Chapter 16
sixteen
Aelen tried to take me to any other stable, but I dragged him into the ebony dragon’s lair. Still, he wouldn’t let me get near the beast without his hands firmly around my waist.
The blizzard blew outside, knocking the door in its frame. Other than that, we sat in the quiet and stared. I gazed at the huffing beast. And those fiery eyes stared back.
“How long are you planning on looking at each other?” Aelen asked from over my shoulder.
“Shush—I’m thinking.” I cocked my head as the dragon shifted, letting its talons scrape. “The I’phri during the ceremony used song to cast imp—” I nearly slipped and said impetus, but stopped myself at the last second. “lumen. He responded to my song before. I think the two might be related.”
“Not entirely—those are the songs of the dead. Words have power, and when written, bend the will of the reality we walk in. When sung, they have similar power, but require all the lumen within an I’phri to be effective. That’s why they had to slaughter themselves.”
“I don’t understand what that means—the songs of the dead?”
“It can be the song of those who have passed. Or the song of the dead gods, channeling what they’ve left behind.”
“They’re really dead?”
Aelen’s hand shifted to my shoulder. “Yes, and no. They gave themselves to create the world, to create you and me. But they aren’t truly dead. You cannot just kill a god.”
I stared at the floor as the realization swept across me. The dragons created runes back in Ilyatria, but it wasn’t nonsensical symbols. It was language.
“The runes are words,” I whispered, holding up my hand.
Aelen touched the back of my hand, flashing the pact briefly, and the glow faded slower than it ever had. A few of the words I could make out, in the ancient language Father had forced me to learn.
Promise
Death
Putrefy
Remembrance
It disappeared before I read them all, but my stomach rolled.
Aelen pressed himself into my spine. “Astute observation. Yes, they’re words. A sonnet, or an elegy of sorts. As the dragons themselves are created of the Singers, they hold pure divine energy, they can write these sigils as they please.”
I swallowed and took a timid step toward the dragon. “What have you lost?”
His jaws widened, letting his breath slide out and wrap around his claws. But his eyes never left me.
“What do you see?”
I inched closer, holding out a hand, but a growl tore from him.
Aelens’ hands shot to my chest, tugging me back. “You need to leave.”
“I can’t. Don’t you see his pain?” I whispered back. I tried to move closer to the dragon but Aelen’s grip only tightened. I shoved him away, and tripped ahead, bowling toward the beast.
But he didn’t back away. His steam warmed my cheeks and dampened my palms.
Somewhere within his eyes, his face, his soft groans I knew he wanted to connect—for his pain to be known.
So did I.
I pushed Aelen back, all my focus on the dragon. The dripping walls drifted away and soon there was nothing but him.
“Stop,” Aelen shouted. “You cannot bond with him!”
I pushed closer until even a slight breath seared my cheeks. Within tooth distance. But I didn’t retreat.
“I see you!” Another step. “I don’t know what you’ve lost, but I want you to know. I see you. I hear you.” My mind swirled back to that raw pain of loss. The ache that wrenched through my chest—but I couldn’t go all the way back to that dais. I stopped just short, so I wouldn’t lose myself.
Aelen bolted ahead, trying to drag me back, but a vivid sigil flashed across the floor. A wall of jagged ice shot up before him, halting his advance. “Get back here,” he yelled.
But his protests were background noise, deafened by the cracking ice between us.
The beast huffed, spreading his mist across me, but it didn’t scald.
His eyes twitched, following me, and then watered, just like Deldren's had on his last day of life.
They bore the same silent resilience, the refusal to crack even under unbearable pressure.
To stay strong when he didn't need to. When I would have gladly taken his pain.
As if Deldren stood in the very room with me.
"I know that feeling, I know it as deep as my blood pumps and in the very depths of my bones. You don't have to be strong and you don't have to be afraid." But I inched ever closer to the wrong sort of cascade.
So I pulled myself back from the edge, feeling the chill in my boots and the scald on my skin. The tingling along my arm. I focused on the here and now so I could help—not hurt.
The dragon wore his pain like a leaden cloak. I wanted to carry that for him.
To lift where I'd fallen before.
"Let me take your pain." My voice broke. “Look at me. Stare into my soul. I won’t hurt you. I want to know you.”
The next exhale scalded my arms. It hurt, but not as much as he did. I could read his molten orbs and their brutal scars.
Anguish.
Loss.
Mourning.
Their cascade of emotions flooded me, and nearly brought me to my knees. But the feelings weren't mine.
They were his.
He wasn’t a beast. He could think, know, and feel. And he mourned like I did. Whatever he felt, it was the same. We were the same.
He wasn’t just the ebony-scaled dragon.
“He has a name.”
Panic erupted behind me.
The dragon shifted, spreading the glow of a sigil on my unmarked hand. I knew it before I read it.
“Mourn.”
A blazing line burst across the floor from Aelen, so blisteringly hot that it shattered the ice wall with a horrible sound. He rushed to my side, wrapping his arms around me.
I gazed at him over my shoulder. “His name is Mourn.”
Aelen’s grip tightened, his hands shaking, and he muttered something I don’t think he knew I could hear. “Shit.”
This time, when I leaned forward, I grazed Mourn’s head. To my surprise, he shut his mouth, hiding razor-sharp teeth. He let me touch him and pressed his skull against my palm.
“I trust you. Do you trust me?” Another nudge of his head, one that knocked me to my knees.
Aelen wrenched me behind him and threw out his hand. “Enough—too rough.” But he wasn’t talking to me; he spoke to Mourn.
To my shock, he lay down his head and settled himself onto the ground, as if following a command.
“The dragons forget how large they are. They don’t realize a well-placed slap of their tail could kill someone.” Despite his light words, a darkness lingered on his features, a grimace that wouldn't drop. Something happened to Aelen, but I already knew no matter how much I pried he'd never tell me.
So I turned back to Mourn.
“He listened to you. I thought you weren’t bonded with him.”
Aelen helped me to my feet, brushing the hay off my leathers. “I’m not. It appears you are.”
“Is that why he responds to my songs?” I should sing to him, see if he would listen again.
Coldness marred Aelen’s stare. “No.”
I ignored his foul mood and began singing. It was the same song he had taken to before. The melody caught. But when I hit the part of the scalding sun warming my bones, a rune etched itself into the neighboring wall. It shimmered bright orange, then a neon scarlet.
Aelen grabbed me and threw me to the ground beneath him, right as it exploded. Charred hay surrounded us as embers caught on the draft.
His breaths above me were heavy and brisk, warming my cheeks. “Don’t do that inside, you’re going to get yourself killed.” He was close enough to see the shifting blue of his iris disappear as his pupils widened. And they stared right at me.
The remaining embers framed him like a thousand red stars. I tugged in a breath before tracing my finger down his cheek. They reddened, but not from rage.
He should’ve moved. So should I. To slip away and break this. But I didn’t want to. After all, he looked like a god, carved and surrounded by endless lights.
“You’re too handsome and I hate it.”
He edged closer until his trousers pressed against me. “No, you don’t.”
I couldn’t respond before he caught my lips.
He was as soft as I remembered, and twice as sweet.
The taste of smoke coated his lips. I beckoned him further, and he parted for me.
The taste of his tongue was even better.
I found my fingers moving against my will.
Grabbing him, sliding beneath his jack to run across his abdomen and stroke his skin.
He didn’t stop me.
Why didn’t he stop me?
The kiss deepened, and he ground against me. His fingers entwined through my locks. And I fell into the fire that formed inside.
But desperation tinged his movement. While his trousers hardened, he pinned me to the floor, pressing his length against my thigh. I parted from him with a gasp, and only then did he pull away, with flushed cheeks and a lurid grin.
I imagined him throwing me to the hay and making me take him. Briefly. I forced my mind away.
I finally exhaled and silently righted myself. But wouldn’t look away from my feet. I’m meant to regret that.
After a pregnant pause, Aelen cleared his throat. “Avoid the runes indoors, it will be problematic.”
We didn’t talk about it during the long, quiet walk through the blizzard. Or when we got back to the cottage. The silence there wrapped around our shoulders, so palpable I could have cut it. I still felt the ghost of his lips on mine.
If he didn’t talk, I’d have to. My gut swirled with illness. Though it wasn’t as bad in the evenings, it was still there. A constant reminder of what I’d have to do. That I couldn’t get distracted by Aelen’s haunting touch.
“Tomorrow, will you teach me how to fly?”
Aelen’s head shot up from the fire, the log slipping from his grip into the hungry flames.
“That’s a bad idea.” He rose and closed the distance between us.
“He’s not safe to ride, not yet. His muscles are far too weak to carry a human any good distance.
Perhaps a short flight, but not long, and you don’t want to be falling from that height—that’s a short trip to a coffin. ”
“And you wouldn’t want that.”
His bare hand shot to my mine, his touch warm. Welcoming. I didn’t brush him off. “Of course not.” His grip tightened, and he tugged me toward the fire. “You’re cold. I wouldn’t want that either. After all, too much cold sends humans to coffins, too.”
I retracted my hand, but his fingers still lingered, sliding down my arm to nestle at my waist. He tugged me into his chest. How shameful it was that I laid my head against him, letting him warm my bones more than the hearth ever could.
“And of course, you wouldn’t want that—after threatening me multiple times.”
“Emptier threats than I’d care to admit.” His fingers found my chin and tipped it until our eyes met. “I could never hurt you. You’re much too beautiful to lie in a coffin.”
My cheeks heated as he stroked his thumb down one.
“I couldn’t lie in a coffin until I know you’re in one first,” I stuttered.
He leaned closer until the firelight reflected in his darkened eyes. “You don’t mean that. Not to mention, I’phri aren’t buried in boxes. We are the caretakers of Eltide, and give our bodies back to the roots.”
I tried to grapple onto any thought that wasn’t of the gorgeous man with his hands all over me.
The caretakers of Eltide.
Did that have anything to do with the edict, or why the dragons hated me so much to begin with? No one would talk of it, not Aelen or the other riders. Everyone was so cagey, too afraid to speak those words out loud.
What could be so horrible that they wouldn’t want to put it into words?
“Aelen,” I asked, “What is the edict?”
His face changed, with any joy dropping from it. He took a sharp breath that matched his hardened look. “What did you say?”
I repeated myself, but that didn’t make his look go away. If anything, it worsened it.
His grip tightened on my cheek. “Who told you that?”
“Does it matter? I’m not a child, I deserve to know!”
“It does matter. Those people could hurt you and you’re fragile—precious. If something happened to you…” He was changing the subject, and anger flared across my chest.
“Why are you avoiding my question? What is the edict?”
“You’re not ready to hear it! If you were ready, you would put on this,” he bellowed, ripping the necklace from my pocket. He thrust it into my hands. “Wear it.”
But they shook, and I couldn’t drape the chain over my neck. I just I couldn’t. Every time I dared look, it reminded me of the violent crystals. Of what he’d do—and all the I’phri would do—if given the chance. Of my entrails being scattered across my crystalline grave.
Of the icy wall he’d built between us.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, separating himself from me. “I would tell you, but you’re not ready. I can bear many things, but I can’t bear you not believing me.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t believe you. You’re twisting my words and intention. What I’m saying is that you’re hiding things from me. Things I need to know. The ones that will help me fly back to Ilyatria and kill the king!”
“And there you are, not believing me when I tell you those dragons are deadly and you cannot fly.” He shook, his whole body wracked with tremors. “I’ve done nothing but try to keep you safe, and yet you still won’t heed my words!”
But he hadn’t kept me safe. He’d been keeping me from the dragons.
Dragging me away at any opportunity and even trying to stop me from bonding with Mourn tonight.
If I hadn’t disobeyed him, Mourn wouldn’t have taken a second look at me.
Thus far, my instincts had been proven correct time and time again.
I balled my fist and couldn’t bear to look at him. But sudden lightning shot across my gut, different than the stomachache that had been plaguing me since I left Ilyatria. It was tenfold that. I gripped my abdomen and steadied myself on the nearest table.
My anger slid away, replaced by a prison of fear. “Aelen,” I whispered. “I don’t feel well.”
He gritted his teeth. “You’re likely agitated, overstimulated. It’s been a long day, you should rest. He took my arm and helped me to the bed, but said nothing until he lingered in the threshold. “Sleep. We’ll discuss this further in the morning.”
From the bedroom, I heard the door slam, echoing across the cottage, and at that moment, my ears began ringing.
I rubbed them, my temples pounding, but when I pulled my palms back, crimson tinted them.
When I lay back into the mattress, I broke out into a cold sweat, the warm air now freezing.
No blankets helped, nothing did. So I tossed and turned.
When I could no longer move, I prayed.