Epilogue
ETHAN
I stood in the hotel room with my phone to my ear, trying to think of something convincing to say.
But Roland could not be convinced.
"Dude, Roland," I begged, "you're making a mistake. You need to get back here before--"
"Sorry mate," he drawled, "but Harriet and I've got plans. I'll be back in the states in a month, when her research is done."
I looked at Sam, who was sitting on the bed and shaking his head.
"You're not listening. We're stronger together. Sam and I can feel it. With Orlando's issues getting here, and Andy's complete denial of the situation, we need you more than ever."
"And we still don't know who the diamond is," Sam chimed in, as if I could forget.
"And you need us, since your totem is damaged. If you helped us convince--"
"I'll help you when we're back," Roland interrupted. "Until then, take a look at the video I sent you. A little present from me to you. Took a fucken hour to upload on the shitty hotel Wi-Fi, but it should be there soon. Say hi to Samantha for me."
"Roland, wait!"
The line went dead.
I closed my eyes and squeezed the phone in my hand. How in the world could he go vacationing on safari while all of this was happening? Was the whole world going mad?
"He's always been stubborn," Sam offered.
The adjoining door to our hotel room opened and Jessica came storming on. "Honey, are you alright? I can feel your anger..."
"I'm fine," I said, which was a lie. A pointless lie, since Jessica and I shared a bond that allowed her to feel what I felt. A convenience or a curse, depending on the day.
But having her put her hand on my cheek did calm me down. A little bit.
"So he's not coming?" Ezra asked, leaning on the door frame.
"It will be fine," Sam said. "He'll come when he's ready."
"He said the gem was damaged," I admitted. "Cracked. Which explains why the ruby on the sword is dimmer..."
"It'll be fine," Sam insisted, though the confidence in his voice was waning.
"I'm going to get us all some food," Jessica announced. She was a planner, and had taken on the role of chaperone of our little team. "I'll bring back some of everything. The casino buffet has to-go boxes. Ezzy, come with me?"
"As long as we can get some beer," Ezra said. She'd protested against Jessica's nickname for the first few days, but had finally given in and accepted it.
When the girls were gone I pulled my laptop off the desk and opened my email. Sure enough, I had an email from Roland with a Dropbox link attached.
"What is it?" Sam asked, looking over my shoulder.
I didn't answer because I didn't know. I downloaded the file, double-clicked it once it was done, and turned up the volume.
The camera rotated and wobbled, with the hiss and roar of someone rubbing against the microphone. When it steadied we were looking down at a man lying on yellow-orange dirt. His face was swollen and still bore the stain of recently-wiped-away blood. One eye was completely stained red, as if the whites in his eye had been replaced with blood. His muscular body was completely nude, and hate shone in his bloodshot eyes.
"Say hi for the camera," taunted Roland's voice from off-screen.
The man gritted his teeth and said, "Fuck you."
"This here's a dragon," Roland said, in a mocking tone like he was narrating a documentary. "Angry fucker, and ugly as sin, as you can see. No doubt sexual inadequacy is to be blamed for his species' raging temperament."
The Ruby Dragon. Sam and I shared a look.
"My brothers and I have woken after a hundred years of slumber," the dragon intoned. "As we have done a thousand times before, and as we will do a thousand times more. As long as it takes to defeat the gryphons and end this world."
"Now why would you want to do a nasty thing like that?" Roland asked, still off camera. "I happen to like this world, present company aside."
The dragon sneered, showing teeth that were stained red with blood. "You know why."
"Afraid not, mate."
"You and your brethren killed her," the dragon said, hardly more than a whisper. "You took her from us!"
"I haven't killed anyone, and that's something I think I would've remembered."
The dragon spit a ball of pink phlegm to the side. Even on a video, I could see the agony in his eyes.
"We could have lived in peace," he hissed, "but you gryphons took her! Our love, our precious Dionna..."
Roland appeared in the video, crouching next to the dragon. His voice was a great deal softer than I'd ever heard from Roland. "Friend, I'm sorry for your loss. I truly am, cause I can feel the pain in your voice. But I don't mean you any harm. None of us do. We only want to live our lives in peace." He looked up at the camera, no, at the person holding the camera. "We only want to be with the ones we love. Can't you understand that?"
The dragon's face twisted in confusion, and then anger, and then pain.
"What I understand is that we will continue to fight. As we fought you above the trenches of the Somme in France. As we fought in the sky while Napoleon cut down Prussians like grains of wheat. As we burned the Spanish Fleet off the coast of Sicily in 1719, and scoured the Catholics in flame in the Thirty Years' War, and helped lay siege to Vienna a century before that." His broad chest rumbled with laughter. "What I understand, oh ancient ruby foe of mine, is that when we are released from our prison every hundred years we will battle you with righteous passion. We will do so as we have always done until you and the other gryphons have paid for your actions, for what you did to Dionna all those centuries ago. And when we are done, and this world has been reduced to ash and flame, our souls can finally rest."
The words appeared to sap the remainder of the dragon's energy, and he closed his eyes and laid his head against the ground.
"Who is Dionna?" Roland whispered. "What did we do to her?"
The dragon's chest softly rose and fell, but he spoke no more.
"Turn it off," Roland said, and then the video went black.
I sat back in my chair and processed what I'd seen.
"What does he mean?" Sam asked. He sat on the bed and put his hands in his lap, and he stared off as if trying to recall a memory.
I took a deep breath, then let it out gradually. Memories flickered in my brain; memories from distant places and different lives. Memories I'd never known I had.
"I don't know what he means," I said slowly. "But I think he's right."
Sam's eyes widened.
"I think we killed Dionna."