Prince of Time

Chapter Forty-Five - The Tower

The vast caves below the tower were crowded with the survivors from Etheron. They sat in orderly groups, rations being doled out by volunteers, mourning and bandaging wounds together. Tobiah huddled by a wall, drowning.

 Self-loathing was not a new emotion for the prince. He was used to hating himself, to scorning every decision he ever made. But it was made worse now, far worse, by the fact that he had opened the box in his mind and let in all the pain.

 He had shut it away again, as much as he could, but it had had time to slice open old wounds, fresh and raw and bleeding inside of him. He shuddered in the memory of ancient things. In his seventeen years, he had far too much history.

 He had left Zeno behind. That was why he was hating himself now, why he couldn’t shut out the reopened scars and focus on the matter at hand. Ashamed and confused and angry, he had left Zeno unconscious on the mountainside. Alone. Perhaps dying.

 Tobiah never understood his own choices. This one, even to him, couldn’t begin to be justified. He rarely felt from human than this. He wished he had the privacy and freedom to take a knife to himself, to see the blood in proof of his living soul.

  Thinking this, he remembered the tent only a few days ago and Zeno’s horror. His stomach folded in on itself as the memory of the kiss surfaced. He dug his fingernails deep into the backs of his hands, escaping into the pain that kept him upright and away from the black waters of his own hate.

 More than ever, Tobiah wanted to run to Finem. He wanted permission to escape himself, to explode his power, to devastate the world. But he couldn’t. He never would. It was impossible. He was tethered too tightly to this life now.

 Mithien sat down beside him, pale and drawn, jaw set, tight and angry. Tobiah wished he would go away. Humanity was contagious.

“She’s dead,” Mithien said, emotionlessly. “Teliwen is dead.”

Tobiah didn’t say sorry. There was never a more useless word than sorry.

“Haliwen too,” Mithien sighed. “I suppose I killed her. I knew her since she was tiny. She and Teliwen were practically sisters. And they’re both dead.”

Tobiah didn’t want to listen. He wanted to dwell in his own misery.

“She looked so much like her mother,” Mithien said, softly. “It was the eyes. My brave daughter. My last link to Trioven. Both such…soldiers. So strong.”

There was something curiously repellent about seeing a grown man cry. Tobiah looked away, focusing on the patterns of dust on the stone floor.

“Why do we do it, Prince?” Mithien whispered, hopelessly. “Why do we kill our own children?”

Tobiah couldn’t answer that.

Dragon flight was like nothing Nicanor had ever experienced. The skies were boundless, deliriously blue and burning with the sun. The ground raced by far below, insignificant and inferior. The no-worries attitude of so many dragon riders finally made sense – ordinary problems couldn’t hurt you up here.

“Down there,” Nicanor pointed past Argon’s shoulder. “In the ravine.”

I see her, Companion, Argon answered. We shall free her.

Argon tucked in his wings and they dived, sweeping out level again just above the ravine. The dragon’s great wings folded away and he landed gracefully a few hundred metres from where Maple lay, half-asleep.

“Maple!” Nicanor leapt to the ground and ran to her side. “Are you alive?”

Maple blinked at him blearily. “Oh, it’s you. And a dragon. How nice.”