Greetings Readers!
I hope you all had time to read the mini-update over the weekend. If you haven't, the link to it can be found under the introduction chapters below the Book links.
I have been looking forward to bringing this character back for so long! I hope you all enjoy what he brings to the story!
He had watched the wolf creature and the one that accompanied it, tear his son apart. To see his only child standing before him once again was almost too much to bear. The two Saith stepped forward to embrace each other.
Saita hissed in pain as Doran tried to clean the injury to her face. She was terrified of what she saw before her. Brucel Royal Guard, the father of Lardan and Brucel Royal Guard, and Captain and husband to Saasha Blood Dancer. He was dead, killed by Jethron’s brother decades before. The man standing in an embrace with Lardan was clearly from a different time, but not like Bolx. He hadn’t been sent here. He had been pushed from his universe as a way to preserve the fact that it had once existed. The fact that he was here was proof that the Fell Dragon was moving and moving quickly. They were running out of time.
“Dad, there is so much I have to tell you and show you. You wouldn’t believe how many branches I have added to the tree.”
“I know.” Said Brucel as he pushed away from his son but still held onto his arms. “You have two sons and a daughter. You also have a granddaughter and twin grandsons. You never forget your training, no matter how long you have been out of the Guard.”
The aged captain took the time to look at his grown son. They looked so alike, but the pinched anger he had come to know in his own son’s face wasn’t in this man’s. He was a hardened soldier, but he wasn’t ruled by the hate that had been drilled into him from a young age.
“You look so good.”
Lardan was beaming, having lost his father at such a young age had been difficult and influenced a lot of his life. He couldn’t help but continue to smile as he continued forth with news, he wished he could have shared years ago.
“You have another son.”
Brucel blinked a few times and completely released the man before him. It must have been impossible. There was no way that Saasha was carrying a child on that fateful day. He never would have let her be on the battlefield if that were the case.
“Mom named him after you. Now that he’s a little older he doesn’t look that much like you, but when he was younger, he could have been your twin.”
The more Lardan spoke, the more the older Saith realised that this time was vastly different from the one he had come from, one he had helped destroy.
“Dad?”
Brucel sighed softly and said, “You must know that I am not your father, at least not in this time.”
Lardan looked hurt by the comment, but there was also a look of resignation. He knew the man before him wasn’t the man that had sired him, but that didn’t help for the longing in his heart.
“I know that.” He said softly, “But seeing you again, I can’t even describe how it feels.”
Lardan then turned from the room and looked to where his mother had disappeared, “I don’t understand why Mom reacted that way though. I should go to her.”
“Do, you’re her general. I’ll follow later.”
Lardan gave a curt nod and followed after his mother. The old captain then turned his attention to the humans in the kitchen. The older male was cleaning the wound on the woman’s face. The young boy was hiding behind the counter, not sure if he should have followed Lardan or not. Brucel knew the woman staring at him had had dealings with time travellers before. He knew that when he saw Bolx for the first time.
The Saith came into the room and the young human bolted for the safety of his legs. Bolx moved the boy behind him and turned to Saita, “Are you alright?”
“I didn’t think.” She muttered.
“You’ve always been that way when emotions get in the way.”
“You’re not from this timeline either, are you?” asked Brucel as he turned to Bolx.
“Is it obvious?”
“You aren’t the only one, there are at least 20 other Saith I have noticed that are similar to you.”
“Who sent you here?” demanded Bolx.
Brucel shook his head, “One minute I was holding my dying son in my arms, and the next I was eating dirt in the forest with a headache that is yet to pass.”
“Give it a few weeks.”
“Explain how I got here.” Brucel demanded of Saita.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I don’t understand how universes collapse.”
“Ah, so that’s what happened. Makes sense with what she said.”
“She? She who?”
“Something, I don’t know what she was, but she was accompanied by a large upright walking black wolf with a white chest. There was something wrong with his one eye as if it was mechanical.”
“Red-Eye.” Hissed Saita as she rubbed at her chest.
“So, that was his name.” Brucel sat down once more with a sigh and rubbed at his head. “Tore through the castle as if we were nothing. The wolf was hardly the thing that caused the most damage. The woman he was with, was something completely else. She could kill with a touch and dripped weapons from her fingers, like Silens used to.”
“You knew my mother?” blurted Bolx.
“Of course, you and your siblings were born a handful of years after Saasha died. You grew up in the palace.”
Saita looked up at Bolx and said, “The Fell Dragon did this.”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Brucel. “That’s what she called herself, but the beast kept calling her mistress.”
“Why come to me? I can’t help you.” Saita flinched as Doran added a plaster to her face.
“Two reasons. Firstly, the Fell Dragon has a message for you.” Brucel held up two fingers, “And the twins told me to seek you out when all of this started.”
If Saita was pale before, it had nothing on the colour her face went now. She half-fell from the stool she was sitting on and stepped back. Doran, still not sure if they were in danger or not, turned back to see the Saith hang his head, almost in defeat. He looked exhausted, physically and emotionally.
“The twins? You mean Kessa and Aastii?” asked Bolx.
Brucel shook his head and waved his hand at Saita nonchalantly, “Hers.”
Everything fell into place then for Saita. She understood what the Heavenly had meant by her twins simultaneously existing and not existing. They were not from this time, but from a time when she wasn’t being hunted by the Fell Dragon.
“They said if anyone could put a stop to her, it would be her mirror image. I didn’t understand that. But they were there in the last days, fighting to save what was left of our timeline.”
Brucel then twisted his head to look at Bolx, “And the more I look at you and her, the more I’m starting to believe you and the human were far friendlier than what you led me to believe, seeing as how those children looked.”
Saita was speechless and she could feel her throat constricting painfully. This wasn’t something she wanted to hear, not after working so hard to come to terms with what she could never have. Bolx, a credit to himself, simply said, “It is not like that in this time.”
Brucel snorted and then looked over to Saita, “I would have thought that too if she hadn’t reacted the way that she had.”
“You said the Fell Dragon had a message for Saita.” Interrupted Doran.
Brucel snorted and then ground his teeth before he spat, “‘Hunt me Saita, or I will continue to take your life apart.’”
Saita was confused by the message. This was the first time the Fell Dragon had directly communicated with her, and it was too cryptic. However, the Fell Dragon knew her name and that brought a new terror to her. Was she watching her? She already had interactions with Red-Eye, but she never recalled coming into contact with the Fell Dragon herself.
“She consumed every person of power in the castle.” Moaned Brucel. “She was more of a beast than the wolf was.”
“I can’t hear this.” Saita made for the door, but Brucel wasn’t done.
“If she has her sights on you, nothing is going to stop her. I put you into the ground effortlessly, and she tore through my defences, and killed my son before I could even react.”
Saasha didn’t know what to do. It had felt as if her world had been pulled out from under her feet when Bolx teleported into the castle and declared Brucel had appeared. Saasha remembered how her heart had started beating too fast, and she didn’t ask any questions, but instead demanded that Bolx take her to him immediately.
She didn’t know he had gone back for Lardan, as she steeled herself to see her husband again after decades. She didn’t know what to expect, but she did know that there was no way this man could be her husband. He had to be a person from another timeline, and while her heart ached at wanting to see him, she knew this could be a person who had never interacted with her in his timeline.
Yet, as she watched him get up from the couch and noticed the shackles around his wrists, she felt the blood drain from her face, and she went cold. She recognised him from the vision her youngest had shown her the day he tried to save Shannon from her uncle. This was Brucel, this was the man that she had fallen in love with. Was, until she died in his timeline. The death had shaken him so badly that he had turned into a pure monster, vile, violent, and everything Saasha didn’t want to see again.
She turned without saying a word to him. She had seen the hurt in his eyes, but she couldn’t bear to be in the same room as him. She knew what he really was, and even wearing the face of her dead lover would do nothing with the disgust that bubbled up within her.
She passed her son on her way out. He looked so happy at the news of his father’s return. She couldn’t bear to tell him that the monster within had twisted his own son to become what he was. A genocidal maniac. So, the queen walked all the way back to the castle, trying to stem tears of regret, loss, and fury.
It wasn’t until she reached the castle that she realised with the celebrations that were to occur tomorrow, this Brucel would come face-to-face with the very child he murdered and the creature which caused the deviation between his time and Saasha’s time. She paused at the entrance of the castle, her mind working furiously, as to what she was going to do. However, nothing she could think of could stop the inevitable of what was going to happen. Brucel Royal Guard was back, and there was nothing she could do.
A wave of emotion crashed over her, and the longing for her best friend overcame the walls she had hastily constructed. She collapsed at the entrance of her own castle and wept with anguish.
No story is complete without a love story that is over complicated! I hope you all enjoyed that!I will see all of you on Friday for more!
For those of you who have never heard of Fell Dragon you can find Book 1 here, Book 2 here, Book 3 here, and Book 4 here, Book 5 here, and Book 6 here
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I love discussing my books!
As the series continues, it will combine with another book series I wrote. To avoid confusion about what is happening, introductory chapters will be introduced separately so that you don't have to be lost. However, these chapters will contain spoilers. You can find these chapters here:
Races Explained
Banishment
Royal Guard
Saasha’s Direct Family
Saith Characters Recap
Human Characters Recap
Alternate Timeline Brucel
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Part 3>>You are Here>>Part 5
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