Chapter 18
AMEIRAH
In my dream, I was falling, plummeting through the stars themselves, grasping for their burning silver cores as if catching one in my palm would stop the fatal fall.
Light blurred past me as I fell like a star itself, tumbling out of the midnight sky towards a walled city of golden rooftops and olive trees whose leaves were silvered by the moon.
The ground neared at a deadly speed, and I knew my body would break upon the tiled stones.
A sob ripped the last bit of air from my lungs when I saw it was the square Mak loved whose stones glittered.
I would die at home in the Red Star. It brought me a strange wash of peace, and I let my eyes close, not wanting to see my demise as it raced towards me.
A defiant screech made my heart surge into my throat, eyes that were already streaming now hot with tears. Makrukh. That was Makrukh, and if Mak was here—
I slammed into his warm, scaled hide exactly as I did when I fell from Raheema’s back, and arms clasped around me, as unyielding and desperate as they’d been then.
“Can you please, for the sake of my weak heart, stop falling from the damned sky, menace?”
I panted through clenched teeth, my gaze streaked with tears as I opened my eyes.
Varidian pulled me to his chest, seating me on Mak’s back within the circle of his arms. His body was like a furnace to my chilled skin, his solidity a balm to my trembling limbs.
I turned my head and buried my face in his chest, my gasping breaths giving way to stunted, wretched sobs.
“I’ve got you,” he promised, brushing hair from my wet cheeks. “I’ve got you, dearling. You’re safe.”
The words were a direct hit to my soul, and I shook harder, like I needed the promise and comfort more now than ever. Yet, my mind was blank, the memories of what happened before I fell from the sky a black hole.
“I can’t remember,” I rasped, my voice hoarse from screaming as I fell from the sky. But I’d been screaming before that… hadn’t I?
“Mak, take us down,” Varidian called, his hand moulding to the back of my head as his wyvern snapped out pearly wings and we soared towards a part of the square where the trees cleared to allow landing.
Varidian dismounted and I slid down the leg Mak extended for me in a haze, my head swimming, breathing a wreck. Varidian’s hands bracketed my waist as he pulled me under a covered walkway between a paper factory and a bookbinder, enfolding the warmth and safety of his arms around me.
And like a dam burst, the sobs I’d been holding back poured free, shaking my whole body.
He held me through every cry, every gasp. His fingers ran through my hair and traced reassuring patterns down my back, kisses arching over my head like a crown.
“Can’t remember what, dearling?” he asked when I regained control of my breathing.
“What happened before I started falling? I don’t know where I fell from.”
“It’s a dream,” he said gently. “This isn’t real, Ameirah.”
“I know.” I clasped my arms around his waist, buried my face in his leathers, and filled my senses with the amber and oud scent I’d missed so dearly. “I know it’s a dream but—I’m afraid, Varidian. I’m so afraid, and I can’t remember why.”
His arms tightened, a low growl shaking his chest. “I’m coming to get you from the capital. I’ll tell Kamaal to get you out.”
Kamaal. The name plucked a string of memory, but I couldn’t access the full thought. “I think something bad happened,” I whispered. “Dread is crushing my chest, making it hard to breathe, and I think—I think I’m in danger. I think I should have left a long time ago.”
“I thought you’d be safer there,” Varidian said in half a growl, his arms so tight they hurt, not that I complained. “I thought you’d be beyond the threat of those wyverns and their dark riders. I’m getting you out, right the hell now.”
His arms loosened but I tightened mine, refusing to relinquish his embrace. The clouds shifted in the dark sky overhead, a moonbeam allowing me to see the crackle of light and rage in his blue eyes.
“Stay,” I breathed. “As long as the dream will allow you. Stay. Please.”
All the rage drained from him, and he tucked me closer, his chin on the top of my head. “Tell me everything that happened since you arrived in Morysen,” he asked, emotion adding gravel to his voice.
So I did, recounting everything from Kamaal’s training sessions to Mihrunnisa teaching me to fly, to the duel between Raheema and Muhannad. Varidian’s jaw clenched so hard at that, I feared he’d snap off teeth.
“I’ll kill him,” he seethed.
“You can’t kill the king. He’s the king.”
“All power must end.”
I peered up at him, his wrathful face, the mouth set in a harsh line, brows low over eyes that promised death. “You’d make yourself king?”
“Fuck no,” he said on an exhale. “Although,” he added, drawing back to give me a sultry look. “I would very happily serve you as my queen.”
“I would be an awful queen,” I said with a low laugh. “I’d hold grudges for years and forgive nobody for a single slight said against me, you, or our family.”
“Oh, I like that.” He smiled, face angled down to mine. “Our family.”
I planned to reply, but Varidian was already kissing me.
The heat of him engulfed me as he crowded me back against the wall of the passage, his mouth pressing reverent kisses to my upper lip, my bottom lip, the curve of my smile, the dip under my mouth.
Adoring kisses that nevertheless teased me until I snapped, sinking my fingers into his hair and gripping strands so I could angle his face to steal a deeper taste—
My hands closed around air, and a gasp escaped, followed by a low growl of frustration and grief. This was twice he’d been stolen from my dreams, and as much as I told myself he was fine, he’d simply awoken… the feeling that he was gone forever lingered.
The dread that had tightened my chest choked off all air entirely, startling me out of the alley, out of the square, out of the Red Star—and I awoke in a dungeon cell, cold burning through my leathers.