***
Jasmine continued to stare at the Dragon Heart as Kain slowly opened his eyes. Opting to watch the girl in front of him, he remained still.
Jasmine decided to touch the strange brown stone again in hopes of seeing what it would tell her. The petite girl scoffed to herself, looking at her scarred hands; it was a long shot at best... however a shot is still a shot right?
As her hand lifted toward the stone, another shot out and caught hers in a firm grip.
"What do you think you are doing, girl?" Kain snapped. Jasmine gasped as her green eyes were trapped in his golden ones. His eyes weren't confused and apprehensive like usual, this time his eyes were ice cold. Completely closed to her…
She couldn't get a read on him. That thought had her breath hitching with anxiety. The last time she couldn't get a read on someone... she was nearly killed.
"Do you know what that thing is?" Kain ground out as he tightened his hold on her wrist. Jasmine narrowed her eyes, she tried to pull her hand away, but was met with iron.
Watching her hand being held captive to the man before her, the anxiety wrapped tighter around her throat. No, she didn't know what it was. She didn't know anything about it except that a golden eyed Myriah called it a 'Dragon Heart.' And that it charred her skin off even within a spelled confine. Jasmine ground her teeth, she had to get free of this man who was now a stranger to her.
"Your spells are weak at best, girl. Do not think you can silently cast at me and succeed?" Jasmine's eyes widened. His voice, usually warm was condescending. His stoic eyes mocked her. It made her wonder if he was playing with her when they brought him into their hideout. Was his memory loss just a facade? Was that gentle boy who protected her when Myriah killed Zafrina a fake?
"This stone is not meant for you." Kain sat up and pulled Jasmine to himself. With a quiet oomph, she fell into his lap. In that moment, Jasmine was fully made aware that this was not a boy. This was a man who could easily kill her. HIs golden eyes bore into her green ones, assessing. Calculating, remembering.
She had to tilt her head back to hold his icy stare. "I remember you." He glared into her eyes and he let his aura flair, quietly relishing in her quiet whimpers. "You're the one who captured me." The words though nearly whispered were enough to make Jasmine hiss through her teeth while Kains glare deepened. He was not going to let this slip of a girl take what he had been entrusted with. Not this time. 'This time i am ready for you and your tricks.'
This stone was meant to find the Dragon Goddess... It was meant to guide her. And he was sent to protect her. Tyler groaned at the growing tension that was riddled with unharnessed magic. His eyes snapped open and he stared at Kain who had Jasmine in his lap. They were silently battling one another. Magic was dancing around them like the raging sea, with ever shifting tides.
Edymond came into the room and he stood at the entrance with his arms folded across his chest.
"It would seam you have regained your memories, sorcerer." Kain glanced at Edymond and dismissed him as he focused on Jasmine again. 'These green eyes…. They're conniving eyes and the source of my frustrations.'
Jasmine didn't have time to catch her breath as she was caught up in the silent battle again.
There was a beat of heavy silence in which Angalo strode into the room and effortlessly came between Jasmine and Kain. Jasmine yelped when Angalo grabbed the small girl by the back of her shirt and pulled her off of the glaring boy.
Angalo could sense the powerful magic shifting between the two, unless he put an end to it, surely they would all be killed and all of his peoples' plans would be for naught. That was not an option.
His pulling Jasmine from Kain's vise like grip made Kain glare at the Vampire.
"You may be more powerful than the girl, however I will kill you before that spell crosses your mind, boy." Angalos's patience was paper thin... He was in no mood for a pissing match with a mortal boy who could cast spells. Magic was in his being, not just his hands.
Part of him contemplated killing the boy before him simply to make a point: do not threaten those under his protection. Especially within the confines of his home.
Narrowed silver met burning amber and a new silent battle began. "Cease your magic, fool. Surely you remember the facility you were in just a few months ago." At Kain's nod, Anglao' allowed his glare to intensify, "Unless you wish to go back or worse, cease your nonsense and tell us what you know."
"That stone is not some trinket to tamper with." Kain ground out. Angalo gestured toward the stone. "What should happen should the girl touch it?"
"That is a Dragon Heart. The magic pulsating from it will burn her from the inside out. She will die before she can lift her hand from it." Kain tilted his head, "How did it get here?"
"Myriah pulled it from your chest..." Jasmine voiced her thoughts aloud, "But her eyes were golden when she did." Angalo looked at Jasmine, "You acted as a shield for her... and when the bullet hit your chest, you started to burn..." Edymond murmured. Kain cursed under his breath, "The barrier on it had to have been weakened by the bullet." The sorcerer murmured. "Hold on… you said the stone would kill those who try to touch it." Jasmine murmured, everyone in the room looked at her. "Myriah was able to touch it and she's perfectly fine..." Jasmine offered to the three staring males.
"From what I heard of these stones, they're too powerful for conventional barriers." Edymond murmured. Kain sighed, "There is no barrier on the stone." Kain murmured, "When I was being captured, my comrades sacrificed themselves so that the stone could be hidden within me, as my magic was the purest." Angalo and jasmine glanced at one another while Kain fell silent. "Dragons were once the most powerful beings alive. They could even defeat a pure one and remain unscathed. This stone is the heart of one. The aura around it is not a barrier. That's the strength and magic of the dragon." The sorcerer murmured at which the room fell into a silence.
"The strength and magic…" Angalo murmured, looking from the elf to the sorcerer and back, "does that imply that dragons remain alive to this day?"
Edymond shrugged, "it's possible. After all I come from the realm created by a dragon."
"Magic does not simply cease when a creature dies. Lest all of us would have met our ends when the pure ones were willed out…" Kain murmured.
"From what I've read, only curses cease once the caster has met their end. Magic within a being can sustain past the casters life…" Jasmine murmured, "does this imply that the heart of a dragon can live on as stone?"
After a few moments of heavy silence, Angalo felt his patience slipping, "If Myriah could touch the stone and come out unharmed, What does that mean?"
Kains brows furrowed, "Why can't I feel its' magic?" Kain asked. "That would be because of me, sorcerer." Edymond murmured. "I am shielding the magic of the stone. I am trying to heal the wound from the bullet you took…" "What interests me is that Myriah touched the stone and survived, mortal? She's is a newborn pure one who by all logic provided, this stone should have killed." Angalo ground out, not appreciative of being ignored. By now, Tyler and Mika had drifted toward them, interested in the conversation.
"It would mean that Myriah is the Dragon Goddess." Kain murmured as if it was the most obvious thing.
Anglao blinked. Tyler and Mika looked at one another then at the stone. Jasmine tilted her head and Edymond stepped toward the stone. He placed a gentle hand in its' direction. Angalo watched as the elf's hand came a hair away from the stone and his white flesh began to burn. Edymond didn't make a sound, however Angalo knew that it had to be excruciating...
"Only the Goddess has touched it and remained unscathed." Edymond murmured as he pulled his hand away from the stone. "I would dare to say: She is the only one who can close its wound." Kain scoffed, "Do you even know what that girl is? Even a Celestial being could die from touching a Dragons Heart for too long." "That is true." Edymond countered, "However we will not know until the Goddess comes to the stone."
"You're telling me to gamble this girls life?" Angalo asked, astonished at the casual attitude of the elf.
"If you want answers, vampire. The next step would be to gamble the girls life."
Kain blinked. "To be fair, the girl has unknowingly gambled her life thus far. Reviving the vampiress, healing the vampire. Sustaining the darkness within her."
Anglao tilted his head as Edymond spoke. "The darkness is deathly to the pure ones. Yet this one survives it. Based on what I've seen… to what I know, this girl should not have survived her imprisonment. I have never need an aura so dark."