Page 135 of A Soul’s Awakening

Midgard is the world…? There’s more than Seelieland, Unseelieland, and the Faerie Isles? I didn’t know that. Why didn’t I know that? She rubbed her aching temple.

There is much beyond—

Helena’s back cramped, sending spasms up her spine. She collapsed backwards, the ashen ground hard on her skin beneath her ruined clothing. “Atlas,” she hissed. Hunger gnawed at her belly and thirst clawed at her throat. “How long have I been here? It feels like… I don’t know, days, weeks. I don’t know how much longer I can stay for.”

You will! Atlas roared, baring his gargantuan fangs. You will stay. I saved you, Helena. My magic is saving your life. It brought you here and it is keeping you alive. You cannot leave me now. If you do, we both die. When the Seelie King burnt you with the curse and I decided to protect you from it, it tied us together. I have waited for tens of thousands of years to escape this place, so you will stay here with me until we can leave together, the Dragon ordered.

“I can’t…” she responded, eye closing.

You can. You will. Helena felt the tip of his obsidian claw press into her grey-skinned arm. Do not leave me here!

Helena’s eye snapped open as agony throbbed from the point. She shot upright into sitting position with a scream from her hoarse throat. Helena glared up at the Dragon with her healthy eye.

“Fuck you!” she shouted. “I will never, ever be forced to do anything I don’t want to do again, Atlas. My body is mine, my mind is mine—”

You—

“No! I am not finished. Of course I want to go back to El and Lance, to my whole family. If that means I have to take you with me in my head because it will keep me alive, then so be it. I need you to understand, Atlas.” Helena took a deep breath. “I am in charge. Me. Not you. I don’t give a fuck if you’re a Dragon. My life belongs to me! I have fought too long, too hard, to yield to you!” she ranted, her chest heaving as sweat poured down her face.

Atlas blinked. He lowered his head next to Helena and laid the bottom of his jaw on the ground at the end of her stretched out legs.

I am sorry. I just do not want to be left alone anymore, and I do not want to die, he admitted.

If Helena did not know any better, she could have sworn he whimpered. This magnificent being, from histories so old some considered them legends, was whimpering at her feet. A low, whining sound emanated from the Dragon’s closed mouth. She scooted forward, grimacing as she went, reaching out for Atlas. She touched her dark grey palm to a single scale, larger than her hand, between his two large nostrils. The Dragon blinked his eyes. Helena felt a chirp of delighted surprise in her head. She realised it was not her emotion. It was his.

“What was that, Atlas?” she asked in surprise.

You felt me?

“I did,” Helena replied.

I have not had a kind touch with another in tens of thousands of years, he explained. I had forgotten what it is like.

The Dragon shifted his chin forward slightly more so he could lean into her palm further. He closed his eyes, and a rumbling hum came from his throat.

Helena exhaled heavily through her nose. My stupid heart. She pitied the Dragon, desperately. He saved me, he says. His magic is keeping me alive, he claims. If I bring him with me, I will live. I want to be with my family. I want El home. I want to be with Lance. I want to play with the twins. I want to joke with Rose. I want to live.

She pinched her nose with her free hand and rubbed. Her head was throbbing and the skin across her forehead felt tight with blisters. Helena closed her good eye and fumbled around inside her whirling thoughts. There was something new there. It was not from her. A fragile golden thread was tied to Helena’s mind. She knew exactly where the other end led. She imagined plucking it like a fiddle string. She felt emotions not her own. Helena rummaged through feelings of desperation, determination, and loneliness. Then she felt another one: honesty. The clear tone of truthfulness resonated from the plucked golden thread.

Helena’s eye fluttered open. “How do we get out of here, Atlas?”

Your Siren’s magic has torn an opening. I believe if you step through it, you will be returned to your body there.

“Believe?” she asked.

I have not exactly done this before.

Helena sighed. “Of course. I suppose this is a unique circumstance. If the me that’s here goes back to my body there… why can’t you go back to your body in… Midgard?”

Atlas opened his eyes. My body there died, Helena. A long time ago.

My body is there. My body is here. I don’t understand this.

I have an idea of how it works. I have had nothing but time to think about it. It is all just theory, but my kind is known for our brilliant minds and for our ability to travel between the branches that link the worlds. If versions of us do not exist in another world, our consciousness forms a repeat of its point of origin. It is why I came here wounded from my imprisonment. It is why your injuries remained.

Helena nodded along like she understood anything the Dragon just said and then she froze. “Did you just reply to my thoughts?”

Yes.