“Khonameol,” voices whisper.

  Faded, yet powerful. A strength which I can’t recognize, nor have anything to compare it to. My eyes lay shut, but light fights to force them open. Golden rays blind me, and I still haven’t acknowledged them. There is no more strength within me to shift even a limb. However, my body has no recollection of the entrapment I endured after the duel with Lord Rahmanegol. It feels unburdened, yet unmovable. I am alive, yet noticeably degraded.

  “Khonameol,” the voices repeat.

  I shift, the voices compelling me to attempt opening my eyes. Compassion is their source, might their ally. They speak in unison, multiple voices empowering one another, producing sounds capable of moving galaxies and reorganizing the entire Materium through mere words. What sort of power is this? It surrounds me, holds me, wants me. I can feel its love flowing through my essence, but I can also feel its sorrow paralyzing me. Has the imprisonment I endured consumed me entirely? Cast me into the place the ancient dragons speak of? That would be an undeserving gift.

  Eventually, my eyes fight against the brilliant golden rays, and as I open them, I am quickly appalled. The Materium surrounds me not, but golden clouds. My head snaps sideways, entranced by the beauty embracing me. I squint, yet am barely able to withstand the mighty brilliance on display. As far as I can see, golden clouds spread, adorned with pathways that lead to a structure. A fortress, a palace, a kingdom—all in one, one in all. Tiny lights glint on the pathways, each one stronger and more glorious, each one a master to even the Throne of Infinity. I can glimpse the walls of the mighty structure in the far distance—dragons are carved on them, each kin granted its distinct features. The Starmaker dragon holds a star in its arms, a ring of planets surrounds its neck and a galaxy is placed above its head. The Lightstealer dragon holds essence in its claws, a ring of cosmic storms around its neck and an egg above its head. Upon noticing that a Duality is also shown, my eyes widen. The Jila escapes through the dragon’s arms, while two symbols are placed around its neck. On its head rests a weapon and a shield. Where have I arrived? What sort of place within the Materium holds so much glory, and so much intrigue? The sentiment of love persists. Even though I glimpse no other dragon, I sense eyes gazing through me. Piercing my very existence, down to my core. I shudder and glance upward. A presence watches me, my body retreating as a result. “Where am I? Who is there?”

  “Have you not asked for me?” the harmonious voices respond.

  Three tones have answered me. Distinct, yet the same. Three voices amplified by a storm of others, and yet exuding with personality and lacking the need to make themselves better understood. My breathing quickens, as my eyes survey the bounds for someone. No figure is evident. “Have I been claimed by the Materium?”

  “Is that what you desired?”

  I shrug. “When has that ever mattered? It would be the deserved outcome of my failure. But too great a gift for what I am.”

  “What is this failure you speak of?”

  There is no need to withhold my mouth from speaking. An overwhelming safety cradles me in the presence of the voices. Nothing seems to carry importance anymore. “The king. My kin. Myself. I tried to prove my usefulness, and ended up imprisoned by my own body. I tried to stop a conflict, only to worsen it.” Why do I not grieve the events I speak of?

  “The birth of a child is the destruction of despair. Dragons and failures are like order ordered by disorder. Nonexistent.”

  “I am a Duality.”

  “You are my child.”

  Words stumble out of my mouth, eventually abandoning their desire to emerge. Instead, my snout falls open. I spin, and notice for the first time that my body is unshackled. In my search for the voices, I swallow and labor to find the will to speak any further. The creators are here with me. A realization that sends shivers through my entire being.

  “Yes,” the voices say. “I am.”

  I shake my head. “What do you want with me? Hasn’t my existence been enough of a burden already? There is no reason for you to acknowledge me.”

  “I acknowledge every creation of mine.”

  “I am an Error! A truth I’ve known since birth.”

  “Have I called you an error?” the voices demand. “Has my voice named you as such?”

  Words for a reply vanish from my mind. My head drops, and a tremble wraps my limbs. “It didn’t need to. The voices of my brethren have spoken it plenty.”

  Thunder erupts, accompanied by golden lightning. An unparalleled rage unleashes itself around me, the Jila a mere annoyance compared to what the voices display. “I am the Tribunal. Answer me this: whose voice carries more magnitude?”

  Lines of light strike the clouds I stand upon, forcing me to shift. Without warning, wind shoves me off my limbs. “This is the reason you’ve brought me here?” I shout. “I’ve… endured enough.”

  “Balance rests upon your shoulders, my child,” the voices say. “I have given you life. I have made you. You are mine, just like all of your brethren.”

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  “Why?! To suffer?!”

  “Does love require reason? Is compassion conditioned?”

  “I have no understanding of these terms, creators!” I complain. “I am an outcast. A dragon with no home, a being with no place of its own. A rejected creation.”

  I strike the clouds supporting me, tears blurring my sight. The thunder vanishes, but the light transforms. Instead of lines, it radiates above me, casting a warmness that no star can ever hope to attain. I hide my eyes under my wings, the light incapable of being watched. It… descends upon me with composure. “My child,” the voices say and the warmth touches me in the form of three limbs.

  My entire body abandons its desire to hide, my eyes emerging from under my wings. The tears of before vanish upon witnessing the three figures of light standing above me, each made out of a burning golden. They each possess bodies I’ve never seen before. What sort of beings have such small limbs and heads? “Love has sought you always,” the voices continue. “Your eyes and ears chose to disregard its calling. Answer me this: were you truly without a home?”

  A tremor seizes my eyes, what lays before me a sight that the entire Materium bows down to. Glory incarnate. “I… suppose not. King Alghamior gave me permission to dwell in Aslakahm. Temporarily, at least.”

  “Then you proved yourself the contrary to what you speak.”

  The three figures depart from me, soaring idly above. The words that reach me come from all three. I struggle to understand what is more bewildering—their dwelling, their bodies or their speech.

  “I… am not worthy of standing before you, creators.”

  “That is mine to decide.”

  “I’ve spoken against you.”

  “You’ve also prayed to me.”

  “Yes… I… didn’t believe it functioned.”

  The voices laugh. “You have questions, Khonameol. Concerns and doubts. Sorrow. Even contempt.”

  My eyes shift downcast. “I don’t understand. What am I? Why… am I?”

  “I’ve already answered that.”

  “B…alance?”

  “Life sprouts from majesty. Death from shadows. Balance maintains their efforts, guides their paths, adjusts their missions. Balance aids the Materium in preserving itself and continuing its existence.”

  I sigh. “What balance is in me?”

  “You have the necessary knowledge to understand that, my child. Answer me this: who intervened in the conflict of my children? Who struggled to find a solution?”

  “I failed.”

  “Nothing I create fails.”

  “Then why is the Materium dying?! The Starmakers are fading, creators. The Lightstealers shall enslave what remains of them.”

  “Conflict creates destruction. Balance halts and rebukes it.” The creators descend once more, and their rays of light burn with the same strength of before. I desperately search for ways to cover my eyes, without any success. “No creation decides what the Materium endures. I guide everything, my child.”

  I frown, finally granted the ability to better grasp their bodies. Only now do I notice how each figure carries a sparkling crown with stones I have no recollection of. An object materializes in their arms: a sphere bursting with action. Upon closer inspection, I realize with a series of shivers what it is. The entire Materium is held in their palms. My body fights me in an attempt to bow down.

  “Now you understand. What you utter now, I’ve always prepared for. What you now lament, I brought forth. Conflict breaks. But conflict also remakes. Every piece that played a part in this situation, I arranged,” the Tribunal declares.

  The tremor within my eyes only worsens. “You abandoned us, creators. When my kin needed you most.”

  The Tribunal raises a limb forward and brings the sphere closer to me. “Explain my abandonment, child.”

  “Then where have you been?! You left the Throne. You left our king alone.”

  “My child Alghamior received all the help he needed. As did you. As did every dragon.” The Tribunal retreats their arm and acknowledges their spheres. “Balance has grown erratic. Visions of domination have flooded its mind. A storm brews within it, which hungers for chaos.”

  “What am I supposed to understand from this?” I cry. “Why are you like this?”

  The three figures smile, despite the lack of features on their small faces. “I am everything and yet I am nothing. I know no other way of being and yet I know them all. Answer me this: what do you want me to be?”

  “Here! With… your creations. With my… brethren.” My head tilts downward, and tears battle me once more to emerge.

  The Tribunal approaches me. “My child. I am always here. My physicality is not needed for you or any other dragon to feel me. I am the breath you take. I am the space you inhabit. I am the essence you carry. I am the Phlaka, the Jila and all the other layers of the Materium. I am in you and you are in me.”

  The tears defeat me and stream through the clouds beneath. “I have always been alone. I have always felt abandoned by everyone and everything.”

  “You have only felt as such. It’s damaging to see you like this, my child. It never ceased aching. Answer me this: what do you believe the source of tears to be?”

  “You.”

  “Me.”

  I regard them through a blurry sight, my head spinning in the circle they created around me with their bodies. “Will you return to us? Will we… survive?”

  “Balance hasn’t yet lost its path. Even if conflict is now all the Materium witnesses, love flows through all I create. I shall be watching my children from across the chasm that fills balance. I shall be awaiting for balance to seek and aid me in redeeming itself.” Each member of the Tribunal touches my head. “Connection is the source of healing. Let it flourish.”

  Instantaneously, my body paralyzes and my conscience shuts down.