Author's Notes:

Howdy, strangers! Remember me? I'm back at last with the sequel to Firelight! If you don't know what Firelight is, then git outta here, ya scrub. Nothing will make sense here if you haven't read that first!

As for the rest of you, welcome! I battled through a slog of confusion and self doubt to write the first few chapters of this story, and I'm still not entirely convinced it's ready to share - but, knowing me, I'll never think it's ready. So here, finally, after several months, is the continuation of Charla's story. I hope you enjoy the adventure!

Now, as we approach the events of The Eternal Night, let us return to see where Charla has ended up this time...

...

BALEFIRE

...

In the endless night, a haunting choir

Sings peals of sorrow and dark desire

To guide us through the mist and the mire

And into the flames of the balefire

...

Chapter 1

Shadows on the Sand

"The Arid Lands. A sprawling desert of hot sand and towering dunes, hospitable to few and inhabited by fewer. Bordered at the south by the dangerous Concurrent Skies—the fortress of Cynder, Terror of the Skies, herself—and guarded in the north by the great dragon city of Earthsoul.

"And, at this very moment, playing host to an unusual group of intrepid adventurers."

"What does intrepid mean?"

Nuala paused halfway into her next word and glared at Charla. "I'm telling a story here! Don't interrupt."

"Oh. Whoops."

Nuala huffed and opened her mouth again—but paused, because Meredy had just leant over and whispered loudly in Charla's ear, "It means 'brave.' "

"When you're done," Nuala said flatly, and Meredy sat back with a sheepish look on her face. Charla grinned.

"As I was saying..." Nuala drew herself up, pushed back the lock of white fur on her forehead, and fixed her audience with bright ice-blue eyes. "Nuala and her companions were an unusual group for a number of reasons. For one—"

"Nuala and her companions?" Charla cut in, wrinkling her muzzle. "Why are we your companions? I think it should be Charla and—"

"I'm telling the story!" Nuala insisted, flicking her feathered wings out. "And I'm the adult here, so I'm in charge."

"Fine..."

"As I was saying... The great Nuala and her companions were a strange group. For one, they were led by a vulpala, and yet the rest of them were dragons— Yes, Meredy, I know you're not really a dragon, but just roll with it, okay? It sounds better this way.

"For another, they were all children—except for Nuala, of course, and that was why she was in charge. And all of them had very strange stories to tell. Meredy, the sky serpent who could not fly. Lance, the earth dragon who refused to use his element. Charla, the young fire dragon raised by apes. And Nuala herself, the last vulpala in the whole world.

"Together, they travelled north in search of their goals, with only each other for protection from the wicked dangers of the world. And lo, after many trials, they found themselves wandering lost in the great endless desert that is the Arid Lands..."

At this, Charla couldn't help herself. "We're not lost. We're—"

"I'm telling a story, Charla!" Nuala exclaimed, throwing her forepaws up with a flurry of sand. "Would you two give it a rest with the interruptions! I'm trying to create suspense!"

"You said this was a ghost story, Nu," Meredy said, somewhat accusingly. "I don't mean to be rude, but this just sounds like an account of our travels."

Nuala crossed her forepaws and glowered. "It'll turn into a ghost story if you just let me tell it. You two need to learn to shut your traps. Look, Lance hasn't interrupted me. Be like him."

Charla turned her head, trying to hide her grin. Lance was slumped in the sand beside her, his eyes closed, his jaw slack, and his breaths deep and even. In the pale moonlight he looked calm and peaceful, and the many scars that twisted his deep-green scales were hardly visible. If she listened closely, she thought she could hear him snore.

"That's because he's asleep," Meredy pointed out.

"Just how I like him," said Nuala.

Meredy rolled her eyes.

With another fond look at the slumbering Lance, Charla tipped her head back and let her eyes wander among the stars. It was a clear night. Unhindered by clouds or mist, the moons hung bright and shimmering above the great desert dunes, and a chill breeze whispered across the sand. Midnight must have been hours ago, but there was no glow of dawn in the eastern sky.

Charla liked the Arid Lands best when they were like this. She may have been a fire dragon, but she didn't like the hot winds that whipped over the sands at midday, or the blaze of the sun as it beat down relentlessly on her scales. Even the dunes seemed friendlier in the dark. During the day they blazed like golden fire under the sun, but at night they were silver, soft and slumbering, like sleeping giants—or enormous waves frozen in time. At times, Charla could almost imagine she was standing on the surface of an endless ocean turned to sand.

Right now, she and her friends were nestled in a shallow valley between these silver giants, resting their wings and waiting. When Lance awoke, they'd move on. They had to travel as far as they could while the sun was down and there was no heat to sap them of strength—but, right now, Lance needed to rest a little.

It was hard for him, Charla knew, to carry Meredy for so long. She couldn't imagine how much his wings hurt.

"So, can I tell the story now?" Nuala asked, and Charla pulled her gaze away from the sky. "Can you two shut up for a few minutes?"

"Yes, Nu, sorry," said Meredy, curling her tail around so that the tuft of fur on its tip draped over her forepaws. She was shivering a little.

Struck by a sudden idea, Charla half-opened her mouth to voice it—but Nuala had already started to speak and she probably wouldn't appreciate another interruption. Instead, Charla shrugged, listened, and slowly began to channel fire magic into her paws. At night, the air here was chill and biting. The least she could do was give them a little warmth.

"So there our strange group of brave adventurers were, lost in the bowels of the desert, somewhere in that unforgiving landscape between Concurrent Skies and Earthsoul—so close to civilization, and yet so far. They had no food, no water, and only the stars to guide their way. But though the Arid Lands were quiet and still, our adventurers were not alone...

"Nuala and her friends knew it well. Every night they heard the eerie howls of the creatures that prowled upon the desert sands. Every night they felt the presence of hunters on the wind. Every night, the jackals drew closer...

"Listen."

Nuala paused and so did Charla, a little ball of flame hovering half-formed between her paws. Meredy raised her head. In silence, all three of them sat and waited, and Charla's stomach tensed in anticipation. But there was no sound. Just the wind breezing over desert, teasing puffs of sand from the peaks of the dunes. Charla relaxed again.

"What are we listening for?" she asked, returning her attention to her orb of fire. The flames licked at her paws and warmth seeped comfortingly through her scales.

"Shh," Nuala hissed, her eyes narrowed. "Keep listening."

They listened more. Charla's ball of fire grew bigger; she let it go with a flick of her paw and it drifted lazily over the sand to hover between them. The flickering light turned Nuala's fur orange.

"Oh, come on, you stupid jackals," Nuala muttered under her breath. "You carry on every night like a bunch of lunatics, but right when I need you—"

A howl rippled through the air, distant but clear in the silence. Charla shivered, and Meredy drew her tail a little more tightly around herself. Nuala's eyes glinted with triumph.

"Hear that?" she whispered, turning to her wide-eyed audience. "They're getting closer. Every night; every hunt. They're hungry, and we are lost in their domain—foolish travellers far from home, strangers to the desert. Easy prey..."

Nuala stood up, swivelling her ears back, and suddenly Charla wished she hadn't lit a fire. The blazing light cast sharp and menacing shadows across Nuala's face, and her eyes seemed to glow. The pads of Charla's paws prickled.

"Every night we see them," Nuala hissed, pacing closer to the orb of flame. "Their bodies shift and change, like they are made of smoke and shadows—like they are darkness brought to life. They watch us and they wait. They herd us closer, guide us into the heart of the desert, from whence we can't escape...

"And sooner or later..." The fire danced wildly in her eyes. "When the time is right..."

The shadows shifted. In the space of a single blink, Nuala was gone—left behind were only firelight and fading pawprints in the sand—and sudden fear shot like an arrow through Charla's heart. She felt hot breath on the back of her neck.

"...One of us will be taken."

Charla choked out a cry and spun around; for a split second her vision was filled with the image of a slender inky-furred face and a pair of vivid silver eyes. Her heart stopped. And then fire leapt from her jaws and blazed a path through the darkness.

"Wh—hey!" yelped Nuala's voice, with a mixture of fear and indignation. Somewhere behind her, Meredy gasped.

Charla snapped her mouth shut and stumbled back. The jackal—if that was what it had been—was no longer there. There was only Nuala, rolling in the sand and patting out glowing embers on her chest-fur. She looked so flustered and startled that Charla had to bite back a wild urge to laugh.

Her heart was racing. She sat down heavily. "You scared me!"

"You breathed fire at me!" Nuala shot back.

"What did you expect, Nuala?" exclaimed Meredy, startling both of them. They spun around and found her glowering at them, her peach-coloured eyes blazing with firelight. "That was just mean. Was that really necessary?"

"It's a ghost story! It's meant to be scary! You two have no sense of humour—seriously, Charla, fire? You could have burnt my feathers!"

"I panicked!" Charla insisted, but she couldn't hold back her grin. In spite of Meredy's words, she didn't feel annoyed; in fact, now that her heart had stopped pounding and she knew what had happened, she thought it had been a pretty cool prank. Maybe she could even scare Lance like that...

"Pair of sissies," Nuala muttered under her breath as she sat down by the fire and pawed again at her chest-fur. "Can't take a joke. Can't handle a little ghost story..."

Meredy sighed. "Alright, that will do. No one's hurt. Are you okay, Charla?"

Charla grinned and fell back on her haunches. "Yeah, I thought that was cool! Did you turn yourself into a jackal?"

Nuala raised her head with an expression that suggested she was trying not to look too pleased. "Of course I did. I couldn't exactly get a real one here. Not very friendly, are they?"

At that moment, another distant howl rang out over the sleeping dunes and all three of them gave a start. Charla shared a sheepish grin with Nuala. But as the silence returned and began to press in on them, her smile started to falter. Doubt crept into her head.

"The jackals aren't really hunting us...right?" she said, trying to sound casual.

Nuala spared her half a glance, looking vaguely amused. "I don't know. What do you think?"

Charla hesitated. Another howl split the night and she hid the tremble of her paws by burying them in the sand. The jackals were still a mystery to her; they had been since she'd first seen them, that first night in the Arid Lands. The way their bodies moved and shifted like smoke; the way they seemed to disappear into their own shadows; the way they darted across the dunes, so swift and graceful, like their paws did not even need to touch the shifting silver sands. They were like ghosts—unearthly and unexplainable.

But she knew one thing.

"Lance said they wouldn't bother us if we didn't bother them," she said, more strongly than she felt. "And I believe him."

Nuala shrugged and looked away, shadowing her face from the firelight. "If that's what you want to think... But you have to admit there's some weird rumours about them."

At this, Charla faltered. "...Rumours?"

Nuala gave her a weird look. "Yeah, you know... The whole 'dreams' thing? The disappearing children? The weird deaths?"

Charla just stared back, her paws prickling with unease.

"I don't think she knows," said Meredy softly, her voice barely rising above the crackling of the flames. "If she was raised by apes... Maybe they never had those superstitions."

Nuala just shrugged, as though it was of no concern, but Charla was suddenly seized by a burning curiosity.

"What superstitions?" she asked, leaning forward. "Can you tell me?"

There was a moment of pause. Meredy seemed hesitant, weaving her claws through the fur on her tail, but eventually she murmured, "I suppose I could..."

Charla waited with wide eyes, holding her breath. Meredy averted her gaze and stared into the flames.

"I first learned about jackals when I was very young. It's said they have a strange magic—shadow magic, they call it—and no one's really sure what sort of magic it is. It might be elemental, like what we have, or it could be a type of illusion magic—like Nuala's. Whatever it is, they're very in tune with it.

"I've heard that they can turn their whole bodies into shadow; that they can become darkness itself. It's a very...eerie magic. I suppose that's where all the superstition comes from."

She fell silent, briefly, then took a breath and went on. "The most well-known tale is that jackals are the guides of the Starward Shore. When it's your time to die, they'll come to lead your soul away, to guide you there."

The Starward Shore... Charla knew that name. Silverback had told her of it long ago, when she was still young and naive and knew nothing about death. It was the place where all creatures went when they died, to be greeted by their ancestors and to join them among the stars.

"But the tale has become twisted and sinister over the years," Meredy added quietly. "We're all so afraid of death that the jackals became like villains. Something to blame... They say that if a jackal appears in your dreams, you don't have long left to live. And that, should a jackal ever try to guide you, you should never follow it..."

"Because it will lead you away to die," said Nuala, with a wicked sort of grin. Meredy gave her a reproachful look, but she didn't seem to notice. "That's what they say, anyway. There's heaps of stories about creatures disappearing in jackal territory, usually cubs and hatchlings... The jackals lure them away from their parents and then devour them. I guess you could say that's 'guiding them to the Starward Shore,' right?"

Her narrow teeth flashed in the flickering light. Charla shivered.

"That," Meredy said a little sharply, "is just an unfortunate rumour started by all these silly tales of death. Personally, I prefer the other tale."

Charla eyed her curiously. "Which is...?"

She twisted the fur on the end of her tail. "Well...it goes like this. Jackals are guides of the spirit. They appear in your dreams, not to lead you to the Starward Shore, but to help you find your way if you are lost or confused or have lost sight of who you are. If a jackal appears to you, you are not marked for death—you just need a little bit of help, a little guidance, to find your way."

"Do you think that's true?" Charla asked, wide-eyed.

"Maybe, maybe not," said Nuala. "I like the spooky version better."

In the firelight, Charla saw Meredy's pale cheeks flush with colour. "W-well...I don't know. When I was young, I used to have nightmares about jackals. It was my friend's fault—she told me about them. I kept thinking I was going to die, because I was seeing them in my dreams... But then my father told me the other tale, and the nightmares stopped after that. I've never dreamed of a jackal since."

"And you didn't exactly die when you dreamed of them before," Nuala pointed out with a grin. "So I guess it must be superstition after all."

"I suppose so..." Meredy gave a small smile and looked away, so that her face was shadowed from the light.

Silence returned to them then, and Charla let her thoughts wander and wondered if any of it could be true. If jackals could really step into her dreams. If any magic like that really existed...

As a gust of cold wind swept over her wings, she shivered and looked down at Lance. He was still fast asleep and snoring. Somehow, she doubted he'd wake on his own before morning.

"Should we wake him up?" she asked, and Nuala heaved a sigh.

"Probably. We'd better keep going. The sooner we're out of this desert, the sooner we can get a decent night's sleep. It can't be far now."

Charla glanced towards the northern horizon. Peaking over the top of the dunes, just barely visible in the distance and the darkness, was a jagged mountain range. It was faint and ghostly, like a mirage that had never fully taken form, but it was there. At the base of those mountains—Earthrise Range, according to Lance—was their next destination. The dragon city of Earthsoul.

The mountains had come into view only earlier that evening. After almost four days of travelling through the desert, without food or water, it was something of a relief. But Charla didn't want to think about how long they had left to go. That morning in the foothills of Sunback Ridge, when they had set out together towards the north and the Arid Lands, seemed like ages ago.

"I hope we get there soon," she murmured, looking at Lance's peaceful sleeping face.

Nuala grunted. "Well, we won't if we just sit here all night. The big guy's slept enough, lazy jerk—give him a poke."

So Charla grinned and did just that.

"Listen, Charla... We need to go with them. They'll never make it through the Arid Lands on foot, not like this."

"Go with them? You want to go with them? But... But it's in the wrong direction! We're already so far from the Well of Souls—"

"They need our help, kid. Meredy still can't fly, and they've got no supplies. They'd never make it through the desert without us..."

...

"I told you, I'm not leaving Meredy alone here! She'd never make it through the Arid Lands on her own. If you want me to come with you to the Well of Souls, then you need to come with us first!"

...

"Charla, look. I know it's a huge detour. But travelling through the middle of the Dragon Realms is suicide. The apes are everywhere. You think you can just waltz along the Serpens River and no one will notice? It's one of the biggest trade routes between here and the western coast—the Dark Army owns it. We'd never make it to the Well of Souls!"

"Well, what's your great idea, then? How are we supposed to get there?"

"We'll cross the Arid Lands and head for Earthsoul. We can travel westward from there—it'll be much safer travelling up north. After that, Whisperglade Forest should afford us some cover to head south again..."

...

"Meredy doesn't know you're coming with us, does she?"

"She doesn't need to. Not yet. As long as we get her safely to Earthsoul, she'll be fine."

"But..."

"Don't, Char. I'll tell her when I'm ready. I know you haven't told Lance yet..."

...

Charla groaned and opened her eyes. The fiery blaze of the setting sun glared straight into her face, and she quickly shut them again. Lance's wing was hot and heavy on her back.

She couldn't sleep. Old conversations and arguments from a few days ago kept chasing their tails around her head, taunting her. Even now she kept thinking up things she could have said, rebuttals she should have come up with, arguments she hadn't spoken aloud... But there was nothing she could do to change anything now. She couldn't go back in time.

And in the end, she really hadn't had much of a choice, had she?

She still remembered vividly that morning in the foothills, when Lance had pulled her aside and told her his plans. She remembered the seriousness on his face when he'd said that Meredy and Nuala wouldn't make it through the desert on foot. Back then, Charla's first instinct—her first wonderful, hopeful idea—had been to take them with her to the Well of Souls. Both of them.

She knew Nuala already wanted to come; that night after what had happened in Pyreflight was still fresh in her mind. And she couldn't bear the thought of leaving Meredy to carry on alone, even if Nuala said she would be fine.

So surely it would be better for all of them to head south-west towards the Well. They'd be safer together. No one would be left alone. In Charla's head, it had seemed like the perfect plan.

Now, of course, she knew it was stupid.

"They won't come with us. Whether we help them or not, they're going to keep heading towards Mistral. Not everyone is going to follow you, kid. You can't force them to."

Lance was right, of course. Even if she hadn't wanted want to hear it, Charla knew he was right. There was no reason for Meredy to go with them—and even Nuala wouldn't come if it meant abandoning Meredy to face the Arid Lands alone. She had been very clear about that. If Nuala was to come with them, they first had to get Meredy safely to Earthsoul.

But there was no way any of them were getting through the desert on foot. And only Lance was strong enough to carry Meredy in flight. Unless Charla wanted to carry on alone, she had to go with them.

In the end, it wasn't even a choice.

And now here she was, getting further from the Well of Souls every day, and every day worrying about Jayce and Silverback and how long they could wait for her. At least, she hoped, they weren't far from Earthsoul now.

Blinking sand from her eyelashes, Charla raised her head. Earlier that day, everyone had huddled together to sleep at the base of a dune, trying to find shelter in shadows that had long since moved on. Lance lay in the middle, his huge white wings spread out to shade both Charla and Meredy, who had curled her long body protectively around Nuala. It looked like they were all still sleeping.

Charla wished she was, too. They wouldn't move on for a while yet—not until the sun had gone down and the heat was gone from the air. But sleeping during the day was hard. The sun blazed on her scales as if to melt her, and its light glared blindingly off the white-gold sands. She hadn't slept well for days, and exhaustion was clutching at her with heavy hands.

But they had to travel at night. Without food or water to sustain them, they needed to conserve energy—and exerting themselves in the heat of the day was, as Lance had said, a bad idea.

Charla sighed and shuffled around in the sand, trying to find a more comfortable position—but it was hopeless. Instead she lay there and gazed at Meredy and Nuala. They looked enviably peaceful.

Yet again, she wondered if Nuala had told Meredy yet. But Charla was almost certain that, still, Meredy had no idea of her plans. She had no idea that, from Earthsoul, her journey to Mistral would be taken alone. She had no idea that Charla was taking Nuala away.

Warm though the sand was, Charla shivered. It was impossible to imagine Meredy getting mad. She was so sweet and kind and gentle, and surely she would understand when Nuala explained it. Surely she wouldn't blame Charla for Nuala's decision. Surely she wouldn't be angry with them. But still Charla worried.

If only Nuala would just tell her and get it over with.

But Charla grabbed that thought and shoved it to the back of her mind—because it reminded her that she still hadn't told Lance yet, either.

She dreaded just the thought of it. Lance was no great fan of Nuala. If he knew that she would be coming with them all the way to the Well of Souls... Well, Charla didn't want to imagine his reaction. She didn't think she could bear making Lance angry again.

But now the thought was rooted in her head, and that wasn't going to help her get back to sleep.

So Charla scowled, huffed, and—very carefully, so as not to wake him—wriggled out from under Lance's wing. The setting sun glared down at her, like she was doing something wrong. But everyone was still asleep, so Charla stumbled off into the sandy valley, looking for something interesting that might pass the time.

There was very little life in the desert. At times, Charla had spotted scraggly little shrubs in the sand, or patches of wispy brown grass that looked like it had already died. But the skies were clear and inviting, and it was for this reason that Charla spread her wings and took flight. Sand billowed in her wake, lashing at her legs and tail, but then she was free and away above the golden dunes.

The Arid Lands spread out before her.

The dunes went on forever, rising and falling into the far-reaching distance, until they met the horizon and faded like mist into the sky. The gilded sand was as smooth and still as the surface of a glassy lake, unbroken but for gentle rippling patterns that had been left by the wind. It was silent, endless—the middle of nowhere like Charla had never seen it before. Up here, far above it all, she could almost imagine that she was the only living creature in the whole world.

She twirled in the air, catching the warm breeze under her wings. Above her, the blues of the sky were darkening, but the dying sun bled red and gold fire across the horizon. Charla rose higher and higher, so that she could see far across the desert—so that she could see the great distance between her and the craggy peaks of Earthrise Range.

There was still a long way to go. And from there, an even longer journey began. All the way back to the south-east coast. All the way back to the Well of Souls. Charla's wings trembled at the thought.

She was facing weeks—maybe even months—of travel. And at the end of it... She didn't know. It seemed impossible that there could be an end at all; that she would ever reach that place that she had sought to find for so long. Two months, she had realised a few days ago—two months had passed already, since she had lost Jayce.

And she was further from the Well of Souls than she had ever been.

With a shiver and a shake of her limbs, Charla descended back to earth. She alighted softly, stumbling a little, at the rounded peak of a dune overlooking her friends. They slumbered peacefully below her, and she sat alone for what seemed like hours—just waiting for the sun to set and the world to darken.

The pale moons, already visible in the sky, began to brighten. The sunlight began to fade. And as the first stars came out, Charla wondered what Jayce was seeing now. She hoped he could at least see the sky. She hoped he wasn't trapped in the darkness, imprisoned and alone, and worrying about her. She liked to think he was looking at the moons now, just like she was.

And then something moved upon the dunes, and Charla's chain of thought shattered. She jerked her head up.

There on the pale sands, close enough for her to see their pointed ears and slender muzzles, was a pack of a jackals. Like a stain of ink they loped along the rise-and-fall of the dunes, their forms rippling and flickering strangely. They moved like liquid smoke, like they didn't even need to touch the ground, and tendrils of inky blackness twisted in their wake. Their shadows were alive.

Charla watched, mesmerised. They seemed so otherworldly—like spirits given form, or darkness given life. And though Meredy's words echoed in her head, she couldn't bring herself to feel afraid.

She wanted to get closer. She wanted to see them properly. She wanted to know if they were real and solid—if she could touch them or if they would feel like smoke between her paws.

But she didn't move. She just watched—and as she did, one of the jackals broke off from the pack. It paused, tremulously, on the peak of the dune opposite her, with one paw lifted as though in thought. Then it turned its head and, before Charla could blink, looked straight at her.

The breath caught in her throat. Its eyes were like stars. All silvery and bright with magic, they stared across the chasm between it and her—and Charla felt, for one brief, trembling moment, that it saw straight into her soul.

Then a voice yelled her name and she almost fell off the dune.

"Charla!" Lance called, his voice cutting like grating stone through the silence. "What are you doing up there? Let's go!"

Charla staggered in the shifting sands, just barely managed to avoid tumbling head-over-tail to the bottom of the dune, and yelled back, "Uh—coming!"

Then she whipped her head up and looked back at the jackal. But it was no longer there. The peak of the dune where it had stood was now empty, and she couldn't even see any paw-prints, or any wisps of shadowy magic, to suggest that it had been there at all. Maybe, she realised with a sudden shiver, it hadn't been there.

But her friends definitely were. And by the looks of it, they were getting ready to fly again. Nuala was already gliding up towards her.

"Earth to Charla!" she called as she approached. "What's going on? Are you looking for something?"

Charla hesitated. She looked one more time across the valley of sand, towards the spot where she had seen the jackal and the jackal had seen her, but there was no sign of it. Not anymore. Not even a shadow.

"No," she said quietly. "Nothing."

It was late at night when Lance called for a rest. Earthrise Range loomed dark and jagged in the distance, as though to coax them away from the silver sands of the desert. But as much as Charla yearned to follow its pull, she let Lance guide her back to earth.

As they alighted on the shallow slope of a dune, Charla eyed him with worry. There was exhaustion and pain in the way he carried his wings, and in the way he slumped to his haunches after Meredy had slid off his back. She stumbled over to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked, leering at his loosely folded wings and his tired eyes.

"I'm surviving," Lance grunted, rolling his shoulders. When Charla just narrowed her eyes at him, he sighed. "I'll be fine, kid. I can manage. It's just a bit of extra weight."

And he glanced quickly at Meredy, who was twisting her paws in the sand nearby and seemed to be deliberately avoiding his gaze.

"I've got to manage," he said under his breath. "No one else can carry her, can they? Unless you want to try."

A sudden image came to mind, of Meredy's long serpentine body draped haphazardly across Charla's back. Despite herself, she grinned. Lance smirked and moved his wing as though to jostle her teasingly, but halted with a flinch. The smile slid from Charla's face.

"Maybe we should walk for a while," she said, but Lance shook his head.

"You know what walking in sand is like—one step forward, two steps back. We'd hardly get anywhere. And the sooner we get out of here, the better. I don't know about you, but I'm running out of energy. We need food and we need water—and we need it soon."

He eyed her grimly, and Charla's stomach gurgled at the reminder. She grimaced. For the last few days she'd been valiantly ignoring it—trying to pretend that she didn't feel that increasing hollow in her gut or the sandy dryness of her throat. She was no stranger to being without food, but the longer she spent without it, the harder it was to get up in the morning—the harder it was to keep going. She was tired.

And when she looked at her friends—at Meredy's limp fur and the dullness of her scales; at Nuala's ruffled feathers and the shadows under her eyes—she knew they were, too. They needed to get out of the desert.

Lance had been right; they never would have made it on foot.

"Let's just rest for a while, kid," said Lance, nudging her gently with a paw. "We'll keep going in half an hour or so."

"Alright..."

For a moment, Charla sat and watched her friends get comfy in the sand. She considered joining Meredy and Nuala to continue their train of ghost stories, but decided against it. She was too anxious tonight, too restless to move on. All she wanted was to keep going.

Instead she turned to Lance, who had slumped in the sand and looked like he might already be asleep. "I'm gonna go to the top of the dune. Just to look around."

He cracked an eye open. "Don't go any further than that."

"I know."

Rolling her eyes, Charla started a slow staggering walk up the slope of the dune. The sand shifted unhelpfully under her paws. Every time she took a step, she slipped back a little. Annoyed, she spread her wings and half-leapt, half-flew the rest of the way to the top. There, Charla sat and folded her wings.

She could see far from here—over the desert and the silvery sands, over a world untouched by life. The rugged peaks of Earthrise Range dominated the horizon.

For a long time she just stared at the mountains, wishing they were closer, wishing she was there. The moons hovered lazily above them, as if to taunt her that they were there and she was not. It was so unfair.

She wished they'd never come this way. She wished she was gazing at the Well of Souls instead—not at a stupid bunch of mountains on the wrong side of the Dragon Realms.

There was such a long way to go. Such a terribly, impossibly long way...

She was so tired.

Her eyelids grew heavy. The world around her seemed to fade; the moons grew blurred and misty in the sky. The stars were so bright.

And then, abruptly, Charla felt something. A presence hovered at her shoulder—a presence that had not been there before. There was someone beside her.

Lance...?

Lazily, her eyes heavy with sleep, she turned her head.

The starry eyes of a jackal gazed back at her, glistening with silver light. It was so close she could have reached out and touched it, but her paws were suddenly leaden and she could hardly move them. Instead she just stared, feeling strange and calm and light-headed, as though a voice in the back of her mind was telling her that everything was fine. She wasn't afraid.

The jackal stepped forward. Its inky fur rippled strangely, like it was formed of thick black smoke. The longer Charla stared, the more she felt like she could see straight through it—like she could see the silver dunes on the other side of its wispy, shadowy form. She raised a leaden paw. Maybe...she could touch it...

But the jackal turned and bounded away, leaving wisps of shadow in the space where it had been. Charla turned her head to follow it. She wanted to go too. But her body was so heavy—so heavy...

The jackal paused and looked back, balanced lightly at the peak of a dune, the stars shining through its smoky fur. It flicked its tail, and Charla stared longingly. The message was clear, even without words. It wanted her to follow.

Slowly, Charla stood up. The heaviness of her body seemed to drain away, like water seeping into the sand. As she rose, a sense of weightlessness swept over her, as though a gentle breeze had come to lift her into the sky.

Nothing else seemed to matter. Her friends were not there. The desert was not there. Only the jackal was there, and she had to follow.

She leapt forward. The silver sands passed undisturbed beneath her paws.

Charla ran without touching the ground, her wings spread, feeling warm and light and free, like she could run forever. The jackal waited for her and then it ran beside her, loping with a ghostly grace, leading her forwards. And then, suddenly, there were more of them—more jackals—their black fur as fine and dark and wispy as smoke, surrounding her, guiding her.

Charla ran in their midst, leaving her weight and her exhaustion behind, and soon her eyes lifted to see the way forward.

A great summit rose on the horizon. The craggy peaks of Earthrise Range no longer, it was now a single enormous mountain whose jagged crown split in two like the jaws of a colossal stone dragon, reaching up to devour the sky. Streams of acid green flowed like tears down its dark slopes.

Oh, how she yearned to be there.

Charla ran like the wind—faster and faster still—and the jackals were beside her, still guiding her onwards. The Well of Souls loomed before them, filling the sky, engulfing her sight.

And then, all of a sudden, she saw the moons above it were moving strangely. They were drawing towards one another, as though to embrace—as though to become one. The mountain trembled beneath them. And, before Charla's eyes, they collided. The great red moon engulfed its green twin, and for a split second she saw them as one single celestial body before they were plunged into a deep and sudden darkness.

A plume of violet fire erupted from the apex of the mountain.

Charla's eyes snapped open.

The world was a dark blur. She lay crumpled in the sand, her heart drumming a furious rhythm against her ribcage, her head muddled with sleep. Feeling like her legs were made of stone, she scrambled to her feet and whirled around.

Sand slipped away beneath her paws. For a split second, she teetered at the crest of the dune's sheer slope, her wings fluttering unevenly—but she steadied herself just in time. Breathing shakily, she sat back in the sand and rubbed at her eyes. They were painfully dry.

Her heart was still hammering madly in her chest. She hadn't expected to fall asleep.

Down below, Lance and the others were still resting at the foot of the dune, and it was the sight of them that brought calm and clarity back to Charla's muddled mind. She mustn't have been asleep for long. She inhaled deeply—once, twice—and then turned around.

Everything was as it should be. Earthrise Range sat calm and unassuming in the distance. The moons hung apart in the dark night sky, no longer embracing, no longer as one. And the jackals were nowhere to be seen—not a glimpse, not even a shadow on the silver desert sands. Nothing had changed. The Well of Souls was still far, far away from her, as Charla knew it to be.

She exhaled a long, slow sigh. What a strange dream...

What had even happened there, at the Well of Souls?

She had never seen anything like it, and she couldn't understand it. Why the moons had eclipsed, why that light had burst from the crown of the Well, why the jackals had led her there...

The jackals. She had dreamed about jackals. Abruptly, a shiver raced down Charla's spine. She sat up straighter and her eyes darted across the moonlit dunes, from horizon to horizon, certain suddenly that she would see them—those dark and shadowy forms. But, as before, she saw nothing. The desert was quiet and still. There were no jackals.

But she had seen them in her dreams. She had seen them so clearly she had felt she could reach out and touch them. She remembered their starry eyes and their translucent shadowy fur. They had seemed so real—so otherworldly, but so real.

What did that mean?

Had they really come—as Meredy had said they did—to guide her?

Charla ran her tongue nervously over her fangs. Her paws were shaking in the sand and she didn't know why.

It was just a dream, she told herself. It didn't have to mean anything. She'd just fallen asleep and dreamed of things that had been on her mind, like the jackals and the Well of Souls.

But sitting there alone in the dark, waiting to move on again, she couldn't stop her thoughts from wandering. She wondered about the jackals and the strange lunar eclipse. She wondered about the plume of violent purple magic that had erupted from the mountain's jaws. And, in spite of herself, she wondered if it could be more than just a dream—if maybe, somehow, that was what awaited her when she finally returned to the Well of Souls.