Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “I’ll do anything to fix this,” she said.
“Then let us bring you to the tower. There you can reflect and purify yourself in isolation.”
“Anything,” she whispered.
Anything.
20
Days had passed since Erich had last seen Liane, even though he’d returned to the temple daily, watching as the moon grew riper. He was always restless close to the full moon, but Liane’s silence was making it worse. As it was, the monster within him was ready to burst from Erich’s skin suit. He could lie and tell himself that these visits to the temple were for her benefit, but that was far from the truth. He craved her in a way that terrified him. Driven half mad with longing and desperation, he’d scoured the temple for a way to reach her. But there were no convenient secret tunnels or backdoors he could exploit. And though he’d attempted to send messages to her in all sorts of ways, nothing had reached her.
If he wanted to rescue her, he’d have to resort to kidnapping her. And once he’d freed her from the church’s clutches, would he be able to quietly walk away and act as if she hadn’t engraved herself onto his heart?
He knew the answer, but he dared not speak it aloud.
The sun was sinking below the horizon by the time he reached the temple. The line of worshippers attempting to get in had dwindled down to almost nothing. They stopped letting people in at sunset. But the token burned into his palm, a free pass in that set him above the masses. He stalked closer, no longer timid or fearful. The approaching full moon, or the dragon’s growing obsession, had emboldened him. He walked up to the guards, like a raptor swooping in for a kill, and thrust his token toward them.
The guards didn’t question his presence. His wanted posters had been wiped from the city, and he was another rich eccentric desperate to meet the avatar. The cost was high, but he was grateful for this chance—another opportunity to glimpse Liane, to convince her to leave the church behind. He passed through the outer halls, where a few worshippers still lingered, and with each ring, he felt his proximity to Liane like a coil pulled tight in his gut. His hand flexed as he grasped the handle of his dagger, trying to draw from it some of his uncle’s calming assurances.
His uncle had been the one who had helped him through his first change and had guided him through his rocky adolescence. His uncle made him believe he could live with this accursed dragon within him. Until he’d killed a man the dragon had become obsessed with. The moment had spit in the face of his uncle and everything he’d taught him. The more he indulged the dragon, the more of his humanity would be stripped away until nothing was left but a monster wearing human skin. No matter what his uncle said. And each month’s transformation proved that. He’d lied to himself and said that once he had the sword, he’d be healed. Then, once Liane could heal him. But the dragon was commandeering more and more of his thoughts, slowly consuming him, and soon he’d have to choose a life as a monster or die a man.
He shouldn’t have come tonight, but rather gone straight out of the city gates, as he’d told Fritz he was planning to do, and sequestered himself in the woods to wait out his transformation, where his mind would become wholly the dragon for a night and sate his hunger on deer and boar. Erich tipped his head back to stare into the face of the nearly full moon. One more night before the change took him. And he was hiding in a garden, waiting for a glimpse of Liane from afar.
Midnight Guards watched the doors to the inner sanctum where Liane resided, preventing outsiders from intruding. It took all his self-control to not attempt using his allure on them. It might not work, and they’d arrest him, or it might, and he’d tip too far into damnation. He kept staring at the moon and felt the guards’ eyes on him. He’d felt the moon ripening for days, like a bright juicy apple, its fragrance that of forbidden fruit. It reminded him of the story his uncle had told him about the first dragon cursed, their family’s ancestors. The long-time past ancestor was the head of a small village, and one day, they were visited by the Trinity, the three-faced goddess. But they didn’t know it was her, as her outward appearance was shrouded and garbed as a crone. The head of the clan welcomed her into his long house and offered her a place to sleep by his fire, and in payment, she offered him a strange silver fruit and urged him to share it with his people. From his first bite, he was consumed by hunger so great that nothing else would sate it but the fruit. He planted the seeds and hired the best farmers and cultivators to grow him an orchard. The next year, when it bore fruit, he urged his wife and children to partake of it as well. Soon they could eat nothing but fruit, think of nothing but it, because nothing was as delicious as it. But apart from with his family, he did not share the fruit.
Years passed, and the head clansman had begun to neglect his duties. Famine took over the land, and diseases spread. The village was on the brink of ruin until the crone returned and revealed herself to be the Trinity. She condemned the clansman and his family for their greed and cursed their line to transform into a hungry dragon on each full moon.
This was his legacy. Greed and hunger. This curse that stalked his lineage for generations. It’d been decades since someone had been born with it, but his mother had hidden that secret from his father and married him anyway. A hidden seed that eventually bore fruit in Erich. An abomination who killed his own mother during his birth. And was rejected by his father until he saw use in him. If he could tear this part of himself out, he would. Rather than continue to suffer, slowly descending into madness month by month, chipped away by each turning of the moon. He’d prayed to the Trinity. Begged them to free him of this torture, but his prayers fell on deaf ears. The gods did not care for the plight of mortals. And those who ran their churches would only continue to exploit the gods in the name of those gods. That was what he knew. It was why he’d known Fritz was right when he’d said the church would only use her.
A shadow crossed over the moon’s surface. A black-winged bird swooped down and landed on a nearby bush and tilted its head to look at Erich quizzically.
“We must go to her,” the raven said in his mind.
Erich was startled to hear its voice spoken so clearly within his thoughts.
“Easy for a bird to say,” Erich said under his breath, praying the guards didn’t see him talking to it and think he was insane.
“You want to take her away from this place, don’t you?” The bird preened as it taunted him.
It was madness to even entertain this conversation.
“More than anything,” he admitted aloud. Perhaps a bit too loudly because the guards were glancing in his direction.
If the guards noticed, they might interrogate him, and then he’d lose his access to even this much of her. Erich forced his feet to move before the guards decided to question him. But each step was like walking through mud. Normally, he’d expect the dragon to protest. Whenever he left the temple, it thrashed and roiled. Now he felt it poised, waiting, almost cognizant. Was it listening to the raven too?
“Your destiny is to protect her. And yet you’re afraid of her.” The raven followed him, hopping along the bushes.
He wanted to see her. Ever since their encounter in the garden, his desire for her had only grown more intense. His awareness of her more keen. But he couldn’t squander his chance. Leonhard had been lenient with him—one fight in the ring had given him unlimited access to her, and Leonhard hadn’t called in that debt yet. If Erich ruined this, he feared what the price would be.
“I will be her destruction,” Erich said.
“That is what you fear; it is not the truth.”
Erich felt the dragon stretch its wings within him as if he truly were a puppet and the dragon were the puppeteer. It forced his feet to turn around and take a few steps back toward the guards before he regained control, and he tipped forward, fingers digging into the mortar of the nearby wall. Erich rested his head against it, felt the rapidly cooling night air against his fevered skin, and noticed the guards approaching. The dragon and raven were conspiring against him, forcing his hand.
“Enough,” he gasped.
“Time is running short. She needs to draw the sword. Go to her.”
