Ygrain followed the prince down a cobbled road that eventually degraded into a rough mountain footpath. The violence of the night still hammering her mind.

  Winding down the hilltops, a strong wind brought the cool fresh scent of the sea from many miles away.

  The grand palace was lost from sight beneath the monolithic hills upon which they rested.

  The trail crested around and past the neat cluster of brown and green shrubby hills that afforded the Palace its protection, and to a vast lake.

  Right at the palace’s feet, but unseen in the low valley.

  Ygrain hadn’t even known it was there.

  “What is this place?” she asked, eyes wide with wonder.

  “We call it the Moonfire Lake. If we consider any one place holy, it’s this place.” He said with reverence. “They built and blessed the Throne here, among other things.”

  He started rubbing the back of his head nervously.

  “Technically, only the royal family and the Emperor are allowed to see it.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” she frowned.

  “I agree, but don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” he said, smiling to himself, and urged her along the last leg of the path.

  The lake was nearly perfectly circular and still.

  The wind reduced to all but a faint breeze by the protecting hills.

  The silver moon high above shone down on the lake’s surface like a mirror, the illusion of the crescent moon floated unbroken across the water’s surface.

  It was far greener on the lakeshore, and fruiting trees of apples and oranges and other fruits Ygrain had never even heard of grew in unkempt wild patches on the shore, their feet covered in flowering bushes and shrubs.

  “Why’s this lake so special?” Ygrain probed, as they walked to the water’s edge, discarding their sandals.

  She enjoyed the feeling of the soft cool sand between her toes. She sighed with relief.

  “Well...they say that in time of Onyx Empress Endira, fifth of her line, a High Wyrm died in this spot defending the people of Guhran. Chandrakanta. The Moonstone Lady. The Dragon of Compassion.”

  He said the name with reverence, eyes shining.

  The princess’s mouth went agape.

  “Your High Wyrms die? I thought they were gods?”

  “They’re not gods exactly, a common misconception-“ He began speaking fast as he often did when ranting to her about some inane topic or another.

  Not that she minded much anymore.

  Ygrain nodded along contentedly.

  “-High Wyrms are immortal, but they’re living things, like you or me. They’re just ...connected to more than us, they’re closer to up there, to the stars,”

  Kairava swept his arms up towards the sky in a great arc.

  “To the celestial, the spiritual. But they can still be killed, sure. Still die.”

  He paused, staring a long time at the lakeshore.

  “Everything does eventually.”

  “What killed this one?”

  He nodded gravely.

  “A second High Wyrm. One of fire and smoke. It swept in with the setting sun and began a night of ruin and death that threatened to consume the entire province. Thousands died in hours.”

  Ygrain shivered, not struggling to imagine a dragon reducing homes and people alike to ash and cinder.

  “They called it…The Scourge.”

  The name hung in the air like a curse. Ygrain felt…colder somehow for it being said.

  “It...died? This world-ending dragon died right?” Ygrain asked, a tremor of fear beneath her veneer of curiosity.

  The prince could barely suppress his cackling laugh.

  Ygrain was entirely unamused.

  “Sorry, it's just, the rumors were true, you really don’t know anything about dragons do you? A child learns this story before they can read.”

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  Ygrain huffed with annoyance.

  “We don’t have dragons in Eiren, princeling. Till I came here, Dragon Veneration was only a tale my mother and brothers would regale us with during feasts.”

  Ygrain smiled faintly.

  “We would laugh at the willingness of Imperials to worship the first thing they came across that they couldn’t enslave,”

  There was an awkward silence, and for a moment Ygrain wondered if she had misspoke.

  “Man stands in the place where the heavens meet the earth,”

  Kairava said the words like a well-remembered proverb, and clutched at a string of beads which emerged from under the folds of his tunic.

  “They’re more gods than we are, it's close enough for most,”

  “But why follow them at all?”

  Kairava thought about this.

  “My mother once said that the High Wyrms gave humanity guidance; they laid a righteous path for man to follow. A life lived with Wisdom, Truth, and Compassion.”

  Kairava and Ygrain stood, quiet and alone on the soft earth of the lakeshore.

  The prince bent at the waist, and bowed deeply to the lake in slow, steady succession.

  After the third bow he flopped backwards onto the sand.

  Ygrain followed suit.

  They lie there staring at the distant moon. Side by side and bathed in its beautiful pale blue light.

  “Thank you. For trying to save me.” She said quickly.

  Kairava shook his head ruefully.

  “I didn’t do anything. We still got caught.”

  “Well, you tried.”

  The prince sighed softly.

  “You got us out of there and away from...whatever that thing is. Thank you for that too.”

  She glanced at Rava. He nodded slowly, eyes distant.

  “You’ve seen it before?”

  He nodded, expression grave.

  “Men broke into the palace when I was a boy, a lot like today. They overwhelmed the guard. Killed the servants. But it didn’t stop.” Rava shivered.

  “They didn’t want gold, or captives. They just kept killing. Blood covered the walls in sheets. And then Slyke was there…”

  “He was too late for my mother. My uncle and my little cousins.” He hung his head.

  “But he ‘saved’ me.”

  “What...he does...”

  Ygrain was at a loss for words to describe the horror of it.

  “I’ve seen death in war...I’ve watched men die before, be killed. By the Fire, just hearing it, what he did to those men? It was...it was-“

  Her voice became more hurried and frantic with each breath.

  The horror of listening to those men die.

  It wasn’t a fight she had heard, it was a game.

  A pack of mice against a howling tiger.

  And that tiger was always watching her.

  She felt cold thinking about it.

  Kairava’s warm hand on her shoulder steadied her. She looked over to find his face twisted with worry.

  “You’re ok now.” he said softly, his demeanor suddenly changed.

  “Take it and leave it back there,”

  He pointed back at the trailhead.

  Ygrain shook her shoulder loose from his reassuring grip.

  “Is that what you do? Put it all over there, hide out here until the world goes away?”

  “The world doesn’t ever go away, I don’t think. It’s just…quieter here, isn’t it?”

  He smiled warmly at her and Ygrain wondered how this could be the same nervous princeling she had come to know.

  His manner, his speech, his whole personality seemed so different under the light of the silvery moon.

  “...maybe.” She admitted, enjoying the cool breeze on her skin.

  “It is,” he cackled.

  Rava ran his hands over a small pendant hanging from a silver chain, a small tear-shaped gemstone as blue as his eyes thumbed delicately between his fingers.

  Ygrain was silent for some time, gathering the courage to ask what gnawed at her insides.

  “Why?” she asked, Kairava’s face furrowing in confusion.

  “Why’d you try to rescue me? I mean, you and I, we’re at war. You know that don’t you?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “No we aren’t.” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Yes, we are! Our peoples, our parents are out there slaughtering one another as we speak!” She groaned.

  For the first time, Ygrain wondered if she were doing the right thing lying there with the boy who would one day hold her chains.

  “Soooo, you’re saying we should be slaughtering each other too?” Rava tsked.

  “This isn’t some sodding joke, Rava!”

  “...I know, I’m sorry.” he sighed deeply.

  “This place doesn’t feel like home anymore. All the life, the light, the joy, it's all gone. There used to be music here, and laughter. Family.”

  “That doesn’t answer my-”

  “We are the entire House of Raich. Me, my aunt, and my father.”

  “When my mother died he left, for almost a year. And when he returned he was different, cold. He wouldn’t even look at me. All his attention turned to strengthening Guhran, and his punishments for failure became more...creative,”

  Ygrain listened with mounting horror, she looked at the boy now, dark eyes heavy under bags, words thick with well-hidden hurt, his body practically sinking into the earth for all the weight on his shoulders.

  Chained to a House, a bloodline that long ago had forsaken him.

  He was a prisoner too, of a sort.

  “Why don’t you leave? Just run away?”

  He laughed dryly.

  “I am the crown-prince of Guhran, the mightiest military power in the Empire. They wouldn’t let me get far.”

  “Is that why you’re so obsessed with dragons? You want to fly out of here?” she asked jokingly.

  He didn’t answer at first, merely staring blankly back.

  “I don’t know, maybe.” he admitted with a sigh of resignation.

  “You know you still haven’t answered my question. Why did you come for me, Rava?”

  “Because…I’m lonely, and I didn’t want you to go.”

  The words came out with a shudder.

  “I have Bala, and Laurent, but... they’ll always be more beholden to me as my servants than as my friends. All of them here, Gadhar, the staff, the guards, the foreign ministers and country counts. They fear me, or they want something from me. And I saw you there that first day, surrounded and alone, and I thought—- maybe she could use a friend too?”

  “I don’t know what to say...”

  “Thanks is good”

  “...Thanks,”

  “Mhm. I know it's not any kind of consolation, but I’m sorry. You should be at home, with your family.”

  “...I think I’m lonely too,”

  The words escaped Ygrain throat in a raw voice too soft to be called a cry.

  Rava was silent beside her.

  “Fires. I miss him,” she said, choking on her words.

  “Your brother?”

  Kairava’s voice was gentle, calming.

  “Yes...Uhtren.”

  “What is he like?”

  “He’s gone now. Forever. What does it matter?”

  “Hmm. If he were truly gone, I don’t think you would miss him so much,”

  “Here-” he patted the soft earth, his eyes sweeping once across the entire valley,

  “-is for remembering.”

  “Remembering what exactly?” she said, eyebrows raised.

  “When things...were different,”

  His face and posture relaxed, as his mind took him to warmer days.

  “To better days,” Ygrain said, slipping her fingers between his.

  Eyes locked on the luminous crescent above.

  “To better days,” he mirrored, shifting slightly closer.

  “I’m going to get us out of here Rava, both of us. I swear it.”

  “Okay.” he said quietly.

  He held her hand tighter, their fingers curling together like keys and locks.

  “I’m not going to leave you behind.”

  And there they remained through the night, even unto sleep.

  Lying on their backs, listening to the soft waves of the lakeshore, hands entwined.

  And somewhere inside them, a fire began to burn.