Page 134 of Veiled Flames
Again, I urge Xendus to follow, but the gash in the veil mends, without a single breath of dragon fire to repair it.
My heart falls from my chest to shatter in a million pieces on the ground below.
Rosomon is trapped in the Darkness.
Fifty-Two
Rosomon
The veil splits, almost as if Nurse threw open my bedroom drapes on a bright morn to wake me. But instead of sunlight, all I see is the utter absence of light, the absence of color, the absence ofeverything.
A dull gray pours through the opening, just as Tynan described, almost as if the air is thicker behind the veil and the Darkness is oozing into our world. It’s far worse than Tynan described.
Through the thick grayness, a swarm of demons flies toward us, swerving and swooping en masse. Zogar heads directly toward them, and my heart races. I have no bow and arrow. No sword.
You are safe, my queen.He exhales a long stream of fire, and I resist covering my ears against the screams as the demons burn and drop from the sky.
Minions of darkness, Zogar reminds me.They are not fully sentient beings.Do not mourn their deaths.
“I’m not.”
Yes, you are. You have a soft heart.
We fly through the veil. Unable to see directly behind me, I turn and watch as it closes.
How did it close? Based on Master Roule’s lessons, even if every matched dragon at camp worked together, they couldn’t seal such a large tear so quickly.
You think me so weak I cannot control my own magic?Zogar’s voice fills my mind.
“You used magic to tear the veil?”
I used magic to create it.
Othrix created the veil.
I created the veil—together with my people.
I knew dragon fire was able torepairthe veil, but it never crossed my mind that dragon fire had built it. If the dragon masters know this, they didn’t tell us.
Dragons serve no masters!
I push aside further questions, as I take in the vast open space stretched before us. Everything is a shade of dull gray. Even Zogar’s silver and golden scales have dimmed as if tarnished. The terrain around us is flat except for two—no three—plateaus I see rising from the plains.
Below us, all is barren. But then Zogar shifts the focus of our vision, and I perceive scorched trees and rocks.
No. Some of the rocks are shifting. Like an invisible force is slowly rolling them.
“Does nothing live in the Darkness?”
This is Lymbo, he answers.The neutral zone between the Darkness and the Light.
I shudder. “There is somewhere darker than this?” It’s hard to imagine.
You need not fear the Darkness.
His knot pulses, and a sense of deep calm washes through me. And, for the first time, I feel a hint of sexual stimulation through our connection. My juices build, combining with whatever lubrication his pommel secretes.
Zogar flies back and forth, surveying this place he calls Lymbo, swooping low, soaring high, banking in steep turns as we take it all in.
