Page 27 of Fallen for the Two-Headed Dragon

He wanted to skip this part and watch the flames whip the night sky. Patience was no longer within his capability. The sun was nestled on the precipice, the horizon nearly engulfed in twilight’s rich navy hue, heralding the coming of the reckoning.

“Bring the prisoner forth.”

The chains were pulled taut. He held his breath, ready to set eyes on the dragon that had ruined so many lives. For years, this was the sole purpose of Rathym’s existence, this moment, this vengeful moment.

A frail figure emerged from the darkness. He was in his downshift, with a muzzle over his mouth and chains binding all of his limbs. He looked debilitated, malnourished, and old. Very old. The tips of his horns were sheared, but their stumps were the color of ash, as were his claws. He walked with his shoulders hunched, his gaze solely on his shuffling feet.

This was the assassin? This feeble thing?

“No.” Fire poured from the edges of Rathym’s mouth. “No.”

Ryuu and Anabraxus tossed him worried looks. He didn’t miss the concern that passed each between them when he downshifted to pace the box. Blackness encroached on the edges of his vision. He stopped at the railing and clung to the bar for stability as the coliseum seemed to sway under his feet.

The last sliver of sun disappeared.

The prisoner stepped onto the slab of wood.

“Ivaan Kovgroff,” the announcer stated. “For the assassination of the Fair King Luvon, King of Elvendale, and for conspiracy to genocide, you face your reckoning today. State your last words.”

Focus. Rathym’s eyes strained against the pounding in his brain. The muscles in his biceps popped, his full form threatening to overtake him.

“I find myself full of regret. I accept my reckoning. May my damned spark spend eternity barred from the Great Flame.”

No.

The final word was barely out of the prisoner’s mouth before the executioner’s flames reached the frail dragon. King Luvon’s murderer cried out, his pained screams piercing the night sky with as much ferocity as the fire engulfing him.

But those pained screams did not bring Rathym joy. They did not ease his fury. The cleansing flames whipping against the velvet sky did not lessen the weight of the stones in his hearts. They were no balm to his charred spark.

“Rathym,” Anabraxus spoke gently. “Are you all right?”

He shook his head. The world was out of focus, but he noticed the same storm in Caundur’s dilated pupils.

“What was the point of this?” Rathym growled.

“At least there was closure—”

“What good does that do?” he thundered. His shout turned all heads in the vicinity to him. “What good did any of this do!”

He took to the sky, pumping his wings with unnecessary force. He wanted to run to his beloved treasure, to lay his head in her lap, to feel her soft hands smooth his scales. He wanted to find her, bring her home, and never leave the comfort of her touch again. Never let her leave the safety of his cave again.

But she would not be in his cave. She was gone. She was somewhere she could get hurt, somewhere with dangers he didn’t understand threatening her at every turn. He didn’t want to return to his empty nest. He didn’t trust himself to remain there instead of going to retrieve his treasure.

The grieving pool was the only other thing that would understand him in this state. He wept into the magma and shouted into the void until his voice was hoarse and his tears were only smoke.

His cave was achingly empty. The piles of precious junk didn’t provide any comfort.

He created a shelf next to the bedding to hold the jars of magic oil he’d purchased after leaving the grieving pool. The jars taunted him with images of his beloved beneath him, on top of him, but he tried not to get swept away in visions of all the ways he wanted to ravish her. She wasn’t here.

He took solace in the words on her pages. The characters were an obvious draw from their blossoming relationship, the bitter old dragon a painfully accurate depiction of himself. Some of the words made his hearts ache, knowing that his reluctance to let go of outdated traditions had hindered their connection. If only he’d released those old ways earlier. How much sooner would they have lain together? Just another false pretense he’d clung to for so many centuries. In the end, no tradition, no matter how steadfastly clung to, could fill a fractured heart. He’d learned that all too well in the past few hours.

After a while, he checked the sun’s position. It felt as though no time had passed since she left. How would he ever get along without her to fill this empty space?

When had his cave become so utterly empty?

His neat piles were redundant. Suffocating. He was boarded up in a cage of his own making. Not even the enchanted wine bottle could put his worries at bay. There was a time, long ago, that he would have taken to the skies to ease his worries. When had he become so landlocked, so stuck in his ways? Why did a lone human female have to supplant his life in order for his eyes to open?

He struggled to keep from falling apart at the seams. Over the course of mere days, the blink of an eye to a dragon, his human treasure had become the thread that held his seams together. Stronger even than the most adept elven seamstresses. Without her, he would surely become a new pile to adorn the cold stone floor, one of crimson blood and gore.

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