by Mandy Rosko
“He and I are one in the same. There's no need for one.”
“You used to be one and the same.” Diana corrected. “In the thousand years you've been separated, you've never named him?”
Azoth shrugged. He seemed to be relaxing now despite his earlier fears. Or maybe he was relaxed because the dragon was now relaxed. Azoth used to transform into the creature in front of her, so was it possible their emotions were tied together as well?
A blanket of sadness overtook her at his casual dismissal of a creature that used to be so much a part of him, that very well was still a part of him. “I think you've been punishing him for too long.” she said.
“I have been punishing the both of us.” Azoth said, his lips thinning. “I may have transformed into my dragon that day, but we are both responsible for your death.”
“But you still put most of the blame onto him.”
A slight hesitation. “Perhaps.”
Diana looked back up at the dragon. She felt no fear of it any longer, not now that she was so confidant in what Azoth told her about her former life. This dragon was still a piece of her lover, and when Azoth punished the dragon, he punished himself. When the dragon felt pain over Azoth's cold shoulder, Azoth himself felt pain.
Diana wasn't sure how she knew this, but the sudden knowledge was just so right, there was no other explanation for it. It was almost comparable to self mutilation, whether Azoth knew it or not.
She stepped forward again, her strides longer this time, until Azoth's hand whipped out and snatched her arm. “Do not get any closer,” he seethed, his eyes darting towards his dragon, as though making sure the creature wasn't about to strike.
She resisted when he tried to pull her behind him again. “Let me do this,” she said.
“You cannot—”
She glared at him, her eyes hard, daring him to finish that sentence.
He stopped talking, but he didn't release her arm.
One step at a time, she supposed.
Turning her eyes back to the dragon, she reached her hand up to it.
The giant creature took the hint and leaned down its large head. A gentle gurgling sound was released from its throat.
Diana realized with a start that it was purring. Then its nose was under her hand. Despite the steam she'd witnessed coming through the nostrils as it breathed, the scales were cool and smooth to the touch. It felt like everything that used to make her shudder when she ever thought about touching a lizard, but this was alright. The large, basketball sized eyes slid shut at the gentle contact. Diana smiled and stroked the place between the mounds of its nose.
She looked back at Azoth, ready to be all smug. His eyebrows had gone right up to his hairline, and his mouth hung ever so slightly.
“This doesn't look like a creature that could ever hurt me,” she said.
“I do not understand,”
“I—” Diana's reply was cut off as an all encompassing hellfire consumed her body. She opened her mouth to shriek, but nothing came out, and her fists clenched until her nails bit into her skin.
Despite the pain and the panic, she was still perfectly aware of what was going on around her, which made her suffering that much worse as it was the only thing she was able to think about.
It was like she was being electrocuted, the same feeling as the last time this had happened, only this one was so much worse than the last, and a thousand times more painful. Her skin burned like hot lava until it became as cold as January snow. She couldn't move her body, could barely hear Azoth's screams or the dragon's roars until they faded into the background like nothing. Her eyes stopped working and she bit down on her tongue until blood filled her mouth like a water balloon had just burst inside.
Despite her lack of eyesight and hearing and the paralyzing fear that put inside her, the image of a man, someone who was not Nyx, but equally familiar, flashed before her eyes.
Chapter Eight
Diana came into this new memory shivering. The pain had abruptly faded but its effects were still upon her, and it was like her nerve endings were getting used to the sudden changes in her body.
She wasn't physically hurting anymore, but her mind still recalled the horrific pains, and her muscles were reacting.
She didn't know how much more of this she could take.
“Uncle!”
Diana looked up at the sound of her own voice. The princess ran into the arms of the new man in her memories, the one she'd seen just before being pulled back into this place.
Uncle? Was this the man she—the previous Diana—had spoken of when trying to tutor Azoth?
The man's lips were turned up in a warm smile, his arms outstretched in welcome as she flung herself into them.
Dagda. Diana's mind supplied her with the name instantly. This man was the brother of Mab, and her uncle Dagda. She recognized him now from one of the paintings in her former room, one of the paintings she'd been packing away for when she would leave with her husband.
His hair was long and straight, the pale brown color of a dogwood branch. For a split second, as the memories swam in front of her vision, Diana thought his cape, the same color as his hair, had some sort of white fur trim as a neck attachment.
Then his cape fluttered, revealing that they were truly oversized insect wings, and that the white trim was really a sort of fluff growing from out of his neck, like a moth.
Nothing shocked her anymore, and Diana found herself accepting that fact with more ease than she probably should have.
Dagda, her uncle, and king of the fae in a neighboring land, was impossibly tall. Memory Diana, wearing a gown that consisted of oversized blue butterfly wings, had to jump high in order to make it into his arms. The man's back remained stock still during the catch. Her weight was not enough to produce any sort of physical reaction out of him.
Though his countenance was warm, his voice and smile genuine as he congratulated her on her upcoming marriage, Diana felt cold at the sight of her former self walking off with him, arm in arm, discussing normal things like how his journey had been and the food they would be having at the evening meal.
She didn't understand the significance, and found her body tightening in agitation. “What am I supposed to be seeing here?” She called out as the two ghostly figures disappeared.
She could no longer assume that these memories, suddenly haunting her now, were all a coincidence. If she was going to assume that her life wasn't real, that it was all the product of some kind of spell, then someone was breaking through that spell to send her a message. There was no other explanation.
Her vision swam, and this time, for the first time, she began to witness memories that didn't include her at all.
She reappeared in the center of what sounded like a sharp worded argument, but it was spoken in low hissing tones. To keep others from overhearing? Guess even in the magical world people still had to watch out for spies.
Dagda was there, speaking with a man who looked remarkably like Azoth, but older, with crows feet under his eyes and hints of grey in his long red hair.
His father, her mind supplied again. She must've met him some time in her previous life to have known about that.
The king of dragons stood tall, his heavy red brows pulled together in a viscous frown as he pointed a thick finger in Dagda's face. “I'll be dead before I see my family joined to yours, fae devil!”
Dagda was the epitome of calm. “Oh? You would be willing to share those thoughts with your son? He has quite taken to the girl. He has been seen flying with her in his dragon form. I would not be surprised if they have also taken to each others beds already.”
“He will get over it, and you had best mind your filthy tongue before I cut it out and have it for my breakfast.”
Diana's brows shot up at the threat, and her eyes stayed glued on the elder Dracamire's back as he stormed off, fists clenched and massive muscles tense.
Dagda watched him go as well, then did a half turn and looked right into Diana's face.
She gasped. “You can see me?”
He ignored her. “Come out of your hiding place, servant.”
Diana frowned, confused, then turned and saw what Dagda was really looking at.
Nyx, hiding in the shadows, an easy feet considering how dark he himself was, watching the exchange.
He paled at the command, obviously caught. Then he turned tail and ran quickly in the opposite direction. Dagda gave chase.
Diana was pulled ahead in the memory, and she allowed herself to go, not fighting it this time. Her heart rate picked up, her excitement grew, and she got the feeling that the end was near, that she was finally about to see whatever it was that she was meant to see.
But then her heart really became fast. Her chest and throat swelled and became hot and it took a moment for her to realize she wasn't breathing. She couldn't breathe!
Like being rudely snapped out of a dream, Diana's eyes yanked open. Her vision was assaulted by more of that blur she was becoming used to, but this wasn't from some fog in her brain as memories from a former life came and went as they pleased. It was more like she was underwater.
She exhaled sharply, heavy air bubble s leaving her mouth as the realization shocked her. She was under water! Hard hands, Azoth, gripped her and pulled her out of the pool.
She gasped for air, sputtering water and shaking, and she threw her arms around his shoulders, as though he were her personal life-jacket and would keep her from going back under.
A strange thing for her to think since he was the one to put her under. She was back in the pool where he kept his ever healing philosophers stone.
Azoth's hand was in her hair, cupping her head and holding her close. He was in the pool with her, and dripping wet now that she was clinging to him so forcefully, but he hadn't been submerged like she had. She could tell because his hair was still only damp from the last time they'd been in here.
He was speaking to her, more of the dragon words he fell back into whenever something rattled him, mixed in with english.
Though the water was warm, her teeth chattered.
Azoth spoke again, but she couldn't listen to what he said, not when she was so focused on making the memories she'd been seeing come back to her before she forgot them. She needed to hang onto them. They were so real, so familiar, and that last bit she'd needed to see was just at the edge, behind a curtain that she couldn't lift away.
It was as frustrating as forgetting a name or word that she should've known, that was on the tip of her tongue, but still lost.
Azoth pulled them both out of the pool to sit along the edge, and he stretched a cloth of some kind around her shoulders.
It was different from the thin, small towels they'd used before, and she looked down at it and recognized it as the same cloak Azoth's father had worn that day he threatened her uncle.
Azoth was no longer rambling now that he could see she was all right. He simply adjusted the cloak to better fit around her shoulders, watching her with open concern, and Diana held it tighter around her like it was a security blanket.
Azoth continued to murmur soothing voices to her, like she was a small animal in need of petting and coddling. It comforted and annoyed her at the same time.
When she pushed herself up to stand, declining his constant offers to carry her, but more than happy to accept his arm to lean on, she allowed him to lead her out of the steaming bathing room and into the warm, open airs of his treasure trove.
The red dragon, Big Azoth, she'd named him in her mind, was crooning sadly as she limped across the rock clearing of the bright cavern, steadied by Azoth, and towards his bed.
After asking her more frantic questions, all of which she'd answered with a mumbled yeah, or mmhmm, Azoth took the hint and finally stopped asking her. He became her silent rock to lean against.
When they made it to his room, he pulled aside the covers of his bed and helped her underneath them where she gratefully snuggled under the soft leathers. She hadn't noticed until now how warm they made her feel, and that made her eyelids even heavier.
Even with them shut, she could still sense Azoth's presence above her. He watched her silently for so long she might have fallen asleep, but then woke up again at the sound of his nearly silent feet padding out of the room.
“Wait,” she sat up, suddenly afraid of what would happen if he left her alone.
He had one hand on his carved doorway. The curtain that he'd used as a door was gone, and with a start, Diane realized she was wearing it. If he'd lived here alone for so long, maybe he'd only put up his father's cloak in the first place for her benefit.
Azoth half turned to look at her, waiting.
She'd sat up, and that made her dizzy. “Don't go.”
His entire body went tight, but he didn't go. “I will find the sprite responsible for this and kill him,” he vowed. “And if he is already dead, I'll make his afterlife Hell. I'll not rest until he who makes you suffer, suffers in return.”
She couldn't take it anymore, sitting up had been too much effort, and she fell back against his many pillows as the room swirled around her. She opened her eyes and Azoth was again above her. They seemed to keep meeting like this.
She smiled and thought to tell him that, but he spoke first, his eyes seemed to be glued to the scar that crossed diagonal from her forehead, between her eyes, and down her left cheek.
“You should never have come here. I am the cause for this. I know it now.”
“Azoth, no—”
“Do not tell me no!” he snapped. “Surely this is a new form of punishment. I have grown content with my prison, so now the only form of suffering that can be heaped upon me is in the form of my love, returned from the dead, and suffering as I am helpless to do nothing but watch.”
Diana tried to keep the room from spinning by focusing on Azoth's face, but it wasn't working, so she threw her arm over her eyes. The darkness barely helped. “That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”
“You cannot even look at me while you say it!”
She pulled her arm away and glared at him, using the pounding in her skull to add to the anger that was no doubt showing on her face.
It had the right effect. She'd often heard how fierce she appeared when angry, especially with the scar twisting her features into an even more frightening visage whenever she sneered at someone.
It was good for keeping her students in line, and it was working on Azoth now as well.
He jerked back, but didn't get up off the bed where he sat next to her and move away. “I'm looking at you now, and I'm telling you that, that is a load of self agonizing bullshit. Stop wailing over something that happened a thousand of years ago. You're supposed to be a dragon warrior.”
Azoth jumped up and away from the bed, snarling back down at her. “You...you heartless fae wench! I murdered you on our wedding day! Nearly your entire family! There is nothing I can do to make amends, and you say such foul words over my grief?”
“Because it wasn't your fault!” She shrieked, then winced.
Ouch. That had been a mistake, but it was totally worth it.
He blanched. “Not my fault? Of course it was my fault. The blame is entirely mine as it was my actions that brought about this mess.”
“You don't even remember what happened.” she said miserably, and by the visions she was getting, the things she was learning, she was willing to bet that Dagda was involved as well. She wasn't so sure about Nyx's place in this mystery any longer, but she wasn't quite yet ready to give him up as a suspect.
She told Azoth everything she'd seen in her latest vision.
“Still nothing of the day of our marriage?” He asked, his voice much smaller.
She shook her head. “No, just what happened before.”
Azoth shook his head. He reached his hand out and gently pushed her down onto the mattress, tucking her back in.
“You defend me now. It will not be the same once your full memory returns.”
“If you can't remember it why are you so sure?”
His jaw went tight. “I was told of the things I did, of the hurtful words I spoke, after the event happened, when I was in a proper mind to hear them.”
“Before or after they whipped your back?” she asked. Diana wasn't about to fool herself about where all of his scars had come from.
He waved off the subject. “No more than I deserve. Quite lenient, considering I murdered a fae princess and most of her royal kin.”
She believed him when he said it. Most likely, it was being separated from his dragon half that had been seen as the true punishment.
Whipped, torn into pieces, and then thrown into this prison to be forgotten. Not to mention the way he was eating himself up over it. It made her sad.
Not for the first time, she wished she didn't have such a horrible scar running down her face, but for the first time, she wished it away because it was hurting the feelings of someone else, and not her own vanity.
Azoth stood straight, and Diana stiffened as he turned to go.
“Wait,”
“Yes, princess?” Again, he was at the doorway to his carved out room, looking back at her.
She sat up again, slowly to keep the dizziness at a tolerable level, and held out her arms to him.
His hands became fists, and his lips thinned at her invitation.
He took it. He came to her and joined her in bed, unable to resist the thought of allowing Diana to comfort him.
Although her head still throbbed and body ached from the times they'd already been together, he was as gentle with her as though she was made of a thin sort of glass. As the pleasure slowly overcame her pains, she wondered how he could ever think himself capable of purposely hurting a fly, let alone the woman he loved.
Chapter Nine
“You said I needed to forgive you for you to be able to leave here,” Diana said the next morning. She was assuming it was morning, really. The domed cave separated her from the sky, so she couldn't tell, but they'd just left bed after a nice nap, and were currently eating the bits of fresh fruit and bread Azoth had provided for them on his bed.
