The Tragedy of Alistan De la Roost

Dear Diary,
 
The morning dawned crisp and clear as we departed Latebra Velora, the weight of Lady Morathin’s tacit approval settling over us like armor. My companions, once hesitant, now moved with purpose—Alistan’s jaw set, Liliana’s fingers tracing the hilt of her sword, even Hayley’s usual quips subdued beneath the gravity of our task. The Black Knight’s camp awaited, and this time, we would not turn away.
 
Before we left, Surina had pulled us aside, her voice low. “That shadow you saw in the grasslands,” she said, “might belong to the copper dragon whose lair you disturbed. If you encounter it again… discourage it from nearing our borders.” There was an edge to her words, a tension I couldn’t quite parse. Territorialism? Old grudges? Dragons, it seemed, carried feuds as long as their lifespans.
 
As we traveled, Gael took the lead, his connection to the land guiding us. He knelt beside a brook, whispering to the birds in a language of rustling leaves and trilled notes. They answered eagerly—yes, a dragon had passed here, its wings stirring the treetops, its shadow vast as a storm cloud. They led us to a clearing where the earth bore the deep, scalded imprint of a massive body, the grass still flattened in the shape of coiled limbs. But the dragon itself was gone, leaving only the ghost of its presence and the faint, metallic tang of ozone.
 
I crouched, brushing my fingers over the indentation. The copper dragon—if Surina was right—was nearby. Watching? Waiting? The thought sent a thrill through me, part dread, part fascination. Dragons were creatures of legend, of fire and fate, and we had blundered into their games like knights in a bard’s tale.
 
We made camp in the same spot as before, the ground still bearing the scars of Alistan’s duel with the undead retainer. Gael and I took first watch, the night air thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. At first, all was quiet—until a deer fell from the sky, landing with a sickening thud. The sound of massive wings followed, and then she appeared: Cypria, the copper dragon, descending like a storm given form.
 
She tore into the deer with casual brutality, her claws rending flesh as easily as parchment. We stepped out of our protective bubble, waiting—because what else does one do when a dragon decides to dine beside your campfire?
 
Alistan introduced us. Cypria’s voice was a rumble of amused thunder. “I am called Cypria,” she said, and then—“I know you were in my lair.” My heart skipped. But she only nodded, approvingly. We hadn’t stolen from her hoard. We’d dealt with the infected wyverns. We’d spared her basilisks. And, oh yes—she’d been the owl watching us all along.
 
She questioned us about the Black Knight, her golden eyes glinting as Gael explained our plan to capture, not kill, to avoid the curse. She listened, then asked why we hunted the undead at all. “Our friends asked for our help,” Gael said. Cypria’s snort sent embers swirling. “Humans with dragon friends. How novel.”
 
Then came our warning: “Lady Morathin does not welcome you in her territory.” Cypria knew. She had no desire to challenge the Fenhunter—“She is stronger than anything in these woods.” A chill crept down my spine.
 
But the real surprise came when Cypria extended a claw to Alistan. “A word,” she said. And just like that, he climbed on her, and they vanished into the night sky.
 
He returned hours later, grinning like a man who’d stolen the moon. Cypria knew about the stolen lance—it had belonged to her rider, whose tomb we’d missed in her lair. She wanted it returned. A reward was offered. And—here Alistan’s voice dropped, smug as a cat with cream—she’d hinted he might prove worthy to be her next rider.
 
Showoff.
 
We slept fitfully after that, the weight of dragons and curses and stolen relics pressing down on us. The next day, we would go after the Black Knight. We were resolved to get our answers—or blood.
 
But that night? I dreamed of wings…
 
We returned to the undead camp at dawn, the air thick with the dissonance of their mockery of life—blades being sharpened, pots clattering over fires, all performed by creatures who needed neither food nor rest. The same ghast from before slithered forward, its hollow eyes gleaming. "Changed your minds, then?" it rasped.
 
Gael didn’t flinch. "Lady Morathin’s orders. Leave her lands."
 
The ghast’s laughter was a dry rattle. "The Fenhunter owns no lands. Filthy lizard." The insult hung in the air like a challenge. Tension coiled tighter, and Alistan’s hand drifted to his sword. The ghast sneered. "You came for violence."
 
Alistan simply laughed in reply, the sound sharp as steel, and drew his blade.
 
The camp erupted. Gael’s arrows struck first, punching through the ghast’s chest like nails into rotten wood. I followed with a fireball, the explosion scattering undead like kindling, their ragged cloaks igniting. The de la Roosts locked shields, a wall of steel and defiance, but the undead surged like a tide. Alistan faltered for half a heartbeat—just long enough—and they swarmed him. Claws and rusted swords found gaps in his armor, blood splattering the earth. Hayley’s curse billowed behind them, a sickly mist that choked even the breathless, but too late. Alistan crumpled.
 
Then he emerged.
 
The Black Knight strode froward from a tent, his armor blacker than the void between stars. And behind him a skeletal dragon golem, its bones pieced together from the cavern near Ravensfield. I knew those ribs, that skull. The same bones we’d stood beside months ago, now animated by necrotic fury.
 
The Knight’s visor turned toward us, and for a moment, the forest itself seemed to hold its breath.
 
This was no longer a hunt.
 
It was a reckoning.
 
The Black Knight’s voice was a blade through the air—"You have broken the sanctity of the challenge." Then came the shockwave, a pulse of dread so thick it near choked me. My muscles locked, screaming to run, to flee, to do anything but stand before that abyss-clad horror. This was no mere retainer. This was the true Black Knight, and his presence alone was a curse.
 
The bone-dragon golem lunged for Liliana, its skeletal talons screeching against her shield. She held, but barely. Desperate, I hurled another fireball into the fray, incinerating the last of the lesser undead—except one stubborn wight—clearing space to focus on the real threats. The Knight responded with a flick of his gauntlet. The earth heaved, a wall of stone erupting to split our party in two. Hayley, Gael, and I were cut off from Liliana and Alistan, the battle suddenly fractured.
 
Gael shouted a final warning as we scrambled around the barrier: "Leave, by order of Lady Morathin!"
 
The Knight’s reply was ice. "If the Fenhunter wishes to speak, let her challenge me herself. She knows nothing of honor."
 
Then—Cypria. The copper dragon plummeted from the sky like a falling star, her claws raking through the bone-dragon’s ribs, tearing at the necrotic magic binding it. The golem shuddered, but the Knight was already moving. I threw a ring of fire around him, forcing him to stride through the flames. His armor blackened, but he didn’t falter.
 
He mounted the golem, and my blood turned to frost when he drew the lance—gleaming, wicked, the same one stolen from Keralon’s cathedral. Dragon-slaying steel. Alistan’s cry of recognition was drowned as the bone-dragon unleashed its breath: a torrent of petrifying mist. Liliana and Alistan collapsed, their limbs stiffening to stone mid-fall.
 
I acted on instinct, flinging a spell to warp the golem’s form—foolish. Golems resist such magic. The Knight only laughed, his hand pressing to the construct’s spine. Dark energy surged, knitting bone and malice anew. With a thunderous beat of its wings, the abomination took flight.
 
"I await you at my keep," the Knight called, his voice fading into the clouds.
 
We gave chase in a frenzy of spells and steel, the sky alight with fire and fury. Alistan leapt onto Cypria’s back, his resolve unshaken even as blood seeped through his armor. Hayley’s magic froze the bone-dragon’s wings mid-beat, sending it lurching, and the two colossal beasts clashed again—copper scales against necrotic bone, a battle of myth and ruin.
 
The Black Knight’s voice cut through the chaos like a dagger. "I sought to leave. Now you choose to die here." He drove the lance toward Alistan, the cursed steel biting deep. Cypria wrenched him free, spiraling toward Hayley, who caught him with hands already glowing with healing light. Liliana and Gael charged, blade and arrows flying, but the Knight and his golem wrenched skyward once more. My fireball scorched their retreat, but they didn’t fall—not yet.
 
Alistan, still bleeding, still standing, locked eyes with Cypria. "Get me close," he demanded. The dragon hesitated—"You are wounded." But Alistan’s voice was iron. "I swore to retrieve that lance."
 
Cypria’s roar shook the trees as she surged upward. Alistan’s sword flashed, a single, perfect strike—and the lance tumbled from the Knight’s grip, plummeting to the earth. The dragon’s claws found their mark, tearing into the Knight’s armor, sending him crashing down in a cacophony of rust and shattered plate.
 
We ran for the fallen Knight, victory bitter on our tongues—until the black tendrils erupted.
 
They coiled around Cypria like serpents, veins of shadow spreading across her scales, her form writhing, shrinking. The mighty dragon contorted, muscles withering, until before us stood not Cypria, but Galienne—pale, trembling, her elven features twisted in agony. The curse had transferred.
 
And the armor? It crumbled to dust, revealing the corpse within. Liliana’s gasp was a knife to the heart. "Brother," she whispered.
 
The truth crashed over us like a wave. Their fallen sibling had been the Black Knight, the curse had used him, wearing his body like a glove. And now Galienne—sweet Galienne, Alistan’s paramour, the priestess who blushed at her own prayers—was a dragon. A dragon who had taken the curse upon herself. To spare Alistan? To spare us?
 
The curse’s toll was clear. She would wither. She would die. And in a year’s time, she would rise again—not as Galienne, not as Cypria, but as the next Black Knight.
 
The forest was silent. The lance lay in the dirt, its metal dull. Some victories taste like ash.