Chapter 11
Wren
Iwake with my heart already racing, hand reaching blindly for a body that isn’t there.
My fingers close on cool linen and a narrow mattress instead of a broad chest and an arm anchoring me in place. Just an empty bed in the Colonel’s House and the faint gray light of morning creeping around the curtains.
For a moment I let myself lie there and pretend that if I roll over, I’ll find fangs and a familiar smirk waiting for me.
It’s a dangerous indulgence, and I know better, but the echo of Riven’s voice from my dream clings to me stubbornly even a week later: Nothing could keep me from you. Not even death.
The ache that blooms beneath my ribs at the memory is sharp.
I drag in a breath and push upright slowly, rubbing a hand over my face to try to rid myself of the lingering drowsiness plaguing me.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, the boards cool under my bare feet.
I’m halfway to the window when I hear voices drifting distantly within the house.
My feet alter course and head toward the door until I press my ear to it, not wanting to open my squeaky door to alert them to my eavesdropping, but needing whatever information I can get.
“I’m telling you, I saw it,” a man hisses, his words muffled by the door and distance, but still clear enough. “It wasn’t a bird, Derrick.”
My hand finds the door frame, fingers curling around the wood.
“And I’m telling you,” Derrick answers tersely, “patrols come back twitchy all the time. Until it’s confirmed, it’s a suspicious report, not a fact.”
There’s a frustrated exhale and then, “It had a tail,” the other man insists. “A long one. It was just south of the old highway, barely above the cloud line hanging over the borderline between states. I know what I saw.”
A cold ripple slides down my spine and my breath falters. The fear in the man’s voice is palpable.
What did he see?
“I believe that you believe that, Sean,” Derrick says, the words lower now, edged with the faintest hint of unease. “But it isn’t possible. Dragons don’t exist except for in stories and history books that have far too much dust on them to be relevant now.”
My pulse thuds heavily in my chest as the blood roars in my ears. My whole world narrows down to one word.
Dragon.
“Exactly,” Sean argues, his voice rising. “Which is why the Colonel needs to know one might be headed straight for us and why I didn’t put it over the comms. We don’t know how to properly defend against this and everyone will lose their minds if they don’t hear a strategy from the Colonel himself.”
It can’t be…but the timing. The direction it was spotted.
“You have to tell him. Now,” Sean urges. “I pushed the jeep to its limits to get back here as fast as I could, but if it decides to head our direction, it could be here any minute.”
Dread and something horribly close to hope twist together in my gut, making it suddenly hard to breathe.
Heavy footsteps thud down the stairs and both men go abruptly quiet. Every board in this house has its own particular groan, and I’ve learned the cadence of the man who lives in it.
“Colonel,” Derrick says, the word clipped, formal. “Good morning.”
“Report,” Ryoden answers, his voice stripped of all the softness he usually has around his friend.
“Patrol close to the border spotted an animal in the sky,” Derrick says. “High altitude, quick speeds, with a tai—”
“Dragon,” Sean blurts out, clearly unable to hold it in.
The silence that follows is heavy enough that I can feel it pressing through the door.
“Why am I hearing about this now and not the moment someone laid eyes on it?” Ryoden asks, each word delivered with lethal calm.
“We wanted to verify—”
“We didn’t want to alarm—”
“I don’t care if it’s verified,” Ryoden cuts in, his tone dropping. “Anything that might be a supernatural threat gets to me immediately. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” they both answer, overlapping.
I can picture him standing there in the foyer with them, barely leashed fury under tight composure, eyes narrowed as his mind races.
After a week in this house and listening to many interactions, one thing is abundantly clear to me from his tone: Ryoden is afraid. Not for himself, but for the people within his walls.
He should be.
“Direction?” he asks.
“Southwest above the highway line,” Sean replies. “Last spotted circling near the border. If it alters the course just slightly…”
If it alters course, it comes here. The unsaid words hang in the air.
“Get the wall captains on rotation and have them wake the spotters,” Ryoden says. “No one fires until I say so, but I want every gun loaded and every tank warmed.”
“Yes, sir.”
There’s a brief pounding of boots as the heavy front door opens and slams shut.
The next sound is a set of steps that hurry up the stairs, causing me to shuffle away from the door to lean against the window.
He knocks once and then turns the handle without waiting for an invitation.
I glance over my shoulder, trying to appear nonchalant, like I didn’t just hear what’s happening.
I can’t help the downturn of my lips when I take in the Colonel.
He looks more worn than he did last night.
The faint shadows under his eyes are pronounced, his jaw dark with stubble he didn’t bother to shave today, and hair tousled without the usual routine to keep it neatly in place.
His uniform remains crisp and his gun is strapped to his hip.
“We have a potential dragon sighting with a chance of it heading toward this city,” he says, not wasting a breath on pleasantries. “Is there anything you want to tell me about that?”
My spine goes rigid as the sting from last night’s argument flares in my chest.
“I didn’t realize you thought I had dragons tucked up my sleeve,” I answer, heat edging my voice despite the chill crawling along my skin. “That’s flattering, in a way.”
“This is not a joke,” he says, and there’s no mistaking the strain in his tone now.
“A dragon in the air this close to us isn’t something we can shrug off as rumor.
You seem to be in the eye of the storm of every big fight recently, and now there might be a dragon coming for us all.
I’m trying to connect the lines before someone dies. ”
The bluntness strips away my first dozen defensive responses. I draw in a breath and force myself to focus past the sting of his suspicion.
“I don’t control any dragons,” I answer, because that part is true. “I haven’t called any here. If one is coming, it’s not because I summoned it.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “That doesn’t answer the question entirely. Once again, it sounds like you’re withholding important information.”
I hold his gaze and feel the tension from last night filling the small room around us now.
“Do you know why one might be coming?” he asks, slower this time, as if he’s trying very hard to give me the chance to be honest before blowing up.
The truth rises heavily in my heart, no matter how unlikely it may be.
I think of Torryn in that field, of the dragon spirit’s acceptance shuddering through the earth, of how fiercely he vowed to protect me. Torryn, who always placed me between himself and danger if it meant I’d walk out unscathed.
“If it’s who I think it might be,” I say carefully, weighing every word before I release it, “then he isn’t here for your city.”
One of Ryoden’s dark brows lift, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“He’s here for me,” I finish before the weight of that admission truly slams into me.
Could his dragon spirit be seeking me out?
Ryoden’s face pinches like I’ve just confirmed that I’m somehow with the enemies. “You have a connection to the supernaturals.”
“Yes,” I answer simply, because dancing around it now would be an insult to both him and my history with the kings. “Just not in the way you seem determined to think.”
The wind whistles outside suddenly as the beams of light filtering into the room begin to fade out, leaving us immersed in shadows.
Ryoden steps further into the room, leaving the door open behind him. “You’re telling me a dragon might be flying toward this city because of you,” he says tightly before taking a breath, “and you think I’m supposed to feel less suspicious about who you are now?”
My lungs expand until it feels like they’ll burst as I try to center my emotions. My brain is focused on the logistics of what’s going on and convincing Ryoden that I’m not his enemy, but my heart is torn in the opposite direction of what this means if it is Torryn’s dragon.
I exhale and counter, “You’re supposed to believe what I’m telling you, in that I think he’s here for me.”
His jaw works, the muscle in his cheek ticking as he absorbs that. “Can he be reasoned with?”
I close my eyes for half a heartbeat and see Torryn’s face—the gentle crease to his brow when he sees any of his people in need, his laughter as we splashed around in the river, and the tenderness in his touch.
If this truly is his dragon spirit, my heart is telling me he’s come to protect me, not launch a war against the humans here.
“By me,” I answer, crossing my arms against my chest. “And definitely not by anyone pointing guns or tanks at his head.”
For a moment, we just stand there, the space between us charged with more than just the impending storm.
His eyes search my face, like he’s trying to decide whether to trust that I know what I’m talking about, whether to risk his city on the word of a woman he’s still not sure isn’t a walking disaster.
“What do you want?” he asks finally.
It’s not the question I expected and my head jerks back. “Excuse me?”
“You made it clear that you don’t want to be cooped up here any longer,” he says, frustration sharpening his tone. “So what do you want to do, Wren? Do you want to prove to me that your words aren’t empty and that you don’t want any of my people hurt?”
The answer is already there, waiting in my chest, burning brightly. I know this will only lead to more questions and deeper suspicions from Ryoden, but this I can do…keeping the peace for both sides.
If it is Torryn.
“Take me to the wall,” I say. “If it is him, I need to see him. If there’s any chance of avoiding a fight, it’ll be because I’m up there and not locked in here.”
His mouth presses into a thin line. “And if it isn’t who you think?”
My commitment doesn’t waiver.
“Then you’ve brought one more pair of eyes onto the wall to stand guard,” I reply. “And a person who doesn’t want to watch your city burn if she can help it.”
He looks past me to the window, where the light is already going thin and strange, then back. He scrubs a hand over his face, fingers dragging along the rasp of stubble at his jaw, then nods once, decisive.
“Then I guess we’re going to the wall, Wren.”