Chapter 124: 124-Not ready
The three beasts spent more than three hours in the night market. Nytherael and Aeltharion’s hands were full, carrying shopping bags from Sseraphis’ shopping spree.
The snake was out of control. Whatever caught his eye was purchased whether it was important or not. Nytherael and Aeltharion had no clue what Sseraphis was going to do with all the things the male bought but they didn’t complain.
They stood at his beck and call, footing every bill and carrying the bags while Sseraphis ran from shop to shop like a child looking at anything that so much as glittered.
"It’s been so many hours. Aren’t you tired yet?" Nytherael yawned,a clear indication that he was exhausted.
"I’m not. I could shop the whole night," Sseraphis answered without thinking.
He was doing everything to stay out of his head. Burying this and that, engaging shop keepers in debates over meaningless objects, just to keep the noise going.
"Why don’t we get some rest?" Aeltharion suggested feeling for Nytherael.
He took had just recovered for a year of falling weak to a disease. As much as Sseraphis had freed him from that illness, his body still needed rest to recover completely.
Sseraphis didn’t even look back before saying, "There’s no need to rest. Let’s move."
Nytherael yawned again. After the long journey to Drakheiron and having to attend the party immediately on arrival, his body lacked days of rest and he was running thin. His focus was short and his eyes were breaths away from shutting down.
He dangled the bags in his hands in his air and requested. "Why don’t we take a minute and you can show us how to use these first before we buy more?" He finished with a yawn.
"No, I’m not taking a break. Let’s go to the other end and see what they have," he pointed in a direction of the market they hadn’t explored yet.
Nytherael held back a groan. If Sseraphis wasn’t young and down, he would have flight him tooth and nail for a chance to rest. But the constant sacrifices that Sseraphis has made for them and keeps making while they are together held him back from arguing.
He glanced up at Aeltharion, he hoped the dragon would use the passes from their time together for the last one year and a half to get Sseraphis to cooperate and let them take a break.
However, Aeltharion had thrown in a towel long ago. How could he be the one to convince Sseraphis to stop and give in to their exhaustion when Sseraphis was in that state because of his previous dire health.
He couldn’t bring himself to be the one to deny Sseraphis the outlet the snake wanted to the pain he could barely imagine him going through. It was one his brain couldn’t comprehend because he’d never experienced it himself.
"Hurry up!" Sseraphis turned back when he noticed they were lagging behind.
Nytherael sighed, he carried the bags and carried the heavy burden of his exhaustion and followed behind him. Aeltharion was no better but he too didn’t let it show.
"Maybe he’ll exhaust himself and then we can rest," Nytherael said, trying to motivate him and Aeltharion as they moved forward.
Just as Sseraphis took another step forward, his entire body went very still. His shadow twitched.
He squeezed his eyes shut as a sharp pain crossed his head. The pain attacked his four senses. Blood trickled out from his eyes, nose, ears and the corner of his mouth.
The world around him vanished in the background and he was forced to face the one thing he had been running from.
The pain roared through him, his sound of his other heads screaming out and writhing in pain echoed louder than the bustling market.
They didn’t just feel pain, they ached for one of them that had fallen. The grief caught up to him at the most unexpected time.
Nytherael paused, he thought that Sseraphis had stopped in thought of their request. He crossed his fingers, bit his lip and glanced at Sseraphis’ back with hopeful eyes that prayed that his decision comes up in their favour.
Aeltharion halted too, but unlike Nytherael who was too tired to think, he found Sseraphis’ unmoving frame felt wrong. He didn’t stop and wait, he approached Sseraphis to ask him what he was thinking.
After failing to realize the male was in pain once, he didn’t dare make that mistake again. With determination in his heart, he touched Sseraphis’ shoulder and nudged him.
"What are you think..." The words got stuck in his throat. The bags fell from his hands to the floor and he immediately scooped Sseraphis into his arms like he weighed nothing.
"Oh, my goodness!" Nytherael panicked when he saw the blood.
"We should head back to the underwater palace and have Jura take a look at him," he offered.
He was spoke with desperation, urgency clung to Nytherael movements as he immediately opened a portal to the underwater palace.
Aeltharion stepped in holding the silent snake. Sseraphis hadn’t moved an inch. He struggled to press the pain back and act as though nothing had happened.
Nytherael picked up the fallen shopping bags and followed Aeltharion through the portal.
He couldn’t accept the loss. The sacrifice had been easy to make in the name of love because he hadn’t anticipated the hurt it would cause him. He didn’t want to feel it, because he understood that letting that door open, it would never close again.
As a healer, he knew. Recovering from losing one of his heads wasn’t going to be easy. It was a long journey and a war of its own, one he wasn’t ready to fight.
"Jura!" Aeltharion called out. His voice hut every corner of the palace, even the deaf could hear him at that point. "Jura, I need you!" His voice got even louder.
"I’ll go fetch him," Nytherael set all the shopping bags down and turned to fetch Jura when the male appeared before him.
"I am blind, not deaf," he complained, a candy in his mouth. "And since when am I on call for..." He shit his mouth when he senses the weakened essense in the room. His eyes landed on the body in Aeltharion’s arms and for the second time in his life he was shaken to the core, the first was when Sseraphis was attacked by Hadrian and brought to him. "Oh, dear. What a terrible fate you have my friend," he said.
He urgently guided Aeltharion to put Sseraphis down and he began the treatment. Nytherael and Aeltharion stayed by his side to aid him where needed.
Occupied, they failed to notice the beast standing at the spot they once were at the market place, looking in to the underwater palace through the still open portal.
"Triggering Sseraphis’ pain is just the start. I’ll make sure that the suffering you go through is endless," Fior vowed.
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