Chapter 36 Valenna
Chapter thirty-six
Valenna
Valenna paced, her feet pounding on the wood floor, her gaze fixed on Evander while he slept. Something inside his head was bleeding, and she kept having to replace the towel on his pillow as it absorbed blood.
How long did he have? Yes, he might wake up from this, but then what? Would he know her? Would he linger in agony until the end came? And could she stand by and watch, knowing there was a solution staring her in the face, but she’d been too much of a coward to meet its eyes?
Valenna felt like she was in a burning house, and she could only escape with one precious thing. Evander or her conscience? She’d lose one today; she had to choose.
The scar on her wrist stung. Breathless, Valenna stopped pacing and stared across the room at Evander, whose face was growing grayer with every hour she delayed.
Outside the window, the sunlight had given way to darkness, and something inside Valenna knew that Evander wouldn’t last the night.
If she didn’t move now, she would lose her chance.
I have no future but you.
Without even grabbing a coat, Valenna ran out of the room, leaving the door unlocked behind her. She rushed down the stairs, out of the inn, and through the wet streets.
The rain fell in torrents, and lightning cracked the iron sky.
Valenna was soaked by the time she found Ariadne.
The governor stood on the lakeshore with Samara, who was saddling a little red dragon.
Valenna sprinted to them, breathless. Her wet hair hung in her face, and her skirt slapped her ankles.
She was shivering and gaunt, her eyes wild.
“Did you put your son up to it?” she shouted when she was still ten paces away.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ariadne said, blank-faced.
“Lysander bought the last of the wyvern bone powder and poured it into the street. It’s gone, and Evander is dying.”
Samara gasped, and Ariadne raised her eyebrows.
“Well, Lysander is angry with Trevelyan. He was humiliated …”
“Evander is dying!” Valenna cried, jerking toward Ariadne. She didn’t know what she meant to do—strangle her? Shake her? But Ariadne backed away, looking wary.
“Samara’s father has some. Let me have that.”
“I can’t bend the rules …”
“OH, YOU CAN!” Valenna shouted. “Do you know how Vander got like this? It wasn’t because he fell from a dragon; it was because I struck him with my magic. It is evil, it is vile magic, and if I strike you with it, you’ll be begging for the powder your son destroyed.”
A shadow fell over Ariadne’s face. She was frightened; Valenna relished it.
“I will not change the rules for you,” Ariadne said, her voice tremulous.
Valenna’s anger flared, and her reservations dissipated like smoke in a windstorm.
“Alright then,” she said. “But you will answer for what comes next.”
She shoved Samara aside and climbed onto the little red dragon.
“What are you doing?” Samara cried, trying to pull Valenna down. “You can’t go up in this weather! There’s lightning!”
“I have faced worse things than lightning on a dragon,” Valenna said acidly. She kicked the dragon, and the creature unfurled its wings and leaped into the air.
“Stop!” Samara screamed. “You can’t take her! Thief!”
Her voice faded as Valenna mounted into the rain-lashed clouds. When she looked down, she saw Ariadne gazing after her, stunned.
The dragon knew its way through the mountains, and Valenna gave it its head, letting it lead them past stone spires and towers barely visible in the downpour. Twice, her mount tried to turn and fly home, but Valenna kept its head forward—flying into the wind, toward Sennalaith.
This was not the return she’d imagined; desperate and shivering, crawling back begging for favors. She was supposed to face her father at her full strength, with Olivette at her side. Yet here she was, breaking every promise she’d ever made to herself.
If she asked Cadmus for this favor, she would never be able to turn against him. She would never find her sister.
But she couldn’t stop thinking of Evander, and how hollow her world would be without him.
He deserved to live. After what she’d done to him, she did not.
She understood why he’d left her in Largotia.
She’d been so angry at him, but it made sense to her now.
He knew her better than anyone, and he knew that she would turn reckless when pushed to desperation.
He knew her love for him was all-encompassing, and she would risk it all to save him.
Yes, he had been wise to try to spare her from this, but she was glad that she was not so wise as he.
She kicked the dragon harder. If Evander died before she reached her father, then it would all be for nothing.
Wings thundered overhead, and Valenna drew up her dragon, hovering, waiting. A shadow darted behind her, then in the darkness ahead. It circled and then grew out of the clouds.
A dragon twice the size of her mount loomed over her, ridden by a man in a Sennalaithic uniform.
“You have entered the borderlands of Sennalaith,” he called over the wind. “What is your business here?”
Valenna lifted her chin. “I am Valeria, the dark witch, daughter of Cadmus. Tell my father that I have come to barter.”