Page 27

“ T ime to wake, cousin.”

I moaned at the sharp commanding tone splitting my skull in half. Every single inch of me was riddled with pain. Death, I had been waiting on death.

“He will not be coming this day, although it would make for an interesting reunion.”

Gasping, a jolt of power coursed through my body, wrenching me from the darkness. Shivering from the intrusion, my pain subsided, and I slowly blinked my eyes open.

A pair of large orbs, cerulean blue, came into focus.

I blinked again, inhaling sharply.

“I hadn’t realized my cousins had become this dense.”

“Water dragon.” I rose slowly, hands raised and cautiously floated backwards from his patronizing gaze.

“As you see.”

I winced at the invasion of his voice booming inside my head and attempted not to stare stupidly while I gazed upon his beastly beauty.

His cerulean blue eyes were ferocious, housed in a gigantic square shaped head decorated with sharp white fangs extending well past his thick leathered lips.

Two long whiskers, alongside his monstrous jaw, floated elegantly in the static water.

Wide, round nostrils, the size of my own head, flared much like the gills on a fish and the creature's scales were nothing short of awe inspiring, a wondrous array of purples, greens, and indigo that constantly changed with his movement and trailed over his serpentine body that was coiled neatly on a bed of white rock.

Waving lazily and reaching into the waters were webbed spiked fins, like the sails of a boat, changing color with each flutter.

He was magnificent.

I breathed deep, steadying my racing heart. Beasts like him detected weakness and if you were weak, you were prey…something I didn’t want to be.

“Where are we?”

He tilted his head indicating the white rock around us with a snort. “We are within my wall.”

My gills fluttered. “You are Shen, the great mirage water dragon.”

The dragon's deep chuckle unsettled me and I braced against his laughter. “ As you see.”

“Sweet goddess.” I breathed. “No one has seen you since the dawn of our time.”

The dragon curved his head around so that one beautiful blue eye blinked at me head on.

“Is Faerie sweet now? Last time I spoke to her she said my wall was a blight upon her grand design and demanded I remove it. She was rather presumptuous and arrogant, if you ask me. There is no greater masterpiece in this world than my wall dividing an entire ocean.”

I gave him a sympathetic smile that was cloyingly sweet. “Your wall is widely known and is admired by many.”

The water dragon’s webbed spikes fluttered in the water and he bared his sharp teeth in a ferocious smile. “I’ll take your flattery even if it is purposefully done to appease me. Now tell me. Why do you look like those pests? You are not water fae. What is your business here with them? ”

I spread my hands wide. “Can’t a fae enjoy a dip from time to time.”

Shen hissed softly. His body uncoiling from its resting perch and circling around me, his massive head inching closer and his tongue flickering out with an air of distaste. “ I’ll ask one more time, cousin. Why do you look like a water fae? What have you come here for? ”

I frowned. “You call me cousin, why?”

His eyes rolled and then brought one serpentine eye closer, narrowing vertically on my person.

“ Typical fae, avoiding questions and asking your own. ” He huffed, disturbing the calm waters and forcing me to collide with his body coiled around me.

“Yes, we are cousins by nature. The shadow fae were the first fae created along with water dragons—our souls very much crafted from similar origins. For with light there must be darkness. What are they teaching you young ones these days if you are not privy to that knowledge?”

“I apologize for my ignorance.” Sardonic words for a bold dragon.

Shen blinked his vertical slitted eye at me twice, recognizing my lack of sincerity before he retracted away. The sudden movement caused me to spin like a top. When I finally slowed, he was back in his coiled resting position, his head settled with a raised purple brow.

“Now speak, cousin. Answer the questions I seek now that your curiosity has been satisfied.”

He was a moody beast, much like my shifter.

“I spoke the truth, I do enjoy a nice swim from time to time.” A long blink demonstrated the dragon's vexation and I sighed.

“We were cornered. By Kira. Her demand was that we come to The Under as guests for the Three Moon Festival. When we arrived we quickly realized something was not right and stayed to investigate.”

Shen snorted again, blasting me with a shower of bubbly sea water. “Your investigation did not end well, cousin.”

I crossed my arms and tapped my bicep with my long nails. “ I’d say, it went well enough, seeing how I am alive, reunited with a lost family member, and no longer being impaled by the Sanguine ."

A forked tongue snaked out as if he was testing the water before his booming voice echoed inside of me. " An old power rises as the fair one weakens—”

I could not stop the flood of words from escaping me. “Golden becomes the one true beacon, blood will run on the darkened moons, run child run, I will see you soon.”

The great water dragon nodded. “Yes, that is correct, cousin.”

Bubbles escaped at my exasperated sigh. “Mother.”

The water vibrated with a deep chuckle. “Ah yes, mothers do have a curious way of warning their children it seems. To give them just enough information so as not to spark the excitement of an adventure but also just enough to warn them of a future danger. This was especially the case with Eve, although it could have just been her prophetic nature.”

My head snapped up. “You knew my mother?”

“I did. I see much of her in you, although your father’s side is much more forthcoming. Especially the snark.”

My heart pounded. “Impossible. No one remembers who he was. Not even my mother.”

The dragon chuckled and the water vibrated with his laughter again. “Everyone has a father do they not? Your mother will remember him again, I’m sure. And also remember how much of an asshole he is.”

Sadness, like a deep ache that could not heal, stilled my racing heart. “You are mistaken. The shadow fae are no more, my mother is dead.”

“You dare question me, cousin? Have you not met one of my kind before?”

“Land dragons yes, water dragons no.” I said cautiously.

He snickered knowingly. “Tell me, cousin, how do I compare to my land brethren?”

I tilted my head, choosing my words carefully.

“I hardly know you well enough to compare but if I must then I would say the land dragons in the south…have a tendency for battle that does not make them great conversationalists. At times, their wars with the Roc eagles spilled over the mountain ranges and into the heart of Faerie. Where I was often sent to intervene.”

“Intervene…interesting choice of words, cousin. What you mean is that you were sent to slaughter them.” He chuckled out loud when he saw my guarded expression.

“I would not have cared if you did kill my air flapping brethren. Unsophisticated beasts of the sky as they are except—” He eyed me with interest. “You never did kill them. You ignored the orders of your queen, made it look like you did your duty but in fact, you saved them. What I want to know is why?”

I narrowed my eyes. Only two beings ever knew my defiance of those specific orders and they perished at Morta. “I do not know where you get your information from, dragon.”

Shen smiled viciously. “You returned with burns and wounds severe enough to require healers and to make most believe you accomplished such a terrible massacre. But I know otherwise, what I don’t know is why?”

My hands fisted at my sides in anger and the shadows darkened in the white carven. “I do not need to explain my unwillingness to end an entire species on behalf of some inconsequential skirmish that could be contained with a bit of diplomacy and time.”

Shen’s tongue snaked out and grazed across my cheek. “ Diplomacy. Is that what you call battling dragons for dominance…forcing their submission under your control, Natrix Drakaina?”

I inhaled sharply. “If you know all that, then you also know that title is only in name. The dragons still rule themselves.” I bared my teeth. “All life should be cherished, I do not slaughter innocents. I did what I had to do to save them.”

“Except…you have slaughtered innocents, Remnant Ezra Solaire Dark, thousands of them. You furthered the extinction of your own people. You wished once to end your own life…how is that cherishing the life the goddess granted you?”

I stared in anger. “I do not deny what I have done. Let me amend my statement. I take no pleasure in murdering others. Life is precious…no matter what form they come in. From the smallest of flowers, to the gnomes that battle, and the chickadees that soar, all the way to the dragons that bellow…even queens that go mad. We all are needed in this world.” I swallowed down the emotional pain rising within me.

“But what this world never needed was me. I would forfeit my life easily if it meant I could undo the wrongs I have made.”

The dragon continued to study me before he spoke with a sad tone. “It is a shame you place no value upon your own life while you hold others in such high regard.”

“When you are a monster you do not have the right to hold such value.”

“Have you ever considered the fact that the world needs monsters then…to protect the lives that do matter?” Shen cooed at me, wrapping his body closer around my person.

I stiffened with alarm. When had the dragon started coiling around me? “Speak plainly, dragon. Speak your purpose.”

S hen’s eye beamed at me, the cerulean blue swirling inside his vertical slits. “Cousin, I find that I am in need of a monster that places the life of another above her own. Your debt to me for saving your life from those water fae pests will be fulfilled should you agree.”

I glared into the dragons' fierce single eye, stating slow and clear. “No.”