I pale and take a few steps back, my wings trembling and my shoulders slouching.
I can’t answer her. I can’t tell her that I’ve been doing this since I was ten years old, since the day Brandon died. I can’t tell her that I sleep on the floor of her family’s old room because I don’t deserve the comfort of a bed.
I shift into my wyvern form. My body expands, my bones reshape, and my golden scales burst through my skin.
I launch myself into the air before she can say anything else, my massive wings beating hard against the wind.
I fly away from the palace, circling around the mountains in wide, desperate arcs. The late afternoon sun catches on my scales and turns them to molten gold, but I feel nothing but cold inside.
I never thought she’d discover my deepest secrets, and now that she has, I don’t know how to be anymore. I don’t know how to face her. I don’t know how to exist in a world where someone knows the truth of who I am.
I feel so pathetic and ashamed of myself that I could just disappear. I could fly away and never come back. I could leave her the palace and all my wealth, and just vanish into the sky.
But even as I think it, I know I won’t do it. I can’t leave her. I bought her and made her mine, and even though I’m the worst thing that has ever happened to her, I can’t let her go.
I circle higher, the mountains rising beneath me like jagged teeth. The wind tears at my wings, and the air grows thin and cold, but I keep climbing. I want to fly until I can’t feel anything anymore, until the shame, the guilt, and the desperate, aching need for her all fade away into nothing.
But they don’t fade. They never do.
I see Tressa’s face when she told me she saw me crying. There was no disgust written on her features, no satisfaction at seeing me brought low. There was something else, something I can’t name. It looked almost like pain.
Like it hurt her to see me hurting.
I don’t understand why she stayed after seeing me like that. I don’t understand why she didn’t run as far and as fast as she could. I don’t understand why she went to see my mother, why she asked about my father, and why she cares at all about what happens in this cursed place.
I let out a roar that echoes across the mountains, raw and anguished, and full of everything I can’t say. The sound reverberates back to me, mocking and empty. I am alone up here in the sky, with my shame and my secrets, and the knowledge that the one person I want most in the world knows exactly what kind of monster I am.
And the worst part is that she stayed anyway. She saw me at my lowest and most pathetic, and she still decided to stay. I don’t know what to do with that.
I fly until the sun starts to set, the sky bleeds orange and pink, and my shadow grows long across the mountains.
Tressa knows everything. I will have to go back and face her eventually, even though the thought of it makes me want to tear myself apart all over again.
Chapter Thirteen
Tressa
I watch Altair soar into the late afternoon sky, his golden scales catching the light as he climbs higher and higher, until he’s nothing but a distant speck against the clouds.
I curse myself for reacting so badly. For pushing him when I should’ve been gentler. For exposing his secrets when he wasn’t ready to face them with me standing there as a witness.
I gather my blanket and my book, and make my way back inside the palace.
The corridors are quiet as I walk to my chambers. Once I’m inside, I go straight to the balcony. I lean against the railing and search the sky for any sign of him. An hour passes, the sun dropping lower. There’s nothing. No golden wyvern circling overhead or heavy thud of claws landing on his balcony next to mine.
Later, I make my way to the dining room. The table is set for two, but I’m alone. A young servant girl brings out the first course, setting a bowl of soup in front of me.
“Have you seen Lord Aurellion?” I ask her.
“No.” She scurries away.
I wait for him to arrive, thinking he’ll walk through the door any moment now. After a while, I pick up my spoon and begin eating, telling myself he’s probably still upset and needs his space. The soup is good, but I barely taste it, and when the girl brings the next course, I eat that too without really noticing what it is. Altair doesn’t come, and when I’m finished, I leave the dining room feeling more restless than before.
Back in my chambers, I pace from the sitting room to the bedroom and back again. I can’t settle or focus on anything except the gnawing worry that something is wrong. I need to see him and know he’s all right.
I leave my room and walk down the corridor to his door. I knock and wait, but there’s no answer. I knock again, harder, and when silence greets me, I try the handle. The door swings open easily.
“Altair?” I call out as I step inside.
