My thumb hesitates over the number I’ve punched into Heathren’s golden Intercessoria phone. I heave a hard breath, not wanting to make this call I know I must make. Then I let that breath out, tapping my thumb on the dial icon and letting it ring.
Ready to face what must be done, at last.
“Rikyava! Ohmigod, where are you?” The phone doesn’t ring long before my bestie Layla Price picks up. I practically see her beautiful jade-green eyes fire up with her Royal Desert Dragon in them at my long overdue call.
“I’m still in Sweden. I’m safe,” I say quickly, because I know it’s been too long since I last called them, and she needs that information before we get into it.
“Thank god!” Layla says before launching into a tirade. “We’re all here at the Outer Island where you told us to meet; we’ve been here for over a day with no word from you, King Huttr, Halfdir, or anyone! There’s Storm Dragons here with Rhennic, Crystal Dragons with Dusk, and Adrian and I brought our best Desert Dragons, plus Reginald is here with a massive contingent of Guardsmen from the Hotel, even Rake Andre… but no you! Where are you? What’s happening?”
I tear up now, feeling my best friend’s loving but stern voice on the other end of the line. Because I feel so much love right now, from how everyone has shown up for me, coming to the Outer Island to be part of a plan that will never come to fruition now.
“Layla. I need you to listen to me right now. Can you do that?” I say quietly, because a clench is in my voice at how hard I have to keep myself together and not cry in this moment.
“Rikyava… Okay. I’m listening.” Layla catches her breath on the other end of the line as she sobers. Intense now, she’s like a warrior-drakaina, though she was never raised as one.
Another reason I love her.
“Listen, Layla…” I hesitate now, not knowing what to say, though I soon plough on. “I love you, bestie. And because I love you, I can’t let you or anyone else we love get involved in this, what’s happening up here in Sweden.”
“Rikyava! What are you say—” Layla starts, but I hold a hand up now, even though she can’t see me.
“No, Layla, listen.” I double down on what I have to say. “I know you, Dusk, Reginald, Adrian, and especially Rhennic, want to come through for me and the Blood Dragons right now. But I’m telling you—youcan’t. We’re even keeping back nearly all our people from being in on this one, because we do not know what’s going to happen. So please hear me when I say I can’t tell you where the last of this is about to go down. I love you. Keep everybody safe for me. And tell Rhennic… I love him.”
“Tell me yourself.” Rhennic’s soft baritone voice comes on the other end of the line now, and I know that sneaky cousin of mine has me on speakerphone. As we pause, I don’t know what to say to my cousin, but he does it for me. “Are Dir and Huttr safe?”
“Dir is, for now,” I say, informing Rhennic about his Blood Dragon family, because I know how beloved they are to him. “But Huttr isn’t. And Rhen… none of us might be, if what we fear goes down. Soon.”
“That bad?” Rhennic is brutally quiet now as he assesses this with a King’s demeanor, despite how I can feel his heart breaking at everything I’ve told him.
“Bad enough to end the world, babe. If we fail,” I say cheekily, though it’s gallows humor as I get silence on the other end of the line.
“Rikyava. Tell us where you are.” Dusk’s gentle voice holds nothing but love as he speaks. I hitch a sob now, as I shake my head.
“No. I can’t involve you all in this.” My heart is made up, for good orfor ill. “I love you all too much to watch you perish to what’s coming. It’s worse than just dying. And I… I have to save you from it. If I can.”
“Honorable.” Reginald’s smooth voice comes on now, without his regular bite as a hard-ass North Sea Siren. As he heaves a hard sigh, I know he’s accepted my decision, in my warrior’s way.
“What about the Intercessoria?” Adrian Rhakvir’s smooth baritone voice comes on now, as I practically see his intense but loving frown.
“I’m calling them next,” I say, feeling so much love fill me again for Layla and her incredible drakes. As Bjorn passes by now, lifting an eyebrow at me, I know I need to wrap this up, but have no idea how to do it.
Not wanting to say goodbye to everyone I love.
“You’ll know it if we’ve failed,” I tell them now, knowing they need some kind of heads-up if they have to face this thing next, to defend our world. “Contact Heathren and Insinio in the Intercessoria, if we fall. They’ve got all my intel on this thing.”
“I hope we never need to.” Rhennic’s voice is soft, as I feel him understand what I’m up against.
And what he and his Royal Dragon Bind will have to do—should we fail.
“I hope so, too.”
With that, there’s nothing left to say, so I hang up. I do it before I can hesitate, before we can draw this out with lengthy goodbyes. A Blood Dragon can’t focus on what might happen, and the death we always have coming.
We have to focus on life, and this moment, even if it’s our last.
I hang up with love beaming so hard through my heart that my tears do fall now. I wipe my nose with my jerkin’s sleeve as I place my second call. Insinio Brandfort picks up before it even rings once. It makes me sob-laugh as I startle.
Then sob-cry, at everything we’re up against.
