Darius A Meeting With Crello

D ARIUS

A M EETING W ITH C RELLO

I sit up on the wooden floorboards. A musky scent hits my nose as I glance around at the familiar cottage, and the sun streaks through windows covered by long, tattered curtains. I carefully stand as a melodic voice hums what sounds like a lullaby from behind me.

I whirl around, my fists clenched, until I see a female. Her back is turned to me, tending to some freshly washed clothes, but I recognise the long dark waves of her hair all the same.

She stops humming and lifts her head without looking at me. ‘It is so good to finally meet you, Darius.’

I’m deathly silent.

She chuckles, sounding just like . . . her . ‘No, I am not your mother,’ she answers what is already going through my mind as she turns, those green eyes shimmering like the day she – my mother – died. ‘I am only a manifestation of her. My true name, however, is something we have in common.’

She speaks with a celestial grace to her. One I believe belongs to a deity.

Crello.

She smiles, showing the white gleam of her teeth, but the thought of someone else sporting my mother’s face vexes me.

‘Where am I?’ I ask without glancing at my surroundings. I already know exactly what this place is. What I care to know is why, when it no longer exists.

‘Your old home,’ Crello says, sliding delicate, thin fingers across the cracked wall and carved wooden artwork. ‘At least, this is what your mind first thought of when you died.’ She looks at me. ‘It is your haven.’

The memories of what happened barge into my mind, unwelcome. Images of Goldie crying as she plunged a dagger into my heart, as mine did with hers, haunt me on a loop.

‘Nara,’ I whisper.

‘She is safe,’ Crello says quickly. ‘Much how you are, too.’

I scoff, giving her an unkind stare. ‘How can we be, when we are dead, and you have my mother’s face?’

‘Your mother is what your heart wishes for. She may not be here, but you may speak to her once we are finished.’

I cock my head to the side. I want to get out of this place and find Goldie, and I need to see for myself that she is okay, not take the word of a likely hallucination in between a state of life and death. ‘Finished what exactly?’

‘Making a decision.’

Sighing, I cross my arms over my chest. ‘All right, then. My decision is that I wish to leave this place.’

Crello laughs, unaware that I’m deadly serious, or even if the deity does know, it doesn’t seem to care. ‘Do you see that?’ She looks towards my left, but my gaze never follows. ‘It’s the pendant your mother always carried. A sign of who she once was.’

I grit my teeth and stay silent without turning my head. I don’t understand why my mind took me to this place. It’s riddled with horrible moments of hiding, my mother’s death, and the times she would tell me of a future where she was still alive.

‘And who you are now,’ Crello states.

Anger rises in my chest and Crello can sense it. Whatever she thought would work is failing as the cottage around us disappears, replacing the worn floorboards with grass and overgrown trees.

‘Give it back!’ a young voice shouts, and the instant recognition makes me turn.

In front of me are two boys, one copper-haired and the other with dark, scraggly hair and a bunch of cuts and bruises on his face.

Lorcan and me.

‘Why do you even want this?’ Lorcan flails the crescent carving high up in the air, his right palm pressing against my chest. ‘It’s nothing but a piece of junk.’

Funny, I have always known how neglected I was back then, but seeing it now, I was skin and bone. Anyone could have snapped me in half.

‘I said, give it back!’ The younger me lunges at Lorcan once again, only for me to land on the ground as he lets go of me. My knees and elbows scrape against grass and mud, the usual look I donned back then whenever Lorcan and I went head-to-head over the stupidest things.

Except this time, I remember what happened.

To this day, I can still feel it. How much rage I had in me.

Lorcan’s laugh echoes throughout the woods. His eyes close as he clutches his middle, not knowing how much power was coursing through my veins at that moment.

I watch as this version of me gets up from the ground and rushes at Lorcan, releasing a guttural cry when shadows form at my fingertips and fly out at him.

Lorcan’s eyes widen and he ducks right as these shadow blades glide past the current me and lodge into a nearby tree trunk.

As a child, the anger in my eyes dims and my brows rise in fear.

I’d only gone through Ardenti’s powers and the beginnings of mind manipulation. Shadow was entirely new to me, and it made me terrified despite what my mother might have once told me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I’m whispering as Lorcan steadily rises to his feet. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He has a hand over his cheek, and when he withdraws it to look at the blood staining his palm, past me starts crying.

Sobs wrack my chest uncontrollably. ‘Please don’t tell him,’ I beg. ‘Please?’

Rayth.

I meant Rayth.

Lorcan slowly walks towards me, hands raised as if approaching a wild animal out of its cage. ‘I won’t,’ he says. ‘I promise. I’ll say I fell.’

And he did promise. It was just never enough.

That night, I was punished, not because Lorcan was hurt but because I was outside when I never should have been.

‘Why did you show me this?’ I look down at my side, the corner of my eye catching Crello’s silhouette.

‘Because on this very same day, you made yourself a promise,’ she says. ‘One where you would make yourself known to the world.’

When she comes to my side, I feel the need to look away.

I hear a soft sigh. It dares me to turn and face the image of my mother.

Crello stares at the trees, a serene smile coating her lips. When she notices my attention is on her, she says, ‘Everyone always says that the Rivernorths were the first dragons to be born.’

‘Were they not?’

‘There is always a mother, is there not?’

The corner of my lip lifts. ‘I suppose so,’ I murmur.

‘When we created this world, we also made the first piece of land, the first tree . . . the first dragon.’ Crello’s gaze flickers over to mine. ‘A dragon who possessed fire, mind, shadow and light like the Rivernorths. The ones to be born first were those by the rivers, and the next were what are now known as Umbrati, Ardenti, and finally, Merati. But because the Rivernorths were the first kind, they were something new, something powerful. And so, when the mother of dragons perished after the final birth of Meratis, Solaris and I made sure there would be another one day. Another source, for a newer generation. You – and Nara.’

I shake my head. ‘I never asked for this. Neither did Nara.’

‘We know,’ Crello whispers. ‘But sometimes sacrifices have to be made.’

Like today.

‘So, Darius, I ask you this. Are you willing to become more than just a shifter?’

I stare at her, the answer on the tip of my tongue.

I never say it.

I don’t think I need to as Crello smiles at me.

‘Goodbye, Darius,’ she says and starts to walk away.

‘Wait,’ I say, grinding my teeth at what I am about to ask. ‘You said I could speak with my mother.’

Crello bows at the waist. ‘As you wish.’

She disappears from my sight.

‘Shit,’ I mutter, running a thumb over my brow. Nerves gut me like a fish as I wait for something to happen.

After a minute, I hear my name spoken softly from behind me, and my heart and mind instantly tell me it is her.