“We did it,” Aradma grinned. The rage had left her with Athaym’s death. Then she saw Anuit’s body and the drying trickle of blood on her inner thigh. “I’m sorry,” Aradma said.
Anuit shook her head. “He’s dead, and I am now the Seal of Dark. We can unlock Artalon!”
Aradma helped Anuit to her feet, then summoned a foliaged gown for the sorceress, bright green with purple flowers forming a wide belt and collar.
Taer Koorla’s eye followed them.
Aradma thought briefly of the eggs in the birthing chamber and her time nurturing them when her mind had been broken. She was Graelyn’s dreamwalker, but she was Aradma again too—Athaym had only made her forget the truth of her being. He had wanted his truth to be hers.
She considered the life of this tower and the troglodytes. She pressed her lips together grimly, and her heart trembled with judgment. The garden of life had weeds that threatened to choke the rest of its beauty.
Aradma reached out again to Ahmbren’s life force, able to see and touch it more clearly than she ever had in this elven life. The full power of Graelyn’s dreamwalker flowed unrestricted through her spirit now.
Taer Koorla screamed as a great tree trunk grew up through her center, through the birthing chambers and into her brain. The wood pierced her eye and continued through the tower’s top, and then expanded, limbs extending and thickening to tear the tower apart. Taer Koorla’s outer chitinous wall split, and her wailing fell silent. Chunks of the flesh fell to the ground, crushing some of the smaller living buildings below. Taer Koorla’s red blood covered and sank into the tree’s bark.
Aradma and Anuit now stood on a wide limb. The seelie stepped to the edge and gazed upon the troglodyte city below. She raised her arms, and thick thorn-encrusted vines pushed up through the stone floor, tearing through the city. She rent every building, and the remaining choros and the few troglodytes left behind ran from the city to seek safety in the tunnels of the Underworld.
Aradma pointed to the prison pods. “Let’s free them,” she said.
Anuit grinned. “Allow me.” Her skin darkened to pitch black, as smooth as polished obsidian, and her eyes blackened to pools of reflective shadow, like Arda’s. Raven-feathered wings sprouted from her back and extended to either side of her. She lifted Aradma in her arms and then floated down to the ground, alighting beside the prison pods.
Aradma raised an eyebrow.
Anuit shrugged and returned to her human form. “I rule Dis now.”
Aradma chuckled. “Well… better you than someone else, I suppose.” She leaned over and opened each of the pods. She pried away the constricting tentacles with leafy green tendrils summoned from the ground until Tiberan and Arda could free themselves from the fleshy prison.
“You did it!” Tiberan whispered, coughing. “I knew you would.”
“She did it,” Aradma told him, pointing to the sorceress, who now fiercely kissed Arda. “We owe everything to her.”
Anuit pulled away from her lover’s embrace. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her,” Anuit said, looking deeply into Arda’s eyes. “Faith, hope, and love. These are the rays of the Light, yes? Your love was my center and helped me find my way. I would not have been who I needed to be without you, and now, through me, the Dark no longer seeks to consume the Light. I embrace you.” She smiled and then said, “Arda, be free.”
Arda smiled and took a deep breath. “The Light!” she said. “I can feel it again.”
Anuit then retrieved the leather bundle from behind the prison pod and handed it to the paladin. Arda unwrapped it and grinned. “My armor and weapons,” she exclaimed. “You saved them.” She pulled on the zorium-weave-covered armor-resin leggings, then slipped into the matching top.
“Of course I did.” Anuit then took Tiberan’s hands. “Tiberan, be free,” she said.
Tiberan grinned. “Thank you.”
“You’re not dead!” Aradma beamed, repeating her joy. Then she murmured thoughtfully. “Valkrage passed his seal to you.”
Tiberan nodded.
“You touch Life through the Green Dragon,” Aradma said. “And now, Time. You’re able to touch both elements.”
“Not entirely,” Tiberan replied. “The Seal of Time sometimes acts through me, but I have not been able to control it.”
She wanted to run into his arms, but she wasn’t sure. “When did you come back?” she asked. Old feelings surged within her.
“The night you and Kaldor faced the vampire queen. I was there with Kristafrost and Ezzie. When I saw you with Kaldor, I told them not to say a word about my return. I didn’t want to intrude.”
She took a deep breath, feeling love blooming in her heart. “I understand. That must have been difficult.”
He nodded.
“I still love you,” she told him softly. Despite defeating Athaym, despite everything she had gone through, her blood thudded in nervous excitement.
A wave of emotion played over his face. “I know,” he finally answered. He took a deep breath. “You will always be in my heart, but… I too have found another, one whom I love deeply.”
Aradma stopped for a moment. Disappointment washed away the surge of passion’s thrill, but then she set it aside. It was understandable. No, it was natural. He had been back for ten years. She was glad he had been able to find happiness. “Who?” she asked.
“Keira.”
That raised an eyebrow. But then, it had been nineteen years since their time in Artalon together. Keira would be close to thirty by now.
“I have two sons with her,” he told her.
She smiled wistfully. “I’m happy for you, Tiberan. I’m happy for her too. I’m happy you have lived.” Then her eyes narrowed. “The antlers?”
“It’s… why don’t we talk about it on the way back?”
“Anuit, can you shadowjump us to the surface?” Arda asked. She tightened her belt around her waist and then settled her duster on her shoulders. She flung the coattails back and patted the butts of her silver revolvers. “That feels about right.” She grinned.
Anuit shook her head. “No, not that far. Maybe if I knew where we were. And I can’t bring us through Dis… the whole demon realm is unbalanced right now. It was hard enough getting out of it to find you here.”
“Then let’s walk,” Aradma said. “I want to hear from each of you what’s happened while I was imprisoned.” She grinned again and then laughed in joy. They were together. They were the seals. She felt like nothing could stop them now. They would take Artalon, find the true Stag Throne, unlock its power… and then what?
They would figure it out on the way. “Let’s go,” she said and turned to leave the troglodyte city.
“Psst!” exclaimed Anuit.
Aradma stopped. “What?” she asked.
Anuit jerked her head to the side towards the hunter. “Would you mind…” she thumbed her flowery gown. “Would you mind summoning some clothes for your man?”
36 - Return to Artalon
Aradma felt a surge of happiness and laughed. She hadn’t felt joy in the last ten years, and for most of that time she hadn’t even felt a semblance of self. But now, in the dark caverns of the Underworld as they slowly made their ascent back to Ahmbren’s surface, she knew joy.
“Ten years ago, we tried to find you,” Arda told her. “We followed your captors’ trail beneath the surface, but they collapsed the path behind them.” The paladin cast her eyes to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried to find you, but we abandoned you in the end.”
“The way was blocked,” Anuit interjected. “Kaldor told us that Artalon was important. We had to make a choice, and we didn’t expect anything like the war that still stretches on.”
“I’m sorry,” Arda said again. “We abandoned you.”
Aradma looked at her friends. Even Tiberan turned his eyes away. “I should have known,” he said. “I dreamed about you, about your time in the Otherworld. I didn’t understand what the dream tri
ed to tell me, that you were at his mercy again.”
Aradma gathered her friends together and hugged each of them. “Let go of your guilt,” she said. “Had you found me then, he would have killed you. You were not ready. I was not ready. We cannot change what is done. I love you all, and we have survived. He is dead, and we are standing. Now, let’s find a way back to the world. The Underworld worms will have opened up new pathways.”
And so they walked, sometimes side by side, sometimes single file. She could tell the others felt the infectious joy too. Nothing could hurt them down here. Even if the troglodytes were not off fighting the war, between the four of them, the four Living Seals, there was nothing they couldn’t do when they were together.
Aradma stepped in beside Arda, who held hands with the sorceress. Tiberan walked behind the three of them. She remembered he was going to tell her about the stag antlers, but a more burning question tugged at her heart first.
“Arda,” Aradma said. “How did Kaldor die?”
Arda glanced at the druid. “I’m so sorry,” she replied. “How did you find out?”
“Athaym told me, to increase my suffering. I didn’t want to believe him, but my heart knew he spoke the truth.”
Grief over Kaldor’s death washed freely through Aradma for the first time. She had understood his death as Graelyn, but now the totality of her being shook with his loss. Ten years had passed, and through it she had felt sorrow as the Green Dragon, mourning the loss of the Gold Dragon’s last remnant. But she had never grieved as a woman for Kaldor as the man she had loved. She had not allowed Athaym to see her tears for a decade, but now she let them flow openly.
Arda caught Aradma as she fell forward, letting her cry on her shoulder. The emotion overwhelmed the seelie… the fullness of loss, that he would never see his daughter, that their child together was twisted into a demon creature who had never known the Light of Life. At the same time, she felt a mother’s anguish at her own loss of her daughter, even amid the confusing, overwhelming joy at Tiberan’s return. She couldn’t turn her feelings off, and the companions stopped there for a while as they allowed her to grieve.
Finally she settled. The mix of feelings still churned within her, but she could stand now, and no more tears threatened to weaken her knees. “How?” she whispered. “How did he die?”
“Rajamin killed him,” Arda said softly.
Aradma started. “What?”
“Athra’s Jewel came to life,” Arda explained. “The goddess walks in her now. Kaldor arrived at your house just after Athaym took you. He was going to destroy the construct while the goddess was disoriented, but the ratling acted to protect her. Rajamin was under the gods’ thrall in the end.”
Aradma frowned. She had never liked his Church, and each year it had grown more powerful, she had liked it even less. But she never realized how deeply the gods had gotten their fingers into his mind.
“He was subverted,” Aradma finally said. “When I met him in Kallanista, his mind was free, and I refused to acknowledge what I saw over the years, that bit by bit his freedom slipped away. In Kallanista, he followed the gods, but he didn’t worship them, and I held onto that memory for too long. To acknowledge what I saw happening to him… that would have required action. Change. For me to leave my comfortable life. I didn’t want to get involved.” Aradma frowned. “I was selfish.”
Arda nodded in empathy. “Don’t judge yourself too harshly,” she said. “We’ve all failed. Your failure was born out of love; mine was born out of wrath.” The paladin took Aradma’s hand. “Accept your mistakes and move on by forgiving yourself. Kaldor taught me that.” Arda seemed overcome by emotion for a moment. Then: “I’m so glad you’re back. I thought I had abandoned you to death.”
Aradma squeezed Arda’s hand. “You did the right thing,” she told her. “I know it was a hard choice, but it was the right choice. You had to carry on Kaldor’s and Valkrage’s work. You made the choice I could not.”
Arda looked confused for a moment.
“Valkrage told me there was undone work before he died,” Aradma explained. “He told me about the Kairantheum, and that the true Stag Throne was hidden. I chose to ignore him.”
They stood in silence for a few moments, and then Aradma came back to her earlier thought. “Poor Rajamin. He told me once that if a god validated you, and didn’t challenge you to grow, then it might be a demon instead of a god. And he also posed the question, ‘How does one challenge a god?’ He was wise enough to know that a display of miracles wasn’t enough to prove godhood. He was worried about being deceived by them.”
“He let them in,” Arda replied. “It took time, but his skepticism eroded, and then they had him.”
Aradma frowned. “Is that the nature of all gods? I think it must be.”
“These horns are the mark of a god,” Tiberan remarked, breaking his silence.
Aradma looked at him. She read the music of his soul. “Perhaps,” she agreed, “but I don’t think they have hold of you yet.”
Tiberan regarded her. “Yet.”
Aradma turned back to Arda. “Kaldor gave you his seal before he died.”
Arda nodded. “Yes.”
Aradma looked at her thoughtfully. “You haven’t aged since then.”
Arda raised her eyebrows. Anuit studied her lover’s face.
“She’s right,” the sorceress said. “I hadn’t noticed it before, but you don’t look any older than I do now. I’ve caught up to you.”
“I think the same will happen to you,” Aradma said.
“But the other avatars aged,” Tiberan said.
“They weren’t seals at first,” Aradma replied. “I remember.”
Tiberan nodded. “You are the dreamwalker.”
“I am Graelyn,” Aradma assented. “At least, the part that could act while her greater mind—you—slept.”
The others fell silent at that.
“What do you mean the avatars weren’t seals?” Anuit finally said.
“The totality of the Dragons, including the greater minds that remained in dragonsleep, were the seals. The dreamwalkers were small parts of a larger whole. Only when they died did the seals pass to the dreamwalkers.”
“Kaldor said he aged,” Arda replied. “Yet that was after his Dragon’s body died.”
“You’re right,” Aradma said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe you are aging, but only slowly, like Kaldor did.” She shrugged.
“Regardless,” Anuit grinned, “it means that Arda and I will have a long life together.”
Arda smiled back at Anuit and raised their clasped hands, kissing the sorceress’s knuckles.
“I feel like we’ve won,” Anuit continued. “I know we haven’t. Not yet. There’s a goddess on the loose, and the world is tearing itself apart over Artalon, but I think—I think we will win. We’re the only ones who can unlock the city’s secret, and for the first time, the seals are united. The worst is behind us. We’ll be able to control the gods once and for all!”
“I think you mean balance the gods,” Arda replied.
Anuit shot her a glance. “No, I meant control.”
Aradma raised an eyebrow. “Yes, perhaps we should discuss what we should do. It’s clearly up to us now, but do we know what that means?”
“We don’t even know yet how it works,” Tiberan pointed out. “All we know is that we’re the key, but we don’t know precisely where, or how to open the door. And once we find the Stag Throne, how do we use it?”
Aradma bit her lip. “You’re right,” she agreed. “Hopefully it will become apparent once we get there. I suspect Artalon itself will respond to our presence as we approach the top of God Spire.”
“Where Valkrage died,” Tiberan said, smiling at her. “Yes.”
The world seemed to light up in his smile, and Aradma’s heart raced. She looked away. She didn’t begrudge him having moved on, but she acknowledged the truth of her being. She still loved Tiberan, and she always would. And she
could feel his love in return, in the music of his being that she couldn’t help but hear. She remembered the place where Valkrage died… where she had thought Tiberan had died with him.
“Athaym was right about one thing,” Aradma said, turning thoughts of the seelie man aside for the moment. “The world is ready for a Turning. I can feel it in my bones.”
She knew from Tiberan’s glance that he understood what she meant. The other two did not. “A new age,” Aradma explained. “A time when the consciousness of Ahmbren’s life shifts and reaches a new level. I think whatever we do in Artalon will accomplish this, and how we do it will set the theme for the next aeon.”
“You mean the Fourth Age!” Arda remarked.
“The ages are markings of human history,” Tiberan replied. “She means the markings of Ahmbren’s life. A Turning will bring about the Tenth Aeon.”
“Athaym would have ended all life,” Aradma said. “At least, he would have set the world back many aeons to when troglodytes were the mortal pinnacle. They’re incapable of faith or hope or aspiration. They are a soulless race.”
“We will see the next aeon brings life to a new awareness,” Tiberan affirmed. “Joy is life’s purpose.”
“Yes!” Aradma agreed. “For joy to continue, life must continue.”
Anuit interjected. “I saw Those Who Dwell Beyond when I was in Dis. I saw the reason the sidhe made the Kairantheum in the dawn of the First Age.”
“The Seventh Aeon,” Aradma murmured.
“Whatever,” Anuit waved a hand. “The point is, there’s a reason the Kairantheum exists, and it is fulfilling its purpose. We should take care with that when we find the Stag Throne.”
“If what you say is true,” Arda replied, squeezing Anuit’s hand, “and I believe that it is, then that’s reason to bring balance to the Kairantheum. If we balance it, it can fulfill its purpose, and the gods wouldn’t do what they did to poor Rajamin.”
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 133