Greetings All
I hope your week has started well! It's pretty good on this side of the world, just insane temperatures! Hopefully, it cools down toward next week, but who am I kidding? February is the hottest time of the year for us!
As promised, today you all get to see my feeble attempt at romance. I definitely need more practice, so don't be too critical!
Bolx shrugged and turned to Saita. “Shall I walk you home?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Good boy, see you later.” Said Siar as she left the kitchen. “Be home before Mom decides to go looking for you.”
Nervously, Saita shoved her hands in the front pocket of her hoodie before following Bolx out of the kitchen. She struggled to look at him as they walked but rather kept her eyes on the gravel and tarred road back toward the Royal Guard Manor.
“You walked quite a distance. Did you get any rest?” asked Bolx softly.
“Not really. Don’t sleep.” She reminded him.
“Must drive Danna insane. I overheard a castle soldier mention something about someone sitting on the manor’s roof, was that you?”
“Yes. I go there to think.”
“About what?”
“My worth. My future. What I want.”
“And?”
“I don’t know what I want.” She mumbled.
Then she shook her head. “No, I know what I want but I cannot have it.”
She balled her fists in her pockets and spat. “I want my family back. I want things to go back to the way it was before I became a monster.”
“Saita…”
“No! I am a monster! A weapon. I wasn’t born this way. I was made!” she hissed. “I just want things to go back to the way they were! I want my mother to never have called me a monster. I want my father to welcome me home. I want a home!”
“I want to go back.” She whispered. “But they do not want me.”
Bolx looked to see if there were tears, but Saita wasn’t sad. She was angry.
“I deserve better!” she snapped after some time. “My son deserves better than being told that his mother is a monster, and he is one too.”
Bolx waited until he was sure that she was calmer before he said. “Can I be your family?”
Saita had not expected that. She looked at the giant in shock and whispered. “Your feelings dwarf me Bolx, and I do not know what to feel when you are around anymore.”
“What do you feel?” he asked, genuinely wanting to know what she was going through.
“I do not want to form bonds if I have to give them up. I loved my family. I was starting to bond with my son, after being terrified that I would never be able to love him and that was all taken away from me.” She sighed, stopped walking, and closed her eyes. “I can’t bear to lose someone else. I would rather not form a connection than lose someone again.”
“Do I get a say in this?” he asked softly.
“No!” she shook her head. “If I am left behind you do not get a say in this. I feel like I am continually falling.”
“Give me your hand.”
“No.”
“Give me your hand.” He said gently as he put his hand forward. “Palm up.”
Grumbling she finally relented and did as he wanted. He covered her hand with his and grinned. “With hands this big you will not be left behind. I’ll catch you.”
“And what if you miss?” she demanded.
“What if I don’t?” he grinned. “I said, I am your friend, I will have your back and I will fight for you, but if you do not know what it is that you want to fight for, I cannot help you at all. So, what do you want Saita? You have time to think for yourself for the first time in a long time. What do you want?”
“I…want my friend back.” She admitted. “I keep chasing you off, but I cannot deal with what you want from me.”
“I cannot help what I feel but I will try to hide it…”
“You shouldn’t have to.” She hissed and pulled away from him. “I am wrong, I have always been wrong. I have known that since I was a little girl and now everything has just gone wrong, and I don’t know how to fix any of it. I don’t even know if it can be fixed.”
“Take my hand, let’s get you back to the Royal Guards and in the morning, when you have rested, we will talk again. Or when you are ready. But it is late, and I am tired, the last thing I want to do is say the wrong thing to hurt you again. I know I hurt you when I said I couldn’t go back with you. I’m sorry but it is the truth of the matter. I must help my people to get ready for what is to come but I never said I wouldn’t come to see you. I just can’t leave forever.” Bolx held his hand out once more. “You do not make this easy for me either, I get a lot of mixed signals from you.”
“I don’t know how to feel.” She clenched her hands in front of her.
“Then maybe it is time to learn. You are certainly old enough to.” He spread his fingers out. “Come on.”
Jethron had travelled to Brucel’s planet first to visit his baby brother. Brucel had joyously welcomed him and excused his wife’s absence as the current pregnancy was extremely hard on her and she had taken to bad rest quite frequently.
“How far along is she?”
“Six months but you wouldn’t be able to tell as she is barely showing. The boy is small, developing very slowly.” Brucel sighed. “I am concerned for her health and his. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
“Was she sickly from the start of the pregnancy?” asked the Dekai.
Brucel indicated the two of them should take a walk around the castle grounds. This planet had come a long way from when Brucel had first come here and now it thrived with many Saith opting to move here away from their home world. Jethron walked next to his brother and smiled as he once more saw his father in the man’s gait.
“Father would have been so proud of you.” He said softly as he felt his eyes sting a little.
Brucel snorted softly but smiled. “I know.”
Brucel led his Dekai brother to the gardens he had cultivated himself for his wife as she missed the gardens from her home planet. It had taken a decade, but it had finally bloomed fully, and he was quite proud of it. He turned to their bedroom window, and he waved at the figure that stood on the balcony. “I never thought that I would be ready to be wed but she is my sunshine.”
Jethron politely waved and smiled. “She has done wonders for your emotions little brother. You were always the shy one until she got you to crawl out of your shell.”
Brucel chucked and sat down on a stone bench before indicting his older brother to sit across from him. “I was surprised that you wanted to stop here first. I thought that you would go straight to Mother considering everything that has happened.”
“I was thinking it but then she told me of your wife’s pregnancy, and I had to stop here first.”
“You asked when she got sick,” Brucel looked a little worried. “About a month ago. No reason, the doctors can’t find anything wrong with her, but she is losing weight and is so sickly.”
“You are concerned that she is being affected by the wasting disease?”
“Yes.” Whispered Brucel harshly. “And there is nothing I can do for her or him.”
“I am sorry.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.” He sighed. “Is there truly nothing I can do?”
The Dekai sat in deep thought for a while before saying. “Send her to Amara.”
“To Amara? But why?”
“We are the furthest from where the taint is coming from Little Brother. Perhaps some time away will allow her and him to get strong enough for a successful pregnancy and birth.”
Brucel rubbed his hands together hard and was muttering under his breath before he sighed and said. “Alright. I’ll have to get it passed her and Marie, but it will be for the better.”
“And how is my little niece?”
“Getting taller by the day! Silens’ gene is strong in that one. There's constant bickering between her and her mother but be damned if I say a single word to either of them when they fight.” Brucel laughed. “Don’t get between a teenager and her mother when they fight. She has a good head on her shoulder, she will be a wise ruler one day. One day…”
Brucel started to wring his hands together and said. “I couldn’t tell Mother about what I saw of your time Sedeath.”
It is wise that you didn’t.
“You two still talk?” groaned Jethron.
“Seldom but I dream, and I remember,” Brucel said softly. “I remember Father and the history Sedeath stopped to salvage our races. Now those dreams are containing this black void which is eating at the life surrounding me and I am powerless to do anything.”
The Saith King looked to the heavens. “I suggested that we get rid of Saita so that Mother or anyone else didn’t have to. I know it was useless, but I wanted everyone to know that the girl is not the cause of what is to come.”
He sighed. “But when I look into that dark void, I see someone standing in it and I get this nagging feeling…”
The Fell Dragon is a monster of proportions you would not understand. It is singular yet made of many components. You would not see a single creature.
“Oh, hush you. Can’t you see that man is under duress? Leave him alone.” Hissed Jethron under his breath.
“I don’t think the Fell Dragon is what we think it is anymore.” Said Brucel softly as he got to his feet. “We need to find Edzeeker and make him tell us what is happening.”
“The only person that I am aware of that can find Edzeeker is Bolx and from what I understand their relationship soured as soon as he realised how this timeline’s Saita was experimented on.”
“Bolx is in our timeline now and very much bows to our mother. She will need to talk to him, and we will need to find a way to trap Edzeeker.”
“It won’t be easy. He is an ancient Dekai with magic that hasn’t been seen for centuries, millennia, what would we even use as bait?”
“We have Saita.”
“Oh, our mother is not going to like that we place a potential ally at risk like that.”
“There are too many things at risk Jethron.” Brucel looked back to the balcony that now stood empty. “I think the Saith and Dekai have risked much these last few decades. It is time that the humans start playing ball.”
“I’ll organise to have Amara come fetch Shannon and she will stay at my summer palace until the child is born. It is the least I owe you for what you did for my wife and child.”
For those who have forgotten who Jethron is, please refer to Saasha's Direct Family. Cliff notes: he's a Dekai and has an aid by the name of Sedeath. As the story progresses, you'll learn more about Sedeath and his involvement in what is happening now.
The next part sees Saita's family coming to the Saith homeworld, and her desperately trying to avoid them. Stay tuned!
For those of you just joining us, please note that this is 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 28>>You are Here>>Part 30