Page 104 of The Spark that Ignites
“Emmery, there isn't. Let me—”
“Vesper,” she demanded, wanting to scream. To make him understand. “We have to do something!” Emmery’s world swam around her, ebbing and twisting as her mind raced.
Wrong, wrong, wrong—this waswrong.
Vesper’s eyes flared. Wild. “He’s killed, Emmery. You see the evidence all around you. He took all these lives whether it was a lapse in judgement or not. He’s a monster!”
“So have I!” Her words hung in the air, saturating the room already filled with death and decay. Her heart painfully stretched and constricted as something fractured in Vesper’s eyes. Died. Maybe his perfect image of her. He knew her admission wasn’t about the beggar woman. That it held a darker confession. “Would you have me in chains too? Strung up like some sick, twisted marionette? Left to bleed and suffer endlessly?” A deadly silence followed her reveal. Vesper’s jaw clenched and his hold on her arm grew cold, binding like a shackle. Her heart splintered and she turned back to Arborius. “I would like to make a deal.”
This poor beast had been trapped for a century, surrounded by death and not able to find his release even as he bled and rotted from the inside. She saw herself in those chains—her manacled life beyond the gate. And Vesper’s family had done this. Trapped this creature.
“I’m listening,” the dragon purred.
Vesper’s grip on her arm tightened but she wrenched from him. “A trade,” she said. “You give us your essence, and we free you with the promise of a future favour.”
“It will be done,” Arborious rumbled hungrily. “Now,free me.”
Vesper’s voice was frantic. “You can’t do this. You don’t understand, the barrier—”
“We can’t leave him like this! Look at him! Don’t you want to right your family’s mistakes?” Her rising voice fell deadly quiet as she asked, “Did you know he was here like this?”
“No, I—I didn’t know.” His eyes searched hers. “I hate this as much as you do but he killed all these people. He slaughtered them—”
“You said you aren’t your father.” Her words suspended in the air between them. “Prove it, Vesper. Show mercy. He’s suffered long enough.” Emmery reached into her pack and thrust a small bottle into his hand.
Vesper pushed it back at her. “I can’t. If we break his chains ... there are people on the other side, we can’t let through. Dangerous people.”
“Whoever they are, we’ll deal with them.Please, Vesper,” she begged.
“I don’t know what to—I can’t make this choice. I don’t ...”
She searched his face for a semblance of understanding. “You don’t need Izora here to make this choice for you. We need the essence, and you know this is right.”
Vesper’s eyes flashed and he groaned between clenched teeth. “Fine.” He faced Arborius. “We’ll free you in exchange for your essence, but you must offer first.” Authority rang in his voice as he stared the dragon down. “These are my demands.”
The dragon narrowed his blood-red gaze. “Surely this is a trick. I have been burned by your kind before, Prince.”
Vesper’s words were clipped, angry, “I suppose we could use force if it fits you better.”
An excruciating moment passed and Arborius growled, breaking the silence. “Come forward,” the dragon ordered. “Let this be done.”
Emmery clutched the bottle, fear pooling in her stomach as she advanced on numb legs. The dragon tracked her every step. Her lips parted as she gazed up at Arborius’s gloriously terrifying face. He could easily reduce her to ash or devour her in a single bite. Would she even feel her own demise?
She lifted the container. Arborius closed his eyes, exhaled, and a tiny white spark floated into the bottle, flickering into a white flame.
Studying it, she staggered back into Vesper’s hard chest. He steadied her with a hand on her shoulder, plucked the bottle from her grasp, and stowed it in his pack. Emmery turned to ask how to free the dragon, but Vesper was already retreating.
“Vesper!” she called after him. “What are you—”
“I said Iwouldfree him, Emmery,” he replied over his shoulder. “I didn’t say when.”
Arborius roared, his tail thrashing with his dwindled strength. The ground trembled as the chains strained but held. Vesper inched towards the exit, fear and remorse in his eyes.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” he started. “I’ll free you, but I can’t now. I’ll return; you have my—”
“Donotsay I have your word!” The dragon's roar was now weaker; torment laced in its voice. “Your word meansnothing.”
Emmery didn’t think, only acted. All she knew was the injustice eating her conscience and she couldn’t leave this creature to endure this torture for a moment longer.
