Chapter 23 Axel
Axel
The last time I entered the lava, it wasn’t by choice.
I think that makes a difference here.
My last experience, I forgot as soon as I left.
It was part of Liz’s deal with Freya, and while I hate that she did it, I understand why.
Here, with my memories intact, I understand entirely.
Liz has been the one suffering, really, not me.
I’m sure it’s been harder on her than I can even imagine, especially knowing how angry I was with her when she was trying to do the right thing.
More than any being I’ve ever met, Liz always wants to do the right thing.
She’s as opposite the monster she fears as anyone I’ve ever met.
And all she does for her bravery, for her self-sacrifice, is suffer more.
I’m standing in my human form for the first time since, well, since right before I was hurled into the lava by the very brother we’re here trying to save.
Hyperion always meant well.
He means well, I repeat, because I’m still holding out hope that Liz might somehow save him. She’ll do anything to save him now, because Coral’s life’s hanging in the balance. Losing that little spitfire would wreck my warrior queen.
I wish I knew where Liz was.
Instead of writhing in lava while creatures come at me, I’m floating in a room that isn’t a room.
It’s somehow an overlook—like I’m standing on a balcony overlooking a courtyard, only the courtyard’s lava, and the overlook doesn’t actually exist. When I focus on my feet, it’s especially strange, because while it feels solid, there’s nothing underneath them.
I hope Liz found Freya, because I’ve got nothing.
The creatures who look distorted in the lava are sharp and clear here.
They are humanoid, sort of, but they have horns, and massive underbites with protruding, bestial teeth.
Some have small horns and some large. Some have teeth the size of my thumb, but much taller, sharper, and they’re stained dark yellow and orange.
Others barely have incisors at all. They’re sitting, standing, milling around, arguing, snapping, and snarling.
Not a one of them looks happy.
But they aren’t burning, either. Most of them are walking around in what appears to be relative comfort, wearing only bizarrely shredded loincloths, metal-studded leather strips, and various rags.
But when I look out a little farther, the lava looks hotter, brighter, and meaner in a way I can’t quite explain.
The creatures out there are watching something.
I have to assume that’s the entrance of the volcano.
The closer they are to the outside world, the hotter and more miserable it becomes?
It’s an ingenious kind of trap—stay away from the exit, or you suffer even more.
If this Freya is my mother, she’s at least clever.
I can’t tell quite what I’m doing here, though.
As I watch more closely, I realize that some of the creatures are male, and some are vaguely female.
They’re all so unattractive and deformed in appearance that it’s hard to differentiate at first.
I lean over the nonexistent ledge and call out. “Hey, beasties. Can you see me?”
Their heads snap sideways and they rush toward me, climbing on top of one another, clawing their way toward me.
Whoops.
“Food,” one of them snarls—in our language, not the English I’ve almost grown accustomed to using in this form.
As if the others just needed a little encouragement, more come from seemingly nowhere.
At this rate, they’ll reach me in the next two to three minutes by flinging themselves on top of one another and rising to my level from sheer mass.
They seem to be limitless in number, coming from I can’t tell where, and I’m regretting drawing attention to myself.
I cast around for any sort of weapon. In this weak, useless form, I can’t use my claws, my teeth, or my tail—honestly, it’s a miracle the earth children have survived like this at all.
They do use their brains well, sometimes.
Every interaction I have with that cursed Gideon makes me wish I’d eaten him the first day we met.
I’m not sure Liz would ever have forgiven me, but otherwise we’d all be way happier. . .
The pile of snarling and snapping creatures are less than twenty paces away now, still mounding up like rats in a pit. Only, these rats have massive, sharp teeth, long, curved, wicked black claws, and bulk that even I can’t match. At least, not all tiny and powerless in my humanoid form.
I pull on my magic to try and shift, but it comes up blank.
I try a few of the human swear words I’ve learned from Liz, which helps me feel better, but offers no real benefit. “Come on, Axel. You have to think. You called them over here—now figure out how to get away.”
That’s when it hits me. I’m standing on. . .nothing at all.
Why can’t I simply shift up higher?
It works. The second I imagine myself in a higher position, I am.
The creatures bellow and roar below, clearly irate that I’ve figured out how to prolong their torture. They don’t look emaciated and starving, so something’s clearly keeping them alive, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering from terrible hunger pangs.
I can understand that whole concept.
The blessed don’t require as much in terms of physical consumption as earth children, because we bring in energy from other locations. We might not even die without eating for an extended period, if we weren’t expending a lot of energy, but we’d suffer.
These guys look like the poster children of suffering.
I’ve just shifted upward a second time when the walls that aren’t walls begin to shake. It’s not constant, more like trembling from the impact of. . .something. I’m not sure what, but it’s not reassuring.
Liz?
Or what if, here, like me, she has all her memories, even the lost ones? Who would she identify as? What name would she answer to?
Gullveig? I call out. Gullveig? Elizabeth Chadwick? Are you there?
No reply from Liz, but the creatures double down, upon hearing that name. It’s clearly one they know.
Gullveig! They all start shrieking in a demented sort of rasping unison. And then, without warning, they begin to shift.
The great, hulking beasts with monstrous fangs, frightfully corded muscles, and curved, blackened claws take on much larger forms, surging upward rapidly, expanding in size as they turn into their blessed—or cursed, as Liz called it—forms. They’re black, dingy grey, and the purple of a vibrant human bruise.
And they seem to be even angrier.
Rabid, even, snapping, snarling, and agitated. They almost reach me before I practically fly upward. A simple glance shows no ceiling, thankfully. “Why do you all want Gullveig? Do you hate her? Do you want to kill her? Or do you want to serve her?”
Salvatoris! they shriek. Dimittis!
Some of them think she’ll save them, and others count on her for their release. I’m not sure they should, since I doubt Liz will differ in her opinion from me. Liz, I call again. There’s a horde of demons here, and they all want you. They think you’re going to free them, but I vote against it.
I shift upward more often now, ever more upward. The creatures seem to measure into the thousands or more, never ending. Churning, snapping, snarling, and hissing.
I hope Liz is alright, and I hope she can save Hyperion, and I hope when I go back to Earth, I’ll remember her.
And I’d really like to touch her—in my human form.
It’s a lot to ask for, I know. It’s greedy.
Saving Hyperion would be enough.
But now that I’m here, even fleeing increasingly higher from nasty critters in my human form, I can’t help yearning for her. Even without memories, even not being able to touch her, I did finally figure out she was special.
And I never forgot she was mine. It was like that truth was embedded in my soul. But there’s something about the earth children’s tactile comfort, something about their quiet moments and reassurances that just isn’t the same when I have scales.
Just the thought of her—and now with her wings, scowling or laughing—she’s glorious. I ache for her. In this form, in this place, knowing what I know, remembering her fierce bravery, her tenacious insistence on doing the right thing—I love her. I miss her. I yearn to get that back.
Liz! I shout. Please, please get back safely. Please.
Distracted by my internal stress, I don’t shift upward fast enough, and one of the beasts catches my leg, biting down hard. The pain radiates upward, and I cry out.
In that same moment, the walls-that-aren’t-walls shudder and cracks run up the sides of the entire construct.
Chunks begin to fall, one of them smashing the cursed-blessed that’s currently clamped onto my leg in his ugly face.
He releases me, thankfully, and I spring backward, barely avoiding being struck by a similar chunk of.
. .nothingness. And that’s when I hear her.
Azar! Where are you? We need to get out of here, now!
I’m here! I scramble backward, avoiding another large chunk of debris. What do I do? Where do I go?
Azar!!
The entire world around me shifts in a very uncomfortable, very unsettling way, and then I’m beside her. “Liz!” I reach for her, and she collapses in my arms, sobbing. Her clothing—the only clothing she has to fit her new wings—is spattered in red. “What happened?”
She’s sobbing against my chest, a hard, bright, strange object clutched against her belly. “I—Azar.” She looks up into my eyes. “Axel! It’s you!” She freezes, her eyes widening. “Do you—” She swallows. “Do you remember me?” The hope in her face—it’s heartbreaking.
I kiss her then, pressing my mouth against hers too hard—too insistently. But she doesn’t shy away. If anything, she presses harder, her fingers digging into my arms, pulling me closer. Our mouths move against one another’s frantically for a moment before she pulls away.
“Hyperion,” she breathes. “Time isn’t the same here, but we have to get out now, or I won’t be able to.” She shakes her head. “And Axel, Azar, whatever, I don’t know—you clearly remember me now. Right?” Her eyes are so terribly hopeful.
It hurts me, and I nod, desperate to kiss her again while I can.
“I’m not sure if you’ll remember me when we get out, and I’m not sure if you’ll be able to shift either.”
“I know,” I say. “I know. I’m sorry for being angry. I didn’t understand.”
“You do now?” Her mouth is soft, her eyes frantic. “Do you really?”
I pull her tightly against me, so healed by feeling her body against mine. But the large, hard thing’s digging sharply into my side until I release her. “I do—I know why you did it—I might have done the same if I’d been forced. But what is that?”
She glances down, trembling slightly. “It’s the heart.” She offers it to me.
I back up a step, blinking and shaking my head. “It’s—that’s it?” It’s the reason we came here in the first place. Now that we’ve found it, we’ll have no reason to stay. I almost. . .I almost want to chuck it into the nothingness that’s falling apart all around and leave it here in the rubble.
If I have the heart, what will I do with Liz? What excuse can I use to stay, especially if I don’t remember how much I love her once we leave this place?
“You should know.” She chokes up, tears welling in her eyes. “I had to kill your mother to get it.”
My eyes snap up to meet hers. “You had to—”
“I’m so sorry.” Tears roll down her face.
“There was no other way. It’s—Freya—she is your mother.
I’m not sure what went down between her and your dad, but I don’t think it was good, and now she’s.
. .” She glances backward, and I see it—the bloody, broken body of a human woman with a massive, gaping chest wound.
That’s the red on her body. My mother’s blood.
Liz is sinking to the ground, the stone clutched to her chest. “I’m so, so sorry. If there was any other way, but Coral.” Her voice catches. “And Hyperion.”
My eyes widen. “Yes, right. We need to get out there and save them.” But I’m still staring at the dead woman. I feel like I should recognize her somehow, if she is my mother, and like I should care more than I do. “Let’s go.” I force my eyes up. “Do you know how to do that?”
“Do you—do you want to. . .” Liz shakes her head.
“I don’t even know what I’m asking. What could you possibly do?
She’s dead. I’m just so very sorry. I wish—I tried to pull you to me then, before, but I didn’t have the stone.
I think I could only do it once I took it, and it was inside of her.
I really liked her, Azar. We were friends, back when I was Gullveig, and I wouldn’t have killed her if I could have.
. .” She cuts off again, clenching her free hand at her side. “I’m sorry.”
I step toward her, dragging her against my body again, tightening one arm around her, and pressing our bodies together from her shoulder to my hip. “I know you had no choice. I’m sorry you had to do this.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know how to get out of here,” she says. “But the last time. . .” She closes her eyes and inhales, and then. . .
“Wait.” I press my free hand to her cheek. “Liz.” I drag one finger down the side of her face. “When we get out—”
“I released them all,” she says. “I killed your mother, and that freed all the beasts she’d trapped. They’re escaping even now, as this place crumbles, and. . .” She exhales. “I got the heart your people need, but I’m afraid I’ve destroyed the earth in the process.”
Sky or earth.
She had to choose, and she chose me.
My heart swells even more than before. “I love you, Elizabeth Chadwick. I love you wildly, as much as a selfish dragon prince ever can. I hope you know that. I will help you keep your earth safe from the creatures. And I hope you can remember how much I care for you when I turn back into a beast.”
“Maybe you won’t change back this time,” she says.
“Maybe not.” I feel something odd happening to me. Something I’ve never experienced before. My eyes. . .are leaking. “But I fear I will forget you, and I fear I’ll forget us.” I shake my head, “But I still love you, even then. I just don’t understand yet. Believe that.”
She kisses me again, and then she nods slowly. “Thank you.”
The walls around us disappear.
And so do I.