Chapter 15
Fifteen
Oh, gods, I have ruined this.
That was the only thought as I paced Kirana’s stillroom, watching her tie the jasmine vines and hang them from the ceiling. She had promised that it would be possible to bottle the scent of home, to give me a tiny jar I could carry everywhere with me, right next to my heart.
“You’re rather excitable for someone who just flew twelve hours,” Kirana said, in such a studiedly neutral tone of voice I couldn’t tell what she was hiding.
I forced myself to stop pacing and hold still. The closest thing to hand was a row of jars, each one stuffed to the brim with herbs, so I picked one up at random and pretended to study the chamomile inside. “It’s just the excitement of seeing home. I mean…I haven’t been there in years.”
A wince fought to cross my face. It was hard to mention such things without sounding like I was directly accusing Kirana’s family, but the words were already out.
“Mm-hmm.” Kirana tied up the last strand of jasmine and flicked it, making it gently sway. She was lovely in her own element, hair piled on top of her head and pinned in place with ivory sticks, wearing an old dress spotted with green stains, malachites gleaming around her wrist. “Surely…it has nothing to do with a full day alone with Rhylan.”
Oh, no. Kirana was the last person I would speak to about this. “He was polite.”
“Polite?” She raised a brow, looking so like her brother for a moment that it was shocking. “Doesn’t sound like the Rhylan I know, but who knows? Maybe he’s decided to change up his tactics.”
I made an unintelligible sound, suddenly regretting my choice to come see her.
Things might never not be awkward around Kirana; she held the same pain in her heart as Rhylan, the tangled history between our families, and to make it worse, she was one of the draga I’d been in the Training Grounds with.
We had never exchanged more than an impersonal conversation before this, and suddenly she was supposed to be my new family. I wondered if she was one of the ones who had called me ‘Perfect Serafina’ behind my back, mocking my obsession to be at the top.
But even if she had…it wasn’t an undeserved moniker. That shame was mine to own.
I had probably snubbed her a thousand times in the Training Grounds without once thinking about it. I deserved any scorn that she saw fit to heap on me.
But of course, the Kirana of now would not do that. Not while she was involved in this dangerous game, with her life at stake. She would continue to feed me the terrible sludge, bandage my wounds, turn the jasmine of Varyamar into perfume. Anything she had to do, as long as it ensured our victory in the end.
I owed her. I hated myself, because she would not—could not—allow her own hate to get in the way of the agreement.
And if she could not allow herself to feel it, then I would feel it for her.
Kirana drifted across the room to lift the lid on a simmering pot, and immediately the gut-wrenching scent of the sludge filled the room, making my mouth water in a distinctly unpleasant way. “I made a few new batches of the nutrient tonic while you were in Varyamar. It’ll be enough to see us through to the First Claim, but after that—” She turned and pointed the wooden spoon in my direction, jabbing it accusingly. “You must taper off. This was never meant as a long-term solution.”
“It was just to speed the process along,” I protested, but Kirana waved the spoon. I avoided it, not wanting the reek of the sludge on my skin.
“I want you to get one thing through your head,” she said sternly. “This isn’t Koressis. This isn’t the Training Grounds. There are no grades being given out for flawlessness.”
I stared at her, thinking of Rhylan shouting at me on the ice plains. That I was burning myself to ashes, and I would be no good to him. Useless.
Kirana, Viros, Erebos…everyone was reporting on me to him.
I wondered if that was why he had brought up ‘Perfect Serafina’. If he was simply trying to tell me that those days were over, and that I needed to focus on immediate needs, instead of grinding myself paper-thin across a thousand goals that would never reach perfection.
The thought that I might have completely misinterpreted his comments in the eyrie made me feel cold inside.
“I will be done,” I told her. “Promise. It’s not like I’m going to miss the taste.”
Her lips twitched in a smile. “Do you want to know something interesting? As disgusting as it is, as much as you tell yourself you won’t miss the taste—it’s addictive as hell. Do you want to know the secret ingredient?”
“Ahhh…” Frankly, no. I didn’t want to know what I’d been drinking in that sewer-stench concoction, as long as it worked.
“Dragon’s blood.” She scooped up a spoonful and let it glop back into the cauldron in thick chunks. “True dragon’s blood. In this case, Erebos’s, since we didn’t have another true dragon around until today. It took me over a year to perfect the recipe, and that was the final missing piece. You wouldn’t believe how long it took to talk him into it—drinking dragon’s blood is forbidden for a reason, but in tiny amounts…it works. There’s no more than three drops in this entire cauldron, and look at what it’s done to you. So no, you won’t miss the taste, but you’ll miss the energy. You’re walking dangerously close to the line of becoming dependent on it. If the first First Claim wasn’t so important, I would’ve put my foot down on this days ago.”
“Oh.” I grimaced, looking into the pot of congealing muck. “Honestly, I thought it’d be something worse.”
“Like what?” Kirana looked genuinely curious.
“Well, no offense to your skills as a healer, but…it looks like something scooped out of a toilet in the Wyvern’s Whore, and tastes about as pleasant.”
A flurry of expressions crossed Kirana’s face: amusement, puzzlement, and finally a strange blankness. “That’s…that’s somewhere on Mistward Isle, yes?”
“The only tavern worth visiting there.” I snorted. “You should taste the Isle shine, it’s the most rotgut garbage ever brewed. I used to think that was the worst taste in the world until this. The sawbones there used it as a disinfectant, too, so maybe it did have some positive qualities. I learned that from him, actually, when some of my scales started to rot off. Every once in a while I’d buy a pint and do a sort of…awful little shine bath. It kept the worst at bay, anyway.”
The blankness on Kirana’s face gave way to something worse, something I didn’t want to put a name to. “Sometimes I forget…”
“Forget what?” I prompted, as she trailed off into silence.
“I forget you were only sixteen when you were sent there.” She stared into the cauldron, watching it bubble and pop. “When I was sixteen…I was a child. I had no idea of how bad things could be. No concept of hardship or grief or terrible choices. And you were the same age, a child, and you…you were living on a prison isle. You know what a sawbones is, for gods’ sakes. The first time I met a sawbones, I had to puke my guts out after seeing how they worked, how messy and abrupt and…brutal it was. I couldn’t bring myself to go back. When I was sixteen, having a single blemish was considered a bad day, and here you are, talking about bathing in tavern rotgut because you had scale-rot. Any healer in Akalla can cure that in five minutes. I forget you were a child and that sort of barbarism just…became normal to you.”
My hands crept up, cupping my elbows. I lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug, unable to hide my discomfort. “You adapt or you die. That’s really all there is to it.”
Gods, how I despised pity. The last thing I wanted to be in anyone’s eyes was pathetic.
“I think I should find Myst.” I had to force false cheer into my voice. “Thank you for handling the flowers.”
Kirana said something, but I’d already ducked through the door and headed for the spiral staircase. Myst would probably have followed my scent trail to my bedroom.
She had, in fact; I opened the door to the sight of my bed piled with the treasure of Varyamar, and my tiny Ascendant quivering atop it in defiance.
But she wasn’t alone; Erebos’s form filled nearly the entire room, his scales shivering with outrage as he peered down at Myst.
“Liar,” he was snarling, steam curling out of nostrils. “You were the only one who knew it was there! Lying little thief!”
“I stole nothing!” Myst cried. Her wings mantled over her back, eyes wide with innocence, but she muttered in a barely-audible aside, “Nothing with your name on it.”
Erebos reared back in disbelief. “Oh! So now I must desecrate a treasure of tremendous historical significance for you to keep your greedy little claws from it!”
“What is going on here?” I shoved the door open, bracing my hands on my hips.
Two angry Ascendants was not a situation to scoff at, but neither could I allow them to tear this eyrie apart. Since Myst and I were guests here, I would have to step in and pray that she followed my lead.
“Oh, Sera,” Erebos said, turning that enormous head my way, scarlet eyes gleaming pleadingly. “Surely you must know of what I speak: the Shield of Sorayne! Your Ascendant stole it, filthy thief that she is, a thousand years ago, and she refuses to acknowledge her crime. I cannot have thieves in my eyrie—”
Shield of Sorayne? I had never heard of such a thing. The name Sorayne rang a vague bell as some legendary hero, but beyond that, I had no idea. “What does the Shield look like, exactly?”
Erebos shot a smug look at Myst, who had crouched down on her treasure pile with an expression reminiscent of panic.
“It is a round iron shield, inlaid with dragon scrollwork, and set with a ruby in the shape of a tear. It is an exceedingly valuable piece of my collection, and Myst claims she has never laid eyes on such a thing, which is obviously a blatant lie.”
I glared at Myst, envisioning the round iron shield, inlaid with dragon scrollwork and a tear-shaped ruby, that she had been nesting in when I found her.
Oh, Nine Hells, why now?
I tuggedmy leathers into place, pleased that they were much more filled out now than they had been a week ago. The dresses Kirana had commissioned from Jenra would now look much more in place on me; even my muscles had gained more mass and tone.
When I’d asked for extra portions of the tonic, she’d told me that the more weight I regained, the faster I’d put on more. That much was turning out to be true. I was rapidly regaining my old body, changing almost by the hour, it seemed.
I didn’t feel a flicker of shame as I buckled on Aela’s sword. Now that I was becoming Serafina again, Princess of the House of Silvered Embers, I had the right to wear the familial treasure.
Unlike some dragons, from whom I’d extracted an iron-clad promise to return certain non-familial treasures, along with a lengthy apology for the sake of our precarious alliance.
The dispute between Myst and Erebos had fortunately distracted me from Rhylan and his lips, and when I curled into my underbed nest, I was dead asleep almost instantly, even without Kirana’s tea to help.
Myst had still been snoring when I woke, and silently prepared myself for one of the final few practice flights before the First Claim.
It had crept up so fast; my heart hammered at the thought that in less than a week, I would be representing the glory of my House, standing at the side of the Obsidian Flames.
Two ancient, unbroken royal bloodlines, firmly allied for the first time in centuries—a force to be reckoned with.
And I would be face to face with Yura once more, for the first time since…
The phantom taste of blood filled my mouth, my memory one big blank. Pushing my mind away from the last time I’d seen my sister, unwilling to search that misty darkness in my memories, I stroked Myst’s back, and left my room to visit the dragon terrace.
Rhylan was there, in dragon form and already harnessed, looking so much like Erebos it was striking. My assessment of him on Mistward had been accurate; he would never be able to hide his bloodline.
One of my lines of study in the Training Grounds had covered such things. The older the Ascendant, the closer they were in relation to the Dyad: Larivor and Naimah, father and mother of all dragons. True dragons like Myst and Erebos, Sturm and Illiae…they were among the Dyad’s first children. It was one of the reasons Myst would push me to have many children; of all the ancient lines, we were the ones in the most perilous situation. Having a thriving descendancy was of utmost importance to an Ascendant.
But that closeness of relation to the Dyad also meant their blood was, quite literally, thicker than that of other dragons. Our Houses were more likely to produce scions: those who resembled their ancestral dragon creator in both form and physical prowess.
Erebos must be pleased with himself, I thought, letting my gaze wander appreciatively over Rhylan’s ink-dipped scales and powerful musculature.
And since he was in dragon form, and I didn’t have to look into blue eyes or avert my gaze from pillowy lips, it was so much easier to walk up and stroke his enormous, obsidian-scaled arm.
“Good morning.” I smiled up at him, the smile becoming a grin as he showed his own teeth in a draconic imitation of my expression. “Sleep well?”
The sound he made was a strangled growl.
“Well, don’t blame me for that. You should’ve asked Kirana for her tea.”
Rhylan shook his head, spiraled horns catching the light. I leaned against his arm, adjusting my boots, then pulled my hair up into a long ponytail.
I felt like me again. Maybe it wasn’t quite perfection, but my standards had to change a little to accommodate the past. Even the sword felt good at my side, an echo of the practice sword I used to eat, sleep, and bathe with.
“So, towards Orisien? Something simple?” I asked, naming the Lunar Tides’ territory, a stretch of plains and hills that would be a relatively easy flight. I knew he was tired from the previous day, and my legs were still plenty sore, but I still needed to work on my ability to look natural. Right now I was stiff, clinging to the saddle on every flight like I’d plummet to my death at any second. “It’s time to fine-tune things. I’m lacking a certain insouciance and that’ll be noticeable.”
Rhylan nudged me with his elbow, nearly sending me toppling over. I gripped the harness to pull myself upright and gave him a sour look. “Exactly like that, thanks.”
Viros emerged from the storage room with his enormous logbook. I pretended I didn’t see fresh teeth marks on the corner, marks that perfectly matched the teeth of a certain pale ancestor, but he looked distinctly disgruntled as he laid it on the desk and flipped to the most recent page, notating the dragon, the rider, and what time we were flying out.
“Orisien,” he confirmed, noting it in a neat hand. “I’ve double-checked your straps, Princess Sera. They’re in perfect condition, no need to fear.”
I touched the Eyrie-Master’s shoulder as I rounded Rhylan, preparing to mount. From the moment I’d landed, Viros had gone out of his way to ensure my comfort with this plan, even if he was reporting my secret library excursions to Rhylan.
“Much appreciated, Viros.” I leapt up into the saddle with the same grace I’d managed to pull off on our first ride, exulting at the strength in my aching legs.
As Rhylan rose to his feet, Viros checked the clock above his desk, making precise marks in his logbook.
I turned my attention to the wide blue bowl of the sky above, stroking Rhylan’s scars, patting him gently. All was well. Everything would be just fine.
All because of what he’d done for me, and he had no idea how deeply that single, simple voyage had brightened my spirits.
I’d gone from a dim, flickering light to a bright glow because of him.
He launched into that blue sky, soaring southwards as he veered between the Krysien peaks. If not for his wings, I could have reached out and touched one, brushing fingertips over a mountaintop that had never been felt by flesh and blood hands before.
This flight felt hopeful, even the wave-like motions of Rhylan’s body with every wingbeat propelling us towards something better. An achievable plan. A winnable throne. Hours passed like seconds, and this time, I didn’t force my hand away when I felt myself reaching out to stroke him.
He tore through low, wispy clouds, veering towards the green plains below. A river sparkled in the noon sun, calling my name. The dry, cold air of the northern latitudes quickly dried out both dragon and rider.
Rhylan circled, eventually landing on the river’s bank like a gentle leaf.
“You’ve gotten a lot better at not jarring my teeth out of my head,” I teased, sliding out of the saddle. “I suppose a toothless Dragonesse wouldn’t be very impressive.”
He rumbled out the dragon-growl, sticking his whole head into the river for a drink.
So he wasn’t going to shift back to his grounded male form. I shrugged, then took my waterskin from its saddle pocket and knelt beside him, refilling it with water that was ice cold despite the sunlight dancing off its surface.
I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until I took the first sip, which became deep gulps, water spilling over my chin.
When I was done, I found Rhylan had finally withdrawn his head from the river. He shook it, droplets glittering as they splattered all over me.
“Thank you so much,” I said pointedly, wiping my face. “You really know how to keep a draga’s ego in check, don’t you?”
A harsh, rumbling dragon laugh. The birds in the nearby woods went silent at the sound.
I squinted up at the sun, at the cloudless, clear blue sky. “Actually, no, I do mean it. Thank you. Thank you for everything…for every single thing you’ve done since you came for me.”
Rhylan made a noise that I took to be a question, but still made no effort to shift and speak in words.
I leaned against his warm side, staring into the frothing river.
“You saved me from Kalros. I would’ve been powerless to stop him from taking anything he wanted. He would’ve raped me into a mate bond, and pressed his will over mine, and then I would’ve been riding him while he attacked the eyries. I would”ve been part of the destruction of Akalla. I wouldn’t have even been myself any more after that. I would’ve been a doll, just…a thing for him to use and toss aside after he’d won.”
Rhylan’s enormous sides heaved with every breath. I traced a scale with a fingertip, watching the sun play over the darkness, blue iridescence rippling over its iron-hard edges.
“You saved me from Mistward Isle. I…I haven’t told you what it was like there. Not really. I think it’s easier for me to think of that place in bits and pieces, because if I look at the whole, I can’t believe I survived a single day of it.”
My fingertip slipped on the scale as my mind went back to that first day…the day Princess Serafina finally understood that she understood nothing at all.
“That first day we were brought out of the ship, I was horrified. It was an island of nothing. Just barren rocks and mist, and the only settlement in the whole place was Fartown. That’s where…a lot of draga sentenced to Mistward bartered themselves in Fartown. The first week there, a ferryman told my mother that if she were smart, she’d sell me off and take whatever protection that offered, because sure as all Nine Hells, we weren’t going to manage it by ourselves.”
A low snarl slipped from the dragon, and I stroked his side reassuringly. Let me tell my story. After a tense moment, Rhylan quieted, swinging his head closer as he listened intently.
“But as strict and cruel as my mother could be, she would never have sold me. She wouldn’t have dreamed of it. She spat in his face when he told her that, and then she…well, she did what she never would have allowed me to do. She told me she was too cold, too distant for a mate bond to ever form, and if we had money, at least we’d have a tiny foothold for survival.
“I even offered to take up a dragon on a mate bond, but she wouldn’t hear of it.” A bitter laugh slipped out of me, and Rhylan huffed, his eye gleaming like coals stirred to life. “She slapped me when I said I could get the strongest dragon on the isle to mate bond with me, and then we’d be protected. She told me that I was her daughter, Nasir’s daughter, and I was not to be wasted on lunatics or criminals. But as angry as I pretended I was, I was really just relieved. That was…the last thing I really wanted to do.
“So as time passed, I found that I was grateful that I didn’t do something in those first frantic weeks that I’d later regret. We found our little cave, and we learned how to do everything for ourselves.” I frowned, pressing a hand to my stomach as the memory of dire hunger intruded. Plenty of dragonbloods had no idea how far they’d go to stave off death; I’d eaten things I couldn’t bring myself to think about again. “We were always hungry, because there’s not much money there even if you sell yourself. You’d have to be mate bonded to someone like Kalros to even have a prayer of a full stomach there. Someone strong enough to steal the food from others.
“We were always in pain. Always sick. My mother died of a cough in the second year, and I…” I held up my hands, examining my claw-like nails, the shimmering silver lacquer Nilsa had brushed over them. How odd to see them this way, when I was used to jagged, dirt-encrusted hands. “I dug away the stones in that rocky soil. I scraped out the grave with my own fingernails. I’d tried to get her to come with me to Fartown and visit the sawbones, but she wouldn’t have it, and we couldn’t have afforded it anyway. So I buried her, and then I was alone, and that was when the real fear set in.”
I sighed, leaning my forehead against Rhylan. Letting the warmth of him, and the sunlight on my back, wash away the cold memory of Mistward. “Because in the end, it”s easier to face the wolves at the door when you have someone to lean on. Once I was alone, I thought I was…fracturing. I wasn’t myself anymore. Sometimes I thought I was becoming something else, that my entire past life had just been a dream.
“So when you brought me back…and I saw myself in your eyrie…I realized that I was still me, I just wasn’t…me. I felt like maybe the old Sera was buried in there, but I would never be her again. She was just a reflection I could hardly see.
“But when you brought me to Varyamar, and I saw home again, you brought her back to life. I can see her now. She’s not perfect, and she’s not quite the same, but I feel like the real Sera again. I think that little flame of hope was all that was keeping me alive out there, but…” I stepped closer, staring into that glittering eye, seeing the dark flames in him. Basking in their heat, in the fire that only a brave draga would dare to touch. “You turned that flame into an inferno. Everything I am now, I owe to you.”
I ran my hand along the thick scales of his jaw, tracing a horn. A slight smile curved my lips. “All that to say, thank you, Rhylan.”
Rhylan exhaled, and then he moved, curling his entire enormous body around me. I found myself gripped in claws, pulled up close to the dragon’s chest, and he laid his head against me, every movement careful and precise.
I leaned into him, spreading my arms out. Soaking in the heat of him, the primal security of a dragon surrounding me, matching the rise and fall of his breaths.
And simply felt…safe.