Page 64 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

“Emmelil says hello,” he taunted after forcing her to climax from his whip alone. “She’s learning almost as well as you.”

He wasn’t lying. Uradri could feel the partial bond of a broken triad, anchored and unmoving within this oppression, even if the two of them never shared a word.

Uradri was fading, with a body only remembering pain and contempt and the occasional betrayal when it exchanged them for pleasure. Either Indrath truly denied what lay before his eyes, or he didn’t care .

He will kill me.

For the first time, ever, she believed it.

He will kill me.

She’d been foolish to think she was somehow an exception to the rules.

Because I’d made him one.

And now, here she was. Blind to the Ley. Trapped in darkness. Her light fading, her skin becoming a shell waiting to be penetrated. He might have even found a way to claim a Sovereign’s soul as a trophy for the Hells.

She wouldn’t know until it happened.

Tears welled up. She cried upon the throne.

*Io’sulta… please, help me…*

Tired. Expecting no answer. Nothing had come in the countless times she had begged.

*Io’sulta… I am sorry if I have used you improperly. I always believed in our pact, and I always… always loved you. I expect nothing, but I will miss you until I fade away…*

Warmth.

The lightest of touches in the back of her thoughts. Gentle and voiceless.

*Io’sulta?*

“Hmm, not really.”

Uradri jolted up at the unfamiliar male voice, throwing herself to her feet so quickly she toppled over.

A large, scaly palm caught her. “Careful. It’s a big slope.”

Uradri shook uncontrollably, nearly fainting as she stared down at a forested mountain, her toes gripping the edge of a precipice.

“Oh, don’t leave yet. You just got here.”

“Here?!” she yelped. “Wh-where?”

A large set of metallic gold eyes blinked at her. “My Dream, I think. I wasn’t expecting you.” He appraised her. “You seem tired.”

Dream…

“I-I am in reverie?” she whispered .

“Well, I am Sleeping.”

“How?” She took a deep breath. “I do not enter Dragon Dreams. I know of no circumstances where I would!”

His eyes crinkled with humor, his scales glimmering like rubies. “I’ll bet you just discovered circumstances previously unknown, or you wouldn’t be here.”

She paused. Something about that soothed her.

I can’t see the path until it is here.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am Kado’phar the Red.”

She squinted. “I have never seen you.”

“I am one of the younger ones. I’ve seen you dart in and out of here for sure.” A glimmer of teeth showed as he smiled. “The Wanderer filled me in a little why that is.”

The Wanderer. She remembered that Dragon. Now, here is the Red, and he’s younger than me.

Uradri touched her lips in thought, eyeing him nervously. “Will you try to trap me?”

“Mmm, noooo,” he drawled. “That didn’t seem to work for my predecessor.”

“Who was your predecessor?”

“Thraekepesk.”

Another memory stirred.

“The Storm,” she blurted.

“Yes, and he never liked you much. Too distracting from his work near Blackbark. I think he was happy to pass Io’sulta off to me.”

Uradri stared. “Io’sulta…?”

“I am her Guardian. If you have been trying to reach her, as you do regularly, you found me instead.”

Ridiculous hope flared up in her chest, white-hot and making her dizzy.

“Do you know the Ice Lord?” she asked.

Kado’phar laughed. “Oh, do I! Mostly by reputation.”

“Meaning…?”

She received the impression of a casual shrug .

“Meaning I don’t think he’s figured out what I want, otherwise he would have come to ‘talk’ by now.”

“You expect to make a deal with him?”

“A Bargain. Quite different from an Infernal Contract.” A massive, scaled body slid into a comfortable position on the other side of the mountainside. “Most of my elders have one, as I’ve heard.”

The Sovereign’s wings ruffled until she had to shake them out. How many Dragons had a “Bargain” that involved her? Was that why they always chased her out?

“If you aren’t constrained,” she asked, “would you let me talk with Io’sulta?”

“Ohhh, ssseeee,” he began apologetically, “something has changed that…uh… makes it impossible for Io’sulta to grant power without expecting something in exchange.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“So is the change that caused it.”

“You’re trying to trick me!”

“Why would I do that? Io’sulta likes you.”

Uradri jerked in surprise. “Huh?”

Kado’phar grinned, golden eyes glimmering. “And if she likes you, there must be something worthwhile about you.”

A balm to her heart. “You… you haven’t heard the stories?”

“I have. I wasn’t there when it happened.”

She swallowed. “You aren’t judging me?”

“Seems pointless. Io’sulta likes you and, like her, you create wonder in the wake of destruction. Love it or loathe it, the world needs it. I wouldn’t be a good Sargt to her if I didn’t understand that much.” He blinked when she began to sob. “Uh. Are you alright?”

“No,” she whimpered. “I’m trapped. The Ice Lord is going to kill me, and he has one of Io’tracta, so they can’t come to free me.”

“I see.”

Kado’phar waited until she cried out most of her surging terror, waving a claw to form a clear spring for her to drink. He seemed to be thinking, and Uradri dared not demand what was on her mind.

“Do you want a Bargain with me?”

“ Argh! ” She clutched her head. “I hate rules! I can’t follow stipulations like that!”

“Sorry, but there’s not a lot I can do to circumvent the Ice Lord in his lair. Io’sulta can but, as I said, she cannot give power without something in exchange. The Balance is too precarious right now.”

She cracked an eye open. “So… a gift-swap with Io’sulta?”

His eyes smiled. “If you want to look at it that way. Still binding, though.”

The Sovereign exhaled slowly. “What’s the exchange?”

“Let me Name you.”

She threw herself back in shock. “ What?! That would destroy me the same as Ice Heart!”

“It wouldn’t have to.”

“I’d be a different being and bound here forever!”

“True, but you’d be helping Io’sulta.”

“How so?!”

“Io’tracta.” Kado’phar spoke their name with such elocution it made her shudder. “It is an old Name usurped by the Trinity to enter my world. Thraekepesk did tell me that. It’s why you can bring them in any time you want despite our Guardianship.”

“So?”

“So, they aren’t welcome. But you are. I want the Name back. I will give it to you. Io’sulta will not only be open to you, but she will protect you from the Ice Lord.”

“B-But Emmi…!” Uradri was near panic. “He still has one of my Trinity!”

“I know. And if the Name is reclaimed, she will be freed. There is nothing he can do about that. She will become light and leave our world.”

“But never reenter, with or without me.”

The Red Dragon’s eyes crinkled; he appeared extremely happy about that. He said nothing but rested his chin upon the vague outline of paws, waiting until she could speak.

“I am to give up my Trinity entirely,” she murmured, “and be bound to my home world by this Name. And I can leave Ice Heart.”

“That’s the Bargain.”

“That is much to give up. All I’ve ever known as a Sovereign.”

He shrugged again. “We all sacrifice something to make amends.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Any of us, including you. But most recently, Mazdek.”

Uradri stared at him hard. “Sacrifice for what amends?”

“Probably for your cousin.”

She clutched her chest. “What?”

“The Flame Named your dark-skinned children in part because of what happened to her. They had no home, but he offered his and gave his Word, even though he knew the chaos they bring.”

“Mazdek… Named the Davrin?”

“They named themselves that. He has a different Name for them, just as Io’sulta and I would have a different Name for you, Uradri.”

She tossed her chin, trying to ignore a niggling sense of bonding. “The Flame granted a home even though he didn’t want the ‘chaos’ they bring? That’s not sacrifice! That’s life!”

“True, although there was that battle with the Abyss. And the loss of his son. My Brothers and I don’t know if he will make it.”

An arrow of guilt struck her heart as golden eyes slid toward the east.

“Y-you can’t lose Mazdek!” she said, anger hiding grief. “There’s never been a Desert without him!”

“Even the Sargt die sometimes. Else I wouldn’t have been born to learn about feminine divinity.”

She squinted. “You know why you were born? ”

“Now, yes. I didn’t for a long time.” Kado’phar watched her with a fascination which did not consume. “I could always use more advice, you know.”

Uradri worried her fingers, undecided, then stiffened when an unwanted chill entered her lower back.

“ He’s coming back ,” she whispered.

Red brows drew down in concern. “Hm. Will you accept the Bargain?”

She grimaced. “Can I find you in your Dreams later?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not, depending on Lord Rousse and the time shifts. I can’t guarantee the same exchange.”

The Dragon wasn’t lying. Few of them really did.

Now or never. Free Emmelil but ground myself forever with their Name, and in doing so, help the sacred spring.

She’d never signed a contract, never made a formal bargain of any kind. She had always believed that complicated details replacing earnest passion only meant the betrayal of good intentions.

Yet I’ve granted gifts which spur great change…

Change for everyone but herself.

Until now…

“Name me,” she said. “Reclaim Io’tracta from the Trinity, expel Emmelil from the world of Miurag, and give their Name to me.”

The Dragon’s vertical pupils thinned with focus, the gold of his eyes turning molten.

“In exchange,” she continued, pressing her hands together in a rare prayer, “may Io’sulta bring me home at last.”

Kado’phar reached out, talons appearing to pluck her up by her wings and bring her farther into his mountain.

“Io’tracta,” said the Sargt with formality. “Chaos-bringer and fertility goddess… Io’tracta…”

He swung her around, held her above a clear, sparkling pool she’d once gone to war to win for her children.

“Io’sulta welcomes you. Io’tracta, welcome home.”

The Dreaming Dragon dropped Uradri into the pool, her head and wings submerged into the thriving spring of life. Her light returned in a slightly different hue, intensifying to push back the shadows.

“ ADRI! ”

His voice and his fury followed her as she swam deep into the earth, her wings dissolving, reforming into fins to carry her out of the oceans of ice.

To return to the heart of all magic.

And break into a million colors.

FINIS