Dragonslayer, Inc.

Her skin was black-purple. She was emanating zero heat. When I grasped her wrist, I heard ice crystals crack.

I had found her after hours of searching. Machen and Steph had gone to fight Icithan, and they were doing a fine job. It hadn’t recovered much during its flight south. Sluggish and weak, it was arguably in worse shape than at the end of our last fight. I had gone home. It wasn’t hard to find the way. When I got there, I saw a structure that scarcely resembled the house I had grown up in. There was no roof. The roof was in twelve major and forty-two minor pieces that had been scattered like leaves in the wind. There were only two walls. The other two walls had been reduced to piles of rubble. There was ice on the floors and on the shelves and on Acady’s bed. Hers was the first bedroom I checked. After, I went into my bedroom. There was no bed. There was a shard of ice piercing the television screen. My Dragonslayer memorabilia was unrecognizable. The lightbulbs had shattered, and there was glass on the floor. I took a piece of glass and chucked it out a broken window. It flew in a perfect arc and landed in the filthy, trash-covered street.

I had come in my house to find Acady and my mother. Acady wasn’t there. To check, I called for her, but she didn’t answer, and I got woozy, so I stopped. I went into my mother’s room. It was worse than my room or Acady’s. The back wall was gone, and the ceiling had fallen in. It looked like a war zone. There had been a collection of glass figures on a shelf next to the west wall. When I was nine, I had been playing near in her room when I tripped on the carpet and slammed into it. A single figure had fallen and shattered. She raged at me like a demon from the underworld. Acady, of course, never broke anything. Now the shelf had suffered far worse than the clumsiness of a little kid. It had toppled over. Every figure had broken. There was one that had not been completely ruined, so I picked it up and set it on the back of the shelf.

It was only after careful inspection that I realized my mother was in that room. She was under the sheets. Her head was under a pillow, an old cotton pillow that had always been her favorite. The fan above the bed had crashed onto her stomach. I removed the pillow. Her face was purple, and her eyes were placid. She was dead. Removing the fan and the sheets, I propped her body up on the headboard. She was in her purple nightgown. It was stained with blood spots. Her sides had been punctured by ice crystals, and there was a wooden splinter from her door piercing her neck. I looked back at the door. It had split into four major panels and a pile of splinters. On top of the pile was the doorknob, lying there like a fat cherry on top of the world’s worst chocolate sundae. I grasped it in my hands and stuffed it into my pocket. I still have it. I can’t believe I’ve kept it through the years, but I don’t mind having it.

Giving my dead mother a last kiss on the cheek, I said to her, “I’m sorry I never got to tell you why I ran off. I hope you were proud of me. At least, I hope you knew where I was and what I was doing. I’m sorry I never got to say goodbye. I love you.”

Not wanting to linger, I sprinted out of my house and went looking for Acady. At first, I came up empty-handed. She wasn’t in any normal place. Returning to my house, I sat down in the middle of that filthy street, on top of a rock that used to be in a neighbor’s garden.

“She could be anywhere,” I whispered. “How am I supposed to find her? Let’s see.” I closed my eyes. This was a pleasant experience. With the warm air softly soothing my skin, I could pretend it was a normal day, but I couldn’t afford to pretend, so I opened them. “Icithan started its rampage before daybreak. That sounds right. Is it right? Yeah, it has to be. Mom was always up at the crack of dawn. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t Acady have been home too? It’s possible she was away on a school trip. I hope she was away on a trip. If not, she might have been at a friend’s house, but there’s no use pursuing that idea. I don’t know most of her friends, and I certainly don’t know where they live, and she’s such the social butterfly that she may have made a whole new bunch of friends since I’ve been gone. But where else could she be? It’s not like her to wander around at night… that is, unless she knew Icithan was coming and hid some place safe. But if that’s the case, why didn’t she wake Mom? Maybe she didn’t have the time. Anyway… where would she have gone? There’s not any place I can think of. Oh wait. There is one. I bet she’s there. It’s possible. I’m gonna check.”

I went to a cave carved out of a seaside cliff.

Acady was not a confrontational person. She could solve lesser problems, but when a great challenge came her way, she would become overwhelmed, and when she was overwhelmed, she would hide in this cave. It was her secret spot.

Whenever she went here, she would tell Mom and me she was going to a friend’s house. Mom always believed her, but one day, as she left, my instincts told me she was going somewhere else, so I followed her. This was after I had begun training, so I was stealthy, and she didn’t spot me. When she got to the clifftop, she started crying. I was about to come out to comfort her when she dried her eyes and hopped down a series of ledges to a cave I had never seen before. At first, I thought she was going to slip and fall, but then I realized she had done this many times before. I followed her, but I had a hard time getting down those ledges. Yes, cliffsides had been bothering me long before my journey. My thoughts turned from Acady’s safety to my own, but I managed to get down without serious injury.

My sister was at the back of the cave, curled into a ball. When she heard footsteps, she assumed they were Mom’s, and she said, “I know. I shouldn’t have done this. Sorry for lying to you. I promise I won’t ever come here again. I’ll go back right now. Please don’t kill me.”

“Relax. It’s me.”

“Oh.” She exhaled so deeply I thought a car had started. “Good to hear.”

We talked for an hour. She told me how she would go to the cave until she felt she should handle life. I told her I understood and said I wouldn’t tell Mom. She thanked me. That was one of the few times I felt genuinely close to Acady, like I understood her in a way that no one else did. We came out of the cave as better people. Twice since that day, I had come to this cave to see her. Today was the fourth time.

As I got closer, I became more confident that she was there. An incoming dragon attack would be enough to overwhelm anyone. Of course she would go to her cave. Additionally, Acady is a practical person- for example, she chose that cave as her hiding spot because it was close enough to home that she could go there easily but far enough from civilization that she would be left alone- and hiding there made sense from a practical standpoint as well. There is nowhere close to Natura that is as protected from dragon attacks.

Sure enough, she was there. When I called out to her, she didn’t say a word, but when I went inside, I heard her breathing. I trudged closer until I tripped over her. As I said at the start of this chapter, her body was giving off no heat. I thought I had tripped on a rock until her icy breath hit my face. She had survived, but she wasn’t going to survive much longer. Icithan refused to let itself die, but I refused to let my sister die. I emptied out my pockets. Their contents clanged onto the floor, including Ironwall’s matchbox, which was by this point mildewy and ripped at the edges. Taking a match out and striking it, I held it up to her face. For the first time since I left, I could see my sister’s face, and it was horrific. If she hadn’t been my sister, I would have left her for dead, but she was, so I picked her up, carried her out of the cave, and laid her on the sand.

It was high tide, and the crashing waves lifted her lower body up before setting it down as they retreated. The extent of her condition was laid bare. What hope I had held onto faded. She had already lost most of her fingers and toes, and when a big wave came rolling by, it almost dislodged her right arm. I couldn’t feel pain or sorrow. Ever since I saw my mother dead on her bed, I had been powered by one objective: save Acady. Now she was going to die, and I was profoundly, unspeakably empty.

“Don’t cry,” she said. Her voice was rocky and dull and hardly understandable. “Be happy. Please. For me.”

“Okay.” I tried to smile.

“I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.”

“Here I am.” I wish I had come up with a better response than that.

“There’s so much I want to show you. Too bad I’ll never get the chance.”

I could have told her she wasn’t gonna die, but what good would that have done? Instead, I responded, “There’s so much I want to tell you.”

“Then tell me. I’ll listen as I fade out.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yeah.”

I expected she’d hold on for a minute or so, but a quarter of an hour later, she was still listening. Talking fast, I got through the entire short version of our story up to the point where Icithan flew away. I was about to tell that part when she interrupted me and said, “Beat that dragon.”

“I will,” I said firmly.

“Good.” It was her last word. Her eyes flickered shut, and her breathing stopped, and her heart ceased to beat. I cradled her in my arms. A wave washed over my legs. I held her up to the sky. Rising out of the water was Mina. I wasn’t sure whether to hate it or love it, but it inspired me. Blowing a kiss to the horizon, I climbed up the cliff while holding onto Acady. It was a hard climb, but I had been through harder. When I finished, I set my sister on the clifftop with her head pointing toward the water and the moon. These days, I can’t look at Mina without thinking of Acady, not even for a second. Crossing my arms, I ran back toward Natura.

I had a promise to fulfill. I had a dragon to kill.

Machen and Steph had Icithan on its last legs when I arrived. Slapping me on the back, they asked me to finish the job. Pleasantly surprised, I took out Ironwall’s dagger. “Don’t you want the glory of being the one to kill Icithan?” I asked.

“We all killed it,” said Steph.

“I’m talking about being the one to deliver the final blow.”

“It doesn’t matter to me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “We’re tired. Bring home the ship, Coran.”

“Machen?”

“If you’re gonna be so hesitant, maybe you aren’t the best person to finish it off.”

“No.” I chuckled. “I’m sure I can handle it.”

They stepped back. Refocusing myself, I charged in. Icithan wasn’t moving. It roared at me, but its roar sounded like a weak cry. Blood was running from hundreds of places on its body. It was more dead than alive. I asked for Machen’s scimitar, and he threw it to me, and I stabbed Icithan in the stomach and throat until our nemesis was no more.

To be honest, it would have died without my help. I only expedited the process. When it was done, it purred and shut its eyes as if going to sleep. There was no last roar. There was no last cry. Putting one foot in front of the other, I climbed atop it and held the scimitar above my head, but as my eyes fixed upon the damage that had been caused, such a triumphant celebration seemed inappropriate, so I sat down on the corpse of this ancient creature and began to hum a tune.

I didn’t know the lyrics then, and I don’t know them now, but it’s a jaunty, spritely little song that Mom used to sing for Acady. It’s an old piece, hundred of years older than The Departing, but it doesn’t feel old, which I think is why Mom didn’t mind it. She learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, and I don’t know how far that chain stretches. When Acady got older, she started singing it herself, though about the time she turned ten, she forgot the lyrics and only hummed the tune. The original title of the song is Forest and the Sky, but I know it only as Acady’s Song.

My humming wasn’t the best, but Machen and Steph were moved. They didn’t know that my sister had died, but I told them after my performance. They offered their condolences, but their words didn’t really help. Just as the Southwesterners couldn’t understand our journey because they hadn’t journeyed with us, Machen and Steph couldn’t understand Acady or my relationship with her because they had never met her. What helped more was performing Acady’s Song. During the entirety of our journey north and our return trip south, I hadn’t once thought of the song, but the tropical weather of Natura brought it back to me. As Acady’s eyes faded, it went to the forefront of my mind. I never thought I would perform such a song after killing Icithan, but it was the right thing to do. As I hummed, I felt a bond with my sister, my mother, my home, and myself. During my journey, there were many times when I felt enthused or energized or eager, but this was the first time in months or years or possibly ever that I felt at one with who I was- everything I was- and what I had done- everything I had done.

It was a feeling surrounded by melancholy, but it was a heartfelt feeling nonetheless.