Page 51 of Courting the Dragon Prince (A Royal Arrangement #1)

Chapter Fifty-One

A sense of peace descended on Onyx as he sat on the large cold slab, surrounded by pillars of stone, including sandstone, limestone, marble, onyx, granite, quartz, and slate. It was like sitting amidst a forest of rock. He inhaled deeply, letting the earthy, metallic scent fill his lungs.

Each pillar had been carved from stone collected from the different mountain temples throughout the Grey Mountains. Unfortunately, not all those temples had survived the war. But their memories lived on in the Limestone Castle Temple and in the souls of the earth elementals who’d trained at the temples.

Onyx opened his eyes and stared at the pillar carved from granite that had been collected from the Mystic Mountain. He and Tourmaline had spent years training at the temple there.

Since the war had ended, earth elementals had begun clearing the ruins of the temples that had been destroyed during the war and then starting to rebuild them. This included the Mystic Mountain Temple.

But Onyx hadn’t been back since the war. His chest tightened at the mere thought of returning. After all, it had been there that Tourmaline had died.

Letting out a breath, Onyx turned towards Luther. His husband sat cross-legged beside him, eyes closed, hands resting in his lap. The evening sunlight cast a golden glow on Luther’s dark skin and hair.

“So how are you finding it?” Onyx asked.

Luther exhaled. “Honestly, my arse is fucking numb and sore.” He opened his eyes.

Onyx chuckled. “Your body gets used to that in time.”

“Really? You didn’t just decide a cushion might be a better idea than developing a rock-hard arse?” Luther smirked, gaze darting towards Onyx’s arse. “Not that I’m complaining. You have a magnificent arse.”

Luther rose with a groan. “My legs and back are stiff too. How do you do this for hours?”

“Practice.”

“Well, I asked for a taste, and I think a taste is more than enough for me.” Luther stretched his spine. “I’ll stick to being a dragon, thank you very much.”

“Well, you lasted maybe five minutes.” Onyx stood. “That’s more than I thought you would.”

Luther shoved Onyx and laughed. “I guess I was just never meant to be an earth elemental.” His gaze swept the temple. “It’s a nice temple though. Peaceful. Calm. I like that it is open to the sky. And the trees are a nice touch too. Breaks up all the harsh stone.”

Luther gestured to one of the piles that were scattered around the temple. “The random piles of rocks and boulders are interesting.” He paused. “They are a little messy though.”

“There is a reason those are here. We use them for channelling,” Onyx explained as he walked towards the rocks Luther had gestured at.

Luther came up beside Onyx. “And are there temples like this all over the city?”

Onyx nodded. “Yes. But this one is considered the castle’s main temple. My family have been meditating here for generations. I used to come here as a child with my sister, my mother, and my father.”

Onyx stared at the stones as memories sifted through his mind.

“I don’t have many memories of my father,” Onyx said. “He died when I was very young.”

Luther took his hand.

“But I remember him channelling the rocks. He’d make them float and then stack them.” Onyx took a breath and lifted his free hand towards the rocks. He didn’t actually need to move his arms, but he’d always found the action helped him focus.

Onyx felt the pulse of the stone flow through his body. Slowly he lifted the stones one after the other into the air, stacking them on top of each other. “Tourmaline and I would watch Father in awe. ‘Can you feel the energy moving through them?’ he’d ask. He’d try and describe the feelings.

“We also said we felt it. But I think it was more wishful imagination than anything else. Tourmaline and I were so desperate for our powers to come in.” Onyx chuckled. “We’d peg rocks at each other and pretend we’d done it using the power.”

Luther laughed and squeezed Onyx’s hand.

“My father would pile the stones so high.” Onyx stacked more stones until they towered over their heads. “Of course, I was a child. Maybe it wasn’t that high. But it seemed like it reached to the very clouds above.”

Onyx smiled, remembering that brief period of time when his family had been whole. “Then my mother would hurtle a rock and slam it into my father’s stack, causing them all to topple and crash.”

Onyx released the flow of energy. With a clatter, the rocks fell into a heap once more. “Mother and Father would laugh. We’d laugh too.”

Onyx lowered his hand. “Father’s strength was in his ability to use precision and control when channelling the stone. Earth elementals like that are better at construction and building, since they know how much force to use without going overboard. They built this castle, this city, the temples, everything.” Onyx gestured around them. “Some are also good at crafting. They rearrange and reshape the stone to create objects like cups.

“Mother, like me and Tourmaline, has always been better with just brute force. We’re not so good with construction or crafting. We lack the precision. Everything we build tends to collapse or be structurally unsound. Or just look horrible. But we are good at hurling rocks.” Onyx stared at the inert rocks. “It was useful during the war.

“Mother always said that she and Father were very different, in both temperament and with their powers.” Onyx turned to face Luther. “My parents had a marriage arranged.”

“Like us,” Luther said.

Onyx gazed into Luther’s green eyes. “Mother said it was love at first sight.”

Luther’s lip quirked up. “So not like us.”

“No.” Onyx sighed. “I always hoped to have a relationship like theirs. I hoped to find love in marriage.” He swallowed. “Even when I knew I’d be forced to marry someone for the peace treaty, I still hoped I might find love with my spouse.”

“Then you and I were arranged to be married,” Luther said, voice flat. Luther tried to release Onyx’s hand.

But Onyx squeezed, not letting Luther go. “When I was told I’d be marrying you, I lost all hope of finding love and happiness in marriage.”

Luther looked down. A muscle in Luther’s jaw twitched.

Onyx cupped Luther’s cheek, lifting his head. Luther’s gaze returned to Onyx’s.

“But since then, we’ve gotten to know each other and spent time together. I’ve seen sides of you I didn’t know were there. And now …” Onyx trailed off.

“And now?” Luther asked, voice soft.

“Now …” Onyx caressed the soft skin of Luther’s cheek with his thumb. “Now I’m starting to think maybe all my hopes for this marriage will come true.”

Luther smiled, a bright, wishful thing. “Really?”

“I care for you, Luther,” Onyx said. “I’m glad I was married to you.”

Luther placed his hand on top of Onyx’s. “Me too.”

They both leaned forward, lips pressing softly together. Onyx’s hand slid to the back of Luther’s neck. A breeze ruffled Onyx’s hair as they kissed.

It wasn’t quite a declaration of love. He wasn’t quite ready to say the words yet. But soon, maybe. Every day they spent together, Onyx’s feelings for Luther grew stronger. And so did his hopes for a happy future together.

After several moments, they broke apart and began to move towards the stairs leading down and out of the temple.

“So is this where you learned to meditate, channel, and throw rocks?” Luther asked.

Onyx paused and looked back over the temple. “Not quite. It’s where I was introduced to meditating and channelling. But it was at the Mystic Mountain Temple where I came into my power and honed those skills. Honestly, I didn’t spend much time here once I began my training. The war had already started when we were sent to the temple. At the time, the fighting was mainly along the borders.”

Luther stood silently, gaze on Onyx, just listening, giving Onyx the space to talk. It had been an age since Onyx had opened up like this. Growing up, he’d always had his sister. And his mother. Since his sister’s death and his mother’s descent into grief, he’d had no one.

Until Luther.

“My sister was two years older than me. We grew up very close, and when it was time for her to begin her training, we begged Mother to send us together. To make an exception for me.” Onyx smiled. “Mother relented. So away we went to a temple far from the Draconia border and the war.”

“How old were you?”

“I was eight. Tourmaline ten.” Onyx stared at the granite pillar from the Mystic Mountain Temple. “It was strange training as the war raged on. There was a knowledge that we were training to fight. We focused on learning to use our powers for combat, not on things like construction and crafting. And we were only trained by very old and injured earth elementals. All the young and fit trainers were away fighting.”

Onyx frowned. “Still, the war seemed so far away at the time. It was just some distant thing that didn’t affect our daily lives. We just trained. And we complained about the weather, the food, the chores, and the long hours of meditating on the cold, hard stone.”

“See!” Luther laughed. “Even you found it hard.”

“We did.” Onyx smiled. “But we loved it all the same. We constantly competed. Although, Tourmaline always won. It was always who could run to the stream the fastest, who could carry the most water up the mountain, who could catch the biggest fish, and who would come into their power first. That was the big one. We were desperate to come into our power before the other.”

“Who came into it first?” Luther asked.

“Everyone expected it to be Tourmaline, since she was older. But we shocked everyone.” Onyx chuckled. “About two years after we arrived at the temple, we came into our powers on the same day. Someone suggested it was because we were so close that our channelling had become entwined.”

Onyx took a deep breath and walked towards the granite pillar. Luther followed a step behind him. Onyx paused in front of it. He placed his hand against the hard stone.

“Fuck. I miss her so much.” Onyx’s eyes burned. “The war raged on. The fighting crept further into the Grey Mountains. We grew old enough to join the fighting. Usually, we fought together, side by side.” Every word Onyx spoke felt like a jagged stone scraping against the insides of his throat. “The place we’d trained became a place we had to defend.

“Normally, the temple was well defended. But we received word from our Voltaria allies just over the border that there had been several enemy attacks. I and others went to provide support. My sister and only a few remained. We did not think the temple would be at risk of an attack.” Onyx took a shaky breath.

As he spoke, Onyx felt like his heart was being cracked open, like he was digging up old wounds he’d tried to bury.

“When the attack came, everyone at the temple retreated to the tunnels beneath the mountain. They knew they couldn’t defend against a full-scale dragon attack with such a small number.” Onyx’s voice trembled. “Everyone retreated. Everyone but Tourmaline. She ordered everyone to take cover in the tunnels, and she fought to give them time to escape.”

A tear slid down Onyx’s cheek. “One of the survivors said he got one last glimpse of Tourmaline before entering the tunnels. He said he saw her hurling boulders, yelling, ‘For the glory of the Grey Mountains!’ Then he saw her consumed by dragonfire.” Onyx closed his eyes. More tears slid down his cheeks.

“When I close my eyes, I can still picture her on the day we came into our powers,” Onyx said. “There was a tower at the Mystic Mountain Temple. A thin tower with a bell at the top. You were only allowed to go up and ring the bell when you came into your powers for the first time.”

Onyx could see it now in his head. “She ran up the stairs ahead of me, trying to beat me to the top.”

A broken laugh escaped him. “She glanced back, dark hair whipping around her shoulders, smiling and laughing. But when she reached the top before me, she didn’t ring the bell first. We just paused and looked out over the mountains. We rang the bell together.”

A sob left Onyx. “Now she’s gone. The temple is gone. The tower is gone. Everything is gone.”

“I’m so sorry,” Luther whispered.

Onyx wiped at his eyes and turned toward Luther. He froze.

Luther’s face had gone pale. Horror was written in the lines of his face. “Onyx, I’m so, so sorry.”

An icy numbness swept through Onyx’s body.

Because for a moment, Onyx had forgotten who he spoke to. He’d forgotten who the man beside him actually was. He’d been too focused on the fact that Luther was his husband, that he was developing feelings for Luther, and that he was falling in love with the man.

And somehow, he’d managed to push the truth aside. Because the truth was Luther was an enemy. A dragon. And it had been dragons who’d destroyed the world he loved.

“I’m so sorry, Onyx.” Luther hesitated. “I?—”

No. No. Onyx shook his head. “Don’t say it,” he pleaded. He didn’t want to hear what Luther was about to say.

“I was there when your temple was destroyed. I was part of the attack.”