I scowl as I stare at the back of his head, my fingers tightening around the leather. “What is it?”
“You have to promise me that you won’t go allMyla—”
“Navin.”
“—and try to intervene. In this instance, I have toinsist.”
I tilt my head back and close my eyes, letting the warm sun paint my face as I try to calm my annoyance. “Fine,” I promise, rolling my shoulders back. “What do you know?”
“The king has increased patrols even more in Khargis and has extended the King’s Riders vigilance to the air above the city as well.”
“I know this, Navin,” I say, unable to keep the ire out of my voice. “I’m quite aware of just how many of the bastards are in Khargis.”
He sighs, heavy and full-bodied as Lan adjusts beneath us, a low rumble vibrating down his body. I fight off the urge to dig my heel a little harder into the impatient beast’s side. “You asked me about the mages and the dragons and I wasn’t exactly truthful with you when I told you I didn’t know what was going on with them.” A bitter taste blooms in my mouth at the admittance of his lie, even if it’s hypocritical for me to feel that way. Maybe my silence relays that because Navin tries to fill it with a series of apologies before I get him back on track. “I didn’t know at firstwhyFather was kidnapping them, only that he was. He’s kept everything close to the chest, only allowing Father Yamin the details about the dragons and mages—”
“Get to the point, Brother,” I snap.
“It’s the bonds,” he says, leaning to the side so that his gaze can meet mine. “He’s terrified that, eventually, the failing of the dragon bonds will happen tohim.”
I draw my brows together, shaking my head in confusion. “He believesmeto be the cause of that particular bad fortune. What does that have to do with the mages?”
Navin’s gaze is hard as it holds mine, his serious tone growing uneasy. “He’s using the dragons to kidnap mages and bring them through the Spell. Then he’s forcing them to test their magic on the dragons in an attempt to repair the bonds.”
What? “That doesn’t make any sense. Even if their magicwascompatible, they’d die before he’d properly get to test it.” That must be why he was giving his men a quota, why those males in the stairwell were so stressed about grabbing more mages. “He’s a fool.”
“Except there’s something else you don’t know,” Navin says slowly, rubbing at the back of his neck. I lean forward, my eyes narrowed at my brother.
“Which is?”
“The mages have the ability to pass through the Spell. Without loss of life or magic.”
I’m silent as I overturn Navin’s words. I have no clue if mage magiccanrepair a dragon bond. Could itforcea bond? Is that what they want Bali for? For Sunis?
“There is nothing you can do about this, Myla. Nothing youshoulddo.”
“I won’t,” I say, earning a sarcastic look. I don’t try to convince him any further, so he sighs again and faces forward. Within a few seconds, Lan launches into the air, snapping his wings out and beating them hard to lift us higher. The wind whips at my hair, my eyes closing as I run through everything I’ve just learned. My father can try whatever he wants with the dragons that have lost their bonds. But Sunis? She ismine, and I’ll be damned if I let that bastard take anything else from me.
Gravel crunches beneath my boots as I walk the outskirts of the dragon fields, my gaze turned up to the night sky. Mist floats high above me, the flicker of silver stars only just visible through it. The wind carries with it the scent of rain and the residual smell of something burning.
When I finally reach Bali and Sunis’s cave, rare nerves rattle my stomach. What will I do if my father is successful in luring Bali away with the drugged food? If Sunis is taken as well? I don’t want to be a sentimental fae, but the possessiveness over the dragon that isn’t even mine is nearly overwhelming. Is it possible to have a bond with the creature without one actually forming?
My pathetic anxiousness is snuffed out when I hear wings rustling inside the cave. The ground begins to rumble, a pair of yellow eyes blazing to life against the dark backdrop. My gut says it’s Sunis, and that’s confirmed a few moments later when she emerges, her head low as she observes me. Holding my hand out, I release a trapped breath when she nudges her head against it, the roughness of her scales welcome against my palm. A low purring sound comes from her as she closes her eyes. I bring my other hand to her snout, rubbing before laying my forehead against her. “We’re running out of time,” I whisper to her. To myself. Stating the obvious out in the open.
A second dragon trill comes from inside the cave, and Sunis lifts her head away from mine as her wings ruffle at her sides. She backs into the cave until there is only darkness once more looking back at me.They are safe here, I tell myself until I scan the dragon fields and spot another large pile of dead goats and sheep just waiting to be eaten. Fingers curling into my palms, I gather some sticks from the nearby treeline, working quickly to light them one by one from a nearby flaming pile ofsomething, and then toss them onto the tainted meat.
Rage flickers inside of me as I watch it burn, a sizzling in my blood that can only be alleviated by one thing. Putting my mask back in place, I tug my hood over my head and retreat back to the forest. Khargis was being infected with a different kind of poison, and I am more than ready to bleed it out.
Chapter Seventy-Nine: Nox
“Yes,Iwillmarryyou.”
I hardly have time to slip the ring on her finger before she’s pulling my face to hers, our lips meeting beneath the tree that I had spent so much of my childhood daydreaming under. As a child, life outside of this garden had been chaotic and demanding. What else could have been expected for a boy given the most magic anyone had seen since before the war? This place had become a refuge, and now it would be even more than that.
Rhea leans away to examine the ring, her brows drawing together. “It’s so very beautiful.”
Smiling, I help her stand, marveling at the way the ring sparkles on her finger. It feels right, seeing it there. Knowing that I’m hers in every way that will ever matter. “The diamond was taken from a ring that has been passed down from queen to queen for millennia,” I tell her, no shortage of pride in my voice. It had been obvious to choose the Mage Kingdom heirloom as her ring’s stone, something that the council wouldcollectively burst into flames over if they knew. But I wanted this piece of jewelry to not just represent my love for her. I wanted something that wasworthyof being on her finger. Something that reminded her that her right to rule was the same as all those who had come before her.
There was only one place I knew of that might house the jewelry of past mage queens. Stealing the key to access the archives was easy enough, as was making sure the palace jeweler kept quiet about the ring. The turnaround had been quick, and for weeks, the ring sat hidden in a secret compartment in my room while I waited for the right time. In truth, I had known long before I asked that I wanted to tie my life to hers, but Rhea needed to experience a world outside of the tower. So I waited.
