Lord Darius phased back into Dahlroth's form. His chest heaved as he stared at our joined hands. His eyes darted back and forth as though he were fighting against his own soul.

Giving his hand a gentle squeeze, I said, "Please, Dahlroth, let me free them all."

"No, Helena, you don't understand. This world is not what it seems. At all. There's a whole world hidden from your memory and your consciousness. It could break you if you see it."

"I carry a burden no man can bear," I said, clutching the invisible medallion in one hand and our conjoined hands in the other. "I can approach a dragon no one can touch."

Brimming with determination, I gave him a smile. "Trust me."

"Hundreds have tried to touch me," he murmured. "How can one so innocent tame a monster?"

"The only monsters that exist are the ones we make," I said.

Dahlroth recoiled and blinked his nictating membranes. Was that how dragons expressed shock?

I gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "You can decide if you live for revenge or for friendship."

The ice dragon pressed our hands to his heart, and the arctic gale settled to a gentle breeze. Ice crystals shone in the moonlight until they covered the grass like a light dusting of snow.

"Don't let our friends die for revenge," I whispered. "That's not the way. Help me to make this right."

Dahlroth turned to me, eyes as gray as the moonlight on the frost. He had that piercing stare of an intelligent man starved of love who yearns to know whether he could divulge his greatest strength and his deepest fear.

"Dearest Helena," he said as he drew closer, "why do you want to see the real me?"

"You deserve to live," I breathed. "This Shadow life is fake. Be who you truly are."

The dragon gave me a gentle pull toward him, and I placed my palms on his chest. His heart hammered with such ferocity, betraying the power inside him. Wide pupils blocked out most of his grayish-blue irises, and he drew a deep breath as he wrapped his arms around my back.

"You have no idea how close you are to the truth," he whispered. "Yet you are still so far away."

"Show me."

Dahlroth turned me around and wrapped his arm around my sternum and my waist to teleport me to his secret lair. When he pressed my back against his chest, my breath hitched at the familiar scent of mint and pine. 

"Is that really necessary?" I asked in a teasing tone.

With the gentlest of touches, he brushed away a few strands of my fiery-red hair from my neck, and I shuddered. "I don't know," he murmured in my ear. "Do you want to fall through the fabric of time and space to save your pride?"

My heart leaped into my throat at the thought of floating in the vast nothingness of limbo for all eternity. As I pressed closer to Dahlroth, he hummed against my ear.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered. "I would never let go."

The parkland and dense hedgerows faded into nothingness as we moved into the ephemeral realm. Starlight burned with a fiery intensity despite the prevailing darkness. All I could think of was his reptilian skin on mine, smooth as velvet, his thumb tracing soothing circles on the back of my hand until we landed in an underground bunker.

Dark as night.

As a dragon, Dahlroth could see in the dark, but all I could detect was a faint hum like a swarm of bees. My stomach revolted with motion sickness, and I sank to the ground.

"Oh, gods! Not again!" I murmured, my insides churning like a grain mill.

Dahlroth knelt beside me and placed his smooth palm on my forehead. Closing his eyes, he muttered a soothing chant, and it felt like the sensation of nausea was dissipating. A few seconds later, I felt perfectly fine.

"B-b-b-r-r-r-y-y-y-s-s-s-a-a-a-kh-kh!" he commanded, and light ten times brighter than the moon descended from the ceiling from a single source.

"Why doesn't it burn?" I asked, dumbfounded as I shielded my eyes from the dazzling light.

"On another plane of existence, they call this ..." He paused, trying to remember the word. "Electric light. It only exists in this one bunker."

"How did you heal me so quickly?" I asked, awe-struck.

"I drew your discomfort into my body through my draconic receptors," he replied as he showed me his upturned palm.

My curiosity getting the better of me, and the words tumbled from my lips before I could think twice. "Can I see them?"

Heat rose in my cheeks with such ferocity that they must have turned crimson. He didn't answer me at first, and the heat spread down my neck and shoulders.

But then he took my fingers and traced them along the inside of his palm. His skin, so velvety smooth like that of a snake, had small translucent indentations. When I ran my finger along them, they opened to my touch, and my fingertip dipped into the opening.

He drew a shaky breath and removed his hand. Clearing his throat, he looked away, but I could detect a faint blush spreading across his light-blue skin.

"I'm sorry," I exclaimed as I drew my hand away. "I didn't know..."

"Neither did I," he replied in a husky voice. "No one has touched me since the transformation."

He stared at my forehead for a moment before he gently reached up and tucked a small strand of hair behind my ear. "Helena, follow me."

Dahlroth pressed his palm against the wall in the next room, and even more blinding light fell from the ceiling. Machines whirred and chortled as they came to life like a group of hyperactive wasps. So many lights flashed in all colors of the rainbow--it looked like a control center of Elysium itself.

"My gods!" I exclaimed. "What is this?"

Wires and cables ran along the floor towards a group of men seated in a circle inside hardened ceramic capsules that protected them from the elements. Glass windows allowed outsiders to peer at their faces, and my eyes immediately fell upon the control panel.

"Dahlroth, God of Ice."

I ran towards him.

In a state of complete rest, he inhaled and exhaled in regular breaths as I pressed my hand to the glass. After casting a cursory glance at the Shadow of Dahlroth, I noticed that his real version appeared identical, only in his true form, he was a late teenager. I drew a deep breath as I pressed my nose against the glass.

"He ... is the real Dahlroth," the Shadow self said as he gestured at the sleeping reptilian humanoid. "You see his soul in your visions, and you have the power to wake him."

"How?" I breathed, stunned as I stared at the sleeping man's visage.

"Your medallion," Dahlroth whispered. He gestured at a square on the control panel. "If you press it against this pad, the capsule will open, the suspended animation will end, and he will wake."

"Suspended what?" I exclaimed as I gestured around the room. "All this is technology far beyond our ken. How can you stand next to me and be here all at once? Did Master de Moravia see it in his visions?"

"Look," he said, pointing at the control panel above the capsule. Three lights flashed with different monikers.

Dahlroth proper (induced coma-dragon) green
Avatar 1 (Warrior-wraith) green
Avatar 2 (Peacekeeping draconic humanoid) green

"Oh, my gods!" I exclaimed. "It's your true self and your Shadow selves."

"Indeed," he said as he wrapped an arm around my back.

"What happens when we wake the real you?"

"The Shadow selves will vanish, and I will live."

"Will you remember those nine years?" I asked. "Or will it be like they'd never happened?"

"No one knows for certain," he said as he looked away from me. "I hope I remember the good parts, like training you and the others. But I could do without the unpleasant memories."

"Who are the others?" I asked as my eyes scanned the other consoles.

My eyes fell on one module in particular.

"Karl Hesse," I breathed, bile rising in my throat.

Wide-eyed, I walked over to see a young human male, no more than twenty, deep in sleep. His face didn't appear injured or distorted in any way--his pale skin as smooth and flawless as a newborn babe's, his golden hair cropped in a buzz cut.

The control panel resembled Dahlroth's, but the lights differed.

Hesse Proper (induced coma, human) green
Avatar 1 (Warlord-wraith) green
Avatar 2 (Peacekeeping human) red

"I could kill you right now, you little bastard," I snarled as I banged on the glass. "Not so scary now when you're all smug like a slug in a rug, are you?"

"Kill one of us," Dahlroth replied, "and you kill us all."

"Seriously?" I exclaimed as I recoiled from the pod. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Not as dangerous as an impetuous leader entering the vault and deciding to kill the rest of us."

"I suppose you make a good point."

He gazed at the glass, staring at his younger self within the pod. "If you kill an avatar, they can come back. If you kill the proper--the true self--everything vanishes, never to return."

"Sounds like something the bastard would do." Furrowing my brow, I took another look at the lights. "His second a-vait-er is red."

"A-vah-tar," he corrected. "That's what the parallel realm calls Shadow Riders."

"What does a red light mean?"

"It's malfunctioning," he replied. "Only Lord Hesse's dark Shadow Warlord side is working, like all the others. His light side has vanished. Who knows what would happen if we woke him."

When I looked at all the other consoles, I noticed that the second avatar was red for all of them. Only Dahlroth's second self still shone green.

"I told you--I'm a failure." He sighed. "Humans can suppress their humanity much better than dragons, it seems."

"Why?" I breathed. "Why go through all this trouble?"

"The Gatál King knew he could maintain control so much better if his elite guard was only software, devoid of their human touch. Lord Darius hates the king for what he did to his village and to his soul."

"What is software?" I asked, scrunching my face in disdain.

Dahlroth sighed. "Fake humanity."

My eyes fell on a cable that ran from the circle of the elite to another room behind a wrought iron door. "What's that?" I asked.

"That room is forbidden," he said as he stood in my path with his arms extended to the sides. His reptilian pupils narrowed at me as he furrowed his brow. "No one can enter the sacred room."

With a scoff, I ducked under his arms and rushed towards the secret room. Dahlroth appeared before me and wrapped his arms me, locking me in an iron grip.

"No, Helena!" he hissed. "I promised you could wake me, but don't go in there."

"Let me go!"

After elbowing him in the ribs, I ran towards the door and wrenched it open. Dahroth raced towards me and gave a resigned sigh while I could only gasp at the sight.

Two other pods stood in the small antechamber with very familiar names above each.

"Khrysakh (Helena) Grace-Dahlroth, Goddess of Fire"

Grace-Dahlroth proper (induced coma, draconic hybrid) green
Avatar 1 (peacekeeper, human child) green

"Dkhartry (Aurora) DeAngelis-Grace, Goddess of Healing"

DeAngelis-Grace proper (induced coma, draconic hybrid) green
Avatar 1 (civilian humanoid, shifter) red

"Oh, my gods!" I exclaimed, recoiling from the capsules. "Dahlroth, what the fuck is this?"

___

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Oh, my gosh, what is this craziness? Don't worry--the next chapter is coming later today. :D This is a raw draft (I mean really raw--I just threw the words down on paper so that I didn't forget them). So I might change this quite a bit.

Do I dare to be this nuts? Why, yes, I do. :D But I also reserve the right to change this substantially because it's only a raw draft in need of substantial editing.

Please feel free to tell me if something is a bit 'off' or completely off the charts crazy. I just wanted to write down my ideas while they were still fresh in my head.

I'll have to go back and re-read to make sure it all fits together! :D (Le sigh.)