Page 55 of Shadows Lost
The faeling smiled wide and reached up to pat the array of purple-blue scales upon his great head. “Shen Shen’s mirage has kept it hidden.” She boasted, proud of her dragon.
My brows drew together and I crossed my arms suspiciously. “For a dragon, you give up your treasure easily.”
A frightening smile of teeth and fang descended upon me. “Do I, cousin?” Then he pulled away quickly, his nostrils flared and his sails stiffened. “The blood witch knows. You must go now! Within the city at the innermost sanctum you will find the whirlpools—”
My arms fell to my sides. “The whirlpool portals are still active? After all this time!”
“Yes!” Shen hissed back.
“What is a whirlpool portal?” Riella asked with an eager gleam in her swirling colored eyes, ignorant of the dragon’s growing concern.
I glanced down at her. “They are a way to travel great distances, even between worlds. It was how humankind from Earth discovered Atlantis. They even named their ocean after it and told great stories about your people, the sirens of the sea.” I bared my teeth back at Shen. “They even have folklore about great water serpents that sank ships to feast on their bones.”
The dragon bristled and puffed out a breath of annoyance. “Humans are hardly worth the effort nor the calories, but they did have other interesting cargo.”
I snickered. “Where does this whirlpool lead, dragon?”
Shen snarled, bearing his sharp fangs at me again. “It is time you learned to trust, or at the very least have some manners. Trust me when I say, I do not risk what is mine…ever.” He turned back towards the tiny fae child. “Seaflower—”
“No!” Riella rushed upwards and clung to her dragon.
I stiffened at the droplets of red tears trailing in her wake.
“Hush now, seaflower, you must stay with Remnant.” Shen hummed. “She and one other are the only ones I trust to protect you well enough.”
My head snapped up. “Whatotherdo you speak of, dragon?”
Shen ignored me and nuzzled against Riella more. “You will leave this place together and you both will need each other to survive what is to come. Will you promise me you’ll stay with Remnant, my treasured seaflower?”
“Yes.” She hiccuped and gripped the dragon tighter, her tiny body shaking with silent sobs.
The water dragon bowed his great head into her distraught form, his cerulean blue orbs peered directly at me, unashamed of the pooled tears silently being washed away by the now gentle current, as if the ocean also mourned with him.
I turned away, leaving him to his grief and swallowed down the bitter bite of my own. It burned in my throat as I buried it deep.
“You are my greatest treasure, little seaflower. I wish for you to have this. Something to remember me by.”
Turning back around at the sudden glow in the water, I raised my arm and squinted through the brightness glowing around the dragon. My eyes widened as I watched an ombre scale of purple-blue placed delicately on a silver chain floating through the ocean, to gracefully fall around the faeling’s small neck.
Riella’s bottom lip trembled and she clutched the purple-blue scale tightly. Without warning she reached to her side and with gritted teeth, wrenched a tiny black scale from her body, holding it proudly upwards while her body bled from her self inflicted wound before quickly healing.
“For you Shen Shen.” She said with love shining in her colorful swirling eyes.
Instantly, the scale left her hand and I dropped my arm, narrowing my eyes on the dragon's new adornment—a spec of scale hanging with a silver chain around his neck, directly over where Riella had seated herself. It was barely noticeable unless one was looking for it.
Shen’s voice was gravelly when he finally spoke. “This gift shall never leave me, my little seaflower. Never.” Then he sighed deeply, bubbles trailing out past the haunting golden gates, before he nudged Riella back towards me.
Still clutching her scale closer to her, the faeling reached for me with her free hand. I swallowed again only hesitating a moment before instinctively pulling her close to my side.
My chin rose high. “I will look after her as if she is my own treasure, dragon.”
Shen hummed. “You have no idea how true those words will become, cousin. Prepare yourself, I have told you all that I can. Get to the portal quickly and you will live another day.”
“Nothing to it.” I half laughed and then looked down to smooth back Riella’s muddy pink hair. “Let’s protect each other shall we?”
I smiled when she raised her chin high, an exact mimic of me moments before. Flourishing my hand, my gaze never leaving the determined faeling, I materialized a long black spear out of the dormant shadows from the hallowed city. Perfectly crafted for her petite size.
She took the spear eagerly without hesitation.
