by Mandy Rosko
If she really was the fae princess, who was it who made the trees chase her down in the park? Why was Nyx screaming at her inside her head to run? Who was trying to kill her?
Chapter Six
Another vision came over her and encased her mind, allowing her to see nothing else but the images from more than a thousand years ago.
Her and Azoth alone this time, instead of her and Nyx.
Although the images she was seeing were from a thousand years ago, Azoth had not physically aged a day thanks to the healing spring in his prison. Despite this, somehow, the person she was looking at appeared younger to her eyes. His hair had been shorter, tied back with a strip of leather and barely touching down the back of his neck in this vision, and his eyes contained the annoyed expression of a youth being punished by his parents. All the vision Azoth had to do was cross his arms and slouch a little to complete the picture.
Diana looked at him and didn’t know what it was that could’ve ever drawn her to him. Back then, at any rate. He just wasn’t giving off the impression of someone who could ever fall in love, let alone maturely take on a wife.
Diana watched as her former self, with forced cheer, prepared a—canvas?
She couldn’t believe it. Yes, it was a canvas. Certainly not made of the exact same materials Diana used now, but there was no mistaking what the that heavy bit of cloth, nailed to a square panel was.
The sight excited her. The fact that she had painted back then too, and that she was looking at herself mixing colors and preparing an ink pot, was something calming and familiar that she could cling to. Perhaps this one extra little thing would help to unlock her memories.
If before she still required proof of Azoth's claim, she didn’t need it now. These were her memories.
“Hold the brush like this, my lord.” Diana, the fae Diana, said. She moved to stand behind her betrothed, and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close until their hands touched, and she shaped his fingers in the proper way to hold his new tool.
Azoth held it with distaste, like he’d never even drawn a picture for his parents before, let alone paint.
“There are more productive ways to spend one’s time than this.”
“But you will find this one the most rewarding and relaxing.” Diana’s memory version said.
The real Diana couldn’t have agreed more.
“You risk ruining perfectly good garments with such an activity. If I were to do so, I would rather have a game of dragon’s egg with my men.”
As the princess looked to be wearing a gown much plainer than the one from the day Nyx proposed, Diana doubted that was a real issue. “This is for exercise of the mind and soul, not the body, my lord.”
“You merely wish to paint those flowers growing on your window.” Azoth pointed at their subjects. “Why copy their image to look at when you can look at the real thing?”
Diana frowned as she watched the exchange. Azoth seemed dead set on causing trouble and being nitpicky. Even so, she had a view of Azoth’s face that the princess did not have, being that she was standing behind her fiancé.
Azoth was blushing as Diana held him.
He liked her, she realized, suddenly recalling that neither of them had a choice in this marriage. Regardless, Azoth was already crushing on his soon to be wife but was trying to hide it, very poorly, under the farce of grumpiness. It was grade school cute.
But the princess could not see his facial expression, and so she sighed, the way Diana did when she was struggling for patience. “I will not always be able to look at the real thing, my lord,” she explained. “The flowers will wilt and die.”
Diana took her eyes away from the vision of her former self and Azoth, to look around. She noted all the paintings of trees, castles, waterfalls, and people as well. They weren’t hanging, but were on the floor, leaning against the stone walls and chests. They were being packed away.
Maybe it was partly because her memory was coming back to her, but Diana knew, she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that those paintings were portraits of the various landscapes of her former home.
The princess was painting as much as she could because she was afraid she would never see her home again. Guess that was the way it was back then. The bride went off to live with her new husband.
Even though it was ridiculous, Diana felt sorry for her other self, who was trying so hard to at least make friends with her betrothed, and was having her efforts met with such badly executed scorn.
Azoth made a grunting sort of sound.
Fae Diana sighed again. “You have been introduced to my family. My mother, siblings, and uncle. Do you like them?”
She was trying so hard.
“Well enough, I suppose.”
They continued their mostly one sided conversation, and Diana watched them as the minutes ticked by, seeing the little signs of Azoth's embarrassment that her previous self didn't pick up on, and laughing as her former self even dabbed a splotch of red paint on his face in an attempt to make him smile.
She smiled as she watched the show, her heart swelling as Azoth gradually warmed up to his fiancée and began to shyly return her playful advances.
After so long of this, Diana nearly fell asleep, but then was jerked back to full awareness. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Nyx’s face and dark hair as he watched the exchange through the door, which had been left slightly ajar.
There was jealousy and anger there, so much so that it made her stomach do a whirl as fear bubbled within her.
She came out of the vision to the feel of Azoth’s hands, gently shaking her shoulders.
“Diana?”
She blinked, feeling as though she’d just come out of a dream. “What happened?” Becoming more aware of herself, she realized they were still in the bath, and the water still poured from the dragon’s mouth behind Azoth in rapid gurgles.
He was smiling a proud smile, so different from his younger, pouting self. “The pleasure I gave you was so great that you fainted.”
She looked at him, looked long and hard until his smile vanished. He was trying to hide his worry. Worry that she’d wake up and not remember again? Most likely.
She didn’t know why she had a better grip on what he was feeling now compared to then. Maybe she just knew him better? If that made any sense considering her lack of memories.
“I think we need to get out of here now. I’m clean enough,” she said.
Azoth’s face was one big question mark, but he said nothing.
To Diana’s momentary embarrassment, he was still inside her, and they had to separate before that was possible.
Diana sat on the edge of their little pool, letting her legs dangle inside the water while Azoth, completely naked, walked over to a hook on the wall and pulled off a small rag and tossed it to her.
“Dry yourself.”
She looked at it, stunned. The thing was brown in color and nearly threadbare. It was more like a hand towel. She definitely couldn’t wrap her hair in it, or even any part of her body.
She guessed it to be the only thing available to him, however, when he shifted into his leather pants, still dripping wet. How me managed to get the leather over wet skin, she had no idea.
As they dressed, she caught sight of his back. Diana winced at the mish-mash of scars that were there. It looked like Freddy Krueger had played with him.
She looked away and set about drying herself off. She did the best she could with what she had, and was still damp when she pulled on her clothes.
“How did you dry my clothes?” She asked.
Azoth looked at her. She tried to ignore the tiny water droplets falling from his hair and down his rippling chest.
She looked down on herself instead. “I fell into the water before coming here. How did you dry them?”
“My dragon breathes fire. I prepared a pit and had your garments placed over them during our earlier activities.”
“Earlier—?” Too late she k
new what he meant.
His grin was back.
She sighed. No point in being embarrassed about it considering they’d just had sex.
“Can I meet your dragon?”
Azoth stiffened. His face hardened into an unreadable mask. “No.”
“Just for a few minutes. You can be right there with me.” She wanted him to be right there with her. There was no way she was ever going to be brave enough to get near a creature that huge that had attacked her. Not in any universe.
Azoth’s lips thinned. Diana watched as his hands clenched, and her heart sped up at the thought that she might not get the chance to find out what was really going on.
“Please, I need to see him. You can control him anyway. He’s your dragon.”
“Yes, princess, but he is no longer a part of me.”
“What?”
“Ever since that day that he took over and,” his eyes flashed to the scar over her eye. “We have not been of one mind since then. He obeys my commands, yes, but should the creature become mad again and attack, there will be little I can do in this form.”
There it was. That helpless feeling that she hated so much, but she couldn’t let it consume her. “You said a servant tampered with your wine,” she said, and more and more she got the feeling that Nyx was the accused. “And that’s why he attacked. That was a thousand years ago. I keep getting these random flashes of memories, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m near you, or what it is, but what if something else comes back to me when I see him?”
“You have already seen him. Did you have any visions then?”
He meant her attempt at trying to run away before the dragon stopped her in her tracks. “No,” she said reluctantly. Her hands were clenching up as her patience wore thin. “But I still want to see him.”
His entire body became bowstring tight. His neck and jaw clenched as he stared at her, his eyes hard and angry. He threw his hand through his hair, paced around, and then finally gave in.
“You will stay behind me at all times. Should he rise up, raise his claws, or inhale deeply, you will leave me there and run.”
“I wouldn't leave you there to get killed,” she said, suddenly rethinking her plan to go and see the dragon.
He’s trying to scare you out of going, she thought. Then inwardly repeated that thought five times to comfort herself.
“He will not kill me, but should he attempt to attack, I could perhaps give you some time to return to my dwelling. He does not enter that space.”
He said it as though he still weren’t convinced of the wisdom of this.
Diana couldn’t blame him. If that dragon really wanted to kill her, roast her like a hot dog over a fire, and then eat her, there was likely nothing either of them could do about it.
Azoth's house, if it could be called that, was made up of carved rock with no roof. An animal of that dragon’s size could easily climb over those walls and search her out if it wanted.
“Do you still wish to meet him, sakkra?”
She steeled her resolve. “Yes.”
“Fekkah,”
Diana didn’t know what that meant, but from the twist of his lips right before he’d said it, it had obviously been a curse.
Chapter Seven
Azoth led her out of his bathroom and back into the treasure trove. Instead of moving across the stone clearing to the space he made his home in, the turned towards the mountains of gold and jewels.
“How did all this get here?” She asked, eyeing a particularly huge ruby—it was the size of her fist!—as they walked by.
“Our marriage was meant to bring together our people. Some of this would have gone to Mab, your mother, had it been successful.”
“And now?”
His eyes shifted down to her. Guilt pierced deep inside her at the realization that she was probably bringing up painful memories, but he continued on.
“After my actions, war between the dragons and the fae broke loose. As a peace offering, my sentence was to be separated from my dragon, no longer one entity, but two, and imprisoned here until any member from your remaining family deemed I had been forgiven. It was not enough for your mother, not that I could place blame on her, and the clans nearly destroyed each other.” Azoth said. “Eventually, the bounty of my people was placed here under my watch, to keep fae warriors from plundering it during the war.”
“Oh,” Diana said, sadness creeping into her heart. “Where are they all now? The fae and the dragons?” Mostly she was curious about the family she had never known.
“Dead, mostly,” Azoth said. “Of the many who killed each other off, there were a select few from each side who fled at the thought of battle. Cowards, yes, but oddly enough, their cowardice is to be thanked. Because of their lack of loyalty, some fae and dragon blood still exists today. Though it has mostly been mixed with the humans. Just around this bend, princess.”
Azoth pointed her towards a new cave, appearing from between the mountains of gold and precious stones, crowns, and jeweled goblets.
Naturally, her eyes followed his finger, and his hand on her lower back led her in that directions. It was because of that, that she nearly missed the portrait in the stone pillar they’d passed.
“Wait.” She came to a halt, digging her heels in when he tried to pull her forth.
“Do you or do you not wish to see—?”
“Is that me?”
He stopped now too, no longer tugging her along since she’d seen what he didn’t want her to see.
Diana stepped out of his hold and approached the portrait to examine it.
It was her, there was no question about it. Her princess self, anyway, but all the details were there.
The portrait itself looked to be done in pointillism, which was amazing. Diana never had any talent for that sort of art work. On first glance she thought he’d used glass to make it, imbedding the shards into the pillar itself, but then she stepped closer and squinted.
No. The portrait, all the way down to her hair and the details of her eyes, had all been put in place by tiny diamonds and sapphires. Rubies and garnets and tourmalines made up the varying shades of her lips, and even, when Azoth had cut them down to small enough size, the blush in her cheeks.
Had it not been for the lack of the scar down her eye, and the difference in her hair color, it would have been a perfect likeness.
She looked at him, but she had no words, only the awe she felt.
He looked more like that pouting, younger Azoth from her vision. His arms were crossed, and he wasn’t looking at her.
“A millennia is long time to go without practicing the skills my wife attempted to instill in me.”
Diana recalled her former self’s words. I may not always be able to look at the real thing.
Poor Azoth had learned that the hard way.
“Let us be off now before I change my mind.” Azoth said.
Diana smiled and went with him. Now, unlike back then, she recognized his defensiveness for what it was, and she wouldn't be intimidated by it.
She shocked him by looping her arm through his. “Lead the way.”
He did. Not much farther into the cavern, there was another smaller cave within the cave. Oddly enough, this one looked like it was perfect for a dragon, something right out of a kid's fairytale painting.
It was a round bump in the rock with a near perfect semi-circle opening. There were scratches along the opening and the rock leading into the little space. The mouth of the smaller cave was black, allowing her to see nothing inside. Judging by the size, she should be able to walk inside without being cramped, but logically she knew it shouldn't have been big enough to hold a dragon so large. Odd.
“Does it lead underground?” She asked, suddenly picturing a labyrinth beneath her feet where the dragon crept around and slept.
“No,” Azoth said. “Dragon! Come forth.”
Diana put her eyes back onto the dark hole of the small cave. There was a shift of movement, and
then a that same, triangular, scaled head appeared from within. At his master's call, the beast reached a clawed, reptilian hand outside of its sleeping space, and with a hard crunch that made the ground beneath Diana's feet shake, punctured the rock with its claws and began to wiggle its massive body from outside of the tiny cavern.
It was like watching a cat squeeze through a space half the size of its body, and then still make it through anyway.
The dragon, large, scales of several shades of red, and fierce, shook itself from the rocks and dust it had collected from its bed as it wiggled free. Diana stepped back, and Azoth pulled her behind him to better shield her from the falling debris, though it hardly would have done anything had she been struck. None of the rocks were big enough.
After shaking out its body and wings, fluttering them onto its back in a particularly bird-like motion, the dragon looked down at them. Then its eyes found Diana, and locked on.
It keened and stepped forward.
“Stop!” Azoth commanded. His entire voice filled the cave, and he stepped forward, his palms spread out, and his body tight and all alpha male.
The dragon did as he was commanded. Diana thought she saw some sadness on its face. A kind of child-like what did I do? all over its puss.
“Be quick about whatever it is you wish to do,” Azoth said, slowly lowering his hands after the dragon didn't move.
“O-okay,” she said. She hadn't really thought about what exactly she would be doing. She started with just stepping forward a little, never entirely leaving the safety that being behind Azoth's back provided.
The dragon's snake eyes never left her. It sat down at her quiet approach, its devil tail wrapping around its legs, again, reminding her of a cat.
“Um, hello,” she said. Holy hell, was that smoke coming out of its nose?
The dragon still watched her. Like she was something to eat, or something he'd wanted to see for a long time.
“Does he have a name?” Diana asked. If she knew its name, maybe the giant reptile wouldn't seem so...giant.