Fieran reached for my bag.
I wrapped my fingers around the strap tightly. I wasn’t going to let him play the gentleman with me after he had devastated my life and Lidi’s.
“How are you going to help my brother?” I demanded. The need to know Tay was going to be all right pounded in my head like relentless waves dragging me away from shore.
“He’s stable for now, Cara. I have to make a deal with the Fae. You know how carefully they control access to healing.”
“I don’t know much about the Fae. The only time I ever saw one was when they hollowed out my magic.” I didn’t try to hide my bitterness. Concealing my anger was never a strong suit for me anyway. “Is it really going to take time to save my brother’s life? Or is that how you’re guaranteeing I come with you?”
“Cara.” His voice was sharp, and he stopped in the road. I stared at my natural eye-level, which was somewhere mid-chest on him. He was wearing a clean tunic that clung to his chest and hung loose over the taper of his waist; while I said goodbye to my family and my life—most likely literally—he’d found time to bathe. Maybe the grateful Wheelers had watched our door for their new hero.
He put his finger under my chin and pushed up, trying to raise my face to his. I shoved his hand away, but I looked up—and up and up—into his eyes. I didn’t try to hide my scorn.
“I don’t have to do anything to make you come with me,” he said. “I’m the leader of Clan Bismyth. I shift into the most feared dragon in the kingdom. And I’m literally twice your size. Youaregoing to come with me. But you’re welcome to glare at me all you like. I don’t think you could control those murderous eyeballs of yours anyway.”
He sounded stern, but also amused, and my murderous fantasies intensified.
“Your brother isn’t going to die,” he promised.
“He is wasting away as we speak.” My voice was very soft, but threaded with fury. I didn’t dare raise my voice above a whisper when I was so emotional.
“I’ll arrange to have him brought to the capital, where he can receive the best care,” Fieran said. “Far better than in this little village. Our care can buy him all the time he needs. And we’ll bargain with the Fae for a cure.”
Then, gently, as if I were slow-witted, he added, “You don’t have to say goodbye to Tay.”
If Tay were with us in the capital, I’d know for myself that he was well cared for and alive. “But no one else from my family comes. Not my mother or Lidi.”
I worried enough about my mother and the risk she’d be exposed as having concealed me from the Trials all this time. At least no one thought much about our village. It felt so far from the Fae cities.
“No,” he agreed. “It’ll just be you and me and Tay, alive and well.”
Fieran brought me with him back to the same field where they had fought the wyrm invasion. It was far from the destruction of the village, idyllic and peaceful. I wondered if he intended to remind me of how we had met—and how grateful I had felt for his existence that day.
I was certainly never again going to be grateful for his existence.
I glanced around at Maura, Asrael, Dairen, and Anayla. They all looked awe-worthy in their form-fitting leathers, braces on their forearms, muscular biceps exposed. Anayla’s white-streaked blue hair whipped back in the breeze.
No one was here from Clan Amber.
I had questions, but I chose to frame the question in the way that I had an inkling would bother Fieran. “Where is Ander?”
“Clan Amber already headed back,” Fieran said briskly, and I hid a smile, reassured that I had struck true.
I looked around, noticing the absence of horses, and realized that they all could fly. Everyone but me. A sudden sense of horror bloomed in me that I fought to hide, forcing my forehead smooth.
Fieran was watching me with that eerie intensity that sometimes made it seem as if he could see right through me and understand what I was thinking. “Asrael is going to give you a ride. Anayla is going to ride with you to make sure that you are safe.”
“Do you think I need a nanny to make sure I won’t fall off the dragon?” I asked tartly. I felt a faint sense of relief, actually, to realize that I wasn’t going to have to ride clutched in his arms.
“I do,” Fieran said. “If you would prefer, I’ll ride with you myself.”
I didn’t try to hide the way I recoiled. I may have exaggerated, just in case he missed how I despised the thought of his touch.
“That’s what I thought. I figured it’d be better for you to ride with Anayla so you can do some thinking. Come to terms with your situation.”
“So thoughtful of you.” I wondered what the rest of them thought about why he was bringing me with them.
But apparently, we were done speaking. Asrael shifted, the ground throbbing underfoot as his front legs planted on the ground. My heart pounded as he raised his massive, horned head to the sky, but then he sank to his knees. He still towered over us all.
