by Dr. D
His mother hated the life in the brothel, but she never had the courage to face the unknown world outside and take control of her own life. Instead of fighting for her rights, she tried to rely on other’s goodwill, and then gave up when she couldn’t get it.
Dezi had seen her mother cry at night when he was forced into prostitution. But she would smile at him when she cooked him meals and avoid the topic like it never happened.
“You coward.” Dezi cried and shouted, but his mother couldn’t reply him anymore.
“I would never be like you,” young Dezi swore with his voice tearing apart by the tears that kept rolling down his face. “I will get out of this slump!”
Dezi woke up in a start and found himself cuddling with the prince. Their body fit into each other like they were two pieces of puzzles that matched together.
Dezi yanked his arms back from Acheron and scrambled backward until he fell off the bed. The room was still dark, and the sound of rain was pouring down the window.
“Mom …” He gasped to fill air into his chest and hit his head with his fists. The image of his dead mother pressed on the nerves behind his eyes and gave him a terrible headache.
Dezi could feel something in him was going to tip over. The dream was a sign, he thought, that he was getting used to this comfortable life like a frog slowly boiled to death in the warm water. He would end up dead one day, like his mother.
His lips formed a bitter smile, and he struggled to stand up like a bird with broken wings.
“Dezi?” Acheron was woken.
Dezi stumbled toward the window and cracked it open with a big bang on the glass. Pouring rain hit him in the face, but Dezi opened his mouth to suck in the cold air and poked his body out of the window.
“Dezi!” Acheron stepped out of bed and pulled him back.
Dezi leaned back on Acheron’s chest and the prince stroked his back gently and embraced him. The hug was so warm and comforting that Dezi laughed out loud. It was over. He couldn’t even bring himself to push the prince away.
Dezi laughed until he felt the heat behind his eyes and bit down on his lips. He rubbed his aching eyes and murmured. “I can’t take this anymore.”
Acheron gripped him tighter than usual.
“I am sorry.”
Dezi suddenly got a clear sensation from the collar on his neck, which he had got used to and no longer felt in his daily life.
The collar slipped off, and Dezi widened his eyes.
“You can go.” The prince also stuffed something smooth and hard in his hand, but Dezi didn’t react to it. He stayed perfectly still, as if he was waiting for the joy and relief to appear.
But his mind was just blank.
Before Dezi could even tell how he felt, lighting lit the room through the window, and then a loud cracking of thunder followed.
Acheron stood up and gazed out of the window. More people were awakened, and noises and voices started to increase.
“It was the Noxis!” someone yelled.
Dezi subconsciously put the stone in his pocket and also stood up.
“Acheron!” Tatiana busted in from the door. She gritted her teeth at the prince, who didn’t react to her and grabbed Dezi’s arm instead.
Acheron shook and reflectively held onto Dezi’s another wrist. “Dangerous.”
“Your highness?” Dezi tensed up from the two opposite pulls on his arms.
“The Noxis is headed straight toward here.” Tatiana gazed into Dezi’s eyes with all seriousness. “We have to direct it away. Otherwise, this city will be destroyed and countless people will suffer.”
Dezi’s mouth parted, didn’t quite process how he could contribute in such task.
“Come with me!” Tatiana commanded. The usual feminine charm that she deliberately put on was replaced by the bold charisma of a leader.
Dezi almost instinctually followed the princess’s lead. Acheron squeezed his fingers and came along.
Once they leave the building, Tatiana yanked open the door of the Lavabreaker. “Get in.”
Dezi looked up and the sky was covered by sinister clouds. He twisted his wrist slightly but didn’t try to break away from Acheron’s grip as they jumped into the bone craft.
“Your highness. It is too dangerous.” Noblemen from the capital also gathered outside and followed her.
“Send two other teams to follow us.” Tatiana stepped onto the bone craft and gave an order. “But stay in the distance and don’t try to attack.”
“Your Highness--”
The princess shut the door behind her and inserted a stone into the slot. The Lavabreaker hummed and accelerated rapidly into the sky.
“People believe that Noxis is a symbol of dead and misfortunate. There had been so many conflicts with magical beasts recently, and then the Noxis appeared. Do you think it was a curse, Dezi?” Tatiana said without looking back.
“No,” Dezi glanced at Acheron and said. “A Noxis traveled here and chased the other beasts out of the mountains.”
Tatiana laughed and glanced back at Dezi. Dezi felt like it was the first time that he had seen a real grin from the princess.
“Do you know what we have to do to make everyone believe that?” The princess smiled and continued: “Acheron must kill the Noxis.”
Dezi eyed the prince again and saw that Acheron was giving the sky his full attention, studying it like a lion watching every move of his new opponent.
The Lavabreaker headed toward the layers of black clouds billowing in from the depth of the forest. Wind was howling past them, and cold rain rushed in through the windows, hitting Dezi’s face.
“It is in there.” Tatiana looked up to the clouds. “They gain power hiding in the thunderstorm clouds.”
Suddenly, Acheron stood up, and a bright purple lighting from the cloud cut through the dark sky and shot toward them like a whip. The lighting painted a silver line on the prince’s profile for a second, but broke into pieces in its own thunder before it even reached them.
A deep roar mixed in with the howling winds.
“I hear the Noxis is very territorial; it must mistake us as another dragon.” Tatiana sharply turned the Lavabreaker toward the forest. “We will guide it away first, and then have Acheron kill it.”
Dezi stumbled as the bone craft turned, but Acheron turned around and supported him. Dezi guessed the dragon’s possible location, scrubbed the rain off his face, and stared into the darkness from the window.
It wasn’t until the Noxis struck again that Dezi could see its shape under the lighting and knew it had slipped out of the clouds and chased after them. The dragon looked like it was made out of black bones in the darkness. Dezi couldn’t help but feel like Death itself was chasing after him.
As the lighting disappeared, Dezi’s vision returned to pitch black, and fear made Acheron’s hold on him felt like it was pushing him forward toward the beast. Dezi wrung his clammy hands and broke out of Acheron’s arms.
Another bolt of lightning cracked through the darkness, and Dezi saw Acheron was trying to reach for him.
“The dragon!” He shoved the prince and pressed his back against the bone craft.
Acheron gave in and reached his body out of the window, the broken burst of lightings cutting his motion into flashes of short-lived imagines.
Rain, thunder, and roaring filled Dezi’s senses, making his body cold and grip slippery. Dezi lowered himself and grabbed onto the seat as the bone craft maneuvered.
“Quit your mercy!” Tatiana’s voice came through in the chaos. “It WILL kill us if you don’t kill it!”
Dezi felt a sharp pain spark on his skin and a tremor of pain ran through his entire body. He immediately lost his grip and hit his back on the door as the bone craft shook violently. It took Dezi a while to realize that the entrance of the bone craft was loose and he was sliding out.
“Ahh!” Slippery textures slid through Dezi’s palms as he tried to grab onto something, but the hollow of the storm continued t
o suck him in.
A white light flashed in Dezi’s vision, and he heard the dragon shriek loudly. Acheron grabbed onto his hand as Dezi glided out of the bone craft.
The grip was so tight that it actually hurt.
“Hold on!” Tatiana cursed and quickly tried to lower the Lavabreaker to the ground.
Dezi’s heartbeat pounded in his ears louder than thunder; he looked down and saw the forest below him spiral bigger and bigger toward his vision.
Dezi glanced up and saw the beast extend its massive wings above them like an eagle ready to strike. All the blood frozen in his veins with fear, Dezi eyed the dense trees below him and bit his lips. “Let me down!”
Dezi released his fingers and yanked his hand out of Acheron’s grip
Tree branches whipped his face and legs as he landed and eventually rolled him off onto the soft wet soil. The pain kept him panting on the ground until he heard another loud roar from the dragon and forced his shaky legs to move.
The lighting flashed his own shadow on the ground and made the dark forest looked like a place of horror.
“Dezi!”
Dezi heard Acheron calling for him, but he didn’t stop or look back.
Chilling rain soaked him down to his bones and made him shake uncontrollably. Electricity kept tearing the air behind him inches from his neck, but none of it fell on his flesh. The constant threat of death twisted his nerves tight like a bow and made him run aimlessly in the dark.
A white light flashed again as he was crawling up a rocky hill, but there was someone else’s shadow beside his on the rugged stones.
Hair stood on end on Dezi’s scalp. He grabbed a stone under his hand and stabbed the person behind him.
“Acheron?” Dezi gaped.
Acheron had all his attention on the beast that was trailing behind them and didn’t even dodge. The stone hit his temple, and the prince gave out a low grunt and grabbed Dezi’s head.
Dezi opened his mouth to apologize, but Acheron’s hand gently pushed him down.
“Hide.” As the prince said the word, the soil beneath Dezi’s feet suddenly sunk and swallowed him. The hole quickly deepened, and Dezi almost felt like he was falling down a tube until the prince turned around to face the beast that followed.
As the dragon’s massive wings thrashed outside the entrance, rains and soil crumbled down into the hole, but Dezi still stared, his eyes wide open, looking up.
The dragon growled and opened its jaw wide. Dezi finally saw Acheron’s figure guarding the entrance with his body as a ball of blasting light gathered in the dragon’s throat. The energy charged the small space, and Dezi instantly shivered with pricking pain.
Acheron visibly tensed up and shouted with an anger that Dezi had never seen in him. The dragon roared as the electricity was ripped out of its control. The energy became more violent and shot back to the head of the dragon, and the pain on Dezi’s body was instantly lifted.
The beast gave a loud shriek and came crashing down with his sharp claws.
Dezi clenched his fist and stood up to look, but everything went back to darkness. The roar of dragons was drilled on his eardrum, and he couldn’t help but shout, “Acheron?!”
“Go down!” Acheron’s voice came down from the crushing rain.
Suddenly the entire mountain shook, the dragon started to make a loud cry and flap its wings violently, but it didn’t manage to escape Acheron’s grip.
More rocks and rain were falling down on Dezi, but he still felt a distinct warm liquid fall down on his face.
He wiped it down and felt his finger tremble.
It was a lot of blood.
But whose was it?
The earth’s shudder increased and the sound of dragon roars and stone smashing down above him made Dezi instinctively cover his head with his arms.
When everything was settled, Dezi coughed with the dust and realized that it must have been a landslide.
Dezi climbed up in the dark and feared that the narrow exit had been completely buried by the stones that rolled down the mountain.
Dezi felt cloth on his hand and pulled on it, but it was stuck among the sands and stones.
“No, no …” Dezi scratched his fingers in the cold stone and shouted, “Acheron!”
There was only silence and darkness.
Warm blood turned into icy daggers in Dezi’s veins, and his heart started to sink.
Then he remembered the stone Acheron gave him earlier that was in his pocket, and the hope kicked his heart back to beating.
Dezi dug it out and whispered the spell like a prayer.
Quickly, he felt the energy enter him. It really was an advanced earth stone.
That was what Acheron used to form this hole on the ground.
Dezi lurched toward Acheron and started digging like crazy.
Chapter 39
“Damn it,” Dezi said weakly.
He rubbed his forehead and put his hand back toward the stone wall in front of him. The stone slowly shifted and curved in.
Dezi kept in on for a while longer, until he had to stop and rest his throbbing head.
He had been working on forming a new exit for way too long. It was true that he could only utilize the earth stone within the limitation of his abilities, but he still should have been able to get out by now.
Dezi didn’t want to run into the dragon’s body, so he changed his direction a bit, but it was clear that he must have been disoriented in the dark and went somewhat off track.
He cursed himself and crawled back a little in the tunnel until he felt Acheron’s body.
“Acheron?” He took the prince into his arms and felt the reassuring breathing in his palm.
Dezi had been able to dig Acheron out of the rubble before the prince suffocated. It was impossible to tell how bad the prince was injured in complete darkness, but it seemed like that he still hadn’t regained consciousness.
Dezi sighed and rested his eyes. The feeling of physical pain and fatigue was slowing him down, but he didn’t dare to go to sleep.
Dezi shook his head and spoke again to keep himself awake. “You will get help soon.” Dezi rushed his thoughts out of the chest. “Everyone should be looking for you right now.”
Tatiana probably was able to get back safely. Even if she didn’t, the two other bone crafts that were following them surely had seen what happened. “They will find us soon.”
And then what?
Dezi pursed his lips, held the prince tight in his arms, and listened to Acheron’s heartbeat.
The darkness must have messed with his head, because the steady rhythm of Acheron’s heart was unbelievably comforting. It was so quiet that he even heard his own heart in his chest. It gave out a weird tingle as it matched its beating to Acheron’s.
Thump, Thump, Thump.
Hunger and fatigue faded away. Dezi allowed himself to merge into this moment and slowly relaxed.
There were not much things in life that could be worse than being trapped underground, but at that moment, he barely wished for it to end.
Dezi opened his eyes and was surprised by his own feelings.
What was he doing?
Luckily Dezi heard a faint voice from outside and stopped his own thoughts. He sat up and listened carefully through the rocks. Someone was outside.
“Help!” Dezi shouted, and picked up a stone to hit the rock wall in the hope that they could hear the noise. But a few seconds later, there was only silence again; the people seemed to have walked past them.
Dezi took out the earth stone and kept on extending the tunnel. “Come on. We must not far from the surface.”
The rocks curved in under his palms. His head throbbed like there was a nail drilling between his eyebrows, but Dezi pressed on, hoping that light was only seconds away.
Time passed by, and just when Dezi was going to give up, the rocks under his hand vibrated from a loud hammering from the outside. A beam of bright light broke through the darkness and blinded Dezi’s
vision.
He blinked until his eyes adjusted to the daylight and saw someone gazing down on him from the outside. “Lord Ronan …” Dezi murmured.
Ronan had no one else but a horse behind him. He pulled away a few more rocks and scanned behind Dezi. “You dug this out, huh?”
“Yeah … I guess I went a little off course.” Dezi said, but his attention went to Acheron. The prince had blood on his head and clothes and was still unconscious.
“Not too much.” Ronan glanced away in a direction. “The dragon’s body was right over this hill.”
Dezi looked up at Ronan’s expression. He was keeping his voice rather low.
“Hand the stone to me.” Ronan extended his hand. “I will make this exit bigger, and we can carry his highness out.”
Dezi’s clenched the earth stone tight in his fingers but didn’t move.
Ronan narrowed his eyes and bent down more. “Hand me the stone. “
Dezi licked his lips nervously. “Shouldn’t you inform the princess first and bring over a healer?”
“Ha. You forgot what I told you before?” Ronan lowered his voice and slowly crept in the narrow tunnel. “Give me the stone, and I will let you go.”
Dezi retreated and tried to close off the opening in front of him. Ronan sneered at Dezi’s pathetic magical ability, grabbed hold of his leg, and yanked him closer.
Dezi gritted his teeth, threw the stone deeper down the tunnel, and kicked Ronan, but his legs didn’t have as much strength as he would have liked in the cramped space. Ronan grimaced and slammed Dezi on his empty stomach.
Dezi bit his tongue at the gush of pain and knocked Ronan in the chin as Ronan tried to get past him to the stone. Ronan cursed as his head hit the roof of the tunnel.
For a second, Dezi could felt icy coldness on his skin as anger flashed through Ronan’s eyes, but then it was gone. Dezi knew Ronan had ice magic and he was afraid of people finding his frozen corpse and tracing it back to him.
The fight for the dragon stone dragged on in the small tunnel. Dezi’s muscles trembled with exhaustion, but he gritted his teeth and held on to the hope that he might have a chance if Ronan could only rely on physical strength.