The Silencer

Prologue

The last dying ambers of light faded from the sky in a spectrum that seemed to set the world ablaze in hues of fiery orange. The sun made one last twinkle and vanished beyond the horizon. The sky darkened and the air burned cold. A ghostly fog rolled in like a blanket, smothering the world in grey.

Below it, a forest was a carpet stretched out over the uneven hills and mountains that shaped the Earth.

All was silent.

Still.

But to those who knew these lands knew no peace could ever come to a world divided by two mighty sides. The humans... and the beasts. Dragons.

Massive bat-like wings burst from the fog, followed by a creature with obsidian black and dark red scales glimmering in the faint moonlight. Wings flapped furiously, churning the fog like the surface of an ocean under stormy skies and howling winds.

The dragon pulled herself to the sky, climbing the air with each powerful stroke of her wings. Smoke trailed from her nostrils and her yellow eyes with pupils as vertical slits snarled at the air in front of her.

Electricity danced across her body, and if there were humans watching, despite their inability to see as well as a dragon in the dark, they would be able to make out the jagged zig-zagging lines of electricity crackling down the dragon's body, setting it aglow

It was a sight to behold. Humans knew to run when they saw her.

The Silencer, she was called.

For she silenced life from the world as easily as snuffing out candlelight.

But tonight, The Silencer was not here to kill, nor was she here to frighten, or torture. Her heart thrummed in her chest, her emotions a whirlwind of anger, fear and an endless reservoir of loss and sorrow.

Tears were whipped away from her eyes in the cold wind as she ascended the clouds.

Eventually after hours of flying, wings aching, she spotted the lonely lights of a small human village. The old Verena would have swooped down upon them, fires tearing out of her mouth until she set the whole place ablaze in the sweet song of screaming humans. But the old Verena also would never have been forced to flee her home, nor would she ever cry over the death of another being.

But she was a new Verena now. No longer could she be tied to the monster the humans called The Silencer.

Ideas slowly bloomed in her mind and the dragon circled the town from high above.

It was a pitiful idea that the old Verena would have laughed at. But for now she did not care. With her claws she wiped away her tears and circled the fields around the small human village. The trees and grass below her whipped around below the downdraft of her wings as she stumbled heavily to the ground, exhausted and mind still occupied with sorrow.

In an instant she seemed to fall further to the ground and a cloak settled over her human form. A young girl of seventeen with long wavy raven black hair stood up, her emerald eyes scanning the fields for any sign of being spotted shifting. When she saw no one, her eyes darted back to the human village. She took a deep breath and pulled down her hood down over her face.

Arriving the village peacefully was the strangest thing Verena had probably done in her entire life. Humans barely glanced her way, but for the first time she was grateful. If she had to blend in to hide, then so be it.

So she was surprised when she met the bright blue eyes of a girl roughly the same age as her across the street, a hood pulled over her head as well. The human quickly looked away, long blond hair swooshing after her and Verena's eyes narrowed. But then she shook her head. Whatever the human girl was hiding was none of her business.