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“With peace, there will come a need for balance in the world,” I said. “I seek to use my powers not to tip the scales in favor of the Imperium as you fear. Instead, I would like to go back to a time when the fairies of Ristorium could fly through the air with joy rather than on a storm of rage.”

I reached for her hand, and she gave it to me. Smiling at her, I felt the magic inside me grow. There were so many stories about the One Dragon, so many myths, and with each one it wasn’t always that she used a specific magic, simply that her magic was there when she needed it.

And right now, I needed that magic, so it was there for me.

I had no idea why the fairies of Ristorium had lost their wings. The memories from the One Dragon were lost to me, but I knew that I had the ability to give the wings back. It was as simple as dropping a mountain on Centipede.

Sister Themeal gasped, but it was not quite pain. She reached behind her back, then pulled her hands away. She had grown wings, delicate and translucent, magic pulsing through them. It spiraled through to the tips of the wings and when she opened them, it only took a moment of flapping before she lifted off the cloud. She almost immediately fell back to the cloud, and I was reminded of Velethuil when he got his air magic back.

She was grinning, and pumped her wings again, lifting off and then spinning forward. There was a joy in her that I hadn’t thought her capable of, based on the rage she held so carefully against her heart.

Before I could stop her, she had moved off the cloud altogether, diving down. I sped to follow her, but she used her wings to bank, pulling up sharply until she was a silhouette against the moon. She screamed with joy, and I was sure the noise woke some beneath us, but no electro magic shot toward us, and no arrows either.

I watched, settling myself cross-legged on my own cloud. In the moonlight, I could see the scales beneath my skin like iridescent tattoos. I tried touching them, but my skin felt so human. Eventually, Sister Themeal tired, and we descended back into the garden at Turtle House.

Once on the ground, her face turned serious, nearly mournful. “So, this is the price we shall pay for peace? We may not have our wings until we agree to accept the Imperium’s terms?”

“Not at all,” I said, thinking of the reparations Tallu paid to Forsaith—the food and supplies that were given without any formal agreement, without a promise from the citizens the Imperium had wronged. “Any in Ristorium who want their wings—their magic—returned to them may have them. I will not put a price on making you whole.”

Sister Themeal flapped her wings again, lifting off the ground. She settled almost immediately back on the earth. “Your mother says that you are clever. That you are smarter than you present yourself to be. She believes that if you trust Emperor Tallu, then he is a trustworthy man.”

“My mother is more generous in her description of me than she is when speaking to me directly,” I said.

“Away on our islands, a generation of children has grown up not knowing the taste of war. But they have also grown up not knowing the feel of stable ground beneath their feet. They have never known a home that does not move with the storms, nor swum in a river or touched a mountain.” Sister Themeal’s wings folded close, nearly disappearing against her back. “Ristorium will have peace as well.”

I gasped, because I could feel the magic. I had thought my ocean of power was more magic than existed in the world. I was wrong.

I managed to express gratitude, going so far as to bow to her in the Ristorium way, using the memory of Velethuil touching his fists together before bending over them.

Then I sprinted into the sky, each footstep of clouds taking me closer to the emperor’s quarters until I landed just inside the window frame, knocking on the glass to be let in. Tallu opened them, and I could see on his face a clarity, a healthiness that hadn’t been there when I had left only a few hours earlier.

Lerolian and the last of the blood mages stood in the center of the room, but I could see through them, and more than that, they had lost the injuries that had caused their deaths. They no longer looked filthy, hair matted and skin bloodstained. Their clothes were no longer torn.

With a smile, Lerolian stepped forward. “It has been an honor, Tallu. I wish I could continue to watch over you, but the river calls us, and with your curse broken, there are no ties that bind us here.”

The other blood monks bowed, disappearing into the air.

“Lerolian, thank you. Without you, my eyes would have remained closed.” Tallu bowed to him, a triangle above his forehead. When he rose, Lerolian was gone.

Tallu collapsed down onto his knees, covering his face with his hands. His shoulders didn’t shake, but I could smell the salt of his tears. I wrapped my arms around him, my joy at the broken curse tempered by the loss of Tallu’s oldest friend.

We remained like that until nearly dawn, when Tallu sat back, and looked at me with clear, russet eyes.

“We have done it,” he said. “We have united the continent in peace. I am free.”

I grinned at him ferociously, kissing him until there was no breath left in me.

Epilogue

In Tavornai, the story started with the elder tree. For elves that were willing to sacrifice, the oldest of the elder trees would tell the story of the young man who came deep into the forest. He saw the seeds that would not grow, so he sacrificed all of his memories, but the oldest of the elder trees would not grow from that, so he sacrificed his hair, then his nails, then his eyes.

Still it was not enough, so the boy wept, and at midnight after a whole day of trying to grow the elder tree, he sacrificed his skin, the flesh on his bones, his entire body.

And the elder tree grew, cradling his corpse in her branches. She grieved for him, all her forest dragons swirling around him like tears.

And when the first light of the sun touched his body, the elder tree saw not flesh, but scales. He no longer had teeth. Instead, his mouth grew fangs. He no longer had nails. Instead, he had claws.

When the sun had finished rising, the One Dragon lay sleeping in the arms of the elder tree, for only the One Dragon could return stolen knowledge to Tavornai.