Chapter 31
Raeve tips a wooden mug to her lips and guzzles deep, clonking the empty chalice on the low table. She wipes the glistening smear of water from her mouth and edges forward to perch on the seater’s lip, digging back into the basket of soft boots Siharna lent her.
“Anything promising?”
“Not yet.” She pulls out a black one she inspects with narrow-eyed scrutiny, bending and pulping the leather before flopping it back in the basket.
“The heels are either too thick or too damn stiff.” She tucks a loose streak of hair behind her ear and continues to rummage, gaze pierced on her task—focused.
Knee bouncing at a quick, agitated pace.
I watch it all from where I’m leaned against the wall, arms crossed to hide my fists—clenching and unclenching. As though the simple motion could ease the rapid thump of my heart.
It doesn’t.
Líri’s pillar is just visible through the window to my left, dominating the village. A taunting reminder of what’s about to transpire. Coupled with Raeve’s restless energy that’s coiling into my chest in slow, agonized increments … I’m about to split apart.
Raeve inspects a brown knee-high boot and loosens the laces until both sides are gaping enough that she’s able to push her foot in. As she begins tightening the binds, I can already tell it’s too big by the way the leather crimps with each firm tug.
“Raeve.”
“Hmm.”
“How much free-climbing have you done?”
She shrugs, flicks her hair back over her shoulder, and bends farther over herself. “Enough.”
That coil twists so deep it pierces something soft and fleshy.
I watch her wind the binds back and forth, hooking them on the eyelets. “I … know it’s likely you don’t recall bonding with Slátra, so it’s important I remind you of something.”
Her spine stiffens, like she’s preparing to defend against a blade coming straight for her chest. Though she keeps her eyes on her task, tightening the laces, striking the length across her shin over and over.
“There’s an unspoken reason most folk risk raiding a nest rather than trying to tame a fully grown dragon.”
Her posture loosens, like my words just kneaded some of the tension from her muscles. “Oh?” She nips a glance at me while tying a knot, stretching her leg to examine the boot.
“Yes. Bonding with a mature beast can be—”
She leaps up, rolling her foot around and pacing the space, getting a feel for the boot’s fit.
“Challenging,” I continue, even though she’s giving me a very small percentage of her mental focus.
“Opening to such ancient, profound beasts … It stretches the fae mind. Expected, given we flood with the senses of creatures many believe weren’t originally of this world.
A process that sheds light on our deepest, darkest corners.
On any mental baggage that might be tucked somewhere, collecting dust.”
Given Raeve’s aversion to uncomfortable conversations about her past, I expect a physical reaction of some sort. A flinch, a shift of her eyes.
Something.
Instead, she snatches a strip of Pyrok’s jerky off the table and rips into it with her teeth, chewing through the mouthful as she jumps from foot to foot, scowling down at the boot. “Mental baggage is a hindrance. Got it.”
“Yes.” I frown. “Raeve, it can take cycles for a bond to harden. When it does, the rider has either tamed the dragon or the dragon has tamed them. Some turn as wild as their beasts and are rarely seen again—as good as lost to their loved ones.”
She sighs and stuffs the remaining jerky in her mouth, flopping onto the seater as she releases the bow and begins snatching the laces loose. “Just too big,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “Disappointing. I thought we had it.”
She’s either not taking this seriously enough or she’s overly confident. Both have the power to swing around and tear a chunk off her.
“Raeve, please.” Her head whips up, gaze clashing with mine. Softening. “This is a serious concern. Especially with the coming falls.”
Her shoulders drop.
She offers me a small smile that fails to warm the shard of icy fear lodged between my ribs. “You have nothing to worry about. I’ll be back before the aurora drops. Maybe earlier.”
Overly confident, it seems. The bane of my existence.
“That is, of course, if I can make it up that pillar without being heard.” She hauls off the boot and flops it in the basket, sighing. “This is hopeless. I might just have to go up barefoot.”
Another tense squeeze of my hands. “There’s a leather craftsman farther down in the village. Used to make all Mah’s boots and jackets. I’m sure he can do a rush job.”
“No, I can’t risk it.” She threads her fingers back through her hair, pulling at the strands. “Líri might leave. I’ll miss my opportunity.”
Frowning, I glance at the stairwell to my left, struck by a thought.
I push off the wall and move across the room, reaching out a hand. “Come upstairs with me,” I murmur, and Raeve arches a brow.
“Upstairs?”
I nod.
Her lips twitch, and her dimples almost pinch in. “Eager as I am to continue where we left off, need I remind you there’s an untamed, slightly savage Moonplume perched above this lovely village?”
Impossible to repress the smile that fills my cheeks as I take her hand in mine and guide her up the stairs. “Nice to know you’re eager, Moonbeam, but I’m not taking you to the pallet.”
“Then where—”
I stop at the closed door to our right, twist the handle, and push, tugging her into the small suite that’s dressed in soft hues of pink, purple, and blue.
That boasts a double pallet with a headboard of nuzzling dragons, its windows a glass quilt of powdery shades that cast the room in an adolescent glow …
though I try not to look around too much. Try not to take it in.
Let it absorb.
Since Mah was old enough to shape her own home, she dreamt of having a daughter. She just never lived long enough to see Veya use this room. Nor to learn that she hates the color pink.
I release Raeve’s hand and make for the wooden chest at the pallet’s end, carved from the white trunk of a weeping wisp.
The hinges squeal as I lift the lid, revealing the treasures within; cloaks, finely tailored tops, and leather jackets—all the same mossy green shade she had this building stained—embellished with pale-brown buttons and delicate trims.
“These were Mah’s,” I murmur, wedging open a small box to reveal a collection of cloak broaches and other precious adornments. Sentimental pieces she never had a chance to pass down to Veya.
That Veya is yet to allow herself the grace to accept.
Clearing my throat, I close the lid, set the box back in the chest, and lift a pile of garments, shifting them aside to reveal a pair of pale-brown boots—ankle high, the colk leather soft and pliable in my hands. Well broken in through the phases Mah spent during her youth exploring these ranges.
I smile at the thought of her wearing these, scaling the steep cliffs around this village; hair loose, heart free.
The most proficient brown bead I’ve ever met, yet she so rarely called on Bulder, preferring to move across his raw, jagged ridges as he himself intended them to be.
Possibly the reason he respected her and so willingly bent to her ill-frequent requests.
I hold up the boots. “I have a feeling these will be just your size …”
Raeve stares at them for a long moment, meeting my eyes again. “Kaan, I don’t think I can—”
“She would be honored for you to use them. As am I.”
Raeve swallows. Finally reaches out and takes them, gaze cast on the boots as she runs her fingers up and down the crisscross laces.
Silence strums between us.
“Kaan …”
“Yours.”
She meets my gaze, and there’s a weight there. A vulnerability that pulls me back to the conversation we had just after our pins were removed. “I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything.” I tuck some of the tousled locks back from her face and wedge them behind her ear. “Always.”
“That you won’t intervene.” She searches my eyes, back and forth like a pendulum. “No matter what happens, I must do this myself.”
I practice my response in my head three times before I trust myself to say it aloud. “I know, Moonbeam.”
No words have ever tasted so bitter, dragging against the grain of my heart.
My soul.
But I know she’s right. There’s nothing more personal than a dragon bonding. And this moment … it’s not mine. Not ours.
It’s theirs.
I have to step aside. Lock down my protective instincts. My rabid fear of losing her … again. I have to put my heart on the hook of trust and pour every breath into believing that everything is going to be okay.
“That was too easy.” Her eyes narrow. “Say the words. Precisely.”
I lift my hand, cup her face. Revel in the way she leans into my palm. “So long as you allow me to prepare you a proper meal before you go, I’ll do whatever you ask. Even if that means standing by and watching you climb that fucking pillar into the clouds.”
The hint of a smile pulls at her lips. “Not a fan of Pyrok’s jerky stash?”
Leaning forward, I kiss the tip of her nose. “I can do better.” I plant another between her eyes, lingering before I murmur against her skin, “I’ll leave you up here to get ready.”
I make for the door before I say or do something stupid. Lean into my urges to ply her with advice until we’re both blue in the face.
That’s not what she needs, nor do I sense it’s what she wants, else she would’ve asked.
What she needs is for me to be the strong, supportive rock at her side. For me to snuff my own fears and believe in her … otherwise I’m just another shackle she has to contend with.
Another weight.
I move down the stairs, through the kitchen. Step out the back door into the cold, charging a fresh path through the snow until I’m hidden amongst a bunch of laden shrubs, safely out of sight before I fold forward and vomit.