Chapter 89 Maybe in another life
The room suddenly echoed with the man’s sudden, jarring laughter. It was a hollow, haunting sound that bounced off the damp stone walls. Orion frowned, finding nothing remotely humorous in the wreckage of their lives.
"Why are you laughing like that?" Orion demanded, his voice sharp with irritation.
The man’s laughter subsided into a wheezing breath,
. "Because," he replied, his voice was raspy and thin, "the King hasn't changed a bit in all these centuries. He still hunts the same way he finds the one thing that makes a monster feel human, and he cuts it out of them just to see if they'll bleed."
"Maybe we have a connection," the man murmured, his voice resonating with a newfound, grim clarity. "I was only guessing before, but now I believe you. You are exactly like me."
Orion’s lips curved into a thin, weary smile. The shared hatred for the King had bridged the gap between their generations.
"Now you are reeking here with me in this prison," the man continued, his sightless face tilting toward the damp stone.
"Tell me do you have any regrets?" That man asked.
Suddenly, the image of Felix flickered across the back of Orion’s eyelids, vivid and unbidden.
Orion’s smile didn’t just slip; it vanished, replaced by a tight, pained line. The cold stone of the prison seemed to grow colder as he remembered the warmth of the one man who hadn't looked at him like a weapon or a curse.
He remembered how Felix had stood by him, offering a steady hand when the rest of the world was sharpening its blades.
"Regrets?" Orion echoed, his voice thickening with a new kind of grief.
"Yes..." Orion whispered, the word trailing off into a sharp, jagged gasp that seemed to pull the very air from the room.
"Would you tell me what that is?" the voice asked, pressing gently into the wound Orion had just opened.
Orion’s expression shifted, a bitter, self-deprecating smirk cutting across his face. "I wanted to forget it," he retorted, his voice hardening like cooling lava.
The finality in his tone was absolute, a wall of glass shattered and then reinforced.
The man didn't push further. He knew the weight of a memory that refused to stay buried.
The prying questions ceased, and the cell was swallowed once more by a thick, suffocating silence
"Yes... I do," the man finally whispered, and the words seemed to carry a weight that made the very stones of the prison ache with remorse.
"And what is it?" Orion questioned, leaning into the darkness, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The silence stretched for several seconds, thick and suffocating, before the man spoke again. "I lost my son," he said, his voice fracturing. "That is my biggest regret."
A profound, jagged gasp escaped Orion. The air in the cell suddenly felt thin, as if the truth between them was a physical force pressing against his lungs.
"Maybe I could have saved him. My son was the only thing in my life that was truly right. I loved him more than my own soul," the man confessed, his voice cracking under the weight of a decade's worth of mourning. Orion nodded slowly, the motion felt even in the pitch-black.
"I can understand..." Orion replied, the words heavy. They sat together in the silence, two broken mirrors reflecting the same grief, both feeling a suffocating pressure against their chests as if the very walls were closing in to crush their hearts.
"Love is a lethal thing," the man spat, the sentiment ending in a bitter, jagged sneer. "It’s the leash the King uses to break us. It’s the venom that makes the kill so easy."
"How could you say that?" Orion challenged, his voice rising with a defensive edge. "You fell for the right person. She gave everything—she lost her life just to save yours."
"I did," the man retorted, the bitterness in his voice sharpening like a blade. "But that love is exactly what claimed her life. And while she was falling, I wasn't there. I wasn't there to protect my family when the shadows closed in."
The man’s head bowed, the black cloth over his eyes dampening with a grief he could no longer suppress.
"Maybe in another life," he whispered, the words trembling, "I could find a way to apologize to my wife for neglecting her. And to my son... for leaving him to a world that only knows how to hurt."
"And maybe in another life we would not be monsters of this world..." Orion whispered. His voice was so low that it was not audible to the other man.
"Orion," Esperanza breathed. Her eyes snapped open and she stood upright. She looked around the room, but she found no one.
Her heart was pounding like a drum against her ribs, each beating a reminder of how much of herself she had given away. She felt fragile, her body hollow and weak; she had drained her very essence to pull Orion back from the brink, and now there was nothing left to steady her.
She let out a ragged gasp, gripping the edge of the stone to keep from collapsing. Slowly, she sat down, forcing herself to breathe until the room stopped spinning.
"The days are coming," she whispered, her voice trembling in the cold air. She could feel the clock ticking toward the day of her birth, a day that should have been a celebration but felt more like a sentence.
"How is this going to be?" she wondered aloud. Anxiety clawed at her chest.
The thought of her true self of the raw, ancient power of the dragon waking within her made her shudder. She was terrified that when the fire finally rose in her blood, there would be nothing left of the girl she used to be.
"My mind is flustered," she whispered, her voice tight with a growing panic. She clutched her hair with her fingers, pulling at the strands as if to anchor her racing thoughts.
"Where is everyone?" she asked herself, the silence of the grand chamber suddenly feeling like a trap.
Suddenly, the heavy thud of the door opening made her heart leap. She stood up quickly, her legs still trembling from exhaustion, and peeked toward the doorway.
It was Ezra. He stood there, his chest rising and falling with a calm, steady rhythm as he took in the sight of her standing safely. Relief washed over his face, softening the hard lines of his features.
He moved forward without a word, closing the distance between them in a few strides. Before she could speak, he reached out and gathered her into his arms, his touch warm and firm against her cold skin.
You made me so scared," Ezra whispered, closing his eyes tightly. He held her with a desperate kind of tenderness, embracing her softly as if she might shatter if he let go.
"Where..." Esperanza started. She knew the name would be a blade between them, that it would cut him deep, but she couldn't resist the ache in her chest.
"Where is Orion?" she asked.
The warmth vanished instantly. Ezra stiffened and let go of her, his arms falling away as if her skin had turned to ice.
"Again? Him?" he hissed, his face twisting into a dark frown as he backed away.
"Why does he have to come between us every single time?" he roared, the frustration boiling over. He lashed out, slamming his hand against the stone wall with a crack that echoed through the silent room.
"I just want to know," Esperanza retorted, her voice ringing with a sudden, chilling authority that stopped Ezra in his tracks.
The weakness that had plagued her only moments ago began to recede, replaced by a cold, ancient clarity.
She could feel it now the shifting of her very essence. She was not born to be a slave to his temper, nor a prisoner of the King’s whims. Every dragon, every human, and every living soul owed a debt to her lineage; they were meant to be grateful for the blood that ran through her veins.
She was no longer afraid. The trembling had ceased, replaced by a bone-deep affirmation. She stood tall, her eyes locking onto Ezra’s with a gaze that felt heavy with the weight of centuries.
She knew, with a terrifying certainty, that she could command anything and anyone in this world.