181: When Shadows Walk

181: When Shadows Walk
\[Carnelia\]

Ona is gone.

My Sister Queen. My best friend. My dearest confidant and the one person in this crazy world I knew would always be there for me during times of need.

A world without Ona doesn't make sense.

I refuse to live in a world without her. If she cannot be here with me, I do not want to be here without her.

As the darkness pours from my soul to encircle me in a cloud of death, I see her smiling face the first time she called me "Little Sister" even before I knew I was Primus' mate, or even what that would mean. I think of all of her tales of adventure from her life as a pirate and the way she taught me how to dance, so I could fall in love with her brother.

When Primus was gone, she was the one to teach me how to be a dragon, how to control my body and my abilities, and how to wield them as a weapon to protect those I love.

"Someone stop her!" I hear a voice around the edges of my shadow. But it is too late, it has already been released into the world.

"Xane!" Thalan shouts at his assistant pointing in the direction of the beast as it bounds from the room, a creature made of shadow, flame, and anguish. "Do not let anyone near it, if the nightmare touches you it will eat your soul."

His words are so dramatic I can't help but cackle as I lie on my back staring up at a ceiling of polished shell and bone. The depth of my grief is so great that on the day my fallen sister brings forth life, I bring forth a cloud of death. This isn't the world I left behind.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this world is the dream.

I can hear the sounds of Kora working frantically to bring my beloved Ona back. But it is no use. Doesn't she see the darkness creeping in from the edges, waiting to devour us all?

Flowing robes quietly flow around me, whispering promises of peace.

"Time to rest." are the last words I hear as a gentle hand touches my temples and everything goes dark.

"Ona."

Gasping, I catch my breath, the world coming into focus. In my dream, I was a creature made of madness and nightmares, I felt a surge of power as sucked the soul from another dragon, his body limp and shriveled in my grasp. 

"That wasn't real," my heart is beating rapidly. "It can't be real, none of this is real."

"This is real," Thalan's smooth voice guides my eyes towards a window glowing blue with cold light. "As was your nightmare."

"And Ona? Did she?"

"I'll take you to her soon," he promises, not answering my question.

When I closed my eyes, I was in Kora's lab. The room had been warm, almost cloying, rich with the scent of blood mixed with the brine of the sea.

This room is dark, empty, and cold and smells of dry cool dust, the sound of crashing waves distant.

"We aren't in Undersea anymore," I observe.

Standing, I am clothed in a nightgown made of the gossamer fabric made of star-flower jasmine flax, or glimmer. Designed to protect me from the harmful power of the star stone. Walking across the room towards him, I gape in wonder as I peer out the windows.

This is not home. This place is like nothing I've ever seen before. Instead of trees and sky, I am surrounded by rock studded with glowing crystals of bright blue and lavender. Several tall grow from the solid stone and I realize they are crystals shaped into spired homes, connected with slender translucent bridges. Below us is a long, flowing river reflecting the bioluminescent glow from insects, creatures, and starflower jasmine that grows aggressively along every outer surface.

"What is this place?" I gasp in wonder as a flock of birds with glowing wingtips flutter past, chittering at one another gleefully before landing on a large crystal that branches out like a tree. "How is this place possible?"

"Welcome to my home, niece. This is Elfholm and you are always welcome here."

While I am grateful for his welcome and glad to see a world that so few other than the moon dragons themselves get to see, something about his words worries me.

"Tell me, uncle," I turn to face him. "Why am I here."

"It wasn't safe for you to be anywhere else."

"For whom?"

"For everyone," he clarifies, resting his hands on my shoulders. "You were out of control and I needed more support. So I took you to the only place I knew I could keep you and everyone else safe. And it is good I did because it took three of our most powerful scientist-priests to stabilize your mind."

Stabilize my mind?

The memory of darkness overwhelming everything clouds my vision. Taking long, deep breaths, it is several moments before I can blink away the sensation of falling through nothingness.

"You were lost in the space between worlds," as he speaks, my mind shows me visions of darkness and light swirling and churning, destroying and creating new life. "We were lucky to get you back before you could unleash more primal darkness."

Releasing primal darkness? "The shadow creature in my dreams--it wasn't a dream, was it."

"No dear niece," he confirms. "The shadow you dreamed was quite real. Too real."

"This doesn't make sense," I shake my head, pulling back the covers and sitting up straighter. "How can any of this be possible?"

"Tell me, niece. Are you a universal dragon?"

My blood chills as I meet his gaze. Only a few people know that secret, and one of them lay dying in a pool of her own blood just before the darkness overwhelmed me. How did he discover the truth? Ona wouldn't have said anything to him. We decided from the start that the truth of my abilities would be too dangerous for others to know.

"Who told you?"

"You just did," his shoulders sag with sorrow. "Although I had a suspicion. Universal dragons are so rare, that I didn't think of the possibility until it was too late. When I scanned you in the dream state, you seemed to be the one controlling the nightmares. You were shaping the world around you and all the events that affected you."

"If I could control the world around me, why would I make myself into a simple barmaid instead of a queen or a god?"

"Dreams usually have a reason, but the reasons often don't make sense."

He started pacing back and forth, his hands behind his back as he told me about all the dangers that come with being a universal dragon. "Now that you've accessed your father's ability overshadow, trained as you are from the dream state, keeping your mental state stable will be essential. You can bring nightmares to life. This is not unlike the abilities of our foremothers who dreamed this world into existence for us all."

Seeing my confusion, he pulled an old dusty book from the shelf.

"The ability to access the shadows like you did is a shadow dragon trait. Your father, my brother, had that skill. But the ability to change those shapes into something tangible, something with a life of its own--that's a very real skill indeed. One that hasn't been seen since the times of Carnelia the Great." The cover of the book is one I know fairly well as it was the first book I learned how to read. "I am assuming you are familiar with this tale?"

I nod in confirmation.

"Have you ever wondered what happened before? Where Oestre and her Shadow drake mate traveled from.?"

The story tells the story of a traveler and her mate who came to this world and laid their clutch. The first dragons. Most dragons treat this origin story as a myth, or a fantasy, a story to teach children about the way things are. Ona had been the one to show me that it was a history of sorts, a retelling of the foundations of the master lines from which all other dragon varieties diverge,

"What if I were to tell you that Oestre had no mate?" He pulls out another book, one bound in black fabric and sewn with silver thread. "That the mother of us all was herself a universal dragon. A lone traveler from another universe who dreamed this realm into reality."

Bringing the book to a table he opens it to reveal a wondrous illustration. Etched in metallic ink, it shows a beautiful golden dragon surrounded by shadow.

"Oestre wasn't the first dragon. She was the last one," he reads the symbols on the edge of the pages, a language I do not recognize. It isn't Ancient Celestial, or the language of the sun dragons, but something else.

"If she didn't have a mate," I wonder aloud. "Then how did she birth the first clutch?"

"She dreamed them into being," he explains. "The void itself was her lover. She crafted him from the primal darkness, much like you crafted that nightmare. Now come," he holds out his hand. "It's time I show you your sister."

Taking his hand, I let him lead me into the blue-lit hallway beyond.