A cloying darkness closed in overhead, rising with the trees of the deepwood. These were great, ancient things, their ashen bark grooved with age and shaded by climbing vines, and flowers, and by curling mosses that were soft to the touch but bitter to both nose and mouth. Where the bark gave way to sweeping boughs, all that could be seen were tufts of deep green needles and the hand-sized cones that would fall in the late summer and autumn months.

Above the canopy there may indeed have been a sky gray with the lingering promise of snow, but from below it was invisible; the only indications of its existence were the sporadic, phantom dapples of light that illuminated a snow-frosted path beneath the trees. That path was littered with hollowed logs and the rich decay of the ancient forests, broken by the hulking shapes of boulders strewn like colossal bones amidst the gloom. Rock-rooted saplings and flowering vines surged through rifts and niches in their craggy faces, promising that even stone, in time, would yield to the might of the trees.

Over this land a faint breeze blew, carrying with it the relentless trill of alien birds and insects, and a sound as foreign to the forest as the cry of an eagle in a crowded city – the creak of wooden cartwheels. Heralded by the sound, a carriage crashed through the ice and trees, disrupting the calm. Before it, bone glinted in a narrow shaft of light from overhead – twisted bone surrounded by hair like copper wire. It was the horn of a unicorn, a mighty beast with a fine, equine head and mobile ears, a tail that shone in every glance of light from overhead, and broad sides the equal of any warhorse. Wings spread from its back, their feathers milky and fine as silk. There were two such beasts at the carriage head, and there was not anyone in Alti who did not know they were messengers of the royal family.

Ahead of the carriage, a rabbit shot away beneath the foliage, disappearing into a patch of deep golden grass that had supplanted itself in the narrow fold between pines. As if giving chase, the unicorns suddenly changed direction, pulling the carriage into plain view of the grassy terrain. One lifted its chiseled skull high, raking the earth with eyes like molten gold. The other turned to reveal a spiraled horn of the same rich shade as rosewood, whickering softly as the faint light danced across its mottled flanks and pearly wings. Together, the winged beasts slowed, stepping smartly as the undergrowth leapt aside to make way for their hooves. Behind them, the carriage glided smoothly to a halt despite the uneven forest floor. It was deceptively plain, its paneled wooden walls without the usual insignia to identify its owner.

Within seconds, four people rode up beside the carriage. They were seated on the island’s native mounts; narrow-headed, horse-like creatures lightly cloaked in downy black feathers. The men of the stables often said they were finicky as cats about their feathers, and that they were cleaner and lighter to feed than the mainland’s horses. They were certainly smaller than the unicorns, built to flee rather than fight.

Seated astride one of the beasts was a woman who knew this well. She was one of the king’s elite guard, the kivgha – one of only two women currently in possession of such a title. Those around her called her Larsa, and nothing else. No title. Her expression suggested that she had risen to her position through cautious and judicious use of her faculties – suspicious, stern, and above all things, prepared. There was a softness around her eyes that suggested warmth, but her lips remained thinly pressed in a firm line as she surveyed their surroundings. She wore her thin armor like a second skin, the weapons at her side tucked meticulously out of sight, and every buckle on her person rubbed with enough oil to make it disappear on a bright day. No sense in letting some part of her catch the light and give them away.

Larsa was capable in every sense of the word, without a doubt. That was the reason she was outside the carriage, and the woman she protected hidden behind gauze curtains within. But that did not mean the woman Larsa protected was not capable in herself. She also, was known by a single name – Tiavell. There was no one in Alti that did not know that name. And Tiavell knew more of what was said about the mainland than Larsa would ever need to know. Half of it was true, half of it rumors and tales garbled by the islanders’ imaginations. But Tiavell was not worried about the mainland now. Egypt, the Ottomans, the Mongols…they were distant concerns compared to what her people faced.

Tiavell leaned until she too could see the grasses that framed her guardians and her guides. A single great stone that rose like a dragon’s spine over the field, casting a long shadow through the woods. They would soon arrive at the great plains at the heart of the Issurak – the Fensrinn plains. Its perimeter was dotted with smaller splotches of grassland like this one, warning signs to travelers like herself. The plains were a place that they must certainly avoid.

She twitched the fabric a bit farther from her view, revealing herself as she did so. Her skin was fair, the hair that trickled lightly across her cheekbones from a loose bun at the back of her head the same deep chocolate as the bark of the youngest trees at the heart of the deepwood. There were people who called her beautiful, and people who called her severe, depending on her mood. At the moment, her full lips were pursed in thought or worry, and her sea green eyes were cut with steel. She had spotted something crouched in the grasslands, watching them. Her brows furrowed ever so slightly.

It looked human.

A nervous growl from one of her guards’ mounts caught Tiavell’s attention, and she saw that Larsa and the three guards beneath her command had all trained their attention on the grasslands as well. Their passage through the forest had made all of them wary. And wary they should be - the Issurak was not a place for humans of any kind. It was the domain of the beasts.

And Tiavell knew she was seeking something best left forgotten.

So thinking, Tiavell raised her arm to signal, with a tap on its wooden walls, that she was leaving the carriage. Something brought her pause. Her eyes traveled down her apparel. She wore a dress that ran from her shoulders to just below her knees, echoing the same sea green color of her eyes. It was slit up the front, making her motion easy, and the sleeves were light and nearly nonexistent. A fine but sturdy sash served as her belt, and tucked in it she carried the nearly forearm length dagger that had been her wedding gift and weapon of choice for more years than she could count. If the time came to use it, she would not hesitate. She could not. Still, it would be best to hope that things not come to her needing the dagger.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she knocked rhythmically five times against the carriage wall.

Within seconds, black feathers blocked her view of the field, and she looked up into Larsa’s face. This woman was as dear to her as a sister. Larsa’s daughter, Sori, was also only a few years older than her own daughter, and so their relationship had proven to be far more than that of queen and guard. They were mothers alike, though born of different stations, magics, and dreams.

“Tiavell srinn, is he one of them?” the woman asked. Drawing one more sharp breath, Tiavell looked grimly up at Larsa and nodded once, curtly. Larsa scowled. “We are ready, my srinn.”

The woman murmured to her mount, who moved away from the window, but Tiavell noted that the guard was dismounting as she slipped the carriage door open and stepped lightly out. Larsa fell into step behind her, as did one of her other guards, as Tiavell stepped slowly to the edge of the golden grasses.

Nearer now, the figure watching them remained silent and motionless. He must have noticed them, since he was facing in their direction. His hair was dark as raven feathers, his attention turned towards something in his lap. There was little more she could make out across the distance except that he was only a boy. Ten, maybe twelve years of age. A tattered black cloak of some kind had been draped across his shoulders, and he wore something equally dark beneath it, neither of which would give him much protection from the snows that haunted the forest.

“You there, may I ask something of you?” she called softly.

Seconds passed, and only silence greeted her request. She felt Larsa shift uncomfortably behind her, and shook her head so slightly that only the female kivgha would see. Tiavell knew better than to ask the boy his name or age, but their time was wearing thin. This forest was no place for humans. No place at all.

“I know you are not human,” Tiavell added.

This bought a reaction. The boy raised his head slightly, and she felt the cold tingle of uncertainty trace slowly down her spine. His gaze had moved to her. The clank of metal drew her eyes down as he stood slowly. At his wrists, there was a set of wide metal bangles. Her sea-green eyes widened ever so slightly.

Selurian’s manacles. These were the manacles of the dragon srinn, something that had passed into human legend centuries before. To magic users they were a thing of nightmares, a form of imprisonment that drank the magic from any beast until none remained. They had passed into history with the war criminals of the ancient ages, when the agreements that bid men rule the land, dragons the skies, and the keliarn the heavens had been written. There were few who knew of them anymore, and fewer who would have recognized them.

Dread stole through her, icy and suffocating in its embrace. Tiavell’s eyes were drawn inexorably downward, and when she saw a flash of bare feet and the glint of metal between the grasses, she knew the boy was bound at the ankles as well.

Oblivious to her wonder, the boy started towards them. Slow, measured steps. She could see his eyes now, the glint of crimson, a cold so terrible it drove the breath from her lungs. Cruel, scrutinizing, heartless eyes. The boy met her gaze as her guards shifted around her, and stopped just outside the range of any of their weapons.

“You are the human srinn,” he growled. His voice was in their heads as much as it was aloud. Tiavell knew, instantly, that she had found what she was looking for – the creature before them was no boy, however young he might appear; he was a true vampire. The weight of the dagger against her hip was suddenly far too little.

“Would you point me the road to Libertia?”

Silence. The boy cocked his head slowly, and Larsa leapt before her as he flexed his hand, manacles tinkling softly as the thin silver bracelets cascaded against each other. The finest work of the dragons, beautifully delicate, etched with hundreds of words in the dragon tongue. If she had not known what they were, Tiavell would have thought they were magnificent.

“By the dragons’ will, you must die today. But perhaps,” Tiavell was startled, shocked by the clear, boyish voice that now echoed in the small clearing, “I shall bring you back after your death if you beg.”

Back? The words rang eerily as a breeze whipped up around them, rustling the golden grasses. The copper unicorn snorted words that only one acquainted with their language would understand. Tiavell wondered if the unicorns were also disturbed by the innocence and certainty in the boy’s voice - he truly believed that death was not final – or by the threat that the dragons wanted her dead.

Larsa and the guards closed ranks around her in a flash, raising weapons and calling magic to their sides, as the boy blinked his crimson eyes and continued to stare. A scaled ebony tail slowly uncoiled from behind him. Tiavell’s fingers inched towards the dagger at her waist. A demon. A monster. He had the aura of the Zara within him and that was what had confused her, but Tiavell saw now that she had been wrong to think he was a vampire. They had stumbled across something far more terrible than even she could have foreseen, something they did not even have a name for.

Tiavell watched as Larsa pulled the minerals from the earth beneath their feet, forming a heavy dust that hovered in the air before them. No projectile weapons from the other side would penetrate that dust. She took up her bow then, joined by two of the other guards, and pointed her arrow at the boy’s heart. He did not seem to mind. He simply watched with ageless, emotionless eyes as the tip of the arrow burst into flame, and the dust swirled around them all.

“Riant,” Larsa barked, stepping back to place herself squarely in front of Tiavell, and releasing. The mounted guard hurtled past them beneath the cover of the thick dust and the friendly shadow of his comrades’ flaming arrows. He drew the twin blades from his back and grasped tight to the chain that connected them. The chain took on a life of its own as he spun and looped it, hurling one blade forward.

A loud clang echoed through the grasses and the dust. Tiavell could just make out the boy’s hands, coiled at his chest to catch Riant’s blade. Black scales unfurled across his flesh, forming a steely skin across his palms, his forearms, his neck. Chain rasped against those scales as he grabbed hold of the line between himself and her guard.

Larsa whistled. Again, flaming arrows shot through the dust, pockets of light in an impenetrable gloom. The boy ducked to avoid them, the tattered cloak around his shoulders ripping to reveal bat-like wings. Tiavell could hear Riant urging his mount into a wild gallop, aiming to free his weapon or unbalance the boy. She drew on her own magic to help him, demanding that the wind come to her call, sharp, swift, and scathing.

But all the time the boy was changing…and his demonic, twisted form, with eyes red as embers and wings stretched wide as a starless night sky, suited him more than the guise of any man or boy. Her magic did nothing to him. Arrows glanced off of his ebony scales. Riant’s weapon was jerked from his grasp as the demon pulled. He accepted the loss, wheeling around in front of them to draw his sword. Tiavell saw his eyes meet Larsa’s, and knew their plan.

Riant charged again. This time, the dust moved with him, buzzing like a swarm of angry insects. Tiavell had seen that cloud of doom rip greater beasts to shreds. She had seen it consume the hull of an Egyptian warship, and she had seen it lay waste to parts of the Issurak. Today, it was in turn consumed. Flame erupted from seemingly nowhere, and the dust became a ball of fire. Riant nor his mount ever slowed as they charged to their destruction. Tiavell saw the demon’s tail snake around, and the menacing spines at the end of it took Riant from the saddle, punching through his chest and coming out the other side, seconds before the flame’s consumed him.

“By the stars,” Larsa growled. One of Larsa’s guards shouted something, and then the fire exploded outwards. Startled, Tiavell blinked as she was pressed back against the carriage door. Less than a second passed, yet she opened her eyes once more to find the world a changed place.

The other guard was gone. The demon was gone. Golden-hearted, searing flames had roared across the golden grasses before them and melted the snow at its edges to black water. The trees at her sides had become pillars of light and heat. Waves of hot air washed over her, beading the sweat against her skin and evaporating it just as quickly. Her eyes watered as she repressed the urge to cough against the black smoke that filled her lungs, and she forced a stealing calm through her fingers so that her hands could grasp the cold handle of her dagger. It came free of her sash into her hands, the blade shimmering as her pale fingers brushed against its spine.

Larsa and the final guard stood near her, weapons drawn and eyes transfixed by the flames.

“Let me,” Tiavell said calmly, resting a hand on Larsa’s shoulder. Larsa glanced once at her, and then turned the smoke to a black rain that fell before them and faded in dark pools into the burned soil. It was a welcome reprieve. Tiavell nodded to her and raised the white blade to her lips to kiss it softly. Then she threw her hand back and hurled it blindly into the flame.

Heat erupted against her face instantly. The flames roared and surged outward, crying to the heavens as the great trees that had been overtaken by them cracked, liquid fire crawling in their pitted black bark, and toppled earthward in a cloud of sparks and ash. Tiavell stood unhindered, drawing the air like a veil before her eyes so that she could still see, and then stepping back suddenly at the ghastly image that met her gaze. The flames parted around a great black skull stretched tight with scaled flesh, two massive bony horns curving to the skies. The boy’s blood-red eyes caught her and held her, but they were not the eyes of a boy.

They were the eyes of a dragon.

Larsa raised her bow once more, shouting curses at the dragon. Without hesitation, he raised and slashed bodily through the woman with one set of ebony talons. The last guard tried to intervene and was thrown aside as if he were dust before a fiery hurricane. There remained only Tiavell and the great dragon, staring down at her with the eyes of a demon. Hers were the eyes of a queen, unyielding and proud, deep with the expanse of her knowledge and her love of her people. But the hope had gone from them, and the demon’s eyes glistened wetly in the firelight.

There was no dragon that could take the form of man. None in all the world.

“What are you?” Tiavell demanded once more, seeing now what she had known to be true. The cry that had shaken the flames to the skies had been the cry of this beast in his death throes; the hilt of her dagger protruded from the point between his broad ribs where she knew a dragon’s heart to be. Her magic could not fail to strike true. He was dead. Dead and yet standing before her, living.

“Hesssss,” the grating voice cried its name within her mind, and the dragon roared as the massive spikes across his tail swam into her vision. He continued to cry to the darkened sky long after the fire ate away the path before him, and the woman who had been his prey was dead, her blood spilled and her last wishes dead upon her lips.