Fallen Fire | The Isle of the Wyverns

Chapter Eight

It passed as fast as it came, the details of the memory trickling away like water in cupped hands. She opened her eyes to see Altan and Aesira turning sound and beckoning her to come to the library with them and Celaena standing two feet away again, as though nothing had happened. Altan and Aesira had started walking back the way they came, when Celaena came forward. "Remember Alethea Alistair. I foresee the future. I cannot change it." Alethea nodded without really thinking, and ran after her friends.

Moments later, the same brunette whom Alethea had seen on the day she had come, ran up to Aesira. "Ma'am, did you forget? The Azure's are on guard duty today. Remember?" Aesira cursed in Greek under her breath. "Alright..." she relented, "I'm coming." After telling the other two to catch her up on what they found later, she ran off after the brunette. Altan and Alethea walked off in silence, until Alethea said: "Altan?" "Mm." he answered. "What's a dragard?" he turned to face her, slowly. "I bet you heard it from Arius huh?" she nodded as he spoke quietly. "Back in the day," he began, seriously, "there was one wyvern who went bad. As bad as they go. And when a wyvern's gone that bad, there's no getting them back. That wyvern's name....was Gomrath." just then, thunder rumbled overhead, and Altan glanced at the sky warily. "Try not to mention that name around here. Or anywhere. Or ever. Just call him 'he-who-must-not-be-named'" Alethea was still full of questions. "What happened to Gom-sorry, I mean he-who-must-not-be-named?" Altan sighed heavily. "Good question Alethea. He disappeared. Vanished. Some say he died. Nonsense in my opinion. His body might be gone. But his spirit still lives. You mark my words. He'll be back. One way or another." Alethea was shaking inwardly. "The thing is, he-who-must-not-be-named came to power exactly 3 years after a particular camper went on a quest." Alethea knew that a quest was a mission you were sent on by the Tarragons. "This particular camper never came back. Instead he who-must-not-be-named did." he continued. "It might be a coincidence, but I can't shake it off my head. The point is, we had no more quests after that. It was quite a while ago.

He-who-must-not-be-named, had a lot of followers. Some wyvern's and some beasts. They called themselves the dragards. Even today, the last follower's of the dragards dwell in the forest. Forbidden to come into camp. They're bound with an invisible force field that keeps us safe. For now." Alethea shuddered at his ominous tone. Without another word, the two friends made their way to the library. When they got there, Alethea could hardly contain her excitement. Altan must have noticed, because he rolled his eyes and pointed towards the back of the library that faced an open window, and where nobody stood. Altan grabbed a book called 'Genealogy Made Easy' and buried his nose in it. Alethea on the other hand pulled several scrolls with complex family tree diagrams towards her and studied them.

Until a question hit her. "Altan? Can I ask you a question?" He smirked. "You already have." Alethea asked nervously. "Who are your parents?" she asked quietly. The smirk slid off Altan's face faster than you could say 'what'. He didn't answer for several moments and Alethea decided to let the subject drop, since it was clearly a touchy topic with him. "I wasn't born a wyvern." came Altan's voice from next to Alethea, sounding so very un-Altan-like that she whipped around in alarm.

"I was chosen by Prometheus on my first day here." Alethea looked at him and asked. "What about your parents? I'm guessing they weren't wyverns." he shook his head. "Both my parents were outlanders. My father works as a professor at West Point and my mother -" his voice broke. "She died, didn't she?" Alethea asked, and then winced, not expecting it to come out that harshly. Altan nodded. "She died when I was about 3, in a factory explosion. When she died, my father remarried another woman who already had two little kids of her own."

Alethea could hear the bitterness in his voice, and she could understand where that came from. "She wasn't fond of me. But she wasn't hostile either. For a while. And then the dragards came. Everywhere we went, dragards followed. The scent of a wyvern is so strong, that the dragards could sniff you out anywhere. I was lucky enough that I was surrounded by outlanders, so the attacks weren't often. Though, my step-mother wasn't happy about it. I could hear her yelling at my father at night, saying that I endangered her children and how I had to go." The hurt in his voice made Alethea wish that she hadn't asked that question, but now that he had started, he was on a roll.