Page 91 of Taloned Heart

But, as he stared into that darkness, he found himself wavering. Hesitating. Fearful that in this moment, he was about to find something equally terrifying and heartbreaking.

His first step into the caves was into darkness. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light, and then to the blackness that surrounded him.

Then his foot crunched on something that felt like bone.

Abraxas tilted his head to the side, eyes closed in horror that threatened to eat him up inside. He’d known this was where a massacre had taken place, but he hadn’t... He’d never expected the mortals to leave them here. He’d thought this place would be raided by those who knew dragon bones and scales would come at a heavy price.

Surely the magician himself had come here. Lindon would have sensed the strange pools of magic that had come from crimson dragons spilling their lifeblood on the ground. Surely one such as that would have thought that desecrating such a burial ground was worth it if the magic he gained was much more powerful than ever before? Or had even Lindon realized that was too far?

And he still hadn’t opened his eyes.

Abraxas took a deep, calming breath and blinked his eyes open to see the horrors that surrounded him. Dragon skeletons littered the floor. Too many for him to count, considering they were scattered about in pieces where animals had come to feast. Many of their giant heads had glittering scales decorating the stone around them. Glittering scales that looked like droplets of fresh blood.

His heart lurched and his stomach rebelled. These were the last of his people. The last of the crimson dragons who should have protected their own kind, and instead, they had died in a cave. Terrified and trapped because the humans had forced them into this position.

He wanted to tilt his head back and roar with the injustice of it. He wanted to tear apart any human who stepped in his path for the next hundred years.

But his heart whispered this was not the way. He could not destroy an entire kingdom because of the pain in his chest. He had to find a new way forward so this would never happen again. And if he fell into the same trap that his people had fallen into before, then his end would surely look the same as this.

Slithering through the remains of the fallen, he picked through their bodies as the skulls stared back at him. They watched his movements with judgment, with hope, with the terrifying realization that they were still here. They were alive and well because they were inside of him.

And he felt so young.

Abraxas had lived for hundreds of years. He’d seen kingdoms rise and fall, and yet, in the weight of their dark eye sockets, he realized he was still so young. Still a child who needed the help of his ancestors and wanted nothing more than to hear the sound of his mother’s voice one last time.

And how small was he? He had thought he was a massive dragon, huge in comparison to all others, but he stood beside a skull of a dragon who had died with his head in a hole on the ground—perhaps what had once been a pool of water—and he was scarcely more than half of its size.

Would he continue to grow? There was no one to ask the questions he wanted answered. Would he only get larger as the years passed? Was it truly all right for him to mate with an elf, and not have to worry about the other generations because he’d already hatched two other eggs? He was replaced by two creatures who would make at least two more. Surely he’d done enough and now he could just rest with his beloved?

Abraxas continued moving through the massive cave system until he found them. The crystals. Glowing red and gleaming in the back of the caves, their light casting the entire space in an ominous and terrifying glow. This was where his people had died, protecting their memories with their bodies and their lives.

Shaking his head, he made his way closer to the tallest crystal, as Tanis had told him to do. She said all he needed was to touch it, just like his children, and the memories would come. It was less about maintaining them, protecting them, ensuring that the memories were exactly as they were meant to be. Instead, this was about consuming them so no one else would see them ever again.

And so he rested his giant weight next to the crystals, feeling the rocks biting against his scales and scratching his sides. Then he reached out and touched the tip of his nose to the crystal and let his eyes flutter shut.

At first, he felt nothing. Just the sensation of magic flowing over his body. Until it wriggled underneath a loose scale and his mind fractured.

He was himself and not. He was a dragon and two dragons and more, suddenly filled with a rush of souls that shouted for his attention.

They flooded through him, a sudden spiking headache splintering through his head as so many memories threatened to overwhelm him. They all wanted to show him what they thought he needed to know. What he needed to see. How he needed to act, to be, to move forward in his life as a dragon. And it was too much. It was all so much.

Until it cleared, and all the memories and souls moved aside for a vision of a much larger soul. The soul of the dragon who had died in the water. Abraxas suddenly knew he’d done so to leave a message. A message for Tanis, it seemed, as he filtered through the massive dragon’s memories.

Attor.

The dragon’s name was Attor, and he had been the greatest crimson dragon that this world had ever seen. He’d led the battle here, drawn all the dragons he could toward Umbra where the boats had come from. Where they had started a battle that would end the very lives of all the dragons in their homeland. He’d tried to fight for them, to bring an end to the madness, and he had failed.

But where he had failed, Abraxas would not.

Attor’s soul remained in this place, waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect dragon, to finish his work. Not to destroy or maim or ruin an entire kingdom. But to build back the hope and connection that dragons had once brought.

If another battle was the only way to bring about that new age, then Attor would share with him all that he knew.

Abraxas lived through the memories of training that Attor had given. To sapphire dragons who had only known how to fight in the water, but they could bring the water with them. To the emerald dragons who had only been wise and kind, and how he’d used their quick wit and intelligence to make them fierce warriors. Gold, red, shimmering purple. They’d all fought alongside this massive dragon who had led them toward what he had been certain would be a victory.

He watched them arrive with hope and determination in his chest. He’d known that all the colors of dragons arriving in one place was risky. That he could leave his homeland completely unprotected, but no human had ever made the journey to the dragon isles.

All those dragons had come together, and they had fought. At first, it was with success. They had rejoiced and the happiness that had flowed through his veins made everything all right. He could feel the pride that Attor had felt. He knew the sensation of relief and the hope that maybe this was over. Maybe it could be over and that he’d done the right thing.

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