31. To the Death #3
We resume eating. After a while, I ask, “Does that happen often? Soldiers from Veturland cutting through the Crags, encroaching south?”
It’s a human matter, but I’m human. Penterra is at war with itself. The north battling the south. Invasion from Veturland would only weaken the north further, and Henrik and Meya and the children live in the north. Of course I care.
“Been happening as long as I can remember. Even before I left the skelm.”
I think about that, about the boy he had been.
Lost and alone . . . even more than me. He couldn’t sit in a room with other people like I did, listening to their conversations, pretending to belong to their world.
“As bad as they were, it must have been hard . . . leaving the only home you ever knew.”
“Easiest decision I ever made. I don’t remember my parents. I had no real family. The alpha, Kaldr, found me just as he had found most of us. We were all born to the dragons of old.”
I shake my head in confusion. “Dragons of old . . .”
“The original pure dragons, the last remaining after the Threshing. They gave birth to us, but we were born human. At least outwardly. We were not true hatchlings.” He waved a hand as though dismissing a complicated story. “We were aberrations, the products of a curse . . . the shadow witch, Vala—”
“I read about her. There was a book in the schoolhouse. It had an illustration of her.”
He nods. “Yes, well she cast a curse on dragonkind for the old king, to appease him and end the war between dragonkind and humans . . . with humans the victors, of course.” His tone took on a bitter edge. “Kaldr only wants vengeance. He collected me, all of us, to build a pride.”
“The way you’re building a pride?”
“Not the same way, no.” He shook his head decisively.
“I’m nothing like Kaldr. He wants to kill as many humans as possible.
That is his mission. I won’t do that. I won’t have a pride like his.
” His jaw clenches, and I know he must be thinking about Cyphus and how abysmally he treated me in his absence.
If not for Tage and his innate decency, his pride could easily fall into the same habits as the skelm.
“Whatever curse created us, it is for us to decide how we live.”
I turn that over in my mind, thinking about how big and scary the world is beyond Isstad. So big and scary that it came for Isstad, devoured it, crushed it, and all those within it.
I’d so badly wanted to be a part of the world beyond Isstad. Perhaps naively. Now I am part of that bigger world, and it equally terrifies and . . . exhilarates me.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been away from home.” I wince, realizing I speak of this as a vacation . . . a trip to a neighboring city, perhaps a seaside town where we might go for a sail, and a home is still there, waiting for me to return.
He considers me, his expression unreadable. “Did you never want to leave?”
A rough laugh, short and harsh escapes me.
“I wanted to leave so much and so badly that I threw it all away.” I tossed my whole life away—Da and Jens and Henrik and Meya and my friends.
An ache builds in my chest as the truth of that settles over me in a crushing weight.
I bow my head, suddenly intensely fascinated with the contents of my bowl.
“Everybody must go out into the world. That is normal, is it not? Even among humans?”
I nod jerkily and breathe through the sorrow, the guilt.
He points to my mug. “Drink the verdaberry tea. It will help heal you.”
I take a sip. “So we have both been cursed by a witch.”
He tilts his head consideringly. “In a manner. We have that in common, I suppose. I exist at all because of a witch’s curse.
A witch cannot cast a death spell, so she did the next best thing.
” His lips twist with scorn. He takes the last bite of his bread and sweeps it around his now empty bowl, mopping up the last bit of gravy.
“I have family in the Borg.” All this time I told myself they would be safe in the north’s largest city, home to the Lord of the Borderlands.
As long as he retains power over the north, it would be the safest place for them to be.
Safer, clearly, than Isstad. Except now I’m wondering if there is any place safe in all of the kingdom.
“So not all your family was lost? That is good.”
“Yes. My brother and his wife and children. I would like to go to them.” I inject force into these last words, letting him know I’m not content to remain here as his guest indefinitely.
He pauses a beat before spooning some stew into his mouth. “I don’t—”
“Just don’t say no,” I interrupt, dreading the word no. “Do you really think I will tell anyone?” At his continued silence, I press on. “Just think about it. I wouldn’t—”
“You’re not going anywhere. Not yet.”
I growl in frustration and drop my mug back on the tray with a noisy clatter. With a huff, I pull the fur back up to my chin and roll onto my side, presenting him with my back. “You can’t keep me here forever.”
His voice gentles. “I just need to be certain before I let you go.”
“Certain that I won’t betray your pride?” I push, and that stings a little. Does he think I would do that to him? After . . . everything. “I won’t. I will keep your secrets, take them to the grave.”
I see him thinking, reading the hesitation in his eyes before he speaks. “It’s not even just my pride. I have all of dragonkind to consider. I promise you will come to no harm while you’re here.”
I shoot an arm up in the air, brandishing my bandaged wrist. “You mean no more harm?” It’s a low jab, I know. He didn’t want or mean for it to happen, but it did.
He doesn’t say anything more. After a moment, I hear him stacking dishes. The snap of the pelt curtain alerts me that he’s left.
I burrow into the fur, seeking warmth. My lids turn into heavy weights, tugging me to slumber.
I sleep deeply, rousing only once, briefly, giving a small mewl of discontent when the fur lifts and a cool draft rolls over me.
It doesn’t last long, however. A presence slides in behind me, and the fur comes down over me again.
The solid weight of an arm settles around my waist, pulling me back into a thick wall of muscle that curves along my spine and legs.
I open my eyes fleetingly, but then close them again, caught in the web of a dream, too tired, too comfortable, too surrounded.
Touched. Engulfed in vitality, in the warmth of another .
. . the big hand on my tender ribs a pulsing, comforting imprint that I never want to go away, that I would keep forever if I could.