"They will not wake until I permit it," Culebra said. "Come."
Sharing a bemused look with Midori and Fidel, Dario fell into step with them a few paces behind Culebra. They passed through the doorway at the end of the hall, something about it making Dario's skin prickle, and stepped into what proved to be an enormous sanctuary.
"Cortez!" Fidel flew across the room and dropped down next to Cortez's body. Dario realized that until that moment, despite everything, he had stupidly hoped she was alive. He did not even know her, but the very real pain suffered by Fidel and Culebra had made him hope that Culebra was wrong. Fidel held her closely, burying his face against her. The sound of his sobs was heart-wrenching and too familiar.
Dario started to ask where Jürgen was hiding when the sound of boots on stone came from behind him. He whipped around, drawing his sword at the same time—and froze when Midori reached the bastard first.
Jürgen, unfortunately, was ready for them. He met Midori's swing, parried, and drove him back. Dario waited for an opening, then ran toward them, but was forced to stop when the room abruptly filled with a sharp, brilliant white light. It was nothing like the soft orbs, but harsh, paralyzing, and slightly painful.
"Enough!" Culebra snarled, his voice echoing, making the temple tremble. The paralyzing light went out like a candle dropped in water, and Jürgen dropped to his knees, holding his head in agony. Culebra reached up and, to Dario's astonishment, unknotted the bandages around his eyes. He barely dared to breathe as Culebra slowly began to unwind them, the long wrap of bandages pooling on the ground at his feet until his eyes were uncovered.
Dario knew he should look away, but his body felt locked in place. Culebra's eyes slowly opened. Dario had expected them to be brown or gray or even the red of an albino. Instead, his eyes were black, with a rainbow of colors deep within; like a gleaming black pearl, or Ruisenor's scales. They were eerie, but beautiful, and almost seemed to faintly glow from within.
On a very few occasions, he had seen Culebra without his bandages, but it had taken him and Granito years to work up to that level of trust. Before, Culebra had always changed his bandages while locked up alone in his room.
Culebra was beautiful with or without them, but those eyes were something else. They were simply stunning. He had not expected such an infamous source of fear, the most notorious part of Culebra, to be pretty.
Letting out a soft sigh, Culebra stared at Jürgen and said, "You should have killed me first, or before I entered the Temple of Solace. All the knowledge handed to you by Teufel and the ancient libraries of Unheilvol, and you still were too stupid to kill me correctly. What did you think? That after stepping into the heart of my land I would still be helpless?
"Your eyes aren't—" Jürgen started, but then stopped, as though his ability to speak had been snatched away.
"My Temple is built to neutralize the power of my eyes," Culebra said. "This is the Temple of Solace, and all who seek that solace find it here." He turned away from Jürgen, leaving him where he stood and strode across the room to where Fidel was still clinging to Cortez. "Be at peace," he said quietly. "Let me have her. I promise all will be well."
Fidel looked up as he spoke, face wet with tears. His eyes widened as he stared at Culebra. "H-Highness. Ho-holiness?"
"Culebra is fine, you need not be formal," Culebra said and gently pried Fidel's arms away. Laying Cortez's body down, he took Fidel's hands and pulled him to his feet. "I will take care of her, I promise." Keeping hold of one hand, Culebra led a numb-looking Fidel back over to Dario and Midori.
A soft hiss made everyone except Culebra jump. Dario rolled his eyes at himself when he saw it was only Ruisenor. Where had she been?
"Oh, Light ... " Jürgen said the words softly, but there was so much terror in his voice that Dario stared at him in shock.
Jürgen's face was leeched of color, and Dario was astonished he had not passed out. What was so terrifying? He followed Jürgen's gaze and saw he was staring at Ruisenor. Tears began to fall down his cheeks, and he was shaking visibly. The smell of urine filled the space around them, and Dario realized Jürgen had wet himself.
Over Ruisenor? But that made no sense. Dario exchanged looks with the others, who looked equally confused. Except Culebra, who seemed faintly puzzled, but mostly was intent on watching as Ruisenor drew closer and rose up, hissing loudly, baring her fangs, and her eyes, always too dark to tell their color, suddenly began to glow a brilliant, jewel-bright purple.
"Why is a Sentinel here?" Jürgen finally gasped out, voice trembling. Anything menacing about him was gone; he looked like nothing more than a scared boy. "How did you get a S-s-s-sentinel?"
"A what?" Culebra asked, holding up a hand to ward off Ruisenor.
Jürgen gave a jerky nod, as though moving his head was difficult. Ruisenor hissed again, and he gave a soft, terrified cry. "S-Sentinels are the a-a-avatars of L-Lord Teufel."
Culebra motioned for Ruisenor to draw back slightly, and Jürgen was able to speak more clearly. "The Sentinels are the beasts that roam Schatten and make sure the citizens behave. Twelve Great Sentinels guard the Great Wall, blocking all access to Sonnenstrahl. The Thirteenth Sentinel is the Wanderer. And there are thousands of Lesser Sentinels that prowl the lands, killing all those they find outside the walls of the cities without permission."
"Doesn't seem very terrifying to me," Fidel said. "It is only a snake."
Jürgen laughed. "She's only a baby. The Great Sentinels are half the size of this room, with wings that span still farther. Legends say there is a Holy Sentinel at the heart of Sonnenstrahl and that he is of enormous size. At least as big as this room, if not bigger. None but Teufel has ever seen the Holy Sentinel."
"A baby ..." Midori stared. Dario knew exactly how he felt.
"How in the world did she wind up here, if she belongs in Schatten?" Dario asked.
"She must have come on a ship," Midori said. "I can't think how else it would have been possible. But I thought no one could leave Schatten—at least, not without Teufel's permission."
Culebra reached out to pet her, smiling faintly when Ruisenor rubbed up against him. "Did you escape? Or were you sent here?" Ruisenor hissed and turned back to Jürgen. Culebra said gently, "She was sent to track a different shadow child long ago, but found me instead. She is not here to harm you, but she will because you have harmed me."
"That is an awful lot of conversation from one snake," Dario said. "Are these Sentinel things that, I don't know, aware?"
"Yes," Jürgen said, crying out again when Ruisenor lunged back toward him. "I don't—please—the death is slow and painful—"
"And exactly what you deserve for all that you have done to Piedre. We would have welcomed you, called you friend. But you chose to come here and destroy us, and now I am not certain how much pity I have left to give you," Culebra said.
Jürgen shook his head fervently back and forth. "I was fulfilling my destiny. My fate was revealed by the High Seer himself. I am meant to bring Death and Destruction to Schatten."
"And you have," Culebra said. He stepped closer to Jürgen and gripped his head, forcing Jürgen to look him straight in the eyes. "Find rest in death and happiness in your new life." There was a flash, a pulse of magic that made Dario's skin prickle.
Culebra let go of Jürgen and he fell to the ground, dead.
Dario opened his mouth and then closed it again. He watched as Culebra walked back to Cortez's body, still lying on the enormous rose carved into the middle of the sanctuary. He knelt behind her and gently curled his fingers over the terrible wound in her neck. "Two pieces of my soul rejoined, and now only the last piece remains."
"What—" Dario stopped as Culebra looked at him, not certain what to make of the gentle, reassuring smile Culebra gave them.
Looking back down at Cortez, Culebra picked up the dagger that still lay discarded by her body. His voice resonated through the sanctuary and seemed to throb in Dario's chest. Dario did not understand the words, but he recognized the language as Ancient. He did not mind the way Midori gripped his wrist or the way Fidel drew closer to them both as the lights went suddenly dim.
He tried to speak when he saw Culebra raise the knife, but could not seem to move, was not entirely certain he was breathing. They could only watch, curious and terrified, as Culebra finished whatever it was he saying. Then he said in words Dario did understand, "Blood of the living. Blood of the dead. Blood of the god who is both. For my children I once died, and for our children we shall live again."
"No!" Dario and Midori screamed as Culebra slit his own throat, blood spraying and pouring, covering him as he fell back to lie side by side, head to foot, with Cortez.
The lights in the temple went dark. On either side of him, Dario heard the others draw in sharp, scared breaths. He could see nothing. Not the slightest bit of light. No bits of gray that stood out from the black.
It was terrifying. Where had the light gone? How far away was the entrance? Dare they look? What if they got lost in the enormous room? How had Culebra dealt with this every single day of his life? What was going to happen next?
Just when Dario thought he might scream, when Fidel's breathing grew increasingly unsteady on his left, and Midori remained infuriatingly calm on his right, the entire matter grew worse as everything started to shake. He hated the shaking.
Hated
it. Dario swore as he fell to his knees, swearing again at the pain. He bent over, covered his head, and prayed for it to stop.
"Make it stop!" Fidel shouted. "I can't take it! Somebody make it stop!"
"Midori, are you all right?"
"Fine," Midori said, and a moment later his hand covered Dario's once more and pulled him close. "This is—this is—I don't know. I want it to stop, too." Then it did stop, though it took Dario a moment to realize they were holding still again. "That is terrifying," Midori said.
"I never want to do that again," Fidel added fervently. "What is going on and when can we leave?"
A soft, husky laugh met his words, making Fidel gasp. One by one the soft white lights began to return. As they light gradually filled the sanctuary and finally fell down upon the center of it, Dario stared open-mouthed at the sight before him.
Two figures: Cortez and Culebra, wounds healed, alive and perfectly healthy. They stood side by side, hands twined. There was a black patch over Culebra's right eye and one over Cortez's left.
"Death," Culebra said.
"Destruction," Cortez added. "One has now become two, and the power once nearly stolen will be that much harder to take. Fidel ... "
Fidel made a rough noise and sprinted across the room to her, throwing himself into her arms and kissing her hard.
Culebra laughed as he left the stone rose to walk over to Midori and Dario. "Do I get kisses?"
"You deserve a beating," Dario said.
"I agree," Midori said. "I think you just took ten years off my life from terror alone, never mind watching you kill yourself. Um, Holiness. Eminence. I don't know what to call you, I'm sorry."
Smiling, Culebra reached out and tugged them both close, pressing a chaste kiss first to Dario's mouth and then to Midori's. "Culebra is my name, use that."
Dario was afraid to touch him. "So you're a god."
"Yes," Culebra said, then smiled. "You're beautiful. Even more beautiful than I always thought." He touched Dario's face lightly and smiled, and Dario could not think of a single thing to say. Culebra laughed softly and turned to Midori. "My brothers will be amused that I have stolen you away from them, child of the seas."
"Stolen me away?" Midori repeated. "I—I barely even know what's going on or why I'm here. I just wanted to rescue a prince."
"You did," Culebra replied and leaned up to kiss him again, and most of Dario's mind was numb and reeling from all that had happened, but there was enough still functioning for him to admire just how pretty they were together.
Culebra withdrew, chuckling, and turned to wrap around Dario and kissed him soundly. "We shall have to continue this discussion later, unfortunately. I have a more important one ... " His words were drowned out by the rolling, rumbling, and sudden crash of thunder. It was so loud it seemed to make the mountain shake all over again, though it was nowhere near as bad as it had been before. Dario shuddered, recalling it. He never wanted to feel the earth shake again.
"What conversation?" Midori asked.
"With our brothers," Culebra said softly as thunder crashed again and the lights flared—and then all went still and four men new men stood in the sanctuary.
Beside him, Midori choked, staring at the strangers with a look of disbelief on his face. "Your highness?"
And Dario realized he was right: in the middle of the cluster of men stood his highness, the long believed dead Prince Nankyokukai.
"Captain Midori?" Nankyokukai asked, looking surprised.
"It's not Captain anymore," Midori said, mind reeling. "I was removed from duty because I listened to you instead of your father, and then you wound up dead."
Nankyokukai flinched. "I see. I am sorry."
Midori made a rough noise. "So, what? You're a god? That's why you vanished? They said the Dragons of the Three Storms had returned, and I believed it because of the storms and because the mermaids have not attacked anyone in two years—but I never knew you had become one of the dragons."
He finally looked at the others and was not remotely surprised to see the other two dragons were familiar as well: the merchant Raiden and Captain Kindan. "You didn't run away to get married and steal your family's power. You ran away to become gods."
"No, I ran away to steal my family's power and return it to the dragons," Nankyokukai said wryly. "Raiden is the only one who was really a dragon from the start. It's a long story."
Midori shook his head, not certain what to think. What to say. "I wish I'd known. Everyone thought you dead. I thought that by leaving you and going to Pozhar, I had contributed to your death."