Chapter 7 Lily
LILY
When Viper said it was a long journey, he didn’t exaggerate. It took several days of flying from sunrise to dusk, many nights spent in foreign lands. After a week, Zehemoth started to tire, so we stopped for a full day of rest so he could recuperate.
Viper and I were cordial toward each other, but we didn’t have any more deep conversations or intimate chats by the fire. While I cooked my dinner, he stayed in his tent, either to avoid me or respect my space.
He didn’t mention Callum again.
And I didn’t see Callum again.
I sat by the fire with my belly full of dinner, my knees to my chest, a throbbing pain in my heart that was so torturous it might kill me. My eyes started to smart on their own, and I clenched them shut and battled the tears back as best as I could.
It’d been two weeks since I’d last seen Callum.
What if…what if he wasn’t coming back?
Are you okay, Lily? Zehemoth had been asleep a short distance away from the camp, but he raised his head and turned to me like I’d just screamed for help. Your heart mourns in a river of tears.
I’m okay. I didn’t speak aloud so Viper could hear from his tent. Just stressed.
Your heart doesn’t feel stressed—but broken.
I stared at the fire, helpless to fight his assumption. Callum took my heart when he left, and I feared I would never get it back. I wondered where he was, why he hadn’t come back to me, if I needed to hold on to my faith…or accept the truth.
That he’d left me.
A new wave of tears started to form in my eyes again, and after a sniff that I couldn’t control, I wiped away the moisture with my wrist. I built the dam behind my eyes to stanch the flow of the river.
I tightened my jaw so my lips wouldn’t tremble.
I took a deep and slow breath, steadied the shaky ground beneath me.
He wouldn’t leave me.
He would come back, or I would find him.
Zehemoth rose to his feet then approached the campfire, every step of his massive feet making a distinct thud against the ground. He couldn’t enter the clearing and approach the tents because of his size, but he let his head reach me, lower on the ground so his cheek was next to my leg.
Like he was a cat in my lap, I moved my hand to his snout and caressed his scales, looking into orange eyes that mirrored the flames from the campfire.
The devastation in his eyes made it look as if he might weep for me.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, lying to myself but making it sound true to my best friend. “I’m okay…”
“We’re almost there,” Viper said when he kicked out the dying flames of the campfire. “We just need to cross this stretch of sea and pass over the cliffs. It’ll be a long journey with nowhere to land for an entire day.”
I can handle it.
“He says he can make it,” I said aloud for Zehemoth.
Your brother worries about you. Movack has asked about your well-being every morning and every night.
At least you can tell him we’re almost there. And then we had to make the return journey…another week. But if we had the platinum in our grasp, I supposed that wouldn’t matter to me.
Viper broke down the tents and returned them to the packs, and then we climbed on Zehemoth’s back together and launched into the sky. After an hour of flight, we made it to the sea, and then it stretched endlessly before us.
Ever since I’d told Viper about Callum, he hadn’t touched me.
He gripped the horn in front of me to stay on the saddle when Zehemoth launched into the sky, but he didn’t hook his arm around my waist like he had before.
He was distant and cordial, polite but not talkative.
Not really a friend but not a stranger either.
But I knew he wasn’t angry at me, just trying to be respectful.
It was dark by the time we reached the landmass, the ground only visible because it didn’t reflect the moonlight like the surface of the water did.
“Continue north,” Viper said. “We’re at the top of the cliffs.”
“Can you make it the rest of the way?” I asked Zehemoth.
Of course I can.
We continued to fly in the dark, and then quickly, I felt the coldness creep through my clothes and touch my skin. I was still dressed in my armor and uniform, but it wasn’t ideal clothing to keep warm.
“You’re almost there,” Viper said. “I can see the lights of the castle.”
I couldn’t see anything.
As can I.
Vampires and dragons both had better vision than humans, apparently.
As we came in for a landing, the snow and the wind started to pick up, and it slapped us hard in the face like shards of ice. We seemed to arrive in a blizzard because Zehemoth struggled to land, his wings tipping left and right in the gusts. Even he wasn’t heavy enough to fight the wind.
Hold on.
“He says hold on,” I said out loud.
Viper grabbed the horn in front of me with both hands, boxing me in between his arms so I wouldn’t fly off.
Zehemoth finally landed, almost toppling forward as he slid across the snow and got knocked aside by the wind.
“Are you okay?” I shouted.
I’m fine. Get inside.
“What about you?” I climbed down from the saddle first and then landed in the snow, falling knee-deep in the powder. My braid whipped behind me slightly because the wind was so strong.
I’m a dragon. I’ll be fine.
“I’ll ask if they have shelter for you. I know you aren’t used to the cold like this.”
He bowed and turned his head toward me as I removed my pack from his saddle. Your father is the only thing that matters right now. Your concern for me is misplaced. When I pulled the sack over my shoulder, he rubbed his snout against me then gave me a playful push. Now go, Sunieth.
Viper took the lead. “Follow me.” Much taller than me, he was able to pass through the mound of snow with ease, his strength and height making him glide like a snake through the water.
The only reason I was able to keep up with him was because of my strength.
It was a fifteen-minute walk to the main gate, and the guards immediately converged on our approach because they assumed we were enemies to their kingdom.
It was dark and visibility was poor, so I didn’t blame them for being cautious.
Their swords were unsheathed, and the archers on the wall put arrows to their bows and aimed right at our faces.
But when Viper stepped into the torchlight, the guards at the gate immediately backed down. “I’m General Viper of the Kingsnake Vampires, and I wish to speak to my brother, Prince Aurelias.”
It seemed like he needed no introduction because the enormous gate immediately started to open. “And who is she?” the guard asked when he looked at me standing behind Viper.
“Queen Lily Rothschild of the Southern Isles,” Viper said. “She’s with me, and I can speak on behalf of her character. She poses no threat to King Rolfe and his kingdom.”
They looked me over once more before they stepped aside.
One of the guards escorted us deeper into the kingdom grounds, and once we were next to the large military outposts behind the gate, the wind died down considerably. I could hear myself breathe again.
Our boots crunched against the snow as we were led farther into the kingdom, the castle visible in the distance with the village at the base of the hill.
Most of the torches on the walls were extinguished because of the snow.
I saw a guard try to relight one, but the wind just snuffed it out a second later.
“I have a dragon in the wild outside your grounds. Is there shelter for him?”
“For a dragon?” He turned around, the torch in his hand still going strong. “He can hug the eastern wall for shelter from the wind, but we have nothing to protect him from the snowfall.”
“Okay, thank you.” I relayed the message to Zehemoth, and he said he would approach the wall so he could get some sleep.
Viper walked at my side with his eyes dead set ahead of him, focused on the castle where it slowly loomed over us as we approached. It stretched high into the sky, made of lots of spires and heavy, dark stone.
We were escorted inside, and the second we crossed the threshold, I felt the warmth envelop me. There was a fire burning in a massive hearth across the room, and it was intense enough to fill the entire room with precious heat.
All my muscles instantly relaxed when I felt that reprieve. The only time I liked snow was when I was seated by the fire, looking at it through a window. I preferred tropical beaches with sand between my toes.
“Wait here a moment, General.” The guard who had escorted us moved to the other side of the room and briefed the others on recent events. Then he walked out of the castle while another guard disappeared up the stairs.
“These are good people, right?” I asked quietly. “Won’t keep me as a ransom or something?”
“No,” he said as he continued to stare at the staircase. “And you know I would cut off their heads if they tried.”
Ten minutes passed before someone emerged down the stairs.
But it wasn’t the guard who left, but a man in casual trousers and a shirt with dark hair and dark eyes.
His chin was covered in a light beard, and he was tall and muscular but in a slender way, not bulky like Viper.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs and stared at Viper like he was the only person in the room.
He had Viper’s intensity, but his eyes were different.
They were like mine.
He seemed to snap out of the surprise, and he crossed the room to us. “Is everyone alright? Kingsnake? Larisa?” His voice was calm but somehow packed with concern.
“Everyone is fine. I don’t come on behalf of our family.”
That was when the man shifted his gaze to me. When his eyes locked on mine, his stare carved into my flesh with a blunt knife. He absorbed me with a mixture of silent hostility and confusion before he looked at his brother again. “Should we speak in private?”