GAZING SKYWARD WITH HER last strength, Allory called, I’m here. Lean on me.

  Calling out to Middlesun. Yearning for her.

  Upward and outward she pressed her awareness, giving of the full weight of all the draconic souls which had just been added to her boneyard. Millions of souls.

  I’m gravity. I’ll be your anchor.

  It was perilous to expose herself like this, she sensed, yet she must – an imperative as simple as breathing.

  Allory tried to dance, to sing, but under the unimaginable pressure she exerted, the best that she could do was to offer a glimmer. Middlesun had delivered a personal sunbeam for her. How could she hope to measure up to that? How could she even reach her, given the zenith of pain she sensed from the great entity?

  You are light incarnate. I’m just a spark, a child of your light.

  The image gave her pause. Maybe that was right. As a discrete, minuscule manifestation of all the enormity of sunlight that irradiated the sphere of life encompassing Middlesun, this was her part to give. What lay within her strength was to offer a tiny thread of song, stabilising and healing, alleviating or at the very least distracting the life-giving entity from the extremity of her suffering. Allory wished with all her soul that even the simple knowledge that her pain was shared, might by some miracle, instil hope in Middlesun. The tiniest spark could become so much more.

  A powerful sense of connection swelled within her as Allory struggled to frame her response. Then, she threaded her magic like spider silk through all the smoke and chaos and pain, a fragile gossamer filament that nonetheless conveyed the most powerful themes she could conceive of.

  Togetherness. Family. Love.

  She waited. Nothing. No response. For the longest time, Allory waited with her heart standing in her throat.

  Could one insignificant creature even hope to communicate across such a vast distance?

  Then, without warning, the image of a dazzling, scintillant azure-silver flower sprang into being in her mind, fully formed. An unexpected thrill of recognition, of connexion, almost made her leap out of her skin – had she any to speak of, she might have indeed.

  Like a rose in general structure, the complex flower she beheld was nonetheless eternally mobile, as if petals of sunlight blossomed from the unseen heart of a sphere and folded back into the core. Magical threads connected her to the Sentinel Trees, untold millions in number. Allory wanted to catch her breath. She wept for joy at the realisation of a new truth. Those Sentinels plugged this Middlesun into her world, into the whole fabric of Spheris. It was all her – the whole planet. Everything was bonded together, united into a single living organism of unimaginable dimensions.

  Phantastic!

  Her emotional response must have communicated up the gleaming filament that linked them, for Allory sensed a reaction akin to surprise or perhaps even wonder, coupled with an overwhelming surge of maternal concern.

  A soul-hug of pure radiance enveloped her being.

  How extraordinary!

  Soul Blossom, she gasped inwardly. That’ll be my name for you – ahem, until I learn better.

  Giggle. Speaking of her budding talent for mischief, especially with nicknames … that one was a humdinger. All she knew was that it felt right. Perfectly accurate.

  To her burgeoning astonishment and delight, despite the deep trauma that she sensed up above, a ripple of mirth flashed downward and ruffled her sparkles at the speed of light. A caress? Allory tried to give her name, to explain who and what she was – not that she was entirely clear on the matter herself – but the entity responded by receiving the Scintillant’s infinitesimal gift and folding it into the ever-blossoming petals of her own majestic being.

  Darkness fell as if someone had flung a sack over Middlesun.

  Clear as daylight in her mind, an image of the boneyard shimmered – for the first time, Allory felt a sense of invitation. There. In that place, she must do her best work. Her spirit rose, thrilling to a sense of power pouring into her from all directions.

  Though trapped in body she could not physically move just then, her soul broke into dance.

  When the next attack crashed home, it reflected outward along every filament that linked Soul Blossom to her subordinate entities, the Sentinels. After a pause as if Spheris in its entirety drew breath, a prodigious flood of ariavanae flashed back into Allory. No, this was not what the Wraith had intended. She could not withhold. Exultant, her soul’s longing song poured into the Deepwoods, bidding the ancient powers rise, the roots to drink deep of this sustenance, the leaves to incline themselves to Middlesun, the slumbering soul of Elfdom itself to stir and awake. She homed in upon the Harpist’s music, a faint plucking of notes that served to ground her purpose.

  Hansanori lay with one hand outstretched upon his instrument, weakly plucking at the strings as he tried his utmost to play for her. Trying, because he sensed what she was doing and wanted to be part of it. Precious. She too was not alone. This was the true spark of friendship, its heart and deepest value.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Responding to an inner welling of creativity, Allory sang:

  Deep

  Deeper I wander

  Singing over my bones

  Bringing

  Hope

  The boneyard was a reserve of power never meant for a Wraith to abuse. She turned it all back against the roaming monsters, against the shadows, against the injustices of old. Rivers of sapphire sparkles cascaded over the mounded bones, causing the seven shadows of the vampiari to writhe, to flinch and dodge and try to hide – but they did not stop feeding. Not for a second. Her healing wind and the Ascended Septuani clashed violently. For each Shyraiama Dragon she wrenched away, they took two back. Feeding. Guzzling. Growing ever more bloated with the glut of life magic.

  Necromantic spirits!

  How could she hope to fight ageless powers such as these?

  If she somehow contrived to release these spirits from the boneyard, would they not simply roam across Spheris, slaying its creatures with abandon? And if she failed to save these who languished here, what would the fate of their immortal souls be?

  A hideous cry from an unseen source shook her to the core.

  The Wraith? Perhaps.

  The Scintillant mote danced harder. Faster. More poignantly. She wreathed herself in all the grief she had experienced, the fears she knew, the suffering of these myriad trapped souls. Music poured in from elsewhere, her own special melody. For a time, as the backlash of another attack swelled, Allory was able to drive the shadows back, to confuse and hurt and stop their endless feeding, but suddenly it was as if the seven at once grew aware of the peril she represented and drew together against her.

  Sevenfold in power as they merged, the ghastly spirits swelled like the floodwaters of the Canyonlands, a dark and baleful locus of hatred.

  A counterattack must come.

  Panic swept away all the goodness she yearned for. In an instant, Allory was that Faeling again, lost and alone, uncomprehending of the horrors of this place she guarded. Mountains of black bones crumpled beneath the sweep of power somehow linked to her tiny feet as she fled blindly. Barely a glimmer had she left, yet as the vampiari gave their all to chase her, in turn the souls they had kept suppressed somehow found release. Avalanches knocked her hither and thither as she dodged the whispering, hungering shadows, diving through cracks, slipping beneath mighty racks of ribs and whipping around tall thigh bones in unexpected directions.

  All the while, Shyraiama Dragons in their thousands and tens of thousands poured forth from the boneyard in an echo of the greatest migration ever seen, that historic birthing of their kind she had once attended.

  It could not be sustained.

  The Ascended Septuani closed in as one creature. Trapped!

  As a sevenfold veil colder than death itself swept over her, Allory had to snap herself away. She had done all she could. Surely this must go some ways to redressing the balance?

  * * * *

  “Hnnn – uhhh …”

  “Just breathe. Gently. You’re alright, Allory Fae.”

  Hansanori.

  His playing had drawn her home once more, lodestone to her existence.

  “Hmm-rrr, Allory’s … alright?” Familiar golden eyes peered down at her. A rough tongue tried to rasp her sparkles. “Still with us?”

  “By my sap, that was bad,” Hansanori groaned, wringing out his fingers. Pale and sweaty, his haunted silver eyes suggested he had been fighting the same ghosts she had. “Immortal cold, Allory. How did you do it? How did you escape?”

  She followed his gaze to the skies and caught her breath.

  Clouds of Shyraiama Dragons rose from the Deepwoods as if spat forth from a netherworld no-one had known existed. So many! Their immense coal black wings beat the morning air into a froth. She sensed their longing to return to the place of life-giving fires. It was far too cold down here for them to survive for long.

  “I didn’t do enough. I couldn’t,” she whispered.

  “You stopped the attacks,” Yaarah purred. “That’s enough for now.”

  Allory rasped, “The boneyard is full to overflowing. I can never be enough on my own, Yaarah. Never.”

  The Argent Fae gaped at her. “Whatever are you talking about, Allory Fae?”

  “It’s a bit of a tale.” Her sparkles squirmed uncomfortably, unable to bear his expression. “Please … please don’t hate me for this, Hansanori.”

  “I couldn’t. Ever.”

  His voice, however, told a different tale – perhaps it was instinctual fear, or mistrust? All Allory could think of was that if he only knew, or if others understood these powers they stood against … would they stay? Fight this fight with her? Be the strength of her cocoon?

  Zzuriel gasped, “Allory. Allory! Look up.”

  One of the mighty Shyraiama Dragons hovered above Amazas’ home, gazing down until his blazing regard lit upon one creature in particular. For a full minute at least, his white-hot orbs locked upon her tiny form. She could not have dropped her gaze had she wished to. Allory sensed the restless immensity of the fires within his body, the joy of coursing together with comrades around those unimaginable fires that gifted life and sustenance to them, even the fact that he could not speak as they did – or perhaps, that he spoke a tongue or in a way she could not begin to comprehend.

  He waited not far above the treeline.

  Scrambling to gather her sparkles into some sense of order, Allory forced herself to fly up to meet this mighty Dragon. Seen from up close, his eyes were even more glorious than she had imagined, ablaze with the heart-fires of Middlesun herself. Were these creatures yet another aspect of Soul Blossom’s life? She did not understand.

  Gravely, she dipped her person and said respectfully, We must all fly to the light, Great One.

  One black forepaw, larger than Yaarah was long, clenched and touched his scaly chest in the region Allory thought must represent a Dragon’s heart – at least, if Yaarah’s anatomy was anything to judge by. Then, his talons opened and very, very gently rose to make a cupping gesture beneath and around her airborne form – a gesture of honour, she sensed.

  How she wished they could speak!

  Allory twirled briefly upon the onyx, mirror-like scales of his palm, a fragment of dance, a homage to the paragon of luminance they both served. O Dragon of the Sun, she thought to him, I will do all I can to restore your brothers and sisters. Go now. Keep Soul Blossom safe, you who are her eternal shield.

  His muzzle dipped in acknowledgement. He understood!

  Why did she fail to?

  Then, cracking open his maw, the Shyraiama behemoth breathed lightly upon her with an exhalation of ariavanae itself. Allory had never scented or felt anything like it, an elemental tickle, a thrill of fragrant fires, a sense of uncontainable wonder. His breath was a wind of magic that could change anything, the song of Middlesun’s ancient inmost fires, a breath redolent of the ebullient potentials of life itself.

  This was the mighty Dragon’s gift to her.

  Allory genuflected her sparkles again and gazed after in awe as the Dragon streaked away to join the rest of his kin in their long climb higher and higher into Centresky, bound for the centre of everything.