Chapter 55 Make Up Your Mind
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
MAKE UP YOUR MIND
ADELINE
We’re standing outside the library, on the rock shelf overlooking the city. I have the griffin egg resting against my side, inside a sling I made from a piece of cloth, and Roane lifts a hand and whistles for his phoenix.
How bad is it that I can’t look away from him? Even weary as he surely is, he looks regal standing there in his dirty leathers, his long hair in a messy knot, his pointy ears peeking out, the golden stud winking in his earlobe.
When the firebird appears and his mouth pulls into a feral grin, he looks unreal, like an old god walking the earth.
Olm sighs. “You are so ridiculous.”
“You’re right.” I deliberately look away from Roane. “This is foolish. I don’t want to see his stupid face ever again.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Then the firebird flies down and I gulp, annoyance forgotten in the face of this fiery monster bird. I’d managed not to think too hard about how Roane had ridden on it to save me and how it had burned as we’d flown from the griffin’s nest down to the ground.
Simu flaps his wings, raining sparks down on us, and lets out an ear-splitting screech. His underbelly is golden and the wings crimson. He looks like a living flame as he lands in front of us. Smoke plumes from his beak.
“Simu!” Roane ambles toward the flaming bird as if he doesn’t mind touching fire. He doesn’t flinch when he places his hand on the bird’s foreleg. “You came.”
The phoenix lowers his neck and Roane swings himself on top, scooting backward. Then he reaches a hand down for me.
Wiping my hands on my leather pants, swallowing past a lump of fear in my throat, I approach and take his hand, letting him haul me up.
How can I be scared of this when I’m about to confront an angry mamma griffin?
Hissing at the heat lapping over my body, I grab the long feathers on the griffin’s neck and suddenly I’m in Roane’s lap.
I dig an elbow into his ribs and he hisses a curse while pulling me more firmly between his legs.
“What are you doing?” I snap.
“Getting us ready to take off. Stop… elbowing me. Fuck! Stop moving.”
And now his arms are around me, caging me, and I want to fight but his scent is like a warm blanket, his chest at my back a wall I can lean on. I want to fight him just to show I can, but even my body betrays me.
“All right?” His voice is a distant thunder, rumbling at my back. “Got the egg?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure about doing this?”
A laugh escapes me. “You’re the one who wants me gone from here. Make up your mind.”
“Maybe there is another way,” he argues. “Someone else might know—”
“Roane.”
After a beat of silence, he asks, “Do griffins even talk?”
“In the stories, they can.”
“Then why didn’t it say anything when we were in its nest?”
“Have you considered,” I muse, “that it may think us stupid, slow creatures incapable of coherent thought and speech?”
Roane huffs, his breath warm on my neck. “I have an idea. Threaten to turn it into a nightingale. That should get the creature to talk. Nobody is safe here with you.”
“Nobody is safe with me?” I blink in disbelief. “The hells, Roane. Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on turning Ardruna and Talton into something else. I don’t even know their story, so it’s a moot point.”
He’s silent for a few beats. “I hadn’t thought of the possibility. It is concerning, though, now you mention it.”
“Screw you, Roane.”
Another huff which could be laughter. “So prickly.”
“And you’re an asshole, so what did you expect?”
Silence stretches.
Then he says, “You’re right. Every decision we make comes back to haunt us and mine are the worst. Simu, let’s fly.”
That wasn’t an apology in any sense of the word, and I clamp my jaw not to say anything else as the phoenix gets off the ground and flaps his wings, sending sparks and flames flying. Roane won’t give me an apology because he truly wants me gone and after that, he won’t have to see me ever again.
Because this is who he is. The open laughter, the boyish smiles, the funny banter, the sexy smoldering looks, they may be real. Not a facade but facets of him, yet they aren’t who he is inside.
You have to study a person over time, watch them on dangerous, depressing and happy occasions, in all circumstances, to decide if they deserve a place in your heart. It takes time to figure out what is at the center of them, what drives and defines them.
What defines Roane? Hard to tell. Bitterness. Some anger. Some sorrow. But what is the thorn? Where is the wound? Which is the cause?
Again, you’re treating him like a riddle. People are more complex than that.
And yet… at the core of every one of us there is a thorn, a wound, big or small, directing our actions.
No more time to consider that, though, as Simu takes flight.
The ground falls from under us just as my stomach drops to my feet.
I bow over, instinctively burying my fingers into the fine plumage on the phoenix’s neck and yelp at the heat.
I cling on anyway, with Roane sliding an arm around my middle as we rise into the air.
My hair whips around my face, lashes my cheeks and gets into my mouth.
I’m forced to lean back against Roane as we spiral upward.
Was it like this last time we flew together?
Feeling every ridge of his muscular chest, every shift in his biceps as his arm tightens around me, feeling an exhilaration that is completely out of place, considering the madness of what we’re about to do?
The phoenix flaps his wings again. Below us sprawls this world made of tales, this impossible universe contained inside a gigantic cavern with its snow-capped mountains and forests, the plains and the city at its center. Herds gallop underneath us. Flocks fly away from us.
A lone griffin flies overhead, that characteristic chimeric body catching my attention. It snaps around when it notices us and screeches—a warning to his kind, no doubt. Or a warning to us.
On cue, griffins spill out of numerous holes in the cavern walls, screeching back. They unfold their wings and descend on us.
Shit. Liberating the egg from its sling, I lift it up. “Don’t attack! Please, don’t attack!”
One by one, the griffins fall silent. I had hoped for a reaction, but nothing this sudden and absolute.
Then a long, piercing cry fills the air, and another griffin flies out of a hole in the rock. It hovers there, wings flapping, then it flies around us. Once. Twice.
“It’s you,” I breathe. “You’re the mother. Speak to me.”
The griffin returns to hovering in front of us, flapping her huge wings. “You don’t get to order me about,” she says, her voice something between a whistle and a wail, “you nasty thief. Are you prepared to die?”