Greetings Readers
Firstly, Cupcake has finally come home, and she will continue to look over my writing. We still miss her terribly, but having her ashes back helps a little.
As for Book 7, there will be a lot of ups and downs, as this is the last book. So it'll likely be much longer than the previous books. At this moment, the book contains flashbacks of Bolx's time, how the Fell Dragon (original and current) came to be, and one last accidental time traveler.
As for the time traveler, when he comes into play, I will do an extra update explaining him, as he forms a very important part of why Saasha survived what she did, and I need to explain how that all happened. Unfortunately, that does mean that I spoil Book 3 of the Seeking series.
Anyway, without further ado, here is the start of Book 7 and the end of Fell Dragon. Strap in, it's going to be emotional and scarring. Here's a nice long start.
Saasha sat bolt-up in bed, drenched in sweat. The red light filtering from the outside let her know it was still night, so there was no chance that there had been a knock on the door that could have woken her.
The old queen felt her stomach rebel, and she barely made it to the bathroom to be violently ill. It had been years since she had had that dream. Once she was able to get her breath back, she shakily made her way to the basin to run some cold water so she could wash her face. She wasn’t surprised to feel tears gathering in her eye. She continued to grit her teeth and wash her face until she was sure the tears were gone.
Brucel.
Seeing her husband’s face before her, begging her to live was something she could never forget. That was how the dream had always ended, but this one had been different. Pulling a towel from a rail, the queen made her way to her bed to sit down and wipe her face as her breathing finally managed to calm down.
She knew the dream well. It had repeated for decades after her husband’s death. It hadn’t made an appearance in several years, and Saasha had put it down to her finally truly coming to terms with the loss of her partner. Yet, this dream was different. Brucel wasn’t injured, nor lying on the ground begging her to live. He was standing before her, shouting something at her while shaking her. This was a twist that had never occurred before.
They had had a simple rule in their relationship. They were either General and Captain, or they were husband and wife, and in either of those roles, no one ever raised their voice, even when it was warranted. The more Saasha thought about it, the more it didn’t feel like the dream that had nearly caused her to end her life decades ago. This was something else, but not something new.
As she lowered the towel from her face, she tried to recall the look on Brucel’s face. He hadn’t been angry, nor was he happy, it was something else. There was desperation. Saasha rubbed at her arms, finding them cold where Brucel had grabbed her. There was a reason for them to be cold, but she couldn’t remember as the dream was starting to fade.
Upset, and no longer feeling the need for sleep, Saasha dressed warmly and went for a walk. Walking helped, walking always calmed her nerves, even before Brucel had lost his life. He hadn’t liked her walking alone at night, despite her position in the Royal Guard, but he would never stop her.
Saasha stepped from her room and made her way out of the castle. She needed to think, and she couldn’t do it within the confines of the castle. She thought back to the coping mechanisms she had been taught to deal with her nightmares. None of them worked, so she tried to distract herself from her nightmare by thinking about what made it so much more disturbing than the original outcome.
There was something, something she was missing, but she had been so panic-struck by the nightmare, that it was quickly disappearing from her mind once she was awake. Saasha continued to rub her arms as she walked. The more she thought about it, the cold spots where Brucel had grabbed her weren’t from where he had placed his hands. The cold was from his wrists.
Confused, Saasha stopped in her movements, too quickly for the one following her. She turned to catch a glimpse of someone ducking out of her view. She stared for a few more minutes and decided that it was perhaps best to return to the castle. It was clear she had one of her siblings following her, and they were all too busy to be babysitting her, especially at her age.
“Go home.” She said softly. “Need time to think.”
Yet the presence didn’t disappear. A little annoyed, Saasha tried to figure out which of the triplets had followed her. Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t distinguish the energy the person was giving off. She knew that Gatex had the ability to change his life force at will and concluded he had once more drawn the short straw to keep an eye on his older sister. She sighed and turned back to the castle.
As she stepped passed where the figure had disappeared, she said softly, “I am going back, and so should you.”
Now completely distracted from her nightmare, she could think of nothing else but the work she would have to complete once the sun rose. Training Saita had taken a lot of her time recently, but the girl had eaten up the lessons as quickly as Saasha could give them to her. Even Saasha’s personal Royal Guard had stepped up to put the human through their training programs. She hadn’t done well at first but was a quick study and quickly managed to dish it out as well as any of the fighters that stood up to her.
Behind her, she could hear the person following her once again. The footsteps were heavy, far heavier than Gatex’s. While curious about the one following her, she was also tired and felt no need or want to call out the one following her. For all she knew, it could be one of the newest Guard members that had returned from planetary service. This was likely a hazing from the older Guard members.
The queen chuckled under her breath and said softly, “Very well then, you can follow me if you fear for my safety so much.”
By the time she reached the entrance of the castle, she found Lardan and Sedeath waiting for her. Seeing her son in uniform told her all she needed to know about the seriousness of the situation which had brought the both of them to the entrance of the castle at this hour.
“What happened?” she asked.
Sedeath stepped forward and said, “Jethron informed me that Edzeeker has been butchered.”
His word usage immediately made Saasha’s fur on her tail stand straight up along with the hair along her neck. She didn’t like where this was going.
“What?”
“I think you need to sit down to hear this.” Said Lardan solemnly.
Saasha was quick to find a room that she trusted to keep information from leaking out. As the two men before her sat down, she remained standing, not wanting to hear what she was already starting to suspect.
“As you know, Jethron had Edzeeker imprisoned. He was hoping he could find out more about the coup that occurred when Brucel was with him. Edzeeker had been forthcoming and then a few days he was found butchered in his cell.” Said Sedeath.
“Do they know who orchestrated it?” the queen sat down heavily.
“At first Jethron believed it was people who had worked with Sellious, the doctor that helped make Saita, but their investigation found nothing. There was no way to enter that prison cell without someone seeing something.” Said Lardan.
“Unless they could appear and disappear into thin air.” Said Sedeath with a grave look on his face.
The comment caught Saasha off guard, especially since she already had an inkling of what could appear and disappear in thin air.
“Wolven?” she asked.
“That is the only thing Jethron could conclude.” Lardan nodded his head. “However, I saw the way the Wolven attacked our people. The wounds were minimal as if they were not trying to kill or maim but to harvest energy, as Uncle Kessa and Aastii explained. The way Edzeeker was left…”
Saasha watched her son turn dark for a minute before he said, “It was like what was done to your unit before we knew about the Dekai.”
Saasha crossed her arms to prevent her son and the Dekai king from seeing her hands shake at the news. The torture she had had to endure was something she saw etched on her skin every time she bathed, every time she tried to wrap her tail around her waist, and every morning when only one eye showed her the world.
“Edzeeker wasn’t just tortured.” Said Sedeath. “His essence was stolen.”
“His what?”
The Dekai sighed softly, “Life force, but more than just life force. Life force is energy that can be generated inside or out of the body. Some species can mold it, others need to consume it. Everything alive has a central part to their being that holds the life force required to keep them alive. The Dekai call it essence, while most species have a wide variety of other names for it.”
Saasha thought this over, Dekai terminology had always confused her, but the essence was a word she had heard of before when she was younger and still traveling as the General.
“Are you telling me his soul was taken?”
“If you want to use that archaic terminology, then yes.” Sedeath frowned. “When we die, the essence is the last to leave the body. How it leaves can tell us many things about a person’s death.”
Saasha already knew what the Dekai was going to say before he was going to say it. She squeezed her eyes closed and said in unison with him, “The Fell Dragon.”
Lardan looked from the one to the other and asked, “Why?”
“To torture Saita.” Said Saasha as she got to her feet and started pacing.
“That doesn’t make sense.” Said Lardan.
Sedeath looked at Saasha and a look of sadness crossed his face, “Of course, you would be the one to understand this.”
“Explain.” Demanded Lardan.
“I would like nothing more than to walk into Malekai’s room and slit his throat.” Hissed Saasha as her fingers dug into her arms. “The only reason I never did that was because Jethron begged for his brother’s life. It is the reason he is never allowed on this planet. If someone were to take his life now, it would feel like I could never get revenge.”
Lardan thought this over for a few minutes before he nodded his head, “That makes sense.”
“That is assuming this is the Fell Dragon.” Said Sedeath.
“Oh, come on Sedeath!” exploded Saasha. “Of course it is.”
The Dekai sighed and nodded his head, “A Wolven would have had to be involved in allowing her to travel then.”
“Then we have a bigger problem on our hands.” Said Lardan. “If this Wolven is traveling with the Fell Dragon, it means they can appear wherever and whenever they please. There is no way for us to be able to protect ourselves.”
“I don’t think so.” Said Saasha as she sat down once more. “Why did the Fell Dragon go after Edzeeker?”
“We just established that motive.” Commented Sedeath.
“It’s more than just torture. If the Fell Dragon wants to stop Saita from defeating it, it could have slit her throat while she slept. It’s trying to torture her; we need to find out why. While we do that, we need to find out how the Wolven can travel the way they do and put a stop to it.”
The three of them sat in silence for a while before Lardan asked, “Do we tell Saita?”
Saasha shook her head, “Not yet. We have no answers.”
The queen continued to shake her head before she said, “There is no point in discussing this any further. We need to communicate more with Jethron. I need more information before I put the girl’s training in jeopardy.”
She got to her feet once more and said, “We will talk this over in the morning and then decide where we will go from here. Lardan, go home. Sedeath, I know you don’t sleep, so communicate with Jethron and get as much information as possible. There is more at play here than what we’re seeing.”
The two men nodded their heads before climbing to their feet and leaving Saasha with her thoughts. Sleep was beckoning her once again, and with the nightmare banished from her mind, she decided she could stand to have a few more hours of rest. She returned to her room to strip the soaking bedding from the bed before replacing it with fresh. Nightmares were nothing new to her, and she always had fresh linen to prevent further sleep from being unpleasant.
As she settled for the remainder of the night, she couldn’t help but think back to the nightmare that had woken her earlier. The cold upon her arms, and Brucel screaming at her. She closed her eyes and tried to bring the nightmare back to her mind’s eye. As soon as she did that, she sat bolt up, swamped with nausea. She remembered. She knew why her arms had been cold and why Brucel’s wrists had been so cold. The parts that had touched her were not flesh but were metal. Brucel’s forearms had been covered with manacles.
The introduction of this character is inbound, so keep an eye out for that.
For those of you who have never heard of Fell Dragon you can find Book 1 here, Book 2 here, Book 3 here, and Book 4 here, Book 5 here, and Book 6 here
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I love discussing my books!
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
Saith Characters Recap
Human Characters Recap
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