CHAPTER 25
“Patriol, why?”
He coughed, and blood trickled out the side of his mouth.
I kicked off my shoes and dug my toes into the dirt, cradling his head. He coughed again, weak, raspy, and far too wet. I added lungs to the catalog of his injuries after the head and leg wounds. I reached for my connection, and her power flooded me. The tips of my fingers glowed white hot.
“This is going to hurt.” Gripping Patriol’s head, I began to push.
—Recounting from the private diary of Jerris, Dragonbound
SERAE
Mid-Autumn, Basmon 1036
Serae… Serae…
“Fuck, SERAE?”
Someone gripped my shoulders.
“Shit, shit, shit, something’s wrong.”
A hawk screeched overhead.
“Wake up. Please, wake up.”
He shook me—hard—jostling me from my reverie.
I opened my eyes. Gray-blue steel. It was the sky just before the storm came in.
“Thank the Great-fucking-Dragon. What happened?”
“It’s you,” I gasped. My voice was weak and cracked. “You’re back?”
“Yes, I’m back. What the hell are you doing here?”
Here? I looked around. I was in a garden. No, that wasn’t right. I was supposed to be inside. We needed to get indoors to clean off the blood.
Blood.
“Wep!” I shrieked. He was covered in it.
“You’re hurt!” There was blood caked to his tunic and flaking off his leathers, but I couldn’t see where it was coming from.
It was his head, right? And leg, and lungs…
No, I had healed those wounds. This was from something else.
I gripped his wrist, wrenched off his bracer, and shoved up his sleeve.
The skin on his forearm was mottled with red scarring beneath streaks of blood.
I couldn’t discern the old injuries from the new.
“What are you—”
My magic unleashed. My hands scorched, and Wep let out a cry, but I gripped him firmly. Light—too intense—filled me. I grit my teeth as I fought through its searing agony, willing myself to stay conscious.
“Focus the light,” Vaya’la instructed. “Seek out the pain.”
I tunneled the light into Wep, pushing it through his body in search of anything that hurt. There was…nothing.
“Keep going.”
I focused the light, using instinct to direct it toward his head and working my way down his neck, then shoulders. A slice of pain ripped along my skin, just below my shoulder, and I gasped.
“There. Direct your light. Let it heal the tissue, layer by layer.”
“This is his pain?”
I didn’t need her confirmation. As soon as I spoke the words in my mind, I knew. I guided the light to the center of the pain, willing it to restore him. I kept my focus until the last tiny ache faded away.
“Well done, Small One.” Vaya’la’s pride filled me. “You controlled it by instinct. Now, let go.”
It took me several moments to piece myself back together. I was sitting in the grass, my back resting against the sacred tree. There was no danger; it had all been part of my latest dream. Jerris’ brother had the injuries, not Wep. Everything was fine. Wep had returned in one piece and—
“Why are you out here?”
I blinked furiously, eyelids scraping over dry eyes. “Welcome back to you, too.” My voice was hoarse. “What time is it?”
“Never mind the time. Why aren’t you inside?”
The sun was well past its zenith. Had I been out here all night and day?
“I must’ve fallen asleep.” My stomach rumbled.
I licked my lips, which were also dry. My throat was rough and parched.
As out of sorts as I felt, though, Wep looked far worse.
It was the first time I’d seen him in disarray like this.
Aside from the blood, which I’d gathered wasn’t his, his tunic was ripped across the bottom and at the shoulder.
His braid was coming unwound in places, and he smelled like salt and iron. “You need to get yourself cleaned up.”
His laugh was mirthless and a touch wild. He was crouching in front of me, and one hand still gripped my shoulder. “You know your ranng is losing their shit inside? What in the name of all the Dragons of Jaeda are you doing out here instead of behind the fortified walls of the keep?”
“This is just the garden. I didn’t leave the castle walls.” Plus, Vaya’la approved of this spot, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Only the keep has blessing-fortified stone.”
“Well, I have a sacred tree.”
He looked up, and shock splashed across his face. It was a look I’d like to hold onto forever—confusion, bewilderment, and wonder all rolled into one.
Sprakt chose that moment to glide out of the tree and straight for Wep’s face.
His hand dropped from my shoulder with a jolt, and he flung himself to the side.
Sprakt soared right through the space his head had just occupied.
From the ground, Wep stared after the sparrowhawk in bewilderment.
A laugh bubbled up from down deep that I couldn’t keep in.
This was so at odds with the collected, controlled weaponmaster I’d come to know. I liked him a little bit undone.
Wep’s eyes returned to me, and the confusion stripped away to something intense. “His wings. They regrew?”
Sprakt hopped around in the grass. “I—”
“Get inside.”
We both jumped and turned to Dane, striding across the gardens with heavy footfalls. His eyes blazed, and my second sight revealed lemon yellow reverence beneath. I looked up at the tree.
“Vaya’la, what makes this tree sacred?”
“I grew this tree for my last Bound, imbuing it with everlasting peace, so he might rest free from the torment of his nightmares.”
“For Jerris?” Aside from the one I’d just woken from, I’d been sharing her dreams of him for months. I marveled at the thought—a tree lasting through so many centuries.
“Give her a minute,” Wep said, returning his attention to me. “She’s weak from—”
“Serae is not weak. She is the savior of our time, the natural ruler of the Riht, and Blessed Bound of the Great Dragon herself. Compromising her safety will not be tolerated, even from herself.”
I didn’t have time to reflect as my insides welled up with…was it pride? No, it was satisfaction, and it wasn’t mine. I knew I was no savior, and I certainly wasn’t blessed, but I was bound to Vaya’la.
“He’s pledged himself to us,” Vaya’la answered my unasked question.
“Since when?”
“Since we demanded it of him.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“It was early days. Your mind is better suited to our binding now and can remember all that we do.”
That we do? “Have you…done other things through me? Besides this with Dane?”
“Peace, Small One.”
We were going to have to talk about this little revelation later. In the meantime, both men were looking at me—one with awe, one with disbelief.
Wep spoke first. “How long have you known?”
He was looking at me, but the question was meant for Dane. Yet, as he scanned my face, he must’ve found enough of an answer there. He rounded on Dane. “How long have you known?” His tone sharpened, low and accusing.
Every muscle in my body sprang to alert.
Dane nodded. “You’ve seen her blessings. Have you not just witnessed her healing light? There’s no denying it.”
“When?” It sounded like the word pained him.
“The Great Dragon spoke to me, demanding the fealty of the Riht.”
“WHEN?” Wep closed his eyes, and the muscles in his jaw clenched. Fuck, his jawline was inconveniently perfect, even when covered in blood. “When did this happen?” he repeated steadily.
Something in Dane’s tone shifted. “Are you questioning your dane?”
Wep rose to his feet, turning to face his father and putting his back to me. “You told me you suspected, not that the Great Dragon spoke through her. You knew even then?”
“Everything I told you—”
“You forced her into combat against monsters, needlessly testing her. You commanded me to work with her to suss out more blessings, claiming you had suspicions and questions.” His voice was rising.
“Now, you tell me you’ve known all along that she was Bound.
That you’d already pledged yourself to her.
That’s a far cry from what you led me to believe.
How long have you known? Weeks? Months?”
“You go too far.”
My second sight opened fully. Dane’s lifelight shifted from white to orange to red, but Wep’s shining silver light exploded around me. I threw a hand over my eyes, but his brilliance brought no pain.
“Too far?” Wep’s voice dropped. The ice in his tone sent a chill up my spine. “I don’t give a fuck what you think she is or isn’t. Or what it means for the Riht. She’s not a pawn in your games.”
“Calm yourself, Son.”
“No. You don’t get to do your posturing and maneuvering with me, and you never get to do it with her. Are we clear?”
Dane set his jaw, but Wep would not back down.
“Are. We. Clear?” The lifelight around him darkened to a deep mauve. Disgust.
Dane’s lifelight simmered down to a dull scarlet streaked with juniper. Anger was stamped across his face, but he was also feeling…pride. When he spoke, however, his voice held a note of malice. “Last I checked, I was still high dane of the Riht, not you.”
A white-hot lance of pain shot through my head. I gripped my temples, gasping for air and fighting through it. Waves of furious, burning heat assaulted my senses.
Wep’s head whipped to me, scowl lines still etched into his face. Then, they softened, leaving him with only deep weariness in their wake.
“Close the connection, Small One. You have not fully let go.”
“This is his pain?”
“Just a headache. Let go.”
With effort, I pulled the last strands of light back. The connection was so instinctual, I hadn’t noticed any lingered. When the last one slipped away, the pain vanished.
“Can you stand?” he asked, his voice a quiet rumble. He was before me in a single step, crouching down to match my eye level. His lifelight calmed to a tumbling storm cloud of silver.
I nodded and took his outstretched hands. He lifted me to my feet easily and placed a steadying arm around my waist. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and fed.”
“I might say the same to you.”
His lip twitched, and I mentally marked another point to me.