Conversation dried up as the servants twisted my way to gawk. I lifted my chin higher, feeling the weight of their attention pressing on me almost as heavily as stone as I swept a disinterested gaze across them.
Except I was lying.
I was interested in their reaction to me.
Inside, the turmoil of conflict dashed upon me.
Almost two weeks ago, my wyrm had fatally wounded many of their loved ones with its fire and vicious squalls of barb-tipped wind.
And here I was, face-to-face with the survivors. Yet it wasn’t the soldiers. It was the servants, with drawn faces etched in grief, who stared down at their goblets and their half-picked at plates of food, as if they hadn’t the heart to eat.
Remorse thickened in my throat. My bottom lip wobbled, and stinging heat dampened my lashes.
I’m sorry…I’m sorry…
“Wychthorn,” came a murmur beside me, so softly only I could hear.
When I glanced up at Graysen, his face was distorted by the unspilled tears that shimmered in my eyes and made his image swim. I rapidly blinked them back, but moisture escaped to streak down one of my cheeks. Quickly wiping it away with the heel of my palm, I cursed myself for feeling this way. I’d been the one hunted, captured, trapped. Even his father, Varen, had defended my actions.
I shouldn’t feel tormented that I’d taken lives.
But I did. I did care I’d stolen precious life irrevocably.
An almost imperceptible shake of the head. Graysen’s eyes narrowed as if warning me not to fall into sorrow and guilt. “This is our way of life. You were cornered,and weknowthat. Every day, our lives are at risk when we deal with crime syndicates.Some of our warband fell in the siege against the Widowmakers, and the grief is still new and raw.”
Sage brushed up against my thigh with a low whine, knowing that I was faltering, that a veil of anguish had settled over my heart. My fingers slipped through the fur on his head, feeling much steadier when he pushed back against my touch, his tail wagging.
When we reached the opposite end of the hall with its enormous twin hearths, crackling with orange flames, there was nowhere left to go. Graysen turned around to face everyone, while, like a coward, I stared straight ahead and collected myself. The wall was carved into a relief sculpture of a place with rolling hills and a winding river cutting through forests. On the hewn peak of a craggy mountain, there was a Keep. This Keep, I realized, as I recognized Graysen’s tower butting against the adamere structure. The fortress was much smaller, comprising, I suppose, of only the Heart of the Keep, the place the Crowthers later turned into the library.
I didn’t see what Graysen silently asked. But by the noisy clatter of plates, cutlery, and tankards, wood scraping on stone, and retreating footfalls, he’d asked them to leave.
After a few heavy minutes, silence reigned.
And we were left alone.
I glanced sidelong at Graysen. His attention was on the massive oak doors to the Great Hall, listening with his keen senses. Then, I suppose once the area cleared, and it was back to being only us, he visibly relaxed.
My layered skirt rippled outward, flaring in a soft arc as I spun around to walk deeper inside the enormous room. It took up four levels of the Keep. The reason why almost encircled the entire room. I felt Graysen’s eyes on me. He was hungry for my reaction. His eagerness for it barely contained. The intensity of his anticipation crackled along the lines of my figure as hetracked every movement and the nuances playing across my features.
I really wanted to be dismissive and feign boredom because he wanted it so much. But I couldn’t do it. I gave in to the childish excitement of seeing something so fucking amazing. I shifted my weight from foot to foot fast, jittering with exhilaration.
Holy Skalki!
A wyrm coiled around the room. Not carved into the stone, its likeness was formed withrealscales. Such a dark green they were almost black.
The very scales that armored Draxxon, the greatest wyrm that ever lived. The wyrm that had saved the Houses on the ravaged battlefield against the Children of the Harbinger, who had aligned themselves with the mortals rising against us and provided them with a legion ofotherswho had almost annihilated our kind and our way of life.
Draxxon took up the entire space from floor to ceiling, and his serpentine body curved along three walls, leaving only the one with huge double hearths free.
“He’s enormous,” I breathed in awe, spinning around, my braid bouncing against my back when I came to an ungainly halt. My wyrm formed of flames wasn’t as big as Draxxon. Mine was adolescent and much smaller. Draxxon was unbelievable. I was standing in the shadow of greatness. And for a reason that I couldn’t fathom,Ihad a wyrm and its might inside me.
Fierce hope, and a desire to burn everything in sight, lit up like a beacon within me. The things my wyrm and I would do when I got Zrenyth’s magic from my neck and set us both free…
I would raze this House to the ground.
Graysen shot me a swift, inquiring look, his brow furrowed. I realized too late that he could feel my desire beneath his skin. That I was broadcasting my emotions too loudly. This strangeconnection between us persisted, even though the collar around my throat nullified my wyrm.
I banked the smoldering embers of fury—calm, calm, calm—forcing myself to focus on the here and now, the magnificent beast before me.
