Chapter 36 #2
“The chamber is deep at the base of the volcano, once you get to the bottom, the enchantment should let you pass, you will be safe in its barrier until you leave.” He explained.
Then a large iridescent orb, swirling with energy, formed around both me and Zephyros.
I took her high into the sky before I ordered her to dive straight down into the mouth of hell itself—Mount Orid.
I held my breath as the force of our impact collided with the thick liquid rock. I opened my eyes and we were alive!
It was so bright.
I squinted at the pulsating orange and crimson light. I felt claustrophobic; there was no visibility apart from the blinding glow. The ominous similarity to a coffin was a thought I tried to push out of my mind.
Titus’s shield was holding. Our combined weights allowed our protective bubble to sink—sluggishly, it carried our bodies down into the belly of the volcano.
I stroked her scales to keep her calm; well aware the motion soothed my nerves just as much as it did hers.
I chanted to myself internally, “I believe in him, I believe in him.”
My heart clung to the words as I watched the orb closely, eyes scanning methodically, checking for any cracks or imperfections. One crack in Titus’s shield, and Mount Orid could swallow us whole. But to my relief, it held strong.
It felt like an eternity, submerging slowly in the lava.
At some points, I couldn’t tell if we were still lowering.
The maddening anticipation had me stroking Zephyros’s scales more rapidly, knowing that the deeper we sank, the further away from Titus we were, the harder it was for him to hold his shield, and the less likely we were to survive.
A sudden jolt told me we hit the base of the volcano.
I didn’t know where to go. All around me, all I could see was liquid fire. I had no sense of direction down here, and I didn’t want to wait too long for fear it would strain Titus and cause his shield to falter.
Zephyros moved carefully across the volcanic ground. Keeping close together, I stayed saddled until a flicker of a color that didn’t belong caught my eye.
In between the swirls of burning liquid, I could see a flicker of blue.
Using only my mind, I guided Zephyros toward the oddity. The pressure from the lava over heads was beginning to strain the shield, we needed to be quick.
An archway carved into the rock appeared, with a blue shimmering wall of magic blocking its entrance.
The thick magic of the blue wall felt gummy as we passed through, with the same invasiveness of the library upon entry. It held us for a moment in suspension before finally letting us pass.
There was no lava in the cave, but our shield remained intact. The only light was from the glow of the lava outside the blue barrier, but that was plenty, because the cavity in the rock was quaint, barely enough room for both Zephyros and I, and empty.
Where was the dagger?
Did I come down here for nothing?
Titus said he had seen the chamber, but had he ever seen the dagger to confirm it was here?
Had someone else gotten to it before me?
Zephyros let out a nervous rumble that vibrated the pebbles on the ground. Then, as if in answer to her, I got the overwhelming sensation that we were no longer alone. An eerie whisper echoed in the small cave, like death himself.
“Who dare disturbs me?” The voice hissed as a gray mist swirled around us.
“Um, Delilah Raye from the mortal realm.” I called out.
“Are you here to claim your heirloom, new soul?” the mist asked.
“New soul?” I uttered, mostly to myself in confusion.
Then, as if in aggravation, the mist thrashed and condensed until it took the form of a ghostly, half-rotted skeleton floating in tattered rags and bound in chains.
It had no eyes—just empty dark sockets. Traces of gray skin draped from the sharp angles of its facial bones.
Half of its mouth still remained, with thin black lips.
I felt like screaming, but no sound left my lips. For as nightmarish as this creature was, I didn’t get the sense it wanted to hurt me.
The figure whispered in annoyance, “Child of ancient blood, new soul, the child made?... Do you not know what you are …Delilah?”
“Not entirely, no.” I replied, trying to hide my shame.
“Ever since the expansion of life, there have been the same number of souls, cycling through the realms. For eternity, the same number remained. Until you were born…mortal. Did you not find it odd that you didn’t come to the Fae Realm as a newborn?
Or that you had all your memories from your previous life?
The laws of natural progression don’t apply to you because you should not exist, because you aren’t a cycling soul, you are the child made! The new soul!!” He explained.
I swallowed and forced myself to ask the difficult question that had been keeping me up at night. “Because…of who my father is?”
“Precisely….” The figure whispered. “And who… or what are
you?” I asked.
“My name no longer matters for it is long gone with the erosion of time, but I am a bound soul. My sins in my life were too great that the Guardians refused my progression to the next realm, and I was too wicked to repeat life in this realm. I was sentenced as a slave, chained to this realm for whatever use the Guardians see fit. Mine was protecting this chamber and the Sinceritas Purus-Litas.” He replied.
“The dagger of destiny.” I said under my breath, and that’s when I noticed the remnants of rotted pointed ears.
“Oh, I’m sorry, that sounds very cruel,” I replied with sincerity.
“Now that you are here to collect your father’s dagger, my sentence is complete. I have been waiting eons for you Delilah, wasting and rotting away in the solitary confinement of this blasted volcano…take it please…so that I may return to the cycle and start life anew.” He pleaded.
Just then, a dagger like the one I’d seen on the statue of Eloria in the castle appeared in my hands. Its pommel and hilt were adorned in sapphires. The blade buzzed with an energy that left me in awe. I had never felt such raw power—such condensed magic in a physical form.
But beneath the awe was something else—something unsettlingly intimate. The vibration in the hilt didn’t feel foreign; it felt responsive, like it recognized the blood in my veins. As if it had been waiting for my hand, and no other.
“Thank you, child made, do better with your life than I did mine.” He groaned as he evaporated into nothingness, and that feeling of not being alone was gone. There was nothing around us other than lifeless rock.
Suddenly, the blue magic barrier shielding the cave from the lava began to shorten, allowing a thin slosh of liquid fire to pour in. I gasped and checked our shield—it was still intact. I commanded Zephyros to get us out of here.
Then suddenly the ground shook, and I heard a booming cry muffled by rock. “DELILAH!!!!”
My heart sank. It was Titus. His tone told me it was a warning. He must have been struggling to hold our shield.
I sheathed the dagger at my hip, and we pushed past the gelatinous magic membrane into the lava. Our orb was shrinking.
With a thrust from her strong legs, she gave us the momentum we needed to start our ascent, but going up was a lot harder than going down.
The weight of the magma pushed down on our shrinking shield.
When we stalled somewhere midway, I commanded Zephyros to flap her wings; the momentum within our orb was enough to keep us moving, if only at a snail’s pace.
Fuck, it’s not fast enough.
“Titus,” I screamed, but there was no answer, how deep we were, I knew there wouldn’t be.
The orb shrank smaller until Zephyros’s wings were damn near pinned. She couldn’t use the momentum to keep us moving upward anymore. We stalled out again.
My heart threatened to break past my ribs and land on the ground with how hard it was beating.
Then, to my horror, gravity took hold and we began to sink. This is it. We would not survive this. We made it down, retrieved the dagger, but could not make it up.
My ears rang, and Zephyros cried.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I really thought we could make it,” I sobbed as I pet her green scales lovingly.
She chittered a whimper and the sound broke my heart. I threw my arms around her neck, between the horns to hold her.
“I just found my will to live and now…I don’t want to die,” I cried.
She nuzzled me with the smooth scales of her face.
Zephyros: Dismount your saddle, Delilah.
“What?” I asked, sudden realization of her plan piecing together in my mind at a flashing speed. “No! You’ll die; we are too far down!” She already knew. She had already chosen. This wasn’t a command, this… was a farewell.
Zephyros: There’s not much time; you have a destiny…and this is mine.
“NO!!!!!!” I cried, and she used her teeth to rip the bindings of the saddle, causing me to slide off and sit at the bottom of the orb.
She passed through the shield and disappeared into the lava.
The shield instantly shrank to my size, and I felt a sudden jolt.
I looked beneath me and her head was pushing the orb upward as she swam through the thick liquid rock by thrusting her wings.
She opened her mouth to screech from the pain of the burn, but she was only met with a mouthful of lava.
She expelled it, shook her head, and continued to thrust.
“Zephyros, NOOOOOO, I’m so sorry.” I sobbed uncontrollably as I lay on the bottom of the orb, my hands rubbing her face through the shield. Her heartbeat beneath my palms had once felt like safety. Now it felt like a countdown.
I was not bonded to her in the way Aurelius was, but I had a general connection to all dragons. I could feel her pain, though probably only at a fraction, and even that was excruciating. I couldn’t imagine the agony she must have been in, and it was all my fault.
Her green and blue scales were blackening. Her wing beats were slower, and she groaned in her throat.
We had to be at least two thirds of the way up when my shield flickered, its integrity weakening. I knew Titus was struggling to keep it intact.
“Oh fuck. Fuck.” My voice cracked. “No. No. No!” Then I realized the reason we had slowed was because…
oh god. My stomach churned in horror. The membrane on her wings had been completely eaten away by the lava.
Slender bones covered in black, charred scales were all that remained of her once beautiful wings, and the sight was enough to make me wretch.
Zephyros: I’m sorry I can’t go any further, there’s nothing left of my wings.
Her voice agonized in my mind.
“No, We are going to get out of here, Zephyros don’t give up!!!”
And then silence.
“Zephyrosss, ZEPHYROS!!!!!!!” I wailed in agony. She was dying. The shield wasn’t going to hold much longer. This was it.
Titus’s shield was losing its integrity by the second, and Zephyros could no longer push me to the surface.
We were stuck, and we would most certainly be swallowed by Mount
Orid.
Then the entire realm shook again. “DELILAH!!!”
“TITUS!!!!!” I screamed, loud enough to shatter my own eardrum, but I knew he couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t an immortal. I didn’t have magic. All I had was…was…I felt my neck to make sure I still had them on.
“Breaking the chain and sending the pearls scattering will protect you from any type of magic temporarily.” The mermaids’ words echoed into my mind.
What’s more magical than an enchanted volcano?
Without another thought, I viciously yanked on the chain and the pearls fell—but they didn’t hit the ground. Instead, they suspended midair, then swirled around me, forming a new, stronger protective orb.
As soon as the pearls orb had taken shape, Titus’s shield shattered.
I yelled at the pearls. “NO, NO, save her too!!” But the pearls did not listen, as they were as inanimate as a regular piece of jewelry—
K. ROSé
merely enchanted, not sentient. The burst of energy that came from the pearls magic sent me upward.
“ZEPHYROS!!!!!!” I screamed so hard my voice gave out, and I collapsed to the ground of the new protective orb. Then I watched her body sink, her face slowly consumed by liquid fire until she was gone.
Zephyros: “Serving you has been my honor…friend.”
I was not worthy of that word.
“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” “Please no!!” “Zephyros!!!!!” I
sobbed psychotically; this was all my fault. The beautiful, unique dragon—my friend—was gone.
All I could do was look down and hope that my friend would resurface. In my heart, I knew she was gone.
I felt the connection we had in my mind go silent and cold.
The anguish, the grief— all I could do was scream and cry.
When I surfaced, Draxxinar swooped low to grab me by his talons, cradling me in his claws so sweetly, as if he already knew. He flew steadily and set me down gently at the base of the mountain before he landed nearby.
Titus fast traveled to me and collected my trembling body in arms that felt like iron.
Frantic, he began to say, “Thank the Guardians you are alive! But how?... my shield!”
“My pearls, they had a onetime protection enchantment on them, I used it, but I couldn’t save her! She’s dead because of me!” I interrupted and sobbed into his chest.
Just then his hand felt the blade sheathed at my hip. “You…you got it?” He asked with noticeable shock.
I pushed against his chest with my palms so he would put me down. He obeyed my nonverbal command and looked at me questionably. I withdrew the dagger and tossed it at his feet.
My hands trembled and my eyes were swollen and puffy. My skin was hot and red from the unforgiving heat, and through clenched teeth, I spoke, "take it, and end this, don’t let her death be for nothing."