Jyn shakes her head, her shoulders trembling slightly. “He never got that far.”
“Please, enough of these riddles. What happened to our son?”
Her lips become a thin line, her brow furrowing in distress. “In order to begin a new cycle, you must first possess a soul.”
“And?” I urge, desperate for a proper answer.
“His was shattered and consumed,” she says shakily. “Unable to move on.”
A cold dread creeps down my spine.
“I don’t understand. How is that possible? What happened?”
“A stranger arrived from the lands beyond the horizon.”
34
The prince and his Fated One travel across the many lands and seas. They spend their years, their decades helping the people. Through famine, through disease, through war—the blue dragon does what he can, giving up more and more of himself with every passing moon.
His scales are sowed into the fields to ensure bountiful harvests. His teeth are built into effigies to ward off evil creatures that lurk in the forests. His hair is shorn down to his scalp, the strands of his mane ingested to stave off plague. It is not long before he is a shell of himself, a once-mighty divine beast now little more than skin and bones.
The stranger, meanwhile, reaps all the rewards and grows drunker on the feeling each day.
“They wish to make me their emperor,” he tells the prince, addicted to his newfound glory and fame. “My beloved, please lend me your strength. When I take the Imperial throne, I will need you by my side.”
“I have always been by your side,” the prince says with a heavy heart. “But is this truly what you want?”
“Of course it is! Together, we shall rule for all eternity. Think of all that we could accomplish.”
The blue dragon shakes his head, weary and worn down. He cansmell the greed wafting off his Fated One’s skin. Something’s changed. Something terrible. “No,” he says, “this is not you. This is not right. I wish to return home.”
The emperor frowns. “You would abandon humanity and leave me alone, after all we’ve built together?”
“Please, say you’ll return with me to the east.”
“But why should we? We have everything we need here, my love.”
“I long to see my family again.”
“Why? To reunite with the mother and father who wished to keep you there?”
“They only wanted to protect me.”
“By keeping you locked away,” he says simply. “Here, we arefree.”
The blue dragon shakes his head, dismayed. He’s suffocating. It is wrong to trap a dragon on land when he should be free to soar the skies. “I’ve had enough of this.”
“You cannot leave me,” the emperor says pointedly. “I forbid it.”
Against his Fated One’s wishes, the young prince walks away, desperate to return to his father and mother. How he has missed them. He should have listened to them—what a mistake it was to leave home.
The emperor’s anger turns into a boiling-hot rage. “You will not leave me,” he yells after the young prince, and gives chase.
The prince tries to shift into a dragon, tries to fly away, but his heart is so heavy and sad that he cannot harness his magic. It is not long before his Fated One has him captured.
“You will stay,” the emperor seethes, “because you aremine.”
The prince cries out, “Release me at once! There’s no need for it to be this way.”
