Chapter 80 Neslanox
Skylenna
Three Years Later
DaiSzek scares off three more teenagers.
I’m embarrassed to say it upset me more now than it usually does.
They come often, the unwanted visitors. Children, teenagers, and even adults.
They have put on theater performances of our lives, Dessin’s, mine, and DaiSzek’s.
And all it’s done is turn our home into a museum. Into a circus for freaks.
These three boys came poking around my front porch first, then found me planting flowers in front of Chekiss and Niles’s graves.
Kane was out chopping wood.
And I have been an emotional wreck since he returned. No one was hurt. DaiSzek scared the actual piss out of them, but I fell to my knees as they asked whose headstones I was visiting. Not necessarily an evil question. But today is Chekiss’s birthday.
And I am so tired of living in a fishbowl.
“Now, please,” Dessin commands sternly, opening the front door to our guests.
Our children, grandchildren, Warrose, Ruth, and Marilynn file inside. The kids who can run off to play, do so eagerly. Krimson holds a four-month-old in his arms, swaying the little boy back and forth as he sleeps.
“During our time in Vexamen, Aunt Marilynn shared a story about DaiSzek and Knightingale, the fae and elven warriors. Before they died, Marilynn, can you share with everyone what their dream was?” Dessin says, standing in front of the seating area by the fireplace.
“Yes, uh—” She adjusts the glasses on the bridge of her nose. “DaiSzek and Knightingale had a dream of ending up on a private island called Neslanox. They wanted to grow old together there, away from everyone after everything they sacrificed.”
Warrose and Ruth spin to me first.
“Wait,” Ruth spits out. “You’re not thinking…”
“Dessin?” Warrose asks.
“A few teenagers harassed my wife while she was planting flowers at Niles and Chekiss’s graves this morning. Alkadon has sent a letter requesting to meet Skylenna, me, and DaiSzek. No doubt to ask for our help in another war.”
The room goes utterly still.
“Skylenna and I have talked about this for a while, and even though we love our lives here. We love the Red Oak house. We love being so close to everyone… We need to go somewhere to live out the rest of our lives where only you all can follow.”
Dessin walks over to me, holding out his hand. I take it with knots in my stomach, anticipating how everyone will take this next part.
“And where is that?” Niklaus asks.
“Somewhere only Krimson and Sapphire have the keys to,” I answer.
The relief and joy for our decision outweighs the sadness. Our family rises to approach Dessin and me, surrounding us with hugs. With congratulations. With excitement to see where we end up.
Because we have twins that have the ability to time travel.
And it’s time Dessin, DaiSzek, and I find our Neslanox.
Skylenna
Nine Hundred Years in The Past
“Why are you laughing to yourself and staring at nothing?” I ask Dessin.
We’ve camped here for three weeks. As far from civilization as we can get. Our children were worried about us not having a house to live in, but they soon remember that Dessin and I once slept under the stars when we ran from the asylum. We slept by a fire and kept each other warm.
This is where we are happiest.
I finish off the cooked wild turkey Dessin caught with DaiSzek. It’s an early morning with dew sticking to the grass and fog simmering around the trees.
His chuckling tapers off. “We’re probably almost a thousand years in the past, Skylenna.”
“You think?”
“I made you a promise in the Vexamen Prison. Do you remember it?” he asks.
I shrug. “I’ve worked very hard to not remember my time in that place.”
He challenges me with a look. I sigh, lying on my back and gazing at the way the warm sunrise saturates the fluffy white clouds.
I scan the conversations I remember, and one stands out. We were cuddled up to the bars, and he was telling me about all of his alters…
I instantly understand why he was laughing.
“You promised to build me a castle,” I say with a gasp.
“Yes.”
I scan the area. The land before us without any architecture. Without any trace of civilization that came from Alkadon settlers when the Chandelier City was built.
“And what would be the perfect name for a castle so special? If not for the heroic time-traveling creature that saved our daughter’s life,” Dessin says, looking back out at the horizon of endless potential.
I bring my hands to the top of my head, trying to wrap my head around this.
“The Dellilian Castle…”
“It seems as though we know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I end up building that castle for you after all, baby.”
“It all started with us?!”
“They did promise her that they’d ensure her name would live on for a long time,” says with a slow smile.
I clap my hands, scratching DaiSzek’s head and whooping in excitement.
“You gonna help us build a castle, big boy? You’ll get your own room and everything!”
Dessin kneels in front of me, stroking the back of his knuckle along my cheek, memorizing the bliss painted on my face.
“You know what this means?” he asks.
I lean into his touch, my heart soaring at the way he’s looking at me.
“What?”
“We made it, Skylenna. We finally made it home. Out of captivity and to our Neslanox. And now, I’m going to build my princess a castle.”