Vast, empty halls of labyrinthine design echoed with the sound of claw tips clipping against flagstones fitted with such cunning precision there was no seam from one to the next.

  Sari was on one of her walks. Often she would travel through the streets of the wondrous city, down avenues lined by empty shells of palaces covered in vines, skipping between the mighty trees that filled the streets. The birds were always singing here, in this place where it was always summer. The limbs of the trees were burdened by the weight of their fruits and the nests that rested upon them. Animals of all kinds filled this place, drawn from the dead places around it somehow, to come here and enjoy bounties unheard of in the world beyond. Sari could, and often did, get lost for hours out here in the forest that had once been the thoroughfares of a mighty city.

  This was home, but there was still so much of it she had not explored. The daylight hours were full of music from the sky as birds sang on the wing. Their songs also drifted down from the heights of the empty towers that all raced to touch the clouds high above. Nights were filled with music, too. The rivers that criss-crossed the city were covered in lilies so big and thick that hordes of slimy frogs could share them if they left the ponds that decorated the many parks. As darkness descended, they would fill the night with their weird ribbiting while trying to catch the fireflies. These flitted about in swarms so large they lit up everything wherever they went. Sari was barely old enough to understand what awe was, but she was getting close when she went out at night to watch the fireflies and listen to the bullfrogs until the sun came up.

  She was not in the mood for beautiful things today, though. Sari was sad, and when she was sad, her walks took her elsewhere, among the ruins that life had not quite taken back yet. She’d find a palace she hadn’t been in yet, and explore it. There would be big dining halls, sometimes with the tables and chairs still in them. She'd find bedrooms that were bigger than some of the houses that lay crumbling out near the beautiful city walls. The beds would always be ruined, like the books in the libraries, or all the paintings in the halls and galleries. Most of the statues were very pretty, but nearly all of the palaces had a dark room in them at their very centre, where no light could reach. They had statues in them too, and Sari had gotten good at figuring out where those rooms might be so she could avoid them.

  When she got tired of exploring the palaces, or the empty markets, galleries and libraries of the city, Sari’s little feet always took her to the towers. The tallest could take hours to climb, and she would often have to bring her own little lunch with her, but sitting on their heights, seeing the vast and empty metropolis stretching out before her in whatever direction she might look would usually be enough to lift her spirits.

  However, this was one of those days that even this could not work. The city was massive, and though it was full of wonderful things, there was no one she could talk to, or play with. Sari wanted to talk to someone, though she could not quite understand why. She wanted to hear voices that didn’t belong to her, and there was only one place she could do that.

  The tower she walked towards was neither the tallest, nor the most beautiful, though vines and moss half covered it, adding swaths of green and bursts of yellow from the flowers on the vines to the sombre black stone. It was surrounded by a garden filled with cherry blossoms and a large ornamental lake. Beautiful statues of all kinds of amazing coloured stones were everywhere, and two especially pretty ones stood outside of the entrance.

  There were no windows in this tower. There were no lights of any kind, and yet the blackness in here was different from the darkness one might expect. It was much like the dark places in the palaces and the larger houses, but here there were none of those terrifying statues. Sari had grown up here, and knew no other world, but that did not stop her instincts from warning her about being in here. She could not see in the dark, and she should not be able to see her way effortlessly up the stairs and through the completely black halls with no light, but she could. As so often when she was lonely, she forced herself to ignore what her mind and body told her. Her resolve was only strengthened when the echoes of voices reached her from down one of the tower’s winding corridors that stretched much farther than they should have.

  Sari at first felt happy at finding her family so easily, but as she drew closer, she picked up the tones of the voices speaking, and noted they were raised, both of them. She suddenly did not want to be there any more, and yet her little clawed feet carried her forward, slowly and cautiously. Curious, she wondered as she walked whether or not they were talking about Volkard and Mette again. They had been gone forever now, or at least that was how it seemed to the tiny girl as she crept closer. She missed them both terribly. Volkard had been the one to save her from the creature out there in the world that had wanted to kill her. He was always ready to laugh and play with Sari, chasing her or being chased in games of hide and seek that could cover the whole city. Mette had been strange, but always kind to her. When they had left with the guards and the friends they had made and brought back with them, Sari had wanted to go with them, and had cried so when they had finally disappeared over the horizon. They had formed half of her family, and she was not afraid to think of them as the better half. The other half was just down the hall. One was screaming, and the other, he was losing his patience. It might be wiser to come back later or maybe not at all, but Sari did not move.

  She heard a crash. The scream, which had before trembled with outrage, turned panicked and pleading.

  “No…no!”

  “Get out of my sight. Now. Don’t you dare let me catch you around me until sunrise.”

  “Please, Master. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please, please, please…”

  The floor trembled under Sari's feet as something heavy smashed against the floor. The calm control of the second voice vanished.

  "GET OUT!"

  A scream and a thunderclap were followed by a glorious figure scrambling out into the hallway. Sari backed away, just able to dodge the man as it fled down the hall. She lingered for a second, unsure what to do, before she followed quickly after. The Master’s moods when he had been defied were terrifying to behold. She retraced her steps quickly, following after the fleeing figure, which she found out among the statues just outside the entrance, leaning shakily against the one of the pair that had not been brutalised somewhat by Volkard and Mette before they had set off on their latest adventure.

  “Boralis?” she said, drawing closer. “Are you alright?”

  “It’s happening….it’s happening…”

  This was a very bad sign.

  Sari stayed still, her ears perking up instinctively as if she were not aware of where the danger might come from. She looked back over her shoulder, at the entrance to the tower. Should she get The Master? He had only just thrown Boralis out, but when he was left alone like this, bad things happened.

  “You can see it, can’t you?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Sari’s limbs went stiff. She gasped in fear before she could stop herself. It could not have happened at a worse moment, as Boralis loomed over her.

  “What is it?” Boralis asked, his whole body trembling with a growing panic. “What is it? What do you see? Don’t just stare, girl, tell me what’s happening to me!”

  What did Sari see? Perfection.

  Boralis was one of the scaled, and he was the most beautiful creature the little girl had ever laid her eyes on. His scales were a stunning, deep blue and his eyes were flecked with gold. His body was young and powerful, as finely sculpted as any of the statues that lined the garden they stood in. He wore white clothes that were always spotless and bright gold jewellery to enhance the natural beauty of his stunning eyes. His teeth were pure white and aligned exactly right. He kept his ivory claws manicured and exquisitely sharp.

  This was the body of an athlete in their twenties, or so Mette had told her once...and Boralis had been just like this for seventy years.

  “What do you see?” Boralis asked again, his voice now something between a threat and a sob. “What’s happening to me, Sari? I’m turning grey, aren’t? I…I can feel it….I can feel it!”

  He staggered away from her, wide eyed and terrified, taking rapid, heaving breathes. Sari watched him tear at his perfect clothes, watched him run his shaking hands up and down along his perfect, muscular arms as he began to pant and cry, as if his whole body were covered in spiders.

  “I can feel it! It’s happening! I’m growing older!”

  “No you’re not, Boralis!” Sari called out, her hands to her mouth in growing horror. “You look fine!”

  “You’re lying!” Boralis screamed, and for one awful instant Sari thought she was about to die. But she didn’t. It didn’t happen, but it would. It was as clear to her as the sun rising in the morning. She needed to get the Master, but the way Boralis was watching her just then she was too terrified to move, lest he attack her.

  “You’re lying!” Boralis screamed again, and Sari jumped just a little in fright. His face took on a twisted, deranged kind of terror as he went on. “You want him all to yourself, don’t you? You’re jealous! You little slut!”

  “Master said you’re not allowed to call me that.”

  “Whore! Cunt!” Boralis raged. He staggered back and nearly fell down the steps leading onto the paths that cut through the gardens. He cried out in shock, but it didn’t happen. Sari wanted to run, but she was afraid. Boralis was staggering through the grass and the trees like the men who had come here and drunk far too much of the foul smelling water in their jugs. But they had been laughing and had even sang for her. Boralis was covering his head with his arms, and screaming.

  Sari watched, helpless, as Boralis tripped, and toppled to his knees. His arms fell away from his head. She saw the tears. It was about to happen. She threw herself to the ground, shut her eyes and covered her ears. It happened, then.

  It was like what Sari imagined being inside a thunderstorm must be like. Not a normal one, like the ones that sometimes skirted along the edges of the city, but the big kind that sent ships on the sea in the stories Mette had read to her high into the air, only to be gobbled up by whales or other sea monsters. The ground shook violently underneath her. Her ears and face stung from the sharp, violent strikes of pebbles that hit her. The blast of air skidded her across the ground, and she felt her knees and elbows burn and become wet. Her face was hot with tears. She couldn’t hear anything except a constant, high pitched rattle inside her head.

  Things started falling on her, and in a panic Sari cried out, though she could not hear herself. It wasn’t until she opened her eyes that she realised she was being buried under dead, crumbling vines that had clung to the tower above her. She shook them off as she pushed herself up onto her knees. Her whole body was shaking. She couldn’t hear anything. She hugged herself and cried out as she saw what had happened to the garden.

  It was gone. The grass everywhere was black and withered. The trees that had not been ripped clean out of the ground by the shock-wave were falling to pieces right before her eyes. Every statue on Sari’s left was no longer there, and she felt, more than heard a nearby tower collapsing. The skyline of the city was thick with clouds of birds fleeing for their lives.

  Amid all the devastation, Sari watched Boralis pull himself to his feet. Arcs of lightening danced along his glistening, perfect body, and she realised it was not over yet.

  “Master!” Sari screamed, or at least hoped she did. The ringing in her ears made it impossible to tell if she could be heard at all, until Boralis looked straight at her. “Master!”

  He began stalking towards her, and the lightening burned the dead grass he passed by. Beyond him, the trees in the streets were collapsing, and the nests of the birds caught in them had become caskets for the babies that couldn’t escape.

  Sari clutched herself tightly, trembling in sheer terror. She was crying. She wanted to run away, but her legs wouldn’t listen.

  “Stay away from me, Boralis! Stay away! Master’s coming!”

  An arc of lightening swept across the lake, causing the dead fish floating on its surface to flop and dance horribly.

  “Boralis, stay away! You’ll be sorry!”

  Boralis’ mouth was moving. He was screaming something, his eyes alight, the flesh of his face so taut it looked like might tear from the tension.

  “Boralis, stop!”

  He was near the base of the steps, walking by one of the still standing statues to Sari’s right. He raised his right hand then, as arcs of lightning blazed along it. He pointed it right at her, and in that instant the fear left Sari.

  Snap!

  It took a second before Boralis could feel it. His eyes dulled, for they had seen his arm bend suddenly, sharply at the elbow in a direction nature never intended. He opened his mouth, and Sari was so afraid that he might let out another scream that would flatten everything before him that she made the scaled turn sharply to the left. He opened his mouth, but before he could let out a noise he smashed his face against the statue, breaking his perfect teeth, cracking his lower jaw from the impact.

  “I told you!” Sari yelled, wiping away the tears. “I told you to leave me alone!”

  Boralis pulled his head back, and smashed it against the statue, again.

  “Boralis?”

  Boralis smashed his face against the statue, again.

  “Stop!”

  Again.

  “Master! Master!”

  And again.

  “Stop! Boralis, stop! Stop!”

  “You're panicking, Sari. Close your eyes, and breathe.”

  The little girl nearly jumped in fright. She felt a warm hand pressing down on her shoulder, and felt it squeeze her gently. Master was here. It would be alright. She closed her eyes just as Boralis smashed his face against the statue again.

  “Ignore the noises. Listen to me, and only me.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Crack!

  “Think about what you want him to do. Visualise it without the blood. Breath in through your nose, count to four, and then exhale through your mouth.”

  Slop!

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Excellent. Now: make him stop.”

  Boralis stopped. He crumpled to the ground, his face a broken, bloody mess. His breathing was wet. He was writhing weakly on the ground, choking and coughing.

  Sari stared at what she had done, and began to cry. The Master held her.

  “I will fix him, Sari. He will be beautiful, again. You did very well. No one can hurt you, if you do not permit it.”

  Boralis somehow managed to roll onto his side, before he began to retch.