Azh shuddered. There was something about that crack that warned he didn’t want to get near it. He turned back to face his companion.
“This has to be an illusion,” he accused.
“It’s real enough.” Zion snapped his fingers again and a series of heavy copper doors slid open to reveal a brilliant blue sky with two red-tinted suns and tiny puffs of clouds. “Abandoned, but real.”
There was a hint of aching sadness in the male’s voice, but Azh was less concerned with the fact that the skies were empty, and more concerned with the realization that it was still there. Had any of the stories he’d read been true?
“I’ve studied hundreds of history books. They all claim this place was destroyed by the corruption,” he said, his feet carrying him to the opening to peer down at the lush green landscape and the distant ocean that sparkled in the sunlight.
“It was,” Zion assured him as he moved to stand at Azh’s side.
Azh snorted, pointing toward the rolling hills dotted with herds of antelope.
“This is destroyed?”
“Once the evil was removed, the land slowly began to heal. It took eons, but it’s at last returned to the paradise it was meant to be.”
Was this male saying that the corruption was gone? Azh struggled to comprehend what that would mean for his people. The consequences of having his homeland free of evil was so vast he could barely allow himself to hope.
“You did this?” he rasped. “You cleansed the magic?”
“No.” Zion scowled, his scars twisting as if he were struggling against a powerful emotion. “That was the mistake I made for too long.”
“What mistake?”
“Believing the magic could be cleansed.”
Azh continued to stare at his homeland with a strange sense of bemusement. Of all the possible futures he’d considered for his people, he’d never once dreamed they would return to Kazak.
“Obviously you did something to repair the damage,” Azh insisted.
“There was no repair.” Zion pointed toward a cloud in the sky. He released a burst of magic to send the cloud scampering out of the way, revealing a jagged hole patched over by a shimmering magic. “I’ve imprisoned the source of the evil.”
Azh knew instinctively what he was staring at. “That’s the rift to the human world. The one created by Gabriela.”
“It is. Once the evil followed Gabriela through the rift, I built a barrier to keep it trapped between the two worlds.”
Azh glanced back at Zion. “You were the one who trapped the corruption?”
“Yes.”
“Then the histories are wrong again. The ancestors were convinced that Gabriela sacrificed herself to close the rift and keep the corruption from following us.”
“We were all wrong about a lot of things.” Without warning, Zion closed the panel, sealing them in the pyramid. “You need to understand.”
Azh blinked, jerked out of his weird stupor. Later he’d deal with the shocking revelation that his homeland was still here and gloriously healed. Right now, nothing mattered more than returning to Wynn.
“I don’t have time for this now. I have to go back.”
Zion moved, as if intending to physically hold him in place if necessary. “This is important, Azh. The survival of the dragons, along with your female, depend on you.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know everything,” the male announced without arrogance. It was a simple statement of fact. “I’ve witnessed the early battles between dragons and vampires and the treaty that forced our people into hibernation. I witnessed your mother’s betrayal and your own transformation from hatchling to unquestioned ruler of the dragons. That’s why it has to be you that finishes this.Onlyyou.”
Azh’s excruciating need to rush back to Wynn didn’t lessen, but he grudgingly accepted he couldn’t ignore the elder dragon’s fierce warning. A part of him had known his entire life that he was ordained for this precise moment. That at some point he’d be called on to shoulder the fate of the dragons.
“What do I need to understand?” he snapped, vibrating with the urgency to get his duty done so he could be with Wynn.
