screamed. She was unable to hold it back in anymore. “It is as if… everyone around me has been telling me untruths all my life. From Maan, to my mother, to my Priestesshood!”
“I’m sorry,” Vahren said.
There was a small snap of his finger. Nothing happened. Vahren tried it again. Still nothing.
“Don’t even bother trying,” Shera said, relaxing from her sobs. “The catacombs are put with a Barring magic. There is no way to guide us through this maze. It prevents any kind of magic.
“We have to try to find the Jewel of Maan.”
“This mess started because of me, Vahren. What makes you think I want to let you take the Jewel? I don’t want Sedayval to fall!”
“You just said that you were angry living a lie. How much more of a lie do you want to live? Iktai was afraid of something I was going to say about the Jewel. Why did you think she got that way?”
“She is scared! We all are! Sedayval is our home, and it is powered by the Jewel!”
*
They had been walking for hours. The labyrinth seemed to go on forever. Sometimes, they were methodical, other times, just relying on blind faith.
“Oh, Maan’s tits,” Shera cursed, feeling her hand against the wall on her right.
“What is it?” Vahren said, rubbing his nose. He had walked into Shera, unable to see that she had stopped walking.
“I have been trying to memorize the way the walls have certain bumps. The only thing I noticed that was quite interesting was that there were two small bumps on the wall, followed by a kind of jagged like texture on it five steps later. I felt the same thing just a while ago.”
“So, it is either a random scripture on the wall that is repeated.”
“Or we have been walking around in a loop,” Shera said, almost giving up.
It seemed like they were miles beneath the city, yet, so far away from the heart of Sedayval. The way the roads crossed was almost mind wrenching. At some parts, the paths tended to become smaller, giving them a sense of excitement that it might have been progress, but as it became smaller, they only walked into dead ends. Every time a path started to become smaller, the question playing their mind was – is this just another path leading to a dead end, or will this be the one that would finally lead to the Heart of Maan?
“I can’t go on anymore,” Vahren said. His arm felt like a dead branch attached to his body. The muscles were nonfunctional, and he could no longer feel any sensation in his fingers.
Shera turned back. The catacombs were slowly consuming her mind and soul. Its darkness was too overbearing, swallowing any feelings of hope. Feeling around in the darkness, she found Vahren’s body on the floor. He was panting, feeling the last dregs of life within him. He was dying.
In the darkness, she had not noticed it. It was not just the surrounding that was black, but also the annals of her mind. She did not know what to believe anymore. But as she knelt next to Vahren, she touched the sticky cake of drying blood on his arm. His fingers grazed against her face.
“What is the truth Vahren? What do I have to live for? Everything I have known is a lie.”
In the dark, cool catacombs, they embraced. Shera knew she would die here. The Fragment of the Jewel of Maan pulsed weakly, like a dying heart. It was reacting to its separated body, deep within the labyrinth somewhere. There was nothing more she could do.
‘There are multiple forms of the truth, and they are people’s words. Live your truth, and share them with others.’
Vahren remained there by her side, unwilling to leave. He leaned his body against hers, wincing in pain where the High Priestess’s magic had damaged his right arm. And then he did something he had been wanting to do since the moment he saw Shera.
He fused with her.
Shera flinched. Though his fingers were soft, they contained a latent power. It surged within her. She closed her eyes and felt something embrace her mind and soul. In her mind’s eye, she saw a great dragon circling her. There was nothing malicious about the beast. It was there to protect her. And then it landed in front of her, its great big lizard eyes looking down at her with a kindness she had not seen since Irinde’s passing. It let out a left hind paw, which she took.
The beast took the sky and took her with him. And then there was a flash.
*
They fused, not only body, but soul. There was a camaraderie now etched inside of them, and there were no two bodies. There were no two minds. This dragon was just one.
I… we… Its mind tried to grasp concept of identity. It felt odd, like assigning solidity to clouds. One just wasn’t too sure.
Move… the dragon said in its mind.
When it thought, it thought itself a singularity. It had both the essences of Shera and Vahren, but it was itself a new being, with its own thoughts. A sum of both its parts had given birth to something new altogether.
Fusing consciousness, it thought to itself. Still, it knew that this combined consciousness would only last for a small moment. Shera would not be able to take a prolonged conjoining. She would start to lose sense of the self if she was not too careful.
The dragon moved through the maze easily this time. Its tongue darted out to sniff at the air. The scales prickled more sensitively, able to pick up the tiniest vibrations from the Jewel of Maan. It knew where to go. It knew then, what to do. It felt sad.
Keep it together.It could feel the singular point of its consciousness slowly breaking. The more it thought of Sedayval, Irinde, and its family back in Shando, and Damas, and Andel, and, the more it underwent a splitting in the epicenter. A furrowing appeared, threatening to split its consciousness into two.
There was no time. It could smell the Jewel of Maan, taste it.
Even odder, it could hear the Jewel of Maan beckoning for it to come closer. It was like a language, a sad song of a few old people, in their deathbeds, wanting to be visited one last time, to have their deaths, their parting from this world witnessed by someone – by something.
The dragon had to hurry. It pushed all thoughts of Vahren and Shera out of its mind.
I seek not to destroy Sedayval. That is not my primary purpose. I need to save the Jewel of Maan. They have been in there.
They?
It. They. Him. Her. The Jewel.
What is the Jewel of Maan?
By this time, the conversation inside the dragon’s head had begun tearing into two separate voices. It was not talking to itself anymore. There were two distinct voices. It tore down the last lane, the one which its walls began growing bigger. There was a small, blunt light at the end of the tunnel. They were approaching the heart of Sedayval, where the Jewel of Maan awaited.
Just a bit more, the dragon urged itself.
And with one roar, it launched itself from the last brick of the labyrinth, and landed on the soft ground.
All was black.
*
When she finally came to, she opened her eyes to the sound of a rushing waterfall and Vahren looking down at her. He was smiling, though the fatigue showed in the darkened circles around his eyes. The fusion magic had taken a toll on him more; it was he who had to work harder to maintain their conjoined form.
“You were not lying,” Shera whispered in hushed tones. “You were not lying at all.”
She had felt his mind. There was no malice in his intentions. Vahren’s wish, his motivations had been pure. Though others had faulted him for being a cold-hearted bastard, he did nothing to alleviate their prejudices. He knew in his heart of hearts, that he was in fact impeachable, honest, and good. And he had a purpose.
When they were fused, she also got to know how he felt about her. All those unspoken thoughts that had floated between them were still unspoken, but it transcended one mind to another’s during the period of overlap. He would know how she felt about him too.
Slowly he reached down, and kissed her softly. When their lips parted, Shera smiled.
“I was waiting for that for quite a long time.
”
“And you would know how badly I wanted to do it too.”
The heart of Sedayval was enveloping them. It was a large cavern, and Shera was helped to her feet by Vahren. She brought him to the nearby pond where the waters healed. Dipping his body into the invigorating pool, he let out a sigh of relief. His wounds began closing.
Water flowed freshly in the cavern, forming brooks. Mossy flowers bloomed on the walls, defying the need for sunlight through photosynthesis. Shera looked at the wide, cool cavern and wiped the sweat from her brow. The Jewel of Maan was an open secret to Sedayval and the rest of the world. Though people knew of its existence, not many were aware of the circumstances surrounding the very stone.
For one thing, the Jewel of Maan was not exactly a jewel. Shera knew now. As she stared at the heart of Sedayval, the truth became clear to her.
The Jewel of Maan was a dragon.
“I can’t believe it,” Shera gasped. She rubbed her eyes, unable to grasp the reality of the situation. There it was, in the middle of the cavern, a bluish green and yellow dragon. Its legs, and the many-scaled carapace armor on its body, were tied down into the ground by a form of binding magic. The blueness of its scales were the same tone as the flattened piece of jewel in her mother’s letter. It was a dragon’s scale that Irinde had stolen from the Jewel and enclosed in her letter to Godema.
Snaking on the dragon’s feet were parasitic roots, draining the essence of the dragon.
Vahren got down on his knees and cried. His sobs were racked, painful and raw. He could not imagine his kin being tortured in such a way, denigrated for centuries to fulfill the lives of those who lived in the city above.
“See, Shera? See what your people have done to the Jewel of Maan? See how they have tortured my people! Being kept alive by force-feeding and life-force magic! Is this a way to live?”
Shera looked at the bindings covering the dragon’s feet. The magic had sapped it dry. It had none of the austere glow of the dragons she had seen in the books. Its eyes were exhausted, wide, and its carapace, once shiny and glowing, was now dull. There was life in the dragon, but barely.
The Jewel of Maan looked at the two humans with a disinterested glare.
Shera took a step closer and the dragon flinched and inched backwards.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she reassured it softly.
Still, the dragon growled at her and tried to move its wings, but failed. The sheer exhaustion of its lined, wizened face broke her heart. The line of magic binding the dragon snaked into thicker magical fibers which rooted itself into the ground and made its way along the walls of the cavern. It leeched out the seemingly limitless powers of the dragon, and fed it into the floating city of Sedayval.
“Antoher lie. Another fucking lie!” Shera threw her hands in the air. “I can’t believe this. The Jewel of Maan is a trapped dragon. And this city is a parasite that has been feeding off this dragon.”
Vahren wiped his tears. “Every time I use a Rune magic, I am taking your life…”
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I wanted to tell you… but I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” Vahren said behind her.
“It was… the moment we fused. I felt your thoughts. You wanted to keep this from me didn’t you, but you also wanted me to know?”
The dragon had now managed to push its entire body against the far end of the cavern wall. It leaned against the wall, eyes partially closed, but its orange iris still fixated upon the runes on Shera’s hands.
The Young Acolyte knew the dragon’s fears. It probably thought that the High Priestess had come for a visit. She wondered, her body growing nauseous, what the High Priestess did to this poor creature. She could not, did not want to imagine it.
Vahren stepped forward. When he spoke, a different language came out from within him. It made tense hind and rear legs of the dragon relax considerably. Its jaws fell slack, and a rasping, choking roar came out, as though it had just stifled a cough and tear. The eyes widened, and it looked from Vahren to Shera, hesitating to move, to dare believe. Vahren continued speaking to it, and as the soft words came out of him, he stepped forward, one step at a time. The dragon did nothing to protect itself, nor did it raise a sickled claw to attack.
Slwoly but surely, Vahren made his way towards the Jewel of Maan, till he was now standing inches away from the dragon. Still, he did not touch it. He couldn’t. Shera was quick to warn him not to pat the dragon, no matter how much he wanted to.
“Those runes on its legs, is tied to a draining spell. That is an encrypted rune. It requires a Priestess to undo it.”
“Can’t you do so?” The desperation was thick in his voice. He would look often at the entrance from which they came, fearing an ambush from High Priestess Iktai.
Shera was hesitant. For one, this was a smack towards the belief system she had been trained to believe since a small child. But, certain elements of it still contained truths pertaining the Jewel of Maan. Where the energy sapped the great big dragon, it was used to fuel the city’s livelihood. People relied on it. In that regard, the Jewel of Maan expounded its truth – to sustain the people living above.
But at what expense?
“I can’t do this, Vahren. I cannot,” Shera bit her lip. “If I undo its binding, there is no saying what the dragon might do. If it chooses to escape, the whole city will come crashing onto earth! The people above would die.”
The Jewel of Maan blinked lazily at the arguing people in front of it.
“I can’t believe it Shera. You know now that Maan is a made-up concept! Isn’t it clear to you that this dragon is tortured to keep Sedayval alive?”
Serve, lead, disperse, Shera thought. They were what was transcribed on her body in Maan’s tongue. The runes had served her well. When she allowed the power of Maan to flow through her, it was always the power of this Jewel – this dragon. She had felt it all her life. All the other Acolytes and Priestesses had felt it too.
She took a deep breath. Because the runes were already tattooed on her arms, there was no need for a chant. She focused on channeling the power of the Jewel, and struck her arm with a finger sliding across the runes in a sudden manner – like a match striking the box to light a flame. Her runes glowed a strong turquoise, something it had never done before. Instead of pure energy coursing through her, it made her feel elevated. The energy was pure, concentrated, and it came directly from the dragon’s eyes, which were now gazing intensely at her.
The bridge of energy was connected between them two, and Shera stepped forward. Vahren saw the whole thing, puzzlement racking through his head. He could not hear their telepathic conversation, but he egged her to hurry.
Shera however, did not care anymore.
Can you hear me? she said in her mind.
The Jewel of Maan nodded, much to her astonishment. And then it told her how it came to be.
*
The great war of the world did happen. But it wasn’t as you thought it was. It never is.
The sorcerers in Queen Vahana I’s court were dabbling in magic that was considered too modern, too erroneous, and dangerous for the court back then. It was to tap into the consciousness of a being, and seep out the energy from their minds. Thoughts contained some of the most powerful energies, and our brain is an intense, self-replenishing reservoir, with the right chemicals. They were interested in the way the Dragon Knights could fuse their bodies and minds to compound and exaggerate their strengths in the Dragonian form.
When the sapping magic was perfected, they tried it on many test subjects. Back then, Sedayval was still a city aground, clenched by the Earth. Prisoners, children from all over Sedayval, even peasants were kidnapped to be experimented upon.
And then they made the mistake of kidnapping a Shando woman and her child, who was in the region for her merchant duties.
We Shandos were an extremely communal people. Dragon Knights were sent to Sedayval to investigate the missing woman and her child. Though we very
much lived in this fertile region in peace with the others, we could not take what the Queen was trying to do, when we got wind of it. Our spies were horrified to find out what was happening, and the experiments they were conducting in court.
And that was why we went to war.
The whole region plunged into an intense battle, between the sorcerers of the north, Sedayval near the bay, and the elementalists of the region, who were at that moment, also jealous of the mysterious progress of Sedayval in their magic.
Alas, our powers were too weak for them. By this time, Queen Vahana I had amassed a collection of prisoners, and the High Priestess could tap into their minds to draw out such intense power. It was a landslide victory for the Queen, and she took to banishing us to our respective areas. The sorcerers were sent to the north, the elementalist the south.
Angel Romance: Awakened (Paranormal Book for Adults) (Cursed Angel 1) Page 14
