When I woke, it was with a splitting headache. My entire body was sore. From the tip of my snout to the end of my tail, I felt like I had fallen off a cliff and been bounced up and down repeatedly. On top of that, I felt an intense hunger beyond anything I’d experienced in ages. It had only been this overwhelming when I’d eaten my first live prey.

  ‘That’s what happens when you pull an ungodly amount of magic out of your ass, idiot.’

  I looked around. My den was in disarray. The small treasure hoard had been scattered by my body rolling through it as I slept. Coins were scattered all over the cavern. Thankfully, there was no one around or signs that someone had been injured by my thrashing.

  But where did those words come from? They weren’t my own thoughts.

  ‘You go through all the trouble of hauling me back to the land of the living, and you forget about me already?’

  The words were inside of me, occupying a space I’d been calling my ‘instinct’. It had never been a literal voice, as much as it had felt like it had a mind of its own at times. Now that I focused, I could feel a small candlelight of essence buried deep within my body. Rather than consume it, my own flame seemed to be cradling it protectively.

  ‘Yes, it’s very sweet of you. Don’t expect me to thank you for saddling me with a job.’

  The tonal whiplash confused me. One moment the voice sounded soft and helpful. The next it whipped around and bit at me with disdain. My tail flicked the floor in agitation. What exactly was going on?

  ‘You tried to do what I suspect you’ve always done. That is, throw a stupid amount of barely controlled magic at the problem and hope for the best. Well guess what idiot, magic doesn’t play nice. There’s a cost for everything.’

  Wait, was this my sibling? The bitterness in its voice certainly matched the rage felt by the broken hatchling in my dreams.

  ‘Yes, it’s me. Stop remembering me like that. It makes me feel disgusting. Think of me as a gorgeous dragon in her prime, scales more beautiful than any flower petal.’

  I tried my best, but I’d never seen my sibling in an adult form. Just her broken and devoured shell from the dream. I got back a sensation of deep irritation and weariness.

  ‘We’ll work on it. Just… refer to me as ‘Sixth’ for now. It is my name, even if it's a horrible one.’

  Giving my sibling a number as its name sounded degrading. I didn’t care much for it. Dragons were proud creatures whose names should declare their domain to the world. I treasured the name Sanguine, even though I’d asked my Cassia to give it to me.

  ‘Yes, well, ‘First’ is an extraordinarily degrading kind of dragon. He saddled all of us with those names, like he was better than us just because he hatched quickest. If it weren’t for him…’

  I could feel Sixth’s deep hatred boil up from inside of her, but her candle flame had dimmed noticeably inside of me. She was clearly exhausted even by this short conversation.

  ‘Not going to lie dummy, I’m worn out, hanging on by a thread. What you did was unimaginably stupid and I have no idea what will happen next. I’ll try and help as much as I can, but you’re back to being on your own for a bit.’

  The candle flame shrank down until it was only a lingering spark. It did not go out entirely. Our flames were linked, if only weakly. So long as mine burned, so would Sixth’s.

  ‘... Thanks for saving me, Sanguine. I missed you.’

  Sixth’s consciousness fell silent inside of me. I had no idea how long it would take her to regain her strength. My lack of education about magic had really come back to bite me this time. While I didn’t regret saving Sixth from her fate, I could feel deep in my bones that she was right. I had done something incredibly stupid.

  Nothing Edith had told me about magic indicated that bringing back the dead was possible. In fact she was very insistent in Magnus’s case, that what we had done was feed the last sparks of his spirit. If he had fully died, then the potion would have failed.

  The entity I had felt rising from the abyss was cause for great concern. I had always believed that death was as inevitable as the sun setting in the evening. All creatures lived and died. The Rotting Bear and Sixth had both been twisted into a mockery of life, the shell of their body and spirit respectively made to act out a false life beyond their control.

  If death was instead a malevolent being lurking in the void beyond life, then every living creature was simply prey for it to devour.

  Fighting such an entity was out of the question, for now at least. I’d been incredibly lucky to snatch Sixth from its jaws. If I had taken longer, or if she had rejected my help, then we both may have been lost to the abyss.

  I didn’t quite know how to feel about Sixth. She had clearly suffered greatly due to our siblings, but I could tell she was still a dragon at heart. Her shade had tried to attack me even though I had done her no wrong. In the short time we’d ‘spoken’ since waking, I’d been able to sense both deep pain and great vanity from her.

  If she had grown to adulthood, it was easy to imagine her declaring herself the Dragon of Beauty or something else in that order. In spite of that, she did seem genuinely grateful. Her biting tone and insults were a mask to hide her emotions.

  When she had said she’d missed me, she’d been too exhausted to put on a show.

  For now, I needed to eat. My stomach was about to gnaw its way out of my gut if I waited any longer.

  I emerged out of the cave system into the bright light of mid-morning. It took me a second to recognize the former bandit camp. The entire place had been transformed while I slept.

  All of the ramshackle structures had been removed. In their place stood rough but carefully constructed huts. They might have been small for a human, but were just the right size for several goblins to live together. Each showed a flair of personality, such as fabric curtains over a small window, flowers woven into the room fibers, or a carefully arranged garden out back.

  The building closest to the cave entrance was still under construction. A half dozen goblins were beating and banging on its structure with crude tools. In spite of their makeshift implements, they seemed to be doing solid work. What they were building was sized for human occupants.

  When one of the goblins spotted me, it gave a barking sound in their tongue and pointed in my direction. The others stopped what they were doing and stared. Without prompting, they all got down on their knees and groveled.

  While it might have been mildly amusing, the action felt uncomfortable. I’d done nothing for these creatures to act in such a manner. True, I had slaughtered some of their hunters and warriors…

  ‘Alright, maybe it’s reasonable but I still don’t like it,’ I thought to myself. I walked past the groveling workers with a low rumble. Behind me, they started to whisper and mutter to each other.

  My Edith was currently sitting near the center of the village. It didn’t qualify as a ‘camp’ anymore. I’d begun to worry about how long I’d been asleep, given the progress the goblins had made. Thankfully, Edith didn’t look any older than when I’d last seen her.

  She spotted me approaching, but didn’t acknowledge me to begin with. She was focused on her task, which was teaching a small group of goblin children. The old goblin warrior I remembered from our last meeting was standing beside her. He was holding a small woven basket filled with plants. They smelled like herbs.

  Edith was showing each plant or fungus to the children while holding it in a protective leather glove. She’d told me once that some plants were dangerous even to touch. Each herb was described as ‘good for food’ or ‘bad for food’. Occasionally one would be called ‘good for medicine’.

  The old goblin seemed responsible for translating, though ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘give Edith’ seemed to be his main choice of words. I thought I might be starting to pick up a little goblin speech. Learning words a child would use might be insulting to my intelligence, but it would be helpful to actually talk to them rather than guess at what they were saying.

  My presence disrupted Edith’s lesson, as I sat down on my haunches nearby. The goblin children had zero interest in herbs when a dragon was around. I could hear my Edith give an annoyed sigh as the small ones got up and ran away, only to peek out at me from behind whatever shelter they could find.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Well there goes that lesson, thank ye Croaker,” Edith said to the older goblin. The warrior nodded his head and started to pick up the herbs left on display. Edith stood up from where she’d been sitting on a stump. She carefully stuck the leather glove she’d been using in the herb basket, before walking over to me.

  Based on her demeanor I expected a scolding, but Edith instead held up her arms at me.

  “Pick me up ye sleepy beast. I missed ye,” she said softly.

  With as much care as I could manage, I scooped up Edith in my claws. She blinked when she heard my stomach growl. A momentary thought of giving her a small nibble and tasting her vitality flashed through my mind, but was slapped down viciously.

  “Oh, are ye starving my beasty? Imagine that, after ye slept for three days.”

  Three days? Well that could have been worse, but I worried that I’d have slept for far longer if I’d not needed to force myself out of the Dream. Another growl of my stomach forced me to focus. Edith gave a small chortle.

  “Quite insistent, ain’t it? Well let’s be off then. Our lass should be off in the hills with Sparrow and Angry. No doubt she’ll have some grub to lessen ye’r ailment. Quite the hunter, she’s turned into.”

  I had no doubt that my Cassia was the best hunter anyone had ever seen, but Edith seemed to mean something I didn’t understand yet. Without further waiting, I placed Edith on my back. She settled into it and grabbed onto the ridge along my neck as I flapped my wings. I kicked up dust across the goblin settlement as I took to the air.

  Once I was soaring up above the trees, I began searching for my Cassia. Following the connection between us wasn’t too difficult. Her trail led me far up into the hills closer to the mountains. The terrain became especially treacherous for those on foot in that direction. Many deep canyons and ravines broke up the rolling hillsides.

  Thankfully I had no trouble flying over them. Edith held on tightly to my back, unable to speak over the rushing wind. She still seemed to enjoy the experience, showing little fear as she looked out across the world below us with the wind whipping her long hair braid back and forth. When I angled my wings and dipped down, she ducked against the scales of my neck.

  My Cassia was in the middle of skinning a deer when I arrived at her campsite. It was tucked under a stone ledge on the side of the hill, sufficient to keep off the rain if the weather was bad. As Edith had said, Sparrow and the goblin whose main trait was ‘Angry’ were with her.

  In the three days since I’d gone to sleep, the trio had been busy. Four deer had been processed before I arrived. The one Cassia was working on smelled fresh, less than two hours dead. Numerous smaller prey were hung up on a sharpened stake, smoke from a small fire flowing across them.

  Compared to the starvation we’d endured in the Cursed Forest, this was an overwhelming amount of food. With my current hunger, it might just serve as an appetizer. When I landed nearby, both Sparrow and Angry looked on in dismay at the visible drool coming from between my teeth.

  Edith slid off of my back to one side.

  “I’d stand out of the way. Yon beasty is-” The rest of Edith’s words were interrupted by my maw snapping up a whole deer carcass. I barely chewed. A quick snap of bones echoed from between my teeth as the deer vanished down my throat with startling speed. A second quickly followed.

  I’d just turned my snout towards the third when a small pebble bounced off my nose. Looking over, I could see Cassia standing with her hands on her hips. She looked like she was going to give a lecture. This time, one actually started.

  “Sanguine! I taught you better than this! These two have worked very-” Again, I interrupted someone else’s words. My head darted forward and came up to Cassia. Rather than my teeth, my long tongue pushed out and dragged along her neck and jawline.

  Cassia gave a sputtering sound as I continued licking her.

  “Sa-San-Sanguine- STOP IT!” She batted at my head with her hands. No real anger was behind the soft blows. A gasping giggle came out of her lips. Eventually I’d teased her enough and I pulled away.

  Before I did, she caught my head by one horn and pulled me back. She was surprisingly strong for a human her size. Most humans wouldn’t be able to make me budge an inch. She used the opportunity to press her lips softly against the scales of my cheek.

  When she let go, a small blush had risen in her cheeks. Over her shoulder I could see Edith rubbing her temples. Both goblins seemed utterly baffled.

  “Hoooh… Okay. I’m serious Sanguine, I know you’re probably starving, but don’t go scarfing down all our hard work,” Cassia said to me sweetly. “We’ve been working on cleaning our catch all morning.”

  “Since you’re so hungry, we’ll need to go replace what you just ate and get more besides. You and I are going to hunt together. That’s final.” That sounded like more of a reward than a punishment. It felt like it had been forever since my Cassia and I had hunted as a pair. I nodded my head to agree.

  “Edith, would you mind waiting here while I feed our poor starving dragon?” Cassia asked. Edith gave a sigh, but nodded as well.

  “Stuff him to the gills lass. I don’t want him eating us out of house and home. Just be safe for me, please?”

  My Cassia didn’t bother to respond. Instead, she grabbed her bow and arrows. A moment later she was on my back. We took off towards the horizon together, letting the world stretch out beneath us.

  Edith stared at the receding shapes of her dragon and friend.

  “At least I got to ride a dragon for a bit,” she muttered to herself. “What a morning.”

  The young woman sitting next to Baron Reimse’s throne was staring off into space as Sigurd finished telling his story. She had not looked at Sigurd once since the Baron had summoned him to his court. In spite of the urgency of his message and the simmering rage inside of him, Sigurd could not help but glance in her direction now and again.

  Baron Reimse, on the other hand, had his eyes firmly locked on Sigurd the entire time. He cut a stern figure, dressed in an understated black tunic and trousers. Only excellent tailoring and the pristine cleanliness of his garments gave away his social status. A single golden signet ring rested on one finger, which tapped at the arm rest of his seat. Deep brown eyes sat under a heavy brow. Close cropped hair going from brunette to grey completing his visage of mature authority.

  “If you were not burned within an inch of your life, I would consider you a madman, young Sigurd,” the Baron said in a heavy voice, breaking the silence after Sigurd’s tale had finished. “You should be seen by a doctor immediately.” The Baron’s eyes turned towards his steward. Without being given a command, the steward darted out of the room to fetch the castle physician.

  “I am not sure that I’m not a madman, your lordship,” Sigurd croaked hoarsely. In spite of his fervor, his body was running on fumes. The energy which had infected his mind was spent. If not for the White Wizard’s staff in his hand, he’d have already fallen over. “But every word I’ve spoken was the truth.”

  “Death and destruction does strange things, even to the best of men,” the Baron observed humorlessly. “Brothers in arms turn their blades on one another. The brave become cowards. Worst of all is obsession.” Those deep brown eyes seemed to stare into Sigurd’s heart. “For a madman will see the whole world burn, if only his foe is defeated.”

  Before Sigurd could respond, the Oracle made a startled noise. Her whole body was covered by voluminous white robes, save for her eyes. Sigurd could still see the shock radiate through her body as she sat ramrod straight. A wild look passed through her gaze as she stared out into the open air.

  A moment later, the staff Sigurd had relied on gave a loud crack. The end of the staff split in half, sprouting a head of thorns. Some of the thorns pierced through Sigurd’s hand, making him cry out in pain. He was unable to release the staff from his grasp.

  Guards standing at the edges of the court drew their blades, rushing forward to surround Sigurd. Blood seeped between his fingers as he fell to his knees. In the back of the room, someone shouted, “Sorcerer!”

  Baron Reimse stood from his throne, extending his ringed hand outwards. “Cease! The Oracle will speak.”

  All eyes, Sigurd’s included, turned towards the Oracle. Slender fingers had extended out of her robes to clutch at the veil around her head. Her eyes shone with an inner light, radiant gold spilling out from between her eyelids. A trickle of fresh red blood rolled down from her tear ducts, staining the cloth over her lower face. Her whole body trembled as the golden light slowly receded.

  “Oracle?” the Baron asked insistently. The man’s stern composure had failed for a moment. Sigurd could see a flicker of emotion on the Baron’s face. That fervent look in his eyes reminded Sigurd of his own burning need to see the dragon dead.

  “Not a vision.” The Oracle’s voice was soft, little more than a whisper, but it carried to all corners of the room. “An Edict.” The Baron took a full step backwards, clutching his signet ring to his chest. A mixture of confusion and shock rippled through the room. Those who were young, like Sigurd, did not understand the impact of those words.

  The Baron and those more experienced reacted to the Oracle’s words as if it were horrifying news of a personal nature. An older woman standing at the side of the court fainted on the spot.

  “An Edict? Here?” Baron Reimse whispered, his fervor turned to obvious terror. He looked like he had aged years in moments. Those deep brown eyes flicked towards Sigurd. In them, the young man saw his death, a cornered animal that would kill anything in its way to escape.

  “Not him,” the Oracle hissed, sparing Sigurd’s life. “He will serve a role, but he is not the target of the Inquiry.” Now, several more members of the guards began to visibly shake. The Oracle’s clarification had done the exact opposite of soothing their nerves.

  “W-what is happening?” Sigurd asked, trying to drag himself to his feet. The thorned staff was still impaling his hand. “Is this about the dragon?”

  “Be quiet, fool child-” The Baron started to say before the Oracle raised her hand. Her palm was soaked in the blood which had poured down her face. Sigurd could see the wet cloth sucking against her lips as she spoke.

  “Sigurd the Burned,” the Oracle proclaimed. “You will be healed. You will be armed. Warriors will accompany you. You will ride without rest. You will slay this foul creature, which dares intrude upon the realm of the Divine. This is Their will.”

  Each word shook Sigurd to the bone. He had thought that his fury was the peak of what a mortal man could experience. Every syllable of the Oracle’s proclamation simmered with a borrowed incandescent rage that utterly eclipsed his own. Whoever had sent the Oracle this Edict, their wrath could not be contained by mere words.

  After giving the Edict, the Oracle collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Only wet sucking breaths showed that they still lived. Her attendants rushed forward, surrounding her and blocking her from Sigurd’s view.

  “Hurry up with the damned doctor!” the Baron called loudly. He stepped down from the platform that his throne sat upon and walked towards Sigurd. One of his hands roughly caught Sigurd by his tunic. “Do you know how to fight, child?”

  The older man’s voice was a desperate hiss. Sigurd numbly shook his head.

  “Too bad. You’re going after that dragon, blade in hand, ready or not. Even if I have to bodily throw you at the creature.”