45. Lucy
Lucy
Compliment a dragon’s cooking, never his collection. The first he made to be enjoyed. The second he made to be envied, and envy is how a dragon learns who to watch.
The kiss of wind beneath my wings was something I thought I’d never get used to, but the sensation was nearly forgotten when I stared into Riot’s eyes.
Everything else became background noise when he was close.
I was starting to understand what it meant to have someone become your center of gravity without ever deciding to let them.
He’d circled me as I left the fog, commanded my attention and control, and then insisted I follow him.
Maybe I don’t like surprises, I said.
You’re going to like this one.
That’s what people say before something terrible happens, and I’m becoming an expert on terrible happenings.
Riot’s laugh coated my mind. I’ve been alive a very long time, Lucette. I know the difference between good and bad. He flew closer, close enough our wings nearly touched. Though I’ll admit, you make it difficult to be on my best behavior.
I snorted. This is your only behavior. I’ve never seen anything else from you.
The look he gave me suggested I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. That’s because you’ve only met me when I’m restraining myself.
Should I be concerned for when you’re not?
His voice was smooth. Concerned? No. Curious, maybe. I learned a very long time ago that gentle creatures do not survive.
Yet here you are… Gentle Riot.
He smiled, but there was nothing soft about it. I think I like your perspective of me. It’s very flattering. Entirely wrong, but flattering.
Prove it.
Give it time, beautiful beast. There are very few things in this world I wouldn’t destroy for the people I choose.
And you, he said, flying even closer, are making that list dangerously short.
I will always be loyal to you. But don’t mistake that loyalty for gentleness.
You’re simply the exception that made a dragon kneel.
My heart dipped into my belly, stealing my breath. You are a gentleman. I’ve never seen an ounce of cruelness from you.
He paused, wings stuttering for just a beat. That’s because I was loyal to Aureth, and now you’ll only ever stand on the side of me that worships you.
Heat bloomed beneath my skin. I don’t know whether to feel honored or afraid.
His gaze slid toward me, ancient and careful. “You should feel safe, my Tilouri.”
I didn’t have an answer for that and I wasn’t quite sure one existed. I did feel safe with him, but he only existed for me at night.
We flew in silence and I let it settle over me, the weight of what he’d said, the way he’d said it, the particular quality of a man who meant every word and never wasted one. Below us, Noreya spread out in every direction, gray and vast, and I watched it pass beneath me without really seeing it.
His wings angled downward without warning.
Where are we going? I asked again.
You’ll see.
Riot.
Trust me.
Two words, quiet and absolute, and the frustrating thing was that I did. The ground appeared slowly and then all at once the shape of it hit me. The oval. The curve of remaining walls. The field below swallowed by ash.
My breath left me. The Regalia Pitch.
We landed on what remained of the first ever Nexus field and I stood still for a long moment, just looking.
The stands had collapsed inward on the eastern side.
The premium boxes half standing at the far end were scorched black.
The platform anchors still embedded in the stone, corroded but refusing to break.
If I closed my eyes, I could hear the chanting and cheers, smell the concessions, feel the pulse of the crowd.
I didn’t have to ask. One glance toward Riot and he was already moving.
Already combatting the Ossira as he moved to stand before me, commanding my breath to match his as we shifted together.
And for a moment, though I was surrounded by a place steeped in history, only he existed.
The man that wasn’t a gentleman, but absolutely was.
“Why did you bring me here?” I whispered.
He pulled me directly into his arms, holding me so close, sadness grew where there should have been joy. But the world was cruel and we couldn’t stay this way. No matter the ache in my heart.
“The way you talked about Draven, about standing in your brother’s shadow your whole life.” He looked out over the ruins. “I thought you deserved to stand somewhere that belonged to the game before it belonged to anyone’s legacy.”
I swallowed hard against something rising in my throat. “The Howling Banshees played their first season here,” I said, because I needed to say something and that felt safe and not as vulnerable as I felt.
“I watched them.” He walked slowly toward the center of the field and I followed.
“Before the leagues split. Before any of it moved to the other parts of Fuerlis. Long before Grimora stole the championship games. The Banshees played differently then, more aggressive, before the rule changes came in.” He paused.
“There was a player. Terra Voss. She could read a veil’s trajectory before it formed.
Three seasons I watched her and she was never once surprised by where it went. ”
“My father talked about Terra Voss’s legacy. They claim she changed the way strikers thought about positioning. In fact, for years and years, I wore a ring that he said belonged to her, just because I thought it would make him happy. Never took it off.”
“I can see why. She changed the way everyone thought about the game.” He looked at me.
“She was also told, for most of her career, to stay out of the way. She scored the most veils in a single season this arena ever saw. She didn’t wait for permission.
Didn’t wait for anyone to decide she was worth watching.
She just kept going until they had no choice but to look. ”
The wind moved through the ruins around us, carrying ancient ash in whips that lifted and died in a single breath.
“You brought me here to tell me that?”
“I brought you here because this place has seen people refuse to stop. Everything that’s tried to take this arena down hasn’t managed it yet. The Burnings. The abandonment. Time.” His eyes came back to mine. “Some things just don’t know how to quit.”
I looked at him, this ancient, devastating man standing in the ruins of the first Nexus arena ever built, and felt something settle in me that had been restless for weeks. “You’re doing it again, you know. Being a gentleman.”
“And if I told you my intentions for bringing you here had nothing to do with being a gentleman?”
Heat curled around me. “I’d ask you to be more specific.”
Whatever warmth had been in his eyes a moment ago had shifted into something else entirely.
Something that made the ruins and the cold and every rational thought I had feel very far away.
His voice filled the space between us as he took a step toward me.
“I want to take my time with every inch of you.” Another step.
“I want to hear every sound you try to hold back.” Closer now, close enough I had to tip my chin up to hold his gaze.
“I want to ruin every polite thought you’ve ever had about me.
” His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper.
“And I want you to remember all of it for the rest of our very long lives.”
My breath caught somewhere in my chest and stayed there. Without another word, he took my hand and led me across the abandoned field. I followed. Immediately. Without a single argument.
Which told us both everything.
The ruins gave way to a platform I hadn’t noticed from the air, half buried under ash and new growth, the old station sign long since fallen and decayed on the ground.
A train sat on the track. It clearly hadn’t moved in decades, the patrons coming to visit the ruins of Regalia Pitch had abandoned this train to the Ash long ago.
But the windows were mostly intact. Someone, at some point, had thought this worth preserving even as everything around it burned.
But whomever it was had clearly admitted defeat.
Riot stepped up into the carriage, his hand still wrapped around mine, and pulled me in after him.
The luxury of it hit first, even through the dust and the decades.
Dark wood paneling, brass fittings gone green with age, velvet the color of old wine on every surface.
We moved through the first car without stopping, past seats that had once held people important enough to afford them, past a small bar cart still holding bottles of something that had long since turned to spoils, past curtained compartments with their doors hanging open onto darkness.
He pushed through into the next car. It was smaller. A bed ran along one wall. A single window sat above it, thick with grime except where the moonlight had found a clean edge and pushed through in one sharp silver line across the small room.
Riot turned to face me, finally releasing my hand, and looked at me in that way he had that made everywhere else feel very far away and small. He stood in the single line of moonlight.
“The dragon in you wants something,” he said quietly. “The same thing mine does. I see her and I know it. I haven’t stopped thinking about you pinning me to the ground. The way you moved. The way you looked at me. My dragon wanted to answer that but I wouldn’t let him.”
I had to remind myself to breathe beneath his gaze. I wanted something reckless. I wanted to lose control. I wanted to let myself have this man, but losing control of myself was such a dangerous game.
“I’ll bring him to heel again,” Riot said, bringing me back to him. “As many times as it takes. Now’s your opportunity to make me do it again.” His eyes held mine, steady and certain. “Walk out of this carriage. Take the skies. Right now, if any part of you needs anything other than me, Lucette.”