In her dream, the flames surrounded her again. Elenor hoped it was a dream, but the heat felt too real. The smoke was suffocating her.
“It will burn, it will burn!” her mother chanted.
Elenor couldn’t move. The fire seared her flesh, and she screamed as it sloughed off her bones.
“Elenor!”
The fire made its way to her immortal soul, engulfing it yet not destroying it, rendering her forever burning in the righteous fury of the flames.
“Elenor!”
Elenor jolted out of her nightmare. Soaked with sweat, she bolted upright, eyes darting around a royal room of stone and warmth. Scarlet curtains draped the four-poster bed that she was lying in. Stained-glass lancet windows beamed with the sun’s light in a sea of color across the wood floor. Between them crackled a fireplace.
She was inside a castle.
A servant entered, carrying a silver tray of fresh-baked bread, fruit, and mead. The sight and smell of food made Elenor’s stomach clench with hunger. As she adjusted in the bed, she remembered her twisted foot and found that it had been healed.
“Where am I?” Elenor asked.
“Queen Seerah insists you eat first,” the servant said.
Elenor didn’t argue with the servant, too weak and famished. The servant waited outside the door while Elenor ate and drank, and when she was finished, the servant retrieved the tray. A few minutes later, Seerah glided into the room, dressed in a slim, sleeveless red gown with a deep V-neckline, an intricate design of shimmering gold hugging her waist. Her brown eyes crinkled with joy, her olive skin glowing.
“Elenor,” she said.
Seerah reminded Elenor of a phoenix, graceful and beautiful, having risen from the ashes of a life that made the ex-witch burn with the desire to ignite the world.
The two shared a kiss of fire that consumed them both.
The Dragon Queen had been prophesied to turn every nation to dust. Men had feared her foretold power and attempted to beat and rape it out of her. Seerah was barren, but the prophecy had also claimed that the birth of her first child—a son—would inherit her power, and by a desperate intervention of the gods, he almost had. He had been destined to inherit every throne, every continent, every inch of the earth and oceans. He would have held sway over every people. The dragons would never defy the most powerful of their kin. Like nature itself, they cared not for right or wrong, but might.
The ingestion of a simple herbal mixture had spared the world, especially women.
“The Wildlands could not hide you from me,” Seerah said, pulling away, her fingers leaving Elenor’s curly hair. “Not for long. All of the world bows to the dragon.”
She stroked Elenor’s cheek, and she leaned in for another kiss that Elenor gladly accepted, though it was brief. Seerah frowned.
“But that is why I can only use such power to protect us,” she said. “I cannot be like men and conquer.”
Seerah left the bed and approached a lancet window, gazing into the colorful glass that depicted a legendary paradise.
“We will leave for Dragons Isle tomorrow,” she said, “where we will be safe and free—forever.”
Elenor had feared that the Dragon Queen had reconsidered saving the rest of the world.
“My coven is not safe nor free,” Elenor said. “So many other women and daughters, children… Boys raised to be monsters. We can’t forget them.”
“I’m afraid we can’t save everyone, my love,” Seerah said. “This world is not ours to change. The island can only hold so many.”
“What do you mean?” Elenor said. “This world is yours—ours! We can change everything. We can turn lead into gold. We can make mortals immortal. We can reach for the heavens and bring them down to the earth. This world could be the Seventh Realm. No longer would anyone have to suffer and die just to be rewarded temporary bliss.”
Seerah turned around, her eyes conveying a deep apology, hopelessness.
“Even with my dragons,” Seerah said, “we are outnumbered. We cannot save this world without utterly destroying it.”
Elenor wanted to protest. She thought of living her immortal life, delighting in once-forbidden love and the natural riches of the fabled Dragons Isle, and how countless others would not be as fortunate. Many would continue to be born, only to toil in sweat and blood for rulers that treated them like swine. Girls and women would continue to be silenced and impregnated against their will. Nobody would be free of pain and struggle until death, but even then, the Realms would be preparing souls for their next unpleasant lives. There was no true kindness here, in this world or after.
The only way was to burn it all down.
“Perhaps we must destroy everything,” Elenor said. “Was that not the prophecy?”
Seerah looked at her, aghast, then her face hardened. She returned to the bed and sat down beside Elenor without breaking eye contact.
“I am not a conquerer,” she said, “and neither are you. Domination—and the destruction it entails—is men’s game.”
“Then you would rather let monsters rule and destroy the world?” Elenor said. “You and I will be living better than kings while the rest are barely living at all. How will you sleep at night with such awareness, or will you simply put it out of your mind?”
Flames flickered in Seerah’s eyes, but Elenor wasn’t afraid.
“I will not fulfill such a terrible prophecy,” Seerah said. “We will take as many women and children as we can to the island, but we cannot take all.”
Elenor’s soul steeled itself, pushing her to get up and out of bed. Seerah followed, and the two faced off. Elenor held her lover’s gaze, unafraid of the soul-scorching flame in her eyes. She wanted to take Seerah’s draconic power, to absorb the prophecy herself and reshape the world into the paradise it could be.
“My coven needs me,” Elenor said. “I am leaving.”
Elenor headed for the doorway, but a wall of fire sprang up from the floor and blocked the exit.
“How will you save your coven?” Seerah said. “You have no magic.”
Elenor marched up to her and stopped sharply before the queen. She knew what kind of magic was needed to rescue her coven and would die trying to harness it.
“Then you will teach me the magic of the dragons,” Elenor said.
Seerah hesitated. “I cannot teach you. Only the dragons can—but I will not allow it.”
“Let me see Tytanea and Magron,” Elenor said. “Please, Seerah.”
“You risk your life as well as your soul, and I cannot trust you with such power if you manage to succeed.”
Elenor glared. Her throat constricted, tears stinging her eyes. She turned to the doorway. The wall of fire was still burning.
“I will find them,” she said, bracing herself and forcing down all fear, and she proceeded toward the fiery doorway.
“Elenor,” Seerah said. “Don’t.”
But Elenor ignored her, just as she ignored her survival instinct that screamed at her to get away from the intense heat.
“Stop!”
Elenor closed her eyes, stepping into the fire.
It didn’t burn.
Elenor opened her eyes. The flames weren’t touching her, as if she repelled them. She turned around, meeting Seerah’s hurt, betrayed expression. Preparing herself, Elenor expected to be met with the draconic wrath of the queen.
“If you truly wish to learn the dragon ways,” Seerah said, “I will take you to them.”
Dragons were not found in cold mountains nor hot deserts, as some people had believed, but among warm seas. When Seerah invoked them, Tytanea and Magron burst out of the waters and landed a short distance from her, shaking the ground beneath them upon contact. Tytanea’s iridescent scales glittered like opals while Magron gleamed like onyx in the sunlight. The giant, dignified creatures shook their wings of sparkling droplets and swayed toward the two women, mouths of dagger-like teeth half-parted.
As they drew closer, the dragons shared a glance, and Tytanea stopped as Magron continued and circled Elenor, as if he sensed what the human wanted. Elenor bowed in respect, but she didn’t speak.
“Please,” Seerah said, standing near Tytanea, “reconsider this, Elenor.”
Elenor gazed into the black dragon’s violet eyes.
“There is no reconsidering, my queen,” she said.
For a moment, Elenor thought Seerah would attempt to stop her or call back the dragon, but she stepped further away with Tytanea. The further she went, the higher fear rose in Elenor’s throat, threatening to take over. But she remembered her coven. She remembered the women and children who were suffering. The world needed to change, and she would rather welcome death if it served as a catalyst than hide away in a utopian bubble forever.
Magron took a deep breath and Elenor stood strong and unmoving, nails digging into her palms, drawing blood.
The dragon’s mouth opened in a roar of blinding blue fire that devoured Elenor. She screamed, the heat burning her flesh and soul.
“Burn, burn!” she heard her mother say. “Burn, you witch!”
The pain was unlike anything that Elenor had ever felt. All she could do was scream until the fire stole her voice.
Then, nothing.
Elenor woke up in the woods, under the same canopy the night her powers had been taken. The sky was not clouded, but clear and blue. Had she been dreaming?
She gasped. The trees and earth were glowing with strange currents and shimmering colors, rippling out, interlacing with one another. The longer she observed them, the more she understood—they were communicating with each other, speaking in a familiar tongue that she had sensed as a witch, but hadn’t witnessed. Elenor looked down at her hands. They were blazing with blue flames.
The dragon. The fire. The pain. She was dead.
But was she?
Elenor wasn’t in the slightest discomfort. She wasn’t breathing. She didn’t even have a heartbeat, yet she didn’t panic. She had never felt as powerful as she did now. She was like a ghost, but something more—godly—at the same time.
She got up and asked the trees where she could find the Firstborn, and they whispered his current whereabouts.
The Devil’s Creek.
With the radiant, dream-like world as her guide, Elenor reached the creek faster than she had anticipated. Her coven was there, heads bowed in a quiet circle, undisturbed by her presence. They didn’t seem able to hear or see her.
But the eldest witch, Agneth, knew she was there.
“You,” she said, angry eyes fixed on Elenor. The other witches looked up. “You do not belong here. How dare you!”
The witches followed the eldest’s gaze to where Elenor was standing. The ex-witch didn’t move. She wasn’t afraid. Like a dragon, she was preparing a white-hot fire in the pit of her belly.
Horns emerged from behind Agneth’s head.
“I have come to free my coven,” Elenor said, “and destroy the Firstborn.”
Agneth trembled with rage. Her fingers flexed and her body jerked. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. The horns behind her shrank, disappearing into the witch. The other witches watched in apprehension as she craned her neck back and opened her mouth, uttering a low, guttural growl. She came to look at Elenor, eyes completely white.
“This coven is mine,” the Firstborn said through the old witch. “You cannot destroy me. I am everywhere.”
“You are nothing but a trickster spirit,” Elenor said. “The Wildlands will not hide nor obey you as long as I am here.”
The Firstborn chuckled, pointing. “Then you won’t be here for long.”
Elenor looked down at her hands. The blue flames were withering. She didn’t have much time.
Acting on intuition, Elenor made a grabbing motion for the Firstborn, intending to rip him out of Agneth’s body, but she missed: Agneth’s eyes returned to normal and another witch’s went white as her body seized and spasmed. The Firstborn was leaping from witch to witch.
The witches screamed, breaking away from the circle and fleeing in different directions. Agneth remained, allowing the Firstborn to take over once more.
“Your time is running out,” the Firstborn said, grinning. “It seems you will die twice, and you will not return.”
Elenor knew she had less than a minute to act. She needed to seize and destroy the Firstborn now, but she wasn’t fast enough. She could demand the world around her to help, command the spirits, but she didn’t have the time to find out whether they would succeed or fail.
Then she realized: the human body. It was no less natural than the trees.
Elenor focused on Agneth, seeing her own currents that rippled over her body, and she manipulated them, trapping the Firstborn inside. The old god’s grin fell as he realized he couldn’t leave his flesh prison. He used Agneth’s shriveled hands to feel about her face and grasp at her thin, white strands of hair.
“No,” he said, “I can’t get out!”
Now it was Elenor’s turn to grin.
Using one hand, Elenor ripped the old god from Agneth’s body and, using the other, set him ablaze in dragon fire.
The Firstborn released an unearthly screech that reverberated through the Wildlands. The trees and ground quaked, shedding his power over them in bloody, vein-like tendrils that snaked their way to the burning god. The flames left nothing behind, except the echo of his scream.
The world was slipping away from Elenor. Darkness flooded in from the edges of her vision, her senses fading. Was she dying again? Would she cease to be this time? The thought of leaving Seerah and the eternal life they could’ve shared together hurt, but she realized she had saved her coven as well as future covens, and the pain subsided as a feeling of bliss embraced her. The last sound she heard was a woman’s scream.
There was nothing again. Then she awakened, nude, in a smoldering pile of ashes that didn’t burn.
Elenor looked up at Magron. The dragon appeared to be smiling down on her.
“Elenor!”
Seerah was running toward her in tears, and Elenor got to her feet and accepted her beloved’s tight embrace and strong kisses, returning the sentiment.
The women returned to the castle together. Seerah helped Elenor wash up and supplied her another dress. Then they headed for the Wildlands on their dragons. Magron had allowed Elenor to mount and direct him, an honor that would drive any man to assassinate his king in order to have it.
Elenor had died for her coven and been reborn. Like Seerah, a phoenix having risen from its ashes. With the Firstborn gone, the Wildlands were free of his presence that lurked in every shadow. Elenor could sense the change as they navigated the thick tangle of forest while the dragons waited outside the border. The unruly trees seemed to welcome more sunlight, and the birds didn’t cease their song.
Elenor picked a tree and placed her hand on its bark, and she closed her eyes, preparing a question.
“Where is my coven?” Elenor asked.
The tree responded—not in words, but in scenes that flashed through Elenor’s mind. The witches were still scattered among the Wildlands, alone and confused and afraid.
“Bring them to me,” Elenor said.
In her mind’s eye, she watched the Wildlands work to push the witches along using the weather, certain mischievous spirits, and the sounds of carnivorous animals. Soon they all met, out of breath, and froze upon the sight of Elenor. To them, she was either a ghost, or a deadly trick.
“Elenor?” the youngest and most curious of them said. Primrose.
“I am not dead,” Elenor said. “But the Firstborn is.”
The coven was speechless.
“How?” Mary said. “How is that possible?”
“And who is that with you?” Mercy said, pointing at Seerah, and her eyes widened. “Is she—?”
“The Queen of Dragons, yes,” Elenor said. “And I wielded dragon flame against the Firstborn. We are free now. We no longer have to submit to nature nor men.”
The witches exchanged uncertain glances. Agneth emerged, breath ragged and hair disheveled like spiderwebs over her wild eyes. She pointed at Elenor, hand trembling.
“You—you abomination!” she spat. “The Firstborn will rise again and you will be cast from all of creation forever!” Agneth heaved a cough, but that didn’t stop her. “The Old God of the Wood will be reborn from soil and blood, as he was in the beginning!”
The old woman stormed toward Elenor until they were face-to-face.
“You will be slain, dragon,” Agneth said. “Both of you.”
Elenor wanted to smile, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. The elder—this old, decrepit woman who’d lived a life of lies and would be rewarded with more lies and suffering to follow—stirred genuine pity.
“You can be free too, Agneth,” Elenor said. “You won’t have to bow to life and death anymore. You can finally break free of the cycle. We all can.”
The eldest witch’s lips tightened, her nostrils flaring with every breath.
“Never,” she said. “I could never be so arrogant as to… as to defy… ”
Agneth’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. She clutched her chest, and she coughed, legs buckling.
Elenor didn’t help the old woman who was stumbling to the ground, writhing and struggling to breathe, dying in front of her. Agneth had made her choice.
“May you find peace, Agneth,” Elenor said, “in the soil from which you came.”
Agneth’s movements ceased, her battle for air coming to an end. The remaining spark of life in her eyes faded, and her mouth hung open, a mouth that would soon be home to insects. Animals would sense the decay and consume her flesh as well, and what she had been would soon be excrement. Her soul, too, was doomed to repeat the unforgiving cycle of life and death, to feed the wicked gods and spirits the blood and tears of mortal flesh. It was all Agneth had wanted.
“Agneth?” Mary said, and looked at Elenor. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing,” Elenor said simply. “What you witnessed were merely the laws of nature at play. If any of you wish to continue giving yourselves to the Wildlands, I will not stop you. But, if any of you wish to live life eternally and impossibly, you may join us.”
Elenor did not wait for anyone to come forward. She left with Seerah by her side. Not a glance over her shoulder was cast, even as she heard footsteps follow her to the border between the outside world and the Wildlands, where the dragons were resting.
“Wow!” Primrose said, gawking at the enormous, winged creatures of majesty and terror that had long been believed to be extinct. “Are we going to ride on the dragons?”
Not a soul was missing from her coven. Elenor smiled.
“Yes,” she said.
Agneth was right about the Firstborn. He would return. Perhaps not in this century, but in another. Gods and spirits never truly died, they only changed names and form. They feasted on belief and worship, and humans would never completely abandon the forces that they perceived as greater than themselves. When the Firstborn returned, Elenor and the others would be ready.
But maybe they wouldn’t have to fight, not if Elenor could be like the dragon and set fire to the old ways.