Dierdre lay there on her stomach, face planted in the soggy grass, moaning from the pain. She was still gasping, her lungs aching, breathing deep and savoring every breath. She managed to turn her head weakly, to look back over her shoulder, and she was horrified to see that what had once been a great city was now nothing but sea. She spotted only the highest part of the bell tower, sticking out a few feet, and marveled that it once stood hundreds of feet in the air.
Beyond exhausted, Dierdre finally let herself go. Her face fell to the ground as she lay there, letting the pain of what had happened overcome her. She couldn’t move if she tried.
Moments later she was fast asleep, barely alive on a remote field in a corner of the world. Yet somehow, she was alive.
“Dierdre,” came a voice, and a gentle nudge.
Dierdre peeled open her eyes, dazed to see it was sunset. Icy cold, her clothes still wet, she tried to get her bearings, wondering how long she had been lying here, wondering if she were alive or dead. Then the hand came again, nudging her shoulder.
Dierdre looked up and there, to her immense relief, was Marco. He was alive, she was overjoyed to see. He looked beaten up, haggard, too pale, and he looked as if he had aged a hundred years. Yet he was alive. Somehow, he had managed to survive.
Marco knelt beside her, smiling yet looking down at her with sad eyes, eyes not shining with the life they once held.
“Marco,” she answered weakly, startled at how raspy her own voice was.
She noticed a gash on the side of his face and, concerned, reached out to touch it.
“You look as bad as I feel,” she said.
He helped her up and she rose to her feet, her body wracked with pain from all the aches and bruises, scratches and cuts all up and down her arms and legs. Yet as she tested each limb, at least nothing was broken.
Dierdre took a deep breath and steeled herself as she turned and looked behind her. As she feared, it was a nightmare: her beloved city was gone, now nothing but a part of the sea, the only thing sticking up a small part of the bell tower. On the horizon beyond it she saw a fleet of black Pandesian ships, making their way deeper and deeper inland.
“We can’t stay here,” Marco said with urgency. “They’re coming.”
“Where can we go?” she asked, feeling hopeless.
Marco stared back, blank, clearly not knowing either.
Dierdre stared out at the sunset, trying to think, blood pounding in her ears. Everyone she knew and loved was dead. She felt she had nothing left to live for, nowhere left to go. Where could you go when your home city was destroyed? When the weight of the world was bearing down on you?
Dierdre closed her eyes and shook her head in grief, wishing it all away. Her father, she knew, was back there, dead. His soldiers were all dead. People she had known and loved all her life, all of them dead, all thanks to these Pandesian monsters. Now there was no one left to stop them. What cause was there to go on?
Dierdre, despite herself, broke down weeping. Thinking of her father, she dropped to her knees, feeling devastated. She wept and wept, wanting to die here herself, wishing she had died, cursing the heavens for allowing her to live. Why couldn’t she have just drowned in that wave? Why couldn’t she just have been killed with the others? Why had she been cursed with life?
She felt a soothing hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Dierdre,” Marco said softly.
Dierdre flinched, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, weeping. “It’s just that… my father… Now I have nothing.”
“You’ve lost everything,” Marco said, his voice heavy, too. “I have, too. I don’t want to go on, either. But we have to. We can’t lie here and die. It would dishonor them. It would dishonor everything they lived and fought for.”
In the long silence that followed, Dierdre slowly pulled herself upright, realizing he was right. Besides, as she looked up at Marco’s brown eyes, staring back at her with compassion, she realized she did have someone. She had Marco. She also had the spirit of her father, looking down, watching over her, wishing her to be strong.
She forced herself to shake out of it. She had to be strong. Her father would want her to be strong. Self-pity, she realized, would help no one. And neither would her death.
She stared back at Marco, and she could see more than compassion – she could also see the love in his eyes for her.
Not even fully aware of what she was doing, Dierdre, her heart pounding, leaned in and met Marco’s lips in an unexpected kiss. For a moment, she felt herself transported to another world, and all her worries disappeared.
She slowly pulled back, staring at him, shocked. Marco looked equally surprised. He took her hand.
As he did, encouraged, filled with hope, she was able to think clearly again – and a thought came to her. There was someone else, a place to go, a person to turn to.
Kyra.
Dierdre felt a sudden rush of hope.
“I know where we must go,” she said excitedly, in a rush.
Marco looked at her, wondering.
“Kyra,” she said. “We can find her. She will help us. Wherever she is, she is fighting. We can join her.”
“But how do you know she is alive?” he asked.
Dierdre shook her head.
“I don’t,” she replied. “But Kyra always survives. She is the strongest person I have ever met.”
“Where is she?” he asked.
Dierdre thought, and she recalled the last time she had seen Kyra, forking north, for the Tower.
“The Tower of Ur,” she said.
Marco looked back, surprised; then a glimmer of optimism crossed his eyes.
“The Watchers are there,” he said. “As are other warriors. Men who can fight with us.” He nodded, excited. “A good choice,” he added. “We can be safe in that tower. And if your friend is there, then all the better. It’s a day’s hike from here. Let us go. We must move quickly.”
He took her hand, and without another word the two of them took off, Dierdre filled with a new sense of optimism as they headed into the forest, and somewhere, on the horizon, for the Tower of Ur.
Chapter Three
Kyra braced herself as she walked into a field of fire. The flames rose to the sky then lowered just as quickly, turning all different colors, caressing her as she walked with her arms out by her sides. She felt its intensity, felt it enveloping her, wrapping her in a thin embrace. She knew she was walking into death, and yet she could walk no other way.
And yet somehow, incredibly, she did not feel pain. She felt a sense of peace. A sense of her life ending.
She looked out and through the flames, she saw her mother, awaiting her somewhere at the far end, on the opposite side of the field. She felt a sense of peace, as she finally knew she would be in her mother’s embrace.
I’m here, Kyra, she called. Come to me.
Kyra peered into the flames and could just make out her mother’s face, nearly translucent, partially hidden as a wall of flame shot up. She walked deeper into the crackling flames, unable to stop until she was surrounded on all sides.
A roar cut through the air, even above the sound of the fire, and she looked up and was in awe to see a sky filled with dragons. They circled and shrieked, and as she watched, one huge dragon roared and dove down