Perspective: First Person / Valerie de Valois

  ?For the first time since I woke up falling through a hole in the sky, I actually felt like a human being again.

  ?The morning sun filtered softly through the massive, prehistoric canopy as we prepared to leave the sanctuary of the pearl-eyed village. The hot sulfur spring had worked absolute miracles on my bruised muscles, and the strange, moss-green villagers had been incredibly generous.

  ?They had taken one look at my shredded Academy combat leathers, clicked their tongues in profound pity, and handed me a new outfit. It was a sturdy, beautifully woven dark-green tunic with tough leather leggings and a heavy, waterproof cloak made from giant overlapping leaves. It wasn't exactly high-end aristocratic fashion, but it was clean, warm, and didn't smell like dragon ash.

  ?I was actually in a decently good mood. Right up until the village elder handed me my luggage.

  ?"Oh, thank you," I said, offering the small, horned creature a polite bow as he handed me a beautifully crafted woven backpack. "You really didn't have to."

  ?The elder chirped excitedly, patting the backpack with his long green fingers before scurrying back toward his hut.

  ?I smiled, slinging the strap over my shoulder. It was surprisingly heavy. "Well, that was nice of them," I told Dhakul, who was busy strapping his colossal emerald broadsword to his back. "What did they pack for us? Foraged berries? Smoked jerky? Some kind of ancient magical bread?"

  ?Dhakul paused, glancing down at me with his glowing red eyes. A faint, knowing smirk pulled at the corner of his scarred mouth. "Open it."

  ?My smile faltered. I slowly unlaced the top of the woven backpack and peeked inside.

  ?Staring back at me were hundreds of dead, roasted, thumb-sized beetles. Some were spiced with red dust. Some were glazed in what looked like hardened tree sap. But they all definitely, unmistakably, still had their little spiky legs attached.

  ?I slammed the bag shut, my stomach doing a violent flip.

  ?"I am carrying a backpack full of giant bugs," I stated, staring blankly ahead. "I am going to have to walk for four weeks, through a terrifying ancient jungle, eating nothing but heavily spiced insects."

  ?"Be grateful," Dhakul grunted, stepping past me and heading toward the tree line to resume our march. "They gave you the premium glaze. A true delicacy."

  ?"I hate you," I muttered, tightly gripping the straps of my bug-bag as I followed his massive, armored footsteps into the misty forest.

  ?"You will thank me when we reach Aeridor," Dhakul replied, not even looking over his shoulder. He effortlessly hacked away a thick wall of vines with his gauntlet. "The road ahead is treacherous, Valerie. The beasts of the deep woods do not care if you have bathed. Keep your eyes open and your mouth closed."

  ?"My mouth is going to stay permanently closed until I find a piece of food that doesn't have a face," I shot back, struggling to climb over a massive, slippery tree root.

  ?Despite my complaining, the dynamic between us had subtly shifted. The terrifying Demon Lord who had dragged me by my ankles a few days ago was now actively making sure I didn't trip over the undergrowth. And I, the stubborn girl who refused to trust anyone from the High Court, was following the founding god of the Night Court without hesitation.

  ?We fell into a rhythmic, steady pace. The giant, terrifying warlord clearing the path, and me, a time-displaced Tribrid, hauling our six-legged lunch.

  ?The journey to the ancient mega-city of Aeridor had officially begun.

  Three weeks.

  ?Twenty-one days of prehistoric mud, relentless torrential downpours, and a survival diet consisting entirely of crunchy creatures with way too many legs.

  ?If you had told me a month ago that I would be marching side-by-side with a demonic warlord, I would have laughed right in your face. But the wilderness forces you to adapt. My clean, green woven tunic from the pearl-eyed village was already coated in a stubborn layer of ash and dirt. My hair had reverted into a wild, untamed red bird's nest. I had stopped complaining about the blisters on my feet somewhere around day ten, and by day fifteen, I discovered that the beetles with the red shells actually tasted like spicy almonds—as long as you deliberately avoided making eye contact with their antennas.

  ?But the walking wasn't the hardest part of the journey. That honor belonged to the unsolicited training.

  ?Dhakul had quickly decided that while my raw, neon-green kinetic magic was fantastic for flattening giant monsters, my actual physical defense was an absolute disaster.

  ?The argument started on day four.

  ?"I don't understand why we have to do this," I had complained loudly, crossing my arms as Dhakul stood in a small clearing, holding a heavy wooden branch. "I can literally manipulate gravity. I accidentally vaporized a fifteen-foot Ogre and a mile of forest just by aggressively waving my hand. Why do I need to learn how to dodge a stick?"

  ?"Because magic is a weapon, human. Not a crutch," Dhakul grunted, his crimson eyes narrowing. "What happens when an enemy is faster than your thoughts? What happens when a beast ambushes you and suppresses your aura, or you simply exhaust your core? You have the physical reflexes of a startled duck."

  ?"I do not have the reflexes of a—"

  ?Before I could even finish the sentence, Dhakul moved with terrifying speed. He didn't use magic. He just swept the back of his heavy armored boot against my ankles.

  ?I hit the mud face-first with a loud, undignified splat.

  ?"Point made," I mumbled into the dirt, too tired to even be angry.

  ?I heard the heavy thud of metal hitting the mud right next to my ear. I pushed myself up and wiped the grime from my eyes. Lying in the dirt was a weapon. I picked it up, wiping the mud from the dark, razor-sharp steel blade. It was a beautiful, deadly weapon. The hilt was wrapped in dark, worn leather, and the weight was perfectly balanced in my grip. Standing there with it, I instantly felt like an epic, seasoned warrior.

  ?At least, I did until I realized Dhakul had just pulled it from a tiny, secondary sheath strapped to his ankle.

  ?"Wait a minute," I said, looking at the full-sized sword in my hand, and then up at his massive, towering frame. "Is this... is this a dagger for you?"

  ?"It is a fruit knife," the walking mountain deadpans. "Try not to amputate your own toes with it. Now, defend yourself."

  ?From that moment on, our breaks were no longer about resting; they were about survival. For three weeks, he drilled me mercilessly. He swung heavy branches at my head to force me to parry. He taught me how to channel the volatile kinetic energy of my Tribrid blood straight through the dark steel of his 'fruit knife,' causing the blade to hum with a lethal, neon-green glow. My arms were covered in bruises, and muscle ache was my new best friend, but I was faster, harder, and sharper than I had ever been in my life.

  ?We no longer moved like a captor and a hostage. We navigated the ancient jungle like a well-oiled military unit.

  ?"Your steps are growing heavy," Dhakul rumbled suddenly, his deep voice cutting through the ambient hum of the forest. He didn't stop walking, but he casually held a massive, spiked thornbush aside with one gauntleted hand so I could pass safely.

  ?"My steps are perfectly fine," I lied, smoothly twirling my dark sword and sliding it into the improvised leather belt at my hip. "But if you walk any faster, you're going to break the sound barrier, Yeti."

  ?He responded with that familiar, low rumble in his chest—a sound I had initially found terrifying, but now recognized as just his version of an exasperated sigh. The demonic warlord had actually developed a soft spot for me, though he would probably rather bite off his own tongue than admit it.

  ?"Look ahead, Valerie," he said, pointing his massive hand through the trees.

  ?I wiped a drop of sweat from my forehead and stepped up onto a raised bed of moss beside him. My breath caught in my throat.

  ?The endless, suffocating jungle finally broke open. Before us lay a colossal, breathtaking valley, surrounded by towering, mist-shrouded black mountains. And there, in the distance, carved directly into the bedrock of the largest mountain face I had ever seen, burned thousands of tiny fires. The walls were unimaginably huge, guarded by winged beasts that looked like mere specks from this distance.

  ?The original, ancient mega-city. Aeridor.

  ?"We are home," Dhakul rumbled softly. His glowing red eyes lit up with a rare, undeniable glint of pride.

  ?I swallowed hard, my hand instinctively resting on the hilt of my new sword. "Let's just hope they have actual beds in there. And food that doesn't have a face."

  We didn't even make it to the city gates before the sky fell.

  ?I was still staring up at the colossal, dark-stone walls of Aeridor, mentally preparing myself to deal with an entire city of terrifying demons and heavily armed beastkin, when a sudden, deafening shriek tore through the clouds.

  ?It wasn't a battle cry. It was a sound of pure, desperate agony.

  ?Dhakul stopped dead in his tracks. His massive hand immediately shot to the hilt of his emerald broadsword. The towering beastkin guards at the city gates raised their crackling halberds, shouting orders in a language I couldn't understand as the massive iron doors began to grind shut.

  ?"Wait!" Dhakul roared, his voice hitting the valley like a physical shockwave. "Hold the gates!"

  ?I looked up, shielding my eyes against the sun.

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  ?Plummeting from the clouds were three massive, winged shapes. But they weren't attacking the city. They were falling. The magnificent, iridescent dragons I had seen at the ravine were completely battered. Their wings were torn, their shimmering scales cracked and bleeding a sickly, smoking black substance that seemed to rot the very air around them.

  ?With a series of earth-shattering CRASHES, the three surviving Royal Guards hit the ground just outside the city walls, carving deep, violent trenches into the dirt.

  ?"Stay behind me," Dhakul commanded, drawing his massive sword as we sprinted toward the crash site. I didn't argue. I drew my new, giant 'fruit knife' and stayed glued to his armored shadow.

  ?As we approached the largest of the downed beasts, the smell hit me. It wasn't just the scent of sulfur and blood; it was the suffocating, putrid stench of decaying magic.

  ?The largest dragon weakly raised its massive, horned head. It didn't breathe fire. It simply looked at Dhakul with ancient, exhausted eyes.

  ?"Sanctuary..." the dragon's voice echoed weakly in our minds, trembling with pain. "Lord of the Earth... we claim asylum."

  ?Dhakul lowered his sword, his glowing crimson eyes wide with genuine shock. "You are the Queen's Royal Guard. Who did this to you? Where is Sylvana?"

  ?The massive dragon let out a low, mournful rumble and gently lowered its left wing to the dirt.

  ?Lying there, completely unconscious and sliding off the dragon's scorched scales, was a woman.

  ?I blinked, thoroughly confused. She wasn't a giant, terrifying lizard. She was incredibly tall, wearing torn, elegant robes woven from what looked like liquid emeralds. Her long, dark hair spilled over her pale face. But what immediately caught my eye were the two majestic, curving horns protruding from her forehead, glowing with a faint, dying green light.

  ?"Who is that?" I whispered, keeping my sword raised. "Did they rescue a prisoner?"

  ?"Put your blade away, fool," Dhakul breathed, dropping to one knee in the dirt—a gesture of absolute respect I had never seen him make. "That is no prisoner. That is the Dragon Queen."

  ?I stared at the fragile-looking woman. "Wait. That's the flying lizard that almost vaporized me at the ravine?!"

  ?"Only the royal bloodline of the Scale-Lords possesses the power to shift into a human vessel," Dhakul explained, his voice tight with tension as he carefully reached out to check her pulse. "If she has been forced into this form, her magic is entirely depleted. She is dying."

  ?The telepathic voice of the dragon echoed in our minds again, heavy with despair.

  ?"The northern borders have fallen, Dhakul. The Blight has begun its advance."

  ?Dhakul’s massive shoulders tensed. "The Blight? That is a myth. A bedtime story to frighten children."

  ?"It is a myth no longer," the dragon wheezed, black smoke leaking from its nostrils. "It consumes the soil. It rots the light. It is the end of all things... the great Sign of the falling age. We fought until the skies burned, but we were overrun. We could not hold back the dark army that marches within it."

  ?"Whose army?" Dhakul demanded, his warlord instincts instantly taking over. "Who commands this rot?"

  ?The dragon closed its heavy eyes. "An endless tide of shadows and corrupted souls. They march under a single, cursed banner. The Nox."

  ?My heart stopped.

  ?The sword in my hand suddenly felt a thousand times heavier. The blood rushed out of my face, leaving me completely cold in the humid jungle air.

  ?The Nox. House Nox. The Night Court. Demian’s family.

  ?My mind violently flashed back to the Academy. I remembered the dark, swirling void-magic Demian used. I remembered the cold, arrogant sneers of his family's ambassadors. I had always known the Night Court was ruthless, but standing here, thousands of years in the past, I was looking at the horrifying origin of their power. They weren't just a political faction of dark elves. They were the original army of the apocalypse.

  ?"Valerie?" Dhakul frowned, looking up at me. "Your aura is leaking. Reign it in."

  ?I looked down at my hands. They were trembling, glowing with a violent, unstable neon-green light. I looked at the unconscious Dragon Queen—my mother, though I didn't know it yet—battered and broken by the very magic my best friend wielded in the future.

  ?"I know that name," I whispered, staring into the dark tree line as if Demian's ancestors were about to march out of the shadows. "Dhakul... I know the Nox."

  The panic in the normally iron-clad city of Aeridor was palpable.

  ?Dhakul had effortlessly scooped the unconscious Dragon Queen into his massive arms, carrying her as if she weighed no more than a ragdoll. We tore through the streets, heading straight for the highest peak of the city. The heavily armed guards and curious villagers immediately parted like the sea the moment they saw their warlord's grim expression. I sprinted right behind him, my breathing heavy, my new sword clattering against my hip.

  ?We slammed the heavy wooden doors of the Oracle's temple open.

  ?The air inside was thick with incense and burning sage. Mother Vanya wasn't sitting on her woven rug this time. The blind, ancient woman was already standing by a broad, stone altar in the center of the room, as if she knew exactly we were coming.

  ?"Lay her down, Lord Dhakul," Vanya rasped. Her milky-white eyes were fixed dead ahead on the doorway. "The sky has been weeping for hours. I felt the darkness approaching."

  ?With extreme care, Dhakul placed Queen Sylvana’s fragile, human form onto the cold stone. The Queen's emerald robes were soaked with a sickly, black substance that hissed as it dissolved into the air. The two elegant horns on her forehead flickered weakly, like a candle about to be blown out.

  ?Vanya hovered her gnarled, bony hands just above the Queen's chest. The moment her fingers neared the black stains, the old woman's flesh sizzled, and she yanked her hands back with a sharp cry of pain.

  ?"It is The Blight," Vanya whispered, her voice trembling with a rarely seen terror. "The pure corruption of the Nox. It is eating away at her magical core. My herbs, my incantations... they are utterly useless against this primordial rot. The Queen is dying, Dhakul."

  ?Dhakul clenched his massive fists. "There has to be something. If Sylvana falls, the entire northern border falls with her."

  ?Vanya was silent for a moment. Her blind eyes slowly drifted away from the dying Queen and settled firmly on me. Even without sight, it felt like she was looking straight through my soul.

  ?"Not something, my Lord," Vanya mumbled, a tiny, highly mysterious smile playing on her wrinkled lips. "Someone."

  ?She pointed a trembling finger directly at my chest. "You. Child of the storm. Come here."

  ?I immediately took a massive step backward. "Excuse me? Me? I'm not a doctor. I'm barely a first-year student! I break things, I don't fix them."

  ?"Your aura," Vanya ignored my protest. She gestured commandingly with her hand. "Come here and reach out your hand to her. Now."

  ?"Absolutely not!" I exclaimed, crossing my arms protectively over my chest. "With all due respect to your flying reptiles, this lady tried to roast me alive at a ravine a month ago! I don't even know how to use healing magic. What if I accidentally blow up half this building?!"

  ?Vanya knew exactly what was going on. She knew about the bloodright. She knew that the woman on the altar was the biological mother of the stubborn girl standing before her. It was a moment of divine poetry, but the old Oracle kept her lips sealed tight. She wasn't going to force history's hand.

  ?"You truly have no idea, do you?" Vanya chuckled softly, her blind eyes twinkling with a secret only she knew. "This corruption can only be purged by a power that is purer, older, and more dominant than the darkness itself. Your magic is the key, Valerie. The resonance in your blood is the only thing that can call her back."

  ?I looked desperately at Dhakul. The giant demonic warlord looked at me dead serious and gave a slow, heavy nod. He trusted the Oracle blindly.

  ?"Fine," I sighed in frustration, my feet feeling like lead as I walked over to the stone altar. I stopped next to Dhakul and looked down at the dying Queen. She looked so fragile in this form, so entirely different from the monster that had eclipsed the sky.

  ?"But I'm warning you guys," I muttered, hesitantly raising my hand. "If she wakes up and bites my hand, I am absolutely stabbing her with your fruit knife, Yeti."

  ?With trembling fingers, I reached out to the woman.

  ?The moment my skin brushed the freezing cold skin of her shoulder, something impossible happened.

  ?My magic exploded, but it wasn't a violent, destructive shockwave like in the forest. A warm, blindingly bright, neon-green glow shot straight from my veins into hers. The room filled with a deafening, pulsating hum. And somewhere deep within that sea of green light, I saw it: a flicker of pure, liquid gold that mercilessly scorched away the black, rotting magic of the Nox.

  ?I didn't feel drained. On the contrary. It felt as if two giant puzzle pieces, separated for millennia, had snapped together with a perfect, magnetic click. An overwhelming sense of safety and coming home washed through my chest, so intense that tears spontaneously sprang to my eyes.

  ?The dark stains on Sylvana's skin shrieked as they evaporated into the air. The Queen took a sudden, sharp breath, and her eyes flew open.

  ?And they were exactly, and I mean exactly, the same color green as mine.

  The bright emerald eyes of the Dragon Queen flew open and bored directly into mine.

  ?For a few seconds, it was dead silent in the temple. I stood leaning over the stone altar, my hand still hovering just above her shoulder as the last sparks of my gold and green magic dissolved into the air. We stared at each other. And I mean: we really stared at each other.

  ?It was like looking into a magical, slightly older mirror. Aside from my wild red hair and her dark mane, we were an exact copy. The same jawline. The same stubborn, slightly too sharp nose. And above all: exactly the same fierce, emerald-green eyes that were currently filled with absolute disbelief and irritation.

  ?Sylvana blinked. Then she wrinkled her nose in an expression of pure, royal disdain.

  ?"Take your muddy, human fingers off my shoulder," the Queen snapped, her voice sharp and dominant, even though she was still lying on her back. "And who in the gods' names gave you permission to rummage around in my aura?"

  ?My jaw dropped. My helpful, healing attitude vanished like snow in the sun.

  ?"Excuse me?!" I exclaimed, indignantly yanking my hand back. "I just saved your scaly life! You were literally rotting away on this slab, lady! A 'thank you, brilliant stranger' would have been the absolute minimum!"

  ?Sylvana sat up with lightning speed. She completely ignored her dizziness and pointed a finger that looked suspiciously like mine right in my face. "I am Sylvana, Ruler of the Skies and Queen of the Scales! I thank no one! And certainly not an insolent brat who smells like... roasted forest beetles?!"

  ?"That was my lunch, thanks to that walking tree trunk over there!" I yelled back, pointing at Dhakul. "And I don't care if you're the Queen of the Moon, you are an ungrateful, arrogant lizard!"

  ?"Lizard?!" Sylvana’s eyes flared dangerously.

  ?From the corner of the room came a dry, wheezing chuckle. Mother Vanya was back on her woven rug, sipping from a wooden cup of tea. The blind Oracle was having the time of her life.

  ?"Oh, beautiful," Vanya chuckled, her milky-white eyes gleaming with anticipation. "The echo in this room is deafening. I'm seeing double, and I'm practically blind."

  ?Dhakul, however, seemed to completely miss the giant elephant in the room. The demonic warlord entirely ignored our crackling argument. He stepped forward, his heavy boots thudding against the stone floor, his face a mask of military seriousness.

  ?"Queen Sylvana," Dhakul rumbled, his voice heavy with gravity. "Formal introductions will have to wait. Your guards outside are severely wounded. They speak of The Blight. They speak of an army of the Nox. Give me a status report on the northern border."

  ?Sylvana tore her gaze away from me and looked at the giant red demon. The fury on her face momentarily gave way to the harsh reality of war.

  ?"The border has fallen, Dhakul," she said bitterly, swinging her legs over the edge of the altar. "It is no longer a fable. The Nox marches under a black flag, led by a man in pitch-black armor. They have poisoned the very soil. I must go back. My army needs me."

  ?She took a deep breath, closed her green eyes, and clenched her fists. The two horns on her forehead began to glow softly. She braced herself to summon her immense, devastating dragon form, ready to blow the roof off the temple and launch into the sky.

  ?She growled, compressing her magic... and absolutely nothing happened.

  ?A small, pathetic, green plume of smoke escaped from one of her horns and immediately fizzled out. Poof.

  ?Sylvana opened her eyes, her pupils dilated with absolute panic. She looked down at her pale, human hands. She tried again. Still nothing. The Blight—and the fact that I had just 'rebooted' her core with my own magic—had drained her mana reserves down to the very last drop.

  ?"No," Sylvana whispered, her voice fragile for the first time. "My magic... the transformation isn't responding. I'm stuck."

  ?"Your mana is completely depleted, Your Majesty," Vanya rasped helpfully, taking another sip of tea. "It will take weeks, perhaps even months, before your core has recovered enough to assume the form of an Elder Dragon. Until then, I'm afraid... you are bound to gravity."

  ?I looked from the desperate Queen to Dhakul, and a slow, highly sarcastic smirk began to form on my face.

  ?"Oh, what a terrible shame," I said, theatrically crossing my arms and leaning against the wall. "The Ruler of the Skies. Confined to two legs. Just like us pathetic, muddy humans."

  ?Sylvana shot me a glare that, in my normal timeline, probably would have turned me to ash. "Silence, insect."

  ?"Welcome to the hiking club, lizard," I winked. "Dhakul knows a great route through the woods. The blisters on your feet are included for free."

  ?Dhakul sighed deeply, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and stared at the ceiling as if begging the gods for patience. He looked at me, with my wild red hair and fierce scowl, and then looked at Sylvana, who was returning the exact same fierce, furious scowl. And he still didn't put the pieces together.

  ?"The gods are punishing me," Dhakul muttered. "Now I have two of them."

  ?Vanya nearly spat out her tea laughing.