Page 22

Asha

Arm in arm, Asha and Rath made their way through the castle.

Despite having been there a few weeks, he was growing quickly at home in the expansive estate.

It was nowhere near as green as Tippin Valley, but Monsmount was an agricultural area.

He was a dragon, and as such, was at home in the sky in the great castle of Ramolia atop the mountain.

The thin air, cool breeze, and network of caverns spiraling down into the carbonated rocks.

Limestone wept along the smooth pathways; every surface coated in intricate carvings.

As they descended the halls, beautiful limestone transitioning to softer granite, veins of gold pocked the surface, not the inset purposeful gold wire hammered into channels but veins of rich, sinfully soft metal that glowed so brightly it could have lit the caverns themselves.

Asha ran a finger along a short vein that rose to the surface for a short span and gasped at the power within it. It made his horns tingle. “Oh, my.”

“The magic is so raw in the gold here.” Rath diverted his hands from the stone. “As long as it never leaves the earth, it’ll stay this way. Once we remove it to use it, slowly it drains, and becomes as useless to us as dirt. Humans fight over our trash.”

Asha drew his hand back and frowned. “Why does that make me so sad?”

“The death of magic is a sad thing, which is why you’re so important to me.” Rath brought Asha’s hand to his mouth and kissed his fingers.

“Because I have magic?”

“Because you are magic. In your body, magic flourishes. In your mind, your power thrives. And every egg we bear will birth that much more magic into the world. Every dragon alive contributes to the song of power that hums through stone. From their first heartbeat until their last, a child born of true love between perfect mates restores the balance.” Rath dropped their hands to his side, lacing fingers ever so gently.

A brush of his nails against soft skin that had only just become scales made Asha shiver.

“So, our children will make gold?” Asha frowned, and Rath laughed, no patronization in his soft tones. The question brought him genuine joy.

“No. In our lands, gold is brought back to the burning mount. It seeps into the soil, travels through veins in the land and lives again. The birth of a child draws the flow of magic into an area to reinvigorate gold into their birthplace. This is why royalty have so many children. The world needs them.” Rath drew Asha in for the most chaste, innocent kiss he’d ever dreamed of.

The pureness of it brought tears to his eyes.

“Then why give gold to humans? Why send it away once it’s spoiled rather than sending it back?” Asha stared at the floor of the cavern as they walked. The lack of light didn’t seem to bother him, the gold and his new eyesight being enough.

“Because it comes back to us, anyway. Humans take our gold and spend it, throwing it away so much more frivolously than we do.”

“Ah. Why would you want it back if it looks so horrid? What you gave Earl Tippin and his wife.” Even after learning the truth, he didn’t want to refer to her as his mother.

It stung so badly to know the woman who watched him beat, who gave him trivial coppers and an odd sock, was his mother, who knew he’d had the bloodline of royals.

“For the reason I said. We give it back to the earth once a year in a ceremony. Gold comes back to us.” Rath laughed and reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind his horn, trailing his nails along the ivory surface with a satisfying vibration.

“It’s all very poetic, in a way.” Asha leaned into Rath’s touch, relishing the contact. He needed Rath, and he’d take what he could get.

“It’s a beautiful part of what we are. I’ve told you much of the beautiful things—but there’s bad things, too.” Rath’s mood dropped, a sadness in his expression as he drew Asha deeper down the caverns.

Dread knotted in his belly. “Is it the vow you made? We’ve not violated it. Slath told me about how bad it is to break a vow made…”

“Nothing of the sort. Honestly, I am not regretting waiting for you. I wish to tell you about the sleepers. When a child is conceived and born.” Rath approached a set of double doors and trailed his fingers over an ornate lock.

The tumbler spun and clicked into place with a spark of magic.

Asha could feel a combination of fire and lightning used, heating one piece and charging another, so the mechanism gave way.

The door swung open, and the low glow of gold woven through the walls cast light over row upon row of people laid out in padded crypts, their faces pale, as still as death. Asha gasped softly.

“This is my brother, Galatan.” Rath strode into the room, picking out a single crypt among a slew of empty ones.

It was occupied by a male that looked somewhat similar to Pryd save for a hard set to his jaw, and in his crypt was space for one more next to him, a double chamber.

It sat painfully empty, as if another needed to be by him.

“He will sleep here until he’s healed. He mourns his Ashen. ”

“What happened to them?” Asha had heard it mentioned and had been fearful to ask. The fate would echo his own, it seemed, if the circumstances weren’t ideal.

“She. His Ashen was fragile, and he was too eager to whisk her into our world. Sometimes the families of Ashen do not treat them well. As you well know, Ashen make the strongest and most powerful dragons, but they are delicate. She—” Rath choked on the words.

“She did not spread her wings when she fell.”

Asha had an image in his mind of Heckle slinging him into the sky, his fall, the invigoration he felt. Tears stung his eyes, and he turned to Rath and slung his arms around the male’s chest with a soft gasp. “I didn’t know. I am so sorry, Rath. I apologize. I didn’t know that—”

“It’s no matter. Spread your wings for me, Asha. Love them. Fly for me and do not fall.” Rath kissed the top of his head. In the dim light, Asha glanced up and frowned.

“What is it, my mate?”

“I have loved the sky since I could remember. I dislike that you feared I was fragile. I thought I would be afraid, but I knew Heckle would catch me. I knew you would if he didn’t.

My body craves to be in the sky, and in your nest—with you, that is.

” Asha tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, fingers slipping as he did so.

The shape of them had changed, ear lengthening and pointing a bit.

He attempted the swipe again and sighed, giving up when his horn got in the way.

Rath, infinite kindness radiating in his sharp features, leaned in and brushed his fingers over Asha’s cheekbone, righting his hair into place with a few neat tucks. “I do not fear you becoming fragile like that. You’ve known love, and I am grateful. But you must see what is to come.”

Asha followed past the sleeping form of his brother, past many other bodies, asleep, none older than middle age, and some—quite visibly—dead. Their sunken features lay behind veils. “They’re dead…”

Rath nodded, the chains on his horns clinking comfortingly.

The gold in their swinging lengths was almost hypnotic.

It reminded Asha of something like a magpie, enamored by the shine.

It took the sting out of the words to follow.

“Sometimes, you go to sleep and do not wake. We go down periodically and check our family. Some sleep for a few months, a few years. The older you get, the longer you sleep.”

Asha stared down the enormous room, following as Rath walked, head held imperiously high.

“I’ve not had my first sleep yet. My grandfather hasn’t woken since before my birth.

His mate, either. Their father woke for two years with their mate when I was young and went back to sleep. They both passed last year.”

Asha held Rath’s hand as they continued, lacing fingers together. “Do they wake at separate times? Mates.”

“Not usually. It’s not uncommon for one to wake a day or so before the other, but they share a consciousness, a dream.

I have ancestors a thousand years back that still sleep, that have not succumbed to death, yet.

Their time has not yet come, and their presence still needed, potentially.

” Rath rested his hand on the edge of a crypt and stared down at a male in clothes so old they’d worn to threads over his body.

A strip of linen had been placed over his groin.

“So, if someone dies after having slept for many years? In their sleep?”

“It means that the path we chose in life, as a country or people, did not deviate into a cycle where they were needed. They were allowed to pass and reincarnate. Whenever eggs are born, we watch the dead to see who perishes. And if one does—we give them that name.” Rath smiled widely, as if waiting for Asha to understand something.

“So, for you and your brothers to—” Asha rested his fingertips over his lips.

“Seven dragons of old passed in their sleep one by one, and the great king of Mezerath passed with his brother, the prince of sloth, soon after.” Rath strolled forward to a more ornately decorated plinth upon which no body lay.

It had the dark outline of a body that once had laid upon it.

“His body was removed for me, because I am him.”

Asha turned his head and stared at the dark outline beside the original king of wrath and touched his finger to the oily mark. It’d been cleaned, and Asha expected to feel revulsion, but only felt kinship. “This was me?”

Rath reached over to press his hand over Asha’s. “That’s a very simple way to say it, yes. According to our traditions, you would be the consort of wrath. You have inherited a title.”

“What was their name?” Asha didn’t glance over toward Rath, didn’t stare him down or tear his focus away from the plinth that called to him. His place of rest to come.