Chapter 10
ten
I’d been pacing for close to an hour when Aelen’s knock came at the door. Though I had pleaded with him to take me during the day, he outright refused, telling me we couldn’t train until nightfall.
My stomach knotted with anticipation as I darted to the door, nearly ripping it from the hinges.
He was wearing his usual leathers, but now with the addition of many different sized blades sheathed at his side, and pursed lips. With his straightened spine and hands lingering on the hilts, I briefly wondered if he’d come here to kill me.
“It took you long enough,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “I had a previous engagement.”
My stomach twisted, thinking about what that engagement was—or what her name was. I brushed away the thought just as quickly. Whatever—or whoever he did in his free time was of no concern to me. He was nothing but a bastard.
“Are you ready to help me train?” I was beyond ready, and even bore the horrible crystal he forced on me. I wouldn’t put it on, but I kept it. As instructed.
He shifted uneasily, furrowing his brow. “I was thinking instead we should work on learning basic body language, and simple words in the ancient tongue. Dragons cannot speak, but they can certainly understand when spoken to. In the correct language.”
What? He wanted to teach me language and movements? “I don’t think so.” I pushed past him, but he caught me by the arm.
“This is a bad idea.”
“Why?”
His lips twitched but quickly settled his features. “Dragons are dangerous creatures, and you reek of their enemy. Respect will be hard won, and I cannot guarantee your safety.”
Fire blazed across my chest. Only yesterday, he had performed a show to remind me just how easy it would be to kill me. Now he pretended like he cared. “Fine, then stay here and moan in the cottage, while I go speak to the dragons.”
Before he could stop me, I hurried into the forest, the lantern swaying with my bounding.
He was hot on my heels, like I knew he would be, and ran ahead to guide me. I held up my pact-written palm to hide my smile.
The stables held a different air than usual, and he led me past many sliding doors before finally stopping. A young, metallic dragonling bared his teeth once I moved past the threshold. I almost jumped back, but Aelen nudged me in the spine.
“This one is unbonded.”
When I stepped closer, he shook his chains, and the metal cried from the sudden force. He snapped a few times, but settled on inhaling deeply, sucking in his chest like he might blow fire.
“Enough,” Aelen snapped. The dragon shuddered and then bowed his head. Angry steam simmered from his nostrils, but he didn’t cast any runes.
“He listens to you.”
“I’ve earned their respect. Something you’ll have to do as well, but you don’t have centuries to make it happen. The dragonling will have to choose you, and you’ll have to form a bond. Otherwise, at minimum he won’t listen to a damn thing you say. At worst, he’ll try to kill you.”
Another step closer, and the dragon snapped his head up, following my every move. Every inch closer set him on edge, and he snarled.
“How am I supposed to get one to bond with me?”
“You’re not. You reek of the enemy. If the dragonling can move past that, they can see your soul. They’re borne of the very thing that created your essence, and can feel what’s written there. You’d better hope it’s good.”
I mused on his words, but never looked away from the snapping serpent. The longer I stared, the more I realized it wouldn’t work. I’d have to train a dragonling, but it couldn’t be this one. This one would eat me if those chains were loosed even a little.
“Not this one,” I said without looking at Aelen. “He doesn’t choose me.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m glad you came to that conclusion, as well. There’s plenty more unbonded.”
We went from stable to stable as the moons traced their way across the sky, but all the dragonlings had much of the same reaction.
But their variance of color surprised me.
I thought they all were shades of silver, but the more stables I entered, the more their palette came alive.
A golden-flecked serpent rejected me, along with one closest to amethyst. All glimmered under the lantern light, but were never the same tone.
An array of colorful scales that all said the same thing: leave or die.
I ran my numb fingers along my leathers. “Are you certain this will work?”
Aelen pulled open another set of opposing stable doors. “Whatever gave you the impression I thought this would work? I’m here to make sure you don’t end up a bloody smear along the floor.”
A similarly terrifying, ebony-scaled dragon was shackled at the back.
His scales gleamed like liquid midnight as he growled at me, but the noise didn’t come from his mouth.
Instead, it rumbled from his broad chest. This one was larger than any of the previous dragonlings, and would take more than my arm—yet it wasn’t quite as large as Numen.
The most shocking thing wasn’t his scales.
It was his volcanic eyes. The wide, accusing orbs flicked across me in vermilion, the color of devastating wildfires.
A scarlet liquid that burned through me.
When I dared to take a single step into the stable, he rose, baring his raven belly and opened his maw enough to reveal his dripping alabaster teeth.
Ones that would gnash through me like butter.
Another step forward, and his long tail whipped against the wall, crashing and cracking many wooden crates. I thought he might snap the stable’s thick beams.
If the others didn’t like me, he hated me.
“This dragon will kill me.”
Aelen pushed me in and shut the doors behind us. When they snapped shut, my skin crawled, and my gut ached to leave. “Intuitive of you to know he’s not quite a dragonling.”
“Is that why he’s so large?” I asked, keeping my palms raised, as if that would do any good against the beast. “He’s a little older than them?”
“More than a little, think centuries. Something happened some lifetimes ago that stunted him.”
“Why?” I asked, pressing my heels in despite Aelen’s urging hands at the small of my back.
“I’m uncertain. The only one that can speak to the dragons is our leader. According to him, even this one won’t utter a word.” He shifted uneasily, and his hands moved to my hips.
Yet the dragon’s fiery irises never shifted from me. The closer I inched, the more he stirred, with his lengthy talons scraping against the wooden boards, steam pouring from his nostrils.
My hackles rose. He wouldn’t murder me within Aelen’s sights, but he clearly couldn’t stand me. We could’ve kept going, but we would eventually run out of options. I couldn’t keep running.
“I don’t think he likes you,” Aelen mused at my shoulder. His fingers tightened around my waist, but I didn’t bother to move them. His touch was the only comfort here to remind me I wouldn’t die.
“Is he looking at my soul?”
“I would assume so.”
The dragon blinked, the color of his iris shifted and swayed, like crimson liquid. Like blood.
The haunted image of blood dripping down the dais flashed in my mind.
Of Deldren’s head, clear as the day they severed it.
I slammed my lids shut and attempted to shift away the image, but it stayed.
It stayed and stayed until I pressed my nails into my palm.
It would not leave, and it would not relent.
I fought bitterly, but the tears trickled down my cheeks despite me.
The dragon retreated a step, his tail thundering against the stable like a resounding gong. The sound was hollow, like me.
I inhaled, finally pressing past the pain and the visceral, haunting memory. But something within the dragon had shifted, and the wafts of steam switched from an overboiling kettle to smoke stacks.
“What in the world…” Aelen whispered.
I took another cautious step and the dragon retreated again, but it wasn’t anger that swirled in those crimson eyes—it was something else. Some recognition, some knowing.
I couldn’t see the ceiling any longer, now doused in a thick layer of stream, which still didn’t cease.
I blotted away the wetness that violated my cheeks. “Why is he doing that?”
“I’ve no idea.”
I spun over my shoulder, but Aelen’s grip tightened, not letting me move an inch, and his gaze never left the beast before us.
“You should leave. Unpredictability in them is dangerous. We form relationships, which are based on trust, but prior to that we follow body language and instinct. Right now, I have no idea what he’s saying.”
But I inched forward anyway. A growl reverberated across his chest, rumbling up through my feet, but I pressed on, holding out a hand. Aelen laid an arm across my chest and let the other graze my cheek. “Get back.”
“No.” I tried to press ahead, but he refused to let me budge.
“Your safety is imperative—integral to me. I don’t think you should continue to corner him. A cornered dragon is dangerous. Do you trust me?”
“No,” I repeated, but didn’t believe myself.
Aelen was secretive and hiding things—and still never told me why I saw him outside the Gelded Eye.
Yet I knew he wouldn’t shove me into the ravenous maw of a dragon.
After all, all he would have to do was push me a little. And here he was, tugging me back.
His gloved finger traced across my cheek, and it flared a heat between my legs, but I focused on the dragon. I tried to move, but Aelen held me against him, the warmth between us radiating. His lips caressed my ear as he whispered, “Please.”
My breath hitched, but I shoved forward despite it, forcing myself from his grip. Still, his hands never left me, lingering on my sides. “I have to do this.” It didn’t matter how terrified I was to encroach on the unsettled dragon. Or how much my hackles raised, or how clammy my palms got.