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Dusk broke the surface of the water, gasping for air. He frantically began looking around for Lex, trying to see below the surf for any dark shapes that could be him. Lord d'Ronja came up first, coughing up saltwater and barely managed to keep himself afloat. An agonizing few seconds later Lex finally surfaced several feet from Dusk. Seeing Lex intact and unharmed, he turned to the beach to see what had become of their dragon. Lyra was lying on her back in shallow water, her wings and legs tucked in tight, Tara clutched in her claws. She must have struck the water first to slow herself down, but the momentum had carried her further up the sand until she was only partially submerged, her hindquarters lying in a long trough filling with water.
“Come on,” Dusk called to the other two. “We’ve got to help them!”
He’d never been much of a swimmer, but something came over him as he paddled. His arms and legs were aching as he reached the shore well before the others. He tossed his bow to the side and ran over to Lyra’s head, throwing himself in the sand next to her. Her eyes were closed.
“Lyra?” he said gently, reaching out to touch her massive snout. He noticed one of her horns had broken near the tip, a jagged edge left behind. “Are you alright?”
A deep grumble answered him. “Unfortunately... I think I’ll live.”
Above him he saw Tara fighting her way out of Lyra’s claws. She pushed them off to the side and rolled, trying to find a way down from Lyra’s heaving chest. Instead she overshot and crashed to the sand, her injured leg buckling underneath her. Dusk crawled his way over to her through the wet sand.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking down at the massive gash in her right leg. It was bleeding profusely.
“Fuck off,” she snapped, trying to get to her feet again. “I don’t need your help and I don’t deserve it. So get the fuck away from me!”
Instead of recoiling like he normally would, Dusk reached out and pulled her into a hug. “I’m glad you’re alright,” he murmured from over her shoulder. “I knew you wouldn’t turn on us.”
“I did turn on you.” She pushed him away, wincing as her leg spasmed.
“That’s not what I saw.”
“You’re never going to stop being annoyingly persistent, are you?”
Dusk shook his head. Tara’s mouth curled slightly at the corner, but then she winced again, holding her leg. She was starting to grow pale from the blood loss.
“We need to get that sewn up.”
“No shit.”
Lex and Lord d'Ronja came jogging up, huffing and puffing from the exertion of swimming back to shore.
“By the gods, I fucking hate you,” Lex wheezed.
“Don’t worry, I never stopped,” she replied.
“As much as I’m happy you two lovebirds are reunited, this is an emergency. Does anyone have a needle?” Dusk asked, looking around as his companions, none of which had a bag on them. He realized even his own was missing.
“Yes,” Lex replied, reaching down to the stitching of his boot and pulling a silver needle free. Both Dusk and Tara looked at him with odd expressions. “What? You never know when you’re going to need to mend something.”
“You’ve... just had that the whole time?” Tara asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Yes?” he replied, handing it to Dusk. “My mother told me to never go anywhere without one.”
“Thread?” Dusk asked, ignoring their conversation.
“That was in my bag...”
Dusk thought for a moment. “Bring me my bow.”
Lex did as he asked and Dusk pulled his dagger from his boot, slicing the unicorn hair string free before anyone could protest. He withdrew a single hair and handed it to Lex along with the needle.
“I don’t know how to sew,” he said.
Lex looked at the wound and back at him. With a quick nod he took a seat, threaded the needle, and began to work.
“d'Ronja,” Dusk barked, looking at Lex’s father who was staring in abject horror as his son slowly stitched Tara’s flesh back together. “Go gather firewood and get it going near the trees.” Dusk pointed off towards a small forest a few hundred feet from the beach. “We’re staying here tonight.”
Lord d'Ronja hesitated for a moment, watching his son begin to press ragged pieces of flesh together. His face flushed a darker shade of green and he turned his attention away. He nodded, stripped off his excess clothing that was soaked through, and trudged off towards the trees. As soon as he was out of earshot, Dusk turned back to the others.
“Are you going to tell us what happened then?” he asked, looking down at Tara.
“Would really like to know what the fuck that crazy cunt is up to,” Lex growled, pushing the needle through her skin again.
Tara winced. “Exactly what she said. She... she plans to destroy everything.”
“How much of her story do you know?” Dusk asked, sinking down in the sand beside them.
“Not much. Just the parts I was there for. She was a princess, how bad could it have been?”
Lex let out a scoff as he plunged the needle back through again.
“Lord d'Ronja filled us in on her upbringing. He was friends with the king and saw what happened to her. She was a bit bloodthirsty to begin with, but it led her to a life full of torture and pain at the hands of those she trusted most.”
Tara was silent.
“But that’s not important anymore. What’s important is how to stop her. You’ve been living with her this past month. What’s been going on?”
Tara sighed and leaned back against Lyra’s side, her teeth clenched as Lex continued. She had nowhere to go, which was right where Dusk wanted her. Tara always had a tendency of evading uncomfortable conversation at the wrong time.
“The glass took us back to Alamond,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “I stepped through to find her raging and cursing anything she could think of as her arm gushed blood all over the room. I tried to stop her, to make her see how injured she was, but she just pushed me away and headed deeper into the ruins. I didn’t know what to do and my hands were so damaged that I couldn’t touch anything. I followed until I found her in a library of some sort, yanking books off the shelves, trying to find something. When I couldn’t get her to stop I just watched, almost hoping she’d pass out from the blood loss so I could bandage her up. But the crystal somehow stopped her bleeding and she kept going.” Tara looked over to Dusk. “I must have passed out because when I woke she was just finishing a spell to heal herself further and conjure the new hand she had. I hoped she’d heal me too, but she just left me there.”
The look on Tara’s face was a familiar one to Dusk. Abandonment. Tara had really thought Nedarya cared for her, but her time in Alamond had proved her wrong.
“It was barely a day before she’d taken over the entire Circle that’s now housed inside Alamond. By the end of the week she had a small army there, Tiernan’s men were training the new recruits from Ditania, and more of them were delivering magic dust by the bucketload. They referred to her as the ‘General’ and I knew she’d done something to her brother Arius to get his cooperation, I just don’t know what. She ordered me to help them and then locked herself in that library for almost two weeks, never stepping foot outside of the room as far as I could tell.
“When she finally emerged again she was a different woman. Cold, calculating, and dangerous. All the soft qualities I loved in her had shed away and there was nothing left but a monster. She struck fear into the hearts of everyone with her ruthlessness, gave them rousing speeches about peace and prosperity, gifted them the power of magic to win them over, and then began transporting them en masse across the continent. In less than a week she’d managed to manipulate a hundred men into following her without question for a lie I knew couldn’t be true. She didn’t know I’d found a secret passage into the library while she studied her books. I listened night after night as she muttered to herself about destroying her family, the nobility, and eventually anyone foolish enough to draw breath on Udalara.” Tara paused for a moment. “The plan was to take the mountain by force. She told the men there was a weapon there, one that would win the war for Ditania. But I saw the other piece of the heart contained in that library. I didn’t dare tell anyone what her true plans were if I wanted to live long enough to tell you.”
Lex finished his last stitch and tied it off, cutting the unicorn hair with Dusk’s dagger. He slid the needle back into the stitching of his boot and sat back on his heels.
“There’s really no saving her, is there?” he asked.
“No,” Tara murmured, the sadness palpable in her voice. “She’s been gone since the day she died. The thing that Tiernan brought back is not Nedarya. It’s a monster.”
Dusk felt his heart break for Tara. She’d been so relieved and happy to have Nedarya back. But just like all of Tiernan’s other plans, it was a trick in disguise. Except this time that trick cost him his life. Dusk made a mental note to never give Tara the full story Lord d'Ronja had told them of Nedarya’s past. She deserved to keep the few happy memories she had of Nedarya without tarnishing them further.
“She said something about bringing down the moon,” Lyra chimed in, her head turning towards them in the sand. “What did she mean by that?”
“That’s her plan,” Tara replied. “At least, that’s what she said.”
“Tiernan was trying to bring back magic, but I don’t think he needed the moon for it,” Dusk added. “The heart made more sense because he thought only he’d be able to control it. He didn’t want to share it. Why would Nedarya bring the moon back down? Wouldn’t that give everyone in the world access to magic again?”
“That’s true,” Lyra replied. “The moon acts as an amplifier for the heart, enough to cover the entirety of Udalara. But even if it was here again, only a very select few would be able to use its power. Not everyone is like you Dusk. Humans need to know the magic before they begin casting. The only ones that would gain power would be those with inherent abilities like myself. But most of those creatures are gone.”
“And Tiernan made it a point to collect almost all the magical tomes still left in existence,” Dusk sighed. “The only ones I’ve ever seen not in his possession were the ones at the monastery that burned and in Lobelia’s treasury. I don’t even know what kind of magic is left in them.”
“She’d never give us enough time to train a resistance anyway,” Tara said. “Once she’s completed the heart, she’ll move fast. We won’t have much time to stop her.”
“What makes you think we have any hope of stopping her?” Lyra scoffed. “She has the heart and the eye. She is unstoppable.”
Lyra rolled over with a groan and pushed herself to her feet. She was bruised and battered, but looked mostly undamaged for someone who had fallen out of the air so many times in the past day. Her hope however, was another story.
“We can’t just give up,” Dusk called out to her.
Lyra turned back to the three of them, her violet eyes hidden behind a dark expression. “Nozzera was a highly gifted magician with nearly a century of study. He killed most of the dragon lords single-handedly,” she growled. “And he didn’t possess nearly half the power that Nedarya now wields.”
“But she can’t know as much about magic as he did. That will be her weakness,” Dusk added defiantly. “Maybe we can exploit that.”
“That makes her all the more dangerous. She’s reckless, untrained, and she’s got nothing to lose.” Lyra looked out over the sea back towards the mountain the distance where Nedarya now stood, her weapons close at hand. “There was one last piece that she needed to control the heart completely, but Tiernan gave her that answer when he killed her the first time.” Lyra glanced at Tara. “She has all three crowns, doesn’t she?”
“Her brother still wears one, but she’s got him in her grasp.”
“That’s what I thought,” Lyra huffed. “Tephyss and the dragons spun the three crowns themselves and gifted them to the Alamondian kings. In times of great need the three kings could come together, combine their crowns, and use that power to call upon the crystal, which sat deep below the earth under Alamond. It was meant to be a last resort if a great evil came along and could only be called upon with the cooperation of all three.” Lyra sighed, her head drooping to the ground. “But men are fickle and the kingdom fell apart even under Tephyss’s watchful eye. When Nozzera attacked there were only two crowns in the city and therefore the crystal could not be called upon. That’s why he was able to take it to begin with, using his own great power to force his will upon it.”
“I didn’t understand why she wanted the crown from Inahan...” Dusk murmured. “I just gave it to her... I didn’t even think about it.” A realization struck him hard in the chest, like an arrow through his heart. “This is all my fault,” he whispered. “Mirinda told me to throw the crown into the ocean and I kept it out of spite.” He looked up at Lyra, tears coming to his eyes as the truth set in. “All of this is my fault.”