25
Believ
I open my eyes to a field of ruins bathed in an unearthly light. Orange rays sweep over the rubble surrounding me, enveloping me in a soft warmth.
Am I dead?
I find shelter below a wall, but the devastated landscape in front of me hasn’t been so lucky.
I try to sit up straight and take in the strange, apocalyptic scenery. How did I end up in the middle of this rubble, from which emerge broken limbs at the ends of which probably lie the corpses of human beings?
There”s nothing left of the subterranean tunnels, buried forever with their foul secrets. I scan my surroundings; only dust floats. No sign of a human presence; I remain alone. I begin to panic. Ember! Where is Ember? Please, God, let him be alive somewhere, and not under my feet. I try to suppress a sob.
My seizure must have been more violent than the previous ones; I have no memory of what happened. There”s no time to lose. I must find my ghost without delay. Of course, I reason with myself that a spirit floats, that nothing tangible can reach it, but I do remember one thing: he was in a very bad way the last time I saw him and, despite all his huffing and puffing to come to my rescue, something prevented him from doing so.
I”m leaving the cave that seems to have protected me from a destructive collapse when, all of a sudden, the wall shifts! A frightful roar resounds behind my back! What the...?
Stunned, I turn around to face the improbable: a dragon! I can”t help but recoil, although I”m not sure whether it”s fear that”s driving me or the need to understand what I”m seeing. What is this creature doing here? How come dragons exist?
No... The physical proof of what I”ve learned in the basement is staring me in the face. Magical creatures do exist, and I”ve been visited by the most extraordinary of them all.
Despite everything, an instinctive cry gets stuck in my throat.
Its mouth opens wide, revealing countless fangs that leave me no chance of survival. What relieves me is that I”m unlikely to suffer either.
“Believ. Is everything all right?”
That voice...
The mere vibration of that timbre moves me. Tears escape from my eyes, and I can”t contain them. Is he really here?
“Don”t be afraid, Believ. We did it. You did it...”
With my eyes locked on the azure eyes of the charcoal beast, whose warm breath comes through the imposing row of teeth, I struggle to gather my wits. What is he hinting at? Why does he remain hidden? Why is he leaving me at the mercy of this carnivorous creature?
“We did it?” I struggle to articulate.
“This is me. You gave me back my body and my identity. You saved me.”
What does this mean?
“Y-you?” I stammer, flabbergasted, now recognizing the particular hue of those irises staring back at me.
“I”m Ember Crow. I”m a—”
“Dragon.”
My voice is lost in the breeze. My stiff is a fucking dragon!
What does this mean?
Did I do the right thing by helping him? How could I have been on the right side by helping to eliminate him?
The questions keep coming, without ever finding a logical answer.
Magic exists, but dragons?
“Dragons exist, Believ.”
“You’re reading my mind again! Frankly, you”re overdoing it!”
“Please forgive me.”
This is the first time he”s been so familiar. It”s as if something has changed, as if the accomplishment of this mission has sealed the bond we established when our paths crossed. And yet, it”s not a bright future that awaits us...
“What is it, my sweet?”
“My sweet?” Where did that come from again?
At the same time, I feel exhilarated by this new-found intimacy. I bite my tongue. Time is running out, and I”m not going to let myself be lulled by sweet words. I straighten up, trying to adopt a firmer posture.
“Nothing you can”t handle. You”re a dragon, and you”ve got your body back. Your life is back on track. As for mine...”
“Yours promises to be long and lovely. I”ll help you find your son, I promise. I”ll never leave you again.”
Fine promises he”ll never be able to keep. And for good reason: if his life is enjoying a revival, mine seems fatally compromised by my simple allegiance to the Sin Eaters.
“I don”t understand,” he laments. “Please explain.”
Will he ever get out of my mind? He chuckles slightly, and it echoes strangely in my head.
“I”d never do that. I love you too much for that,” he says, his tone now serious.
What did he just say?
My heart has just missed a beat. I freeze as I stare at him, magnificent and majestic. A dragon telling me he loves me is incongruous enough, but for it to be Ember, a ghost who”s become a man again without really being one... It”s just... No, in fact, I”m stunned, mainly because no one down here, apart from my son, has ever told me they love me. For a first-timer, I should be exploding with joy and euphoria. I should be jumping into his arms, doing or expressing something, but I”m still stunned.
That it comes from a chimerical being accentuates the exceptional nature of this moment. What am I saying? This whole adventure was extraordinary and pretty much doomed from the start. So, to add to this incredible story, the fact that three magical little words came from an equally magical being seems almost logical.
What about me? Who am I fooling besides myself? Because what I feel for him is genuine, and it”s eating me up. I know the beginnings of a state of love; I”ve been in it enough to be able to identify the symptoms. And right now, as I stare at this heavenly creature, my heart swells with immense love and sorrow because there will be no happy ending for us. As I was pointing out, it was dead before it even started. What irony! What shitty timing too!
One day, I”m going to have to come to terms with this fate that”s haunted me since birth. But I can”t! Everything in me revolts at the thought of this tear that”s about to begin. I need to scream my rage and distress. To cry out to heaven for a reason that”s about to fall flat. The blatant injustice I”ve suffered for so many years finds an outlet in the outcome of our story. And there”s nothing I can do about it. In this single moment, I hate Eltz, the whole Brotherhood, and the Church as a whole. If there really is a God in this universe and He”s good, let Him help me, because I can”t do it alone.
I pull myself together, clearing my throat, although a ball of distress clogs my windpipe. Damn! I feel like a part of me is going to be torn apart, and I”m going to suffer a thousand pains if I speak out loud. I contemplate the being for whom my heart has been beating for a few days—or has it always been? Time is playing tricks on me, and it”s with a barely suppressed sob that I tell him my implacable truth.
“Ember, you don”t understand. There is no ‘us.’ What we shared was an enchanted interlude in a sea of troubles, but I”m going to die,” I exclaim, frustrated that I can”t let myself dream because my situation is so shaky.
“One day, perhaps. And yet, nothing is less certain.”
Although I can”t make out his features, I can hear in his voice the certainty that he”ll put his heart and soul into finding a way. I”m getting to know him. His conviction is the law. He”s unwavering in his actions; he”ll go through with it, whatever it takes. And it”s this powerful personality that I”ve fallen in love with. Where I’ve simply followed a path laid down by others, he follows his own and never deviates from it.
I speak of him as a man, despite the aspects of his personality that I don”t know. What do I know about magical creatures and their powers, other than what folklore has bequeathed us? But since they’re all lies woven by the Church, I find it hard to put any faith in them. Speaking of faith, I haven”t got a shred of it left.
“Not one day. Soon. Too soon,” I assert, my voice firming.
There”s no point in prolonging the suffering. I”ll try to cope with mine, added to the lack of my child. I don”t know how, but I”ll find a way to survive. His, on the other hand, will destroy me. That”s not a figure of speech. His pain will literally overwhelm me. I already felt it when we met. As long as it didn”t leave him, it clung just as tightly to my heart. At this moment, I pray that the pain I”m about to inflict on him will be less intense than the loss of his identity and his body.
“Why?” he asks.
His tone suggests that he”s genuinely taken aback by the lack of doubt in the wording of my reply. I owe him this vile and implacable truth, which I refrained from telling him earlier, not deeming it appropriate to reveal its content.
“Because if I stop feeding on sin, I”ll be extinguished. No other nourishmentcan sustain me now. And you”ll understand why I”m no longer interested in pursuing this profession, now that I know the whole mission was a sham! I”ve killed creatures! I’ve stripped them of their souls...”
Tears are now rolling down my cheeks, an expression of the terrible guilt that”s choking me to death.
Even if I wasn”t aware of it, I”ve condemned dozens of magical beings, maybe even hundreds. Who knows what the human element was in those I assisted? Were there any? Did I ever officiate for good?
“You...”
He falls silent, unable to complete his sentence, a devastating sadness drowning his steely gaze.
“These crises that control me are an expression of lack. Since we met, I haven”t practiced my profession. I haven”t fed myself. My addiction is consuming me little by little.”
“You”re exaggerating, aren”t you?” he tries to reassure himself.
“I”m going to die, Ember.”
My voice breaks, like our illusions crashing to the ground. I close my eyes to let my guilt and bottomless sorrow flow. A breath ruffles my hair. I raise my eyes instantly. He manages the feat of adopting a smaller size. The gigantic being is transformed into a dragon barely two meters tall.
With his wings, he embraces me and presses me against his muscular chest. I feel his heart beating behind the leather of his scaly skin, the heart that had been extinguished and whose executioner I almost was.
“I”m going to die...”
These last words make my destiny more palpable. I let myself be misled, carried away by the hope of finding Lewis. I lacked discernment and sacrificed myself to a cause that wasn’t my own, a cause I detest and will fight without mercy as long as I draw breath.
“I won”t leave you, ever,” he murmurs in a hoarse breath that sounds like a promise of eternity. “Hang on, they”re coming.”
Before I know what he”s talking about, he”s grabbing me with his powerful talons and carrying me away in the glow of the Welsh sunrise, the sun of legends.
And here I am, my hair blowing in the wind, admiring the landscape, clutching in my closed fist a small pebble slipped into my pocket earlier.
[1] In reference to folklore linked to the ghost of Sir Roland Rhys, accompanied by his pet ape, present at Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire.