My body was tempered deep inside the womb of the earth. The echoed voices of my kin molded me amid licking flames. They taught me the name of our kind, dragon. About our place at the apex of all living things, an immortal beast born once in a millennium to cleanse the world of the weak and unworthy. I burst from the ground in a geyser of magma and shrapnel and wrought desolation on everything in my path. Those who survived the eruption called me Virukan, an old word for wildfire. 

Instinct called me to follow an ancient migration path, and for each kingdom along it I reduced to ash, I gained a new aspect of myself.

To defenseless farmers, I was Vale-eater.

To coastal warlords, I was Fleet-killer.

And to the paltry human mages—who could only achieve a fraction of my innate ability in their brief lifespans—I was the Red Beast of Calamity.

I thought I was a cataclysm without equal. A driving force in the world’s evolution. Until I returned to the place of my birth to find the Suneye valley not only revived, but thriving: my annihilation undone by a single monk, an elven mage called Angelus.

Like dragons, elves are immortal creatures of incomparable magical prowess, but their power comes less from innate aptitude, and more from a unique suitability for sedentary lifestyles. Immortality has allowed them to take up at libraries or temples. There they absorb the totality of their collections, no matter how long it takes to read every book or memorize each piece of scripture. As decades or centuries pass, many become pillars of the communities they live in. To them, the killing of an elf is a tragedy, an irreplaceable loss of knowledge collected over a thousand lifetimes.

Angelus is the reason that my first and greatest act of desolation has been defiled. He possesses a cancer that must be burned away.

Now, in the ruins of our former battleground, we are still locked in a magically induced stalemate after—if my count of the passing sun is correct—86 years. This prison of salt is the Dreamer’s Manacle, a powerful sealing spell that persists for as long as the caster remains asleep or the salt circles remain unbroken.

Angelus, my nemesis, sits just feet away from me inside his halo. Perched as if deep in meditation with his magestone staff laid across his lap, hands folded elegantly overtop. Wilted flowers, wreaths of prayer beads, stale food offerings, and even a tall bottle of apple wine surround the hero’s resting place. Untethered from the world around him, Angelus resides in a steadfast slumber. I roll over to face him, taking in every detail of his sleeping form for even the tiniest change. His long lavender hair, tangled and dirty, still falls over his shoulders. Any exposed skin has become darkened and leathered from years of tanning and sunburns. Moss encrusted robes still flare out around him, gently rising and falling with the soft rhythm of his breath. Eighty-six years of exposure have taken their toll, yet he is still abhorrently, unbearably, offensively beautiful the way all elves are.

A spiteful growl rumbles in my chest. I slip a talon into my mouth, pinch a fang and pry it free from its socket. I aim the tooth’s point between Angelus’s eyes. The dull pain of its replacement pokes through my gums as I launch it at the sleeping monk. The tooth whizzes through the air before bursting into a flash of gold flames the instant it breaches the perimeter of my circle. Burning away to nothing before the fire’s heat can reach him. My horns clatter against the ground as I drop my head with a defeated sigh.

My own salt ring is tenfold the size of his, unadorned, and only just large enough for me to stretch to my full length. It is not, however, large enough to spread my wings. Instead, I am forced to lie on one side and unfurl the wing up toward the sky. Wings that once carried me across the world, now only able to catch whatever placid breeze weaves through the temple’s pillars like a shredded sail. Humiliating. I let my wing fall back to my side and languidly roll onto my back, gazing up at the bleached white stones of the temple ceiling.

The sun gleams through a carved oval opening designed to embrace the light along its path from dawn to dusk. I destroyed a portion of it, trying to see how big of a splatter I could turn Angelus into during our fight. The once bloodied pile of rubble has been blanketed with moss and speckled with golden flowers that swoon towards the light. Horrendous, those flowers. You burn one and ten more grow in their place.

A marble arm juts from the top of the pile, fingers artfully outstretched and palm facing skyward, as if it could grasp the rays of sunlight like a feather on the breeze. The arm originally belonged to the temple’s patron deity and was made as a poor consolation prize for my failure to desecrate the holy place.

The Sun God in question watches over Angelus and I in our salt circles with a bright, jubilant expression. Balanced on her plinth mid-dance, a myriad of arms (most of which were also broken off) fan out behind her. I wonder if these many arms are literal. Angelus would know. The light, flowing robes the monks of his monastery wore were almost identical to the statue’s. He might even be old enough to have met the Sun God when she walked among mortals, if local legends are to be believed. You can never really tell with elves. What would he say if I asked him?

“O Dragon, the many arms of the Sun God represent the revitalizing touch of the sun’s light,” he’d say. “I should know, for I spent 300 years carving this statue by gently caressing the stone until it eroded into the god’s likeness, sustained only by joyous thoughts and the primordial energy of the universe.” Something like that. Or some other nonsense that only someone who’s spent centuries cooped up in a monastery can come up with. Why do I care how many arms a hunk of stone has, anyway?

The day we fought is a permanent stain on my memory. The instant I found him, I let loose a blast of red-hot brimstone from my jaws, but with a wave of his staff, he diffused it with a glittering wall of magic, leaving Angelus and the monastery unscathed.

“Stop this! Pursue this mindless destruction no further!” he demanded. “Kill, devour, burn, conquer; is that the only use you can imagine for all of that power?” Angelus asked, defiant.

“How dare you!” His insinuation infuriated me. I swooped down and snatched him in my talons, then soared across the burning valley and smashed him through the ceiling of the temple at its peak. Angelus tumbled from my grasp with the impact, and I was about to reduce him to a red smear on the temple floors when I felt the crackle of magic in the air. I saw the circle of salt glyphs that surrounded me, saw Angelus collect himself, dust off his robes, and limp towards his own circle.

“You and I are alike,” Angelus said, “so I have faith that you’ll understand why I chose this path in time.” He wore a smile far too kind and sagely for the death knell that it was.

Alike? All I could do was scream. I thrashed and roared, pounded my talons against the ground and blasted the newly formed barrier between us with magma. Kill. Devour. Burn. Conquer. I spat them at him like curses. Vile promises of what I would do to him, what I’d come here to do to him, along with the valley he cherished and everything he’d ever cared about.

“Mark me well, Angelus,” I warned. “I will tear every bone from your body, and I will enjoy every second of it!”

“And accomplish nothing,” Angelus said. “The burning of a forest does not eradicate its seeds, Virukan, it nourishes them.”

What absolute nonsense.

“If a dragon can destroy it, it doesn’t deserve to exist,” I stammered.

Angelus nodded toward the earth’s core. “The terror of the flames has blinded you.”

“You wasted every year you spent rebuilding this pathetic place,” I spat. “You can never undo what I have done.”

Angelus didn’t bend. Instead, he laughed.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, sitting and laying his staff across his legs. “Then I hope that someday long in the future, you’ll wreak havoc again. I’ve enjoyed my years in the waking world, and now I’ll enjoy the years I’ll spend in my dreams,” he said with a knowing smile. “I’m looking forward to experiencing life again without the limitations of my physical body. What kind of path will I choose to walk next, I wonder?” Angelus continued. “And my wish for you, Virukan, is that you can find what you truly desire in rest, and that we might walk together as companions in the dream.” With that, he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and slept.

Once the ritual was complete, the Dreamer’s Manacle accounted for everything. It healed both of our injuries and continues to fulfill our needs for food and drink. The enchantment on the salt glyphs has protected them from being damaged by the elements and repelled any salt-hungry animals. There’s even an upper threshold to my circle. It does nothing to shield me (or him) from the weather, but it does prevent me from flying endlessly upwards in a straight line.

If I fly any higher than the temple’s roof, or if I stray too far and pass over the circle’s perimeter, I’ll combust into a ball of agony and magical fire. That’s what I hate most about this prison. Being grounded and severed from my ancestral migration is unbearable. Whenever I torched a city or ransacked a battlefield, I always looked forward to the moment where the updraft from the flames would lift me above it all. The feeling of being untouchable after the fray. The wind carried away the stench of blood and smoke, my muscles burning as I pulled myself higher and higher until—

A lock of hair slips from Angelus’s shoulder.

My body contorts itself in his direction on instinct. Lurching to the edge of my circle and drilling into him with my gaze, ready to strike the instant the barrier broke. He moved. I scrutinize every aspect of him for a flicker, a twitch, anything.

Angelus does not stir. My breathing becomes ragged. My scales bristle and my hackles rise. How many years until I shall be free again?

I choke out a dry laugh. My body fails me, and I collapse onto the ground. The Sun God watches in amusement. I should be angrier that Angelus is still sleeping. That he’s taken everything I’d lived for away from me.

I look back to the grinning Sun God, to the pile of overgrown rubble, at Angelus. Remember his riddle about being able to burn the forest but not the seeds. What had he meant? For the first time, I consider the temple in its entirety: its alabaster stonework and the rainbow of mosaics that line the walls. A particular image catches my eye; a bold shock of red near the entrance. It depicts a red dragon bursting from the earth surrounded by burning homes. My eyes widen in surprise. Me, the beginning of their history.

In the next mosaic, humans in rags return to a singed wasteland, following a leader with lavender hair and pointed ears. Then a tableau of the Sun God descending from above, yellow flowers blooming around her feet. Pictures of people learning to fish and farm, building the monastery, learning magic, and a grand festival where the Sun God dances upon a vaulted stage. The yellow flowers multiply in each panel of the sequence until they dominate the frame. I had only ever understood myself as my victims did, as the end of their histories. They treated me with revilement and fled from my shadow, knowing that the only thing I offered was death.

So I became what they expected of me. What all the dragons before me had been. Blinded by the terror of the flames. Angelus hadn’t been the reason for the Suneye valley’s revival. His knowledge had only helped it along. Knowledge that would continue to do so as long as the monastery stood, no matter what happened to him. The gravity of what I’ve stolen from all the people whose libraries and churches I had burned crashes into me like a meteor.

How can I atone? Do I even have the right to? Above me, the sunset colours the sky in soft tones of pink and orange. A gentle breeze sweeps through the forest surrounding the temple, creating a melody of rustling leaves. For the first time in 86 years, I feel relaxed. Peaceful. Can I dream of being more than what I was born as? I think of the wind at my back as I flew through the unending sky above the clouds. I shift to lie on my side and perch my head on my folded arms, tucking my wings around me and savouring their warmth.

Angelus is still in my field of vision, and even though I know he isn’t lucid enough to appreciate it, I offer a lazy wave in concession. He’s gotten his wish. I will close my eyes and join him in the dream. Dance with many-armed Sun Gods and ask him where he learned such a convoluted spell. Ask him if he’s even old enough to have seen the last time it was cast. Maybe I’ll ask him to teach me. I’ll lie still enough for the forest to cover me in a blanket of moss and erase all traces of past atrocities. And I will fly again. Fly as free and far as the wind will take me.

My eyelids weigh and my senses dull as I doze off. But before I fall asleep, I take one last glance at the sleeping monk across from me.

And see that Angelus is smiling, still deep in the dream.