“Where are we?” The feeling of strange sickness subsided almost immediately after we stepped abreast through the threshold of the vortex. Our arrival silent as the derelict hall grander than our Grand Cathedral’s. Eight sharp corners framed the seven windows bereft of mosaiced windows, before each corner apart from the eight, seven statues of infants stood on the pedestals hewn from marble or granite, I could not be sure as time pillaged their splendor. Each infant distinguished only by their expressions.

  A prideful stared at us with a searing expression, followed by a lovely one with sharp ears, a snout like nose with a maternal countenance, another of distressing joy bordering on madness, a calm and wizened stared almost behind on the left side of the entrance door still standing sturdily. A stern, austere whose visage appeared emaciated, gloomy under the heavy shroud draped over it stood further right, and the last full of life manifested in a warm smile almost like the seconds, but not quite. Though there were one more, staring at us, completing this awful scenery of ruin.

  “Where we not meant to be yet” My gaze remained engrossed by the statues.

  A statue of a triplet, conjoined twins–adult unlike the seven infants–with the outermost two reaching out with their long, draconic arms, the sole feature besides their gaping maws on their eyeless, bald heads. The middle remained stoic, arising as if he was the victor of some vague battle, its head inclined down at us, its sightless gaze I could feel pervading my soul and ego. “But here we are after all. So please tell me, if you know it.”

  “Everything shall be clear in due time I promise.” Sigi answered and slid his fingers around mine, then we vanished from this derelict place of a distant past.

  *****

  Stepping out, I found myself once more alone. Was he just a phantom of my mind formed to guide me into the next dream? His firm grasp around my hand, the coldness and the warmth that leaked from it in tandem felt too real, I am unsure of the truth. And for now, it won’t matter as I found myself surrounded by the remains of more familiar alabaster columns of marble. Deep shadows, violet tints dimmed their radiance.

  Eerily, they reminded me of Isocrates’s home, a few small rooms connected with a narrow corridor where at best, two people could walk comfortably. Or well, at least one of them had to falter in their tracks and give way by courtesy.

  Only thing which was amiss–the ceiling. Strangely, I found the gloom hanging above and stretching as far as I could see. Soothing. Likewise, the shadows dancing around in the corners, peeking in the empty windows seemed congenial. The debris of glass, stone and bones filled me with joy and I could not help but grin and saunter jovially when I at last decided to stop inhaling the fresh air speckled by dusk, and head out to the streets to inspect and learn where I am right now. What this ruin may have been as it feels so familiar to me. As if I… we walked its streets myriad times before. Darkness reigned before the old dawn, so shall before the new.

  These are… or were… or will be the streets of Luth-Astaril I walked masqueraded as another. I could not hold in the queer chuckle that broke forth me, my only company the dead wind blowing against the decaying marble. But I do remember all those collapsing structures, decorated by slithering cracks, vague silhouettes of people burned onto them as if a torrent of flames swept through and in their last moments sought their last respite on the cold, crumbling walls. No bones remained here; these vagrant winds of change must have blown them away. This was their sacrifice for the new world we shall usher in.

  How peculiar. I always imagined that such places would be pervaded by the baleful, malodorous scent of dusk, but here I sense none. As a substitute, a sweet scent danced in the air, filled my lungs with the aroma of hope and renewal. And as I am dancing along with it, searching for anything, for anyone to guide me, I glanced on vines sprouting beneath the marble, widening the gaps and cracks as they crawled, marched towards the darkened world and blossomed their bewitching flowers smiling towards the eternal gloom. Is this what soils my mood from its proper response towards the doom of my people, my city. From one’s death, another shall sprout as was whispered by the Night when the first beast laid down and another rose.

  This question must wait. As with any, it shall be answered at the proper time as brother Angura always said. I wonder how he would react if Septurrion showed him the sight of our decaying home, where only gloom rules. Time to focus. Where to go. Where to go. Possibly my best chance of passing back to reality or to the next dream is where it all began for me. At the Cathedral. I pray that the bridges remained intact, mostly intact.

  As if the Deossos heard my prayers in this morose place, I found the bridge dedicated to The Almodo still connecting the two sides. At least it did until I reached the center point. An abrupt urge faltered my steps and like hooks connected to a chain, biting into my shoulders pulled me back just as the marble gave in and plummeted into the abyssal chasm below. I was wheezing for the first time, my heart was beating as if it wanted to break free from the hold of my ribs, and perspiration painted my skin. I was freezing. The first sky the old dawn painted in golden, the new sky shall birth the blackened dawn.

  Upward, the crumbled Cathedral crawled towards me, shrieking silently as it still felt the pain of its womb shattering. A crib it became in which six wings furled onto a massive form. Their edges exhaling utter darkness tainting the air, devouring what little light survived. Upon my gasp, they unfurled and a tail swept the crib into utter desolation, then two, four and six arms spread, reaching the skies like an infant stretching their arms. It was a dragon regal and modest, bestial and reformed, beautiful and horrific as its head turned, the face shrouded by the darkest of shadows, vanquished not by the light of numerous eyes growing upon the gargantuan, horned head. Each shimmered in the dim shade not of our world. Even the Night shall covet their presence.The Beauty of the Void adorned in the mantle of Dawn.

  Desirous fear dominated my steps towards the mighty dragon, a humming sweet song uttered by innumerable shadows taking vague silhouettes all around and beneath the crumbled bridges. Their song melodious woven from morose tones, yet a few slipped beneath, bewitching to take hold of me once more. Tones of promises towards power and possibilities; of a great peril avoided, the world truly saved from its doom we all marched unwillingly towards, blinded by Fate. And there was myriad more I could not comprehend even as much as I did with the former two. It was the strangest of hymn which ever graced my long ears.

  Fear and desire it continued to maintain in my heart and soul. I wished to retreat, to hide in the ruins of my home, seek shelter where Dusk ruled seemingly unabated. Yet I could not compel my legs to flee, frozen by desire to hear more in hopes of comprehending the whole piece as I envisaged the Tonal Runes the hymn must have been written in. “Come, it is not yet time for you to understand.” I struggled against the hold of Sigi, departure shifted into torture as he exerted a greater force then mine, drawing me away from the Dragon and the umbral choruses.

  “My place is here Sigi. Leave me be, I shall follow once knowledge is mine.” I pleaded, but he heeded not my words, even as tears streamed down upon my sharp cheeks.

  He wrung me to face him, his striking face and eye soothing this strange aching in my whole being. “I promise, you shall know, that it shall deliver its promises unlike your people.” His wrapped hands touched my cheeks, wiping madness and tears from them. “But be patient, for all our sakes.”

  “I shall.” I uttered, feeling my sanity being mended by the dark eye with a deep and rich, bluish-purple searing pearl at its center. “Thank you!” I uttered. Even after the vortex enveloped each of us, I took not my eyes off, fearing the worst for losing sight of him once more.

  *****

  Without realizing, my libs trembled in closure as the weightlessness of this strange reality swept through me like mild waves slapping the shores. And without realizing, my arms no longer dug into his hands, and my empty, needless apologies were repeated endlessly to no one. I did sense the approach of the end, but instead of tormented by dread, I was soothed by the perception of death never reaching me here, in the land of outer intelligences. “Open your eyes my Pallid Orchid. There is naught to be feared.”

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  I heeded his words I longed to hear for decades. Deep, regal yet also kind and caring. But instead of looking into his eyes, I found myself in the rigid north–on a battlefield. Or to be honest, a vast field where people and the 19th Legion fought bitterly. Snow fell from the sky, rinsed by unseen hands; dewed corpses laid mangled, lacerated, torn in half, beheaded, smoldering, ice peeking through their blemished skin, even their armor through holes decreed by blade or spear. Their faces all seemed peaceful as if in the very last moment, their fears, their agonies, their worries all faded like knowing that the nightmare was at last over. Every age begins by and with the Decree of Dusk, Twilight.

  As I walked amongst the hushed cadavers, the realization of my own height, my snow-white hands and feet registered on top of the black leathery sheets wrapping around them, embellished with ivory trimming, etchings, symbols of the Dusk dancing on the supple, buttery smooth surface absorbing the light gracing it. I felt the soft kiss of refined silken on my whole body, felt as the skirt segment tenderly beaten my thigh and ankle as the wind slipped beneath its warm confines. “Weep not my dear, they all valiantly earned their last respite”

  I wept not for them, nor out of sorrow for all these who could not witness what we desired for them. I wept out of joy, yet I knew not yet why as he manifested.

  It was Sigi, but older, draped in fine and dim garments fit for a monarch with the world’s future on their shoulders, and for one who is not afraid from doing what is right, even knowing the true cost of it. His dark eye fluttered, brimmed ever more gracefully, lit by his conviction and by love, gazing towards the south stretching before us. His long, hair gathered regally and as dark as the starless midnight sky flittered softly as the cold winds swept through it, kept in line only by his crown of bones, and as I wrapped my fingers around his, I noticed no longer were they the hands of a hopeful, meek boy, but were the hands of a dragon who guides the world from doom to prosperity. Now and till night claims eternity, we shall guide the world from order to chaos, from chaos to order.

  We were equal in height and power, the osseous filigreed armor of the Host cinched upon the black and supple leather draping my form, the large segmented plates overlapping conjoined and embossed with softly gaunt bones and the skull of a dragon with three eyes upon its long fleshless head, its horns a stretched, tapering crescent heading towards my collarbones. On my back, I felt the familiar plate I knew as my own face, similarly embossed with bones and the ridged spine of a dragon, similarly plates of uneven proportions slithered along the shoulders, slightly rising upright towards the edges, whilst a vambrace and clawed gauntlets covered my hands. Right wrapped around Sigi’s, the left holding a magnificent blade inlaid with gems shimmering in the soothing shades of Night and the gray tint of Time.

  Then as I stared at the stretching landscape of snow and spring afar, I was forced from my body, upon the blood ornated snow. I looked at my own diamond lined visage, adorned with hair white as the snow, red at the rims as presently. Though gathered tightly into a highly reaching tail, braided like the proud warrior maidens of fallen Virdr. And my scales no longer shimmered in the brilliance of every color, shifting along as light graced upon them. They gathered to the edges of my face and neck, and no doubt below the metal, leather and silken, whilst between the upper segments of my smoothly flowing, thick sidelocks, they formed a lone, vertically stretching eyes where flesh parted and Her gaze pierced into my soul. Her booming voice followed.

  “Come and take Our hand!” “Take it and you shall have true Authority over your own fate and the world itself.”

  Vague ideas floated about my mind, all tantalizing and lifting my hand towards hers. But I also realized the price of it, and I faltered halfway through, and I looked at myself with discontent. A chuckle, quite empty but mimicking a hearty tone rippled through the faux vista erected by this place and whom I suspected as its ruler.

  “I told you my friend, she would not accept that easily.” Came the voice of a subtle rasp, a hushed gravelly one adorned with a velvety weight making it almost irresistible to not feel adored to its pallid owner.

  Faint, almost inaudible whispers accompanied the words, each myriad different. Some youthful, others old and weak. And there he stood, blending into the snowy picture of the vision or dream, robes as white as a pale corpse, edges blackened either by themselves or the shadowy, inky blisters crawling upon his quasi-cadaverous flesh stretched thinly over the bone (if he possessed one at all). Yet his face remained eerily alluring, and like Dumath’s, an example of androgynous beauty.

  He stopped, reaching a hand out with a congenial smile, not at all honest. “What is the price of that?” I asked, remaining still and he chuckled once more.

  “Trust, I believe is the cost.” He answered jestingly, I think. “Come, you are equal to us, in the arts of survival twice already.” I resisted at first, but that voice and the face’s combination made me take the hand covered in swirling, inky shadows like blisters marring his cadaverous flesh.

  “Why have you brought me here?” I asked arising, meeting the familiar eyes of the culprit responsible for the present state of the capital. The chaos, the death and the end of a peaceful existence. That much, I was sure of staring into those white pearls battered by the darkness along their complete circumferences. This time he chuckled not, but the wide, thin lips hanging on the precipice of shadows remained curved.

  “I have not.” He leaned over and looked at Dumath who stood impatiently, silent not of her volition I could gather. “I wished not to throw so much at you in such a short time, hence why I sent little Sigi.”

  I too gazed at Dumath, and recalled all the suffering she brought upon me and my people. Though whether it happened or not, I felt my blood boil and wanted nothing more than to extinguish him. “It is a price too great, for now.” The words came voluntarily. She may have assumed a form I may possibly possess, as I still saw Isocrates perish, turn gold and to dust, and I fent the meager pain in my heart.

  “I deny that not. What I am seeking from you is to betray your people, your family and a short, but pleasant future. Sacrifices I expect not you shall make easily, but I can promise, the hard choices shall lead to a better future, one where the weight of the crown shall not flatten your happiness.” I listened, contemplating if he could read my mind. For a moment, my anger nearly took the better of me, but the limits imposed upon mortals in places like this ceased my efforts to obliterate Dumath. I believe so, at least.

  “What about the people? Do they have the choice.” He smiled; I recoiled a little.

  “Only a few possess the power to choose.” He answered without hesitation, looking around at frozen corpses. “All the men and women of the world have their rigid entrances, and their shifting egresses. That which shouldn’t concern you. It should not concern any mortal at all, as it is the task of the Solemn Shepherd.”

  “Who are you?” The question came at last, what bothered me the most of my illustrious benefactor who provided the Black Book as I now realized.

  “Grimslaukh, Envoy of the Night and architect of a new dawn.” As he bowed upon his introduction, I chuckled at his second title.

  “An architect whose tools are death and destruction?” I asked, almost mockingly but he minded me not.

  “Life came from nothingness dear Aurelithae.” He smiled. “But our time is up. Now, it is the time for awakening.” He flicked his hands and weightlessness took me as I hurled into the darkness, before light slit across the nothingness.

  *****

  Soft murmurs parted from Aurelithae luscious lips stretching wide across her lovely countenance. The lids stirred over her eyes, slowly retreated back to their dim place, revealing his two slits of draconic eyes shimmering lively if a little tired, staring up at the soft fabric serving the roof of her canopied bed. Her slender form beneath its spreading, silken cocoon stirred and quivered little, and as she propped herself Aurelithae gazed with gladness at the relieved brother of hers.

  Albrion remained calm, took silent, deep breaths puffing his ripped, half-exposed chest adorned with peculiar patterns of black scales. He approached slowly from whence he stood vigilantly two years since he carried her into the soft cradle, where pale rays shone on him, he slowly draped in tender shadows as his pace gradually increased, contending with happiness as she at last awakened from her seemingly endless slumber. Albrion measured his pace as he sat at the precipice, deepening the soft fabrics spreading far and wide.

  “Welcome back!” All he could muster to not ruin his own image before Aurelithae, whose lips curled into a weak smile as the barrier collapsed and she was assailed by a great hunger. Albrion leaned over and hugged her tight, and she reciprocated weaker.

  Words choked and Aurelithae coughed as her throat parched within the next few seconds. “Hold on.” Albrion released his grip and rushed, calling for the handmaidens and Akaerith who awaited not far ahead. Whilst waiting, Aurelithae noticed a reflection of herself, sitting gleeful upon the desk where his brother awaited him for years. Pale light fallen upon her form, and she shushed her before vanishing into the air, as a chilly gust entered her room on the thirteenth day of Dhaektria.