The Last Light (The Wandering Inn, #5)

by Pirateaba

A broken voice was his reply. Ryoka stood in the cavern of the Dragon, bleeding, fingers broken, weeping. As Teriarch woke and realized what he saw, she shouted at him, screamed. “Why? Because I can’t do it myself! I can’t! And you—you didn’t know! Do you even care?” “Care? What’s going on? Why are your fingers—” Teriarch stared at Ryoka, befuddled. She strode towards him, and the gold Dragon looked into her eyes. Ryoka’s voice was hoarse, and she was trembling. Still crying. “My friends! Everyone I love! He’ll kill them all! Is this a game to you? Didn’t you think about what the consequences would be? Why do they have to die—why did he have to die because of a damn letter? A birthday letter? Why didn’t you protect them? Why did they have to die?” “Who? What’s going on?” She didn’t answer him, not right away. Ryoka trembled. She inhaled several times. Then she spoke. She looked at Teriarch and shouted it at him, at the Dragon, in his cave of wonderful and useless treasures. “You know who! Him! Perril Chandler, the bastard who lives in the Blood Fields! The one you wanted me to find! The Necromancer! Az’kerash!” Ryoka said it. She shouted it at Teriarch. The Dragon inhaled. He hesitated, struck by guilt. Then by anger. He opened his mouth to tell her it wasn’t his business, that he didn’t care. He never got the chance. Ryoka clutched at her chest. Something was wrong. Something was happening. Teriarch saw magic around her. His ears heard her heart squeezing, heard her breat...

Bloody dragon ....

Now his voice echoed around the cave, whispering. Frantic and old. “—breathe. The death magic must be dispelled. But the heart—where’s my scroll of regeneration? No time. I’ll have to reconstruct it—what do Human hearts look like?” He turned and began to search around his cave as Ryoka watched her chest continue to rise and fall. Something was happening in her chest. Ryoka knelt by her body and felt her heart start to assemble itself, flesh and blood melding together. “I can’t find my compendium of anatomies! Another heart? A magic one? No, no. Just heal the damage. It’s just a death spell. Simple to fix. She will survive. Of course she will.” He was old. And worried. And tired. Ryoka looked at the old man as he paced back and forth in his tiny home, his cave of rock. And then she saw a Dragon. His scales were bronze and shone like the sun. They looked closer to gold in the half-light of his cavern. The Dragon was huge, taller than any creature of the land or sky, majestic. His mane flowed like molten metal, his claws were like razors.

I guess her pain, trauma & sacrifice was worth it to get him back into the game.

She turned away. Erin watched her go. After a while, Jelaqua walked up. The Selphid scratched at the stitches around her head. “Don’t mind Revi. She only meant half of what she said.” “She’s right, though. I got Ulrien killed. Bad things always happen around my inn. Around me. This isn’t the first time.” The Selphid shook her head. “Bad things always happen. You think you’re special in that? I lost over half my party in another inn. Tragedy doesn’t care where it happens.” Erin looked at her. Jelaqua offered her a crooked smile.

Point

“But they’re right here. In front of you! If you see something evil happening in front of you, what’s your excuse for not doing anything?” Ryoka stared at Teriarch. He could stop it all. The Dragon looked back at her and shook his head again. “Stop what evil? I see no evil.” “The Goblins—” “Are a people like your kind and mine. They are as innocent as any race. Perhaps more so than others. That they are considered monsters is no fault of theirs. How else would a species hated by all others survive, if not to become the thing they are hated for? No.” “They killed. I saw them. They killed Mrsha’s tribe. They killed children.” Ryoka sank to her knees in the snow. She was crying again. Teriarch bent over her. His hands were warm. “Yes. And I am sorry.”

:(