When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Well done, my daughter.

  The Fae court’s silent approval amplified the voice of the Green Lady, louder and more pure than any of the goddess’s words.

  The green light gradually faded away from the rock, leaving Aradma under the starlight. The rock remained covered in the new foliage.

  She gathered her clothes and put them on once more. Taking a deep breath, she considered what she must do, no longer willing to ask direction from others. It was clear that the myth of Rin and Soorleyn was a lie. Men were part of the natural order and not aberrations created by Yamosh. Gods who would guide a people through such a myth must be against life itself.

  Could she save the Matriarch from this madness?

  Could she save Odoune?

  Aradma did not rejoin the cloister the next day but stayed apart from the Vemnai. She found Odoune deep in the jungle when the sun was at its zenith. The troll druid sat beneath the trees, embraced by long grasses, with his eyes closed in contemplation and a faint smile on his lips. He opened his eyes when she approached.

  “I flew as the owl last night,” he said. “I communed with sky and wind, and I saw you on the rock spire. It appeared as if you too communed with the sky and the wind, so I did not disturb you. Then I saw the jungle rise and swallow the rock. I wondered when you would return. The priestesses questioned me this morning about the jungle growth. What was orange is now green. I had no answers.”

  “Did you see anything else?” Aradma asked. Surely he must have seen the goddess. She had grown to the height of the spire itself, hovering in the sky. She should have been witnessed for miles.

  “Nothing else.”

  “I did commune,” she said. “I prayed to Soorleyn, and I have learned much.” She gazed upon him anew, truly aware for the first time of his masculinity, hidden beneath the shell of serenity. She appreciated his broad shoulders and chiseled hips. His face reminded her of the nobility of the tiger, with the pools of his eyes glimmering with the intelligence and tenderness of a man. His tusks shared a display of virility common to many of the jungle’s children.

  “Have you made your decision?” he asked.

  “I am a druid,” she answered.

  He raised his eyes in surprise. “After your visit to our beach, I suspected you would choose the Matriarch. Learning that you have communed with Soorleyn herself, I would expect the same. The Matriarch will not be pleased.”

  “No, I suspect not.”

  “If I might ask, what made you decide to become a druid, in the end?”

  “You did not hear me. I am a druid,” Aradma said. “It is you who must become one.”

  Odoune rose. He straightened to his full height in indignation, standing even taller than Aradma.

  “I have practiced the druidic way for twenty years!”

  “You have,” she agreed. “But your art is corrupted. It is not as Graelyn intended it.”

  Odoune’s eyes narrowed. His large pupils shrunk to points, his normally thin gold irises becoming a field of agitated yellow. “That is blasphemy,” he said in an utterly quiet voice.

  “You were right,” Aradma pressed. “The Green Dragon taught your people the ways of druidry. She wanted you to be the custodians of life. But your Matriarchs have shaped your teachings away from what Graelyn intended them to be. They have led you down a dead end, forever dependent upon the Vemnai for your continued existence.”

  “We are the Vemnai.”

  “You are trolls. You are druids. But you don’t have to be Vemnai.”

  Odoune growled. His feline nose flared.

  Aradma realized that talking alone was not enough. His thoughts were locked along familiar patterns, and she would need more than words to open his mind.

  Maybe she could open his heart.

  “Odoune, I’m sorry. I have offended you. Forgive me.”

  He calmed down. “No, do not worry. Your words are especially troubling because they are coming from you. But the ways of the Vemnai are old and sacred. The will of the goddess and the teachings of Graelyn are in harmony. They should be in harmony.”

  “Let me show you something,” she said. She called upon the life force within her, and a thick curtain of vines sprouted around them, forming a wall that closed and bent to become a dome overhead.

  “I need to be sure we are not disturbed,” she said, “and what we say here, or do here, is not witnessed by any of the Vemnai.”

  Glowing mushrooms sprouted in the circle’s edge, illuminating the sanctuary with soft blue light.

  Odoune stood amazed. “You have done this?”

  “Yes. It is the Dragon within me, the part of her that brought druidry to your ancestors. In essence, I am the first druid.”

  Aradma then undid her garments and let them fall to the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Odoune questioned, alarmed.

  “Look at me, Odoune,” she said. “Do you not find me beautiful?”

  “Beautiful, yes. Desirable, no. Is that what this is about? Sex?”

  “Yes.”

  “I feel no such desire for you. I have been meditating for many hours and such passions are transcended.”

  “No!” she challenged. “You connect with the essence of trees. But you are not a tree. Your desires are not transcended! They are suppressed, and not by the jungle. They are buried by the beliefs you have held since you were a child. Every moment of your lives you have a worldview stamped into you by your culture. Even the Matriarch herself is victim to it. The power of sex is the power of life. That is why people suppress it and control it. That is why the Matriarch keeps such tight reign over her people, men and women alike. That is how she keeps you druids, who wield a greater power, in servitude to her ways!”

  “You don’t understand,” he said patiently. He reached out and touched the vine wall, connecting to the plant life. “It is the jungle or it is animal passion. Animals cannot see the jungle as we do, and if we choose to indulge such desires, we lose the jungle. I am not willing to do that.”

  “You can have both. You have been given a false choice.”

  “I do not believe so.”

  “Let me show you,” she said.

  He backed away from her against the vine wall.

  She came up and stood in front of him, taking his hands and placing them on her hips.

  “You seek to seduce me,” he frowned. “No Vemnai would ever try this. But it will not work. My body will not respond. I have seen many druid women and walked into the cloister and have never felt temptation.”

  She lay up against his body and reached her arms up over his neck.

  “Wait…” she murmured. “Let me know you.”

  She intertwined her fingers into the leafy vines and pulled the jungle into her, using Odoune’s body as a conduit to bring the forest’s spirit through him. She touched his soul just as he had taught her to do when healing the creatures of the forest.

  His eyes widened, knowing an expanse of the jungle greater than he had ever felt before.

  She felt the truth of his being and the lies that held his innermost nature in check. She needed to jolt him. She pulled in even more, and one by one she could feel the blocks in his mind fall away. He became aware of the jungle as a whirling vortex of life with her body pressed against his at its focus.

  “Let the jungle free your instinct,” she said. “Let me heal you.”

  He surrendered to becoming more than a sterile custodian of druidic practice, embracing the truth of her body, women’s bodies, as an incarnation of life itself, more powerful than any goddess. She felt his body swell in response to her touch, pressing against her pelvis. He embraced her and crushed her to him.

  “Yes,” Aradma whispered into his ear. “It is safe here with me. Feel the jungle in me and let your body do what it was born to do. You cannot know life without knowing this mystery.”

  She pulled away his harness and animal skins and grasped him tightly. She kissed his mouth between his two tusks. He rolled forward,
and she let him take her on the mossy floor. He entered her body and pierced her maidenhood. She sucked in a quick breath at the moment of pain, but the joy of their intimacy soon overshadowed it. They flowed together as one, moaning in shared ecstasy. He delighted in her pleasure, and she delighted in showing it. With their bodies intertwined, she moved with his rhythm until he came to shatter everything sacred to his people.

  16 - The Virgin

  Afterwards, they lay side by side on the moss. Both of them were slick with sweat. Aradma opened the top of the dome to a wide aperture, allowing the jungle breezes to cool them. She lay on her side, looking into Odoune’s face. Her fingers traced the line of his tusk.

  “You’ve broken me, koris-val,” he remarked.

  Aradma bit her lip. “What does that mean?”

  “It is a term of intimacy. It means ‘heart of my heart.’ Do not worry,” he assured her. “I am grateful for it. You have shown me a side of the jungle I could not touch before, but my life with the Vemnai has changed. I don’t know if I can return to them.”

  “I brought druidry to your people to save you from Rin’s cult,” Aradma said. “I mean, my mother did. Her memory is strong in me.” She smiled before continuing. “The goddess, however, proved too entrenched. Before Rin, it is said that trolls were ruled by men, and women were no better than cattle. Rin’s magic liberated the women, but they only turned the tables.”

  Odoune listened intently.

  “Graelyn saw great potential in your people and tried to help you find balance, with nature’s help. The seed did not grow as it should have.”

  “The Matriarch believes in control above all else,” Odoune remarked. “Sexual passion is chaotic, uncontrollable.”

  “The Matriarch believes in containment as the illusion of control. Nature is not about containment,” Aradma said, caressing the soft, fine fur on his cheek. “Life is explosive. Organic. Life is not transcendent. It is immersive. Our reason,” she added, pointing to her head, “is also natural. It allows control through understanding—and the Matriarch is anything but rational.”

  Odoune nodded. “I see it now. I hope the other druids will see it, too.”

  “I have not told you everything yet. We are in more danger than you know.” Aradma sat up and crossed her legs. “The Matriarch believes that her goddesses made trolls by the two of them becoming one.”

  “Yes, we know this. This is why women rule.”

  “The Matriarch has been waiting for a priestess to take the role of Soorleyn. What you don’t know is that the inner cloister believes that men are not from this union and were never intended to be part of the troll race. She believes you are perversions in the image of Yamosh. She believes me to be the priestess that will help her recapture the secret of conceiving life without the seed of men. When that happens, she will kill all men, of your people and my people.”

  A low growling bark roiled in his throat. “She’s insane!”

  “Indeed. Her mind is enthralled in a delusion, with an entire system of teachings carefully crafted over generations to reinforce that delusion.”

  “But the goddess is real.”

  “Goddesses lie,” Aradma smiled bitterly. “It is this secret I uncovered last night on the rock spire.”

  Odoune stood and crossed his arms over his chest. “The Matriarch must die.”

  “No!” Aradma stood, laying a hand on his breast. “She may be wrong, but I do love her. I would try to save her first, to open her mind.”

  He nodded. “As you wish. I will go to my brothers and sisters.” His face still held the air of serenity. His lips settled into the familiar smile, but his eyes had lost some of their beneficent haze and now glittered intensely.

  She grinned and kissed his cheek. “Good luck, my friend.”

  Aradma found the Matriarch after nightfall in the cloister on her balcony, staring over the edge to watch the lattice waterfall descend around her.

  The Matriarch did not turn away from her view. “I was worried when you did not return home last night. This morning we discovered a great sign from the goddesses,” she said in a subdued voice that trembled in reverence. “You were at the rock spire?”

  Aradma trembled briefly, and was glad that the Matriarch’s back was turned. Pity, disgust, sadness, and love warred with each other inside her. “Yes, I was there last night,” she said.

  The Matriarch’s entire body shook, and she gripped the stone railing to keep from sinking to the floor. “It is a place sacred to Soorleyn. We call it Moon Rock, but that is not a name revealed to men. It is also a place sacred to your mother. It is said that is where she came to teach the first druids.”

  She turned around slowly. “And now the orange rock is clad in greenery! It is a conduit, a path. It is a symbol of the joining of Rin’s world, the jungle, and Soorleyn’s world, the night sky! And now the jungle has met and grown up to touch the sky itself! And you are at the center! What is it that caused it so?”

  The Matriarch’s religion had so encrusted her beliefs with a predefined set of explanations that no matter what happened, she would find only confirmation for her convictions. Aradma knew that it would be futile to try to open her mind while the priestess was so enraptured. She needed more time.

  “I sat in communion with Soorleyn,” Aradma chose her words. “She revealed her will to me.” It was not a lie.

  “Soorleyn has never appeared to me,” the Matriarch turned to face the elf. “Only Rin. But that is as it should be. What is her will?”

  “She desires that I stand at your side.” Another truth.

  “Will you answer your goddess’s charge?”

  Aradma’s perception shifted, and for a brief moment she caught the impression of the crystalline web of golden light hidden behind all things. A great cluster of it was knotted through the Matriarch. The vision faded as quickly as it had come.

  “I will not take the druid’s vows,” Aradma said. “I choose life.”

  The Matriarch’s face opened in joy. Tension left her body, and she relaxed into a pure laugh. “Everything I have lived for—everything every Matriarch has lived for since our beginning—is coming to pass. The goddesses have chosen me for their time to rise. The time of men is at its end. You will never have to lie with a man, beloved of Soorleyn. Let the name Aradma be forgotten. May all the Vemnai know you as my Virgin Consort.”

  Aradma allowed herself to be led to the Matriarch’s bedchamber. She was still sore from giving her maidenhood to Odoune, but she took joy in the reverberations of music from the Matriarch’s rapture as it cascaded through the fabric of her faerie soul.

  The next morning Aradma lay on her side watching the Matriarch’s face as she slept. She reached forward and touched her finger to the slender curve of the small cheek tusk on the side of the troll’s face. The Matriarch opened her eyes and smiled, red irises twinkling.

  “I’ll never get used to seeing Rin’s light in your eyes,” the Matriarch said. “You are the image of Soorleyn, but your eyes are the jungle itself. I love their brown, rich like the jungle wood, and the little verdant specks of light in your irises steal my breath when I look at you.”

  The Matriarch’s happiness filled Aradma with sadness. She knew only pain lay in front of the troll woman, and she wished she could shield her from it.

  The Matriarch reached out and touched Aradma’s cheek, moving a wisp of silver hair away from her eyes. “Your eyes are filled with such innocence.”

  “May I ask you something?” Aradma queried.

  “Ask anything, my Virgin Heart,” the troll replied. She took Aradma’s hand and clasped it on the pillow between them.

  “Are you ever tempted?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “With men. Do you ever desire them?”

  The Matriarch stared into Aradma’s green and brown eyes for a long moment before answering.

  “No,” she finally said. “I never have. I know that many are tempted, but as I’ve said, I was not born with tha
t curse. I have only ever felt desire for women.”

  “But you had husbands,” Aradma probed. “You have children.”

  “I did my duty,” the Matriarch answered. “But such is no longer required. You are the greatest gift that Rin has brought to me.”

  “Have you had other women?”

  The Matriarch shook her head. “Believe me, I have been tempted, and many desire to be my companion. I felt it was not appropriate to show favoritism unless I was willing to take one as consort. I am their leader, not their peer. I’m glad I waited for you.”

  Aradma thought of Odoune and shuddered inside. She wanted to love this woman and she did. As a close friend. As a sister. Their shared intimacies were quite pleasurable, but she felt in the Matriarch’s love a powerful attraction that Aradma just did not share, for her or other women.

  “Have you desired men?” the Matriarch asked, biting her lip.

  Aradma tightened her hand around the Matriarch’s. “You are the first I have loved,” she answered, trusting the Matriarch would hear what she wanted to hear.

  The Matriarch smiled widely and dropped her eyes. “No one else has ever made me feel like you do,” she confessed. She propped her head up and leaned forward, kissing the elf. Aradma returned her kiss.

  As they made love again, Aradma could not help but think of Odoune and the things she had set in motion with the druids. She wondered how she would ever free the Matriarch from her dogma. Now, she wasn’t sure she could.

  Shortly afterwards, a priestess entered the chamber and approached them hurriedly while they lay under the covers. “Mother,” she said, clasping her forearms over her chest and then releasing them again with open palms as a salute. “We have seen another seelie.”

  “Where?” Excitement energized the Matriarch’s voice.

  “He was seen hunting in the jungle, to the northwest.”

  “Near the lake,” the Matriarch concluded.