Chapter 16
Sixteen
Arms stretched wide, holding still as a statue, I did my best to keep my teeth clenched together as Jenra flitted around me, making approving noises as she pinned fabric in place over the swell of hips that hadn’t been there two weeks ago.
I had confessed…at least some small portion of what I felt to Rhylan, and while I didn’t regret it, nor had he said anything in return.
In fact, he had remained in dragon form for the rest of the day. And the rest of the night. We had returned to the eyrie, where he’d gently bumped me with his ridged snout, and Kirana had been waiting to collect me for weapons training.
My last glance over my shoulder had revealed Rhylan, free of harness and saddle, lunging upwards through the dragon door like a black tide.
It’d been hard to focus on training, knowing Rhylan was flying alone out there. Knowing that at any time, Yura and Tidas, or one of their allies, could choose to fly over the Krysiens on a scouting mission.
I knew Rhylan would put up a fight, but if the numbers were against him…it could take weeks to find him—or his body, I couldn’t help but think with a sick rush in my gut—in the narrow channels between the peaks.
Kirana had smacked the sword right out of my hands while I was brooding on this. Then she’d huffed, hands on her hips, and sent me to bed…
Which I’d lain under for hours, my thoughts spinning in circles. Rhylan alone, my sister, the First Claim that was happening in only two days…
Time was running out. It had gone too soon, falling through my fingers like sand. I was miles from what I needed to be.
I hadn’t done nearly enough.
It was impossible to forget the glowing perfection of Princess Maristela or the graceful riding skills of Lady Elinor, and as I curled up into the nest of blankets, the iron bands squeezed around my chest.
Crushing the breath out of me. Squeezing my heart in a fist, making it feel like a bird fluttering its wings against a shrinking cage.
Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.
Heart racing, squeezed tighter and tighter…terror that it would suddenly stop, no longer able to pulse beneath the bands of its cage, raced through me.
I was drowning on dry land. Crushed under a mountain.
I forced myself to take a breath, hand splayed flat over my chest. Feeling my heartbeat. Reassuring myself it was still there, that my ribs weren’t imploding, that I was still whole.
Another breath. Some of the pressure eased.
Then I coerced my thoughts in another direction, willing my mind away from Rhylan, away from the First Claim, away from Yura.
Varyamar. My beautiful home. The scent of jasmine, the familiar glitter of Aurae’s Tears…
More of the pressure lifted, my heart no longer humming quite as desperately. Keeping my hand there, feeling the steady thump against my palm, I made myself think of home.
The threat of the iron bands never quite left. My chest was still a cavern, waiting to collapse, to crush my heart beneath its weight.
But I could breathe now. I rolled onto my back, staring up at the underside of the bed, thinking of jasmine and tears.
Feeling the little worm of fear, released from its prison, slithering through me. Refusing to be crushed, resisting all efforts to extract it.
Sleep had not come easily.
When Kirana arrived with Jenra on her heels, she’d clicked her tongue over the dark circles under my eyes. For the first time since my rescue from Mistward, the tray of food the maids brought was less than appealing.
I’d chewed and swallowed without tasting. Drank down the nutrient tonic without shuddering.
And now, with Jenra making the final fittings before the First Claim, I wanted to vomit all over the floor.
It was a little easier to keep the crushing pressure in my chest at bay in the light of day, when I was surrounded by people, but the fear…it never stopped eating at me.
She pinned the fabric in place around my waist, tugging at the figure-hugging underdress of jet silk, and adjusting the ebony folds of lace over it. It was a riding dress, split high up the sides so I could mount Rhylan, with form-fitting black pants that went underneath.
Kirana had selected the cloth for the dress I would wear to the First Claim. She watched, eyes running over me like I was a doll for her to dress up, murmuring to Jenra as she pointed out alterations here and there.
The lace, she’d told me, had come from her mother’s dowry. The silk was imported from the Wildlands, where free trade was unrestricted by the Houses of Akalla.
I essentially wore a fortune from the House of Obsidian Flame, and she had refused to accept any payment.
“It’s all part of the plan,” she said, frowning as she held up a necklace to my throat, and discarding it immediately.
As Jenra made me stand there, Kirana had unabashedly begun digging through the treasure I’d brought back from Varyamar. Myst watched as she sorted through it, my Ascendant’s emotions ranging from outrage to disbelief as Kirana looked over the silver flame diadem, discarded it, and set aside the massive collar without a second glance.
“These will work,” she said with satisfaction. I glanced up, happy for any distraction that didn’t involve thoughts of vomiting all over the priceless fabric.
She’d chosen the dragon brooches I’d selected myself. Two of them, each poured of molten silver, depicting a dragon’s snarling face, ruffs held wide. Tiny chips of sapphire had been set in their furious eyes.
Kirana held them up, placing them where the straps of my dress met the bodice. “Make sure these are included in the final fitting,” she told Jenra.
Myst hooked a claw around the diadem, pulling it close and curling into a small, sulky ball.
I couldn’t find words to placate her. My own emotions were in utter disarray, my fear an omnipresent shadow cloaking all other sensation.
And I couldn’t help but note that Rhylan had not come to see me this morning.
Perhaps I had told him…too much. He wanted someone who could be a strong Dragonesse—or at least give that impression—not someone who had considered mate bonding to a criminal.
Not someone who felt fractured, all the pieces of their soul crumbling day by day.
I half believed that Rhylan would come to the door at any moment to call the plan off. To tell me that I was too weak, too broken, that I could never be Princess Serafina again.
That I was a half-wild draga, and that I’d been right. The past was a dream, and Akalla would be better off without me. Mistward Isle was where the real Sera lived. That was where she belonged—and what she deserved.
But he didn’t. And despite that, my stomach churned and ached. The iron bands threatened to clamp down.
Kirana held silver earrings to my lobes, her mouth twisted as she considered them, and those bright hazel eyes met mine.
She dropped the earrings back in the jewel-box she’d brought up.
“I think this is good,” she said, stepping back next to Jenra. “Let’s have this sewn up as it is for now. I’m going to introduce Sera to my Garnet so she’s not surprised.”
“Your wyvern?” I wriggled eagerly out of the gown, but the threat of Jenra and her pins kept me from escaping as quickly as I’d’ve liked. The pressure in my lungs eased as I shoved my bitter thoughts away.
I’d caught only the briefest glimpse of Jhazra’s wyvern stables, far below the peak of the eyrie. Since the ferrymen had scared the hell out of me, Rhylan seemed to be actively avoiding our flights at times when they were couriering.
But Kirana was happy to throw soft pants and a black knit sweater my way. “She’s a little feisty, but trust me, once you give her a treat you’ll own her heart forever.”
I tugged my clothes on and jammed my feet in my boots, eager to be doing literally anything other than standing here and stewing in my own terror. “Why would I be surprised by her?”
Kirana smiled. “Oh, no. I mean I don’t want Garnet to be surprised by you. I purchased her from the Mourning Fang wyvern breeders, but she was trained a little…differently.”
Eagerly leaving behind the silk and jewels, I followed Kirana into the hall, and we headed down the spiral staircase.
“What sort of training?” I asked, curious as to how Kirana’s personal wyvern would differ so much from those ridden by the ferrymen and message couriers.
I still disliked them, and I might always dislike them. Until I’d been sent to Mistward, I’d been used to the sight of wyverns flitting through the sky around Varyamar and the Koressis Training Grounds. Few Houses bothered with using horse riders to courier messages; a wyvern-rider could cover the same ground in a fraction of the time.
But Mistward had changed my feelings towards them.
I now associated the sight of them with hunger, and fear of being caught out as an unmated draga.
And worse…sharp, painful hope, eventually fading into bitter resignation when none had ever arrived with a message from the Drakkon telling me I could come home.
Kirana glanced at me side-long. “The Mourning Fangs come from a long line of wyvern-breeders. I believe that’s actually why their Ascendant chose them back when they were Bloodless. They had a natural touch for flying already, an innate understanding of reptilian physiology. Maybe that’s also why they seem to train wyverns so naturally.” She puffed out a breath. “You would not believe how much they ask for a hatchling. I sold a house heirloom and promised Gaelin a rather large favor to get my pick of the litter.”
We descended past the level of the training rooms. The keystone on the next landing depicted a boiling cauldron, and I got my first glimpse of Jhazra’s kitchens—a Bloodless man in a stained, burned tunic bellowed orders at his kin, and then we were around the bend.
This deep into the eyrie, the air was warmer, denser. And we were still nowhere near the actual bottom; all eyries had to be available to the Bloodless of the House. Some had pulley systems so they wouldn’t have to climb thousands of stairs. With every step we descended, the humidity grew more intense.
“When one of their prime matriarch’s clutches hatched, Gaelin came for me himself. He carried me to Diraek Eyrie in his claws, set me in the stables, and I knew Garnet was mine the second I laid eyes on her.” Kirana cupped her hands, holding them out. “She was only this big. You wouldn’t believe it now, looking at her, but she was so tiny.”
A vaguely sulfurous scent reached my nose. We came to a landing, where the keystone was marked with an open maw of sharp teeth.
“Here we are!” she said brightly, a girl excited to show off a beloved pet. “Now, here”s the thing: she was trained by the Mourning Fangs like any typical riding wyvern. But Gaelin had an idea for draga like me, who were part of a House, yet unbonded: he’s started a protocol for teaching wyverns to recognize certain people. If Rhylan is in dragon form, Garnet will follow him to the ends of the earth. But if an unfamiliar dragonblood is too close to us, she’ll go on the defensive, and in the worst case, offensive.”
I furrowed my brows. “Aren’t wyverns usually rather cowardly?”
“Usually. I think I once told you that wyverns will always run from a fight. Well, generally that’s true…but Gaelin’s protocol instills an extremely deep loyalty in the hatchlings. Garnet is utterly bonded to me and Rhylan. If an unfamiliar dragon approaches, she’ll hold the line of defense until Rhylan can back her up. If all else fails, she’s trained to bring me to safety as quickly as possible.”
We stepped into the wyvern stables, and the sulfurous scent became stronger. The walls of the eyrie had been carved out, letting sunlight spill over the stables in buttery rays, so the wyverns could come and go as they pleased.
Unlike dragons, wyverns usually didn’t stray very far from their roosts; I knew from the Training Grounds instructor that a sharp whistle was enough to call them back.
The ‘stables’ themselves were nothing like horse stables. Large boxes stuffed with leaves, sticks, and hay had been erected on platforms, giving any wyverns they kept a nest well above the ground. The ground itself steamed, wisping off the obsidian floor and casting the roost in a strange sort of haze.
Kirana held out an arm, preventing me from walking any further. “I’ll have to introduce you to her as a friend. Otherwise, if you’re riding Rhylan, she’ll perceive you as a threat.”
It was a good thing we hadn’t come across Garnet flying free on any of our practice flights. I didn’t fancy the idea of being plucked off the saddle by an angry reptile, with Rhylan none the wiser.
Kirana reached into her pocket and pulled out a long strip of dried meat. “Hold onto this, please.”
She went ahead of me, letting out a trilling whistle that echoed off the walls. I watched, clutching the meat and hoping Garnet wasn’t hungry for a living, breathing snack, when something nudged my elbow.
My heart almost seized right then and there, but it wasn’t a wyvern at my side. A tall Bloodless woman, wearing a uniform similar to Viros’s: a dark uniform, embroidered with gold at the edges. Instead of the silver insignia of an Eyrie-Master, hers was bronze, depicting a winged beast.
She looked vaguely familiar, with pale blonde hair pulled back into a bun and light blue eyes. It wasn’t until she spoke that I placed the familiarity: she looked like an older version of Nilsa.
“Are you ready for the bloodthirsty beast?” she asked, eyes crinkling at the corners. She might look like Nilsa, but she was warmer, her face lightly lined from years of smiles. She held out a hand for me to shake. “I’m Alriss. Wyvern-Master of Jhazra. As long as you’ve got treats, she’ll like you, but watch your fingers.”
I shook her hand, feeling a little awkward. Wyvern-riders were a different breed from everyone else; they didn’t defer to anyone. If one had approached the Drakkon himself, they would have offered a hand to shake rather than bowing.
“Sera,” I said, not wanting to append my title. “Kirana tells me that she can force Garnet into friendship with me.”
“Ah, she’s not so bad,” Alriss said fondly, watching the wide windows for any sign of the wyvern. “A bit rambunctious, but what young creature isn’t?”
Garnet chose that moment to make her entrance.
Flapping wildly, the wyvern darted in through the cavernous entrance, screeching so loudly my ears were ready to burst. The creature leaped down, running to Kirana with loping, almost rabbit-like strides and nuzzling her rider.
She was much smaller than a dragon, almost pony-like, with wings so enormous they dwarfed her body. Kirana’s name for her was evident immediately: her scales shifted in hue from a brilliant crimson in the sun to a rusty auburn in the shade.
The wyvern circled Kirana once more, then stopped, flat nostrils flaring as she curled around Kirana and turned her gaze towards the door.
Towards me.
Her eyes gleamed a hot, brilliant ochre, and I was struck by the difference between wyverns and dragons: in many ways, their forms were similar.
And yet there was no calculating intelligence in her gaze, only the instinctive animal knowledge that there was an intruder in her territory.
Garnet hissed, long and low, and Kirana reached up to stroke her head. She offered the wyvern a strip of meat, speaking in low, soothing tones, and as Garnet gulped down the treat, Kirana pulled out a hairbrush from her skirt’s deep pockets.
Myhairbrush. I watched as she held it to the wyvern’s nose, still whispering to her, but now her voice was firm.
“It’s part of the protocol,” Alriss murmured to me. “Garnet is trained to respond to certain keywords given only by Kirana. Not even I am allowed to know them. If anyone were to bring them down and take Garnet captive, they wouldn’t be able to tame her, nor turn her against her rider.”
I nodded, watching Kirana maintain Garnet’s complete focus as she spoke to her.
If I never mate bonded, even after Rhylan abdicated the throne, maybe I could ride a wyvern.
It wasn’t the same, not at all; the thought of riding a creature broken to saddle and trained like a horse was not as appealing as the power and intelligence of a dragon, not to mention the mind-speech. A wyvern was rather more like a pet than a partner.
But it was an option. The sky wouldn’t have to be forbidden to me forever.
“We’re ready. Sera, come here—slowly. Let Garnet smell you, and give her the treat. Food offerings will reinforce the friendship bond.”
It was strangely harder to approach Garnet than it was to approach a dragon. I knew a dragon would be as cognizant as myself, knew he’d be calculating every move to his advantage. But a wyvern was far more unpredictable, with an animal nature.
I did as Kirana ordered, taking slow steps towards the wyvern, keeping my movements loose and unthreatening. Garnet’s eyes flamed hotter, but as I drew nearer, her nostrils flared again.
She turned her head, questing for my hairbrush to snuffle at it, and lifted her nostrils again to breathe my scent.
The wyvern uncurled herself from Kirana, taking a few dancing, tentative steps towards me, and I chose that moment to offer the meat.
For a moment, I was completely convinced the wyvern would take not just the bribe, but my entire arm, her little razor teeth shearing right through meat, tendon, and bone—
But she merely sniffed me, distrusting until she got the first good whiff, her eyes focused on my face and brightening she recognized the scent Kirana had called ‘friend’.
She snatched the treat from my fingers with almost surgical precision, throwing her head back and gulping it down all in one swallow.
“There. She can put a face to a scent,” Kirana said, stroking Garnet’s bony shoulder. “She’ll know you now. I thought it would be best to get this out of the way before the First Claim. She’s going to have a hard enough time dealing with all the other Houses there.”
“Poor girl,” I muttered, daring to reach out and touch her as Kirana was doing. The wyvern shivered and purred, her sounds much higher-pitched than a dragon’s roars and grumbles. She was smooth and sleek, unlike the rough ridges of dragon hides. “So you’re coming with us?”
“Yes. Maristela knows we’re planning something, and since we’ve been friends for so long, she might be more forgiving towards Rhylan if I’m there to smooth out the sharp edges.” Kirana’s lips turned down at the corners; I had to deliberately force myself to not think about how deeply I’d alienated my peers. “Your presence will be a shock. Hopefully one that turns the tides in our favor, but…still a shock.”
Shock and awe. That was Rhylan’s plan; I was beginning to doubt there would be any awe. Plenty of surprise, yes. But not awe.
Not with an empty territory, nor a broken draga.
I came to from my thoughts to find Kirana watching me, a shrewd look on her face. “Come look at the harness. You’ll see how your modified design was taken from it; all wyvern-riders are fully lashed to their mounts.”
She showed me the saddle and harness that was fitted to Garnet, so small it could fit a horse; her bonds were far stronger than mine, with multiple safety lines that clipped to the saddle itself.
“She’s trained with both physical and verbal commands,” Kirana explained. “Much like you and Rhylan are doing now. His touch system was adapted from Garnet’s training—”
Gods. It pained me to think of how I was treating the prince of the Obsidian Flames like a wyvern. Like a horse.
Ludicrous. Ridiculous. Shameful.
That was all I could think of through the rest of the day, even as Kirana did her best to distract me from brooding thoughts.
And it didn’t escape my notice that Rhylan never appeared, not even that night. Before I curled under my bed, already fighting the bands slowly cinching down on my chest, I looked outside for the shadow of a dragon.
Empty sky, bare stone. There was nothing out there at all.
My final fittingtook place the next morning. I drank the tonic, trying not to call it ‘sludge’ in my head—that seemed rather disrespectful now for a potion that had taken Kirana a year to perfect and required a donation of true dragon blood—and nibbled at the apricot pastries that had become my favorite snack.
Disturbingly enough, I noticed that although food had not lost any of its luster for me, that the energy I took from it paled in comparison to that of the tonic.
Kirana was right. I needed to stop, before…I didn’t know what. All I knew was that it was taboo to drink a true dragon’s blood, and yet I didn’t know why. But there was no time to ponder the reason.
Jenra had arrived with considerably greater nerves than I’d ever seen from her before, pulling the ebony lace-and-silk dress onto me and muttering to herself in a low, frenzied voice. The thick scent of chokeroot hung around her in a cloud.
“I think it looks nice,” I offered, trying to ameliorate some of her frantic activity as she fussed with the dragon brooches, straightening them over each shoulder.
“Nice?” She looked up at me, eyes huge, voice raspier than ever. “Nice? The prince did not ask for nice. He asked for art. For beauty. For a goddess in the flesh, to put Naimah’s light to shame. For resplendence.”
“Rhylan did not ask for that,” I said indignantly. A goddess in the flesh? I couldn’t even imagine those words passing his lips.
“Not in those exact terms, but the implications were clear.” Jenra held a pin in a rather threatening manner, daring me to defy her.
“And the implications paid off.”
A pleasant shiver ran through me at the sound of his husky voice. How had I grown to miss the sound of it so intensely in only three days?
Rhylan stood in my doorway, head to toe in black, a Drakkon-in-waiting to the Dragonesse I was meant to be.
He gave me a slow, syrupy look that made my breath catch. Rhylan was…entirely too experienced at this kind of acting. Even Jenra backed away silently as he stepped into the room, her eyes bouncing back and forth between us.
He looked like a dragon prowling towards his mate, every iota of his attention on me.
“Don’t you look gorgeous.” He glided to a halt in front of me, fingers gently lifting my chin.
“I owe it all to Jenra.” Despite his delicate touch, I scowled up at him. “Where have you been?”
Rhylan’s smile wavered, but he fixed it in place and chuckled. “Did you miss me?”
I didn’t reply. I just gazed up at him, trying to read what was hidden in those blue eyes. His smile was not natural and easy, like it usually was…there was a tension in him, his shoulders set, tiny lines in the corners of his eyes.
But he did not speak of it, and his posture didn’t invite questions. I forced myself to smile back at him, my stomach turning. “Of course I missed you. You’ve been a dragon for days.”
Rhylan touched my forehead, right where locks of icy silver grew from the rest of my inky hair. “I was preparing. Mentally and physically. Sometimes things…seem easier when you’re a dragon.”
“And you can just fly away from it all.” I leaned into his touch.
His smile faltered again. “Some things you can’t fly away from. They’re with you, no matter where you go.”
This wasn’t about the First Claim. I wasn’t sure what was eating at him, and I was afraid to ask. I had no right to ask him to spill his thoughts and fears to me, not when I’d treated him as I had.
All I could do was try to show some warmth, and hope that he knew that I meant it. That I would be here for him to lean on, as I had leaned on him.
“Why don’t you prepare with me? Have dinner with me,” I offered. “You don’t have to be alone in your head before this.”
Rhylan’s eyes were a thousand miles away, but he blinked, and the distance vanished. This time, his grin was a little more real. A little more present.
“You’re offering to share food? Are you sure you won’t claw my eyes out if I take the last pastry?”
I smirked, but the relief that Rhylan was once more with me in this room, instead of soaring over the mountains and trying to outfly whatever was in his head, filled me with a rush. “No promises on that score, but I’ll let you have the mushroom soup.”
“You’re so magnanimous,” he said, grinning wider now. “I’ll race you to the pastries.”
“Not in that dress, you won’t.” Jenra blocked the door, her hands braced on her hips.
I could do this one small thing to hold him in the present…but even as I ducked into the bathroom to slip out of the dress, I worried about him. About what could make him seem so far away, present in body but not mind.
Whatever it was…I wished I could be the one with the power to make it disappear.
I wanted to be the one who made him feel safe and whole, just as he had done for me.
But how could I help him, when I couldn’t even fix myself?