His mind drifted, remembering flashes of things. Auri’s smile, so similar to her mother’s. Auri’s eyes looking up at him with love and trust. Auri’s eyes as they drifted closed that last time.
The hand that bathed her wounds shook.
The whole room was hushed. Not a sound—other than the sound of his breath and his arm still dripping blue into the water—could be heard as he relived that smile again and again. As he relived the last se’nnight again and again.
Someone hissed, bringing his mind back to the present, and he looked down at the punctures in her abdomen. Slowly, ever so slowly, he could see the damage beginning to reverse, the punctures beginning to seal. Someone breathed next to him, a gusty exhale. He ignored them, watching his daughter with palpable focus and energy.
As they began to heal more visibly, he dug gently inside of her stomach and chest for more punctures. He found another three and worked quickly to get those sealed as well.
When he couldn’t find any more, he turned quickly to Liran, a question on his lips; but before he could ask it, the Watcher knelt beside her, taking her hand and closing his eyes. The room stilled even more, absent of all sound and movement.
Finally, Liran opened his eyes and nodded. “The wounds to her vitals are sealed,” he said quietly. “Her arm is also healed. The tears along the outer layer of skin are all that are left.”
Cerralys nodded and began to work again, sealing his daughter’s pale, torn skin. Liran held her hand as the king slashed his hand directly again and smeared his undiluted, blue blood all over the outer punctures of her skin. Then he repeated the process. Slowly, the skin began to knit and seal until, finally, all of the punctures were closed.
When he was done, he knelt beside her and took the hand that Liran released. With the stillness, the burning inside of him returned. The beat of wings still brushed against the shell of his body, and the acid still wanted to erupt from his mouth.
He forced it all away with iron will and gazed down at his left arm. Hundreds of crisscrossed slashes of blue worked their way from the top of his arm all the way down to his clenched hand. The blood from them oozed in deep blue droplets, coalescing and dripping down onto the bed where it lay next to the arm that was whole. He looked away, ignoring it, and watched his children.
He didn’t even glance away as someone began to bathe his arm in warm, clean water. Didn’t even realize that tears were leaking down his face, dripping onto his slashed arm. The tears sizzled as they met the blood, both liquids purifying each other.
He grabbed the stained linen sheet and pulled it over his daughter’s nakedness. The intruding hands rubbed something foul onto his arm and then withdrew. He couldn’t force his eyes away from her to see who it was.
If he could save his daughter, he knew that he could save them both. Nachal’s wounds were shadow wounds—wounds that were inflicted while experiencing a dragon dream. His son had been damaged in the same vital areas as Auri, only Nachal’s wounds would never show. Invisible but still deadly. Deadlier maybe, because shadow wounds were almost impossible to cure.
If it weren’t for the connection formed between them during Nachal’s dragon dream, they both would have been lost. He knew that with utter certainty because whatever happened during a connected dragon dream to one happened to both. A sort of symbiosis effect. It was because of this that he knew that whatever healed Auri healed Nachal as well. The effect would last for a short time, eventually fading away without the bond.
The drip, drip sound was muted now. It came from the tears streaming off of his face and hitting the stained sheets. He watched—almost without blinking—as his children drew air in and out of their lungs. Their breathing was synchronized perfectly. In they breathed and out. In and out. He watched the air being pulled into their lungs, and watched in agony as it blew out again, praying with everything inside of him that the miracle of their breath would go on.
His vigil continued. Time ceased to mean anything to him. He never looked around, never watched anything but the air being brought into their bodies and leaving again. Hours later—it could have been days—Auri stirred.
His shoulders started to shake in silent, violent sobs. His whole body shook with them. He couldn’t catch his breath; it gasped and gasped from his mouth like a fish out of water. And that was how his daughter found him when she awoke.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered feebly without opening her eyes. He brought her searching fingers to his face and then knelt over her until his forehead was resting against hers. She opened her eyes a tiny slit. Blue looked into blue.
“I love you, Auri,” he whispered fiercely, wanting her to hear the words.
She gazed at him silently, too weak to speak. After a moment, her eyes drifted closed again, and the hand within his fell limp.
He knelt there by the bed with her limp hand still in his, lifted his face to the sun that began to stream in through Nachal’s window, and let the tears run unchecked down his face. His daughter and son would be alright. Morning had come.
Chapter Twenty-Seven- Sacrifice
Nachal groaned and opened his eyes. Memories of the dream flooded back to him and he turned his head, gazing at the elf beside him.
Auri.
He watched her—the rise and fall of her chest, the air escaping through her mouth, the slight pucker of her lips, the slow fluttering of her closed eyelids—and he smiled in wonder. They had done it! They had made it out alive!
He slowly pulled himself up onto his elbows, groaned softly as pain throbbed through his entire body, and gently leaned over and kissed her. He smiled softly at her angelic face then slowly glanced around his room while attempting to pull himself more upright. He expected his room to be as empty as the lack of noise indicated, but it wasn’t. Cerralys sat in the chair before the fire. Again. Nachal smiled at him ruefully.
“Weren’t you just here?”
Cerralys was somber. “It’s been several months since I’ve been up to your rooms.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes. I do.”
They looked at each other across the small distance that separated them.
“Welcome back,” Cerralys said hoarsely.
“Thank you.” Nachal turned back once more—almost instinctively—to look at Auri before twisting his body around so that his feet hung over the side of the bed. Another pained groan welled up within him, but he held it in, breathing deeply for a minute with his eyes clenched shut.
Cerralys was instantly beside him. “Easy,” he said quietly. “Take it slowly.”
Nachal nodded, gritted his teeth, and stood, swaying dangerously despite Cerralys’s steadying hands. They inched slowly, agonizingly, over to the open balcony doors. Once they were outside, Nachal shifted his weight from his father to the balcony railing and looked around him.
The sun was high in the sky, warm on his chilled, pale skin. Activity in the courtyard below was noisy but otherwise normal. His attention was arrested suddenly by the arm that was placed next to his on the balcony railing.
Angry, crisscrossed hatches of blue ran down the king’s left arm, all the way down to his hand. Along the pads of his fingers were more angry lines of blue. Nachal looked at them a long time, remembering the ancient stories that he had been taught as a child. The stories of dragon’s blood and the reputed healing properties that it had. He knew that dragon tears, infused into metal, created weapons of unparalleled strength, but he had never seen—never felt—the effects of dragon’s blood. The last time it had been used was before he was born; during the great Dragon War.
He thought about the being next to him—about loss and pain, about strength and sacrifice, about love—and he had to swallow hard. Before, on the plain and then in the air, he and Auri had been certain that they would die. But they hadn’t. Because the person standing next to him had refused to give up on them.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for saving us.”
Cerralys didn’t
acknowledge his gratitude for a moment, and then he whispered, so softly that Nachal could barely hear him, “I saved myself as well.”
Instantly, Nachal understood.
Wasn’t that, at least in part, how he felt about Auri? That saving her was saving himself as well?
“She’ll have to leave, won’t she?” It wasn’t really a question. He knew the answer already.
“Yes.” There was pain in the ancient voice.
Nachal shifted a little, taking the weight off of his right foot. The throbbing up and down his leg lessened noticeably. “Where will you send her?”
“To the only places where she has both a chance to be safe and a chance to learn about who and what she is. To the dragon schools.”
Nachal nodded. It made sense to send her to the dragon schools. They were isolated, well protected, and governed by members of the Luminari. There she would be able to learn all of the things that she had missed out on being raised among his own kind. Among humans.
He never forgot for a single moment what he was. He was human, and yet he was more now. It wasn’t just Auri. It wasn’t just the gracing of the queen. It was a sense of destiny. Not destiny in the sense that everything about his life now was predetermined, but destiny in the sense that he knew that this was the right path for his life to take.
Ever since that first morning, after that first dream of Auri, he had felt its call. And then, looking at that wolf sitting on the plinth of snow on the Bremgar bridge . . . that sense of destiny calling. He had felt it then and felt it shiver through him now. This was the course his life was supposed to take. This is what felt right. He didn’t know the final destination, but he knew that this was the right road to get him there.
“Will you send me with her?”
She had never felt so nervous in her whole, entire life.
She stood in the very center of the massive, open-aired Vu`lerr Sanctum. Around her were many dragons. They sat on circular rows of raised daises that started at the very top of the sanctum, high above her in the air, all the way down to just thirty yards from where she stood.
Every single eye in the room was upon her, and each flash of emotion that she felt from them threatened to overwhelm her. She tried Liran’s distancing trick, and felt the emotions fade a little. Just enough for her to concentrate on what her father was saying.
“You want me . . . to go to school? I don’t understand.” The words sounded ridiculous to her. He wanted her to go to school? Now?
“The dragon schools are the only places on Terradin that you might be safe,” he answered patiently. “Within the schools you will be guarded by one of the members of the Luminari you see here, as well as Nachal, and Dhurmic if he accepts. Also within the schools, you will have the chance, the opportunity, to learn about your heritage, both elven and dragon.”
He was silent for a while, studying her face. His face grew somber. She felt the feelings in the room shift as well, as a deep somberness came over the other dragons—as though the feelings of the Luminari were, in that one instant, in complete concert with those of their king. “Dragons are the protectors, Auri,” her father said quietly. “A long time ago, my brother lost faith in that. He rebelled against it, turning his back on it. On us. And because of his actions, he has brought about much suffering in this world. Not only have those within this room all lost someone, but many innocent people have suffered and died because of Obsidian’s rage. They still continue to die.
“Just as the elves have looked for something that would turn the tide, and help us to reclaim the peace and health of this world, so too have the dragons. What I felt, and the experiences that Nachal has had with the Dragon
Dreams, led me to encourage him to search for you.”
He looked around him at the room, his eyes pausing at each face, each row, until finally they found hers again. The focus of the room intensified, becoming almost palpable. Each eye focused on her father. Waiting. Expectant. She swallowed as a deep feeling of foreboding swept over her.
“You are the turn of the tide, Auri.”
The air was swept from inside of her, from inside of the sanctum, leaving nothing for her to breathe. She could do nothing but stare at him. Didn’t he know what position he was putting her in? Didn’t he understand what would happen if she failed?
His eyes glistened with tears, with pain that was easy to see, and she saw the truth in them. He knew what he was asking of her, and he understood the consequences of failure better than maybe anyone else in the room.
She swallowed again, looking away from everyone. She could feel the tears build up in the back of her throat. When she spoke, her voice was a choked rasp. “I will go.”
Low, murmuring voices began speaking to one another, but a pine-green dragon, Lady Chelriss, silenced them with a husky contralto voice that echoed across the vast chamber. “Will the Watcher, Liran of Elrise, please come into the sanctum?”
Auri’s heart beat out a disjointed rhythm as Liran’s footsteps whispered softly against the blue marbled floor, coming to a graceful stop beside hers. She felt his attention focus on her briefly, intensely, before moving to rest on her father. As Lady Chelriss resumed speaking aloud, her father and Liran seemed to be speaking to one another silently. Liran’s stance went immediately rigid.
“This council has a special request of you,” Lady Chelriss said softly, ignoring the silent byplay. “It is only with your graces that we have hope of finding the Lost Ones.”
Liran’s and the king’s eyes were locked onto each other’s. The air above them grew mournful. A sigh of wind whispered along the top of the sanctum and fluttered all the way down, gently ruffling her hair. The wind felt like a cry. Or a plea.
Her gaze moved back to her father. A single tear traced its way down his cheek.
“I cannot leave her,” Liran whispered.
“You must.”
A heavy weight of silence filled the room. Time passed as her father and Liran stared at each other. No one shifted or moved. No one even seemed to breathe.
Liran turned his head to look at her; emotions flashed through his eyes, making her heart skitter around in her chest. Then he faced the king again and nodded once before turning around to leave the sanctum.
Auri turned back to the king as he bowed his head; tears fell from his eyes. She was left standing there, feeling very much alone.
She found him at the cliff top, looking out over the sea in his dragon form. The moonlight glistened on his scales, throwing rainbow prisms of color across the water below. Quietly, she moved to sit in front of his left foreleg, and leaned back against the sure and solid strength of her father.
They were at peace now, though only hours before she had been arguing with him. Finally, he had silenced her. Not with a command, but with his gentle love. “I would give my life for yours in a moment,” he had said. “It is mine to give.” And with that he had walked away from her, leaving her staring after him with nothing on her lips to say.
She began to speak softly, not wanting to break the serene peace that surrounded them. “I’ve been thinking about sacrifice. The sacrifice of so many good people because they believe in something. Because they want a better future, a better world.”
“Like your mother,” the king’s dragon voice rumbled quietly.
Auri nodded her head in agreement. “Like my mother . . . like you.” She looked up at him, and found his face, many feet above her, looking down at her with love. “Each of you has sacrificed so much for a better world. For a more peaceful world.” She looked away from his shining eyes and out across the sea. “I can only do the same. I will try, Cerralys. Because I have hope for a better world too and because I want to honor the sacrifices of those who have died believing in the same thing.”
She felt the scales against her back become warm with emotion. “I will miss you,” he whispered.
She didn’t answer him straightaway. Instead, she thought of that moment when she had first awoken to the sound of his
sobs. The moment when she had first realized that she wasn’t dead, that Nachal and Cerralys had saved her, and that the empty hole in her heart was the absence of Valdys.
“I never got the chance to tell you . . . I love you too.”
End Of Book One
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Chapter One- Loss
She never slept that long, eternal night. Her father went into The Hall somewhere in the early pre-dawn hours, searching Nachal out, while she stayed where she was, looking out toward the vast ocean in front of her, and trying to find the courage and the will to leave this peaceful haven. The courage to leave the people that she loved. To leave the father that she had barely begun to know.
Wolf padded quietly over to her, and put his head on her lap. He stared out to sea with her. “How do you always know when I need you?” she asked, rubbing his ears.
He looked at her with his too-intelligent eyes, conveying with a single glance what he thought of her question. He knew because he was a White Alpine Wolf, and it was his job to take care of her, a member of the royal family. He also knew because he loved her.
His fur was soft against her hand. She let tufts of it run through her fingers, once again amazed by the silky texture. She smiled, already more at peace. How were animals able to do that? Perhaps it was only limited to Wolf. She speculated on that as she rubbed his ears, and then had to laugh when he closed his eyes in absolute bliss.
Perhaps another hour passed, she wasn’t sure. Time seemed to hold little meaning. It just kept moving forward, never holding still like she wished it would. She startled a little when she sensed a presence beside her, and glanced around to find Liran sitting less than five feet away.