CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
VESPER
Vesper sat slumped against the cavern wall, his eyelids and chest equally heavy.
He scrubbed a hand down his face and willed himself to get it together.
It had been a week—the longest fucking week of his life.
And even though the bloodlace had gradually retreated after only seven days, the weight on his heart wasn’t from his struggles with Kaida, nor the lack of answers from Thorrin.
“Ready for training, pretty boy?”
Vesper peered up as Kyrith entered the cavern.
Her burgundy locks flowed behind her in some phantom breeze and she appeared freshly bathed, and there Vesper sat, a bloody, sweaty mess.
He had been on Kaida all day while Kyrith was off with Thorrin doing gods only knew what.
It wasn’t his business on how they found answers for the prophecy, cure for the bloodlace, or any of it. Just that they did. And quickly.
It had already been a week and each day, his heart rose in his throat. Especially after today.
“What special torture do you have planned for me?” he asked but couldn’t reach his usual sarcastic lilt.
“You should know my veins are already parched from today’s bloodletting.
” Kaida and him had bickered all day as they scorched bloodlace.
The endless battle of wills between them never ceased, nor did his Shadowheart’s piss-poor attitude.
Kyrith’s eyes glimmered in the low light that streamed from between the vines above. “Maybe some slight waterboarding. Quality time with some metal spikes. Nothing too terrible.”
Vesper huffed a laugh he didn’t feel and stared at his hands.
He hadn’t worn his gloves today and, as usual, he’d anxiously picked at them until they were a hot, bloody mess.
As both the pactum with Destonne and the other with Thorrin stared at him, he drowned in such unending self-loathing he wished he could sink into the floor. Disappear entirely.
“Don’t look too excited,” she shot back. She yanked her mask over her face and placed a hand on her hip.
A bitter taste flooded his mouth. “Did you get any answers today?”
“Not yet.” Kyrith strode toward him. “We did get a bit of a lead, but when we followed it, it went dead. At least Rainna, Gaelen, and Dimitri were able to find some good supplies while scavenging.”
Anxious energy rose within him and he couldn’t swallow it. “But that doesn’t fucking help us, does it?”
Kyrith’s top lip curled. “What crawled up your ass and died?”
“What are we actually doing today? So I can mentally prepare myself before you rip into me.” With a groan, he shoved himself up and tried to ignore his sore muscles. He drew his knife from his belt and placed it over his sore hand.
Kyrith’s eyes widened as she fixated on his arm. “What happened?” The slight shake in her voice almost tricked him into thinking she actually cared.
“Nothing. Let’s get this done.” He braced himself for the blade's bite, but to his absolute bloody surprise, Kyrith caught his wrist. His gaze snapped up to hers and found her studying the chunk missing from his forearm.
“Gods have mercy, did she bite you?”
“Go ahead and laugh,” he said, his voice low.
“That’s—I…” she started, but clearly didn’t know what to say.
So, Vesper said it for her. “You were right. I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’d never really summoned her before coming here.
And I can’t control her. You saw right through me.
I’m a fucking fraud.” He stared down at the bite mark imprinted in his flesh.
“Looks like you’re all doomed if you’re counting on a bloody moron like me. ”
Kyrith’s brows pulled together but it was impossible to see her expression beneath her mask. She released his wrist. “Whoa, back up. What spurred the pity party? Was it the bite? Because it seems like—”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just train.” His mouth pulled to the side as he sliced into his tender hand. He turned away from Kyrith, toward the center of the cavern. The air knocked from his lungs as Kaida sprang free and nearly took him to his knees, the drain on his magic at an all time high.
Kaida shook her great shadowy body and her crimson eyes slid to Vesper in a sly sneer.
On a heavy breath, Kyrith said, “Will you let me help you?”
“That’s what you’re here for, right?” His exhaustion sat on his chest. “What am I doing wrong, now?”
Kyrith took his hand again, and this time, his entire body turned to stone.
“You’re not doing it wrong,” she said, gently, a tone she’d never used with him.
She extended his palm toward Kaida’s snout, and the dragon stopped her side-eyeing to sniff the blood wafting from Vesper’s hand.
Kaida took a step toward him, and butted her snout up against it.
Then she purred.
And the drain on him … lessened.
Vesper gaped first at Kaida whose eyes shut in submission, and next at Kyrith who kept her hand pressed to his. “How did you—”
“You need to bond,” she replied. “You have to be one with her, or she’ll fight you at every turn.” Her eyes slid down to the teeth marks in his arm. “And evidently take a chunk out of you.”
His traitorous eyes took in Kyrith’s high neck cobalt-blue shirt.
How the fabric clung to her curves. Vesper tried not to look or meet her gaze or feel the weight of her hand on his, but his frantic heart thrashed in his chest and wouldn’t slow.
Especially as her hand lingered and her blackberry scent invaded his senses.
His mind fell back into the memories of this last week.
Him settling into a free tiny house, drinking at the tavern each night, swapping stories, Nef laughing with the rest of them, how the citizens of Rensburrow would come up to Kyrith and chat with her.
Fawn over her. And all of this was easy.
Fluid. And for this short time, even though he missed his friends terribly, Vesper wanted to pretend this was his home.
Kyrith had never even passed him a glance. She had always looked at him like she’d seen all she needed to. But now—
She stared at him in a way she never had before. How really no one else had looked at him. Like he was worth something.
And at that precise moment Stiggy came barreling into the cavern, chasing a screeching rat. It skittered and darted for escape, but the little dragon was faster. She snatched it up into her mouth and swallowed it whole.
Kyrith yanked her hand away and turned to her dragon. “Gross, Stigs.”
Vesper scrunched his nose. “Does she do that often?”
“To her, rats are a delicacy,” Kyrith said. She wouldn’t look at him as she shoved back her hair from her face and said to her dragon, “Stiggy, why don’t you go see Thorrin?”
The dragon puffed a plume of smoke into the air then froze as her eyes met Kaida’s.
The two watched each other, neither of them moving.
They both made low growls that ended in a higher pitch.
It didn't sound entirely aggressive and Vesper bloody hoped it wasn’t.
The last thing he wanted to do was break up a fight.
Kyrith twisted her mouth to the side. “What do you say we go for a ride? It would be good training.”
He didn’t know how to process this shift. How she softened to him. After a few tense moments in which he told himself he needed to reply and not be awkward, he cleared his throat and said, “If you think so.”
Vesper rounded his dragon and leapt onto Kaida in the smoothest move he could manage, then offered her his hand.
She studied the saber pactum before she hesitantly placed her hand in his and he yanked her onto Kaida’s back.
But she didn’t sit behind him but nestled in the space between his thighs as Stiggy leapt into her lap, too.
He didn’t breathe as she leaned back into him, almost tested to see what he would do. If he would touch her, or—
He wasn’t sure of the boundaries. “Can I—do you want me to hold onto you? She’s getting better, but it may be a bit bumpy.”
A laugh burst from her. “I’m not afraid of a little roughness.”
He nearly groaned. Gods, she’d be the death of him. He pulled on his mask and wrapped an arm around her soft middle.
“But try anything,” Kyrith hissed, “and lose a hand.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Before either of them were ready, Kaida shot toward the gaping hole in the ceiling like a flaming arrow. Kyrith fell back into him.
“Don’t fuck around!” Vesper scolded. The dragon shot a smug grin of sharp fangs over her shoulder. “Stop, Kaida. Slow!”
Kyrith had the audacity to laugh. “Reach into your mark. Lean into her but also let her lean into you too.”
Vesper snorted at the ridiculousness of that. Why would Kaida lean on him? But as he sank into his mark and found Kaida there, they both faded together, their hearts melded. Her wings shot out like black shadowy fans as tendrils trailed behind them, and she soared.
Bloody Hollow. She was always right. Not that he’d ever admit it to her.
Clearly satisfied with the stress she put them through, Kaida levelled out.
The landscape spread before them, a symphony of blues and browns and greens tainted by the sinister crimson of the bloodlace, and the setting sun blurred in smears of reds and orange across the sky, a whole palette of colours, just for them.
“I suppose this is alright,” Kyrith said.
“Yeah? Should I tell Kaida to do a flip?”
“Not after I watched you almost break your neck,” she said.
“Yes, but I didn’t. And funny, you almost sound concerned for me.”
“Don’t go getting ideas. What would I do if you died? The bloodlace would claim us all,” she said, her eyes crinkling with a smile. She pointed to a far-off pocket in a mountainside. “Head that way.”