Chapter 25 Liz
Liz
Even with Azar’s magic to pull on, and the heartstone, it takes several days for my disgusting arm and hand to heal. Every time I moved and saw the gleaming white bones from my arm poking through the charred tissue, I almost threw up.
But it does heal, eventually, thank heavens.
And I have plenty to distract me from the pain. It’s a chaotic few days, finding enough brights and semi-brights for each dragon. But these brights come with the added advantage of already having places to live, at least most of them.
As an added bonus, they don’t have to leave their homes behind.
For the first time, in Australia, we’re not conquering.
We’re integrating.
It’s a land that’s rich in metals like gold and silver, which the earth dragons love. They make visors for all the new recruits—including me—and it’s almost disturbing to see my siblings walking around wearing them.
There are also an abundance of precious gems hiding in the ground in the Northern Territory, and discovering the dragons could easily uncover them, well, that created challenges of its own. Integration is better, but also harder in many ways.
Finding places for the blessed to live has been a bit of a struggle, but with the powered-up earth dragons, even that works out simpler than I expected.
Axel—using his earth powers—has already made us an amazing home overlooking the tempestuous Timor Sea.
The very first day in our new home, I saw a huge crocodile swimming in the saltwater.
It made me happy to know Azar’s always nearby and that Sammy’s closely watched as well.
Most of the main structure’s made of rock, reshaped and formed from the bedrock up, to exactly the size and form I wanted.
There’s a good mix of massive rooms to accommodate several dragon forms, with soaring ceilings and massive doorways through which dragons can fly, slide, or climb, and smaller chambers where I don’t feel like I’m speaking into an airplane hangar.
The front of the house opens over the ocean, but the internal rooms, blocked by fixed red shields that allow me, Sammy, Coral, and Jade to pass, are smaller and more intimate.
There are four main rooms in the center, each of them large enough for one dragon, and one human.
Coral, Sammy, Jade, and I all live here, with our dragons.
That’s not something I ever thought I’d say.
My mother would have a heart attack.
Once my arm’s healed, I spend days acting as the intermediary between the blessed and the Australian government, hashing and rehashing the rights we’re allowed and the concessions we’ll offer.
Now that they know how adept the earth dragons are at locating and refining precious metals and stones, they have a new set of demands.
And of course, they’re keen to employ the water dragons to police the nearby Indian and Timor Seas.
It’s a little tiresome, but mostly we’re happy to help after their generosity.
I’m not sure why we even want to stay, Hyperion says when I come back with the latest round of requests. We have the heartstone. We can go home.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “We can’t go home until we confirm that recovering the stone was enough to restore your ability to procreate.” I lift my eyebrows. “Have we had any confirmation of new eggs being laid?”
It takes time, Azar says. From mating, it can be as little as five or six days or as many as a dozen before a female lays an egg.
I think I have quite a lot to learn about dragon biology. “Well, once we’ve confirmed it’s working, we can talk about a timeline for you to leave.”
For us to leave? Azar frowns. Our bonded will come with us, surely.
“What about you staying here?” I ask. “Why can’t we talk about that?”
We’re working things out with Australia under the belief there are ten thousand of us, Hyperion says. I wonder how they’d feel about eighty thousand more showing up?
Oh, and don’t forget that we’ll actively be making eggs for baby dragons, Azar says.
Are you really saying dragons? Hyperion rolls his eyes. It’s degrading.
“It’s not,” I say. “It’s just our word for your kind.”
We should probably encourage our people to mate, Azar says. You could set the example for them. He raises his eyebrows.
Hyperion turns his head slowly, his lip curled. Excuse me?
You were happy enough to shove me into mating with Asteria before.
I’m a delight, Asteria says. You’d have been lucky to mate with me.
I can’t help smiling a little, now that Azar seems uninterested in that possibility. He may not remember anything before his factory reset, and he may be stuck in dragon forms still, but I’m making progress.
What are you smiling at? Hyperion snaps. Why would you even want us to stay?
He’s right that I haven’t exactly experienced the warmest welcome from my own family for my new. . .calling? Is that the right word for being Azar’s bonded, winged human?
“But we have the Prime Minister on our side now,” I say. “He can’t leave Australia, not while he’s still in office.”
Again, once we confirm the heartstone’s working, we can talk about a departure plan, Azar says. As things stand, we don’t even have much to report to Father. What if this is merely a beautiful rock, and nothing has changed?
“The heartstone?” I don’t mention that I carved it from his mother’s chest. I’m kind of relieved he doesn’t remember any of that. “Pretty big coincidence, if the heartstone that released all those vanir and healed your dying brother wasn’t the very thing you needed.”
Even so, Azar says.
“I think the biggest reason you can’t leave yet is that you promised to defend Earth against the vanir,” I say.
I remember no such promise, Azar says.
“Well, that’s convenient,” I say. “But you made it twice—before you lost your memories, and again in the lava. I’m beginning to think your brain’s a bit like a sieve.”
A what? Hyperion asks.
“Forget it,” I say. “But do you really think it’s fine to just pull up stakes and fly away, when saving your brother and stealing your heart released a horde of demons on the humans?”
The humans who were more than prepared to attack us, Hyperion says.
“They’ve successfully killed only a handful of you. Think about the vanir—they really do want to dominate and conquer.”
Still not our problem. Hyperion frowns.
“Precisely your problem,” I say again. “You released them.”
No, Hyperion says. You released them.
I gnash my teeth. “Only to save your ungrateful, unworthy—”
“We’ll stay here until we can figure out what to do,” Coral says, like that decides it.
Hyperion’s face softens.
I want to laugh. I mean, how ridiculous is that? “Just because—”
“I think rushing off would be a mistake, too,” Jade says.
As do I. Asteria’s agreement surprises me the most.
She has softened since bonding Jade, but she’s not usually much of a fighter, as far as I can tell. “Really?”
There are many things in life we don’t want to do, but if they’re the right thing, we must do them.
I’ve seen you make many decisions like that, Elizabeth Chadwick.
Whether the princes want to take responsibility or not, our return prompted the release of the blessed-cursed ones, and the humans are not equipped to deal with them.
Fine, Hyperion says. We slay the creatures, and then we leave.
I can’t help thinking about the battle between the aesir and the vanir—how it went on and on. I haven’t remembered quite what Gullveig and Freya did or why, but this feels like it’ll become a harder task than Hyperion’s making it out to be.
Still, at least they’re not packing up right this minute.
“How exactly do dragons mate?” Jade asks. “All I heard is that they fly, if they can, and the water blessed can’t do that.”
“You know, in my dreams of the past, they could fly,” I say. “All the dragons could.”
“Even earth dragons?” Coral asks.
I shrugged. “There weren’t earth dragons, at least, none that I saw, and I saw all the other blessed, and a few weird kinds of vanir.”
“There weren’t earth dragons?” Coral blinks.
“Water dragons could fly?” Jade asks.
They would love that, Azar says. They’re complaining even more now than before.
You would be too, Asteria says, if the one thing you desired was given to another group instead of to you.
They’ve been so obnoxious since the earth blessed got wings, Hyperion says. Far whinier than the earth blessed ever were.
But I’m not listening to Hyperion. Asteria’s words are still echoing in my brain. It feels like I’ve heard them before, and then it clicks. That’s very nearly what Freya said to me, when she knew she was dying. Her last words were, “The one thing you truly desire, it’s always been in your grasp.”
Are you alright? The others are still chattering away, but Azar’s looking at me with concern.
We’ve come such a long way from when he was expelled from the volcano with no memory—nothing but contempt for the human whom he’d previously bonded. We’re in a much better place than we were, but she’s right.
I do long for something—two things, really.
I want Azar’s memories returned, but she said only he can do that.
And I want him to be able to take a human form. It’s selfish—it benefits no one but me, but I yearn for it all the same. Except, then I recall what I said to Jore when I was Gullveig, what I asked her to do for Freya. . .
I asked her to know.
It is selfish that I want Axel to take a human form again, yes. But it’s also a gift that the goddess of earth gave herself, to help Freja understand us. I’m not sure where the earth dragons came from, or why they’re so different, or even why there weren’t any back in my memories.
But becoming human, it’s not just for me. It helped the dragons too.
It helped them understand us—it helped the children of the sky live in harmony with the children of earth. It helped bridge the wide and difficult divide between our people. So while they’re all talking, I creep back into the back room of our new home, to my room.
And I pull the heart out from the carefully carved box where we keep it. It’s pulsing, even now. It’s stunning, and it feels almost alive, like a real heart. I stroke it carefully, and then I bow my head over it, and I reach for the light and energy that always surges inside it.
Once I’m full of it, the bright light, I pause. “Please, Jore, please grant me this wish. Let me help Azar to know—help Axel to understand. Let him take a human form again.”
And then I wait.
All the light churns and surges with nowhere to go.
After a few moments, I release it back into the stupid rock, disheartened. Azar’s standing in the doorway, his head tilted. Are you alright?
I sigh. “I’m just being greedy, I guess.”
How so?
I flop back on my tiny bed, shoved into the corner of the still cavernous room. “You used to be able to turn into a human.”
Useless ability.
“I know you think that,” I say, my voice small. “But I miss it.”
He walks carefully toward me and lies down beside my bed, his enormous scarlet head resting on his front legs. I am sorry my lack of humanoid shape upsets you. I don’t like when you’re upset.
“I know.” I shake my head. “And it’s fine. Things are—well, they’re better than I could have hoped, especially with the release of all those vanir, and you know, everything else.” I close my eyes.
But you wanted to try and restore my ability to shift?
I don’t want him to feel like he’s not good enough. “It’s not that I don’t like you as you are,” I say. “It’s just that—Freya said this weird thing. She said that I always had the ability to have the thing I most desired, and other than your memories coming back, that’s what I want most.”
Maybe I should take a nap. I’m clearly cranky.
“I just wish—I’ve wished for a very long time that Jore would allow you to take a human form again, like me.”
Why?
I drop my voice to a whisper. “I miss it.” My heart contracts. “I miss having you beside me. I miss your fingers brushing against mine. I miss you asking me questions about kissing. I miss knowing you in that form. I miss connecting with you—I miss the Axel I had started to love.”
There’s a strange sound then, like the roaring of a sports car engine, and I slowly open my eyes.
And then I sit up.
Because Axel—the Axel I’ve longed to see—black hair shaggy and full around his face, is standing in front of me. He’s wearing the weirdest clothing, though. I can’t help laughing. “What on earth are you wearing?”
He looks down at his clothing. “It’s the same thing Norm was wearing when we first met.”
It’s a red, stylized medieval jacquard coat with gold buttons. It looks utterly ridiculous.
And entirely delicious.
I stretch up to my knees, and I hold out one finger, curling it back toward me. “Come here. Now.” And then, I purr.