117 | faith; in all the sacrifices made

Underneath the gleaming stalactites, two bodies sat next to each other, draped across the ground as they watched the water ripple with every slow drop that fell from the ceiling.

Kaden curled up his legs, lazily leaning sideways as he peered over.

Noah's eyes were closed, his hand enclosing Kaden's tightly. Their breathing intertwined to form a natural rhythm, the sound of two lives meant to merge.

Kaden quietly and carefully squeezed Noah's hand as if frightened that it was all an illusion, a peaceful delusion he would never want to wake from.

It was frightening—trusting somebody to love him and to remain by his side.

To dare imagine such a future.

His eyes darted to the rippling lake that illuminated the walls of the cave and saw a standing shadow, slender and lonely. It was an illusion, he knew.

"What if he betrays you?" The shadow wondered, insecurity and fear weighing their voice.

"Then he betrays me."

"What if he stops loving you?"

"Then he stops loving me."

"Can you bear it?"

Kaden buried his head down, holding tightly onto the warm hand that limply entangled with his. He smiled tiredly, fiddling with the inked fingers that Noah despised but Kaden adored.

"I can't," he admitted softly, raising his gaze to meet his shadow—the delusion of his own making. "But I won't run away."

The shadow blinked at him, long and slow. Disapproving. The lake lapped at its feet and it evaporated, fading back into the void of his thoughts.

The dragon shifted in his slumber, rousing from his deep dreams. His eyes cracked open a slit, drowsy as he murmured and pressed closer to Kaden in an attempt to absorb some warmth.

Kaden raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Stealing all my warm, darling Bellamy? I'll become an icicle."

"Mn," Noah hummed tiredly, the pain still lingering in his healing wounds. "If you do, there's a simple solution."

Kaden leaned in, intrigued. "And that is?"

"I'll warm you up."

Kaden paused. "And then steal all my warmth again?"

"A symbiotic relationship," muttered the dragon calmly. "If it's a cycle, then you won't be able to leave again. Not unless you want to freeze."

The last portion had been spoken with more bite, a half-hearted threat and Kaden coughed between laughter and surprise.

"Are you threatening me, Bellamy?"

Noah fully opened his eyes now, sliding his dark gaze sideways. "I'm threatening you, Chauvet."

"I'm terrified. I have no choice but to submit to your threats."

Despite seeing the teasing tilt of Kaden's lips, the curve of mischief that he'd missed for so many years, Noah nodded in satisfaction.

He shuffled again and Kaden frowned. Noah wore a sliced shirt, dampened by blood and dirt, torn at the edges. He was a little curious about how clothing remained intact after the transformation but decided it wasn't a good time to ask.

Another time, he would inquire about all his curiosities about a dragon's biology.

"What should we do, Bellamy?" Kaden sighed, knocking his head lightly against the rocky background. Noah frowned and stretched out a hand to still the disobedient head.

"Reed's retaliation won't be simple. If I'd still been there, we might've been able to try to overthrow him from within—"

"You're not there. Do not entertain the possibility."

"...I know. I know, I shouldn't—"

"Even in your head," muttered Noah, his hand curling around Kaden possessively. "Don't you dare imagine leaving me."

Kaden allowed his body to be maneuvered according to the dragon's wishes, lazily leaning against the other with his full weight. He nodded obediently. "I won't."

"I know the thought is lingering in your foolish mind. Eradicate it."

"Eradicated."

"Erase even the memories of thinking about leaving."

"Erased," smiled Kaden as he fell backward, forcing Noah to lower his legs and serve as a lap pillow. "You're ridiculous, Bellamy. How have I never seen that?"

"You never looked." The dragon seemed to be sulking, gloomy and complaining as he pitifully lowered his eyes, dark lashes casting a shadow over his sharp cheekbones.

Kaden lifted his hand and the other snatched it, fiddling with it tightly. He laughed lightly, allowing his fingers to be woven between the other's.

"Yes. Now that I know you can't bear to be apart from me, I have all the time to look all you want."

"All I want? Are you implying that you don't want to?"

Kaden squinted up at him. "Don't focus on the technicalities, dearest Bellamy."

"I'm a writer. I only focus on technicalities. Otherwise, why do they exist?" The dragon was solemn and expressionless, and Kaden laughed again.

Then, Noah stiffened and jerked his head up, staring deeply across the lake. There, where they'd been emptiness before, was a gloomy dragon who watched them with a scowl.

"You're friend," started the dragon sharply. "Keeps causing trouble. Return and deal with him at once."

Kaden raised his eyebrows, tilting his head. "I've never been one to follow orders." Noah blinked at him in questioning and Kaden cleared his throat.

"Stranger's orders," he corrected, embarrassed by his years of obedience.

The gloomy dragon glowered and Kaden felt a chill bite into his skin, rippling across the serene lake. It caused a jingle of music to scatter across the space as his power lapped against the hollowed walls.

"Wisteria." Noah only spoke a single word, but the younger dragon stiffened immediately and the thrum of power in the air retreated.

"You're healed. You don't have to remain in here anymore." Wisteria fidgeted, looking years younger than his gaunt disposition made him. "Hurry up and leave, you're taking up the space."

Noah's gaze softened. "...it's good to see you, Teri."

"It's not good to see you. You shouldn't have returned."

"Yet I have. And so have you."

"Unwillingly."

Kaden scoffed, wearing the sort of irritating smile he specialized in when provoking others. "Wasn't it your two wings that brought us here?"

Wisteria looked away, balancing on one foot and then the other before he spun around, wings unfolding from his back. He scowled, shaking his head.

Then, he shot into the air where a small exit existed, wrapping his wings around himself to become slim and narrow.

Kaden stared and swung his head around. "That little entrance there—could it fit two?"

Noah blinked and nodded. "It should, barely."

"......"

Then what was with the creepy, suffocating entrance Kaden was forced to squeeze through? If flying straight inside was that easy?

Noah noticed his confusion and annoyance, patting his back. "There are two possibilities why he didn't lead you that way. The other entrance is a test—he wanted to see if he could entrust me to you."

Kaden narrowed his eyes, unwilling to fall for the pretty excuse. "And the other reason?"

"He doesn't like you." Noah paused, thinking deeply about something. His expression was so serious, that Kaden frowned in questioning.

After a long bout of silence, the dragon calmly opened his mouth.

"What should I do? My family doesn't like you."

Kaden fell silent.

"You've changed, Bellamy." He clicked his tongue. "If I'm disliked, so what? There's only one person I need in your family to like me."

Noah huffed in amusement, endearment lining the edges of his softened gaze. They lingered for a moment, a second longer to enjoy their respite of peace, of solitude between two, before Noah unfurled his magnificent wings and soared into the skies with Kaden caged in his arms.

The wound had healed marginally, still terrible and painful, but Noah didn't feel worried about losing control. Not when he had his personal calming pill trapped in his hold.

Noah knew the direction to go; the land was ingrained in his bones, even after abandoning it. His eyes darted around, at the different domains belonging to different dragons.

The Land of the Dragons was curious like that—one second, a person could be strolling through the flourishing forest, and the next, a snow blizzard of unimaginable colds. Each domain typically had several dragons making their independent nests within.

In each, there would be an elder. The elder wouldn't be involved but existed to monitor and punish any that fell out of line.

It was a biological premonition of something greater, more powerful than all of them. That sensation transferred into fear and forced them to remain stable, obedient, and secluded. Because those elders, even to other dragons, could promise a fate much worse than death.

If things had gone as planned, Noah would've been elected to step up as the next elder once he'd aged further.

There were times when elders grew old and withered and not even ancient knowledge could keep them living, that the role would be passed to the one with the most potential.

Noah Bellamy.

The greatest potential to become a catalyst; a destroyer. To live feared by not only humans but his own kind.

Born to be an elder, not a protector. A slayer of those disobedient, an icon, and an item.

Kaden brushed his hand lightly along Noah's arm, noticing his plummeting mood. He tilted his head as if questioning, and Noah shook his head lightly.

They landed at the open entrance to a cave covered by hanging white vines. When Kaden walked closer, he realized they weren't vines but strings of slender bone filaments, woven into a curtain.

He brushed the curtain open and was startled. There, squatting with a warping face that tethered between old and young, blinked a woman with a wicked smile.

"Ah, my supper continues to grow larger. I'll feed myself for years."

Her hungry eyes raked his body, dissecting him in the deep, empty, and emotionless pupils. Kaden stared, brushing away his chills before he plopped down in front of her, matching her smile.

There was a saying. When meeting a crazy person, you just needed to be crazier.

"Would you like a taste?" He held out a slender, well-shaped hand covered in hideous scars. "I dowse myself in alcohol three times a week, eat oily soup and rotten vegetables, and may have poison in my blood. I haven't tested the last option—"

The green eyes gleamed coldly, his expression coloured by a deep frost. "Will you be my experiment?"

The elder's shoulders shrunk back as her nose wrinkled in dislike. It was a charming hand despite its scars, and the man was handsome—but frightening. In all his smiles and calmness, there was a twisting madness deep within.

The madness threatened to crawl out of his cold eyes and lunge for her throat.

She clutched her cane and opened her mouth to speak before she was silenced by a pair of inked hands that grabbed the sinner by the collar, dragging him backward.

Noah looked down at Kaden coldly. "We need to discuss your drinking and eating habits. And your habit of threatening dangerous people."

Kaden gulped, looking away sheepishly.

"People," protested the old woman with a rasp. "Refers to humans."

"You're not significant enough for me to worry about technicalities," snarled Noah, his eyes pitch black and threatening. "Where is Niklas? I'm well aware, Elder, of your fondness for small animals and rodents. You do not eat humans."

"Perhaps I've had a change of taste."

"And perhaps I could learn the delicacy of my kind," said the other with an eerie coldness. "Would you like to continue playing jokes?"

The woman squinted at him, but there was a hierarchy in these lands, and even if she was at the top, this was a dragon not to be threatened. She clicked her tongue, slinking closer to the walls, and led them to the far end of the cave.

Little bone fragments scattered across the ground—the carcasses of rodents and small animals, according to Noah. There were several stacks piled high, bones picked clean of the flesh.

Kaden wrinkled his nose at the increasingly repulsive stench that soaked into the moss-lined walls.

At the very end, a man slept with his eyes closed to the world. A woman sighed beside him, scribbling into her notebook, trying to keep her mind occupied. The teenager sitting with them lifted his gaze, eyes widening into saucers.

He leaped to his feet, rushing over like an obedient puppy.

Kaden almost saw an invisible tail wagging at an impossible speed. But Arlo skidded to a stop before Kaden, almost the same height as the other.

"Kaden," greeted Arlo in a whisper, disbelief in his voice.

For so many years, he'd waiting to find him. He'd known that Kaden was in the castle and had glimpsed him once or twice, but never approached him. He didn't dare to, scared of what consequences it would bring.

He wanted to slap his cheeks to confirm his weakness, but before he could raise his hands, a helpless smile spread across Kaden's face.

"You're hopeless, Arlo."

Years of emotion flooded out of the young boy in moments.

Arlo sobbed and rushed forward, engulfing Kaden in a hesitant hug. Although the latter was frozen in surprise, he slowly and awkwardly patted the teenager's broad back.

The once small and bony child had grown taller and stronger.

Kaden sighed softly. There were elements of himself he saw in Arlo, and perhaps it was with a desperate need, a yearning to save that young version of himself, that he'd helped that boy.

An abusive household and a dead mother. A dull throb pulsed in Kaden's head, fragments of memory blending. It was a memory forgotten until that moment, the jarring appearance making Kaden's chest constrict.

It was said that memories before the age of three were unreliable, and he was little more than a child when he'd been abandoned.

He remembered his mother's death—why had they left? Why and how; what were the events leading up, he couldn't remember.

All Kaden knew was that his mother had been murdered by his father.

And he was left to the violence of the slums.

One, two, three. A finger gently tapped on the back of his hanging hand in rhythms of three, and he exhaled deeply. Kaden pulled away from Arlo who reluctantly parted, wilting slightly.

"I've grown taller!" said Arlo instead, happily beaming. The disparity between the sunny teenager who wanted to show off and Reed's solemn and loyal knight was startling. "But not taller than you, yet."

The last words had been spoken joyously. Arlo wanted to grow extremely tall and strong to protect Kaden so that the man would never have to suffer again.

But, he didn't want to grow taller than Kaden just yet. He wanted to keep growing by that person's side.

Kaden smiled affectionately, ruffling the teenager's soft bed of hair. "Yeah. Not yet."

He walked over to Holly, crouching down to peer at Niklas. The longer he stared, the more he felt like the closed eyes twitched.

"....." He turned to Holly who sighed into her hands. "He's asleep, right?"

"Yeah. He hasn't moved this entire time, and although I sometimes wonder if he's more pleasant to look at while unconscious, it's getting a little boring." She straightened. "Well, I mean, his health is important too, of course!"

"......" Kaden ignored the first part and leaned in closer to the sleeping man, playing dead. He squinted, but there was no response.

Then, he lowered his head and wondered quietly, "So, Sir Organizer. Did you dare spread rumours of my infidelity and bed-wetting? If so, I believe we have a score to settle. One that ends with a rock to your face."

The pair of blue eyes cracked and a hesitant smile slowly spread. "Shall we negotiate, Mr. Fox? My face is a rather valuable and priceless asset."

"I'll pay for your surgery. We can fix you up with a better face," offered Kaden kindly.

"Ah, this is a priceless artifact."

"Even priceless artifacts can be remade."

Niklas lunged to a sitting position but the sudden movement made him recoil, and he clamped a hand over his mouth. He choked and shoved Kaden away, blood splattering across the ground.

Kaden stared in horror at the red streaked across the bone-littered ground. It was striking against the white. "Niklas?"

The elder snickered behind him, watching the scene with a smile. "Why, dear boy, his lifespan may be long but not eternal. Anybody would react similarly after being reaped of a decade of vitality."

"A decade of his life?" Kaden swung around, violence burning in his gaze. "What did you do to him?"

"I did something, yes." She twirled, gnawing on a piece of bone. "Nothing without his request, of course. You cannot blame me for his decisions, my dear. It's awfully unbecoming."

Kaden swung his head again, fixated on his friend. "Niklas?"

Holly similarly looked upon them in horror. She'd assumed Niklas had encountered something, but due to the lack of abnormalities, she hadn't been worried. She tried her best not to be, lest her worry become a liability.

Niklas sighed deeply. "It's nothing important, Kaden."

"Nothing important?" echoed the elder, gathering a pile of white bone into her arms. "Even if those ten years are his to have?"

"Be quiet!"

All heads turned to Niklas who huffed, heaving as he wiped away the remaining blood from his mouth. He looked pleadingly at Kaden who took a step back with a trembling gaze.

"Ten years. Why? You've made a mistake, Niklas."

As his shaking words fell, Niklas jerked up completely, glaring. "It's not a mistake." His voice was stern, a low hiss of anger as his eyebrows furrowed. "It's not. By the Watchers, nothing is working the way I wanted it to."

He stood up, his legs shaky and weak. "Kaden."

It was a rare seriousness in his frivolous friend. Kaden spun around, walking towards the exit.

Before he could, a warm and scaled hand grabbed his wrist. He trembled, slowly turning his despairing head to meet the dragon's steady gaze.

There was fear and hesitation in Noah's voice as he reminded, "You said you wouldn't run, Chauvet."

The dragon had suspected many things in Niklas, but his words told another truth. Kaden's lifespan. Noah didn't want to think of it. More than that, he could not let that fool run away again.

If he ran again, would he come back another time?

Kaden stared, green eyes wide and uncertain. He swallowed hard, nodding stiffly before he gently pried off the firm fingers.

He took a deep breath and stalked up to the patient.

"Kaden—"

—and swung a punch towards his face.