Lysera crept silently through the streets of Freeport as night fell. A soft step here, a soft step there, and soon she believed she would sneak unchallenged onto the ship.

She passed a bonfire. It emitted a sweetly scented smoke, and for a moment, she thought of a pleasant hearth long ago, but the crowd of agitated townsfolk broke her reverie. The crowd listened to a man preach that the Parliamentarians are doomed for abandoning this isle, for the sword of the sun conflagrant remained unfound, and its potent magic would grant them victory.

She saw their fear, but she could only save her gryphons, and as their trainer it was her duty.

As she neared the dock, the darkness was so complete she had to feel along the slimy walls to make her way, but when she looked down the row of ships she saw a crowd waving torches. Their brightness nearly blinded her.

Squinting, she spied a row of soldiers in glittering mail keeping them from reaching the ships.

Her heart collapsed for a moment. This presented a challenge, but she spotted a discarded box and seized upon a plan. She hoisted the box, keeping the loose end pressed against her chest, and shuffled down to the docks.

The crowd was louder than anything she ever heard. All of the people demanding to be let on the ships, demanding the Parliamentarians not abandon them.

She felt so sorry for these people and a little ashamed she had only been thinking of the animals in her care. She just hoped the Monarchists would show more compassion than her people had.

She forced her way to the line of soldiers and tried to shout, "Excuse me," but her cry was drowned out by all the other voices. "Excuse me," she cried again.

The soldier glanced at her. "No one gets on."

"I have a parcel—one Robern forgot to pack. He says it's vital to our war effort."

The soldier sighed. "Yeah, that jester would forget his ass if he didn't need it to shit. Come back in the morning."

She bit her lip. "He said he'd whip me if I didn't do it now."

"Then you whip his scrawny ass back."

"Please, sir. He says it's volit ... vola ... vola—"

The soldier put up a hand. "Vars, escort this boy onto the ship."

"I can go myself."

"Come on," Vars said and led her onto the ship.

The space below the hold looked smaller than she remembered — maybe it was the piles of boxes or the dim lantern light. There were only two horses in the stables. Both of them were shivering bay roans, quivering in fear as the deck rolled gently beneath them. The remaining stables were filled with boxes and barrels and crates. A row of chests occupied the iron cages that once housed her gryphons.

"Put it over there with the rest of his stuff," Vars said, motioning towards the gryphon cages with his lantern.

Lysera took a deep breath and hoped her gambit would work. She stamped her foot on where she remembered the loose plank was. Just as it had previously, the latch to one of the stables came loose. The frightened horse kicked open the door and bolted into the hold. The frightened soldier did his best to try and corral the beast.

While he was occupied, Lysera dashed over to the alchemist's storehouse. She dropped the box and fumbled for an open chest, but they were all locked securely, except for a small casket on the end. She looked up. The soldier had the horse by the neck and was soothing it with calm words. No time to waste. She glanced at the writing on the vials. One leapt out at her. It said, "To make light." She grabbed it just as the soldier was leading the horse back to its stable.

"Packed away tightly, sir." She announced.

"Good, let's get out of here." Vars said as he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back to the crowd.

Lysera ran back to her gryphon's rook feeling a sense of ease for the first time today. She bounded from stair to stair and spiraled upward to the tower top. She stopped briefly to change into her uniform—the gryphons were more used to obeying when she was in uniform, so she reasoned it would be best.

Once inside, she looked upon her two gryphon's sleeping in their cages—the two that she had raised since they were hatched. She still remembers feeding worms into their little beaks. A tear formed as she thought of how callously the commander wanted to toss their lives away.

She pulled a hunk of salted beef out of the locker and poured half of the "light" potion on top of it. Still unsure if that was the right thing to do, she slammed it on a table and massaged the rough outer surface, working the fluid inside. Then she did the same for a second.

Jasmine, who was always the hungrier, sniffed the air and leapt to her feet. Her beak opened and closed. To look on her, Lysera could almost believe those people who say they only love her because she feeds them, but instead of dwelling on that she smiled and handed the beef up to her. Jasmine was so big now that she could barely reach.

Opal awoke upon hearing her sister ripping the food with her paws and beak. "I didn't forget you, either," Lysera whispered and she placed her portion gently on the floor inside her cage. Opal sniffed it and then glanced at Lysera. For a moment, Lysera wondered if Opal knew she was supposed to be poisoning her. She put on her smile and nodded.

Opal batted the rough piece of meat with her paws before devouring it in a single bite. Lysera had no idea how long the potion would take to have effect, and she wondered if it was really the potion she thought it was—Robern liked to be clever with his labels.

Just then, Jasmine's outline shimmered. She also realized she didn't know how long it would last, so best to start now. Lysera opened her cage and lead her to the balcony. Lysera wondered if this was the last she would see of her darling Jasmine, but she couldn't think about that and be the strong pack leader that Jasmine would follow.

"Fly," she commanded.

Jasmine looked at her with a puzzled look in her lioness eyes. Jasmine shimmered some more. She was getting so bright it was hard to look directly at her. Lysera now doubted the potion had made her gryphon any lighter, but there was still a chance, and even if it wouldn't, they would be alive, so long as they were not here at morning.

"Fly," she repeated waving her arms to the side of the balcony.

Lysera went back in and lead Opal out as well. She was the smarter one.

"Fly," she repeated.

This time, they both took to the air and flapped her shimmering wings and turned to the direction she pointed to. With luck, they would reach the mainland by dawn. If not, gryphons instinctively seek out sources of heat. She hoped that meant they would follow the sun east once it rises.

She watched their shimmering forms flap down to the city below. Then they leapt up and flew over the wall. She couldn't tell, but it sounded like they landed on the far side. She feared the potion didn't do as she hoped. Maybe it did. She had to know for certain.

Before she left, the bottle of poison she had been given caught her eye in the pile of discarded clothing. She thought long and hard before taking it and stuffing it in a pocket. You never know, she reasoned.

The trip down the stairs and to the sally door seemed like it was an eternity, and once she rushed outside, she heard the guards order the sally door bolted. Then, after rounding the walls to where her babies would have landed, she collapsed at the sight of her two shimmering gryphons padding around outside the wall.

She wanted to cry out to them, but she had no breath left. Before she could say anything, they simply vanished before her eyes.

The tall grass swooshed and ruffled. Lysera chased after the sound, but soon all under the night sky was silent. She fell to the ground and felt amid the dewy grass for their paw prints. It was several minutes before she felt the first indentation, then the second.

The trail led her up the hill. She had no idea to what. Before she realized it, the glimmering dawn lit the series of hills on top of hills. The trail of prints was clear, but Jasmine and Opal were no where in sight.

She pressed on, running now where she had been crawling, until she came to a deserted village. The church and blacksmith's hose barred her from seeing what was happening in the center square, but the sounds of claws scraping stone was unmistakable.

Her heart danced with joy as she rushed to the center of town. Jasmine and Opal paced around a hole in the center of the town square. The upper part of the hole was fresh dug about three feet deep, but from there, it became a cut-stone well. As Lysera rushed towards her gryphons, the smell of ash stopped her in her tracks.

Jasmine turned his head to her and leapt to the air. Opal followed.

"Come back," she cried, but something clearly spooked the pair.

Lysera turned to what the two were looking at. A dozen soldiers glittered in the dawning sunlight. Their red monarchist sashes were the only contrast to their gleaming steel armor. They smoothly pulled back the bowstrings of their crossbows, and while they each loaded at a different rate, it looked as if it were a move in unison. They raised their weapons.

Lysera spun around. "Help me," she begged her gryphons, but they beat their wings with a fury and sped away.

A cold numbness crawled through Lysera. They really didn't care for her as everyone said. She barely noticed as the soldier grabbed her arms while another tied her wrists.

"Let me go," she whispered as he threw her to the ground and bound her feet.

A man in monarchist red robes stepped out from behind the soldiers. His black beard framed his overlarge face perfectly. He strode close to her. Close enough for her to smell rotting wheat on his breath.

"Well," he said. "It looks as if you have beaten us to the sword of the sun conflagrant. I think however, this is not one of those cases where the race goes to the swift."

"What do you want from me?"

"If you are looking for the sword, you must know how to retrieve it from the well of fire, yes?"

"I know nothing. I know even less than I did yesterday."

"Well, that just makes things more interesting."

Lysera struggled against the ropes, but they would not loosen.

The man spoke again. "Tell me. Are you of the school of thought that says the well of fire is merely an illusion to dissuade the weak, or are you of the school that says it is a test of ingenuity? That a man must be clever to obtain the sword."

Lysera let out a long sigh. She realized she had not breathed the whole time the stranger was speaking.

"What is this?" he asked and poked at the bottle in her trousers. He reached his cold hand inside her pocket, and Lysera's skin did not stop crawling until he pulled the bottle out. "To make cold. Well, sometimes a question is best answered without words."

The red robed man stepped away from her and shouted, "Carl, come here."

One of the soldiers approached. "Sir."

"It seems our lovely guest is of the school of thought that believes the well of fire is a test of ingenuity, and this is her means of passing the test." He handed the soldier the bottle. With grim precision, the other men affixed chains around a nearby tree and lowered them into the well.

Lysera squirmed her way closer to the well, not wanting to die before seeing the spectacle about to unfold.

The soldier stripped off his armor, quaffed the potion and climbed down the chain. Lysera held her breath until he saw the soldier's flaming head pop out of the hole. The soldier was surrounded by flames, but neither he nor his clothing seemed affected by it.

She was aghast. She had unwittingly led them to the powerful weapon. Only now that she actually saw it did she believe it existed, and now the hopes of a parliament were surely doomed.

As she struggled again against her bonds, the flaming soldier clutched his chest with his left hand and struggled for breath. He fell to his knees as he gasped for air. The soldiers on the far side of the well rushed towards him. Lysera hopped and squirmed until she was at his side. When he dropped the blade, she propped it up with her fingertips, just before the searing heat became unbearable. She rubbed the rope against the blade.

With a smoky twinge of pain, her hands were free. A soldier grabbed her and pushed her away. The red robed man bent over to pick up the fiery sword.

Lysera kicked off the bonds on her feet and leapt towards the robed man. A soldier grabbed her again and held her to his chest. She struggled against his grip as another soldier held her other arm.

She kicked his ankle and he backed off, but another grabbed her from behind, clutching at her throat.

The red robed man was engulfed in fire, but it did not burn him as he held aloft the sword.

Lysera twisted free of the man grabbing her throat and punched the other soldier in the Adam's apple. He fell to the ground. A distant soldier leveled his crossbow at her and prepared to fire. The certainty of her death gripped Lysera's bowels, but she charged the fire-wrapped enemy anyway.

A golden fluttering form swooshed past her and knocked the crossbowman to the ground. It was Jasmine. She mauled and ravaged her victim while Opal knocked the robed man into the pit.

Lysera stopped for a moment as a glow came over her. They did love her—well, her strength anyway. She cursed her soft heart and clambered down the chain to the bottom of the well.

The robed man lay broken with the flames of the well of fire all around him. He still did not burn even though he did not hold the sword.

The flames licked all around her, but she controlled her fear. If what she was seeing was true, the flames were not real, or not hot anyway. Translating that reasoning into action took all of her will, but she did it. She climbed down into the flames and was not burned. She seized the sword and pulled her way back to the surface.

Once on level ground, she saw her two gryphons chasing the remaining soldiers. One fired a bolt at her, but it seared to nothing before hitting her. She chased one enemy down and cut him into smoldering pieces. Those still alive fled.

Opal curled onto the ground and licked her singed paws. Lysera petted the stricken beast and whispered, "No time for that, my friend. Just as you did not abandon me, there are people who I do not intend to abandon."