Chapter 39 Skylar
For two days, Skylar spends her time mostly alone, apart from checking in on Astrid, who hasn’t shown any sign of wanting to leave her room.
Through their bond, she can feel Astrid’s pain—a dull ache that has settled next to her heart.
But she’s never been very good at offering comfort; the best she can do is bring Astrid ginger tea every now and then.
And make sure she’s safe—that, it turns out, Skylar is good at.
She’s been instructed to “train,” but no one seems to be on hand to enforce this. Axel has been engaged in discussions over the assassination attempt—they’re calling it an attempt, even though it was successful, wasn’t it?—and Zryan disappeared almost immediately after Astrid left.
He’d whirled to her, the storm in his eyes wild. If she dies, you die. So you better fucking protect her.
He didn’t tell anyone where he was going before flying away on Mjolnir, and she feels the dragon’s absence in a way that slightly alarms her. It makes her jumpy, knowing he’s not around—as much for Kaida as for herself.
Kaida. Who right now is bounding in front of her across the castle grounds as they walk through the night, her red-bronze scales shimmering in the moonslight.
Barely more than a week old. The thought makes Skylar’s heart constrict—because what if Kaida doesn’t come out of this?
She didn’t think about it when she touched the egg.
And she should have. Yes, she’s an Exhauster.
Yes, she’s powerful, and if she’s quick enough, she thinks she can take Astrid down.
But what if Bastet goes for Kaida? As a cat, he was barely worth considering.
But as a fuck-off massive winged panther…
Look!
Skylar glances down as Kaida launches herself into the air, wings flapping desperately. She manages to stay airborne for a second, maybe two, before she flops to the ground again.
Skylar laughs, delight coursing through her as Kaida blows out a self-congratulatory puff of smoke. She immediately sobers. Mjolnir told her that Kaida will be able to fly in another couple of weeks—but the duel is in less than two now.
Mjolnir. As she thinks his name, there is a rumble in the sky, and something inside her settles.
I’m here, Death Bringer.
And there, above her, is the shape of a dragon, circling around the castle, storm clouds gathering in his wake.
She lets out a relieved breath. That, at least, is something to be thankful for.
She walks with more purpose to Astrid’s wing. It’s quiet, the tiniest breeze twining through Skylar’s fingers. Although she knows Fionn and their familiar guard Astrid’s door, it’s like the rest of the castle inhabitants have been warned to stay away.
Tonight, however, there is already someone below Astrid’s window, his back against the stone wall. He clearly hasn’t shaved in days, and he looks like he hasn’t slept, either—he must have Teleported straight here.
“You’re back,” Skylar states, when she’s close enough for him to hear.
His posture doesn’t change. “Yeah. Miss me?”
Kaida looks up, her tail swishing hopefully, and Skylar knows she’s waiting for Bastet.
I don’t think he’s in the mood to play, Little One.
There is a low, annoyed growl.
I will go and find an inspect, Kaida declares. Skylar frowns down at her. An inspect, Kaida insists, and with it she sends an image of an enormous ant, totally out of proportion.
An insect, Skylar corrects.
Kaida growls again, the spikes on her tail thumping the ground.
Zryan laughs, the sound weary. “She’s a fierce little thing.
” Kaida looks up at him, her bright gold eyes narrowing—a gold that will fade, according to Mjolnir, as her eyes find their true color.
Then she pounces off, tiny puffs of smoke curling from her nostrils.
She probably has enough fire to singe an ant, to be fair.
Skylar glances up at Astrid’s window. “Have you said hello?”
He pauses for a fraction of a second. “She won’t want to see me.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Skylar says quietly.
Zryan sighs. “It’s better this way.”
And Skylar gets it. “Complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe what must be happening with the two of them.
She moves to the wall, slides down against it. After a moment, Zryan does the same, so that they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder.
“Where were you?” Skylar asks, bringing her knees to her chest.
He hesitates. “Someone needed to tell the queen what happened.”
Skylar frowns, thinking of Ottilie, before she realizes. The witch queen. He went to tell Astrid’s mother. He flew to Arturea. No wonder he’s tired. She wants to ask him what it was like. If he saw the mountains, if the cold was unbearable or a release. But she knows now is not the time.
“Anything of note happen while I was away?” he asks.
“Oh, you know. Never a dull moment and all that.” They are quiet, watching Kaida play in the grass, the sound of night birds filling the space between them.
She can hear the steady beat of his heart, if she lets herself.
The energy within her is a low-level hum all the time now, like she can’t shut it off.
“Zryan?” He glances at her, waiting. She falters.
Because, alright, he might not be as bad as she first thought, but he’s still one of them, isn’t he?
Yet she can’t stop thinking about what Luc said at the ball.
And Zryan is one of the very few people who might know the answer, isn’t he?
“What do the Champions do at the Heart?”
“Where did you hear that word?” Zryan asks slowly.
She twirls a hand in the air. “Came to me in a dream.”
He lets out a huff that could possibly be a laugh. “Okay, then. Well, the Champions are sent to the Heart to protect it. One of the many defenses around it to keep it safe.”
“No,” she states.
He raises his eyebrows. “No?”
“Not all the Champions can be protecting it.” Cam is many things, but he’s not a fighter. Could they have him there as a lookout, like Aldric used him? A trickle of hope runs through her. Maybe that’s what he’s doing. A lookout. There are worse things.
“That’s what the Champions do,” Zryan insists, like he is explaining something simple.
“Where is it?” she demands, changing tack. “The Heart?”
He shakes his head. “Only the rightful heir is allowed that knowledge. If you win the duel, you’ll be able to—”
“I don’t care about that,” she says impatiently.
“You don’t care? Skylar, you could very well win this.” A hint of a shadow passes over his face, gone before she can comment. “You need to start thinking about what you’ll do if—”
“You don’t get it. A friend of mine was conscripted. He’s been taken to the Heart—and I need to get him back.” She blows out a long breath. “He was—is—my only friend,” she says quietly. She needs Zryan to understand why it’s so important.
“We were in this troupe together,” she explains.
“After my mum was killed, they found me and I figured, hey, good way to stay safe, keep moving.” It’s what she’d always done, after all.
“And it was miserable,” she says with a half laugh.
She remembers endless nights, curled up on her roll bed, crying silently.
Before she learned that crying does no one any good.
Aldric gave her food, he taught her, he didn’t ever mistreat her.
But he wasn’t kind. None of them were. Until Cam.
“Aldric found Cam about two years after I joined them. He’d been left on the streets with nothing by his parents.
Aldric had figured out by then I was good with daggers, but I still hadn’t quite got the hang of juggling, so my hands were bandaged.
” She raises her hands in front of her, showing off the tiny white scars.
“I was sitting in the corner, reading a children’s book, even though I was far too old for it.
It’s the only one I ever read—The Girl Who Hatched from a Dragon Egg. ”
“I know it,” Zryan murmurs. “Axel’s mum used to read it to us.”
That makes her pause—thinking of Axel, telling her his mother’s name. And imagining the two boys, young, vulnerable. Before they’d grown into who they are now.
“Right, well. Cam came and sat next to me. He noticed the bandages, said nothing. And I remember hating him for being there. For being another person I had to pretend in front of. For days, I ignored him. But he’d keep coming to sit next to me in the evenings, and I started to let him read the book over my shoulder.
It became this kind of ritual. He didn’t speak, he was just there.
” It’s hard to explain out loud, the comfort that brought her, the way it made her feel less alone.
“And then, one day, he sent me this image. Of the rooftops near where we were staying. And when everyone was asleep that night, we snuck out and we climbed and we sat up on the roof. It was the first time we had a conversation.” She doesn’t remember what they talked about.
But for the first time since her mother died, she laughed that night.
“I’m sorry,” Zryan says quietly, “that they took him.” They. Not we.
“ ‘Sorry’ means fuck all,” she says flatly.
“I know.” He pauses. “For what it’s worth, I was planning to stop it, once I became king.”
“Well, if I become queen, then I will stop it.” Or I’ll burn everyone trying, she thinks.
And when Kaida is fully grown, she’ll be able to do that, won’t she?
For the first time, Skylar has a vision of her future self, able to take all the power she wants in the world, with the last fire dragon at her side.
“I hope that’s true.”
He might not hope it if he could hear her thoughts.
But still… “I don’t get you,” she says bluntly.
“The day Astrid arrived, you stopped me from helping a man. A Porter,” she explains when he just looks at her.
“The guards saw him using his power and I…” She shakes her head.
“Forget about it,” she mutters. “You probably don’t remember, just one man in among the chaos of that day, right? ”
“I remember. I didn’t know you were there. And I wasn’t trying to stop you helping him,” he continues before she can say anything.
“Then why did you land right there?”
He sighs, sounding tired. “Maybe, Skylar, if you stopped thinking of every single person in this castle as an enemy, you’d start noticing that not everyone agrees with what my father is doing. That maybe some of us have our own ways of standing up for what is right.”
She purses her lips. He and Mjolnir landed between her and the Porter that day. Between the Dreki and the Porter. And when they’d taken off again, the Porter was gone. Had, maybe, escaped. So is that what Zryan’s saying—that he was actually trying to help?
It’s not much—it’s a small act of rebellion when he should do so much more. But it’s something.
“Skylar,” Zryan begins, and something about the change in his tone makes her tense.
“About what you did, the night of the ball.” She narrows her eyes at him, daring him to go there, to lecture her, like the king did.
He holds up his hands. “I’m not going to have a go at you.
I would have done it, if I’d gotten there first.” A subtle edge of darkness creeps into his voice, and Skylar’s shoulders relax a little.
Darkness, she can understand. “But… how did you do whatever the fuck you did? The way you killed him, I get that. But the other stuff, the way you moved, the way you…” He shakes his head, and she doesn’t know if it’s because it disgusts him or because he doesn’t know how to describe it.
“I don’t know how,” Skylar admits. “I’ve always been able to do stuff like that. Well,” she corrects, “not quite like that. But I guess it’s like I can… channel the power? I don’t always mean to, but the energy I pull in, it has to… go somewhere.”
He gives her a long look. “Ezra can’t do any of that.”
The executioner. She wonders if that’s another thing he would have done away with, had he become king. It surprises her a little that she wants to think that’s true.
“No,” she agrees. “But maybe Exhausters are all different. Not all Sensors or Illusionists work the same way, do they? It was a lot that night, though,” she admits. “It was… more.”
They are quiet for a while, Kaida’s impatient growls filling the silence. Then he murmurs into the dark, “Thank you for saving her.”
She was saving herself, too, technically, but neither of them say that—because it’s like he knows that she would have done it anyway. It doesn’t necessarily make sense, but as it turns out, she doesn’t want Astrid to die.
Neither of them say the rest, though perhaps the silence says it for them. Because soon Skylar won’t be able to save her. Soon, it will only be each other they need saving from.