Epilogue
BALE
Heat.
I sat with my eyes closed and focused on the cold stone and chill winter air. All I could feel, despite the icy draft, was fierce, consuming heat.
“Awaken.”
The voice was a command that I continued to ignore. I was awake, and yet, I was trapped at the heart of a storm that devoured my mind. Until I could find my way back to myself, I couldn’t pay that voice any heed.
A clattering sounded outside the cell. It could be my daily meal, though more likely, it was a new session with a whip or switch or blade.
They had stopped trying fire. Perhaps because they’d figured out it didn’t work, or perhaps because of the way their eyes shone with fear when I laughed as the flames licked harmlessly over my flesh.
Boots clomped on stone, and three men entered the cell.
There was no need to open my eyes. I was ready for the blow to the side of my head when it came.
It was my jailers’ preferred method of incapacitating me, not that I’d ever fought back.
Metal clanged against the stone at my side. Looks like it was mealtime after all.
I waited long after their footsteps dissipated down the corridor.
I’d have to open my eyes if I wanted to eat, but that brought its own challenge.
Sometimes, when they opened, I was in this miserable cell that held only a pile of straw and a bucket for piss.
Other times, I was deep beneath the ground, staring at a door made of pure flame.
Around me, there were small mushrooms that glowed with inner lights and little creatures that scuttled over my skin and pressed healing herbs to my wounds.
Every time, I sat there in peace with these tiny beings of magic until a single blink brought me back to this fetid cell.
After, the heat within me would rise to the point of overwhelm, and my willpower alone kept it contained within.
I shuddered to imagine what would happen if it escaped.
With a deep breath in and out, I pried my eyelids apart.
I was met with thick iron bars and my own sense of disappointment.
This place had given me a new appreciation for my cell in Rihtlond, not to mention my blue-eyed captor.
I pushed aside thoughts of Drake and instead fell on my latest favorite pain point—Serae.
She was safe. She had to be. The last I remembered, she was fleeing this cursed place in her Rihtlondish prince’s arms as an entire squadron fell before her.
Then, there was only fire, followed by blackness, followed by this delightful stone cell.
I was getting fucking tired of memory gaps.
“I will show you all, but first, you must come to me.”
That fucking voice.
“She is safe, this one you seek. Come to me, and I will show her to you.”
A trick if I’d ever heard one. Still, my thoughts lingered on my sister.
I’d been away from her for just over a year, yet in that time, she had grown into a woman I scarcely recognized.
It was not the power, no. Serae had always held a quiet power that others discounted.
It was what turned away would-be suitors and stilled the tongues of any gossipers—except for Merria, of course.
Now, there was a purpose to Serae. A sense of action.
“I know a thing or two about siblings. Let me tell you a story, and when I have finished, you may decide. Cast me out, and I will choose another in your place and leave you be. Agreed?”
Despite wanting to be left in peace, I found myself listening.
“I warn you now, Bale of Cavendaffe, brother to Serae of the Riht, that when all is known, your mind will be changed. This is a tale of truth, a tale of the past, and a tale, most importantly, of two brothers: Jerris and Patriol. This is the story of how these two ordinary people, born of simple folk from a small farm in the middle of nowhere, became extraordinary. They were the last of their kind, the last of the Dragonbound. This is the story of how they sealed the Great Dragons behind the doors of ice and blood and bone and flame; of how they sacrificed themselves to save the entire Mortal Realm from corruption by the Darkness; and, above all else, of how they completely and utterly failed.”