Wings of Fire: Revenant

Chapter Twenty-One

The days following Flamewielder's death passed in a haze, melding together with no beginning and no end. The rain came and went, but the clouds lingered.

They needed to wait until a clear night to cremate the old dragon, so that his spirit could join the lost NightWings whose silver scales made up the stars in the night sky. This was an old tradition, once lost, but found again after the discovery of the scrolls in the ancient library.

Peacemaker told Cliff and Auklet that he would stay with Seeker if they wanted to go back to the school, but they both vowed that the four of them would stick together, no matter how long it took.

They stayed in Flamewielder's vacant house, but Seeker didn't sleep. Peacemaker accompanied her as she flew circles over the peninsula all throughout the day and night. She didn't talk, and Peacemaker didn't ask her to.

It would take two days for the sky to finally clear enough for them to see the stars. Flamewielder's body was burned on a pyre at the end of one of the promontories, overlapping branches concealing his emaciated figure. The blue-black sky glittered with a million stars, and it was easy to believe that the spirits of every NightWing who had ever passed were there, waiting to welcome Flamewielder into their ranks.

The four friends huddled together on a large boulder, set apart from the rest of the settlement residents who had come to pay their respects. For a while there was only the sound of the wind and the harsh hissing and popping of the fire. Dragons would come intermediately to add fresh kindling, so that they never had to see the smoldering body within the pyre.

The burning took several hours, but none of them left Seeker's side. Not much was said, but at one point Cliff did try to break through the overwhelming quiet.

"We do something kind of similar to this in the Sky Kingdom," he said. "Dragons who have died are always offered to the sky first, so that their spirits can come back again as SkyWings. Do NightWings believe in anything like that?"

"I don't think so," Peacemaker had replied, watching the wisps of pale smoke painting the night sky. "I always thought that a dragon would only come back if they had unfinished business – something they couldn't do the first time. Flamewielder lived such a full life, and I like to think that he's somewhere where he can rest and be with Seeker's mother again."

Seeker stared at the roaring flames with a hollow gaze, stiff as one of the broken statues jutting out of the distant ruins.

By dawn, the fire had burned out, and the remaining ashes were swept away into the sea. Seeker watched with an unreadable expression as the pale cinders were consumed by the roiling waves, and all that remained of Flamewielder disappeared into the dark water.

They decided to fly back to Jade Mountain that day, and the chill winds of autumn seemed ready to meet them. They fought against a headwind the whole way, arriving sore and exhausted. Peacemaker slept heavily that night, but when he saw Seeker again, she looked just as tired as she had the day before.

"Were you up all night?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Just tossing and turning a lot."

Later, when Seeker was out of earshot, Peacemaker questioned Auklet about this.

"She was in her bed when I went to sleep," the little SeaWing told him, "and again when I woke up. I never heard her leave the cave."

Still, Peacemaker was suspicious.

Tsunami had given Seeker permission to take some time off from school, but Seeker had refused it. Auklet reported that she didn't seem to be listening in class and her performance was poor. None of the teachers counted this against her, instead urging the young NightWing to forget about her schoolwork and rest.