Hope

The last of both human and dragonkind stand against the darkness together

Image by Josch13 from Pixabay

The flames burning in Fedyth’s eyes banked to embers and her lips curled in satisfaction as she watched her enemy burn from the inside out and his grey corpse crumble to ash onto the stone beneath them before spreading her wings and taking to the skies to continue her watch. She scanned the horizon for threats to this last bastion of dragon and humankind. Threats to her queen and her eggs, the first in a century. The last hope of dragonkind.

Her human partner grunted in satisfaction as he stroked her ridges. He too understood the importance of those eleven eggs. The hope of the dragons—and of the kingdom of his king. So did their enemy.

Fedyth roared her defiance toward the border, daring the necromancers to send another dark prince to challenge her. To challenge any of the remaining twelve. So few to guard a kingdom from the evil that encroached. So few to hold back the darkness. But soon, their numbers would nearly double. And if…she tried to burn the thought away. She must focus on her queen.

But Fedyth could not help but hope. The curse that had gripped her kind even as their numbers had dwindled had been broken. How or why, she did not know. But hope burned within her. She and her queen were the last female dragons in existence. The last hope for dragonkind and for human survival.

A great bellow sounded behind her as Hiryur and his rider approached, hours early to relieve her watch. She banked and raced to intercept him, her great heart pounding, her fire rising to match both hope and fear. Only news of great import could have brought him so soon.

Hiryur’s rider shouted to her own, even as Hiryur’s thought came to her. The first egg has hatched. A blue female. She is strong. She is Phoenix. Dragons will rise again. Fedyth roared her joy. But her mate was not finished. You are relieved of duty. The queen knows you bear eggs. You can no longer be risked. Return to the keep.

Fedyth took one look back toward the horizon, fighting her instinct to stay—to protect. Her duty now lay in the protection of her young. She sent a mental caress to her mate, then turned her wings toward home.

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I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy lately. The first line of this story came to me spontaneously. The rest grew from imagining a refusal to quit, even as inevitable doom approached, and then, a spark of hope.