Aldric Starweaver's Arc

Chapter 1 of 10

Aldric Starweaver had not left his tower in three days. A dragon owned the sky above his keep now. It circled the fractured battlements in slow rings, and each time its shadow crossed the window, Aldric flinched back from the light. On his worktable lay the reason for all of it: the shards of the sky-crystal that once kept Knotheart's dragons away. He had guarded that crystal his whole life. Two weeks ago it broke in his hands, and the skies opened. He sorted the shards by candlelight and cursed his shaking fingers. He needed the missing center piece to bind the rest. Without it, the crystal was glass. Without the crystal, the dragon stayed. And while the beast circled, no wagon, no messenger, no help could reach him. Someone pounded on the keep door below. Aldric froze. The dragon banked away, and he ran down the crumbling stairs. He threw the bolt and dragged the old door open. Three figures stood in the courtyard, backs pressed to the cracked stone wall. Two were elves, small and quick, arrows already nocked at the sky. Faelan tracked the dragon with steady eyes. Beside them, Sylvra whispered a count under their breath, waiting. Between the two elves stood a knight in dented silver armor, a red plume torn half off his helm. He did not look up at the dragon. He looked at Aldric, and grinned. "You're the crystal-keeper," Galahad said. "You made this mess. Good. That means you can end it." Aldric's face burned. "I need one shard I don't have. Until then, I can end nothing." Galahad pushed past him into the keep. "Then we buy you time. The elves shoot. I climb." He said it the way another man might order supper. The dragon dropped. Its shadow swallowed the courtyard. "Now!" Sylvra shouted. Two arrows flew. One struck the beast's eye. It screamed and twisted, and the wind of its wings threw Aldric against the doorframe. Galahad ran up a heap of fallen stones and leapt. He caught the dragon's foreleg as it rose. Aldric watched from the door, useless, the shards heavy in his pocket. The knight climbed the thrashing beast hand over hand and drove his sword deep behind its skull. The dragon shuddered. It fell. It struck the tower on the way down. Stone burst apart. Aldric threw himself flat as the top of his keep folded and crashed into the courtyard. Dust choked the air. When it cleared, the dragon lay dead across the rubble, and Galahad crawled free, laughing. Aldric climbed to his feet. The sky was empty now. But his worktable was gone, buried under a ton of fallen wall. The shards had been in his pocket. He checked. One was missing. Galahad clapped his shoulder. "See? Solved." Aldric stared at the rubble. To rebuild the crystal, he now had to dig his own tower out of its grave.