Chapter Seventeen #3
It’s an azdaha, one even bigger than Razulek, with deep bloodred scales.
It looks monstrous but regal with a crown of enormous pointed horns and fangs as long as my forearm.
A huge crimson-scaled chest rises and falls with its breaths, deadly talons dig into the earth at the end of thick hindquarters, and a long, spined tail with a plume at the end curls lazily behind its immense body.
Massive wings flare when its forelimbs crash down.
With an involuntary scream, I fall onto my ass and scuttle backward like a crab, wanting to search for the king but afraid to tear my gaze away from the very large predator in front of me.
“Calm, Starbright,” Darrius says from somewhere behind me. “You will not be harmed.”
Says him. Has he seen the size of those teeth?
I gulp and try to reason with my palpitating heart, but no amount of soothing will quell the hammering drumbeat of my pulse.
From its towering height, the azdaha watches me like a cat with a mouse.
It leans its great head down toward me, and I’m sure I’m going to be gobbled up, but a slitted scarlet eyeball merely studies me.
That barbed tail flicks around, and I freeze, watching those deadly yellow-tipped spikes get too close for comfort.
I swallow past the oversized knot in my throat. “Please don’t kill me.”
It chuffs, a sound like amusement puffing through its lips.
An echinated snout bends to touch my head, and I feel a well of connection open up, just as it had with Razulek back in Kaldari.
The cuffs don’t seem to diminish the mental link.
I sense its power acknowledge my magic and the slumbering simurgh inside of me, its sinuous neck canting in a sort of graceful bow as it bares the underside of its throat to me.
I frown at the seeming show of submission. Why would this azdaha bow to me?
All dragonkin are born of stardust, Starkeeper. A female, I realize, as her elegant, smoky voice resonates through my mind. I could never kill the one responsible for bringing my mate home. I am Indira.
I blink up at her, my brain stuttering. “You’re Razulek’s mate?”
Yes.
A rush of unexpected joy fills me. “How is he? He saved me, too, I think. I don’t have all of my memories yet, but I know he rescued me from something deadly. Is he with you?”
Yes, Starkeeper. He comes from our nest. I was already in the Bone Forest hunting. She fixes me with an assessing look. How does your sidereal magic fare?
Hadn’t Ani called the highest rank something else, or had I heard it wrong? “Do you mean sovran?”
That jeweled red eye fastens to me. Sidereal rank supersedes all, including sovran. A Starkeeper is matchless in power.
Twisting my lips, I hold up my cuffs. “Not while these are on.”
She snarls loudly as if taking personal affront to the bracers, chest engorging and something like acid bubbling up on her tongue that makes my eyes smart and my nose sting. I take a hasty step back.
“What is that?” I ask.
Darrius comes to stand at my side, one hand rising to give Indira’s snout a fond pat. “She’s a poison azdaha. She’s displeased by the cuffs.”
The acid dissipates. Razulek told me about those and how they were used to trap him for so long. She stares at me. I will use any power I have to honor my life debt to you.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
He would have died without you, she says solemnly.
I felt death coming for him, the mate bond stretching to its limits, and I thought all was lost. I would have died with him, so you have saved me as well.
I feel the warm touch of her snout on my head that feels oddly like a kiss.
But now, thanks to you, we have two eggs to hatch and a future to live for.
Oh, my heart. Two. My chest swells and my eyes burn with unshed tears at the thought of Razulek having a family.
As if my happiness has summoned him, I hear the whooshing sound of approaching wings again, and I recognize his emerald scales sparkling in the sunlight when a soaring figure dives toward us.
Razulek lands on the cliffside beside his mate, folding his wings to his sides. Smoke curls from his nostrils.
Glimpses of him from the arena pop into my brain, and a horrified gasp leaves my lips at how unhealthy and sickly he’d been. Now, he glows. Stars, he looks so good. Healthy and powerful.
“Razulek,” I say, choking up. “Thank you. I don’t remember everything yet, but I know you saved us. Saved me.”
He cocks his beautiful horned head, a single golden eye examining me. What do you mean, little queen?
“Your king thinks the cuffs might have done something to my memories,” I say, lifting them to show him. His reaction is as violent as Indira’s, a deep growl rumbling from him. “They inhibit my magic, too.”
Like the collar they forced upon me, he snarls.
I nod, powerless fury rising in my veins again, while the simurgh inside of me awakens.
She’s more alive than I’ve seen her in weeks, even with the dampening effect of the bracers.
She rises within, and I let the magic show in my eyes as the runes on my arms light up in welcome to the two azdahas.
To my surprise, they bow in unison as if paying homage to something greater than themselves.
My lips part in awe at their deference, and I feel my simurgh’s gratitude. “She says thank you,” I whisper to them.
Darrius smiles at Razulek. “Good to see you well recovered, old friend.”
Razulek inclines his head, and I wonder if the king can hear him in his head as well.
“Of course she is,” the king says aloud as if in answer to an unspoken question, and then grins. “You’re ready, aren’t you?” he asks me.
“Ready for what?” I ask doubtfully.
“To fly,” he says.
I balk as his meaning sinks in. “On them?”
Razulek and Indira both chuff at my screeched words, and I watch, mesmerized, as Darrius easily scales one of Indira’s extended wings and settles himself in place behind a ridge on her sinuous neck. He looks so small up there, and I let out a stunned laugh.
He waves. “Your turn, Starbright.”
“I’m not doing that,” I say. “No.”
He doesn’t try to convince me. Instead he shrugs.
“Your loss. Razulek’s, too, as he has chosen you as his bonded rider.
” With that, he gives some signal to Indira, and she dives off the edge of the cliff, taking him with her and making my heart lurch.
It’s only when her crimson wings spread wide that I am able to breathe. Together, they climb the winds.
“What did he mean that you chose me?” I ask Razulek.
Azdahas can only have one bonded rider at a time. You are mine.
I exhale and bite my lip. “What if I fall off?”
His snout brushes my side. I would sooner die than let you fall, little queen.
I watch as he extends a wing, similar to Indira, and the slant of it doesn’t look that hard to climb.
Without letting myself think too much about my fear, I start the ascent, using the bony protrusions as makeshift steps, until I am nearly at the apex where the wing bones meld into huge overlapped scales.
I touch them and gasp—they’re hot under my fingers.
Careful on the scales, he cautions. They are sharp and slippery.
Using the small groupings of spines that dot his powerful flanks, I gingerly maneuver my way to a similar ridge on his neck where Darrius had positioned himself.
The hide there is more reptilian than scaly, and I wedge myself in place in front of the thick, ropy muscles of his wings, keeping an eye on the rows of long, frilled spines that look viciously sharp in front of me.
Grip the spines atop the ridge, he instructs, and I do as he says. Now tighten your legs and hold on.
“Wait, Razul—” But his name cuts sharply into a shrill scream as we leap from the cliff’s edge and my soul practically stays behind.
Shrieking, I clutch the spines in a death grip, my thigh muscles shaking as I dig my heels into his leathery sides, feeling the pressure of his formidable wings as they flare and widen, keeping us aloft.
His huge body ripples beneath me, the connection between us pulsing with magic.
With pure akasha. The bracers on my wrists don’t even brighten—nothing of the earthly world, no human-wrought magic, can suppress this.
Air rushes into my face as we soar upward to where Darrius and Indira are but a speck, the mountain range dropping away and becoming smaller and smaller.
As I suspected, you were born for this. Razulek’s voice is more than a little smug, but I can only grin so hard that my cheeks ache. By the gods, we’re fucking flying!
This is amazing, I think back to him, our bond humming. Faster, Raz.
He roars victoriously, and those great wings pump, propelling us through the sky like a shooting star splitting the heavens.