Page 67 of I Dream of Dragons

Truth is, I’m dying to get Mars back, to recognize him in that impassive fae face, coach him out of that icy demeanor.

I get it. Both of us went through a lot. He has changed, much like I have. But I can’t help thinking that with the right words, the right gestures—the right touch—he’ll be back.

Back with me.

At last.

Maybe that’s the dread I’m feeling—the abyss between us after a separation that lasted an eternity. We’re both here now and should take advantage to talk. I need to… need to understand.

Understand him. Why he has done all he has done. What happened back then. Why I was told he’d died.

What I feel is not dread, it’s impatience. Anticipation. I’ve lived with this hole in my chest where he used to live for so long, I interpret everything as a negative feeling.

“Listen, child,” the telchin says, startling me, and I almost laugh. Does he even know how old I am? How old Ifeel? “Not many know this story, and I travelled through the worlds to observe its continuation. The story of Marsyas the dragonking of the house of Dikerotes and Phaethon, the great Eosphor.”

At the mention of Phaethon, I sit up straighter.

“In the Sixth World, many centuries ago, some say a millennium, lived a great king called Marsyas. He was kind at first. Governed his kingdom as the Sleeping Gods willed, with fairness and justice. It was a golden era. His alliances and treaties with the other kingdoms brought peace and wealth to the land. He married a princess. Had two sons.”

“How nice for him. Is there a point to this?” I mutter, getting annoyed at this list of good things that happened to an ancient king when I’m late for the banquet—and then it hits me that I’m being rude to a powerful, mystical being. “Sorry.”

But he ignores me. “His wife and sons died. Murdered in their beds. It broke his mind. He blamed the neighboring kingdom for the assassination—his cousin. Blamed him of wanting the throne. He decided to take over that kingdom, and the next. After that, he went to the Pillar temple and declared that he would become emperor of the world because he was the one chosen by the Gods for that role.”

I have a very bad feeling about this story, and that’s aside from my sympathy for this tragic king. His name rings a bell. “What happened then?”

“He committed hubris by attributing such a decision to the Gods. The Gods generally don’t bother with the affairs of men. They sleep in their cocoons, outside of the Nine Worlds, not bothering with prayers and curses. But this time the Gods stirred, leaving the dreams they inhabit, and punished him with eternal life.”

“…swhat?” A laugh escapes me. “Punished him bynotletting him die? That’s it?” My mirth is giving way to anger. Wasn’t I cursed the same way? “What does this have to do with me?”

“This isn’t about you,” he snaps.

I subside, chastised. Fine, no more comments. But why is he telling me this? There is no clock in this room to see the time but I can feel it ticking by.

“His human body died and was buried, but his soul remained alive, thrashing inside the confines of his tomb.”

Oh.That isn’t nice, true. A shiver racks me.Gods.

“His soul eventually escaped and wandered the land as alumen—what you here call a lesser fairy. Over time his memory faded and he diminished into the shape of a boy. Lost, confused, not aware anymore of who he used to be, he came to live with me.”

“You? You were there?” I hadn’t meant to ask this out loud, but…

“Not exactly. He lived with a telchin,” he says. “But we are all as one, one and the same.”

I frown at him. I’d heard that all telchins shared one soul. A mind hive. But I never considered what it actually meant in practical terms.

“He lived with me,” he goes on, “for centuries, fading, turning to shadow and dust. Until he met Persephona.”

My eyes all but bug out of my head. “Wait. Is this the story of the Lady of the Underworld and the Last Reversal?”

“Indeed it is.”

“I’ve never heard it told this way.”

“Never from this perspective, you mean, because you always hear about Persephona and Elisseas, her lover.”

“What was Marsyas’ relationship to her, then?”

“Oh, he fell in love with her. She broke his heart. But before all that, she gave him a dragonskin and a dragonstone, making him a great serpent, an earth dragon. A wyrm. No, more than that: a dragonking. That turned the tide of history, the tide of war. Because by that time, the chains on the Eosphoric army hanging from the firmament had grown loose with the impending Reversal. They fell to earth, attacked the human population. Marsyas was able to call on the dragons, alive and dead, to join in the battle.”