Author's Preface
“I smell smoke,” Emperor Tharaen Aen, saw the strange burning of the sky and grabbed his binoculars.
An army was forming at the Miranda border. Even at this distance he could make out the glint of steel catching the dying light, could see the dark shapes of siege engines being hauled into position behind lines, far too many for anything but war.
"Every soul along the border is to be evacuated," he said to his younger brother. "On foot, by cart, by anything that moves. Send them all."
"Father swore they would never cross the valley, he swore it upon the flame itself," said Prince Soreke.
"Father is not here, Soreke," Tharaen's grip tightened upon the binoculars.
"Jye..."
"They burned their own villages to furnish themselves with cause to attack us," Tharaen's jaw hardened. "It's an order, get the civilians out."
Soreke ran down the stairs, Tharaen raised the binoculars once more to his eyes and saw Ocene Aen approaching bridge with Salvo in his hand.
"Soreke," Tharaen ran toward corridor and hovered over the railing, toward Soreke who was ten steps down. "Take Dahvine with you and see Ryska..." He remembered leaving her by the window, thinking there was still time. "She is to live, even if we do not, remember that above all else," his voice dropped and he took a step back. "You were the finest brother a man could ever hope for."
Soreke's eyes filled up, he watched Tharaen a second longer despite himself to memorize him before he turned and ran.
Tharaen closed the eyes for a moment, bid farewell to everyone and ran down to the gate of the bridge.
"I won't go," Empress Dahvine, stood beside him.
"Dahvine, please..." he argued while he put his hand on the door of the gate.
"No, I won't go," Dahvine put her hands on gate and called her own power forward, glowing threads appeared from her palms, mingled with Tharaen's threads and reached the hinges of the gate.
Few soldiers appeared soon after them and all of them put their hand on the door, the threads grew thicker and stronger.
"Dahvine please," he cried again to convince her.
"You will protect my dignity, and I will protect your honor. We will stand against everything, beside each other, for this life and every life still coming," her voice cracked but hands were steady on the door. "You are mine and I am yours. We are soulmates from this day until the day your soul no longer remains," she looked at him with teary eyes. "We took the vows before fire, Husband."
"I remember every word of it, Wife," his voice cracked and eyes filled with tears.
Blurry memories of their hand in each other over fire appeared in his mind, he could feel the heat again, feel her fingers steady against his own. He'd said the vow to her, she'd said the vow back to him. You are now husband and wife, the sage had said it, it was the happiest day of his life.
Neither of them said anything anymore, they kept their eyes on each other and hands on the gate. The sound of Salvo weakened the threads, their eyes said everything they couldn't because there was no time and there were no words enough for it.
"Whatever befalls, hold your po..."
The salvo struck Tharaen in the midst of the sentence, the lantern swung wildly and a crack split the ceiling of the keep.
A glowing golden dome began to form; it spread outward from where Salvo had struck. Soreke heard it, he did not look back, he couldn't afford it. The horse's hooves ate the ground beneath them, the golden light of Salvo was chasing him, he broke past the last of army's camp just as the dome reached its edge, the light caught him for one heartbeat, close enough that he felt the heat of it against his back and then it stopped.
The Carrasova Bridge, stretching four point three kilometers, had connected the continents of Viana and Miranda for centuries, but now it had become the very cause of the catastrophe about to befall Solari.
Tharaen looked for Dahvine and found her under bricks, her face was more blood and less skin, he lifted her and held her in his arms. Her hand found the back of his neck and he leaned in; she smiled against his mouth.
"In next life, Commander Tharaen," she pressed her lips on his.
He let out a soft laugh against her lips. "I'm still a commander."
"Always," she smiled and kissed him again.
"In next..." he felt her and then didn't feel her, he pulled back, her eyes were still open but there was nothing behind them. He held her close to his chest, to feel her but couldn't and a scream ripped from his chest, he cried inconsolably while holding her close until a soldier scarcely sixteen years of age, eager to prove his courage, struck the unarmed Tharaen down.
“This is what it took for you to defeat us,” Tharaen looked up, coughing up blood.
“What did you...”
“No one but an Aen man can cast the Salvo,” Tharaen cut across him. “History shall bear witness to that.”
“Then we shall wipe history clean and write it anew.” Commander of the Carrasova Khorva Battalion, Crown Prince Daevosky Vialthor, came forward to where Tharaen lay, crouched to meet his gaze, and took hold of his chin. “In the new history, the legendary clans of Draconians shall be a lost name, wiped from the world clean. Tell me, Emperor Aen, how do you favor that version?”
Tharaen huffed a laugh again, coughed blood at the corner of his mouth with it and his grip tightened on Dahvine. "Myris breathes us," he rasped and coughed blood against the ground between them, but he forced the words out anyway. "All nine of them across all seven continents," he lifted his eyes to meet Daevosky and another huff with mockery and blood slipped out. "You would have to... wipe Myris clean to erase us."
“Find Vorath, Ryska and Soreke alive,” Daevosky rose and gave the order through clenched teeth. “Burn the rest, all of Solari."
“Your Highness, you ought to return to our base,” Ocene murmured at Daevosky’s ear. “Elder Vorath will cast the Salvo in answer soon enough. If you are caught within its radius, no one shall be able to save you, the magic does not release its claim once it has taken hold. Even should you flee its edge, even should you outrun the light itself, the Salvo will have already marked you."
Daevosky nodded, withdrew and his army carried out his command, they started slaying Draconian soldier and the valley burned.
Tharaen's eyes moved past the soldiers, past screams, past all of it, to the palace, still standing at the valley's edge, its spires glowed faintly with the old magic woven into every stone of it, magic that had outlasted centuries and storms and catastrophes and wars and had never once dimmed and the Sola hills behind palace, glowing same the way they always had, threaded through with the same old magic that ran beneath all of Solari.
Home, he thought, home and hill both still glowing, still standing, still his to see and his eyes closed on the light against light, magic holding on even as the fire took it and then his grip on Dahvine loosened as he breathed the name.
Ryska... live.
“What happened to Jye?” Princess Ryska Aen asked instead of fleeing.
“Elder,” Soreke said no more.
Their eyes spoke what their mouths did not. He touched Vorath’s feet, embraced Ryska once and ran back outside to save the others.
Elder Vorath, Draconian man of a hundred and ninety, knew it was the Salvo the moment Soreke bade him run; indeed, he had guessed it even before he looked upon the valley. He sighed, knowing their ruin had come at the hands of one of their own, and cast the Salvo over the valley before he hurried down towards the Collegium with Ryska.
“Elder, let us go to the front.” Ryska’s hands were clenched at her sides. “I can fight and so can you. You have held this bridge for four weeks already.”
“We all possess the strength to fight. That does not mean we are bound to do so.”
“Then are we to flee? What will they say of us?”
“Only a fool fights every war that is thrown before him," he spoke as he ran and stopped only when the Collegium came into view. His ancient eyes lit with sudden purpose, and he hurried inside with her.
“A wise warrior knows not only when to raise his blade, but when to sheathe it.” Vorath turned to her. “A man who has spoken his farewells knows what comes next. Tharaen is gone, we have lost everything. We have no resources, no allies, no ground left with which to bargain for time. You know nothing, Ryska, nothing at all of what war truly is.”
Ryska wept the moment she heard about Tharaen and for the brother whose life she could neither know nor preserve, and for her own helplessness in the face of it.
“Aethoria stands beneath the Charter and no soul in Myris may violate it, not even Vialthor," he pressed the documents in her hand and his eyes stared into void now. "The world must hear our side of the tale and you, child, shall be the one to tell it.”
Ryska held the document, wiped her eyes through heels of her palm but tears kept finding their way back.
“My magic shall forge you a new identity and cloak you in the guise of a human. The spell shall endure so long as you remain within Viana’s borders, or so long as I yet live, whichever ends first.”
Ryska parted her lips to speak, but Vorath silenced her with a raised hand and cast a forging-spell that hid her scales, her golden eyes turned brown.
“Earn your place in Aethoria. Tell no one what you are until you stand beneath the Charter’s protection," his eyes carried the last look like he was trying to tell her something enormous in few words. "Remember Why you are Ryska. Go and do not look back.”
She left without looking back, to look back upon Solari required a different kind of courage, and she did not yet possess it.
Behind her, the Vialthor army raged. They burned everything, the records, the names, the clans into the past tense.