The five ponies stared at the alicorn in shock, mouths hanging wide. Corona lowered her hoof. She remained with her wings flared, her body tensed, ready to defend or attack as need be, but for the moment, she remained perfectly still, save for the occasional pull of the breeze at her mane, or a slight flick of her tail.
Trixie recovered first, stepping forward and stomping a hoof. “You can’t be serious,” she insisted.
Corona glared at Trixie, then glanced down, at the Element of Loyalty that had been left behind when Bray had teleported himself and Lyra, roughly equidistant between herself and the ponies. “Time is short, and so I shall be as well. Your compatriot has been captured by Grogar’s servant. I do not know Grogar’s plan for her. It is irrelevant: whatever it is, it cannot be allowed to be seen through to fruition.” She glanced back up at the five of them. “Had I my full power I could brush Grogar aside with naught but the slightest effort of will. Instead, thanks to your actions, I am weak. I could not challenge Grogar in battle – but nor could you. My sister yet lies beyond Grogar’s shield-spell and can render no aid.”
Corona began trotting forward, tucking her wings against her sides as she did. “Meanwhile, you five and I are yet enemies. However, without a bearer for the Element of Loyalty, you cannot direct the Elements against me, and without the Elements, you cannot defeat me. At best you can merely drive me into retreat. But that will not help your compatriot.”
Corona stopped before Trixie, who had held her ground, gritting her teeth. Her own muscles were tensed, though, ready to move. Trixie could feel the heat rising off of Corona as she neared, as the alicorn’s body still cooled from the fiery power it had just unleashed. “The Elements are at this moment the only weapon of any use against me or Grogar. But, as your pitiful attempts against his golem servants show, you will never reach the demon ram in time if you must battle your way past them.”
Cheerilee stepped forward at that. “You didn’t exactly look good yourself,” she challenged.
Corona bristled slightly, but then leaned forward towards Cheerilee. “Indeed not,” she conceded, though anger was evident in her voice, “but it was a far better showing than you. Grogar’s servants are composed largely of cloth and straw. They burn.” She waved a hoof at the still-smoldering remains of several stitched golems. “You cannot deny that even weakened as I am, I am nevertheless far better suited to the task of destroying Grogar’s golems than you. Additionally, I have been in the city of Tambelon before. I know its streets and its alleys, its twists and turns.”
Corona held her position for a moment, then backed away a few steps, to the Element of Loyalty’s focus where it yet lay. She lifted it with one hoof, examining it for a moment, before flicking it with more than a little contempt at the five ponies. Trixie caught it telekinetically, glaring at Corona as she began speaking again. “This is what I have been driven to, false bearers. The only chance of defeating Grogar while I am so weakened, lies with you. And your only hope in defeating Grogar or myself, and in rescuing your compatriot, lies with me.” Her wings flared again, and she stomped a hoof. “Make your decision: yea, or nay. And do so quickly. I sense we have precious little time.”
Trixie’s mouth worked a few moments, before she risked a glance back at her friends. All of them were still breathing heavily from their encounter with the golems, exhausted, sweating, more than a little bruised or nicked by the golems’ claws. Carrot Top was fidgeting slightly, clearly wanting to go for her pestle and bowl as fast as possible to mix up more of whatever that healing paste was. Raindrops already bore several bandages, many of them now ripped or torn. Ditzy had retrieved Lyra’s lyre from where it had fallen, and was holding it close, much as Trixie was holding the Element of Loyalty. Cheerilee’s front and hind legs were shaking slightly – she was exhausted from their fight and was barely standing. All of them looked as torn as Trixie felt – on the one hoof, Lyra had been kidnapped and Corona had a point about their abilities; but on the other, this was Corona, the Tyrant Sun.
“I don’t…” Raindrops said, scuffing a hoof in the ground. “I don’t…argh, I don’t know!”
“We might not have a choice,” Cheerilee said. “The enemy of my enemy…”
“Is our enemy too,” Ditzy said fiercely. Both her eyes were focused on Corona, and narrow. “She kidnapped Dinky. My filly. She – ” Ditzy paused a moment, then stomped forward, passing Lyra’s lyre over to Raindrops as she glared at Corona. “You tried to kill my daughter!”
Corona’s head inclined, her own eyes narrow. “You lie,” she said smoothly. “I merely held her hostage. Her life was in the hooves of the ponies of Ponyville, held against obedience to my commands. And as I recall I was merciful when you – you, a mother – went against those commands in spite of my warnings!”
Ditzy sputtered. “You’re not being merciful just for not killing a foal, you…you insane nag!”
Corona stepped back at the insult, eyes wide. “You dare – ”
“We don’t have time for this!” Trixie interrupted. Corona and Ditzy both turned to glare at her, but she took off her hat, and telekinetically grabbed at her discarded saddlebags, bringing them forward from where they had lain. She pulled out a sheet of parchment and tore it into five piece, then fished out a pen and inkwell. “Okay, we’re doing this in secret, so we never have to know who voted which way. Just make an Y on the parchment if you want to…to do this…and an N if you don’t. Put it in the hat. Secret ballot. Okay?”
Even with the anonymity, everypony needed a few minutes to decide – even Ditzy, despite what she had said, as she kept looking to the Element of Loyalty, and to Lyra’s lyre. At length, however, Trixie had five folded pieces of parchment inside of her hat. Once they were all in, she took in a deep breath, and held it as she took out the parchment and laid them out for everypony to see: Three Ys, and two Ns. None of the five looked pleased, and each glanced to the other, wondering who had voted which way – but they had voted, and the results couldn’t be argued with.
Trixie turned back to Corona. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. For now – until we’ve dealt with Grogar – we’ll work with you.”
Corona grimaced. “I am no happier with the circumstances,” she said, then glanced up at the sky, eyes looking around before they focused on a nearly imperceptible blue dot beyond the shield spell. “I will inform Luna of our predicament. Then we must move.” Her horn glowed, and then a missile of light shot towards the shield wall.
---
Luna was focusing her power, bringing it to bear against the shield-spell in single, catastrophic blows against a single spot on it rather than continuously pounding away at it. Though it did not feel like a faster processes, it was indeed, due to the intricacies of how magic reacted to magic, at least at the sheer scales she and Grogar were capable of, even if the latter was only capable of such feats once in a great while.
Just as importantly, the focus required to prepare herself for each blow meant that she didn’t have to spend time thinking about just how grim the situation beneath the shield was. She had seen the golems, at least before they had disappeared beneath the trees. It was yet another testament to Grogar’s talents that he was able to control so many golems, instead of having them run wild as was typically the case – no doubt the fouler applications of necromancy were somehow involved.
She saw the burning missile heading for her from beneath the shield wall, and readied herself, of course, just in case it was some kind of attack Grogar had that could pass beyond it. It was not, however – instead, the missile burst apart and became illusory words, much as her student Trixie had done several hours previously, though these were tinted orange.
Sister – I have allied myself with your lackeys, for now. Grogar is a great enough threat. This changes nothing between us once the demon ram has been dealt with.
“What?!” Luna demanded, falling onto the spell shield with wide eyes, watching the words as they faded. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, though no sound came out. At length, she closed her eyes, horn glowing, and once more projected an avatar through the tiny cracks in the shield’s defenses. The avatar was off the moment it was created, following back to where the words had come from – a small clearing in the woods, near the road.
She saw her student, Trixie, and Trixie’s friends – four of them, all bearing small wounds and bruises. Lyra Heartstrings was missing. And she saw Corona, who watched her approach with a carefully neutral expression. As before her mane and tail were still pink, and her eyes still normal, not glowing white with power.
The avatar landed, looking over the five as Carrot Top tended to their wounds. She glanced to Corona, then looked back to her apprentice. “What happened?” she asked. “Where is Dame Lyra?”
Trixie bit her lip, glancing in the direction of the city of Tambelon. “There’s a donkey named Bray – ”
“The traitor prince,” Luna gasped, her avatar backing up a step and wings flaring. “He’s alive?”
Trixie eyed Luna. “You never mentioned him,” she noted.
“I didn’t think I would have to! I thought he was dead!” she glanced at Corona. “We both did!”
Corona’s eyes narrowed a moment, considering, before she heaved a sigh and nodded. “It was through Bray that Grogar seized the city,” she said. “But having done so, Grogar would have had no further need of him – and Bray would hold no small grudge for having his kingdom robbed from him. We had assumed Grogar had killed him out of practicality. Evidently we were mistaken.”
Trixie glanced between Luna and Corona, looking more than a little surprised to see them in agreement over something. She shook her head after a moment. “Anyway,” she said. “Bray attacked us. He had golems, and he knows how to cast spells. He was…he was kicking out flanks.” She looked down. “You’re not gonna believe this, Princess, but…Corona saved us. But Bray teleported away, and took Lyra with him.”
Luna looked to Corona then, eyes wide. “You…saved them?” she asked.
Corona’s own eyes were narrow. “Practical necessity,” she stated. “Whatever Grogar’s plan is, it cannot come to pass. The Elements are the only weapons of any use right now.”
“And we have to save Lyra,” Cheerilee put in. Carrot Top was wrapping a bandage around one of her hind legs as she spoke. “We can’t wait for you to break through the shield anymore.”
“No, of course not,” Luna responded, though her voice was small. There was no other option – not if they wanted to save Lyra and stop Grogar. That her sister was even capable of forging such an alliance, though…after a moment, she looked to Corona. “Don’t – don’t hurt them. Please.”
Corona whickered in annoyance, flapping her wings a few times. “If there is to be treachery, sister, it shall not be from me,” she stated. “Not while Grogar yet lives.”
Luna’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before she turned back to the remaining Element bearers. “Be careful – ”
Luna’s avatar winked out of existence. Her consciousness took a split second to return in full to her body, just long enough to be surprised, to wonder what had happened. When it did, her world was nothing but dragon fire – fire teeming with magic, enough to burn through magic itself, to harm even an alicorn caught unawares. Luna had been so caught. She screamed in pain as she leaped backwards from the spell-shield, but the fire followed her until its creator finally ran out of breath.
Luna plunged through a cloud, instantly vaporizing it from the heat and errant flames that still existed on her body. The next cloud largely held out as her horn glowed brightly, healing magic dancing across her frame as she alighted on the cloud’s top. Burns cooled and healed over, fur and feathers grew back, hooves cracked from the sudden heat repaired themselves, and turquoise eyes glowed with power. Evidently, Solrathicharnon was outside of the spell-shield, had been waiting for Luna to become vulnerable. He had attacked her, but he hadn’t killed her. He had made a decent start, but his first blow had not been crippling – and nothing less than a crippling first blow would cause her to fall against a dragon, no matter how ancient.
All this had happened in a matter of seconds.
Solrathicharnon was gone.
Luna blinked a few times in surprise, looking down at where she had been. Black smoke still hovered in the air over the shield wall, but of the dragon, there was no sign. Luna glanced around, casting both her mundane and magical senses outwards, but she could find no sign of the dragon. If not for the soot still staining her body and the ache she still felt from his fire, she might have thought she had imagined the whole thing.
Luna grimaced as she closed her eyes. Perfect. This was exactly what she needed to add to her list of problems: Grogar was below, Bray was alive, her apprentice had been forced to ally with her mad sister, one of her little ponies captured by the necromancer, and now, to top off everything, there was a dragon with a grudge who could apparently pull off a disappearing trick that would have made Quartermoon the Magnificent jealous.
Was anything going right for anypony today?
---
Trixie glared at Corona. It was possible that the white alicorn had not intended to take the lead, that simply her longer legs meant that she had naturally just moved up to the front. Possible – but not likely. Taking the lead position had simply occurred too naturally, and Trixie thought she had seen a small smirk.
Corona had to have noticed the glare, but she said nothing as they all cantered down the road as fast as they could manage. The five normal ponies were all too tired for a full gallop, but Trixie took some comfort from seeing that Corona herself seemed tired. They managed the first fifteen or so minutes in silence, but it didn’t quite last as Carrot Top glanced upwards. “What do you think happened to Princess Luna?” she asked.
Trixie grimaced, glancing up herself. Luna was visible, barely, beyond the spell shield, looking just fine despite her avatar’s sudden disappearance. “It looked like an explosion,” she said, remembering the fire in the sky that had occurred concurrently. “That dragon, I bet.” She looked to Corona. “Hey. Do you think you could call your pet dragon off?”
Corona scoffed. “Doubtful,” she said. “Solrath has no true loyalty to me. He is using me purely for revenge against my sister.”
Cheerilee blinked at that. “For what?”
“A thousand-year-old grudge.”
Trixie thought about that for a moment, before her eyes widened as she remembered a conversation with Luna from months ago – just after Corona had first returned from exile, in fact. “That family of dragons Luna mentioned,” she said. At a look from the other four ponies, Trixie explained. “After Luna banished Corona – ”
“Celestia,” Corona corrected with a glare.
Trixie ignored her. “ – the first time around, she was…she was broken. Luna told me that she spent years just wandering from town to town across Equestria, doing anything she could to forget what she’d done. Drinking, mostly.” Corona scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Trixie ignored her. “Then a family of dragons attacked Equestria. They thought it’d be an easy target.” Trixie looked to her friends. “Luna said she ‘convinced’ them to leave.”
Corona glanced down at Trixie, offering a thin-lipped smile. “Eight dragons entered Equestria looking for plunder,” she said. “Only three left. And of those three, only Solrathicharnon now lives. For a thousand years he has dreamed of revenge against Luna. If there is any mortal being that could challenge her, then it is he. And so, he and I work in concert. But with Luna so open to attack at the moment, and weakened as I am, there is nothing I could do to rein him in.” Corona looked back down the road, her face darkening. She was silent for several long moments before muttering, almost to herself, “it does not surprise me to learn that, after betraying me, Luna spends the better part of her days in a stupor – ”
“She doesn’t,” Ditzy interrupted with a glare. “Luna’s a complete teetotaler. She’s famous for it.”
“Well, not complete…” Trixie said. “One goblet at formal gatherings, that’s the rule. Though I’m pretty sure she sneaks a few bottles for whenever Princess Cadenza visits, for them to share.” Trixie smiled a little, remembering a surprise revelation, at least to Trixie and her friends, that had occurred a few months ago. It was one of the only truly good things to come out of the Grand Galloping Gala. “Guess now I know why…”
Trixie expected another jab from Corona at that, but the white alicorn said nothing. Indeed, for just a moment, her face seemed to soften – her wings sag a little, her head droop just slightly more, and her eyes glanced down instead of ahead on the road. For a moment she looked full and truly tired, not simply from running and fighting, but somewhere deep inside of her. It was only for a moment, and Trixie was certain she’d just been imagining things. “My niece – the dragon – Luna – none of these are relevant to what we must do,” she declared, glaring back at the five. “Focus, Element-bearers. The palace of Tambelon is vast, and I do not know where to begin looking for your compatriot if she is not kept in its dungeons. Do you have some means of detecting one another? A tracking spell?” Trixie shook her head, and Corona whickered in annoyance. “Foolish. You should have considered that.”
“I’ll remember that,” Cheerilee deadpanned. “But we don’t have it. So we’ll start in the dungeons. What happens if we run into Bray? Can you take him?”
Corona’s whickered again. “Bray is of little concern. He was not lying about his magical knowledge – Tambelon was a city of learning, and its royal family placed great stock in education. But Bray cannot cast spells without the gem in his turban. And I am certain that will burn as easily as any other part of him.” She glanced down. “My greater concern is Grogar. The demon ram is perhaps the greatest mortal spellcaster to have ever lived. Only Starswirl himself could challenge that claim.” She looked back to the five ponies, considering for a few long moments, before heaving a long sigh. “If we encounter Grogar before we have retrieved your ally, you should run. I shall hold him off as best as I am able until you can gather the Elements.”
The five needed a few moments to take that in. “Seriously?” Raindrops asked. “You’d sacrifice yourself like that? I thought you hated us.”
Corona rolled her eyes, looking forward again. “Whatever Luna’s faults and treachery, she has no desire to bring lasting harm to Equestria. Grogar would. If I must choose, then I choose Luna. But I think you will find that even weakened, I am not so easy to kill. Even if struck a fatal blow I can always return to the Sun to heal. Even Grogar’s shield could not stop such an occurrence.”
“Well, wait,” Trixie said. “Why aren’t you doing that now, then? To escape? Just popping to the Sun and then popping back?”
“While Grogar lives? I think not.”
Trixie grunted at that. It made sense – Trixie certainly wouldn’t leave right now even if she could, not while her friends were in danger. “How many of those golems do you think Grogar has?” Trixie asked. “And how come they haven’t gone all destructive and stuff? Golems aren’t supposed to be this…obedient.”
“They are powered by captured life-energy,” Corona said, “and Tambelon’s destruction gave him life energy to spare. He has as many as he could build while trapped in Shadow. It is probably best to assume that he will always have more.” She looked to Trixie. “That same life-energy is what makes them obedient. They are…leashed, I suppose you could say.” She scowled. “It is vile magic that animates them, viler even then the black magic my sister used to corrupt the Elements – ”
“Oh for the love of…” Carrot Top interrupted. “Luna didn’t corrupt anything. Luna didn’t use dark magic. Luna wasn’t even there when we earned them!”
Corona glared at her. Carrot Top looked back, eyes narrow, cheeks puffed slightly, looking like she was imagining something happening to Corona. Whatever it was, it probably didn’t happen. “Luna,” Corona said at length, “knows more dark magic then I believe you realize, my little pony. She grows addicted to things easily. It is her weakness, and the reason why I had sought to remove the burdens of governance from her. And dark magic in an insidious, addictive force.” Corona stopped trotting then, looking away and down. “You – you do not know. Of course you do not. Luna has spent a thousand years expunging her acts from history.” She stomped a hoof. “I am the elder sister. I am the stronger sister. This is not boasting, this is fact. How, then, could Luna challenge me a thousand years ago, little ponies?” Corona made a cutting motion with one hoof. “At what was to be my coronation as Queen, she came, after she had stolen the Elements, after she had turned everypony against me. You did not see her. You could not feel the change to her nature as I had! There was so little of her left…it was midday, the Sun stood in its zenith in the sky, and yet when Luna approach the horizon grow black, and a red moon rose, stars trailing it like tears weeping for what Luna had become in her jealousy!”
The five ponies stared. “You’re wrong,” Ditzy said.
“I am not!” Corona stomped a hoof, her mane and tail flashing with flames. The ponies backed away in fright. Corona noticed, and took in a deep breath, calming herself. “My sister,” she said, through grit teeth, “used blackest magic to combat me, a thousand years ago. You fear me as a tyrant? My soul remains as pure as the flames I conjure. Luna was corrupted, debased, only a tiny shred of ego remained, totally at the mercy the black power she had summoned from Tartaros to combat me! I was there, I saw her! And that is not something that can be simply cast aside. She suppresses it now, perhaps. But how can I, how can anypony, allow a barely-contained nexus of black magic to sit upon the throne?”
Corona looked between the five mares. None of them had an answer for her. She whickered once more, turning back around and beginning to canter again. “Enough. There will be silence for the rest of our journey.”
Trixie had a feeling that was a good idea. She was grimacing more than a little, however, and she looked up, to where Luna sat outside of the spell shield. She knew that Corona was in some ways correct – Luna had been forced to call upon dark magic to fight her so long ago, though she didn’t know nor care to know the specifics. She also knew, however, that the Elements of Harmony had destroyed that magic nearly completely, and what little of it had remained had been purified, then mixed with the ‘shred of ego’ Corona had mentioned to become Mi Amore Cadenza.
But Corona didn’t know about that part, and probably wouldn’t have believed it anyway. All the white alicorn knew was that, a thousand years ago, Luna had shown up to her coronation suffused with magic summoned from one of the denizens of Tartaros. No wonder Corona had such a hard time accepting that Luna was in the right, had not been sullied. Mad already at her coronation, she had been treated to the sight of the one constant throughout her millennia of life teeming with black magic.
Trixie looked to Corona, and for the first time, felt something other than anger or fear. She felt pity – pity for how mad she was, and pity for how isolated the alicorn believed herself to be. Trixie quickly tempered it by reminding herself just how dangerous Corona was, but at the same time, the feeling lingered, and she had a sense that it wouldn’t be going away any time soon.
---
Hearing was always the last thing to go when one slipped into unconsciousness, and it was also the first thing to return, though her other senses soon followed. Lyra was aware of very little for a long time besides cold stone and an errant piece of straw under her body, the sound of water dripping somewhere, the smell of mold and mildew. She opened her eyes groggily, but they barely helped – wherever she was, it was dark. She struggled to get her horn glowing to provide some light, but it didn’t work. Gasping and reaching up to her head, she felt a ring clasped around her horn securely – a magic-suppression ring, cutting off her ability to perform even the most basic of spells.
“Ah. The unicorn has awoken,” a voice said. Lyra looked. She saw she was in a dungeon cell of some kind, a tiny one. Standing outside of it was something huge, shaggy, and horned. In the dim light, she couldn’t see much more than that, but she didn’t need to. She bit back a scream at the sight of Grogar, determined not to give him the satisfaction.
Grogar’s horns glowed bone-white, illuminating his face, his red eyes. He was looking at her with a carefully neutral expression. “It is time for some…experiments,” he said, magic reaching from his horn to Lyra.
She couldn’t stop him as she was wrapped in the magic, which quickly pierced her body – violently, it felt. She tried to keep from screaming to spite Grogar, and managed to last a few seconds before she failed. She writhed under his magic as it coursed through her body.
Dimly, she was aware of him speaking. “The pain will only be passing; you should survive the process.”
Small consolation. The magic began to target specific parts of her body, rather than presenting her with just pain in general. First it was the frogs of her hooves, feeling like they’d been slit. Then there was pain in her throat like she was being choked. A headache that felt like a split-open skull. She could have sworn she had a heart attack, or a ruptured spleen, or her horn torn off – even as she was aware that none of these things were actually happening to her, that she was still whole, if not healthy.
“Interesting. Your heart is beating somewhat faster than I would have expected. Too much sugar in your diet, I think.”
Lyra tried to say something at that, but all that came out was a long, low cry of pain. Her throat was ragged by now, and this pain was real. “Nevertheless, you are as fine a specimen as I could expect,” Grogar said. “And a unicorn, too. Fortuitous; they always did make the best bargaining chips.” Grogar looked to his left as the glow to his horns died, and the pain stopped. “You get to live awhile longer, Bray.”
There was a whimper – well, there was a lot, actually, mostly from Lyra as she curled into a ball; the constant agony may have stopped, but her body was little more than aches and pain. But there was additional whimpering from outside of her cell, as a voice – Bray’s – spoke up. “Th-thank you, Master. I did try, b-but the alicorn…Celestia…”
“Shut up,” Grogar ordered. “Gather the golems, all of them. Post half around the city and the remaining inside the palace. Celestia will attack, the palace must be defended, and unfortunately, I need you to do it, while I prepare the circle.”
“Y-yes, Master!” Bray exclaimed. There was frantic hoof-steps as Bray must have fled from Grogar. The ram watched him go, before glancing back in at Lyra.
Lyra stared back. She managed to hoist herself into a sitting position. She was positively dripping sweat, shivering and panting, but she managed to give Grogar the best glare she could. “Wh…why…” she demanded, “why are you…doing this…?”
“To be honest, I have no interest in you at all, unicorn,” Grogar answered, turning away. “However, he always had a special hatred for all ponies, and for unicorns in particuar. So, unicorn, you shall be my final sacrifice, for the one thing I need to complete my destiny.”
Lyra took in deep breaths at that. “He?” She demanded. “Who’s ‘he’?”
Grogar looked to Lyra, and he said a name.
Some months back, Trixie, Raindrops, and Cheerilee had gone to a town called Oaton at the request of one of its citizens, in order to help it with some trouble it was having with a lumber company. Lyra had been busy and couldn’t go, but she was a bard at heart, and so had learned all she could about what had happened on the three’s unexpected adventure. They had uncovered tangled conspiracy, full of secrets and lies, betrayal and cover-ups, and a surprising number of monsters. They had also uncovered an ancient and dark temple to a forgotten time of Equestria’s early history, and a malevolent, corrupting force, the remnant of an even more powerful being long since defeated. Trixie had called it the Whisper, but Luna had advised against her giving it that name, or any other, as names were something that contained no small amount of power. She hadn’t told Trixie the Whisper’s true name, and Trixie had taken the hint from Luna and done no research into the matter – whatever their occasional differences were, Trixie respected Luna, and trusted that when Luna said that some things were best left forgotten, she knew what she was talking about.
Lyra wasn’t like that. She was a bard. She wanted to know stories, even – especially – the forgotten ones. And so, after she had learned all she could from Trixie and Cheerilee and Raindrops, Lyra had looked into Trixie’s Whisper, its origins. There were only so many dark periods in Equestria’s history, after all, only so many evil creatures it had faced that could have left an impact like that. Eventually, Lyra had learned of the darkest period of Equestria’s history – more tumultuous, more chaotic, more horrifying, then even the brief reign of Corona and the twelve years of Luna’s abandonment that followed, and nearly as bad as the brief, almost prehistorical reign of Discord. She’d learned the true name of the Whisper.
Grogar looked to Lyra, and he said a name. And Lyra felt her heart stop.
“Tirek.”