Starlight (The Dragonian Series Book 5) (61 page)

We both disappeared and I opened my eyes, finding him still sitting with his head against mine back underneath the trees.

“That really happened?”

“Shhhh, you can’t tell anyone.”

I nodded. I understood now why none of them told anybody. Their enemies would definitely kill us if they knew. It would destroy them.

“Something doesn’t make sense, Blake. If all of that really happened, it means you warned Herbert. It means that you knew before I even entered Paegeia and still….”

“I didn’t Elena.”

“Then how?”

“That is one part I don’t know the answer to, but that really happened.”

“It was two different times. When you went through that…” I froze and looked at him.

“What?”

“It’s like you jumped back in time.”

“That’s what the Dent is, Elena.”

His face fell as if he was in some sort of pain.

“What is it?”

He shook it off and smiled softly at me again. “Now you know how much I love you, and that I always will.”

Tears lingered in his eyes.

What is he not telling me?

A familiar feeling emerged in the pit of my stomach. One I’d felt only two times before.
Why did it feel like I was never going to see him again?

Our eyes met again and I just grabbed him and kissed him like I’d never kissed him before.

Blake.

I WOKE UP and a tear rolled down my cheeks.

That felt so real.

I looked at Elena’s lifeless body.

My Essence hadn’t worked. She was hooked up to machines that made a soft peep every few seconds.

Today was the day Constance was going to switch off everything.

But I’d placed an enchantment over her, one that would preserve her body as if she was just in a deep sleep, and not dead.

I needed to find my last two orbs. They would become whatever I needed. They just had to become what I needed them now to become.

I climbed off the bed and the door opened. Constance and my mother walked in.

“Blake.”

“Mom, please. Just wait. The enchantment will hold.”

“Your father isn’t going to be able…”

“HE needs to, for me. Please!” I yelled at her, cutting her off. “I can’t live without her. Just wait until I have all my orbs. I can fix this.”

Constance and Mom both gasped and looked at me with huge eyes.

“What do you mean you can fix this?” Constance asked. “Nothing can bring the dead back to life, Blake you know that.”

I nodded. I did know that. But that was not what I need them for.

“I need to find my orbs. Just don’t let them bury her, because then it’s over.”

I walked over to her bed and my lips touched her cheek softly.

She still smelled like her, she was still warm. I breathed in her smell, what made her her, and a tear rolled over my cheek. I shut my eyes. I couldn’t bear to leave her, but I had no choice.

That dream had felt so real, as if I could reach her mind again. As if I’d finally got through to her about what the Dent was, but I knew it wasn’t her. It was me, wanting it to be her. I’d gotten better and better at it every time I’d showed her that. She would become more real, the way I remembered her.

She didn’t know anything, because if she did know what she meant to me she would’ve opened her eyes like I’d told her to that day.
It’s all she has to do!

Those questions she’d asked. She’d never asked them before but it was something that had been in the back of my mind for a long time.
Did I jump back into the past? That kiss…
it was how I’d always wanted to kiss her, but I was afraid that it would unlock memories again and then she would end up ignoring me. She would never be afraid anymore if she would just wake up. I knew how hard it was. I didn’t want to wake up either.

“Soon, I’ll see you soon. I promise.”

I sniffed, kissed her on her head one last time and got up. I didn’t pay any attention to my mom and aunt, and walked out the door.

It had been a month since Etan had been freed, and she was one of the many that had been lost to us.

I needed to find my orbs.

ELENA

“I CAN’T LET you do that,” a male voice said.

No reply came.

“But there are no limits when it comes to your breed. You should’ve never let them become this.”

Still he didn’t receive a reply.

“If you find what you’re looking for, you need to understand one thing. Someone needs to take her spot. Someone that’s alive now.” Silence filled the air for a few seconds. “Are you ready to play God?”

Still no reply.

“And it’s the only way. Death can’t be cheated. Do you understand the consequences?”

It was quiet for a long time.

“I understand,” the other person said and I gasped. It was Blake.

More voices filled my head. “Please,” Sir Robert begged. “Wait for Blake.”

I could hear someone sobbing. It was a man.

“Just wait for him.”

I opened my eyes and closed them immediately. My heart stammered as if I was in a confined space, but the light, the bright light that came with it, didn’t make any sense.

I opened them again. It was so close and I wanted to close my eyes again, but they zoomed out immediately, leaving me with a slight headache.

I wasn’t in a confined space, I was staring at the sky, clouds, and small cherubs with arrows. It didn’t make any sense.

I realized then that it was not moving and it was not actually the sky, it was paint. It was a ceiling, a painted ceiling.

Noise filled my ears. Loud noises, people speaking all at once, a jack hammer, commands being shouted, as a stronger pain jolted through my mind. A horrible smell burned my nostrils.
What was this?

I grunted. It sounded like a scream but I knew I hadn’t yelled, I’d hardly made any effort to make that noise.

“Elena!” Becky’s voice overpowered all the others. It was so loud.

“Go get Constance, now!” she yelled again.

“Can you please stop yelling?”

She didn’t say anything, but I could hear her sobbing. It was loud too. Why on earth was Becky sobbing, she wasn’t the kind of person who cried?

Becky reached me. Tears streamed down her cheeks but a huge smile appeared on her face. She was happy. “Sorry, I wish I could. It’s the Essence, Elena. You need to get used to it,” she whispered but it sounded so loud. It didn’t make any sense.

“Wait,” I yelled and I grunted again. I hadn’t meant to yell. “The Essence,” I whispered too, but whispers weren’t whispers anymore. When I was a dragon, I’d never heard things this intensely before.

What Essence? I remembered Blake in the forest showing me what the Dent was and all at once images of what happened before jolted through my head.

My father, I killed my father. He was the Saadedine. Was Blake okay?

I jolted up.

“Shhhh,” Becky said.

The door opened and Constance rushed in. She grabbed her stethoscope and placed it over my chest. It was so cold.

Sammy sobbed too and I turned my head to look at her. She climbed on my bed and gave me an awkward hug as Constance checked my vital signs.

Sammy’s smelled like lilies and roasted almonds. It overpowered my sense of smell this time. I breathed in softer, not that it helped.

Another shriek came and I clutched my head again.

“Softer, please,” Becky whispered. She was so loud and I just stared at Constance. She started to shake with tears as she just listened through her stethoscope and then flung her arms around me, pulling me into her chest.

“I thought you were gone.”

My eyes flew opened. “What?”

I plugged my nose as I couldn’t handle the smell of violets anymore. “What is happening to me?”

“It’s the Essence,” she smiled and touched my chest with her palm. I flinched as it still hurt. I lifted up my shirt and saw a bandage right between my breasts.

“You can tune it out, Elena. Just think about what you want to do, and turn it down like you do with a radio.” Becky crouched in front of me.

“How do you know this?”

She lifted up her shirt and showed me her bandage too.

Blake. That feeling.
“Where is Blake?” I asked as tears lingered in my eyes.
Why did he show me that if… he can’t be dead. He just can’t be.

“Shhhh, Blake went to look for his orbs. He’s been gone for almost a month now. We don’t know what it does but he said that it would help bring you back.” She smiled. “I think he just succeeded.”

The conversation before I’d woken up. It was an unknown male voice, speaking about death, how it all worked.
If someone that is dead wants to be alive again, then a sacrifice of someone alive has to be made.
Blake had answered, “I understand.”

“No!” I yelled, sounding deranged.

“Calm down. It’s not a bad thing, Elena.”

“Death doesn’t work like that, Constance.”

“I know, we told him numerous times, Elena, but…” She shook her head. “He went to look for his orbs, he will be back.”

“He’s not going…” I couldn’t say it as he’d given his life to save mine.

“Shhhh, don’t think like that. We need to hope, Elena.”

I didn’t have to hope. I knew he wasn’t going to make it back. He was gone. It was why I’d heard those voices and the forest had been our last goodbye.
He loved me so much that…
I couldn’t think anymore. I just cried.

The bond jumped into my mind. I’d heard him when he said it wasn’t Helmut, it was Goran. I could hear Blake, the bond was working again.

I closed my eyes trying to feel for him, but I couldn’t. It was so easy before, I’d just heard him, and now he wasn’t there, he just wasn’t.

Please just come back
, I begged. Why was I hoping?

“Elena, he will come back, we have to believe that,” Constance said as she cupped my face with both her hands.

The door opened again. I didn’t look.

“Elena,” a familiar voice said and I opened my eyes, looking at Constance. She smiled.

I turned my head slowly to the door and saw the man I’d only seen once before. He looked different, skinnier, he had a slight burn against his cheek that walked all the way down to his neck. He was older too. But his eyes, his eyes were mine and tears streamed down his face.

He rushed over with a cane and fell on my bed, flinging his arms around me.

“I told you not to come and save Etan. I made that very clear. You promised.”

“Dad!” I took deep breaths. “I didn’t kill you.”

He pushed me away to look at me and then kissed my face so many times. Just like Constance had when she’d been reunited with Annie. We both started to cry, and he just held me tight.

“Elena,” Sir Robert’s voice was behind my father and he hugged both of us at once.

“I’ll try to get word to Blake,” he spoke and my father nodded.

When he let go of me, all the others were gone.

“Look at you. You look so much like your mother.”

I wanted to laugh but my lip vibrated again.

“Shhh, he will return.”

I sniffed hard and tried to hold on to that he had found whatever he was looking for, which could only be me. I had to hold on to that. I nodded. “And I don’t. I look like you. Or so everyone kept telling me.”

He started to laugh.

I looked around. I didn’t know this room. It wasn’t the infirmary and it wasn’t the manor. It had the most beautiful cherubs floating on the ceiling and the room was huge. There was a large fireplace, plenty of closets, and a big table with chairs. The light was dimmed but bright lights still dangled at the edges of everything, like the outside was filled with bright light and it was desperately trying to get in. To blind me. “Where are we?”

My father looked at me with soft green eyes. “It’s your room, or it would’ve been.”

“We’re in Etan?”

“We can move if you don’t want to be here, sweet pea. I’ll understand. I just didn’t want to move you. But now, anywhere you want, we can move to the palace in Tith if that’s what you like, or the one in Areeth.”

I shook my head when he said Tith and he sighed.

“Robert told me that you and Lucian… he was a good boy, Elena.”

I smiled. “It’s fine Dad. We can stay here. If this is my home, it’s my home. We don’t need to move.” A soft smile spread over my face. “Besides, I don’t think King Helmut and Queen Marguerite would appreciate it if we crashed at their place.”

My father didn’t laugh, his face fell. “Helmut didn’t make it. He killed Goran, and died in the process. They were found with a steel beam pressed through both their bodies.”

“What!” I cried. My father held me tight as I just succumbed. Queen Marguerite jumped through my mind at once. She’d lost every single member of her family. “Where is the queen, Dad?”

More tears filled his eyes.

“Please don’t say it. Please.”

“She couldn’t cope with it, Elena. I wanted her to live here, but she said she wanted to be left alone. Emanual stayed with her, and Constance checked up on her every day, and one morning, they found her body on the shore. She’d jumped.”

I sobbed again as my father cupped my head with both his hands. “If I knew she would do that, I would’ve taken more precautions. I’m so sorry.”

He hugged me again.

“Why did you break your promise?” he asked. “I told you that I couldn’t live in a world where you didn’t exist.” He looked at me again. “I thought I’d lost you too.”

“I didn’t break your promise. I found myself in Etan by mistake. I lived here for four months and I didn’t even know it.”

“I know, Blake told me.” His face became hard and he sniffed. “I also know what happened to you here, Elena. If you want to move…”

“Dad, I told you, I don’t, okay. This is my home and none of those boys are going to drive me away from my birthplace.”

He sniffed. “They won’t ever touch you like that again, Elena. Blake made sure of it.”

“What?” A cold finger traced up my spine. He’d found them.

“I wanted to set them free, give them a second chance, until Blake laid a claim on their life, told me what they’d done to you. I wanted to kill them myself but Robert said that it was Blake’s job, he needed to deal with it. So, I gave them over to him.”

“He killed them?”

“They deserved it, Elena. I’ve always done what was right for Paegeia, we don’t need more followers of Goran hanging around. This world needs to heal, these people need to heal.” He was angry. “I had to do what I had to do to let that begin. I wasn’t going to let my daughter live in fear of evil… I told you not to free Etan.” He was still angry at me, and if I’d lost Blake, I would regret saving him the rest of my life.

But still. “I know. It wasn’t my promise alone. I’m not that type of Dragonian, Dad.”

He smiled, took a deep breath and shook his head. “You are just like your mother. Stubborn as hell. I wish you could’ve known her, Elena. She wanted you so badly. I wanted you so badly.”

“I know, I read her journals, Dad.”

“You did?” He smiled and wiped one of my tears away with his thumb. “She would’ve been an amazing mother, Elena.”

“I know.”