Chapter 15
fifteen
Inever stopped thinking about it. The tender touch and the brief kiss. It ruminated in my gut and swirled there for days.
When I wasn’t focused on that, I stared at my palms, trying to make the magic reappear.
After that night, something changed. Whatever happened in the forest made the thing that fluttered beside my heart stronger, angrier, begging to be released.
Every time I sang to myself now, it stirred.
But no matter what I did, or how hard I focused on my palms, I couldn’t recreate that night.
All the while, I’d been trying to get Aelen to take me to the dragons, as I was a little trepidatious to explore the paths by myself. But as expected, he continued his game of tomorrow, while hanging around like a plague.
This morning, when I awoke, Aelen was absent. That, I had expected—what I didn’t, was finding him making a nuisance of himself, bent over the cauldron, cooking.
He’d prepared food before, but I’d never caught him in the act. But unusually, he flashed a sick grin and held something strange.
“What’s that?” I asked, rubbing my tired eyes while clutching my throbbing stomach. The bandages caught on my night garment.
“Breakfast,” he replied, handing me the neon fruit. It was the color of late sunset, and I’d never seen such a thing before. After placing it on the plate, I dug my fork and knife in but was met with a thick rind and raucous laughter from across the table.
I shot him a deadly look, but it did nothing to stop him, and he roared louder.
“What is this?” I mused, inspecting the pool that flooded from it.
“It’s an orange. Here,” he said and grabbed it from my plate. He yanked the fork out and began to peel the rind in chunks. When he returned it to me, it had lost practically a third of its circumference.
“The trees don’t fruit until after the ceremony.
I was lucky to get one. They require heat and frost to ripen.
” He forced a smile, but a hollow look clung to his features.
The same haunted look from the ritual. It had only worsened since my accident.
With his residual solemnness, I’d done my best to be patient.
But that wore thin, alongside my health.
Each day brought more time spent with the chamber pot—and I’d started to see the hints of blood.
I needed to force the issue.
“Is this meant as some delicious distraction from my training?” I asked, nibbling it, while a sweet and stringent taste flooded my mouth. I tried desperately to stop the instinctual smile, but failed miserably.
“So you admit it’s delicious?” he said, resting his chin on his palm. “I’m glad you enjoy it.”
My cheeks flushed, but I brushed that away and held up the remaining orange before them—a fruitless attempt at hiding it—and tried to steer him back to the issue at hand.
“I've lapsed too long in my training. I’m getting sicker.”
“I've told you time and time again, those beasts are dangerous.” His mouth twitched as he gripped the table’s edge.
“No more dangerous than the pact that’s sapping away my life,” I snapped. “I need your help. I know a little, but it’s not enough. I’m right at the edge, the cusp of figuring him out, and you swore we'd train tomorrow—that was days ago!”
His grip tightened, and he slammed his fist against the table, rattling the dishes. “You underestimate their power, and that dragon will not bond. You’re going to get yourself killed!”
“I’m going to die, one way or another! I have no options. I promised you I wouldn’t go without you, and I’ve made good on that. But if you won’t take me, I’m left no choice,” I shouted.
He gritted his teeth and crossed his arms. Then he rapped a lone finger on the table, driving it through the quiet. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Aelen—”
He held up a finger to silence me. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The quiet hung around us like a miasma, noxious. An overdrawn thread waiting to snap.
“Fine," he snarled, making me jump. "If only to keep you from the forest at night.” The shadows stretched across the back wall, and I shivered.
Before I could rise, he beat me to it and started to the door, lingering before it. “I tried to do one pleasant thing for you, and this is how you repay me.”
“You act like I’m doing this on purpose. I’m doing it because my life depends on it. We have the same goal!”
He slammed his fist against the wall. “Because you’ve forced my hand! I give you a gift, and you corner me. Typical human behavior. You’re trading a slow death for a brief one. There’s no escaping a dragon’s jaws.”
“It can’t be worse than being around an I’phri—the monsters of Eltide.”
His nostrils flared as he ripped the door open. “I’ve had enough. I’ll see you this evening.”
Then he slammed it, cracking the wood along the edges.
I jumped, then loosed a sigh.
Shit.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but my heart never stopped thundering. What I did know was that I wanted the sweet release of a drink. The numbness it would bring, and the comfort of a round or two of cards.
Anything to take this off my mind.
If I were lucky, maybe I’d get some information too. Either way, it was time to seek out the I’phri from the tavern. They’d have to be in the stables somewhere.
I tightened my grip around the amulet before slipping it beneath my jack. Knowing what their stakes were, I brought a betting item. I ran my finger down the bumpy peel of the other orange Aelen had stashed away. My heart clenched at the thought of him and our last words.
He was a bastard all right. Yet something told me he was only looking out for me.
I shook away the unease and started searching each stable. Most were filled with sleeping dragons, but eventually I found one that rang with soft laughter, at the rear of the forest. I threw open the door, only to be greeted with smiles and waves.
Lilara reclined on a thick bale. “I see you’ve come to entertain us again, Lorelana!”
“Back for another loss?” Teryn asked, shuffling the deck.
“Don’t be so droll,” Nenlyn said, shooting daggers at Teryn. “Join us, why don’t you? He stole my deck.”
When I grabbed a stool from the corner and joined the table, their grins widened.
Nenlyn leaned on his palms. “No further games until you pay up. You still owe us a kiss.”
The urge to run pulled at my feet.
I could just get up and leave—but then I wouldn’t find information on the dragon, or how to get him to bond with me.
I’d also not get a temporary reprieve from the sheer hell my life had become.
I rolled the fruit in my pocket and mused on just how familiar this felt before placing it in the center of the table.
All sets of eyes widened, except my own.
“Where did you get this?” Nenlyn scoffed
Teryn shifted uncomfortably, as if fire ants had invaded his socks. “These are off limits to riders. How did you get hold of one?”
Lilara moved forward, reaching out to graze her fingertips across it. “I haven’t had a fruit in half a century—let alone an orange.”
The air in the room changed, and the fruit in the center of the table hung over us, as everyone nervously shuffled their cards.
“I won’t be removing my clothes or handing out my touch. I’ll be betting with the orange.”
Resounding glances came, but no protests. I took it as a win and kept my mouth shut—until Teryn cleared his throat.
“You still have to pay up for the last time.”
I scoffed. “Would you prefer I take my fruit elsewhere?” I tried to hide the edge of poison that coated my tone, but found it impossible.
Nenlyn leaned back and rubbed his cards before giving me a shit-eating grin. “I’phri know how to hold a grudge. I expect you to pay your dues.”
“Fine,” I hissed, and tensed my hand to avoid brandishing my knife.
I weighed my options until I found Lilara. She was gorgeous. All the I’phri were, but her beauty held a deadly edge—like Aelen. It reminded me of the dragon’s jagged teeth and their scales glistening in the sun.
If I had to kiss them, I’d rather it be her. It would be like when I hooked necks with the milkmaids—before the queen barred me from being near them without a chaperone.
“Her,” I said, and waved a hand. Both men tightened their lips, suddenly entranced by their cards.
“Everyone always picks me,” Lilara replied with a sharp smile. “Come now, no use waiting.”
Then she leaned in, and before I knew it, we locked lips. She was sweet and soft, but Aelen’s kiss was softer, gentler. His touch held a possessive bite. And he had parted his lips, welcoming me in.
I pulled away, twiddling my fingers in my lap, trying to wipe away his phantom touch. Lilara smiled, but to her I’phri counterparts. “It’s always me,” she mocked.
A knot formed in my gut the longer I ruminated on the kiss and Aelen. More than a little regret had followed me into the stables, to hang off me like the shuddering shadows. The trio continued to jeer, with a few more jabs from Lilara until Teryn reluctantly doled out the cards.
I aimed my focus on my hand, and their numbers instead of everything inside.
My features needed no help relaxing this round, at least not from the cards. I had a decent hand. So I cleared my throat and began my search. “About the ebony-scaled dragon—”
“That old thing? I won’t get near him. He’s rather generous with his teeth. Is that where you got that?” Lilara asked and pointed to my bandage.
“I was a little careless.”
Teryn laid down his card. “Stupid would be a better word, I think. You know he’s not been the same since the Edict. Certain wounds skip the skin and are burned straight into your soul. He’s got one too many scars to be bonded.”
“A tragedy, honestly. He won’t grow until he’s bonded, and he won’t bond, which further delays his death,” Lilara said.
The cards shook in my hands. “You want him to die?”