Ch. 1: Eastern Raiders
They came from the east at night without warning. One hundred warriors of the dragon lord flew over the high walls of Sarrathis and did not stop until they reached the capital. They left carnage in their path and burnt everything from the goddess temple in Tiamkesh to the small settlement of Anuvar worshippers, god of the dragons in Arakhal. That was three months ago.
We got a message from the eastern wall the morning after they crossed and since then, my brother and sister, Rhysyd and Nissara, heir and second in line to the Stormbringer throne have gone to war to stop the dragons. I was left in the palace to manage the capital in Nizrakan and its people because I can’t fly and I can’t help in the war but what can I do here? I was never meant to rule and never had any interest in politics. I wasn’t even expected to make a good match among the nobles or marry a prince from a neighboring kingdom.
My role is to become the Stormbound priestess and inherit Tiamat’s heart, a relic of an ancient time when dragons and wyverns still lived together. The records of the stormbound priestesses before me say that Tiamat’s heart can create and destroy. It can grant wishes as they are or twist them into something horrible. The last stormbound priestess was my father’s sister and she died one hundred years ago. Since then, the heart has been dormant, waiting until the day I complete the rituals and reach across the Primordial Sea to Tiamat, the benevolent mother of the Stormborns.
“It’s a great honor to serve Tiamat, Inannari. You gain more power than anyone in this kingdom,” my mother told me fifty years ago when one of the high priestesses of the goddess visited our home on my eighteenth birthday and told us I was the next Stormbound priestess. I was young then and didn’t understand why the goddess had to choose me. So, I said, “All that power and I’m not allowed to use it for myself. I must follow a thousand rules and my heart must be pure or I’ll get retribution from the goddess.”
“That’s why Tiamat chooses the strongest among us as her priestess,” my mother cut in. “You’re the kindest wyvern in Sarrathis. You’re the most loved member of the royal family by the people of this kingdom. The goddess must have seen your heart.”
“But I don’t want to live in Tiamkesh,” I grumbled, frowning at the thought of being stuck in a city filled with religious zealots. “I love Nizrakan and I don’t plan to leave.”
“And you don’t have to,” my mother said. “The goddess lives everywhere including this palace,” and that was that. I didn’t have to move to Tiamkesh and the priests and priestesses from the temple took turns to come to the capital to teach me about Tiamat and how to use the powers that come with being her chosen one but the relic still refuses to awake.
My mother is no longer with us today. She died twenty years ago in the war between the wyverns of Sarrathis and the vicious sirens of Sythrava. Beautiful but horrible daughter of the sea who leave deaths in their wake wherever they go. They claimed the coast of Sythrava in the South belonged to their ancestors before they left land for sea and started killing low-born wyverns that lived along the coast. In a day, their songs destroyed a town of 100 wyverns. They wove the wind of a tempestuous sea into their melodies and pushed inland. My mother had to stop them in Kravor, 20 kilometers to the sea. She fought them and won. The sirens returned to the waters they came from but not before they took my mother with them. No one could find her body. Not even the seers of Tiamkesh who could read an unveiled past and interpret the future.
My father disappeared five years ago like many of his predecessors. No one looked for him and no one was supposed to. Wyverns lived for 1000 years and ruling for that long can become unbearable. With my mother dead, he had no reason to continue hanging on to the throne. So, he simply left and won’t ever return. Not for anything. Not even the war!
A loud noise at the door of my bedroom brings me back me back to the present. It’s dark and no one should walking along the halls. Before I can say come in, my nanny Myrrhani, swings the door open and rushes to me clutching a bundled cloth to her chest. “We’ve lost the war your highness. The dragons are almost here. Your brother and sister are lost to us and we must not lose you too.” She pushes the cloth into my hand. “Take this. Your brother told me to give you if something happens. It’s Tiamat’s heart. It does nothing at the moment but it may wake up one day. Take it with you. Run to the sea if you must. The dragons won’t follow you there.”
I can’t think. Rhysyd and Nissara, my last family members are now dead and I have to run. Outside the window, I hear the the wind shifting from the flap of heavy wings. There's a loud sound close to the main palace. The dragons are closer than I thought. I jumped down from the bed, run to the wall and pushed one of the bricks in to access the secret tunnel. “Come with me Myrrhani,” I hold out my hand to her.
She shakes her head, “I’m not going. Someone has to stall them. The servants and I are willing to die as long as you escape. If I go, everyone else will leave their post and the dragons will know something is wrong. Take Tiamat’s heart and leave. If the last of the royal family dies, we may all as well be dead.” She turns around and keeps walking until she’s outside the door.
I stand there for a minute wanting to run after her but instead, I enter the tunnel, close the secret passage behind me and with the cloth containing Tiamat’s heart clutched to my chest, I run into the night.
