Layla saw his eyes tighten behind his sunglasses as he spoke.
“Fuck.”
CHAPTER 18 – HOME
Stepping back from the crystal barrier across the highway that led into his homeland, Dusk set his hands on his hips, staring up at the wall’s shimmering heights. It was a posture Layla knew well, one that meant he was thinking deeply about a problem and didn’t have a solution yet. Exchanging a glance with Adrian and moving forward, Layla gained Dusk’s side where he stood on the pitted sandstone of the plateau, right beside the highway. Adrian stepped forward with her, and together they waited as Dusk heaved a sigh and turned to them.
“I don’t know if it recognizes me.” He growled irately, the faceted crystal barrier shimmering in ripples as if it could feel his growl.
“Well, your magics are clearly having an effect on it,” Layla spoke supportively, gesturing at the gargantuan barrier. “You rang this thing like a bell. Maybe you just have to give it more oomph?”
“It’s my homeland, Layla.” Lifting a dark eyebrow above his shades, Dusk gave her a wry smile. “It should open for me no matter how muchoomphI give it. Crystal barriers don’t keep out those who are supposed to be protected inside them.”
“Maybe your people did something to it when they died,” Adrian spoke thoughtfully, moving forward and smoothing his palm over the solid barrier. It did nothing, neither shimmer nor react to his touch, inert to someone who was not a Crystal Dragon. “Maybe they put in an extra measure of protection to keep your lands safe when they were gone.”
“I can’t imagine why they would keep one of their own out.” Dusk scowled, looking back to the wall. Gazing through the clear crystal, Layla was still able to take in the vast swath of the plateau with its tiers and pinnacles embracing the citadel beyond. The barrier was so massive, Layla imagined it probably wrapped around the entire plateau. From the angle of the wall as it arched upwards, it probably went high above too, like a massive crystal bubble. The citadel occupying the plateau’s heights looked like some distant fairyland now, like Sleeping Beauty’s palace. But rather than ringed by a barrier of thorns, this fairyland was held fast by a wall of pure, un-shatterable crystal.
Suddenly, the idea of Sleeping Beauty prompted a thought in Layla.
“Maybe it’s a test.” She spoke, moving forward to touch the wall, finding it smooth and cool beneath her fingers despite the high desert sun. “Maybe your clan leaders wanted insurance that if someone survived the battle and came home, they’d be strong enough to re-start what had been lost.”
“You mean maybe they wanted to ensure it was a Royal Crystal Dragon who came back here,” Dusk spoke quietly now, consideration on his face as his mind churned. “One with enough power to bring the barrier down.”
“Or maybe with enough heart,” Layla spoke as she smoothed her hand over the wall, “strong enough to protect any Dragons he or she called to come start the clan again. King Markus couldn’t bring this wall down, Dusk. He’s the strongest person in your Lineage. He’s got power, but from all the stories I’ve heard, he’s a fucking tyrant. So what do you have that he doesn’t?”
“Heart.” Dusk echoed, lowering his sunglasses now and tucking them in the pocket of his shirt, blinking at the wall. “I care about this land and its people. Others who would try to get in here are just treasure-hunters, like Talia said. People who would raid this land for its riches and leave the dead to rot. I want to rebuild this land and its people, not ruin it further.”
“So how do you put your heart into your vibrations?” Layla wondered aloud, glancing up at the wall’s heights, shimmering out as if to nothing in the broad azure sky.
“I simply let my pain be felt.” Dusk spoke quietly.
Layla and Adrian both glanced at him, but Dusk was already in motion, solving the problem before them. Inhaling a deep breath, he turned back to the wall. Closing his eyes as if it was the hardest challenge he’d ever faced, he set his palms back upon its smooth expanse.
Layla could feel it through their Bind as he dug down deep inside himself, to the place he never wanted to let show. She felt it as Dusk dredged up all the pain of his origins, and all his sorrow. Every horror he’d witnessed in that final battle of his clan, every scream inside his heart as he’d wandered the desert alone afterwards, starving and afraid and broken. He’d run from the carnage; it had been too much for a six-year-old child. When his father had fallen, he’d run and run, not looking back.
But he wasn’t running now.
As Dusk began a deep rumble inside his body, pouring it through his hands into the crystal barrier, Layla felt the whole thing shudder. Like a symphony of bells it rang, a soaring, screaming, terrible sound like a million voices crying out in pain. But just when it reached its most jangled, Layla felt all of Dusk’s formidable determination roar up inside him – determination that this wouldn’t be his fate, to wander alone and clan-less all his life. Homeless and lost wasn’t their destiny. He would build a people again, and he would build them strong. And he would honor the slain and make it right, whatever had happened to them and why a peace treaty had been so profoundly shattered at the last moment.
Layla felt it, as Dusk poured all of himself into his vibrations.
And she felt it, when all along its vast length, the wall suddenly cracked.
All at once, the whole wall sang like a choir of angels as Dusk pulled swiftly back, hauling Adrian and Layla into his arms, fast. Curling protectively around them, he slammed up a crystal shield-dome around them. Yousry didn’t need shielding, swirling out to nothing upon the winds as those cracks devoured the surface before them.
Suddenly, the enormous crystal wall shattered. Exploding like a million bombs, it blasted apart in a wave all down its length and high up into the sky. From inside the safety of Dusk’s barrier, Layla watched all that crystal shatter in a vicious, tremendous burst around the massive plateau, then fracture inward as it followed the miles-long dome to its height. The final blast-wave consumed the sky far above the crystal citadel.
And then there was only the sound of tinkling, as millions of clear-white crystal shards shimmered from the heights to the ground like snow.
It was beautiful and terrible as Layla watched that enormous barrier come shimmering down. The fragments were like billions of falling stars as they glittered to the earth, each no bigger than a hummingbird’s feather but sharp as needles. As it finished, there was nothing left of the massive barrier except a fine diamond snow three feet thick, coating the entirety of the plaza. Except this snow wasn’t cold, and it was deadly.
Cutting like a million razor-blades should anyone step into it.
Lowering his protective barrier slowly, Dusk dissipated it into the ground rather than shatter it and add more mess to the plateau. All around, what had been red, yellow, and blue sandstone was now blindingly white. All of them blinked, amazed at what had just happened, as Yousry swirled back into existence beside them, lowering his shades and blinking with his mouth open at Dusk’s feat. Yousry’s Djinnic winds stirred the crystal snow at the edge of the plateau, swirling it up into the sky. Adrian quickly shot a hand out, manifesting his own wind to flush those deadly razors away from them, clearing a small path into the carnage.
Though it abruptly ended five feet in.
“Damn.” Adrian cursed, glancing to Dusk. “I don’t think Desert Dragon or Djinnic winds can make much of a dent in this.”
