Chapter 30

Thirty

His eyes were fluttering shut before he’d finished the soup. I put it aside, cupping his face gently, watching as he descended back into a healing sleep. I pulled a thin blanket over him, tucking it in at the sides.

The knot in my chest made it hard to breathe, but it wasn’t from the terror that haunted me in the night.

No…this was something else. Something I couldn’t acknowledge.

Gaelin’s warning echoed in my mind as I brought the bowl back to the kitchens, my nerves frayed at the idea of leaving Rhylan alone, asleep and defenseless, even for a few minutes. What—who—did he suspect?

Why give us the warning at all, without a hint as to what he’d meant by it?

I knew we’d already made dangerous missteps here. As soon as Rhylan was able to stand without collapsing, I’d urge him to get us out of here as soon as possible, even if I had to ask a wyvern-rider to ferry me back to Jhazra.

Stepping through a doorway on my return to Rhylan, my mind in a haze, I almost ran right into Elinor.

She was still clean and tidy, her leathers as white as the day they’d been made. Plaits were pinned in a crown around her head, not a hair out of place.

I simply blinked at her for a moment, wondering how she could look so pristine in this hellhole of the injured and dying, when everyone else was covered in blood and soot.

“Hands are needed over in the bookshop,” she told me. Diamond drops winked in her earlobes as she glanced around the room, taking in the dragons and Bloodless strewn over makeshift cots. Her nose wrinkled slightly as a man coughed up blood into a battered bowl. “They brought the wounded there. The healers’ own hands are full. I’ll keep watch here if you’d like to go help.”

I stared at her a little harder. Taking in the snowy whiteness of leather, the tidy hair…

“You go help them,” I finally said. “Gods know if you can manage to stay clean in this mess, you can manage a few bandages.”

Elinor reared back as though I’d slapped her, and I pushed past her to the inn’s main room.

Rhylan was right where I’d left him, untouched. I bristled at the thought that Elinor thought her hands were too good to dirty…but I couldn’t just sit over my dragon, brooding and fretful, doing nothing to help.

I found Cryla in a far corner, picking my way over cots and pallets to where she knelt next to a Bloodless man whose pallet had been pushed under a dining table. His left arm ended in a freshly-bandaged stump.

She sat back on her haunches, swiping hair out of her face. “He’ll survive, probably. They don’t swear like that when they’re knocking on Nakasha’s Gates.”

I helped her to her feet, and the healer put her hands in the small of her back, stretching backwards with a slight groan.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

Cryla looked me up and down slowly, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you know any of the healing arts?”

“No, but I’m sure I can figure out how to apply salve and wrap a bandage.”

She nodded, still keeping a gimlet eye on me. “We’ve got enough healers to manage that. What we need is clean linens, freshly-boiled water, supply runs. Where there’s blood, bile, pus…there’s contamination. If you can handle laundry and a mop and bucket, I’ve got work for you.”

I realized that she was looking at me like that because I was a draga, a princess…and the Elinors of the world would never stoop to the back-breaking task of laundry.

Maybe even I would have turned my nose up at the thought, four years ago, before I understood that titles and bloodlines didn’t matter—things could always get worse. And in a place like this, every little bit mattered, no matter who you were.

Or maybe coming within a scale’s breadth of Rhylan dying had broken something in me. I needed to do something, anything, and the thought that I had once been like Elinor…that shamed me.

“I’m on it. But if anyone is…too interested in Rhylan, for the love of the gods, let me know, please.”

Cryla nodded, but she looked too weary to say anything more.

I made my way to the kitchens, which were already packed elbow to elbow, hot and humid, and by the time they sent me to the laundresses, I’d already broken out in a fine sweat all over my body.

The laundresses’ room was much the same, and the florid Bloodless woman churning out heaps of freshly-cleaned linens and bandages directed me to the servants.

The Bloodless man in charge of cleaning shoved a scrub brush and bucket in my hands, and directed me to the lower floor, where several of the worst-injured had already died in the night.

Their bodies had been removed, and the pallets taken outside to be washed where possible. I found a cake of lye soap in the bucket and filled it at the well, then got to work on the empty patches of floor where patients had been until recently.

One was still sticky with blood. I scrubbed mindlessly, my knuckles burning from the lye, tuning out all thought as I worked.

When that spot was as sparkling clean as it would ever be again—the blood had soaked into the wood—I moved on to the next.

The morning passed in a haze of work, and when I’d run out of places to clean and new pallets had been laid down over my work, I was sent to the laundresses again.

I churned a boiling vat of lye and linens, the inside of my nose burning, sweat dripping down my face from the close heat of the room.

Churn, drag out dripping linens, run them to the women working the mangles. Run several trips to the well, boil the water, churning again…over and over. The inside of my mind was quiet, lost to the repetitive motions of labor. I became immune to the scents of acrid lye and coppery blood hanging in the air, made so much more intense by the steam.

I lost count of how many times I refilled the vat, dumped in another armload of stained linens, and ran to the mangles. The repetition was almost soothing. It required no thought, no worry.

When someone touched my arm, my concentration was shattered. I looked up and the exhaustion hit me all at once.

I felt every bead of sticky sweat inside my tattered leathers, the aches in my shoulders and sides—the scabs where the wyvern’s claws had pierced me had reopened—and the soreness in my shoulders from the constant churning. The headache had grown worse, but I could blame it on the stench of lye, and not…not the need running through my veins for another’s blood.

“For the love of the gods, girl, go eat. Put some of that cleansing salve on your wounds and find clean clothes.” Cryla held my elbow, drawing me away from the vat.

One of the Bloodless laundresses took my place, and I allowed Cryla to lead me back to the main floor.

“When’s the last time you slept or had a rest?” I asked accusingly, and Cryla gave me a crooked smile.

“At my age, cat naps suffice. I’ve gotten what sleep I need here and there.”

Rhylan was still asleep, his face pale and drawn. Someone—possibly Cryla—had left a simple dress on the stool next to his cot.

“Get changed, eat, drink water, and see if you can get some more broth into him,” she instructed me. “You won’t be much help to anyone if you collapse from exhaustion and dehydration.”

I nodded. I felt it now, the day’s long work, harder by far than riding a dragon.

The dress was easily tied at the waist, and I wiped the crusted punctures on my shoulders and side clean before applying the salve. The cooks gave me stew and bread, and another bowl of soup for Rhylan.

I sat on the stool and wolfed down my portion before I tried to wake him.

“Rhylan,” I whispered, leaning over him. “I need you to wake up and eat something.”

His lids flickered, and I cupped his face again, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips, careful of the slowly-healing split in his lip. “Come on now. How are you ever going to show off for me again if you’re lying in bed all day?”

This time his eyes opened, and he smiled without the wound reopening. “I’d find a way.”

The relief I felt was like cool water over a burn. He was so pale I’d been worried he’d gotten worse over the day, but the heat of fever still hadn’t touched him.

He struggled for a moment, and sat up against my protests. Wincing, he examined the stitchery across his body.

“I think I’ll die of mortification if I have to be spoon-fed like an infant again,” he said, prodding his chest.

“Because boiling Kalros alive wasn’t masculine enough?” I asked skeptically, but Rhylan had already managed to swing one leg over the side of the bed.

“A dragon’s got his pride, love,” he said with an easy grin, despite the tiny lines of pain in the corners of his eyes.

“Well, I don’t want to hear about it if you spill it all over yourself.” I handed him the bowl and spoon.

He did eat on his own, slowly, albeit without spilling a single drop. When I took the empty bowl back, he carefully stretched his arms out.

“Laying in bed’s just going to make it worse,” he informed me. “The more I get my blood moving, the faster it’ll heal.”

It was true; while many of the Bloodless in this inn would be weeks, even months, in healing, the dragonbloods would be fine in a matter of days.

Even Rhylan, one of the worst off, would be fine within the month. My own minor injuries, with the help of the salve, would be closed and scarred over by the end of the week—possibly sooner, as I had two bottles of the tonic of dragon’s blood in Jhazra Eyrie.

Against all sanity, my mouth watered at the thought of the tonic. My stomach clenched a little, but not with nausea.

No. I would not let Kirana be right about that.

Pushing all thoughts of the tonic out of my mind, I helped Rhylan to his feet. “I’m taking these back to the kitchens, and then I’ll see what other work they’ve got for me.”

He followed me, limping a little, as I passed off the dirty dishes. We saw Cryla at the same time, both of us heading for her, but Cryla’s head turned towards the front of the inn.

Towards the shattered windows, where a commotion was happening in the courtyard. I heard a brief cry, followed by a female voice.

Rhylan and I exchanged a look, and I practically dashed to the front door ahead of him. He was still on my heels as I pushed it open, revealing the twilit courtyard.

The healers had moved many of the injured away into shelters; it had been cleaned up and swept, the stones and timbers of other fallen buildings pushed to the side.

An enormous white dragon coiled in the street beyond the inn’s walls—Gaelin, his eyes flaming coals, teeth shining even in the half-light. A low, unending growl rumbled from his throat.

Maristela and Elinor stood at the gates, Elinor’s shoulders stiff, her back straight. Maristela’s face was buried in her hands. Her honeyed hair was in disarray, her nails digging into her scalp.

“What is it?” Rhylan asked, his voice harsh. He leaned on me, and I wrapped an arm around his waist. “What’s happened?”

The princess of Shadowed Stars took several deep breaths, lowering her shaking hands. She was nearly as pale as Rhylan, her eyes red-rimmed, anguish written all over her face. Over her shoulder, Gaelin let out another low snarl, curling towards her like he wanted to snatch her up.

“I’ve been excommunicated,” Maristela said shakily. “I’m…I’m no longer of the House of Shadowed Stars. My mo— Chantrelle told me, if I wished to aid our enemies, I could join them.”

A shocked silence descended on us all.

To be excommunicated…it was nearly as bad as a House being declared ashes. To never be able to return to one’s ancestral eyrie, to ask one’s Ascendant for guidance…it was the loss of an integral part of any dragonblood.

Gaelin’s throat worked, the dragon trying to produce speech that would never be understood in that form. Maristela raised a trembling hand to his jaw, pressing her face against his snout. She took several more calming breaths before she continued.

“She has raised my younger sister, Asura, in my place as the princess heir.” Her expression wavered, tears spilling over her cheeks, and she gritted her teeth harshly. “Asura has been mated to Cyran of Undying Light. Chantrelle intends to join our…their Houses and assert them as the Dragonesse and Drakkon at the Second Claim.”

“Asura is seventeen,” Rhylan said in disbelief. “She’s hardly out of the Training Grounds.”

I said nothing.

Chantrelle hadn’t excommunicated Maristela for aiding the Lunar Tides. It was simply a gambit to remove Maristela from the playing board, as her mate bond with Gaelin ensured she would never achieve the right of might.

Casting her out was a message from Chantrelle…that only her House’s claim to the throne mattered.

That we were to stand behind Asura, to bow down to her or be exposed before the world.

I set my jaw, as though Chantrelle stood right there, smirking at me.

I would not bow down before a fresh-from-the-Training-Grounds girl, no matter what she thought she had over us. And the fact that she had exiled a scion of her House to accomplish this…Chantrelle must be positive that she held a sword over our heads.

“That doesn’t matter,” Elinor said, looking thoughtful. “She’s a royal princess, and she’s mate bonded into another powerful House.”

I glanced up at Rhylan, wishing I could share my thoughts with him.

Chantrelle was trying to send a message, but…in a way, she had almost helped us.

The Shadowed Stars and Undying Light could not be swayed to join our Court now—but neither would they join Yura.

Between the two of us, my sister and I still held the largest share of the land. We would refuse to acknowledge Shadowed Stars’ claim, leaving them with only two Houses in their Court, while we held three.

Kirana would get the news while she was in Everael Eyrie, wooing Undying Light. She might already have heard.

And as soon as she did, she would leave for the Wildlands, to find her father’s friends.

If her plan succeeded, we would have a Horde in our Court. Yura would remain outnumbered in terms of might, now that Kalros was dead or dying, and the Shadowed Stars and Undying Light would hardly figure into the greater equation.

And with Chantrelle pressing her suit, the Jade Leaves might be willing to reconsider a negotiation for alliance. Tyria could not afford to stand alone in this war. There were no neutral territories during an Interregnum.

We needed to get a message to Kirana as quickly as possible, to divert to Sylvaene Eyrie once the task of courting the Hordes had been accomplished.

But right now, I needed to stop thinking in terms of wins and losses…and just be a friend to Maristela.

I didn’t know how to provide comfort. It was never something I’d been taught. I didn’t have the faintest idea of what would make her feel better after her life had been cut away.

But I did know what it felt like to be blindsided in such a way. The sudden shock of my ancestral home being taken. The feeling that I didn’t belong anywhere in Akalla anymore, that ‘home’ was a luxury that had ceased to exist.

“I’m so sorry. You’re always welcome in Varyamar,” I told her quietly. “If you ever need somewhere to go.”

“Or in Jhazra.” Rhylan leaned on me heavily as we stepped closer. “You’re going to Diraek, I assume?”

Gaelin nodded his enormous head, his spined ruffs still standing upright with rage.

Maristela wiped one cheek with the back of her hand. “Yes. At the very least, I’ll become one of the Mourning Fangs with him. I don’t even give a damn at all that she named Asura over me…” She blew out a breath, blinking into the distance. “I just…I’ll never be able to speak to Illiae again. She’s been advising Chantrelle to back down, that she’ll only make it worse, but my mother has never cared for her advice.”

Elinor tapped her claw-like nails against the stone wall. “Well, the Interregnum is no time to back down. The future of all of Akalla will be decided by this. If there’s any time to take a leap of faith, this is it.”

Gaelin rumbled, staring at her, but Maristela didn’t seem to hear her.

I quietly gave in to my absolute dislike of Elinor. She didn’t seem to care much at all about Maristela, her own cousin…although perhaps she was like me, unused to showing emotion towards others.

And she was still tidy and clean. Clearly she hadn’t gone to the bookshop to tend the wounded, and now she looked a little too thoughtful over the matter of Asura’s succession for my taste.

At least her mate, Doric, was Rhylan’s old friend and a firm ally at his side. Their staunch friendship was the only thing that made me feel sure that the Lunar Tides would not back out.

“We’re leaving for Diraek Eyrie now,” Maristela said, coming out of her daze. “If you need to send any messages to us, send them there. Rhylan, Gaelin wants to know when you’ll be able to return home.”

Rhylan looked up at the pale dragon when she spoke. “A day, maybe two.”

Maristela nodded vaguely, listening to whatever Gaelin was saying in her head. “Good. He says we need to meet soon, come up with a new plan of attack. This has…set us back. And he wants you to mind what he told you.”

The dragon’s burning gaze swung to me, and I nodded.

Maristela’s expression gave nothing away—he would have shared his warning in her mind. But Elinor looked curious, her gaze flicking between us.

Maristela mounted the dragon, pushing hair out of her face as she took up the reins. “Good luck, and we’ll see you soon,” she called down to us, and Gaelin took flight with a clap of his wings.

Elinor stared after them, her brow furrowed. Then she let out a slightly shaky laugh. “Gods…I was afraid Chantrelle might do the same to me. If she’s considering Doric her enemy…I think I’d die if I were excommunicated.”

I gazed at her evenly. No, Chantrelle would not exile Elinor.

Because Elinor’s mate bond to Doric was the key to bringing the Lunar Tides into her own Court. If she put enough pressure on Elinor, she might be able to convince Doric to renege on his agreement with us.

It seemed quite obvious to me, but Elinor brushed an invisible speck from her arm and turned on her heel, walking back into the inn. She turned in the doorway, as though she’d forgotten something.

“Oh, Sera,” she said over her shoulder. “They’ve cleared rooms on the top floor for us. You don’t have to sleep on the main floor with all the Bloodless and…the patients.”

I waited until she’d disappeared to scowl. So that’s where she’d been hiding all day. “I don’t want to say I hate her, but…I hate her,” I said under my breath.

I tried to reserve my hatred for people who deserved it, like Yura, or my father.

To my surprise, Rhylan didn’t admonish me for hating one of his old friends. In fact, he had a slanted little smile on his face. “You wouldn’t be the only one.”

I cut him a sidelong glance. “I suppose Doric saw something in her he liked.” Maybe she only showed her best face to her mate, though Doric seemed much less…snobbish than her.

Gods, it was rich of me to accuse someone else of being snobbish.

“He didn’t choose the bond. They had never even touched when it formed.” Rhylan was still leaning on me, but he straightened up, taking some of his weight off my shoulders. I rather missed it. “We were only a few months out of the Training Grounds, and one day…Doric seemed to just lose his mind. He took off, and when he came back he had Elinor with him. It was one of those rare bonds that form out of seemingly nothing. He’s made the most of it, though.”

“Hmm. I think that would be terrible, to be alone in your head and one day, somebody just…appears in it.”

Rhylan let out a soft laugh. “If it was someone like her, sure. I’m personally hoping to hear a voice in my head sooner rather than later.”

Something pinched in my heart, a reminder of the library, his body pushing me against the map. If the bond had formed between us…

But it couldn’t. It would be a mistake, and I had to remain clear-headed enough to remember why.

How could he love me forever, when he believed something I refused to countenance? I could not believe for a moment that my mother had murdered Anjali. As long as Rhylan believed it…deep in his heart, he would always think of me in that way.

As the spawn of someone who had destroyed his family. A murderer’s get.

Maybe that was why it had never formed. Maybe in another life, where things had gone differently…maybe we would have bonded before we’d ever touched.

Because if I wanted the bond to form this badly, with every fiber of my being, and it hadn’t—that meant that deep down, no matter what he claimed, he was the one pushing it away.

“Well…hope is nice to have,” I said, rather more grimly than I’d meant to.

Which made me think of Myst, and her accusation that I was forever hoping, never executing. That my hope was a useless dream.

Wyvernshit. I’d slept with him more than once—if that kind of closeness, the skin to skin intimacy of him becoming a part of me, didn’t help the bond…it was never going to happen.

Because he truly believed my House had destroyed his.

He was lying to himself, and he couldn’t see it.

“Isn’t it?” He had a cheeky grin, his dimples standing out. My heart skipped a beat as I looked up at him, close enough to kiss those full, soft lips.

I wanted to rip said heart out and stomp on it for wanting things it couldn’t have. “Stop smiling. You’re going to split your lip again.”

“But I’m leaning on a gorgeous draga who’s going to put me to bed and bring me soup. What isn’t there to smile about?”

My teeth were going to be worn down to nubs from all the gritting he made me do. “Let me refresh you on recent events: this town has been leveled, you were almost torn apart, Gaelin seems to think someone’s going to stab you in the back, oh, and Maristela has been excommunicated. Does any of that qualify?”

Rhylan sighed. “Gods, why must you be the voice of reason?”

“Because one of us has to do it,” I muttered, seeing that the dimples still hadn’t vanished. “And I thought feeding you the soup was emasculating, or some such nonsense?”

“I’ve changed my mind on that score. I would very much like for you to come feed me, so long as you’re willing to keep kissing me while you’re at it.”

If anything, his dimples had deepened. I flushed, knowing I had been a little looser with my hands than I’d meant to be, while Rhylan was hovering so close to death.

We’d almost made it back to his bed, which was covered in clean linens. One of the Bloodless maids had changed it, and had left the bucket and scrub brush for me.

I let out my own sigh. The tired ache hadn’t left my bones, but I refused to sit back and hide in an upstairs room when the healers needed help. “I’ll stay as long as I can…but duty calls.”

He followed my gaze to the bucket. “You’re mopping? But that’s…”

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s what, exactly?”

Rhylan raised his chin. “You’re a princess, Sera. The future Dragonesse.”

I planted my hands on his chest, forcing him to sit on the bed, and found the jar of salve. “Yes.”

He was quiet as I dabbed a fresh layer over his stitches and blackened eye, and before I coated his lower lip, I leaned in, molding my mouth to his.

Breathing softly, curling my fingers through his hair…and felt the soft slip of his tongue against mine.

I drew back, tapping a salve-covered finger on his lip. His blue eyes were glittering. “Don’t get carried away. You’re literally being held together with thread right now.”

Rhylan took one of my hands and held it. His fingertips ran over the new calluses, the rough patches where the lye had burned away the outer layers of my skin, the reddened knuckles.

“Scrubbing and laundry,” I explained, curling my fingers around his.

He stared down at my hands for a moment, then pulled me in for another kiss. A long, slow one, that sent heat curling in tendrils to my core. That strange prickling sensation began needling my skin again as he cupped my cheek.

When he broke away, he pressed his forehead against mine, staring into my eyes. I gazed back, entranced by the flames, by the heat of him, and how badly I wanted that fire within me…

How much I wanted his voice in my mind, to feel him.

But the inside of my head remained resolutely silent.

There was only me.

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