug.”

“Yeah,” Wraith laughed again. “I’ll be sure to run that by her girlfriend. Anyway, what’s your sorry ass doing here? You bringing the vibe down, man.”

“Rough day on patrol,” Shayon shrugged. “The humans are getting antsy. We haven’t had an incident in almost two months, but I think the anniversary of the Joining is putting everyone on edge.”

While the realm of Ovarath was home to all manner of magical creatures, it was the humans that posed the biggest threat. Their hatred of anything more powerful than them turned their fear into a weapon that threatened civil unrest on a good day and outright war on a bad one.

“Shiiiit,” Wraith blew out a heavy sigh. “Can’t believe it’s been almost twenty-five years.”

“And no closer to getting home.” Shayon glanced toward the wide expanse of dance floor where bodies were writhing and glistening with sweat. There were naiads and dryads, fairies and elves. But just like there weren’t always dragons in the Valley, there weren’t always so many varied species in Ovarath. But a quarter of a century ago, The Joining brought chaos when an unexpected planetary shift opened portals across nine different realms and funneled them all into Ovarath.

“It’s freakin’ nuts that we haven’t all killed each other yet,” Wraith said.

“Do you miss The Timeless Reach?” Shayon asked. It was an unspoken rule among the nine dragon factions that they didn’t speak of their home realm. Dragon shifters lived too long to be sentimental about the past. Their only focus was the future. And that meant getting back where they belonged.

“This place is a shit hole,” Wraith nodded. “We didn’t know what the word modern meant ‘till we got here and yeah, not to sound like a sissy but, I miss it, bro. Don’t you?”

“I’ve been working with the astrologers and witches for ten years trying to get us back, Wraith. I think that goes without saying.”

Wraith shivered, his massive shoulders sliding up toward his ears.

“I don’t know how you do it. Don’t trust ‘em.”

“They don’t trust us, either. That’s part of the problem. I keep trying to tell Kasumisi that something doesn’t feel right. Something’s off. The Accords say we can only,” Shayon broke off when a glimmer in the air caught his attention. The room pulsed with more than music and his muscles coiled tight. The smell of magic pervaded the air, the tang of burning metal making his nostrils flare wide.

“Shit,” he breathed.

“No fucking shifting!” the bouncer shouted from his post at the edge of the club, but it was too late.

A sound like an explosion rent the air, the ether rippled, and a curvaceous fairy screamed as the Watersong shifter she’d been dancing with vanished. In his place was a six-thousand-pound dragon, his maw opening wide as he let out a deafening roar.

“What the shit, man!” Wraith bellowed next to him. “He’s gonna,” but his words cut off, eyes wide with fear, and then the ground trembled as Wraith shifted, too.

Shayon was knocked sideways by Wraith’s behemoth body. And one by one, every dragon in the Valley shifted.

Screams rent the air, chased by the dragon’s rage fueled bellows.

Shayon scrambled back as the ceiling started to cave in, watched in horror as the walls blew outward with the powerful sweep of wings and claws.

A Coldborne knocked into a Firegarde who turned, whip fast, and unleashed a stream of lightning white fire. It missed and burned the entire dance floor to a cinder.

People were fleeing as the building crumbled around them. And then, as one, the dragons broke through the remaining fragments of ceiling and took to the sky. Only devastation remained.

Shayon tried to shift. Needed to protect himself. But the ancient magic wouldn’t come.

They hadn’t turned by choice, that much was clear in their looks of shock just before the magic had taken over, turning them into their true form. But why was Shayon spared? He was bleeding from the head but hadn’t remembered being hit. His vision was blurry and when he felt for his glasses, they were gone. The smell of burning wood and concrete dust was making him choke.

Amongst the rubble and wreckage, Shayon caught sight of a charred corner of neon green poster board. People were still running and screaming as he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled over chunks of concrete and rebar and wood. Out in the street, bystanders were crying. They were blurry, but one figure caught his eye. The blood red cloak was hard to forget. Samael Bashkin, king of the people, lord of Ovarath, and as human as they came. His voice rang out over the tumult, cold and commanding, sending shivers down Shayon’s spine.

“The dragons have broken the treaty,” he said. “Prepare for war.”