3. Chapter 3 #3
"We might not get to touch each other again." The words came out raw. "We might not get to bond again, ever. And I spent the last weeks of it hating you through a wall because you decided I couldn't be trusted with the truth."
"I'm sorry." It came out like something scraped from the bottom of him. "I am so sorry, Amaria."
"I know that too," I stated.
Umbra shifted her wings, and a long plume of steam unfurled from her nostrils.
"For Caden. I would do it all again for Caden. He's alive. That's not nothing. That will never be nothing."
"But the weeks," he said.
"The weeks were ours. And we'll never get them back."
He nodded.
"This is torture," he said quietly. "Staying this far from you. Watching you pace like a caged thing I can't touch. Knowing what he's done and not being able to—"
His hand flexed at his side. Controlled violence with nowhere to go.
"But it's survivable torture. Losing you wouldn't be."
"I know." I smiled. It hurt. "Welcome to our own personal hell."
The corner of his mouth twitched, but grief stayed lodged in his eyes.
"We'll figure it out," I said. "The King. The binding. Whatever it takes. I didn't ride a dragon and watch your wife get incinerated just to give up now."
"Former wife," he corrected. "Technically."
"Technically she's ash, so I think the marriage is annulled."
This time he did laugh—low and rough.
"There she is," he murmured. "The one who makes impossible sound like a scheduling conflict."
"I never left," I said.
"Neither did I, Little Fox. We just took the long way around."
Little Fox. A flush crept up my neck, and well. There went the last of my good sense.
Eryndor’s gaze slid to Umbra, and I turned to look too. She loomed over the clearing like vengeance made flesh, and for one strange heartbeat the world felt almost survivable.
"We should get back," I finally said. "The others will think Umbra ate me."
"Did she try?"
"She strongly considered it."
The corner of Eryndor's mouth lifted. Barely.
I turned and walked back to the dragon, hyper-aware of the space between us. The careful distance. She lowered her head as I approached, one massive eye tracking Eryndor behind me.
"He's with me," I told her. "Don't eat him either."
She snorted. Steam curled from her nostrils.
I took that as an agreement.
Climbing up was easier the second time. I found handholds, swung my leg over, and settled into the groove at the base of her neck. Eryndor climbed up behind me—graceful even now, exhausted and bruised. The dragon shifted under his weight.
"Hold on," I said over my shoulder. "She doesn't slow down for—"
Umbra launched.
The force threw me back. I leaned into him, my back almost pressing against his chest.
For one heartbeat, it was perfect. Then our Marks ignited. Both surging forward, reaching, straining toward each other like vines desperate for sun. The tether trying to rebuild itself in the space between our bodies.
Eryndor wrenched backward.
The separation was violent. Cold air rushed into the gap where his warmth had been. My Marks screamed. Reaching for what they couldn't have.
"Don't." The word came out rough. Strained. "Amaria—you can't—"
"I know." The words came out ragged. "I wasn't—I didn't think—"
"Neither did I. It’s alright," he rasped.
We rode the rest of the way in silence.
Him pressed against Umbra's haunches, me hunched over her neck, six feet of empty air between us that might as well have been an ocean. Every instinct I had screamed to close the distance. To lean back. To let the bond finish what it started.
Below us, the rocky hills gave way to familiar terrain. The southern quarter. The crumbling rooftop where I'd left the others.
Umbra descended.
She landed hard—harder than necessary, I thought, the smug beast—and I slid off her side before she'd fully settled. Put distance between me and Eryndor and let the cold air fill the space where his warmth should have been.
Maxx was already running toward us, Serenya striding behind him, Caden bringing up the rear with the dog tucked under one arm.
Dreadscale was waiting a little apart from them, still as carved stone, as if he'd been standing there the whole time and the rest of us were simply late.
"Did you just steal a royal carriage with a dragon?" Maxx's voice pitched somewhere between hysteria and worship. "Please say yes. Please tell me you committed high treason via reptile."
"Technically Umbra stole it. I was just a passenger."
"Even better. The dragon's a criminal now. I'm so proud I could weep."
Eryndor dropped down from Umbra's back. Landed ten feet from me and carefully maintained the distance.
Maxx reached him first. For a moment I thought he might actually hug the bastard—but instead he just gripped Eryndor's shoulder. Hard. Said something low I couldn't hear.
Eryndor's hand came up. Covered Maxx's. Squeezed once.
Then Maxx's eyes flicked between us. The distance. The careful way we weren't looking at each other.
His smile faded.
“Well. This is a warm reunion. Warm like a funeral pyre.”
Serenya stepped forward. “What happened?”
I looped arms with her. “I’ll tell you all about it. But first we plot to kill a king.”