“Where’s Mom?”
“The Silver Sunset.”
The popular tavern was her mother’s favorite haunt lately. “Again?”
“Every night this week. I’m afraid to see the tab. We most certainly can’t afford it.”
She closed her eyes for a beat and then hooked her arm in his. “Well then, I guess it’s just you and me. Let’s go to the market. I’m famished.”
Chapter Three
Marius’s back hit the ground, and he skidded across the gravel, wings thrashing under him to slow his momentum.
When he finally came to a stop, his brother Colin leaned over him and clicked his tongue. “Maybe we should move this back inside. The training room has padded floors.”
“I’m done with padded floors,” Marius growled.
Colin reached down to help him up, and Marius knocked his hand aside and scrambled to his feet. He was sure there were stones tangled in the back of his white hair. No matter. A familiar itch signified his abrasions were already healing.
He lowered himself into a fighting stance. “Again.”
“Can’t.” Colin glanced at the clock on the wall of the fighting arena. “Out of time.” No doubt the Master of the Guard had more important things to do than help his brother relearn what he’d lost. He snapped his feet together and bowed.
Marius bowed back and allowed his shoulders to relax. He dragged in deep, cleansing breaths. Exhaustion sniffed at his heels. He had to fight the urge to sink to his ass in the middle of the practice arena.
“You don’t have to do this,” Colin said.
“No?” Marius’s voice was edged with sarcasm.
Colin shifted on his feet. “I think you’re expecting too much from yourself. You’re working out like you plan to fight in the pits again.” His brother laughed incredulously. “Goddess, you were dead just over a year ago. You must realize the experience has altered your body composition. I was impressed when you lost the cane.”
Marius jerked and bared his teeth. “Would it be wrong to want to fight again?”
Colin sputtered, and Marius realized he was holding back a chuckle. “You’re serious! Why? Marius, you don’t have to do it anymore. You have a job in the palace. You have a purpose.”
“Adviser to the Council of Elders—sorry, Ambassador to the Council of Elders. Gabriel gave me that title once I put the crown on his head. Right. That keeps me busy all of an hour a week. I’m bored, Colin, and restless. You don’t understand.” He kept secret the positive effects the fighting had on his strange nightmares. The truth was that on the days he trained with Colin, they stopped. He supposed he was so exhausted when he fell into bed at the end of a day filled with training that his brain was too tired to dream. And he was more than happy to work himself to the point of pain if it would keep the monsters away.
All levity drained from Colin’s expression. “All right,” he said tentatively. “You’re a dragon, Marius. Theoretically, you have no limits. I have no idea what you’ve gone through or what lasting effects it has had on you, but I do know this—if you truly want to compete again, you need to do more than spar with me. I don’t have the time or focus to take you to the next level.”
“Who can?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Colin strode to the attendant’s office. The man who usually worked there had stepped out, but Colin found a piece of paper in his desk. “Until we find someone, I want you to do this routine every day.” He sketched a list of exercises that started with a twenty-mile run from the palace to the hills beyond Hobble Glen. Marius wasn’t sure he was strong enough to make it to town, let alone through it and beyond. Then, according to Colin’s notes, he was to perform another series of exercises before running back. The list looked impossible.
“Is that all?” Marius frowned.
“Work up to it. We’ll keep sparring like this before Guard training. Meanwhile, I’ll keep my ear to the ground for someone to help you.”
He took the list from Colin with a hand he tried his best to stop from shaking. He needed rest after a thirty-minute sparring match. This list of exercises would take him hours to complete—if he could complete it at all. Still, he was thankful to have it. If he thoroughly wore himself out each day, perhaps he could rid himself of the nightmares for good. Bonus if the distraction reduced the strange visions that randomly plagued him.
He needed this, needed a way to settle his mind, and the only way to do that was by pushing his body to the limit. “Thanks.”
Colin stared at him a moment with those piercing gray eyes, then gave him a nod Marius had seen him use on new recruits. That nod was weighty with encouragement, high expectations, and challenge. Without further ado, he strode out the door toward the field where the Guard trained.
Funny, Colin was his younger brother. He’d beaten the dragon in the pits on more than one occasion. How things had changed.
Marius stopped at the hydration station and guzzled water, staring at the practice ring. The private training space was smaller than the public one in the fighting pits. If he couldn’t win against his younger brother here, he’d be doomed there. He imagined himself flat on his back in front of a stadium of judging eyes and laughing mouths.
