Chapter Eighteen
VESKOR
The farther north I traveled, the better I could breathe. I did not think the other drakens had followed. Drakens weren’t used to the cold.
The air here was honest: sharp, cold, unsoftened by salt or humidity or the stench of too many beating hearts. The world narrowed to snow, stone, and wind. It was simple, just like fighting in the pits had been simple.
Survive.
“SNOW! It’s cold!” she said.
I tried to ignore her chatter. It was hard, because it never stopped.
“Your toes are gone!” she trilled.
“They are not gone. They are covered by snow,” I grunted.
Perri nestled in the crook of my arm, humming as she counted fallen pinecones.
“One … two … five … nine … Veskor, look! A big cone!”
“I see it,” I muttered.
She grinned as if I’d praised the sun.
I didn’t know what to do with that. I should never have taken her, or caught her when she fell, or have breathed in her scent as her tiny hands dug into my hair and begged me not to drop her.
“No,” I growled to myself, trudging through the snow with her bundled against my chest. “It is no use. What is the point?”
Perri poked my chin. “Why are you talking to yourself? That’s silly.”
I stopped walking.
She blinked up at me with enormous eyes: amber, warm, bright like everything inside me was not.
“You should be afraid,” I said.
“Nope.”
“You should want your mother.”
“Do you?”
I froze.
She shrugged as if she hadn’t just sliced open a place in me I’d kept locked for decades. “Everybody wants their mom.”
I stared at her.
She smiled up at me, missing one of her tiny fangs. “But it’s OK if you don’t got one. I can share mine if you wanna.”
Gods.
Stars.
Ancient stone.
Anything.
What was I supposed to do with a creature who offered comfort like it cost nothing?
“I don’t have a mother,” I grunted.
She laughed. “Everyone has a mom.”
Stubborn anger welled in my veins. “I didn’t. Whoever gave birth to me, she either died or was ripped away.”
Her eyes went wide, and for a few minutes, there was nothing but blessed silence. She wiggled suddenly. “I’m hungry.”
Of course she was.
We had finished up the elk over two days. Perri was small, but ate like a fighter bigger than me. Did children always burn through food like wildfire? I needed to hunt again.
“Stay,” I said, setting her under a thick overhang of rock, where snow couldn’t reach. “You do not move.”
She nodded solemnly, then held up her pinky. “Promise.”
I stared. “What is that?”
“A promise finger.”
I held out a claw. She wrapped her tiny finger around it, sealing something far deeper than she knew.
“Now you go hunt,” she said, patting my hand with authority. “I’ll be right here. Not moving. Not ever forever ever.”
I didn’t like how much relief that gave me. I shifted slightly, letting my wings loosen, then slipped silently into the trees. The northern woods were rich with prey—boar, goat, hare—but I needed something larger. Something that would warm her from the inside out.
I scented the air, and paused.
Another scent carried to me, faint and distant. Barely noticeable as the wind shifted.
Draken. No, drakens. Several.
Tracking us.
My lips peeled back in a snarl.
Two other drakens had joined the red one—their scents unfamiliar but strong. My pulse quickened. For the first time in years, excitement warmed my blood. Not fear, but with the opportunity brought by fresh blood and new opponents.
More drakens. More bloodlines. More pieces of a world that had tried to pretend I didn’t belong to.
It would be foolish to kill an animal here; it would only leave behind a trail the drakens could follow. I gathered nuts and berries instead, and other things that wouldn’t truly sustain a draken but would do for now. For her.
I made my way back.
“Veskor?” Perri called softly from behind the rocks.
I whipped my head back.
She peeked at me through her blanket, shivering but smiling. “You were gone a long time.”
I sighed and it was an unclenched, broken thing. “I told you to stay hidden.”
“I did. See?” She proudly pointed at the exact patch of ground where she was not hiding. “It’s fine,” she added. “You came back.”
My chest tightened painfully.
Yes, I had.
Because something in me had changed the moment her small fingers grabbed mine on that volcano ledge, something ancient and instinctive had snapped into place.
I scooped her up and wrapped her in my wings.
“We have to move,” I muttered.
“OK!” she chirped, unbothered. “Adventure!”
I didn’t correct her.
The mountains rose ahead like jagged black teeth slicing the sky. No witches, no wolves, and nothing but snow and stone and things older than memory.
She pointed at the tallest peak. “Are we going up there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because no one will follow us that far.”
She frowned. “You stole me, didn’t you?”
I stopped walking.
The cold wind whipped around us, tugging at my mane, at her blankets, trying to pull her from my arms.
I tightened my grip.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I did.”
I did because she reached for me, trusted me, and she smelled like home in a way nothing else had since I was a child crying in a corner, not wanting to kill my opponent but knowing it was the only way I would survive the night.
She would never know that terror and that choice. I would promise it.
I thought this would be the moment when she realized who–what, I was, truly. She would start to cry, and scream, and send out a true distress call that would have the entire island chasing after my blood.
Instead, Perri giggled. Her little eyebrows waggled and she raised her finger at me. “You’re naughty, Veskor!”
Was she afraid of anything? What a privilege to lead a life void of fear.
“Come, we must keep moving.” I gathered her into my arms, angling my wings and breaking into a run, pushing off into the air. Snow exploded behind us as we rose into the sky.
South, the drakens hunted me. North, the mountains waited. And Perri, small and warm against my heart, looked up at the stars and whispered, “Don’t worry, Veskor. I’m brave.”
I closed my eyes.
“I know,” I murmured.
She was too soft and too honest.
I flew harder.
Perri was quiet for exactly seven minutes—seven minutes of peace, without any commentary, without being asked why snow is white or why my hair was red or why I had wings and she didn’t.
It was suspicious.
Then—
“Veskor?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.”
She wiggled in my arms so she could lean back and look at my face. Her tiny nose scrunched. “Are you old?”
I blinked down at her. “What?”
“You talk like an old draken,” she declared confidently. “Like Elder Wyrren. Except you don’t smell like soup.”
“I am not old,” I huffed, trying to squint into the oncoming snowsquall. If it was an actual storm, we would have to hunker down for the night. “And … I do not like ... soup.”
I spat the word out like an expletive. What kind of old, decrepit draken ate soup? Were all of his teeth and fangs gone? His claws removed from his finger beds? I’d rather be killed and dead from a glorious battle than old and simply rotting away.
She hummed, unconvinced. “But you make old noises.”
I sputtered. “Old—noises? I do not!”
“Like this.”
She groaned dramatically, throwing her head back. “Uuuuuugh. Children. Why are they so demanding.”
My jaw dropped. “I do not sound like that.”
She nodded very seriously. “Yes you do.”
I had no defense to that.
She adjusted herself against me, tapping her claws together thoughtfully. “Do you like draklings?”
“No,” I grit out, with complete honesty.
She patted my chest. “It’s OK. Some grown-ups don’t. You’re learning.”
I stared into the void.
She wasn’t finished. “Are we going to the mountain because you live there?”
“No.”
“Did you used to live there?”
“No.”
“Did someone kick you out of your other home?”
I stiffened. “In a manner of speaking. Technically, I escaped.”
“My mommy says only the bravest people get kicked out,” she said proudly.
I stared at her, unsure whether that was meant as comfort, insult, or complete nonsense.
“Why do you have a scar on your eyebrow?”
“Fighting.”
“Why do you have a scar on your chin?”
“Fighting.”
“Why do you have a scar on your wing?
“Fighting.”
“Why do you have a scar on your butt?”
I tripped mid-stride.
Perri gasped like she’d discovered ancient treasure. “YOU DO! I SAW IT WHEN YOU TURNED AROUND!”
My soul left my body.
“It was also fighting,” I growled.
“With a butt monster?”
“What?”
“You know. Monsters who bite butts.”
I pressed both palms over my eyes. Stars, take me now.
“No,” I said finally. “It was not a—What did you call it?”
“Butt monster.”
“There is no such thing.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not here. But maybe in the mountains.”
I was beginning to reconsider taking her north.
She wiggled again. “Why were you fighting so much?”
“It is what drakens do.” The words came out before I could soften them.
Her small hand patted my cheek. “Not Kieran. Kieran says fighting is stupid, and he only does it when necessary.”
“A draken who avoids fighting?” I snorted. “Ridiculous.”
“He sneezes when he’s mad.”
I paused mid-step. “What?”
She giggled. “And when he’s hungry. Sometimes when he’s sleepy.”
That actually sounded correct.
She continued, relentless. “Do you sneeze?”
“No.”
“Do you snore?”
“No.”
“Do you know jokes?”
“No.”
She gasped. “None?!”
This wasn’t a snowsquall; it was a storm. I flew down toward the base of the mountain, searching for a cave. Ice and snow pelted my face. She didn’t notice, curled up against my chest and covered by my arms.
“OK,” she said confidently, “I’ll teach you a joke.”
I braced for impact, physically and mentally, only to couch as a piece of ice went down my throat. Time to land on the mountain and stop flying in the open air.
“What do you call a grumpy draken who doesn’t like soup?”
My claws slammed into stone, gripping hard as I climbed up the base of the mountain, interested in the small cave opening fifty yards away. Away from the snow and ice and bone-deep chill.
“I do not know,” I grunted.
“Veskor.”
I huffed and kept climbing.
She sighed and relaxed into me, unbothered by how we went higher and higher, dangling off a high cliff.
I wasn’t sure what feeling crawled through my chest right then—annoyance, maybe. Or something warm and dangerous that quickly was softening all my sharp edges.
“Veskor?”
“Yes,” I sighed, dragging us both into the cave’s opening
She looped her arms awkwardly around my neck and hugged me. “I like you.”
My breath caught.
“Do not,” I rasped. “You should not.”
She rested her cheek against my collarbone. “You caught me when I fell.”
“That was a mistake. I think. Instinct at best.”
“Instinct is good,” she said wisely. “Mommy says instinct is how you know who’s safe.”
I nearly stumbled again.
Safe. Me?
I dragged us into the back of the cave, sniffing deeply to ensure we were the only living beings. It was dusty and dirty, and a few bones littered the corner.
She lifted her chin. “Are you my friend?”
“No.”
“OK,” she said brightly. “Then you can be my almost-friend.”
“There is no such thing.”
“Now there is.”
I moved around the cave, putting her down gathering some of the dirt and old leaves to make kindling. The cave was small, but that was good. It would make it easier for the heat to stay once I built a small fire.
Wait, no fire. The drakens would see it.
I glared at the sky. I looked at her, shivering but still smiling.
“Are you lonely?” The question came so softly, so unexpectedly, it sliced clean through me.
I swallowed. Hard. “No.”
She nodded like she didn’t believe a word of it. “I used to be scared of sleeping alone.”
I said nothing.
“But I’m not scared right now,” she whispered.
Something inside me cracked, splitting open and shifting.
Wood. Fire. But a clean fire, try to leave no smoke.
That would be nearly impossible with everything covered in snow.
“Veskor?”
“Yes.”
Her voice went sleepy around the edges. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Foolish child. I was the reason she was there. Taking her had been a desperate bid for something, and a choice I couldn’t undo. Yet—
“I know,” I murmured, startling myself.
I sat down, needing to rest. She took it as an invitation to cuddle into my arms, curling up into a ball and closing her eyes. She drifted off in my arms, trusting me with every fragile breath.
And for the first time in decades, I realized I wanted something I was not allowed to want.
I wanted to keep her warm, and safe. I wanted to keep her.
No matter who came for her.
No matter what gods I’d have to defy.