Chapter 37 You Will Serve
YOU WILL SERVE
I drifted in a lightless void.
A force pulled at my navel, dragging my weightless body out of the suffocating black and into a strange world. Mountains in the distance crumbled to dust, then rebuilt themselves in stuttering loops.
I hovered over a field. Slowly, I floated down, and gravity settled into my bones.
Where am I?
The sky writhed with patches of day, while other sections hung frozen in eternal dusk. So odd. I stepped forward, my feet crunching dead grass.
A sapling sprouted from the earth, its branches growing into the sky. It budded with leaves and aged to rotting wood, all in a manner of seconds. Many plants seemed stuck in the same pattern. One grew big white flowers that shriveled and died. Over and over again.
This is a very bizarre dream.
The trees cycled—sapling to oak to rot—and then I noticed the purple runes on their trunks. Carved into the bark.
I moved toward them, curious.
“Aelithra.”
A voice erupted inside my skull like I’d swallowed thunder.
I whirled around.
A man approached me.
He was tall, his shoulders cutting a proud silhouette against the empty horizon. Long hair the color of wild honey spilled loose around his face and his radiance made my eyes water. He seemed near and infinitely distant, like staring at a mountain that shouldn’t fit inside your vision.
His eyes.
I couldn’t look directly at them. They were like dying suns, burning with an intelligence that had watched civilizations rise and fall. When his gaze fixed on me, my knees wanted to buckle. The air around him shimmered and reality warped where he stood.
“I am Lord Tazurel.” His baritone boomed inside me, male, ancient, layered with amusement. “I am what the fae bound, and what their descendants have forgotten to fear.”
The ground trembled with every word.
“You stand upon the remains of a dead world,” the man thundered. “The fae destroyed this land with time magic. Runes that bent hours, fractured days.”
“Which world?”
“Myndra is where they sealed us.” He stepped forward, and a giant winged shadow rippled across the plain, far too big for a man.
A dragon? Dragons were legends that Vaeris had rambled about, nothing more than a story to tell children.
A dark chuckle rolled through my mind. “You know me, though you don’t remember.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are not meant to. Not yet.” His eyes narrowed. “You should be on your knees.”
“Excuse me?”
“When addressing a dragon, mortals prostrate themselves. You stand before me as if we are equals.”
I blinked.
He bared his unusually sharp teeth and held out a hand. Fire erupted from his palm and blew into my face. I shrieked, turning around, but the flames ate through my skin, flaying my nerves. The smell of cooking flesh hit me and I gagged. I couldn’t breathe.
Make it stop make it stop make it—
He snapped his fingers, and the agony vanished.
I gasped, hands pressed to my neck, but the skin was smooth. I pulled my hands away and stared at them. No burns. The charred flesh was gone.
His gaze pinned me in place. “Kneel.”
I staggered back, reeling. Then I turned and ran. I made it three steps before fire wreathed my body.
I wailed. Flames devoured the dress, through me, eating my muscles.
The pain. The searing, aching, suffocating pain.
I collapsed, rolling on the ground, but the fire banked higher.
I could feel my bones cracking, the marrow boiling.
My vision went white, black, then red. I screamed for Rheya and Kairos.
Then it stopped.
I was standing again, unharmed. My dress was intact, but the phantom memory of burning alive crawled over my skin.
I fell to my knees, shaking.
Tazurel smiled, and I wanted to kill him. “We can continue this pleasantly, or I can burn you a dozen more times until you learn proper deference. Which would you prefer?”
I stayed silent, glaring at the dirt.
“You have broken the first seal,” he said smoothly. “I can now reach beyond my prison.”
“The seal?”
“The rune under Dr?thmar. The one you destroyed so beautifully.” He grinned wide, showing too many teeth.
“Such destruction. I felt the cracks as it shattered. The palace folding in on itself. Stone and coral all collapsing. And the screaming—oh.” He shut his eyes as if savoring a fine wine. “Music.”
He’s crazy.
My throat closed. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
He waved a hand, dismissing me. There was a savage beauty to him that almost reminded me of Kairos.
“The fae cast us into this rotting world for two thousand years,” he snarled, flames billowing around his curled fingers. “Two thousand. Every moment stretched into eternity. Every breath a reminder of what was stolen from us.”
His form flickered, scales rippling beneath skin.
“They knelt to us,” he seethed. “Kings and peasants alike. They built temples in our names. Burned offerings. Sacrificed their finest just for the privilege of our attention.”
I shivered from his lethal tone.
“They crawled on their bellies and begged for our favor. We were gods to them. We made the seas boil, and they existed because we allowed it. And then those ungrateful, treacherous beasts dared to bind us.”
His lip curled.
“They will remember what it means to be prey. To beg and plead and know that no mercy is coming. Oh yes. You will help me remind them.”
I struggled to stay still.
“Return to the shadow-wielder and help him destroy the other seal.”
“I-I still don’t understand.”
“He has served me well. As will you, runebreaker.” He stroked my hair, giving it a fatherly pat. “The time of exile ends. The age of dragons returns, and you will open the door.”
I attempted to speak, but the words died in my throat.
“Obey the shadow-wielder,” he growled. “Or taste my wrath again. Wake now.”
His palm struck my chest, and the world shattered.