Chapter 10 Sunlight
Sunlight
Valerius had never felt so cold in his life.
Even when he had been mortal the first time and slogged through the mountains in a blinding blizzard he swore he had never been so cold.
And he had to admit to himself that he was a little less used to experiencing extreme temperatures, or any temperatures really.
Raziel had always kept him warm. The furnace inside of the Black Dragon made it so he could have run naked in Antarctica without discomfort. But no longer.
The hours of flying--naked--in Iolaire’s claws had drained all of the warmth from him down to his bones.
It wasn’t just the cold of the upper air, but Iolaire’s scales as well.
Unsurprisingly for an Ice Dragon, Iolaire radiated cold just like Raziel radiated heat.
So though he was tucked as fully and tightly as he could be against Iolaire’s palm, out of the wind, the scales sucked up whatever reflected heat his body generated that wasn’t whipped away by the chill atmosphere.
I’ll know Raziel is back the moment my teeth stop chattering, he groused.
He tried not to think about how long that would be.
Surely, the Dragons would be done fighting the Behemoth soon.
And he didn’t have to be in the throne room by the mirror to have Raziel rejoin with him.
All Raziel needed to do was return to the lair and then boom!
They would be together again and his lips would no longer be blue.
He was pretty sure that was true. Pretty sure. No, no, definitely sure. Definitely.
Raziel will be with me soon. I’m certain of it. Raziel and the other Dragons will defeat the Behemoth and then we will save Chione and all will be as it should be!
Yet those felt like empty words at the moment. He hadn’t heard a word from Chione--not a moan or cry--in hours or so it seemed. If he was cold, she would likely be ice with the loss of blood and poison. He turned his head so that he could peer between two claws over at Iolaire’s other hand.
The silvery blanket flapped around her. Her hair flowed back from her head.
Her eyes appeared closed. Her tawny skin was pale.
But it had been pale before they started flying.
She likely had her eyes closed because she was resting.
And the fact that she wasn’t reacting at all to the chill because perhaps the Sphinx Spirit kept her just as warm as Raziel would have kept him if Raziel had been there.
Valerius blew air on his dead-feeling hands and rubbed them frantically together.
He drew his knees up tighter to his chest. Maybe that would make him a little warmer.
If nothing else, he needed to keep out of the wind.
He looked over at Chione again. Other than the wind, she wasn’t moving at all. Was she still alive?
She has to be. Things cannot end this way!
And yet it had ended this way for countless people on the bridge and in the square that night. While he and the other Dragon Shifters had hid in the throne room, others had fought and died bravely. The Behemoth had taken at least its pound of flesh.
There were some like Anwar’s lover who might never return to their bodies and, worse, not return to the Wheel to be reborn again. They would be lost forever. Now that was a far harsher sentence than anything the Behemoth would receive from the Dragons in return for its evil.
Is there just punishment enough for what it has done? Valerius wondered as he blew on his hands once more and rubbed them brutally. And Jasper… What will I do with him? If Chione dies, too, then there will be no quarter for him. No mercy! And…
He stopped. She would absolutely hate it if he used her death to hurt someone--no matter how deserving--because she would want him to do something constructive, not destructive.
“Use it as a touchpoint. Make my death mean something good, Valerius. Don’t create more darkness with it,” he imagined her saying and smiling at him.
His chest grew tight and his eyes burned as he thought of her.
He pictured her in the throne room. The doors were thrown open to the courtyard and sunlight was streaming in.
She wore one of her golden wrap dresses that had elaborate stitching at the hems of palm trees.
There were diamonds sewn all over the dress so that it sparkled in the sunlight.
She’d be barefoot. A single gold chain would be around her right ankle and another around her left wrist. Gifts he had given her.
Of course, she’d have one of her tablets held against her chest as she looked at him with such hope, such belief and such love.
“Make use of my death. Make it into something to help people,” she urged.
“I don’t want to make something bright out of your death! You should be by my side! Making good things happen!” he imagined saying back to her. “I need you, Chione. You’ve always been there to steer me in the right direction.”
He imagined her holding her tablet to her chest and her smile gentling. “You’re wrong, Valerius. You did those things all on your own. I just said the words already in your heart and so you couldn’t deny me.”
“You always gave me too much credit,” he imagined telling her as tears fell down his cheeks. “I would have gone back to my mountain if I hadn’t known you’d have come and dragged me back down.”
“Now who is giving whom too much credit?” She shook her head in amusement. “You have always done what you wanted to do in the end, Valerius. I haven’t been playing queen through you. You’ve always been the one and only ruler.”
He shivered as tears coursed down his bare front.
He was so cold and imagining her in a summer frock with no shoes was not making him warmer.
Yet try as he might to put her in a long fur coat with huge boots and fuzzy mittens in his mind, she remained in the gauzy, diamond-studded dress with bare toes against the marble floor of the throne room.
“Raziel chose me because I am just as big a cuss as it is,” Valerius growled. “Both of us are bad tempered and misanthropic.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not. Because I haven’t seen hide nor hair of that Valerius or Raziel since Caden and Iolaire arrived.” Her eyes sparkled.
“Well, they are our mates.” He shrugged and then pulled his arms around his knees.
“Just like in the stories. Only better,” she sighed.
He snorted. “You must live to help us put on a ridiculous wedding, Chione. Would you really want to miss that?”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. “I…”
“Caden thought we could model it after one of that horrible Werewolf movies--”
“Oh…” She looked like she might pass out at the thought. “Oh, really?”
“So if you die then you can’t help plan it,” he pointed out.
She looked stricken and then shook herself. “That’s not important!”
“My wedding is not important to you? Caden’s happiness is not important to you?
Come now! I will realize that this is just my imagination and not real if you say that!
” Valerius challenged her. “So I--I won’t listen to anything you say about making your death a touchstone or whatever ridiculous thing you’re telling me! ”
Of course, this was his imagination. She was still and silent and unmoving.
She blinked. “Valerius, I assure you that you and Caden, Raziel and Iolaire are all the most important to me.”
She put a hand over her heart and he felt the pressure of anguish building inside of him.
“Then you cannot leave,” he said. “You cannot leave if that is true.”
Her head hung down for a moment like a too big blossom on a too slender stem. “I know you think that Raziel chose you because you wanted revenge for your brother’s death--”
“Revenge for all I lost. My family. My friends. My life!” he snarled and wiped tears away. “The whole purpose of my life was gone when they killed my brother just as I found him! Right in front of me! They… they took him. And I could do nothing…”
Just like I can do nothing for you, Chione, Valerius added silently.
“Yes, yes, exactly. I think Raziel chose you because you understand loss,” she said, nodding as she began to pace the throne room.
“You understand the cost of war and strife. How much loss will result. So it’s always made you careful with the powers Raziel gave to you.
It’s caused you to use them only when necessary. And that’s made you a great king.”
“A great king?” He snorted in derision. “I resented every moment of being king until Caden arrived. I did not wish to be bothered. Everyone and everything annoyed me. I did not see it as a blessing, but a burden,” he reminded her. “You had to constantly cajole me to do the minimum.”
She paused, one bare foot outstretched, and shook her head. “All the power you have and all you wanted was--”
“To be left alone.” Valerius grimaced.
“To have the world not need you. To have people behave as they should. For there to be peace and justice and--”
“The world is not like that!” He hunched his shoulders. “You make me sound like a romantic fool.”
“No, just a noble man--a noble king--who wants what is best for his people,” she corrected.
“Chione…”
“If I am here or gone, what will you do?” she asked.
He imagined he felt the warmth of her against his back. She would have to be on her tiptoes to look over his shoulder at him as he imagined her doing.
“I will keep everyone safe,” he answered.
“Yes, and what else?” she wheedled.
“Is that not enough?!” he cried. “If I had been more concerned with enemies, I would have known the Behemoth was at our gates! I would have stopped Anwar’s lover from being taken out of the Wheel of Life! I would have saved you… I will still save you”
“Looking for enemies would have not helped you in discovering the Behemoth any faster than you did,” she reminded him. “Looking for solutions to the unrest, the people’s unhappiness, was the only thing that would have led you right. Don’t you see?”