Chapter 20 Aderyn
ADERYN
Roland kept apologizing, and then puking, which didn’t seem like a wonderful sign.
He’d never loved boat travel, and I couldn’t blame him—the ground rolling under one’s feet was distinctly uncomfortable.
Much more so than flying could ever be. The air, just like the ground, always reacted as expected.
The ocean? Well, there was something immense and unfathomable about it. Like it might roll in any direction next, or emit a giant sea monster.
Covered with vomit or not, I reached out and wrapped one huge arm around Roland’s middle, pulling him closer to me.
“I’m taking His Majesty home,” I informed the Destovians. “And any negotiations you had happening with Llangard are over. If I see any of you again, I’ll roast you where you stand.”
“If you take him, we’ll kill you,” the arrogant lord from the dinner informed me, placid as though we were standing there discussing that very dinner. “Shoot you out of the sky.”
Dragons couldn’t exactly raise eyebrows at big arrogant jerks, but it was easy enough to look at the ballista I’d landed on, cocking my head.
“With this?” Pulling Roland tighter against me, I hopped down off of it, and then shot a gout of flame at the wooden center mass of the thing. Not enough to catch the whole deck aflame, but enough that they were going to have to work to put it out.
Especially since right now, they were too frightened of me to move to put it out right away.
He clenched his jaw, glaring at me as though he wished that he, too, could light things aflame with his breath. Namely, me.
“We have bowmen as well,” he insisted. “Unless you plan to murder all of us?”
“I’m not the criminal here,” I pointed out. “You kidnapped our king, and attacked me with that contraption. I am retrieving him, and stopped you from murdering me.”
As for their archers, I wouldn’t let him know, but I wasn’t terribly worried. It was hard enough to shoot a dragon in flight, but also, my skin was thicker than most people seemed to realize.
No, I was much more worried about the fact that I hadn’t slept in two days, and after we left the ship, we still had hours of flying to get back to the shore of Llangard.
I had to do it; there wasn’t a choice. But also, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it.
“He shouldn’t be making enemies, should he?” the man prodded me, much like the man in the corridor had pressed me about Roland needing a wife. “You shouldn’t be making enemies on behalf of Llangard. You creatures still live in the mountains. Away from humans, where you belong.”
“Aderyn will live wherever he wants,” Roland said, almost growling. “None of you have a say in that. In anything to do with Llangard, ever. We are not interested in an alliance with a country who kidnaps their allies.”
“You’re being short-sighted, Your M—”
Roland, unsteady as he was, lashed out with a hand, slashing at the air, glaring at the man.
He also almost tipped over and I had to catch him, which I thought took a little away from the display, but the Destovians all stepped back, so maybe I was wrong.
It was hard to think of Roland as intimidating, because . . . well, he was Roland.
He’d never been a single thing other than Roland to me.
My first friend. My best friend. My protector.
My everything.
But never scary. Not even when he needed to drink dragon blood because of his uncle’s machinations and poison. Much less scary when he was unsteady on his feet because he had been throwing up.
He stood there, though, looking shockingly kingly for a man who could barely stand up and had an unsightly dribble down his chest. “Aderyn is right. Llangard will never ally with a country who would kidnap any one of our people. Pressing me into a marriage with the heir to your throne was a ridiculous plan, and it was never going to work.”
Pressing him into . . . I breathed out hard, and smoke curled across the deck of the ship. Again, the Destovians stepped back, eyes darting nervously between me and Roland.
“Llangardians marry for love,” he insisted, and he almost sounded drunk to my ears. But . . . he wasn’t wrong. It hadn’t always been true. Lady Elinor had told us dozens of stories that had only just happened before our time, of arranged marriages and forced marriages.
It was only with Tris and Bet that marriage for love became, well .
. . stylish, sort of. And with that turn in style, everyone in the country had emulated them, because Tris was practically King of Llangard at the time, and Bet was .
. . dashing? It was odd to think of him as a figure of romance all through Llangard, but he was.
The dark half-elf, shadow behind the throne, protector of Tristram and Roland.
Everyone wanted to have their own dragontale of forbidden love between assassin and knight, who had both changed and saved an entire country to be together. Well, and because it had been necessary.
Either way, it was what everyone wanted.
Love.
And me? Well, I wanted it too. Because I loved Roland, and if he did marry a foreign princess, that dream would be over.
But there he was, telling them that he wanted the same thing: love.
It gave me hope, because I loved him. He had always seemed to love me. Maybe . . . but I couldn’t let myself get distracted by all that there and then. I was in the middle of a bunch of enemies, and I needed to get Roland and get away.
“Get on me,” I whispered to him. Dragons can’t really whisper, though. We’re very large, and even the smallest attempt at speech tends to turn out a gust of wind.
He looked up at me, then at my neck, and winced. “I might . . . I’m pretty sick.”
I rolled my eyes, because there honestly wasn’t anything I cared less about in that moment. Our lives were in danger, and he was worried about messiness. “If you have to be sick, be sick. Just don’t lose hold of me.”
He met my eye, and there was the Roland I loved entirely. That strength I’d always envied and effortless power that had told me that yes, he was precisely the king that Vidar had named him even at age nine.
“Never,” he agreed. “Never again. Not for anything.”
“Your Majesty,” the slimy lord said again, stepping forward. “This should be discussed. It’s quite unreasonable to—”
“Discussion is over,” Roland informed him, hefting himself up to slide onto the back of my neck.
He had to try twice, but he did manage it.
The grip around my neck even felt firm, secure.
“Llangard wants no part of you kidnapping lot. The last people who kidnapped me also attacked Llangard, and were put down. Feel free to join their numbers.”
“But we—”
I loosed a gout of flame in the man’s direction, and when he stopped and stepped back, glaring at me, I could barely hold back a shout.
“You kidnapped our king! I cannot imagine why you think we would ever forgive that. In fact, you should expect that if you ever attempt to return, Llangard’s dragons will greet you with nothing but the flames you deserve. ”
And with that, I leapt, twisting into the winds as Roland clung to my neck, and took wing back in the direction of home, weaving back in forth in the air, just in case the man made good on his threats to shoot arrows at me.