How to Make a Sinner Sleep

115 | lobster; the beauty in terror

Wisteria dove into the depths of the mountain, deeper than Kaden could've wandered to alone. The space around them was isolated, a simmering danger thrumming in the air.

They flew until the light bled away and only darkness remained. Kaden blinked, his eyes slowly readjusting to his surroundings.

He swallowed. This darkness reminded him of the Room, an isolated space driven away from life and daylight, trapped.

His chest squeezed and his breath caught in his throat. It was suffocating, the air around him stiffing, yet he could not turn away in light of his fears.

They all told him that he was always running. This once, couldn't he run towards Noah, instead of away?

If he did that, a thing nearly impossible to consider realistically, how would his world change?

Would he break free of the cycle of misery he put himself in?

But that was frightening; rather than a fleeting happiness he couldn't predict, he preferred the despair that he knew.

Wisteria's faint and gloomy voice filtered into his mind. "Are you already frightened, human? It will be like you can't breathe, ash, and soot coating your lungs as you gasp for breath. Turn back."

Kaden pressed his palms flat, uncomfortable. Noah's expansive back and his beautiful scales were much more comforting.

"Would you let me? You're the obsessive, clingy type of brother, aren't you? You remind me a little of somebody I know," mused Kaden, putting on a facade of confidence.

"I would," hissed the dragon irritably. "And I would fly you far away and dump your body in an isolated space he'd never find you."

"He would be upset."

"He would be alive," retorted Wisteria quietly. "And I wonder if he will be if he chooses you."

Kaden settled into his body, trying to relax his stiff limbs. He gazed ahead, seeing nothing but planes of rock and never-ending darkness.

The wind rushed past him as the dragon dove and swept across the air, and it was liberating.

Like nothing he'd felt before. He'd never ridden on the back of a dragon before, flying through the air as if he dominated it. All these new experiences, all these things he would've never known.

He smiled faintly, taking a deep breath. "I can assure you, little dragon—"

"I'm not little."

"—I will burn this kingdom before I allow his death." Kaden looked down at his hands, scarred and ugly underneath gloves. "Even if I burned with it, I'm confident that I could do it."

"You couldn't. That is not in your nature."

"And I didn't think it was in my nature to need somebody as much as I do," replied the man quietly. "And here we are."

The dragon dropped, sending Kaden's heart leaping out of his chest as he gasped. Wisteria flapped his wings, lifting them back up, annoyance prickling on his back.

"Hah. What's with the full flip? Humans are full of lies."

"It's not a flip."

There was no sudden confidence or certainty—he felt entirely ill and terrified, horror making itself known in his stomach. His mind argued with him, a reminder of all the things he thought he knew.

Kaden was still terrified, pathetically horrified, but he was going to Noah anyway.

Wisteria scoffed, snorting before he deposited Kaden onto the uneven ground, causing the other to groan in pain. The dragon rose in the air, coldly peering down through slitted eyes.