Axoular was indignant. He stared at each elder until they lowered their eyes. Only Boudicca would meet his gaze. “If we leavebefore our fated time? We have lived for hundreds of years believing the portals can't be opened by anyone but the Savior.”
The quiet Drest slammed his hand down on the table, making me jump. My skin crawled—I couldfeelthe anger in the room. Drest stood. “We could’ve left? You know how to open the portals?”
“We do,” replied Morcan. Drest turned away from us and stared into the fire.
“All of my life, we have lived in fear and poverty. We have toiled and struggled,” Axoular said. Milky white tears ran down his cheeks. His hands were clenched so tightly it looked like the scales on his knuckles were going to split apart. “We could've gone to the human world. We could’ve at leasttriedto find help!”
“Axoular, do you believe in the prophecy?” asked Boudicca.
“You know I do,” said Axoular. “At least, I believed in the part I knew!”
“The part you didn’t know would've caused strife and dissent if our people knew, Axoular,” said Morcan.
“You should've respected us enough to fill us in once you appointed the three of us to the Elders. If you trusted us enough to take our council, you should've trusted us with this,” Drest said without turning. His voice was deep and threatening. Smoke floated around his head from the flames of the fireplace.
“Is there more?” asked Axoular.
Boudicca blinked her nearly transparent eyelids. “I was the last Sárkány to leave Earth. I didn’t want to return here, but I was being hunted.”
The room was silent, but my mind was loud with the buzz of my shock. “Youwere in my world? You were one of the old gods?” I asked, voice shrill.
Boudicca chuckled. “No, Riley. I hid among the humans. I didn't seek glory. When you cross the portal, your appearance will be human. That’s how I lived there for many years.”
“I don’t know what a human looks like,” said Axoular.
“You will,” replied Boudicca. “Hush and let me tell my story.” Axoular’s eyes narrowed, but he stopped talking. “Our people were in the human world for a very long time. When we first traveled there, we hadn't yet added the magic to the portal to alter our appearance. I believe you have witches there, Riley, that would call it a glamor spell. It’s akin to that. Our ancestors, many thousands of years ago, created the portals. I don't have the knowledge of how. Once this final portal is destroyed, the portals will be no more and wherever we are, we'll be stuck there.
“Our ancestors crossed over and their appearance didn't change. Riley, I’m sure you can imagine how they were received.”
“Either in fear or total worship, I would think,” I said.
“A combination of both. They called us dragons and brought us precious metals and other valuable items. When we discovered that the Sárkány could mate with humans, we went a little wild for a while. There were many marriages between the Sárkány and the humans, and the power hungry Sárkány kept harems of both men and women to please them.”
“Were you not hunted or called demons?” I asked, trying to reconcile where in history they could've been, since I’d never heard legends of sentient dragons.
“Oh, yes. We got too raucous, too exposed. At the time, the country we were in was being converted by the Holy Roman Empire.”
“The Holy Roman Empire? How do you know these things, Boudicca? Exactly how old are you?” I asked. I didn’t understand how someone who hadn’t been to Earth in over two hundred years could remember details of events that happened there over three thousand years ago when their written history was supposed to have been destroyed.
“Yes, the Holy Roman Empire. I know these things because I studied them in great detail when I was a child. To be allowed to go live on Earth, you were required to memorize our entire history with Earth and pass an arduous test. They didn't want us to make the mistakes of our fathers and mothers before us. And I'm almost twelve hundred years old.
My mouth dropped. “You can’t be. Will I live that long?” How crushing: I’d gone to all this trouble to make sure I would live long enough to have a life with my family. To find out I’d outlive them by several centuries was heartbreaking.
“No, you won’t. You are half human. Entering our world and passing through the magical portal awoke your Sárkány genes, but you still have human in you. If you are lucky, you could live to be five hundred years old, but most of the Sárkány human offspring lived to between three and four hundred years.” My shoulders sagged in relief.
Morcan was staring at Boudicca. “You’ve kept your secrets well, sister.” She turned to me. “Boudicca and I were childhood friends. As we grew older, her interest in the world of humans grew and mine didn't. She left, and I was here, living among our people. I had no desire to travel off to new lands and get into a big mess of trouble.” She turned to Boudicca.
“I never knew you had to learn the entire history of the Sárkány on Earth. Nor did I know you looked different when there.”
“I’m sorry, old friend. When I was forced to come home, I was heartbroken. I left the love of my life on Earth, and my children.” Her eyes drifted upward, and I knew she wasn’t seeing us in that room, but the memory of her love. “I was doomed from the moment I met him, for he was full human, and their lives are so brief. But I loved him fiercely. I came home to protect him and our children. I hoped that if I removed myself and closed the portals from this side, they'd stop hunting me and leave my family alone. I don’t know what became of my family. The council of elders were terrified by all things human. They wouldn't allow me to bring my family here. No human or Sárkány-human hybrid has ever crossed into our world until today.” Her opaque eyelids closed.
“I never recovered. To this day, I mourn my lost family. I only hope to live long enough to go to Earth and find my descendants, to see if any history of my line has survived.”
“I don't know who my ancestors are, Boudicca. If your line isn't found, I would be honored to call you family,” I said. My heart was heavy from her story. She fought my fight, and she lost. She fought, a thousand years before, to keep her family. In order to save her family, she gave up her fight and let them go. I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t know their customs. Hugs might be taboo to the Sárkány.
“Thank you, young one. We’re family, whether you are of my line or not. The last piece of advice I have for you is this: the creatures that hunted me were on the Earth long before we were. They claimed that the Earth was their home and that they were born there. The Sárkány never believed that, as the Earth is a world without magic. The only magic we ever found on the planet was that which was brought from other worlds. By the time I left, most of the other species had gone to their homes. If any were left on Earth, they were hiding and once I left, they wouldn't have had any way home.”
“I met one, Boudicca,” I said. “Her name is Mama Pacha and she’s of the Supay.” I said, not sure if Boudicca would know anything about the other Unseen on Earth.
