Chapter 10 Rurik #2
“That’s why I come here.” I settle onto the boulder beside her, close enough that our arms touch. “When you’re falling, there’s no room for anything else. No noise. No fear. Just the moment.”
“You have noise too.” Not a question.
“Everyone has noise.” I stare at the waterfall. “Some of us are just louder about covering it up.”
“With jokes.”
“With jokes, with chaos, with never staying still long enough to think.” I shrug. “If you’re always moving, you don’t have to sit with the quiet.”
“And if you’re always organizing, you don’t have to face the chaos.” Her voice is soft. Understanding. “We’re not that different, are we?”
“Two sides of the same coin.” I turn to look at her. “Just spinning in opposite directions.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she smiles—slow, genuine, warm.
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
“Thank you for jumping.”
“Please. Like I was going to let the haunted lake be my first experience.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “I have standards.”
“The sea serpent would be offended.”
“The sea serpent can get over it.”
We sit in comfortable silence, letting the sun dry our clothes. Her head drifts toward my shoulder, not quite touching but close enough that I can feel her warmth.
The dragon purrs. Good. This is good.
For once, I agree.
“Your turn.”
Aisling settles onto the rampart wall, legs dangling over the edge. The sunset paints the mountains in shades of fire—orange and gold and deep burning red. She’s changed into dry clothes, her hair still damp and curling at the ends, and she looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her.
“Five minutes of silence.” She pulls out a pocket watch from somewhere. “Starting now.”
I settle beside her. Our knees brush. “Five minutes of not talking.”
“Those are the rules.”
“I’m going to die.”
“Then you lose the bet.” She’s grinning. “And I get bragging rights for a century. Those were your terms.”
I close my mouth.
The first minute is torture. Every cell in my body screams to fill the void—comment on the sunset, point out the birds, tell her about the time Zyphon got drunk and tried to shadow-travel to the moon.
The second minute, I start to notice things. The way the dying light catches her hair, turning the red to molten copper. The faint freckles scattered across her nose. The peace settling over her features as she watches the sun sink.
She’s beautiful. Not in the obvious way I noticed when I first saw her—wild hair, sharp features, fierce eyes. This is something quieter. The beauty of someone who’s stopped fighting long enough to just exist.
Minute three. She shifts, leaning her shoulder against mine. Not pulling away. Not tense. Just... there. Present. With me.
I stop counting.
“Time.” Her voice is soft. “Five minutes and twenty-three seconds.”
“I made it?”
“You made it.” She shows me the watch, then tucks it away. “How do you feel?”
“Surprised.” I blink. “That’s never happened before. Drayke’s been trying to make me sit quietly for three centuries.”
“Maybe you needed better motivation.”
“Maybe I needed better company.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. Her breath catches. She turns to look at me, and in the fading light, her eyes are dark and warm.
“That was almost smooth.”
“I have my moments.”
“You do.” She’s smiling, soft and real. “More than I expected.”
“Is that a compliment? I can’t tell with you.”
“It’s an observation.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “Take it how you want.”
I want to kiss her. The urge hits so hard, it nearly knocks me over—to close the distance between us, to taste the smile on her lips, to find out if she tastes like fire.
But it’s too soon. I know it’s too soon. She’s healing, opening up, learning to laugh again. I won’t ruin that by pushing too fast.
“Same time tomorrow?” I ask instead.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” She stands, offering me her hand. “Walk me back?”
I take her hand. Don’t let go for the entire walk to her quarters.
Neither does she.
The bet continues for the next three days.
She makes me read a book—one of Auren’s tactical treatises, because “light reading” isn’t in her vocabulary. But she sits with me while I suffer through it, quizzing me on chapters, laughing every time I get a question wrong.
“The defensive formation is called a shield wall, not a ‘turtle huddle.’”
“Turtle huddle is more descriptive.”
“Turtle huddle is not a military term.”
“It should be. I’m starting a petition.”
She throws a pillow at my head. I catch it and throw it back. Somehow we end up in a pillow fight that leaves both of us breathless with laughter and gets us kicked out of the library by an extremely unamused Auren.
“Worth it,” she says as we flee down the corridor.
“Completely,” I agree.
I make her swim in the underground lake. No sea serpent, but plenty of bioluminescent algae that makes the water glow like liquid starlight. She floats on her back, staring up at the cave ceiling, and whispers that it’s like the sky fell into the earth.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathes.
“You’re beautiful.”
The words slip out. She turns her head to look at me, something unreadable in her expression.
“I mean—the lake is beautiful. The algae. Very glowy. Very—“
“Rurik.”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.” She’s smiling as she says it, and she swims closer until we’re floating side by side, shoulders touching in the glowing water.
I take her flying with me at night—not through a thunderstorm, but through clear skies with stars scattered above and mountains sleeping below.
She doesn’t scream this time. Just holds on and breathes deep and asks me to go higher, faster, until we’re threading between peaks with nothing but moonlight to guide us.
“I could get used to this,” she says when we land. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright. “Flying with you.”
“Just with me?”
“Just with you.” She holds my gaze. “The others are too serious. You make it fun.”
“I make everything fun.”
“That’s debatable.” She’s grinning. “Mostly you make things chaotic. The fun is a side effect.”
“I’ll take it.”
I learn one fact about veterinary medicine: the proper technique for suturing a wound on a creature with scales.
She demonstrates on a training dummy while I pretend to understand terms like “subcutaneous” and “approximated edges.” When I successfully repeat the technique back to her—mostly—she applauds with exaggerated enthusiasm.
“You’re mocking me.”
“I’m celebrating you.” She’s beaming. “Rurik Malor, dragon warrior, has learned to do stitches. Auren’s going to faint.”
“Don’t tell Auren.”
“I’m absolutely telling Auren.”
“Traitor.”
“Consider it payback for the pillow fight.” She pats my cheek, the touch lingering for just a moment too long. “Now. Your turn. What fresh horror do you have planned?”
We trade secrets without meaning to.
I tell her about the hostile dragon—a young male driven mad by isolation, slowly dying alone in a cave system three territories away. I visited him for months. Brought food. Talked to him even when he tried to kill me.
“What happened?” she asks. We’re sitting in the library, surrounded by medical texts she’s been forcing me to study.
“He snapped. Finally lost whatever was holding him together.” I stare at the book in my hands without seeing it. “Nearly killed me before Zyphon intervened.”
“But you kept trying. Until the end.”
“Someone had to.” The words taste like ash. “He was alone. No one should die alone.”
She doesn’t offer platitudes. Doesn’t try to make it better. Just slides her hand across the table and laces her fingers through mine, squeezing tight.
“You’re a good person, Rurik.” Her voice is soft. “Under all the jokes and chaos. You’re good.”
Something cracks open in my chest. “I’m not—“
“You are.” She squeezes harder. “Don’t argue with me. I’m a medical professional. I know things.”
I laugh—can’t help it. “You’re a veterinarian.”
“Which means I’m very good at identifying when someone is being an ass.” She grins. “Now. Tell me about this hepatic artery.”
She tells me about her parents over the next few days, in fragments and pieces. The way they wanted her to be a lawyer. The estrangement that’s lasted three years. The fact that they don’t know she’s alive.
“Do you want them to know?” I ask.
A long pause. Then, surprisingly, she laughs—a small, rueful sound. “Honestly? I don’t know anymore. Before all this—“ She waves her hand at the fortress, at everything. “I would have said yes. Now?” She shrugs. “They wanted me to be someone I’m not. Maybe it’s better this way.”
“That’s sad.”
“That’s life.” She leans into my side, warm and solid. “I’ve found people who want me to be who I am. That’s more than they ever offered.”
“You mean Selene?”
“I mean everyone.” She tilts her head to look at me. “Including you.”
“I definitely want you to be who you are. The organized, terrifying, pillow-throwing version of you is very entertaining.”
She laughs and shoves at my shoulder. “You’re impossible.”
“You like it.”
“I’m starting to.” She says it quietly, like a confession. “More than I expected.”
The dancing is a secret I discover by accident.
I’m passing the training yard after midnight, restless, when I hear music drifting from one of the storage rooms. Traditional Irish, played on a fiddle recording.
She’s moving in the moonlight. Not the controlled, precise movements of combat training. Something wilder. Freer. Her feet know patterns her mind has forgotten, carrying her through steps that speak of pub nights and celebrations and joy.
She’s smiling. Eyes closed, arms moving through the air, completely lost in the rhythm.
I watch from the shadows. Don’t interrupt.
But when she finishes, breathing hard and laughing at herself, I step forward and applaud.
She spins, startled. “Rurik! How long have you been—“
“Long enough.” I cross to her. “You’re good.”
“I’m rusty.” But she’s smiling, not embarrassed. “I haven’t danced in years.”
“Why not?”
“No time. No reason.” She shrugs. “Life got in the way.”
“Dance with me.”
“What?”