Chapter Forty-four
This time, she was back up on the cliffs and off to one side, ducking down instinctively as an absolutely enormous black dragon swooped low over the village and angled masterfully in the air toward the approaching Great White.
Eva had never before seen either of these Legendary dragons in their true forms. She was bewitched – stunned immobile. But at her side, there was movement. Eva turned to see Katrielle, neck craned, expression worried.
“Please, Ban,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”
Eva recognized her mother’s mistake before Katrielle even did. Even whispers, dragons could hear. But she wouldn’t know that as well as Eva did.
The red-headed beauty blinked and inhaled sharply when the Great White, Anharidan, disappeared from the sky in dragon form – to reappear in front of Katrielle in his white draconic armor.
He gazed down at Kat with hard, unfeeling eyes. “What did you say, my love?”
Kat took a careful step back, the color draining from her face.
“She was begging me not to kill you, Anharidan,” said the man behind the Great White. The three of them looked to find Bantariax had shifted as well, and again wore his black scale armor. His eyes, however, were replete with the lightning that had flashed in his cave, and his fangs had only lengthened against his lip. “I suppose she loves you after all. And that’s something I just can’t abide.”
Eva stared in wonder as her father protected both her and her mother with the lie – and then attacked. The two men collided with a roar, followed by a sound like thunder, and the aftershock knocked Eva off her feet once more, even in this memory.
Evangeline hit the ground somewhere feet or yards away, and rolled. All the while, chaos erupted around her, brought to life by the fierce and stark sounds of men becoming dragons and locking in mortal battle.
Eva rolled onto her back and looked up. Above her, outlined against the red-orange of the twilight morning, two enormous sets of bat-like wings blocked the light like cosmic umbrellas. The image burned into Evangeline’s mind, unbelievable and staggering. It was a scene from a fantasy novelist’s most revered dream, but it was real. It had been real. The stupefying monsters up above, larger than life and older than legend, crashed into one another, tooth and claw, angled wing and terrifying bellow. Dragon breath magic curled around them in mystifying swirls of white and black, crackling and deadly.
Eventually, the magic became so thick, it blotted out both forms, and all Eva could do was listen. The cries of fury continued, wrathful bellows blotting out reason – until at last, one final cry pierced the heavens, and Eva knew it was the sound of death.
She waited, breathless. And then the clouds were suddenly parting, and a white comet was descending toward her with impossible speed. Eva jumped up, scrambling to get out of the way. But just before it would have hit the ground, the form flashed bright white, and Eva covered her eyes.
When she lowered her arm, a familiar scene appeared before her. A storm was forming, swirling overhead. Lightning was beginning to strike the earth, lighting up trees. And a young girl with long white hair emerged, sleepy and confused, from the only home she’d ever known.
The girl blinked up at the strange weather, then caught sight of the fallen figure in white on the cliff’s ledge – and she ran.
Evangeline moved numbly, following the girl’s path with heavy legs until she, too, stood on the cliff’s ledge, and looked down at the scene she knew so well, but this time from a new perspective.
A sob wracked from the tiny chest of the child with wrong-colored hair and lavender eyes. “Why?” she asked the mighty dragon standing over her.
But Korridum stood there in his human form, swathed in the darkness of the storm, and said nothing. And now Eva understood why.
Anharidan had always been a good father to Evangeline. He had cared for her as if she’d been his own. When he died, she was too young… just too young to understand the intricacies of romantic love and betrayal. She would never have believed that Bantariax was actually her father. She would never have been able to comprehend that her mother was a prisoner to the man who held her on his lap, told her stories, and doted on her with any toy she desired.
Not then. Korr had been right.
There on that infamous, blood-stained cliff, Korridum the Great Gray had made an ultimate sacrifice for Bantariax and for the woman Ban so devoutly loved. He shouldered the blame for Anharidan’s death… without saying a single word.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
Eva blinked and spun. The world around her changed, just like that. Now she was in a mostly dark room, circular and quiet, somehow peaceful. Her mother stood at the center of the room, wreathed in light from an unseen source. She was in the form Eva remembered best, with red hair and blue, blue eyes and timeless, confounding beauty.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” said Eva. She understood that now. Her mother had done nothing wrong, and certainly nothing more than Eva was guilty of herself.
She’d fallen in love.
Katrielle smiled a small smile and blinked back tears. Her fingers twined nervously and she looked down. “Eva… I think this is my last death. That’s why I was able to show you all I did.” She looked back up. “You need to leave. You need to stop trying to heal me. It’s draining you… and it won’t work.”
Evangeline frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m dying, Eva,” she said frankly. “It seems we can kill one another after all. Or at least… Amunet can kill me.” She stepped out of the center of the circular room and approached her daughter. “You’ve been healing me all this time, little one. You refuse to give up.” She laughed softly, shaking her head. “You’ve even erected a shield over us to keep the others from trying to stop you.”
Eva blinked, confused. “That’s not….” She shook her head. She didn’t remember any of that. She wasn’t aware of the outside world at all, in fact.
But Katrielle smiled again and gently, warmly, cupped her daughter’s cheek. “Eva, I want you to make me a promise. Your father is alive. He is somewhere out there.” She closed her eyes. “I can feel him drawing closer. He’s fighting so hard.” She opened her eyes again and settled them on Eva. “You must find him, Eva. And… let him come to know his daughter.” She dropped her hand slowly. “And tell him that I will always love him.”
Eva stared at her mother in flabbergasted silence. And then something she’d said echoed in the recesses of her mind.
Tell him I will always love him.
It seems we can kill one another after all. Or at least… Amunet can kill me.
Amunet can kill me.
Eva’s eyes widened. Amunet was the embodiment of hatred. What did hatred kill?
“Love,” she said aloud, in a voice filled with wonder. “You’re love.”
It all made sense now. Katrielle and the sacrifice she’d made to protect her daughter. Lalura Chantelle and her crotchety, human form that took in abandoned children, taught magic to lost souls, and fought the forces of evil, arthritis be damned. And even Lilith McLaren… betraying her own sister to protect the mortals of the planet, people she didn’t even know.
Only love could do that.
Katrielle the Nomad said nothing. But her small, sad smile was back, and her blue, blue eyes began to glow. She was dying.
No, thought Eva. I won’t let you. “And now I know how to save you.”
Evangeline was half dragon, half dark and magnificent Legendary, all power and fury. But her other half was her mother’s. Her other half, every last inch of it, was composed of love. So Eva closed her eyes and concentrated.
All this time, she had been trying to heal her mother. But she’d been doing it wrong. She’d been using healing magic, every ounce she could muster. Now she pulled that magic back and took a slow, deep breath. And then she sent her mother what she actually needed.
Hatred was the death of love.
“I love you, mata,” she said softly. “I always have. And I always will.”
But love trumped hate every time.