So Speaks the Ruinous Light || To Herald a Dawn Book 1

Chapter 7 (remnants)

In my dreams, I am not I, I am only a passenger watching above the meadow and the castle, so puny they may as well be a rug of yellow beside a climbing structure for children. The three guards on the wall, small as rodents, don't come investigating the after-effects of the light explosion.

They warn Regalia and the two other healers who waited in the courtyard that since it's daytime, they shouldn't risk searching the meadow for the burned and desecrated, since they could lie in wait to ambush. Those Sun Slaves.

Regalia and the healers don't listen--they argue that the only way to save the wounded is to get to them now. But when the guard with the bow asks Regalia how much magic she's got left, she gets tight-lipped and says nothing. Except the healer to her left--shorter, tunic and pants oversized on his body--raises a hand and ruins the guard's argument simply by asking why don't they get some other healers and guards who do have magic left over?

So a unit of four healers in clunky armor, and eight soldiers with shimmery swords and shields, scale down ropes from the top of the wall, flanked by two salamander riders--members of the Empress' personal guard.

They methodically cross up and down the meadow's length, from castle wall to tree line (where they warily watch the forest), from the river bank bordering the plains to the fenced grazing fields halfway around the curved rampart.

The unit finds scattered armor, and blades, and shields. They find a single black arrowhead half buried in the dirt, the silver shaft torn away.

Every trace of the night warriors themselves has burned from the meadow floor.

After scouring the entire field, the entourage returns to the castle wall. They peer into the sewer tunnel, then opt to scale back up the wall, black and violet salamanders and their riders standing guard around the ropes until the last of the soldiers rolls over the parapet. Then the amphibians run vertically up the stones, tall leather saddles and their occupants swishing side to side.

Even the soldiers who've spent years on the battlefront can't get over their shock, staring out across the meadow like an abyss. One of the healers breaks into tears, and Regalia and the guards in the courtyard run up the stairs but don't have to ask what the unit found.

Then the rest of the healers start crying, and Regalia sinks emotionless beside them, and the salamander riders dismount and lead their animals down the steps, to cross the castle and inform the Empress herself what happened: One (they say the name now, hiss it like it's defiled) was meeting a Sun Slave in the forest. A powerful light summoner. None of our soldiers survived the encounter. There weren't even remnants.

In the forest, Michael carries my body in his arms, following the lazy brook. The arrow juts from my shoulder, still, sticky with half-dried blood. Michael keeps checking the sky, through the purple leaves shaped like clawed-animals' paws. Obsessively, he keeps checking the sun, like he knows the night warriors only have to wait until dusk to give chase; his magic ebbing without the sun, their magic growing with the dark.

He follows the brook through the forest, crossing glades of golden mushrooms with black dots, hopping to the other side of the stream to avoid fallen tree trunks and knolls of rocks. He arrives at a cave; the brook waterfalls out of it, babbling into the winding trail he's followed here. Here, he shoves my body headfirst into the wide mouth, then climbs up after my dripping shoes.

My dreams go dark, lose their clarity--I replay Regalia's stone face, her sinking to her knees beside the other healers on the rampart, guards who keep murmuring that they found nothing, not even bones.

One of the soldiers picks up an empty silver helmet, unclasped down the middle, and gently sets it in the packed saddlebag on the salamander's side.

Michael's boot crushes a black, wilting flower in a circle of dry dirt. Over uneven terrain, his elbow scrapes the edges of exposed tree roots.

My dream returns to the meadow grasses the instant the light explosion fades. In silence, stems rustle entirely unknowing of the magic that devoured the Night Warriors.

The salamander riders wander into the castle, corridors too dark for my slumbering eyes.

My limp arm sways with Michael's footsteps.

My dreams go dark, dwindling into flickers. Blinking orange eyes. An arrow's vibration. Perseverance's hand on my shoulder where the pain pulses. Regalia's lips. Scraping a box out from under my bed. Mismatched slippers. A leather strap digging between my thumb and finger. Liquid seeping through my socks.

Heat.

Light.

Water.

Dirt on my knees.

Nothing.