by SJ West
“Wait,” Dracen said, looking thoughtful, “can I see the pendant for a moment? I have an idea.”
I pulled the chain of the necklace over my head and handed it to Dracen. He turned to Vincent and asked, “Do you mind if I grab one of your smaller scales?”
Vincent brought his tail around and positioned the tip of it in front of Dracen.
“I have a few that are about to fall off anyway,” Vincent informed him, looking pointedly at the inch long scales located at the very tip of his tail. “You’re welcome to take one of those if you want, but what exactly do you plan to do with it?”
Dracen walked over to Vincent, knelt down, and plucked off a small scale that was practically falling off anyway. Beneath the scale, I saw a shiny new blue one, already set into position to replace the old one.
“I didn’t realize your scales shed like that,” I said.
“Every once in a while we go through a period of rejuvenation,” Vincent informed me. “I’m long overdue for such a thing to happen. I believe coming out into the sun has forced mine to start to shed.”
“I kind of liked your white scales,” I said wistfully. “But I’m sure you’ll look just as handsome in blue ones.”
“Handsome,” Vincent said with a shake of his head, sounding amused by my use of the word, “that is not a term that has been applied to me in quite some time.”
I returned my attention to Dracen and saw him place Vincent’s small scale inside my pendant. He snapped it shut and held it between his hands while saying the words, “Draco amicus.”
Dracen’s hands briefly glowed blue before he opened them and walked over to me to place the chain back around my neck.
“Now you have three destinations,” Dracen said proudly. “Whenever you want to go to where Vincent is, simply hold the pendant and think of him. But this is the extent of this particular necklace’s powers, I’m afraid. I can’t attach any more spells to it.”
“Thank you,” I told him, feeling comforted by the knowledge that Vincent was only a thought away.
“I can’t wait until I get big enough for you to ride on my back,” Aurora said wistfully. “Imagine all the fun we can have together, Sarah.”
“But then you’ll be too big to ride on my shoulder.” I reached up and ran a crooked finger down the smooth scales along the front of her neck. “So don’t grow up too soon, my little dragonling. I’ve become used to having you so close.”
“I will always be close, Sarah,” Aurora replied, rubbing her head against my cheek. “Always.”
“While you are saying your good-bye to Trill,” Gregoire said, “I will choose the dragons who will be accompanying us.” Gregoire looked down at Thomas. “However, before we go, perhaps your young apprentice should practice his spell, Dracen.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, actually,” Dracen said, looking down at Thomas. “What say you, Thomas? Do you feel up to the challenge of conjuring your own corps of dragons?”
“Yes, Master Dracen,” Thomas said, looking confident but not overly so. He seemed to be someone who understood how powerful his magic was, and that its use should not be taken lightly.
I watched as Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and brought his hands together as if he were praying. I could see his lips twitch slightly as he said something to himself, but I couldn’t make out any of his words. After a few seconds, Thomas lifted his joined hands over his head, spread them wide and shouted, “Draconus Vi!”
The sky directly above us was suddenly filled with an array of dragons of every color hovering in the air. The movement of their phantom wings stirred up a gust of wind, enhancing Thomas’ illusion tenfold with such a realistic element.
The only problem was … it didn’t last very long. Shortly after we began congratulating our young sorcerer on such a wonderful achievement, Thomas’ enchantment faded.
“Hmm,” Dracen said, observing the now empty sky worriedly. “Well, that won’t do.”
“What happened?” I asked, having very little experience to pull from to explain why Thomas wasn’t able to keep the magic going for a lengthier period of time.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said in confusion. “Usually my illusions stay until I command them to leave.”
“I assume it’s because it was such a massive spell,” Dracen said to us. “I doubt our young Thomas has ever had a need to conjure so many creatures all at once.”
“That’s true,” Thomas agreed. “Is there anything I can do to make it last longer, Master Dracen?”
“Hmm,” Dracen said again, crossing his arms over his chest as he lifted a hand to rest his chin on while he considered Thomas’ question. We all waited patiently while Dracen thought through this latest conundrum. After a couple of minutes, Dracen said, “I believe I can let you borrow something that will help make your illusion last longer, but you won’t be able to keep it, Thomas. I’ll need it back.”
“Okay,” Thomas said, looking confused by Dracen’s restriction.
Dracen reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the trillian bracelet he used to wear. I could tell that one of the stones was missing from it because of the extra string hanging from the knot that was tied to take up the slack. I could only assume the gem had been what Dracen used to make our teleportation talismans.
“Let me see your wrist,” Dracen said to Thomas as he walked up to the young man.
Thomas held out his left arm to Dracen and allowed him to tie the bracelet to it.
“How is a bracelet going to help me?” Thomas asked.
“It will amplify your powers,” Dracen said. “So be careful of any magic you use while wearing it, Thomas. You still only have a finite amount, just like every sorcerer in the world. Once you use all of your magic, it will be gone forever.”
“Could he lose his magic if he needs to keep his illusion of the dragons up for a long time?” I asked, knowing that those with magical abilities made their living by using it for others.
“It’s almost impossible to tell,” Dracen replied. “Each person is able to control a different amount of magic. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
Dracen asked Thomas to cast his spell a second time and our young sorcerer was able to hold the illusion easily.
Satisfied that this part of our plan would work, I turned to Gabriel and asked, “Are you ready to go back inside?”
Gabriel nodded. “Yes. It won’t take me long to get what I need.”
I held my hand out to Gabriel. Once he took it, I teleported us back into Trill’s chamber and found my ghostly friend waiting for us.
“I won’t be long,” Gabriel told me, letting go of my hand before quickly walking out of the room.
“It’s strange to see Jacob in a different form,” Trill said as we watched Gabriel leave.
“It’s strange to know who he actually is,” I confessed. “I’m having a hard time knowing how I should act around him.”
“I can’t even imagine your predicament,” Trill sympathized.
“Did you know Jacob very well?” I asked.
“You brought him here a couple of times, but he seemed uncomfortable being a third party to a discussion he himself couldn’t take part in.”
“I can imagine that would be awkward,” Aurora agreed.
“So, how is your strategy for the war coming along?” Trill asked.
I went on to tell him everything that we had planned. By the time I was finished, I looked towards the entrance but saw no sign of Gabriel coming back anytime soon.
“We really need to be going,” I said. “I’m going to go see if I can find him.”
“I wish you the best of luck in winning the war,” Trill told me. “But I have a feeling you won’t need it.”
“Thanks. I’ll come back when it’s over to see you. Now that Dracen has made me this necklace, I can see you anytime I want to.”
“I would enjoy the company,” Trill said, sounding happy about the prospect of future visits.
As I walke
d out of Trill’s chamber, the door that locked him away from the rest of Dracen’s home automatically closed behind me. I could only assume it was some sort of permanent enchantment.
When I reached the lake at the center of the caverns, I didn’t have to take much time to consider which of the other corridors I should go down to find Gabriel. I instinctively knew where he had gone. I walked over to the one that led to the home Kira and Jacob shared at one time. Once I reached the threshold of the bedroom where I found Kira’s journal, I caught a glimpse of Gabriel standing in front of the desk by the window that looked out onto the illusion of the courtyard below. As I pushed the door open, the hinges creaked, announcing my arrival.
Gabriel turned around to face me and silently watched as I walked into the room.
We stared at each other in awkward silence. I knew this used to be a room we shared as husband and wife. I didn’t remember any of the memories we might have made here together, but I could see from the haggard look on Gabriel’s face that those memories were haunting his thoughts now.
“Are you all right?” I asked him, worried for my friend’s state of mind. No matter what might have happened between us as Kira and Jacob, the man I knew as Gabriel, one of my dearest friends, was in pain.
“Not really,” he admitted, and I knew his confession was a hard one for him to make. “There’s a part of me that wants to be happy for you in the new life you have, but there’s also a part of me that hates the fact that you only see me as a friend. I wish you could remember the good times we had together. If you did, maybe you could understand why it’s so hard for me to see that you’ve moved on and found love in the arms of another man.”
Gabriel broke our eye contact by looking off to the side. It wasn’t because something there caught his attention. He simply couldn’t look at me as he told me how he truly felt.
“You’re all I’ve been able to think about since I learned who you truly are,” he confessed.
“But it’s not me you’re remembering, Gabriel,” I tried to explain. “You have to realize that Kira doesn’t exist anymore.”
Gabriel quickly turned his head back to look me straight in the eyes. “Yes, she does. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before now, but there are so many similarities between how you are now and how you were back then. You’re just not conscious of them. Now that I know you’re Kira, I can understand why I felt such an instant connection to you. Even when you were a little girl in the body of April Pew, I knew there was something special about you. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. And if I’m being truthful, I hate Dracen for placing me in the role of your protector.”
“Why?” I asked, shocked by his vehement statement.
“Because if he hadn’t, maybe you could see me as a man who still loves you instead of just a friend. Perhaps this is Dracen’s way of punishing me for abandoning you, for running away when you needed me the most.”
“Punishing you?” I asked incredulously. “I think you did that to yourself when you left your grieving wife. Don’t expect any pity from me, Gabriel. You chose your own path when you decided to leave. If anyone is to blame for how things turned out between us, it’s you. Dracen only did what was best for his daughter. He let her go so she could find a reason to live again. I have those reasons now. I have John. I have Dena. I have Aurora, and I have a country full of people who depend on me to save them. I also have you.”
Gabriel shook his head as if he didn’t believe I counted him as a reason to live.
“You are one of my oldest and dearest friends,” I said beseechingly. “No, I don’t see you in the way you want me to, but maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe you and I were never truly meant to live a life together.”
“Or maybe this is a second chance for us,” Gabriel said hopefully. “I have never and will never love anyone like I did you.”
“But that’s just it, Gabriel,” I said sympathetically. “You loved Kira, but Kira doesn’t exist anymore—not in the way you remember her, anyway. I do love you, but the fact is that I don’t love you the same way she did.”
I reached behind me and pulled out Kira’s journal from its spot tucked into the waistband of my pants. I held it up in front of me for him to see.
“Do you know what this is?” I asked.
Gabriel’s eyes widened in surprise. “Yes, it’s Kira’s journal. How did you find it? I didn’t even know where she kept it hidden.”
I hesitated to answer his question because I feared it would give him false hope, but what I said was true. Gabriel was my friend, and I couldn’t lie to him.
“I think what remains of Kira led me to it the last time I was here.”
A faint glimmer of hope and a small smile graced Gabriel’s face, proving I had a right to fear he would choose to take my discovery of the journal as a sign that the woman he loved still resided in my conscious somewhere.
“I actually came up here to see if I could find it for you,” he told me. “I thought that maybe if you read her words, you would start to remember at least a little bit about our lives together.”
I couldn’t exactly discount Gabriel’s supposition about the journal’s effects on me. Part of a new memory had, in fact, come to me while we were in Iron City, but did I dare tell Gabriel that?
I decided to keep the memory to myself for now. He was having a hard enough time letting Kira go from his heart. I didn’t want to feed his longing to have her back with false hope.
“I also thought I would show you a picture of us together as a family,” Gabriel told me. “But it looks like someone took the photo out of the frame. Was that someone you?”
“Yes,” I told him, opening the journal up to the random page where the picture had been placed.
Gabriel walked over to me and looked down at it. A melancholic smile stretched his lips.
“Joselyn. …” His voice cracked with emotion as he looked at the face of our daughter.
I looked up from the photo to see Gabriel’s eyes filled with tears.
“I haven’t let myself think about her for a very long time,” he admitted, as a single tear rolled down his cheek. “I didn’t know my heart could endure so much pain until she died. I didn’t think I would survive her loss. And then,” Gabriel looked up at me, “when Dracen told me that you were dead too, I knew death would be a blessing, but I was too much of a coward to end my own life.”
“Gabriel,” I said in shock, “I never would have wanted that for you.”
“But I wanted it for myself,” he said, using a hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. “You and Joselyn were my life. Without either of you, I didn’t have anything else to live for. It wasn’t until Dracen asked me to look after you when you were April Pew that I found a new purpose for my life. After I had you transform into Sarah Harker, I only stayed in Iron City so I could make sure you were protected.”
“Oh Sarah,” Aurora said, sympathetic to Gabriel’s plight. “What can we do for him?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “I can’t love him the way he wants me to, but it’s tearing my heart to pieces to see him so broken.”
“Gabriel, I know you wish things could go back to the way they were between us, but you have to know in your heart that it wouldn’t work. Even if we hadn’t transformed into different people, the experiences we’ve had since we shared this room together have changed us. We aren’t Kira and Jacob anymore. We can never go back to what we had.”
“I know that.”
I could tell that Gabriel meant what he said, but I could also tell that he still wanted his wife back.
“All I can give you is my friendship,” I told him truthfully. “I hope that can be enough for you.”
“I hope so, too,” he said, even though I could hear the doubt in his voice that it would be enough for him.
“Would you like to keep the picture?” I asked, holding the journal up a bit in case he did want it.
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “You s
hould keep it. You should have something to remember Joselyn by. The memory of her is scorched into my brain.”
Slowly, I closed the journal and tucked it back into its spot in the waistband of my pants.
“We should probably go back to the others,” I told him, holding out a hand for him to take.
Gabriel hesitated for a moment before touching me.
As I called upon the power of my talisman to transport us to Vincent and the other dragons, I silently hoped Gabriel would find a way to let go of his need to have Kira back in his life. She was gone, and he needed to come to terms with that fact. Otherwise, I knew our friendship wouldn’t be able to survive, and his absence from my life was an unacceptable outcome. I may not love him in the same way that Kira did, but I did love him. He had been my protector before I even knew I needed one. He helped me escape from the Pew household and found a way to make sure I grew up with loving parents, even if they weren’t truly my own.
He was my friend, and I would do my best to find a way to make him happy again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Once we were back with the others, it didn’t take long before we were ready to be on our way to the Fae side of the island to search for Lanai. Dracen gathered some supplies for us to take on our journey and strapped the majority of them on Gregoire’s back. It was decided that Runa, the scholarly leader of the yellow dragon faction, and Nicole Jardine would lead the dragons coming with us to the location the Kamoran and Vankaran fleets were instructed to sail. The rest of us would fly to the area where Fallon and I last encountered the old queen of the Fae. Since it was also the location of our encounter with Aurora’s mother, I felt a need to warn Seneca and my little dragonling about what they might see there.
“Your wife’s remains are more than likely still on the road where we were attacked by her,” I informed Seneca as delicately as I could.
“After this much time, I doubt there is much of her left,” he said, sounding as if he had already prepared himself for the sight of his beloved. “Odds are the animals who feed on carrion have done their jobs and left only her bones behind.”