Visions of Love and Heroes

Chapter 9

I tossed on my mossy leaf bed, a cool sweat wetting my skin. The darkness was still, the shafts of moonlight distant as they dappled the forest floor beyond the tree that was our home for the night. I opened and closed my eyes, half in the waking world.

Half...somewhere else.

The darkness of our tree house faded in and out. There was no light, just a faint blue that surrounded me. Theo snored lightly in his sleep, a dark figure across the room. My body sunk deeper into the bed, Theo's form coming in and out of focus. My eyes closed, and then he was gone.

In Theo's place was a rocky landscape. Plumes of smoke drifted across the sky, colouring the moon a deep, dark red. Veins of lava flowed from a mountain visible in the distance, streaking red rivulets that branched off as far as I could see. I stood at the edge of a vast canyon, wondering if I had somehow stumbled into the Hell some of the people in Cascadia tried so hard to avoid.

"You travel far from home, Seer."

I spun around at the deep, rumbling voice. I inspected the dark shadows of rocks behind me. 

At first, I saw no one. Just the jaged edges of large stones and the distant line of trees, mostly barren and burned.

One of the large rocks moved, a large serpentine head rising from the darkness. Eye that glowed an ethereal blue sat upon the top of a long neck that stretched up, up above me. Dark wings stretched out, blocking off the rest of the night. The red moon shone down on silver scales that flickered in a fiery pattern as the dragon approached.

I stepped back, just catching myself as I remembered the canyon's edge. The dragon neared, blue eyes blazing like a white-hot flame. I struggled to keep my breaths level and even, trying to not show my fear. It was what I had learned in my Dragon studies.

Dragon's hated the weak. If you showed them your weakness, they would devour you in a heartbeat. I swallowed down the acid rising in my throat, trying to make sense of what was happening.

I was Seeing the Unclaimed Lands.

"I did it," I whispered, everything finally sinking in. "I'm having a vision."

Only this vision was...different.

The dragon snorted as it settled across from me. It studied me, lips curled up from its long teeth as if it was considering pushing me over the canyon's edge. 

"A vision? Hardly. You mortals, so foolish and blind to the workings of the world around us. Tell me, Seer, if this was a vision, why can I see you?"

I paused, considering the dragon. "Well, it's certainly not a dream. I have been trying all day to scry a vision of the Unclaimed Lands. And now here I am."

"Indeed, a dream would not be the correct word. But I would not say you are here, precisely, either."

I furrowed my brows. That was obvious. "Of course I'm not really here. I'm having a vision from my camp in the forest."

"What you are doing," the dragon hissed. I had to hold myself still as its eyes flickered with the shadow of flames. Whatever this was, I didn't want to find out if dragonfire could still burn me. The dragon stepped close enough that I could feel the contained heat coursing within its body. "Is disturbing me with your penetrating mind. Somehow you have managed to Dreamtalk without knowing anything about what you are doing. You have likely come here because I am the only other being capable close to where you are."

I licked my lips. "So we are Dreamtalking?" I'd never heard of the term before. I suspected that Elune hadn't either. "How does that--"

The lips of the dragon lifted, exposing teeth as long as knives as he surged forward, cutting me off. "I, King Salizaris of Draconia, am not one to be played with, least of all by a mortal just barely aether touched with no clue what they are doing."

Everything inside me stilled as the air left my lungs. King Salizaris. The King of the Wild Dragons. He was as old as all of Cascadia. Older than Mage and Elfkind combined. Older even than most Dragon Rider clans. All I knew of Salizaris flew through my mind, but three words stood out.

Ruthless. Violent. Powerful.

He was the main reason the Unclaimed Lands remained unclaimed. No one had ever been able to defeat him. He possessed a type of magic no one had ever seen before.

What, exactly, had been in the potion Theo had given me?

When I didn't answer Salizaris lowered his wings, some of the fire fading from his gaze as he studied me. "Tell me, mortal. What makes you so bold as to try to spy into my territory." He huffed, the sound revealing a tiredness that hinted at the long centuries he had lived. "What remains, that is."

Slowly, I stood on my feet. However I had connected with Salizaris, I had no idea how to cut it off. I warred with telling him some of the truth or lying completely.

"I can smell the dishonesty on you. The truth, if you will. My patience wears thin."

Truth it was then.

"I seek a way into Elf territory. A way down to the center of the world. But being...who I am, we cannot take the conventional route."

"So, you plan on trespassing on my lands instead." Salizaris snorted softly, as if he was holding in a laugh. "This is because of the Fading."

I considered Salizaris. The tiredness seemed to weigh down his great body. "You know of the Fading?"

"Know of it?" Salizaris stretched out a wing, gesturing to the world around us. "I am mourning it. I am breathing it." There was a sadness in his voice I had not heard before.

"What do you mean? Has it also started to affect the dragons?"

Salizaris stepped closer, his eyes boring into mine. "I am one of the last Dragons left in all of Draconia. So yes, mortal, it is affecting us. Long before you likely even knew of it, it was stealing from me. Most of us have fled as close to the source as possible, but even then, it's only a matter of time. Soon there will be none of us left."

My mouth went dry, finally realizing what Salizaris was saying. The Unclaimed Lands around me weren't just empty.

They were vacant. In a land so dangerous and said to be full of dragons, the only one I saw anywhere was Salizaris.

"I didn't know."

Salizaris moved away, turning as he returned into the rocks, the shadows swallowing him.

"Consider your path cleared mortal. If whatever you plan to do can end this, you have my permission to enter my land for one day and one night. Any longer, and I can't say what will happen to you. Few of of remain, and not all those that do are are resonable as they might have once been."

With that, Salizaris faded into the night. 

I blinked, the Unclaimed lands vanishing to be replaced again with out dark treehouse. The hot night air was replaced with the coolness of the moss and the smell of pine.

I sat up, looking at Theo. Salizaris's words hung heavy in my mind.

One day and one Night.

I may not have found exactly what I had been expecting. But I had us a safe way through the Unclaimed Lands.

That is; if we were fast enough to make it in time.

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Word count: 1245

Total: 13688