Hi Fellow Readers
I hope your week has wrapped up fantastically. I am in the final stages of wrapping up a book and starting a new one. Looking forward to the new book as it's a farming book, and it's been a while since I did one of those.
Very short update today. Just wrapping up the conversation between Saita, Jethron and Sedeath. The next part is too large to add to this, and I don't want you all sitting in front of your pcs or phones for an hour to read. I hope you all enjoy it!
Just a trigger warning, hints at suicide.
Saita made to reach for her forehead then realised that everything around her had disappeared and was replaced by a swirling of blacks, blues, and silvers. She had spent long enough with other creatures in the last two years to know what this was. A mentally constructed room where thoughts could be shared so fast that almost no time would pass in the waking world. She did not have the skills to do this unaided.
As she was trying to gather her thoughts the Dekai joined her. He towered over her, a side effect of his immense mental powers in comparison to hers. He must have been used to communing with people of lesser mental abilities than him because he immediately shrunk himself to the size he had been when they first met.
“You do not seem surprised at all.” He said as he conjured up a bench to sit on.
“I am somewhat well-travelled.” She muttered, her anger seeping into her words.
“Sit, let’s chat.”
Saita scratched at her right arm in irritation and eventually sat down, knowing that there would be a seat waiting for her. The Dekai looked upwards and then sighed before saying. “Sedeath wants to talk to you, but I fear that seeing him will be too much for you. He and Edzeeker look very similar and if I let him talk, I will look like him. Being attacked here…”
“Results in damage to the brain, I know. As I said. I am well-travelled.” She crossed her arms. “Would you be insulted if I changed my clothes? I see you trying to see my marks.”
“Of course, but can you?”
“Am I captive here?”
“No of course not.”
“Then I can.” She immediately materialised a thick jacket whose pockets she buried her hands into as soon as she could.
They sat in silence for a while before Saita looked to the ground and said. “You are terrifying. I know you are not Edzeeker, your energy is close, but you are not him. Yet, you still scare the hell out of me. I want to run so very far away right now.”
“The fact that you are able to create items of comfort in the world I created is a testament to your mental fortitude. You could break from this room with no problem so why have you stayed?”
“You can return my memories to me.” She whispered.
“Did you pick that up from Bolx?”
She shook her head. “I assumed.”
“You assumed?”
“I always suspected that Edzeeker was the one that hid memories from me and now that I see another Dekai before me, I couldn’t help but wonder if I am right.”
Jethron placed an open hand on Saita’s head and allowed his nails to dig between her hair strands to come to rest on her scalp. She was shivering at his touch, but she was also desperate for answers about her past. Jethron, however, could read her like a book. There were seals in place to prevent her from seeing everything that had been done to her, a way to safeguard her sanity but there were also vast missing pieces of memory that were likely destroyed by the trauma she went through. Especially the time when she was a young child. There were barely enough snippets to tell any kind of story other than pain and isolation for almost a decade before she was allowed to go free. Of her birth parents, there was nothing. No voices, no images, no feelings. He wondered if this was due to her age or because of the trauma of likely seeing them killed before her. Perhaps even these were buried deeper than what he could gleam.
“I can help.” He said after some time. “But there are vast sections of your memory that are just gone. Likely due to your age and the trauma you suffered when you were taken from your birth parents. All I can return to you are the times you spent with Edzeeker and the mad doctor. Even that is fractured. However, it can be done, if you want it.”
“Is it better to not know?” she asked, her voice thick with emotions. “To never know and dream of things that were done to me when I do sleep?”
The Dekai released her, his heart broke for her, she had never stood a chance with what was done to her. She would never have a normal life and she knew it. She knew people were hiding the fact that she was dying from her. She had known for a while but kept it to herself. It was one of the reasons she was so hesitant to allow anyone close to her.
“Do you know what this is?” asked the Dekai as he touched the centre of her chest.
“A machine to make energy.”
“It would seem that you were chosen to be a vessel for this machine to help fight the Fell Dragon.”
“Which doesn’t exist.” She muttered as she swatted his hand away. “So, some planets are dying, there are always dying planets.”
The Great Serpent is quite real, child.
Saita looked upward and though a little surprised only shrugged the voice off by saying. “I think the one you called Sedeath really wants to talk to me. Is he your aid?”
“Oh? You know about the aids?”
“A Dekai did this to me.” She placed a hand flat on her chest. “I learned what I could about them while I still had time to.”
She is very much like your mother. No wonder the old queen has taken a liking to her.
Sedeath tried to push for a change, but Jethron refused him. “She can hear you. She doesn’t need to see you. Don’t!”
The Serpent comes for you, Human. It hungers for the power you are making. There is no place to hide. Even in death, it will hunt you down. Not that the System will let you die.
Saita didn’t react to the voice and at first, Jethron first thought that she had not heard him but then she calmly said. “I know it won’t let me die. You think I haven’t tried?”
That comment startled Jethron and Sedeath into silence while Saita just chuckled. “Jarah was right. Can’t deal with what was done to me and all I wanted to do was die but it won’t let me. Nearly had my throat ripped out and still, with more than half my blood supply lost it forced life into my body, making me feel every single agonising moment to keep me alive. I know it won’t let me die even if I want to.”
She finally looked Jethron in the eye and grinned. “Surprised?”
“I want to say yes but I know I shouldn’t be. Mother went through the same thing, but she got help. Have you?”
“No time, there was never time for me.”
Jethron felt the bitterness from the young woman and knew that even though her family was so close they may as well have been back on their home world with the distance they were from her heart.
“I was made into this so that I could be discarded.” Whispered Saita. “And I keep being discarded. So, tell me Sedeath, Jethron, how do you plan to use me before you discard me?”
Silence.
“I only have about four more years left to live before there is so much cellular death inside of me that I can no longer live. I have nothing to show for my life except to be a weapon. Right now, that is what everyone wants me to be. Do you think anyone has asked what I want? What I need in my life?”
Silence.
“Yeah, I thought so.” She got to her feet. “I’ll be your bait.”
“And your memories?”
“Will it improve my life? If not I don’t need to sleep. I don’t need to dream of pain and torture.”
Jethron nodded his head. “So be it then.”
For those of you that don't remember, the S-class fight Saita fought was an attempt to take her own life without doing it directly.
Enough morbidness for now! The start of the Saith Games are soon to start, and with it the end of Book 3. For those of you that have managed to hold on this long, keep hanging on. Book 4 introduces the Fell Dragon as a character and we delve into Saita's memories. It's going to be fun.
For those of you just joining us, please note that this the third book in the Fell Dragon series. Follow this link to read the two earlier books:
Fell Dragon Book 1
Fell Dragon Book 2
Start of Book 3 here
As the series continues, it will combine with another book series I wrote. To avoid confusion about what is happening, introductory chapters will be introduced separately so that you don't have to be lost. However, these chapters will contain spoilers. You can find these chapters here:
Races Explained
Banishment
Royal Guard
Saasha’s Direct Family
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Haven't read the other parts yet? Follow these handy links:
Part 31>>You are Here>>Part 33