Fractured Souls (Soul of a Dragon Book 3)

by Clara Hartley

  It wasn’t like the others. She’d heard it before, in a time that felt like eons ago—the first night she’d met Rayse.

  Take me.

  Nanili was staring at her, almost looking emotional. Constance peered at her ex-servant in a cloud of confusion. It almost felt as if Nanili was projecting that voice toward her.

  But that was ridiculous… Mishram only had dull souls.

  Then the mishram glanced away and began pulling the gray sheets of the bed from the mattress.

  Constance continued to stare.

  What was that voice supposed to mean?

  “Hey, move along,” Jaerhel said roughly.

  That was the first thing he had said to her in the days she’d been here. It jarred her into wanting to speak more with him, but he was already turning away, pulling her forward with more roughness than he needed to.

  She stumbled, trying to keep up with his long legs.

  19

  The Dragon Mother was a damn liar.

  Jaerhel stood outside her chambers. Constance was inside again, the three of them in the sick, fucked-up routine. He knocked the back of his head against the wall and exhaled.

  He counted the jewels of the chandelier above him. They sparkled with a rainbow of colors. What blood had been shed to procure them? The same amount that made the Dragon Mother as beautiful as she was?

  The goddess had promised him Constance’s love. He’d known that was a deception the instance he’d heard it.

  More importantly, the Mother let him keep his life.

  But only as a drakin.

  He knew that the Mother’s keeping him around was nothing more than one of her games, meant to torture Constance’s mind. The Mother knew that the both of them had been close. Apparently, she’d been spying on their operations all this time. The Mother still hadn’t found a way to get in, Constance’s barriers and safeguards had been sufficient. But the goddess had sent spies who managed to sneak in through Constance’s portal-keepers’ help.

  Constance and Jaerhel had thought they were clever. But they were fumbling around like fools.

  And he let the Dragon Mother use him as a tool. He betrayed them all because he was such a damn coward. He let the sixty years he’d spent with Constance, the woman he loved, and what they’d built, crumble, because he couldn’t take the pain the Mother put him through. He broke under the Mother’s interrogation so quickly, it was laughable. He stared down at his limbs. They’d grown back because of the goddess’s magic, but he remembered how it felt to have them chopped off, sewed back again, then removed once more. His skin crawled at the memory.

  The Mother could give him endless years of torture with a flick of her wrist. In fact, she had made him watch a man go through said atrocity.

  That poor victim had become a shriveled skeleton, lying like a shaking leaf in his damp cell, covered in his own shit while muttering nonsense into the air.

  “That could be you,” the Mother had told Jaerhel, right before she landed a soft kiss on his cheek.

  Jaerhel’s goddess was mating with Rayse again, making Constance watch. They were never quiet about it, always too loud. The sounds of their rutting would make passersby uncomfortable, even with the door shut. Jaerhel’s dragon ears caught the distinct sound of breathy panting and skin slapping on skin.

  Jaerhel couldn’t bare to look at Constance when like this. He’d failed her so terribly. He didn’t even deserve a conversation with her. He wouldn’t speak to her, no matter how hard she begged, because what else was he to say? That he was a scumbag and a traitor? That he was sorry? It was all meaningless.

  He couldn’t imagine what pain Constance was going through then.

  His talons dug into his palm.

  He should be helping her escape. He had the damn keys to her cell for goddess’s sake. But he was too afraid. That was what the Mother did. She struck fear in the hearts of those who served her.

  “Pumpkin!” A half-whisper, half-shout, interrupted him from his inner thoughts.

  He turned his head around to the direction of the voice, his hand immediately shooting to the hilt of his blade. He frowned. An old, dragon lady, who wore too many scarves stood at the end of the corridor. He’d seen her before… he couldn’t put a finger on where.

  There were guards positioned down that corridor. Had she handled them herself?

  She walked up to him, a bloodied dagger in her hand.

  Recollection snapped in him. “I’ve seen you,” he said. “Around Rayse.”

  “Greta.” She adjusted her glasses—they didn’t have any lenses, just the rims. “And I bet you did, Kien, or are you back to Jaerhel now? No smart points for knowing who I am. I’m an easily recognizable woman.”

  Where were his fellow guards? “How did you—”

  “No one expects an innocent old woman to knock them over the head with the fighting arts.” She peered at her dagger. “Or shove a knife through their heart.” She smiled at him with an expression so innocent, a chill ran through his chest.

  She whistled--softly--at the sounds the Mother and Rayse were making. “How she still has so much energy after a million years, I can never understand. I’m about dead at nine hundred.”

  “It’s not just the guards. How did you get here? You should be locked in the dungeons with the other inhabitants.”

  She made a little dance with her fingers. “I have my ways.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not really one of them, are you?”

  “The drakin?”

  “If you’ve switched sides so easily, then you really must be one horse load of an asshole.”

  He let the hurt of Greta’s words wash over him. “What do you care?” He tried to stand straighter, but his conscience weighed him down. He said he loved Constance, but it was him who brought her to the Dragon Mother every time. He knew that hurt her, but he did so anyway because he was no better than the other drakin he’d been fighting all these years.

  The drakin didn’t love the Mother, or at least most didn’t. They were like him, following her orders because they had fear hanging over their heads, and because they weren’t good enough men to stand up for the right thing. Being loyal to the Mother allowed them to crawl one rung up the shit-ladder that Ayesrial was. But regardless of how high they were on the ladder, it was still covered in shit, and they couldn’t help but get their hands dirty.

  Greta squinted. “You’re on our side, yes?”

  He furrowed his brow. He replied in a hushed whisper so the Mother wouldn’t hear him, “Yes, I suppose?”

  “Good good.” Greta nodded, then turned on her heels and stalked forward. She didn’t seem all that graceful, but her footsteps were deceptively quiet.

  “Wait.” He couldn’t understand this old lady. “That’s it?”

  “Hm?” She peered over her shoulder and lowered her glasses.

  “Isn’t there supposed to be some plan of action? A rebellion of some sort?” He made sure to keep his voice low. If the Mother found out of his so easily switching sides, he’d be skewered and stewed in countless ways. He still wasn’t sure if he had truly joined Greta’s side. It was simply too abrupt.

  Greta sniffed. “I’ll get back to you. Need to do more snooping around.”

  She walked away, leaving him dumbfounded and standing like a damn fool in the empty hallway.

  “I don’t think I can keep this up for much longer, Jaerhel,” Constance said. “I feel like… I’m not myself anymore.”

  Jaerhel strode up to her cell, taking his shift. The personnel of the last shift strode away after he arrived. Where was his partner and the healer who shared the same time slot as him? Late, perhaps?

  He didn’t let himself look at Constance for long, and positioned himself at his post.

  Jaerhel wanted to talk to her. To make her feel better. But then he would only be lying to her again. Why did she still tempt him by trying to make conversation with him? Didn’t Constance know that each time she did, she was hurting him?


  “Death would be a better option,” Constance said. “I’m going crazy.”

  He could just let himself speak, and maybe even keep her company. But then what would he say?

  She caught him staring. He stiffened, then promptly turned back around to face the brick wall. He felt her gaze lingering on his back, sticking to him like a pest he wanted to swat away.

  Why couldn’t he simply… forget? He didn’t want to have a conscience. If he were truly empty inside, then he’d be able to do as the Mother commanded without having to suffer this aching remorse.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He swallowed, refusing to turn around.

  “Why are you wearing her colors?”

  He bit his tongue.

  “I don’t want to believe that you’ve turned your back on us. You must have something planned. Talk to me, Jaerhel. I’m losing my mind.” This was the first time he’d heard a crack in her voice. He spun around, seeing her folded figure in the corner of her room. She’d been just a frail-looking sixty years ago--after Wendyll was killed, and he had to be strong and be her pillar, until she could recover enough to become Catrina.

  Seeing her like that brought out the protective side of him. He wanted to keep her from harm, even though he didn’t deserve to be that man again.

  “Talk to me,” she begged.

  “Stop crying,” he said, not knowing what else to say. He wanted her to just shut up and be gone, then he wouldn’t have to hurt her anymore.

  She bit her lower lip, then looked up at him with shock. He wondered if his tone had been too harsh. “You’re talking to me?” she said.

  “Maybe.” Silence plastered the air as they shared a glance. Then, he sighed. “Greta’s got a plan.”

  She straightened her spine. “What?”

  Jaerhel checked around for other guards, piquing his hearing just to be sure he and Constance were alone. The other two were late. The room was lit only by a few flickering torches in the hallway, making him doubt his eyesight, despite his dragon eyes. “I saw Greta, just today. When you were… when the Dragon Mother summoned you. Greta will get you out of here.” He paused, then continued, “She asked me to help you.”

  “You are?” She beamed, and that made his heart throb harder. It was the first she’d smiled in the time she had been here. It was the promise of hope which triggered it—false hope. They couldn’t win against the Dragon Mother, not when they were smothered beneath her claws. Greta didn’t even have a plan. He had lied completely.

  He licked his dry lips. “Yes. We’ll be free, soon.” It was the thing he wanted most in the world, yet it could never happen.

  “The healer isn’t here to make sure I don’t off myself. Maybe I should just die when I have the chance. We can’t let the Mother get what she wants.”

  The notion of Constance dying made his ears ring, even though he knew that it’d happen soon enough. The Mother was just about done with Constance and Rayse. Jaerhel breathed out a sigh. “The healer will arrive soon enough to bring you back even if you manage it.”

  She wilted, once more, like a dried rose. “I think there’s a way to win.” She hugged her knees closer to her chest. “If I become her. If I let myself fall into the darkness. Become like the Dragon Mother.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Nature always has to have a balance. What better way to even out the playing field than to send her own sister against her? Her sister’s soul, at least.”

  “You can’t do what she does.”

  “I’m thinking it right now. It’s so easy. I can take your soul, then the guard who comes next. After that, the healer’s. I can suck the life out of everyone and I’ll have the ability to take down the Mother. I can wield the darkness like she does, too.”

  “You’re not her,” he said, doubting himself. He’d never seen Constance this beaten--shredded into pieces and backed into a corner, not even when she was trapped in the lower dungeons sixty years ago, with him. This time, the Mother was playing with not just her, but Rayse, too. Jaerhel had always known that Constance had a dark side, but it had been kept away from his sight, like a unknown he didn’t want to explore.

  “I don’t deserve to be saved,” she said.

  “You do. You saved me.”

  She laughed. “How? I was the one who needed your help. If you’d parted with me right after we escaped, instead of sticking by my side, you’d be far away from this wretched place now. Perhaps outside of Ayesrial, without the suppression of Aesryn, free to soar with your wings.”

  Sticking with her was what kept him sane. He knew he’d spiral into obscurity if not for her passion and drive, if not for her kindness. “I deserved to be in the dungeons, that time when you met me. There’s a reason why the Mother wanted me in her guard again. I was her best sword. I stayed at the Dragon Mother’s side for one purpose. I was doing the same, like you did, but instead of protecting hundreds, I only had one person I wanted to keep safe.

  “Who?” Constance asked.

  “My sister, Elaria. She was the treasure of our district. The only dragon female born there. I loved her like she was the world.”

  He sighed. It pained him to recall his past. It was one reason why he had clung onto the idea of Catrina so much. She was his future—or at least had been. “She had the most lovable smile. Life wasn’t easy in our district. We were mostly farmers, the lowest castes. After a tough day of work I’d feel down-trodden. And then Elaria would greet me with that sunflower grin of hers and my day would be better.”

  Constance shifted. “What happened to her?”

  “The goddess wanted me as her drakin. I hated them. I refused at first, and that was the worst thing I could have done. She took my sister and her mate as hostage.”

  Jaerhel closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The flames and destruction he had caused returned, and played in his mind’s eye. “I did everything the Mother asked me to. I took children from their homes to sacrifice to a life of slavery. I killed countless of innocents.”

  Constance was looking at him, but without judgment. She understood this agony.

  “All so the Mother wouldn’t harvest my sister. I begged the Mother to let them go. The goddess didn’t free them, but she agreed to keep them alive at least, as long as I followed her every word.

  “Then one day, she made me do the unthinkable. She made me stare down the face of my sister’s newborn child, and asked me to bring it to her for a harvest. The deal was just to be my sister and his mate, the Mother said. My sister wept so hard her body was shaking. She clawed at me, and screamed until her throat went dry and her lungs ran out of breath. I simply couldn’t do it.”

  Constance peered up at him with a mixture of curiosity and horror.

  He continued, “So the Mother locked me up. I went against her bargain. If I did everything the goddess told me to, my sister would be spared. But I broke the deal…”

  Jaerhel balled his hands into fists. “So she tortured my sister’s mate in front of the both of us, making her watch every minute of her husband getting his skin peeled off, inch by inch. And then the goddess made Elaria serve countless of her drakin. My subordinates. They took her night and day, until her legs went numb and she couldn’t walk anymore.

  “The Mother locked her right across from me. I had to watch Elaria’s mad, crumpled, form endlessly, hating myself for every minute I had to look at her. And the Mother kept her alive, despite her mind already being gone. All my sister could do was repeat nonsense to herself. Things like, ‘Kill Me’, over and over again. Her child was harvested anyway—another drakin was there to do the Mother’s bidding, and I think, maybe, if I had been strong enough to do what was wrong, what was difficult, for the good of my sister, then she’d still be here today.”

  Tears stained his eyes. He noticed that his talons had grown from his fingertips, and were drawing blood from the palm of his flesh.

  Constance was staring at him, mouth agape. “That woman was your sister?”

>   “Watching her… a reminder of my failure, was driving me mad.”

  “I killed your sister.”

  He shook his head. “No, I did. All you did was free her, and for that, I will forever be grateful.”

  Constance stood up, then padded to him. She took his hand through the grates of her cell, and squeezed. He let some of the tension loosen from his skin.

  “Thank you,” he said. He realized he’d never thanked her for what she’d done.

  Her eyes shone up at him like two moon-like orbs. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was weak, Constance. Sometimes you need to do what’s feels wrong for good. It’s the more difficult option but what’s right. That’s why I always admired you. Because you’re so much stronger than me.”

  “I’m not good, Jaerhel.”

  “But you are.”

  They shared a moment of silence, before the tapping of footsteps chorused through the dark hallway. The healer, and another guard, appeared.

  She snatched her hand away from his.

  She crept away, to the other side of her cage, and went back into hiding. Constance no longer carried as much warmth as she used to. There was a reptilian quality to her actions now.

  He tracked his gaze over her as she shifted away, until his subordinate nudged him. Constance was watching him with a peculiar glare. Was she finally judging him? What went on in that mind of hers?

  “You’re late,” he told his companion.

  “The goddess wanted me to settle some things,” his fellow guard said. “Wanted me to fetch some of her harem up to her chambers. Not sure why I have to do it. I think I happened to be there when she sent out her order. Some of the other drakin are spending too much time mucking around and not pulling their weight.”

  Jaerhel slid down onto a stool, keys jingling on his hip. The walls of this place were clean, despite being as dreary as mud, but for some reason, Constance’s cell was left dirty and plastered with grime. Maybe it was one the goddess’s other petty ways to torture Constance.

  In all his years of working with the goddess, he hadn’t encountered this cell. He assumed it was built specially for Constance—to keep her isolated and plagued with the thoughts of not being wanted.