Page 59 of Season of Naga: Volume 2
His words anchor me, giving me something to hold onto as consciousness slips away again. Leira is here. Knowing I will see my sister soon is a lifeline, pulling me back from the edge of darkness. I try to squeeze his hand, but my fingers barely twitch against his scales.
"Rest," he murmurs, his voice dropping to a register so low it seems to vibrate through my bones rather than travel through air. "You are safe now."
Safe. The word wraps around me like a blanket. Protected by Lurok's hand holding mine. Sheltered with Leira somewhere nearby. Secure, despite everything that has happened, everything we've endured.
I focus on his face, willing my vision to clear. I blink hard, desperate to bring him into focus. My gaze traces the familiar pattern of scales along his jaw, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, and the shimmer that runs across his scales when he moves.
Something has changed in him. I can't identify it in my current state. There's an aloofness in his gaze. His presence now feels different, as if he occupies space in a new way. Before I can puzzle it out, footsteps approach rapidly from my left and Lurok's attention shifts.
"She is here," he says, his hand still firmly wrapped around mine. "Your sister comes."
I turn my head toward the sound, the movement sending fresh pain radiating down my neck. But I don't care. Leira is coming. After everything, the separation, the torture, the near-death in ash, I will see my sister again.
Exhaustion pulls at me once more, threatening to drag me back into darkness. But I fight it, clinging to consciousness with stubborn determination. I have come too far, survived too much, to miss this reunion.
I hold onto Lurok's hand like it's the only solid thing in a world gone soft at the edges.
The form rushes to my side, smaller and quicker than Lurok's massive presence. "Serin!" The voice cuts through my haze. Familiar, beloved, and impossibly here.
Leira’s hand finds my free one, fingers intertwining with mine. "I leave for five minutes to fetch water, and you decide to wake up?" she says, her attempt at lightness betrayed by the trembling in her voice.
"I told you she would wake today," Lurok rumbles from my other side, his tone caught between smugness and relief. "Her strength returns."
I try to focus on my sister's face. I blink rapidly. Shapes sharpen incrementally, colors separating from the blur. Leira's mahogany hair tumbles forward as she leans close, the tips brushing my arm. It's shorter than I remember, wilder, with strands of copper catching the light that weren't there before.
"You're really here," I manage to whisper, each word scraping my raw throat. "Both of you."
My gaze shifts between them. My fierce, impossible sister and the naga warrior whose silver scales gleam in the gentle light. They couldn't be more different: Leira's human angles and contained energy, and Lurok's massive serpentine form and restrained power. Yet they bracket my cot like matching sentinels, each holding one of my hands as if afraid I'll drift away if they let go.
"Of course I'm here," Leira scoffs in her typical bravado as she wipes at her tears with her free hand. "You think I'd let you have all the adventure? First, you run off and save a wounded naga, then you traverse the Ashlands, then—" She breaks off, her voice catching. "You nearly died bringing a warning that saved hundreds of lives."
I shake my head weakly, unable to reconcile her words through my lingering fatigue. "I just wanted to find you," I whisper. "To warn... everyone."
"And you did." Leira leans closer, pressing her forehead briefly against mine in a gesture of intimacy we've shared since childhood. Her skin feels cool against my feverish brow. "You did."
For a long moment, we simply breathe together, my damaged lungs struggling to match her steady rhythm. Lurokremains silent, but I feel his thumb tracing gentle patterns against my palm, his presence a solid anchor on my other side.
My vision continues to clear, allowing me to study my sister more carefully. She wears naga clothing. A wrapped tunic of deep green that shimmers faintly in the light, adorned with silver threads that echo the pattern of scales. At her throat hangs a pendant I've never seen before, a coiled serpent carved from stone that seems to glow from within, pulsing with amber light.
Leira's fingertips rise to touch the pendant as she notices my gaze fixed upon it. "Emberyn," she says softly, her thumb tracing the contours of the stone. "The serpent stone Varok placed around my neck during the Crimson Bond Ceremony."
Crimson Bond.The words transport me back to my father's study, to nights spent hunched over a forbidden naga tome, its spine cracked from age, pages smelling of aged leather and secrets. I'd trace the illustrations with trembling fingers while glancing nervously at the door, heart racing each time the floorboards creaked. My eyes widen now as understanding dawns.
"You and Varok," I whisper to Leira. "The blood bond is real.”
A soft smile transforms my sister's face, gentler than any expression I've seen her wear before. "Yes," she says simply. "It's real."
My sister looks different, transformed in subtle ways that add up to something profound. Her face is thinner, more defined. Her eyes now hold shadows that speak of things I didn't witness. A small scar splits her right eyebrow. The changes go deeper than physical marks. There's a certainty in her posture, a stability.
Something passes between us in that moment, an understanding that transcends words. My sharp-tongued, fiercely independent sister has found something I never thought possible: a sense of belonging, a deep connection, and lovewrapped up in the scaled embrace of a naga warrior. The irony isn't lost on me, not when Lurok's scaled hand engulfs mine, his presence at my bedside revealing truths neither of us has spoken aloud.
"We match," I murmur, my gaze moving meaningfully from her hand clasped with mine to Lurok's on my other side.
Leira's eyes dart to Lurok before returning to me. A silent exchange passes between them that I'm too exhausted to interpret. But I feel the tensing of Lurok's fingers around mine, the almost imperceptible shift in his posture.
"Rest now," Leira says, skillfully changing the subject. "The healers say you need to sleep as much as possible. Your lungs took severe damage from the ash."
I close my eyes, their hands still clasping mine, anchoring me to this moment of perfect, fragile peace, but that peace doesn't last. Memory slams back with the force of a physical blow, jolting me from the edge of sleep into jarring alertness. The worms. The explosive devices hidden throughout Vessan-Kar. My father's betrayal, his meeting with Captain Halvane. Each image crashes into my consciousness like shards of broken glass. Sharp, dangerous, cutting through the fog of pain and medication with terrible clarity.
