Greetings Fans!
I'm greatly looking forward to the weekend as I have finally started writing more on the final book of Fell Dragon. Getting round to covering Bolx's time and the Saita from his time. I'm enjoying it, but am annoyed that it's taking so long to actually get words on paper at this point!
Anyway. Today we are introduced to Jethron and Sedeath. If you don't know who they are, I suggest you take the time to read Saasha’s Direct Family Introduction chapter. Enjoy the update!
After Saasha was done talking to Pura, she made her way to her room in the castle. As soon as Larden had been old enough and she had been crowned Queen, she gifted him the Royal Guard manor, as his father would have wanted, and moved to the castle full time. She had only collected a few things which had reminded herself of Brucel which were all in this room she now had. Still being a soldier at heart she had never really decorated it but as she got older, she opted to hang as many photos of her family as possible. She had had so few pictures of Brucel before he died, she had made sure never to make that mistake again.
She closed and locked the door behind her as she entered her room. The servants had been through here already, she could tell as most of the notes that had been strewn across the desk, the one from her childhood home, had been neatly sorted. The curtains had been pulled open to show the clear day. She could see the mountains in the distance, beyond the forest, the weather wasn’t going to stay so pleasant for long. Soon the snow would come. Sighing, she sat on the bed and removed the bandanna covering her eye. She hung it on the bedpost and flopped backwards on the mattress. She lay there for a moment before reaching for the headrest and feeling the scratches that were there. She smiled, remembering how they had gotten there. The smile was fleeting as her heart was flooded with sadness.
“You would have hated to have been King,” she whispered to the air. “Yet you would have been a wise one. You would have been so proud of your three sons and your grandchildren.”
She then snorted. “And the spitfire of a great-granddaughter you have. Bahn has his hands full with her. You would have loved all of them. She hates the academy and tries to get herself thrown out. I wonder where she gets that from?”
Saasha sighed. “I would do anything to hear your voice one more time Brucel.”
She allowed her fingers to run across the scratches for a few more minutes before she sat back up with a sigh. “Right, enough of that. More work.”
She drew her legs in to sit cross-legged. She set flat palms on her knees, and she closed her eyes. She sat like that for a few minutes before she let one clear thought out into the universe.
Jethron.
There had never been a problem with communicating with her Dekai son even though his planet was far beyond most people’s reach. She simply had to think of his name and if he were not busy then he would answer back. This was one time he was not busy.
“Mother?”
She opened her eye and found herself in the blue-grey world that she had gotten used to as the backdrop to these conversations. She was sitting on solid ground, but it too was swirling, and she had to remind herself to not look down as she got to her feet. Swatting the helping hand away from the Dekai.
“I really do not need your help here Jethron,” she said with a smile. “But thank you. Were you not busy?”
“We need to talk,” he said.
Saasha could tell by his voice that something was bothering him immensely. “Jethron?”
“That girl, Saita was her name, right? Has she arrived on your planet?”
“Yes, been here for a little over a week. Why do you sound so filled with concern?”
“I looked over the data that Uncle Kessa and Uncle Aastii sent over, and I had our historians go over it…”
“Hold on, why your historians?”
“Mother, Edzeeker is a Dekai who was the advisor to Sedeath. He shouldn’t be alive. He should have been dead for millennia or at the very least have become like Sedeath is now, an aid. What we discovered was...I don’t even have the words to describe…”
The Dekai ended up pointing to his mother’s face and she only nodded her head, understanding what he was trying to say.
“Does she have any memory of having this device put into her body?”
“Silens says her memories are so broken she basically remembers less than a third of her life. Bolx says the only time it seems that she does remember is when she sleeps and that is few and far between.”
“Wait, Bolx? But he’s dead, Gatex and I buried him.”
“Long story short, this is a Bolx from about seven years in the future and it is not a good future.”
If Jethron had looked slightly worried before he now had a look of horror on his face. “Did he come with Edzeeker?”
“I am not fully sure, but he has spoken of him.”
Jethron started pacing and that got Saasha agitated. It didn’t take long to realise that Jethron was busy talking to his mental aid Sedeath as she noticed he was muttering under his breath. His face was getting more and more clouded the longer the conversation went on. Suddenly he flared his wings and stood rigid. This pose was held for a moment before he relaxed and growled. “Queen Saasha, something is coming.”
Saasha had not heard that voice in decades and even hearing it now brought shivers down her spine. “Sedeath.”
“I do not have much time,” he said.
“Are you pushing my son’s personality down?”
“As if I could manage that, no, it is quicker for me to explain this than for me to relay it to Jethron and for him to tell you.”
Saasha had been sure that it was Jethron standing before her but as soon as Sedeath had come forth in personality there were some subtle changes. The larger wings which were now black were the most telling. His hair was also a little lighter than Jethron’s. This was no longer her son and it scared her that they were that interchangeable.
“You need to find Edzeeker and bring him to me...no, you just find him, and I am coming to you. If this man states that he is Edzeeker then there are severe consequences for him still being in the realm of life. For if he lives then the Dragon is upon us soon.”
“I know!” said Saasha with a sigh. “Bolx has already…”
“Listen! The device that this human girl is being forced to wield is a weapon…”
“We know, so does she.”
“That can destroy the known universe.” finished the Dekai.
“I... did not expect that,” added Saasha.
“This was an ancient project that was worked on to seal away a dangerous creature that threatened to consume all life. It had not only the ability to eat life but eat through time and universes. This device was meant to be external, a thing for the creature to eat and be sated to sleep for all eternity.” Sedeath started pacing. “But the device was a failure when I was king. It only lulled the beast into a short sleep. We were meant to work on a more permanent solution, but Edzeeker vanished, and I eventually grew old. There have been no stirrings of the beast here for millennia. This universe was where it was held captive.”
“Is it still sleeping?”
“It is gone.” Sedeath flared his wings. “I suspect Edzeeker took it to another time to work on an alternative way of disposing of it. That was one of his abilities. He could manipulate time as if it were a curtain. This device the girl wears, I think it is the upgraded version of what we had worked on in the past.”
“Are you telling me she is meant to defeat this Dragon-Serpent thing?”
“She is a beacon! She is literally calling the beast to her.”
Saasha felt dread and asked the question she really didn’t want the answer to. “It is too late for us then?”
“The day those pieces of the machine were forced into her body it was already too late. You must have noticed some changes?”
“There are more dead worlds, wars are breaking out, and madness is spreading.”
“Next will be a wasting disease of which there is no cure. The Great Serpent will come for her.”
“But why?”
“Universes are only being created so fast. It has to make the choice as to whether it should feast or starve. Edzeeker and I gave it a way to sleep and let the universe recover, thus giving it an endless supply of energy before it is forced to tear through one universe followed by another once it wakes. Feeding the girl to it will allow it to rest for a longer period because now if the data from your brothers are right, it is using her life energy to generate an exponentially higher amount of energy. It has become parasitic in nature; it is making her into a beacon that is literally saying: Come here and eat me.” Sedeath scratched at an ear that seemed to have a notch in it. “It is too late for it has noticed her already and the cage that had been keeping it captive is running out of power. Soon it will be here and the first thing it will do is come for her. Doesn’t matter where she is, the Serpent will find her and consume her.”
“Try to.”
“Try to?”
“She is a fighter. A good one from what I understand. She has a unique skill where she can copy techniques and use them as her own.”
Sedeath grinned then frowned. “She can be useful then. With the amount of energy, she is generating, if she can mould that into a destructive nature perhaps the Serpent can be more than just controlled. However…”
“However?”
“She will burn out and die. If I understand the results correctly the device is using her life force to make this excess, it is destroying her from the inside out.”
“Can it be removed?”
“Likely the act of trying to remove any one component will slowly kill her as the system will try to fill the void by drawing on her power.”
“So, we cannot even spare her this.” sighed Saasha.
“Likely she was a willing participant.”
“She was kidnapped as a three-year-old and then later again when she was sixteen when all of this was done to her,” said Saasha sadly. “She had no say in this.”
“And you say there is next to no memory?”
“From what I have managed to gather from her.”
“I am coming.”
“Hold on. She is not the biggest fan of the Dekai right now and I would prefer to keep Jethron on the throne a little longer.”
“Saasha, we do not have time to wait. The quicker we prepare this child for her destiny the quicker we can prepare the universe’s response to what is going to happen. We don’t know when the Serpent will appear, and we do not know the kind of damage that will occur. We need to be prepared.”
“I understand that Sedeath but will she? You haven’t met her, you haven’t seen her, felt the feelings of betrayal and longing from her. If you dump all of this on her now, she will run and she will run far.”
“And it will not save her or us. The Fell Dragon is coming. I will arrive soon.”
The Dekai are a powerful mixture of magic and energy users. For their king to be concerned about the Fell Dragon shows the danger the universe is in. Thanks for joining. I hope you all enjoyed the update.
For those of you just joining us, please note that this the third book in the Fell Dragon series. Follow this link to read the two earlier books:
Fell Dragon Book 1
Fell Dragon Book 2
Start of Book 3 here
As the series continues, it will combine with another book series I wrote. To avoid confusion about what is happening, introductory chapters will be introduced separately so that you don't have to be lost. However, these chapters will contain spoilers. You can find these chapters here:
Races Explained
Banishment
Royal Guard
Saasha’s Direct Family
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Haven't read the other parts yet? Follow these handy links:
Part 21>>You are Here>>Part 23