20. Jerrid
JERRID
The air left Jerrid’s lungs, squeezing out, out, out until nothing but a single prick remained at the very center of his chest.
No. It wasn’t possible. Of all the shade-eaten mistakes he had made in his sorry life, he hadn’t made this one. He hadn’t done what he feared he’d done. Not to her.
Not to Ava.
But something gleamed in her eyes when she fired a grin over her shoulder at him, a gleam that wasn’t her own. A fire that wasn’t hers. It wasn’t cool and blue like elf fire.
Instead, it was a brilliant scarlet, like dragon fire.
What did you do, Dragon? he thought, a void yawning in his gut as he stared at the strange creature before him, at something that shouldn’t exist.
At something that shouldn’t be possible.
And yet there she stood, living proof that the unthinkable had become a nightmarish reality.
He’s very clever, your dragon. The shadow laughed from the recesses of his thoughts, where he had been watching and lurking since the moment Jerrid realized he was there. That’s the thing about parasites… We can always find a new host.
No, no, no…
Jerrid tried to call him back, to drag Dragon to himself by force. He could feel the tether running from him to Ava—to Dragon—but when he yanked on it, he discovered the other end tightly secured. How had Dragon bound himself to Ava? How had they done it?
And why the raging, dragon-lit blazes had she allowed it?
“I’m sorry,” Talos said, his cold voice cutting into Jerrid’s internal screaming, “but I really don’t understand what’s going on here. Why should I even care about you?”
Jerrid swiveled his head to stare at the dark elf as he glowered down at Ava. She now crouched a few yards away, one arm held back behind her in a pose Jerrid recognized all too well. He’d used it often enough himself.
They were preparing to spring.
“Why, thank you for asking,” Ava replied in something akin to a croon. “Why don’t we demonstrate?”
Jerrid’s hand began to itch. “Oh no.”
He rubbed furiously at the back of his knuckles, instinct forcing him to clamp down on the shift, to hold it back, to suppress it. A familiar, burning pain exploded up his arm. The pain lanced up his arm, but when he reached to clamp down on his own wrist…
His hand curled around bare flesh. Wait. If Dragon was in Ava, why did Jerrid’s skin feel like it was about to explode into scales? Why was he feeling the shift when it wasn’t even happening to him?
Because he had definitely felt it, that burning itch up his arm, from fingertips to shoulder. By now, his nails should have elongated into claws, his arm breaking out in sharp, armored scales. And yet…
There was nothing.
His gaze flew to Ava as she swung back her right arm, an arm clothed in glittering dragon scales. Jerrid’s own arm twitched and swung, outside his control, mimicking her motion as she lashed out at Talos. The dark elf yelped and staggered backward.
As she spun to reposition herself for another attack, Jerrid also did the motion several feet behind her, as if he were somehow tied to her, a puppet on a string.
Talos hurled a half-formed firebolt at them, but Ava—and Dragon—knocked it aside with the back of their armored hand. Jerrid ground his teeth together as he felt the heat and impact against his own knuckles.
They launched themselves toward Talos, Jerrid fighting madly to pull them back. He imagined himself catching hold of Dragon’s arm and yanking it backward.
In front of him, Ava’s arm swung away from Talos, her body stumbling backward in a mimic of Jerrid’s own bumbling movements. Yes! It was working. His pulse thrummed more quickly as Ava shot a foul look over her shoulder.
She jerked back the reins of control and went after Talos again, ducking to avoid his swiping, flaming fist. She delivered a swift punch to his soft belly with her armored hand.
“Stay out of this, Jerrid!” she yelled at him while he tried—unsuccessfully—to wrench away her control again.
But he ground his teeth together as he spun in time with them, kicking out at an invisible opponent. No way in Rhuin would he be plucked about like a puppet. This was his body. This was his dragon, for crying out loud.
“Give him back!” he yelled, staggering as Ava took a blow to the stomach.
But she merely dove for Talos again as another fireball flew over their heads. Around them, the women and girls erupted into cheers, egging Ava on. The antagonism of earlier seemed to have vanished entirely in the face of a common foe.
And there was Ava, hair streaming behind her with dragon scale armor now encasing both arms, an angel of vengeance fighting on their behalf, while Jerrid stumbled around like a drunken fool.
Only yourself to blame, the shadow whispered. She’s always been stronger than you. They both are. Look at them. They’re glorious. And you… You’re nothing…
Jerrid ground his teeth together as her body reshaped itself into a new fighting stance. Pain began to burn behind his shoulder blades, twin peaks of fire…
Oh no.
“Dragon, no!”
But nobody was listening to him.
Before his horrified eyes, two slits appeared in the back of Ava’s dress moments before his wings snaked out of her body, lashing out to both sides and making her look more like a dark devil than an avenging angel.
Gasps erupted from the humans, and even Talos had the good sense his mother had bequeathed him to stumble backward in a furious panic.
Roar began to jump up and down and howl at the top of his lungs: “Look at her! She is a dark queen, mum! Get him! Knock him down! Poke him in the eye!”
As if she had heard him and intended to oblige, Ava whipped her right wing, aiming the sharp point along one of the wing bones straight for Talos’s face. He mouthed a foul curse and batted the wing aside, ducking and rolling out of her reach as he staggered farther away from the camp.
Jerrid felt the pain of the blow to his invisible wing, the connection between him and Ava so strong that every blow she suffered reverberated through his own body.
Ava seemingly experienced no pain, pressing her advantage as she and Dragon redoubled their attack.
Didn’t she realize she was giving him exactly what he wanted?
That she was losing herself to him?
“You need to stop, Ava!” he bellowed as he raced after them on unwilling feet.
He struggled to dig his heels into the dirt, but his feet kept moving forward no matter how hard he screamed for his body to listen to him, to stop moving, to stop everything.
“You’re going to lose yourself!”
But she ignored him, chasing Talos into the forest, away from the girls, into darkness.
The shadow rocked with laughter, peels of thunder pounding against Jerrid’s ears. He didn’t know what was worse—the silence of Dragon’s absence or the incessant barrage of the shadow’s presence. It seemed he was not destined to know peace of any kind.
Ava took a running leap and kicked off the trunk of the tree so she could come at Talos from above and behind.
Jerrid performed the same maneuver on empty air, his stomach flopping unpleasantly. He expected his body to go sailing onward, but it jerked to a halt, kicking off an invisible tree trunk nowhere near his location and flinging him high into the air after an opponent that wasn’t even there.
This was beyond ridiculous.
It had to be the most humiliating experience of his life.
His worst fears had finally come true: he was truly nothing more than a puppet to Dragon’s whims.
Some things aren’t meant to be more than puppets, the shadow whispered in his ear. Look at her. So glorious. She’s meant to be with him, with your dragon. And you? You’re just in the way. They won’t even remember you when you’re gone.
No one would remember him when he was gone because he didn’t have any friends. Perhaps his father would miss him, but Carr certainly wouldn’t miss cleaning up after Dragon’s messes.
After Jerrid’s messes.
And his family certainly wouldn’t miss his hot-tempered outbursts or the smashed furniture and possessions around their longhouse. Their evenings around the common fire must be so quiet now, so peaceful without Jerrid and Dragon mucking things up.
They weren’t needed or wanted.
No, the shadow whispered, just you. You aren’t needed or wanted.
And that stung because it was true.
Jerrid closed his eyes and gave in to the uncontrollable dance as Ava and his dragon drove off their enemy, fighting without him and doing a bang-up job of it. He felt the blows to his fists as Ava struck Talos. Felt the pang of retaliation when she failed to dodge fast enough.
And yet she pressed onward, laughing.
Laughing!
Didn’t she realize how much danger she was in? If she had given Dragon this much control of her body—of their bodies—there might be no coming back from this.
What if they shifted permanently, and Jerrid was left to follow in their footsteps for the rest of his life, a mute, useless shadow?
He couldn’t live like this.
You don’t have to. I can help.
Jerrid tried to ignore the thought, knowing it was a lie, but the whispers continued, gentle and coaxing. So many promises. Promises to set him free, to make him stronger, to break his tie to Dragon forever.
And once he’s gone, she’ll be all yours, the shadow whispered, taking his game one step farther. You could have her all to yourself. Bend her to your will.
“I don’t want to bend her to my will!” He gasped as his body spun in an arc, his arm outstretched in a powerful maneuver that had killed other, lesser foes.
But when he opened his eyes to peek at Ava’s progress, Talos tenaciously clung to life as he ducked behind trees and flung fireballs in all directions. Behind them, a swath of chaos ensued. Broken tree limbs, smoldering piles of leaves, branches snapped off and piled on the ground.
It was a losing battle, and Jerrid suspected they all knew it.
Was this what he could have been if he had embraced his demon instead of trying to fight against him? Would he have been this strong, this unstoppable, a force of nature not even a powerful dark elf with raging magic could withstand?