Chapter 2
ADERYN
Riding on Bowen’s back was still a little strange, even after all the years I’d been doing it. To think that Bowen, staid, quiet Bowen, turned into a dragon big enough to carry not just me, but my brother and all my sisters at once, had always been befuddling, even though I had two forms myself.
Honestly, he could carry more than the five of us, and since Dorte was now staying in the monastery all the time, that made for even less of a burden.
Not that he thought of us as a burden.
No, Bowen was someone special that way. He loved the Wind Clan, and even more than that, loved being part of us.
I thought even if we all grew up and married and had even more baby dragons, he’d happily try to carry us all until he simply couldn’t anymore.
That would be the saddest day of his life, if also a happy one, because it would mean that we were more than a tiny family of six again.
But today’s trip on Bowen’s back was special, because this one was for me.
We went to Brynaf for Hafgan, so he could stay with the people who had raised him, who had become his family when the rest of us were thought lost to him.
They had also become family to us over the years of spending time among them, even if the Wind Clan was not specifically part of the Summer Clan, but Hafgan was the one most attached.
We went to the monastery for the girls, because they trained with the mages in their new program designed to improve magic in Llangard, and more than that, to improve human-dragon relations.
It was working well, and Dorte had even bonded nicely with a young mage, which was why she was now staying at the Hudoliaeth full time.
The mage was interested in learning to ride a dragon in combat, which sounded awful to me, but they seemed to enjoy the training—which was admittedly a lot of swooping around in the air, laughing together like the children they still were.
I’d only been ridden once in my life, and I didn’t have any interest in repeating that experience.
For me, we spent winters in Atheldinas.
Well, no, in the Spires. Hafgan didn’t really like it there, I knew, but I was willing to be selfish about this one thing.
My hoard was in the Spires, after all, which was why Hafgan agreed to the situation at all.
It was a whole room full of feathers and feathers and more feathers.
Some from all across Llangard, because soldiers from the Battle of Windy Pass still sometimes thought of me, and sent them with messengers going to Atheldinas to add to my collection.
There was also an aviary with birds who grew entirely new feathers, adding more to the enormous room filled with them.
Most important, though I had never told anyone, least of all Hafgan, the Spires had Roland.
I loved the feathers and birds, but he was everything.
If I had to give up my whole hoard just to keep him, I’d have done it in an instant, without a single thought. Yes, I knew dragon hoards were supposed to be the most important thing we had, haunting our every thought and action. I was supposed to think only of feathers, ever.
But in practice, that wasn’t quite right.
Roland, after all, had given me that first feather. The first thing I had ever owned in my life, which, even broken, was now central in my hoard. Roland had had it put under glass and hung it on the wall in the feather room.
Even more importantly, he’d given me my freedom. My life.
Without Roland’s intervention at the Battle of Windy Pass, I had little doubt I would be dead. Either at the hands of a soldier who was frightened by my panic, or because I would have refused to leave Athelstan when he’d still had my precious feather under his cuirass.
And after that? Well, Roland had become my life in other ways. He’d stayed with me, taught me how to embrace the human part of my existence, how to interact with other people, and even with dragons who didn’t know how to handle a creature who’d spent his whole life in a cage.
Roland had helped me make myself into a free creature, rather than just a beaten, feral animal.
So when Bowen touched down outside the Spires at the usual spot, and I saw that beloved russet head duck out of a door on one of the earthen towers, I was immediately slipping down off Bowen’s back, almost before he finished landing.
And then I was running across the courtyard, throwing myself into Roland’s arms. We both went tumbling into the snow. Me all ungainly awkward limbs that were too long for my body and him strong and controlled from years of sword training, but none of that mattered.
All that mattered was Roland was there.
I squeezed my arms around him till he let out a wheezing laugh, a grin on his beautiful lips. “Aderyn, you have to let me breathe.”
“If I must,” I whispered back, and then . . . Well, he was right in front of me. Perfect, beautiful, wonderful Roland.
My Roland.
I didn’t think too many people would fault me for leaning in to steal one tiny kiss.
Roland certainly didn’t mind, leaning into the touch and kissing me back.
If heat rushed to my face, I’d just blame the color on the cold. “I missed you.”
“Missed you more,” he insisted, reaching up and wrapping his arms around my waist. “Let’s have dinner. I’ll ask the cooks if they have that cake you like.”
“Cake for dinner?” a mildly disapproving Hafgan asked from behind me. “Perhaps some vegetables? Or meat?”
I shot a glare behind me, willing my brother to be quiet. Why was he never simply nice to Roland? What had Roland ever done to make him act that way?
There was a cleared throat nearby, and I looked up to find Tristram and Bet approaching. Odd, I hadn’t thought the sound was either of them. Still, I pulled myself off Roland, brushing the snow from first him, then myself, as I stood.
When I looked up, a swish and curl of crimson caught my eye. The door to a nearby tower closed behind someone. Apparently someone who hadn’t wanted to greet the Wind Clan.
Ah well. It didn’t matter. I went to hug first Tris, and then much to his mild consternation and secret delight, Bet as well.
Oh, he grumped and pretended offense at having his clothes disarranged and his personal space invaded, but when no one else was looking, I caught him smiling to himself. Bet Kyston, secret marshmallow. Another of the men who had saved my life in Windy Pass, along with Tristram.
They would always get hugs too.
Sometimes, I wished that one of them would invite me to stay forever, like Dorte’s mage at the monastery had for her.
I just had to remind myself that I was only at the palace a few months a year, and there was a lot I didn’t know, didn’t understand, about the politics of ruling a land.
If they had wanted me to stay, they would have asked, and they did not. There had to be reasons for that.
Ever the perfect distraction, Roland twined our fingers together, smiling. “Come on. You have to see the aviary. You’re going to love this. They’re a little annoying, but so beautiful . . . ”
With that, he tugged me in the direction of the aviary, and as I always did with Roland, as I always wanted to, I followed.