The Sun's Awakening

Chapter Twenty-Six

Roman neared his wit's end. The war had taken a devastating toll, and the latest reports only deepened his despair. All the dragons were gone, scattered or slain. Kaanan had escaped from the dungeons. And perhaps the most unsettling news... Eledorah had vanished.

He paced back and forth in the tent stationed at the foothills of the battlefield, grappling with the rumors coming at him from all angles. Some claimed to have witnessed a heated argument between the dragonborn leader and Ele, that ended with Kaanan intervening. The details were sparse; murky with the chaos of battle. 

Their numbers were severely dwindled, and without the dragons to attack from the skies, the fate of the war seemed increasingly bleak. Every warrior seemed to know it.

A satyroid messenger burst into the room, panting heavily. "Where is Oxin? I have news for him."

"He's lending aid to the eastern front, tell me what you have."

The messenger nodded. "According to whispers on both sides, the dragonborn have launched an attack on Sepulchre. A portion of the council's army has double-backed to go after them."

Roman cursed. All of those people were innocent in this war. Defenseless families who did not want bloodshed on their hands and whose warriors were sent off to battle at the whims of the council. There was one thing he could not shake from his head, a feeling that led to a sinking in his gut.

"Did anyone see if Eledorah went with them?" He questioned fervently, his voice tight and eager to place her whereabouts.

The messenger hesitated, uncertainty clouding his expression. "We don't know for sure, sir. Some say she went to join them, others believe she might be trying to stop them. It happened in the dead of the night. One thing they know for certain is that she flew off without the fallen prince, he took off towards the south, toward Sepulchre. And she..." The satyroid scratched his head, near the base of his horn. "Well, people claim that she went west."

Roman clenched his jaw, frustration bubbling to the surface. The idea of Ele joining them to slaughter innocents was unthinkable, yet the notion of her standing alone against the dragonborn was equally terrifying. 

"Go find Oxin or Sterling, tell them that some enemy troops have fallen back to head to Sepulchre. Leave out the part about Eledorah joining them until we know for certain or else these false claims may spread and divide the remaining satyroids and faenix. Go, now." Forgetting to thank the messenger before he departed, Roman rubbed his face, exhaustion written into every line. 

When the tent flap opened, the messenger hesitated. Roman noticed the man's gaze fixed upwards, an unusual distraction for someone delivering urgent news. He lingered there too long for Roman's liking, so he stepped forward to investigate what held the satyroid's attention. 

Smoke rose in the distance, a thick column billowing upwards until it touched the clouds and fanned out across the horizon. It somehow made the dark sky even darker. All that smoke meant something big was burning. Except, there was no village in the west. Only mountains and beyond that... Ki'Heil.

"You say people saw her flying west?" Roman felt the uneasiness return. He thought back on what Kaanan said about the demons inhabiting her mind, whispering sinister things that would turn her against the world and all those who she loved.

The messenger nodded, his expression troubled. "Yes, sir. Several witnesses said the same."

If Ki'Heil burned to ashes, the dragons would be enraged. Their wrath uncontainable. Their response swift and devastating. The fragile alliances they had worked so hard to build would shatter from this act of betrayal. And if Eledorah was somehow responsible, they'd want her dead before the day's end.