Chapter 26 Aderyn
ADERYN
The woman whose house we had found—Carys—was a widow, and her home had not one, but two unused rooms, as she had once had a very large family.
Roland, being Roland, was all set to be offended on her behalf, that with so many children, she was alone, but she assured us that her children visited often, they had simply left and married, one by one, and now had their own families and lives.
Roland still grumbled a bit, I imagined thinking of Tris and Bet, and how he still lived with them and saw them across the breakfast table every day. Fortunately, he didn’t need to be reminded that as king, he was in a somewhat different situation than farmers.
So he explained what had happened to her. The Destovians, their kidnapping, and how I’d flown to their boat in the middle of the ocean and taken him back.
It was still odd to me, after so many years of living in Llangard among a people who had been ready to forgive dragons for their ancient feud, to have someone look at me with awe for . . . well, for simply being a dragon.
“You managed to find the boat with the king on it, in the whole of the ocean,” she said, her voice soft and eyes wide as she stared at me.
Truth was, I hadn’t thought all that much about that.
I’d been told which direction to go, and I had gone.
After that, well . . . I didn’t know how, in all the ocean, I had managed to find the tiny stretch of water Roland had been on.
I hadn’t even thought about not being able to find him, simply known that I was going to get him, and I would find him.
I ducked my head and shrugged. “I had to. He’s . . . he’s Roland.”
Roland himself was looking miserable; pale and sweaty, leaning against me with most of his weight, as though his own body was simply too much to deal with anymore.
I knew what it was. I’d seen the men Vidar had given blood, when they weren’t allowed it.
It was much like people who drank too much and stopped drinking suddenly—nausea, sweating, listlessness, and sometimes even worse things.
I’d never seen anyone die for want of dragon blood as they occasionally did drink, but that didn’t mean the situation wasn’t miserable.
She looked him over, frowning, clearly unaware of the issue, because who could possibly know it?
Still, she was kind, and immediately set to making him a cup of tea to try to help.
“Sometimes you find what you’re meant to,” she said, conviction in her voice.
“Maybe it’s not magic proper, but it feels like it.
Maybe . . . maybe the whole world has just a bit of magic.
Two of my sons fought at Windy Pass, you know.
One of them was wounded grievously, and couldn’t make it out.
Shattered leg, trampled by a horse. The other found him on his way away from the battle, and carried him.
If not for both of them being there, he’d have died that day. ”
As I did too often, I thought back to that day in the pass.
It had been loud and chaotic and terrifying, and I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to find a specific person if I’d been searching for them, let alone accidentally run across them.
There had been thousands of men, women, and monsters in the pass.
“That’s incredible,” I told her. “The only reason I even recognized Roland that day was because he shines like the sun. Everyone else was so covered in mud, it was a wonder they recognized who was on which side, let alone singular people.”
Roland gave a tiny chuckle, shaking his head without lifting it from my shoulder. “Well, that, and you and I were the only children on the battlefield.”
The woman huffed and sighed, setting his tea in front of him. “Awful, them bringing you to a battle as children. Bad enough adults choose war, bringing children into it is unforgivable.”
Technically, Roland hadn’t been brought into the fight.
He’d chosen to go. He’d gone looking for me because he had promised to free me, and that day on the battlefield, he had found me.
He had killed the monster who had raised me and held me prisoner, and taken me away, into a life I couldn’t have imagined growing up inside a cage.
Anyone who wondered why Roland was everything to me, well . . . they couldn’t know that. Know him.
By the time Roland finished drinking his tea, he was about to fall asleep, and the woman had to help me lug him into an extra bedroom and tuck him into the bed there.
“Plenty of room for both of you in this one, I figured,” she told me as I spread the blanket over him. “Unless you want the other, but that’s up to you.”
She expected us to share, and she . . .
“You don’t think he should marry a woman and have children?”
She scoffed and waved a hand. “Boy’s been through enough, even for a king. Given up his whole childhood for us. Eventually he should have something he actually wants in life, don’t you think?”
I did, but I hadn’t expected her to agree with that. “He’s got them cousins,” she added as we left Roland to sleep. “And even if he didn’t, I only birthed half my own children. Family is about more than that. Maybe you can’t see it the same, but love matters more than blood.”
And that was that.
I helped her set a stew cooking over the fire for the next day, and then we cleaned the kitchen together. “I’ll go into town in the morning and see if I can’t get some flour, so we can make bread,” she told me as she headed into her own room for the night. “You sleep well, king’s dragon.”
And I did, because for the first time in my life, being called dragon hadn’t been the least bit derogatory or ugly. It had simply been, because it was who I was. I was Roland Cavendish’s dragon, forever.