Adrian stared, suddenly unsure of his own mental state. He had drunk heavily while Veleria had her excursion with Lord De’Tarsons, but he didn’t know what they had gotten up to since then. Before nightfall she had returned and sat down beside his bedding, but there was something…Strange, about Veleria now.
She was asleep. Of that he was certain. However, as she rested, upright in her chair, he caught glimpses of what appeared to be embers shedding out from the tips of her black hair. He even caught one. Between his fingers it was rendered into soot, so he caught another, and eventually found himself merely observing her.
* * *
There they were again. Veleria, and someone she believed to be her.
Except, he wasn’t her. Not really. They were separate…Yet they were one. Veleria caught the gaze of the other, his golden eyes reflected back at her. There was something burning within them that she could now understand.
It was sorrow.
* * *
Where were her pupils? Adrian tried to gently rotate Veleria’s pupil, but the glowing golden orbs in her sockets were moving so rapidly that he couldn’t get a bead on anything concrete. He moved down to touch her arm, but Veleria jolted then and he was forced to act quickly. He caught her by the wrist before she could gut him. She almost dropped her knife when she realized it was him. While she returned to reality, Adrian realized that her pupils were in their rightful places.
“What are you doing, man?” She questioned him, sliding the knife back into its hiding place when Adrian loosened his grip.
“You were hot again, and dreaming.” He looked between her and the space she put her knife. A real nice one, in between her bracer and glove. “Have you always done that?”
“Done what?”
“Hidden knives in places like that.”
“Well, yes.” Veleria straightened herself. “Never know when someone wants to wake you up with a kiss.”
Adrian laughed at this.
“You caught me.” He smirked, and then backed away to give her space to get up. She did so, though the way she looked at him made him wonder if he shouldn’t have taken the bait. Veleria moved past him, leaning against the adjacent wall to open a window and peer outside. It was well after nightfall now, though the streets were lined with multicolor fire. Faerie fire, supposedly. Knowing now what Auros told her of the elves, she had to wonder who did these minor feats. Were elves once magical powerhouses? For a moment, while Adrian watched her from beside the bed, the answer came to her.
Yes, and this outcome was preferable.
Veleria furrowed her brow. Without looking back at him, her gaze drifting across the colorful streets below, she spoke to Adrian.
“Please tell me what you saw the night I died.” She said.
Adrian sat down on the edge of his bed, “Is this really what you want to talk about right now?”
“Yes. No more secrets.” She recalled the statues. “It’s important, Adrian.”
Blood and fire.
She closed her eyes, giving herself the space to envision whatever he told her.
He stared at the back of her head, watching as another small ember shed itself from Veleria’s hair. With a sigh, Adrian said, “I saw two things. When the fire came down from the sky it was in the form of a…a dragon, I guess? I’ve only ever seen illustrations so I’m grasping here, but that was my initial thought when I first saw it.” He crossed his arms over his chest. One finger tapped the bracer on his left arm. “When it touched down it reformed in a kind of explosion. The dirt and grass just burned outright…Obliterated instantly. Then it all just came together into the form of a man.”
“Details?” Veleria asked him.
“Not that I could see. It was hard enough to look at, and I mean that literally. It felt like the air itself was scorching, worse than the hottest day I’ve ever experienced. I mean, the vegetation was drying up just being near this thing.” He shuddered. “I think it looked into the pit fairly soon after forming. It became a kind of wave after that and flooded the corpses inside.”
“Did you see mine before this all happened?”
“Your corpse?”
She nodded.
“Yeah. He ran you through, Vel.”
Veleria grimaced, “go on.”
Adrian leaned forward, chin on the back of his hand.
“I waited. After a good minute or so I looked in, and I saw you. The other corpses were ash. Your hair had been scorched and your clothes too, but your wound was…It was bubbling. It was like looking into a volcano. It only took another few seconds to cool down and dry into the scar you have now, though. Sorry, but I argued with myself a bit before deciding to go in and grab you.”
“That’s all, then?” Veleria finally looked at him. He wasn’t able to discern much from her eyes. Her pupils were hidden in a sea of gold.
“Yeah, that was what happened, bar some other strangeness. Your hair grew back before we even got to the nearest tavern. I think that spooked me more than anything.” They held each other’s gaze, but Veleria made a sound not dissimilar to a sigh. “Did Lord De’Tarsons tell you anything useful?”
“Yes, but it sounds like I should see Althalos Cromwell next.”
Adrian’s face fell.