Chapter 11
Eleven
Iscrubbed my hands across my face, doing my best to eradicate all traces of the tears as I quietly shut the bathroom door behind me.
It was easy enough to wipe a towel across my face and let out several deep breaths, pretending I was just winded from the jog back up the spiral staircase. Nilsa said nothing as she ran the bath, going through the same silent motions as she did every morning.
I wondered if she felt ill-used by the Obsidian Flames, being assigned to wait on me, of all people. In every House, the servants spoke amongst themselves, whispering about the dragonbloods they served. Although Viros seemed to be in my corner, I wondered about the rest of them.
Even days later, I knew at least one of them had to have seen my shameful outburst at Rhylan, and that had almost certainly been whispered about.
But, as my mother would have said, dwelling on silly mistakes would earn me nothing in the future. All I could do was uphold the fa?ade that I was the perfect Dragonesse-to-be.
So I stripped off my sweat-soaked training clothes and allowed a maid to begin unbraiding my hair as I stepped into the bath, murmuring a thank you as my sore muscles sighed with bliss at the sensation of hot water.
In the few days I’d spent in Jhazra Eyrie, the one luxury I’d quickly adapted to without reservation was the steaming baths. When I was younger, I’d hated having handmaids attend to me, but now it settled the primal unease in the back of my brain of being in a vulnerable position.
More handmaids meant more eyes to watch for danger.
And, mercifully, none of them spoke to me that much. I allowed them to scrub and brush me like an oversized doll, lacing and buckling me into the riding leathers, and all I had to do was stay silent and accommodate them when one asked for me to move my arms out of the way.
But soon enough, it was all over. My hair had been plaited and pinned up so tightly I felt my scalp screaming where the strands pulled at my temples. The riding leathers were near-perfect, moving with me like a soft second skin.
And now…I would have to face Rhylan after that mortifying debacle in the training room.
The thought sent my stomach roiling again and after the maids left, I found myself pacing back and forth through the bathroom again.
Some small part of me—the part that thought it would be just grand to never have been raised to claim thrones—wished it were possible to claim to be sick just so I could avoid having to look into his eyes today.
Walking into the bedroom, I pushed a hand against my turbulent stomach and leaned my forehead against the cool glass window.
“He’s just a dragon,” I whispered to my reflection, staring into pale silver eyes. “You are the eldest daughter of Nasir, blood of both Silvered Embers and Undying Light, the rightful Dragonesse. And Mother would whip your ass for this nonsense, acting like a scared little girl.”
This was almost as bad as my tantrum at Rhylan. In fact, it was worse.
I was of twice-royal blood and I had been raised better than this. I was essentially allowing that fear-worm to gnaw on me, without raising a hand to stop it.
That was more than enough to get me to straighten up, pushing my shoulders back and dropping my hand. My guts hadn’t stopped churning, but no one would ever know as long as I didn’t give in to weakness.
“Daughter of Nerezza,” I growled to myself, knowing that name was sacrilege here and not caring.
Many dragonbloods would have looked at my mother and seen a tyrant. I looked at her and saw someone who was willing to give everything to shape her child into what she needed to become.
Perhaps she had not shown me much love on Mistward. But she hadn’t broken, even in her final hours. If she could be exiled to a hellscape with her only blood, every second a battle to defend us both against other dragons or to scrape out a meager survival, and still stand up straight at the end of it, so could I.
My feelings, my embarrassment, were nothing compared to the trials I would face after I murdered Yura and ensured the survival of the Akallan Houses.
I climbed the spiral staircase to the dragon terrace, half-expecting Rhylan to be waiting there with a sneer on his lips, but instead I opened the door and nearly walked straight into a massive, scaled haunch.
He was already shifted, tucked under his harness and peering up at the sky through the dragon door.
Relief filled me, my stomach unknotting the tiniest bit. It was easier to deal with Rhylan when he was in dragon form, not having to look into flame-blue eyes and fight off the instinctual urge that would only lead to trouble.
I quietly shut the eyrie door and kept my face impassive as I ducked under an enormous forelimb, bringing the chest buckles of the harness together.
A startled trill came from the dragon looming overhead, and he craned his head downward even as the rest of him jerked back, peering at me as I smoothly finished the first buckle.
I raised an eyebrow, going to work on the second one. “You’re really going to have to work on not looking surprised when I show up out of nowhere. I know you think I’m going to spit in your face at dinner and ruin all this, but honestly, that reaction right there would’ve been the end.”
Rhylan grumbled, obligingly lifting a clawed foot as I began checking the straps that ran beneath his arms.
I flapped a hand at him, all too aware that the draconic head only inches away possessed teeth longer than said hand. “You can deny it all you want, but we both know you were scared.”
There was a snort from a foot above my head. If my hair hadn’t been pulled back within an inch of its life, it would’ve gone everywhere.
When I was sure the harness was fully secured, I stood in front of him, crossing my arms over my chest and squinting upwards. If only he could be a dragon all the time…it was a thousand times simpler to be at ease.
“We need to fly twice as long today,” I informed him. “Especially since the First Claim is under a week from now. It’s time for the training to be stepped up. You know it and I know it, so let’s not argue.”
The growl Rhylan let out made my whole body vibrate, down to the stones under my feet.
“I see you are in fact raring for an argument. Fortunately, Viros will…” I peered at the storage room’s open door, and found no sign of the Eyrie-Master. “Well, it looks like Viros will not be backing me up. But that’s fine, because I’ve got five good reasons right here.”
I raised my closed fist to the dragon’s face, and put up my index finger. His nostrils flared. “First of all, you said you wanted shock and awe? Well, the First Claim is going to be the one and only time you get that. So I need to be able to ride gracefully, because there’s nothing less awe-inspiring than me falling off your back. Second—” I popped up my middle finger, and Rhylan’s eyes narrowed. “Varyamar is twice as far as the flight from Mistward was, and that made me feel like I was dying. One way or another, Rhylan, you’re taking me home soon. Thirdly—”
I’d just raised my thumb when someone cleared their throat behind me. I whirled around, finding Viros standing there with a fur-trimmed cloak in his hands.
“The Prince is planning to fly north, near Kirion Eyrie’s territory. He requested that we bring extra layers for you, as that region is prone to, ah, sudden snowstorms without warning.”
Kirion was far enough that the flight would take three times as long as our usual practice runs, if we were planning on getting anywhere near the eyrie itself. Their region even encompassed a small section of the Krysien Mountains before giving way to entirely snow-covered ranges.
I doubted Rhylan wanted to risk anyone seeing us, which meant we would be flying true north, well past the bounds of the Krysiens and into the land of ice, where dragon-killing storms spun up from thin air.
“I see.” I tucked my fingers back into a fist, glancing up at Rhylan and finding his mouth curled into the draconic version of a smug grin. “Thank you, Viros.”
I took the fur cloak and fastened it around my neck, whispering, “You were really just going to let me stand there and argue for your exact plan, huh?”
Rhylan chuckled, ebony smoke twining out of his nostrils, and stretched out, belly to the ground. I shook my head, pulled on the fleece-lined gloves that Viros offered, and mounted.
I had to hold back a scream as I did so. My muscles were past protesting—instead they all rioted at once, threatening to lock up and send me right over the other side of Rhylan’s back. It was only the thought of having to do it again, and the memory of a whip lashing at the backs of my legs, that got me in that saddle without so much as a grimace.
I immediately set to hooking the safety straps in place, tucking them down so they were disguised against the darkness of the saddle and my leathers, then I took a deep breath, settling myself in as comfortable a position as I could manage.
Staring down at the knotted scars on Rhylan’s back, I prepared myself for more pain.
Pain is good, I reminded myself. It means you’re alive. It means you’re no longer imprisoned.
With that thought in mind, I patted him right on a particular nasty knot of silvery tissue, letting him know I was ready.
Rhylan rose up easily, climbing through the dragon door with the same eagerness he showed for every flight. I supposed since he didn’t have to worry about plummeting to his death, flying was probably exhilarating every time he got to stretch his wings.
My thighs ached as I squeezed the saddle, leaning forward as Rhylan climbed the nearly-vertical rock wall towards the peak. The wind was high today, whistling in my ears, but it didn’t drown out the strange, whispery sound that reached my ears. I tilted my head, listening intently, puzzling over where I had heard it before—
Ice flushed through my veins. It was the sound of tearing cloth…the faint whisper of seams ripping.
I glanced down at my thighs, heart thumping unevenly when I saw one safety strap had torn away from the saddle and now flapped loose against my leg. I slid backwards an inch as soon as it tore completely free, squeezing even tighter with my legs and gripping the reins hard enough that my hands ached.
“Rhy—”
He exploded from the side of the mountain before I could form a word, canting hard to the side to catch the winds instead of gliding forward over the peak.
As my back tipped towards the earth—no, not the earth, but the craggy endless points of the mountainside, several thousand feet of grater that would shred me to pieces in an instant—the entire left half of my body swung away from the saddle.
Fear stole my voice and breath. I jammed my foot into the stirrup as deep as it would go, my entire body locked up rock hard as I clung to him. Something in my shoulder stretched to the breaking point as I dug my nails into the saddle, most of my weight focused on that single arm, and the stretching sensation gave way with a horrible pop of agony. Tears sprang into my eyes, ripped away by the wind almost instantly.
All I could think was that I was going to be flung free, to smash into the side of the eyrie and be torn to pieces in silence, never having gained enough breath for a scream or a farewell or even a final curse shouted at Rhylan.
Then he leveled out, pulling out of the spin over the eyrie so suddenly I was thrown upright, back into the saddle. Solid dragon beneath me had never felt so good before.
My shoulder was on fire, needles of bright pain stabbing down towards my elbow. I took a few deep breaths, choking back a sob of relief, unable to release my death grip on the saddle.
“Rhylan,” I whispered, wanting to shout, but my lungs had shriveled into prunes. All I could do was cling and shiver, as cold as ice inside.
He couldn’t hear me, not with this razor-sharp wind. And once I’d caught my breath, I couldn’t bring myself to yell.
In a normal life, in a normal world, that would have been nothing.
I’d seen dragons and their riders wheel in midair before, turning flips and diving almost vertically, no straps or safeties needed. The mind-speech would’ve made it possible, the dragon broadcasting his every move, the draga letting him know when to reel it in. They gave their riders warning before they went wheeling over abysses, allowing the rider to stabilize herself and prepare for it.
Instead I felt like I was riding a wild animal or a force of nature, completely unable to predict any of his moves, only able to react as crisis came. My fear of riding him without the mind-speech had not been unfounded at all.
As much as I wanted this, I wondered if Rhylan would be the death of me.
But it didn’t matter. I was still alive, albeit in pain, and now he was gliding gracefully north. I tilted my head to wipe the tears on my cheeks on my cloak, unwilling to let go even for a second.
My left armwas so much dead weight by the time Rhylan began a gentle descent towards the snowed-in valley far below.
Tears had frozen on my cheeks, my lower lip raw from biting it to avoid crying out. The pop in my shoulder had gone from fire to an intense, sharp pinpoint of pain over the hours, numbness creeping down my arm.
The numbed sensation was actually a blessed relief, even if that arm was now useless meat, my fingers frozen into a claw-like position around the reins.
I’d tried to distract myself with the view from the sky, taking in the line of demarcation where the black Krysiens gave way to shorter, squatter mountains, all of which were capped with thick layers of snow. The valleys between were marked with the wriggles of deep gray frozen rivers, and here and there the warm glow of oil lamps gave away the presence of a small village.
But those things had paled under the tension wracking my body, the mounting fear that I’d damaged something necessary.
Rhylan hadn’t slowed until the mountains were hills, and he was heading for a flat plain covered with fluffy drifts of snow. Agony wrenched my legs as I gripped him tightly again, preparing for the teeth-rattling landing, but he went in gently, his wingtips spraying snow as he wheeled and landed.
Not until all four of his feet were on the ground did I release my grip.
My hands were locked up, my fingers resisting every effort to stretch them out, and I had to shake out my right just to gain enough limberness to manually unclaw my left from the reins. My claws had left deep pockmarks in the leather saddle where I’d clung to it.
Fear lurched in my stomach again as my left arm swung to my side, the burning in my shoulder flaring back to life. I dismounted one-handed, sinking into snow halfway up my calves, and gripped my shoulder as another wave of pain brought dark spots to my vision.
Deep breaths of icy air cleared my head; I refused to pass out.
Then I just took a moment to be grateful that I was standing here, alive, and not gobbets of meat spattered down the side of Rhylan’s eyrie.
He crouched, shifting into his male form and ducking under the harness, but he froze as soon as he saw me. Deep inside I was already bristling that I’d have to answer to him, but I couldn’t bring myself to release the knot of agony even as he stalked towards me with narrowed eyes, gaze pinpointed on the hand clutching my shoulder.
“What’s this?” he demanded softly, in a tone of voice that promised trouble. “What happened? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“One question at a time, eh?” I blinked my third eyelids back, the tears that had crystallized on my lashes flaking down onto my cheeks. “One of the straps broke. I wasn’t expecting you to fling yourself backwards off the mountain. I think I pulled something in my shoulder, and I’m just…gods, I’m just glad I didn’t fall.”
To my intense shame, a hot, fresh gush of tears welled over, spilling down my cheeks and freezing almost instantly.
Rhylan growled low in his throat, taking two enormous steps to loom over me and practically ripping my cloak aside. He uncurled my fingers from my shoulder, and gently gripped it.
I couldn’t hold back the cry that escaped as new pain flared, and I couldn’t pull away. My arm wouldn’t raise by itself.
Rhylan released me almost immediately, putting two fingers under my elbow and lifting. It moved only a few inches before I stumbled away, gritting my teeth. “Stop moving it!”
He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, his eyes closed and brows clenched, and exhaled pure steam. “I think it’s dislocated. Now come sit down and hold still.”
“I’m not sitting in the snow.” Maybe he ran at a higher temperature than draga and was perfectly fine with standing out here naked, snow melting where it touched him, but I’d spent hours trying desperately not to fall, trying to predict any erratic movements, trying to ignore the pain of a damaged body.
I was not sitting in the snow for this.
“Sera.” There was that warning tone in his voice again, the one he took when he was about to snarl, and all I could hear was him calling me spoiled brat.
“Just let me stand for it,” I insisted, doing my best not to plead. “I can stand.”
“Fine,” he snapped, and exhaled another gout of steam. “I’m going to try to pop it back into place.”
I nodded, the river of tears cracking on my face, and allowed him to approach again. But the expression on his face was too much to take in, and I looked away, blinking at the blinding brightness of the pristine snow stretching as far as the eye could see.
Despite his obvious annoyance, he was gentle as he gripped my shoulder. I sucked my lip in again, tasting blood and feeling rough skin against my teeth as he carefully maneuvered my arm up.
“One, two, three,” he counted quietly, and then there was the monumental pressure of his hand forcing my arm into place, another horrible pop, and then…a reprieve from absolute pain.
It wasn’t perfect; the soreness had crept in until that was all I could feel, but now my arm was attached again, no longer useless meat hanging off me.
I gasped, curling my arm up towards my chest and cradling it. I was never taking my functional appendages for granted ever again.
“Now.” Rhylan planted himself in front of me, clearly making an effort to keep his hands from curling into fists. “Why didn’t you say something?”
That little worm of fear took a bite from somewhere inside me, the fear that I’d once again irrevocably fucked up, that I had ruined everything.
“I tried,” I started, but one look at the flames dancing in the backs of his eyes made it clear that “I tried” was not an excuse in his book. “It happened so fast. By the time we were in the air, it’d already happened.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. His lips were pressed so tight they were flat.
“You couldn’t even hear me over that wind, even if I yelled, and…I couldn’t. We both knew this would come with risks without the mind-speech—”
“Acceptable risks!” he roared, cutting across me. “Not you choosing to sit there with a fucking dislocated shoulder and not saying anything about it!”
“What was the other option, then?” I demanded, my throat tightening. “Turning back? Ruining a whole day? We don’t have extra days! We have less than a week! And this is far from the worst thing that could’ve happened. I need to know how much I can handle, Rhylan, because I can’t fucking hear you and every time we fly, I’m at your mercy!”
His lips pulled back, baring sharpened fangs. Onyx scales had spilled over his shoulders and chest, creeping further down over his dark gold skin with every word I spoke until he was entirely covered.
“Do you think I don’t see the things you’re doing, Sera? Do you think Kirana didn’t tell me that you asked for extra portions of the starvation rations? Do you think Erebos doesn’t tell me every time you sneak down to the training rooms alone, or sit in your room and do exercises when no one else is around? Do you think Viros doesn’t report to me that you’re up at all hours of the night, creeping through the library and reading instead of sleeping? Do you think I don’t see you doing all these things with my own eyes?”
Ebony flames curled from his lips. His voice grew to a hoarse shout that echoed off the blank emptiness around us, his voice coming back to accuse me again and again.
The tightness in my throat was a choking knot as the accusations hit home, each one an arrow driven into my chest.
I wanted to scream back in his face, tell him that he didn’t have fear living in him like a creature, gnawing away at him piece by piece, but no words came.
“I asked you to get well, not drive yourself into the ground!” He took a step forward as he roared again, instantly melting a foot of snow. “What good are you as the Dragonesse if you’re hellbent on burning yourself to ashes?”
My nostrils flared as I opened my mouth to shoot back, to tell him that I had to be perfect, I had to be better than Yura, than Maristela, than any other draga slavering like wolves at my door—
And instead I choked on a sob.
It escaped before I could stop it, another wrenching its way past even as I slammed my hand over my mouth. Without thinking, I sank to my knees in the snow, huddling in the cold like it was a shield against Rhylan’s fiery wrath.
My chest ached as the tears I’d held at bay for days finally escaped, storming out of me in a flood I was powerless to stop. They were ugly sobs, torn from the very depths of me, an explosion I’d stored up for years and years and never given freedom.
“Sera, Sera, no.” Warm, strong arms encircled me, and I couldn’t fight off Rhylan as he pulled me against him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
I sobbed against his chest, hiding my face so he couldn’t see me twisted up as I gave vent to all the built-up terror and anxiety.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, stroking my hair over and over, letting his hand trail down over my back. I hadn’t felt such comforting gentleness since I was a child.
It only made me sob harder.
I couldn’t tell him about the creature in me, eating its fill until I was a mere fraction of myself. I couldn’t tell him about the bands of iron that surrounded my chest, waiting to squeeze my breath out when I least expected it. Those were my weaknesses, the damage that would never fully be undone, and in the end I was merely an impostor, not only pretending for Rhylan, but pretending I had any chance to return to my old life at all.
And even knowing that, I wouldn’t quit.
I had made a promise to him, and even if I wanted to break it, I couldn’t allow the thing that called itself my sister to take the throne and turn Akalla into one of the Nine Hells.
So I would have to find a way to live with it all. To live without breathing, and without a moment’s peace from fear and dread.
“Sera, what can I do?” Rhylan cupped my cheek, forcing me to look up at him, tear stains and all. “What do you need? What am I not giving you to help you through this?”
He sounded frustrated, gazing into my eyes like he could read the answers written there.
I sniffed, my throat raw and sore. Even my lashes felt gummy now; all of my frozen tears had melted against Rhylan’s warmth.
“Please…I just want to go home.” I rested my head on his shoulder, exhausted by the storm that had poured through me. “I need Varyamar, Rhylan. I need to know there’s something worth it at the end of all this. Please.”
He stroked my hair rhythmically, letting the silence hang over us. Sitting out in the open where any dragon could attack, and yet against the pure white snow and the quiet, the feeling of Rhylan curled around me, I felt a true sort of peace, the kind I hadn’t felt even in his eyrie.
For now, this brief moment, all that unease had spilled out along with my tears.
“Okay,” he said, his voice rough. His claws caught in the woven crown of my hair, and though he smoothed the plaits gently, more tears rose, burning against my icy cheeks. “I can give you that. I’ll bring you home.”