chapter 2

Everything was a dark blur, moving, not moving, and spinning yet strangely solid. I was in the great hall still, I could see my parents, the king, the queen sitting in her throne quietly. I saw everyone but they all were frozen still in place. And they all wore odd masks, faces not their own. Some masks were vivid and stood out in the black outline of the hall. Some of them were silver, shimmering with empty eyes. Alanine’s mask was a dark metal with shimmering sapphire eyes, the mouth stretched inhumanly downwards in a wicked frown. I could hear her heart beat in an uneven tempo, though the sounds of the voices of everyone else made it hard to discern what was coming from whom. Then with a loud piercing sound, I turned round to face someone, a stranger, who glimmered in the darkness. The visage was that of a god, silver hair that floated in the air as if under water, shimmering gold garments that flowed through a strange wind that whirled around him. There the god reached his hand out towards me, but as sudden as he appeared he was thrown back, thrown back by a dark entity, shadowy and stark against the moving blackness of the hall. The dark form threw itself on me, and pain wracked throughout my body, every inch of my flesh felt as if it were being burnt by an invisible flame.  I screamed, but couldn’t hear myself. Again I screamed, my ears met with an overpowering silence that dug into me. I could barely see the god anymore, though there was a faint glimmer. The pain became a stench, a feeling of death hung over me like a damp blanket, suffocating me. I felt as if I were dead for a moment, as the pain and smell stopped rather suddenly. I became blind, and saw nothing but a deep darkness for a long time, before a heat and warmth hit against the back of my neck like fire. But instead of burning me like the evil flame had before, it was soft and soothed me, lulling me into sense of safety. Then I could hear again, hear myself breathe. The deep darkness began to fade and I saw the glimmering visage of the god once more, though his face was covered in a bright light that blinded my eyes if I glanced there for even a moment.

“Atwyn” a voice rumbled through my mind like that of distant thunder. “Atwyn…awaken.”

Warmth, washed over me like a summer wind, clean and soft. Yet in the back of my mind I could still feel the power of the shadow. Even though I felt new, and healed I still could feel death hanging in the air like a faint fog.

“Atwyn!”………………………………………………..

I awoke in the infirmary, with a cool cloth on my forehead. I went to sit up, but fell back as my head felt like it weighed a ton. Gasping a bit, I closed my eyes remembering the dream I had. Though the word, dream didn’t fit. The vision I had, was much too vivid, too real to have been nothing but a dream. And unlike a dream, it stayed fresh in my mind, stayed fresh and vivid as if it had only happened moments ago. I opened my eyes again and could see that I was alone, in the dim lighted place. That meant that Sir Toby was just about done healing to have been let go. And I was the only one there, no doctor or healer in sight. I breathed in slowly and back out calming my mind before I tried once again to raise my head. This time I was able to sit up, though my head began to throb as I did so. Slowly I realized that there was something…wrong, or at least different. The long black hair I once had, had now become a shimmering silver as it fell down past my shoulders. Pain throbbed in my chest, and I grasped at it, having trouble breathing for a moment before it passed as suddenly as it had come. Something was wrong. I stood, leaning heavily against the wall for support as my legs felt like jelly. With ragged breaths, I dragged myself out of the infirmary and into one of the spirally marble halls. The moment my hands touched the marble walls, I noticed that there were huge cracks in the stone, that had not been there before. As I went further, I found the carpets that usually adorned the floors were worn and threadbare. As I made my way through the more traveled hallways, I saw the once large window that was inlaid into the wall, was smashed and bits of it littered the floors. I stopped midway through a hall as I saw a fallen form in iron on the floor, unmoving. What…was this…? I hobbled to the form and went to turn it over and fell back onto my bum as I saw that there was just a skeleton that rattled within the armor. Oh gods…oh gods…I felt myself drifting into shade.

Again I opened my eyes, this time I was in the fencing courtyard, standing in the place I had found Sir Toby, bloodied and beaten. Yet the stench had returned again. I turned and saw that the courtyard was cracked in several places, and there was fire in the distance. A fire that was quickly spreading, and heading my way. I had little time to respond before the fire was spewn, and engulfed me. Yet strangely the fire was not painful, though I could feel the intensity of the heat that wrapped around me. My silver eyes widened when I looked to the sky, and saw the thing behind the flames. An immense pearly silver dragon, with rigged sharp bony wings hovered above me, flames escaping its majestic and deadly maw. Its eyes were a deep gold, much like a cat’s eye, that was locked on me. After a while the flames stopped flowing from its fanged mouth, and it landed on the court with a loud thud, that shook the ground. There it towered above me, five times as tall as me, and several more times as wide. The majestic beast lowered its head, exposing its dangerous spikes that ran down its long neck. It locked its eyes with mine, and I had the feeling though its face was so alien, that the dragon was grinning at me, though I wasn’t sure as to what it was smiling about. It huffed out smoke, that wrapped around me, yet wasn’t so thick as to suffocate. For a moment it seemed as if it spoke, though its massive maw didn’t move an inch.

Hold out your hand.

Shakily I reached out, fully aware that this dragon and with all its powers could easily kill me in moments. But instead of it taking a bite out of my arm, it leaned forward so that my hand rested against his massive snout. Its scales were both hot and soft to the touch, and with that simple touch I could feel its mind melding into mine, becoming one filled with both its experiences and my own. Atwyn, awaken now.