Anna sat next to him. “But… you won’t fight her, will you?”
Rakan took Anna’s hand and traced the Firemark. “You know the answer to that.”
Anna nodded and leaned against his shoulder, her hair mingling with his. She screwed her eyes shut. She’d die with him.
“Anna.” He placed his hand on her cheek. “I need you.” His voice was husky and his hair slid over his shoulders, reaching for her. Anna turned to him, her lips finding his as the tears streamed down her cheeks, giving their kiss an edge of salt. His tongue explored the contours of her mouth, gently filling her with warmth until she could respond, her tears momentarily forgotten. He eased her onto her back and his hips angled into hers. His hand slid under her shirt as he continued to kiss her. She stiffened. He pulled back and looked at her. “You don’t want this?”
“Yes. No. I… I never have… I…”
Rakan leaned on top of her, elbows on either side of her head. “Neither have I. But I want to.” Their eyes locked. “I love you, Anna.”
“I don’t want you to… to…” She couldn’t say it. It was too awful.
Rakan cradled her face. “Neither do I. But I don’t think there’ll be any other way.”
“Why not? Why does it have to be you?”
“Because if I die there’s only me. I’ll give my kai to my father.”
“What?”
“The Draak who’s linked to me.”
Anna pushed Rakan up. “I know what a kai is. I just didn’t know you had one. Can he feel everything you feel?”
“She. Her name is Yuli. Yes.”
Anna scrambled out from under Rakan. “You’re connected to a female? Since when?”
“Since a few hours ago.”
“And where is she?” Anna looked around, remembering Kariaksuq’s shadow figure.
“At my father’s. She’s my second for the fight.”
Anna sank back down on her bed. “Can she feel when we…”
“No,” he said, running his hands through her slightly damp hair.
His hand touched the spot on her neck where he had marked her and she felt the flame-shaped scar come alive. An inarticulate moan escaped from her throat, and she bent her head to the side. “Why don’t they look the same?” she asked, seeing the round mark she had left on him. It wasn’t nearly as pretty as the one he had given her.
Rakan smiled. “Because we’re not the same. Mine is a flame. And yours is a flower.”
“But why a flower?” It seemed so plain and worthless compared to his fire.
“Because it makes life worth living.” Rakan paused. “Your name sounds like the word for flower in Draagsil. And it suits you. You smell like wild chrysanthemums. Like these.” His hands filled with dozens of small blue flowers. He lifted them up and smelled them. He sprinkled them on the bed and pulled her up to standing. “I wanted to make a bed for you out of them.” He held her close. “And I wanted to make love with you for our first time on them.” Rakan’s arms tightened around her. “You’ll be the last thing I let go of when I die.”
Anna shook in his arms. “I don’t want you to die.”
“We’ll all die one day.”
“But why do you have to die tomorrow?”
“If I could change the world, I would. But I can’t. All I can do is to try to do what’s right.”
“Why can’t we hide?”
“We’ve been through this.” Rakan dropped his arms and walked over to her shelves. He picked up the sketch he had made and passed his hand over it. “At least that way it looks like me,” he said, putting it back.
Anna peered around him. Where the simple sketch had been was a nearly photo perfect drawing of a coral-colored dragon hurling flames of fire in the sky as the sun rose. And in the lower corner was a sketch of Rakan’s human face, hair pulled back in a braid. “Can’t you make it with your hair down?” she asked, running her hand through his hair.
“No. You’re the only one who’s ever seen me with it down. And you’re the only one who ever will. I’ll never be intimate with anyone else.”
Anna choked on a sob and buried her face in his hair. “You can’t die.”
“I’ll tell Yuli to come see you.” He took another piece of paper and drew a lime-green dragon with coral claws. He paused and changed them to burgundy. “I’ll give her rök to my father. They both know about you.” He sketched her human form.
Anna picked up the drawing and touched it. Yuli looked about her mother’s age. “She looks like you could feel safe with her.”
“She’s a shielder – you can see it by her golden crest. Just like June.”
“And what are you?” asked Anna, looking at the drawing of his copper crest.
“A trailer. Dvara’s is black – she’s a triggerer. They explode things.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course I do. But I’m better at seeing trails and tracking.”
“If I were a dragon I’d want to have a golden crest. And then I’d save you both tomorrow.” Anna sank into his arms. “But I’m not.” Her hands explored his naked chest and ran over his shoulders. “Can you make a bed of blue flowers?”
“Are you sure?” he asked. His coral-colored eyes flashed in the early evening sun.
“Yes,” she said, reaching for his lips. “I am.”
Chapter 30
Dragon Fire
RAKAN LET HIS HANDS SLIDE DOWN Anna’s sides, gently transforming her oversized tee-shirt and shorts into a pale blue dress that crossed over her breasts and flowed out like gauze to the floor. He placed a hand on her lower back and groaned in pleasure as she pressed against him. “Anna,” he said, smelling her neck. He slid his hand even lower. “My Anna.”
Rakan felt her body temperature rise in answer to his own. She ran her hands up his chest and over his shoulders. Her breathing grew shallower and she fell into him, her hands sliding into his hair. She tilted her head and he caught her lips that were cool from having been open. The unexpected change in temperature sent a flash of desire searing through his body and he wondered if he’d be able to take her gently enough not to hurt her.
Rakan slowly untied the knot of material at her lower back that gave shape to the translucent sheath that glittered with flecks of gold underneath. He stepped back to watch as the cloth uncrossed from over her hips to her back and then her breasts. He gently eased the blue strands over her shoulders so that it hung like a train, leaving her breasts free under the thin layer of shimmering gauze.
Anna looked down. “When did you change my clothes?” she asked. Her hands flew to her chest in a gesture of surprised innocence that excited Rakan even more. “And all the flowers.” She scooped a handful and let them flutter from above in a gentle rain of blue chrysanthemums. Rakan kissed her cheek and followed her jawline down, lingering on her neck before running his teeth on her shoulder. She arched into him. “Don’t stop.”
He rubbed his face against her neck and inhaled deeply as she ran her hands through his hair. She sank to the ground and pulled him with her, her hair billowing out over the flowers. “You’re so beautiful,” he said. His eyes traced the lines of her lips, the gentle curve of her neck, the exotically pale hair that he’d never tire of seeing as it rippled through his fingers. She ran her hands up his arms and he shuddered in pleasure. He leaned forward slowly, feeling every inch of his chest make contact with hers as his lips approached her mouth, their eyes never leaving each other’s as he bore down on her. Her lips parted, moist and beckoning and he answered their call with soft, gentle strokes. He closed his eyes and followed the outline of her lips with his tongue until he felt her twitching with the same wild desire as his own. “Meld with me,” he said, kissing her. She answered, opening herself up to him and they melded, their bodies responding as one in an ever rising inferno.
“You’re free,” he said. His surprised pleasure at being able to meld so deeply overflowed into her. He kissed her more deeply, aching with her to feel their bodies even closer.
His hand slid down her side and over her hip. Her body was ready for a child.
He stopped. He hadn’t considered that possibility.
“What?” She pulled him back down, her lips calling him closer.
“No,” he said, gently sliding off of her. He ran a hand over her stomach. His mind-touch went deeper and confirmed what he had sensed. She was in the middle of her cycle. “You’d get pregnant.”
He felt an unexpected joy wash over her and it confused him.
“I’ll keep the baby,” she said. “I’ll still have a part of you.”
“You can’t have a baby like that by yourself.”
“Why not?”
“Because… what if it’s like me? Then what’ll you do?”
Anna propped herself up on one arm. “You don’t think I can take care of your baby without you?”
“No. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that having a baby isn’t something you should do alone.” Especially not if it was part Draak.
Anna turned her back to him.
“I’m sorry, Anna.” He reached over to touch her, but she pulled away. Her pain wrenched through him. “I love you,” he said quietly.
“No, you don’t. Or you’d let me have a baby to hold on to.”
“A baby won’t replace me.”
Anna didn’t answer. Instead, she threw herself into his arms.
Rakan smoothed her hair. “I can’t do something I know I wouldn’t do if I were to live. We aren’t ready to have a baby yet. We’d do that later. Not now.” He cradled her in his arms, trying to calm her choking sobs. “I need to be able to free my rök tomorrow,” he said quietly. “June won’t know how and I don’t want to suffer the pain that Yttresken’s kais had if I don’t free my rök myself. And I’ll only be able to do that if I can face myself. If I leave you with a child when you’re not ready for it, I won’t be able to.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
He held her close and rocked her back and forth, crushing the flowers underneath them until she had cried herself to sleep. He lay next to her until the sky turned the various shades of green that marked the setting sun of late May, stroking her hair and telling her a thousand times how much he loved her.
He felt the Eld gathering nearby. He lifted Anna to her bed, being careful not to wake her. He kissed her softly and inhaled one last time. He took some of the flowers and put them on the shelf in front of the drawing. The others he compacted into a small statue of a pale blue air dragon with a golden crest and placed it next to her bed.
“I’ll always love you,” he said and shifted to meet the Eld.
* * *
“Indeed,” said the Trailer Eld, her cape flashing its oxidized green and copper lining. They were in a silvery black in-between that had no horizon and no mountains. It continued on as far as the eye could see. “Most interesting that you have been able to join us here.”
“Where are we?” asked Rakan, surprised to feel himself morphing smoothly in and out of his three dragon forms. The place had a profound calmness to it, as if they were at the center of the world.
“We are in Kor,” said the Trailer Eld, morphing into a magnificent oxidized copper air dragon. “You have promise. As your unwillingness to father a child with the human shows.”
“That’s private.”
“Private is a matter of debate when your actions could have an incidence for the survival of both the Draak and human races.” The Trailer Eld rose on her hind legs and spread her wings, blinding Rakan with her polished copper underbelly. “As will the outcome of the duel today.”
“All that is affected are our own lives.” And those of June’s kais.
“No. That is were you are wrong.” The Trailer Eld launched herself into the warm blackness that was both horizon and ground. “I will show you the Rift.”
Rakan threw himself into the air, sure that no matter what his form he would be able to navigate through Kor. But nothing prepared him for what he saw when he looked down. There was a blinding streak of white nothingness that pulled at his rök like a black hole that had been stretched and deformed until it appeared straight. His bones ached with a cold he had never felt before. The Rift was a void. And there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The Trailer Eld caught him with her wings as he plummeted toward the Rift, petrified by the nothingness that was a hundred times worse than death. “The Rift was first opened by Paaliaq. We managed to close it, but the one you call June has re-opened it.”
“But how could she?”
“By crossing boundaries that should not be crossed. As you said yourself, she has learned to go in the light. And every time she does, the Rift widens, ripping the röks of her kais. It is their pain you feel reflected in her trail.”
Rakan sank his claws into the Trailer Eld. “Show her the Rift.” She had to be stopped from making it worse.
“We have,” said the Trailer Eld. She motioned towards the edge of the Rift where Rakan could just barely make out June’s human figure.
“Why is she in her human form?” She should have been in her true form as a dragon.
“Because Jing Mei doesn’t exist separately from the other parts of Paaliaq. And until she accepts that she is a fragment, she will appear as June.” The Trailer Eld moved forward, gliding over the smooth black surface until they were so close to the edge of the Rift that Rakan wasn’t sure he would survive the pain of emptiness that sucked at the fiber of his being. “The Rift will cease with Paaliaq’s death,” said the Trailer Eld. “And for Paaliaq to finish dying, June must die.” The Trailer Eld stopped a few yards away from June. “She understands this.”
“No,” Rakan said. “She just has to stop becoming an Elythia and accept being a Draak.”
“She has chosen death over being a Draak.” The Trailer Eld motioned towards June. “Ask her yourself.” The Eld disappeared. Rakan stood, unable to go any closer to the Rift. White tentacles of cold nothingness reached up and leached the energy from the pure black ground of Kor that radiated life. A tentacle slithered across June’s knees, turning them the color of ash, but she didn’t react. Rakan lunged and yanked her away from the Rift.
June hissed and threw him back. “Leave me alone.”
“You can’t let yourself die or all the others will die too.”
“What others? There aren’t any others.” June looked around. “Who else do you see? There’s only me.” She sank to the ground. “Let me die and everything will be over.”
“No,” Rakan said. “All you have to do is accept who you are.”
“Everyone thinks I’m someone I’m not.” June stood. “Look at me. I’m human. I’m not even a dragon. How can I be Paaliaq?”
“You have a rök.”
“Not when I’m in the light.” June motioned towards the Rift. “Can’t you feel how pure, how beautiful, it is?” She dropped her arms. “But none of that matters anymore. Erling only loves me because I remind him of Paaliaq.” Her voice wavered. “Someone I don’t think I’d even like.” She looked down at the blinding emptiness that wormed its way up her legs. “I could pretend I was her and be with Erling. No one would stop me. But it would be a lie. Everything would be a lie. I have no reason to live anymore.” She turned to face Rakan. “But you do. You have Anna, and you love each other for who you are. And that’s worth living for.” She spread her arms and breathed in deeply. “I have nothing,” she said and let herself drop into the void.
“No,” yelled Rakan, “I won’t let you kill them all.” He flew after her and whacked her as hard as he could with his tail, sending her spinning back up out of the void in a blood-curdling yell. A dull thud confirmed that she had landed on the edge of the rift as he himself plummeted, his claws outstretched in petrified terror.
* * *
Anna’s eyes flew open. She was in her bed. Alone. “Rakan,” she yelled. He was about to die. She threw off her comforter and jumped up to run… where? To Lysa. Anna flew down the stairs, flipped her phone open and
called Lysa while she struggled to tie her dress and get her boots on. There was no answer. Anna cursed and threw the phone down.
“Anna,” said a golden voice. A hand touched her shoulder.
Anna screamed and then threw herself into Lysa’s arms. “You’re here,” she said, nearly hysterical with fear for Rakan. She held onto Lysa’s shoulders. “Where are they?”
“I’m not quite sure,” said Lysa, her eyes bloodshot. “Erling went ballistic. But I think I found his trail even though Verje was blocking me.”
“Where are they?” Anna’s nails dug into Lysa. “I need to find Rakan.”
“Things don’t feel right. I might not be able to bring you home.”
“I don’t care. I need to know what’s happening to Rakan.”
The light around Lysa shimmered a pale, peaceful green. She put her hands on Anna’s shoulders. “I shouldn’t do this,” she said with a mischievous smile. “But it won’t be the first time we’ve ignored the rules. Ready?”
Anna didn’t even have time to say yes before she felt herself being ripped apart and then reassembled again in a pain so deep she didn’t know where to begin to hurt. She clung to Lysa, suffocating in the heat that made her feel like they were in an oven. Lysa gripped Anna’s shoulders and whispered, “No. This is wrong. All wrong.”
Anna looked up and saw Erling struggling like a wild animal to get beyond the twins. She turned to see where he was trying to go and saw a glass-like dome in the desert. And inside, there were two battling dragons. One emerald green with a golden crest. And one coral orange with a copper crest. June and Rakan.
Anna lunged and ran down the sandy dune. She hit an invisible shield. She pounded on it as she watched in horror. “No!” Around the dome were hundreds of black-haired people in various forms of armor, all watching in tense silence as the dragons tried to kill at each other. “Stop them,” she yelled.
“They can’t hear you,” said Lysa.
“Why are they fighting?” she wailed.
Dragon Fire Page 36