AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As Divina drew a deep, long breath through her nose and inflated her lungs, fisted her hands and—
Burst into a deluge of tears.
Her entire face red and mottled, her cheeks swollen and stained. Features contorted, mouth gaping open. Head thrown back, and entire body shaking. Thoroughly unattractive, in other words.
She was ugly cryinghard.
“I don’t c-care about the stupid q-quest! I want my Andros back! I want to go b-back! I want my P-papa Jade! He needs to fix this right n-now! Waaaaaahhhhhhhhh!”
A shrill, resounding shriek the likes of which none of them had ever heard, and certainly had never emerged from Divina’s mouth before, mushroomed like a bomb blast within the suddenly too tight palace.
The marble columns shook.
The glossy floor squeaked with protest.
The shooting stars and swirling comets beyond the clear dome above seemed to lose their momentum, taken out of their trajectory by the feather dragon’s unending wail.
Shifu, Ere and Sorin held their heads between both hands, palms sandwiched flat against their ears. Their faces scrunched in scowling grimaces as they stared aghast at Divina.
Ere’s mouth was moving. He was saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear him beyond the ringing in her own ears, the scream inside building and building. Even though she’d given it voice, the pressure kept mounting, and the sound grew louder and louder.
Shifu disappeared from the chamber with a sudden pop, like the bursting of a bubble. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone, taking the lyre with him.
But Ere and Sorin couldn’t just poof away. They could only stay and suffer the agony that bombarded their ears.
Sorin wrapped his big arms around Divina and hugged her tight.
The compression of her chest managed to drown out some of the godawful cry, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even pause to take breath.
Until, finally, a booming voice said—
“Enough!”
Abruptly, Divina clamped her mouth shut, though the crocodile tears continued to fall, and a pitiful whimper vibrated from her throat.
Sorin loosened his hold on her but kept one arm around her waist, as if tethering her to him. Keeping her sane.
“Papa Jade?” she whispered wetly, her eyes scanning the cavernous chamber for a sign.
A weary sigh rumbled through the air like rolling thunder.
That was all the sign Divina needed.
She disentangled herself from Sorin’s protection and staggered a few feet into the center of the chamber, within the circle of tall columns that held up the Heavens.
“Help me, Papa,” she beseeched.
“I can’t live without him. I don’t want to. I have to be with my Andros. Please…”
She sank to her knees and put her hands together in prayer, face raised to the swirling cosmos beyond the transparent dome.
“Please…take me back there. Give me another mission. Take my immortality. Even if it’s a brief human lifetime. Or even just a few years…I’ll take anything you can give me. Anything to be with Andros. Please, Papa. Help me!”
She blinked the continuous torrent of tears from her lashes and held her breath.
Looking for a sign.
A hint.
