Chapter 12
TAMSYN
SLEEP WAS A BALM.
I briefly cracked my eyes open at the sudden lack of noise, the abrupt absence of wind roaring around me. We were no longer flying. Vetr had landed.
We’d made it to the Crags.
I lifted my gaze, glaring up at him as he carried me, every hard step jarring me, stabbing needles into my screaming nerves … raw, exposed, stripped bloody and bare to the assault of air.
I was so cold. So. Bitterly. Cold.
I didn’t think it possible for my body with its own internal fire to ever feel this way. To tremble and shrink. For every joint to clench and ache, as hollow as an ice cave.
“C-cold,” I spit the word out like a shard of ice.
“I know, Little Flame. We’re almost there.”
Scowling, I nestled closer to his warm, pulsing body that was moving, carrying me swiftly past stone walls.
I clamped my jaw to stop it from clacking, biting down so tightly, my teeth ached to their very sockets.
It was a bumpy ride. I far preferred flying with all its cold, roaring wind.
I closed my eyes with a whimper, reaching, stretching my hands back toward oblivion.
In sleep, I felt no pain. No loss. No regret. Nothing. There was a great deal to be said for nothingness. If I went deeply enough, descended and sank into the beckoning void, perhaps I wouldn’t feel quite so lost and alone. Not quite so … hurt.
Just before I faded away, I heard Vetr’s voice give the slightest quiver as he added, “You will see. All will be well.”
Even in my state of semiconsciousness, I heard the lie.
TIME DID NOT exist. It hung, suspended like a flat wind. Going nowhere. As was I, coiled in the darkness like a serpent dozing, insensible, gathering its strength (or not), waiting for life or death to decide my fate.
Waiting forever.
Waiting for never.
The smallest, thinnest thread of life made its way to me. Found me in my shroud. The familiar voice whispered from far away, a distant tickle in my ear, slipping beneath my tight, chilled skin.
Tamsyn.
The deep voice found me teetering at the edge of the void, where nothing lived.
Come to me. I’m here. I need you, Tamsyn.
I turned from the edge, seeking, peering, reaching for him …
He came for me through the darkness like a snarling, ravenous wolf. Sharp teeth sank hungrily, greedily into me and didn’t let go.
I let out a cry as I descended deeper into the void with him.
I WAS FAR past fear. Fear of pain. Fear of death. Far past everything, but I felt it. I tasted it—a fear that was not mine. Sour and suffocating. Sharp on my skin as a well-honed blade. Grinding as rock on bone.
It moved over me like a sickness, hopping and jumping against all my pulse points where my blood chugged, cold as ice, bumping weakly, sleepily beneath my flesh.
It called out, beckoning me to reach for him, to embrace him, the one with the whispering pleas … to save him, this unknown other … when I couldn’t even save myself.
I dove through the bone-grinding pain, through this fetid fear … for him.
For him, I reached and tried to hold on.
I JOLTED AWAKE with a gasp, noticing immediately that I was no longer so cold. Wind did not roar around me. There was no dragon heart beating in my ear. I was cozy and warm, and I did not reek of blood.
Oh, and I wasn’t dead.
Then I remembered: Vetr flying us through howling wind and sky. Vetr carrying me through a tunnel. My deep sleep with its strangely vivid dreams.
I was back. In the Crags. In the pride.
I didn’t know how long I slept. An hour. A week. A year. It was all the same. Time lost.
I stared blindly up into the murk. A candle flickered somewhere nearby, casting dancing shadows on the bejeweled walls of the den.
So many gemstones. All manner of size and shape and color.
The glow from the single candle struck the jewels and projected myriad colors, splashing a rainbow of light all over the space.
I knew this place. I was in the infirmary. Every den in the pride was decked out in gemstones, but no space as much as the infirmary. It only made sense, as gems helped nourish a dragon, sustaining as well as growing our wide-ranging talents.
I flexed my fingers, finding them laced over my stomach, atop a blanket of fur. I turned my head to look around me, realizing I was in bed … on my back.
I took a careful, bracing breath, waiting for the blazing pain to slide in and resume its feeding on me.
Nothing.
I thrummed my fingers through the soft fur, allowing myself the slightest movement as I waited.
Still, I felt no pain.
Cautiously, I shifted, growing bolder with my movements as it became apparent that my back did not hurt. Rolling my shoulders, I became aware of only a lingering soreness.
I was alive. And I was healed.
I opened my mouth to speak, to call out, but only a croak of sound emerged.
Suddenly Brenna loomed over me, her face filling my vision. “Well, hello there. Welcome back.”
I tried again to speak, with obvious difficulty.
Brenna moved and returned with a glass of water. Sliding a hand beneath my head, she lifted me up for a sip, and I gasped.
“Oh, that hurts,” I croaked, my fingers fluttering to my side.
She nodded. “You broke a rib.”
I did not break my rib. Stig broke my rib, cracking me asunder like I was nothing more than a hard-shelled hazelnut to him. Not anyone he had ever loved or called friend. Not a life at all. He was all that was dark and corrupt in this world—bad for humans, bad for dragons, bad for all things magic.
“I’ve wrapped you tightly.” She placed a hand lightly to my side to indicate where the bindings circled my torso.
“But a broken rib is slow to heal, especially when done by dragon weaponry.” She made a grunt of displeasure.
“Dragon weaponry. The great equalizer. Curse the day humans ever realized how to use our own bodies against us.”
“How did that come to pass?” I murmured.
“Witches.” She spat the word. “They came into this world knowing things, and then they told those things to humans.” She rolled her eyes.
“And look how well that served them. It should not be this way. Humans felling dragons. It’s unnatural.
” With a disgusted shake of her head, she brought the cup to my lips again. “Go on. Drink.”
I gave a slight nod of thanks and sipped.
“There you go,” she clucked, and I realized the water was faintly laced with verdaberry and other herbs.
“Glad to see you doing this on your own. It took a great deal of time and patience to drip water and tinctures into your mouth each day to make sure you were getting your fluids and the medicine you needed.”
“Thank you for that,” I murmured, my voice coming out easier.
“Oh, it wasn’t me.”
I stared at her blankly. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, well, I prepared everything, but it was Vetr. He hardly ever left your side, unless there was pressing business—like what takes him away now. He’s been here almost every moment of every day, making sure you have everything you needed.
Talking to you. Encouraging you to wake.
That helps, you know. The healing nature of the svefn can be almost too …
comforting, too beguiling. Some never want to emerge from it.
I’ve seen people with far less severe injuries never wake up. ”
My brain was still a fog. I pressed my fingers to my temples.
Nothing she said made sense. She couldn’t mean to say that Vetr had sat at my bedside nursing me, but that’s what it sounded like.
Why would someone who had allowed me to be whipped near to death then go out of his way to bring me back from the brink?
Talking to you. Encouraging you to wake.
The voice I heard. The deep whisper. And the fetid fear I had tasted. It must have been Vetr. Vetr coaxing me to wake. Vetr’s fear that I would not.
“How—” I paused to lick at my dry lips. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it sleeping.”
I pressed fingers to the center of my head, pushing there against smooth skin, confused and still suffering from a dull, persistent ache at the front of my skull. “What would you call it?”
“It’s called the svefn,” she explained without explaining anything, really.
“The svefn?”
“Yes, it’s like”—she angled her head thoughtfully—“a deep healing slumber. Dragons have been doing it for centuries. When the body, or even the mind, is so broken, we fall into a deep healing rest. Almost like a state of hibernation. Little food or drink is even needed, but if consumed, it can certainly help aid in recovery. It’s a way to mend, but it takes time. ”
Time. I felt a trickle of unease. “How long was I lost to this … svefn?”
“Hmm. A little over six weeks.”
I gasped. Six weeks? “And Vetr … stayed with me that whole time?” Unbelievable. Why would he do that? Why would he devote so much of his time to my recovery?
She motioned to another bed of furs. “He spent every night since he brought you home right there.”
I propped myself up on an elbow to better observe the bed and a small side table, which seemed to hold an assortment of personal effects.
A comb. Hair ties. A mug. A book. A folded-up map.
Parchment and quill. All items that presumably belonged to Vetr.
The effort to prop myself up brought a wave of dizziness, and I made a small sound of distress.
“Careful now.” Brenna pushed me back down. “It’s going to be a while before you’re up and running about as before. The effects of svefn can’t just be shaken off in an instant. And that rib will certainly slow you down.”
I fell back on the pillow. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“What confuses you?” She studied me with a growing smile, twin dimples denting her dark cheeks. “How svefn works? Or Vetr … staying so devotedly by your side?”
My face burned, and I dropped an arm over my eyes. “N-no. He’s the alpha. Of course he would feel responsible for me. He would do anything for anyone he took on a rekon who was so injured.”