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My skin is cold, and Varzig reaches to cup my face with his hand. His hands are nice and warm.
The palm of his hand is still rough, but I can feel soft skin beneath it.
Varzig’s red eyes have never been softer. He’s cradling me with his other arm, and now he reaches up to stroke my forehead.
“Tessa, I love you.” He whispers. His words are rushed and hard, and his voice wavers on the last word.
Warmth blooms through me then, and for a small moment, I can lift my head up on my own.
“Now I can die happy. But please promise me this.” It’s becoming difficult to speak. My chest is very tight, and my eyes cannot stay open on their own anymore.
“Anything.” His voice is rough now.
“Just take care of my parents. Protect the camp. Protect them. I love them so much. Please protect them for me. And I love you too, Varzig.”
NINETEEN
VARZIG
My hands are weak, falling to my thighs as Tessa’s eyes flutter and are still. Her breath ceases, the beautiful rise and fall of her chest frozen in time as her head flops sideways, turning away from me forever.
“Tessa …” I whisper, fruitless, desperately, voice hushed and barely audible.
She remains motionless. I bring a hand to the center of her chest to feel the rhythm of her heartbeat, the song that kept me moving onward, melodious and harmonious with the dreams I hadn’t dared to dream before.
Her skin is like porcelain as I press my palm against her. Hollow, muted.
Grief swarms me like rabid beasts, weakening me in a way I have yet to comprehend. Tears flood my eyes, my breath picks up like the wind, and soon enough, I do the only thing I know how to do in response to utter jarring soul-crushing destruction. I summon my rage.
I lift Tessa up, unwilling to call what remains of her anything but the one I’m in love with, and I fly to the house to place her on her bed. I make sure she’s comfortable, and position her as if she were taking a brief nap, her expression of solace, an eternal veil.
I run my fingers down the front of her face, tracing her eyelids, and shudder. My chest is tight as my heartbeat begins to gallop, and I turn away from her forcefully, achingly, as I charge toward the front of the homestead.
Her parents are nowhere in sight. I cannot face them and the gut punch of their loss, so I follow the sounds of violence. The collisions of the three armies have begun just outside the village.
It’s nightfall, but the tangerine licks of flames settling on the horizon appear like an early sunrise. With it, though, are billows of smoke, accomplished by bellows of agony and war cries.
I despise them all. The dark elves, the orcs, the naga. They are all vile, selfish, sadistic monsters that have taken away the single essence of magnificence in my pathetic existence. I will destroy them all for Tessa and save the village because, despite all of my strength and abilities, I could not save her, not even from her own dazzling selflessness.
I make it to the field of battle quickly, my thick legs helping me heave forward like a gazelle. I came upon the orcs first. They have dragged a few of the peasant women from the village and tormented them upon the field of ash.
They grunt like pigs at a trough which only further fuels my anger. I charge at them as they attempt to rip the clothing off a woman I recognize from the tavern, my sword raised, glistening from the sliver of moonlight peeking through the fog.
I roar as I cut through the two orcs like moving through butter. The weapon slices their heads clean off, their limp bodies dropping the woman to the ground. Their heads hit the ground with a brutal thud, rolling away like rotten melons.
The woman crawls away frantically, her eyes wide and black with horror. A raise a hand to her, meaning no harm whatsoever.
“Find your friends and family,” I say, panting, “find shelter and let the enemies be warned. The demon has arrived.”
She hurries away, nodding with some confusion, and sprints as if her life depends on it.
Before I have the chance to turn and annihilate the other orcs who are on the brink of assaulting another village woman, I feel a hot white, searing pain surge through my upper shoulder.
“AHH!” I cry out.
I reach for the source of the burning affliction and find splintered wood. An arrow has been fired into my back. I snapped off the bit of the arrow that poked out, leaving the head of the piece embedded in my scales as I turned, seeing rivers of blood in my future.
It’s all that will satiate me now that my beloved has departed.
