Her jaw clenched and she felt herself inhale deeply. “Let’s go,” she managed.
Aydra tried not to look around her as they made their way through the shop streets, the sight of their Queen without her crown accompanied by the two Venari leaders she knew was bewildering to every Dreamer walking their streets.
She wondered what lie Rhaif would come up with when people began to ask where she’d gone.
As the fortress gate closed behind them, Aydra paused and turned her horse around. She gazed up at the kingdom she left behind. The white stone castle. The halls she’d grown up playing in. The merchants she’d grown to love and cherish. The Dreamers she’d sworn to protect.
She reminded herself she could still protect these people from the southern shores. That this was not the last time she would look upon the brilliance of the kingdom she loved so much.
Magnice had been her home, her entire world. Her giver was there. Her kingdom. She’d sunbathed on the shores and grown up speaking with the seagulls and the crabs that would dust the shores.
Her home that she could call home no longer.
Red hair caught her gaze at the highest tower.
She held up a hand and brought her fingers into a tight fist. She saw Dorian join Nyssa in the doorway, and she hoped he would heed her warning.
“Drae?” she heard Draven said from behind her.
She swallowed hard and tore her gaze around to him. “Yeah,” she managed. “I’m ready.”
Aydra didn’t speak much as they rode across the Hills of Bitratus. Draven didn’t ask anything of her. He and Balandria spoke their usual banter, speaking of their plans once they returned and what needed to be done around their kingdom. She was grateful he did not push her, try to make her talk to him about what had happened.
As they talked and ate, she simply sat by his side. Occasionally he would reach over and squeeze her thigh or graze her hand. But he never crowded her. He packed the pipe every night, but despite smoking the herb she craved so much for escape, all she wanted to do at night was try to sleep.
For four days they traveled, and on the night they finally reached the edge of the Forest, he begged her to eat something more than a few bites of bread. But she couldn’t. Her heart ached for the comfort of her raven, to hear its voice in her ears, its screech over her head as it watched over her.
“Can I do anything?” Draven finally asked once they’d settled in for their final night on the road.
She looked up at him, and he simply kissed her forehead, not needing to hear anything from her lips. She sighed into his arms and laid her head on his chest, unable to even breathe words on her tongue.
As she laid there against his chest, she heard him humming the Wyverdraki song. Her eyes closed and she nuzzled her head into his chest.
“What will your men say when I return with you?” she whispered.
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied softly.
“It does.” She sat up and looked at him. “To me. It does.”
He sighed heavily, his thumb brushing her hands. “After you helped us with the ships, I think my men have earned a new respect for you,” he replied. “Once they learn of what you sacrificed to be there, you will find no other more loyal group of people.“
She reached up and kissed him then, the first time she’d kissed him since their leaving her castle, and she threaded her fingers in his beard, savoring the taste of his lips.
“Thank you,” she whispered upon pulling back.
He squeezed her waist. “Only for you,” he breathed.
She laid back against his chest once more, and he hummed the Wyverdraki song again. Laying in his arms, the safety of the Hills around them, surrounded by darkness and fire light…
She wanted to tell him.
She wanted to tell him everything.
Her heart began to beat loudly in her chest. She almost vomited at the thought, but something inside her had the urge to get it out. The humiliation of her truth tugged at her core. But this was Draven.
And she needed to say it.
“Draven…” she managed, squeezing his hand. “I need to tell you something… something I should have told you a long time ago.”
