Chapter 42
A distant scream shakes me to the soul, making me picture Siharna charging into battle, spear in hand as she eyes her target, all the tendons in her neck stretched.
My grip on the handrail tightens.
I look over my shoulder, out the lofty stairwell window that offers a clear view of the compound’s snow-covered courtyard. Of Siharna’s home, my gaze drawn to a second-story window glinting like a golden eye.
A breeze tugs the gauzy curtain that’s failing to hide the commotion beyond; Siharna’s bold silhouette pacing back and forth like a pendulum, embarking on the journey that takes too many to an early grave.
Hand on her belly, she pauses, curls forward as she no doubt wrestles through a contraction, releasing another ferocious scream.
I look away and charge up the last few stairs, softening my steps before I reach the door to the spare slumbersuite.
Peeking through, I see Korie still coiled on the pallet beneath the soft pink-and-purple quilt Mah stitched long ago …
like a fresh hatchling amongst an oversized nest. Her curls are puddled around her as she slumbers, thumb in her mouth, drenched in the warm light of the heaving hearth.
I watch her little chest rise and fall, begging the Creators to keep Siharna safe. For Korie to have the chance to hug her mah again while her heart is still beating, and for Siharna to bear the gift of watching her daughter grow.
That’s all I ask.
Please.
Gently closing the door, I repress the urge to move into the end suite and assure myself that Raeve is there. Alive. Wrap her in my arms until this tightness eases from my chest. Or perhaps simply wake her so I don’t feel so alone, helpless and … scared.
Terrified I’m going to lose somebody else I love.
Forcing myself back down the stairs, I snatch one of Pyrok’s looted bottles off the table, just dropping onto the seater when Siharna releases another drudging scream.
I retrieve Borg from my pocket, twirl him through my trembling fingers while I pop the cork on the alcohol and draw deep. Hiss as the potent spirits pool in my belly like a churn of Rygun’s flame, leaving my tongue tasting like something that got stuck in a pipe and died.
“Fuck,” I rasp, tilting the bottle to stare at it. Shaking my head, I draw another swig, then unplug Borg’s jar. Set it on the seater as he gushes free in a churn of pale, billowy smog.
“Well, well …” He stretches and twists, gathering mass until he’s leering over me like a lanky, posturing cloud, black eyes narrowed on me drawing another deep swig of—without question—the worst shit I’ve ever tasted. “You’re trying to get back in my good mists, aren’t you?”
“Maybe I just missed your face?”
“That makes more sense.” He churns, peering behind me.
No doubt looking at himself in the window’s reflection.
“I am particularly pleasant to gaze upon. Wait— There’s snow out there.
Are we near The Fade?” He stills, then whips back like the flick of a Moonplume’s tail and compounds into a corner, becoming an opaque lump no bigger than my fist. “You’re going to tip me back out in the Mists! ”
His gaze bounces around like he’s trying to find somewhere more suitable to hide. Glimpsing his jar, he snaps toward it like a slingshot—so fast he bottlenecks, working to glug into the small space before he finally slips through.
I sigh, grab the jar, and shake it. “Borg, we’ve been through this.” I peer into the hollow before I give him another shake. “I’m not tipping you anywhere except onto this seater for a sip or two. Or are you not hungry?”
He slips out, pools across the wide cushion, then recongeals before me, so large his head skims the low ceiling.
“Of course I am. What a silly question.” Arching close, his inky eyes narrow, and the hairs on my arms lift from the cool swish of his proximity.
“I do hope you’re not lying to me, Kaan Vaegor.
A waif’s trust doesn’t magically regenerate.
Once it’s gone, you’ll have an eternal enemy in every one of my brothers—big and small. ”
“Have I ever lied to you, old friend?”
“Well … no. But I spend a lot of time on my own.” He dips so close I’m almost forced to go cross-eyed just to hold his gloomy gaze. Like he’s trying to peer through the fibers of my soul. “The mind does love to spin.”
That, above all, is something I understand.
Another valiant scream rips across the courtyard.
Borg gusts past me like a swift-moving cloud, his tether to the jar thinning to a mere thread as he flattens his face against the pane. “Is someone being maimed?”
I draw another drink from the bottle, hissing through my answer. “Auntie’s in labor.”
“Ah. Explains your dour mood,” he drones, his entire body wafting against the glass. Like he’s desperate to seep through the barrier and glean a better look.
Nosy fucker.
He’d ask me to pelt his bottle directly into Siharna’s room if he thought I’d consider it.
“Well, something to brighten you.” He peels free and swishes around, boasting a smile so gaping it’s like someone punched a hole in his face and ripped out a fistful of fog. “My brothers spotted a moonshard.”
Being struck by lightning would jolt less.
“That’s very good news,” I rasp, working to tame the rapid beat of my heart.
I wonder which part it is …
How big …
I set the bottle down, hands clasped as I rest my elbows on my knees and lean forward. “Anything on Kyzari, Veya, or Grihm, my second-in-command? He set off to Gondragh to claim an egg.”
“I’ll check.” Borg wafts closer, like he’s swaying to a tune, foggy fingers splayed to inspect his tapered nails. Perfectly aware that he has me by the balls. “Anything else, My King?”
I chew on the words I want to release, wondering if I should take Raeve’s advice across the board and leave this be. Cork the urge to dig up the past.
My hungry compulsion wins out.
“I’d like to know if any of your brothers witnessed Elluin Neván being escorted back to Arithia almost one hundred and twenty-five phases ago, just prior to her binding ceremony with Tyroth. I’m curious to know if she was bound or if she fought against the ones who carried her.”
Borg glares at me for such a long moment I realize I forgot my manners.
“Please.”
“One hundred and twenty-five phases ago …”
The dryness of his tone is woefully unappreciated.
“As I said.”
“What happened to ‘no more seeking information about Elluin Nev—’”
“I changed my mind,” I grit out.
Borg makes an odd clicking sound and gets back to inspecting his nails. “Anything else? My misty heart on a plate, perhaps?”
“That’s all.”
He mimics my words, melting into a foggy puddle that drifts across the ground.
I grasp my hands behind the back of my neck and squeeze my eyes shut. Weather another two aching screams while fear billows in my chest like a torched forest. Begging for this not to be the last time I hear Siharna’s voice; pitched with savage determination not to fail her little one.
To bring him into this world unharmed.
Hard not to imagine Raeve making those same sounds back when she went by a different name. Before she was taken to the sky, entombed within the bundled corpse of her beloved dragon—
“Miraculously, a brother recalls seeing the traveling party that escorted Elluin back to Arithia.”
My eyes snap open, finding Borg at his full size, gusting about the room as he inspects Mah’s wares.
“They stopped on the Ergor Plains while their dragons hunted.”
A shiver moves through me.
I reach down and grasp the bottle of spirits, bring it to my lips, and draw a long swig I immediately regret. “What would you like in exchange?”
He doesn’t even turn from the floral-engraved urn he’s stuffed his head in, his next words silky smooth—echoing. “My favorite.”
I stiffen.
“Borg …”
“This is a two for one,” he purrs, pulling free. He twists, taking an empty interest in a collection of plates stacked in a wall nook. “Information on your beloved Elluin and the location of a moonshard. I’m giving you a deal.”
“You’re punishing me.”
He shrugs a misty shoulder. “I’m still in the same boring jar, void of color or even a dangly decoration. And the cork got damp while I was in your pocket. Now it stinks.”
Teeth gritted, I stamp the bottle on the ground, clenching my hands into fists so tight my knuckles pop. I set them on my knees, easing back against the seater, head tipped as I look at the fucking ceiling. “Hurry up.”
“Your foreplay leaves a lot to be desired,” he says, the words so droopy it’s like I stabbed a pin in them. “Can’t you at least sound a little bit excited?”
Rygun’s flame churns beneath my stretching skin, burning the cold nip from the room. “My patience is wearing thin, old friend.”
“Understood.” He slaps forward, perched above me. “Please don’t tip me out.”
A low rumble boils in the back of my throat.
He lets out a panicked squeal, then opens his shredded maw.
I squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t have to look at him as he begins to slurp, jostling one of my most painful memories from where it’s nesting amongst the embers of my past—
Mah’s screams echo through the lofty hallway. Agonized bursts that slice deeper than any hurt I’ve felt before.
My grip on my lute tightens.
I use the heel of my boot to shove back against the wall, staring at the doors to her suite as her Sabersythe releases a roar so loud the corridor trembles around me. The sound tapers into a guttural wail, the heavy thud-ump of Jógo’s beating wings a constant reminder of his circling presence.
I have no doubt that he’d be in Mah’s suite with her, watching over her while she labors, if only he could fit. Have no doubt she’d be in his burrow, birthing beside him, had Pah allowed it.