Chapter 4 #2
“Did you really mean what you said about Jahara?” Kaila asked. She looked up very earnestly at Landry. “I mean I guess anyone would feel that way about Jahara and Esme and Valerius and Caden, but I do not know about the rest of us. I do not feel royal at all.”
“You never did, love.” Tez took her right hand and kissed it. “That’s never been your bag. Yours is one to love life and remind us all of the present. To live in the moment.”
“I could not live in this moment,” Illarion growled. “Let this moment pass so I have my Mephous again.”
Mei was pacing. Her earlier outburst was still fueling her. But Valerius knew what had fueled that: fear. Fear that she would lose Xipil. Fear that she would be helpless for the rest of her very short life. Whether they survived this night or not, if their Dragon Spirits did not return to them…
“Could the Spirits choose others?” Mei asked. “No, no, that’s madness.”
“Worried that Xipil knows you’re a bad match? That it should find someone else to bond with?” Illarion prodded.
She turned and raised a fist to him. “Your nose has stopped bleeding, Illarion. Let me help you with that.”
Illarion put up his hands as if to ward her off, then seeing the others watching this, he dropped his hands to his lap and stuck his chin out.
“You want to hit me to make yourself feel better, Mei? Do it. Maybe it will make us both feel better,” Illarion said almost calmly. “Then we don’t have to think if our Dragon Spirits will have found us wanting, even if they do survive the fight with the Behemoth.”
“You think that Mephous would leave you?” Esme lifted an eyebrow.
Illarion grimaced and then shrugged. “Mephous needs to be with the strongest. That piece of garbage is not wrong that we are weakened.”
“We are just not used to being alone. If parts of your soul are missing how can you be complete? How can you not be weakened?” Kaila asked.
“Exactly!” Mei pointed at Kaila. “The Spirits are a part of us!” She thumped her chest with her other hand. “They cannot leave us! They cannot choose another!”
“Has anyone ever seen a Shifter die and have that Spirit come back in another?” Tez asked, casting wide-eyed glances around the room.
There was silence at first with all of the Dragon Shifters’ foreheads furrowing or frowns creasing their faces, except for Anwar.
Just as he had been the one to see the Behemoth first, and see clearly the danger, he seemed to understand this better too.
He was standing by the closed doors to the courtyard.
Moonlight streamed down on his face from the high windows.
His arms were crossed over his bare chest.
“Once. Long ago,” Anwar said. “A Spotted Leopard Shifter. The first time I saw the Spirit was in battle. One of the many waged in the desert. She was caught in the jaws of a Werewolf Shifter that severed her head clean from her body. The Spirit’s eyes glazed over and she was gone.
A woman, the human form, headless remained behind.
Then a hundred years later I saw that same Spirit.
It now inhabited the form of a young man. ”
“You can’t be sure!” Esme countered. “Did you speak to it?”
Anwar shook his head.
“Then you don’t know.” Esme shook her head.
“I know,” Anwar said. “It happens.”
“But only at the death of the human form,” Kaila pointed out. “Right?”
“And how do we know that the spirit of the human wasn’t reincarnated into the body of the young man and the Spirit joined them again?” Jahara was gentle.
Anwar let out a breath. “Perhaps. That could be.”
“We’re not dead,” Illarion muttered.
“Not yet. And hopefully, not ever,” Esme answered.
“You have no doubt that Raziel will come back to you, do you, Valerius?” Tez asked.
Valerius had been listening quietly to all of them, but he found he didn’t share their fears or their dread. But he hadn’t realized why until he was asked that question by Tez. “No, but not for the reasons you think.”
“What do you mean?” Esme asked, her brow furrowing, but looking intrigued.
“They didn’t bond with us because we are the strongest or the best. Well, that may be true of Caden.
” Valerius smiled softly as he stroked Caden’s forehead.
It was cool and still. But not for long.
He met their gazes. “Chione told Caden that we met our Spirits through noble, brave acts like his, but we all know that isn’t true. ”
Esme smiled wanly and tapped her chin with a polished nail. Jahara looked noble, but slightly bleak. Kaila blinked rapidly. Tez appeared a bit hang dog. Anwar lowered his head. Illarion grunted. Mei looked away from him.
“We met them in desperate circumstances where we needed them, mostly to get revenge,” Valerius said quietly. “Some of us had more noble reasons than others for that revenge.”
He smiled at Jahara, Esme and Tez.
“Oh, don’t include me in the noble club, Valerius. I created my enemy. Literally.” Esme shivered and drew her arms around herself.
“Eldoron let me be the type of man I wished I had been before the mine collapse,” Tez said with a wan smile. “I was not the brave man that stood up to the owners. I was a cur. A bootlicker.”
“No, Tez!” Kaila objected. “You were just afraid! When people are so much stronger than you, it’s all right to be afraid!”
“I didn’t speak up. I didn’t do anything.” Tez patted her hand. “But Eldoron let me change that.”
Jahara spoke quietly then as she paced gracefully, “I hated my father and his friends. I envisioned how I would kill him over and over again. Even as I cried myself to sleep and wished he would love me still and stop what he was doing. But he did not. Zephyra didn’t just let me get my revenge, but like Tez, it helped me become a protector of other people. ”
“Raziel let you kill your brother’s murderers,” Anwar said smiling at Valerius, “and then, reluctantly, you accepted that the world needed your leadership, Valerius. So many others--including myself--would have leaped at the opportunity to rule something more than my territory.”
“You’ve done quite well in your territory, Anwar. You wouldn’t have been a bad choice,” Esme said.
“But you are not Valerius,” Mei said tightly. Her arms were crossed over her chest just as tightly. “There is no doubt that Raziel will come back to him. No doubt.”
“It’s not just me, Mei. It’s all of us. No matter how flawed we were or are,” Valerius said.
“So they let us have our revenge and, some of us, think they are better people because of it?” Illarion asked. “That is why they will return?”
“I believe that even our flaws called to them. They saw a longer game. They chose us--for the good in us, and the ill--and they knew what they were getting,” Valerius answered. “Through us, as imperfect vessels as we are, they can do what they believe they should. What their purpose is.”
“I hope you are right, Valerius. I do miss my Scylla. And it is hell getting old.” Esme sniffed and sat down on the couch between Valerius and Illarion.
She patted Caden’s still legs. “I’d forgotten then.
Now I’ll remember. I won’t take for granted the gifts that Scylla gives me.
” Then with a wry smile, she added, “At least for a little while.”
Kaila grinned. “A little while. For sure.”
There was a knock on the doors. Jahara went to them and opened them slightly.
Weapons were passed through one at a time.
Valerius got up from the couch after gently depositing Caden’s body on the cushions and making sure he was secure and safe.
He couldn’t hide how much effort that cost him to leave Caden and walk, but he thought there was a slighter lightness to him.
Less pain. He wondered why. He didn’t know why.
But he hoped it was because Raziel, Caden and Iolaire were nearer than before.
Jahara handed him a weapon. He took the sleek rifle that had a glowing blue stripe down the barrel. He lifted an eyebrow at Jahara.
“Just point and pull the trigger. Even if you can’t hit a barn door on a still night, the laser bolt will hit its mark,” Jahara explained.
“I should take a greater interest in your inventions, Jahara,” Valerius murmured.
“We should definitely get together and compare notes.” Mei was cradling her rifle against her chest and stroking it like she might a lover. “Between my AI research and your weapons… Well, we’ll be able to help Illarion with his problems.
“I handle my own problems.” Illarion grabbed a rifle himself, grunting with every step to get it. “And you will not kill my people.”
“Actually, there’s a stun setting.” Jahara pointed to a switch just above the trigger. “Red is death. Blue is stun.”
Illarion toggled the switch and was going to leave it on red when Valerius put his hand on the barrel. He saw Landry and her brothers looking anxiously at them.
“Blue, Illarion. Remember we don’t want to kill the Horde,” Valerius said. He tipped his head towards the mirror. “Those bodies are just being borrowed.”
Illarion grunted and switched the toggle to blue. Everyone had a weapon. Esme held hers easily, aiming down the site.
“Very nice, Jahara. These remind me of my World War II days,” she sighed.
Tez took the weapon awkwardly and held it with two fingers by the stock. “I am not so good with weapons. I never was.”
“It’ll be just like a video game, Tez.” Kaila said as she, too, awkwardly checked out the gun. “And since it's on stun, it really is like a game. Sort of. A little.”
“Hopefully, we will not have to use them. Is there no way for us to see what is happening on the bridge? Surely, they have quelled the Horde,” Esme said.
Valerius wondered too. There were muffled shouts and cries still so people were still fighting.
Mei is right. We cannot just stay here and do nothing. If they need us...
“There’s a way to see,” Valerius said
Valerius went over by the throne where Chione always kept several tablets.
He grabbed one and connected it to a screen on the opposite wall of the throne room from the mirror.
He was entering the code to see feeds from the outside cameras.
But before he finished, someone gasped. And air gusted underneath the doors to the courtyard.
Then there was a boom! And High Reach seemed to jump up and down.
Valerius nearly lost his balance, but he grabbed hold of one of the doors to the courtyard. He knew this shudder. It was a familiar shudder. It was the landing of a dragon out on the courtyard. His head snapped up to the windows.
The Behemoth’s yellow eyes glared at him through the glass.