You voluntarily shared this information?Or I compelled it from you?
“I chose to share it,” I say.“I wanted to help you locate the heart and restore your people’s ability to procreate.”
He launches into the air then, with no notice, like he always did.I’m so much better prepared for it now that even with my unwieldy wings continually shifting and unfurling, I manage to stay on and stay crouched.
You know what I want—answers.What do you want from me?
The fact that he even has to ask...“The same thing I’ve always wanted,” I say.“When you first bonded me, we made a deal.I’d be a good little ensnared human, and you’d keep my three siblings safe.”
The small humans.
“And I often asked you to try to keep the human casualties as low as possible whenever dragons and humans came into conflict.That’s it.Those two things are what I want.”
He’s quiet the rest of the way back, and I close my eyes, letting the frigid wind whipping through my hair distract me from my misery.When we reach the volcano, Hyperion’s perched on the edge of the outer rim, a half dozen strike blessed gathered beside him.
“He’s going to demand you throw me back in the volcano the second we land.”
I’ll refuse,he says.
My heart expands.He doesn’t know me, but he’s still the same person who bonded me to begin with.He’s fair.He understands how it feels to be the little guy.He cares about people quickly.Maybe...maybe we’ll be alright.
He lands, and then he shakes, and I slide down to the rocky ground.
“Thanks,” I say.“For bringing me back.For honoring our deal.”
Our deal is off, Elizabeth Chadwick,Azar says, and I can tell he’s broadcasting.We are no longer bonded, nor will we be.You will wait here until your memories return, and once we know what happened to change the earth blessed, you’ll be thrown back into the volcano to continue looking for the heart.
He snags me with one claw, plows through into the volcanic antechamber, and shoves me inside the cage bolted to the side wall that held Sammy, Coral, and Jade.
Rufus and Gordon will keep watch over them until her brain has healed.
Without so much as a backward glance, Azar flies away, Hyperion barely a second behind him.And then he’s just...gone.
And I can finally bawl like the broken-hearted idiot I am.
2
Axel
Ispent over a year studying humans before my father sent me here to recover the heart.I must have asked him what exactly the heart was at least a dozen times.
Each time resulted in a beating.
If I knew what it was,he said each time,I would tell you.For a time, it was pure magic.Then it was housed in a stone of unbelievable beauty.When we left...He simply trailed off, then.
The last time I asked, he closed his eyes, and I thought he was trembling with rage...until he spoke.It merged with a blessed, a blessed who stayed on earth.A blessed who chose her love for the earth children over her own people.
Then he attacked me so savagely, I thought I’d died until I woke up a few days later, barely able to move.
Euphrasia nursed me after each attack, and she answered my questions about earth as well as she could.It was never enough.Other than my father, I’m not sure any of the blessed knew quite what the heart was.Or if they did, they’d either forgotten or been frightened into silence.
I knew it would restore our people’s ability to procreate.Without it, we had no future.Without it, we were doomed.
And the humans, the earth children, I was told that they would hide and protect it at any cost.Yet, this Liz says she voluntarily told me all she knew of it.What I can’t reconcile is why I would trust the word of a human, any human, even one I had bonded, when it came to locating the heart.
But Hyperion insists it’s true—she gave us the information that led to our trip into the volcano.
You threw me in the volcano,I ask,because I was defendingherand wouldn’t force her in myself?
