by Ophelia Bell
Marcus blinked up at him, panting to catch his waning breath. “I’d rather die now. If you want to kill me, go ahead. Evie already thinks I’m dead, doesn’t she? The blood drain is deceiving—makes us appear dead and wish for death even more. He does that sometimes to torture us when we misbehave, then transfuses us again. This time he let me bleed onto the floor instead of into a bag. No coming back from that.”
“You don’t get to die. She doesn’t want it. And neither do I.”
Ked glanced at Evie, crying in her reunion with her brothers. He would have time with her, but right now he needed to see to Marcus.
“I’m taking you home with me,” Ked said. Not that the limp body beneath him could object.
He signaled to Aodh who joined him.
“Can you carry us out the way we came in?”
Aodh frowned and crouched down next to Ked, placing his hand against Marcus’s forehead, then his chest, then his lower abdomen.
“We had better not. The drift is hard enough on a healthy person. If you intend to gain any intel from this one when we return, we’d better fly. Gavra and I can heal them with our breath while we’re airborn.”
At Ked’s signal, the three dragons and the two turul shifted. Ked grasped Marcus in his talons and sent a silent message to his brothers to fly carefully. Gavra would be able to cocoon Evie in healing breath during the trip, at the very least, so Evie would be in less pain.
They grasped their charges in the cages of their talons and prepared to fly. The way ahead was long, but Aodh could extend their endurance if they needed.
The North brothers had excellent stamina in their turul forms, and could keep pace for hundreds of miles at a time. When they tired, they would rest on Aodh’s back, taking in his breath to replenish their energy to travel farther. It would take them most of a day to reach the dragons’ safest domain: the monastery in the middle of the Pacific Islands.
Chapter Eight
Nikhil
Alexandria, Egypt
11th Century BCE
Nikhil gasped and collapsed to the floor, clawing at his throat as he struggled to pull air into his lungs. A steady, skull-splitting tempo pounded inside his head, like an army had a battering ram at the gates to his consciousness. He shook his head, trying to fend it off, to catch his breath, and to simultaneously avoid vomiting.
What was he thinking, trying to drift without the aid of one of his Elites? Especially to the location and time he’d intended to reach. He could go anywhere in the world under his own power, but any of his secret temporal chambers could only be reached with the blood of two individuals who carried the nymphaea power within them.
Who knows where he actually ended up. Closing his eyes, he relaxed, focusing on one sense at a time. His lungs started working, and he took a slow, shaky breath, letting himself acclimate to his environment.
He felt cold stone under his back—painfully pressed against fresh wounds.
He remembered giving himself those wounds when he tore the beautiful wings off Marcus’s little turul lover. She had been far stronger than he expected, and he deserved every ounce of pain he’d inflicted on both of them.
The next sensation that registered was the sticky warmth of blood coating his right leg and the dull, throbbing pain in the wound that still bled. It was already beginning to itch from the flesh knitting itself together, but a wound that deep would take days to fully heal without Sterlyn’s assistance.
If only the turul’s song had come a few moments earlier, none of this would have happened. If only he’d been clear of that vile, slippery darkness that had occupied his mind, controlled his thoughts for so long, he would have shown them mercy.
No. He would have released them. That’s what he should have done. He should have released all of them. He had no reason to hold them now, and thanks to his seven days with Belah and then that divine song the turul had sung… Evie North. You know her name.
The notes still danced through his head like one of the incessantly irritating little earworms Marcus used to hum when he was in a rare good mood. How did the one song go? Before too long, I fell in love with her…
Evie’s song was older. Much, much older. And Nikhil found he preferred the way it ran through his mind repeatedly over the sounds that scratched at the outside of his thoughts. That thing… whatever it was… was still out there and wanted in, but the music had banished it for good, and he had the strongest sense that the music would keep it out as long as he let the song linger in his mind.
But his departure from that bloody cell had been premature, he realized now. He had to go back. To fix what he’d done. He had to tear down the walls of his precious Alexandria Institute and release all the prisoners once and for all. Destroy whatever abominations of half-successful specimens were kept on ice in the vaults. He should burn the research. None of it mattered anymore now that he knew she existed.
Asha. My daughter.
“Papa?”
Nikhil’s head twitched involuntarily at the word. Was he wishing for her so hard that he was imagining…
“Papa, is that you? Can you hear me today, Papa? Please tell me that you hear me.”
He opened his eyes and sat up. This room… he had made it into the very chamber he’d been hoping to get to, but how?
Standing swiftly, he spun around, sure it must be some illusion, some trick of his addled brain. He wasn’t sure he could trust his own mind, after all. He shouldn’t have been able to get into this chamber without … blood … The sticky wetness of his pants made him look down.
It wasn’t all his blood that covered him. When he’d stabbed Marcus, a huge volume of the other man’s blood had drenched him, the power of his pulse causing it to gush from the wound onto Nikhil’s hand. And then he’d knelt in the pool while their blood mixed from mirrored gashes in their thighs. His blood and Marcus’s covered him. He’d had plenty of both to get him here.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it? It only matters that you’re here, and that you can hear me finally.”
Nikhil stared down at the lovely, reclining figure on the pedestal beside him. The woman that lay there looked like the most beautiful funereal effigy he’d ever seen. She was seemingly crafted from pale lavender stone, with veins of shimmering blue underneath. The stone was either the strangest opal in the world, or it wasn’t stone at all.
“I… I can hear you, yes. Is it really you, Asha?” He tentatively reached out a hand to touch her, then drew it back, disgusted that he’d come to her covered in blood.
“Who else would it be? Zorion is refusing to speak to you for now. I’m the only other one here. I’m so happy you said something back to me finally. Zorion is terrible company.”
The figure on the other pedestal shimmered in the lamplight. Zorion’s huge, male shape dwarfed Asha’s. His effigy appeared made from obsidian, but had the same eerie undercurrent of shimmering blue veins beneath the surface.
“I suppose I can’t blame him for not speaking to me if he knows anything about what I am. I’m ashamed to say that I’m only just learning it for myself. I am sorry I couldn’t hear you before, habibi.”
The glow beneath the surface of her skin brightened and pulsed in a comforting rhythm. This time Nikhil did reach out and rest his palm against her shoulder. She was warm to the touch, and his skin tingled pleasantly, the power and life within her clear to him now.
“Papa, you weren’t yourself before. I can’t see you with my eyes, but I can see you with my soul. Mama’s gifts aren’t my only gifts. I have everything you gave me, too. I could tell it was you when you found me and Zorion, but I could also tell that it wasn’t you. I am glad it is only you now. Will you stay a while and talk to me before you go?”
Nikhil suddenly never wanted to leave, but he had to return to make amends. If he were going to be worthy of his daughter’s faith, and even have a chance at askin
g for Belah’s forgiveness, he had work to do.
“Can I not free you from the stone so you and your brother can come with me? I will do anything you need me to do.”
The light beneath her skin shimmered in a playful fashion, and next to her the male figure’s did as well.
“You cannot awaken us, Papa. That is not for you to do. Our mates must find us again, the right way this time. Only those two Blessed creatures can awaken us, but they must prove their worth.”
Again…? The truth hit Nikhil like a blinding light. Naaz and Neela had been the ones to find these two originally. Nikhil had had nothing to do with it. And yet he’d never trusted the twins’ strange draw to what he believed at the time were nothing more than two valuable treasures. So, he’d forbidden either of them from seeing the statues since.
“I will bring them now…”
The blue veins flashed. “No, Papa, you mustn’t lead them to us. They must seek us out on their own. They must follow the path Fate laid for them. It’s the only way to end our hibernation. The trial is necessary. They found us prematurely the first time, using magic that is not theirs to use. It is better this way.”
Nikhil’s shoulders sagged. If Naaz and Neela weren’t to be allowed to find them yet, he would have to find a better hiding place, but that would take time, and he would need Sterlyn’s help to relocate them. They should be relocated for safety’s sake anyway—he didn’t trust that whatever it was that had occupied his mind all along wouldn’t be able to find them and exploit them.
No, he couldn’t wait for Sterlyn’s help. He had to move them now. But where? He wasn’t sure that any place he’d known of in his entire life would be safe. His mind had been a playground for that other thing for so long, what pieces of it were still sacred?
“Let me help.” This time the voice was not the clear, high voice of Asha, but a much darker, deeper sound that reverberated inside his head like a bass drum. With the voice came a shadowy presence that lingered at the edges of his mind, much the way that other dark presence had. Except this one seemed to respectfully wait for an invitation rather than clawing and banging at the door.
“Zorion, is it? Will it help you trust me more if I allow you in?” Nikhil asked.
Zorion’s blue veins shimmered only slightly in response. “It will help you help us. I could easily command you to do it and you would carry out my wishes without question, but I am not the wicked, vile creature that held you in thrall for so long. I am my mother’s son, and you love my mother, so I will help you. Let me in.”
With a sigh, Nikhil closed his eyes and relinquished his control to the shadow, all the while singing Evie’s song under his breath.
Bit by bit, Zorion filtered through his memories, examining and then discarding them one at a time. Nikhil observed skeptically at first, then with growing curiosity as he realized every single memory that was rejected was one from the years since he’d lost Belah.
“Can you show me when it happened? When I lost control?” he blurted after he saw the memories from the last thousand years go by.
Zorion paused and asked, “Do you have a landmark that can guide me? It may go more quickly if we look backward from the beginning.”
Nikhil thought for a moment, recalling the early grief and trying to remember an event that had to be distinctly out of character for him. Any mindless bloodshed that was not directly linked to Belah’s disappearance… There were so many needless deaths in his past that recalling each one made him sick. None of them contributed to Belah’s glory. All of them were about revenge rather than love.
The ones that stood out the most were the executions of the women. For centuries he had sought out females who resembled Belah and bedded them. And when they failed to bear him a child, he had them killed. He remembered the first one clearly, too, because that was the day a small part of him realized he didn’t care about anything beyond his singular goal of producing offspring, and that the deaths were simply a messy but necessary part of achieving that goal.
That very decision was entirely contrary to what he’d believed for his entire life before falling in love with Belah. He may be a sadist, and was extremely good at commanding armies, at killing and torture. Yet he knew the difference between needless death and killing for glory or while defending honor—it was a code he prided himself on from the very beginning and not one he would have easily let go of.
With that early memory in mind, he directed Zorion to continue, hoping he could pinpoint the moment when everything had changed. He needed to know when he’d turned into a monster even Belah couldn’t love.
The images turned surreal the closer they got to Nikhil’s wedding night. His gut tightened with dread, though the memory was one that rarely left his mind. Closer to the night, the images were broken—they were searching backwards so these must be the days just after, when he was healing from Ked’s nearly fatal fire.
The only face he saw during those periods was that of Meri, the palace physician who had also been one of Belah’s closest friends. She’d been there from the start of his affair with Belah. He always remembered her as kind and gentle, carefully seeing to his wounds after that fateful battle that had brought his love to him.
In the days after his wedding, when he’d wished for death, she’d been there, too. The memories flashed by in brief images from the rare moments of lucidity he’d had. Meri’s soft features, her brown eyes, her patient ministrations.
The smooth slide of her naked body atop his once his skin had regenerated enough that he could feel again… yes, Nikhil, take me into you the way you took her… my blood and my essence together… We’ll be as one…
“Stop!” The echo in the chamber rang in his ears jarringly. He’d yelled without meaning to.
Zorion paused at that memory and his power increased, pushing deeper into Nikhil’s mind, blotting out the distractions and highlighting the events of that moment in stark detail. Nikhil watched it again and again, horrified.
“This woman meant something to you, and to Mother. She betrayed you in this moment.”
“Show me all the memories of her.”
Zorion’s shadowy presence in his mind wavered. “You fear her return enough to find us a new hiding place. If she was indeed powerful enough to control you all these years, we should not waste time. Better to examine what you know when we can do it without worry of discovery or interruption.”
Nikhil cursed. “You are nothing like your mother.”
The flickering veins brightened in amusement. “I am not my parents, but at the same time I am their very essences combined. Because I am my mother’s son, I can sense her pain and love, as well as my father’s. They are at odds about you. It isn’t Mother who you need to redeem yourself to, Nikhil. It is my father, and also my mother’s mates. I will help you do this under one condition.”
“Anything,” Nikhil said, standing. “I must prove my worth to Belah, too, though.”
“You must prove your worth to yourself. And once I have my mate I will help you do this, but my sister is right, our ascension must be completed as it was meant to be. You will need Mother’s help to see to that. But for now, I know where we can go.”
“You know a place where the darkness … where Meri … can’t track us down?”
“It is your place, Nikhil. You marked it as yours when you were a boy. See?”
Nikhil’s mind filled with images of a sea coast so vivid it evoked deep and long forgotten emotions. Memories flooded forth that he hadn’t revisited since his childhood. As a young child, he’d explored every inch of the coast near his mother’s village, before he’d been old enough to begin training as a soldier for his mistress’s armies. His favorite destination during those daily explorations was a sea cave, only accessible during low tide.
Nikhil hadn’t spared the place a thought since growing up, but now that Zorion showed him the images, all th
e memories rushed back.
“Are you sure this place is safe?” he asked.
“This is a memory that has been untainted by the darkness. She will not find this place without an effort. It will serve as a temporary sanctuary for us.”
The question was whether he could take them both there now. He had to hope that Marcus’s blood that still clung to him would be enough. His wounds were slowly healing, but wetness still coated his thigh and trickled down his back, so he knew his own blood still flowed.
Nikhil moved in between the pair of effigies and grasped the arm of each one.
“Hold on,” he said.
Picturing the childhood hideaway in his mind, he called on the drift and held his breath as it rushed in to carry them away.
Chapter Nine
Evie
Canadian Rockies
Present Day
Evie ached at the distance between herself and Ked so soon after finding him, after losing Marcus. But soon after her tearful reunion with her brothers, a huge red dragon urged her into the cradle of one large foreclaw and she went, wincing only slightly when her injured back brushed against his palm. While she’d crossed paths with many dragons in her life, she’d never been so close to one.
Staring across the clearing at the large, naked man who had spirited her and Marcus out of the Ultiori fortress, her entire body tingled just as it had deep in the underground room of that horrible place.
For a moment after she felt his presence, she believed he was merely Marcus’s ghost lingering behind, unable to let her go. Marcus’s final breath had carried the words, “Forgive me,” after all, and had been filled with such soul-deep regret she still ached from the sound.
But a dragon’s breath was part Wind magic, and carried a hint of living essence with it that no turul could miss. This dragon’s breath had betrayed his presence to her, whether he knew it or not. And in that second, she had known him—first, for his nature, and second, for who he was to her. The immense Shadow wasn’t Marcus’s ghost, but the magical breath of the biggest, most powerful black dragon she’d ever seen in her life.
