Sparks of a New Dawn

The lamps of the Aureleum Conservatory of Transmutation Arts glowed like bottled stars in the distance, their golden light trembling against the evening mist. Sixteen-year-old Ferelith paused in the cobbled street to stare at the shimmering towers. Every night she lingered like this, as if longing alone might carry her across the threshold of the world’s greatest alchemical academy. 

Inside those walls, apprentices brewed moon-silver tinctures, transmuted metals with bare fingertips, and altered the very laws of nature. And within those same walls, Ferelith hoped to find the life she dreamed of. 

But dreams were expensive. 

And she was not. 

She sighed and turned toward the scent of damp earth and crushed roses drifting from Griselda Thornwick’s flower shop. The old wooden shutters clicked softly in the wind; the sign, shaped like a lily, squeaked on its rusted hinge. Ferelith pushed the door open.

“Long day, petal?” Griselda asked from behind a mountain of marigolds. Her voice was warm and gravelly, like a kettle forever just about to boil.

Ferelith nodded. “We sold almost everything from the morning cart.”

Gris grinned, deep wrinkles folding like maps. “That is because you have a way with living things that even I cannot teach. Alchemist’s hands, at that.” 

The compliment warmed her, but it also hurt.

After sweeping petals from the floor, trimming stems, and helping Gris lock up, Ferelith started the long walk home beneath a purple-black sky. The moon hung low, dull as tarnished copper. Her boots scuffed along the dirt road that wound between farmlands and fading lanterns. 

When she reached her cottage, only one light burned inside: the kitchen lamp. Her mother sat at the table, elbows on her knees, hands clasped together so tightly the knuckles blanched. She looked up when Ferelith entered. 

“Sit, sweetheart,” her mother whispered. 

Ferelith lowered herself onto the opposite chair. The air felt strangely thick, as if gathering itself for a blow. 

Her mother took a breath. “Your father… he collapsed at the mill today.”

Ferelith’s throat tightened. “Is he hurt? Where is he now?”

“He is asleep.” Her mother’s voice quivered. “But the healer says he needs an elixir to stop the infection from spreading. A rare one. It will cost more than we can manage.” 

Silence thudded between them.

“And your schooling.” Her mother folded in on herself. “I know you wanted the Aureleum. I know what it meant to you, but even if they accepted you, we would not have been able to pay your tuition.”

Ferelith stared at the grain of the wood table until it blurred. Something in her chest cracked, soft and invisible. 

The words slipped out before she realized they were real.

“I will never be an alchemist.”

Her mother reached for her, but Ferelith stood sharply, the chair screeching across the floor. She felt heat claw at her eyes; shame and anger and grief all tangled into something wild.

“Ferelith, wait!”

But she was already out the door, lamp in hand, the cold night swallowing her. She ran past the well, past the old oak, down to the dark path into the forest where brambles gripped the ground like claws. 

The trees closed around her, branches swaying like dark ribs overhead. Her breath came ragged, mist curling from her lips. She did not know where she was running, only that she had to go somewhere her dreams could not echo back at her. 

After several minutes, her foot struck something hard. She pitched forward, crashing into wet leaves and roots. 

A wail tore from her, raw and animal-like. Pain flared in her knee, her palms, her pride. She spun toward the culprit: a jagged, mud-caked stone jutting from the ground. 

“Oh, wonderful,” she snapped, kicking it. Pain shot through her toes. “Ow! Stupid rock.”

She sucked in a breath, preparing to scold the forest itself, when curiosity flickered. The “rock” did not feel like one. Her kick had struck something oddly smooth beneath the crust of dirt. Ferelith knelt, lamp trembling in her hand, and began clawing away the soil. Clumps fell aside. The shape grew larger, rounded, mottled. Her heartbeat quickened. 

After several minutes of digging, she unearthed the whole thing: a massive, heavy orb, its surface ridged beneath the grime. Her pulse thrummed with a familiar hunger, the hunger of discovery and possibility. 

“Maybe there’s ore inside,” she muttered. “Something rare. Something worth enough to save everything.” 

She carried it to the riverbank, the cold water leaping over her wrists as she washed the mud away. Slowly, the texture beneath revealed itself. Not stone, not metal, but scales. Scales in overlapping patterns like in those ancient bestiaries she had studied as a child. 

Her breath paused. 

“No. Way.”

As the last of the dirt vanished, the truth gleamed back at her: an enormous, petrified dragon egg. 

Legend said dragons had vanished millennia ago, burned out like stars too bright to last. Scholars debated whether they had ever truly existed. But Ferelith held proof, heavy and stubborn, right in her shaking hands. 

Hope surged, frantic and bright. If this egg was real, if it could hatch, if she could bring forth a creature of legend, then the Aureleum would have no choice but to accept her. And their reward bursary alone could pay for her father’s medicine twice over. 

She hid the egg beneath her coat and hurried home. The cottage interior was dark now. Her mother had fallen asleep at the table. Ferelith brushed a trembling hand against her mother’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

She then slipped outside to the fire pit behind the house. She placed the egg in the center and built a nest of kindling around it, lighting it with a sparkstone. Flames danced around the shell, throwing copper light across the scales. Ferelith curled beside it, afraid some night creature might try to steal it if she slept too far away. 

She did not remember drifting off, only the warmth of the fire and the ache behind her eyes.

---

The sun’s rays fell gently upon the nest that Ferelith slept beside. 

Suddenly, something ticklish brushed her nose.

Ferelith jolted awake with a gasp. A pair of golden eyes stared back at her, round and curious. 

She screamed. 

The tiny creature skittered backward, chirping. It was no larger than a housecat, its wings still crumpled from birth, its scales glimmering like newly forged bronze. Smoke puffed from its nostrils in confused little bursts. It hopped in a circle, tripping over its own tail before tumbling into Ferelith’s lap.

She stared, mouth open, heart thundering.

A dragon.

A real, breathing, utterly alive dragon. 

And it had chosen her, hatched beside her, warmed by her fire, alive because she had not given up on it. 

Something shifted inside of her, quiet but irrevocable. 

Maybe she was not an alchemist. 

Not yet.

But she would be.

She lifted the fledgling gently, feeling tiny claws curl around her fingers. 

“Hello,” she whispered. Her voice trembled with awe. ”I think you and I are going to change the world.” 

The dragon chirruped, embers dancing from its mouth like sparks of a new beginning. 

And for the first time since sunset, Ferelith felt the world open, wide and wondrous, as if inviting her to step into it. 

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