Chapter 28

CHAPTER28

Lore gripped onto the spines of Abraxas’s back and tried very hard not to cry. The wind whipped at her cheeks, dashing away whatever liquid might fall from her, anyway. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered.

It didn’t matter that her own people still looked at her as a half elf even though she’d become something out of legend. It didn’t matter that Margaret had gathered up the elves and made them think of Lore as lesser even now.

She had her family. She had people she cared about. They were waiting for her, healing after all that she’d done to let them down. And Abraxas had stood there beside her the entire time. With pride and joy on his face because he knew she wouldn’t let them walk all over her again.

She’d thought she had gotten over this. That letting the elves go in that cell would have somehow made all this better. But their denial of her, their dismissal of someone they still called a goddess but wouldn’t see as anything other than a half elf, it still stung.

It hurt deep inside her soul. So deep that she feared she’d never be able to patch that wound or heal it because they had made it very clear they didn’t want her to heal.

After all this time, after all the fighting and surviving and power that coursed through her veins, she was still nothing to them. And she should never have shown them all that she could do.

Now they knew she could move the heavens if she wished. What limit was there to her power if she could do that?

And even knowing that terrified her. Lore shouldn’t be able to do that. No one should be able to reach into the sky and move the very moon itself! Yet here she was. Moving the moon. Blocking the sun from the sky until the entire kingdom was bathed in red.

Was she a goddess? Or a demon who had come to destroy them all?

Lore didn’t want to be this person anymore. She didn’t want the weight of the world on her shoulders and she didn’t want people to be frightened of her or even know she existed.

But then, by going back to that life of being nothing and no one, it meant that they had won. They’d reduced her to little more than a bug under their heel again and she couldn’t let them win.

Blinking away her tears, she realized they weren’t heading for the forest. They weren’t returning to the dark caverns that would make her heart turn cold once again. Instead, he’d wheeled them toward the sea.

He said nothing. Only skimmed his wings over the wave as he dipped them low, allowing the water to spray over her face and turn the air into a thousand prisms that cast rainbows all around her. He drifted over the salt air until she realized where he had brought them.

The island where they had first hatched their eggs. The sand was still turned to glass in places where the dragon eggs had burst through so their children could hatch.

And her soul clicked back into place.

Her children. They were waiting for her on the dragon isle and she couldn’t return to them until she finished what she had to do here. And in the end, it didn’t matter. Because the only people who did matter were those two dragon babes who had sat in her lap on these very sands and watched the waves with her as the moon hit the horizon and turned the water into silver.

How had he known what would ease her torment? Only Abraxas could see through her soul and the pain and know how to make her remember why they were here.

His wings beat at the air as he lowered them down onto the sands and then stretched out his wing for her to slide down.

Lore eased onto the ground, dropping onto her behind and digging her hands into the sand. She thought he would change back into his mortal form, but apparently, he was staying very true to this memory. Abraxas curled his giant body around her, draping his wing all around them until there was only a small sliver for her to see through. Everything was a cocoon of warm ruby.

A giant sigh stirred the sands in front of him as he rested his head beside her. “Do you think they miss us?”

It wasn’t the question she’d expected. Lore was so startled by the words that she actually laughed. “I think they do. I am certain that they wish their parents were there, considering how strict Tanis is.”

“And Draven,” he muttered. “If he’s touched her while we were not there, I will swallow him whole.”

“Just make sure he doesn’t have any knives on him, so he cannot carve himself a way out of you.” Lore patted Abraxas’s cheek and then leaned her entire body against it. “He would like to crawl out, all bloodied from battle.”

Abraxas snorted. “He would like the story, but not the truth of it. It would be much harder than he thinks. My stomach is thick.”

“And you have no small amount of ego when it comes to your ability to beat that elf in anything that he or you try.” Shaking her head, she marveled at his ability to turn her thoughts away from what just happened.

Abraxas knew how to distract her, but this was not something that would easily go away. Not even with the thoughts of their children. Although, the thoughts were much easier now that she had their souls to guide her.

At her sudden silence, and likely the way her expression fell, Abraxas sighed again. “You know your worth is not weighed by the opinion of elves?”

“I do.”

“But I also know that the sting of their rejection will never disappear. You can try to tell yourself that it will, Lore. And it may grow easier with time, but you will always have to deal with the disappointment of them. They are not worth your time, but I also know saying this doesn’t help you.”

“It doesn’t.” She hugged her knees into her chest, pressing more firmly against him. “I think there will always be a part of me that wishes they would change their mind. That they would see me for who I am and not for what they believe me to be.”

His tail shifted in the sands behind them, lashing for a moment in anger before he forced himself to still. “I wish that as well. But the old ways are hard to break. At least there are the Ashen Deep who have not yet lost their minds to power.”

“Because they’ve always had it.” Lore shook her head. “They’ve always guarded the grimdags and their dark caverns and their Matriarch who leads them. All the other clans barely even have our history, or language, or all that we sought to preserve. Those who fought lost everything. And they think in doing this, they will get it all back.”

“They are wrong.”

She nodded. “They are.”

But they would never see that they were wrong. Why would they even think to admit it? The entire kingdom was exactly as they wanted it. Magical creatures and no one else. It didn’t matter that their citizens were hungry, or that they hadn’t really fixed any of the problems that were now just passed to their own people.

There was magic in the world again, and that was enough for the elves.

Lore lost herself in thoughts for a few more moments until Abraxas nudged her. “Did you talk with Nyx?”

“What?” She looked into his giant eye before she sighed and nodded. “I did. When we were walking through the bog. I can apparently connect through our daughter’s mind, and I think even project an image of her if I wish. It’s something to do with the magic.”

“Why don’t we try to talk with her now?”

Because... She didn’t want Abraxas to be disappointed. “I don’t know if you can even see her when I do it. Or hear her.”

He shrugged. “I’ll follow along on your end, if I must. You can tell me what she says, or perhaps I will just listen. I enjoy hearing you speak with our children, Lore. Even if I am not involved, it still makes me happy.”

She wondered how much he missed their dragon babes. He had been the one to guard them for centuries, after all. And she had only known them for a few moments.

Cheeks flaming with embarrassment that she hadn’t tried this with him already, Lore used her magic to tug on the thread that connected her and Nyx.

An answering tug almost immediately reached out for her, and then she could feel her daughter’s presence in her mind. And with one last push of power, she could see Nyx in the rolling waves before them. There were sprays of water that lapped up at her face, as though she was in the sea as well.

“Mother?” Nyx said, her voice filled with excitement. Her wings spread wide in surprise as her eyes got even bigger. “Father?”

Abraxas sat up, his eyes filled with love and the scales on his back rising in surprise. “You can see me?”

“I can see you as if you were standing before me! Can you see me?” Nyx splashed a bit and Lore swore she could feel the spray of water on her face.

“I can see you, child.” Abraxas looked down at Lore as though she were a gift given to him by the heavens. “Your mother’s magic is impressive, is it not?”

“Mother is impressive,” Nyx corrected.

Oh, she needed to hear that. She’d needed those words so much just to know that her children at least thought she was worthy of something. And Abraxas must have known.

He glanced down at her with a prideful grin and a wide-eyed stare that said he had known Nyx would say that. “Indeed, she is. Probably the most impressive woman I’ve ever met.”

“And if you said anything else, I would have to fly all the way out to wherever you are to bite some sense into you.” Nyx bristled, but then rolled her eyes. “Should I call for Hyperion? He’d like to see you, although it would be fun to hold this over his head again.”

“Please don’t start a fight with your brother already,” Abraxas grumbled. “Yell for the boy.”

Lore covered her ears. She even had to use a bit of her power to dampen the sound of her daughter screaming for her brother. The roar would have shaken the ground if she was here, and almost did even though it was just magic amplifying her voice.

But then Hyperion tumbled into their few, his giant body splashing into the water before he wrestled himself upright and draped himself over his sister. “Is that them?”

“I told you I wasn’t making it up!”

“You tell stories all the time. How was I supposed to know that Mother could project herself like this?” He loomed far too close to them, his giant mouth gaping open and his beard longer than she remembered. “Hello!”

“Hyperion,” she sighed. “You do not need to get so close to us. We can see you just fine.”

“I’m looking to see how tired you are and if Father has let you run yourself ragged again.” He peered even closer and then snorted. “Yes, he has. Father, didn’t we talk about this before you left?”

Abraxas rolled his eyes up toward the sky. “I remember telling you to take care of your sister, and to keep an eye out for that ridiculous elf that’s been sniffing around her.”

Of course, they were already on this, but before Nyx could argue with her father, a very familiar voice interrupted them. “I take offense to that. I know how old she is, curmudgeon.”

Draven appeared in front of Nyx, then Tanis and Rowan, who were both in mortal forms and dragging three dragonlings behind them.

Tears pricked at her vision.

This was her family. Her people who waited for her back home. And oh, how she loved them. Their wild antics and their laughter as they all told stories about what she and Abraxas had missed. They all flailed their arms about and made the stories seem all the more wild and messy. But she knew what they were doing.

Because Nyx’s eyes never left her. Her daughter saw too much, just as Lore had seen too much in her own mother. Perhaps when she died, Nyx would get this power and she would become a dragon goddess who razed the kingdom to the ground as her mother had not been able to do. But that was not Lore’s path. Not yet.

Hyperion and Draven were performing a small battle that apparently they had learned together, as Draven wished to fight dragons now. For whatever reason. Abraxas leaned low and muttered in her ear, “Isn’t it better when they’re all involved?”

“It is.”

“Don’t you think it would be better if they were here with us?”

Her heart fluttered in her chest, but then she shook her head. “Ah, I do not know. I need them safe, and safety is not in this kingdom. Not for anyone in our family.”

“Look at them, Lore. You have a young elf who can fight dragons now. Two full grown dragons who may not be adults yet, but who are capable of fighting. Another full grown dragon, an ancient elf with knowledge of fighting that neither of us could dream of.”

“And three children who need their parents.”

He hummed low under his breath. “Perhaps we can lose the guidance of one elf, then. Let the dragons come to Umbra, Lore. It is time that we let them grow up.”

And as she watched them all, Lore thought maybe he was right. As much as she wanted to shelter them, they were larger than before. Grown up while she wasn’t even there to see them. And did she want to miss more time with her children, even though that meant spending time with them in the middle of a war?

“Tanis,” she interrupted, speaking for the first time in a while. Everyone froze and looked at her. “Are my children ready to fly?”

Tanis gazed back at her with what looked like respect in her eyes. “They are, goddess.”

“Then I would like you to send them to me. Abraxas will guide them, and he’ll meet you halfway in case they need to rest. I find I want my family around me now, more than ever.”

And though they all stared back at her in silence, Lore could feel in her heart this was the right choice. It was time to bring her family back together. To show them her home.