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Her stomach growled loudly. They hadn’t bothered to feed her, or give her water, for that matter. She put her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. There was no light anyway.
“I screwed up so badly,” she said, talking both to herself and her child. “I just wanted to…” What had she wanted? To save everyone? To be a hero? Perhaps that was part of it.
“I wanted to be in control for once,” she admitted. “I wanted to feel powerful for once in my life.”
Her struggle for power had not begun with Sevrrn. She realized that now. Her entire life, she’d been at the mercy of others. Her mother had died, and then her father had been executed. After that, she was a ward of her aunts: women who had never appreciated Madja’s mind or talents. All they had wanted was to turn her into a proper lady and marry her to someone from a noble family. If her aunts had had their way, they’d have married her to the Prince himself.
Truth be told, she’d had more freedom with Sevrrn than she’d ever had before. Even though he played the part of a slave driver, making her appraise things and demanding her attention, she had loved appraising for him, almost as much as she loved him. Sure, he’d been overbearing, but it was only because he’d been fascinated with her—not just her body, but her mind as well. He had cast aside however many thousands of years of dragon etiquette to take her as his lover and place her life above everything he owned.
“And I couldn’t appreciate any of it, just because he wouldn’t say that he loved me,” Madja said, the words acrid in her mouth.
What was that old saying? A wise man could see more from the bottom of a hole than a fool could see from a mountaintop? That was ironic. Two nights ago, she had been on a mountain, and when the sun rose tomorrow, she’d take her wisdom to the grave. She was sentenced to die the same way all traitors in Erda did: buried alive.
8
Chapter Eight
Sevrrn had several promising leads. An eagle spirit told him of a spring in a Mandurian desert that was said to grant its drinker immortality. A fox goddess informed him of a chalice, possessed by his brother Kael, that was said to be able to transfer immortality from one being to another. Most promising of all, however, was the initial lead.
Various sources had expanded upon his knowledge of the Dvorian king. He had actually lived for nearly six hundred years and was indeed a human. Sources said that during his reign, he never aged, never fell ill, and had never suffered any injury. The secret to his longevity was closely guarded, but Sevrrn knew that it would not take long to uncover it. Even the more powerful beings of the other realm had a way of talking when confronted by a dragon.
He pla
Any being possessing even a basic amount of magic could traverse the lake portal that led into his lair. Of course, they would also have to possess a profound ignorance and a desire for death, as every magical creature in both realms knew that Sevrrn would be waiting on the other side. But during the times when he ventured into the other realm, particularly now, when Madja was on the other side and blissfully unaware of the danger that could befall her at any second, Sevrrn focused his considerable power on erecting a barrier. Only an incredibly strong being would be able to force their way past the barrier, and if they somehow did, he would know in an instant.
Even knowing this, he had spent the past day and half…worrying.
Not just about powerful beings breeching his domain and slaughtering Madja—though it was mostly that. He also worried about her getting sick again. After all, she had not gotten sick right away the last time. Over a week had passed in the human realm, and if she had picked up another sickness in the town, it could already be ravaging her body. Knowing her, she would probably be making that useless chicken soup for herself.
He had also considered how clumsy she was. What if she tripped and fell on a sword and it punctured her chest and she bled to death? What if she tripped and twisted her legs and was unable to get to the storeroom and she starved to death? What if a stalactite fell from the ceiling as she bathed and pi
Standing at the water’s edge, he was confident that he did not see any sign of a drowned corpse, but that did little to assuage his anxiety. He would have to check up on her and make sure she was not dying. Then, no matter what ‘mood’ she was in, he was going to mate with her. Then, he would mate with her again. Then, perhaps, he would return to the other realm and finish what he started. Unless, of course, she wanted to mate again.
With these thoughts, Sevrrn spread his wings and launched himself into the sky. For a moment, he savored the aether-rich air of the other realm, deeply inhaling its potent power. Then, he flipped and dove downward, headfirst into the lake. The barrier gave way to its master, though the transition from one realm to another was never what he would call easy.
Then the human realm crashed into him, making his bones and muscles feel dense and heavy. As he emerged from the lake, he reluctantly breathed in the thin, insubstantial air, his lungs having to expand to their full capacity. He landed on the floor, shaking off the water while simultaneously shaking the fog from his mind. Traveling between realms always gave him a headache.
Before his vision had even cleared, Sevrrn was aware that something was out of place. He blinked several times, looking around his lair. It was nighttime, but that posed no problem for him. He could see everything—everything except Madja.
Convinced his mind must still be muddled from the transition, he put his nose to the ground and began to sniff. He could smell her, but the scent was faint, slightly old. He padded around the room, sniffing the various places she frequented. As he tracked her, his heart began to beat faster and with a strange, erratic tempo.
There was an unusual pile of coins on the floor, and it was there that her scent was the strongest. Startled, he began digging through the coins, half-expecting to find her fresh corpse beneath them. He was momentarily relieved to not find her at the bottom of the pile, until he remembered that he still did not know where she was.
Abandoning any pretense of calm, his search took on a more frenzied pace. He caught the remnants of her scent at the mouth of a passageway and quickly set out to follow it. He followed it all the way to the mountainside.
Perching on the bluff, he looked out over the land. His gaze immediately went to the crude pasture. He had made it from uprooted trees, which he’d placed around a field, which contained a small pond. It had taken him over an hour to make that pasture, all so that Madja’s smelly horses would not run off into the wilderness. It would not have surprised him to see that they’d escaped the pasture; after all, he was a dragon, not a carpenter. But he could see that one horse remained, while the other—Madja’s mare— was suspiciously absent.
In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, Sevrrn’s first thought was that she had been abducted. He was so prideful, that it took several moments for him to realize the obvious truth: