How to Make a Sinner Sleep

125 | fear; a little exposure

Kaden waited outside the towering tree trunk, a wide force of nature that rooted into the ground and branched out all over the domain, like a beacon of life.

Deep within the oaken walls lay an ancient, trembling power. A fading power.

Kaden could feel it.

Wisteria and Noah had entered alone. Disturbing a dying elder was already taboo—Noah was the exception as the ideal successor to the domain.

He'd been hesitant, still, Kaden knew from the way the dragon's straight eyebrows knitted and grimaced. The daunting reality of becoming feared and worshiped was not one Noah craved.

And yet he entered that tree pulsing with life, ready to claim his birth-given responsibility.

Had Kaden not dragged Noah into his mess, perhaps the dragon would've roamed free for a while longer. Unbound, able to live among the humans or other species without judgment.

He resisted the thought that pulsed through his veins like a constant reminder.

He resisted all the darkness that swarmed, taunting in his mind. Because he was standing there, wasn't he? And a life without Noah was not one he wanted to live.

Noah, an Elder of one of the dragon domains. A creature carved of power from birth.

And what was he?

Niklas came beside him, chewing loudly on an apple-like fruit. In these lands, it was unknown what one could be eating. The chewing was so loud that it made Kaden unable to think.

He looked sideways, seeing the chewed-up food in his friend's mouth. "...there's a thing called manners."

"And there's a thing called not over-thinking, but you don't seem to be aware of it." Niklas gulped noisily, consuming the rest of the fruit within seconds. He grinned. "I feel like it'll be the end of everything soon. What will you do after?"

It was a thing they'd spoken about before, but never had it been so near, at the tips of his fingers.

This final collision against Reed and everything would end.

"I'll follow Noah." Kaden's voice was quiet, barely daring to dream of something so beautiful. "Whatever he wants to do."

"That's one thing, and your aspirations are another. His dreams, I hate to say it, aren't yours. You're not Noah and Kaden, you're Noah and Kaden."

"You just repeated the same thing twice."

"It's a matter of emphasis! Point is," exasperated Niklas, a scolding hitch to his tone. "You're individuals, no matter how reliant you may be on one another."

His words drifted, and he plopped onto a large, protruding root that ran along the scope of the ground. Kaden stared and walked over to sit beside him.

Niklas sighed into his hands. "I made a mistake, Kaden. Seriously. I'm... sorry. For bringing you back. I thought I was saving you when I was really saving myself."

The guilt and horror still throbbed in the depths of his mind, the torrent of emotions when he discovered the truth of Kaden's identity.

His mother's last wish whispered like a faint taunting.

The justification that they were doing everything for Kaden's sake—that was wrong. They wanted to remedy their regrets and guilt for all they were unable to do.

When the deceased in question, as he had for his entire life, was pulled in the flowing waters of others' intentions.

"I can't turn back time again and I don't want you dead either, Kaden. It's selfish of me even to ask, but I'd really like you to find something you want to do."