by Celeste Raye
“This is it then?” he asked numbly, and I just stared in return.
He looked at me with hauntingly still movements, just the weak flap of his wings sounding out through the air. With that, I charged him, sending us both careening toward the blazing red waters below. I released him from my grasp, watching and waiting for him to fall to his fiery death below, but he clung to my body like a sticky ember.
I passed my hands over his to throw him off of me and felt his claws digging deeply into my center, gripping me from within and clamping on unceasingly. I doubled over, my body aching in pain, feeling the blood coming cool onto my skin and sending a wave of light-headedness through my body. I gripped him with deep claws and felt the blood pouring out and cooling from my stomach.
Roars and sharp cries echoed from my mouth without my consent: fire blistering and bubbling forth from my throat and exploding into ragged bursts of flame.
I winced in pain and drew my tail forth, the unique spike on the end seeming all too convenient at the moment. I drew it forth and speared my leader with it, sending it through his core with as much force as I could muster. His eyes went wide, and I used the length of my tail to whip him off of me, finally casting him into the fiery deep.
I watched as he disappeared behind the thick lava and couldn’t look anymore, falling down to the warm ground below and dragging myself to the nearest fields that I knew of. I fluttered my wings weakly to try and make haste.
Once away from the lakes, all I could see was utter blackness. With the last of my strength, I shot fire to one of the Reduah trees, and it caught, lighting up the small area. I felt my legs tingle, and I collapsed onto the dewy ground below, relishing the cool moss underneath my skin.
My only consolation was seeing her.
And there she was.
Running up to me with the yellow shifter in tow, Diana raced to my side and spread her hands along my body, trying to determine in the low light what was wrong.
“You’re an idiot,” she flustered, feeling my wound and then leaning down and hitting my face with a barrage of kisses.
“Is he gone?” Vaikrand asked stiffly, looking off into the distance.
I nodded, unseen by my friends. “He’s gone.”
“The people will be happy,” the yellow shifter confirmed, and I offered a ragged laugh in return.
“They’d better be,” I said and reached up to touch Diana’s face. “So should you.”
“I am the happiest,” she said with a tear and leaned back in to kiss me once more. “Come on,” she cooed. “Let’s go home. Let’s rebuild.”
Epilogue
Diana
“I hope you meant what you said,” my love said to me, coming out of a deep sleep.
I looked down at Kavryiss: bandaged in a medical station back in Graynar, the only area left on Dobromia that was lit up. We descended down into the caves, which were now ice cold, by firelight alone.
Days had passed since the fight, and we heard reports that the lava fields, now being the only light that illuminated the planet, were already beginning to die off. Water had returned to Dobromia and, while sight was limited, new growth had already formed.
“About what?” I asked with a smile. I grabbed his hand with both of mine and kissed, grazing his weak palm against my cheeks.
It felt good to be at his side once more, to be filled by the warmth of him. I looked up into his deep blue eyes and smiled. Everything would be right now. We would make them right.
Then I looked up.
A never-ending darkness, incurred just to save me.
I knew it would give everyone even more reason to hate me: something to blame me for. But I thought it was just about the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.
“I hope you were serious about what you said; about giving up the leadership role to be with me,” he finished with a laugh.
“I don’t think there’s much choice in that now,” I teased before leaning in to kiss him. “But I meant every word. This…” I stopped and thought on the matter. “This is real.” I paused, and with a wink in my tone, finished, “And much less deadly.”
“Yeah, let’s stay away from that from now on, shall we?” he laughed and then his smile withered into a somber stare. “I’m sorry you won’t get your chance to rule, Diana.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” came Tredorphen’s chime.
The handsome rose gold shifter walked in before us with Marina at his side, ever loyal. He looked like his father, Boradrith, and I couldn’t help but smile at his features. His strong face and cleft chin. Maybe he took all that was good left in Boradrith. He and my son, of course.
“What’s that?” Kavryiss said tiredly.
“About her giving up rulership,” the gold shifter repeated smugly.
“Well, last I heard you were next in line,” Kavryiss said with an exhausted laugh, clutching at his middle and the wounds that still clung deeply to his chest. “So, unless you and Diana have something going on that I don’t know about…” He trailed off with a laugh.
“Myself,” Tredorphen said with a smile. “And then Plovoeus is next in line to rule, but he’s just a dragonling.”
“So?” I said curiously, my eyes creasing at the sides as I winced to catch his point.
“So, I’m going back to the Earth, with Marina,” he said evenly. “Which puts Plovoeus as leader. And as his older brother, I’m assigning the two of you as his guardians.”
Kavryiss breathed. “Which makes us…”
“Looks like you got your wish,” Marina said to me in a congratulatory tone. “Until he’s old enough, Dobromia is left in your hands.”
“But the people,” I protested, a flush coming to my face as the emotions welled up inside me. “They hate me.”
“They love Plovoeus,” Tredorphen said. “And they will love you. You have ideas; you want to move Dobromia forward. You want to create an alliance with others to benefit our planet. Shifters aren’t stupid,” he said and then looked at Kavryiss with a laugh. “Well,” he shrugged. “Mostly.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked slowly, looking up at the golden shifter with no small amount of hesitation. “After… what happened to your father?”
“My father killed my mother,” he said stoically. “There is no love lost from me. Besides, this one sung your praises well enough, as did my father. He may have had a sordid private life, but he knew rulership, and he obviously saw you fit to do the job.”
My eyes filled with tears and I stood to embrace the shifter and his wife, taking them both gratefully into my arms as I cried and hugged them. “I don’t know what to say,” I cried, feeling humble for the first time in a long time.
“Where will you go?” I asked them.
“Back to Earth,” Marina said. “But we’ll be back soon. After all,” she pointed out the window at the pitch darkness outside and gave a bewildered smile, “We have to come back and help you fix… that.”
“You really couldn’t have picked a better way of saving her, huh?” Tredorphen jeered, bumping my love with his arm before bursting into a smile.
“Hey,” Kavryiss defended weakly. “I got her, didn’t I?”
Tredorphen rolled his eyes and gave my love a salute. “We’ll bring supplies. We’ll consult everyone there about how to fix this, but we will fix it. I can’t say how long until we can return, but I trust that you’ll both be able to handle the job while I’m gone.”
I knew. It would be one year, and that’s if they returned to Earth, stocked up on supplies, and came right back. Give or take. “Of course,” I said smugly.
One year. What could happen in one year?
I leaned in and kissed the man who saved my life. Now I had a plan again, a plan to love and to save Dobromia. My two favorite things. The outline may have gotten darker and more difficult to maneuver, but I knew with Kavryiss at my side, we would be able to do absolutely anything.
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