24. We Fight as One in the Darkness Too
24. WE FIGHT AS ONE IN THE DARKNESS TOO
~ ELOWYN ~
The many concerns that had been squawking in my mind like a flock of threatened, wayward birds, stilled from one instant to the next. The chaos of my sudden and unexpected new surroundings vanished. Rush’s and Saffron’s panicked grips on me disappeared as if they weren’t touching me at all. Even the alarmed cries of the others were swallowed by a consuming silence.
There was nothing beyond endless pools of darkness as the blue-scaled she-dragon stared into my eyes. She seemed to touch my very essence, cradling it to examine it, turning it this way and that, tilting it toward the light to scan for defects.
To determine whether or not I was worthy.
Of what, I wasn’t at all sure, but I was certain this felt like some kind of test. So much more so than any of the queen’s absurdly barbaric Fae Heir Trials, of which I was apparently still not free.
A zing shocked my skin with a painful tingle before she drew back just far enough for me to stare into her gaze. While I felt bared to her, like there was no secret or vulnerability I might hide, I couldn’t discern anything in her eyes beyond an impression that she was infinite. Yes, she might eventually die in the body she now wore—especially if the queen had anything to do with it. But the essence within would go on forever, would still be soaring through the skies after the mirror world and Faerie had long faded from existence.
After all the time I’d spent caring for the creatures in Nightguard, and how much I’d admired them even then, it had never occurred to me that they might actually be this level of magical , more magnificent than anything else I’d ever considered, their experience of life so entirely different from my own.
Where I looked from one day to the next to survive, I sensed the dragons contemplated existence in terms of ages and eons. The trivial happenings of the here and now were little more than blips on a stretching timeline.
A shudder raced from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, leaving behind a pulsing heat.
I blinked. The dragon didn’t.
The young one has bonded to you.
My eyes snapped wide as the deep, powerful voice boomed through my mind. The dragon’s mouth hadn’t moved, but it was definitely her.
You do not transform into one of us, nor have you sworn an oath to protect us. And yet he has chosen you.
Was I supposed to answer? She hadn’t asked a question. Would she even hear me if I responded through my thoughts? Some of the dragon protectors could speak telepathically with the dragons, but as she’d pointed out, I wasn’t one of them.
You must silence all distractions if you are to fulfill your destiny.
Whatever heat had continued to sweep across my body fled, replaced by a chilling anticipation.
What is my destiny? I asked as if I were ruminating on the question myself, unsure whether she’d hear me.
It is similar to ours. Her voice was slow and so deep it seemed to imprint itself on my very skeleton.
And what is yours?
Finally, something sparked across her eyes. For a destiny as great as yours, you do not know much.
The less I think I know, the freer I am to learn the real truths, I retorted without thinking it through.
She hummed. Yes, that is correct. Perhaps the young one has not been foolish in choosing you after all.
I didn’t realize he’d bonded to me—whatever that meant—but I’ll defend him to my dying breath. He’s safe with me.
But you are not safe.
The chill turned into cold dread. I simply stared back at her. Until the queen was rotting in the ground, this would remain the case.
It is still undetermined whether or not you will live beyond this season, as it is still undetermined whether or not the man at your side will die protecting you.
All moisture evaporated from my mouth, leaving me parched and desperate to soothe my throat, when no amount of liquid would fix what she’d just said.
He can’t die. I shoved the conviction toward her.
He can, and he will ... eventually. As will you.
Well, we are mortal. It’s to be expected. I just...
When I didn’t know exactly what else to say or if there was reason at all to say it, she simply waited, the gravity of that unwavering stare heavy upon me.
I love him, I admitted, deciding there was no point to disguising that truth when she probably felt it already. Despite all he’d done to me, my battered heart recognized him as my mate.
As such, I wouldn’t be able to blame him forever for what he’d done, especially not if he’d done it to save me.
I just ask to have a long and fulfilling life with him before we must go, I added.
You can ask all you like.
I chuckled. Are you saying just because I want something doesn’t mean I’ll get it?
Haven’t you already learned that lesson in this life?
Indeed. I sighed, wondering what the others were doing beyond the stare I couldn’t break free of.
Focus, the voice reprimanded, like a boulder slamming against the earth.
Tell me what to do. How do I save my mate and protect the dragonling? How do I fulfill my destiny?
The path you take must be your own, or else it will not be your destiny.
I tamped down hard on the snark that wanted to reply. I doubted the she-dragon would appreciate it.
You are right, she replied.
She read my thoughts even when I didn’t project them to her? Dandy, just freaking dandy.
It is not enjoyable to me either. Not all fuerins are capable of listening to all thoughts. Just the most powerful among us.
Fuerin? Is that another word for dragon?
At first, there were only sensations, then came sounds and tastes and touch. We have been called many things as others have come and gone. Fuerin is what we were called before your dragon .
She blinked, and the passing of her blue eyelid yanked me from wherever I was engaging with her to the present for a fraction of a heartbeat. I heard screams before falling back into the silence that surrounded her and me.
There are many more elements than those you recognize. We fuerin are a manifestation of yours and many more. We are fire and wind, earth and water. We are Ether and power, we are life and we are bringers of death. Your truthsayer also embodies many of the elements, those you know and those you don’t.
Who? Azariah? The unisus?
The podrala . His kind has been around as long as ours, in one form or another. He has forgotten much of his history.
Is that my destiny? To help him remember?
A deep rumble shook me, and it took me a moment to recognize it as the dragon laughing at me.
No, young one. It is not. While it is still not entirely defined, you are to shine light where there is only darkness. Yes, I see it now. He was wise to choose you.
Who? Saffron? The dragonling?
There was no laughter this time. No. The warrior with so much light inside him he struggles to contain it.
Rush? I whispered through my thoughts.
Your mate. The dragon— fuerin —nodded her large head. Yes, I see it clearly now. He was part of the plan from the beginning. He freed you from the chains that bound you. Through you, he is worthy of connecting to us too. He already has.
Does that mean ... you’ve decided I’m worthy of ... talking with you?
You must be worthy of much more than that or there will be no saving any of us, for this time at least.
My connection to her and the truths she’d revealed, they swirled within me like a windstorm, its force pulling me toward a lethal center. But through it all, certainty was coalescing into a gurgling fountain of strength.
Whatever my future, whatever my role in illuminating the darkness, I was equipped for my destiny. I had to be. In fact, I was perhaps more perfectly suited to succeed than anyone else in all of creation.
Something changed in me then. I couldn’t identify what, but it felt like a new current charged my body even as my feet planted more firmly on the stone floor. I was more solid in this world than ever before, and also more expansive.
I funneled all that growth into my stare.
Yes. Yes, that’s it! Child, you already have the fire of fuerin and the earth of Faeonhool within you. Before the Ether claims you from this life, you may find more.
Whatever it is you need me to do, I’m ready.
It is not I who need you. It is we who need each other. I see it now, one of the paths forward. Along it, you and I will need the other before it is through. Your mate and the young one will need us too.
Any, uh, tips on how to do all this? I asked on a chortle I couldn’t tell if I vocalized.
Release all of us the shadow keeps prisoner. She draws too much power from us.
Is the queen the shadow?
For now. Through her, the darkness spreads. A path allows her to destroy this world.
I’ll stop her.
The creature tilted her head. Perhaps.
No, there’s no perhaps about it.
If I could talk to freaking dragons , I could sure as shit find a way to fulfill the kickass destiny she was laying out for me. It was terrifying, most fucking definitely. It was also the way forward I’d been begging for without realizing it. There had to be a reason for all the deceit, lies, and pain that had burdened me all my life. There had to be so much more to my existence. There had to be—or this place, this life, would make no sense. And I didn’t know if I could handle that emptiness.
I’ll walk the path that will end the darkness. No, I won’t walk it. I’ll fucking run . I’ll do whatever I need to do to focus, even if it means denying myself the distraction that is Rush.
Even as I told her this, I wasn’t convinced I could leave him behind. Not now that I’d seen him again, felt drawn to him as if he were the opposite side of my moon.
No one had yet to satisfactorily define a mate for me. Now, I no longer needed it.
This was what it must be. To feel him even when I couldn’t fully sense my own body.
The dragon said, You are allowing in more of the fuerin magic. You are learning to contain it.
Though my stare continued to meet only hers, Rush’s hand pressed over my heart as this new power barreled toward that one point, scorching through fabric to touch his flesh, to connect us as one.
You and your mate are stronger together, she said. The magic that bonds you will become more commanding still, if only you...
If only I what?
That is for you to discover. The path cannot be too easy or it will not be the right one.
I snorted. Well, then I’ve definitely been on the right path. It’s been one hell of a bumpy road.
It will get bumpier.
Gee. That’s fantastic. I can hardly wait.
Good and bad is relative. In time, every trial passes. Soon it becomes difficult to decide what is good and what is bad when you recognize how one action leads to another, and then another. Good and bad can exist in perfect balance.
If you say so. Personally, I won’t rest till the queen is dead. There’s no good in that woman.
There is more to her than you yet see.
I’m sure. As I’m also sure she’s rotten to the core. That woman kills without care, without need! She hurts others for the sake of hurting.
The dragon added nothing.
What do I call you? I asked.
You do not call me anything. If there is need, I will call you.
And just like that—when I was in the process of composing a few dozen questions about her existence, ours, and how to save everyone, to get us started—I blinked, and the dragon appeared twenty feet from me.
Still perched atop the queen’s throne even though she seemed much too massive for it, those black eyes glimmered as they held mine.
I sucked in a gasp so deep it was as if I’d been underwater all that time?—
Too loud —noise crashed into me all at once.
“We carry her,” West was saying to someone while Azariah said, “It’s now or never. She won’t wait long.”
Saffron whimpered, and it took me what felt like ages to understand I sat on the floor with him on my lap, his eyes glistening with worry.
And I lay atop Rush’s thighs, clutched in his arms.
A handprint was singed onto my bare skin, burned through my clothing. Across the inner swells of my breasts glowed an outline the size of Rush’s hand, the precise shade and luminosity of his moonlight.
As I watched, the handprint pulsed once, twice, thrice ... before fading into my chest, leaving behind a faint outline, like a stretchmark that could only be seen from a certain angle.
“El,” Rush breathed across my cheek.
I looked up and found him gazing down at me.
“Oh, by dragonfire, Elowyn. My El. My love. I...” He sucked in a breath, shook his head, as if there was too much he wanted to say all at once. “You came back to me. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
Tears welled in his eyes. “I hurt you so horribly. It doesn’t matter if you ever forgive me or not, I’ll never, ever hurt you again. I don’t care what anybody does or what they threaten, I’ll never so much as harm a single hair on your beautiful head.”
His chest heaved as he pulled me closer against him. “Never mind. I lied. I do need you to forgive me. I do need you to understand I never wanted to hurt you. That I only did it to keep you alive. I couldn’t think of any other way. I still haven’t. I promise you I’ll make you feel safe with me again. I promise you I’ll be the mate you deserve.”
“Rush,” Ryder said from somewhere beyond him.
I wasn’t looking away from Rush. Nearly as much as the dragon’s eyes had held me their captive, so did his.
“We have to go,” Ryder insisted.
“She’s not ready to move,” Rush answered, gazing into my eyes, his forehead scrunched with emotions I suddenly found myself timid to identify.
“She’ll have to be. We’re too exposed.”
“Besides,” Hiroshi said, his voice sounding close, “now that she’s scaled, she’ll have to free the others. If there’s any chance of doing it, we have to go.”
“ Scaled ? What...?” I mumbled up at Rush as if I were waking from a deep slumber.
“Worse than being scaled,” West added, “she’s also glowing. No way are we going anywhere without everyone noticing, and that’s after we take into account our little invisible friends.”
Blinking repeatedly, I pushed up onto Rush’s lap and glanced over at where West, Ryder, and Hiroshi crouched in front of a backdrop of dragons. While the creatures didn’t exactly look friendly, their postures were relaxed.
Hiroshi placed a gentle hand on Rush’s shoulder, startling Saffron, who hugged my legs harder. I brought an automatic hand to his back to assure him.
“Once Elowyn’s more alert, she’ll be glad we moved. So long as we’re in the palace, she’s at risk. Your mate’s at risk , Rush,” he added, as if that would definitely get through to his friend.
Rush looked up at him, and at once I yearned for the moonlight of his eyes as if it had been dark for years without it.
“Okay,” Rush said. “Yeah, okay. I know one thing that’ll rouse her.”
Before I had time to analyze whether his grin was more wolfish than remorseful, more desperation than hopeful, his lips—those lips I’d been dreaming of despite my resistance—slammed down onto mine.
Like the dragon advised, I didn’t bother to think. Scaled? Glowing? Whatever.
I recognized the kind of moment in life worth showing up for—and showed the fuck up for it.
I kissed him back as if he hadn’t stabbed me in the heart. As if a wicked queen didn’t want to murder us both. As if prisoners didn’t need our help. As if a talking dragon hadn’t just dumped on my lap next to the squirming dragonling a motherfreaking destiny I didn’t realize I had.
When my tongue slid across his, entangling us, I extricated an arm from around Saffron to hang both around Rush’s neck, and leaned into him as a zing, the second in so little time, whipped up and down my body to pool along the length of my torso, leaving my core clenching with need.
“Come on,” West interrupted.
It sounded as if falling water distanced us from him.
“Rush, this isn’t like you. We have duties, important ones. You know, like saving the entire fucking place? Saving the dragons?”
West squatted beside us so we couldn’t ignore him. “Come on, man. You can feast on her later.”
Rush kissed me so hard and so completely that I could do nothing but submit to the passion of it.
Then, with a lick of his tongue across my lower lip, he pulled back his head, his arms still gripping me firmly to him, the dragonling wedged to the side of our embrace.
His tattoos glowed across his entire face, vines blooming with thorns and the buds of flowers I’d never noticed among them before. But his eyes glowed even brighter, his eyelids hooded across their light.
“I will most definitely be feasting on you later, mate ,” he growled.
My starving core clenched again.
His eyes smoldered—or was it mine that did?
Eventually, when one of the guys cleared his throat, Rush guided me and Saffron up. When he rose next to us, he kissed me again. This time, the kiss was there and gone too quickly.
“Let’s go save some dragons,” he announced before his attention snapped to the others. “Azariah and West, you know what to do.”
“Wait,” I said urgently. “What are they doing?”
“I’ll tell you later. You were out for a while. They’re right, we’re out of time.”
“Ry, Hiro, you guys are with us.” To West, Azariah, and even to the other dragons in the throne room: “We fight as one in the light. We fall divided in the darkness.”
More serious than I’d perhaps ever seen him, West’s lips pressed into a grave line. “We fight as one in the darkness too. We’ll see each other again, my brothers.”
“We’d better,” Ryder grunted.
Azariah squeaked, then said, “Let’s go, dragons. Follow me. Before the magic of the Fae Heir Trials decides to keep us here.”
The moment the words crossed his lips, I knew.
Before Azariah’s eyes widened in panicked shock, I knew.
“Oh holy Etherlands,” Azariah quavered. “It’s too late.”