Page 73 of The Sun God's Prize
She pauses at the top then, gaze turning toward the opening.I reach out to Sheelan to hold her back, to delay her following Aurous, but I don’t need to, my hand closing on her shoulder while she’s already stopped.
We stay at the threshold as the dragon goes to her mother, walking along the spines of her tail, disappearing past the dusty, golden corpse.
“Remi.”Sheelan breathes my name into the darkness that Aurous’s distance leaves us in, turning toward me and embracing me, her head on my shoulder.“This is…”
“I know,” I say, throat thick with emotion.“I wasn’t expecting—”
“Are you coming?”I look up to find Aurous has returned, her glow beckoning to us as much as one of her hands.
Sheelan takes my fingers in her small ones, the two of us walking forward together, joining the dragon next to the body of her mother.I reach out and stroke the scales of the giant tail, heart breaking all over again.
“We thought you’d want a moment with her,” Sheelan says.
Aurous’s hand covers mine.“I’ve said my farewells to my mother, long before this,” she tells us.“We knew she wouldn’t survive the last power she expended to protect these lands that were hers to safeguard.”She lets her touch fall away.“I am very proud of her for her sacrifice.When Neem was killed, she did her best to free her sister’s magic.And when she failed, alone and without the support of her siblings, my mother chose me to do what she could not.”She shrugs, a delicate and deliberate motion.“She has spent twenty-five years using her power to influence the lands of the north and the south, to ward off the disease that is what Neem’s murder created, so many layers, so many threads, all come together here, now.In you,” she points at me, “and you,” another nod follows for Sheelan, “and in Atlas, Zenthris.”
“Are you our fifth?”I do have a question after all.“Are we complete?”But no, wait.She said I gathered four already.
“I am not,” she tells me.“But I am the source of your kinspark.Mother made sure of it.”
There’s so much I need to know.Atlas will understand it, no doubt.For now, one thing is certain.“We have to go home.”
“We do,” she says.“As quickly as possible.”Aurous cups Sheelan’s face in her hands.“Daughter of the Sun,” she says.“Will you help us in our flight to the north?”
“Of course,” Sheelan says.“I’ll do anything for you.”She turns her head, dark eyes fixing on me.“For you both.”When she shudders, Aurous releases her.“And them.”I know she means the men who wait for us.“Is it just magic, then?That makes me feel this way?”
She has the right to ask.And for the first time, the dragon does seem sad, authentically so, tragically.
“In a way,” she says.“Without the kinspark, your loyalties would remain with your family, yes.”
“And did you or your mother cause the madness in my brother?”Sheelan’s not accusing, but the question is.
“I did not,” Aurous tells her.“And no, not my mother, either.That, I fear, is the fault of the tainted power stolen from our sister, Neem, that spreads faster than ever.”It’s good to confirm it, at least in my own mind.Aurous frowns, sorrow turning to a quiet anger that simmers in the glow around her, little sparks firing off in her aura.“Brought here by the one who laid Neem low.”
“Hallick,” Sheelan and I say together, exchanging a look.
I’d already planned to kill him, if Theille hasn’t beaten me to it.And though I previously accused him of the damage done to Sheelan’s family, I have even more reason to destroy him now, though I’ll have to fight Sheelan for the privilege.
“I will go with you,” the princess says, jaw tight, chin lifting.“And I will avenge my father’s death, my brother’s corruption, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Hopefully not,” Aurous tells her with a soft touch to the tip of Sheelan’s nose from one shining index finger, then looks at me.“Remi?”
“I’m yours,” I say, unbidden, without reservation, despite myself.“Always.”
Aurous’s eyes brim with tears, and I think she’s about to speak when she shakes her head and turns away.“Then let us leave this place,” she says.“We have very far to go, and I’d really like to find something to wear.”She shivers, hugging her hair around her.“How do you tolerate this skin?”
***
Chapter Thirty-Five
Aurous finds a small chest on the far side of her mother’s snout, a stash of clothing the dragon prepared for her long ago.The lid sparks as she lifts it, the magic that protects it absorbed into her glow.I’d feared that anything left behind after what had to have been so long in wait would be rotted and unwearable.But with the dragon’s power to safeguard the fabrics, she’s quickly dressed in a long, navy cloak over an ankle-length, dark blue dress belted at the waist with a heavy length of leather, much more northern-designed half boots on her feet.
There’s an extra cloak in dark red that I help myself to, and boots for Sheelan, too, though they’re big for her.Aurous touches them, and the leather forms to the princess’s feet, a perfect fit in a moment.
The dragon pauses at last, despite what she told us, to touch the snout of her mother, whispering something I don’t hear.When she joins us at the tunnel out to the surface, she’s smiling but tears trickle down her cheeks.There’s a grinding sound, and when I turn back, the way into the cave no longer exists, her mother entombed there, protected.
I stop long enough to hug her, Sheelan following my embrace with one of her own, while Aurous accepts our sympathy in silence.
We descend in the darkness, the dragon’s glow still faint, but more than enough to augment the moonlight, the journey down to each switchback reminding me that I’m grateful for all the conditioning I’ve been through.But when Sheelan cries out and stops at the second turn, clutching at her thigh, it’s obvious she’s at her limit.
