“Why don’t you relinquish your priesthood?” Arda asked. “Deny the goddess, and surely her seal will fall away.”
“It’s not that simple,” Oriand said. “I think I understand it. The Kairantheum is everywhere, but it follows rules. It’s why Anuit’s demons, themselves children of divine space-time, aren’t a threat to Athra’s Jewel. They follow rules. If Aradma was declared a priestess, it is people’s beliefs that will keep it so as long as she remains here, until the Church publicly rescinds its seal. Divine space-time is shaped by faith.”
“So what now?” Yinkle asked. “They’ll be wondering where we are if we don’t come home tonight.”
“I’ll go to Rajamin first thing in the morning,” Kaldor said. “He’ll expect that I come to him before the queen, and I’d like to not challenge his expectations yet. And I need to get an understanding of the Church as it is today. Then I will see the queen. She is a wizard, you say?”
“She is,” Aradma nodded.
“Good. That will help. But tonight… I think tonight I would like to stay here. Maybe we can walk and look at the stars.”
Aradma concealed a smile. Did he sound… shy just now?
“It’s not safe to wander at night,” Aradma said. “Vampires.”
He grinned. “That won’t be a problem.”
“Yinkle,” Arda interjected, “would you be so kind as to send word to Suleima? Tell her that I’m returning with Kaldor and he wants to see Rajamin when we arrive in the morning. Don’t tell him we’re here yet, but you can say that Aradma is with us and will return in the morning as well.”
Kaldor and Arda busied themselves in the kitchen, preparing a meal. Aradma took a moment to step outside and gather her thoughts. Oriand followed her. They stood side by side and looked over treetops rising and falling over the rolling hills.
“Fernwalker is your daughter,” Oriand remarked. “By Tiberan?”
Aradma shook her head. “Odoune.”
“I didn’t think it possible,” Oriand mused.
“We seem to be fertile with anyone,” Aradma said. “But we always bear daughters.” She laughed at the irony. “Our men need other races to survive. After everything you told me about your goddesses, it turns out the light elves could survive as a race without men. At least, no men of our own. We need men to have children, but if we only mated with seelie men, we would soon become a race of women. I can’t bear sons. The only way for us to have a male seelie child is for a seelie man to mate with a non-seelie women.”
“I thought elves couldn’t produce half-breeds,” Oriand said. “That’s what we were told. Another lie, perhaps.”
“No, not a lie,” Aradma said. “The sidhe are different. And it holds true for us as well, even though we are fertile… Fernwalker is not a half-breed. She is pure seelie.”
“How?”
“Faerie magic.”
“I’m sorry to hear of Tiberan’s death,” Oriand said. “Are you with Odoune now?”
“No,” Aradma replied. “After Tiberan died, I never gave my heart to another.”
“I have missed you,” the troll confessed. “I’ve been alone for so long.”
“I’m sorry,” Aradma answered. “It must have been difficult.”
“You loved me once,” Oriand pressed.
Aradma nodded.
“It was real.”
“It was,” Aradma said.
Oriand looked at her. She wanted to say something, but she kept opening and closing her mouth.
“What?” Aradma asked gently.
“I know you don’t feel for me the way I felt for you,” Oriand said, “but you felt something. If grief keeps you from finding another man… maybe… maybe we could love again…”
Aradma touched the tiny tusk on the woman’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t do that to you. I can’t give you what you need.” She settled back into the chair, folding her hands over her lap. She felt the calm comfort of certainty. The man in the other room… Kaldor… “My heart belongs to another now.”
She knew it to be true. She had seen the music of his soul. It was not the memory of the Green within her that yearned for the Gold. That was there, but it was not who they were. It was Kaldor’s essence that called for her, the same essence that had called to Archurion to choose him as a vessel. Kaldor the man.
“Yesterday I would have told you I still grieved for Tiberan. Now I realize it was no longer grief that haunted me but memory.” She closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled. “In Tiberan, I found someone who fulfilled me. Through him, I had that which I seek in love. To give my heart to another whom I know cannot be what he was to me, that would not be kind. But today, after all these years, I have found his equal, and my heart yearns again.”
Oriand breathed a deep sigh. “I know. I saw your face when he spoke to you. You’re right. I’m sorry I asked, it’s just…”
“I know,” Aradma said. “It’s hard being alone.”
Oriand nodded. “Friends then?”
“Sisters.”
Oriand smiled. “It will be enough.” She returned to the house.
After dinner that night, Fernwalker showed Oriand a game of cards, and Arda and Anuit joined in. Aradma and Kaldor left them to walk outside.
“Come with me,” Aradma said. “I want to show you something.”
She took Kaldor into a valley a mile north and then up onto the ridge of the next hill. There was a spot on the ground where a ring of toadstools enclosed a patch of white clover flowers.
“It’s early for them to bloom yet, isn’t it?” Kaldor asked.
“This is where I was born,” Aradma said. “This was where I made lightfall. My light descended and became a pool of water, from which I emerged. It was cold, but I don’t remember much else. Attaris found me. He and a troll. They both thought the other intended me harm. The troll would have taken me to Vemnai, but he pulled a gun and Attaris killed him.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is,” Aradma agreed. “Attaris saved my life—from the cold, if not from the troll. I would have frozen had I been left here. The water eventually did freeze, and then thawed with the snow. When the earth absorbed it, these flowers bloomed. They grow year-round, no matter the weather.”
“Faerie magic.”
“Faerie magic. Do you remember our time together?” Aradma asked. “I mean, Graelyn and Archurion’s time together?”
“I remember remembering,” he said. “It’s not clear.”
“I remember her feelings,” Aradma replied.
Kaldor stared at the clovers for a few moments. “I’m sad for Graelyn,” he finally said. “For a long time I was angry for what she did. She betrayed us. She betrayed Sidhna.” He looked back up at her. “But she redeemed herself in the end. She gave her life to save this world, and you were born from her final act of love.”
A flood of relief swept through Aradma. She breathed deeply. “I think I needed to hear that,” she said. “I mean, I think she needed to hear that. Your forgiveness. The part of her that lives in me…”
He took her hand and her heart raced. “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything will be okay.”
* * *
Kaldor couldn’t help but grin as Aradma squeezed his hand. “Come,” she said. “There is something else I want to show you.”
His heart fluttered at the warmth of her touch. I’m too old for such things, he told himself. His body was in its early fifties… he wasn’t that old. I’ve lived for centuries. I can’t make her happy. She has too much life in front of her—probably centuries herself.
He followed her up to a clearing at the top of the hill. From there, they looked west over the expanse of the entire valley of Windbowl, brightly lit under the full moon. Crystalmere Lake stretched north and south, with the city of Windbowl at its northern head.
“Odoune and the other druids patrol,” Aradma said. “They fly high and when they see that…” she pointed to a tendril of mist moving through a field
, “they follow it until it solidifies into a vampire. Then they kill it. We’ve lost very few here in Windbowl.”
Kaldor couldn’t help but keep looking at her. She wore flowers and leaves, woven together so finely that it made a soft gown that fell over her curved shoulders and hips.
She turned to him. “You loved Sidhna once, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“I remember,” she said. “I understand why you were angry with Graelyn. What she did was wrong.”
“It is done,” he replied. “We cannot change it; we can only look forward.”
“Sidhna is the vampire I met in Taer Iriliandrel,” Aradma said. “I think she was hunting you. And me as well.”
Kaldor nodded. “It makes sense. She is consumed by a need for vengeance. The Dragons destroyed her.”
Aradma cocked her head to the side. “Before Graelyn left her body… you and she were never together?”
“No,” Kaldor answered. “Sidhna loved Aaron. She never shared my feelings. I never told her.”
“You were never with her,” Aradma mused.
“Not her or any other woman,” Kaldor said. “We were too busy.” Then he chuckled. “Well, I thought we were all too busy for such things. Apparently, it was only I.”
“You’ve never…”
“No,” he said. “Never had time.”
“But you’ve lived for centuries!”
“Stuck in a tower for most of it.” He chuckled again. “And before that, I was trying to stay two steps ahead of Valkrage… and before that, trying to integrate Archurion within myself so I could give his power to Aaron… and before that, studying to get accepted as a student to Taer Iriliandrel.”
Aradma wore a smug grin on her face.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
“Why do you look so pleased with yourself?”
“No reason.”
“Oh!” Kaldor exclaimed. “I think we might have visitors.”
He pointed to the fields below. Five tendrils of mist closed rapidly on their location, illuminated by moonlight.
“They’ve seen me,” she said. “Something in seelie blood calls to them.”
“It’s Malahkma,” he said. “She wants to destroy the last of the Green Dragon.”
“And you’re the last of the Gold. Run. I’ll slow them.”
He took her hand. “I told you,” he said warmly, “everything is going to be okay.”
“You don’t have the Dragon’s power anymore!” Aradma protested.
He grinned. Old goof. Don’t get foolish by showing off.
He tapped his head. “Maybe not his power, but I do have his knowledge. Archurion, my dearest, was the Archdragon of Light! More precisely, of the Sun.”
Kaldor withdrew his wand. More mist tendrils spread over the land. Eight vampires solidified at the edge of the clearing.
He raised his wand to the air.
The vampires hissed and leaped at them.
Kaldor spoke a single word of magic.
The wand flared to life, and then a great globe of golden light expanded, casting the blistering heat of a midsummer’s day over the entire valley. Where the vampires had been, only ash in the wind remained.
His released the light from the tip of his wand, shooting it up into the sky. It hung there for a moment, flooding Windbowl with sunlight from mountaintop to mountaintop. He lowered his wand and returned it to his breast pocket.
Aradma stood there, eyes closed, face turned towards the summer warmth. Blue and gold flowers sprang up around her feet, crowning the hilltop in a colorful blanket of life. They spread throughout the valley, following to meet his light. The spring blanket of color touched the entire duchy.
The light faded, returning the night to the moon’s reign.
“You do have Graelyn’s power!” Kaldor exclaimed. “All of Windbowl is touched by you.”
She turned to him, and her glowing green eyes opened once more. “With magic like that, I don’t think there’s a single vampire left alive in the duchy,” she said. “If only you had come sooner.”
“Vampires we can solve,” he told her. “This is just the beginning. It’s the force behind the vampires that will prove the greater challenge.”
“The goddess Malahkma.”
“All the gods and goddesses,” he said.
She smiled at him, her silver face reflecting the moonlight. “I have not been with a man for nine years,” she said. “After Tiberan died, I couldn’t move on. I never felt again what I felt for him, until now.”
He caught his breath. He didn’t want to ruin this moment by saying anything.
Master of magic, mewling boy when confronted by a pretty girl.
He moved closer and looked up into her sparkling green eyes. Don’t say it, you goof!
“I’m an old man,” he said. “Surely you want someone younger.”
She shook her head. “You’re not that old. I’m only ten myself, if we’re counting. You could say I’m too young.”
He slipped his arms around her waist. “You’re not that young,” he said. He reached up and cupped her head in his hand. His heart pounded. He pulled her into a kiss.
His legs trembled at the touch of her lips. Her tongue played over the top of his mouth, tempting him to taste her more deeply. He gasped. He could feel the heat of her body through their robes.
She drew back from the kiss for a moment and looked into his eyes. “I need you to know something,” she whispered. Her irises sparkled, and her breathing was shallow and rapid. “It is you that I want,” she told him. He trembled at her words. “It is not the memories of Dragons that calls me to you. It is the man you are, who was worthy enough to draw Archurion to him.”
And he knew the same. He didn’t love her because she had a spark of Graelyn in her soul. He trembled before the soul of who she was now, here in his arms. Every nerve-ending in his body yearned for her touch, and his spirit shivered in awe. He drew her into the kiss again, and her lips tasted even sweeter than before, electrifying him with feelings of youth long forgotten.
All he knew was magic. He remembered once touching the element of Light and how alive he had felt. It had been long ago, and for years now, all he knew were plans, the study of books, and the workings of spells. Never touching the elements directly, but only working with them through mathematical formulae and mental exercises. Through her, he felt the element of Life. She opened herself to it, and it flowed around them. Life would not be denied. She would not be denied.
She unfastened his robes and pulled his clothes away from his body. The air was cold but he didn’t care. She was all warmth. Life flowed through her. She removed his trousers and guided him to the now mossy ground. He was sure there hadn’t been moss there before. It was soft and warm and moist on his knees.
He knelt before her in a moment of supplication. She closed her eyes for a moment, and her mouth formed a perfect circle as she sucked in a trembling breath. The gown, so finely woven a moment before, disintegrated into a shower of leaves and flower petals, which blew away in the wind.
Transfixed at the sight of her beauty, he stopped breathing. She knelt beside him, guiding him forward with her kisses as she lay back on the warm, wet moss. Steam rose around them as the moisture from Life’s warmth mixed with the cold night air. She kept leaning back, guiding him until he lay on top of her. Her body surrendered easily to him and he entered her, eyes widening at the intensity of joy that sang through every cell in his body.
His link to the Light, long since surrendered, surged again, brought to Life. His soul opened, and the Light’s heat and warmth radiated through his body. His elemental energies commingled with hers, and the two of them became a single vessel, swaying in the tidal flux between Light and Life.
The two currents intertwined, and his consciousness merged with hers. In that moment of singularity, their bodies seemed far away. Her mind floated there with him. He could see the depth of her connection to Life, the g
lowing heart of Graelyn that beat within her. He saw the Fae court in her mind, and her life on Ahmbren unfolded before his eyes. He knew of the scar that wouldn’t heal and how it had almost killed Fernwalker before she was born, poisoned by a prayer to Malahkma. He saw the seal of Athra around her spine. He felt her joy at Fernwalker’s birth and her fear for Fernwalker’s life. He saw through her eyes, and he saw her seeing him.
She experienced his past, from the moment the Dragon’s dreamwalker attached itself to the fetus in his mother’s womb. She saw a boy, born unaware of the presence inside him. She saw him grow and become a man, driven by his thirst for knowledge and compassion for the suffering he saw in the world. She grew aware of the way he saw knowledge as the light that would overcome suffering, and then she saw him awaken to the Dragon inside him, his questioning of his sanity, and how he wondered why he struggled with delusions of grandeur. She saw his memory of the gnome Xandelbrot, who had helped him balance his mind and confront his identity, and the way the Dragon had served him, surrendering to Kaldor’s personality. They integrated as one being, and Kaldor awakened as Archurion’s avatar. She saw the heartache of watching Sidhna love another, only to be betrayed. She felt the hurt of betrayal after surrendering his power to Aaron, dooming Archurion’s dreamwalker to Kaldor’s mortal fate, only to have Graelyn abandon her vessel in the end. She saw his initiation of the Kaldorite order, of a philosophy of Light without need for gods, and his frustration and anger when Valkrage bound him outside of time.
She saw his experience of her now, and he saw her experience of him. Their elements flowed together like liquid fire, rushing forward and building towards mutual explosion. Then he felt it. Graelyn’s seal of Life lived on in Aradma, that special connection even deeper than their links that had made the Archdragons unique. He wasn’t sure she was aware of it, but knowing it filled him with joy. He still bore Archurion’s Seal of Light. They were two quiet things, made by magic, of deep yet subtle meaning, separate and distinct from their links to the elements. All channelers had connections to the elements, but only the Archdragons were able to make seals embodying elemental authority. As their bodies moved together in union, their souls touched, and the seals resonated against each other.
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 74
