CHAPTER 42
I can only be complete when I am one with Death.
—Entry from the private diary of Jerris, Dragonbound
SERAE
Awaken.
Do you remember yourself?
Who you are at your core?
What all the little things are that make you, you?
Remembering is the first step. Remember your love for those you care about most. Remember your passions, your likes, your dislikes. Remember the things that make you laugh. That make you cry. That make you hate.
Are you with me now, Small One?
This is how you exist in the realm of thought. Imagine yourself. Bend your imagination into being, and you shall be. Give yourself a body—your body—and command it. Anything you can dream, you can do in this realm.
Be.
I was. I felt a spark within my mind. It caused no pain until I remembered that such a thing as pain could exist. Then, it was excruciating.
I opened my mouth, and indeed, I had a mouth.
I filled my lungs with air and bellowed out a mighty scream.
As my voice strained, I remembered my arms, my legs, my face, my hair.
On and on through minutes and hours, I used that terrible sound to craft every part of me.
It gave me the red of my hair, the blue-green in my eyes, and the little scars that crisscrossed my skin. Piece by piece, I became myself.
I was standing, naked, in the middle of a grove of not-trees.
They grew from the ground like roots, jutting out at odd angles and bearing pink and green fruits that floated upward and gave off the faint aroma of rotting flesh.
There were no leaves on the not-forest floor, but there was plant life.
White flowers shaped like tiny balls of wrinkled fluff covered every inch of the ground and tickled my bare feet.
The soil that peeked through their minuscule gaps was pitch black.
“I see you.”
Vaya’la’s voice echoed from above and in my mind.
I looked up. Her dragon wings were spread wide, and she circled in tightening arcs as she descended to the ground before me amid this unlikely forest. Unbidden, a tear sprang to my eye at the sight of her, awake and flying. Every scale on her body gleamed in the red sun. She was magnificent.
As if knowing my mind, she preened. Lowering a graceful, monstrous wing, she beckoned me to climb. “Today, I will carry you.”
Atop her back, nestled between her shoulder blades, I rode over this strange, wondrous realm.
Not that I could enjoy it. Everything blurred together.
It was familiar, waking to a misshapen world before my glasses brought it to clarity.
Except, I had no glasses—needed none. I kept my eyes trained ahead, where I could see best, and only when she banked did I catch glimpses of the lands below.
My skin crawled. There was a wrongness to this world.
I knew this with a deep certainty, though looking at the diamond cliffs, red rivers, and violet grasslands, I saw only beauty.
We flew for hours. Weariness settled into my mind, dulling my thoughts.
Perhaps I slept, cradled in my seat. When Vaya’la began her circuitous descent, I woke, seeing with perfect clarity for the first time.
Matching her movements, I curved into the wind.
The magnificence of our flight ended before I could fully appreciate it.
We landed on a glass island, and something about its emerald hue tickled my memory.
A throne jutted out from the center, and upon it sat a being that was not a man, and yet he was.
He had hair and skin of flame. He wore no clothing—his body covered by armor made of black stone.
A pool of magma churned beneath us, and as I marveled at it, a creature moved from within.
The thing swam through the molten liquid and emerged at the other end of the island.
I recoiled. For several moments, it flopped and crawled as an amorphous blob until its shape resolved.
It stood on two thick legs, still burning from its core, though its outer skin had cooled to charcoal black.
As soon as the process was done, it marched off toward a dark spot on the horizon, and a new creature began its writhing beneath my feet. What was that thing?
“One of my army,” a voice, ageless and somehow familiar, answered the question I had not asked. “I was sorry to lose you from my fold.”
Brow furrowed, I did not respond. Or, perhaps, I didn’t quite know how to shape my voice. My eyes turned to that spot, where everything was drawn—where I was drawn. In it, I sensed malice and death. Instinct told me to flee, and yet, I wanted nothing more than to move toward it.
“Don’t be a child.”
It was Vaya’la’s voice, but she was missing.
In her place, a beautiful woman stood. Her hair was a living ecosystem unto itself that cascaded down her back and spilled over the glassy floor.
Her body was lithe and strong and glowed with a living green light over her timeless skin.
Before my eyes, great vines grew from that skin and formed around her as true living armor.
“My goddess.” I fell to my knees, but she touched a moss-covered hand to my cheek, bidding me to rise. Her hand pulled away, covered with small white blossoms.
“Vaya’la, my boon, what brings you to my humble rock?”
“What news, Tin’nen?”
His smile was hot and sharp. “What makes you think there’s news?”
“You’re amassing your army.”
“They don’t call me the Creator for nothing.” He flicked a dismissive hand. “I like your new pet. I’m thinking of taking one of my own.”
“The Creator?” My head whipped to him, but his eyes remained trained on Vaya’la, that horrible smile still in place. They both ignored me.
“Your sense of time is lacking.”
Tin’nen let out a crackling laugh. “Was, is, will—what’s the difference?”
Vaya’la smirked.
“Why are you here, Vaya’la? Your figure is stunning.
Your pet is striking. But, your sense of timing is foreboding.
” He flipped his flaming hair over one shoulder, allowing it all to cascade down his back as he turned away from her to look upon the growing black dot on the horizon.
“Long years have passed since giving you our pledges, and I alone am seeing it through. What more do you need of me?”
She moved to stand next to him. Her figure shifted with the strength of boulders diverting a stream, and she placed a single, slight hand on Tin’nen’s shoulder. The pale flowers that decorated her fingers did not so much as wither at the contact with his pure flame. “I need a favor, old friend.”
“Oh, is that what we are?”
“Always.”
Tin’nen placed a flaming hand atop Vaya’la’s and squeezed. “Name it,” he said, though I only heard his voice in my head. He had stopped speaking aloud, and yet, in this strange world, that did not stop him from speaking to us.
“Show her.” Vaya’la’s focus shifted to me, though her eyes remained fixed on that same black spot.
I stepped away. For the first time, I was aware of my nakedness. The thought of clothes formed in my mind, and they took shape over my body. I was wrapped in a green underdress complete with leggings and boots, except they were made entirely of leaves.
“She must understand. She needs to see it.”
Both of them turned to me. The weight of their gazes—these dragons, these gods, these living entities of power—forced me back another step. “No.”
Tin’nen held out a flaming hand. “Come.” He took a single step and was before me, despite having been halfway across the glass island.
My hand was in his, though I didn’t remember giving it.
I tried to pull away, but his hand clasped firm.
“Open your eyes,” he spoke into my mind. “Do not fear the power of sight.”
I blinked, and I was in the air. A scream ripped from my throat, but it didn’t meet my ears.
Soaring high above the Darkness, I was a fool to ever think it a mere spot.
It was a land as vast and black as night—no, not night.
The night is a place of cool, crisp peace.
The blackness of this land was the unending sleep, the restless torment, and the cunning embrace of death.
It beckoned as much as it revolted me. Before my eyes, it seeped and grew, swallowing land and sea, rock and tree.
Fear gripped my mind as it turned the depthless waters into flat pits and replaced every speck of light across the lands with shadow.
It was rotten and hollow and beautiful as the coming storm, captivating my senses while it wreaked havoc around us.
“This creature is one of mine.”
As soon as Tin’nen spoke the words, I became aware of the body we inhabited—a winged ball of flame given sight.
Though we had become this strange sentry-like creature, I knew that it was separate from me.
Seeing through its singular eye, we soared above the darkness until its vision began to adjust. The shadows below lurched and writhed, and as I watched, unable to look away, they took shape.
They came together from death and darkness in a way that was alike and yet entirely unlike Tin’nen’s fire beasts emerging from the magma.
I recognized the churning in my stomach. I had felt this wrongness once before.
“You know them,” Tin’nen said into my mind.
“Yes,” I replied through our mental link. “How can I hear you?”
“We are connected by touch.”
“Only you and I are always connected, Small One. Without a binding, the mental link with another requires a physical one, too,” Vaya’la explained, though she was miles away from the fiery creature we inhabited.
“You can also hear him?” I asked.
“Only because he speaks to us both.”
I watched the sickening creatures as they sprouted arms and legs, snouts and scales. Though my mind was miles away, I felt bile rise in my throat. “No wings.”