Chapter 33: Grænsfell

(I painted this in Procreate using the Eaglehawk brush - Chaiga T. Cheska)
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The enchantment dropped from him as he ran, each step unravelling another thread of Harthos’s careful magic, like a coat shedding water, until the last of it fell away and Nix was simply himself again, moving at full speed through the dark heart of the labyrinth with the moon burning high and cold above the canopy.

He ran the way a predator runs when it is not fleeing. There was no thought to it. The labyrinth coiled and twisted around him, its passages doubling back in the dark, yet Nix did not slow at any turn. He moved by something older and more certain than thought, drawn forward by a magical signature that pressed against his ribs like a struck bell, warm, resonant, and known. Not known the way a learned thing is known. Known the way the body knows the smell of rain before the first drop falls.

The labyrinth’s lesser predators sensed him in the dark and gave way. He caught the low gleam of eyes beneath a root arch, and then the shadow was simply shadow again, its owner gone without a sound. The labyrinth opened before him and closed behind him, and the heartbeat of the place rose through the soles of his boots and into his bones, growing stronger with each stride.

Through the tether, Tavik’s presence tugged at him, anxious and insistent, shaped like questions. Nix sent nothing back. He could not yet put words to what was pulling him forward.

The moon sat brilliant to the west, its light falling in narrow columns through the canopy where the branches parted, silvering the ivy walls as he passed. The air held the cold stillness of the deep hours, the particular hush that settles over a forest when even the owl falls silent. His runes moved in their slow rhythm along his forearms, reading the dark around him, and what they told him was old, vast, and in a deep slumber.

He felt it before he saw it. The heartbeat of the labyrinth had been pressing upward through the soles of his boots, and only now, with the ivy walls rising close on either side and the passages drawing narrower, did the full understanding arrive: the labyrinth was not a mere structure. It breathed, ancient and patient, a being he recognised in the way one creature recognises another, not through language but through the quality of a presence meeting his own.

Nix came to a halt, and around him the ivy walls rose, dense and dark, barely trembling despite the absence of wind. The magical signature pressed against all his senses at once, vast, deep, and thrumming.

He stood in the silence for two full breaths, steadying himself, then tilted his head back and sent his voice upwards into the dark. The Way of Lon came to him as naturally as breathing, as it always had, the old language of MirMarnia’s creatures flowing through him without effort:

“Dráfren, aen kennaen thy kin, Sae Dráfren!”

Dragon friend, I know your kin, the Sea Dragon.

The ivy shivered, every curtain and tendril trembling with a single shared intention, as though the entire labyrinth had drawn one breath. And then, from beneath it, from beneath the earth, the root systems, and the weight of centuries, came a sound that was less a sound than a physical event: the deep, registered groan of something vast shifting position for the first time in an age.

“Hwaen waken mirae frae sluumen long?” came a deep rumbling voice.

Who wakes me from this long sleep?

The ivy parted and drew back like a tide retreating, slow and inevitable, and from within the dark emerged the dragon’s head, pushing clear of the growth that had covered it for so long. Soil fell in heavy clods from a long snout. The jaws flexed once, twice, uncovering rows of teeth that caught the moonlight in pale, gleaming lines. Steam bloomed from the nostrils, carrying old birds’ nests that spun free into the dark, and the scent of deep stone and warm, ancient breath. Along the creature’s lower back, as it moved, iridescent spines caught the moonlight, and the scales shimmered where the soil fell away, each throwing back a different quality of light, emerald and forest-shadow and the deep green of still water.

Nix stood perfectly still. His ears were forward and alert, his runes brightening as they tended to do when he perceived something extraordinary and wished to perceive it without interruption.

The great head descended slowly until the dragon’s eyes were level with his own. In the moonlight, they were amber-pale and very clear, and Nix felt the quality of the attention behind them, complete and unhurried, the same quality he had felt only a handful of times in his life: from the Root Guardian, from Yilda, and from the Sea Dragon of the Emaris, looking up at him through the river’s skin.

The dragon’s nostrils flared, and a long moment passed, during which Nix held himself very still and let himself be read.

The dragon’s expression changed. Something in the ancient face moved beyond simple recognition into something warmer, something that had not expected what it found and was pleased by it. When it spoke, the Way of Lon again moved through it like water through deep stone:

“Aah, aen seeaen we thaen ioraen. Aen recknaen dráfren true.”

Ah, I see we are alike. I recognise true dragon friend.

The great head tilted, moonlight running along its emerald scales, and both the boy and the dragon quietly regarded each other. Within thought and without words, a greeting of minds merged, and Nix found himself seeing the dragon’s name as if it floated before his eyes: Grænsfell. Nix saw the dragon seeing his own name in its emerald gaze. Then Grænsfell blinked, snorted, broke their trance, and refocused on Nix.

“Hwaen art thee in min Labraen?” said Grænsfell, peering closer at Nix and sniffing as the dragon saw Nix’s runes flickering across his blue skin. One creature trying to make sense of another.

Why are you in my labyrinth?

“Aen needael thy helorae,” Nix said, gesturing along the way he had come: “Minen kinsae travaen in Burrowback Harthos, backaen in Labraen, and needael thy helorae.”

I need your help. My cousins are travelling in a Burrowback named Harthos, back in the labyrinth, and they need your help.

Grænsfell studied him for a long moment, his great gaze following the direction Nix indicated, reading what he found there. A sound rolled through the dragon, low and thoughtful, like the distant rumble of thunder.

“Aen kennaen Burrowback thee mentinaen,” the dragon said, memory warm in its syllables.

I know the Burrowback you mention.

Nix was startled by this declaration from the dragon and responded, “Acaen yorae sluumen long ael, hwaen mihtaen yorae kennaen heaen?”

But you have slept so long, how could you possibly know him?

“Harthos standaen aet min geatheld maniorn tideld, linn predael. Aen Iorae the Labraen aend seeaen ealorn hwaen travaen min riceld,” replied Grænsfell, grinning with all his gleaming teeth down at Nix. Harthos has stood at my threshold many times, little predator. I am the labyrinth and see all who travel my domain.

Having shared this, Grænsfell drew a long, slow breath as if suddenly weary of conversation, and peered around.



Then the dragon tilted his head towards Nix and said,

“Theahwaen aen sluumen long ael, aen felaen min miraeth drawaen biaen othernaen hwaen brukaen these wegseld. Aen senseaen miraethwyn coinen on thee, boy, aend deoporn the bakpaethor yorae. Thy kinsae, maegaen? Aen helorae thee, acaen to helorae mirae, pleaseaen throwaen thy coinen upaen into the air aend ignitaen thisaen saelorae withaen niwaen miraeth to bringaen mirae maegenwenne for urenae faraeld frae thisaen saelorae.”

Though I have slept a long time, I feel my magic is pulled on by others who use these corridors. I sense magical coins on you, boy, and deeper the way you have come. Your cousins, perhaps? I will help you, but to help me, please throw your coins into the air and ignite this sacred place with new magic to bring me strength for our departure from this place.



Nix’s hand found his coin pouch, half-forgotten since the tree house; the weight of it settled into his palm with a significance he had not felt before.

He thought of Bran, of the time they had spent resting and reading in the tree home, which seemed so long ago, and of how his cousin had performed accidental magic, turning a bowl of acorns into a bowl of golden coins, which they had all divided among themselves. Nix had thought very little of it then. He understood it now.

He tentatively reached along the tether, and Tavik’s presence met him at once, sharp with barely contained anxiety, the feeling of someone who has been pushing questions into silence for too long and is running short of patience. Nix did not pause to soothe it. He shaped what he needed, quick and clear: the coins, all of them, thrown upwards as hard as they could manage from inside the tower, and the importance of listening to his instructions.

The response came back tangled with questions from Tavik, wanting to know where Nix was, whether he was alright, what was happening, and why Nix had run off.

Nix felt his patience wear to a thread; this was not the time for questions. They needed to listen to him and take him seriously. He pushed the same instruction back through the tether again, and this time added a single precise image: his own fangs lengthening, showing he needed to be heard, a display of predator behaviour. Nix pushed away the feelings that he was using his predator instincts on his own cousins.

Through the tether, Nix felt Tavik react, first with shock, then a beat of resistance, then confirmation, reluctant and brimming with suppressed, frustrated questions. Nix felt Tavik turn to relay the message to Harthos and his brothers. Nix was surprised to feel worry that he’d offended Tavik, but he pushed it down, concentrating on the task at hand as he faced the dragon, drew his coins from his pouch, and, in one movement, threw the glittering gold coins up into the still night air.

They rose in a bright arc, spinning in the moonlight, and at the top of their flight, they simply ceased, received by the air without ceremony. The labyrinth changed in the same moment. The charge surged upward from the ground, moving through root and stone, raising the hair on Nix’s neck and arms and making his runes flare bright across his skin. And then, deep in the passages behind him, the same surge arrived threefold, as his cousins threw their own coins upwards in Harthos’s towers and the gold vanished, supercharging the air in the labyrinth.

The air crackled. The ivy trembled. The ground made a sound Nix felt in his sternum rather than in his ears, low and resonant as a struck bell heard from a very great distance.

Grænsfell drew a long breath, and his amber eyes brightened, feeling restored, a shimmer of gold waves shivering over his body.

“Ridaen withaen mirae, Linn predael. Aen splitaen this Labraen in twaen. Say thy kinsae: say Harthos findaen min tael. Harthos must holdaen min tael, and nae let goaen, no matraen.”

Ride with me, little predator. I will split this labyrinth in two. Tell your cousin: tell Harthos to find my tail. Harthos must hold onto my tail and not let go, no matter what.

Nix was already moving. He caught the ivy and climbed, his fingers finding holds in the ancient growth without thought, and pulled himself up onto the dragon’s neck until he felt the great scales cool and ridged beneath him. He wound his hands about the curve of one horn, settling his weight.

Before Grænsfell stirred, he sent through the tether to Tavik: there is a tail, almost within reach of where Harthos stands, buried in ivy near where the passages narrow. A triangular tip. Tell Harthos to find it, grip it, and hold on. You and your brothers must hold on to something that will not move. Whatever is bolted down.

He felt Tavik receive this, felt the alarm that moved through him as the implications settled, and felt him relay the message to Harthos, Oren, and Bran. Through the tether came a distant spike of something very like Bran’s particular alarm, high and immediate, and Nix briefly considered that his cousin had just worked out what holding onto something solid in an enclosed space might be about to mean.

Then Grænsfell moved, and the cracking began all around them, as the centuries of ivy began to split and tear as the dragon uncoiled from the shape it had held through all its long sleep. The sound was vast and many-layered: root systems parting, old wood giving way, the earth groaning at being asked to release what it had held so long. Grænsfell arched his spine and drew a deep gathering breath that Nix felt in every bone of his own body, and then it roared.

The roar went through the canopy like a wave of thunder. Birds erupted from the Eldertrees in their hundreds, a great rushing clatter in every direction, and the labyrinth’s passages fell away beneath them as the dragon surged upward, its wings sweeping open on either side of Nix, each one a span of pearl and silver, deep-layered with emerald so that they seemed made of the same substance as the forest below.

Nix held on and looked back along the length of Grænsfell’s body and saw the last of the labyrinth-shape unwinding from the tail as it rose, the coil releasing, undergrowth and old branches cascading to the forest floor in the dark far below. And at the very end of the tail, hanging on with both arms and a ferocity that was plain even at this distance, was Harthos. The towers on Harthos’s back glowed warm amber and gold against the dark, their light steady despite the lurch of ascent, and Harthos’s eyes found Nix across the length of the dragon’s body with an expression that held, in equal measure, awe and the particular determination of a being who has made a promise and intends to keep it regardless of what the keeping requires.

The Eldertree forest spread beneath them like a dark green ocean, its canopy rolling away in every direction without end. The moon hung brilliant to the west, beginning its slow decline toward the horizon, and its light lay silver across the treetops, picking out the pale undersides of leaves where the high wind moved through the canopy. To the north, at the forest’s furthest edge, the land fell away into the ravines, a deep-shadowed tearing in the earth, and beyond that the great Emaris river wound through the moonlit dark in its ancient path, a distant glimmer catching the night sky and throwing it back.

Nix looked at the river and was quiet for a moment, reflecting on the way they had come.

All the weeks of that journey compressed into this single look from the height of a dragon’s back, and the distance between who he had been then and who he was now felt both enormous and unremarkable.

Nix was struck then by a wild sense of liberation; he felt he had returned to something half-lost, and the sensation unsettled him like a sudden wind. Thoughts drifted towards his father: would he ever know his father’s name, walk the halls of his kin, the Caelvarae? The dragon’s low hum reverberated, and in that moment, Nix sensed, without words, that Grænsfell understood this longing, offering passage to the Caelvarae, should Nix choose. The invitation stayed with Nix as they flew over the forest.

Grænsfell moved through the upper air with a languid ease, stretching muscles unused for longer than Nix could comfortably calculate, the great wings finding their rhythm. The pleasure of it was unmistakable, deep and bodily, a creature returning to what it had been made for.

“Thy kinsae aen half Ylvorn,” Grænsfell said, his voice carrying easily in the cold night air, a statement rather than a question. Your cousins are half-Elf.

“Yaen,” Nix said. Yes.

The dragon made a low sound of consideration, or perhaps approval, and turned his great head south. Below, the Burrowback settlement lay at the meadow’s edge, its cottages small and warmly lit in the dark, their shapes not dissimilar to the towers on Harthos’s back.

The horizon to the east was changing, and only the stars there had begun to recede, and the darkness in that quarter was fractionally less absolute than elsewhere, a barely perceptible greying at the world’s rim. The moon had lost its sharpest edge. Dawn was still a promise rather than a presence.

Grænsfell descended, and the meadow grass rose toward them, and then the dragon touched down, the weight of something enormous brought down with an attention to gentleness that settled into the ground and no further. Grænsfell looked back along the length of his own tail, folded his wings and watched as Harthos released his grip and straightened.

The Burrowback brushed ivy from his broad shoulders with unhurried dignity, then looked up at Nix, still seated on the dragon’s neck, with an expression that had moved well beyond awe into something more quietly considered. He shook himself, a single full-body tremor, and the shimmer ran through the air around him. The towers on his back glimmered and dissolved, and Oren was there in the meadow grass, with Tavik beside him and Bran, the magic that had held them dissipating as a shimmer around them.

Bran stumbled sideways and found Oren’s arm, his face white to the lips and his legs not entirely sure of the ground beneath them. Oren steadied him without looking, his gaze already moving across the meadow, the enormous, folded wings, and Grænsfell’s head, and coming at last to rest on Nix.

Tavik’s face was very still. He looked at the dragon for the space of one long breath, then at Nix, and his eyes stayed fixed there.

Grænsfell turned his head and regarded the three brothers. When he spoke, the Way of Lon moved through the meadow air, warm, resonant, and unhurried:

“Eal is loraen. Nae forlaen.”

It is good to see you. Do not be afraid.

Oren went still. Tavik went still. Bran’s grip on Oren’s arm tightened by several degrees. Not one of the three had understood a syllable, and their faces showed it plainly, though the language sounded to them like something beautiful, leaving them in wonder.

Then Nix spoke for his cousins, his voice settling into the same language as easily as breathing: “Minen kinsae nae sprecaen the Way of Lon. Pleaseaen forgifaen heomaen.”

My cousins do not speak the Way of Lon. Please forgive them.

The silence that followed had a particular quality as Oren, Tavik and Bran tried to make sense of Nix and the dragon’s speech, while they were startled to learn only now that Nix even spoke another language they had not been aware of.

Oren turned his head and looked at Nix with an expression of careful consideration. “Nix,” he said. “What language was that?”

“The Way of Lon,” Nix said. “It is the language of MirMarnia’s creatures. Most of them either speak it or understand it.”

“Why do you speak it?” Tavik said, giving off an air of frustration while trying to suppress it.

“I have always spoken it,” Nix said, peering more closely at Tavik. “I did not know you did not.”

Tavik held his gaze, and in that moment something shifted behind his eyes, a quiet revision of several things at once. Then he said, “You just ran, Nix. No word through the tether. No warning. Just gone.” He was not shouting. His voice was flat, as if he had been genuinely frightened and had not yet finished being so. “I called your name and got nothing back, and when you did respond, you sent orders and a threat!”

Nix’s ears settled back and down, the slow lowering showing discomfort. His runes dimmed along his forearms, their rhythm faltering, and he was very still on the dragon’s neck, silent and watching Tavik warily.

Through the tether, Tavik felt from Nix a complex mix of shame, regret, worry and fear, mingled with confusion and wariness. The tension in Tavik’s shoulders eased, and he readjusted his own displeasure so as not to further upset his cousin, who was still trying to work out how to relate to others within a family dynamic. In moments like these, Tavik thought about how wild Nix was and how much more he had to learn about what it meant to be accountable within a family.

“I know you weren’t trying to worry us,” Tavik said, and his voice had changed, the flatness gone, something quieter in its place. “I know what it’s like when something pulls at you. I just needed you to know what it was like on our side.”

Nix’s ears lifted a fraction. The runes found their rhythm again, slow and green, along the cerulean of his forearms.

“I am sorry,” Nix whispered. “I am still learning what it means to have people who notice when I am gone.”

The meadow held this. Harthos stood at a respectful distance, his small black eyes still with attention.

Oren moved forward then, because he knew when enough had been said and when his brothers needed someone to carry things gently forward. He came to stand below Nix, looking up at him with that particular expression, warm and measured, carrying the faintest trace of something that might, in other circumstances, have been amusement.

“Are you going to come down?” Oren asked.

Nix looked at the back of Grænsfell’s head. The dragon gave no sign of impatience; his scales shifted faintly beneath Nix as the great chest rose and fell, waiting.

“Grænsfell knows the way to my father’s halls,” Nix said. “I want to go with him, only to see, only to understand where they are and what they look like. I will come back.”

Tavik looked up at him sharply. “Nix. That’s not a good idea. We need to think this through.”

“I just want to see. Then I’ll come back, and we can make a plan then.” Nix said, trying to convince Tavik, even through the tether, that he had to do this. It was important.

“You don’t know what’s out there. You don’t know if it’s safe. We’re meant to go and find Olis. Together.”

“You’ll know through the tether how I am,” Nix said. “And Bran has Portalsight and could open a portal so you can all join me if this is the right path.”

Bran, who had been listening with his arms folded tightly across his chest and his colour still somewhat short of its usual measure, looked up. “I’ve only just learned Portalsight, Nix! I don’t even know how I did it on my own the first time!” He said it plainly, not as an accusation, but as a fact he was carefully setting before his cousin. “You are stronger at Portalsight than I am!”

“I won’t be gone long enough for it to matter,” Nix said, looking steadily at Bran. “I promise you. I’ll be back before you know it. Stop worrying.”

Grænsfell snorted, feeling impatient at last, or feeling the need to relieve the growing tension between the cousins.

The exhalation came without warning, deep and warm, carrying the finality of a very large creature that had been patient for a reasonable length of time and had now reached the end of it. A current of warm air moved through the meadow grass, and Bran, who had been leaning forward slightly, stumbled backwards into Oren.

Oren steadied Bran with one hand and kept his eyes on Nix. “I understand if this is what you have to do,” he said quietly. “But I expect you to return to us by tonight at the latest. Do you hear me?”

“I will,” Nix said. “I promise.”

Grænsfell rose suddenly, and his wings opened with the sound of something immense being set free, and the meadow grass flattened in a wide ring. Oren, Tavik and Bran watched as the dragon and Nix headed towards the pink thread on the eastern horizon that was beginning to rise as the dark pulled back.

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Author’s Note:

MirMarnia has been keeping a secret from you. Several, if one is being honest, but this particular one has been sitting quietly in my notebooks for a very long time, waiting for a dragon old enough to deserve it. The Way of Lon is older than anything in this world, and now it is yours as much as it is mine. I do hope Grænsfell made a reasonable first impression. He has been asleep for centuries, so one must make allowances.

Thank you for being here. It means the world. Quite literally, in this case.
- Chaiga T. Cheska