Thirty-One
The Answer
Saber’s sleep was deep and dreamless for the first time in ten years, while Tirah lay in his arms. Then the moment she left, his slumber once again grew troubled. The horrors in his mind began to suck at him, drawing him into the fiery depths of hell. Like a web, it clung, thick and heavy, weaving him in deeper and deeper. No. Saber fought to claw his way to the surface, yet try as he might, nothing worked. A new kind of terror began to build as he realized he was trapped in his own mind with no way out. Then he thought of Tirah, and never seeing her again, never feeling her hands on his skin, or her lips on his. Of never being inside of her and feeling that closeness, that connection. A silent scream started inside of him. It grew stronger when he realized how weak his connection to Tirah had become.
Pain, agony, desperation, hunger, need, despair, it all flooded him at once. Then, just when he thought that was it, he snapped awake.
His breathing was harsh and ragged. Saber didn’t have to look to know Tirah was gone. She’d left him. He could feel it to the core of his very soul and it hurt more than anything, more than all the deaths combined had ever hurt.
Saber lowered his head to his hands. Why? Why did she leave?
Apparently, she doesn’t care about you like you do her. Then he lifted his head and frowned. Wait. How did she leave?
Saber pushed at the fog clouding his mind and climbed from the bed. He grabbed his clothes, dressed, then as white-hot shards of lightning split his skull and ricocheted throughout his whole body, he staggered from the room. As he started toward the kitchen and living area, a whiff of honeysuckle made him pause. With a scowl, he studied the wall and remembered her asking about the wall. How had she known?
Knowing what she would have seen, Saber walked into the wall and the spell he had erected washed over him like a gentle breeze. He lifted his head and sniffed. Yup, she’d come this way. He drew on his power and the tunnel lit up, bright as day.
Go after her. His instincts and the beast inside screamed, but Saber refused. No. She left, she doesn’t want to be with me. That knowledge shredded him and Saber felt another piece of his soul dissolving. Then Saber took a deep breath and fought the madness as a thousand screams and cries beat inside his mind. He found an empty spot and shifting into his half-form, quickly used his talons and drew her as she’d looked lying in his bed with the sheet down by her hips.
When he was done, he stepped back and inspected his work. She was so beautiful, so innocent looking. Pain bit him hard.
Saber shifted back into his human-form and tore his gaze away from the one he needed, wanted, beyond all else.
Go. Bring her back. Bond with her, make her yours. She can save us. The voice was that of his beast, his dragon.
If she does not want to be with me, I will not force her. I love her too much to do that.
Don’t be an idiot. You won’t survive much longer in this condition. We need Adarias to kill us, or her to save us. His dragon roared his fury at Saber’s stubbornness.
“Brother?” Zales called.
Saber didn’t answer.
“I feel your madness. Do you need me to come?” Zales asked.
“No,” Saber snapped. He was tired. So tired, and he knew Zales would only try to help, but his brother wouldn’t be strong enough. Saber shakily made his way to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of ale.
As he downed the whole bottle, he grabbed hold of a fleeting thought. He reached into his pocket, then pulled out Adarias’s medallion.
As he studied this last gift from his brother, he tried to focus through the screaming, the cobwebs, and the mire in his mind. Maybe he had the answer right here. Yet it kept slipping away. He knew there was something … something he was missing. Fuck. If only he could concentrate.
Made of a metal supposedly from the realm of the first dragon, and never seen on any of the fifty-two realms, the relic had very tiny, intricate scroll work in an ancient language. It started around the outside and spiraled steadily inward until it stopped at the very middle, where a minute gem had been placed. Adarias and Saber had never come across the stone before. Depending on the light, it changed colors. Passed down from father to eldest son, their father, Skulla, had given it to Adarias right before he disappeared.
Adarias had never used it, but supposedly it was very powerful.
When Saber and his siblings were young, their father told them stories of the ancient dragons, and one such story was about the medallion. Skulla said it was a conduit, connecting all dragonkind, as well as a receptacle. That it held the power of the first dragon ever born, and that was what gave the medallion its strength.
Saber flipped it over and then over again, trying to focus. Think! Then through the fog, it slowly came to him. If it was a receptacle, could another push their power into it as well?
If so, it might be the answer to all his problems. His power, his magic was what kept him alive, let him heal when hurt. It was also what made him so hard to kill.
Saber no longer held out hope that he’d manage to get Adarias back, not with how quickly his soul and mind were degrading. And while he didn’t blame her for her choice, Tirah’s leaving had sped things up.
At least this way, if it worked … if he no longer had his power, he could end his life, and not worry about turning rogue and hurting anyone.