Sonata

'From the stone you shall draw it; to stone you shall return.'

Such warnings didn't stop those grown in the Plaguebringer's harsh nests. It was just a lie, meant to scare those from weaker lands. Sonata had taken the weapon, as she had every other small bit of potential power she'd come across.

This, however, was no lie.

The signs were mild at first. A stiffening in her wing joints; a new rigidity to her lengthy spine in the mornings. Age, of course, she told herself at first. It affects everyone.

'Not everyone', one of the dragons she meets on her travels whispers to her. 'Not those who grip onto Life itself hard enough.' Verity is only fully visible to Sonata in the moonlight, but her voice can be heard anywhere plants still grow. Sonata misses her, when she returns to the Wyrmwound. Their clans might be naturally opposed to one another, but Sonata has grown a soft spot for her wisely callous words.

Some nights, as she looks up at her wings growing steadily less translucent and occasionally shedding bits of shale, she wonders if this sword's curse was one of the types of rot her deity ever imagined. Or has Sonata herself become a new, evolved type of infection?

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