Chapter 16 #2
“First, I need to find the others. I need to make sure they’re safe.”
Just then, something brushed against him—warm and tender, like the brush of a loved one’s hand across his cheek.
He stilled.
Inside him, his dragon stirred. A low, reassuring rumble echoed through his soul.
The Goddess hear you, his dragon murmured. She tell him. All good, you see. All good.
Zohar released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, his heart aching and full all at once.
And for the first time since he had fallen through the portal…
He felt a sense of peace.
Valdier:
Zoran braced his hands against the polished surface of the war table in the palace’s strategy room, the wood creaking faintly beneath the pressure of his weight. His head bowed, shoulders taut, as if the crushing weight of helplessness had finally anchored itself to his spine.
They had searched every known world in their database. Searched the archives for this Seven Kingdoms, and still nothing.
Not in the Valdier records.
Not in the Sarafin records.
Not in the Curizan.
There was no trace of where the teens went. No sign of Zohar.
His fingers trembled slightly as they curled against the table’s edge. Memories assailed him.
His son. The boy who had once clung to his leg to avoid his first bath, who had asked a thousand questions about the stars, who still grouchily complained that Zoran was being too strict.
Gone. To a place where Zoran couldn’t protect him.
The fear twisted in his chest like a vise.
Zoran lifted a shaking hand and rubbed the thick gold band around his wrist, releasing a long breath. The band of living gold felt warm. Too warm. He frowned, his breath catching as the heat pulsed stronger.
The low murmur of his dragon stirred from deep within him.
She here. The Goddess. She here.
He straightened sharply.
A golden shimmer spread across the far side of the chamber like sunlight breaking through morning fog. The air shifted. Thickened. His breath hissed out when a tall, radiant figure stepped out of the light—graceful, ageless, glowing from within.
“Goddess,” Zoran breathed, his voice cracking. “Please,” he choked out. “Please help us. I’ll do anything—anything. Just help us bring Zohar, the others— Please help us bring them home.”
Aminta's eyes softened. “They are on a grand adventure. One that will shape who they are to become. I don’t think they are quite ready to return yet.”
“Adventure? They—” Zoran released a low, strangled curse. “Those kids have had enough adventures to last me a dozen lifetimes. What were they thinking, jumping into a portal like that? Didn't they understand what could happen?”
A laugh, rich and knowing, escaped her. “Zoran… do you not remember the time you and your brothers hijacked a freighter to explore a storm vortex?”
He flushed, his mouth opening, then closing again. “That… was different.”
She arched a golden brow. “Was it? I seem to remember Morian and your father not being too impressed with your little adventure, but think how much you and your brothers learned from it.”
He pursed his lips and glared back at her.
She chuckled. “Be proud of Zohar. Your son is becoming exactly who he is meant to be. He isn’t alone.”
Zoran gasped and reached outward as images flared to life in the air between them—Zohar’s face, wide-eyed and frightened as he tumbled through a broken portal thread.
His desperate flight. Meeting Dolph and Juno.
The moment they saved the lonely sea creature.
And then—Zohar’s words under the stars, spoken with an honesty that pierced Zoran’s soul.
"Small… in some ways. But more connected in others."
“If we hadn’t come through that portal, I never would’ve known this world even existed.”
"Maybe you can tell my dad that. He’s probably pacing a hole in the floor—or planning to ground me until I’m a hundred."
Tears burned Zoran’s eyes as pride swelled in his chest, so fierce it nearly knocked him to his knees. His son wasn’t just surviving.
He was becoming.
A good, strong, kind young man.
Zoran closed his eyes, a shuddering breath escaping him. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and straightened when he heard the door open.
Ha’ven entered, followed closely by Adalard, Vox, Mandra, Kelan, Creon, and Trelon. All wore the same expression he had carried only moments before—strained, desperate, brittle with hope.
They paused when they saw him.
Zoran drew in a steadying breath and turned to face them.
“I just spoke to the Goddess,” he said. “She said the kids are safe. They’re on a journey—an adventure.”
Ha’ven raised an eyebrow. “You spoke to a Goddess? Did you tell her to bring them back?”
Adalard crossed his arms. “Call her back. I’d like to have a word or two with her about her definition of ‘safe’!”
Zoran’s lips twitched. Before he could respond, his dragon chuckled in his mind.
She’s still here, you know. Watching. Listening. Probably laughing. She tell them.
Zoran’s eyes glinted when he saw both men stiffen, their expressions a mixture of highs and lows, before they shuddered and cursed.
“My definition of ‘safe’ is still different from hers,” Adalard muttered, shooting a wary glance around the room.
Trelon dropped into a chair with a long sigh, tossing one leg over the other. “Thank the Goddess. Maybe she can get Amber, Jade, and eventually James to stop making things they shouldn’t.”
Vox shot him an incredulous look. “How are you so calm right now? Your girls are out there—somewhere in the universe! With no idea where they are or what could be waiting!”
Trelon smiled serenely, closed his eyes, and folded his arms behind his head. “Because I’m smart enough to know the universe would be on fire if anything had happened to them.”
He cracked one eye open.
“And because my symbiot is still linked to theirs and keeps showing me little flashes of what they’re doing.
They’re fine. I learned a long time ago how to track those two.
It just took longer this time. I figured Cara would invent a way to get to them if they aren’t home by the time she gets back. ”
There was a pause.
“Can I kill him?” Ha’ven asked.
Creon shook his head. “Only if you want to explain why to Cara.”
“Dragon’s ballocks!” Ha’ven muttered, falling into the chair beside Trelon.
Trelon sighed. “Let’s just say, I’m reasonably sure they haven’t started a war with a group of pirates yet.”
Ha’ven paled. “Reasonably?!”
Trelon shrugged. “I said yet.”
Despite themselves, laughter broke through the tension—reluctant, ragged, but real. The kind that came when fear finally released its grip, even if only for a breath.
And for the first time in days, they felt just a little more like fathers…
…and a little less like warriors preparing for battle.
Zoran tilted his head back and smiled when he heard the very faint, very feminine laugh of an amused Goddess—having a little fun at their expense.