Chapter 22
Something’s coiled in me. A serpent waiting to pounce as we soar west through a void of gray and white.
Heavy storm clouds above, writhing mist below.
And pinched between … howls of wind, scatters of snow, and too much time to think.
To toil over everything that just happened and calculate the pending repercussions. Which will come.
Hard and heavy.
Kaan shifts deeper into his seat, his body a hot weight at my back.
My gaze drops to his scarred hands fisted around the reins—tendons stretched, knuckles blanched.
Then to his strained forearms and bulging veins I want to trace down to his thick wrists, thread my fingers underneath to the spot where his tendons bunch, and feel the beat of his pulse.
A rabid compulsion that’s almost impossible to fight.
As hard as it is to scrub the vision of him leaping before me.
Absorbing those Creators-forsaken pins.
I stab my stare forward. Pull my hood farther down to stop the snow from pelting my eyeballs, and bite so deep into my tongue I taste blood.
There are things I need to say. Words searing up my throat. Feelings like embers I’m not sure how to handle without sustaining some sort of burn. So they sit within, simmering while silence thickens between us.
We encroach on a steep mountain ridge, its peaks hidden amongst the clouds overhead. The mists claw up the sides like some hungry beast intent on swallowing the world.
Maell cuts closer to Rygun’s wings, as though seeking his protection, breaking my view of Pyrok and Roan. Kaan’s firm body presses forward, and we spear into the storm in great, heaving torrents—climbing up.
Up.
I’m so crushed between Kaan and the saddle blanket that my only view is the inside of my hood until we explode into the open sky. Maell shrieks at the rising aurora and flicks out her wings, tossing the crust of gathered snow from her pretty plumage, bursting with adolescent joy.
Pyrok coaxes her steady with a tenderness that warms something within me.
I ease my hood back to scan our vast surroundings, eyes wide on a stretch of gilded clouds kissed by the sun’s distant rays, jagged mountain tips poking through as far as I can see. And I realize exactly where we are.
Near the border between The Burn and The Fade, the mountains no longer rounded by lashes of wind and rain, but steeper, sharper.
Mountains that are, by all accounts, riddled with wild Moltenmaws that hunt and strip the range of their trees like pecking flesh from bones.
Trees used to build their nests in Bhoggith, not too far away.
Mountains most folk give a very wide berth … unless they have a death wish. Which I certainly do not.
“Have we cut too far south?”
No answer.
Rygun levels his flight, coasting just above the peaks as I twist, look back at Kaan.
And still.
The skin around his eyes … it’s just as split as it was when he knocked me to the ground, fire welling between the cracks. A potent reminder that Rygun’s still sharing something with him. Bolstering him in some way. Protecting him, maybe.
Probably both.
Kaan’s gaze flicks down. He blinks, and his slit pupils round out, some of the cracks closing, though the fire in his irises rages on.
He loosens his hand from the reins and settles it on my waist, gripping gently. “You okay?”
No.
There’s something about seeing this strong, independent male so broken down, being quietly held together by his dragon, that makes me feel like I’m bleeding inside.
Makes me want to leap off Rygun, charge back to Bothaim, and mulch some lungs.
I’m struggling to convince myself it’s not worth the risk.
“Of course,” I murmur, turning forward, the lie hot on my tongue.
Kaan’s grip tightens, then loosens entirely, his hand moving back to the reins as more words sear the back of my throat, like fiery beasts caged behind my teeth.
But now’s not the right time to spit them free.
What Kaan needs is to focus on himself. On keeping together until we’re somewhere safe to patch him up.
With that in mind, I wrangle my lashing emotions around a rock I stuff beneath the surface of my icy lake, knowing they’ll eventually slither free. For the time being, I settle into a calmer state of mind, letting Kaan’s immense body heat flood me with ease rather than concern.
He’s here.
He’s okay.
We made it out alive.
We soar over peaks that seem to go on and on, the aurora wriggling farther across the sky. Almost inching toward middae when the too-close screech of a Moltenmaw makes my heart hitch. Even harder when I notice the clouds churning to our left, like there’s something moving beneath them.
“There’s—”
A Moltenmaw gusts up in-line with us, gilded like the clouds it skims just above, sunlight kissing the shimmery tips of its sleek plumage. The rider perched between its massive wingspan is garbed in shapely leathers with buffed panels that match her dragon’s tones—her stance strong and poised.
She leans back and looks up at us, holding a startling resemblance to Veya; bearing the same rich skin tone, the same beautiful features and determined cut of her jaw.
The same brown beads woven through her hair.
Almost identical, were it not for her moss-green eyes, bulging belly, and the long umber braid that trails her like a rope.
She signals for us to follow, coaxing her dragon back down through the clouds.
Kaan’s body presses into me, forcing me forward. The only warning I get before Rygun tucks his wings and plummets into the blustery churn like some questionable trust exercise.
We dive with such velocity my skin stretches across my features, flakes of snow stinging my cheeks.
The moment we explode free of the cloud, Rygun flicks out his wings.
My guts compact as we soar across a wide chasm pinched between two mountain spines, trailing the large Moltenmaw with Maell screeching in our wake.
I’m still battling the urge to tilt left and empty the meager contents of my stomach down the side of Rygun’s saddle blanket—messy up Kaan’s bags—when I notice a waggle of air draped over the chasm below.
Something that reminds me of the domes that capped the platforms during the Great Flurrt in Dhomm.
We descend a little farther, and a pressure slips over my skin as we pass through, like we just pierced a bubble.
The vision of the chasm changes. Goes from rocky slopes void of color or life to a vibrant village that’s sprouted from the parallel mountainsides, cut through by an azure river with frosted banks, yoked by an ornate bridge.
Snow dusts the trees that soften the architecture, orbs of white light dangling from gnarly branches, but it’s the buildings that charm me.
Hundreds of peaked homes reminiscent of the one Kaan took me to in the mountains north of here …
but these are colorful—each stained a different hue, their windows like shattered rainbows.
Energetic Moltenmaws scribble above the village, each smaller than Maell and saddled with simple blankets, tossing themselves around. Playing.
Adolescents …
But why so many?
Beams of golden light break through the clouds, making the frosted village sparkle like a treasure trove. Highlighting the flattened parts of buildings that look very much like landing patches—most only large enough to support a small dragon.
This place … It’s for dragon rearing.
I’m still marveling at the sight as we soar past the river to the western side, to where burrows are dug into the upper mountain, making it look like a honeycomb.
With Pyrok and Roan still perched between her wings, Maell tucks and plunges toward a lower section of the hutch; typical of submissive or younger beasts, leaving the crowning burrows to the dominant, more protective dragons.
Leaving me entirely unsurprised when Rygun trails the other Moltenmaw toward the highest landing—the largest—two separate burrows dug into the cliff beyond.
Between them, a trio of orange towers jut from the stone, clustered together.
A hutchkeeper’s hut, I realize; perhaps three stories high yet dominated by the two burrows gaping at their sides.
Despite the Moltenmaw’s heft, it lands with all the grace and poise of a softly falling feather.
Rygun does the opposite—drops like a rock, his head whipping around the moment all four claws are on the ground, eyes on Kaan, nostrils flared, teeth bared in a manner that suggests they’re having a tense internal dispute.
Whatever it is, I probably side with Rygun.
“Where are we?”
“The village of Beluhn,” Kaan murmurs against my ear, seeming to ignore his leering dragon as he loops the reins around one of Rygun’s spikes. “We’re safe here.”
Bit hasty.
“How safe, exactly? On a scale of ‘how many blades do I keep on my body’?”
A pause before he plants a kiss on the top of my head. “None, Moonbeam.”
I frown, further scanning our surroundings, aware of the other rider striding across the snow-dusted grass as Kaan kicks his leg over and grabs the ropes. He stills, teeth gritted, eyes squeezing shut. All the molten cracks around them smooth—
Disappear.
When he opens his eyes again, they look almost normal. Something I think little of until his grip falters.
He slips to the tune of Rygun’s snarl, my heart in my throat until his fists tighten around the ropes again. He shakes his head—seemingly to himself—then moves down at a much slower pace than usual, every shift of his body strained.
I swing my leg over and follow, checking past my shoulder in time to see Kaan embrace the stranger. I leap the final few feet and land in a crouch, pain ricocheting through my wounded thigh as I jog toward them. Slow when Kaan shifts back and turns to me.
“Raeve, this is Siharna Farjór. Chieftess of Beluhn.”
All the warmth slips from Siharna’s face.
She frowns, narrowed eyes sliding back and forth between myself and Kaan, coming to rest on me. “Your name is Raeve?”
“Correct.” I dip my head in greeting.