13. By Blisteringly Hot Sunshine and a Dragon’s Barbed Dick
13. BY BLISTERINGLY HOT SUNSHINE AND A DRAGON’S BARBED DICK
ELOWYN
I’d been not just wrong, but dead wrong .
As it turned out, I was very much alive. A searing agony that stung even my eyeballs consumed what felt like every part of my body. I couldn’t help but be alive, desperate as I was to escape the pain, which was everywhere all at once, awful and unrelenting. I feared I’d never again be the same even after it abated. A pain of this magnitude probably changed a person forever.
I teetered on the threshold of a transformation I feared would be permanent. What the change exactly might be, however, I didn’t know—unless it was death. Death hovered so close by it was like a scent on the wind, luring me nearer.
A wave of what might have been actual fire raced across my torso and limbs, surely charring what remained of my battered flesh, and I clenched my eyes tighter against it. By sunshine, could this please end? Please . Fucking please .
Maybe I was dead after all, in the Igneuslands. It would be some major dragonshit that I should end up there when my sins didn’t seem great enough to warrant it, but why else would even my hair hurt? My nails and teeth? They weren’t ever supposed to hurt. What the ever-agonizing fuck was this misery?
My next inhale was deeper but it gurgled. That couldn’t be good.
Finally, I forced open my eyes, if for nothing else than to see where I’d landed before I did die.
A pained moan shuddered through the unfamiliar dimness for several moments before I realized it wasn’t mine.
I tried to sit, but succeeded only in crumpling into myself, pain surging in another strong wave as if in punishment for even that lame attempt. Once the worst of it passed, pink tinged my vision on one side, but that must be my own blood and not my surroundings.
I lay sprawled across a dirt floor. A hazy light streamed above me, its rays highlighting dancing dust particles, and for several moments just noticing something beyond my pain was significant. Tears stung my already stinging eyes as I found hope that I’d again feel something that wasn’t pain.
You’re losing it , I chided myself.
Another moan arrived, this one dragging out, as I slowly, carefully, tipped my head to either side.
Laden burlap sacks leaned against a wall on one side, crates piled two high on the other. The walls were a wood so coarse that light shone through boards in dappled seams and knotholes. Strangely, I found beauty, too, in that show of light and shadow.
The moan sounded again, more insistent this time.
I nudged open my mouth, but pain lanced my jaw so forcefully I nearly blacked out. Quickly, I clamped my lips and tried splaying my palms flat against the ground and pushing up. I rose a foot before collapsing back onto the ground. Both palms felt as if the skin had been flayed from them. When I finally was able to raise one in front of my face, the entirety of it was coated in blood and now dust.
Barely moving my lips, I attempted to speak again, but liquid gurgled deep in my chest, preventing words.
Yet another moan from whomever shared this shack or perhaps cabin with me, but this time, rapid footfalls click ed closer before heading away from me. The faint tinkling of chimes accompanied the movements, and I stilled entirely. Where had I heard that soft tinkling before? My mind was hazy but it was familiar.
“It’s alright, my dear,” cooed a soothing masculine voice I’d also heard before.
My heartbeat whooshed through my head even as I wished it aside and strained my ears.
“I have something here that will help soothe the pain.”
That—by an entire host of rays of sunshine—that, I wanted that .
Knowing all I needed was to draw the man’s attention, that I didn’t need to manage a specific plea, I pushed out a “Help.” It drowned in a gargle that might have been, on its own, loud enough for him.
But wood creaked.
“How I wish you could see her. She looks so much like you.” A warm, soft chuckle told me exactly who was speaking. My eyes widened at the realization until blood dripped into my other eye. Everything was now pink. But by dragons, I knew who that was.
“That makes it hard for him to look at her. He thinks of you every time.” Lament practically vibrated through the admission.
A few patting thump s, another chuckle. “She acts like you too. So fierce. So brave. She’s the first person I’ve seen really stand up to your sister since this happened to you and … and Oren lost so much of himself.”
It was mother-freaking Dashiell , the king’s most trusted attendant. And based on what he’d said, the other person with us must be— holy dragonfire and blazing, flaming shitballs!
“I worry Talisa will succeed in killing her,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time before she finds a way. You were so powerful, more powerful than she was, and look at what she did to you, my dear friend. My queen.”
The person Dashiell was speaking to, the one moaning out her pain, by blisteringly hot sunshine and a dragon’s barbed dick … it had to be none other than Odelia Catalina Corisande .
My mother .
Frantic now, I stretched my limbs to their fullest extent out to all sides. I didn’t hit a thing, but like a thief, that darkness lurked closer. Like a murderer, it squeezed around me.
But I’d be damned if I’d come this close to meeting my mother , who was supposedly long dead, only to fail.
Only to die.
I stretched and reached, but all I managed was a scuffing that Dashiell seemed not to register. Perhaps he imagined it was an animal, or perhaps the sounds were softer than they felt, taking absolutely everything out of me to make.
My dagger. By dragonfire, my dagger .
My corset was shredded and torn open, my breasts not properly contained, but now that I sought it out, I thought I could feel metal still pressed against my sternum. But how would I reach it?
With my eyes smarting and my flesh screaming, I inched my left hand up along my side. It took what felt like hours, and I could no longer concentrate on Dashiell or my mother. It took everything , but then my fingers were at the hilt of the knife.
Chipped, the blade itself broken—no wonder I was in pieces!—I drew it free. Along the way, it sliced me some more. I didn’t figure another cut mattered when I was already mere slices away from becoming confetti.
The blade tangled in the scraps of my dress. My attempts to wrangle it free almost defeated me as my breaths grew dangerously shallow. But before I realized I’d achieved it, it wrenched free, slipped from my slick grasp, and tumbled to the floor beside me.
Instantly, I tried to reach for it, but darkness consumed the pink of my vision even as I furiously blinked against it.
Awareness rushed in, a violent smack that startled me awake, as if I were being pummeled by a surging waterfall and I couldn’t escape. I couldn’t quite catch a breath.
I found myself back in my body only to wish I could abandon it, posthaste. The acute pains from before had settled into bone-deep, unbearable aches.
Whimpering despite myself, I urged myself back to sleep. Sadly, the agony of my body was too great for that, and I foresaw wallowing in my misery until death finally had the decency to claim me.
“Shhhh,” soothed a male’s voice. “It’ll be alright. Just rest.”
Dashiell. It was Dashiell!
The memory of everything that had happened, starting with Dougal stealing me from Nightguard until I walked through the queen’s dark doorway to find myself here, returned all at once in a barrage. Gasping, I attempted to open my eyes to plead for Dashiell’s help. If he was here, if my mother was alive— Holy shit, my mother is alive— then he was an ally. Or at least, he could choose to be one.
But the effort of wrenching my eyelids apart stung like a thousand bees.
“Shhh-shhh-sh-sh-shhhh. Don’t do anything, Elowyn. Not yet. You’re still too broken.”
It was likely a simple truth. I felt broken. Every single, tiny, little part of me felt as if it would never work properly again. It was also the one thing the man might say that would spur me on. Urge me to fight yet another overwhelming battle.
No one can ever break you, my little cub. Not unless you give them that power over you.
Zako’s melodic voice whispered through my memories, unexpectedly louder than my pain. I’d forgotten he would call me that on occasion. Little cub . He’d also called me his little lioness , those few times I’d impressed him beyond his expectations.
You’re the only one who can decide you’re broken. No break is too great to heal from, so long as you keep the strength of your essence.
I suspected the extent to which my body was now shattered would test the limits of even Zako’s pithy wisdom, but it didn’t matter. If there were a way for me to survive this, I had to, even if I didn’t currently much want to.
For Rush. For Saffron. For Xeno, Pru, and all the rest of them. For the dragons I was duty-bound to protect even if I’d never been awarded the title of dragon protector . For the many thousands of fae who didn’t yet understand they were also my responsibility.
For the land, which had reached out to me first.
Feel free to heal me now, land , I projected through my thoughts.
Only Dashiell answered: “We’ve done our best to accelerate your healing, but the damage is severe. You’re lucky to be alive.”
I chortled bitterly and it sounded like a death rattle. I went to add an, I don’t feel lucky , but when I pried open my mouth this time, pain speared my jaw and stars blinked behind my swollen eyelids.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t try talking if I were you,” Dashiell said. “Your jawbone was practically shattered on one side. A couple of your teeth went through your cheek.”
That was consistent with what I was feeling. While the pain took its sweet fucking time to recede, I latched on to Dashiell’s use of the past tense. The fae were renowned for the skills of their healers. I’d bet Dashiell was resourceful enough to secure one of them for me, wherever the dragonfire we were.
“I would say I wonder who did this to you,” Dashiell went on since there was zero chance of my answering him, “but there’s only one possible culprit. And I’m sure she’s looking for you as we speak. Or, as I speak, anyhow.”
The soft chimes of bells indicated he was shaking his head in heavy lament. Yes, the queen looking for me was awful. The fucking worst. Because if she found me, there wouldn’t be a single thing I could do to defend myself. Killing me would be the easiest thing she’d do all day.
“Plus, if you’re here, then you’re no longer protected by the magic of the Fae Heir Trials.”
There was that too. Not that the magic did a damn thing to keep me from being sliced to pieces during the Nuptialis Probatio. For all everyone went on about the protection of the Fae Heir Trials, I’d sure been almost killed a whole bunch.
“Oh yes,” Dashiell said with another tinkling of the tiny bells that usually adorned the many braids sticking up around his head. “The queen will be coming for you. Which means we need to get you out of here fast before she finds you. I won’t risk … well, I won’t risk anyone else.”
Did he think I hadn’t overheard him earlier? That I hadn’t deduced who else was here with us? Did he plan on hiding my mother from me now that I’d discovered her alive?
I’d never disliked Dashiell before that very moment. How dare he pretend I didn’t have a living mother? Did these asshole fae from the royal court think I had absolutely no rights?
Of course, I already had my answer. They surely behaved as if I didn’t.
A mumble I couldn’t quite discern washed over me from beyond Dashiell, whose weight settled beside me on what might be a bed .
“Well, then the very moment it’s safe for her to be moved, we do it,” Dashiell snapped.
More indistinguishable murmurs.
“Yes, yes. Of course we don’t want to risk her survival by moving her too early, but time is paramount here. I’m sure my king would agree.”
Despite the constant weight of the pain piercing me everywhere, I still somehow felt heavier at the knowledge that Dashiell was right. The king—my father— wouldn’t prioritize me or my well-being. He’d bound my magic, had me hidden me away in a tangled web of lies, and had only ordered me abducted when it suited him. No, the king wouldn’t care if I got the chance to meet the mother I’d longed to know my entire life.
Even when I’d still believed Zako was my father, I’d known I had a mother and suffered her absence keenly. Then, I’d thought her dead.
Additional murmurs. Whoever was speaking, they seemed to be fighting for me.
“Then hurry up and get her better,” Dashiell said.
A faraway reply.
Dashiell snarled to a cascade of chimes. “You’re supposed to be one of the best there is. Why else is my king paying you so handsomely?”
A pause while Dashiell listened before snapping, “Well, he’s given you enough gold to perform miracles. So get to it. And give her something to sleep. She won’t be getting better awake and hurting. ”
Apparently Dashiell had exhausted his allotment of pleasant bedside manner. Without warning, a cloth pressed over my nose and mouth, causing an eruption of more stars behind my eyelids. I suspected that my nose, too, was broken. When I breathed in—since I’d stupidly decided to survive—my nasal passages stung all the way up to my brain. Whatever coated the cloth stunk of something pungent and cloyingly sweet—and dragged me into darkness before I could wonder even what it was.