Chapter 13 Irena
IRENA
The dragon begins shrinking under me, the process going in reverse as his body gets smaller and his scales are reabsorbed back into his body. His neck shortens and his head and face become human again, as does the rest of his body.
Before I know it, I’m sitting astride Valen’s bare back as he lies face down in the grass.
“Oh!” I gasp and hop off at once. We seem to have landed in a kind of clearing in the middle of a vast forest with tall trees all around, but he’s not moving, which worries me.
“Valen?” Gingerly, I take him by one broad shoulder and attempt to roll him over. It takes all my strength but at last I get his massive, muscular body turned so he’s lying on his back.
His eyes are closed but his chest is still moving up and down—that’s a relief, anyway. And the entire front of him is covered in dark brown dust—is that from the winds of the Poison Desert? If so, it needs to come off, but looking around, I don’t see a pond or a lake for him to bathe in.
What I do see is a long, winding path leading deeper into the trees.
And beside it is a medium sized inn. A wooden placard hangs above the doorway picturing a severed lamb’s head leaking blood from a ragged stump of a neck.
Its eyes are rolled up in its head in a horrid way and the lettering beneath says, “The Slaughtered Lamb.”
Ugh.
I don’t much like the look of the inn—though it’s certainly better than landing in the middle of the Poison Desert—but as I watch, the front door opens and out comes a woman.
She’s plump and bosomy and she’s wearing a brown homespun dress that’s stretched tight over her ample curves.
“Now then, now then!” she exclaims, hurrying up to us. She has shrewd brown eyes which flick rapidly over the two of us—me in my Court gown and Valen, naked as the day he was born. Or hatched? I don’t know the details of the Dragon People’s birth.
“Hello.” I rise and start to wipe my hands on my skirts—but stop myself in time and use my black cloak instead.
“Who are you and what are you doing on the edge of Thornmere?” the woman demands.
The edge of Thornmere? I thought the dragon was going to fly me right to the center, where the Sorceress’s stronghold is!
Still, maybe he ran out of strength—or maybe he’s been poisoned. Either way I must tend to him—even if I don’t really want to. The ring throbs around my finger, warning me. He is my servant…but also my responsibility.
“Hello, good lady,” I begin, using my best princess voice. “Thank you so much for coming to my aid. My manservant has collapsed, as you can see.”
I’m worried that she’s seen Valen in his dragon form or that she’ll ask questions about why he’s naked, but she seems to have her own explanation for that.
“Got too close to the edge of the desert, did he?” she asks. “I expect that the sands ate his clothes away—they’re monstrous hungry, so they are!”
“Oh, er—yes, something like that,” I say, nodding.
“And you’re a noblewoman?” She squints at me shrewdly, her eyes flicking up and down my sparkling silver-green gown and the golden pins still in my windblown hair.
I start to tell her I’m the Princess of Theravan…but decide that’s more information than she needs to know.
“Yes, I am,” I say firmly. “Do you have a place where I could tend to my manservant? He is in a bad way, I’m afraid.”
“Indeed, he is,” she agrees. “I’ve got a room free for you right now. Can you get him to walk? Don’t think the two of us can shift him—he’s too damn big!”
“Valen? Valen!” I lean down and pat his cheek carefully.
His eyelids flutter at last, revealing eyes that look like dying coals. Which concerns me—it seems as though the fire inside him is going out.
“Valen,” I say again. “This nice woman has a room for us in her inn. Can you rise and walk with us? You’re too big to carry.”
With a low groan, he levers himself to his feet and sways for a moment before I—very reluctantly—slip an arm around his waist. He’s so big and naked and dirty—yet under the acrid fumes from the desert, I can still smell his bonfire-and-male-spice scent.
“Fuck…” he mutters, putting one hand to his head as I attempt to keep him upright—it’s not easy since he’s tall as a tree and heavy as one too.
“Come with me,” the innkeeper, whose name I still haven’t gotten, urges us. “We need to hurry before the poison sets in.”
“So…fucking…hungry,” Valen growls as we stagger towards the Slaughtered Lamb.
“We have hot food at all hours,” the innkeeper assures us. “Just ask old Maud—I can get you whatever it is you need.”
Well, at least now I know her name.
“I thank you, good lady,” I say, giving her my best princess smile—the one I save for Court where I’m supposed to be scrupulously polite to everyone. “You are too kind.”
“Eh, it’s nothing.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Couldn’t leave the two of you out in the wilds. The forest ent safe, even in the daytime, lest you stay on the path.”
And with this piece of wisdom, she leads us into the inn.