The Ghost of Adsophel

Nine.

Let me tell you a story.

Once there was a dragon who slept as a mountain. It slept beneath space and time, and in its dreams, it wove vast webs that took the shape of reality. It dreamt of many things. It dreamt of ants hollowing out the earth, and it dreamt of arrogant men tearing apart worlds that did not belong to them.

Its favorite dream of a little girl who wrapped herself in eyelet lace and rain clouds. She danced across the night until her feet were bloody, and the cosmos was littered with rusty footprints. She was laughing the whole time but soon she'd be crying, if she still felt anything at all. Every month the moon killed itself and was reborn. And with each of its cycles she grew further from the rosebud innocence of youth. The stars were slicing open her soles now, her soul. Her blood dripped to the earth like crimson tears, and wherever it soaked into the dirt, brilliant roses bloomed. They were made of ash, their grey petals delicate as a cloud.

The dragon had this dream every night, every hour, for twenty-one years.

Each time the roses bloomed, the dragon would whisper, this is her fault. No one heard it.

Here is another.

Once there was a mountain who woke as a dragon. It uncoiled itself for miles and meters, cracked open a jaw lined with as many teeth as there were stars, and screamed its endless blood-soaked fury. It screamed because, when it woke, it was met by a boy of moonlight, a girl of sunlight, and a soldier of hollow sand. They were set on ripping the dragon out of its skies eternal.

There was a ghost, too, but she had not come out of greed. The dragon knew this. It had already dreamt all there ever was to dream. But it still did not forgive her.

The boy, girl, and soldier had brought an army. They carried four thousand swords and four golden goblets. The dragon's fiery breath, diamond scales, and obsidian claws tore their army to shreds. For eighteen days and twenty-seven nights, it bathed black stones in a crimson ocean.

The dragon would have killed the boy, girl, and soldier, too, but it made one fatal mistake: it lost a tooth. And when all the soldiers were dead and gone, brittle bones crumpled to ash, the soldier of hollow sand stabbed the dragon through its maw with its own incisor.

The ghost wept, when it happened. She wept as the earth drowned beneath blood that gleamed a thousand colors and no colors at all. She wept as four golden goblets were filled with warm blood too black to see. She wept, and in death, the dragon heard her.

The blood met four pairs of lips. Pure starlight tore through four mortal bodies. They opened their eyes and they saw all there was to see. They would live forever, and they could never sleep. Their human hearts were gilded in scales, drained of blood and cast in empty white.

But for three, the transformation was impure. In its death, the dragon pricked their murky souls with a tiny sliver of poison, a promise that they could still die. It was what they deserved, although they would not believe it. Only the ghost, tears caught in her eyelashes like frost, was spared.

You should not slay a mountain, and you cannot escape a weaver of dreams. If only they had thought of this in time.

Another.

Once there was a boy of moonlight, a girl of sunlight, and a soldier of hollow sand. They ruled the world from a glass palace for two hundred and seventy years, each one darker than the last. They had promised the world enlightenment, but it's difficult to keep promises when one is immortal. They didn't have to fear the catastrophe of the dragon's death – the thrashing waves and splitting storms and howling throngs of gnashing wolves that ripped apart the city. They could not die, so why would they waste their time on people who could?