Chapter 36 #2
But through the panic, she looked down, down at the huge claws that had caged her and lifted her from the ground, and she watched the forest bleed into a map of green and brown and grey.
Only then did she manage to get a grip of herself and look up to where Thara soared above her, the underside of her wings such a beautiful shade of olive that Arla had ever seen. She drew a long breath of cool air, finally letting her body fall limp in the dragon’s grasp.
‘Breathe. Then we shall settle your heart.’
Thara’s voice had never sounded so gentle. So … motherly.
Arla didn’t attempt to stop the silent tears that spilled down her cheeks as they flew and flew and flew.
Only when she could breathe without her chest hitching did Thara finally land on the edge of a cliff sheltered from view of the rest of the queendom.
The dragon set Arla down gently, sticking close enough that should Arla fall, Thara would be there to catch her.
A shadowy cave opened up before them, a dark hole into which she was all too eager to disappear.
Thara followed her into the mouth of the cave, huffing gently and sending warm breath over Arla’s bare and bleeding skin.
It really had been stupid to leave the palace in nothing more than a flimsy nightgown.
And she was shaking, every muscle tight and trembling as she made her way deeper into the cave and slumped down to the floor.
For long minutes she hid her face in her hands, knees brought up to her chest – anything to try and hide from the suffocating truth.
Blazing heat and warm light filled the cave, and when Arla lifted her tear-soaked face, she found a fire burning in the centre of the space, wood and torn fabric bundled together to form a fire pit of sorts.
She instinctively moved closer, ignoring the throb in the soles of her feet as she shuffled closer to the fire.
Thara rumbled softly, approving, almost.
‘Thank you,’ Arla murmured, inching as close to the fire as she dared. This fire … it was hotter, than usual and seemed to burn brighter, seemed to be hypnotising in its collage of colours.
‘It is dragonfyre. Don’t stare too hard – your human eyes won’t bear it.’
Arla tore her eyes away and was surprised to find that she had to blink rapidly before the rest of the cave came back into focus. Thara lurked near her, the dragon’s nose close enough to touch.
‘Forgive me that I have been unable to share such stories. The way the fates work has long been contested amongst my kind, but their commands are final.’
What was there to say? The one being that could understand her, could feel every emotion, every thought, and she was bound not to speak of the things that turned Arla’s very world upside down. It ran deeper than betrayal.
‘I’ll die, then,’ she finally choked out. ‘I’ll die because one of your gods is so hungry to rule the world that he will attempt to move through me.’
She spat the words, hating the gods and their plans, hating the fates and the prophecies and the sands and stars and everything that had ever plotted against her.
Why her?
‘I had … suspected, that in those moments where you were not yourself, there was indeed someone moving through you. It is no consolation, Dragonhart, I am sure.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ she snapped, flinging her arms out and wincing at the cuts on her skin that stretched with the movement.
‘Damon killed himself to stop your god turning him into something evil. The same will happen to me, and there will be no uniting of the kingdoms. You all failed, you know! You and the gods and whatever fucking role the fates have!’
She was shouting now, her voice echoing through the chamber as if it would give her strength. She didn’t care anyway. She’d shout no matter what.
‘You all fucking failed to stop whatever god rose above his station. You all claim to be so fucking powerful, and you stopped nothing.’
Thara was silent.
And then her voice was there again. Everywhere and nowhere. In Arla’s head and in the cave and perhaps throughout the entire kingdom.
‘You believe we have failed you.’
‘Believe?’ Arla snarled. ‘I know you have—’
‘You forget that we have lived for centuries. You don’t believe we have learned from our mistakes? Dragonhart, we each vowed not to allow the old wrongs to be repeated. Prophecy or not, we will not allow your mind to fall victim to the fallen one.’
The fallen one. The god that was going to send her insane and have her kill herself in his pursuit of power.
‘How is any of this possible? How is a god inside me?’
Thara sighed, heat flooding the cave as the dragon settled beside her.
‘He is not inside you, as such. But there is a fragment of him that lives and latches onto any who wields a certain magic. In the war of gods and dragons, we managed to defeat him. But he had been dabbling with dark magic for so long, and magic as an entity … it does not know how to unexist. A fragment of him – of the darkness he created – has evaded all attempts by the gods to destroy him. He clung to Damon and tried to overtake his mind so that the god might know a body again. He will do the same to you.’
Arla wretched, bile burning the back of her throat.
She wished she could rip off her skin. She wished she could shred her body to ribbons to avoid such a fate.
Her voice was quiet, though, when she managed to form words. ‘That’s why I’ve been so angry, isn’t it? Why I’ve not been able to stop myself from being so violent. Only you have managed to pull me out of it…’
Thara nudged her elbow and silent tears dripped from the end of Arla’s nose at the contact.
‘I have seen it happen before. To the one who came before you. The fallen one will send you so far into your emotions that you will lose yourself in them. It is a weakness he has always known how to exploit. It is why I have had to pull you from those fits of emotion. If you wander too far, Dragonhart, you become weak. And when you become weak, he will take control. That’s where a shadow of a soul can grow into a god.
I will kill you before I let you fall to that. ’
The words shouldn’t have been so comforting, and yet they were a salve for the fury in her blood. At what was being done to her. To the world.
But the anger was ebbing away, like a tide retreating no matter how desperately she tried to cling to it. Her voice didn’t hold the sharpness she wished it did. And she … she was exhausted.
‘And how do you suppose we end this?’
Thara sighed down the bond, inching forward to rest her jaw lightly against Arla’s shoulder. The action yanked at something in Arla’s chest.
‘The fates have not yet revealed that information. I believe the path will become clearer now you are beginning to learn the stories of old. Often it takes the smallest of pulls for a thread to unravel. I don’t doubt this path will be similar.’
She didn’t think she had the capacity to know any more. For any of it to become any clearer. She still didn’t know how she was supposed to unite the kingdoms…
It filled her with incomprehensible fury, the fingers of it latching on and digging beneath the marrow of her bones.
Damn the fates for not sharing the path they’d set her on!
Arla had thought the secrets Thara had to keep were infuriating, but this …
to keep the fates from the dragon so that Thara could not even guess at what was coming felt entirely cruel.
It made her want to burn the world and take the fates out with it.
‘Take me back,’ Arla said, sniffing, already reaching up for the spikes on Thara’s back. ‘Please.’
They flew into the night, leaving the flames of the fire roaring like a secret promise in the shrouded safety of the cave.