The Clutch of Sharys: Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter 36- To Ensure a Contract Fulfilled

The two Godbeasts spoke in the most beautiful tones that had ever befallen mortal ears, though none that heard could understand. Whatever was said, the great Void was left weeping, regret at its actions filling its heart where once jealousy had grown.

After leaving the dining room and winding wordlessly through several halls and passageways, the luxurious white marble of the Baron's house faded into the tan rock of the Cetnan cliffs, stretching towards a staircase carved into the rock. "This way, if you please." The Baron said, leading them up the stairs. 

They seemed to climb for quite a while; the edges of Cara’s lungs burned with the exertion and unspoken emotion as their group marched on in silence. She could not rid herself of the image of those people dying in front of her, veins bursting and mouths frothing as their bodies twitched and fought to breathe. It was vicious and cruel, but ultimately there was an intended purpose behind this slaughter, and something about that fact made it worse for Cara to reconcile what had happened in her mind. 

The group was so consumed by their demons of silence and horror that they failed to notice when they made it to the top, where Cara's silver-horned dragon waited, snapping her jaws at the passing Baron. They opened a door, and they stepped out into a small cave, beyond which stood a night sky, unlike any Cara had ever seen. A swirling mass of sparkling stars, many gems that shone amidst the black velvet setting of night were painted across by fading streaks of light, their colors shimmering and slowly undulating as they dissolved into the night. 

"The Aurora Nepthys shall dance with the souls of the dead and light your way back home." The Baron announced, gesturing towards the lights. Cara looked up, breath taken by the sight and a growing urge to be closer to the luminescent phenomenon that was becoming too much to bear. Flapping wings sounded nearby, and Cara saw she was not alone in this feeling. Hundreds of dragons rose, rider or not, dancing through the air as wisps of light peeled off of the streaks in the sky, floating away and quivering back and forth between the flying creatures. 

"Your dragons are just there." The Baron said, gesturing towards a huddled mass nearby. "I bid you farewell and good fortune, Your Highness. Lady Bree, you and your family are always welcome." 

The group said their farewells, both grateful to see the baron go and strained with remaining civil, the earlier events of the night lending brevity to their separation. "I'm sorry for what happened," Fatimi whispered when Cara went to shake their hand, lips drawn in a taut line. "This is not how I would've parted ways with new friends."

"I know. There had to have been a better way to ensure the contract was fulfilled than that spectacle. Search for it next time." Cara gave them an attempted smile, though it faded quickly from her face, like the memory of a dream after waking up from sleep.

With those words, she left, joining the rest of the women as they clambered onto dragon back and made their way towards a sky full of dreams and light, and leaving behind some small part of their innocence and morality in the cliffs of Cetna. 

"What the hells, Petra." Cara said the second Petra leveled Lysander's green bulk out, reaching a cruising altitude. "Did you know that would happen?" 

The Princess’s back stiffened above where Cara gripped the straps of the passenger belt. "I knew they had something planned when we went in. Ahnn put the pieces together." 

"Then why didn't you stop it!?"

"Because I needed to choose between my personal morality or doing what I had to do for the sake of my claim, and at that point, we barely got word to the rest of you." Petra said, turning in her saddle slightly to glare at Cara with ivy green eyes. "Trust me when I tell you that you are not the only one here feeling the biting sting of outrage at what occurred." She whipped back around, leaving Cara in silence. 

"I'm sorry." Cara said, feeling guilt pull her anger back to reasonable levels with its weight clutch. "This just… I didn't expect it to turn out this way." Her voice faltered and went quiet. Cara knew she needed to pick up the pieces and continue forward, but the scene from dinner kept playing over and over, the spasming bodies hitting the table while their eyes rolled back in their heads. 

"Heads up, we've got a tail!" Bree suddenly yelled, pulling Stuk up beside them. The green-purple glow of the lights in the sky outlined her face, which was turned over her shoulder. Cara followed suit and saw that, true to the Countess’s word, the overly large wings of a Cetnan dragon were flapping hard behind them, slowly gaining distance. 

"Do we take the chance that it's just a messenger from Veshmi with something we forgot?" Bree asked loudly, hand creeping up to where her warhammer was clipped onto the harness on her back. "It could also be someone coming after us for the whole breaking and entering thing we did." Cara called over. 

"Slow down and stand ready." Petra called authoritatively, drawing her thin sabre. 

Thrilled to have an excuse to play with this new light, Cara stiffened her legs as far as she could to stand up, curls flying behind her in the wind as she reached a hand towards the misty strands of light in the sky. Two curled down to her, coiling in a double helix as they fell to her fingertips. Cara sat back down, buzzing with cold energy as she held the shimmering ephemeral light in her hands. 

The group of dragons flew slightly closer to Lysander, who was easily the biggest of the group, his mighty wings bigger than some of his smaller draconian counterparts. Stuk and Bree flew to the left while Cheska and Lilibet flashed blue scales off to their right, with Ahnn taking dark Kirial in a dive to fly beneath Lysander, and together they waited for the rider to catch up.

At first, the rider overshot them, their dragon’s large wings snapping back into a glide as Petra and the group slowly got closer. The dragon tilted to its side so that its rider was almost standing up in their side-saddle position. "Hello, Your Highness!" Fatimi called. A small pack was tied to their saddle, much like Lysander’s saddlebags which held their bags and weapons. Their bow was strung across their shoulder once again, and they looked excited to see the Princess. 

"Is something wrong?" Petra called, her voice betraying confusion. "Does the Baron need something else?" 

Fatimi shook their head, ponytail whipping around in the wind. "Not quite. Lady Cara said something quite wise before you departed that my sire agreed with, that there had to be a better way to ensure you fulfilled your side of the contract." 

Cara felt her stomach drop and tried to make herself small as Petras' cutting gaze slowly turned her way. 

"Baron Veshmi has sent me to help ensure your victory, with the intent that you name me one of your attendants at court once you are crowned so that I might protect our interests there." Fatimi said the words like the matter were simple enough but leaving the Princess in stunned silence.

"Cara." Petra said, drawing the word out through gritted teeth as she recovered. "You clod!" 

"How was I supposed to know they'd take it that way!" Cara said defensively, gesturing towards the rider. "I had to just sit there and witness a murder Petra, I refuse to apologize if I thought that maybe there was a better solution than just killing people." She took a deep breath, throwing a cheap shot after it. "Besides. I'm not the one that pretended to know Cetnan." 

Petra's mouth dropped slightly in an outraged gasp as Cara brought up the sore subject. "I practically- it's not the same thing." The Princess snapped, voice riling. The two glared at each other as the princess threw Cara's shot back at her. "Besides. I didn't cause us to gain a Cetnan babysitter." 

Turning back to where Fatimi still glided, watching their exchange with a bemused expression, Petra gave the archer a quick, stiff smile. "We're good, thank you, have a safe flight back." She called, twitching Lysander’s reins slightly to urge him ahead. 

"I'm sorry you feel that way because I fully intend to continue following you." Fatimi remarked, unyielding intent in their voice as their dragon’s large wings beat quickly to keep pace.

Petra looked over at Ahnn for help, the Kitisalian simply shaking her head. "Your Highness. It would not hurt us to have a direct connection to our allies." She called down.

Petra sighed. "Fine." 

Fatimi shot Cara an excited smile before pulling out of their glide, turning their slender mount right side up so that the archer sat side-saddle once more, reins neatly picked up off their saddle horn. 

Cara looked down at the flickering light she still held in her hands and started to stand back up and release it back to the ribbons in the sky. 

"Wait." Petra suddenly ordered, tucking Lysander's reins under a clip in front of her. "Give that here." 

"Unless you switched alignments in the past few minutes, that won't work." Cara said, sitting back down and reaching her hand forward. Petra sheathed her sabre, wordlessly cupping her hands over Cara's, eyes blowing a radiantly intense green for a brief moment. To Cara's hand, it felt like the cold, buzzing light of the aurora was sucked away, replaced by something cold, hard, and pointy. 

"It's an amethyst. To match your dragon's eyes." Petra said, pulling her hands back, looking away from Cara, and picking up the reins. Cara pulled her hand back, looking at the gem Petra had placed in her hand. A pale purple gem about the length of her thumb sat there, its edges just slightly wider than the finger. Deeply refracting within its crystalline walls were the lights Cara had held moments before, hanging like a small streaked miniature of the sky above. 

"T-thank you." Cara said, surprised to be receiving a present so soon after their argument.

"Next time, you have no excuse for not having a light source." Petra said primly, not turning around. Cara blinked twice before turning and stowed the shining rock into her sack, covering it with some clothes that dulled its glow. Buckling the bag back up, she stowed it in Lysander's saddlebags and turned to settle back in, watching the flash of silver horns dart through the air nearby.

"Infusing earth with other elements is some extremely potent magic." Bree's voice cut in, causing Cara to look up. The rest of the group had spread out slightly, surrounding their vicinity and allowing Bree to pull back up beside Lysander. 

"I have extremely potent magic." Petra replied flatly, gesturing towards the golden horns atop her dragon's head. Cara twisted in the saddle, looking over at Cheska. "Can you do that?" She called, curious. The monk shook her head, turning where she stood on her dragon's back to face them.

"Can't say I have, though that's more my alignment’s fault than anything else." Cheska shrugged."There are few non-mercantile uses for steam to be imbued." 

"And you're not the mercantile sort." Fatimi observed, flying her pale blue dragon closer, long white hair flowing behind them in the wind. 

"Yes, what she said." Cheska said, chuckling. 

"They." Fatimi said mildly.

"Sorry?" Cheska replied, brow slightly furrowed. 

"I am not a she, but a they. I understand that it is common for some lands to need a person to be one or the other for the purposes of arbitrary differentiation, but my language is not the same. We refer to ourselves using they, and do not feel the need to create a divide where there is no need for one." Fatimi's response was simple, tone sounding as though this, to them, was a simple fact of life, like rain falling from the clouds or dragons loving to fly. 

“But you have different parts, do you not?” Petra asked, gesturing towards her hips.

“A person is not defined by the parts they are born with, but rather by who they are as a living being and the actions they take. Who they love and what they call themselves should be their choice. When at the core we are all the same creature, why waste the time on creating two sets of terms when one works all the same?”

"I thought it odd that term was used to refer to everyone, but I just thought it was a language barrier or translation error." Petra admitted. 

"It is not. I simply don't feel that I am within the lingual binary you would usually apply, so please use 'they.' " Fatimi responded, their face open and honest as they spoke. 

Cheska was the first to speak. "Of course." The monk said, her tone serious and final. 

"Though I do have a question." Bree cut in thoughtfully 

"Yes?" Fatimi said, pale eyes flicking towards the Countess quizzically. 

"Topher. When we were heading back from the warehouse, you called him 'he.’" Bree observed. 

"Ah," Fatimi said, face shadowed as they spoke of the recently dead soldier. "Topher was born in Kitisal, as his father is from there. He grew up with a different language and culture before coming to Avila." 

"You knew what was going to happen." Cara bit out, the words rushing from her mouth. "You held my hand back from touching the cups." 

If Fatimi was surprised by this sudden change of topic, they didn't show it, expression instead crumbling before they responded. "I knew that the Baron had planned punishment for the soldiers, and when they started that toast, I figured out what it was. I had no hand nor mind in that slaughter, for whatever it is worth to you." 

Cara shook her head, a feeling of sickness filling her from within as the scene from earlier flashed behind the closed lids of her eyes. Even trying to think of something else was impossible, every minor detail that could have distracted her from what had occurred somehow connecting back to spitting, foaming mouths, or a spider web of dark veins underneath tan skin. If they hadn’t figured it out in time or been warned by Ahnn, would that have been their fates as well? Did the Baron poison the cup of their new allies with the intent of giving them an antidote? It seemed unlikely that he would be willing just to kill them off, but after everything she had seen, Cara was no longer sure. 

"May their souls find their way to Shary's clutch." Cheska murmured, looking off towards the sky. 

"I've never heard that before." Cara said softly, looking over to where Cheska glided nearby, a silver-scaled young dragon soaring over their heads. 

"Farcans believe all dead souls return to the source of all life, Sharys." Petra said. "They don't believe in the Trinity Afterlives." Cara took this in, curious to learn more about what different lands believed happened to the souls of the dead. Perhaps if she could ever get back to a decent library, she could find a few books to help her research. 

"Their souls will join with the light above." Fatimi said suddenly, looking up at the suspended illumination about the sky. "They join the Aurora of Nepthys and dance with their ancestors, visiting the skies to check on those they left behind." 

Cheska snorted, shaking her dark head. "As if that makes sense." The Farcan shook her head, face stern. "All life came from Sharys, and Sharys it returns after its time expires." 

Cara stayed out of the religious debate, which died away as the night forged on, energy and emotion quieting the difference of beliefs in favor of contemplative silence. Eventually, the sheet of light overhead faded in the distance behind them, the streaks and wisps of light shimmering a farewell as they continued their celestial dance. 

Up ahead, a line shone in the distance, stretching away and paving a path on the ground, marking the beyond the whispering leaves of the ember oaks, fiery colors dulled by the soft blanket of dark night, was the beginning of the Netian border. As the night slowly turned to dawn, Cara could see several cities far below them, other dragons passing them by as they continued towards Corfu. 

Morning melded into early afternoon, the rays of the sun unfairly bright by the time the dragons dipped their snouts towards the ground, getting ready to land. 

Below, a white and orange stone town stood on the coast, broad sparkling waters extending from its eastern side. There was a central plaza below, buzzing with activity and dragons leaving and arriving, so Petra opted to land outside its walls. "Luca and Haron should be close to the gate." Ahnn called, placing a hand on the black gem at her throat.

Amber eyes briefly shining a purple flash; Ahnn’s lips moved while the rest of the riders landed, waiting for their next move. They waited and waited a moment more for the short-browed girl to say something, but instead, she stayed silent, her lips moving repeatedly and her brow slowly furrowed. Finally, her hand dropped from her throat, expression blank as she turned to face the group. 

"Your Highness. Something is wrong. I cannot get ahold of Haron no matter how hard I try. The only thing I can hear is heavy breathing." Ahnn said, sliding off her dragon and slowly drawing her swords. The rest of the riders followed suit, and Cara wasn't far behind, sliding down Lysander's flank after grabbing her spear from its tether near the saddlebags. Standing at the bottom, waiting for her, was her dragon, looking up as Cara nearly pulled off a smooth landing, tripping over her own feet at the last minute. She caught herself cursing her father's side of the family for passing their large feet onto her. 

"Can you make out where the shard is at?" Petra asked, sliding off her jacket so she could pull her mail over her shirt. After she had finished, she slipped the garment back on, drawing her sword. Ahnn quickly finished putting on her leather armor, a stiffer variety than Cara's flexible gear, and an ornate, carved pattern of dark brown swirling across the tan expanse of the breastplate, leaving impressions of dark swords and crows circling in delicate loops near the corners. The lady-in-waiting straightened up, patting herself down and fussing with her collar for a moment before she came over to Petra and stood beside her, ready for action. 

They walked into the city in a group, but Cara soon noticed the lack of a certain battle-enthusiast at the head of the group and found Bree near the middle, a dull flame of discontent burning in her eyes as she walked. "Are you alright?" Cara asked her in an undertone. 

"No. I'm not. What happened has me seriously reconsidering some of my decisions." Bree murmured, eyes flicking up ahead towards Petra and Ahnn. Spotting the look on Cara's face, the countess added, "If she had refused to let that happen, just stood up and did something, it wouldn't have happened. Veshmi needs us more than we need them." 

"How do you figure that?" Cara said under her breath, glancing back to where Fatimi rounded out the group. "The Kalatis tax increases have impacted the profit and stock-flow for their companies the past few years." Bree said quietly. "They would not receive the kind of concessions that Petra agreed to from the Kalatis heir or the church." 

Cara shook her head, looking away. "The Baron still wanted to make a point, though." She said, hand flickering down to her dragon’s head for comfort as the previous night’s events played in her mind again. "So they could've killed one or two soldiers. Instead, they slaughtered the whole lot. That's just senseless killing, and now we're saddled with the reminder of their expectations for the next year or so." 

The Countess of Rats and Shadows shut her mouth at that, hands gripping and regrouping her hammer as they walked through the orange stone archway of the town's entrance. Bree knelt quickly and suddenly, releasing a rat from inside her sleeve that scampered off into the nearest side street, leaking shadows that Cara could've sworn looked like they were growing into more and more rats the farther the creature ran away.