For a moment, there is no beginning and no end. No me. No Ether. Just…sameness.
Slowly, the world comes back into focus, but I am no longer in the Grand Chapel of Mercy.
I stand in a cavernous space that reminds me of the deep thermal pools of the Undercrust. The clear water is a window to a rainbow of luminescent striations that bathes the space in a pale, off-white glow.
A man in his prime, with fair skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and his upper body as naked as the day he was born, wades into the water. His skin is marked with lines like an artificer’s sigils. The spring is so clear that I can see countless bones of beasts of all shapes and sizes lining its bottom.
The moment he descends into the water, there’s a burst of Etherlight that has me flinching as though a wall of fire assaulted me, bracing like I’m back in the Font. I lift my hands to protect myself, but no pain comes. When I lower them, I’m at the top of one of the snow-capped mountains I’ve grown up in the shadow of.
The man is there again—clothed this time. His eyes now glow a brilliant gold. He addresses a group of people beneath him with impassioned shouting. For me, the words are muffled and hazy, as if underwater. I can’t make out a single one. The people listening cheer in reply.
The man before me turns, golden eyes meeting mine as if he can see me.
One look, and the mountainside beneath me crumbles. I tumble backward, falling. For a second, I hear the beating of thousands of wings. They fade away, rising on an updraft. One remains.
Lucan.
I feel him in my blood. He’s right there, next to my heart, where he’s been all along. I reach out for a shadow. My feet meet the edge of a wall, and the world twists. I’m no longer falling but standing at the edge of a precipice.
It’s a tower that will one day become Vinguard’s wall. But the city within is gone. It’s a hollow pit that stretches deep,deepinto the core of the earth—to the last remaining Font in the world. More towers stand tall at the pit’s rim. Between them, a crater is filled with…
Bones.
Thousands upon thousands of bones. Bones from what must have been half of humanity piled into this void of nothingness, framing out the depths that will become the Undercrust. The golden-eyed man next to me surveys the work with another, giving direction and input. Once more, the words are lost—swallowed by the wind. But I catch a glimpse of the parchment.
I’m drawn closer to it.
It’s not plans for a city… It’s a massive artificer sigil. What I know as towers and the roads are all lines to draw Etherlight upon. Even disembodied as I am, my stomach churns.
Etherlight flows within everyone. Humans are the catalyst for it in the world.If one were to pile a bunch of corpses and tie them together with some kind of sigil…
It could make a Font.
“Why?” I think, and the question resonates aloud. The world liquefies at the vibration of my words like a stone thrown into a calm pond.
“To survive,” a new voice answers.
I turn, and everything shifts around me, swaying, coming back into place in a vast plain. Tall grasses sway in a wind I can’t feel. The sky overhead is a blue more brilliant than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. It never occurred to me that the scourge was so thick that it tarnished even the sky.
The man comes into focus once more, this time in simple clothing that is oddly reminiscent of what I’ve worn for weeks in the Tribunal.
“Who are you?” I ask without speaking. Even though, deep within me, I already know.
Before he can answer, he staggers back, turning his face skyward. Screams turn to roars. A swirl of Etherlight consumes him, and he begins to shift. Massive gray wings protrude from his back.
I stumble two steps, recover, and look up to find myselfsuddenly face-to-face with the mightiest dragon I’ve ever beheld. The statue in the monastery didn’t do it justice.
Its eye alone is so large that I could lay comfortably in its socket. The silvery hue reminds me of the milky eyes of a great grandparent. Yet, despite it lacking any pupil—even the slitted one of a dragon—I am acutely aware that it sees me. Four large, curling horns protrude from its head. Among slate and silver fans of spikes and jagged scales, long tendrils of white hair extend from its chin, behind where I’d imagine its ears to be, and down its long neck. Its wings are speckled with holes of ancient battles. Scars cross and line its body in angry trellises.
My throat is as barren as scourged earth. The swirl of primeval Ether that radiates off the creature batters me. I’m awed. I’m humbled. Reminded of just how small I am. How grand and wonderful and terrifying the world is all at once. Even though I’ve never beheld this monstrosity before, I know, beyond all doubt…
It’s the Elder Dragon.
I stare into its golden eyes, drowning in the swirl of its Etherlight, the visions continuing to assault me. They batter me like falling stars, too hot and too bright. But they fall into constellations in my mental landscape. Lines connect them to form a word.
I stare into the almost-dead, unseeing eye of the Elder Dragon and whisper a name:
“Valor?”
