The Dragon

“So Erwin’s family was innocent?” Lorelei asks as I use my grimoire to conjure chalk. 

“Innocent may not be accurate. His father was a monster, but at the very least, he didn’t have Annaliese killed,” I say, drawing a circle on the ground, followed by an eight-point star around it. 

Lorelei, following my instructions, collects eight candles from around the room and brings them to me. I generate a knife out of ice and cut them down to a uniform length, then I place one at each point on the star. 

Annaliese sits atop the table in her jackalope form, looking back at me. I take my shirt off and toss it aside, and cut my wrist with the ice blade, drawing my blood.

I dip my fingers in the blood and draw that same array on my chest and palms. Lorelei approaches me, hesitant and making a face. I nod to her, and she dips her fingers into my blood as well. 

She draws the array on my back and steps out of the circle. “I’m loving the mood here, but can I please wash my hand?” 

I can’t help but grin. “Hold out your hand.” 

She does so, and I blast her hand with a little bolt of water, cleaning the blood away. 

My cut drips down my forearm and onto the floorboards. Annaliese’s antlers glow for a moment, and it closes. 

“Okay, it’s time.” 

“So what exactly is going to happen?” Lorelei asks. 

“The spell that has caused this Manor and the woods to be an impenetrable maze is going to be broken, thanks to Annaliese. She remembers what it originally looked like before it was distorted by Erwin’s magic, so I am going to use her memories to restore it.”  

I snap my fingers and ignite all the candles at once, then I hold my hands over the array on my chest, right hand first, then left. I invoke all of the arrays at once, and they all begin to glow crimson. The manor shifts and shakes all around us. The glamor over the entire interior, making it look as it did two hundred years ago, falters, and the true, ruined state reveals itself. The books wither, parts of the building collapse from rot and weather damage, and all the sconces go dark at once. The sky grows dark with storm clouds, and the only light remaining is from the candles around the array, and the frequent cracks of red lightning in the sky. 

The candles in the array blow out a moment later and the arrays stop glowing, and I drop to my knees, exhausted. 

“Seath!” Lorelei calls, bringing me my shirt. Annaliese, too, hops off from the table and inspects me with her small, beady eyes. 

“I’m ok, it just took a lot out of me,” I say, returning to my feet. I slide my top back on. 

There is nothing hiding Erwin’s presence anymore. I can sense him as clear as day outside the front entrance of the manor. He knows what we did, and he is certainly waiting. 

Lorelei stares in that direction, as if she can see through the walls. Even she, without any magical power, must feel something in the air. “What now?” 

“Your part in this is over. The way is clear, you should be able to find your way back to town. I am going to finish this with Annaliese.” 

“Woah, if you think I’m just going to walk away and leave you, I have no intention of doing that. You only came here to save me,” She replies. “Besides… I want to see how it all ends. Up until now, this story has been nothing but tragic. Erwin lost the love of his life and killed himself and his family out of paranoid grief. He spent two hundred years haunting these lands, and I want to help him be free.” 

Judging by the serious look on her face, I’m not going to be able to talk her out of it. “Alright, but stay with Annaliese.” 

Lorelei and Annaliese follow me to the now-dilapidated foyer and out the front door. By the front gate of the grounds stands Erwin. Rain starts to fall from the sky, just a few drops at first. But it quickly becomes a downpour. My soaked hair begins to stick to my face, and I slick it back. 

“Wolf of the Full Moon, you broke my spell. That trap took a hundred years to build, and now it is gone. But no matter. Once I take the magic imbued in your body, I’ll be a Dragon, and I won’t be bound to this horrid place any longer.” 

“What then, Erwin Sturm?” I say, forming my ice claws. 

“Then I will hunt all the liars, murderers, and betrayers I can find until my rage is satiated,” He replies. 

I hold out my hand to him. “You will never find peace that way, Erwin. You think your family took Annaliese from you, but she wasn’t murdered. She was sick for a long time – probably from before you even came home from Cambridge. It was nobody’s fault-” 

“LIAR!” Erwin cries. “They took her from me!” 

“Erwin!” 

Lightning strikes his body and imbues him with magical energy. His veins light up red, and crackling bolts of power flow through him like electricity. “Enough. There is nothing you can say that will save you. This house belongs to the cursed dead, and you will soon be among them!” 

He flies up with his large wings and calls down lightning strikes on me. I dodge them, but a dozen bolts are falling from the heavens every couple of seconds. I hold up my left hand and fire off a white beam that vaporizes part of his wing, dropping him to the ground. 

Erwin sprays red lightning from his claws, and I erect a wall of ice to intercept them. He charges and shatters the ice with his claws, and I come at him claw-to-claw. 

As we trade blows, I keep trying to freeze him with an icy mist, but the lightning flowing through him eliminates the build-up every time. I have to break through this shell to exorcise him – so long as his dragon form is still active, he’s completely consumed by his negative feelings. 

Whenever his claws come close to me, lightning arcs off of his body and zaps me, burning my body and draining my power. 

“You’ve hurt too many people, Erwin! This has to stop today!”   

“I’ve hurt people?” Erwin replies incredulously. “I have seen in your heart how many people you hurt. I know what you did to Juniper. You dare pass judgment on me?” 

He flies back and gathers his magic in his wings, then suddenly a hundred bolts of lightning fire from his wings into my body. I howl in pain and thrash, trying to get away from the searing agony burning through me, but the lightning forces all my muscles to clench tightly, and I collapse. 

I writhe in the mud as the torturous attack continues, but I try to fight through it. I focus and get my bearings, dragging myself to my knees, but Erwin’s twisted foot kicks me in the ribs, and I roll onto my back. 

Mercifully, the lightning stops, and I start to regain control of my muscles, but Erwin stomps his heel down on my chest and all the air flees from my lungs. I gasp and try to force his foot off of me with my hands. 

“I expected more from someone with the power of the moon,” he mocks. 

I sink my claws into his leg below the knee, twist, and pull, severing it. As Erwin flies back and shrieks, I scramble back to my feet. “Were you expecting that?” 

“I will tear your heart from your chest before this is over!” 

“I dare you to try,” I retort. 

Erwin flies at me so I generate a pillar of ice in his path, and as he crashes into it, I make it explode into thousands of sharp shards. I run right toward him and grab his remaining ankle, and at the same time, I activate a spell in my grimoire to increase my physical strength. I swing him around by the ankle, then I slam him into the ground. 

Now is the time – his chest is vulnerable, I can split him open and pull his spirit free from the shell. I stand over him and raise my claw, and – 

“Seath! No!” Lorelei screams. 

I look at her, and see the tears steaming down her face, then I look down. 

“Wha–” 

Erwin has sunk his claws into either side of my torso. I can’t feel the pain, but I can feel myself growing weaker as my blood flows out into his hands.

His leg regenerates, and he sits up and begins to stand, his claws twisting and flexing inside my body. I can’t seem to catch my breath. Every time I breathe in, it feels like nothing is coming. 

I just keep staring back at Erwin’s face. 

My body glows a pale blue and begins to emit particles of light that he draws into his wings. It feels like I’m being drained. My senses grow dull, and I feel so cold. My eyelids are as heavy as stone, and I can’t keep them open anymore. Before they seal shut, through my blurred vision I see something behind Erwin – a luna moth, fluttering in the pouring rain. 

But perhaps I just imagined it.