Resurrection (Book Three of the Soul Forge series)

Vel had retreated so far into the recesses of Sypher's mind that all trace of him was gone, save for the faint whisper of his consciousness just out of reach. He'd sprinted into the forest just to get away from the look on Elda's face.

Sypher swallowed and sat down at the base of a tree, holding his right hand in up in front of his face and watching it shake. Vel's shame ran so deep that even the Angel was having a hard time looking at his own hands.

It wasn't fair. What Elda had been through, what Vel had been forced to do, what Sypher had been forced to watch - none of it was fair. The scars it left behind ran so deep that Sypher wasn't sure they'd ever heal.

The thought that Elda might never truly trust him again made him ball his hands into fists and shove them deep into his pockets. Vel was half of who he was. If she was afraid of him, what would that mean for their future?

Light footsteps sounded nearby, footsteps he recognised. Elda emerged from a break in the trees and paused as soon as she spotted him. The distance between them was no more than a few feet, but it yawned so wide Sypher was surprised it hadn't swallow him whole.

"You didn't tell me about Julian," she accused, folding her arms across her chest.

Sypher blinked. "That's what you have to say to me? After what just happened, you're still angry that I didn't tell you Julian was suicidal?"

"You're supposed to tell me things."

"About me. Julian never told me how he felt, El. He didn't come to me. I found out from Ember yesterday that a man I consider to be my brother tried to kill himself. Do you not think I was still coming to terms with it myself?"

"I shouldn't have found out from Ember."

"And I shouldn't be sat here explaining myself to you when I did nothing wrong."

"You lied to me."

"I didn't lie!" Sypher surged to his feet. "If I lied to you I'd be dead! What more do you want from me, Elda? You asked for my friendship, you got it against my better judgement. You asked for my trust and I gave you my heart. When you needed more from me after Shade, I gave you my life. I have nothing left to give you. If this isn't good enough what the hell else am I meant to do to make you happy?"

"You do make me happy."

"I also give you nightmares."

"Vel gives me nightmares," Elda frowned, and then her eyes widened.

Sypher nodded slowly, swallowing down the sick feeling in his stomach. "There's the truth of it. Vel is me, El. I am him. If he gives you nightmares, I give you them." He sighed, swallowing the thick knot sitting uncomfortably in his throat. "I know what happened to you was horrific. I know it will take time to get over, but you hurt Vel so deeply. You hurt both of us."

"Let me talk to him."

"No. Right now, he needs protecting from you."

Elda's head jerked back. "You're just going to keep him locked away?"

"Oh no, not me. This is his choice. He's so ashamed of what he's done that I can't stop my hands shaking. He would have walked us to the block to pay for how he hurt you. Both of us would lay at your feet and die to repay the pain we caused."

"I know that."

"No," Sypher replied sadly. "No, you don't. And until you understand how Vel feels, how I feel, you can't trust me."

"Sypher-"

"I'll move my things out of the suite today."

"Are you leaving me?" she choked, tears springing up in her perfect blue eyes.

"No. I'm giving all of us the space to heal. I'm yours, and I'll always be yours, but I can't share a bed with you if you don't trust me with something as simple as the truth."

"So I just live alone in the suite until you decide I trust you again?"

Sypher ran a hand through his pale hair and looked her over, watching her folded arms tighten around her midriff as though she were holding herself together. "No. You live alone in the suite until you decide you trust me again. Vel is half of my soul. I won't let him be less than equal in anyone's eyes. Not even yours."

It was hard - almost impossible - but Sypher turned and walked away. This time, she didn't follow. He put two fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle, hauling himself up the nearest tree as Ember approached. Elda couldn't follow him in the sky. He knew Cain would refuse.

I see that went well, the black dragon remarked as she neared.

"It would have been much better if you hadn't blurted Julian's secret," Sypher replied, raising a hand to catch her tail as she flew by. With practised ease, he pulled himself up to the thicker base and then walked along the ridges of her spine until he was seated in the hollow at the base of her neck.

You two-legged folk have such ridiculous rules of conversation. You should be more like dragons, she grumbled. Despite her attitude, she circled the forest until she was sure Elda was safely back behind the city walls before flying off towards the horizon.

Sypher's chest ached with loss. His connection with Vel was dulled to almost nothing, and his wedding ring sat on his finger like a lead weight. The prospect of returning to the suite just to pack up his things and move back into the room across the palace left him nauseous, but after what had just happened, he knew a night beside Elda while she screamed and cried in her sleep would damage Vel beyond repair.

Space was what he needed. And as painful as it would be for him to be away, he knew she needed it too. Time to accept that she still hadn't forgiven him. Time to miss him - all of him.

She will realise in her own time that she was wrong, Ember decided, banking left to land beside a small lake.

Sypher didn't try to tell her that Elda wasn't wrong - she was hurt. He knew the dragon was clouded by her bond to him as nirehni. Nothing he could say would make her believe otherwise. Dragons didn't hold onto trauma like other creatures.

You are quiet, nirehni.

"When I return home I'm packing my things and moving to another room," he replied softly.

Home. I have not heard you call any place that for a very long time. Sypher didn't reply. I am sorry. I did not mean to cause such trouble for you by speaking the truth.

"I know. It can't be undone now. Elda will either understand, or she won't. I can wait."

And if you never regain your immortality you may age and die before she understands.

"Some wounds don't heal. If that's how it is, then I have no choice but to live with it." He ran his hand over the smooth scales on Ember's neck. "I have faith in her."

I know you do. I wish I could say the same.

"I'm surprised you still doubt her after everything she's done for me."

I will not trust anyone to carry you, nirehni. We are one creature, and until she can show me she is worthy of all of you, I will wait.

Sypher's brows crept upwards. "You don't like her."

She is my son's bonded. My nirehni's wife. She is a part of my life.

"But you don't like her."

...No. She is a fickle Princess with no idea what it is to live through the worst horrors this world has to offer. She is learning, but you need someone who has already learned. At risk of offending you, she is not strong enough to carry you.

Sypher mulled over Ember's admission while she bent her neck to drink from the lake. Eventually, he surprised himself by smiling. "I understand, but you're wrong. I will wait."

Your faith in her baffles me.

"Before Shade, she saw me. She'll see me again. I just hope Vel can overcome being crushed twice by that look on her face."

The one where she looks at you like the monstrous beast she thinks you are?

"I wouldn't have said monstrous beast... but yes."

I thought you would be more upset by all this. You love her and she's afraid of you.

"If I lose my head now, none of us will be rational enough to come out of this in one piece. Until Vel speaks to me again, or Elda sleeps without nightmares, I'll carry on researching the monoliths and waiting for Hephaestus to return. We'll take turns scouting for more of the undead, and we'll plan the festival for the refugees."

And after that?

"I find something else to keep me from going quietly insane." He patted her side, signalling that it was time to go. Ember shook herself and spread her wings, taking a running start and launching into the darkening sky like a cannonball.

By the time Eden was back on the horizon, night had fallen and the city lights twinkled. A patch of lights on the road caught Sypher's attention, the glow of crude torches highlighting weary figures pulling carts and cases of belongings.

"Another village has been displaced," he noted, and Ember shifted her trajectory to land beside them without being asked to. Sypher slid off her back and approached the woman leading the procession. The people he could see were all too elderly and frail for battle, or they were children.

Their strong stayed behind, Ember realised.

"Excuse me. What village are you coming from?"

"We're a mix of many," the woman replied wearily, tucking dirty brown hair behind her ears. "Our latest are towards the back. Kilmarthen, I think the village was."

Sypher's blood ran cold. Before his brain could catch up, his feet were moving. He ran down the line searching for faces he knew, almost falling to his knees in relief when he saw Sorrel with Adelaide in a sling on her back.

"Oh, thank goodness," Sorrel gasped, clasping his forearms. "You have to go to the village, Sypher." Her face was smeared with muck, deep circles sitting heavily below haunted eyes. "Edward stayed behind."

"Why would he stay?"

"The strong stayed to stop the undead getting any further. They're coming this way."

"Get to Eden, find Elda. All refugees are welcome there. I'll find Edward," he promised. His eyes strayed to Addie, blinking sleepy brown eyes at him. She was unharmed, alive, and healthy enough to nap peacefully in her sling.

Ember was already poised to fly, lifting off the moment his boots left the ground. He climbed to his seat while she was still ascending, settling in the familiar hollow just before she levelled out. Several powerful wing beats lent her enough speed that Sypher had to tuck himself against her back, keeping his wings in as tightly as he could so the wind didn't catch them and rip him from his seat.

The flight was eye-watering, but it still seemed to take too much time. The outskirts of Kilmarthen were decimated. Buildings were no more than smoking piles of rubble, teeming with the lumbering bodies of the undead. A hasty barricade had been erected around the inn, one of the last buildings untouched by the chaos.

Sypher directed Ember to fire jets of blue flame over the bodies milling about below, wrinkling his nose at the smell of charred, rotting flesh. The crowd was small - still large enough to overwhelm the village and stretch for what felt like mile, but nowhere near as endless as the encounter in Mulvenny. He frowned, storing the observation away.

His heart leapt when he saw Edward emerge from the inn with a pile of axes in his arms, handing them out to the men and women that had remained.

I will drop you inside the barricade and continue to set them alight from above. Be careful, Ember pleaded.

"Do not land. If they break the skin between your scales, Malakai gains an undead dragon." He dropped from her back while she was still flying, landing in a crouch and watching her swoop back over the masses to deliver flaming death.

The half-orc watched her progress, then blinked bewildered green eyes at her rider. "Sypher?"

"Edward, you fucking idiot! Why in Spirit's name are you all still here?"