I gave him a toothy grin. Through the bond, I asked Cami, “What do human females hate doing for their men?”

  Cami seemed to be choking for a second before she got control of her emotions. The rush had been too fast for me to understand what had affected her. She replied, “Oh, you mean like housework and stuff? Sorry, my mind went… well, never mind. Uh… my mother always complained about the laundry. She said that my father’s socks and small garments reeked.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then I said to my two newest minions, “Modessa, go wash Galbrecht’s laundry. Oh, and cook him a nice meal.”

  Her eyes bulged as much as I’d ever seen them. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, there might have been a small smile on Galbrecht’s face. I only noticed it because he was generally so solemn.

  After a few seconds, Modessa said, “As you command.” I turned to leave but still heard her grumble, “By the stars, what did I just sign up for?”

  My excitement at the impending attempt to restore our first dragon was such that I couldn’t be bothered to fully enjoy Modessa’s discomfort. I made a mental note to take the time to enjoy the small things. All work and no pranks was going to make me a boring dragon. The world already had too many of those.

  When I leaped into the air, I felt Cami exhilaration as we circled the island. Vox was down in the area I’d be heading to but she didn’t do more than look up at me. I saw a few of the freed dragons out over the ocean fishing in teams. It struck me then that while they weren’t true dragons—at least not in the way that they could connect to Ileria and had souls which would join into the eternal communion of all dragons—they did have something that the rest of my race was missing. Their captivity had taught them how to work together.

  That point was further cemented when I saw five of the lesser dragons pulling a whale from the sea about ten miles off shore. Any of the five dragons should have been more than a match for the warm-blooded fish, but none of them would have been strong enough to lift its twenty tons out of the water on their own. Even working together, they struggled.

  I watched long enough to be sure that they’d make it to shore safely and then dove for the clearing where Vox and my present target stood. A few of the lesser dragons followed me, but I ignored them. I neither wanted to encourage their involvement nor restrict their movement.

  What was about to happen concerned all of them. If some had enough intelligence or curiosity to come check it out, then so be it.

  As I got closer, Matilda looked up. Her three hatchlings were taking turns practicing their breath weapons. They were anything but hatchlings by now, having grown dramatically with the abundance of food, which prompts early dragon growth just like it does for all other living beings—and, of course, because of their connection to me.

  They were not young adult dragons, but it was easy to see how they would be by the time that I reached ancient. They all rushed around me as I settled to the ground. Matilda tried to shoo them from me, but they were each larger than their mother and, while they did not have her experience, they had more raw power.

  The black female, who was clearly the leader of the three, was followed by her two brothers. It struck me suddenly that I didn’t know their names. Such a thing wouldn’t have bothered me before, but if dragons were going to learn to work together, we still need to celebrate our individuality. It wasn’t mindless drones I sought, but willing subjects.

  “Nicosandumas!” the not-so-little black called out.

  She was unusually affectionate for a dragon and ran her snout against the scales of my chest. I thought it was cute as she was still very young, but Cami reacted in a way that shocked me.

  In an instant, she was off of my back and pushing the small dragon away, who still dwarfed her in size.

  “Back up,” Cami growled, “whatever your name is.”

  The little black pulled her head up and looked down at my bonded. “Seliyanth is my name. I am pleased to meet you, little bonded one. Are you laying claim to our elder’s first clutch?”

  Cami’s face grew red, and I felt conflicting emotions from her. She exuded a confidence which the young female dragon recognized as belonging to a superior creature. It even caused the young black to back up—which was humorous to watch as Cami wasn’t six feet long.

  “That is between us and is none of your concern. You are too young for such considerations… and he is your benefactor, after all.”

  Vox snorted and said, “It isn’t like that amongst dragons. You are right that she is decades too young to be thinking about that yet, or perhaps not… given her unnatural growth rate. But such relationships don’t matter to dragons. Only the strength of a potential mate is important, and all but a handful of dragons never stay together longer than the time it takes for a clutch to be born. The freed dragons seem to have continued the same practices.”

  Cami shook her head. “But she’s practically his…” My bonded stopped speaking and her face wrinkled up.

  It was oddly cute. I’d once seen a human child playing with a small mammal it called a pug. The creature’s face was little more than a series over overlapping flaps of flesh and fur, but the child loved it all the same. Now, despite how ugly human faces usually were, I found myself staring at Cami’s.

  Cami looked up at Vox. “You know what? Just no. I’m saying no. What the rest of them do is fine, but Nico and I are bonded and I’m not going to deal with such things. We’ll sort it out after we deal with our current problems.”

  I simply said, “I’m glad to learn your name, Seliyanth. In keeping with the human traditions I’ve picked up, I’m just going to call you Seli. Do your brothers have names?”

  She introduced them, but I immediately shortened their names to Grig and Hano—which neither seemed to mind.

  Matilda asked, “Why have you come, Nico? Is it time for you to train the hatchlings?”

  “No. Vox will be overseeing all of that.” I turned to glare at the silver dragon. “Won’t you?”

  Instead of replying, she stared at my neck. She stared so intently that I had to ask, “Is something wrong?”

  “What are those?” she all but demanded.

  I could feel her eyes upon the strip of dusky black and gray scales I had on my neck. I turned my head so that she could see the stripe on the other side as well.

  She sucked in her breath, “Two…? What does this mean?”

  I explained how it had happened and she seemed even more confused for a moment. “I’m going to need to consult more of my sources, but it appears your dominion may be expanding beyond lightning.”

  Cami asked, “Does it really matter if he gets some different colored scales? People’s hair color can change as they age.”

  Vox shook her head. “Such a thing doesn’t happen to dragons. We are bonded to a singular element. Nico was already different, but I assumed that was because the tampering of Miseria which helped forge his connection with Matilda’s clutch.”

  “It has something to do with my status as a dragon monarch. That’s all I know,” I said.

  Vox looked at me. “You do know there’s only been one recorded dragon with more than a single color?”

  “I know and I’m glad you appreciate how amazing I am, but let’s not go there now. Right now, I want to focus on seeing if we can restore Matilda’s soul. Besides, I’m learning that there is more history to our kind than even you may know.”

  Vox gasped, or maybe it was a snort that she tried to stop.

  “Later,” I said, narrowing my gaze at her, “you can tell me what you know about the primordial war.”

  “Primordial what? Is that another name for the god war?”

  I would have smirked at her, but dragon faces couldn’t convey such expressions nearly as well as a human’s could. “As I thought.” I didn’t bother holding back a snort. “Now, Matilda, are ready to be restored?”

  The green dragon who we had freed first looked completely lost. Cami and I took turns explaining what we wanted to do. We didn’t hold back about detailing the dangers involved. I’d learned by now that while Matilda was nothing like a true dragon, she was intelligent—in her own way—much like I thought about humans when I was first around them.

  Seli, Greg, and Hano were suddenly all over her, “You have to mother. You have to! Just imagine if you could be like us. You could grow. You could teach us so much better.”

  It was obvious that Matilda was nervous but this was necessary. I didn’t pressure her, but I also didn’t give her a way out. I simply stared at her, expecting an answer. I had discovered that having a massive dragon looming over you seemed to be a rather effective motivational tool. It certainly worked well on Matilda.

  “If you think this is for the best, Nico,” she finally replied.

  “I do. And while I’m not certain exactly how it will turn out, you have far more to gain than you have to lose.”

  After that, I had Vox and Nagafen start clearing the area of other dragons. There’d been half-a-dozen watching us up to this point, and that was fine, but they needed to watch from a safe distance. We were careful to limit even how much Nagafen pushed against them, and I didn’t let any of the human guards get too close.

  The freed dragons might be relatively weak, but they were still capable of biting the human guards in half. Some of the high level humans might have been able to fight them, if only for a minute or two, but other than my exalted minions and some others like Lisella, none on the island were a match for a dragon.

  Besides, any human on dragon violence at this point would only cause what I was trying to build to implode.

  Once the area was clear, Cami went to work on me. Her skill manipulating souls continued to grow, and once again she gained a level in Soul Forger. The sliver she took from my soul seemed almost too small to matter, but I figured that was a good thing—because if this worked, I’d have to do this multiple times. It wasn’t so much that it hurt as it left me with a dull ache inside. Only time and my natural healing would remove that feeling, so I shunted it out of my mind.

  Then Cami had Matilda lie down and began the process of preparing and then implanting the sliver of my soul inside her—what we’d decided to call a soul seed. We were on the same page and I felt Cami working on the soul seed before planting it in the green dragon. At the moment, she was infusing the elemental aspect of poison into it.

  Matilda’s body already had that power and Cami believed infusing the element of poison into the seed would make her soul more likely to connect to her body if we could link those elements.

  When she’d finished that step, Cami began pouring mana from both our bodies into the space within Matilda she’d created for a soul. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see it because Cami was currently using my Soul Seer ability, but I could sense it through our bond.

  Everything appeared to be going well. The soul seed took root and started to grow as we willed the magic of Ileria through it. It was almost like it sprouted roots in Matilda’s flesh. A few minutes into the process, the green dragon shuddered and then passed out.

  I heard some grumbling from the freed dragons who were watching at a distance, but I couldn’t be bothered with them. We had to focus, as our mana was sucked into this space Cami made for Matilda’s soul like water into parched ground.

  Then Cami and I… no… everything shuddered. I felt my consciousness being pulled into Matilda, alongside Cami’s. Everything was dark, yet I sensed something all around me. I wouldn’t call it life, but it was there all the same.

  “Tamper, tamper,” a host of voices hissed. “Shadows make. Learn never, little dragon. Feed us… more!”

  Within Matilda, I felt an echo of these voices that came from her soul. Something was growing out of the side of the seed, like vile tumor. It began taking shape when suddenly a notification flared up.

  Will you engage the abyss to counter the pull upon this new soul you are attempting to create?

  Eternity beckons.

  As ominous as that sounded, Cami and I simultaneously reached a decision. We weren’t going to lose Matilda, our very first attempt at restoring a dragon. We both accepted and felt ourselves being pulled in. Our mind and souls blended as we were drawn through what appeared to be shattered panes of reality.

  Chapter 32 - Dark Side of a Soul

  As we plunged into the depths of this unknown planescape, a desolate vista unfolded before me. It was a realm devoid of the normal markers of existence—no horizon to anchor the eye and no vibrant hues to paint the scenery. Instead, a monochrome expanse of dark, jagged rock stretched endlessly in every direction. It was a stark landscape shaped by unseen forces.

  The very air felt heavy, laden with an oppressive stillness that muffled even the faintest whisper. A faint misty wind brushed against me, swirling in slow, meandering loops. When I looked closer, I realized this wasn’t some kind of wind. It was the wisps of unformed or undone souls that curled around me.

  Nor was this the end of the mysteries.

  The ambient light was an enigma, emanating from no discernible source, it cast a dim, eerie glow over the bleak terrain. This light was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Everywhere I looked, I expected to see shadows created by the jagged rocks but there were no shadows at all; the light was literally everywhere at the same time.

  That got my mind working and, once again, I realized something I took for one thing was not that at all. The wind or air around me was not physical but rather the remnants of souls—either now shredded or unborn. The same was true of the light. It was the flow of magic, but not magic I was familiar with.

  I felt none of my connection to Ileria here.

  That caused me to scratch the rocky ground with my claws. They dug into the stone with little resistance. That alone wouldn’t have been that unusual. Mere rock was hardly a barrier to my might. What puzzled me was the way the rock moved. I’d seen Cami put something she called the butter of peanuts on bread. It had smelled odd, so I refused to taste it, but the way the rock moved before my claws reminded me of how that substance had spread under her knife.

  This was not a true world and nothing—at least nothing physical—had ever lived in this place. That’s the only thing I was certain of.

  This realm disoriented my draconic senses. The air was devoid of any scent, and the usual symphony of life was entirely absent, replaced by a suffocating silence that seemed to absorb sound itself. The atmosphere was thick, nearly tangible, and pressed against my scales with a cold, indifferent touch.

  The sky above, or what passed for a sky in this forsaken place, was a tapestry of swirling darkness, a void without stars or moon, yet not entirely black. It was as if we were under a dome of shadow, with subtle gradations of darkness that shifted and twisted in a constant reminder of the unnaturalness of this plane.

  In this bleak landscape, even the concept of time seemed to warp and bend. It was impossible to tell whether moments or hours had passed since our arrival. In this domain, the usual laws of nature held no sway. It was a pocket of existence where the surreal and the real blended in an unsettling tableau.

  If I had to define it, this was the dark side of a soul, a manifestation of inner turmoil and corruption and a physical embodiment of the battles that raged within us all. Here, in this alien and hostile environment, Cami and I would make our stand in order to save Matilda’s soul.

  As though my thoughts had caused it to spring into existence, a small orb of light burst into being before me. Even with Cami still using my Soul Seer ability, I knew that that this was Matilda’s soul. It was feeble, incomplete, and as yet unborn. For all that, it pulsed with life as it grew and I knew we were on the right track.

  Now, we had to see what brought us here.

  The system message had given me a choice, but that taunting voice had been anything but encouraging.

  “Show yourself!” I growled.

  “So blind, little dragon. So proud of your flesh. Proud of your dreams. I taste her flavor on you, she who rejected us. Well, you are not her… not yet. You are a fool. The Remnant may have barred me from touching your precious physical world, but you were kind enough to leave your protections behind and journey to this pocket realm. Here, we reign supreme. Here, we will extract balance. If you want to create a new soul, then one must be lost. Eternity demands balance, or didn’t you realize that, warden of lies?”

  The voice was haunting. It seemed to come from all around me, without my being able to see its source. Glancing over at Cami, I saw that even her form was blurred. It was as if a sandstorm raged around her and the outlines of her shape wavered and distorted in a haze. What wasn’t vague though was the shining core of her soul. I might only be sensing it through the bond, but I knew it was there.

  The voice's sinister echo permeated the air, its words carrying a weight that pressed down upon the essence of this surreal realm. I glanced around, trying to discern the origin of the voice, but it was as elusive as the shifting darkness above.