“Yeah,” Tira replies with a sly smile. “Wouldn’t want to mess up that pretty face of yours.”
“Your friend tried to bash in my so-calledprettyface. I’m not sure that keeping it safe is very high on her list of priorities. And for the last time my name is—” whatever he had been about to say is cut off as Drekki shakes himself, spreading out his wings.
“Fly,” I command him as I nudge him with the heel of my foot. Drekki takes off at a run, bounding across the frozen ground and dead grass that makes up the field outside our village before his wings catch the wind, and he lifts into the air.
Marcello lunges forward, his fingers grasping at my shirt desperately until they latch onto a leather strap that I’m wearing across my shoulders. I feel his knuckles dig into my back as he holds on for dear life as my dragon lifts into the air with two powerful flaps of his wings. Even carrying two people, Drekki moves powerfully and swiftly. He was always the stronger of the two brothers.
I look over my shoulder, taking in Marcello’s terrified gaze. He looks more frightened now than when I had held an ax to his head. I allow an uncharacteristic smile before my gaze flicks to Tira. She is also in the air, Worm struggling to keep up with his much larger brother, despite only having one person on his back.
Then again, Worm isn’t used to carrying anyone and the few times he does fly with a person on his back it’s me. I’m fortunate that it’s Tira coming with me. I’m not sure if Worm would have allowed anyone else on his back. Nor would he put forward the effort for anyone else.
But Tira gets many privileges. She’s the closest thing to a sister that I’ve ever been able to enjoy, even if it is just through her being a shield sister. And my dragons recognize that connection I have with her.
I turn back ahead, taking in the distant treetops as we rise higher and higher. I grip the harness attached to Drekki’s saddle and direct it to steer him toward the blue foothills on the horizon. And the Werma waiting there hopefully with answers.
Chapter Seven
The Heart Shaped Leaf
Thelightislonggone as my dragon lands with a shuddering halt. My nose and fingers are numb with cold, and I have lost all feeling in the tips of my ears altogether. I, however, at least am used to the cold and just how frigid the air high in the sky can be. As I slide off my dragon, Marcello is nearly dragged off behind me because he can’t seem to release his hold on my leather strap.
My feet hit the hard ground, and he falls to his knees behind me, overcome by convulsive shudders.
“Well!” Tira says with a laugh and a shiver as she slides off Worm’s back. “That’s just as invigorating as ever.”
Marcello looks like he wants to say something, but his teeth are chattering too hard. Instead, he just wraps his arms around himself as he pushes to his feet and takes a few halting steps forward.
“What’s the matter, Imperial?” Tira crones, noticing why he has my attention. “Dragon has your tongue?”
“I—I never imagined flying to be so… socold,” he chatters.
“Perhaps you should have stayed in your empire,” I reply, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. “I hear it is much less cold there.”
“Believe me,” he says with a shudder. “If it had been my choice, I would have never left.”
I arch my brow at this. I want to ask him what forced his hand to make him travel to the north, to Nelgata and our wars up here. From what I’ve heard, not every Imperial is a warrior, indeed they have scholars and nobles and merchants who grow fat off their ease. They do not have to defend themselves or their tribe at a moment’s notice. No, the only warriors of the empire are those who choose to be so.
But something tells me that if I ask him, I will be playing into his hand. My curiosity is the bait and that tongue of his is the trap. Whatever angle he is playing at, hewantsme to know about his past.
Perhaps he thinks that it will instill in me a pity.
Only the dead deserve our pity.
The living yet sin.
I shift my gaze from my imperial captive and to the hut visible ahead. Lights filter through the windows, illuminating the night. From here the cottage seems inconspicuous enough, perhaps isolated, but it is small with moss growing out of its stones. The thatch roof needs to be repaired. A small garden is fenced in to the right of the door. To the left is a stump of a tree and a pile of wood to supply the hearth. A curl of smoke rises through the hole in the center of the roof and toward the gray sky.
One could hardly tell from looking at it from outside that this building housesher. The Werma. The soothsayer of the hills.
A woman capable of telling the future.
My mother, not that she deserves to be called such. Last time I saw her, I came with my shield sisters so that she may read our fates. It was something she did for every warrior coming of age in not just our clan but all the ones around us.
To not approach her at the cusp of your maturity would be considered ill fate.
Somehow, it was easier to come to her as the Werma just as anyone else would. I did not have to think of her as the mother who abandoned me, or as the woman who cursed me with visions the same as her own. She was not the wife who left my father brokenhearted, she was just the soothsayer who would read my fate.
Now I find myself standing here,needingher help. I do not wish to ask for it.
