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The thought of my dragons leaving me made my heart ache, but I wouldn't stop them if they wanted to go. I knew enough about being a prisoner to never want to impose it on someone or something else.
The four of them looked at each other before they flew back to me, settling within me and making me feel whole once more. Relief flowed through me, and I couldn't deny that I was thankful they chose to stay.
Laelak strode toward me, and I struggled to hold my ground and not back up. The last thing I expected was for him to sniff me.
Come, we have much to discuss.He touched his snout to me, and the world seemed to melt away around me. It reminded me of when I touched the stones and was transported to wherever it was that the baby dragons and elder dragons were.
I didn't want to leave my guys, but I knew they couldn't come with me, just like they couldn't when I was taken by the magic of the stones. Whatever was happening now was the same thing, and I had to trust that Laelak wouldn't hurt me, which was easier said than done.
20
Tessa
When the magic cleared, Laelak and I stood in a foggy area that looked like it should be in a period drama. It was all stone and moss, with what I thought were some trees in the distance, but it was hard to tell.
“Where are we?” I asked, needing some kind of reassurance that I wasn’t just dreaming.
“We’re in my realm,” Laelak replied, but his voice sounded out loud instead of in my head this time.
I turned to look at him and he seemed smaller than before. Less intimidating, or at least less likely to eat me as a snack.
He must have sensed my confusion because he said, “The magic of the realms does strange things. In some places, I’m bigger; in others, I’m smaller. But I was never going to eat you.”
I snorted unintentionally, which made his eyes widen. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“I brought you here to show you what you’ve been working toward this whole time.” He took a deep breath before expelling smoke from his mouth.
I’d expected fire, but there was none. Instead, the smoke swirls and takes on the shape of people and places, ones I recognize.
It was Timmon and Queen Ulrika arguing about how to survive what was coming, a man I didn’t recognize going up against the queen of Atlantis demanding that she turn over control of the realm to him, the realms slowly crashing into one another and making everything look like a disaster movie. The temple I’d just been standing in was nothing more than rubble on the coast of the Aegean Sea.
News stories echoed around us as reports of demons were being shared around the world in my own realm while everyone was just trying to figure out what the hell had happened. The death toll mentioned kept climbing, going into numbers that weren’t even comprehensible anymore.
“This is what would have happened without you. Of course, you still need to tell us your decision, but no matter what, it won’t be as bad as what I just showed you.”
“The realms would still collide, though, depending on the decision you make,” a voice I recognized but couldn’t place said from behind us.
I spun and saw a dark shape that seemed like it couldn’t quite coalesce into one form standing next to one with light radiating out of it, but it was so bright that I couldn’t make out its form either. My eyes watered just from looking at the two of them.
“Daughter of Eve, these are the primal dragons of light and dark,” Laelak said, dipping his head.
If he was bowing, I knew I should do something as well, so I dropped into a curtsy of all things, popping up a few seconds later. A smoky chuckle came from the dark dragon.
That’s when it hit me, where my memories had gone. “You took them!” I hissed, my voice barely above a whisper as I remembered swimming through the lake in El Dorado.
“It was a sacrifice that needed to be made,” the dark dragon intoned.
“You took more than you were supposed to, though. Four was the number, but you took six,” the light dragon accused.
“I took one for each life I spared. Would you prefer I put the memories back and took the lives?”
“No!” I agreed hastily. The last thing I wanted was to lose one of my guys just because I wanted the memory back.
“First, we must know your decision. Do you wish the four realms to survive or collide?” the light dragon asked.
“Survive, please.”
The dark dragon grumbled. “Are you sure? They haven’t exactly given you a lot of reasons to want that.”
