Prolouge

Her feet left the floor and scraped off trunk and bark as she pulled herself up, the crickets and the night her singing audience. She had picked the tree the last time her Ma brought her to help stock wood before the cold settled. Her arms still hurt from carrying them, but to miss this was to take an axe to her foot. The clouded sky sparking with oranges and blues above her, she was fighting time.

From branch to branch, throwing herself occasionally when the one she wanted was simply too far.

She opened her mouth once, to pray to the two gods, but clamped shut and jumped to her left. The drift day was a day the gods did not answer. She pushed her knee against the trunk to steady herself. She could feel that she had already climbed above half, below the forest floor lost to the dark.

Her legs slipped and caught. Pain froze her up with a gasp, the forest hushed in surprise as cool wetness slid down to her right ankle and stuck fabric to her leg. She could imagine it painted the branch below where she hung now. Reeling, she wondered if she had the strength if she would just hang with both arms wrapped tightly until the pain subsided.

She didn't have the strength, so she pushed hard on the split trunk of the dying, previously storm-struck, tree. Scraping teeth on teeth to stay quiet she pushed herself to a branch above a bit of the forest. Enough to see the light blue behind a heavy cloud creeping in from the east.

Despite staying awake from sunrise to this sunrise for the drift, only now did any of the fatigue finally seep in.

With the hill slant, she could see the light of the village below and another streak of blue flame that lit the clouds like lightning. Orange flame followed shortly. She looked down at her leg, pain throbbing and stinging as she dabbed her fingers into where she thought the cut started. Where her trousers were cut wide open from the knee down. She pulled the fabric and ripped it off to slightly clean the warm yet chilling fluid.

She looked down the tree, in hopes of finding blame between groves of bark, but the insects were quiet and the god Nynth consumed the forest in a void of dark. Only the glints of light, where condensation must've laid across certain vegetation, stared up at her like every insect's eyes on her.

When a feeling crept along her spine to the base of her neck, she shuddered and looked up as a burst of light burned in the sky. A wing or tail blipped in as more fire joined. The rest of the beasts had already taken off for the end of the celebration. She stood firmly on the limb, reaching in front of her, and jumped for the next branch. A new need to see everything. A need that covered a burn of pain as she hung there.

The copper smell wafted around her, her copper smell, slipping between the forest's charm.

Disgusted she ran one leg over the other to scrap the blood off, instead leaving both dripping in it and pain that nearly made her drop to the forest floor.

She pulled herself onto it anyway and straddled the branch. Curling into herself. Some pride, for doing that with only her arms that ached as well, but the pain was beyond what it was previously. Closing her lips tight to not pray that it did not become infected.

Laying there, she turned her head and stared high into the clouds.

If she tried hard, she could imagine herself riding a beast. She would love to be an Eban, like her mother, and good enough to be a part of the traveling guard, but to be an Edul was to be chosen by both gods. To tie your life to a beast, a predator forever on your side, she found her eyes between the dark greys and blues as she watched for the beasts and their Edul.

She closed her eyes when the sky whispered to life with color. With the sights gone, she could almost hear the whistles, clicks, and high squeals of some of the beasts. The beat of wings. She opened them and a grin ripped through her as the beasts started dipping beneath clouds that were now painted with early sunlight. She had made it, trading only a few drops of blood for a view she would never forget.

One beast dipped beneath the sky and she sat to see it better. Even from here, the wings big enough to cover houses looked as small as half her pinky nail. Close enough to the village so everyone could get a good glimpse before it rose at such a pace it seemed unnatural.

As it rose, the rest of the beasts dove–like birds of prey going to pull a fish from the Roseheme River. Circling as they chased the largest one back to the sky. Cloudy skies disappearing like Hameana, herself, cleared the sky for the last of her celebration. Such a pink, yellow, and light blue sky ripped the breath from her chest. The beasts all turned and arched flame that mimicked a flower she couldn't name. Each petal a distinct and awing new color, the orange flame of the first beast making the pistil.

They all pushed higher, through the flame and heat that she knew had just been there, before they circled in the sky like vultures.

She shuddered as the forest noise kicked back to life, a loud echo of insects that woke her up from the show. She closed her eyes for a second and opened them to find the beasts diving again into each other's fire until their wings flattened. No longer looking like hunting birds of prey, they finally made the majestic flight down.

She leaned her head forward on the bark, grinning like a jester. Hugging the branch she wanted to look for the beasts and their Edul again but they would be long gone now.

Her parents were certainly searching for her more, now. 'Too young to swing an axe, too young to be out on Drift Day', her mother would say. The words made her drop her head on the limb. The bark hurt more than her aching arms, and almost as much as the tear in her leg. Sitting up, she swung her leg to look down at it.

Basking in the morning light, dimmed still in the forest, condensation glinted up the tree and off millions of scales.

Two empty black eyes stared up at her, maw open as its body strangled the bark and the sound in her throat. The beast coiled its body back as she kicked her foot off the limb to pull herself to a stand. Its scales, yards of dark greys and browns, and a pale ridged under-belly that she knew went from jaw to tail. Limbless.

Its teeth were each a scale long and sharper than a whetted blade, with two long canines that stared back at her. A short puff of hot air left its nostrils.

She couldn't remember if they breathed fire.

It curled inwards further and the tree creaked and groaned under the pressure, shaking and leaving her to grab the branch above her head. Pulling herself quickly as the branch cracked and groaned again. Chest on top of the limb, head looking over the side, she watched it open and close its mouth as it followed her movement.

Something snapped and a limb closer to the bottom crashed against the forest floor. Part of the wyrm's body was still wrapped around it.

The wyrm lunged.

She closed her eyes and pulled herself up until weight latched to her legs, pain rattled through her, searing and burning like molten metal.

Metal, wet metal, the smell was so prominent that she couldn't tell what was her or the beast.

Tears balled and curled around to her lips as another branch snapped. The extra weight left her body as she free-fell, no longer able to cling to the limb that was supposed to take her away. A prayer slipped out of her lips as her body bounced on a cold, hard object.

She was cold when she woke, eyes open as she lay on top of a scaled body. Her breathing was labored, so hard to do so that as soon as she could open her mouth, she wailed. Then screamed. When neither made the pain leave or the warmth return, she turned and sobbed into the scales.

Through the water in her eyes, she could barely make out how bloody the beast was. A broken branch impaled sideways into its neck. Where grief should've been, she bawled with relief, and her heart hurt.

"Eloisa!" Her mother's voice ripped through her and more salty wails ripped through her as her father screamed.