The Last Dragon of the East

Chapter 41

41

T he emperor doesn’t visit the next morning, nor the morning thereafter. I lose track of how many days pass. Weeks, maybe. Or perhaps a whole moon? It doesn’t matter anymore. They blend together into one inescapable nightmare.

I’m parched despite all the water, and starved within an inch of my life. I no longer have the strength to lift a single finger. The guards come to feed me, but only enough to keep me alive. Sometimes, when they’re feeling particularly cruel, they’ll eat their own meals right beside me, or worse—spill what little there is of my food on the floor.

I want to bite their damn heads off.

Dreams and waking thoughts have become indistinguishable from one another. I see things as plain as day up in the sky, though I can’t tell if they’re real or machinations of my fracturing mind.

Sometimes I see him, my little prince. Bluer and more brilliant than all the glistening seas. He flies overhead in loops, chasing his own tail with a gleeful heart. The snow doesn’t even faze him as he glides through the clouds. Every now and then, my son looks at me, something familiar in his sapphire eyes. A hint of pity, I think, for his withering A-Ba.

Where is your fight, dear Father? he asks. You must not give up now. You must save yourself and Mother.

Memories from past, present, and even future lives play out in real time. In every single one, I’m without my Fated One. I’m incomplete without her: totally, irredeemably alone.

Is there really no hope for us? Are we truly doomed to tragedy in every new life?

I know that I’m not the only one suffering, not the only one who has questioned whether this is worth the torment of losing each other a thousand different ways in a thousand different lifetimes.

Jyn deserves better. She deserves to be free.

Maybe this time when I find myself at the Steps of Heaven, I will choose not to return. Maybe I will choose to let my weary soul rest, and in doing so give Jyn the chance to live without the burden of me. At this point, it would be a mercy for us both. I can choose not to subject her to another missed lifetime.

Something cold licks at my little finger. I don’t notice it at first, too numb and too broken. But then the cold begins to eat away at my flesh, starts to singe my muscles. I strain my eyes down to look at my thread of fate and am alarmed at what I find there.

The end of my fraying gray thread is starting to turn black.

I think I hear Jyn screaming for me, but I can’t make sense of sound nor sight. I’m an empty husk, my mind breaking into tinier and tinier pieces. My hunger pangs reverberate through my thin bones, every part of me aching. This is by far the cruelest way I have ever died, but at least the pain will be over soon. At least this time, my soul will finally know peace.

For her sake, as well as mine… I don’t think I’ll come back. I will release her from this torturous cycle.

“Sai!”

The sound of my name snaps me back to reality. What was I thinking just now? I really must be losing my mind. My hope was nearly snuffed out. So long as I yet breathe, have the chance to make my way to her, I could never willingly leave her. There must be a way out of this, but how ?

A fearsome roar shakes the air, the mountains, the seas. I detect movement, though I’m unsure whether it’s real or merely a strong breeze whipping over my body. My eyes can’t focus, though I’m able to make out the blurry movements of the guards, the flick of a winding green tail. There’s yelling, and though I don’t know what they’re saying, their tone suggests rising alarm.

Drip, drip, drip.

Soldiers scream as they charge her with swords and spears and arrows. It’s not until I smell the heavy scent of iron that I realize it’s not water tapping me on the forehead. It’s far too warm, too thick, too red .

I catch the whiff of jasmine before I see her, Jyn’s shaking hands desperately trying to unlock my restraints. Her own wrists are badly bruised, and several deep cuts to her arms and her side are soaking her silk robes with blood. She must have wrenched herself from her restraints with what little strength she still had, but in doing so, has grievously injured herself.

“Stay with me,” she wheezes. “Stay with me, Sai!”

She frees me of my iron collar, my head and neck so heavy that I wince at the sudden ability to move. My wrists and my ankles are next, but my limbs are too weak. There’s a scuffle, soldiers bearing down on us. With a vicious snarl, Jyn transforms back before my very eyes, the normally vibrant green of her scales muted and fading. With a whip of her tail, she knocks the bucket of water and its stand aside, spilling it onto the cold stone floor of the atrium.

I attempt to move, but my body is too broken to cooperate.

Jyn fights. She fights like her life depends on it, and it does . I can only watch in stunned shock as my thread turns a deeper black, trailing farther down our connection. This is what it must feel like to die .

Facing wave after wave of soldiers, my dragon shows no signs of slowing. With one swipe of her claws, she slices a man in twain. With the gnash of her teeth, she rips heads from shoulders. With a flick of her tail, she sends a man flying into the mountain’s jagged rock face. She endures spears through her legs, arrows to her chest, swords to her face—and yet she fights on.

Her desperation awakens something inside of me. I can’t let this pass. She needs me.

If we are going to die, then let it be with a fight.

One foot before the other. It takes every ounce of my concentration to even take a step. My legs are indeed broken, the shattered pieces of my bones slicing from within. In a way, I’m grateful that the emperor’s torture has left me too numb to feel.

I stumble and fall, only to get back up again. I clamber over corpses and pick up someone’s bloodied sword. My vision is far too blurry to make sense of my surroundings. All I do is hack and slash at anything that comes barreling toward me.

I take my share of injuries—they slice the backs of my knees, run my shoulder through with the tip of a spear—but I keep fighting. Pain no longer frightens me. I need to get to my Fated One.

Now that I have accepted certain death, I am unstoppable.

The Imperial soldiers circle us. We’re outnumbered and trapped. Archers position themselves on the roof of the atrium, pelting us with arrows with their tips set ablaze. Between the slash of swords, the unforgiving snow, and the hail of fire, it’s frankly a miracle that Jyn and I have lasted this long.

“No, you fools!” the emperor bellows from the safety of the Winter Palace. He watches in fury from one of the many windows carved into the mountainside. He must have been asleep and rushed from his bedchamber at the first news of the fight. “You musn’t kill the dragon!”

Jyn and I fight on, determined to thin out the crowd. The air reeks of death. Some of the soldiers heed their emperor’s orders and retreat, but the unlucky few who remain in our path are slaughtered without remorse. Before long, the chaos subsides. A horde of armed men is back in formation at a distance, still ready to tear us asunder if given the command.

The emperor leaves the safety of his palace and steps through its large moon door. He remains behind his sea of soldiers, sporting a slight grin. “Well,” the emperor says, clapping his hands slowly. “I’m impressed. And here I thought I’d broken you. Thank you for helping me draw out my dragon.”

I place myself between him and Jyn, snarling through bloodied teeth.

“She is not yours,” I seethe. “You’ve already stolen our son’s immortality. Is it not enough for you to have murdered him?”

The emperor goes rigid, and he stares at us in silence for a few long seconds. He takes a deep breath before he says, “I have spent the last millennia regretting it. But my shamans believe that we may be able to bring him back.”

I frown. “Bring him back?”

“It would require sacrificing one dragon in exchange for another. But you know as well as I do that there’s nothing we would not do for our Fated Ones.”

A growl rises from my throat. “You killed yours. Our son. After taking him from under our protection for your own gain!”

For the first time, I see shame wash over his expression. “I will make amends by giving him life again. But I need enough dragon’s blood to summon his soul.”

I shake my head. “You’re a misguided fool.”

“What?”

“You devoured his heart and his soul along with it. So long as his spirit remains within you, there’s no bringing him back.”

“No… you’re lying.” The emperor shakes his head, confusion swirling on his face. He’s utterly unwilling to listen. “My shamans have assured me—”

“You can’t bring him back without sacrificing yourself. He remains trapped within you, and even then, he cannot come back to life. Once his soul is free, he can be reborn, but the man you knew is no more.”

His expression darkens. “There’s little dragon’s blood cannot accomplish. And I’m willing to test your limits.”

“You’re mad,” I say. “Absolutely mad.”

“Guards! Seize them! ”

The soldiers advance, but not before Jyn throws her massive body in front of me. She takes every spear, every arrow, every sword, shielding me from those who wish us harm. Her roar is reduced to a whimper, the damage sustained too great for her to bear.

“Jyn, we have to get out of here!”

She stands firm, but I can feel her resolve shattering. She knows as well as I that there’s no escape from this hell. Too weak for escape, too tired to fight on. We’re done for.

An arrow slices through the air and hits Jyn square in the chest. It pierces through her bloodied scales and sinks deep. With one final wail, she shifts, her body shrinking as her magic begins to fade. I catch her in time, but we fall nonetheless.

I cradle her body close, tenderly brushing strands of her hair away from her face. She’s distressingly pale and growing colder by the second.

“It will be all right, my love,” I whisper against her cheek. The throbbing ache in my lungs leaves me gasping, sobbing. “It will be all right.”

With a trembling hand, Jyn reaches up and caresses my jaw. “I will be back,” she rasps.

“No, please—”

“I will be back.”

“Jyn, I—” I choke on my own tongue. “There’s still so much I wish to do with you in this life.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “I wish to braid your hair.” A kiss to her temple. “To watch the morning sunrise with you.” A kiss to her lips. “To annoy you with my stories.”

Jyn coughs. Her weak smile breaks me. “I don’t mind your stories.”

I want to scream.

Gods above, please— not now . Not when we’ve finally found each other.

“Let me rest,” she whispers, impossibly quiet. I hear my own heart shatter around her words. “I’m so very tired.”

My eyes sting with tears, and my chest threatens to cave in. I can already feel her slipping away.

“How am I to live without you?”

“Promise me,” she mumbles. “You must return so that we might find each other again.”

Her light is quickly fading, drifting out where I have no hope of following. My mouth is dry. “I promise.”

“I love you, Sai,” she says on a weak exhale. “I have loved you in every life, and I will love you in every one hereafter.”

“I love you, too,” I mumble back. “Always.”

It happens quietly. One final breath, and then she’s gone. She’s gone, and I suddenly know a fraction of the pain she has endured all these years. When she dies, I die along with her; yet I am cursed to remain on this wretched earth.

The thread between us—our sacred connection—turns an inky black. And then it crumbles away, mere dust on the wind.

I am hollow.

Broken.

He has taken her from me.

I look up at the emperor, who raises an amused brow. “What a shame,” he says. “It appears I have finally vanquished the last dragon of the east. But I’m sure we can do something with the meager amount of dragon’s blood she has left us.”

I lay Jyn’s body down onto the tile floor, silently promising her a resting place more befitting of her station, that of a forgotten queen. I rise slowly, my knees cracking as I do. As I stare up at the emperor, the grief I feel quickly becomes something darker. It threatens to tear me in two.

“You’re wrong,” I hiss. I tap into the unbridled rage, so intense it threatens to consume me. I have felt it before. But it’s far stronger now than I remember it being in any of my other lifetimes.

The rage of a beast.

“Oh?” the emperor asks. “How so, boy?”

The magic that has been sealed away within my blood finally ignites, a million sparks arcing at once as my skin transforms, rigid red scales the color of an inferno taking its place.

“She wasn’t the last dragon,” I say with a low, vicious snarl through sharpened teeth. “ I am.”