In the twenty-two years that Daventio Tolbeth had been alive, he had never felt so exhausted. It was somewhat close to the drained feeling he had when he was in rehabilitation after losing his leg, but it was hardly a comparison. He could occasionally feel himself crawl toward the barest edge of consciousness before his tired body lulled him back into another mixture of memories and dreams.

  The most recurrent memories were of the vineyard. Some were of him and his baby brother in their younger days, staining their skin and clothes with the juice from grape treading. They would make contests to make the work feel faster, like seeing who could get the juice to splash the highest, or who could hold their breath the longest. His brother would always giggle and snort when the juice would bubble, and his face always turned a dark shade of green whenever he would hold his breath past a minute.

  Others were of him and his mother, filling baskets and trimming vines while chattering between different topics. She somehow always kept her apron relatively clean, despite all of the dirt and juice that they would work through. She would always end her work by discussing dinner with him, and what he thought the rest of them would prefer that day.

  Even Daventio’s father sometimes appeared in memories of shared meals and shopping trips, his jokes and generosity on display every time they would enter the market. He most commonly remembered how his father would run the wine stall in center square, how he would pitch different bottles and keep the customers happy and loyal.

  Sometimes his family’s faces or voices would be faint, distant, or distorted. Other times they would simply disappear when he turned away. There was even once where his recollection of his father at their wine stall warped and faded until his father blew away like smoke on the wind.

  The worst of them was when they would mix with his memories and nightmares of one of The Dives. Sweet and warm memories of the vineyard would combust into horrid scenes of grapevines and buildings burning. The sounds of his family laughing and conversing would be drowned out by the sounds of roaring dragons and the crackling shocks of Topavaran breath ripping into the earth around them.

  He would try to help them, but when he ushered his family away they would always fade or melt under his touch. Whenever he would try to flee instead, his leg would disappear without his spectral one to replace it, and he’d be stuck hobbling or crawling through flames. Daventio could hear his family as well as others screaming and crying, and the crackling of fire around him, and he never seemed to have the power to do anything to help them.

  None of those fabricated horrors, however, plagued him as much as the memory he was currently reliving. He was on the ground, writhing in pain and reaching for his right leg, or at least where it was a few moments prior. It was now above him in the maw of a dark brown Topavaran dragon. The large serpent chewed and crunched on the green limb, bright blue blood falling onto Daventio and seeping into his clothes. He was screaming and wailing in pain, but he could barely hear himself over the roar of flames around him.

  Just as the dragon opened its jaws to snap another limb off of the Dullahan below it, a glowing blue spike of ice crashed against its curled right horn. It reeled its head back with a roar only for two more icicles to collide against the horn, the last one putting a deep crack against its base.

  Daventio barely managed to look away from the dragon, only to see his father, wielding his grandfather’s staff that they had kept displayed over the mantle. A fresh, pointed Leystone was set in top of it, glowing a bright blue as his father jutted it forward like a spear toward the thing that took his son’s leg. A fourth icicle manifested faster than a blink, racing toward the dragon with great force and jamming into the crack in its horn, snapping it off.

  The dragon let out a sound akin to a shriek, but it quickly turned to rage. Daventio called out in fear as it dove to his father. He couldn’t see past the dragon’s form well enough to see, but it didn’t take long for him to find out. After a pounce and a bit of a struggle, the dragon made a loud gurgling noise and slumped to the side, revealing the staff buried into its chest between its scales, piercing its heart.

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  Daventio’s father, however, didn’t come out unscathed. The dragon’s hand was stuck in his chest, three of the talons having dug into his torso. He was pouring blood from his wounds as well as his mouth and nose. Despite it all, he shoved the dragon’s heavy paw off of him, the talons leaving his skin with a sickeningly slick sound. He then began to walk over to his son, eyes wide and serious.

  Daventio felt his heart sink and he began to realize that this wasn’t right. That’s not what his father did. His father had bled out too quickly to move, but now here he was, walking over to him with a strong stride as blood oozed out of the massive holes in his chest. The thick, bright blue liquid didn’t stutter or stop, flooding a trail into the singed grass.

  His father stopped to stand over him and reached down, grabbing the collar of Daventio’s shirt and pulling him into a sitting position, leaning in close to his face. The blood of his father pooled around them and dripped onto him, mixing with his own.

  “You need to move, Daven. It’s time to move.” His father spoke sternly and quietly, but Daventio heard him perfectly. The roaring fire and the screaming people all quickly faded into a low hum and crackle, and everything surrounding them quickly twisted and burned until they were engulfed by a bright, painless blaze.

  “Father, I can’t, I-” Daventio looked down to his legs only to see his bloody, severed thigh was now healed, the spectral leg he had grown used to now in its rightful place. When he looked back up to his father the large man’s eyes were piercing into his soul with a pleading seriousness he’d never shown in life.

  “Move, Daven! You have to move, now!”

  “MOVE!”

  Daventio took in a deep, shuddering gasp and his eyes slowly peeled open only to shut again from the bright light nearby. His whole body felt heaving and sore, and his head was splitting. He tried to swallow only to cough due to a dry throat, leaving him rasping for breath. When he moved his arms and touched his hands to the ground beneath him he could feel hides and straw, and he felt a slightly rough stone floor when he reached past it. He could hear the low crackle of a fire and assumed that’s where the dull warmth on his left was coming from, along with the light.

  “Are you awake?” a soft woman’s voice asked.

  The Dullahan’s brow furrowed and he fought to open his eyes again. It took a couple of blinks for him to be able to see properly, but what he saw made him freeze in place.

  A steel-blue Topavaran dragon stood just a few feet away from him, towering over him. Her pale green eyes stared down at him, and when she opened her mouth and spoke again, he couldn’t register her words. All he could see was the sharp teeth that lined her mouth.

  She took a step closer to him and spoke again, but his body quickly went into action before he could even choose to hear her. Despite how his muscles screamed for him to be still, he scrambled on his hands and knees toward the fire. He snatched up a branch that had an end sticking out of the blaze, crawling backward on his haunches and holding up the burning branch like a shield.

  “Get away from me!” he yelled, his voice cracking from lack of use. When was the last time he even spoke?

  The dull blue dragon stared at him, and even though he could tell her expression had changed, he had no context as to what that expression was. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She slowly lifted a clawed foot to take a step toward him, and he yelped, fanning the fiery stick in the air between them, spreading flame and ember.

  “Bullshit! That’s utter bullshit!” Daventio hissed, scrambling back further until his back hit a cold stone wall. His arms shook as he held out the branch like a sword in front of him, muscles burning as if they were on fire too. He knew it wouldn’t help if the dragon actually decided to attack him. If she didn’t spit bolts of lightning at him, the most it would do is burn her tongue.

  “Turimiil!? What happened?” A male voice entered the den, louder and more clearly spoken than that of the dragon in front of him.

  Daventio looked to his right just as a bigger Topavaran walked into the den, his dark, saturated blue scales reflecting a dull sheen in the light. His horns were tall and twisted, imposing. He looked down at him with wide electric blue eyes, which quickly narrowed on the burning branch.

  “I’d put that down if I were you.” He rumbled in a slow, careful tone. Daventio could hear a slight threat behind it. “We don’t want you hurting yourself.”