There was a mont of silence after I asked her. When it finally broke, it was White Feather’s voice that did the job.
"Are you familiar with the legend of the Great Sword?"
I shook my head. The na had never rung a bell before.
White Feather continued after I responded.
"The Great Sword was a man who lived no less than six hundred years ago. He was a man of unmatched strength, said to be able to cleave mountains without a sword. Most of all, he was a terrifying summoner, a man capable of summoning imnse powers from the spirit world."
I paid close attention to what White Feather said, noticing that she had used the words imnse powers.
"Imnse powers would be what?"
White Feather paused and said nothing. Before she could speak, however, Yuan answered.
"The heart and soul of the dragons."
The weight in her tone made the revelation sound heavier — and maybe it truly was heavier, and I was simply the odd one out here.
’Dragons, huh...’
"Aren’t dragons a very rare race around here? Did they even exist eight thousand years ago?"
"Of course they didn’t! The race of dragons was slaughtered by the benevolent gods because of their destructive power. Each of these dragons was capable of devastating an entire region with their breath. Moreover, they were majestic beings beloved by the essence of the world. Although the runes of history are unclear, sotis dragons are called the brothers of the gods. Other tis, they are referred to as their guardians. Whichever the case, they are Eardrum’s most ancient threat."
She continued, her eyes blazing with conviction.
"And when the dragons lost their sense of morality—raping humanity and spilling their seed, causing won to neglect their natural spouses and seek a dragon’s seed due to their ability to fulfill even the most outrageous desires of a woman—they were slaughtered and destroyed."
I scratched the back of my neck.
’Now what a twisted story this is...’
"So... how does this myth have anything to do with our situation?"
It was White Feather who responded next.
"The Great Sword was a man who could summon the power of dragons, gaining powers as imnse as the dragons themselves possessed. He was a man who could have placed the world beneath his feet if he had wished."
I glanced at the two of them.
"Well, with how rarely people seem to know about him, I guess he didn’t do that."
"That was because it was not of his interest... The Great Sword was only interested in sothing that even the won he used couldn’t understand."
I leaned forward.
"And what would that be?"
White Feather hesitated, which in itself was rare. Yuan picked up the slack.
"He didn’t summon dragons," Yuan said. "The dragons were already dead by his ti. What he summoned was the lingering essence of dragons that still remained in this world—scattered, hidden, sleeping inside other things."
’Inside other things...’
I had a feeling I knew where this was going, but I let her continue.
"The remnants of dragon essence settled into bloodlines, into bones, into the hearts of n with the right soul resonance. A person born with the proper alignnt could, with the right path, awaken a fragnt of dragon power within themselves. One in a million, perhaps. One in ten million."
White Feather took back the thread.
"The Great Sword had an eye for them. He could see who carried that fragnt. And whenever he found one... he raised her up."
I caught the pronoun.
"Always won?"
"Always won."
The two of them exchanged a look I didn’t fully understand, but I caught the shape of it.
’Of course it’s always won.’
"The first one we know of was Lady Rouxen," White Feather said. "A maid in a dying noble house. She would have been sold — or worse — if the Great Sword hadn’t passed through her town. He saw sothing in her that no one else had. He gave her a set of breathing techniques, a sword that drank moonlight, and a path. A few years later, she was the queen of three provinces. They wrote songs about her. The Steel Lily."
It sounded promising. Like a fairy tale, actually.
"And then?"
White Feather paused.
"She died at the height of her power. The records say she gave her life in a final battle to save him from a Profane-tier beast. They say her last words were his na."
’Of course they were.’
"Then there was Inahel. A blind girl from the southern Ashara marshes. The Great Sword found her, gave her an artifact called the Sightless Crown, and sent her to study under an exiled sage. She returned from the mountains as the Reader of Hidden Truths. They say she could see the threads of fate themselves. She advised three emperors and ended a war that had lasted forty years, becoming an Oracle who disrupted the flow of fate and created a wide chasm that eventually spawned a cruel war with the Weavers of Fate, worshippers of Aetherna."
"Let guess."
"She died at the height of her power."
"For him?"
"For him."
I was starting to see the pattern, and the pattern was making my stomach turn in a way I hadn’t expected.
"There were others?"
"There were many," Yuan said. "The records list eleven by na. There may have been more whose nas did not survive. Each one rose from nothing. Each one beca legendary. Each one died young, and each one died in a way sohow connected to him. So died saving him. So died completing a mission he had given them. So simply died, and the records say they could not bear to live without him."
The hairs on my arms rose — the way they did when I was looking at a problem from the wrong angle and finally starting to see it from the right one.
’Eleven won. Each one extraordinary, and indebted to him, and they all died before her power could outgrow him.’
I took a breath.
"And the dragon essence inside them. When they died, it didn’t just... disappear, did it?"
White Feather looked at with sothing that might have been respect—and might have been sothing colder.
"No. It didn’t."
"He took it."
"The records don’t say that. The records say he mourned each of them. He built shrines. Carved their nas into the cliffs at his estate."
"But."
"But after each one died, he beca stronger. Visibly stronger. His next great battle would always be his greatest. The chronicles of his life are arranged like a staircase, and every step upward corresponds to a woman he had buried."
’Genius. Sick, but genius.’
A summoner who couldn’t summon dragons because dragons were extinct—and whatever manner they had gone extinct in, they could not be found in the spirit world. So the bastard made his own. He found won with the spark, gave them the path, gave them the techniques, gave them love—or the sense of debt—or whatever he needed them to feel, and let them cultivate themselves into living vessels of dragon essence.
Then he harvested.
He probably didn’t even have to lie to them. He gave them everything they could have wanted. From their perspective, he was their salvation. From their perspective, dying for him was the most natural thing in the world. He had given them their power, their identity, their place in history.
What was a life next to that?
I sat with that for a while.
"Who was the last one?"
White Feather shook her head.
"The records beco unclear at the end of his life. So say there was a twelfth. So say he was working on her when he disappeared. So say she killed him."
Yuan added quietly, "So say she beca him."
That last one landed in the room like a dropped stone.
’Beca him...’
I gulped.
"As interesting as this topic is, how does it correlate to the disparities between you two?"
White Feather closed her eyes calmly as she continued.
"Well, the Moon Clan and the Wave Clan are two of the eleven clans ford from the pillars of world-changing power he raised on a whim. We were built—each of us following what we starkly believe in."
"Of course, our values differed greatly, but the dragon bloodline has contributed to the imnse power we wield, allowing us to grow into formidable powerhouses ourselves. And yet... that alone is not enough to protect ourselves from that person. So we have no choice but to consu each other."
White Feather cursed softly.
"The dragon bloodline — it’s not a blessing. It’s a vicious curse. I wish it could be undone, but this is our burden forever."
I paused for a mont.
’Argh... this is getting slightly confusing.’
I glanced at the two of them.
"It’s simple. You both can just stop trying to consu each other. Maybe I’m not understanding exactly what you an by consuming each other. What’s the point?"
White Feather sighed, looking down with visible worry.
"To have a fighting chance. I have not sat idle in the past four hundred years, I have built a weapon that may be able to kill him."
She rembered sothing and gritted her teeth in anger.
"That greedy bastard..."
’I’m guessing the weapon is her daughter?’
Her voice sounded with sadness.
"Five out of the eleven clans that were ford have already been destroyed. We don’t know the situation in Ashara today, but four hundred years ago soone was slaughtering the bloodline. I survived a near annihilation — one that sank the islands of Crystalis. In order to hide ourselves from our killer, we forced ourselves to live beneath the water."
I slowly massaged my chin as I thought about what she had said before speaking again.
"Soone is annihilating all the bloodlines. So both the Moon Clan and the Wave Clan fled here a couple of centuries ago. Which ans, by all standards, you two should be best friends... but instead you turned out to be the worst enemies."
I looked at them carefully.
"Enlighten . What exactly am I missing?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers