Page 87 of Season of Naga: Volume 2
Once we reach it, we can get the wounded inside and bring out the females with their complementary elements to bolster our failing powers. Together we can turn this tide. But the distance stretches like an eternity, and my wind element gutters like a candle in a storm with each passing heartbeat.
"Hold the line!" Varok roars beside me, his voice cracking with strain. Sweat beads on his scaled forehead, evaporating instantly in the heat of his failing flames. "Just a little longer!"
I grit my fangs, forcing another surge of air through my trembling hands. The shield bulges outward, deflecting another wave of glass orbs, but the effort sends pain lancing through myskull. My vision dims, and I know I cannot maintain this much longer.
I glance behind to judge our progress and think exhaustion has clouded my vision, that I imagine the gate flowing apart like midnight water. But the obsidian continues to part, revealing the glow of heartglass torches and keh'shalin from within Vessan-Kar. My heart plummets. If humans have breached our defenses from within, if the worms have opened our gate to the enemy...
Then I see her.
Serin steps through the widening gap, her small frame silhouetted against the glowing light behind her. Leira follows a half-step behind, her hand already extended toward Varok. My wind falters as shock ripples through me.
Serin stands at the gate, not safely hidden in the Temple of Threads, where the civilians were ordered to take shelter. My heart lurches painfully in my chest. Relief and terror war within me as her eyes lock with mine.
"No," I snarl, my tail lashing in agitation. "She cannot be here. It is too dangerous."
"That is the byrn talking, Lurok," Varok growls beside me, his blazing eyes knowing. "Your protective instinct fights what your warrior mind already understands. We need their elemental power to survive this."
“The byrn,” I whisper, the ancient word settling into place with the weight of truth.
It explains everything, this burning instinct to protect Serin above all else. I had been fighting something as fundamental as the wind beneath my scales, waging war against my own nature. The fury when I saw the TrueCoil's marks on her skin, my need to hunt down the male who hurt her, the constant awareness of her presence that pulls at me even as my mind resists.
My concentration slips. The wind shield shudders, thinning dangerously as my focus fractures. A glass orb penetrates theweakened barrier, shattering against the ground mere tail-lengths from a wounded Talon. The warrior cries out, dragging himself away from the spreading sunblight.
Varok's flames surge to cover the gap, but the effort costs him. He staggers as his fire dims further.
"Lurok!" he snarls. "Focus, or we all die, including Serin!"
I steady the shield and rebuild what faltered, as my eyes remain fixed on Serin. She advances toward me with purposeful strides. Her hair whips around her face in the ash-laden wind, her jaw set in a hard line that speaks of fury barely contained. I can feel her anger tearing across the battlefield like a cyclone, the invisible force of her fury whipping around her and cutting through the distance between us.
She is real. She is here. And she is furious.
Leira rushes past her sister toward Varok, calling his name as she approaches. But Serin moves directly toward me, her hazel eyes never leaving mine, holding me pinned like prey beneath a predator's gaze. She stops just beyond the perimeter of our shield, close enough that I can see each gold fleck in her eyes, the tight press of her lips, the rigid set of her shoulders.
"Serin," I manage, my voice hoarse from exertion. "It is not safe?—"
"Shut up," she cuts me off, her voice sharp as a blade. Before I can respond, she throws her hands forward, palms outward toward my struggling shield.
The air crackles between us. I feel a sudden rush, like being caught in the heart of a thunderhead, as something wild and raw surges from her fingertips into my elemental shield. Wind meets wind, merges, and suddenly the strain eases. Power surges through me, not from within but from without, from her. Our elements recognize each other, entwine, and become one continuous flow rather than separate forces.
The shield stabilizes instantly. More than that, it strengthens, thickening into an impenetrable wall of swirling air currents that deflect the next volley of glass orbs with effortless grace. What required every ounce of my concentration moments ago now feels as natural as breathing.
I stare at her, my mind struggling to process what my body already knows. The wind answers her as it answers me. She commands the element that lives beneath my scales. She is my mirror, my counterpart, my?—
"Serin, I—” I whisper her name.
Her eyes narrow dangerously. "Don't," she warns, keeping her hands extended, feeding her power into our shared shield. "I'm not interested in anything else you have to say.”
Each word strikes like a physical blow, but I deserve every one. I rejected what grows between us out of fear and misplaced certainty of a prophecy I misunderstood. I have spent a lifetime believing the Season of Naga meant destruction. I never believed it could be our salvation.
I cannot take my eyes off Serin as our elements dance together, her wind and mine forming a perfect harmony that feels like a missing piece sliding into place. The air around us shimmers with power that outmatches anything I could summon alone.
Beside us, Leira reaches Varok. When her palms rise to meet his, their elements merge, and the dying embers of his flames erupt into a blinding conflagration. The flames leap higher, hotter, transforming from struggling embers to a towering inferno that casts ruby light across the battlefield. His back straightens, strength returning to his massive form as their bond manifests in elemental glory.
"Serin," I try again, desperate to make her understand while we still have time. The battle still rages, but in this moment,nothing matters more than the truth I have denied for too long. "I was?—”
"Save it," she snaps, her focus remaining on our shield as she steps closer, our powers flowing stronger with her proximity. "I’m here to help, not listen to how my humanity is a plague."
The shield expands further under our combined will, curving around our retreating warriors in a protective dome of wind. With each heartbeat, I feel our connection deepening, our elements merging more completely until I can no longer tell where my power ends, and hers begins. The ease of it staggers me. What once felt like trying to hold back an ocean with bare hands now flows like water finding its natural course.
