The Changeling and the Dragon: A Standalone Dark Fantasy Romance by Mallory Dunlin

Author:Mallory Dunlin [Dunlin, Mallory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-07-09T04:00:00+00:00

28

Pain

Sersha Danirew

The wagon jostled over the dirt road towards the Spire, Qavan and I riding in exhausted silence. I didn't know what to do, or how to move forward. It felt like I'd been battered by the day, forced to run a gauntlet of emotion, and it left me sitting on a cushion with my arms wrapped around my legs, feeling like I should do something and not knowing what. The empty night air wore on me, grinding me down with every unspoken word. Qavan was never silent—but he was, now, lying on his back with his legs tucked to the side, staring up at the sky with a dead-eyed gaze.

Petran was dead. He'd killed five people and then killed three more, and he would have killed the rest of us. It shouldn't have been possible. He was a magician; mage-oaths bound him with his own power, and the instant he'd acted to kill someone who hadn't offered him harm, he should have been slain by his own magic. But he'd done it, and now he was dead. Maybe he'd already been dead, the soul in his skin belonging to someone else. Someone new.

"What now?" I asked at last, unwilling to bear the silence for another moment.

Qavan made a sharp sound, akin to laughter but so full of sorrow and pain that it was almost a sob. "I don't know."

Tears stung at my eyes, but I forced them away. "Petran did not go to an ethereal Spire, did he?"

"No," he said, the word laden with despair. "We were— I was wrong. Whatever's happening is happening in Cajahr." Qavan turned away from me, tucking his wings in. "Even after all these months of research, we don't have an answer to what, and every piece of information we get is bought with blood."

"Qavan—"

"Don't. I don't deserve the comfort." He curled up a little tighter. "They're my people, Sersha. I'm supposed to keep them safe, and I can't even figure out what I'm trying to keep them safe from."

"You are not alone, Qavan," I said fiercely, letting go of my legs so I could turn towards him. "It is not all on your shoulders, and after tonight surely the Wardens will think of little else. We know so much, and we have ruled out so many things. It is not time for despair."

He looked up at me, smiling at me with an expression that didn't touch his haunted eyes. "Two of my friends are dead," Qavan said. "Two people who trusted me to protect them. I watched Nighteye snuff the life out of him like a man blowing out a candle." His eyes closed, face lined with pain. "I'll have to carry that for the rest of my life."

I wanted to shake him—to tell him he was only hurting himself. Grief is natural, a response to a hole in your life where happiness once lived, but punishing yourself for that loss does nothing but make your spirit bleed. Pain teaches us, but holding that pain dear and pulling it out again and again makes you complicit in your own suffering.

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