“What are they?” Jerome asked. He went over to Nyx’s side and crouched down to have a better look.

Large melon-sized crystals were stuck inside the ground all around them. He looked up at Nyx to get an idea of what he was looking at and she smiled at him.

“Ilyrrah came here once, a long time ago. Guess what he left with,” she said.

Jerome’s eyes grew as round as saucers. His head whipped back to the crystals in the ground and he reached for one and tried to pull. The crystal didn’t budge.

Nyx had broken up the ground to reveal them moments ago. He had never expected something like this to form here. He didn’t even know what to call them. Nothing in the library was related to the crystals in the ground. Or more like he hadn’t read about them yet. The library was too big, and the memory stones too numerous to go through in two years.

“Care to help?”

Nyx smirked at him. But didn’t do anything. Shit. He had angered the dragoness and he was going to have to fawn over her to get these crystals. Her strength was far more than his. If anyone could pull them out, it’d be her.

“Come on now, don’t be like this. These crystals can help both of us.”

“And why should I share them with you?”

“I can sense they are special, Nyx. They may need some special means to be activated. They are dormant as they are.”

The look in her eyes changed at that. “Very well. But you’d have to kowtow ten times to me. And maybe then, I would be willing to help you.”

“Now that’s a stupid thing to ask for,” he said, looking pointedly at her as he stood up from his crouching position.

Nyx wasn’t having it though. She huffed. “See if I help you get any then.”

“Are you really gonna be like this?”

“Hm-hm. I’m gonna be anyhow I wanna be.”

“You catch on fast with words, you know?”

“That’s beside the point,” she said.

“Hmm. But it’s a good thing. Language changes with every generation — slight changes, not too much. Most of it is slang though. You’re showing very good aptitude with it. It’s impressive,” Jerome said, giving her an innocent smile.

“Flattery doesn’t become you, Jerome.” Nyx gave him a pointed look. “And it doesn’t work on me.”

“Can’t I tell a lady she’s impressive?” he asked. “And beautiful too.”

She blushed. And then glared at him. “I’ll tell your girlfriend you’re flirting with another woman.”

Jerome’s focus shifted at that. “I’ll be back.”

He bent his knees slightly as he crouched a bit low to jump out of the bubble so he could swim back to the surface but Nyx reached him before he could jump.

“Stay,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. Jerome felt like he was being restrained by a freight train. He couldn’t lift himself off the ground again. Nor from his slight crouch.

“Nyx, I need to check on her—”

“And you might not meet these when you get back—”

“Are you gonna take them all?”

She shook her head, frowning. “I can’t.”

Jerome raised an eyebrow at that. She can’t what? Why was she being so secretive? “If you have something to say, say it, Nyx.”

“I can’t get them out. One of my ancestors tried. It was from his memory that I knew to come here.”

“That’s impressive,” Jerome said, ignoring the fact that she had wanted him to kowtow to her — ten times at that. Seriously, women… But he was sure she was testing him. Women were like that. They loved to see how much they could push your buttons.

He took a deep breath and squatted down again. The gems didn’t budge before and they wouldn’t budge again, no matter how many times he tried. He closed his eyes, trying to sense them but felt nothing.

Oh, wait. There was something — some strange energy — but it was quite elusive. This was good. He tried to pin down the energy. But it kept slipping his grasp. It was there one moment and gone the next. Jerome continued for a very long time and his frustration mounted. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t catch the energy with his perception.

He let out all that frustration with a sigh. He had never thought he’d find anything hard to obtain in Terra Praeta at this point. The reality was far different from the fantasy he had built up in his head about this place.

Without thinking, he muttered, “I need your help, Mother Nature.”

The gems’ glow suddenly became brighter and the elusive energy entered his perception, this time stronger, and it stayed so. Jerome almost jumped up for joy.

“Can you sense it?” he said, his voice dripping with excitement.

Nyx shook her head, looking at him like he had grown an extra pair.

Jerome reached down and plucked the gem out of the ground, with no effort at all on his side. Then another, and another. He threw them all inside his void space but left a few in place, not wanting to pick them all. It felt like the right thing to do.

“Your jaw’s on the floor,” he remarked, seeing the shocked look on Nyx’s face. She quickly schooled her features, glaring daggers at him. “Don’t worry, we’ll share it.”

“Of course, we will. I brought you here, didn’t I?”

Jerome shrugged. “I could still have found it on my own.”

“I never knew you could do that,” she said, looking at him with a look she never had before in her eyes.

Respect.

“What are you talking about?” Jerome asked. He knew but wanted her to say it. He never intended for her to find out. But there was nothing he could do about it now.

“Commune with Mother Nature.”

Heh, guess it was too much to hope that she didn’t notice. “What about you? Can dragons do it?” he asked, wanting to know.

“In a way, yes. We can commune with the essence and the forces. It’s harder if it’s not the attribute you’re born with. But it can be done.”

“Commune with the essence? How does that work?”

“If I didn’t know better, love, I’d think you’re prying,” she said with a knowing smile at him. “Essence is a dragon’s friend. It ‘wants’ to play with us, to be commanded by us.”

“That makes you even more dangerous than the Fae,” he admitted.

She grinned. “You sure know how to make a woman feel important. Did you mean what you said before?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Jerome smiled at her. “Every word of it.”

Nyx blushed. A second time in less than an hour. He was getting good at this flirting stuff. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how old she was. And yet here she was acting like a horny teenager. Wait… he glanced at her, seeing her in a new light as a thought formed in his mind. If she was acting like a teenager, did that mean she didn’t have the experience that should come with her age.

Heh, wonders never end. Nyx held him and shot out of the bubble… or not. Jerome looked around to find the bubble moving with them. So they could still converse as they moved upward.

This dragoness-turned-woman was full of wonders and truly beautiful. Stunning even! He couldn’t tell if she was more beautiful than Csala was or if it was vice versa. Jerome shivered lightly as he realized the predicament he was going to be in when he got to the surface. He started planning what he’d say to them when they both came to ask him who was more beautiful.

~~~

Ajax Itakar

“They’ve been in there far longer than necessary,” Fei Lin said.

“Hmm,” Ajax responded. What did she want? She had never paid attention to him since she rejected his romantic advances publicly in Farryn, so what was it?

Ajax kept quiet, never taking his gaze away from the waterfall. He could hear other Sprouts playing in the distance, some training and others just lazing around. Fei Lin could be with her team right now. She could even be doing girl things with Selene, not that Selene fancied her that much. Well, he had no idea.

“Why are you here alone?” she asked.

“What do you want, Lin?” His voice sounded cold and he sensed her flinch a little.

Fei Lin turned to look at him. Ajax didn’t turn to look at her. Partly because he didn’t trust himself to be strong enough to keep the boundaries he had set for himself concerning her if he were to turn to look at her. No matter how much he longed for her, he was going to keep himself from disgracing his family. Again.

Fei Lin’s gaze never left him for a long time. He could almost feel the tension coming off her. What was so important that she would seek him out?

“Who do you think the new woman is?”

“No idea.”

“You can trust me, Ajax. I only want what’s best for both our teams.”

“Trust is earned, Lin. And when it’s broken, it’s even harder to come by,” he said, knowingly changing the subject of discussion. He wasn’t going to hear a private plea. But she also wasn’t going to make a public one.

“You won’t even let me explain—”

“I don’t need your explanation. I need you to leave me alone.”

~~~

Fei Lin

She stood there unable to refute his claims. She nervously shifted her weight from foot to foot thinking about what to say.

“You have a point,” she said. “But you don’t know what my life has been like.” She chuckled.

“I have once wished to have the freedom you Itakars have. The freedom you display on your outings to the city or the auction house. You could talk and laugh amongst each other like normal boys and girls. I’ve had none of that. The tradition of my people dictates that I conduct myself in a certain way, even though on most days, all I want to do is relax and put my feet up on my dressing table, uncaring of the world around me.

“Pilgrims’ Keep was a dream come true for me. A chance to get away from the iron rule of the Matriarch. It was one whole year of freedom by my definition. And I am grateful for it.”

Ajax turned to look at her at long last. She couldn’t read the expression on his face. But she couldn’t hold his gaze either. Not after what she had done to him in public.

“I couldn’t have known a Sprout from another Great Clan would take interest in me after Pilgrims’ Keep. I couldn’t have known that you would walk up to me when I was amid my clanmates and ask me to court you.”

“My greatest mistake in life, it seems,” he said looking away. His words were cold and made her ache deep inside. “I remember your words like it was just today. ‘I wouldn’t court a child even if he was from a Great Clan.’ Well, you had your wish.”

He walked away from her after that.

Fei Lin didn’t know how she was going to fix this. She was a child back then. Inexperienced with her words. She wanted to run after him to tell him it wasn’t her intention to embarrass him. She wanted to tell him she reacted out of fear of being pinned down again as the Matriarch did. She wanted to… do what? Beg? She shook her head. She would shame her family if she ever did that. She was supposed to be ‘better’ than that.

The problem was she had issued a public apology to House Itakar. Her mother, the Matriarch, drafted the writ herself. But it wasn’t enough. Matriarch Arwen Itakar had not accepted her apology. Saying those were not her words and they didn’t sound like they came from the depths of her heart.

Fei Lin sighed. She hoped she would get a chance to fix this someday. As she walked away from the pool, something burst out of it, splashing water all over her.

Great! Just great!

~~~

Jerome quickly scanned the Sprouts for Csala as he landed on his feet but couldn’t locate her among them. Surprisingly, they had pitched their tents a few yards away from the pool, with each house on opposite sides of the pool. Many of the Sprouts were either training or relaxing in the shade of the sparse but giant trees. They were not as big as the trees in the dark forest but he felt they were sturdier. He marveled at the enormity of the void world. It was far bigger than he would have imagined.

Jerome shook himself free from his stupor. He was about to go looking for Csala when Selene flew toward him.

“Hey, where’s Csala?” he asked, seeing the strange look on her face.

“Jerome she went out to look for you before you came back—”

“What? Why would she do that? I told her I’d be back.” he quickly took to the skies. “I’ll be back soon!”

Jerome shot toward the barrier. Unsurprisingly, Nyx was following right behind him.

“You must have known she was gone, Nyx. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Nyx matched his pace as they flew. Both their hairs were billowing around them until they passed through the barrier. He was reminded once again that he needed a haircut. He just never seemed to have the time.

“Because she has her own Path to walk, Jerome. It was the only way to let fate take its course,” Nyx said.

Jerome stopped mid-air turning to face her. He was so angry with her that he wanted to tell her to scry for the succubi right now. But more than anything, the dragoness hated being told what to do. And what the fuck was she talking about? Her own Path to walk. Thinking of the meaning behind the words poured cold water on his anger.

“You mean to say you’ve known even before we left the forest.” It was not a question, but a statement of fact — an accusation, really.

“Now, love. Don’t say it like that. You’ll see her again. That, I can promise.”

The accusatory look on his face didn’t go unnoticed. “You should have told me about it.”

“And then what, Jerome? Aether forbids, you might go missing too!”

“And what concern of yours is it if I go missing?!” Jerome shot back. The sudden use of the name Aether didn’t go unnoticed by him.

Nyx kept quiet, refusing to say another word. Even managing to look offended. As if he was the one in the wrong. What was it with all the people around him being so secretive? Jerome felt like picking her up and shaking her until she loosened her tongue.

“I’m still going in search of her. We have enemies down South who would get here anytime soon. If they caught her alone…” He shot forward again, ignoring the forest around him.

Nyx followed. “You don’t have to worry about that. We’ll be the ones to greet your enemies when they arrive. Heh, I want to see what it’ll be like to fight in my new body.”

The switching of her emotions from seriousness to playfulness only grated on his nerves. But he saw the wicked grin that crossed her face and was strangely satisfied. He couldn’t help but feel bad for those coming for them.

“And when do they arrive?” he asked.

Nyx gave him an odd look.

“You said you can scry posterity,” Jerome said and she looked away wistfully. “Are you regretting telling me that?”

“It’s not that…the future is very fluid. And the flow can’t be fully trusted.”

“That shouldn’t disturb the time it’ll take a few people to arrive in the forest,” he said, not buying into her statement. He had a few ideas himself. The future couldn’t be determined because people’s choices make changes to it. “If Muna’s prisoners have already left the South of the continent, it’s only a matter of time before they get here.”

He looked at her, waiting for answers.

“You know, giving a woman the benefit of the doubt is a good thing. It makes life easier for all involved,” Nyx said with a cute pout.

Jerome chuckled. “Remember how you said flattery doesn’t work on you? Well, that cute pout and puppy eyes don’t work on me either.”

Nyx smacked him into a tree with her tail so hard that the tree broke into two, scattering debris everywhere. The creatures habiting that environment scampered away when they sensed her aura.

Nyx was angry.

Heh. Maybe I should tone it down a bit, Jerome thought as he struggled to extricate himself from the hole in the ground. He had burst through the tree and into the earth with just one hit.

Talk about a powerful tail.

“I’m going back,” Nyx said, anger still pulsing through her being. “Good luck finding your girlfriend.”

She shot back toward the void world and was out of sight in a split second.

Jerome sighed. “Yeah, I deserved that one.” But he also realized something after Nyx’s bout of anger.

She was still young and inexperienced at heart.