Chapter 14 Aderyn
ADERYN
The feathers started arriving in great chests before I woke the next morning.
Not gifts, or some sort of misguided apology.
No, all the feathers Roland had ever collected for me, packed neatly into chests between layers of silk, safe and ready to leave.
And we were leaving, Hafgan said.
He and Bowen were packing our bags, and he said we’d simply go to Summer Clan lands early.
He’d paused in the middle of the announcement, when Bowen had said that Maddox and Gillian would be happy to have us arrive early this year, and I’d seen the moment they had both remembered Gillian was Roland’s aunt.
He’d shrugged it off, though, nodded decisively, and gone to repacking trunks that had only just been unpacked.
Rhiannon came and sat down next to me, watching as Hafgan bustled back and forth through the suite of rooms, so very tense, every motion just a little more forceful than it needed to be.
“What’s going on? Why do we have to leave?
I like wintering in the palace and not stinky old caves.
” Her little nose scrunched up at the thought of caves, but it was melodramatic.
We lived in a cave on the mountain, sure, but it wasn’t some filthy hovel.
The walls were smooth, the floor covered with rugs, and everyone had a bed there.
The biggest problem was that the rock walls let the cold right in, so it was freezing unless you kept a fire going all the time.
“Roland is—” I whispered, my voice so rough that I had to clear my throat to continue. “There’s a problem.”
“Did you get in a fight with him?” She leaned on my shoulder, looking up at me with her huge innocent green eyes. How could I tell her anything terrible? She was an innocent, a child, and she deserved to never have to think about something as awful as humans drinking dragon blood.
Bowen took the moment to come sit next to us. As he lowered himself onto the sofa, he rolled up one of his sleeves to bare a huge white scar on his left arm. “You remember the story of Vidar, little one,” he told her rather than asked.
Because of course the girls knew some of what had happened. They’d been born in the aftermath, after all, and we’d all been born already orphaned because of Vidar’s monstrousness.
She nodded, running her fingers along the smooth silvery scar. “This is from when he captured you?”
“It is,” he agreed. “There’s another on my side. That’s the one they gave me when they took my blood.”
Again, she made her little disgusted face. “Why would they do that?”
He sighed, considering for a moment, then wrapped his bared arm around her shoulders. “Because dragon’s blood is powerful. Sometimes, if a human isn’t magical and they want to be, they’ll drink it.” He kept his voice low, soothing, and kept an eye on me, as though gauging my reaction.
He was worried, I supposed, given how dramatically I’d reacted to it all.
“Or sometimes,” he continued, “if a human who’s important to a dragon is very sick, the dragon will give them blood, because it might heal them.”
“We can heal people?” She frowned at the idea, biting her lip and clearly considering a run down to the healer’s, to offer to open a vein and help out.
“It’s very dangerous to do. Dragon’s blood is a last resort.
And sometimes, the person we give the blood to, they get addicted.
Like . . . like people who can’t stop drinking alcohol.
They start to need the blood, just to live their lives.
” He made a face that was almost . . . was it sad? Did he feel bad for Roland?
Hafgan had only seemed angry, and Bowen . . . well, he was the only other dragon I knew who had been bled against his will to feed human avarice.
Not that I thought Roland avaricious.
No, Roland would never be anything but loving and beautiful and wonderful.
But I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t bleed for a human to drink. Just the thought of it made me tremble and want to be sick. So, I supposed, I didn’t love Roland enough. I couldn’t give him children, and I couldn’t give him my blood.
I couldn’t be enough for him.
“So Roland needs dragon blood?” Rhiannon looked between me and Bowen a few times, her little face screwed up with some combination of confusion and worry. “But that means we shouldn’t leave, doesn’t it? If . . . if you can’t do it, I can do it. I’m sure I’ve got some extra.”
The door to one of the bedrooms slammed, and we all looked up to see Hafgan standing there, eyes blazing with pure fire. I was afraid he was going to combust right then and there, or rush off to yell at Roland, which was the last thing anyone needed.
Perhaps, I thought, even if I didn’t want to leave. Even if Roland didn’t need someone other than me. Maybe we should leave, for Hafgan.
Bowen shot me a look, then a glance at Rhiannon, and he rose and went to Hafgan, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him back into their bedroom. I hoped he could help him, but given my brother’s mood, I wasn’t sure what could.
But if there was anything, Bowen would know it.
Bowen was perfect. Strong and calm and soothing like no one else.
And he’d clearly given me an assignment: take care of Rhiannon.
So I turned to her. “You don’t need to give Roland blood. You don’t ever need to give anyone blood. In fact, you shouldn’t. No human should ever have dragon blood. They gave it to Roland to save his life, and it worked, but look what’s happened. It’s made everything harder now.”
“But he’s alive. And . . . he’s Roland. We have to help him if we can, don’t we?” She curled herself against my side, clinging to my waist and staring up at me.
But that wasn’t right. Rhiannon wouldn’t—couldn’t—ever bleed for Roland. Because then he wouldn’t be Roland anymore. No, Hafgan was right. We should go. At least we needed time, I needed time, to figure out what was happening in my own mind.