Page 116
It was no surprise that Fern was the one who broke the silence with a raspy, drawn out, “Fuck…”
“That about sums it up, yes.”
Fern clutched her mass of curls, eyes darting around and obviously at just as much of a loss as Lunara was. “Where do we start?”
Lunara held up the parchment. “The…beginning?”
Lunara cranked her neck side to side, head swimming. She was only halfway through the first text, but the things she read, while entirely unhelpful, were overwhelming.
If the pages before her were to be believed, the world had been a much different place eons ago. That there might’ve been creatures who’d known it without the chasms’ darkness…
Impossible.
It challenged everything she was taught to believe about Bordoroth’s creation. Or, at least, it was doing an excellent job of arguing the timeline of certain events.
According to the section she just read, all of the chasms were clear once upon a time, the shadows not even mentioned. Instead, it spoke of bridges and ladders between the realms. Of sprawling markets in the depths, where creatures conducted trade and intermingled. The concept was so outlandish that it almost read like old poetry, as if the author had been desperate to imagine a better world and not truly documenting a past reality.
While fascinating, it was ultimately a waste of time when there were about two hundred books the library had approved, and quite a few of them were thousands of pages thick. One was nearly as tall as Fern.
Lunara flipped to the end, to see if it was worth continuing or if she’d be better off moving on.
Fern flopped back, tossing her own reading aside. “I don’t know about you, but I’m about to piss all over myself. What was the name we were meant to call for the washroom?”
“Um…” Lunara searched her memory, still half skimming the page she was on. “Kala, I think.”
A whirring sounded in the distance, growing closer. Before she could pinpoint the source, a cerulean blur whizzed by, circling and winking out of sight. Next she knew, there were pricks of pressure on her shoulder and purring in her ear.
Heart pounding, Lunara turned her head and was greeted by two emerald eyes mere centimeters from her face. She froze as the creature slowly blinked, her mind struggling to catch up.
“Shitting fucking seasons.” Fern was beside her in an instant, gaping, hand outstretched. “A dragon?”
The creature in question cocked its head, homing in on Fern. “Don’t sound so surprised. It’s not polite.”
Lunara wasn’t sure whether the strangled squeak she emitted was born of shock or laughter.
Weeping shite. Pull yourself together. There’s a dragon on your shoulder when you were expecting a person. So what?
It turned back and flashed a knowing grin. “I am Kala.”
“H-hello, Kala,” she breathed. “I’m Lunara.”
“Let me guess, Lunara.” Kala’s tiny wings flapped once as she adjusted, her scales like the waves on the Serpent sea. “You’ve never been to Arrajnekkat before.”
“No,” she admitted. “I haven’t, but—”
“Want to know a secret? Neither have I.” Like her voice, the dragon’s laugh was a pleasant scratch. She watched her own tail as it sifted through Lunara’s hair. “But I needn’t have been graced with its lands to know that I am not singular.”
“What do you mean?” Lunara asked.
“I’ve never been to the Solyrealm, but I still know the Dragu speak. Both because I read and because I’m one of them. You do read, don’t you?”
Fern snorted. “No one reads as much as she does.”
“Forgive me, Kala. You took me by surprise.” Lunara pressed a hand to her chest, willing herself to relax. “Yes. I’ve read many stories of the Dragu Horde, but I’ve never actually conversed with one of your kind before. If it makes you feel any better, I was just as shocked the first time Fern there opened her mouth, too.”
“See what I have to deal with?” Fern rolled her eyes. “Obviously, she’s never been to Kohamaia either. If she had, she’d know I’m also not singular and would stop going on about it.”
There it was again.
