27. Lucy #2
Tavian picked up the vial he’d set down and turned it in his hands, not looking at it. Thinking. “That’s not a flaw in the rune work. That’s a counter.”
“A counter?”
“Something is specifically interrupting the collar’s hold.
Which means someone built it that way, or didn’t have complete knowledge of dragons prior to the construction.
Either the necklace was made with a counter already embedded, or he carries something that functions as one. ” He looked at me. “Do you know which?”
I thought about the way Riot had pressed his forehead to mine. It was deliberate. Like he’d done it before and knew what it would do. Or maybe touch for him was instinct and he was simply being reactive. Still, the truth lingered.
“I don’t think he knew it would work,” I said quietly.
Tavian nodded slowly. “Then perhaps it’s not something we can trust just yet.”
He was right to be cautious. But something underneath everything else told me I could trust Riot. The way he’d waited on that cliff. The way he’d said my name like he’d been holding onto it. The desperation in his voice when he’d told me to go.
Whatever he was to me, he wasn’t a threat.
“If you don’t want to go, maybe we can find a way to fight it.
If your dragon friend has a key, maybe we can find one too.
Keep you here until we understand the magic better.
” He paused, running a hand through his dark brown hair.
“But if you do want to go, then I hope you’ll let Emrys or myself escort you to the border.
If word gets out you’re leaving… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if people learn you’re getting out of the city every night, there’s no telling how they’ll react. ”
“There’s no question,” I said. “I have to go back.”
Back to Riot. Back to the only person who’d given me silence. He was my peace. Whatever that meant. Whatever it cost.
Tavian smiled. “I thought you’d say that. Now, tell me more about what lies beyond.”
Tired, but so alive and desperate to find Riot whole and waiting, I practically ran to the edge of the city, pacing back and forth as I tried to keep my grip on my own mind.
The shift was coming. I could feel the Ossira heating against my throat, could feel the compulsion building like a wave about to crash.
But rather than letting my captor and their collar command the shift, rather than enduring the agony it brought, I reached for the dragon myself.
I’d only done this twice before in my life that I could remember. Once when I was young and didn’t know better. Once during the cave-in when survival had demanded it. Both times, the choice had been mine. The shift had been mine.
This time was no different.
I embraced the change. Welcomed it. Wings erupted, scales spread across my skin. All of it happened because I willed it, because I welcomed the beast I’d spent my life hiding away. There was triumph in that.
The pain was still there, but duller. Manageable.
When I emerged from the frozen fog, Riot wasn’t there. The cliffs were empty. Just ash-stained rock and the wind cutting across the mountains. No purple dragon waiting. No amber eyes watching for me.
Maybe he died.
The thought formed and faded just as quickly, slipping away as the collar tightened its grip. My memories scattered. The heartbroken woman inside went quiet.
Hunt.
I flew south, following the pull that had no name but demanded obedience. I was obedient.
The world below was ash and ruin. Fuerlis spread out before me, soot-stained and gray, occasional clusters of buildings nearly blended into the charred landscape they sat upon, rebuilt so many times the structures barely stood straight anymore.
Sparse trees dotted the landscape, their branches bare and twisted.
Nothing green. Nothing alive that didn’t have to fight for it.
A figure moved through the wreckage of an old structure.
Target.
I dove.
The woman looked up just as I got close, scrambling backward. I landed hard, claws digging into charred stone. The compulsion screamed for me to finish it. To complete the hunt. To grab her and deliver her to the purple moon beach.
But I hesitated.
A voice. My name. His forehead pressed to mine.
The hesitation cost me. The figure bolted, disappearing into the ruins faster than I could follow through the haze of wanting something else.
The collar screamed across my mind. Pain ripped through me, searing and vicious.
Not just pressure this time, absolute punishment.
An internal lashing, burning against my scales, sending agony down my spine and through my wings.
I tried to fly and couldn’t. Tried to shift and couldn’t.
Just collapsed onto the ground, shaking. Breaking. Burning from the inside out.
I hadn’t behaved. My mind had wandered and now I’d die in the Ash. A victim and prisoner. My body shook as I thrashed, clawing at the collar as my own talons dug at my neck.
Wings blocked out the sky.
Riot landed beside me and something in him broke.
I saw it in his eyes, the way they went wide, then hard and desperate all at once.
He wrapped around me in full dragon form.
Wings folding over mine. Tail curling around my hips.
Scales pressed against scales until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
Until the burning and shaking and agony slipped away.
The silence came.
But it was different now. I could feel his heartbeat thundering against my side. Feel his breath, hot and unsteady. Feel the barely restrained tension in his body like he was holding himself together. Was he in pain? Was he injured in that attack?
“Are you okay?” I managed in dragon form.
“Don’t you dare ask about me when I just found you collapsed in the Ash. Are you okay? What do you need, Lucy? What can I do to help you?”
There was another moment of pause. An answer I whispered like a plea. “Stay.”
He pulled me impossibly closer, his wings tightening around us both.
“I will stay until the stars forget how to burn.”
“But I have to leave,” I said quietly. “The Ossira will pull me away again.”
“Then I’ll be here when the moon carries you back to me.” He said it like a vow. “Every night. I promise.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve spent my entire life serving someone else’s purpose. Protecting someone else’s legacy. And for the first time, I’m choosing where I stand.” His voice dropped lower. “I choose here. With you. Because you might need me, beautiful beast, but I’m certain I need you more.”
Something about the way he said that and the way the dragon within me shifted made pieces click into place.
He’d been waiting that first night. I remembered the desperation in his voice when he’d commanded me to remember.
I thought of the fact that he kept coming back even when I couldn’t remember him.
“What were you doing at the wall that first night, Riot? Before you knew I was on the other side.”
He went very still. I don’t even think his heart beat as the hesitation consumed his first words. “They say the fog is poison, you know. Not to you, obviously. But everyone else dies if they breathe it in.”
My chest tightened. “You wanted to die?”
“No.” He brought his wings even tighter around us. “I think I was looking for a reason to keep going.”
Silence settled in the wake of that confession.
I didn’t know why Riot was my only clear answer in a world that had become nothing but questions.
Didn’t know why his touch brought peace when everything else brought chaos.
But I was grateful for it. For him. For this one blessing in the midst of everything that had been taken.
“I didn’t believe you,” he said to break the silence.
“About the other dragons. I thought maybe the collar had twisted what you saw. But they were real and they wouldn’t stop attacking…
I held them off for hours, trying and trying to make them stop.
I could see it in their eyes, Lucy. They couldn’t fight the compulsion.
It came down to them or me. I had to kill them. ”
My heart broke on those words. A dead dragon was a travesty I felt in my soul.
“I’d just finished final rites on the third when I realized the sun had set.
I’m sorry I was late. I’m sorry the collar got to you before I could.
I’m sorry this is broken and you’re a prisoner I can’t free.
” He pulled back just enough to look at me, his golden eyes searching mine.
“But I want you to come with me. I have a plan.”