The cold burned hotter than any dragon fire against my soft human skin. Fire I could handle. Cold... 

It was why we had built the prison in ice. Fire was speed and movement; ice slowed every being down.

But ice could also protect. The prison had not been just to keep things in, but to keep things out. The wind whipped loose snow against my skin, blasting it raw. I needed to shift again. I needed the protection of my dragon armor.

But my reserves were low—lower than they had been since I had first awakened, alone in my own mind. Were they enough to sustain me at all? 

I drifted in and out of consciousness. I wanted to move. I knew I needed to move, but I had exhausted whatever energy I had in my mad escape.

The ground shook beneath me. I should care. That couldn't be a good sign.

I had no will to care. Not about the shaking ground. Not about my windburned skin. Not about my inability to move. It was funny. I had never truly thought of dying. Perhaps in battle, a few times, but not of circumstance. Not of old age. Yet here I was, as week as a kit, dying.

The pain had faded, though. Perhaps dying wasn't so bad. My time after waking and before Simon... that had been bad. I couldn't have returned to that madness. And Simon's life was finite. He was only human. When he died, a scant few decades away, what would have been left for me? Darkness once more?

At the same time, it did feel rather pointless for me to escape only to die of simple exposure. How ignominious. 

I felt warm now. That was a bad sign, wasn't it? I was becoming delirious. Or had I been delirious for a while? I had experienced the power of the desert's mirages many times. Was this barren winter wasteland similar? But these frozen imaginations of my mind seemed so much more real. I could actually feel hands on my skin, scorching my frozen skin with their touch. I welcomed it. If I had to go, heat and pleasant delusions seemed a not so terrible way.

Ryeth, hold on. We've got you.

Ah, Simon. Of course my mind would bring me him as one last comfort. I hoped he would not worry too much about my loss. I wished I could reach out to him one last time, to explain what had happened, but the flicker at the core of my soul was fading. I wouldn't even be able to touch his mind, let alone remain long enough to say anything.

The bright blue white of everything faded into blackness, and I welcomed it. I did not believe in an afterlife. This was the end. Goodbye.

* * *

I was cocooned in something soft and warm. Huh. I may not believe in the afterlife, but apparently the afterlife believed in me. I struggled to sit up as I opened my eyes. 

I was in a room. A warm room, with comfortable furnishings. Blankets were heaped over my body, which lay in a soft bed, and a fire roared merrily in a fireplace to my right. 

"You're awake!"

I turned my head to see Simon hovering over me, his brown eyes anxious. "I am?" I reached out to touch his face, to see if he were real. It would be a cruel trick of death to provide me with a simulacrum of reality just when I had resigned myself to giving up the real thing. 

Before my hand reached halfway between us, I collapsed back in exhaustion. That was odd. Should I feel exhaustion in the afterlife?

Simon reached out and grabbed my hand. It was warm, and rough, and very, very real.

"Am I dead?" I asked. I was beginning to doubt it.

"No, thank god," Simon said, clutching my hand.

Not dead. Well. That changed things.

"I felt you escape. Phoenix felt you. All the Ancients—I came as fast as I could. I was afraid I was too late."

Simon's words ran together, but I reached out to reconnect with his mind and his meaning resolved itself. He sighed in relief, and after a brief, wordless inquiry of permission and his acceptance, I sifted through his memories to see what had happened.

That definitely changed things. I was alive. Simon had saved me. Those were definitely positives. But negatively, we were now in the artreans debt, which didn't seem particularly safe to me. But living and in debt was infinitely better than dead of any sort.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, catching my train of thought. I pushed aside my concerns.

"It is a small matter," I said. "Thank you."

"For what?"

He seemed genuinely confused at my thanks. "For saving me, of course."

"Don't be ridiculous. That isn't something you should be thanking me for." He dropped my hand and retrieved a tray. "Do you feel well enough to eat?"

Now that he mentioned it, I realized I was starving. I reached for the tray with enthusiasm, but Simon didn't let it go until it was settled over my lap. Probably a good thing. My arms shook just with that brief movement.

As I devoured the contents of the plate—stew, fruit, bread—I felt my reserves build and my strength return as my body immediately put the nourishment to use. I completely devoured the contents of the tray. "You wouldn't happen to have more, would you?"

After four more trays, Simon finally had someone bring in the entire stew pot and simply ladled bowl after bowl until I emptied the entire pot. I didn't feel sated by any measure, but I did feel less ravenous.

"Do I need to go get you more?" He looked at the empty pot dubiously.

"No, that is good for now." Now that the edge of my hunger and confusion were gone, I just wanted to look at him. The conduit I had never met in the flesh until now. It felt... strange. This was backwards to every other conduit I'd had. In the old days, potential conduits were trained from youth, and I visited with them often, getting to know them and the feel of their mind from the outside before I made an offer and the conduit accepted. 

"Is there something on my face?" Simon's question interrupted my reverie. 

"What?"

"You're looking at me weirdly. Is there something wrong?" He touched his eyebrows, cheeks and chin while making absurd faces. 

I laughed. Or tried to. The muscles that would support the movements were weak, and everything felt foreign to me. "No, it's just strange looking at you. Your mental picture of yourself is different."

"Am I buffer in my mind? Taller?" Simon gave me a devilish smile.

"Nothing like that—the difference between my eye's vision of you and your mind's vision of you are like reality and a warped mirror."

"So which is warped? My mind or your eyes?"

"Your mind, clearly," Asher said as he entered the room. He came up behind his brother and offered me his hand, the seer following along behind him. "It is good to finally meet you, Ryeth."

I shook his hand and didn't bother correcting him. Our “meetings” so far were just as real as this, but it was hard for most beings to accept a meeting of the minds as equal to a physical meeting. 

"Asher and Caspar helped me retrieve you," Simon said.

I nodded to the two men. "You have my thanks." 

"We made it just in time," the seer said. "After the portal closed behind us, I saw several beings descend on the spot."

"Beings?" I said sharply. "Who?"

Caspar shook his head. "Their power was too great and blurred my vision. I assume Ancients, but your brother was not among them. I would have recognized him."

Others were awake, then. Several. I wondered who had escaped before me. Were they friend or foe? If any member of the Council had woken before me, had they sought to free the rest of us? That was first on my agenda, once my strength was returned. That, and dealing with my brother.

"We are returning to the pack," Asher said to Simon. "Is there anything you need?"

Simon shrugged his shoulders. "Not that I can think of. Thanks, Asher."

The brothers hugged. Something has shifted, I see.

Simon's mental push was playful. Don't make a big deal out of it.

As Asher and Caspar left, I could feel Simon's cheerfulness dip. "I could use more food now, if you could find some."

His smile returned. "I'll scrounge something up."

He didn't bother with the tray this time. I ate five loafs of bread, an entire ham, and two full chickens. 

"Where does it all go?" Simon asked wonderingly, staring at my bare, flat stomach.

"It burns," I said with a burp. "My body immediately puts it to use." My body was still growling with hunger, but my stomach was sending me the message that I needed something more to finish my recovery. My limbs were much stronger, so I pushed back the covers and swung my feet off the side of the bed.

"Talk about morning wood," Simon said, his cheeks flushing red as his eyes darted up my body and fixed firmly on my face. 

I looked down to my firm erection. "Ah. That's what my body was telling me. I would have thought that yearning was an emotion I couldn't forget, but after a few thousand years, I guess anything could be forgotten."

"Your body is telling you it needs sex?"

I sighed. "Apparently. It will pipe down after a while."

"Or I could... assist you."

Simon's words were reminiscent of my first offer to him, and my cock throbbed at the implication. I had never been more thankful for my connection to my conduit's mind. He was interested... very interested. But... would it be permissible? 

Even though there was no one else to judge me, I still had to answer to my own moral compass. Every instinct told me to accept Simon's offer, only my mind held me back.

But this was Simon, and our relationship had been backwards from the beginning. I was not his mentor. I was in no position of authority over him. In fact, I was the one who was in his debt, for saving me from my mental prison and rescuing me from near death. I would not be abusing any power by accepting his offer.

I knew he was privy to my thoughts, but for once, he held back his wisecracks. He knew when I reached my decision, however, and he reached for me. Simon drew me slowly against his body, perching on the bed next to me, and the press of our skin and his lips to mine was so much more intense than just our mental connection had been these past months. That did not make them any less real, but the added dimension of the physical amplified every sensation. 

I felt my body instinctively altering to what he needed. I had always defaulted to a basic human body when shifted, but Simon was an alpha, and my body recognized his desire for an omega. Nothing changed externally, but deep inside, my body shifted.

Simon suddenly pulled his lips from mine. "Damnit, Ryeth. You smell amazing. That's one thing our daydreams missed."