“My damn dragon—”
Leave, it interrupts, and my eyes close my forehead coming to rest over hers. The interruption seems to remind us both of where we are, though covered by rock, we’re still exposed to anyone who might come by and get past Sunis. As much as I want to watch her unravel, I’d prefer not to do it with the threat of being caught. When my gaze meets hers again, she seems to have the same thought as a small smile curls her lips.
For a moment, neither of us says anything, only the sound of her breathing and my steady heartbeat filling in the gaps in the silence. It’s in that quiet I remember the last time I felt this way. The last time I let myself get lost in another to the point that I didn’t want there to be an ending to me and a beginning of them. I just wanted there to be a joining ofus.
Maybe Aria somehow knows that there is an old wound threatening to split, and that’s why she reaches up to kiss me softly and without urgency, as if the only goal is to remind us what it feels like. Or maybe I’m rationalizing with myself like an idiot.
Pulling away with a groan, I help Aria to stand and look her over, something new stretched thin and raw between us.
“I will be here next week,” Aria finally says, tucking her curls behind her ears. Her round eyes hold mine as she looks up at me, and a feeling I can’t explain constricts my throat. “You are free from our bargain and free to choose whether you will be here too.” After letting herself linger a moment, Aria grabs her bag from the ground and climbs down to the sandy beach, returning to the sea and leaving me wondering if, when it comes to her, there had ever really been a choice to begin with.
I linger in the cavern for longer than necessary, staring at the ocean as I work to remind myself just how fucking dangerous that entire interaction was. For my own safety, I’ve always made it a point to keep myself in control of my emotions and urges until I’m in the safety of my warehouse, a male hanging before me. But Aria had expertly chipped away at that control with each flick of her tongue and soft press of her body against mine. It leaves me feeling exposed, a nerve left open to the world when I need to be hidden behind shadows instead.
Breathing in the salty air, I wait until it has replaced the warm and sultry scent ofherin my lungs before returning to Sunis, climbing her front leg and settling on her back.Leave, she sends again down the bond, and I lean down over her as I prepare for her to take off.
Go, I send back, and then we are launching into the air, Sunis’s wings beating powerfully as we begin our ascent towards the mist-covered sky.
While flying is a natural instinct for Sunis, having me on her back and feeding her instructions through our bond has proven to require practice. I had snuck out of the palace often in the first few days after our bonding, finding her on the dragon fields pacing as if she waited for me to arrive. Our flightshad been chaotic at first, both testing exactly how to properly communicate while she figured out how to fly gracefully with my weight between her wings.
Soaring over the onyx mountaintops, I keep my eyes peeled for any other dragons and their riders. Despite my wishes to go to my father as soon as possible with proof of bonding a dragon, Navingraciouslypointed out that our bond needed time to strengthen. “There is no substitute for time, Myla,” he had said, stripping himself of his armor and the tunic beneath to reveal his stitched-up self-inflicted injury in our sitting room the night we rescued Sunis. “If Father and his dragon challenge you both to a fight, you and Sunis will lose.”
The logic made sense, yet it did nothing to quell the disquiet within me that wanted to go to my father immediately. But Navin had fucking stabbed himself so Sunis and I could get away, selling a story to the guards that the Shadow had come for a dragon and killed to get one. There were no witnesses to refute his tale, no reason to believe he was lying. My relief was immense when he came through the door that night, and then my guilt had flooded in right behind it. Especially when he explained that his delay coming home had been less about getting his wound looked at and more about withstanding our father’s disappointed rant.
The fae king is nothing if not consistently dissatisfied with his children.
Home. The word slips into my mind as Sunis spreads her wings out wide, blocking my view on either of the landscape below as she slows her speed to a glide and we start to descend. The mist is cold against my cheeks, the high altitude penetrating my leathers.
When we finally break through to clear skies, Sunis turns, giving me a quick glimpse of the break in the forest below and the small black dots that mar the grass. Dragons prowl throughthe area away from the mountains that house Sunis and Bali’s cave, and she guides us in that direction, flapping her wings to slow herself before she lands in a crouch, jostling my body with the movement and making my teeth clack together.
“We have to work on your landing,” I tell her, not for the first time, fighting off a smirk when she growls low in response.
Letting go of the leather strap, I tug my hood back over my head and stand, climbing down as Sunis shakes her wings before tucking them safely into her side. The harness that keeps me on her back will stay on her to help her get used to the feel of it, though I hope eventually we can fly without it. My breath clouds in front of me as I survey the fields, spotting green and blue dragons in the distance. Being bonded should protect me from their ire should they see me out here without Sunis, but I stay close to her side, following her towards the cave just in case.
But as we near, a growl deep and low rumbles its way out, the ground shaking beneath the dragon’s steps. Out of habit, I reach for my curved blade, only to remember the new weight on the other side. Aria had freed me from my debt early and then given me a dagger that was more powerful than she ever could have known. Fingers dancing over its hilt, I brace myself for what is going to emerge from the cave, when Sunis releases a deep chittering noise. Lowering her head, she watches as Bali walks out into the sunlight, moving slowly as if she’s unsteady on her feet.
Navin had been giving me updates on Bali from where they still held her in the compound when he could, but our father had tightened his hold on his secrets, and Navin didn’t think he could ask without the king getting suspicious. My shoulders relax as I watch Bali nuzzle against Sunis’s head, the two finally reunited again.
When Bali’s attention shifts to me, I stand tall, looking over the massive black dragon. Her head drops low, my eyeswidening as she gently nudges her nose into me, and the wordsafeshimmers down the bond from Sunis. My stomach hollows as I place a hand over one of her hard scales, her show of appreciation an endearing move I hadn’t expected from a dragon.
I understand now why Sunis wanted to leave the beach. She somehow knew her mother had returned. When they walk into the safety of their cave again, I begin my trek back to my own home. But a persistent thought nags at me the entire journey back. If Bali was freed from my father’s enclosure, does that mean she is now bonded to someone new? Or had the mages been unsuccessful? Unease curls and claws at me again, but I snuff it out in favor of focusing on what matters mostnow.
I have Sunis, and soon, I will demand a meeting with the king to show him exactly how much his cursed daughter has just become an even bigger thorn in his side.
Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: Myla
Thenextmorning,I’mforced to attend a service in the temple, watching as Father Yamin paces while talking of the gods’ mercy over our kingdom. Sitting in a pale blue satin dress and matching veil, opalescent crystals dangle over my forehead from my headdress as I track the father with my eyes.
He had glared at me with unfaltering steadiness when I entered the temple behind Navin and our parents, meeting my eyes through the gaps in the fabrics covering my face. I didn’t shy away from his leery gaze, and though I knew he couldn’t see it, neither did I stop the smirk that lifted one half of my mouth as I passed him. I felt the press of his attention on my back and over my scars as I walked past the king, queen, and crown prince’s seats. My place was not with my family but on the benches across from them, where the rest of the nobles sat to look upon fae royalty with the deference they were owed. Per usual, I was not included in that honor.
As Father Yamin prattles on and on about what a blessing this winter solstice will be for the kingdom, I let my mind wander to thoughts of the spelled dagger I now have in my possession. It had been a gift to my father from the last Void queen. History says that by giving an offering of blood, it will allow temporary passage into another kingdom without the usual repercussion of death. As far as I understand, the bigger the sacrifice of blood, the longer one can withstand the Spell’s effect. It is a weapon I can’t imagine having to use myself, but one I don’t want to give to my father or anyone he might associate with. So, for now, it will remain at my side and be used in otherritualisticofferings. I smile at the thought.
“We will have a celebration in five days’ time here at the palace,” the father says, coming to a halt beside the pole I was tied to. Where I was whipped. My stomach churns, but I keep myself still as I listen. “It will be a momentous time, a showcasing of the miracles granted by the gods.” The father’s onyx eyes scan over the crowd, their excitement over his words palpable in the air. “For the first time since the end of the war, we have finally been given a positive omen. Proof that our gods are beginning to favor us once more.” The voices around me grow louder, and Father Yamin basks in the chaos he’screated, holding his arms out wide. I look to Navin, finding his gaze already on me, and lift a brow in question. He gives me a subtle shrug of his shoulders, the fae around us clapping and cheering. I turn my focus on the king, his stoic expression made more so by his hardened gaze. A crown of onyx dragon stone sits centered on his head, shining in the dancing flames of the torches lit throughout the temple. Despite the rousing speech from the Divine Father, the fae king looks no more motivated by it than he ever has. Next to him, my mother stares at the leader of the brethren, her gaze lost in his movements while she clutches my father’s hand tightly.
Though they have never deserved it, I once looked upon my parents with a sympathetic eye. To lose a son in war is no easy thing. To then be preyed upon in that grief by vultures claiming to have the words of gods in their ears is sickening. And yet they so callously tossed a daughter of their own flesh and blood away to earn favor of the very gods who had taken Shah. If such beings existed, where was the righteous rage at them for allowing the heir to be killed? If their influence was so vast and so powerful, why didn’t they step in? Why hadn’t theyeverstepped in? No, sympathy is an emotion I’ve long since discarded when thinking of my parents. Now there is only venomousangerremaining as I stare at them seated on their thrones.
The service ends, and Navin finds me immediately, walking at my side as we return to our rooms. “You don’t know what any of that was about?” I ask once we’re secluded behind the closed door, taking my veil off.
“Not at all,” he answers, unbuckling his King’s Rider armor and piling it on the ground. “All Father told me was to not be late for the celebration.” He tugs on the tie securing his long hair back. “And Father Yamin hasn’t bothered me at all this week.”
