Mourning

ZAYDA

I studied the watermarks on the ceiling. They looked like worms.

Worms that soon would be crawling through Xythor’s rotting flesh.

I closed my eyes, tight, trying to shut out the bad thoughts.

This was my most reliable strategy, though it didn’t seem to be good for anything.

Not for sleep, and definitely not for warding off bad thoughts.

“Zayda,” Thea whispered from the doorway of my bedroom.

“Thea,” I replied.

Since I had returned to my old apartment, Thea had been walking around on eggshells, checking on me every ten minutes.

It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the effort. And it’s not that I didn’t want her company…or that I didn’t have any energy. If anything, I had too much.

I just didn’t want to worry her.

The bizarre strength I’d experienced during Xythor’s sickness endured, and now I was filled with manic energy.

The night before, as Xythor held me, I knew those hours were his last. He fell asleep, and then he was gone.

I’d cried in the moonlight, stroking his motionless face one last time.

And then I took his advice.

I got the hell out of the apartment.

And I walked the streets of Requiem City back to my old place.

It was late when I got back to the old apartment, and I was a total mess. Harry let me inside and immediately went to get Thea.

He had no idea what to do with a grief-stricken girl.

I told Thea everything, then she lay down with me in my old bed.

My mind was racing, my muscles twitching under my skin.

But I couldn’t tell Thea that.

I encouraged her to go back to bed with Darshan. I told her I needed to be alone.

But all alone in the room, I felt very bad for myself.

I was a mess.

Xythor was gone, and what did I have left?

I had burned bridges with my friends. Even though they were welcoming me back, I just felt like a burden.

I had a job, but my boss was potentially an evil maniac.

I had magic, whatever that meant. Apparently, I was a Blood Raven. A powerful mage.

But if this misery was part of my power, I didn’t want anything to do with it.

I had all this frantic energy inside of me. I was stronger than I’d ever been, and I had no idea why.

When I was sure everyone was asleep, I snuck out of the apartment.

In the darkness, I ran the streets. I ran as fast as my legs could take me.

I ran until the birds woke up and the sun started to rise.

I was hoping to tire myself out.

But when I got back to the apartment and let myself in, even then I couldn’t sleep.

All morning, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

Thinking about the worms.

“Someone’s here to see you,” Thea said.

I’d forgotten she was there, standing in my doorway.

“Who?” I asked.

A young, beautiful woman with silver hair stepped out from behind Thea and into my room. I knew immediately who she was.

“Thank you, Thea,” she said, tucking a lock of silver hair behind her ear.

Thea strained her neck to join us, but Silver shut the door.

When we were alone, she turned to me and sighed.

Even though we had never met, it felt like we already knew each other.

Silver’s very presence calmed me. I felt tears coming again, and she saw them too.

She crossed the room and hopped onto my bed.

“I’m so sorry to meet you like this, Zayda,” she whispered as she stroked my hair. “You poor thing.”

There was so much I wanted to tell her, so much I wanted to ask—but I was crying too hard to say a word.

“This tragic situation means we get to skip the small talk,” she said with a small smile. “My friend loved you, so I love you too.”

Her words cut straight to my heart.

“Thank you, Silver. I’ve been looking for you… Tried to, anyway” I managed before the tears came back.

She just held me, touching my back. How strange that this stranger could comfort me better than any of my friends.

It was because she understood.

“You did everything you could,” she said.

This just made me cry harder. Had I? Should I have listened to Xythor? Should I have just taken him to the goddamn hospital against his will?

When the tears slowed finally, I asked her the question that troubled me the most through this whole hellish saga.

“What happened?”

Silver shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“It’s just so...~fucked up.”~ I wept.

“I know,” she said. “But I know something that will make you feel better.”

I stared at her and wiped my nose on the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

What could ~possibly~ make me feel better?

“I organized a service for Xythor later today,” she told me. “You cared for him all alone. It will be good to remember him in the company of his friends.”

She gave me a sad smile.

“Even though you don’t know us yet, we want to keep you company.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, necessarily. I just felt so ~raw.~

“I don’t know if I can do that, Silver,” I whispered, looking at my shaking hands.

“Yes, you can,” she replied. “Now get up. I’m going to help you get dressed.”

MADDIE

I stood in the middle of the forest clearing and squeezed Hael’s hand in mine.

Silver went on philosophizing about the circle of life…

She was flanked by dragons in their human forms. I knew that every dragon I’d ever seen was here. Dane, Aneurin, Hael, Adara…

Well, every dragon except for Loch.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that my mate was AWOL—again—but it still hurt.

Had Loch lost all of his humanity?

Beside Silver, a man touched the small of her back.

He had long, iridescently white hair and wore round spectacles. He wore a tasteful black suit and his very presence commanded respect.

Storm.

We met each other’s eyes. It sent a shiver down my spine.

There were others at the service who I’d never seen before. It was clear that all of them were dragons.

They all had the same mysterious beauty. And they all wore glamorous outfits.

There was so much to look at, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Zayda. She stood beside Xythor’s coffin, at the top of the freshly dug grave.

Thea, Harry, and Darshan stood a respectful distance behind her.

Dane and Aneurin stood at the fringes, looking awkward. I knew they weren’t exactly comfortable, but I was glad they were here.

The rest of the guests huddled around.

“Let Xythor’s death be a lesson to all of us,” Silver went on, “that we need to hold each other close. We dragons share a rare gift, and when one of us hurts, we all hurt.”

A small murmur went up in the scattered crowd.

Dragons didn’t exactly seem to be ~communal~ creatures, and the dragons of this city didn’t “hold each other close.”

From the way Hael shifted his stance at my side, I wondered whether or not he was interested in the prospect of community.

The dragons of Requiem City had never been at peace. Not since Freesia had spilled her baby’s blood around the perimeter of Requiem City, binding the dragons within its walls.

“We must take care of one another. Though we are unique, we are not alone.”

Silver met my eye, and I nodded to her.

I agreed with her words.

It was wrong that Xythor had passed away right under our noses.

My heart ached for Zayda, who looked for help and didn’t find it.

She asked ~me~ for help. And I had denied her.

It made me sick.

I stared at my shoes.

I still owed Xythor a debt after he had saved me from my mates.

In that moment, I knew what I would do.

I would put aside our feud and be there for Zayda in this trying time.

“In honor of Xythor’s life, I propose a dragon flare.” Silver squared her shoulders and spoke with conclusive certainty.

“All dragons! Please shift and blast your flames in memory of our fallen friend. We stand in solidarity with Xythor as we mourn his death here in Requiem City.”

Suddenly, all dragons around me shifted.

Harry, Darshan, Zayda, and I lowered the casket into the open earth.

As soon as Xythor’s body was settled in the ground, a silver flame shot over our heads, across the clearing.

It was immediately joined by other bursts of fire—light green and deep green, pink and orange.

I was delighted to see that Dane and Aneurin had shifted, too. They pointed their massive snouts up to the sky.

The fire mingled and sparkled. The beauty of the scene brought tears to my eyes. Just then, a black flame curling through the rainbow caught my attention.

~Loch?!~

Seeing my mate made my heart sing. Could this mean he wasn’t so far gone?

But as quietly as the flame appeared, it faded from the display.

I turned around just in time to see a black dragon disappearing over the treetops.

Loch was on the move again…

But where was he off to now?

ZAYDA

I passed the entrance sign to Xander University.

I was arriving to work about five hours late, but Xander would have to deal.

Some things were more important than a fucking internship.

Like mourning the death of the love of your life.

I wore my black dress and avoided the eyes of all the students I passed.

Once, I was like them. But that felt like a lifetime ago.

My heart still ached like a gaping wound, but Silver was right.

The funeral did help me.

Xythor’s independence was part of what I loved about him, but it made it that much harder when he got sick.

It meant a lot to me that the dragon community rallied around him, even after he was gone.

I felt like they were supporting me, too.

I kicked a stone and watched it rocket across the grass and nearly halfway across a pond before it fell in the water.

~Oops.~

Grief made it harder to focus on other parts of my life.

Like this unexplainable power.

I sighed.

I was such a fucking mess.

I could only pray that I could pull myself back together without Xythor.

I pulled open the door to the laboratory building and descended the stairs.

This place was a goddamned dungeon.

How could I focus on something so menial when Xythor was dead?

I leaned into the laboratory door and it swung open with my weight.

“Xander?” I called. The room was empty.

“Come here, Zayda,” my mentor’s voice responded.

It came from his office, a room I’d never entered before…

I opened up a wooden door to a sort of evil library. Xander sat in a dilapidated armchair, surrounded by giant books, sparkling crystals, and strange creatures suspended in jars filled with formaldehyde.

Xander sank into the chair and a sick little smile played on his lips.

“Welcome back, my protégé. I take it you’ve had a rough morning indeed.”

My brow furrowed. Did Xander know that Xythor had died?

“It is time that you know, Zayda, just how powerful you are…”