Chapter 7 #2
Ash could be good for the soil; fire was a natural part of a forest’s cycle, after all. However, the thick layers of it, and the motes still floating in the air diluting the sunlight, weren’t healthy. She wanted to help the faelands clear away the upper layers to coax forward its healing.
If she could do that, a rainstorm would help soak the remaining ash into the soil and wash away the soot.
And…it was something to keep her busy while she stood guard over the dragon. Or, looked after. Or, no, wait…that made it sound like she was protecting him when what she was doing was securing him. Detaining him. Yes, that sounded better.
Because she wasn’t protecting or looking after this oversized, preening princeling—
“Whatever you’re doing seems serious.”
Leita’s eye twitched. “It is.”
“I can tell you’re thinking very hard about whatever it is.” Although she couldn’t see his face and refused to look, she could hear the laughter in his voice. “Might stretching help you to think?”
And let him ogle her in the process? Absolutely not.
“Silence is what helps.”
“I see. Apologies, then.”
From the rustle of his wings, she thought he’d moved off, only for him to reappear in her periphery. He laid down this time, making sure they aligned for her to notice him, his arms and wings splayed across the ground.
“I thought you had objections to sleeping on the ground,” she said before she could bite her lips shut.
Indeed, he’d asked over cushions and bedding multiple times.
“I do, but I’m not sleeping. Ash can be beneficial to scales.” He said it so straight, she couldn’t tell if he was teasing again.
Probably best to assume he was always teasing. She doubted very much that this male took anything seriously.
He mercifully lapsed into silence—or at least, not speaking. He was never truly silent. Instead, he continued to stretch, making pleased little sounds in the back of his throat. Then, when the marten crawled up onto him, he played with her with his hands, laughing and cooing.
If she hadn’t known about the horns, she wouldn’t have believed him anything close to royalty.
Clearing her throat, Leita grumbled, “If you’re going to stick around and bother me, you may as well answer my questions.”
“Bother you?” he echoed, not contrite at all. “I was merely enjoying what sunshine there is.”
Gritting her teeth, Leita refused to rise to the bait. “Why did you fly north? There hasn’t been a dragon in the faelands for centuries.”
Just as the faelands had suffered Amaranthe, the dragons of the Droplets too had been in turmoil for centuries.
Their anax was rumored to be a violent, angry sort who’d killed multiple wives.
At least, the old one. Word from Balmirra was that a son had killed the father and taken the throne—or the dais, as dragons didn’t sit on thrones. Or chairs that much.
She didn’t think Attalus was that son. He didn’t seem the usurping or ruling type.
“Familial dispute,” was his uncharacteristically brief answer.
“Familial disputes within a royal family are no small thing.”
She heard his sharp inhale and bit back her triumphant grin. It seemed she’d managed to surprise him.
“The horns?”
“The horns.”
“Hm.” Attalus fell into a short, moody silence as he considered his answer. Leita gave him his peace, showing that it could in fact be done.
Finally, he said, “Things are…unsettled in Highhome. I’d headed north with the idea of trying to find my brother Theron. He traveled this way with our half-sister some years ago.”
“He wouldn’t have come to the faelands.”
“No, indeed. It seems the winds had other plans for me.” That grin was back, she just knew it. “Instead they brought me to you.”
“That’s giving the wind an awful lot of credit.”
“Oh, I don’t know, the winds have a will of their own. Just like the tides and the forests.”
Leita’s cheeks burned at his words. He spoke so easily, so candidly of those natural forces as if they were his friends, the same beings who turned away from Leita.
She’d be lying to say it didn’t make her sore, even if she refused to show it.
“And you?” he asked. “Why are you out here in the wilderness all on your own?”
“I’m not on my own. And you have no idea how far we are from civilization.”
“I don’t remember seeing anything before landing.” He lifted his nose an inch into the air to sniff. “We’re near the eastern edge of the faelands, if my guess is correct.”
Damn, she’d heard dragons had excellent senses of direction. Not unlike birds, they could sense the various pulls of the earth to aid them in navigation.
“Besides,” he continued breezily, “if we were near your home, you’d have taken me there by now.”
Leita snorted. “I absolutely wouldn’t.”
“You prefer sleeping rough?” It was the first time she heard anything near distaste in his voice.
Somehow, hearing it made her…unhappy.
“I don’t mind it. The forest has always been good company.” At least, other forests had.
He rumbled in consideration. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those feral types. A woodland child.”
Leita’s blush reignited. “If I told you I was, would you fly far, far away?”
“No,” he replied, “I’d just have to try harder to persuade you into a bed.”
She closed her eyes so no one would see her roll them behind her lids.
“You are a vexing creature,” she sighed.
“So I’m told,” he chuckled.
A peculiar possessiveness sparked in her chest. Who else said so? Who else did he tease in this way? Who else enjoyed his humor and charm—?
Not that she did, of course. His comment just…sparked her curiosity.
They lapsed into a strange silence. Although partial to silence, Leita couldn’t help wanting to fill this one.
Instead, she clenched her jaw, refusing to be the one to break it.
Eventually, whether out of curiosity or boredom or something else entirely, she felt him pick up the end of her plait from the ground. At first, she thought he’d tug it or offer it to the marten to play with. A reprimand was on her lips when she felt him begin to gently tease it between his claws.
Leita’s throat went dry.
His voice was softer than before when he asked, “What is it exactly that you do, sitting here thinking so hard?”
“That’s not your concern.” She didn’t mean for it to sound so harsh, but she could admit she was sensitive when it came to the faelands and its magic.
“No, perhaps not, but I’m curious.” Leita’s attention trained on the way his fingers deftly twirled her hair. She couldn’t quite see the movements, but something made her almost desperate to.
Unable to fight the blush, she bit out, “I’m trying to talk to the magic of the faelands. Get it to move the excess ash. I’d be further along if you’d—”
“You mean like that?”
Leita opened her eyes to find clouds of ash hovering in the air, nearly blocking out the sun entirely. She choked on her surprise.
“Well, it looks like it worked,” he said, sitting up to grin at her. “Now what?”
Now what, indeed. She’d been trying all morning to do something that happened…just like that? What had changed?
For the first time, her head swung to the side to look at Attalus. Oh no. No no no. She wouldn’t accept that he was what’d changed.
Standing abruptly, Leita decided to take advantage of the success—and not think too hard about why it’d come to be.
Streaks of gray floated and flew through the air, following where she directed them with precise movements of her arms. The trees shook off their layer of soot, the mosses shed their layer of singe.
Leita didn’t dare stop, not until all the loose detritus of the fire had been gathered into great piles.
When she finally let her arms fall to her sides, the sky was blue again, the air clean, and tall mounds of dusty gray ash rose before her. It would make for good fertilizer in the gardens she insisted on starting in Fallorian—if she could manage to get it there, she supposed.
A problem for another day.
Buoyant with her success, Leita turned her hands to the sky. “Now for the rain.”
She thought Attalus echoed her words, but she didn’t truly hear. Splaying her fingers, she shot her magic into the sky, beseeching the wind and clouds to churn.
The faelands shuddered around them, unsure about Leita but desiring a cleansing rain.
That’s it. We want the same thing. Work with me.
The land’s will and magic coalesced, and together they coaxed great billowing clouds inland from the sea. Across the sky they moved, faster than was natural. The barometric pressure lifted the hairs on her arms, and her wings shivered inside their protective bundles on her back.
“Leita, wait…”
A hand gripped her shoulder, but Leita didn’t care.
Thunder burst across the sky, followed by a sheet of cool, clean rain.
She didn’t know when she’d closed her eyes, but at the feeling of rain on her skin, Leita turned her face to the wet sky. A laugh of pure, giddy triumph escaped her.
I did it, she told Thalia. I did it! she told the faelands.
The rain suddenly stopped above her head, instead echoing hollowly on the thin membrane of Attalus’s wing. From under the shelter of the other, Attalus peered at her curiously.
“Very impressive, but we should worry about mudslides.”
Leita opened her mouth to assure him that she could handle whatever the rain might bring—but what came out was a huff right before she collapsed into an overdue long sleep.