by Nicki Ruth
Albus placed his hand into Jason’s and squeezed, something Jason was beginning to realize was to comfort him.
“We’re more than your friends. We’re your holy weapons. We mete out your justice and serve as your protection. Your will is our will, bonded to you at your volition.”
Jason held on to Albus’ hand and stepped over to Valere. “What do you say? Accept my apology and start over?” He offered his other hand to the scowling boy. The sizzling pop of an exploding fissure sounded in the distance.
Valere raised his head to look at Jason. “I don’t know what Albus sees in you to have bonded us with you—a young vahanan who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing.” He paused and gave his brother a long look, “But Albus is never wrong.” He bit his lip again, then seemed to come to a decision. “We don’t ever want to go back into that box. It's . . . lonely there.”
“You won’t. I promise.” Jason winced, hating the sound of fear in Valere's voice.
Valere nodded and glanced at Jason before he stared at the rock he’d been toeing. “Then, let’s start over.”
∞∞∞
Jason cautiously approached the bubbling lake. The boys remained behind and served as his lookout while he bent near its edge to fill his rock container. The heat was unbearable, overwhelming Jason with its intensity. He was thoroughly drenched in sweat now, and his hand shook as he carefully bent over and dipped into the liquid fire.
“You are trespassing!” a deep, thundering voice boomed. “All trespassers will be punished.”
Holding onto the now filled container, Jason looked around for the source of the voice. He saw nothing until the swishing of moving liquid brought his attention to the figure standing on the surface of the bubbling lake. Rivulets of fire moved down its sides, indicating it had risen from the depths of the lake.
Jason instinctively took to his knees and bowed his head. From the immense power crushing him, he was in the presence of a god.
“Forgive me, My Lord. I require your healing fire to save my friend from a slow, painful demise,” Jason said quickly as his heart thudded in his chest, aware he was in a precarious situation.
“Stealing from me is a punishable offense, young one.” The glowing figure walked on the lake’s surface towards him until it stepped onto the bank next to Jason’s kneeling form. “But you do seem to know how to pay your respect to your god. Raise your head.”
Jason did as told and gasped, averting his gaze as soon as he beheld the man before him—magnificent and fearsome; his aura had Jason clenching his fists to stop himself from collapsing.
The god of fire was tall and muscular, and dressed completely in golden armor decorated in jewels. A helmet of golden horns sat on his head over eyes that were aflame. He presented a forbidding countenance, one that spoke of unconditional dominance and ruthlessness.
“What a delightful-looking vahana. Tell me, for whom do you forfeit your life?”
Before Jason could answer he felt Valere and Albus next to him. Albus took his hand and tugged.
“Ho!” the god rumbled out. “A vahanan with the sanctus arcum? This is a surprise.”
“Please, Lord Drogal, we mean no disrespect. We ask your mercy and forgiveness for our trespass. We only seek to fulfill our noble mission.” Albus and Valere voiced in unison as they bowed low. Jason followed their lead and bent his head again.
“Hmm. You serve this vahanan? What of your previous master?”
“Our previous master is lost to us, My Lord,” they said in one voice again.
“I see,” Lord Drogal replied then chuckled, the sound making the lake swell, spitting thick magma into the air. “That’s too bad. What’s your name, vahanan?” He returned his attention to Jason.
“My name is Jason, My Lord.” Jason kept his eyes lowered and demeanor contrite. So far, they were still alive—no need to anger the fire god.
“I asked you a question that is still unanswered. Do you seek to anger me?”
“No, My Lord. My apologies. I sought your healing fire to save my friend, a drogulis mortally injured by a dark mage.”
The fire god grabbed Jason’s chin and jerked his head upward. Jason saw the god was no longer glowing but had taken the form of a man whose eyes were golden and intense. They reminded Jason of Davina’s. Jason flinched under the intensity of his stare, and his pulse quickened.
“So, you plan to save a drogulis. A being birthed of my sacred flames.”
He stroked Jason’s chin, his gaze heated. “I will allow it, young vahanan, and forgive your foolish behavior. If you’re served by the sanctus arcum, you might prove useful to me.”
He chuckled as he slowly ran the fingers of his other hand through Jason’s hair, his golden eyes flaring as they roved over Jason’s chest and arms. “In more ways than one.”
Jason chest heaved, and he felt more sweat pooling at his neck. He wondered if it was all from the heat of the place or the god’s obvious interest in him.
“You may leave with your life, on one condition. When I call upon you, you will answer me. Do we have an accord?”
Jason hesitated for a moment which earned him the hard glare and a tightened, jaw-crushing grip on his chin.
The god’s command of his temper was tenuous at best. Jason whimpered in pain and nodded, feeling a hard pit in his stomach at having to agree to the god’s demand. But he would make any kind of deal for Cade.
“I’m awaiting a verbal response, Jason.”
“Yes.” Jason responded in a rush as he released the breath he’d forgotten he was holding.
Lord Drogal smirked and released him. “Now, be gone from my sight, before I change my mind and feed you to my vipers.”
Jason immediately grabbed the boys, who climbed onto his back, and unfurled his dark wings. Lord Drogal broke into a leering grin at the sight.
As Jason propelled into the air he heard the god call to him. “Ahh, sweet vahanan. I’ll see you soon.”
Chapter 26
The soft words pierced his chest like a steel lance. Gentle words of love and loss, of regret and longing.
Of promises.
Cade shifted against the invisible, icy chains that tightened against him, compressing his chest so as to pilfer the short breaths that puffed from his laboring lungs. It hurt to be in this place; suspended in a toxic sludge of hopelessness and loathing. It poured thick and suffocating tar over him, trapping his limbs, his will to move. He refused to listen to the voice that sought him out regularly. Refused its offered promises. They were false. He was deceived before. He wouldn’t be again.
But still, despite his despair and the darkness blanketing him, he thought about blue skies. He remembered their seductive invitations, calling to him at every rise of the sun. The wind whipping under his wings, caressing his face and wilding his hair, he would soar as master of the skies. Master of the fires that followed in his wake, charring the landscape in their joyous fury.
And he thought of the one he longed to have at his side, who still haunted his thoughts and stalked his heart. Who laughed into the gleeful swirls of clouds under the umbrella of blue sky.
Jason.
He saw him draped in blackened feathers, large guileless eyes glowing, fluttering to the thrumming pleasure of their lovemaking. He heard Jason’s shouts of release, erupting hot beneath him, and felt the firmness of his skin softening in his hand.
Cade cried out into the void. No one would hear him or the pain of his breaking heart. No one would know how he longed for the one he’d loved, the one he despised but so desperately wanted to hold—to smother in kisses again before he wrung the life from him.
∞∞∞
“Are you ready?” Karina asked Jason, who stood whispering to the golden pendant in his hands.
Jason nodded. Since their return from the fire realm, he’d been eagerly and attentively listening to Karina’s instruction on how to release a vahana from a blessed object. The process required a significant amount of power and would normal
ly take the non-divine years, if not centuries, to master.
But Jason was vahana, and reading magic had come easily to him. He gazed again at the pendant in his hands uneasily admiring the intricate weave of characters encircling the gem, shackling their prisoner with their sorcery.
“I’m going to make this right, Cade,” he whispered to the cool metal.
“All right,” Karina said, watching him closely. “Remember what I taught you. You have all you need to break the magic. What happens after is between you two.”
Jason squeezed the pendant, the anxiety roping around his neck briefly causing his mind to go blank. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He’d not yet formulated what he would say to Cade once they came face to face again.
How would Cade react? What would he say?
“Everyone, get back,” Karina shouted behind him. “No, farther back. It’s going to be a powerful blast from this one. He’s angry.”
Jason swallowed, sweat beading on his brow. He looked back to see Karina ushering the others into the trees. He stood alone in the large clearing, flowering grasses swaying against his calves with the breeze.
His father, brother, and Davina were there. Their worried gazes rested on him. Alexios suggested Karina do the feat, but Jason needed to be the one.
He looked into the blue sky and plucked at his resolve. It was cloudless today, the wind gentle and light. He bent over and placed the pendant on the ground among the white tufts of feather-like flowers.
Shoring up his courage, he began to chant the incantation, watching the mystical characters move and undulate against the pull of the holy words. He channeled the current sparking through him and into his hands, directing his divine energy to break the bonds that defied the will of the vahanan trapped within. He finished and waited.
After a few moments, Jason's heart stuttered in his chest. Nothing was happening!
He glanced back at Karina with wide-eyed fear. Cade—
An earth-shattering crack smacked the ground, and Jason fell back, narrowly missing the tower of fire that erupted from the pendant.
Angry flames whipped the wind into a frenzy as the fire screamed its rage. Jason scrambled away from the heat while the inferno grew larger, spitting out its master.
An ear-splitting roar rocked them, and Jason winced at the sound. The large, scaled limb armored with tapered talons emerged, stamping the ground, followed by another, and soon the horned head of a giant beast came into view. Its golden eyes revealed the warring fire that burned within it. He growled and hissed, tossing his long, ridged tail into the air. A line of wayward spikes and sharp spindles marched a menacing path along his spine.
The fire subsided and wide, leathery wings unfurled, eclipsing the sky above.
Cade roared, his breath hot and wet. Jason remained on the ground, half frozen with fear at being so close to the largest beast he’d ever seen, and half in awe of the might of the creature he loved. Cade rose several feet against the blue canvas above him, golden, with fire seeping from his pores.
He was beautiful. Magnificent.
Cade’s head snapped toward Jason, and he bared his sharp, giant teeth as he moved closer. Jason gritted his teeth not only from the heat but from the wrath directed his way.
“Cade,” Jason could only manage a raspy whisper. “I . . . I’m sorry.”
Cade’s slitted eyes narrowed in his horned head, his scaled snout sniffing at Jason’s reclined frame among the now wilted flowers. Then he let out a low growl and gnashed his teeth at Jason, who scrambled back.
“Please, let me explain,” Jason begged.
Cade shook his head and roared into Jason’s face, coming so close Jason could smell the fire on his breath and see the saliva sizzling off hungry incisors. Jason shut his eyes, knowing his remorse would only be forgiven by flames.
But the flames didn’t come. When Jason opened his eyes, he found golden-green ones looking back at him, Cade’s snout inches from his face.
Jason reached up to touch the hard, iridescent scales of the creature that had visited him at the blurred borders between dreams every night. A being distinct from Cade yet one and the same. To his surprise, the scaled hide was cool and smooth under his hand, and he leaned into it.
“Baby, forgive me. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to save you. I was trying to protect you.” Jason breathed the words against Cade’s hide, relishing the incongruous feel of the softness of the stony scales that shifted under his fingers.
Cade growled low again, the sound trembling up Jason’s hand resting on Cade’s drogulis head.
A hiss sounded. “You betrayed me. No trussst, no forgivenessss.”
Jason froze, feeling warmth seep from his pores as the voice penetrated his ear, slithering into his consciousness. Cade backed away from Jason, his reptilian gaze hard.
“No, Cade. I—”
But Cade spread his wings and launched himself into the air.
“No!” Jason rose from the ground, pushing against the gusty downdraft, breaking his stupefied inertia. “Cade, don’t! We need—”
Cade belched a ball of fire at Jason’s feet, but Jason was moving, jumping through outstretched flames and racing after Cade.
He didn’t get far.
Cade listed heavily to the right, and with an angry bellow, crashed to the earth and the base of the mountain.
∞∞∞
Cade tried to stand but he couldn't feel his left hind leg or much of his side. The same chilling numbness he’d first felt after Paxor felled him had returned. He shook his head and groaned, which was rewarded by a cascade of rocks from the ledge above him. He flexed his wings and tried to take to the air again, but his strength had abandoned him.
His joyous relief at being released from the suppressive chains in the accursed pendant was short lived. He couldn't believe how quickly he was thrust from the void after hearing the familiar incantation.
Normally, Paxor‘s rendering of the spell was clumsy, his human accent hindering the flow of the sacred words. But it wasn’t Paxor who’d summoned him, and it wasn’t Paxor who spoke the final words that would permanently free him from his vicious cage.
It was Jason whose eyes he saw, just as he remembered them, when he emerged. Large, full of life and . . . sorrow.
He wouldn’t be taken in again by his false façade. Jason was working with Paxor, had exchanged his freedom for a vampire brother.
Cade should have burned him as soon as he laid eyes on him.
“Cade!”
He turned to see Jason landing awkwardly before him on a dark mass of feathers with a cylindrical rock in his hand.
“Cade, are you okay?” Jason asked.
Cade hissed in warning, unable to move and unwilling to have the treacherous man near him. He puffed a sulfurous plume of smoke Jason’s way, halting his steps.
“I came to help. The mage’s magic is still seeping your lifeforce from you.” Jason took a tentative step forward, carefully sidestepping the loose pile of rocks that had recently fallen.
Cade raised his head and bared his teeth, his rage usurping the brief glow of jubilation over his untended freedom.
In his drogulis form, Cade’s understanding of his current predicament was one of unrestrained panic, his only defense, his fire. In his human form he would be better able to rationally consider his wounds and tend to them. But he didn’t have the energy.
Damn Paxor’s magic! A douse of icy fear threatened to quench the last of his inner fire.
“Cade? Look, I retrieved the sacred fire from the Lake of Cacus. Karina assures me this will help you recover.”
Cade ceased his growling. The Lake of Cacus? More lies! He roared and struggled to stand, flexing his wings and shaking more rubble loose around them. No one survived the fire realm, and no one, save the gods, got hold of Drogar’s fire.
“Please! Let me help. I know you’re angry. But the mage is dead, and the only thing left to do is defeat the magic draining you. Let me do t
hat. Let the fire consume the last of his magic.” Jason hesitated, biting his lip, then continued, “Let me make amends.”
Cade lowered his head, his gaze intent on Jason, who resumed his halting steps toward him. Jason was a liar, Cade knew now. How was he to believe this boyish man who twice jilted him held his salvation? But his lulling flames uncoiled, reaching for the contents of the rocky container in Jason’s hand.
“If liessss, you will burn.”
With a pained look, Jason’s steps faltered, his eyes sad and downcast.
“It's on your left flank. I . . . I see it. Will you let me pour the fire over it?”
Cade glared at Jason, the moment tense between them, but he relented knowing he had few options. He was incapacitated and slowly losing the soothing caresses of his fiery companions. Soon, he would grow cold, a shell of emptiness flaking on the wind. Cade sighed and let his head drop to the ground between his forelimbs. He folded his wings and allowed Jason access to his side.
He was already crippled. Another betrayal would only serve to hasten an end to his existence.
He felt Jason near and soon a soothing flow, like a mother’s balm, eased over him. His flames grew, reclaiming their lost kindling and exploded through him. He jerked up and looked back to see Jason pouring out the last of the molten lava liquid and startled.
It was Drogar’s fire!
Cade raised his wings and released a gravelly purr, reveling in the fading numbness and resurgence of his strength.
Red, green, orange, blue, his flames jumped, danced and sang savoring the return . . . the reunion with an ancient lineage forged in fire.
Cade jumped into the air on enlivened wings, hovering many feet above the ground, eager to take commune once again in the sky. He looked at a bewildered Jason, who smiled at him, radiant and full of relief, with joy in his eyes. Cade returned to the ground and nuzzled Jason, his head dwarfing the arms that rose up to greet him.