Sloane #3
He yanks my hands and spins my body until my back is against his chest, and he holds my fists captive at my own collarbone. “Not as much as I hate myself, trust me.”
“I don’t,” I seethe and debate headbutting him, but I’m an inch or so shy of his chin, so that maneuver isn’t going to help me.
“For fuck’s sake.” He holds me even tighter, keeping me from moving. “If you want to hit me, ask for a challenge, but I’ve seen you fight, and it’s not going to end well for you.”
“Let. Me. Go.” I bite out each word through gritted teeth.
To my complete and utter surprise, he does.
I stumble forward, then pivot toward him so I don’t give him my back.
Not that he couldn’t have just killed me outright if he’d wanted to.
My chest heaves with exertion, but he just stands there, covered in dirt from our tumble but otherwise completely unfazed.
He didn’t even break a sweat, which feels horrifically unfair.
“Are you done hitting me?” he asks, lifting his brows.
“I haven’t decided.” I roll my left shoulder as it starts to ache. A quick glance tells me I hit something, because there’s a tear in my uniform and that’s definitely blood wetting the fabric.
“I appreciate the candor.” He stares down at me, emotions flickering across his features too fast for me to get a read on what he feels.
“Yes. Violet made it abundantly clear that I am the reason your brother was sent to Athebyne, and I live with that every fucking day. What I won’t live with is you throwing your life away in the middle of Threshing, screaming at a dragon that you don’t want to be a rider. ”
“And that’s why you just broke Codex?” I hurl the accusation like a punch, and given the way his eyes widen, it hits. “Yeah. You interfered.”
“Fuck.” He laces his fingers, then rests them on the top of his head and closes his eyes. A deep breath later, he looks at me again. “At least I have your life to show for it.”
My stomach lurches and I drop my gaze, realizing how close I came to that not being true. I just hurled myself toward a dragon.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
I study the root structure of the tree to my left.
“Look at me,” he orders.
I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Dain Aetos just not only saw me hit my lowest point but saved me from myself. Somehow, it only makes me hate him more.
“Eyes here, Mairi!” he snaps.
My gaze flies to his.
“Feel free to hate me,” he says, his voice softening. “We never have to speak of this again. You can pretend none of this happened if it makes you feel better, but I can’t leave you out here if you’re going to pull a repeat performance of whatever that was. So for the last time, are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right,” I answer truthfully for the first time, letting my anger leech into the words.
“It’s not all right that I had no time to mourn my brother before I was forced to cross the parapet.
It’s not all right that I got thrown into a squad with one of the people responsible for his death, then put under the command of the other.
It’s not all right that I’m here and he isn’t.
It’s not all right that I want nothing to do with wielding, or power, or becoming one of the perfect little weapons this place prides itself on churning out.
It’s not all right that I wasn’t given a godsdamn choice like you were for the simple reason that my parents lost their war and your dad won his. ”
He flinches.
Wingbeats sound above us, and we both look up as a Red Daggertail swoops from the sky.
Thoirt. My heart jolts, and I feel a click deep within my soul, as if something slipped into the broken place and sealed a leaking crack, making life just a fraction more bearable.
She lands in the space where the orange almost took my life, and the ground shudders beneath my feet. Her head swivels toward us, and she growls in Aetos’s direction. She’s strawberry red, with glistening scales, formidable claws, and might just be the most beautiful dragon I’ve ever seen.
“Guessing this one is yours,” Dain says, putting up his hands and looking at me instead of her. “Can I trust that you won’t try to get yourself killed?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He retreats from Thoirt, then turns to walk away once he’s out of her line of sight. “Looks like I need to go report myself for a breach of Codex.”
I can’t find it in my heart to pity him. Not when he’s living while Liam lies buried in Tyrrendor.
“You lost your brother at Resson.” Her voice is sweeter than I imagined a dragon having.
“I did.” I turn to face her fully.
“As did I.” She lowers her head, but it doesn’t feel threatening. “The dragons of my line have long chosen the riders of yours.”
My lips part. She’s a Red Daggertail, just like Deigh was, and she looks remarkably similar to Liam’s figurine. “You’re Deigh’s sister?”
“I am, and just as he chose Liam, I choose you, Sloane Mairi.”
All the fight drains out of me, and without the rage, the anger, I’m left with only the grief, and gods does it feel impassable. The weight of it is too much, too sharp to carry without bleeding out.
“Perhaps by bonding, we will help each other carry that weight. Help each other to heal.” She studies me without judgment, contradicting everything I’ve been taught about her kind.
“I’ve lost everyone,” I whisper, and my throat tries to close. “My parents. My brother. I’m the last living Mairi. How do you heal from that?” If she has the answer, I desperately need it. My eyes prickle.
“Time.” She inches her snout closer. “As the last living Mairi, the daughter of the Rune Master, you must choose to live on.”
“Because my mom was good at runes?” I shrug, but I move toward her. “I don’t want—”
“Power. I know.” She comes within reach of me, then rests her head on the ground. “I have felt every loss you have suffered. I have seen all you have endured and know what it will cost you to conquer what you feel is insurmountable. But you must endure.”
“What good am I to you as a rider if I don’t want to wield?”
“Now.” She eases forward, and I lift my hand to the warm scales between her nostrils. “You don’t want to wield now. I will give you what you have so deeply needed—choice. Only when you’re ready will I channel to you.”
“And if I choose never to?” My breath shudders.
“Then we will be excellent companions,” she says gently. “But I have seen your heart, and I know you will rise from this darkness. You will wield when you are ready, because if you do not, this war will be lost.”
I shake my head. “You’re thinking of Liam. He was the warrior.”
“I am thinking of you. Your brother did not inherit your mother’s gift. You did.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Not yet, but you will.” She pushes against my hand. “For now, you will heal. You will grow. You will learn. And I promise that while you are the last of your line in this moment, you will never be alone again. You will never see a sunrise where I am not waiting for you.”
I lean forward and rest my forehead against her scales, taking in the enormity of what she’s vowed, of what bonding her really means. I’ll have family again.
For the first time in months, my smile doesn’t just reach my eyes, I feel it in every beat of my heart.
“Would you like to fly back to your friends?”
My squadmates.
I lift my head and grin, then nod. “Yes.”
When I settle into her seat and adjust my hold on her pommel, it feels like walking through the gates of Mairghdelle.
I’m home.