A Place with Dragons

Prologue

Prologue

Nicolas stared at the overlord dragon. He stared blankly into the face of timeless Death and no longer cared. His thoughts drifted away from the knot of anguish swelling up inside of him, wandering back to the Saturday morning, long ago—to when he first saw the crow.

It seemed ages ago.

***

The sum of his entire life surged up inside of him. Like a last trembling draught of breath before plunging into a cold pool of water, Nicolas’ life up to this point—its safe sense of who he was and what he was—crowded inside him until all he could see were cataracts of greyish memories. He knew nothing would ever be the same. Life would never again be defined by the kinds of things most boys busy themselves with before they unwarily stumble into manhood.

The knife Nicolas held in his hand—its blade and spine awash with thick, wet, dark blood—had made sure of that. The thin blade had done what no amount of youthful experiences could have. In the traitorous twist of a single moment, it had severed—murdered, really—Nicolas’ past; laid his memories to rest inside a hateful coffin of sudden violence. And like a soul-empty survivor at a funeral wake, Nicolas now looked hard at those memories—especially the memories of that frosty Saturday morning long ago—struggling to memorize them, relive them, if only for a moment. But with each heavy drop of blood from the sodden knife, he felt them fade. They weakened and withered and shrank away until, finally, they were gone.

Now empty, his soft grey eyes slowly adjusted once again. He stared at the enormous demon. Into timeless Death.

And in that small moment, Nicolas knew—he truly knew—he had become a Wren. The king of birds.