Chapter 54
I empty my satchel across my chosen pallet.
One of seventeen surprisingly plush nooks carved into the tree’s circumference on this lower level.
Another twirl of stairs leads to the second story, which is equipped with a kitchen, more slumber nooks, an abundance of lookout windows, and shelves laden with lost property Pyrok was quick to rifle through the moment we got in, given he forgot to pack spare clothes.
“Everyone hungry?” Kaan asks from where he’s sitting on the central seater that dominates the space in the shape of a hook—digging through his satchel. Lifting out parcels of wrapped produce he sets on the plump, patchwork upholstery.
From somewhere above, Pyrok shouts his enthusiasm while his brother grunts something mildly committal.
“Not me,” I murmur, stuffing a few things back in my satchel.
“You’re not hungry?” Kaan’s voice threatens to swallow me. Like a warm hug after a bloody beating that didn’t exactly go my way. “After walking all dae?”
The urge to spin, stride into his arms, and ask him to hold me tight is so abrupt, overwhelming, and new, that for a moment, I wonder what’s wrong with me. Before realizing it’s most likely a symptom of this explosive feeling in my chest.
Love.
It takes me a moment to recompose before I look back over my shoulder, glimpsing Kaan crouched beside his open satchel—shirtless, wearing those loose brown pants I heartily appreciate, holding what looks like a lump of wrapped meat in one hand, a knobby green hock root in the other.
His freshly washed hair is down and dripping water beads all over his broad shoulders.
A vision that almost makes me want to open myself to Rayne and hear exactly what song she’s singing as she drags across that gorgeous skin—
Almost.
Rather than tell him how beautiful he is—or that the thought of eating makes me want to dry heave—I forge a smile. “Not right now. But thank you.”
His brows pull together.
I turn, smile falling as I dig through my meager supplies for a shirt that’s not covered in mud. I’m just unbuttoning myself when Kaan’s dense presence steps up behind me—warm.
Every fiber of my being tightens at his close proximity.
He reaches around and grips my chin. Turns my head, forcing me to spin until we’re almost chest to chest, tipping me until I’m looking up into his eyes. “You hurt your leg.”
When did he have the chance to notice that?
“It was a very long, very muddy walk. I lost my footing more than once.”
Not a lie. I’m just omitting the fact that Sereme’s a torturous asshole.
Kaan arches a brow. “Did you also injure your back?”
“I— What?”
His heavy gaze roves across my face like he’s hunting all the cracks I’m trying to conceal. “You’re holding yourself differently.”
I straighten my posture, open my mouth to say … something, when Pyrok jumps down the final few stairs, landing with a thump loud enough to rouse every dragon in Bhoggith. If the tree wasn’t sufficiently runed.
“What’re we cooking? I’m fuckin’ starved.”
Leaping at the opportunity to avoid lying to Kaan, I toss my clean shirt back on the pallet and step away, seeing Roan seated at the round wooden table, all his tinctures and crafting supplies scattered across it.
I still.
The way he’s crouched over a looking glass—etching stick in hand, eyes half shielded by all that curly, ruddy hair—has my heart lurching so high in my throat it’s impossible to breathe past. So brutally reminded of my lovely, fallen Essi that for a moment, I’m tossed back to a different time.
A different place.
Roan dips the tip of his etching stick into a small cut on his palm and continues scratching runes across a sheet of copper. Exactly as I’ve seen Essi do time and time again.
It’s almost enough to make my chest cave.
“Creators, Roan.” Pyrok lumbers past, his tight blue shirt riding halfway up his midriff.
“This room was tidy before I went upstairs and fancied myself up. How you function surrounded by all that mess baffles the fuck outta me.” He dashes a thick yellow scarf around his neck and flops onto the seater, ripping the side seam of his pilfered red pants, then reaches back and tucks his hand behind his head.
“Funniest thing, I feel the same way about your general presence,” Roan murmurs, but his brother’s already snoring.
Kaan brushes past me, gently squeezing my shoulder. A quiet I’m here when you’re ready to talk that makes me feel like the world’s biggest asshole for keeping the blood bind to myself.
Siharna’s right. I need to be honest with him. But it’ll have to wait.
If I tell him before the assassination is complete, there is no reality in which he waves me off to kill someone deep in his brother’s territory—by myself—while I’m being sporadically tortured.
He’d insist on accompanying me on the job.
And should things go awry, he’d implicate himself without a second thought.
Unacceptable, given he stands for the well-being of an entire kingdom. The stakes are too high. His survival, imperative.
I won’t drag Kaan or The Burn into the bloody dirt with me. I’d rather fail.
He stalls beside the table, arms crossed as he looks down on Roan’s … mess. “How’s this going to work?”
“Simplified version?” Roan asks without missing a single etching beat.
“Please.”
“I’m building a cage for a parchment lark.
As previously mentioned, the kid’s somehow blocked from receiving larks, preventing them from locating him.
But once I’m done constructing the cage, it’ll double as a small pocket of neutral airspace intended to render the blocker useless.
Then we just tuck a lark inside and tell it to deliver itself to the protégé. And—”
“Use it as a compass,” Kaan finishes for him.
“In theory.” Roan pauses to push his cracked spectacles up his nose, wincing as he says, “It’s a prototype. And I’ve just realized I’ll need to account for the Moving Mists if they get any closer, given how much they confuse the larks. It’ll take me a beat to get it working right.”
My heart drops.
“How long’s a beat?”
His eyes shift to me. “A cycle. Two at the most … hopefully.” He flashes me an awkward, lopsided smile. “It’s much more precise work than slapping some blood on a wall and blowing it up.”
I nod, turning as I tuck my hair back off my face and internally combust.
Well, shit.
I can’t slip away until they do. Meaning the longer it takes for Roan to finish his invention, the less time I have to get back to Sereme, severed heart and eyes in hand.
Time’s chewing.
Gnawing on the development like it’s a stubborn piece of gristle, I stalk toward the windows, rip the homespun curtains wide, and gasp as Líri drops onto the thick branch directly ahead.
She drapes upon it, dulling her shine until she’s almost blending with the tree; eyes closed, snout pressed flat against the runed windowpane.
Though I doubt she can see through, I’m certain she can sense me.
Pyrok plants his hip against the sill and stamps the lid on his flask, yawning from his two-beat power nap. “Something tells me the thriving colony of swinging meerits is going to take a hit over the next few daes.”
Internally, I wince.
I edge right and rip open the next lot of curtains, revealing a broad view of Bhoggith in all its steaming, mud-bubbling glory. Or at least, what’s not smothered by the mist now blanketing half the bog.
My gaze bumps from nesting mound to nesting mound, snagging on the odd rocky trail poked through the mud like stepping stones. Remnants of paths used to raid some of the nests, no doubt, though they’re mostly destroyed.
Looking through the tree’s gangly branches, I see the clouds have cleared enough to reveal a sky laden with Moltenmaw moons, my heart punched by the sight.
“I didn’t realize there were so many in this area.”
Kaan steps up beside me, making the entire right side of my body tingle. “Moons? There weren’t. Not until Cadok took the stone throne.”
I watch him scour the view. Wait for him to continue.
“Moltenmaws mate for life.” He pulls the curtain farther back, revealing some of the wall’s crumbled remnants struck through like a dotted line of giants cowering in the mist. Pointing to where we can barely spot the bold precipice—twin to the western one pressing in on the bog like dual fists of stone.
“That outpost has long been used by The Fade’s militia. As with the one on the west.”
Well. This assassination might be a little more fiddly than Sereme suggested.
“My source suggests Cadok has his militants working from rise to fall, watching the nests, marking the bonded pairs. He’s so desperate to fill his bloodstone coffers they’ve resorted to grounding the sires, shedding their blood into the soil.
Few make it to the sky before they breathe their final breath. ”
What little appetite I had sours.
“What of the dam?” The words come out croaked. Like some sunken part of me already knows the answer.
“She’s left with no mate to watch the nest while she hunts—usually at rising.
” Kaan’s tone is low, but there’s such depth to it that I physically feel the weight of each word packing on my chest. “While the nest is bare, they raid it empty, leaving only a grieving dam. Some don’t weather the loss, taking themselves to the sky. ”
I look away, though it doesn’t blot the echo of his words sinking into my heart like drips of Rayne’s morbid language. Nor does it ease the itch flaring at the tips of my fingers, making me want to rip at the flesh until there’s nothing there.
“It’s cowardly,” he continues, voice so rough I wonder if some of Rygun’s rage is seeping through their bond. “Disrespectful.”
“Is there a respectful way to steal an egg?”
He drops his gaze right into me. “There’s an ancient saying on the plains, in the dialect of my clan. ‘Gurtg du at en duile … aha grug do neil.’”
“Which means?”
“Put simply—to eat, one first must offer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“An honorable folk will not remove an egg from a hatching ground without first giving in some way,” he clarifies, scanning the bog reflected in his firestorm eyes.
“Otherwise, an unbalance will nest on their chest until their heart, body, or soul withers. Or they’re taken from the world prematurely. ”
I turn his words over as I cross my arms, discreetly scratching the tips of my fingers while I look out on the bog, noticing the mist has swept farther west.
My gaze hones in on a lonely, far-off mound like a Moonplume drawn to the dark. A long way from any others, it’s cushioned by a froth of mist, framed by jagged bits of the broken wall, barely large enough for the single nest resting atop it—
My Other shifts so rapidly I almost lose balance, a coldness seeping through me while she rises, then stills. Just there.
Just beneath.
Pyrok points to another singular nest, closer. “Is that the one with the shard?” He leans forward, squinting at the vibrant clouds veiling most of the moon-laden sky. “It’s hard to tell without being able to mark her mate.”
“No.”
I feel the inquisitive probe of everyone’s combined attention as I stare at the distant nest with the intensity of a dying flame gasping for breath, suddenly certain that nothing is more important than the treasure that pink-colored dam is roosting on.
I lift my hand, pointing. “It’s that one.”