Chapter Thirteen
Haden
The stale gray clouds loomed for miles as if they were warning of another flood. I stood in the growing ruins of Old Udora and stood in her waters. The deep moss that was filling with water with each passing day. Where my feet once hit the ground now sat warm waters, overflowing in an ancient city.
I couldn’t fathom for what reason the Koth was choosing to let our city die, but I wasn’t about to let it go. Not without a fight.
Unless she asked me to, I’d concluded.
If Sarra willed it, then I would so whatever I could to make her happy. I had been so sure. So certain that this was the right thing to do, and now I hadn’t a clue. If she came back to me and said she wanted to return to the Earth, I would have no choice but to submit to her wishes. To stop.
I’d hoped she would come to me and say she believed me. Tell me she’d done her best to get whatever information she could from Zaphira. I wanted her to tell me that soon there would come a new Weredragon who would lead us to peace and prosperity. I wanted us to both believe in the legend and justify the lies we’d both been telling, been keeping.
But… if she wouldn’t come… if she wouldn’t relent… then I would give it up to have a lifetime with her before I made my move in the rebellion.
Looking out over the mossy field, I felt my anger let go. For all the wrongs the Koth had bestowed upon its loyal people, for all the hell Zaphira and Riddell had wreaked on my people, I would let it all go for Sarra.
And then I heard it, the most beautiful sound of all: splashing in the distance. I knew she was coming. What she was coming to tell me still remained a mystery, but as the splashing grew louder my heart began to soar.
“You were right,” came the smoothest tone of my beautiful love.
I turned around to see Sarra’s pale skin and raven hair, a mess of bangs falling in her eyes as she looked at me with a resigned smile. She wore a long white dress that was slowly becoming enveloped in the rising sea water. I could see through the layers of fabric to catch a glimpse of her perfect skin below.
“Come again?” I teased as I raised my hand to my ear. “Sorry, I’m going to have to get you to repeat that. It’s not a phrase I’ve heard often, especially from one so beautiful.”
“Stop it,” she batted me away as she approached. We looked into the distance at the crumbling city and suddenly there was an overpowering connection between us.
“You look beautiful,” I breathed as though I couldn’t hold the thought in any longer. She gave a passive smile at the compliment and came right up next to me.
Sarra grabbed my hand and turned her head to me, her bangs falling to the side and revealing her beautiful green eyes as she rested her head on my shoulder. “You were right,” she repeated with emphasis. “It’s a girl.”
My eyes went wide, and I looked down at her with a fascinated smile. “Well, I’ll be…” I gasped. “So the legend is true.”
“I’ve been wrestling with that myself,” she admitted.
“And you didn’t invite me to watch?” I joked, and my love rolled her eyes my way. “So, what do you think?”
“I think… you were right. She’s coming.”
I looked down at her hand, her warmth covering over my scaled and calloused fingers. As I watched her long fingers, I couldn't help but feel rejuvenated. I had been fighting for so long, moving for so long that it was hard to feel comfortable. But she'd made me the happiest I had ever been. And best of all, she was ready. She was ready now to believe with me.
“What about Zaphira?” I asked warily, knowing the love Sarra had for her.
“I think I have her in line,” she said confidently.
“I know she’s important to you.”
“Yes, yes,” she dismissed. “I’ve made my peace. As it turns out, I may be able to stay in her good graces and save the world all in one go.”
“What can I say? You’re a talented woman.” I snapped my fingers in jest.
She narrowed her eyes at me and threw her head back with a laugh. “And I’m a lucky woman, isn’t that right?”
“That depends,” I said slowly and she knew my question was coming. “Sarra, did you find out where she is?”
She flinched under my question and narrowed her brows pointedly. “She’s young.”
“That’s a yes.”
“That’s a yes,” the black-haired woman admitted. Looking up, she spotted some stray hairs falling down from my mess of a mane and boldly reached over, pushing the strands away from my face and smiling down at me.
“But that means there’s still plenty of time before we act, right?” Her tone sat somewhere between pleading and warning as she carefully watched my eyes. “There’s no reason to find a child to enthrone, is there?”
“Well, the legend didn’t exactly specify that she would be a grown adult…”
“Legends are vague like that,” she shrugged.
“And we can probably assume that a little baby Weredragon taking over a civilization would probably not be a wise ending to the story.”
“It would probably lead to some pretty bizarre requests as well.”
“There’s time,” I nod, dropping our banter for a more serious tone. I watched her sigh in relief. If all she needed was time before she stood at my side and made things right with Udora again, then time she would get.
“But eventually…”
She gave a single nod and smiled. “Eventually, we’ll find her. I promise.” Then she looked at me sternly and pointed a finger in my direction. “But that means no funny business until then. You stay quiet with the rebellion, and I stay quiet with Zaphira. We live our lives together. We start a family. We take care of our alliances… Okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“If this is really going to work, we’re both going to have to play our parts perfectly, especially if the Koth is already suspicious of a rebel in their midst. Understand?”
I gave a hearty laugh and wrapped my arm around her. How good it felt to feel her warm skin touching mine once more. To know that she was mine and I no longer had to worry about secrets. That our lives would be full of peace until the moment arrived. That I could start a family with the woman I had chosen to be mine.
“And what about us?” I asked solemnly, never daring to look into her eyes for fear I might see some falsehood there. “Are we pretending?”
“Us?” She smiled and turned my face to her. “We never pretend. We never lie. We… are all we have. Got it?”
Her stern expression soon doubled over into flirtatious laughter as I smiled down at her. “Got it,” I said. “Gee… is that what having a real wife is like? Eddrys has told me some pretty big horror stories about getting lectured, but I didn’t think it would be as scary as this.”
She batted me playfully on the arm and laughed into the air. “Better get used to it now, Haden. Because this is you and me forever.”
“Then I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The water continued to rush up under our feet, and I knew within just a few minutes we would be forced out of the ruins. We could see the purple glowstones beneath the surface of the water lighting up with a wild ferocity, shining brighter than I’d ever seen them before.
Regardless of our standing now… I believed one day we would find each other again, even if we had to fall in love with these newer versions of each other. From here on, I would continue to love her, refusing to let go of what we were building together.
My faith in our love, in my choosing, was only strengthened as she stood with me in the deep waters of a soon to be glowing city and kissed me.