Anyone;

[Castile]

and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was

There was smoke, dying embers, shouting, the roaring of the earth, and then silence.

Castile knew to grab Cyprin and carry her home. Many others, like Sochi, took to the portals or fled by their own means as the volcano belched more and more magma.

Exhausted, he slowly eases toward the cliff ledge where he sets down his youngest sister. She peers up at him curiously, but he utters not a single word before thrusting his wings and turning toward the mainland of Loess. He glides quietly down, landing gently on a raised hill just as his body shifts from dragon to horse. Lacerations slice across his side and face, dirt and blood caked on his skin. Every muscle trembles from the exertion of their war, but it has settled. Tephra burned for attacking Loess. That’s all he could have hoped for.

But there is more war to be had.

Another surge of adrenaline courses through his veins when Sinner and Mary seep into his thoughts, crawling through the cracks of his thoughts to reach the forefront. His lips curl distastefully, but then he lifts his head and almost seems to grin. They will bend the knee, those traitors, or lose their forest in the making. The dog will yelp and the woman will break.

Castile doesn’t announce this, not yet. A silence blankets the recovering kingdom as the soldiers tend to their wounds – both physical and emotional – and the dragon king grants them that peace as he observes his own.

castile