Chapter 50
Fifty
Ella
“It’s about time you saw us,” I said, barging in to the room, Milly hot on my heels.
Anna looked up from where she was seated at a table, one leg curled under her. She did her best to put on a smile for us, but her worries showed in the corners of her eyes and the way she immediately went back to chewing on the inside of her cheek.
“Hey, El,” she said, rising to give me a hug. “Hey, Milly. Long time no see.”
“How are you doing?” I asked, sitting at the big square table. I looked at the legs, but they were where they were supposed to.
Anna’s smile was genuine this time as she recalled the desk in Caz’s private study. “Not in here.”
I looked around the room. This was a part of the Ice Citadel that I hadn’t been to yet.
The rectangular room had many doors branching off its long sides.
At the rear, through thin, gauzy curtains, was a balcony I suspected overlooked the arena where the challenge would take place.
The Field of Ice, I think Caz had referred to it as.
The table occupied the center with couches on either wall. Flanking the various doors were portraits of very regal-looking men, though I recognized none of them. Previous tyrants? Warriors who fought in Challenges? I didn’t know.
“You look exhausted,” I said, the cushion on the chair making noise as I sank into it. Milly moved to Anna’s other side. “It’s been three days already, and I haven’t seen you.”
“I know.” She sighed, resting an elbow on the table. “Things have been a little crazy. Not to mention, I needed time to recover. I barely drank, let alone had food.”
“Was it that bad?”
Anna’s face softened, her eyes unfocusing. “No. No it wasn’t bad at all,” she said dreamily. “Intense. That’s how I would describe it, I think. Very intense. But not bad at all.”
“So you just had sex for days on end?” Milly put forth. “How are you not bow-legged?”
Anna blushed bright red while I snickered.
“We weren’t only having sex!” She shook her head. “Yes, there was a lot. I won’t lie. A lot. Turns out that my being in heat had an effect on Casimir as well.”
“I doubt he was upset,” Milly teased.
“He’s never upset with me around,” Anna said, smiling a smile that reflected thoughts she kept to herself.
I clenched my jaw to stop myself from saying something inappropriate that would ruin the moment. My relationship issues were not a part of the conversation, and I would not ruin my friend’s moment just to receive some pity. Anna deserved a better friend than that.
“So what else did you do? Sit around and talk?”
Anna shook her head. “We barely spoke. It was weird. It’s more like we were creatures, instead of beings.
Does that make any sense? We were there, with one another, but words, sentences, intelligent thought, none of it played a part.
We touched in all manner of ways. Our eyes told stories, and our bodies were always moving. ”
“Sounds … thoughtless,” I murmured, frowning. “I don’t mean to be rude.”
“You’re not.” Anna said, waving it off. “Whatever happens during it, the human half takes a backseat. I was still there, but a different part of me was stronger. My dragon, I guess.”
We talked some more about it. To most dragons, it was probably natural, normal, and just a part of life.
To us, we had never experienced it through decades of adult life, but what’s more is we had never expected to.
We had no friends to tell us what it was like, no first-hand experiences.
Nothing. It was all new, and so the three of us sat there, Milly and I grilling Anna about everything until she blushed and we just laughed.
Given everything going on with Dirk, it was exactly what I needed, and I think Milly as well.
She was looking and acting livelier, better than she’d been in a long time.
For the first time since I’d screwed up and let us get caught by the Hunters, it felt like we were together again, all at the same time.
“There’s one other thing,” Anna said during a lull.
I perked up. “What’s that?”
She chewed on her lip steadily for nearly a minute before speaking again. “I’ve been having dreams. At least, that’s what they were at first. Now they’re coming during the day. Bits and pieces of things. Nothing entirely coherent.”
“Are you hallucinating?”
“I don’t think so,” Anna said. “Because they’ve all got something in common.”
“Which is?”
“I’m young in them.” She looked up at last, her eyes violet and troubled, showing her true weariness from her ordeal, which she’d hidden masterfully in the throne room. “I think they’re memories. My memories.”
Milly gasped, and we all shared an excited moment.
“It’s just bits and pieces right now. Nothing I can really make sense of.
A laugh here, a room in a house. A voice or two.
I’m trying not to get too excited. It might amount to nothing.
I’ve come to peace with the fact I can’t remember my earlier life, and I don’t want to go back down that road in case nothing more happens. But who knows.”
Milly and I nodded, in full agreement, but hopeful nonetheless.
“So, what did I miss while I was gone?” Anna asked, looking back and forth between us.
“I’m going to get this stupid collar off finally, after the challenge,” Milly said, smiling.
“That’s great!” Anna exclaimed. “I’m happy for you.”
“Me too,” I said, happy that Milly had taken my urging to heart.
“Oh, also, Ella got claimed by Dirk.”
I groaned.
Anna’s face opened wide. “You did? Amazing! I’ve been trying to get Caz to tell me where he is. Has he been with you this whole time then? I’m so happy for you guys!”
“You had to tell her some time,” Milly said when I gave her a look. “If we waited on you, it would be weeks from now.”
Anna glanced between Milly and me. “Yeah, I definitely missed something. What’s going on?”
“Just talk to us,” Milly urged from the other side of Anna. “Please. You’re our friend, El.”
Sighing, I realized that Milly was right. I didn’t like it, but she was. These were my friends. If I couldn’t confide in them, who could I talk to?
So I told them what happened between us and Dirk’s threat to kill Mirko. I told them about claiming one another, and I told them, in the end, about the head on the gates, what it meant, and how Dirk had known. I told them who it was and what he’d done to me.
They buried me under hugs like friends would. They wiped at my cheeks and their own as I struggled to get the words out at points.
“I’m so sorry,” Anna whispered. “I know that doesn’t change anything, but, El. All these years, and you’ve been dealing with it on your own.”
“No I haven’t,” I said, leaning on her shoulder as she rubbed my back.
“I’ve had you two. Yes, it’s good to talk about the past, but you two helped me live in the present, and even look to the future.
You never pushed, never judged, nothing.
You were just friends, and I can’t think of anyone better than that. ”
“So what are you going to do?” Anna wanted to know.
“Beats me.” I sighed, feeling defeated by it all. “Dirk was a Hunter, and he apparently isn’t ready to give that up yet. He’s out there now, living his best life, ready to kill his uncle. All I want is for him to come back to me. To talk. I’m not sure what else to think. He just doesn’t care.”
“You’re wrong.”
All three of us looked up as Caz entered from a side room, dressed in all-white leather armor and wearing a crown of ice so pure it was black.
“Caz,” Anna started, but he waved her off gently.
“No. This, she needs to hear. All of you do.”
He looked at the curtains and the assembling crowd beyond. He should be focusing on the challenge. Mirko was no slouch in the power department. I worried about the outcome, and I knew it had to be weighing on Anna too. If he was going to take time to talk to me, that meant it was important.
“Dirk cares about you more than anything, Ella. He hates himself, knowing that if he’d just killed one more Hunter, one more time, that you would have had a much easier life.
That you would not have suffered. Of course, he doesn’t realize that if he had, you might not have met these two, and then you wouldn’t be here, he would never have met you, etc. , etc.”
“I know. I tried to tell him that. But he just kept going on about Mirko. He didn’t understand that I don’t care. He can leave the Hunter past behind, we can move on.”
“It’s not his Hunter past that haunts him.” Caz shook his head. “He should have told you everything.”
“What is it that he can’t let go of?”
“A need for atonement. Undoing mistakes he made, hurt he caused.” Caz began to pace.
“Dirk was a Hunter for a long time. He threw himself into it because he thought that’s what I, his older brother, wanted from him.
He didn’t know that I was only pretending to be like my father.
I hadn’t told him the truth. But when our mother died, he grew up, and I revealed what I really thought.
Dirk rejected it. He made himself a better Hunter until one day it came to a head.
We fought. He was mad I wouldn’t respect him or praise him for his actions.
I said he was a disgrace to our kingdom.
That we are better, that we should never traffic our own. No ice dragon should serve another.”
“Okay. But what does that have to do with today?” I looked at my friends in case I was missing the point, but they both seemed as lost as me.
“Dirk left that day. I didn’t see him for a decade. Not until the day I finally hunted down Cerberus and caught him.” He glanced over at us. “Only to find out the killer of hunters, that savior of the Grounded? It was my own brother. Trying to make up for what he’d done.”
“What?” I stared, utterly shocked by what Caz had just revealed.
“He came to me, after he left you the other day. Said he was back in that place. That darkness. He feared he was losing himself, and he didn’t know how to stop it, how to fix himself.
He said he couldn’t be around you because you deserved better than him.
” Caz shrugged. “I told him he was stupid, of course, in the best brotherly way I could. But he’s lost in this battle, of trying to protect you like he feels he failed to do in the past and trying to be the man you want to today. ”
“Oh.”
Anna’s hand gripped my shoulder, lending me her support.
“He cares, Ella. He cares an incredible amount. To the point it’s destroying him.” Trumpets from outside caught Caz’s attention. “He’ll be down there with me. And when the challenge is over, one way or another, he’ll be there with you. If you’ll take him.”
The trumpets sounded another time. Anna rose and walked to her mate, linking her arm in his, and they walked out onto the balcony.
The challenge was about to begin.