AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even the missions he was sent on did not help measure time’s passage. For, he was inserted into the human world at random intervals, jumping from one past to another. When he did what he was sent to do, usually fighting against an event, natural or manmade, that mortals could not hope to win themselves, he always came back here.
To this immortal waiting room.
For that was what the Celestial Realm was to Shai. A place to wait.
A place where he did not live, did not enjoy the consciousness he possessed. A prison he could not break out of, though he’d tried countless times.
If he did not fulfill his missions, he would not be able to leave the realm he was sent to. He thought at first that he could find Heba this way. Perhaps search for her reincarnation if he was sent to a time in her future.
But she was always lost to him. And he realized that as long as he did not complete his mission, he was trapped in a different type of prison. One that he couldfeelpushed him farther apart from Heba, as if they were no longer in the same universe.
So, he learned to complete his missions efficiently, expediently, whenever and wherever he was sent.
At first, upon return, he would be kept in a transparent cube, frozen and restrained. This was because he had wreaked havoc upon the Celestial Realm one time too many, furious in the beginning that he’d been forced to part from Heba. Wanting to tear the world down to find her again.
After untold imprisonment between missions, he learned that rebellion led to nothing.
Literallynothing.
While he was frozen, time seemed suspended. A sense of helplessness always pervaded him. He couldn’t even dream about Heba in that state.
But if he behaved and performed like a dancing monkey at the Jade Emperor’s behest, then he was allowed to roam “free” within the Celestial Realm in between missions.
He was able to dream and hope. Remember every beloved detail about Heba and their time together. Build visions of how they would live when he found her again.
Hope, dreams and memories were all he had to keep him company in this interminable existence in limbo. All of the dragons who were kept here stayed to themselves. With only two exceptions as far as Shai knew.
One, the feather dragon that seemed to have a special relationship with the Jade Emperor, almost like a beloved child. She was no longer in this realm. Two, the red dragon that had also figured a way to break out. Who raved and ranted and destroyed everything he came near while he was here.
He reminded Shai of himself when he first arrived here. He had been tempted to tell Red that there was no point. But then he realized that the red dragon wasn’t trying to rebel like Shai did. He was merely trying to self-destruct.
Far be it for Shai to tell anyone how to live their life. If they wanted to destroy themselves, that was their prerogative. He even empathized.
Around the same time that the red dragon had arrived, so did a human who wore the celestial mark. He went with a treasure dragon to dwell beneath the four seas, and they stayed to themselves. More recently, he’d come into his own and was able to transform into a dragon as well. Then, both the treasure dragon and her mate disappeared from the realm.
After an immeasurable amount of time, all of this activity in a relatively short span was worth noting. If Shai did not have a singular goal in mind to find Heba, he might wonder how the Jade Emperor was taking all these disruptions.
Dragons were disappearing left and right from the Celestial Realm. The supreme god had less soldiers to send out for purposes known only to him.
Shai might do what he needed to whenever he was sent to the mortal plane, but he didn’t knowwhyhe was sent to do it. He didn’t know the bigger picture, and he didn’t care.
On the surface, he was helping humans. But as often was the case, he helped one group of humans defeat another. Who was right, and who was wrong? Who was to judge?
Since becoming what he was always meant to be that fateful night on the Red Sea, fighting off shadow dragons (which Shai was certain the Jade Emperor sent to collect Shai or force his transformation), Shai had stayed always in his beast form.
There was no reason to shift into man. No matter that the Master, the spokesperson for the Jade Emperor, advised that it was more respectful to take human form.
Without his Mate, Shai did not want to feel the emotions of a man, though he still felt plenty as dragon.
Sadness, despair, longing, fury and fear.
He was well acquainted with those feelings. But at least he didn’t burn with unrealized passion and need. Didn’t wallow in heartbreak and the agony of loss. He could not have survived for as long as he had feeling the emotions of a man.
A man who loved and lost his one and only woman. His Destined and Eternal Mate.
In his dragon form, he worried the silver band around one of his claws with the other.
It was the ouroboros ring Heba had given him that night at the festival. When he shifted to dragon, it became part of him, branded into his skin, a metallic tattoo on his claw.
