Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
Izzy gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and tried not to whimper with each frantic stroke of Luka’s wings. He flew them through the darkness within the mountain so fast, she couldn’t imagine how he knew where to turn and when to dive, even with his exceptional night vision.
At times, the air rushed around them as if they flew through grand halls. At others, the echoes of their flight rang back so close and thick that they could only be in narrow tunnels. But they always descended, and the air grew hotter and more humid with every passing second.
Her stomach heaved with her panted breaths. Cold sweat slid slowly down her neck, and hot blood seeped between her fingers. Her mouth was dry. Mother of the gods, she was thirsty. She drifted for a moment before startling awake once more. Where was she?
Stay… awake. Her beast sounded exhausted too.
Izzy wanted to. She really did. She didn’t have much longer, she knew that, and she wanted to be awake for it. She wanted to be with Luka.
His best hummed at her—a low, soothing sound—and she closed her eyes and drifted on a sea of darkness and pain.
Open your eyes.
No.
Open!
Izzy forced her sticky eyelids open and blinked with confusion. The darkness had given way to gloomy shadows, as if there was light filtering from somewhere. The air was still hot, but a hint of freshness wound through the humidity.
Luka pulled her even closer to his huge, scaled chest, holding her safely in his claws as he swooped down a long, carved staircase thick with luminous green lantern mushrooms—far prettier than the sickly copper trumpets above. If she’d had the energy, she would have chuckled at the irony.
They landed in a narrow hallway with a steeply sloping roof. Luka settled her gently on the ground and then stepped back with a murmured growl. “Hold on, Izzy. We’re nearly there.”
Mother of the Weave, she wanted to hold on.
She wanted to live, but she was so tired.
She tried to press her hand against the wound in her belly, but it seemed to require an impossible amount of strength.
Izzy let her head drop forward, chin to chest, and closed her eyes. She had to rest, just for a moment.
A sudden flare of light stabbed against her eyelids, and she forced them open to see Luka’s drake spitting fire at a cluster of yellowing candles standing in ancient pools of wax on a great slab of stone.
Their wicks caught, and a low light flared, revealing a small but magnificent hallway decorated on all sides with bejeweled images of drakes of all shapes and colors.
They almost seemed alive in the dancing light as they flew, roared, breathed fire, and danced together.
Behind the stone slab, the candles illuminated a fissure in the rock leading deeper into the mountain.
Around it, the most spectacular art of any they’d seen brought the wall to vibrant life.
The Mother—vast and beautiful with gleaming scales and a swirling cloak of the starry sky itself—stood with her children, Chaos and Order.
Her hands were stretched out to hold a stream of glowing rock—inlaid in solid gold—that she was forming into the very earth.
That molten earth is still here below the mountain, her beast murmured. Blessed by the Mother. Full of heat and power and love. They knew…. The drakes came here…. The rumbling sentence faded into pained panting.
Gods, she was exhausted. Even the pain in her belly wasn’t enough to keep her awake.
A grunt and crack of bones echoed with a surge of power, and she blinked at Luka as he shifted back to human form faster than she’d ever imagined. Without stopping for a breath, he lifted her, cradling her against his chest, and they were moving again.
He positioned her safely in his arms and then ducked them into the narrow opening in the rock wall. It was like stepping into a dream.
The light poured in from the candles outside, revealing a dazzling grotto.
It was a massive geode, with walls covered in crystals, some clear and translucent like glittering ice, others milky and smooth.
Some were as thick as her forearm, while hundreds more sprinkled over the walls like diamonds or distant stars.
If she’d had any to give, it would have taken her breath away.
In the middle of the crystal grotto was a clearing—big enough to hold one, perhaps two adult drakes, but no more—and in the center of that was an altar. It was twin to the one in the upper hall, with two crouching dragons, their wings spread wide to support a slab of green-hued bronze.
The air was hot and humid. The weight of the mountain—or perhaps its history and magic—was thick and oppressive. The crystals reflected every flicker of the candles, every breath and sigh, a hundred times. A thousand times. Until Izzy was surrounded by movement, light, and heat.
Her beast stirred, lifting its head, tail twitching. There was something here. Something ancient. Something….
Not quite awareness. Maybe it was an echo of the power of the Mother’s creation? Or perhaps the accumulation of faith and of centuries of prayer and sacrifice at this altar? Or perhaps something still slumbered in the molten gold below, too dormant to notice their small lives above?
Either way, this was where the ancient drakes had honored the Mother and the Twins.
This was where they’d come—the people who’d lived and worshipped here—for their holiest moments.
This was where they’d laid open their hearts to belief and hope and trust, and the crystals reflected it back forever.
And the grotto was still here, despite the destruction of the temple and all the years that passed.
Perhaps the Mother protected it, her beast whispered.
Luka set her down gently, right on the altar. His hands trembled as he stroked her damp hair away from her cheeks, his claws scraping softly. “You need to shift,” he rumbled.
Izzy blinked up at him. “I can’t,” she whispered, even as her beast lurched brokenly to its feet.
“You can.” Luka’s eyes were almost entirely opal-green, and his voice carried the low harmonics of his drake, but his fingers were impossibly tender on her skin. “You can do anything. I’ve always known it.”
She shook her head, sending a shaft of agony into her belly, and her eyes filled with tears.
His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Try, Izzy. Please. It’s the only way.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she could feel his body shuddering with the force of his emotion.
Maybe, her beast whispered. I feel… heat and… power. We’re close here.
Izzy swallowed roughly. Close to what?
Something more. We can try.
She took a labored breath. “Yes… for us. I’ll try. Luka, can you… help me with my clothes?”
“Of course.” He undressed her gently, turning her and holding her as if she were infinitely precious. He was there, he was with her, even as her focus spiraled inward, to her beast and on the call of the heat.
Scales rippled over her skin and retracted, not quite settling. She was too hot and too cold. Shivery and panting. She grunted, reaching for something. That itch. That crick in her bones. It needed… something.
“Yes,” Luka murmured. “I can feel it.” He took her hands in his, and the sharp points of his claws prickled along her flesh. “Find that power. It’s inside you.”
Her own claws slid out as her beast rumbled out a long, low growl.
Luka lifted her hands and kissed her claws. “So beautiful. Look.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “We were made for each other. Let your drake take control. Let her magic knit you back together.” His voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. “Be with me.”
Izzy’s beast shivered and tried to unfurl her wings, but they lay undeveloped and clumsy.
Too heavy to lift, too awkward to maneuver.
She lowered her scaled head and panted. Izzy did the same thing in the flickering light of the crystals.
They were disconnected, dissociated. Overlapping, but not quite one.
Luka’s fingers tightened on hers. “You’ve always trusted your beast. Trust her now. You can do this.” Tears ran openly down his face. “I’ll be here.”
Izabel closed her eyes and panted. We can do this, she thought to her beast. I do trust you.
You are me. I’m you. And then she opened her heart.
She gave herself completely to her beast. She reached for that river of molten gold—for the vibrant power that had dwelled in the very roots of the mountain since the first transcendent moments of the world—and she let the heat flood through her.
Her beast roared, or maybe she did. Her body was on fire. Her soul was ablaze. Her beast uncoiled with a bellow of pain and glorious freedom, scales flashed and rippled as they roiled together.
Sensation billowed. The great mountains around her were a living thing.
Glowing fungi grew across millennia. Spiders, millipedes, tiny shrimp living in ancient pools, colonies of bats, troops of baboons, and sleeping leopards in shadowy caves—they all gave the vast range a heartbeat.
Water heated in the underground rivers by deep magma, vented into pools surrounded by lush shrubs and fragrant flowers, a vital, pulsing artery.
Luka stood before her, almost entirely armored in gleaming black-and-green scales.
She could hear his heart beating. And there was his beast, right there with them.
Watching her, supporting her. Loving her.
Mate, her beast rumbled.
Then she broke. Flames licked through her veins as her spine cracked, and power flooded through her.
Skin and bones ruptured, and she screamed.
Her beast spread its wings, and this time they answered, unfurling in a rush.
Magic coursed through her as she knit together in this new form.
Organs, muscles, bones, and sinews came together once more. And she was the drake.
“Mate,” her beast rumbled, aloud this time.
Luka looked up at her through his tears and smiled. “Mate.”