Chapter 23 The Only Goodbye
TWENTY-THREE
THE ONLY GOODBYE
Darolus
“Where is Ssssabrina?” Melsya asks, spitting Sabrina’s name out with a hiss.
It has been hours since she left. I know because I have been counting the seconds since I heard the sound of her footsteps retreating, using my wound as an excuse not to go after her.
She does not want me to go after her. She wants to leave. If her crewmates are back and her ship is still here, she can.
“She left,” I grumble.
“Left? Where?” Melsya snaps. “She is not allowed to wander unguarded.”
I hiss and wave my hand. “She is not wandering.” I wish she were—then I would know she will come back. “I suspect she went into the tunnels and back to the surface. It is where she is so eager to be.”
Melsya coils her tail under her, flexing it. “What did you do to her? Did you tell her to go? It is dangerous traveling to the surface. She could lose her way.”
I shake my head. “You do not know her well enough then. My female is resourceful. She will find her way out.” It is what she has been doing all along…
“Resourceful or not, she has vouched for you and now she is gone. You are femaleless without her, and though you may not be able to trigger our heat any longer, it does not mean you are still not dangerous to ussss. You are not welcome here any longer, naga.”
My ears prick to the angry disdain in her voice.
“I will leave as soon as I am able,” I huff, raising my hand and rubbing the area where Sabrina accidentally stabbed me.
Melsya growls, snapping her tail. In reaction, two of her sisters cram into the doorway behind her, charging to her aid. They all hiss at me, baring their fangs and claws, and one their blade.
“You will leave now!” Melsya growls. “And if you are smart, you will go after her. I know why you left the forest, Darolus, as my memories have not faded with the seasons. You will regret not seeking your peace now that it is here.”
Despite the pain in my chest, I rise on my tail. “She is afraid of me! She said so herself.”
“As she should be! You do not become what you are without battles along the way. Your battles have been harder than most. But not everything needs to be a battle, Darolus.”
I wave her off, frowning heavily at her. “My place is with you, guarding the entrance to your borders, not chasing after her, a female who does not want to stay with me… I know where that gets us, where that leadssss me.”
“Where that gets others, not you. Now take thissss and leave.” She grabs a wad of bandage-like cloths at me for my wound.
“Not all the females here are pleased by your presence. Now that your female is no longer by your side, they will not allow you to stay—and neither will I. Sabrina was not the only one who vouched for you. I will not be forced into exile by my sisters, allowing you to stay, nor will I risk their lives.”
Hissing at her and the two females at her side, I use the wall to move my tail further under me, realizing how long it has been since I have truly been hurt physically or…
I thump my tail under me in an effort to frighten Melsya and the other two females out of my path. Watching them back away, and with my hand covering my wound, I slowly head for the exit, pain radiating through my chest. Melsya shakes her head at me when I pass.
She follows closely behind while the others stay back, watching from a distance. “Where are the rest of you?” I snap over my shoulder, peering back at Melsya.
Her eyes roam over the room before refacing me. “Dead or gone.”
Scanning the room one more time, and seeing several more females appear in the doorways and tunnels on the other side, I am surprised I count so few.
Melsya hisses again, forcing my attention back on her.
“Through here.” She points at the tunnel entrance directly to my right.
“Use your nose to reach the exit, the air gets clearer as you get near.” She moves to the tunnel but stops at the threshold, shifting to the side to let me pass.
As I enter the darkened path ahead, I scan her frail form once more.
“This is the last time we will speak, Darolus.”
Looking away from her as her words sink in, I stare off into the darkness, already searching for Sabrina, regret and worry filling me that I have sent her into danger willfully because I was hurt. But Melsya’s words draw my attention back to her. “What do you mean the last time?”
“We will be leaving and finding a new home immediately.”
Meeting her dark gaze in the gloom of blue light, I see the truth to her words, and that she means what she says.
“We will not need your offerings anymore,” she continues.
I have known her longer than any other being, and seeing her for the first time in seasons, after so long, a sadness hits me that I have not felt before. “Why?”
She turns her head away, looking at the other females in the room, her eyes going distant.
“You were right. We have been taking many risks, far more now than we have in many seasons. It seemssss that with time, things change, and so do our choices.” She peers back up at me.
“We have missed much that has happened in the land since we left, and though some of us may yet remain in isolation, the rest of us understand that way can no longer last as we are.”
Taking in the barrenness of their home, I shake my head. “You may die if you leave.”
“We are old, Darolus. Like you. And many of us have died down here in the dark. No more. At least not for me. I will return to the forest and see my clan once more if they should still be there, and let the last seasons of my life end, seeking that path and rejoining with them. I miss my father, my brother.”
“Melsya,” I say her name, picturing her as she once was in her youth, strong and warrior-like, unrelenting until the very end, especially against her opponents. “I am sad to see you go.”
We may not have spoken in ages but she is kindred all the same. Right now she feels like the closest being I have to a sibling, and I wonder why so many emotions are rising in me. Between Sabrina and Melsya…
I am losing everything.
A pain in my chest blooms deep inside, unlike anything I have experienced before, and I press my hand to my heart.
“I am not,” Melsya huffs. “I am tired of the dark.” She sweeps her tail across the floor. “Thank you for helping protect us, for keeping one of the entrances to our home safe, but your services are no longer needed, Titanoboa. You are free to go, and you must.”
There is a rush of low hisses from the rest of the female nagas. Giving them all one last look, I meet their eyes in the low blue light. Afterward, I face Melsya again. “I will not forget you.”
“Find her—” she tilts her head in the direction I need to go “—before another does and takes what you should have never let go.”
I grumble, my hands fisting at their sides. Turning back to the path ahead, I head into the tunnels without another thought, anxious now more than ever to have Sabrina safely back in my arms.
Melsya is right.
I should have never let her go.