The Heirs of Death

6.2 Hidden Words

HIDDEN WORDS

I felt like drowning, the whiteness in Siltheres's realm pulling me down, chocking me until I couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. My mind and body and soul had gone numb until I could do and feel nothing but the hollowness growing in me.

The Book of Astazan slipped from my grip, leather and paper hitting the floor with a thud that echoed in the emptiness all around us. In my soul.

And then, I lifted my stare to the Dragon of the Gods, not truly knowing what to expect in his eyes. And when those chartreuse orbs met with mine, when I saw what veiled them, I thought the pain was worse than having claws plunging in my heart.

Because Siltheres stood silent and still, silver streaks mutely sliding down his scaly face, dripping like rain and pooling around his claws. 

He was crying.

Something inside of me shattered. That bond binding me to him—that vow he swore to protect me until the last breath—was trembling. But not because of weakness or regret.

There was pain. Clear, stark pain in his soul and mind that wrapped around my throat and lungs so tight my ribs might have cracked from the sheer weight pressing on my heart.

My muscles were stiff, my senses vague as I walked to him, and it was until I was standing underneath his head, my frame so small and frail next to his glorious size, that my hands clutched him, nails digging so hard they could have as well dented his scales.

The fire in the crevice at the top of his neck hissed and trashed, and I wrapped my arms around him, feeling how his muscles shifted as he lowered, wings closing around me as though trying to shield me from that fated end.

And as I stood there, witnessing the most powerful creature of the Five crying for me, I realized that not even thousand years of living would sum up as much love for him as what he held in his soul for me. And I wondered if during all those years asleep, if even during the millennia before I was even born, he had loved me. Had loved the woman standing next to him that bore the name of the Goddess who created and loved him so much until she made him the holiest of all creations.

I had known him so little, saw him so limited times, but there was a part of me that indeed cared, that lit up every time I was in his presence, as though my soul had known his for countless lives before this one.

I fell to my knees, arms still around him. Siltheres bent down until he pressed his brow against mine, warm breaths blowing against my face. And then I remembered something that made my heart skip beats.

"You once said," I whispered, voice breaking so hard I could merely hear myself, "that you were vowed to my protection until the last breath. If I die, will you—"

I didn't finish, didn't have the strength to utter that word. But he nodded. And my heart shattered.

No.