Prologue: The First Life I Lived

The first time around, I lived in an ancient world at war.  I was born to Arianne Carol, a renowned warrior of Dragon Valley and the leader in the battle against the ancient dragons. 

She collected scars as trophies and brought home scaled hides as souvenirs.  That was what she wanted for me as well.

But I never wanted to be a fighter.  My best adventures were in the pages of books, safe in front of the warm fire. 

Surrounded by death and blood, I harbored a secret dream to one day become a healer.

As the years wore on, the fight with the ancient dragons took a turn for the worse.  Humans could no longer lives in the open.  We built fortresses inside caverns and mountains, while the dragons roamed over our homelands.

The dragons were ruled by one tyrannical beast, said to be as immortal as the mountain stone.  His name was Emrys.  Countless warriors had been lost trying to topple him from his high peak. 

Growing desperate to end the war once and for all, my mother sought the aid of a powerful prophetess. 

Giving her every last scrap of wealth that belonged to our people, she begged the prophetess to tell her how she could defeat Emrys.

The prophetess foretold that there was only one person who would be able to slay the immortal master of all dragons.

Me.

At first, I was terrified.  I had no idea how to slay an ordinary dragon, much less the legendary immortal master of them. 

But my mother insisted that the task had fallen to me.  Now I had a duty to my mother and my people. 

I was determined not to fail them.

I joined my mother's side, and in time I grew to be as well renowned as she.  As her youth waned, my glory surpassed her own.

But inside, I felt empty.  The years of my life drained away as sand through an hourglass and my true dreams slipped through my fingers.

Beneath the emptiness, underneath my grief for what was lost and what I continued to lose everyday, was a simmering rage.  It grew with every dragon I killed, every horde I conquered, until at last it was a raging inferno. 

When my mother passed from our world into whatever lay beyond, my people lived on the brink of extinction.  I faced Emrys at long last.

And I lost.

The years passed.  My story turned to legend.  A shift in power tipped the scales.  The dragons were slowly driven out of our valley.  My people limped on, and over decades rebuilt our homeland.  Dragon Valley changed.  The war with the dragons faded into myth. 

But I was still here, lingering in the space between life and death.  I wandered through a void of shadows, my soul trapped in the world that I had failed.

That was the first time I lived.  The second time around, was different.