The sun was setting low on the horizon filling the sky with orange streaks. A breeze blew across the water, causing its surface to ripple and gentle waves to lap on the stony shore. In the distance were the giant red trees and the strange forest sprites hidden within. To the south was the river that drained from the lake and wound its way into the Silverwood.
Lilly had flown for hours circling the lake and sharing the gift of flight with her loved ones. She wanted them to see the world as she saw it, and to know the freedom that came with soaring the skies. When the sun began to set, she took them back to the shore of the lake and changed into her human form. Now she stood there in her blue dress dragging a foot nervously across the little stones that made up the lakeside. Gersius and Thayle stood by with concerned looks as Lilly radiated nervousness over the bind.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked Lilly as she held her head down searching the lake shore for the right words. He smiled to see her nervousness. Her silver-blue hair hung down to her waist and swayed in the breeze. Her crystal blue eyes sparkled in the faint light and gave off a glow of their own. Her Sweet and delicate facial features on her pale skin made her look innocent. She chewed at her lower lip as her eyes passed over him.
“I want to talk about what happened with Balisha. I want you and Thayle to know,” she said.
“Then why are you so worried? I can feel your tension across the bind. I am sure Thayle can feel it.”
“I can feel all of it. Lilly, you feel like your frightened to say something,” Thayle replied, tossing her midnight black hair. She too had fair skin, but she had mysterious narrow eyes with a slight angle to them. She was shorter than Lilly and had a gentle swarming smile.
Gersius stepped up to Lilly and lifted her chin. He looked deep into those glowing blue eyes and smiled at her. With a slow, deliberate motion, he leaned in and kissed her gently. She twitched, and her hands curled into fists as the kiss went on. When he stepped back, he smiled at her again.
“Now, tell us what is on your mind,” he said gently.
Lilly took a deep breath and spoke. “Balisha asked me to be her priestess and restore her faith to the land.”
“Lilly, this is wonderful news,” Gersius said. “She has healed your wings and given you a purpose. You should be excited.”
“I know, but I… I really want you… I need you to...” she stumbled on her words as she tried to tell him.
“Lilly, please. You need to stop being afraid to tell me things. I am your husband. There is nothing you cannot tell me,” he said as he stepped up to her again.
Lilly looked up into his eyes. They were brown with a kind and gentle appearance. His face was ringed with stubble, and his wild brown hair fell just short of his shoulders in scattered tufts. He smiled a wide smile on his broad chin, and she wished he would kiss her again. She felt his love over the bind, and it gave her the strength to say what she needed to say.
“Gersius… I want you to embrace Balisha as your Goddess,” she said, holding her gaze on his eyes.
His face seemed frozen in the moment as she searched his expression for some indication of what he was thinking. She tried to read his mind over he bind and saw a strange image of light. The corner of his mouth twitched, and slowly, his expression softened.
“I can feel the sincerity in your heart. This is something you deeply want,” he said, never taking his eyes off her.
“Balisha told me that she wanted to establish her order from now on to always have two at the head, a human, and a dragon to show the land that they were meant to be united. I need you to be my other half. I can't do this without you.”
He glanced over at Thayle, who stood beside them quietly watching.
Thayle read the worry in his mind and put him at ease. “Ulustrah said your heart belonged to Lilly. I'm not offended if you want to worship Balisha. Your heart is already strongly devoted to Lilly, why not embrace her Goddess too?”
His eyes went far off as his mind swam deep in thought. Lilly could read a sense of fear, a desire not to be entangled in the divine again. He looked back at her, and she felt even more nervous to see the hesitance on his face.
“She wants a man to worship her?” Gersius asked with a gentle tone.
“She said that she had human worshipers before. Numidel told us that as well. She is weak because nobody worships her anymore. Her dragons are all cursed, so she cannot access the power they once granted her. She needs you. I need you, we can't do this without you.”
“What do I have to do?” he asked.
“She said you needed to open your heart to her, and she would fill you with her spirit and teach you a song. She said you would hear the story of the dragons and the history of what happened.”
He nodded again but made no agreement. He simply went back to his distant look.
Lilly watched as Thayle moved beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ulustrah said your faith was as strong as fifty men. You would be a great asset to Balisha. If what she needs are worshipers, she couldn't have asked for a more powerful man.”
Gersius smiled at Thayle, and for a moment over the bind, he felt warm and happy. A sense of apprehension quickly replaced it.
“And then what?” Gersius asked as he turned to look at Lilly again.
“We are to finish building her temple in Calathen. The first dragon knight started the work but was killed before he finished it. It must be the empty temple you told me about. She wants us to finish it and reestablish her faith.” Lilly held strong keeping her eyes on him. She desperately wanted him to accept; she needed him to.
Thayle squeezed his shoulder, and he glanced over to her. She nodded her head at him, but he only shook his in return.
“You were meant to do this Gersius,” Thayle said. “Think about all that has happened. All of our divines were working together to get us here. If Balisha meant for you and Lilly to head her order, then you were meant to leave Astikar. He must have wanted you to go free.”
Gersius flinched slightly at this revelation, and he searched the ground himself as he considered the words.
“So they planned this?” he said mostly to himself.
“I think the plan went astray someplace,” Thayle said. “But somehow, in the end, we ended up in the right place and the right circumstances.”
“Astikar said I was not meant to fall in love with Lilly so quickly,” he said. “He had another plan that was ruined for it.”
“Maybe that was my fault,” Thayle said. “I did push you two very hard.”
He shook his head. “No, You didn’t push until after I was well in love with her. I suspect he knew how badly I wanted a family. He was trying to give me both of you as a reward, but he miscalculated how much pain seeing Lilly chained and beaten would cause me. He didn't think I would be so deeply in love with her so soon.”
To be honest, Gersius. I saw light traveling between you two the first day I saw you. But it was the kind of light two people with a passing interest in one another share. I would not have called it love. Your heart changed when your devotion to her was put to the test under the city. Then when you saw her that way, you felt like you had suffered for nothing.”
He sighed and looked up at the sky. “He said all this had to happen this way. There was no way to get me here alive unless I went through the pain.”
“You both needed to go through the pain,” Thayle said. “When you came back to my temple, and Lilly was laid beside you, I saw the difference.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking down at her.
“You two always shared a little light, but when Lilly was put beside you that night, it was different. Her light came away in rippling waves and flowed to you like a river to the sea.”
They both looked over at Lilly who looked away. “Seeing what they did to you to get my name made me feel for you. I was sure you had told them my name. I thought they were going to parade you out as a hero for deceiving me and luring me into captivity. I was sure I was going to spend the rest of my life a pet to your order being beaten and abused daily. But you never broke. You suffered like that for me!” She looked up herself now as tears filled her eyes. “I knew at that moment that you were something I wanted desperately in my life. I didn't know what love was then, but if I had, I would have said I loved you.”
“You see,” Thayle said. “Had she not suffered that pain, she would not have been there to see your sacrifice. Her heart would not have opened as it did to you.”
He nodded again and let out a deep sigh. “So, Balisha wants me to stand at your side as the heads of her new order?”
“Please, Gersius! She has promised never to punish us even if we make a mistake. She said she would forgive us anything.”
He looked back at her concern showing in his eyes now. “Lilly, I do not want that. If she is to be my Goddess, I want to be accountable to her. I would not want there to be a barrier between our hearts. If I knew she would never hold me accountable, I worry my heart would be weak to her. It will hinder my ability to both give her power and call on it.”
“This is why you are worth fifty men,” Thayle said.
Lilly felt nervous, and she squeezed her own hands. “She did that for me. I didn't want to accept her offer because of what happened to you both. I was afraid.”
“Lilly, Think about what we just said. If Thayle is right, then I am the one who failed, not Astikar. You both look at me and see a man of great devotion, but Astikar was only trying to get me to a place where he could give me a great reward. I failed right at the end of the test. Right as he was about to bless me, I turned away from him.”
Lilly shook her head. “No, Gersius, what happened to us was horrible. What happened to you was unspeakable. When you dream about what they did to you, my heart breaks to see it. I would run from Balisha screaming if such had happened to me.”
Thayle squeezed his shoulder again and spoke softly. “I love my Goddess, but I doubt I would have survived such a test, and I doubt very much I would ever reach a point where I could admit I was the one who failed. You are a strong man, Gersius, but it wasn’t what they did to you that broke you was it?”
He stepped away from them as a dark expression passed over his face. “No. I would have suffered any pain for him. I had made it up in my heart and my mind long ago that I would pay any price for Astikar. But I wasn't ready to let Lilly pay my price for me. When they tortured me, I wondered why he was allowing this to happen? When they healed me so they could torture me again, I thought why was he giving them the power? I was burdened with all these thoughts when they dragged me out, and I saw her. I saw the woman I promised would never be chained and dragged out to be displayed like a trophy in exactly that situation. They had even gagged her like an animal with a post of wood. I could not stand to see beautiful Lilly paying for my faith!”
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Thayle shook her head at the imagery and glanced at Lilly, who stood there twisting.
“That was the moment my heart turned from him,” Gersius said.
Lilly and Thayle could feel a terrible misery in his heart, if flowed across the binding link and filled them with sadness. He carried such a deep wound, and it brought him pain to acknowledge it.
“Gersius, if you hadn’t loved me when we entered Whiteford you would not have failed that test. It would not have pained you so to see me bound and helpless like that. I’m sorry I led your heart astray.”
“Lilly, you own my heart, you cannot lead astray what belongs to you.”
He felt pressure and sadness over the bind and turned to Thayle, who had a hurt look in her eyes.
“You have no need to feel hurt,” he said to her. “You are special to me in a way that cannot be put into words. Not only is every ounce of the love I share with Lilly your doing, but you offer us both a gift that few women can give.” He walked up to her and took her shoulders in his hands. “Your desire to have my children affects me as deeply as Lilly does. You and Lilly are the two halves of my heart. You are bound to us both now, whatever love I have applies to you both now and forever.”
“But will you love me like you love her?” Thayle asked. “I didn’t suffer for you, or rescue you from danger.”
He lifted a hand and rubbed a finger at the tear under her eyes. “Is this not proof of how much you love me? This is not mark of shame. It is proof of two loves. Yours for us, and Ulustrah's for you.”
Thayle’s lower lip trembled as she felt his fingertip roll over the mark.
“I never thought I could love a single woman so strongly, but now I love two. I could never bare to lose either of you.” He held Thayle firmly and made her look him in the eyes. “I am prepared to love you with every bit the intensity I love Lilly. I only give you the time to make your heart ready. I know you are still afraid, and now I can feel it strongly.”
Thayle looked away and sighed as her hands started to tremble. His aura had flashed white with every word. He meant everything he said to her, and she felt a deep warmth in her heart to know he loved her strongly.
“I am afraid to have children, I always have been. But I will have them for you the moment you want them. I appreciate the time and patience you show me, but when you want your children, I will not resist you.”
“Thayle, tell me honestly, are you my wife?”
She looked up into his eyes, and her lips trembled again. “I am your wife, and I always will be. Please never question that again.”
He stepped forward and kissed her, putting his arms around her and taking her into a firm embrace that she returned in kind.
“You will have our children, and you will always be loved deeply. Never forget that.”
“I won't,” she breathed in a whisper.
He stepped back, and Lilly was relieved he turned to look at her again.
“Then it is time,” he told her.
“Time for what?” Lilly asked.
“It is time I embraced my Goddess.”
Lilly’s entire face curled into a trembling smile as tears began to collect in her eyes.
“Gersius, thank you!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms and crying uncontrollably.
Thayle's arms came around them both, and she too started to cry.
He held them in his arms and let them pour out the emotions they were overflowing with, savoring the feelings they both flooded him with across the binding link.
When Lilly had the strength to control her voice, she looked into his eyes. “Will you teach me how to open my heart as well? I want to tell Balisha I will accept her judgment over me. I want to release her from the promise not to punish me. I don't want there to be a barrier between us either.”
Gersius smiled at her. “Your heart is already strong for her. I know where ever she is, she is no longer crying.”
“Lilly, you have just taken a great step of faith. I am so proud of you,” Thayle added.
Lilly timidly nodded her head. “It just feels right to do it. If Gersius says it is the right way, then I trust it is the right way.”
He looked into her eyes. “Come, let us sit on the shore. I will teach you how to open your heart and focus your mind. The two must become one for you to speak to the divine.”
He sat down and showed her how to sit. He then instructed her on various ways to hold her hands to achieve a state of relaxation. She didn't understand why her back had to be straight, but he explained that there was an energy that flowed up through the body The straighter she sat, the more easily it would flow. It helped to have Thayle there. She adjusted Lilly's position and tilted her head so that she was in the ideal alignment.
Next, he showed her how to breathe, focusing on her breath to shut the noise in her mind out. He showed her how to slowly descend into a void while also bringing up a feeling. It was this merger of a quiet mind, and this deep feeling that was important. He told her repeatedly that where her thoughts were so too did her power flow.
After many long minutes of practice, she began to find her peace. This was much like tapping into her solus to change forms, and it wasn't difficult to equate the two. When her mind was quiet and her breathing stable, he taught her the next lesson. She was to hold on to an image of what she wanted in her mind. He told her to focus on Balisha's name or any image she strongly associated with the Goddess.
Lilly chose to focus on the woman's face. She looked into the void and captured a feeling of need. Then she visualized the Goddess and tried to see every detail of her face. From the blazing blue eyes rimmed with tears, to the crown of stars and moons on her silver-blue head. She saw that image at is cleared in her mind, a face that looked as if it hid a world of pain.
“Just hold the image and breathe,” he told her. “Try to feel the joy you would feel if you were talking to her again. Try to associate joy with talking to the divine. Let the joy empower the vision and let the clear mind open wide.”
Gersius and Thayle went quiet, and Lilly didn't even notice they had stopped speaking. She was no stranger to tapping her solus, but she had never tried to do so while maintaining such a quiet mind and holding her focus on a single thing.
For a moment, time seemed to be gone. Then she saw an image of the Goddess. Balisha was distant and in a dark place. A soft light radiated around her illuminating what might have been dark clouds. There was a soft humming noise in the air, and as the image became more clear, she could tell it was singing. The song was sweet and beautiful with a long rhythmic dance. It came from Balisha, and the image wavered and started to fade when she let her attention drift to the song. Lilly refocused on the image of the Goddess herself, and the air cleared again.
Balisha turned and looked as if looking right at her. Lilly saw a thin golden cord of light stretch out of herself and race off into the darkness. Balisha stretched out both hands, and Lilly saw the light race to her palm and begin to collect. She understood that she was feeding the Goddess, gifting her a portion of her power for the Goddess to use. Balisha smiled and held out her other hand as a second cord of light arrived. This one looked like a blazing torrent, and it dwarfed Lilly's cord. Balisha gathered it up in her other hand and then clutched the hands to her chest like the lights were cherished possessions as tears fell from her eyes.
Lilly tried desperately to hold her focus. Gersius had said it took practice, and that once mastered she would find holding the link easy. He told her to think about what she wanted to communicate, but to try to hear it in her head as if she was speaking it out as loudly as she could.
“My Goddess, I wish to give you a gift of myself. I wish to release you from your promise. I will accept your dominion of my heart and your right to correct me for my mistakes.”
It was how Gersius had told her to say it. She hoped it was the right thing to do. She saw the line of golden light from her to Balisha grow in radiance, suddenly increasing three fold.
Then she saw something else. A high wall of stone, with a massive arched gate, stood before her. It was braced with golden metal arms, and the rock that made up the arch of the gateway was also golden. It was barred to her, but in her heart, she knew she needed to get past it. On the walls above it were men in black armor with red birds heads on their shoulders. Something dark stirred behind them. A wall of fire erupted as the men on the walls cheered and then eyes like red stars glowed out from behind it, and in an instant, she lost control and snapped back.
She gasped as her eyes came open and she nearly toppled over. Gersius sat beside her with his hands folded over his knees in meditation. His eyes were closed, and he barely seemed to breathe as he opened his heart to the Goddess. Lilly understood as she saw him that his was the second line of golden light that had raced to her. He made her connection look weak by comparison.
“Are you alright, Lilly?” Thayle whispered as she put a hand to Lilly’s shoulder.
“I saw something,” Lilly panted. “A great wall and gate, and the evil priests of Astikar were on top of it. Then a wall of fire erupted from behind them, and there were eyes, vicious, angry eyes, I lost control, and broke the link.”
“I think I would have lost control if I had seen that,” Thayle said. “What you just had is called a vision. The divines will sometimes show you images of dangers or other important events that are in your path.”
Lilly turned to look up at her. “What does it mean, though?”
“I have no idea. Maybe it means that those men are a wall to your path, and they stand against you. For sure they are blocking your path to Calathen.”
“But the wall of fire?” Lilly asked.
“I don't know, Lilly. Many times that is how visions work. We see an image, but it is out of context, and we often don't understand it until later events put it into context,” Thayle said.
“Maybe Gersius will know?” Lilly asked. “He might be seeing the same thing?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think he is seeing that right now. Reach across the bind and feel him. His mind is in a very different place,” Thayle pointed out.
Lilly reached out and felt the presence of the man beside her and a sensation of joy, contentment, and hope all twisted together. Gersius was a fountain of happiness like she hardly ever felt from him. Only in the quiet of the nights when she was in his arms did he ever feel this happy.
“I wonder what he is doing?” Lilly asked.
“He is meeting his new Goddess, and hes very pleased with it,” Thayle said with a smile.
They both turned to look at the man who sat quietly meditating beside them. They both hoped he was getting the rewards he deserved.
They were just voices and images disconnected from the speakers. In his mind's eye, he saw scenes of great cities and terrible battles. He saw dragons in numbers unimaginable flying across the sky at one another. He saw them with long spears in hand and riders on their backs as they slammed into one another in the sky.
Below them, armies so large that he could not see their flanks over the horizons marched toward one another. Dying dragons rained from the sky and crashed into men below as the armies met and the ground turned into a bog of red mud.
He saw the great cities topple and burn as mankind was reduced to ashes and the dragons even more. He saw the sun, and the moon crash into one another, and the ground shook. Mountains heaved up out of the plains, and the plains tore open and were swallowed up by the sea. A man of radiant light appeared, and his presence scorched the land. He was easily thirty feet tall and held a spear in one hand and a shield in another. A second man appeared. Tall and armored. He was wrapped in red light, and he drew his sword against the first. Gersius understood that he was seeing gods do battle on the world itself and the land around them heaved in chaos.
Other beings appeared, rupturing from the ground. Monsters and mad things scrambled into places driving men back. The northlands were lost as the trolls swept through in vast hordes. It was as if the world itself had had enough of men and dragons, tearing it asunder. All these things clashed in a tide of chaos and bloodshed.
The man of red light slew the radiant one and even as he did the heavens burst into flames. He looked up and saw a human woman with hair like Lilly's. She bled from a dozen wounds and held a long spear of pure white. She was leaning forward, pressing all her might into the spear as it pierced the heart of a red dragon. The dragon wailed and screamed as the spear went through it. As it fell from the heavens, it screamed a curse that echoed over the lands. It's body blackened and curled up but a second yellow crystal fell from it. It burned like a star and fell in the west.
He watched as the heavens closed up and the red man vanished in a flash. The earth shook at the impact of the crystal, and then it all got worse. He saw the dragons that were left suddenly stop fighting one another. Instead, they turned on the men all around them.
Dragons that wore the emblems of the gods turned on the human servants and began to slaughter them. He watched in horror as Astikar’s priests beat a blue dragon that they had just a moment ago been trying to heal. The dragon lashed out at them like an animal killing all it could reach. Red hammers raced in and started to pummel the dragon. It roared in defiance as the priests killed it instead.
Everywhere the scene repeated. Dragons were turning on allies, on friends, on loved ones. Death continued to spread like a madness until humanity gave up all desire to aid the dragons and both sides in the war turned on them and slaughtered them. A few dragons flew off blood driping from a hundred wounds. One was beaten low and dragged away.
Mankind went after them and hunted them down. They were killed everywhere they were found, and their bodies hacked to pieces. In the smoldering ruins of the cities, all temples related to the dragons were torn down. He watched as men broke the blocks into gravel and used it the fill ruts in roads. All it was fit for was to trample on it. Books were burned, priests that refused to give up the dragon Goddess were hung. Men went out to remote temples and sites, and those too were torn down.
There was a year of hazy darkness where the ash from the fires that burned all across the land fell slowly from the sky. In one last display of Balisha's power, she sent rain to wash the ash away. Mixed with the rain were her tears and where her tears fell little blue flowers grew.
The world was scarred and smoldering. Mankind eaked out a life in the ashes and hid in ruined cities. Much of the land was now empty and uninhabited as it was lost to the expanding wilds. All this passed away suddenly, and he was in darkness. There was a sense of love here, a warmth that flowed through him. He felt safe as if he was a small child wrapped in the arms of its mother.
He began to hear a song, a chant of voices that danced in the air and swam in his heart. He let the song sink into his soul, and he memorized every tone, every inflection. It was a chant to Balisha a channeling of praise and power.
There was an image. A dragon with Blue scales stood proud with a golden light coming from it. Then there was a man in shining silver armor. He held a magnificent silver sword, and he stood bold and strong before the dragon. Gersius understood this was the Dragon Knight and his dragon. Then something happened. Another person stepped out from behind the first. This person also wore the silver armor and held a smaller sword of shining silver metal. This armor was lighter and more curved. The arms and legs looked like scales and hugged the woman's form.
She stood beside the man as the dragon loomed overhead. All three of them were surrounded by people who cheered and prayed. He could hear their voices as if from a great distance, but slowly, he understood what they were saying.
“All hail the dragon knights!”
As if the image couldn't be more strange, he saw a second dragon. It was a red dragon with black horns and glowing eyes. It was easily three times the first dragon's size and looked powerful and deadly. It landed behind them all and to his surprise lowered it's head so the blue dragon could rub it with its own head.
He saw those eyes as the dragon looked up as if looking directly at him. He heard a voice in his head echo with terrible power.
“I should have been first!”
His eyes came open, and he sat motionless, looking over the lake. He could feel Lilly and Thayle in his mind again as his senses returned. He stayed still and took a deep breath as his mind filled with questions he did not have the answers to.