I was escorted back to my bedchambers with the assistance of both Arvid and Katherine, though "escorted" might have been too dignified a word for what transpired. I swayed back and forth as we walked, my equilibrium thoroughly compromised by the wine. Words slurred together as they left my mouth, and I found myself giggling at things that weren't particularly amusing—the pattern of shadows on the wall, the way my feet didn't quite seem to obey my commands, the solemn expression on Arvid's face as he steadied me with one hand. The journey down the corridor felt both endless and far too short.
Katherine worked patiently to help me with my clothes after Arvid departed, bidding us both a somewhat bemused goodnight. His eyes had lingered on me with a mixture of affection and concern before he closed the door, leaving me in Katherine's capable hands. However, I proved to be spectacularly uncooperative, struggling with buttons and laces as though they were complex puzzles designed to confound me.
"For the love of the Gods above Mount Serana—you really shouldn't drink!" Katherine exclaimed, frustration clearly audible in her tone despite her efforts to remain patient. She tugged at a particularly stubborn lacing with more force than strictly necessary. "And you only had two goblets of wine! How is that even possible?" This last part she muttered more to herself than to me, shaking her head in bewilderment.
Her words penetrated the pleasant fog surrounding my thoughts, and I felt a flicker of confusion. Two goblets? That was certainly odd. Before, when I had gotten drunk, it had taken considerably more than two goblets of wine to produce such effects. I clearly remembered the first time I had consumed alcohol—an entire jar of wine at a secretly back home. That had gotten me drunk. The second time, at Ferne, I had drunk several cups, definitely more than just two goblets, before feeling this level of intoxication. Was I becoming more sensitive to alcohol as time passed? Wasn't it supposed to work the opposite way, with tolerance building up rather than diminishing?
But I wasn't able to pursue this line of reasoning to any satisfactory conclusion. My head had begun to ache, a dull throbbing that intensified whenever I tried to think too deeply about anything. Thinking made the pain double, so I simply stopped trying. Katherine guided me to the bed with gentle firmness, pulled the covers up over me so I would stay warm through the night, and bid me goodnight before retiring to her own adjoining chamber.
I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, sinking into its soft, fluffy embrace. Sleep claimed me swiftly and completely, dragging me down into darkness.
---
But then I opened my eyes, and I was no longer in my bed.
I stood in the middle of a forest, still wearing my sleepwear—a thin nightgown made of cotton that provided virtually no protection against the elements. The winds were harsh and bitterly cold, whipping around me with enough force to make my hair dance wildly. Visibility was poor; I could barely see more than a dozen feet in any direction. Trees surrounded me on all sides, their branches heavy with snow, their dark trunks rising like silent giants from the white-blanketed ground. The forest seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, a maze of timber and shadow.
Where was I? I had been sleeping, hadn't I? Was I dreaming? What was happening?
But the biting cold that made my skin prickle and the harsh winds that pulled at my inadequate nightgown told me with painful clarity that this was no ordinary dream. The sensations were too vivid, too immediate, too real.
Aiona, I called out mentally, reaching for that familiar presence that had become such a constant companion.
Aiona.
Aiona!
Silence greeted my attempts. There was no response, no reassuring presence, no sardonic commentary. Nothing but an emptiness where she should have been. Panic began to flutter in my chest like a caged bird. What should I do? What was happening? Why wasn't she answering me? Surely this was something she had orchestrated, some lesson or test she had planned?
The shadows around me seemed to be growing longer, darker, more oppressive. What time was it? There was some ambient light despite the obvious darkness—that peculiar gray luminescence that snow creates even in the absence of sun or moon. I needed to get out of here. The thought solidified in my mind with the force of survival instinct. I started walking toward what I thought might be the edge of the tree line, the boundary between forest and open ground.
But the forest seemed to expand with each step I took. The trees multiplied impossibly, and the spaces between them grew rather than shrank. I was making no progress, simply walking deeper into an endless woodland. My breath came in white puffs, and my feet had already gone numb from the snow.
Then I saw it—a wolf, prowling through the undergrowth perhaps twenty yards ahead of me. Something about the creature struck me as strange immediately, though I couldn't quite articulate what. It moved with purpose, nose to the ground, following some scent trail invisible to me. Then it lifted its head, and its eyes found me—or at least looked in my general direction. The wolf snorted, a surprisingly dismissive sound, and then darted forward with startling speed.
Followit.
The thought appeared in my mind with sudden clarity. It was —my own inner voice, speaking with an authority I barely recognized. I was surprised to discover it even existed as a distinct entity. Aiona's thoughts had occupied my mind so thoroughly for so long that I had almost forgotten I possessed my own inner voice, a core of self that existed independent of our bond. It was strange to hear that voice now, emerging from whatever universe existed within me where I was a singular being rather than a dual consciousness.
So I did what it told me. I followed the wolf, though the task proved considerably harder than it initially seemed. Each step was a struggle. My legs kept sinking into snow that reached past my knees, the cold seeping through the thin fabric of my nightgown and into my bones. My muscles burned with the effort of lifting each foot and plunging it forward through the resistant white mass.
The wolf stopped periodically, looking back at my struggling form with what could only be described as exasperation. It would huff—a sound that clearly communicated annoyance at my tardiness—before reluctantly waiting for me to catch up. It wasn't my fault that walking through knee-deep snow was difficult, I wanted to tell the impatient creature. But I saved my breath for the monumental effort of moving forward.
But why was I following it? What purpose could this possibly serve?
As soon as that question formed in my mind, everything changed.
First, I heard it—a loud roar that seemed to shake the very air, echoing from somewhere above the tree canopy. A dragon's roar, unmistakable in its power and authority. Then came the sound of massive wingbeats, each one creating gusts that bent the treetops and sent snow cascading from branches. A dragon emerged from above the tree line, its enormous form circling the area where I stood frozen in place. It was massive beyond anything I could have imagined, dwarfing even Furaniona's considerable size.
This was not Furaniona.
As the creature descended closer, I could make out more details. Its scales were predominantly red, but overlaid with a black pattern that gave it an almost armored appearance. Three sets of horns crowned its head in an elaborate display, and as it drew nearer, I realized with a shock that it possessed two sets of eyes—four eyes total, arranged in a way that seemed both alien and somehow perfectly natural on that enormous skull.
The wolf, brave enough to guide me through the forest, let out a whimper of pure terror at the sound of the dragon's roar and immediately fled, disappearing into the undergrowth without a backward glance.
Then the dragon landed directly in front of me.
The impact was tremendous. Trees splintered and fell beneath the creature's immense weight. The undergrowth was crushed flat, and snow exploded outward in a massive cloud. I stood transfixed, unable to move, barely able to breathe as the dragon settled its bulk and turned those multiple eyes toward me. It leaned forward, massive nostrils flaring as it took in my scent. Then it exhaled, and a blast of warm air washed over my face—startlingly hot after the bitter cold I had been enduring.
"You smell of her kin," the dragon rumbled, its voice impossibly deep and resonant, carrying the weight of ages uncounted. The voice was distinctly male and felt ancient beyond any mortal reckoning—as though it had existed before language itself, before time had meaning.
A terrible realization began to dawn on me. Which dragon was this? I frantically searched my memory, reviewing the enormous tome I had studied that catalogued dragonkind. Almost every dragon's illustration and description had been included in that comprehensive work. Almost every dragon... except for one. There had been one notable absence, one dragon whose image was conspicuously missing from those pages.
No. That couldn't be. This couldn't be happening.
*No. No. No. No. No. No.*
The denial repeated in my mind like a desperate mantra. I could not be meeting him. Not the arrogant ancestral god whose very existence I had resented, whose abandonment of dragonkind I had judged so harshly in my studies.
But there was no escaping the truth of what stood before me.
The mighty dragon was Rulha.
Rulha, our ancestral god.
Ruler of all dragons.
The only dragon to ever transcend mortality and achieve true godhood.
---
When I woke the next morning, I was somehow still in my bed, safely tucked beneath the covers in my chambers. The transition from that snow-covered forest to my warm bed was so jarring that for several long moments, I simply lay still, trying to reconcile the two realities. I felt dizzy, disoriented, and the headache that throbbed behind my eyes was truly splitting, as though my skull might crack open from the pressure. I spent several minutes with my head buried between my hands, trying to gather my scattered thoughts and make sense of what had happened.
I had experienced a prophetic dream. My first one. And that was decidedly not a good sign.
According to everything I had learned in my studies, prophetic dreams were something only dragons experienced. Other creatures—elves, mages, witches, sorceresses—could not have such dreams, no matter what spells they employed or what rituals they performed. Most of those other magical races were extinct or nearly so now, their powers diminished as the Age of Dragons had come to its end. But that only made the question more pressing: why was I having such dreams?
The answer was inescapable, no matter how much I might wish to deny it. It proved that Aiona had been right all along. I was slowly transforming into something more dragon than human, metamorphosing for reasons I had yet to fully understand. The thought was absolutely terrifying. What would I become? How much of my humanity would remain when the transformation was complete? Would I still recognize myself?
I let out a long, shaky sigh, trying to steady my nerves. I had asked Rulha an important question during our encounter in that frozen forest. A question that had been burning in my mind, one whose answer might determine the course of everything that came after. And he had answered me truthfully, with the blunt honesty of a being that had no need for deception or political maneuvering.
But was what he told me even achievable? Could I actually accomplish what he had suggested? The magnitude of it felt overwhelming.
My mind was a chaotic mess, thoughts tumbling over one another without order or coherence. When a soft knock came at my door announcing Katherine's presence, I forced myself to compose my features, to present a facade of normalcy despite the turmoil raging within. I couldn't look like the disaster I felt like internally. I needed to appear presentable, calm, in control.
I should not make Katherine worry. She already had more than enough concerns weighing on her mind. The last thing she needed was to add my existential crisis to her list of responsibilities.
I called out permission for her to enter, praying that my voice sounded steadier than I felt, and prepared to face whatever this new day would bring. The encounter with Rulha had changed something fundamental. I could feel it in my bones, in the very essence of my being. Whatever came next, I would need to be ready for it.
And I would need to determine, sooner rather than later, whether the path Rulha had illuminated was one I was willing—or able—to walk.