Chapter 8
For the first time since the dark walls of The Abyss had slammed shut around him, Garrett felt the crushing cage inside his mind completely disintegrate.
Aodhan surged forward. The Dragon King didn’t slink through the shadows or use a masked presence to hide from their captors anymore.
He fully, magnificently unfurled. The sheer, staggering scale of the presence expanding inside Garrett’s consciousness nearly stole what little breath he had left.
Garrett’s human memories remained locked behind a heavy veil of trauma, but the muffled, static-filled connection to his Dragon was gone.
Aodhan’s mind was suddenly as clear as ice, and twice as sharp.
“We cannot break Leviathan’s spell, my boy,” Aodhan’s voice rumbled deep in Garrett's chest, vibrating against his broken ribs.
Garrett’s stomach dropped into a cold, dark pit. “We can't?”
“We do not have to,” the King added, a fierce, primeval current of Power thrumming beneath the words.
Through their reestablished link, the Dragon King flooded Garrett’s mind with raw understanding, explaining only what was necessary.
Leviathan’s complex trap was built entirely on stolen, bastardized Dragon Magic.
The Demon Lord had bound them here, forcing King Magic into the role of an immobile anchor and drawing Queen Magic to act as the triggering key.
But those roles were unnatural. They were a violent distortion imposed by a lesser creature.
“If Kara and I willingly reconnect our ancient Dragon Magic,” Aodhan explained, his Light flaring behind Garrett’s eyes, “We can change the fundamental command of this room. We will not destroy the lock. We will rewrite what it does.”
Garrett looked across the blood-stained floor at the blond woman holding his gaze, her hand still hovering in the air. He trusted her, even if his mind couldn't remember why.
“And what does that cost us?” Garrett asked inwardly.
Silence was the only answer he got.
Dragging his chin up another inch, Garrett forced his unfocused, bloodshot vision to clear. Before the primordial Magic of the Dragons completely consumed his consciousness, he needed to look at her. Really look at her.
His human brain still couldn't unlock the specific memories of their past, if they even had one in the physical world.
It remained trapped behind a wall of inky, black trauma.
But now that she was physically standing less than ten feet away from him, the fragments that had haunted his fever dreams during his worst nights of torture suddenly aligned.
The halo of untamed blond curls, pinned up in a messy pile atop her head. The striking, fiercely protective blue eyes. Both were there.
His gaze drifted lower. He took in the muscles and curves of her shapely legs, looked past her jeans, to the very bottom of her frame. There were the light blue tennis shoes with the white toes.
Garrett’s breath hitched in his chest, a sharp gasp that made his broken ribs protest. They hadn't been hallucinations.
The strange, vibrant splashes of canvas color that had flickered through his mind while Leviathan tore at his soul hadn't been a dying mind's tricks.
Those stubborn, beautiful fragments had been her.
“You,” he breathed, the word scraping past his raw throat.
Sydney’s shoulders shifted, her blue eyes tracking the sudden, profound change in his expression. “What?”
Garrett swallowed down a mouthful of soot and blood, his eyes locking back onto the bottom of her feet. “The shoes.”
Sydney blinked, completely thrown by the direction of his focus. She looked down at the dead black stone beneath her soles. “My tennies?”
He gave the tiniest nod he could manage, a faint glint of silver sparking in his lavender eyes. “I remembered them.”
Sydney’s eyes filled with hot, unshed tears that glittered under the chamber's pulsing light. Her lips curved into a fierce, watery smile that completely defied the darkness around them. “Well, at least your priorities are intact, Dragon Man.”
It was a fragile breath of warmth right in the middle of Armageddon.
But as the fleeting comfort passed, Garrett’s tactical instincts kicked back online.
He looked at the layout of the cavern. Sydney was standing squarely between his obsidian prison and the darkness where Leviathan paced.
This five-foot-two, curvy blond woman had willingly crossed Realms, marched directly into the mouth of The Abyss, and placed her own body as a shield between a Demon Lord and a broken Guardsman.
Every single masculine, protective instinct Garrett possessed instantly lost its damn mind. His Dragon King roared in outright fury at the proximity of the threat to their female. He wanted to break the chains with his bare teeth. He wanted to tear the chamber apart.
And yet, he had to let her stay. He had to trust her to hold the line.
“Han,” Garrett demanded inwardly, his mental voice cutting through the rising tide of Dragon Magic. “The price. Tell me what rewriting this damn thing costs us. Right now.”
The Dragon King didn’t answer with a grand speech.
He gave Garrett the raw, unvarnished truth, stripped of all mythology.
“To override Leviathan’s command, Kara and I must completely open the King and Queen bond,” Aodhan matter-of-factly stated, the weight of centuries pressing down on Garrett's consciousness.
“For several seconds, there can be no shields. No mental barriers. No defenses. We must be entirely naked to the magic of this room.”
Garrett’s soul turned to ice. He immediately understood the danger. “Leviathan.”
“Yes,” Aodhan confirmed grimly. “With our defenses dropped, the Demon Lord will have unfettered access to your mind. He will find every memory we fought to hide. And through our connection to Drakara... he will see into Sydney’s mind, too.
Everything we sacrificed to protect will be completely exposed to him. ”
Garrett didn't hesitate. “No. We find another way.”
“We cannot,” a clear, vibrant female voice interrupted.
Garrett’s eyes snapped up. Because of the quickening King and Queen connection, Sydney was hearing Han directly through the bond. She knew the price. She looked straight at Garrett, her blue eyes blazing with a fierce, unbreakable resolve.
“Do it,” Sydney said aloud, her voice ringing off the obsidian walls.
“No,” Garrett rumbled, his chains rattling violently as he tried to pull forward. “Sydney, you don’t understand what he’ll do to your mind…”
“We are not doing this again, Dragon Man,” she shot back, stepping closer, refusing to let him retreat into his protective shell.
Underneath the sudden clash, Garrett realized the true nature of the test before him. For months, his entire existence had revolved around a singular, consuming directive: keep her safe. Hide her. Shield her from the dark. But now, she wasn’t asking for his protection. She was demanding his trust.
“You don’t have to save me from every choice I make, Garrett,” Sydney said, her tone softening just enough to slice right through his masculine stubbornness. She held his gaze, offering her hand, palm up, just inches from the boundary line. “Trust me enough to let me fight beside you.”
Garrett stared at her. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to pull her back, to hide her behind his own broken body.
But looking into those fierce blue eyes, he saw a Warrior, not a victim.
She shared her soul with one of the first Dragon Queens, and she was entirely capable of holding her own ground.
He closed his eyes, swallowing the last of his fear, and surrendered his control to her.
If trusting Sydney destroyed everything, then that was what the Universe and Fate had intended.
“Aodhan,” Garrett commanded silently.
The Dragon King knew. Inside Garrett's mind, the massive, iron-clad walls came crashing down.
While Sydney and Garrett locked eyes across the divide, a tempest of violence raged just a few feet away. Carrick wasn't giving a grand performance or dragging Leviathan into an endless duel– he was doing what a legendary Dragon Leader did best. He was buying them time.
Leviathan hurled a torrent of jagged, dark energy against Carrick's defenses– the unholy Sorcery hissed like acid against crimson and gold.
Carrick didn't flinch. He planted his boots, his jaw locked in a grimace of pure, ancient badassery, and drove his shoulders forward.
With a sharp grunt, he redirected the kinetic force, throwing the blast straight back at the Demon Lord.
The impact sent a shockwave through the cavern, shattering a massive obsidian stalagmite and forcing Leviathan to twist out of the way.
The ambient temperature in the cavern plummeted.
Leviathan came to an abrupt halt, his onyx eyes instantly snapping toward the center of the room.
The casual, smug confidence that had masked his features cracked, revealing a flash of genuine panic.
He felt it… the sudden, violent shift in Aodhan’s Magic.
The anchor wasn't resisting anymore. It was shifting frequencies.
“What are you doing?” Leviathan hissed, his voice losing its smooth veneer. For the first time since their nightmare began, the Demon Lord was completely behind the play.
Deeper in the spiritual plane, Aodhan and Kara began to align perfectly. The cosmic geometry of Dragon King and Queen locked into place, humming a note that resonated through the fabric of The Abyss.
Garrett felt Sydney’s Magic approach. It didn't slam into his mind like Leviathan’s invasive, agonizing probes.
It didn't tear at his defenses or demand compliance. Her raw, magnificent Light gathered at the edge of his consciousness, hovering like a warm, patient sun. She was completely capable of forcing her way inside, but she didn’t. She waited.