“Don’t worry,” he says calmly, wiping the blade of his knife against his sleeve before sliding it back into its sheath. “I will take care of this.”
He gestures toward the bathing room.
“Go draw a bath,” he adds. “It will be done before you are.”
I don’t move.
“Arlet,”he says, this time with force. “Go bathe.”
Chapter 14
VANN
The wind claws at me, almost sharp enough to flay unprotected skin from bone. Each gust feels like it wants to tear me out of the dragon’s saddle, hurl me back into the ocean where I should have drowned, though we have long since crossed from the Enduar lands into elven territory.
Two days have passed, and I beg Endu not to allow the wedding to happen before I arrive.
When my heart races, I get lightheaded. A dangerous combination so far from a solid footing. My chest still doesn’t know how to be whole. Every beat of this foreign heart sounds like a hammer on an anvil, too loud, too raw, as though it might burst out of me again if I let my guard slip.
Seraph’s wings snap open wide as she crests another current, her golden scales scattering sunlight across the cloud banks.
Another day in a long string of days that have bled into each other after leaving Enduvida, only ending when both of us have had enough. The light hurts my eyes. It’s too bright, too much. I squeeze them shut, but the images don’t fade. I see the witches’ cave, and my heart rises into the air like a star stolen from the heavens. Ifeelthe moment it was shoved back into me.
Heat scorches every nerve, even now. My blood feels too fast, mythoughts too sharp and too heavy all at once. This body doesn’t belong to me yet. I don’t know if it ever will again.
Seraph twists suddenly, dipping us toward a valley cut deep between two ridges. I grit my teeth and let her guide the way. If she wants to test me, she has the right. I am not her rider. That was Arlet.
As it has hundreds of times between the return of my life force and now, her name sears through me like a brand. I don’t hear her voice. I don’t feel her touch. But the Fuegorra hums in my chest, bright and seeking. It looks for her, despite my mind knowing she is not at my side. It doesn’t give me direction, not yet. Only a conviction that she is near. Too near, and untouchable.
I open my eyes, and there it is: the spine of mountains that border the Shvathemar’s forests. Black rock, jagged ridges, and pockets of ancient pine crowd the cliff sides. Not the coastal route, which I suspect she would have taken with that bastard Thorne. This is harder. Wilder. But quicker.
Seraph roars as we bank low. I marvel as her voice shakes loose stones from the cliffs. The sound echoes back at us, multiplied until it resonates like an army of dragons.
“Subtle,” I grumble to the beast, despite knowing she won’t hear me over the wind. She’s a fierce creature, relentless as her mistress.
I guide her toward a shadowed slope where stone caves yawn open like hungry mouths. She lands heavily, claws biting into the rock. Dust plumes rise around us, and I cough, my ribs rattling as though they remember being cracked open.
Sliding from the saddle is harder than I want to admit. My legs shake as soon as they touch the ground. My cleaver drags at my side. My muscles don’t know what to do with themselves anymore, not after days of riding and this newfound fire in their veins instead of ice.
Seraph lowers her head until one massive eye stares straight into me.
“Come now, I already told you what Mrath said. We have a plan. I need to find a way to contact your mistress in the palace so we can fulfill our part of the deal with the Sisterhood. There is no way I can hide you or explain away your presence. You have to stayhere.” I try to reach out and stroke her scales, but she jerks her head away.
Her gaze is steady, unyielding, demanding.
“I will come back for you,” I say. “But now it is prudent to hide. I need to be swift, otherwise we risk losing everything.”
She huffs out a long, salty, pungent breath.
“I know I am a poor substitute for the real thing. Be patient, beast.”
Seraph growls.
Guilt claws at my chest. Leaving her alone could be dangerous. What if some band of soldiers discovers her? Arlet would be furious with me if the dragon were hurt, and I would only be handing her yet another reason to never forgive me. I pushed her away and into this mess. The fact that I even have to leave Seraph here right now is my fault.
I am not the hero in this story, I am a condemned man seeking redemption. A selfish creature who has recently regained his vitality, now filled with a determination not to fuck everything up again.
“I know,” I murmur. To my surprise, I find myself reaching out and finding the ridge of her jaw. Her scales are warm, almost hot. I don’t like dragons, not naturally like she did. Seraph couldn’t care less about me, but we both know I am the only connection she has left to her rider. “I know you want to go with me. To rip them apart and carry her away yourself.”