AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Esta said that other than her time in her lair, she was rarely left alone now. Lost to her grief and guilt, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Malachi in particular did not leave her side now. If Esta slept on my balcony, so did he.
As we lowered for the opening of The Drak and landed in the purple area, Esta’s head snapped in the direction of what I was certain was Serkan’s lair.
Nyx came out of his own lair and walked over to Malachi and Whit. He didn’t greet us, but he didn’t have to. I was surprised he had come out at all.
The queen kept her eyes locked in that direction.
Before stepping into the purple lake, I placed a hand on her scales. “Is there a way I can help?”
She let out a long breath.You are doing it right now by working on changing me back.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“I mean no disrespect, but what will happen to his lair?” I asked gently.
Normally, his lair would remain empty for a full year, a way for his fellow dragons to mourn. After that time, we would bring his wife to see if there was anything she wished to keep before we dumped it in the lake. Lots of times, more than half of the hoards are distributed to family members. As dragons, we know this when we collect for our hoards. It’s ours for this lifetime, and theirs when Zion calls. A way to provide for our families for when we are gone.
I felt my eyebrows raise. So how much gold, silver, and other jewels were sitting on the bottom of that lake right now? She said more than half of the hoard, but that meant there was treasure in the lake too, right?
No one would dare touch it,she offered as she found where my eyes went.And if they do, they will likely die.She paused.Eventually his lair would have been given to another dragon. Though there are almost fifty caves in this area, not all are as comfortable as mine was. Serkan’s was large because he was a large dragon. We have no new young dragon shifters to give a cave to. Serkan always fancied the next king or queen of Dra Skor would take it when he was gone. Told me he was merely keeping it warm.
I smirked. Serkan would say something like that.
I suppose Zaire will want it now. Now that he is the biggest drake.
My magic flared in my skin.
Why does your magic do that when you are angry? Do you control it most times?
I gritted my teeth and swallowed before speaking. Zaire was going to get Serkan’s lair after the things he’d said about him and however large of a role he’d played in his death? “Our magic is an extension of ourselves, much like yours is. So yes, it flares with my emotions. I have the ability to suppress it. Sometimes I chose not to. Or sometimes whatever is said to me is so unnerving, I don’t react quickly enough to suppress it.”
I dropped my hand from her scales and stepped deeper into the purple water.
Minutes later, there we stood. I could see Esta’s hand up to her shoulder this time, as I sent more and more magic to surround her. But just like before, I couldn’t get it to extend any farther than that.
Drop it and try again?She asked. She’d been talking to me constantly, mostly sending me her favorite nicknames for me, not to distract me, but to use her Enchantment to see if it helped this process along.
I clenched my jaw and sent more, reaching for her hand. “In a second.”
Maybe you should try with Nyx too,the queen offered.He sent to me that he would like to try.
“In a second,” I bit back.
She squeezed my hand with her human one.Please do not give yourself burnout on my account. It has been an emotional week.
My anger rose to the surface. “Can you stop and just let me think for a moment?”
The queen snorted.Are you telling the queen of Dra Skor to shut up?
“Yes. Momentarily,” I snapped. “She’s quite stubborn.”
She seemed to be laughing at me.
Still, as I looked at her shoulder, the thought struck me that this was as far as I was able to move this blockage or poison within her. That was what I had been focusing on before she had spoken to me.
What if it was because I needed to get the poisonoutof her? What if before now, I had only been moving it around within her body, causing me to see only so much of her?
I changed tactics; rather than focusing on her hand and healing through whatever was in her system, I focused on whatever the poison or blockage was instead. I sent my magic beneath her skin to find it. Thinking of the pond we’d just healed, I thought specifically of any blackness. Any iron, anything that should not be in her body, I wanted my magic to grab ahold of it and move it.
