Pt. XIII
The tribe gathered at dusk. The air was thick with the quiet hum of anticipation. They knew. They had always known, in the way that dragons know the coming of a storm; the tension in the wind, the weight in the silence.
Akir’Ischa stood before them, her wings half-furled, her scales drinking in the last light of the setting sun. She did not need to speak for them to understand. But she would. For them. For herself.
“I have carved your stories into these slabs,” she began, her voice low, resonant, like the deep note of a stone struck just right. “I have held your griefs, your triumphs, your names. I have been the memory when memory failed you. But a Chronicler is not meant to be eternal.” A pause. The wind stirred the leaves above them, as if in agreement. “Nor am I.”
A murmur rippled through the gathered dragons. She saw it in their eyes—the fear, the denial, the quiet acceptance. She had taught them too well. They knew the weight of endings.
“I go to join the stars,” she said. “Not as a dragon who has failed, but as one who has fulfilled. My path is no longer here, among the stone and the earth. It is there.” She lifted her head, her gaze piercing the darkening sky, where the first stars were beginning to prick through the veil of twilight. “And it is time.”
“But the slabs!” A young dragon, barely an adult, bravely stepped forward. “Who will carve our stories? Who will remember us?”
Akir’Ischa looked at him and gave a nod of acknowledgement. “The slabs do not need me to remember. They need you. All of you.”
She turned slowly, her gaze sweeping over the gathered dragons. “There is one among you who already knows the weight of a story. Who feels the pull of the stone, who hears the whispers of the past as clearly as the wind in their ears.” Her voice dropped to a growl, a challenge. “That one will step forward when I am gone. Not because I have chosen them—but because the slabs demand it.”
Silence.
She turned back to the slabs, pressing her claws to the stone one last time. The silver mark she had carved pulsed faintly, as if in farewell. “I leave you with this: a Chronicler does not own the past. They serve it. And if they serve it well…” She looked up, to the stars, to the endless dark. “Then the past will serve them in return.”
With that, she stepped back. The tribe parted.
She only needed them to remember.
And they would.
She did not sleep.
She stood at the edge of the sacred ridge, her wings spread wide, her breath steady as the turning of the world. Below her, the tribe lingered, their voices a quiet wind in the dark. They would talk of her for nights to come. They would wonder. They would fear.But one by one, they would understand.