Chapter 4
Waiting
“I am dying!” Illarion moaned and thrashed his head against the back of the couch.
“You are not dying.” Valerius closed his eyes and tried to hold himself very still.
“I am! You do not know what I feel!” Illarion groaned and flopped about again.
“You are not dying,” Valerius repeated.
His eyelids opened despite himself. He grimaced. Everything hurt. He swore he could feel himself aging, his individual cells dying just like Illarion was saying, but he knew that was just because he was unused to being mortal and human once more.
Or maybe something terrible has happened to Raziel…
But he would not let himself believe that.
“Perhaps not, but the agony is real!” Illarion pouted.
“We are all feeling it, Illarion. We are well aware of the pain,” Esme got out, her voice containing some of the asperity that it usually did, but her face was gray and held none of its usual youthful vigor.
“You are not! Mephous is so much stronger than Scylla! So much stronger than all of you--”
“Except Raziel,” Tez gritted out. “And Eldoron was another titanic Dragon, you brute! Just because Eldoron never smashed your nose--like it should have--was because Eldoron is a gentle creature.”
“A gentle creature?” Anwar asked with a wry smile.
“Yes, at Eldoron’s core there is only the desire to fly and be admired and eat and then sleep. Not necessarily in that order,” Tez explained. “Fighting was never on the list. Not because Eldoron couldn’t, but because it was beneath its mighty spirit.”
“Eldoron is only big, because it is fat!” Illarion sniped.
“How dare you?!” Tez was standing very upright but wobbling on legs that couldn’t quite hold him steady.
“What? I like fat people. They are soft and have good personalities!” Illarion mused.
“Which would explain you with your less than 1% body fat being a complete ass,” Anwar muttered.
With slitted eyes, Tez said, “Next time we meet, Illarion, Eldoron will sit on you with its big, fat body and squash you.”
Valerius let out a bark of laughter. When Illarion gave him a nasty look, Valerius turned it into a cough.
“I miss Lana’s mind against my own,” Kaila’s voice did not hold the healthy zip it usually did. She was on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them. “I could hear the ocean in my head all the time like when you put your ear up to a shell.”
“Scylla was always a steadying presence within me. Now, Esme, Scylla would say, what’s the next step? There’s always the next step. Now what’s the one after that? And then we would be so many steps ahead of our enemies,” Esme said, smiling weakly.
“After losing Fadel, Evren kept me sane. Evren has always been there. The soothing presence in the back of my mind. The light in all the darkness.” Anwar put his hands over his face. “And now it is all darkness.”
“Could Fadel be one of the Horde?” Kaila asked. “Maybe his soul is in the Spirit Realm with Caden and the others. Maybe he can come back.”
Anwar blanched though at this. “I pray that Fadel has not been trapped there like those others. I do not think after so long that he could reunite his body. But if he is stuck in the Spirit Realm then--then he will not be able to go onto what is next. He will not be able to reincarnate. He will be stuck. Forever.”
“Eldoron is too beautiful to die,” Tez said mournfully. He sank down next to Kaila, put his arms around her, and they rocked together. “Nothing so perfect as the Golden Dragon can cease to exist without the world losing most of its wonder.”
“Zephyra was the balm to my soul,” Jahara’s voice was cracked. “I would hear Zephyra’s voice and I would understand that I must use the anger and pain of my early existence to make things better for others. Zephyra gave me the strength to do it. Without her… I do not know.”
“But still my agony is greater than yours! I experience this weakness--this unbearable weakness--is affecting me more,” Illarion proclaimed and flopped his arms over the back of his couch, looking completely prostate.
“You will feel my fist in your face if you keep up your nonsense!” Mei hissed.
“You are a little girl now. No muscle. No strength. It will be like a fly has--AH! Damn you! I am bleeding!” Illarion’s voice rose up like a little girl’s himself, which had Valerius turning his head and opening his eyes.
Mei was standing above Illarion, shoulders heaving, long hair hanging over her face like a curtain, and lithe body quivering with rage and pain. The knuckles on her right hand were bloody. Illarion’s nose was bleeding just a little bit. He was glaring up at her in outrage.
“We must stop this!” Mei swung that bloody hand to encompass all of them. “This whinging! This pathetic moaning! Our Dragon Spirits need us to be strong! Not this--this whatever this is. Get up off your knees and get a weapon!”
Everyone stared at her. Her black eyes snapped. Her body shook. Mei seemed to be filled with the same energy and purpose as always, maybe more so.
“Are we victims? Are we going to sit here while our people suffer and die?” She flung her arms wide.
“Our people would be distracted trying to protect us, because we cannot protect ourselves as well anymore. Not right now, at least,” Valerius said, but he did shift forward on the couch. “I know it feels like we are not doing anything--”
“WE AREN’T!” Mei raged.
“We are, dear. We’re waiting,” Esme said with a soft huff of dry laughter. “And that can be the hardest thing.”
Mei let out a scream and threw her hands up into the air. “We need weapons! If they come in here--”
“I will have my Wise Women bring us some. But if we must use them then it will be dire indeed,” Jahara said as she rose up from her prayer and went to the doors.
She knocked and they opened. She stuck her head out and whispered to her Wise Women then shut the door. “They will bring us some weapons.”
“Now you guys see how pathetic they all are!” Jasper yelled. “Crying and moaning and complaining about how life hurts! Get fucking used to it! I can’t believe that any Dragon Spirit would choose you guys a second time!”
Valerius lifted his head to look in the mirror. The leader of Humans First was practically pressed against the mirror’s surface. His hands slid along it, searching for purchase, or a seam. A way through.
“Why can’t I get through?” Jasper hissed. “Why can’t I get out of here?!”
Landry came up behind him and grabbed his shoulders. She yanked him back. “Because our bodies aren’t free, you idiot!”
“Get off me, bitch!” Jasper snarled.
“Hey! Don’t speak to our sister like that!” Both of Landry’s brothers said at the same time.
“She’s pushed me! She keeps pushing me!” Jasper shoved Landry hard enough that she stumbled back and fell, landing on her ass.
She let out a sharp cry of pain and looked shocked for a moment. Her brothers hustled to her side.
“That is enough of that!” Jahara glared at Jasper.
He did back down a minute, but then likely remembering that the mirror not only kept him in but them out, too, encouraged him to talk tough again, “What? You can’t do anything to me now either! You’re just human!”
“Even human, I will lay you flat, boy,” Jahara said with a narrowing of her eyes.
“He’s beneath you, Queen Jahara,” Landry said as she got to her feet. She shrugged her brothers off and stepped up into Jasper’s space once more. She held up a hand as her brothers surged to her defense.
“She’s not a queen any longer, Landry! She’s just like us!” Jasper snapped.
“You’re really stupid, aren’t you? I mean embarassingly stupid.
That’s not how any of this works, Jasper,” she told him.
One of her hands pointed to Jahara. “She’s a queen because she’s a queen.
The Spirit chose her because she was already a queen.
Even if she was in the dirt and called a bitch, it doesn’t matter, because she’s still a goddamn queen. ”
“You’re delusional! You want to put them on pedestals? Fine, then get on your knees and worship them!” Jasper went to shove her again.
This time, Landry sidestepped it. His momentum had him falling past her and landing painfully on one knee.
“Had enough?” Landry asked. “Or still--oh, you’re not done? Okay. Let me help with that.”
Jasper struck out at her knees, but he managed to only hit air.
She kicked him in the ribs. He gasped and grabbed his stomach.
But he still wasn’t done and tried to scrabble at her once more.
Another kick to the wounded side and he was down.
Curled up like a slug under a mound of salt.
His mouth was opening and closing like a fish.
“Need another?” Landry had one leg back ready to kick him again. “Or are you finally done?”
“I think he is done, dear,” Esme said.
“C’mon, let her kick him again. A few more times,” Illarion chortled. “It’s fun!”
“I have to admit I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” Tez murmured with almost a smile on his face for the first time since Eldoron left.
“She has inflicted appropriate punishment,” Jahara said with a smile curving her own mouth. “What do you say, Valerius?”
“That I wouldn’t want to make Landry angry,” Valerius said.
Landry let out a delighted laugh. “My brothers and I have been fighting since forever. This idiot is like nothing. I shouldn’t have let him push me down in the first place. That’s just so juvenile, I didn’t expect it, even from him. So another mistake.”
“He told you what you wanted to hear, my dear,” Esme said. “You mustn’t blame yourself too badly. I can tell you won’t let it happen again. Which is all any of us can do about our mistakes.”
Landry slowly nodded. “I guess. But it’s so obvious what he is now.” She scrubbed a hand through her hair. “How can I ever really trust myself if I couldn’t see through him?”
Jasper was rolling and groaning softly. He was still curled, fetal-like, on the ground. Landry’s brothers were hulking over him as if looking for a reason to kick him some more. Valerius almost felt bad for Jasper. Almost. But not really.