Kire had had this nightmare before, many, many times. The world around her on fire, and the rubble of the Palace about to fall upon her, as it did sixty years ago during the Storm. The only thing that saved her then was an attendant, who had helped look after her as a girl growing up in the Capital, falling upon her, her final act of service shielding her from the worst of the damage. In these dreams she would relive that moment, her young hands reaching up, the world going black, the death cry of the woman who saved her, and pain. She knew how the rest would go: she had fallen in and out of consciousness on that day, until later in the evening she would be found, bleeding from some cuts and scrapes but otherwise alright, with the blood of the dead attendant on her tattered dress, and later she would be told that she had lost her mother and father, too. This was how she became Empress, upon the ruins of her home, and at the cost of many lives. Her dream would flash through them, the events of the day blurring into one another until she was told of the loss of her parents, the one other moment besides the collapse of the old Palace wing that would be most vivid of all. 

But the nightmare was different this time.  Though it began the same way as before, this time, she was a grown woman, and she was alone, buried under the rubble. Through the cracks and crevices she could see red skies. Her throat burned with thirst, as if she had been under the rubble for hours, and she could feel their oppressive weight pushing down on her. [i]Get out, get out, get out![/i] In desperation she dug through, clawing at the debris until, at last, she was able to free herself, her fingers bleeding from the effort. When she stood upon the rubble, though, she found, to her horror, that she wasn’t anywhere familiar. 

She was standing on the ruins of a place she had never seen before: broken pillars of stone and wood, statues cast down onto the ground, and the fields around her on fire. Above her, flashes of flame. Kire looked up and gasped: the great silhouettes of dragons fighting in the air filled the sky. A white-hot light shone behind her. When she turned, she saw a massive gate, so huge and bright it blinded her. She heard the angry roar of dragons rend the air, and Kire cowered, covering her head with her arms, as they swooped down upon the gate, ready to breath dragon-fire at it…

Kire woke with a gasp. She had been gripping the sheets, her body tense, breathing heavily. “Fuck…” She collapsed back onto her pillows, rubbing her face with one and with the other reaching for Ruli’s hand. 

--

Ed stepped out of the gate, sword at his hip. He hadn’t been able to sleep properly, between worrying about what the strange forest and visions could mean for Amria and about his fight with Ysaryn. There was so much about the former that they couldn’t control, not until Kire or the others found some other clue or gathered more information about it, and the latter he attributed to his own stupidity. But at least he could do something about it. [i]Would she even entertain me now?[/i] he wondered, feeling very much like the young, foolish man he had been when he had been Earnest’s age.