“Brother King, do you seek to die so that you may live?”
King nodded, unable to find his tongue or vocal cords amid the myriad of swelling passion, but he needed to speak the words, for saying them aloud made them a prayer. He tried twice before he actually uttered the sound. “I do.”
Chosen One pushed against King’s forehead, tilting his body backward until his neck, then his head met the water. His feet, no longer able to sustain the extreme angle, left the muddy river bottom. Chosen One supported King’s weight with a hand underneath his back, and then he gently submerged King’s face underneath the water. That’s where King remained.
In the beginning, when he’d been a fearful boy of five, King had panicked and fought the sense of not being in control. Four decades later, he’d learned to anticipate the sensations. All of them.
Unable to draw air, his chest began to burn, but he forced himself to stillness. He wanted to draw out the experience, savor it like a sunrise. His lungs throbbed, his heart crashed, and the pain became unbearable. Just when he thought he couldn’t tolerate half a second more, it happened—an endless moment where he felt heaven. Only it wasn’t a place; it was more like a sensation. The closest description he could come up with was that it felt like flying—not in a plane, but as if his body had released his soul and it soared. Oh, how it soared. The experience changed him, made him into a man blessed by the Lord.
His body bucked against the oxygen deprivation, and he slammed back to reality. He thrashed against the hands holding him under, and his penis released a stream of semen. The scorching liquid floated over his testicles in an elusive cloud of grace.
Only then did Chosen One lift him from the water.
King gulped in giant lungfuls of air, sucking river water into his mouth and up his nose, tasting and smelling the mud and algae searing his sinuses. In the river, bathed in dawn’s divine light, the only sound was of his body snorting and snarling to find a new equilibrium after his return from death. It was a beautiful resurrection.
Chosen One’s strong hands stayed on King’s body, holding him up until his legs were strong enough to support his weight. Finally, when King calmed, Chosen One stepped away. With one finger, King pressed a nostril closed and blew out the waste in the other one, then repeated the gesture with the other nostril to complete his cleansing and resurrection.
“Thy will be done,” King said, his voice thick, his body weak and shaky. He returned to his position to watch each of his Brothers go through the ritual.
By the time they were finished, dawn was an hour old, and heat and humidity and mosquitoes were an irritant. They waded back to the shore in the same order they’d entered the water. In the silence that followed the profound, they dressed. One by one, each of his Brothers bowed their heads to Chosen One and then left to return to their regular, routine lives. One brother was a lawyer, another a professor, another a doctor, and King was the chaplain for the local hospital.
“Brother King, would you stay a moment more?” His leader’s tone was mild, but King sensed the urgency underneath.
“Certainly.” A small smile of triumph teased his tongue and twitched his lips.
“Brother King, I sense a change. Your resurrection was particularly powerful this morn.”
“It was.” He drew in a breath. “I ordered Queen to kill the Dragon last evening.”
Chosen One’s eyes widened. “Rex!” He lapsed into using King’s birth name and grabbed King’s arms with both of his hands. “You completed your task.” He brought King in for a hug, and King let himself be held by the powerful man who was more than his Chosen One. He was also King’s father.
“I knew your simple sister would be of assistance to you. Serving you in this task has always been part of her purpose.” Chosen One released him. “I am proud of you. You have struggled with this burden for far too long. You must know—especially today—that the Lord only chooses those who are strong enough to carry the burden of his destiny.”
“I am pleased it is over, but my weak mind still struggles against…struggles to understand…the Lord’s will.”
“It is much the same for all who’ve been asked to complete such a task. We are here but to serve the Lord, not to question. You must now carry out the last rites, or the Dragon will never truly be dead. You do understand the importance?”
“I do.” King’s guts shriveled. He still needed to chop off her head, burn her body, soak the ashes in holy water, and inter them in holy ground. A nice little list of horror. But he hadn’t struggled this long to leave his duty to the Lord unfinished.
Chapter 4
Only sound existed for Xander.
Heartbeats.
Two of them.