Editor's Note: It is no small task, reconciling four thousand years of memories and dreams; of sorting through those dreams, to pick out which were genuine and which were shadow experiences of the Progeny. Battles, demons, and deaths -- thousands-- no, hundreds of thousands of them. How she could bear the pressure of them, I do not know. I had the luxury of spinning those memories forward, of glancing away, setting aside my work transcribing to wander the grove. There are stretches of weeks before I could go back to the work. But she has entrusted me with this task, the one last thing she wished for. How could I possibly refuse her, who had given up everything, except hope?
And so I set down for you Silva's Story, the tale of the Last Daughter of the Lost Kingdom, teased and wrestled from a vault of red and blue dragonstones, cradled far above the Skyshield, where I compile this story in the last of my own days.
--- Druid Thorn, Seventh Year after the Fallen Thrones, AW 73, or about 1134 AC in the Old Thyatian calendar
------------------------------------------- “Run!”
As if she had to coax me. The howls of the beast men behind us were plenty enough incentive. Ahead of me, Leansethar looked back over her shoulder, her green eyes lost in the flying tumble of silvery-gold hair.
“Hurry up!”
I’m sure she meant it to be encouraging, but she had Mother’s habit of making almost anything she said sound as if it were some sort of command. No, worse than that; a royal decree.
I already ran as fast as I could. Twins though we were, Leansethar and I still had our differences: hers happened to lean more towards the physical: she was faster and stronger than I (indeed, than most of the Guard); she dueled the Blue Rider to standstill on last summer’s tourney field. She insisted that the Solstice had nothing to do with it, but I am no idiot — truth be told, where Lea was the stronger of the two of us, I was the smarter. Give me a riddle or ask me to solve an apparent mystery and I would arrive at the solution well ahead of my twin.
But running….
Lea flashed by me, a blur of green-and-gold seen from the corner of my eye. I dared not look back, but the howls of the beast men climbed into whines and yelps. The pressure of the pack I’d felt at my back fell away, only to return as a lighter, brighter presence beside me.
“Why?” The word came out something of a pant. Sure, I ran, but it was usually confined to corridors and gardens and galleries.
“Jump!” Lea cried, and her hand closed on mine as the rooftop fell away.
Halfway through the arc, she let go, with a laugh, still laughing as she landed, light as a feather on the rooftop across the square. I lost what little breath I had left when I landed only halfway on the tiles, feet dangling three stories from the flames and pikes and cobblestones below.
Arrows broke against the side of the building, spun away as they glanced off the tiles of the roof. Lea paid them no mind as she leaned down and extended her hand. Master Val’Kira’s bracers kept the mundane arrows of the invading troops from striking us, and I scattered the next volley beneath me as I called on the Air, and a small vortex of it hoisted me the rest of the way up to the roof.
I deliberately ignored my sister’s hand, taking my time straightening my skirts and hair. The spirits in the Air had absolutely no regard for my dignity whatsoever.
“Come on, Wena. Father is expecting us. You can muss with your skirts when we get to the castle. I don’t think the EGG’s troops much care about the placement of your bows and ribbons.”
She grabbed my hand — again — and resumed her breakneck pace over the rooftops, away from the smoldering breach in the Old Wall, towards the Spire, and the great castle of black stone that sat atop it.
“Why can’t we just do as Mother does, and simply Be there? It will take weeks to get the smell of smoke out of this dress!”
“You can wear my copy of it,” Lea said.
I wrinkled my nose. “Yours is trimmed in gold.”
“You can always work a glamour on it and turn it to silver. Oh! Or better yet, work it on our eyes, and we’ll trade places like we did— Jump!”
At least it was a shorter distance, this time. And I was treated to a few moments of silence, as we sailed through the smoky sunset, late for Father’s day-of-birth celebration.
_________________ Rob
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