Authors: Rain Oxford
“Yeah, I know; we’re in their territory. I’m kind of
worried you hadn’t realized it before,” I said. While I could feel them
following us for a while now, he should have been able to smell them from the
moment they started.
“I had realized it, but they have no threatening
intentions, so I thought it was more important to ramble.”
“I think we should stop being friends; you’re
starting to sound like me,” I said.
He nodded. “We think too much alike. We could be
enemies,” he suggested. “That would make life interesting.”
“We would never accomplish anything because we could
predict every move the other person would make. Could be fun, though, we should
definitely try that someday. It almost feels like the draxuni are escorting us.
Hey, when we meet the next god, try not to growl at him.”
“Warning: Subject change. ADHD alert.”
“You didn’t even know what ADHD was before I
explained it to you.”
“You are reflecting,” he said.
“I’m not reflecting, I’m deflecting. Do not
incorrectly use psychological terminology with me, I will beat you with my
verbal dictionary. The only way we can convince them to trust us is to help
them, and it doesn’t help when you make them want to eat you.”
“I don’t want them to walk all over us like they did
that little Guardian. You go ahead and be nice and friendly. I’ll make sure
they know how much a dragon will not roll over.”
I made him stop and turned him to face me. “I know
you’re used to Divina, and I know your dragon makes you feel invincible, but
you need to be more careful. We’ve already seen how unforgiving the gods can be
and how easily they can make a decision based on a whim.”
Mordon gave me a hard stare, but I just stared back.
I was right and he would give in first. Finally, after several minutes, he
nodded. “I will try not to growl, but they treat us like dirt and I don’t like
it.”
“They’re gods. To many of them, Guardians are just
servants or pets, and people are just things. Fortunately, Tiamat isn’t like
that.”
“I think Erono isn’t either,” he said. I frowned.
“Yes, I know he said that stuff, but I got the impression that he was actually
testing your loyalty to Tiamat. I suggest you trust Erono and Tiamat, but be
wary of Regivus.”
“How can we heal Enep if we can’t trust Regivus?”
“Heal the other worlds first; prove that we’re here
to help. And here we are.”
We stood at the edge of the forest, toeing the line
between light and dark. The forest was silent, as if holding its breath. We
left the dark and found ourselves on the beach of Mijii. If I had to, I could
have found my way by ship to Shomodii, but my own navigational skills would not
be tested that day; Edward was there.
When I saw Divina for the first time in weeks, I felt
all of the pent up love and loneliness. When I saw Edward standing there, it
was like I was home with family.
Edward had only been in my life for three years, but
I knew when he looked at me that he was proud, that if I did something wrong he
would help me, and that he would always do what he thought was best for me. If
Divina got mad at me, she would kick me out, and she was never afraid of
telling me when I was wrong. If Edward got mad at me, he would assign me chores
or ground me to the cabin. He would always try to help me learn from my own
mistakes, while protecting me from any real danger.
I missed my father from the few minutes we had
together, but Edward always treated me like a son. Edward never tried to
replace my father, of course, but he always seemed to be making up for Ronez’s
absence. It didn’t matter to him that I was an adult.
He may not have been my father biologically, but he
brought me to Duran and taught me so much more than magic. Every preconceived
notion I had of what a father was supposed to be was met by Edward and no one
else ever came close. Besides, as my biological father’s identical twin
brother, he couldn’t genetically get any closer to being my father.
He stood with a massive wooden boat behind him, much
like the boat I met Mordon on. When we reached him, he hugged me. I knew that
he wanted to check me for wounds, a habit he had developed very quickly after
taking me as his apprentice. I realized in the back of my mind that I had grown
taller since moving to Duran, as I was nearly as tall as him.
“Welcome back. Did you enjoy your adventure?”
I laughed. As if living on Duran wasn’t adventure
enough. “It had its moments. Yours sounded a bit more touch-and-go.” His dark
blue, long-sleeved, button-up shirt could hide a lot, but an ugly bruise peaked
out over the top of the shirt neck. He even had a bruised eye.
“Not really; some drowning, getting lost in a forest,
met a few mythological beasts, including a griffin.”
“A griffin, huh? I met him, too, on Malta.”
“Stay away from them; they are dangerous.” He glared
as if I had told him I wanted to keep one as a pet. “I also met your
ex-girlfriend.”
“Vivian? What were you doing on Dios?”
“I wasn’t on Dios, and neither was she.” He held up
his hand when I went to interrupt him. “Nano has her now; she is safe.”
“She’s probably really worried.” I indicate Sammy,
who was still strapped into the papoose that Mordon wore. “That’s her baby.”
Sammy chose that moment to be a brat. He reached out
to me with both hands. “Dada!”
Edward sighed. “You’re not keeping him.”
I shrugged. “I know we’ll be giving him back to
Vivian soon, but he won’t let me out of his sight until then. He’s very
possessive of me. I don’t think he actually believes I’m his dad, I think he
just teases us and maybe he can’t pronounce my name. Sammy, this is Edward.”
Edward looked surprised. “You’re back to calling me
that?”
“I’m sorry. Kiro.”
“No, I didn’t mean you couldn’t call me Edward, just
that I was surprised. You haven’t called me that in over a year.”
“He should probably be calling you ‘Dad,’” Mordon
said.
I could feel myself heat up and Edward looked a
little off, too. Yeah, he had been thinking of this. But was he thinking of
leaving? Did he hate that we had more of a father-son relationship than an
uncle-nephew one? He hated his children, would he hate me eventually?
“We don’t need to talk about this,” Edward said.
I nodded. “I agree. We’re fine, we don’t need to
talk.” I was lying; I had no idea what he was thinking, but we were guys, so we
would never talk.
“Oh, god, they’re both idiots,” Mordon moaned.
“Shut up, Mordon. Sammy, hit him,” I said.
The baby frowned. “Hitting is wrong, Dada.”
“What happened to your eye?” Mordon asked.
“I made the mistake of doubting my ability to survive
out loud,” he said cryptically.
I nodded, understanding immediately. “Vivian hit you.
She’s really a nice person, but her concern for you can be painful. Nano is in
for an adventure.”
Mordon frowned at me. “Have you ever been with a
gentle woman?”
I shrugged. “No.”
Before we could board the ship to Shomodii, Edward
said that Mordon needed to change his eye color. Mordon started to take
offense, but Edward explained. “Your eyes are very distinguishing. I am sure
you are unaware, but there is a reward for your return to Mokii. People will
know you by your eyes and try to kidnap you.”
“Why does my father want me to return so badly?” he
asked.
Edward frowned. “I have not heard much about it, I’m
sorry… but your father was injured. When he tried to spread his reign and bring
more power to the throne, he angered some powerful wizards. He is expected not
to survive the season.”
Mordon looked somewhere between stunned and sick to
his stomach. I knew what he wanted, but he doubted himself. He was thinking
that if he had been there, he could have used his dragon magic to help.
“I can heal him,” I said.
“If I go back there, I would be right back where I
started. Back where I never wanted to be.”
“He’s your father, the only one you’ll ever get. You
would never see him again if we don’t go and save him. Is that worth your
freedom? What is Rojan saying?”
“Rojan says that if you saved him, it would be many
years before I would have to be king.”
“Plenty of time to run away again,” I offered.
Mordon shook his head. “He would never let me run. He
would probably lock me up. Or guilt me into leading by telling me how the
people would suffer without a leader.” He looked at me. “I can’t go back. You
need help,” he said.
“Edward can help me. Are you using me as an excuse
not to return, or do you really want to help me over your father?”
He looked really upset as he thought about it. “I
don’t know. I think both; I want to help you just as much as I want to never
return to Mokii. Dylan, I just found out what I am, and I just found out that
he had stopped my dragon from waking. Rojan says that he did it to protect me,
but…”
“It still feels like he betrayed you and used magic
against you.”
“Yes. I don’t want to see him again. But I don’t want
him to die. Do I have time to think about it?” he asked Edward.
“You have until his time runs out. I cannot say when
that will be.”
“Take Sammy. I need to think,” he said as he
unstrapped the baby.
Sammy also looked like he was going to cry or be
sick. I went to take him, but Edward beat me to it. “Tiamat warned me that you
shouldn’t come in contact with Sammy,” Edward said. Mordon didn’t stick around
to hear anything else; he went straight for the ship. “He’ll be okay.”
“He didn’t disguise his eyes.”
“I doubt anyone will see him the entire trip.”
* * *
I discovered my book wasn’t the only thing that could
induce dreams; the gods could as well. While I knew for sure I was dreaming, I
also knew Divina, who was lying next to me in bed, was real and controlling the
dream.
“I miss you,” she said.
“I miss you, too.” I knew it wouldn’t particularly be
a happy dream.
“I hate it.”
“I know.”
“They don’t get it. My brothers think I’m just
playing around with this body, or think I stay this way to spite them. They
don’t get that it comes with these emotions. I feel everything that humans and
sago feel, and it’s sick. It’s really, really sick that I feel so many emotions
every day and they affect what I do and the decisions I make. But you know
what’s even worse?” She glared at me. “Every day I am with you I feel so much
more than any other day. I should hate you for it, because I didn’t know what I
was getting into. I was playing around at first… when I first took this form. I
wanted to know more about why people, all people on every world, did stupid
things for stupid reasons. Soon I wanted out. I wanted to leave this body and
return to my real power, but I couldn’t give it up just yet. It was never the
right time.”
“Life is difficult to give up.”
“But I never realized I was still missing so much
until I met you. I thought I loved your father, thought that that was what love
was. When your father died, I knew I could see him anytime I wanted… but I
never visited him.
“You were weak and ignorant of things. I hate
weakness and ignorance, but you just smiled through it and I couldn’t hate you.
Sometimes you are just so stupid that I laugh or I get angry. But sometimes you
are just so smart that it makes me feel like an idiot and I love you for it
because I feel so alive… so mortal. But that makes no sense because I’ve had
this body… I’ve been alive for so much longer than you have, yet you make me
feel more alive.”
“Some people can live a lifetime in a few short days,
and some go their entire lives without living.”
“What if I changed my mind? What if I don’t want to
be this anymore? I want to return to being a real god.”
“That will always be a choice you have. But until you
make that choice, I will spend every day I have with you making you love me so
much that you can’t do it.”
“Ronez used to tell me stories that humans came up
with, in every culture, about people killing themselves because they couldn’t
be with the one they loved. Duran has them, too. I told you about Leila… I
thought they were all stupid to kill themselves. I understood that you could
miss someone when they were away, but I never understood that the knowledge that
you would never see them again could be so much worse. It’s not even the
missing them part, it’s the thought of how many days are ahead of you that they
will not be in.”
“You’ve felt this, then?” I asked.
“My brothers wanted to kill you; I couldn’t help but
to think of life without you. But they could never kill you. I know you don’t
believe me, because I’m not as strong as them in this form, but I am. I have
something they don’t. If they killed you, then I would be forced to live
without you, and that could never happen. It doesn’t matter how much more
powerful they are, because I would never let them take you from me. I may hate
it, I may fight it, and I may deny it, but I love you.”
* * *
Unfortunately, Edward was correct; no one, not even
me or Sammy, saw Mordon again until we landed at Shomodii. After two days of
travel, I was extremely worried that he hadn’t eaten. Sammy was very irritable
by then and would cry at any mention of Mordon. He cried for three hours
straight one time until Edward actually left our cabin to look for him.
During the trip, I mentioned that Shinobu was
missing, but Edward said that she had returned home to wait for me.
Edward was more concerned with me than Mordon or my
pet; I picked up a cold, probably from partially drowning in the freezing
demon-summoned rain. My healing energy apparently didn’t work on myself,
because I had an increasing headache and come-and-go fever. After being forced
to drink a horrible tea every hour for the first day, I pulled myself together
and faked recovery.