Glass Hearts

It is grim work, but it is all Osthryn can do to put out the fire and dismantle the ritual. Wyverns might just be half-fae animals, but they are living souls. Kindred spirits. They are cousins of the Dragon. It is sickening, how the wyvern was mistreated.


"This is a wild wyvern," Silovar murmurs.

"How can you tell?" Osthryn asks, closing her eyes and concentrating on moving the soil back over the grave she dug, burying the desecrated body in one action. "Well, no tack, on the body or around here. But that mark on its neck. That was a snare. It was not the kill wound. They snatched this poor animal out of the sky."


"What killed it?" Osthryn asks, not really wanting to know the answer. Silovar sighs, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, "Perhaps the snare did kill it, the force of pulling it down to the ground could have broken its neck. Or it was the stab through the heart, which we cannot see because it was hacked out so ... viciously."

"Seems being immortal is a risk," Osthryn muses, standing and brushing the dirt off the front of her kirtle. Geolu's words stick fast in her mind. Killed and resurrected. Again, and again.


Silovar does not respond to her statement, but she knows he heard her. He lets his arms fall to his sides. He nods to the rest of the fires dotting the landscape.

"Let's get moving. We might not be able to put all of them to rest, but it's worth trying."

Osthryn nods and follows him. They are silent as they move from site to site, not many words need to pass between them. Osthryn is clinical, ensuring the body is placed in the graves with dignity no matter how extensive the damage. She cannot help noticing patterns. Some wyverns have their hearts cut out, others are left intact with only a slash wound across the neck. Others, still, are unrecognizable. No matter how the body appears in state, the ritual is the same. A trampled circle in the grass, or a dragged circle in the sand, with the wyvern's blood sprinkled or spilled upon it, and the depleted body discarded atop a fire.


Silovar is somewhat more ritualistic in the respects he pays. Osthryn wonders if it has to do with the general attitude toward religion in the South, which she does not inherently understand. She watches as Silovar bows his head in some sort of prayer at the discovery of each new wyvern they come across. She notes each time the twin-sun salute he gives with his eyes lifted to the sky before breaking the circle. Either a scrape of his foot across the sand or by kicking the trampled grass until it is pulled out by the root does it. Every new wyvern mounts his anger, and every circle he dismantles is an outlet for it.


They walk along in silence, for a long time there is neither a new campfire nor any signs of a wyvern sacrifice.

"Why are there so many?"

Osthryn's voice is thin as she asks this. When they left Mountainkeep, this was something they could link to one mage and one rogue priestess. How many people were truly involved? How many people were required to sacrifice and harvest such a large slew of wyverns like this? An uneasiness twists within her. This is bigger than they thought. If this was something that drove her people underground so drastically in Bettramon the last time it happened, then they would need to solve this, and quickly.

If they could solve it.

"I don't know," Silovar responds, his voice flat.

Osthryn steels herself. Whatever it is, Silovar will not be alone. Not that she has a choice, anyway. Realistically, without him, she is truly alone. No matter how many humans she manages to befriend. Oswald and Martina, like the child she healed two hundred years ago, will turn to dust. All of them will.

But it is the same for him. And she will not leave him.

They round a copse of trees, and Osthryn's world turns a shade of muted black.


Piled on each other, discarded like used rags, lie what could be a fleet's worth of wyverns. Silovar rushes to them, and falls on his knees, pulling one closer. He checks the tack on them, and runs his finger underneath the girdles and bridles. His fingers close around a royal standard, and he rips it off the harness. He stalks back to Osthryn, shoving the standard in her hands. She takes the torn leather, and traces her fingers over the embroidery.


"It's the war fleet. I hope it is not all of them, but, it is difficult to count. I think it might be all of them. I checked under their tack, they are still warm, Osthryn. They are still warm. They were led here, like the well-trained, obedient beasts they are, and they were betrayed."

Silovar's eyes are fixed on the bodies as he speaks. His breath rattles unevenly with every new word. His eyes glow with ever-mounting fury, his hand is clenched into a fist so tightly that his knuckles turn white. Osthryn folds the standard. She takes Silovar's wrist into her hands, gently stroking his arm. He loosens his hand, and she places her hand in his. He holds it. Tightly.


"Don't look away from them, Osthryn." Silovar says, jerking her hand in his when she lowers her gaze to the ground. She looks back up.

"They were born captive, against their nature, and their kindness was used against them. They were trained to kill men, they were trained to carry soldiers without the freedom to choose how they flew. They were saddled, steered and used. They patiently bore it. And to what end? They die not in service, they are sacrificed, and sucked dry."

Silovar looks at her, "They deserve to be seen."

Osthryn brings her gaze to each of the wyverns. Silovar's grip on her hand tightens. She looks at them. She looks at each of their faces. She stares at the sea of dead wyverns until each individual is distinct to her. She commits their faces to memory.


"They are seen," Osthryn whispers. She feels sick.

"They are seen," Silovar repeats. "Come. We must make haste."


"What are you doing? We must bury them," Osthryn insists, letting her hand slip from Silovar as he begins to run. He turns back to her.

"The wyverns are still warm. Those that sacrificed them cannot be far from here. I do not know what happened at the 'demonstration' Frederick and Levitia put on, but this reeks of an ambush. If wyverns are able to expel energy, and the Necromancers, however many they are, were feasting on the royal fleet outside the city...''

"Then we have an unknown number of over-dosed Necromancers marching toward Mountainkeep," Osthryn finishes.

"Likely to enforce Frederick and Levitia's point. If it is even their point. We have no idea how deep this goes."

Silovar turns to run again, but Osthryn grabs his arm, stalling him.

"Silovar, wait. They have likely already reached the king. And this is the royal fleet. There must be an insider component to this. We have no idea what we will find."
"Then we have to be swift!" He pulls against Osthryn's grip, she pulls him back.

"What if they capture us? What if this is just to draw us out?"

Silovar's face softens. He turns to face her, squaring his shoulders. He puts both hands on either of her arms. He searches her face. She looks up at him, pleading, searching his eyes for a way in to make sense.

"Osthryn, you outflew sound today. Did you realise that? When the air grew thin and your ears felt closed, did you feel it? And it was your first real flight. Do you understand what you are?"

Osthryn closes her eyes and puts her forehead against Silovar's chest. The rhythm of his heart is steady, but quick. "Silovar..."

"Now, do you think, if you could out-fly sound on your first real flight, and I have been flying for five hundred years longer than you have, that they will be able to catch me? That they will be able to catch us?"

Osthryn looks up at him. He is smiling at her, so reassuringly. So confident in what he says. Her heart twists, the dream replays in her mind.

 "Please, don't die," she strains in a whisper. Repeating what she had likely said in her in her sleep countless times last night.

The corners of his mouth twitch, and his forehead creases into a frown. His hands tighten their grip around her shoulders for a moment as he studies her. His hands move around her waist and around the back of her head, and he pulls her in close. Her eyes instinctively fall closed as his lips press against hers.


Her heart feels like it will burst, the bittersweetness of this moment pressing itself deeply into her mind. She holds onto it, wishing it will never stop. Wishing Silovar will never go. He pulls away from the kiss, and wraps her in an embrace, pressing her head against his chest. She memorises the sound of his heart beating against her ear.

"I won't die," he says, his muffled voice resonating strangely through his chest.

Then he lets her go. Her hand rests loosely on his as he steps away. He smiles at her, then leaps directly into the air, flying toward Mountainkeep.

Osthryn's throat tightens. She looks at the dead wyverns strewn about her.

She steels herself, and leaps into the air, following him into uncertainty.