Young Writers Society

The tense silence that fell between them was palpable.

James was watching her with a look of increasing confusion and concern, and she couldn't meet his eyes anymore. She looked down into her lap, feeling like everything was falling into place, and at the same time, falling apart.

"...What?" James whispered, his brows pinched together tightly.

"What did you do with the coffin?" Clandestine cut in. "What did you -- where did it--"

"What do you mean I found--" James tried to interrupt.

"I was inside that coffin!" Clandestine raised her voice, leaning in towards James with her hands raised, fingers tensely arched as she gestured at him in a desparate frustration she hadn't expect to be unburied.

It felt like she was waking up from it all over again.

Blearily, her eyes opened up to darkness. The whole world around her shook, and she jolted, hitting her head on a hard surface above her with a thump.


Her whole head throbbed, and her ears started ringing. Her arms shot out at her sides, trying to steady herself and get her bearings, but she was quickly met with four wooden walls, locking her inside what felt like a coffin, or a closet.


The air was stale and thick, catching in her lungs with what felt like decade's worth of must. She choked out a cough, feeling panic rise in her chest as reality began to dawn on her, and she realized she was trapped.


She started hyperventilating.


Every breath felt pained, like she couldn't get enough air or oxygen.


Finally, her ears stopped ringing, and she could hear another thump somewhere outside. A voice. It sounded like a man, maybe above her.


A desparate, feral panic overtook her and she began to smash her fists into the wooden surface above her, gasping for air.


"Please!" she screamed, her voice hoarse and wavering. It felt like she hadn't used her voice in ages. It felt weak, and it hurt to talk.


"Please!" she shouted again, tears streaming down the sides of her face as she thrashed inside, feeling the desperation pool in her chest, suffocating and insecapable.


"Get me out of here!"


And suddenly, a crack.


It was loud, like thunder. There was a rush of air that flooded in, and she could hear it come in with a whoosh, filling her lungs like she was taking her very first breath of real air.


Light flooded in. Bright, and blinding.


Not far from her face, the blade of an axe broke through, splintering the thick wood around her. It felt like something in the air around her broke - like a seal had shattered, and suddenly, the world felt tangible again. Her voice left her, and she glued herself to the other side of the coffin, as far from the blade as possible.


"Did I get you?" a man's voice asked, crisp and calm.


Clandestine stared as the shining blade of the axe receded, leaving a sliver of an opening she could see through.


She could see a portion of the man's face.


His skin was pale, but weathered. His eye looked haggard, and the lower half of his face was hidden by a shaggy, patchy blond beard.


She didn't recognize him.


Not at all.


"Stay back on that side," the man said. "We'll get you out."


Clandestine pulled away, holding her breath. She heard the whizz of the axe through the air before it came down with another crack.


James had leaned away from her, and he was watching her with wide eyes, his brows furrowed tightly. Clandestine noticed that he'd set his bowl of food to the side like he'd given up on trying to eat during this conversation. If Clandestine hadn't already finished her food, she'd give up on eating too.

She hadn't thought about all of this in years. To be particular, exactly five years, ever since she woke up from it all.

What was she supposed to do with it?

Silva had been the one person in the world Clandestine had trusted in the whole world. And she... she left Clandestine without an explanation. Without anything.

Clandestine had woken up decades later to a world completely changed, and she didn't even know why. Even she hadn't been able to read the text on the front of her coffin.
And now James was telling her it said something about a dragon?

This didn't make any sense. She didn't want it to.

Dragons were gone. Right? No one had seen them since before the Great War. That's what she was told, at least.

She shook her head, pulling up her knees as she leaned forward, burying her face in her hands.

She knew she couldn't just leave James hanging, but she didn't know what to say to all of this. She wished she could offer some kind of explanation, but she felt like all she had were broken pieces of a story that Silva never told her.

"...Are you alright?" James asked softly beside her.

Clandestine laughed weakly into her hands.

"I don't think so," she said sadly.

There was another long silence that felt like it dragged on, and Clandestine couldn't help but feel like she'd ruined everything. She'd thought this conversation was just going to be about James. She hadn't expected any part of his story to be connected to hers. Why would it be? He was a soldier from the Moonlight Kingdom, born in a different age, and was a wanted criminal. She was expecting his story to end with him ending the war, and him quitting.

Instead, his victory led him and the soldiers with him into finding her.

Her mind started racing.

It wasn't like she wanted the mages to lose - but what would've happened if they did? Would the mages have buried the bodies of the soldiers? Would Clandestine have even been found? If she hadn't been found, would she have woken up six feet underground, buried alive, never to be discovered?

She didn't know the answers to any of these questions, but all of them seemed to have terrifying implications.

"So you were the person in the coffin," James said quietly.

Clandestine rubbed her face with both hands and finally looked up, feeling small as she sat curled up beside him, her overgrown bangs falling into her eyes.

"Yeah," she said.

There was a beat of silence. Clandestine could hear the crackling of the fire behind her like a heartbeat, reminding her it was there.

"Can I ask how you ended up in there?" James asked hesitantly.

It was a fair question, especially considering how much he'd shared in return. She just didn't know how to explain it as succinctly as he'd been telling his story. He seemed to be able to streamline everything into the most important parts, meanwhile... her head felt like it was a mess.

"My mentor put me in there," she said.

James blinked.

"Your monster-hunting mentor?" he asked.

"Yeah," Clandestine said.

Clandestine watched as James looked out into the field ahead of them, his face pinched in deep thought.

"Why?" he asked quietly.

That, she wished she knew.

"I can guess," she said, her mouth hidden behind her arms, still hugging her legs. "But I don't really know for sure. All I know is that one day, everything was normal. And then the next, the whole guild was bustling with worry. No one would tell me why, but I could tell everyone was freaked out, even if they wouldn't tell me what was going on. Maybe it was just because I was young at the time - but I wasn't that young. I was 19, but I guess I was still a child in their eyes."

She sat up a little straighter, frowning as she looked over at Billy.

The horses were fast asleep, now. It was late, and she was starting to feel it.

It had been a long day. A long two days. And it was only feeling longer.

"There was a woman who came rushing into the guild, wanting to meet with Silva. At first, I thought it was because Silva was the guild leader," Clandestine said. "But I think it was actually about me. Silva was my guardian and had been ever since I was a child. She was like a mother to me, but never let me call her mom. Even though I always thought of her that way..."

She sighed, frowning deeply as she swallowed down a lump in small her throat.

"I overheard them through the walls. They were talking about me," Clandestine said. "I couldn't make much of it out because their conversation was so hushed but... it was all just so weird. I'd never seen that woman in my life. I knew of her, but I'd never met her. She was some really powerful fire mage, named Svida. She was really well-known because she was the leader of the Burninghead Guild up north, and--"

Clandestine hesitated, realizing that there was a key piece of information that had gotten lost in translation.

James was staring at her, deep confusion filling his wide eyes as his brows knit together even tighter.

Clandestine had forgotten.

For years, she simply never talked about where she came from, or about how she woke up in a graveyard, moments before she was buried alive, and managed to be heard soon enough to be freed from the coffin.

But because she'd never spoken of it, she also never mentioned when she came from.
"You're talking about the mage guilds," James said. "From before the war."
Clandestine let out a nervous laugh.

"Yeah," she said.

"That was almost 100 years ago," James said, still staring at her in bewilderment.
Clandestine couldn't help but feel awkward, shriveling under his gaze.
"Yeah," she said defensively. "I know."

James raised his hand up to his face and held the bridge of his nose, rubbing his eyes for a second before he rapidly shook his head. Staring now at the ground, he blinked like he was trying to blink away the confusion.

"But you're alive," he said. "And you look--"

"Young?" Clandestine interjected with a stiff smile.

James looked up at her letting out a deep sigh.

"You said you were 19. Was that how old you were when your mentor... put you in the coffin?" James asked.

Clandestine shrugged, her smile waning.

"Yeah," she said. "When I woke up... I'd grown a little. But not much. When I was put in the coffin, it was [insert year]. But when I woke up, it was [insert year]. And yet, for me, it was like hardly any time passed at all."

She tried smiling, but this time, it felt too forced. It faded as quickly as she mustered it up, and she looked away.

"I don't know how to explain it either," she said quietly. "I thought... maybe it was the coffin. But... I don't know. Can lifeblood trees keep people from aging? Is that possible?"

She knew James wouldn't have an answer to that. She didn't know why she was asking it out loud.

"Sorry," she said. "You were telling your story, and I..."
"Are a part of it," James said. And there was something in his tone that was more confident. Like he was making sense of things. But Clandestine didn't know how any of this made sense.

What did he know that she didn't?

"Is there more?" she asked quietly, feeling even smaller as she looked at him.
There was an intensity in his eyes upon first glance, but when he met her eyes, his look softened, somehow serious and gentle at the same time.

"Yes," he said. "Because when we found the coffin - when we found you - we didn't leave you there."

Clandestine held her legs a little tighter.

"You... you didn't?" she asked.

"No," he said. "We took the coffin back with us to the Moonlight Kingdom capital."

Clandestine felt her chest grow tight.

"We took you to King's Peak."

"There were many meetings had after we returned," James said, feeling the weight of what he was going to say next grip him even tighter.

"And... I didn't quit," James said. "I got promoted."

He could hear the questions Clandestine left unsaid as she watched him, her eyes big and glossy. He could tell that she was trying to keep back tears, and had been attempting to laugh it off this whole time. But he felt like he was looking into a window at a pain and heartache he couldn't even measure. There were so many implications to what she'd said. Her trusted mentor sounded like a harsh woman who might've held Clandestine at a distance, and James could only assume that if Clandestine's mentor was her guardian, that her parents were out of the picture. She was either orphaned or abandoned, and both options were tragic.

He knew that she was still reeling from the realization that she'd been found by the Moonlight Kingdom, and that somehow, she was inexplicably connected to his story. She would want to know what had happened to her, and how she'd ended up outside of King's Peak by the time she'd woken up.

"Your coffin was taken deep beneath the palace, in the kingdom's secret archives," James continued soberly. "At the time, they didn't know what to do with it. But they were determined to translate the writing on the coffin and discover its significance, if there was any. At that point, it was out of my hands... for a time."

James took in a deep breath, glancing at Clandestine again, aware of how the night was dragging on and how tired she seemed.

He hesitated.

"Maybe... maybe we should continue this later," he said quietly.

Clandestine shot up, looking to him with a pout, her brows drawn into a line.

"Why?" she whispered. "Did something-- is it something else? Something bad?"

James shook his head.

"No," he said. "It's just that you look exhausted."

Clandestine deflated, letting out a long sigh as she slumped forward, leaning against her knees once more.

"I am," she said. "But... I won't be able to go to sleep until I know how this all connects. I feel like..."

She swallowed, taking in a deep breath and closing her eyes before she looked up at him again.

"You know, it's been five years since I've had any answers," she said. "Five years since I woke up in a graveyard, narrowly avoiding being buried alive - apparently for a second time. And I... I need to know. I don't know if you know why all of this happened but ever since I woke up and realized I'd been asleep for 100 years... you have no idea how this has felt for me. It's like I've been living a dream. None of it feels real. It does, but it doesn't. Everything I once knew is gone. Everything's so different now."

She turning her body to face him.

"I was tucked away and you were promoted," Clandestine said. "But our paths must've crossed again after that. I can feel it."

The palace hall stretched out for what felt like miles.


James had never stepped foot into the inner courts, nevermind have an audience with the king. For years, he'd served as a simple soldier, taking orders, and serving on the field. He'd devoted the greater part of his life towards it, ever since he was a young teenager.


When he'd first joined the army, he might've considered this too good to be true. For the eleven year old, joining the military school that funneled him into the army, this would've been all he could ever dream of.


But now that it was real, it was like a nightmare.


The deep red carpet stretched out over the open floor, narrowing at the steps that reached up to the king's throne. The whole hall was needlessly spacious - the ceilings were high and vaulted, propped up by pillars with intricately carved illustrations spinning around them. Long windows let in the natural sunlight, and the beams stretched out across the carpet, reaching towards the shining, golden chair where the king sat, an attendant at either side, and rows guards at the base of the stairs.


When he'd finally been led to the feet of the king, the pit in his gut that the battle left behind somehow gouged out another piece of him, digging deeper.


The king's words took too long too register.


Hero. Promotion. You've been given the honor of joining the king's personal service: the palace guard.


It was the safest, cushiest job in the army.


Hardly anything ever happened in the palace. Guards had strict shifts, flowing in and out like clockwork.


It was boring. Uneventful. A dramatic change from being put on the front lines.


They were... pulling him out of it. He didn't know if it was a reward or a punishment. He didn't know how to feel. For a moment, he found himself compelled to take off his armor, right there. He was compelled to lay down his helmet, in front of the king, and beg for a full release.


He didn't want to serve in the army anymore. He didn't want to serve the king at all. He didn't want to kill anyone else. He didn't think he could bear--


James froze as the king stood, a few inches taller, even in his old age. He laid his hand on James's shoulder and met his eyes with a surprising gentle sterness, and he didn't quite know how to describe it. It was like... a father, to a son.


But the king was a stranger.


"I want to take you under my wing," the king said, his words surreal, swirling in James's mind like a storm. "I think you have great potential. You're brave. Loyal. You love our kingdom, and our people, and your fellow soldiers and superioers couldn't speak any higher of you if they tried."


James froze under the king's stare. Stiff. Afraid.


What did that mean?


"Would you do an old man the honor of teaching you the ropes?" the king asked, a little more relaxed as he offered James a smile.


James swallowed.


"The ropes... to what?" he asked dumbly.


And the king burst into booming laughter, patting James's shoulder.


"Come see."

[spoiler]James took in a deep breath.

"Yes," he said. "They did."

Two years under the king's mentorship had led him to this moment. Finally, he'd been trusted to be brought into the King's Private wing, in the room where he met with his closest advisors.


James had been doing everything he could to prove himself. Ever since he'd returned from the war all he'd ever felt was the building pressure of everyone's expectations.


All he wanted to do was get away, but it felt like he kept digging himself deeper and deeper. He didn't know how to say no. Ever since he'd been in the army, he'd never been given a choice. There were no other options. There was no recourse. And somehow, in the midst of it all, he found himself gravitating closer and closer to the circle of power that influenced the whole of the kingdom. Somehow, he found himself seated at a table with King Blackfield and all of the kingdom's most trusted leaders. Across from him sat Carter Haddon's parents, the world-renowned leaders of the mage-hunting guilds, better known for their iron hand in enforcing anti-magic law.


A pool of dread pitted in James's gut.


Beside them were other guild leaders; each and everyone one of the muderers, just as much a piece of the ongoing slaughter of people as he'd been. Beside the king sat his daughter, Eliza, regal and polite, and deathly pale just like her father.


For the last two years, James found himself questioning everything.


Out of his mouth would come declarations of loyalty, but it was all deceit. In his heart, he had never strayed farther from the love of his country than he had since the end of the war. Since Verna. Since--


"With months of painstaking research and confirming our sources thrice over," Ruth Haddon announced. "We've finally been able to confidently and reliably translate the writing on the coffin discovered at BurningHead Guild."


James's mind snapped to attention, locking eyes onto Carter's mother. The way she said it implied that, perhaps, this had been an ongoing conversation over months. This was an update to a story James was only now becoming a part of, but for him, the coffin had faded into irrelevance.


They were still worried about the coffin? It had been strange, and unusual, but James hadn't thought it to be important. Coffins were merely a resting place for the dead. What did they need from a dead body? What could they possibly gain?


"It reads: 'Upon the dragon's wake, the sleeping seal will break. Until the day her slumber ends, don't interfere, or pay amends,'" Ruth went on, reciting it clinically, from memory.


It was cryptic. Poetic. Instead of being an ode to a dead dragon or an epitaph, it was a rhyme, and at the same time, it was almost like it was meant to be a riddle.


Or maybe it wasn't a riddle at all.


Did they take it to be literal? Did they really believe...


"We believe that, somehow, the coffin holds a dragon inside of it. We have reason to suspect that it might be the former fire dragon's successor. It's possible it could be Svida, if she was miraculously spared or managed to survive in secret, but it's far more likely it's the dragon who took her place."


"But we have proof that her body was recovered, and she was confirmed to be dead," Eliza spoke up. "And the idea that a dragon's magic is passed on is still a theory, yet to be proven."


James found himself struggling to follow.


A dragon died during the war? Had it been brought on by the calamity, or was it the hunters who killed her? When had they been killed? How could they have even managed that? What were they hoping to gain from all of this?


This was new information. None of this was in the history books. None of this was public.


"We have been able to detect signs of life from within the coffin," Ruth said, sitting upright as she met the princess's eyes. "There's a heartbeat. Someone's actually in there. Alive."


James struggled to meet Clandestine's eyes. He kept them lowered, set on the ground between them.


Clandestine wanted to hear the whole story, but James didn't know if they had time for it. He had to figure out a way to tell her what she needed to know without letting this drag on much longer. His nerves were starting to chip away at him, and though Clandestine seemed under the false impression that they were safe because no one had found them yet, James had learned long ago not to depend on a status quo to go unchanged.

He took in a deep breath.

"Do you know what happened to the dragons during the calamity?" he asked.

He had to get a pulse for how much she knew, and how much would shock her.

"I... I don't," Clandestine hesitated. "I didn't know something happened to them at all..."

James nodded slightly. That left Clandestine along with the majority of the world's population: still in the dark. He'd been there not too long ago as well, but it'd been five years since he'd had anyone with an ear to listen that was even open to believing him.

He just hadn't expected the first person to be the one he managed to save.

He swallowed.

"I can go into more detail later," he prefaced, knowing that many more questions would arise once she knew. "But what you need to know for now is this: before the start of the Great War, King Blackfield led a secret initiative to target the most powerful known dragons on the earth as a devastating first strike on mage-kind. It had been in the works for over a decade, and he was the one who perfected the formula for lumshade."

He still couldn't meet her eyes, but he could feel her eyes piercing through him.

"They learned that dragons are most vulnerable in their human form--"

"Their what--" Clandestine tried to say, but James kept going.

"Which was how they were able to subdue them," he said. "That was when they struck - via ambush - with the lumshade, and were able to kill them when they couldn't use their magic. They killed Jord, the Earth dragon, and Svida, the fire dragon soon after. You mentioned that Svida met with your mentor, right?"

When Clandestine mentioned Svida, James realized his initial assumption had been wrong. He'd thought that the kingdom was wrong about their theory of a dragon's magic being passed to another, but regardless, there was a real, living person inside. Honestly, James had thought it to be a trap, rigged to sabotage the person in waiting and whoever was unlucky enough to open it.

But it appeared that the cryptic rhyme had been true.

When Clandestine woke up... the coffin had clearly been opened without consequence.

There was no way to prove that if they'd tried to open it any earlier that it might've blown up in their face, but the very fact that James knew they'd still tried and failed to open it until Clandestine evidently woke up herself was proof enough that whatever magic had been used to seal her away worked. It'd followed the rules set by the words on the wood.

James realized that Clandestine had yet to answer his question, and when he looked back up at her, her eyes were watering.

Tears began to stream down her face, and she was staring at the ground now, shaking her head.

"How do you know all of this?" she asked in a whisper.

A sharp pain wrapped around James's chest as he watched her, feeling helpless as the bearer of bad news. Especially after everything that had already transpired.

"When I was promoted, the king took me under his wing," James said. "After some time... I learned secrets kept from the public, documented in king's hidden library, as well as ones he told me in confidence."

He let out a sigh.

"It... like I said," he said. "Maybe a story for another time. There's still the issue of..."

He swallowed, unsure of how to procede.

"What do all the dragons have to do with me?" Clandestine asked, hugging her knees tightly. "Does this have to do with... with the inheritor thing? What does this all mean?"

James wished he knew how to answer that for her. But he knew as little about what this all meant as she did.

"The King had a theory," James said slowly. "Based on what he witnessed during Jord's death."

Clandestine hesitantly flicked her eyes up towards him, wiping away at her eyes.

"He said he witnessed the magic transfer from the dying body of Jord to another man," James said. "One believed to be one of his pupils. But that pupil escaped before they could catch him. Ever since, they've never been able to confirm what Blackfield claims to have witnessed. But they believed the theory to be enough grounds to deduce that whoever was being kept in the coffin... was likely Svida's..."

He hesitated.

"Inheritor," he said. "To use Svida's language."

James still didn't know how Svida could've known who her "inheritor" was, or how that even worked. How had Jord known? Or had none of them known, until the first dragon in history was murdered?

There was so much James still didn't understand, but he found himself determined, now to help Clandestine piece together what she could of her past.

Clandestine sniffed, staring at him again with disbelief.

"What were they going to do to me?" she asked quietly.

James furrowed his brows, setting them into a line as he met her eyes. As well as he could manage, he turned his body to face her as well, tucking his legs up as he slowly turned, using his better arm to balance his weight until they were facing one another.

"That's why I'm here," he said. "They were going to wait until the seal of magic broke, and then they were going to keep you under with lumshade. Indefinitely."

Clandestine's mouth fell agape.

"So I smuggled you out before that could happen."

"You--you what?" Clandestine sputtered.

He understood that this was a lot to take in. But he also didn't know how else to relay this information.

James sighed, leaning forward to support his weight instead of relying on his arm, which was growing tired. His looked past Clandestine, to the flickering fire behind her. It was starting to die down, and their light was dimming.

Soon, he wouldn't be able to see much at all.

"I pulled some strings," James said.

Every string he had.

"I was able to make it work," he went on.

He'd had to organize it quickly, with as little people knowing as possible. Fortunately, the knowledge of the coffin wasn't public, so it hadn't been difficult finding people willing to smuggle a dead body out of the city. The problem hadn't been getting the coffin out of the city: it had been getting the coffin out of the palace, undetected. That had required a week's worth of detailed organization to seize the only window of time when the king's private chambers were switching guard long enough to sneak in and out of.

And after that point, it had been a laborous journey with many stopping points until they finally hid the coffin in a storage room, sneaking it past the palace walls in a wagon under the guise of supply transportation.

From there, it'd been much simpler: no longer having to work around the strict, constant watch of the palace guard, there was just enough leeway for him to set up a meeting with the smugglers he hired.

The only pitfall to transporting a coffin was that, despite being aware that it contained a real, living person inside, there was no way to convince them to transport a living person. There would be too many questions, and the risk would exponentially increase for them to attempt to open it or interfere.

So he'd had to tell them it was just a coffin, and that they weren't to ask whose body it contained, nor disturb the dead.

It was enough for the smugglers not to ask questions, but James had feared what they would do with the coffin after. He asked them explicity to dump it, but from what Clandestine had said, it sounded like they took it upon themselves to bury her...

"You asked why I was wanted," James said, finally cutting to the core of the question, to the one they started with, before the story has spun out of control. Before they knew how their stories intertwined.

"And that is why," he said.

"I took advantage of my position in the palace," he went on. "And I made sure the coffin was ushered out of the city. It should never have been taken there in the first place."

At the time, when he'd left that meeting, he'd been caught in a tailspin. Worry had flooded his mind over how little he knew of the truth of the war, and how much had apparently been hidden.

The weeks that followed felt like a storm, passing like a blur as he sat in meetings with the king, overhearing more secrets than he knew how to bear. While advisors were debating on the fate of the person trapped in the coffin, James had been quietly concocting a plan not only to get the coffin out of the kingdom's grasp, but to preserve the history the king kept hidden away.

When the king finally granted James access to this private library, James was quick to absorb everything he could - and it was easy to play it under the guise of being a diligent mentee, eager to learn and be a student of the kingdom's true history.

What had been challenging was stealing the documents that were written on the Great War. But concealing them in two extra coffins, disguising them among what was already guised as the smuggling of the dead? It had worked, miraculously.

That was, until everything was discovered missing.

"That's why you're wanted?" Clandestine asked slowly. "You're wanted because you got rid of... me?"

"...Not only that," he said stiffly. "I also managed to smuggle out a large portion of the king's library and hide it away."

Clandestine's brows pinched together in confusion.

"You stole books?" she asked flatly.

"Not just books," he said. "Information. Verifiable information that could actually expose the kingdom, and what really happened during the great war."

"Where are the books, then?" Clandestine asked. "You don't have a whole library on you."

James met her eyes, his brows furrowing.

"You said you were almost buried in a graveyard," he said quietly. "Right?"

Clandestine shriveled at the question, but she nodded.

"Yes," she said.

"The books were buried there, in a coffin, under a fake name," he said. "No one knows the location but me. The only problem is... the graveyard reaches far into the Moonlight Kingdom borders. I couldn't make it there alive if I tried."

And he had, at first, tried. Before he was practically driven out of the kingdom, running for his life.

It had rendered his efforts useless.

Now, with no proof apart from his word, he had nothing to show for his efforts. Except, now, perhaps... he could consider Clandestine living proof. But even those who knew of the coffin's existence in the kingdom had never seen the person inside. No one would know it was really her.

No one knew that she was, however impossibly, the lost dragon.

"It hardly matters, now," James said weakly, letting out a weak laugh. "It's been a long night, and you look like should lie down. If anything, at least for a little bit. I should be able to keep watch for now, though it would be wise if you would put out what remains of the fire."

Clandestine jerked her head around, turning to look at the fizzling flames that remained.

"I don't know if I'll be able to fall asleep," she said distantly, getting up slowly to pick up a canteen, half-hidden in the grass.

"You should at least try," James said softly, watching as she unscrewed the lid and poured out just enough water to douse what remained of the fire.

With the light gone, they were plunged into darkness - and though it would take James's eyes time to adjust - he knew he still wouldn't be able to see much.

Still, it was better than nothing. Clandestine couldn't stay awake forever.

He could hear the dirt crunch under Clandestine's boots as she walked. It sounded like she was coming closer again.

"Do you mind if I lay here?" she asked.

He could barely make out her silhouette just a few feet from him. It looked like she wasn't far, but she wasn't right next to him either. He wasn't sure why she felt compelled to ask, but he supposed, still new to each other as they were, it was a fair question.

"No," he said simply, and he listened as the ground shifted beneath her feet, and her blanket fluttered with her to the ground.

James glanced down at the shadow of the bowl beside him, finally remembering the beans that had now grown cold.

Hesitantly, he picked them up.

He'd need something in his stomach if he was going to endure whatever was next for them - and he really didn't know what.

"James?" Clandestine called out into the dark, her voice hushed.

He looked back in her direction.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"You won't leave me in my sleep, will you?" she asked softly.

James froze, not expecting to feel seen, or confronted.

He would be lying if he told he he hadn't considered it ten times over. Even during their conversation, it had been a recurring thought. But for years, it had been a recurring thought to abandon any friend or ally or companion he ever found himself with. Because when he didn't, they'd get caught in the fire that always followed him.

But there was something about this that was different.

He still felt hesitant, and he still didn't know what the future held, but somehow, their lives had collided once more - and they hadn't even known they'd collided prior until mere moments ago.

It felt like something had inexplicably changed in a way that was irreversible.

For the first time in 100 years, the fire dragon... was living among them. And she was right in front of him, in the body of a young woman who, however impulsively, had saved him, of all people.

And now, because of what he knew, her whole world was falling apart.

"I won't," he finally said, gentle, but firm. "I'll be here. I'll wake you up in a few hours."

There were a few seconds of hesitation.

"Okay," Clandestine nearly whispered. He could see her body curl up into a ball. "Goodnight."

He let out a small huff through his nose. She was the only one going to sleep, and the formality almost felt humorous, but he decided not to mention it.

"Goodnight, Clandestine."

The beans were lukewarm, but James ate them. When he cleared the bowl, James pushed himself to his feet, forcing himself to move.

His body was stiff and sore, but he knew if he stayed still, he was likely to drift off again. The last thing they needed was to have their guard down, so he instead busied himself with whatever menial task he could manage.

It was difficult, for him, silently shuffling around in the dark, but he managed to find Clandestine's empty bowl, not far from her, and he took them both to the trickling creek. Sitting by the water, he dipped them into the water, rinsing them out of the residue the beans left behind, scrubbing away at anything that stuck with his fingers.

Things were a mess.

Now that he was closer to the water, he could see the dark patch of blackened grass across the way. It still smelled of smoke in the air, and worry chipped away at James's nerves again.

He glanced over his shoulder, back at Clandestine and the horses.

If Clandestine hadn't come for him, he didn't know how things would've played out. He knew it wasn't productive to linger on what-ifs, but he couldn't help but wonder how differently things would've gone if it'd only been him and Alexander left to face each other.

Alexander had clearly been the better shot, but when they'd been in close quarters, they seemed evenly matched. If fire hadn't entered the picture, it was very possible things could've ended quite similar, with either of them on top of each other in a tense wrestling match for whose strength would give out first.

Then again, it was just as likely that, had Clandestine not arrived, James would've been easily overpowered. As messy as it had been, Clandestine had at least served as a distraction.

Gods, what was he thinking?

Clandestine was a good person. He was just a dishonored soldier who only managed to ever do one worthwhile thing with his life - and even that hadn't amounted to anything.

For years, he'd just been running, and more and more, it felt like a useless chase. The only thing they wanted from him was the location of the lost library, and he was determined never to give it. The only problem was that knowing where it was wasn't enough to change anything about his circumstances. Of course, seeing as he still had yet to come forward with anything, they had likely long since assumed the information was inaccessible to him. But that did very little to narrow down where it was.

James started scrubbing the spoons.

The only other reason the kingdom had reason to pursue him so persistently - and he realized, he'd neglected to emphasize this nuance to Clandestine - was that it was personal.

Not only had he betrayed the trust of the king who'd practically treated him like an heir, but he'd betrayed his best friend, Carter Haddon.

At least, that was how Carter saw it. Or so James imagined.

They never did have a chance to speak of it after...

James was in a hurry. Everything was already in motion. The coffins were gone. No one had noticed yet. He knew that discovery was inevitable: it was only a matter of time. He'd managed to do as much of it alone as he possibly could and went out of his way to cover up his tracks - but he knew that it wasn't going to be that easy.


The king would be furious, and even if James wasn't the first to be accused, suspicion would turn to him eventually. There were a very select few who even had the key to the coffin and the secret library, not even accounting for the small number of people who knew about it. James knew he had to get out of the palace as quickly as possible. Any doubts he had about leaving were gone: it was no longer an option. Either he left now, or he was going to die.


Even with their history, he did not expect the king to have mercy on him. If anything, he'd treat him more harshly.


A soldier was never supposed to betray the trust of the king. Evidently, not even if that king was corrupt.


But James wasn't interested in pleasing the king anymore. He hadn't been for quite some time now, and as he secured the last of his runaway belongings in his bag, he knew he didn't want to be around for the fall out.


Just as he picked up his bag, he heard his bedroom door creak open.


"Going somewhere?" Carter's voice piped up behind him.


James turned and met Carter's eyes, putting on a practiced, easy smile.


"Oh," he said. "I'm just going to visit a friend."


The lie was loose enough.


Carter's brows raised, and he leaned on the open doorway with a small smirk.


"Oh, what friend?" Carter prodded. "A lady friend?"


James faked a laugh, huffing through his nose.


"Hah," he said. "No."


He glanced at Carter, trying not to appear anxious to leave.


"Did you need something?" James asked with a small tilt of his head.


He hadn't expected Carter to stop by, and he didn't know what he'd come for, but James had to make this quick. He hadn't planned on saying any goodbyes. He couldn't afford to.


But the moment he asked the question, something suddenly felt wrong. Carter's expression didn't change, but something in the room shifted. There was something in the way Carter looked at him that made James's skin crawl.


"I'm trying to do you a favor, Tiberius," Carter said, his voice lowering so it could only be heard in the three feet between them.


James stared at him.


"...What?"


A tension not there previous suddenly filled the room as James looked to Carter for an explanation.


He could sense one coming.


"As it turns out," Carter said with a small smile. "You didn't plan for everything."


James stiffened.


There was only one thing Carter could be referring to.


"This morning," Carter went on. "The king called for a servant to fetch for you from your post, wanting to see you. But you'd gotten someone to cover for you, and as it turned out, you were nowhere to be found, even after quite a lot of searching. It wasn't until a mere few minutes ago someone saw you head for your room, but the whole palace has been sniffing around for your wereabouts..."


Carter looked James up and down, like he was taking in the fullness of James's posture, his packed bag, now slung over his shoulder. His jacket. His boots.


He looked as he was: ready to leave.


James knew he couldn't fall back on the lie that he was going to visit a friend. Even as he tried to practice it briefly in his mind, spinning up another story, he could see the knowing grin fading on Carter's face, as if James's hesitation confirmed Carter's worries.


"Is that what you came here for?" James asked. "Just to tell me the king is looking for me?"

It felt like he was tiptoeing around the subject, but no one was supposed to know. Not yet. Unless---


"Don't play dumb, James," Carter said flatly, any sense of friendly countenance dissapearing - like something had snapped. "You stole the dragon. And you stole a whole godsdamned section of the library on the Great War. Dragons above, what are you thinking? What are you going to do with it? Where did you even put it?"


A boulder landed in the lake of James's mind, and two unsettling realizations settled over him at once.


One: Carter knew.


Two: This wasn't the Carter he thought he knew.


For twelve years, they'd practically been inseparable. James had always thought of Carter like a brother, but the veiled, layered hostility in his voice felt both foreign and familiar, like it had been there for a long time, but he was only now seeing it.


James gripped the strap of his bag across his chest a little tighter.


"Who told you?" James asked, keeping his voice low as he watched Carter intently.


What had Carter come here to do? To warn him? To help him?


Carter almost guffawed at that, but his laugh cut to silence, and he let out a huff of a breath as he looked at James in dramatic disbelief and annoyance.


"You're serious?" Carter asked with a shake of his head. "Tiberius, we've been friends for years. I have connections. You're lucky that I was there to step in and do the digging for the king when he noticed the coffin was missing. It could've been someone else, and you'd have been caught hours ago. You wouldn't even be packing right now."


So Carter had been buying him time - or covering up his tracks, at least, until Carter knew for sure. James had a sinking feeling that he should've denied the accusation entirely, but at this rate, it was too late.


James went rigid.


What was all of this, then? Was Carter going to help him escape?


"So... what happens now?" James asked stiffly.


It felt uncomfortable to be suspicious of Carter in this way. It was daunting to consider that this was anything other than his closest friend coming to bail him out.


"You know what has to happen," Carter said quietly, lowering his chin as he met James's eyes. "You're going to turn yourself in. You're going to do the smart thing and turn yourself in, return the--"


"But Carter," James cut in.


Carter had been there too. He'd been in the meetings. He'd been shadowing his parents, just as James had been shadowing the king. Carter wasn't oblivious to all of the kingdom's lies.


"Everything we've learned--" James tried.


"Of course it's a lie, James!" Carter hissed.


James stared when Carter used his real name.


Carter threw his hands up and rage rushed to his face, red, and burning as he stared at James with more contempt than James had ever seen.


"What," Carter went on in a fierce whisper. "Did you think everything you learned in true was real? Do you really think the kingdom cares about 'preserving the truth of history' and telling the people what really happened? You've been an ignorant fool ever since I met you, James. I swear, you're too trusting. You always have been."


"But you agree," James pressed. "That all of this is wrong. The entirety of the kingdom's military is built on--"


"You're the one who's been slow to see it," Carter cut in again, his glare piercing.


All of the guilt and regret of the war and James's role in the military spun around his ribs like a thorned vine as James swallowed hard, unable to deny the painful truth.


He and Carter had both walked away from the war with the same conclusion that the kingdom was deeply corrupt and deceitful. But why didn't it feel like they agreed?


James felt the pull of time pressing on him.


His window to escape would close soon. He needed to leave.


"You want me to turn myself in and forget about all of this," James said. "But the world needs to know the truth. You said it yourself. Hundreds of mages are murdered every year and it's a horror both of us have knowingly permissed in our silence. But I can't stay silent anymore, Carter. Not if I have proof--"


"You're not going to change anything!" Carter burst, his voice raising only for him to glower at James again, letting the volume simmer as the rage continued to boil behind his eyes.


"That's exactly the kind of naive, idealistic altruism I'd expect from you. But we both know my parents would never allow that information to see the light of day. Though they treat you like their own now, I can guarantee you they'll disown you, expose you, and blot your name from history in an instant if you try this now."


"My life is ruined either way, Carter," James snapped.


This was something he'd already accepted.


"Its just a matter of whether its spent rotting in a cell or actually trying to accomplish something. I'm not going to throw it all away in surrender. It's too late now. The damage is done."


And at that, he pushed forward to leave, but was met with Carter blocking his way, pushing him back.


James looked down at Carter, both of their expressions tensed, and in that moment, James had the sullen realization that Carter may not have been there to reason with him or warn him at all.


He was stalling.


Panic rattled in James's chest, and he clenched his jaw.


"Carter," he said lowly. "Move away from the door."


Carter stared up at him with a look both challenging and resigned.


"I can't do that," Carter said cooly.


He wasn't looking into the eyes of a friend anymore. This was the look of a soldier looking at a traitor.


"Carter..." James said faintly, not wanting to fight him.


For a split second, Carter's eyes flicked to the side, and he looked over his shoulder.


Something came over James, and he pushed forward, ramming Carter's shoudler with his own.


Carter stumbled back as James burst through the door, making a run for it at full speed down the barrack hallway.


This wasn't going as planned.


James didn't know how he was going to get out of this.


"Guards!" Carter shouted, his footsteps picking up behind him. "Traitor! The king demands his arrest!"

From the start, James had mentioned that Alexander seemed to have been sent by a former friend, but as per the natural direction of the story, he'd never actually told her who it was.

Maybe it was for the best. He didn't really want to explain that painful goodbye.

James set the spoons and bowls in his lap, sighing as he sat by the water. He ran his hand up his face, into his hair, feeling the grime and the grease - the dirt and the sweat of the past days, and the recent fire. The side of his face felt tender, and he remembered at some point that he might've fallen, but he couldn't recall how. It must've been after the lumshade.

Wincing at the thought, his hand hovered over his injured shoulder, recalling the sensation, and the unpleasant rush that had run through his veins soon before he lost consciousness.

He leaned down and cupped water in his hands, washing his face with a few splashes.

Whether Alexander had intended to use the full contents of the syringe like he had, it sobered James deeply to think of how he would've been able to use it as a tool to subdue James long-term, any time he tried to fight back.

James had been used to incurring injuries at the hands of bounty hunters to keep him from easily fleeing or to scare him into submission and catch him, but this felt like a different level of escalation: to use lumshade, a resource usually reserved for subduing mages, just to capture him.

How had Alexander gotten his hands on that much lumshade anyway?

It had to have been Carter. It was the only thing that made sense.

Saddened at the thought, James got to his feet, bringing the bowls back to their "camp," and tucking them away into Clandestine's things. As he briefly stuffed them into the saddle bag, Billy - if he remembered her horse's name right - stirred.

Buckling the bag shut, James moved into Billy's view.

"It's alright," James mumured. "You can rest."

It seemed enough to calm Billy, who promptly set his head back down. But unfortunately, the sound of his voice nearby seemed to wake Elliot.

Elliot sleepily lifted his head, his ears turning in James's direction. Weakly, James reached out to him, gently petting his snout.

"Hey, buddy," James said softly, letting Elliot rest his head against James's chest. "Good to see you again."

He ran his fingers through Elliot's mane, remembering how they'd parted, briefly, and he'd been too far to help his horse when the fire began to consume the valley. It was painful to think that he could've lost him gruesomely to the flames... but had that happened, that would've been his and Clandestine's fate as well.

Briefly resting his forehead against Elliot's, he took in a deep breath, thinking on all of the burned bridges he'd left in his wake. It wasn't just Carter he'd left behind. He'd left without a goodbye to everyone. No one knew what he was doing - and he'd told no one in hopes of protecting them, so they would'nt be held accountable for his actions. But it came back to bite him in more ways than one.

When James had tried to flee the barracks, he'd run into Ingrid - one among his and Carter's close circle of friends.

If he'd was right in assuming, at present, she was a commander in the King's Hand, of which Carter was the high Commander.

But back then, he and Ingrid were friends.

No, they were more than that.


She was pained to see him, and he could see it in her eyes, despite her icy exterior and her contemptuous frown. He could tell that she was confused and distressed, unsure of what was going on and why people were clamoring to find him, chasing him down.


She'd ripped him out of the hallway, pulling him into a dark closet to hide him as a group of soldiers passed. Her gloved, armored hand was pressed over his mouth as she held him against the wall, her ear to the door, listening for the footfalls to pass.


The air in the closet was thin. Maybe it was because he'd been running. Maybe it was because he couldn't breathe.


Ingrid huffed through her nose, finally ripping her hand away, letting go of him.


Immediately, James put up his hands in surrender.


"I can explain--" he began.


"I don't want to hear it," she snapped, and he could see her scowl, shadowed in the dark over her pale eyes and skin. Her pitch black hair blended into the darkness.


James snapped his mouth shut, aware that she wasn't lying.


Leaning forward, she towered over him with her height, scowling deeply.


"I will cover for you," she whispered, regret, pain, and anger seeping into her words. "But you will never mention me or my name to anyone. You will never come here again. You never knew me, and I never knew you."


Staring at her, her words were like a knife, lodging in his chest.


But he knew better than to argue or push away a lifeboat when he needed it. And he knew they wouldn't have time to talk. He wouldn't have been able to explain himself even if he wanted. Not if they both were going to get out of this without her looking complicit.


Opening his mouth to thank her, she cut him off before he could.


"Go," she hissed. "Now."


She ripped the door open. The way was clear.


James looked off into the distance, over the shadows of the rolling hills in the night. Elliot huffed wearily, leaning into James's touch. James pet him just a little longer before he scanned the area arond them and dug into his things, pulling out a clean shirt, shrugging it on over his bandages. He left Elliot's side and squinted into the dark, searching for his jacket - which he knew he'd had on before this whole ordeal, but hadn't seen since he'd woken up. Eventually, after several minutes of walking around, sifting through the grass in the dark, he found it, wadded up with his bloodied shirt.

He glanced over at Clandestine, then picked it up. The shirt was bloodier than the jacket, but the jacket had also been the same one the giant sand worm had bit through. The leather was completely fraying on one shoulder, sliced apart from the teeth. The puncture wound was barely noticeable in comparison.

It was a wearisome aspect of his life of constant, violent confrontation for his clothes to get tattered and beaten, but he was just happy his jacket was still mostly intact. Too tired to care, he shrugged the jacket back on, folding the bloodied shirt up in his hands.

He wasn't proud of how numb he'd become to violence. The sights, the smells, the aftermath of it. The fighting, the narrow success, and feeling it all after. All of this felt familiar, despite Clandestine's involvement.

He walked back to Elliot, tucking the dirt shirt away for the time being. He'd wash it later, in the daylight, where he could determine if it was truly salvagable. If he couldn't get the stain out, it wouldn't really be worth wearing. People would notice, and it'd only draw concern at best and suspicion at worst. Either way, it was unwanted attention.

Again, he scanned the hills, finding nothing but darkness and starlight.

His mind wandered back to that day, when he'd miraculously managed to slip out of the kingdom against all odds.

So many times since, James kept wondering if he should've run at all. Initially, his plan had been to get the documents and find like-minded people to help him expose the kingdom. But very quickly, he learned how unrealistic of a dream that was.

He had the information, but no trust. And now, without the information, he didn't even have the proof to build trust. He just had his word.

He wasn't sure if Clandestine even believed him fully. Maybe she did, because it made sense of her own situation, but he didn't imagine that she trusted him. Belief and trust were two very different things, and he hadn't earned the latter.

He knew it was possible he only assumed so because of his own pain around broken trust. Ingrid had covered for him when she didn't have to, but she'd been far crueller about it than he'd ever thought she would.

As for Carter...

James was just about ready to leave. He had Elliot saddled up quickly, and everything was packed and tied down, ready to go. James just had to sneak out the back exit, and he could seamlessly disappear into the city in plainclothes, looking like any another civilian.


Leading Elliot forward past the stalls, James scanned the area, glancing around corners when he heard hurried footsteps skidding behind him.


Whipping around, James tensed when he saw Carter, who knew James well enough that if he had the opportunity, he would go out of his way to get his own horse to escape. He'd just been a few steps behind.


If James had been just a few minutes ahead of him, they would've missed each other.


Instead, they both stood frozen at opposite ends of the stable, with a dozen stalls between them, half of them filled with horses. Hay and dirt laid on the ground between them, patterned with hoofprints and horseshoes.


The midday sun leaked in through the windows, facing the east; the direction of the sunrise.


Carter was breathing heavily, like he'd been running all this time.


"I'm giving you one last chance," Carter said, standing up straight.


James noticed Carter's hand hovered over the sword as his side.


"Carter," James pleaded, his voice barely quiet enough to reach across the distance between them. "You know I can't stay. They'll... they'll kill me."


In his heart, he'd been hoping to hear assurance.


I can change that. We'll figure it out. That's not going to happen. I won't let it.


But instead, Carter swallowed hard, his upper lip twitching into a deep frown.


"I know," Carter said, his voice like ice.


And then he drew his sword.


James idly pet the side of Elliot's neck, refocusing his eyes on the middle distance after he found himself getting lost in a daze, unable to recall exactly how the fight had ensued. All that he could remember was that it'd ended with Carter with a limp, and James leaping onto Elliot, fleeing.

He'd always resented himself on that day for letting fear win over. For choosing to run when Carter was hurt by his own hand. For leaving him behind.

It had taken months for it to sink in that his best friend of 12 years had tried to kill him that day. It had taken even longer for him to decide to forgive him.

And now Carter was sending bounty hunters after him. After five long years.

James stepped away from Elliot, letting him rest as he walked out into the tall grass.

If Carter really did know Alexander personally, to some degree, then Alexander's absence was going to be noticed. If James knew anything about Carter, he probably had a rendezvous point and time in place when they expected to meet, with James in tow. It was possible the date was still far out, but it was just as possible that Alexander had missed his window, which would only cause suspicion.

James kicked at the grass beneath him.

Where had Clandestine buried Alexander, exactly? And where had she found his body? Had it been swallowed up by the fire?

Glancing back at her again, he had a feeling those questions might be too tender to ask at the moment.

But as he looked over her sleeping silhouette, barely visible in the dark, he caught sight of something else.

Light.

No. Not just any light. Firelight. Glowing, and pulsing, just over the hill.

Someone was coming over, holding a torch.