Prologue
The Crone ran around the cave system at a speed that seemed impossible for any living being. Her aged appearance belied a level of physicality that would have left anyone surprised if they didn’t know her true nature. She moved like a blur as she stacked books on a table and scoured them for information. She flipped through the pages at such a pace that she narrowly avoided tearing the ancient tomes to shreds. She was inside a library, a place so sacred and ancient that it had never before graced an outsider. At least, until recently, it hadn’t. The shelves were carved directly into the rock and lined with thick red material that was dry to the touch, likely to keep the books safe from moisture. The ceiling stretched high into the air, impossibly so given where she knew the cave was currently located. There was a single table in the library, on which she was presently standing to read the massive books that nearly dwarfed her in size. Perhaps the most peculiar accoutrement in the entire space was the massive golden contraption in the dead center. It looked like a giant metallic sphere, with two bands wrapped around it and crossing each other. Five small golden arms stretched out from the globe's base, and from those arms, other smaller spheres were situated. The smaller spheres rotated around the central orb at a leisurely pace, occasionally passing one another. There was a word for such a contraption, but the Crone neither remembered nor cared what it was. She had tried several times to activate the device, but it refused to bend to any of her commands. None of her spells could awaken it. Whatever, it wasn’t important anyway. There were more pressing matters for the Crone to attend to. She bit her lower lip and turned her attention back to the books in front of her, flipping through its contents before slamming it shut. “Blast that dragon,” she growled, her teeth momentarily going sharp and shark-like. Screeching in rage, she lifted the giant book and threw it across the room. Loose pages tumbled free as it reached the peak of its arc, and for a brief second, the Crone felt guilty. Destroying knowledge was an unforgivable crime, even for one such as her. “Confound him and his entire kind,” she hissed, calming down as she hopped off the table and shuffled over to the discarded book. With far gentler fingers than before, she slipped the loose page back between the bindings. “Could he not have had the decency to at least write down his research?” “He probably had,” she answered herself, stomping around the library, practically wearing a groove in the stone floor with her rage. “He probably wrote it all down and then burned it to cinders or hid it somewhere just to spite me!” “He likely didn’t know you existed,” she told herself, stopping in her tracks and facing towards the strange golden orbs. “More likely, it was a self-preservation tactic. To ensure nobody could undo the spell.” “It changes nothing,” she said, turning towards the door. “By denying me his research, he has doomed us all.” “Not quite,” she said, once again turning to face the orbs. “There must be a way to break it. Maybe we have simply not tried every option?” The Crone rolled her eyes at her own suggestion but sighed and conceded the point. With another frustrated growl, she shuffled out of the library. The vast network of dark tunnels that comprised the bulk of the caves was there to greet her. She hadn’t bothered lighting a torch, as the dark didn’t bother her. Her eyes adjusted in an instant, and it was as though the world was filled with daylight. To her right, she knew lay the cave entrance and other tunnels that led to different chambers. Right in front of her was a tunnel that intersected with those, giving direct access to other rooms right from the library. It was the tunnel to the left that scared her the most. The walls were clumsily hewn, as though made in haste rather than carefully constructing them over centuries. From the pit of the leftmost path came an eerie blue-silver light. It felt like icy talons as it danced across the Crone’s pale skin, as though warning her not to approach. But she needed to. Glowering at the light, she stalked through the vast cave until she came upon a single, enormous chamber. Stone teeth hung from the high ceiling of the room, but the floor had been smoothed flat. Carved in the middle of the section was an intricate spell circle, so confusing in its construction that the Crone scarcely knew what it did. Were it not for the ominous glow that filled the entire cavern, she would have assumed it already useless and inert. As the Crone approached the circle, it glowed brighter. She felt her skin prickle and go cold as she drew close to it. It was almost as though the horrid thing was draining her of her power, her magic, her very soul. For all she knew, it probably was. She didn’t understand how this particular spell worked, only that it did. The Crone drew close and crouched over the circle, reaching out with one finger to trace the lines in the stone. The various letters and characters carved into the very earth leaped out to greet her, but some of them were so strange, so very alien… The blasted dragon who had created it had used a strange nomenclature when scrawling out the spell. The Crone was familiar with the Old Draconic language and several other dialects frequently spoken by dragon kind. Yet, try as she might, she could not fully decipher this spell circle! It was as though it was written in a wholly unique language to the dragon who created it! For all she knew, it probably was. What better way to ensure that the spell couldn’t be disturbed than by writing it in a wholly unique script? The Crone scoffed and ran her gnarled fingers down a claw hewn rune. It was one of the few that she recognized, although its context had been previously unknown to her. The rune was the Old Draconic word for human. Why this rune of all of them was written in Old Draconic was beyond the Crone. Why the dragon did anything was beyond her. She couldn’t understand him. Granted, she didn’t want to understand him because understanding could lead to compassion. Compassion for dragons would get in the way of her goal. “For thousands of years, my entire purpose in life has been the extinction of dragons,” the Crone muttered. “Your purpose was to bring the Fair Folk back to the mortal plane,” she reminded herself, giving the empty air to her left a stern glare. “Shut up, you know what I mean,” she hissed, glaring to the right. “Focus,” she growled, returning her attention to the circle. “Remain centered. Now is not the time to split my attention.” “But that blasted dragon ruined everything!” Her right-facing side shouted. “Three human lifetimes of work! Up in smoke!” “It is in the dragon’s nature to destroy,” her left-facing side patiently reminded them. “Large trundling brutes that they are, they cannot help what they accidentally step on.” “And what they happened to step on was our Fairblood!” The right side growled. “Focus. Center,” the Crone said, shaking her head. “Control. I must…” “To hell with control!” The right side screeched. “We know where the dragon is! We should go right back there and kill it!” “We cannot just kill it. Killing the dragon ends a powerful line of Fairblood. It would mean centuries of setback,” the left side calmly said. “Remember, the dragon didn’t just transform a regular human. He transformed our great-grandson.” “Three generations of work gone up in smoke because the dragon used our Fairblood as a jumping-off point for his stupid spell,” the right side exclaimed. “Taken the power we infused into our bloodlines and turned it against us,” the left concurred. “Stop it, stop falling apart,” the Crone growled, grabbing the sides of her head and falling to her knees. “Oh, get over yourself,” her right side growled. “Whether by accident or design, the dragon succeeded in foiling your plans,” her left concurred. “Your attempts to right the wrongdoing have left you drained and weak.” The Crone’s blood went cold. She might have been talking to herself, but she knew it was true. Even standing amongst the chill of the glowing spell circle, the Crone could feel her soul. Or rather, what little remained of it.
