Gisiroth had been a king of peace. He had retired from fighting years ago. He had preferred negotiations rather than senseless violence. But this man was inclined to hurt himself in such a gruesome way, just to make things “fun.”
“Father,” Rylan said. He reeled from the strangeness of Gisiroth. “Perhaps we should talk.”
“About Sera, yes?” Gisiroth said. He waved his hand dismissively. “I did make a promise . . .”
“Yes, and . . .” Micah looked at the knife. “Your actions have raised plenty of questions.”
He eyes flickered into yellow, and suddenly I felt like an insect in the middle of a vast ocean. “I can block her from coming—Aereala. You four will have more years with your precious toy. That is, until it all turns to chaos.”
“Who are you?” I asked. Chills crawled past my skin.
He tilted his gaze, still locked on me. “Your father, of course.” The more he looked at me, the smaller I felt. Power emanated from him, like an endless well of sheer energy, with the potential to level the world.
“Ours, you mean?” Kael asked.
“That, too.” He broke his stare and forced a laugh. “Oh, I’m just teasing. I am Gisiroth. Old king of Constanria who wishes to retire. It’s good to be home, in this familiar room, back in the same, comfortable sheets.”
Metal sliced through the air, and growling sounded from all around me. I peeled my soul beads from my satchel and held on them tightly. I found Bianca’s bracelet, and figuring it would be useful to have it clasped on my skin, I wrapped it around my glove and fastened it tight.
Weapons from the four princes pointed at Gisiroth, and they all adopted fighting stances.
“You never stayed in this room,” Gaius said. His pupils had flashed to yellow, and his claws poked out from his fingernails. “We ask again. Who are you?”
Gisiroth faked a hurt expression. “How bold you’ve become. And I thought the lot of you cared about Sera. Do you really want to threaten your only hope of saving her?”
All our interactions flooded through my mind. What did he mean he was my father? Aereala did talk about Gaean being sent away. I sensed the vastness of realms weighing down on me, or at least, a fraction of that power. But didn’t Gisiroth also bear the same presence? They had a knack for making anybody cower before them.
“You’re Gaean, aren’t you?” I asked. It was a stretch. A mere hypotheses. But I wanted to know if the entity standing before me was the god who had been trying to rip apart the balance, the wretched force who had sentenced all those humans to death.
A living god, standing before me.
He shifted in his seat. His minute movement sent tension sprawling across the room. “Part of him, at least. They call me the crazy one.”
Trying to think quickly, I ran toward the balcony and positioned myself to block the exit. Numerous battle spells flickered through my mind. I hadn’t brought Pointy with me, so I couldn’t use the fighting skills Kael had taught me, but I doubted the sword would do well against a large man like Gisiroth, much less a god.
“Are we really doing this?” Gaean said, squaring his shoulders. I couldn’t stop staring at the pattern he’d carved into his chest. “This is almost pathetic.”
“What did you do to Aereala?” I asked. The soul magic sensed me wanting to use it, and it had left the beads to prickle my fingertips, even though I hadn’t uttered a spell.
Gaean tutted. “And why should you care about her? The goddess intends to take your body. I can save you. Just say the word. Pity about the killing. We’re not allowed to kill our creations, at least not directly—free will and all that. Nyxius always makes a big fuss about all that. Shame about balance and not being the only force working over the world, but I could not create this much without Aereala’s bright souls helping me.”
He shook his head and flew from his seat. In seconds, he was in front of me. He grabbed my hand and tugged me to the balcony.
“Sera!” Gaius called. He was the first to leap and beat Kael to it.
“I just want a little talk,” Gaean said.
But Gaius sliced the god’s arm off. His ax went right across Gaean’s shoulder joint and rivulets of blood landed on my cheeks. I could almost taste the iron scent of the liquid, which stained the humid air. I froze as I stared at his ghastly wound. The flesh there pulsed and spurted. The white of his bone stuck out from muscle—I’d never seen anything this gruesome before. I’m sure the healers did but medicine had never been my field, and the sight might me want to vomit.
Gaean didn’t even flinch from his pain. “My children. I suppose I’d trained you to be this aggressive. Will you refuse my offer, dear Sera?”
“I . . . I was told not to trust you,” I forced out. “By Aereala.”
“Ah, my love. Why does she always have to disagree? She keeps asking me to return but that would be such a shame.” A grave look of disappointment sunk his expression. “It’s always so much more fun to see chaos spark by itself.”
“Why do you want to kill us?” I asked. “Why wipe everything out?”
Gaean tipped his jaw. “It’s not that I hate you or anything. Trust me, it’s not personal.” He placed a hand on his chest. “It’s Aereala’s fault really. She creates things so slowly and doesn’t want to give up her essence. To spark more creations, I inevitably tip the balance. I still love you all. I’m just so horrible at managing myself sustainably. It’s a pity really, that Nyxius is so hard at doing his job of maintaining the balance.”
Rylan and the others, seeing Gaean weakened and ranting, rushed to capture him. Micah dived forward and Kael flung one of his daggers at the god. But Gaean was faster than anything I’d ever seen, and he held the powers of the realms. What was it he said about being only one of him? Were there multiple?
He vanished before Kael’s dagger met his skin.
“Where is he?” Micah asked.
“Over here,” Gaean said, blowing a kiss in our direction. He crouched on the ledge of the balcony, his posture like a cat’s. His gaping wound was stitched back together, and a nub grew where his missing arm should be.
“You don’t have to do this,” Rylan said.
Gaean grinned, eyes glinting like a dagger. “Oh, but I do. My motivations are not small-minded like you. I am a force.”
“We can talk this through.”
“Will Sera listen to my demands?”
“I won’t,” I said.
The god winked. “Well, I might already have you.”
Huh?
Before we could catch him, Gaean was no more, and he misted into nothing, vanishing like a song in the winds.
I said, “W-we’ve . . . We’ve unleashed Gaean onto Constanria. This was what Aereala was talking about.” I felt lightheaded. From the shock, maybe? I sensed a tingling on my arm, so I glanced down and peeled my glove back. A bluish glow had started there, looking similar to the pink one the princes had described about the one Aereala had given.
Rylan, Kael, and Micah peered over the balcony, trying to find traces of the god, but Gaius came to my side. I thought I was going to faint. I stumbled, and Gaius caught me as soon as I lost balance.
“What is this?” I asked. The glow was spreading, threatening to take me whole. It was becoming difficult to keep awake.
“Sera?” Gaius said. “Can you hear me? Sera! Holy fucking—”
His voice was an echo in the distance. I nodded. My mouth became too slack for me to reply. I wanted to sleep.
Then another force came into me, interrupting the glow of Gaean’s, and it felt like two powers clashing inside my body, fighting for dominance. Pink and blue. The magic rushed against each other, pounding and pounding and searing my insides.
Gaius held me in his strong arms and pulled me up to the bed. The soft sheets and his warmth lessened the pain, but tiredness soon overtook me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There were no more signs of the dick-shaped rock in the spiritual realm, just pink skies and barr
en fields. Barren? They had been flourishing before. Dead birds lay around me, and Aereala stood before me, her features a scrunched-up mess of anger. The smoke swirling from her form swished around in an aggressive manner, forming tendrils that looked ready to kill.
She couldn’t see me. As her eyes searched around, they didn’t meet mine. She sensed my presence though, and she clasped my bare hand to talk to me. The rage on her face made me want to run. The goddess often spoke to me with a distant attitude; I didn’t think I’d seen her with so much emotion before.
“What have you done?” she yelled. Her voice cascaded upon me, layered in its tune. “I was trying to keep him away, and now he is back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because my powers were preoccupied. It took all my attention to make sure he couldn’t come to the Drae Lands, and yet you brought him here despite all I’d been trying to prevent. And now I’ve wasted more of my power trying to stop Gaean from infecting your body. He was trying to infuse his essence in you, making it harder for me to come. Luckily, his effect on the human body is weaker than mine, and I’ve been investing my own power into you since your creation.” She kneaded her brow and blew out a tired breath.
I shivered under her verbal lashing. A pit had formed inside my stomach as the meaning of our actions dawned on me
We never should have left for Gaia.
There should have been a warning!
I r-called the word of “danger” in the witches’ tome. Did they have a premonition of this? Or had they known Gaia was destroyed?
I should have listened to the dissenters. I shouldn’t have been arrogant in my ways.
But it was no longer time for regrets.
“What will happen?” I asked. I attempted to rein in my worry and speak with a level head—difficult to do.
“He will speed up the process of deaths. He will tip the balance even more in his favor. More dragon-kind will be born, and more crops will die, if only so those dragon-kind infants will die again due to hunger. That was what happened in Gaia, and now the same phenomenon has come to take over the Drae Lands.”
“Why is he doing this?” Weren’t dragon-kind his creation? Shouldn’t he be wanting to protect them?
“Gaean is bored. He wants to start anew, but so much of his power is stuck in the Drae Lands. He’s been investing it for as long as time itself. He is an artist at heart, and what we have now is a world he thinks has grown stale and dry. Like many artists, he tires of his old work, and wishes to get rid of them so that he can make space for a blank canvas. He’s losing his mind in the process, fragmenting into different parts, scattered about the world in both corporeal and physical forms. And it hurts to watch.” Aereala once told me that she loved Gaean, despite how out-of-his-mind and cruel he could seem.
Some of Aereala’s fury faded, replaced with sadness. “I’m afraid that by losing himself so much in the process, he might kill himself. By the end of it all, if he succeeds, I might be left alone, stuck with a blank canvas I don’t want and a world to rebuild on my own.”
Her grip over my wrist tightened so much it hurt.
“We must stop him,” Aereala said. “But you’ve made things more difficult.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I-I just—”
“You were selfish. You didn’t want to die. But there are things greater and more important than just you. You must see this.”
I did. But I was human, and man was driven by the instinctual need to strive and keep alive. I didn’t want to give up my short years.
“We must quicken the timeline,” Aereala said.
“No!”
“I will gather all the power I have. It may not be sufficient. Gaean is losing more of his mind every day, and he’s getting blinded by his nature. It’s worse than before. He is putting everything he has into the warping of the Drae Lands, and I might just destroy myself trying to save him. It’s time I stop trying to keep my reserves.”
“How long?” The princes and I were not ready for this. There were still so many firsts to have with my lovers, so much more to explore.
I hadn't made up with Bianca.
And then there was Frederick. He had seemed so bright just earlier this afternoon, and I knew my death would crush him.
"When?"
"Soon," Aereala said. “This is my final warning. Be ready."
But I couldn't possibly be ready. Who could be?
The goddess let my hand go. Panic exploded in my chest, and I reached out, doing my best to clasp her hand again. Gaean was right when he said we were like ants in the vastness of the gods, and our attempts to catch them, to appeal to them, was pathetic.
The sentence tightened around my heart like a rope, pulling tighter as the seconds went by. My hands slipped through the goddess's and disappeared through her frame.
Deep regret showed on Aereala. "You don't know how special you are, Sera."
I didn't want to be special if it meant I couldn't live anymore.
Aereala gazed at the puffs of clouds in the sky. “When the balance tipped over and humans started dying, I grieved for their loss. The new humans that I who to create out of Gaean’s subjects, the dragon-kind . . . they had been failed experiments. A paled reflection that has disabilities and will not last for long. You, perhaps, are the last of those who are true to the original form. And yet, you must die."
“Aereala, please,” I begged. “There has to be another way.”
I begged, cried, and pleaded. Even though we were in the spiritual realm, it felt like my throat was hoarse and dry.
"I'm sorry," she said. Sorrow trailed from her, and the mist around her turned blue.
I didn’t wish for her pity but for an alternative.
The purplish skies around me collapsed, and my essence was lugged back from the spiritual to the physical.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I woke up surrounded by strong arms. My breath was erratic, and my limbs were numb and aching.
Could that have been a dream?
No. I wished to latch onto that hope but I knew the visit had been real. I glanced down at my arm, where Gaean had tried to infuse his magic in me, and the blue glow was no longer there. Instead, the ache had shot up to my chest and threatened to swallow me whole.
"Heavens, Sera. You’re awake. How are you feeling?" Gaius asked. He held me against his body, and I used him to steady myself. The quaking of my heart was too strong to contain.
The rest of the princes surrounded me. Four pair of worried eyes fell on my frame, but I had to be the bearer of bad news.
"I have no more time," I said. I couldn't stop the tears, even though I tried to hold them back. I was terrified. "She's coming."
Micah came up beside me and wrapped his arms around me, taking me from Gaius. "Did she say when?"
"Soon," I replied. "Sooner than six months. Sooner than the years she had promised. Oh, we have royally fucked up this time. We'd try so hard to not let the inevitable take place, and all we did was bring up the timeline. Have you caught him?"
"A god?" Kael said. "When I figure out how to do that, maybe I'll let you rule the realms with me." He sat on the bed and wore a vacant smile. His posture showed the meaning of his words—he was useless against such unimaginable powers, and the rest of us were, too.
Commotion stirred outside in the hallways, flittering into the room. It did little to unsettle me because the turmoil on my princes’ faces was enough to break me apart. A choked sound came from Gaius, who was usually among the sturdiest, and I saw a fragile tear fall from his cheek.
I reached up to wipe it away. At least if I died, it would be to save them. There were far less noble ways to perish.
"Your Majesty!" The cry of the female servant rushed into the room, together with the hasty sound of her footsteps. "Your Majesty, the sky!" She frantically pointed to the windows.
Rylan peeled himself from the bed, away from my touch. He walked toward the balcony and tossed open the curtains. I
didn't even have to walk from my bed to see the horror of what had befallen Constanria.
The entire sky burned with a crimson, bloody red.
I rode on the back of Gaius's wings. In the past, the princes would fight for my attention and spend forever trying to decide who would carry me. But there was no time to waste now, and the first dragon who'd shifted on the royal platform was the first I climbed upon.
The leathery span of his wings flapped in the dry air. Rylan’s guard and some members of the Evaradraes flanked our side. It felt colder than usual, and the sun was covered with the numerous red clouds that littered the sky. The entire country was stuck in a bloody overcast. From this high up, I saw the scenery of Constanria clearly. The fields I had brought to life over the Mishram Plains burned with white flames.
The white flames made clear the futility of my efforts.
Micah, Gaius, and I had spent so much time gathering soul magic for my spells. All those days I’d wasted tiring myself out to save the crops, using all my energy—pointless. The fields burned out and turned to ash once more. People were going to starve. The winters were coming soon, and there wouldn’t be enough food.
I recalled Anatolia's vision—fires, red sky and the princes crying. She had that vision in the very beginning, when I’d first met the princes and she accidentally touched both Micah and me. I was too consumed by insignificant details like the council vote and my social standing then to care much of it. I should have paid more attention. I shouldn’t have gotten blinded by the smaller pictures and ignored the larger meaning of it all.
The time to die was coming soon.
This was it. This was what the princes' sister had foretold, and we were fools to make light of it. The destruction was a plague on life itself, and Gaean was going to turn the entirety of the Drae Lands into what we had experienced during our fruitless expedition. Barren fields. Empty skies. A clean slate for him, which meant death for us.
Fall of Dragons (Sera's Curse Book 3) Page 19
