The inn door creaked. Inside was warm. It smelled of baked onions and someone else’s comfort. Riza and Lucida sat by the fireplace, chatting about something of their own—girly stuff.

  Riza turned. Smiled.

  “Oh. You’re quick.”

  Then her взгляд dropped to my cloak. Bloodstains on the pale fabric looked like dirty shadows.

  “Whoa… I see you got yourself dirty.”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the strength to smile. I sat at the table and just dropped my head onto the wood. The table smelled like old beer and dust.

  “Zen?” Riza’s voice went quieter. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t lift my head. I stared into the crack between the floorboards. “I just need to think.”

  Lucida stood up, adjusted her cloak.

  “Alright. We’re going to the room. Tomorrow we move.”

  They left. The stairs creaked, then went silent. I stayed alone.

  Why? Why do I exist?

  Travel. Magic. New lands.

  But inside—there was a hole. Huge. Cold. Hungry.

  I tried to picture myself five years from now. A mage. A king. Just an adult.

  Empty.

  I didn’t see anyone there. No brother. No friend. No person. Like my “tomorrow” was a wall with nothing behind it. Only blackness.

  Something rustled on the right. Someone sat down beside me. An old voice—creaky as an ungreased hinge.

  “Why’re you sitting here alone? Face in the table like a kicked dog.”

  I didn’t lift my head.

  “Go away.”

  “Heh-heh-heh. No.”

  I caught the smell of scale and honest sweat. The old man started talking—about youth, about how he’d lived his life. The words flowed past. Boring. Useless.

  I lifted my head. Eyes—black holes.

  “Do you really like your life, old man?”

  He went quiet.

  “Look at you. Helpless. Boring. Your whole life in this city. Your whole life a blacksmith. Swinging a hammer, heating iron. And tomorrow you’ll do the same. And next year.”

  The old man smiled. Toothless, but calm.

  “And I’ll stay a blacksmith. Until my last breath.”

  He leaned closer.

  “What’s got you so sad, kid? Tell me your problem.”

  I jerked a shoulder.

  “I don’t want to live. Just… don’t.”

  The old man didn’t flinch. Didn’t pity me.

  “Don’t want to live?” He smiled again. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tough situation…”

  He leaned back and stared into the fire.

  “Listen, kid. Right now you’re like a chunk of steel someone just tossed into the forge. It hurts. It’s hot. You don’t understand what you’re turning into. You think your goal is to become a sword. Or a plow.”

  He jabbed a finger in my direction.

  “But steel doesn’t know what it’ll be. It just feels the heat. If you decide to cool off too early—you’ll crack. You’ll turn into useless scrap. The point isn’t what you’ll be in five years. The point is surviving today’s hammer blow.”

  He stood up with a groan.

  “Life isn’t a result, boy. It’s the forging process. Sometimes the sparks fly pretty. Sometimes you just hiss in oil. But while you’re in the fire—you exist. And emptiness… emptiness is when the forge goes out. Don’t let your fire go out before the smith finishes the work. Even if you’re both the smith and the metal.”

  The old man patted my shoulder. His hand was heavy and warm.

  “Go sleep, you little wormhole. Tomorrow the hammer hits again.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I watched him go.

  “Some bullshit,” I muttered. “Swords. Steel. Lunatic talk.”

  But for some reason, that night—for the first time in a long while—I didn’t think about my heart stopping.

  I thought about the fact that tomorrow I’d have to get up again.

  Morning smelled of damp and hopelessness.

  I lay there staring at the ceiling. Boards. Cracks. No thoughts. Empty head.

  Riza slept three hours. The others—four. I didn’t know why they were so бодрые. I slept all night, but when I opened my eyes I didn’t want to get up. At all.

  “Zen, get up!” Riza’s voice. “Your eyes are open. Why are you still lying there?”

  A ледяная splash hit me in the face. Cold. Wet.

  I didn’t even flinch. I just got up, wiped my face with my sleeve, and started packing.

  “Why are you so quiet?” Riza stared into my face. “Did something happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean ‘I don’t know’?”

  I didn’t answer. Didn’t want to spend words.

  Elvindor nodded at the door. “Let’s go. The road won’t wait.”

  We left the city. Snow crunched under our boots, reminding me of yesterday’s forest. Riza slipped off her cloak, spread her wings, and shot up. Beautiful. Probably.

  I rose too. Slow. Lazy. I lay on my back in the air like on a mattress. Hands behind my head. Face up to the sky. The sky was completely gray. Boring.

  Riza circled nearby, sometimes passing me, sometimes falling behind.

  “Zen… come on, tell me. You’re not yourself.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Riza. Leave me alone.”

  She huffed and flew ahead—skimming the forest, diving into clouds. She was alive.

  Elvindor drifted up beside me. His cloak snapped in the wind, his face still.

  “You’re too gloomy,” he said. “That’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you hide your feelings, I can’t help.”

  I stayed silent. I wasn’t hiding anything. There just wasn’t anything inside except that gray sky.

  Ahead, the mountain rose—sharp, icy, stabbing into the clouds.

  “Elvindor, where does your friend live?” Riza shouted, dropping lower.

  “There. Almost at the peak.”

  “And what kind of friend? What’s his name?”

  Elvindor smiled. A rare sight.

  “His name is Norvul.”

  He paused, looking at the summit.

  “He’s a dragon. Very old. Ancient.”

  I cracked one eye open. A dragon.

  “He saved my life once,” the elf went on. “We became friends. He asked me to visit. So… we’ll visit.”

  I closed my eyes again.

  Dragon. Mountain. Cold. Who cares.

  As long as there was a place where I could just close my eyes and not answer questions.

  The peak was close. In the cliff, a black maw gaped—an огромная cave that could hide a castle. We touched down on stone. The air was so thin that every breath felt like an ice needle.

  “Listen, Elvindor,” I squinted into the darkness. “Your friend… he isn’t exactly a dragon.”

  The elf turned, frowning.

  “I’ve known him my whole life, Zen. He’s a dragon.”

  I didn’t argue. Too lazy.

  We walked the tunnel until it opened into a vast hall. Curled in a coil, a white giant slept there. Its scales shimmered dully, like frozen milk.

  “NORVUL!” Elvindor shouted. “It’s me!”

  The dragon opened one eye—huge, yellow as an old coin.

  “Took you long enough…”

  It raised its head. Slow. Heavy. Its gaze slid over me. Over Riza. And froze on Lucida.

  I felt it immediately. False.

  “Elvindor,” my voice cut dry through the hall, “this is just a shell. A puppet. Whoever’s controlling it isn’t here.”

  The hall shuddered. The dragon burst into laughter—loud enough to ring in my ears. And then tears rolled from its eyes. Real. Heavy.

  “Lucida…” it whispered.

  The fallen archangel flinched. Her face went white.

  “How… how do you know me?”

  “Lucida… it’s me. Darkness.”

  She stepped back. Her lips trembled.

  “Uncle Darkness? You… but how—”

  The dragon kept crying.

  “I’m not here, child. I’m still there… in the Underworld.”

  It exhaled heavily; steam filled the cave.

  “I sent this dragon into your world just to watch. To see the light. The only ray in that horror where I’m trapped.”

  Lucida covered her face, sobbing.

  “Uncle… all these years…”

  “Don’t cry.” The dragon tried to touch her with a wing—then stopped in time. “I can’t bear your tears.”

  Then it turned to me. That взгляд pierced straight through. To the core.

  “You. A human whelp with a demon core.”

  The dragon wailed again, and the sound was pure pain.

  “In you… cores… of Zariil… Ignis… Krav… How? That’s impossible.”

  It began to roar—loud, hopeless.

  “They’re dead. I remember their faces… they were happy. Lucida, forgive me. I couldn’t stop him.”

  I stared at that scaled monster and felt something inside answer—cold shiver.

  “What’s your name?” Darkness asked.

  “Zenhald.”

  “Zenhald…”

  The dragon lowered its head to my feet.

  “In you is incredible power. Unthinkable. But the cores of those beings… they’re poisoned.”

  I froze. My breath caught.

  “Their memories,” it continued. “Their sins. Their monstrous deeds. All of it is rotting inside you, Zenhald. That poison is seeping into your soul.”

  Darkness looked into my eyes—and in its yellow pupil I saw my own reflection.

  “Your mind… your soul… they aren’t suffering from weakness. They’re suffering from this poison. You feel emptiness because their darkness is burning everything alive out of you.”

  I stayed silent.

  So it wasn’t me going insane.

  It was the dead inside me refusing to die quietly.

  Darkness stopped crying. Its huge head hung inches from mine.

  “Listen carefully, Zenhald. He’s already here. The fifth Archangel. The fifth child of God.”

  Lucida went so pale she looked like marble.

  “Fanuil…” she whispered.

  “He came to erase humanity,” the dragon rumbled. “You must stop him. You have enough strength. Until the very end I refused to believe you—weakest of creations—could produce something… stronger than Archangels.”

  The sky above the mountain split. Thunder struck the peak, blasting stone chips loose.

  In blinding light, he appeared. White wings—huge—shining with righteous wrath.

  “Well, hi there,” he laughed. The sound was like a thousand knives chiming. “What have we got? Traitors and trash?”

  He looked at Darkness.

  “Still trying to help these lesser creatures, Uncle? Their lives are worthless. Father sent me to destroy everything living. And I won’t screw up like my stupid brothers.”

  Lucida stepped forward, her voice shaking.

  “Fanuil… what did He do to you?”

  “SILENCE!” the Archangel roared. “KNEEL WHEN THE MESSENGER OF GOD SPEAKS TO YOU!”

  A heavy, inhuman force smashed into the hall. The floor cracked. Elvindor, Riza, Lucida—everyone dropped. Their heads were pressed to stone by an invisible press. Even the dragon’s head touched the ground.

  I stayed standing. To me, that pressure was no stronger than a light breeze.

  “Hm? Why are you standing, little human?” Fanuil narrowed his eyes. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll erase you fast.”

  And then something inside me snapped. Like an old chain that held the beast shattered into splinters. The emptiness in my chest filled instantly with molten lava.

  I felt my eyes change. The world turned crimson. My eyes lit red, burning away the last scraps of humanity. A predatory smile spread across my face all by itself.

  “Oh no…” Darkness rasped, primal terror in its voice. “Lucida! Stop him! He’s a monster! HE’LL KILL Fanuil!”

  I took a step forward. The stone under my boot turned to dust.

  I felt only mad hunger.