Chapter 24
Damian
The room the priestess directed us to is nothing like the grand entry we just left.
This room is small, the walls carved from rough rock, bumpy as if someone chiseled it out and left before the work was done.
In the center, a fire blazes, casting dancing shadows on the wall.
The blue flames create suffocating heat, but no smoke.
I’ve never been in this part of the temple, but we all know this is a place reserved for the High Priestess alone. A shiver rushes down my spine, filling me with awe. It’s an honor and a risk to be let into this room. Some who enter never leave. Those who leave rarely speak of it.
“You’ve come,” a quiet voice says. It echoes, making it sound like it’s coming from everywhere at once.
I fall to my knees, knowing who it is even though I can’t see her. This is sacred ground, and seeing the High Priestess here is a holy honor.
Otto joins me on his knees, dropping his forehead to the floor. Kat spins around, looking for the source of the voice.
“At last,” the voice sighs.
“Where are you?” Kat asks, the only one still standing. I reach up and tug at the hem of her shirt just as a woman glides out of the shadows.
“High Priestess.” I avert my eyes, but the brief image of the High Priestess is burned into my mind.
I’ve met the woman before, but she’s different here.
Her hair seems to dance in a breeze I can’t feel.
Her eyes burn with a fire brighter than any I’ve ever seen—blue like the flames of the altar rather than red or orange like most dragons.
She doesn’t walk forward. She glides, floating toward us as one moving through water rather than air.
“No need for formalities.” She stops right in front of me, her bare toes wiggling a few inches off the ground. She leans down and lifts my chin. “You can call me Raba.”
There’s something mischievous about the smile that plays at the corners of her lips. She looks behind me, then frowns. “You didn’t bring him with you?”
“Who?” Kat and I ask at the same time. A sinking suspicion settles in my gut.
“My replacement.” The High Priestess grins.
Otto lifts his head, his eyes catching mine. Kat steps a little closer.
“I don’t know who you mean,” I say carefully.
“Of course you do.” When I shake my head, the High Priestess scoffs. “I mean Lincoln, of course.”
“You know my son?” Kat asks.
“I know of your son,” the High Priestess corrects. “I’ve waited a long time for him.”
I share a confused look with my mate. She chews on her lip and clutches the hem of her shirt between her hands, wringing it nervously.
I risk standing up so I can wrap an arm around her. “What do you mean by your replacement? What do you want with our son?”
Kat tenses, and I worry that I might have overstepped by claiming him as mine.
He might be mine biologically, but I’ve had nothing to do with raising him.
She’s done all the work without support or help from me.
I have no right to claim him without talking to her first. But to my surprise, she immediately relaxes into my side.
“Come.” The High Priestess sits cross-legged by the fire and pats the floor near her. We all hesitantly join her. Despite the flames nearby, the tile is cold, and the chill soothes something inside me.
We stay quiet, waiting for Raba to speak again. She doesn’t. She just stares at the fire.
I clear my throat. “Can you help my mate get her memories back or not?”
“I can’t,” the High Priestess answers, a note of sadness in her voice. “But Lincoln can.”
“What do you mean?” Kat scoots a little closer to me, and Otto moves a little closer to her so we’re all huddled together across from the High Priestess.
“How can Lincoln help?” I ask.
“I don’t know, exactly.” The High Priestess stares into the fire, an absent expression on her face. “It was different for my parents than it will be for you.” Her sigh weighs down the room. “They failed in their attempt.”
“Your parents were like us?” Otto asks.
She gives him a sad smile. “Not exactly. But yes. My mother was human when she conceived with my dragon father.” She stares into the fire with a contemplative look.
“All the high priests and priestesses are conceived before a human woman enters the pools. It’s very rare and only happens every millennium or so. ”
“Millennium? So you’re… woah.” Otto’s mouth hangs open. “You look…”
A small growl tears out of Kat. She looks surprised at it, but I understand the impulse.
I don’t like Otto thinking about how good someone else looks any more than Kat does.
And this woman is gorgeous. She doesn’t look any older than Otto, despite having just implied that she’s hundreds of years old.
Raba smiles at Kat with a twinkle in her eyes and a slight curve to her lips.
Otto draws Kat into his lap, wrapping his arms around her from behind and kissing her temple. “It was just an observation. Don’t worry. You’re the only beauty I see.”
Kat clears her throat, glancing at me almost as if she’s looking for reassurance. I chuckle softly and take her hand.
She looks back at the High Priestess. “So, my son is a dragon?”
“Not exactly.” The High Priestess draws shapes on the stone floor as she speaks. “For now, Lincoln won’t be able to shift. But he’s not quite human either. He’ll have his own abilities that will manifest if he reaches twenty-three.”
Twenty-three is the age of maturity for dragons. My eyes narrow on the woman behind the flickering blue flames. “What do you mean, if?”
Raba stands, and it feels as if the room shrinks around her while she expands. There’s a fierceness to her now that wasn’t there a minute ago, a hard edge that makes me shiver.
“There are three paths before you.” Her voice is no longer soft and welcoming.
It echoes as if it’s coming from everywhere at once.
“One, you choose not to attempt the challenge Lincoln foresees. Two, you attempt it and fail. Three, you attempt it and succeed.” Her eyes meet Kat’s, a fierce blue fire burning in the center of her pupils.
“If you do not attempt the challenge, Lincoln will die before he reaches maturity.”
Kat gasps, and Otto tightens his hold on her while I jump to my feet. “That isn’t fair! What if we’d never come and didn’t know?” My body strains with tension, scales peppering my skin, heat flaring through my veins. “Our choices shouldn’t affect him!”
“And yet they do.” The High Priestess lifts her chin and narrows her eyes at me.
“And what happens… if we fail?” Otto asks quietly.
“Whether you fail or succeed your memories will return, but if you fail, you’ll be separate from each other. Never able to get close or find one another again.”
“I would find you,” Otto says, his tone as hard as stone. “In any world, in any lifetime, I would find you. I would stay with you.”
My throat closes up at his words. I wish I’d had that kind of stubbornness after Kat rejected me. I wish I’d had enough strength to fight for us harder, to stay with her through each reset of her memory so I could help her raise our son.
“No,” the High Priestess says firmly. “You wouldn’t. Most dragons don’t live long after being separated from a mate.”
“I did it before,” I whisper, knowing I only survived because I cut myself off from all feeling for a long time.
The High Priestess tilts her head, a slight curve to one corner of her lips. “And you think you can do it again?”
I don’t answer, crossing my arms over my chest and staring into the fire. Tears fill the corners of my eyes. I wouldn’t survive a second time, and we all know it. Otto might be able to fight for this, to search for her without end or hope. But I already know I’m not strong enough for it.
“Can you at least tell us what your parents’ challenge was, so we have an idea of what to expect?” Kat asks.
The High Priestess shakes her head, but her demeanor shifts to something more comforting. Calm. Gentle. A little sad. “Stay here tonight. Rest before you return home.”
She motions toward the door, a clear dismissal. Kat stands, but doesn’t move to leave. She tugs at her shirt and shifts her weight from side to side.
“What is it you want to ask?” The High Priestess tilts her head, studying my mate. “Ah, you’ve forgotten while you were still with Damian, haven’t you?”
Kat nods. I step a little closer, but don’t touch her even though my hand aches to take hers.
“It’ll happen more and more,” the High Priestess says.
“You’ll always forget if you’re separated, but the more time you spend together, the more it’ll start happening at random times, too.
It’s a sort of safeguard to keep dragons from stalking their mates after their mate has made a decision that’s supposed to be final. ”
I didn’t think my heart could be crushed any more than it already has been, but this is a new blow. Even if we stay side-by-side, she’ll keep forgetting. There’s no way around this, no loophole we can exploit.
We need to do whatever this challenge is, and we can’t fail.