The Fallen

ANDRA

“NO!”

The scream tore from Andra’s throat, a wail of pure agony.

Colmen’s arms dropped to his side, and he fell, motionless, to the ground.

Ledo turned to her, an evil smile on his face.

~You’re last,~ he mouthed as he made his way slowly to Kael. He walked as if he was taking a stroll in a garden. He acted as if the red splashes of gore and blood around him were simply roses in bloom.

His blade spun deftly in his hands, dripping with the lifeblood of her friend.

And it would soon claim another.

Andra forced herself to her feet, but the world spun around her, and she came crashing down to the ground again.

She could feel the dregs of her magic trying to Heal her, but it was much too little, much too late.

Andra could tell Tiri sensed her distress, but the dragon was surrounded, held at bay by a wall of steel and magic.

Despair ripped through her, robbing her of her breath.

~Ledo is going to win.~

~We are all going to die.~

And she was powerless to do anything about it. She could feel the darkness encroaching in her mind, threatening to take over.

~“Take courage, sister,”~ Tiri said. ~“Remember, you are a bright star. You cannot be silenced. Your light cannot be dulled.”~

Something in the back of Andra’s mind clicked when she heard Tiri’s words. It buzzed with an energy that flowed through her body. It felt like the sun had opened within her heart, and its light burned away the darkness that plagued her.

Ledo had silenced her once before.

But now she didn’t fight with the strength of her voice alone.

She fought with the voice of the entire rebellion.

She focused on Ledo, focused on all the pain and hurt and on all the things he’d taken from her. All the things he would still take from her if she didn’t do anything about it.

Rage and righteous fury burned away the fear in her. It consumed her until she was no longer the frightened servant girl. She wasn’t even a rebel of the Freemen.

She was just a conduit of pure magic, and she demanded that the power to save her friends would come to her.

And it obeyed.

She felt the magic flowing into her from the earth, from the air, from the trees around her, from Tiri. She looked up to the heavens, and with a primal shout that ripped her throat, she released it.

She buried every part of her mind in the pulsing well of magic inside her. She drew out every last, burning piece of it and ordered it to save her friends.

There was a sound like an explosion, and the ground shook. A pulse of arching blue-violet light raced outward from her feet, spreading like the waves of a tidal storm.

The light sparked as it flew outward. It seized the soldiers in finger-like strands of living power, and their bodies jerked before falling to the earth. It continued to flow out, engulfing soldiers while it passed over Freemen without harm.

She locked gazes with Ledo, his eyes wide with fear as her magic bound him, sparks of fire and lightning racing over his black armor.

The violet flames engulfed him completely, and he wailed as he was reduced to ash.

Andra waited for an emotion to wash over her as her power snuffed the life from Ledo’s eyes.

Joy.

Relief.

Satisfaction.

But she just felt empty. She was completely spent.

A hush had gone over the battlefield as the fighting came to a sudden and complete stop.

All she could see was the lifeless form of Colmen a few feet away, his eyes open but unseeing. She could see his smile in her mind, hear his laugh, feel the warmth of his embrace.

Kael ran over to her, and while she could feel his hands on her shoulders and see his lips moving, she couldn’t understand what he was saying.

He turned, following her gaze, and she felt his whole body go rigid. Kael uttered a single word, this one getting through to her numbed mind as it cracked with emotion.

“No…”

And then the tears started falling.

She wept for the elf that would never laugh again.

KAEL

Kael stared at the pile of bodies in the sand, Kingsmen and Freemen alike. The rebels had gathered the dead on the border of the Burning Sands.

The bodies lay together, straw and wood around them. The much larger form of Tildin, Janis’s dragon, lay at the center.

Kael’s heart broke for the thousandth time as he remembered the haunted and inconsolable Rider. He was only fourteen, yet he’d lost so much.

He tried to imagine losing Eithne, but even the thought sent a sharp stab of pain through his heart.

A Rider without their dragon is a Rider without their soul.

Eithne’s snout brushed against his shoulder, and he reached up, taking strength from her touch.

Kael refused to look at Colmen’s body among the others. Colmen was his best friend. His brother. Kael had always been right there when Colmen had needed him most, and he had failed him at that most crucial moment.

Kael felt tears forming in his eyes, but he blinked them away fiercely. He had no time for that. Not yet. The weight of leadership weighed on him heavier now than it ever had.

~Why am I standing here, breathing and alive, while all these people lie dead before me? People I led into battle. People who had trusted in me?~ he thought.

The hatred and self-loathing knotted up in his heart until it was a hard, immovable thing. The feeling of Andra’s hand in his was the only thing that kept him afloat.

He stepped forward, the crowd of surviving Freemen behind him. There were no words he could say. No rousing speech that could ease the pain of lost friends and loved ones.

Eithne stepped up beside him, and Kael looked down the line as Andra and Tiri joined him, followed by Egan and Calix. Janis was nowhere to be seen.

Kael raised his hand and a stream of fire erupted from his palm. The others did the same as their dragons added their flames to the pyre.

And Kael watched as the fallen went up in flame and smoke.

The Freemen may have won this battle, but the war was far from over. This was just the beginning.

ANDRA

The intense heat from the flames began to turn the sand underneath the bodies to glass.

The glass began to rise and twist like the flames, expanding and bending until a large glass structure stood before them.

Andra was immediately struck by how similar it looked to the ~Ers Fehnar~, the magically enchanted glass orbs that held a dragon’s first flame. She recalled the day she had hidden in the Hall of Memories with Talias, the tiny embers flickering within.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

Sensing her thoughts, Tiri let out one last burst of flame, and Andra willed her magic to store the violet fire within the glass sculpture.

“This monument will glow in day and night for eternity,” Kael said as he looked at her, calling out to the rebels gathered behind them. “A reminder of the sacrifice that the Freemen made to restore what the Guardians built.”

Hundreds of tear-filled eyes watched the dancing flames for a long, silent moment. The crowd began to part, and Andra watched as Janis walked forward, Tildin’s saddle in his hands.

“This is for you,” he said, placing the saddle at her feet.

Andra choked up, tears staining her cheeks. “Janis, I can’t—”

“I won’t need it anymore.” Janis looked to the glass monument, his eyes dead and emotionless. The Rider had cried out all of his tears. “Besides, no one here will disagree with me when I say that you are a Rider, Andra. And a Rider needs a saddle.”

Andra felt the eyes of the rebels on her. She looked over at Tiri, and the violet dragon nodded in her support.

~“Even if we do not share a true bond,”~ Tiri said, ~“we are a Pair. You are mine, and I am yours.”~

She could do nothing but accept Janis’s gift. The somber Rider walked past her and kissed his fingertips, then pressed it to the enchanted glass. The Freemen followed suit, hundreds of rebels paying their respects.

Eventually, Andra and Kael were the only ones remaining, their dragons behind them.

Andra had thought she had cried every last tear within her, but she realized she was wrong. They began to come again as she stepped forward, kissing her fingers and pressing them against the glass.

“Goodbye, Colmen,” she whispered.

She wasn’t a warrior.

She wasn’t a rebel.

She wasn’t a Siphon.

She was a powerless girl, just like when she’d watched her mother swing from the noose.

She remembered Setora’s dread fortune.

~“You will lose someone you hold dear.”~

~How many more will die because of me?~

She saw Kael place his fingers on the glass next to hers, and she was startled to find that he had tears running down his face.

The Rider, who had always seemed so strong and immovable to her, shuddered with a sob. At that moment, he wasn’t the commander of the Freemen. He was just a person who had lost a dear friend.

“Play for him,” Kael said quietly.

Andra looked down at the flute that hung from her waist. The flute Colmen had made for his sister, and had entrusted to her. “I don’t think I can,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Please, Andra. For Colmen.”

She took a shaking breath and put the flute to her lips. It took a moment for her shuddering breath and shaking fingers to coax a sound from the instrument, but the notes began to quiver across the desert.

Kael recognized the tune and began to softly sing the words.

~“And so beneath the sycamore tree,~

~I’ll wait for you if you’ll come to me,~

~And to the mountains we will flee,~

~Where you and I can both be free…~

~For I have loved you, and you have loved me,~

~Both knowing that it should not be~

~We have found what they cannot see…~

~Under the branches of the sycamore tree.”~

The lyrics ripped through Andra’s chest.

The words no longer spoke of a young man waiting for his lover. The song was a plea to a long-lost friend. It was a prayer—a wish—that one day, they could meet again.

Andra played through the entire song, and Kael sang right along with her, his deep voice shaking as much as the flute’s notes. The last note eventually fell to silence, and the sobs returned to take its place.

Kael pulled her into his arms, and together they heaved with sorrow. Slowly, the agony dulled into a persistent ache. One she wasn’t sure would ever go away.

He pulled back a step, cupping her chin in his hand. She closed her eyes as he kissed her forehead, then the tears on her cheeks.

“Andra,” Kael whispered. “I love you.”

Andra’s tortured heart skipped a beat.

“I have loved you for far longer than I was willing to admit,” he continued. “But I can’t deny it to myself any longer. Not when I lost my dearest friend. Not when I nearly lost you.”

Her throat tightened in agony. “Kael…”

“I don’t need you to say it back,” he interrupted. “I just need you to know that you have my heart. No matter what else may happen… You are my Heart Song, Andra.”

“You can’t love me, Kael.” Fresh tears flowed down her cheeks.

“And why is that?” he asked softly.

“I’m…” Her voice was weak, barely above a whisper. “I’m not what you need. You deserve someone whole. Someone…unbroken. You have enough burdens to bear. I won’t become another one.”

Kael took her hands in his own, their fingers intertwining. “You have to stop believing that what happened to you has made you unworthy of love, Andra.”

She was already shaking her head before he was done speaking, but he continued.

“If that was true, then I must be unworthy, too, because I’m just as broken as you. Broken in different ways, but broken nonetheless.”

“Kael, I can’t—”

“I ~want~ your burdens, Andra. I want your scars. I want every part of you, good and bad. Because even if we are broken, maybe…” He took a breath. “Maybe the broken parts of me are made to fit with the broken parts of you.”

She looked into his eyes and saw all of him. The hope, the love, the pain.

“I love you, Andra. I love every part of you—the broken pieces most of all.”

Her heart ached with longing and uncertainty at his words. She wished she could tell him the same, but she couldn’t.

~Can I?~ she wondered.

The fear that something like this could never be hers still lingered inside her, but she wanted so badly to take a chance. She was free to take that chance. A freedom that Kael had given her.

Her fingers tightened around his, and before she realized it, she found herself leaning forward, her lips inching closer to Kael’s.

“Kael!” a voice called.

The pair turned to find Egan walking toward them, a Kingsman soldier being dragged by a chain behind him. A bag was tied securely over his head.

“We found a man skulking around the outskirts of Bellris,” Egan said. “He looks to be a survivor of the battle. Or maybe a spy. Should we execute him?”

Egan pulled the hood off of the soldier.

Andra gasped.

Sandy blond hair tumbled out from the hood, large brown eyes locking with her own. She felt Kael’s eyes on her as she stepped forward, the leather bracelet burning a hole in her pocket.

Even as she looked at that familiar face, as she met those eyes she’d thought of so often, Andra could not believe it was true.

Disbelief still lingered in her mind as she breathed his name.

“Talias…”