“The climb itself is easy. There are stairs for emergency use. The trouble is that those trails are booby-trapped with enchantments. We’ll need to work together to detect and disable them.” Rakos frowns. “You seeing scalestone is a problem. There’s going to be a lot, but I won’t be able to help you dim it or we could miss the traps.”
“Let me worry about that,” Bell says with a grimace. “What about guards? What happens if the dragons see us? Will they attack, or—I don’t know, report us?”
The only dragons in the dragonroost are bonded to human riders. Wild dragons live farther north in the mountains. “Bonded dragons are loyal to their people. Whether or not they’d attack depends on which dragon spots us.”
Bell bites his lip. “I don’t know Irenka. I don’t trust her.”
“I could talk to her alone,” Rakos offers.
“I don’t like that either. Not because I’m jealous or anything. I just don’t know her.” Bell looks uncertain. Worried. As if Rakos might start treating him like a child out of nowhere.
Rakos just shrugs. “Then I won’t do that. The mountain it is.”
A grin spreads across Bell’s face. Rakos absolutely loves it.
“You know, you should probably rest up most of tomorrow, if we’re leaving tomorrow night,” Rakos says.
Bell tilts his head at the tone of Rakos’s voice. “Probably.”
“But if you’re resting tomorrow, that means you can stay up late tonight.”
“Really?” Bell’s grin turns wicked. He stands up and stretches, his shirt riding up his stomach. “But there’s nothing to do here. No books, no games, no—”
Rakos sweeps Bell off his feet and spins him until he’s breathless with laughter. Rakos’s heart pounds, alive, thrilled to have his beautiful Bell in his arms. Even more thrilled when Bell’s legs wrap around his hips, and Bell takes Rakos’s face in his hands.
The kiss is sweet, slow. Rakos doesn’t want it to end.
But tomorrow might be the last day he spends with Bell. As soon as they reunite with Sarka, they’re taking off for Silaise. Rakos will leave Bell there, safe and sound, then fly away. Either to a paradise island or to prison, depending on whether Sarka’s willing to leave Draskora or not. Probably the island, but paradise doesn’t appeal as much as it used to when he imagines living there without Bell.
What an idiot Rakos was to think he could keep this casual. But Bell’s worth the heartbreak.
Unless.
Rakos kisses Bell breathless, holding him up. “Bell, tomorrow—”
“No.” Bell covers his lips, and his eyes mirror Rakos’s heartbreak. His lips tremble into a smile. “Can we not talk about tomorrow? Can you just take me to bed?”
“Yeah,” Rakos rasps. “Yeah, I can do that.”
As they tangle in the bedding, Rakos pretends once again that he’s an ordinary man loving his incomparable lover. That tomorrow is a lifetime away and the quiet night will last forever.
***
The night wind cuts through Rakos’s clothes. Beneath the clear, dark sky, the surrounding mountains loom black and blue with starlight. Rakos would prefer a darker night to obscure their passage, but at least the stairs will be visible.
The stone-carved stairs are old and rough. Easy to climb, but difficult to find. Rakos is one of the few people specifically trained in the route, and even he nearly gets lost a few times as he leads Bell towards them. When they reach the foot of the stairs, he steps back.
“It’s all you from here,” he tells Bell.
Bell pulls him down for a kiss, his eyes gleaming in the starlight. The wyrmskin coat sways around his thighs, and he’s tightened the strap on Bastard’s pouch to wear her closer to his torso. “Follow me.” Bell turns towards the great rocky steps, then says, before he’s even moved, “Wait, there’s something on the second step. Let me try something.”
He closes his eyes, and gradually, the ground lightens in Rakos’s eyes. The glow of magic isn’t as bright as the first time they shared, or the second. Bell is carefully metering out his vision. It’s enough for Rakos to see the sigils glowing on the stone step in front of them, but not the full scalestone miasma.
Rakos reaches out with his shadows, and only when the sigils disappear does Bell commence his climb.
They ascend slowly, methodically, speaking only to warn each other of enchantments. The staircase has even more traps than Rakos expected. Some hidden in the steps, some mounted in the spurs of rock that shut out jaggedly all around them. Even a pocket of air is contaminated.
Every so often, Rakos and Bell have to duck beneath an outcropping of rock to avoid being spotted by the dragons swooping above them. Rakos can’t see their scales in the darkness, but he recognizes some of them by wing shape or size. Sarka’s nowhere in sight.