Chapter 21
Dawn arrived sharply pink in the foothills south of the Bridelands.
Bright, candy-hued shafts through the crowded trees; a smooth, cake-icing mantle draped over the clearing where Reggie stood shaking inside his armor.
Its joints clinked faintly. His breath steamed in the early light.
It was cool, but not cold; a chill gripped him tight down to the bone and it had nothing to do with the temperature.
Valencia nudged him lightly in the shoulder, her breath warm against his throat, her eyes glinting gold, and, he liked to think, questioning in a friendly sort of way.
“Yes, I know.” Reggie laid a hand on her muzzle, and found that it grounded him; her slick scales and the heat that seeped through them.
He’d saddled her himself. Fitted the buckles of the breastplate, and carefully strapped the bridle with its curb chain under her chin when she lowered her head.
He kept waiting for her to snort and rear back, dodging out of reach like a green horse presented with tack for the first time.
But she’d kept calm. Patient. She’d leaned in closer to help him when his shaking fingers slipped on the buckle of her throatlatch.
There’d been a part of him that had almost hoped she would resist, and demonstrably so, and that he’d be spared the terror of actually riding her. But she’d cooperated at every turn, and now there was nothing left but to put his foot in the stirrup and swing aboard.
He took a breath, and then another, and another, because they came in insufficient sips of air that left him dizzy.
The blood was rushing so loudly in his ears that he didn’t hear the crunch of approaching footsteps. A hand landed on his shoulder, and he leaped so hard he bumped into Valencia’s nose.
She righted him, with more grace than he deserved, and when she snorted, the sound was echoed by a human snort of amusement to his left.
He wasn’t going to say it, but Reggie was grateful for Connor’s appearance; that he’d followed him out here, to razz him, and stir up his temper, and distract him from his terror.
“You’re lucky she didn’t bite your head off,” Reggie said, sourly, and meant thank you, I wish you could come with me.
Connor’s responding smile said I know, but you’ll do fine. “Nah.” He reached a hand up and stopped shy of touching Valencia’s muzzle. “She’s a good girl.”
As if to prove the point, Valencia sniffed his palm, and then delicately butted the end of her nose into it.
“See? Gentle as a kitten.”
“A flying, fire-breathing kitten,” Reggie muttered. He tweaked Valencia’s curb strap again, for no reason. It hid the shaking of his hands, if nothing else.
Speaking of hands: Connor’s landed on his shoulder.
He couldn’t feel its warmth or grip through his pauldron, only the weight of it.
As if he knew this, Connor let his fingers slide down his arm, and then over, ducking under his cloak so he could touch the middle of Reggie’s back.
Where Reggie shivered against the familiar heat, blunted by fabric, but still there.
Connor leaned in close, until his chest pressed against Reggie’s arm, and his breath tickled warm in his ear. His voice was so warm and sincere that it brought a sudden sting of tears to Reggie’s eyes. “You can do this, Reg. You’re the best horseman I’ve ever met.”
Reggie refused to look at him. Dashed at his eyes with a corner of his cloak. “You’re saying that because you think flattery will hurry me along.”
“I’m saying it because it’s true. Hey. Look at me.”
He did, with reluctance, and Connor kissed him.
Not a quick good luck press, but a deep, searching sort of kiss, open-mouthed, and hungry, and, in Reggie’s estimation, desperate.
He dragged his teeth over Reggie’s bottom lip when he withdrew, and when Reggie—more than a little dazed, and thoroughly distracted from his fear—lifted heavy eyelids, he saw a rare crack in Connor’s facade.
His expression was broken open, worry and affection and a dozen other raw, tender emotions plain in his dark eyes.
His mouth hitched sideways in a fleeting, affectionate smile.
In a soft voice, he confessed, “If it was me, I’d fall off on the ascent, break my neck, and we’d be doomed.
If I managed to get up in the air, I’d flee at the first sign of danger. ”
“Con—” Reggie started.
Connor pressed their foreheads together. “Go. Make me proud.”
Reggie exhaled shakily. “It must take quite a lot to make a rogue like you, proud.”
“Oh, on the contrary.” Blurred from closeness, his smile was still clearly delighted. “I’m very easy.”
“You are,” Reggie agreed. “Slut.” And then his eyes started stinging again, and he flung both arms around Connor’s neck.
“Oh, all right.” He patted Reggie on the back, and then caved and hugged him in return. “You’re all right. You’re fine, love.” He kissed the side of Reggie’s head, and it was easy, in that moment, to believe that he was.
Connor let him hold on until he was ready to step back, and by that time Reggie had gotten his tears, and his too-quick breathing, under control. Dry-eyed, braver than he’d felt a few minutes ago, he met Connor’s steady, warm, encouraging gaze, and said, “Try not to die in my absence.”
Connor gave him a sloppy salute. “Try not to fall off a dragon.”
Reggie snorted, thrilled that he could joke rather than wet himself with fright.
Then he took a deep breath and turned toward Valencia. “What do you say, Lenny? Shall we take to the skies?”
She trilled a happy-sounding answer that could only be a yes.
~*~
Náli had never been so grateful for a white-scaled drake as he was when they landed in the snowy crook between two peaks.
“Stay hidden,” he told them, for all the good that it would do, but Percy snuggled down into the snow, fluffing it up around him with his wings and tail, and Alfie and Valgrind followed suit.
“Huh.”
“What?” Rune asked. He was wind-chapped, whey-faced, and wobbly on his feet, voice a rough scrape thanks to the cold air and altitude.
“I didn’t think they’d listen. Come on.”
Rune muttered a wordless protest, but when Náli leaned forward and started his laborious climb up through the waist-deep drifts, he heard the prince floundering along behind him.
The wind bit like a tangle of thorns, stinging against his scalp, his eyes; licking insidiously down the collar of his tunic, until his whole chest was a mess of gooseflesh.
He leaned farther and farther forward as he climbed; it was a short distance to the precipice, but he was forced to plunge his gloved hands down into the snow and search for rocky handholds to pull himself along.
Sunrise was against his back, and it was by its first, brilliant white light that he finally beheld the capital of Aquitainia when he gripped a ridge of snow-covered rock and hauled himself the last meter.
He saw the water first. The half-moon bay of sparkling blue, and beyond its rocky shores and jutting piers, the blue-black of deep ocean water. He lifted a hand, and from this far distant, the curve between thumb and forefinger cupped the entirety of the bay.
Closer, at the foothills of the mountain range upon which he currently perched, the city lay in a tangled jumble of pale stone buildings at irregular heights: towers climbing taller and taller in concentric circles until there could be no question that the tallest belonged to the king’s palace: a many-tiered cake encircled by a high wall that spiraled down and down its hilltop, a long ramp that led up to a pair of iron gates that looked ant-sized from this far away.
His home palace in the Dead Lands was a spectacle of bloody marble, Aeres imposing and austere. But he’d never seen a city like this. It was so intricate, so layered. He’d never seen so many buildings of so many sizes and shapes in one place before.
“Gods,” Rune wheezed, throwing himself down beside Náli in a graceless heap. He tried to swipe his hair out of his eyes and smeared snow across his face. “Oh, fuck me, fuck this.”
“Hush,” Náli snapped.
“Why? No one can hear us up here.”
“Or so you think. You have no idea what sort of magic we’re dealing with.”
Rune sighed, but quieted. Settled in on his elbows the way Náli was. Then he whistled, softly. “It’s massive.”
“Yes,” Nali said, grimly. “And it won’t be easy to attack.”
“We have the drakes. And Amelia’s sister has five of them.”
“She only brought three with her,” Náli reminded; he’d said as much earlier, when they stopped long enough for Percy to pluck a mountain goat off a hillside for lunch. “So we’ll only have six total. And the emperor will be expecting us. He’ll have scorpions and catapults in place. Not to mention…”
As though summoned, a high, whistling shriek pierced the air.
They both jumped, and wound up pressed tight together, shoulder to hip to heel. Percy growled behind them, and Náli whipped around to hiss, “Shut up. Be quiet.”
Percy bared his teeth, but, blessedly, shut up.
Náli faced forward and spotted two…no, three…
no, five winged shapes circling above the city.
Scaling them against the buildings below, he could tell they were four or five times larger as their cold-drakes.
They swooped, gliding on open wings, tails whipping like rudders, lazy spirals above Aquitaine.
“They’re sentries,” Rune said. “They’re watching for us.”
“Yes.” Náli shuddered hard, and it had nothing to do with the cold wind blasting his face.
As they watched, more drakes flew in to join their fellows, some large, some small, some so tiny they looked no bigger than birds. They came from the bay, and they lifted up from the walls of the city, and Náli choked on his own heartbeat as he saw their numbers.
They could never fight them. They would be slaughtered. The Great Northern Phalanx, the Southern forces…they were all going to die.
He slipped down behind the ridge and pressed his snow-wet gloves over his face, breathing in ragged, open-mouthed gulps.