The Time Weaver

Chapter Eighteen

For every Gift, a sacrifice.

It was a concept the drakon understood well, both those born of green fields and those born of the mountains. To embrace greatness required an understanding of it first; no true understanding could come without tribulation.

So these creatures who were ever encased in songs from metals and stars and stones no matter where they journeyed, heaven or earth, had themselves no voice.

These children of the beasts who survived the grotesque, involuntary agony of their very first Turn had peers, friends, brothers who did not.

And these animals who speared the skies in broken rainbows of color, whose radiance was the roots of legend, whose splendor defied all mortal comprehension, were forced to walk the dirt with human faces, in human bodies, because their true selves were too awful and beautiful for humans not to fear.

What sacrifice, then, for she who could baffle Time itself?

Only one had this Gift.

The physical pain was just the preface of her story. The temporary loss of her blood, of her senses, were merely the beginning of what she would forfeit.

The soul of a dragon is a wild and untouchable thing. It shines gossamer, wholly pure no matter how sullied the body attached to it.

But for hers.

Hers became touched. Nipped. Small pieces and corners torn away, a little more, a little deeper, with each new Weave.

Such a soul would shine at first regardless. Especially hers: shy and wondering, marveling at every miraculous speck composing her miraculous life. Who might even notice a few minor fissures?

But Time itself could be a dragon, the most Fearsome Dragon of all, and it would have its way. Even one who might Weave around it must make offerings. Time would use its teeth to see to that.

So as this one creature, with her one Gift, aged and Wove, she had no notion that she was slowly allowing herself to be devoured. All the good in her, all the shy purity, digested and gone. Fragments of her caught up in its gums, and Time licked its lips and thought, Yes, delicious.

What soul she had left, those tattered pieces, grew sullied indeed.