Kairen started running. Panic was overwhelming his senses. He threw down the dragon’s head he was carrying, and ran as fast as he could across the Arena. He had a bad feeling. He never had that extra sense, intuition, but Krai’s desperation was going to his head, like a horrible, nagging shadow encompassing his mind. He didn’t allow himself to think. Kairen ran until he was in front of the pile and then he started digging too.
For a while, the only sound was the two of them, the Prince and his dragon, endlessly digging through a mountain of rocks, searching everywhere they could. They were so frantic, their labored breathing and the ruckus of the stones being tossed was the only thing that could be heard in the stadium. Sire stood a few feet away, watching somberly.
“What are they doing?”
The Blue Dragon turned its head to look at the source of the words. Stumbling in at one of the Arena’s entrances, Shareen was frowning and grimaced with each step, as she was in bad shape too. A large and deep gash was running from her left temple down to her jaw, still bleeding a bit from behind the little, dark purple scales. Her left ear was also cut open, and on the other side, she had another cut on her eyebrow causing her to unwillingly blink because of the scales covering it.
The top of her armor was gone, her exposed shoulder bearing another sizable injury, a large and clear bite mark that was still bleeding down her side. Her purple outfit was drenched in the reddish color of drying blood. She was walking slowly, as if taking each step was incredibly painful, and held her wrist against her flank, her hand now gone.
She came closer, still not quite understanding what her brother and his dragon were looking for.
But they just kept digging, looking for a sign. A movement. Anything.
“Cassandra!” Kairen suddenly yelled, unable to hold it in anymore.
His voice echoed throughout the arena, and Shareen’s face sank.
“She can’t be under... that...” she muttered.
The Princess hurried to her brother’s side, and though she didn’t want to know what they were going to find, she started to dig as well. It was slow progress. Sire looked on as if they were crazy.
“Cassandra! Cassandra!”
The War God’s voice echoed along with his dragon’s growls. They kept rummaging through the rocks in a deathly silence. Shareen didn’t want to say the words, but she knew there was no way.
Nothing under this rubble could have survived.
“Cassandra!”
She swallowed and kept going. Rock after rock, stone after stone, they kept digging, skinning their fingers and breaking their nails until they bled. Suddenly, after pulling her umpteenth rock, Shareen saw it. A bit of white skin.
“K... Kairen...” she muttered.
Her brother didn’t hear her. Shareen took a deep breath, closing her eyes to take it in.
“Kairen!”
This time, he turned around, and seeing her expression, his heart sank. The War God ran down the little hill he was standing on. His eyes opened wide upon seeing what she had found.
“Cassandra!”
Shareen stepped away a bit, letting him uncover his lover. It was an arm that came first. She was buried under so many stones, it took a few more seconds to completely dig her out, even with Krai’s help. The dragon was so agitated, the rocks under it threatened to collapse some more. When Kairen finally pulled Cassandra out, it was like all of his breath had left him.
She wasn’t moving.
Her eyes were closed, lying in his arms like an inanimate doll. Her white skin was covered in bruises, her left leg was at a horribly unnatural angle, and her feet were dangling freely at the ankle. A layer of dust covered her skin and hair, she looked as if she was part of the stones themselves.
The War God gasped, unable to accept what he was seeing, what he was holding. It was something that he just couldn’t fathom was right before his eyes. His hands were shaking under Cassandra’s body. They had never shaken before.
“Cassandra,” he called. “Cassandra, wake up.”
Shareen bit her lip, unable to say anything, not even to tell him to stop.
The young concubine looked beautiful, even in that state. Some of her hair was glued to her temple by the blood on her face. It had run all over, even her lips were tinted with some red. Yet, her skin had never seemed so grey. She had never seemed so petite and fragile in the War God’s arms.
“No,” he said. “No, Cassandra, no!”
There was anger in his voice. As if he was ordering her not too, as if he was ordering death not to take her. Krai wasn’t making a sound. The dragon was crouching down, approaching in very small steps, as if it was...scared. The Black Dragon sniffed Cassandra’s hand, laid on the ground, and slowly started retreating, letting out a pitiful wailing sound along the way.
