I quickly catalog the details about the five drakes I don’t recognize. They have to sense me studying them, but no one meets my eyes. They simply survey the room, tense and ready, like the good guards they’re here to be for the day.
“Up and at ’em, dragoness. We let you be lazy for as long as we could,” Farrow orders.
“You’ve been hanging with Tove too much,” I harumph as I shove off the rest of my covers and get up while aiming a scowl at the cheeky fucker.
His grin fades all too quickly and his face scrunches with concern. “Why do I smell charred skin?”
Shit.
I forgot about my burn.
Karis steps closer, his focus aimed on my arm when I take a retreating step and try to tuck the injury behind my back. I didn’t get a chance to look at the burn until I was back in my room last night. It’s not bad, the blisters will heal in a week or so, but it’s there. Proof that last night wasn’t some kind of fever dream, it really happened, and somehow I’m alive to tell the tale. Not that I have any intention of telling anyone. If I did, then I’d have to explain about the Syphon Glass, and that’s not happening if I can help it.
Karis holds out his hand expectantly. The determined look in his cinnamon brown eyes tells me he’s not going to let me dodge this. I sigh and pull back the sleeve of the shirt I wore to bed, showing the big stubborn Thrasher my injured forearm.
“How did this happen?” he asks, turning my wrist so he can see the entirety of the burn.
I shrug and gesture in the direction of the fireplace on the other side of the room as though its mere presence will help solidify my story. “Must have sleepwalked too close to the fire.”
“Lie,” three separate voices proclaim at the same time.
Yeah, I didn’t think I was going to get away with that one, but I had to try.
I frown over at Farrow and give the two other tattling Thrashers the bird. I glower up at Karis for good measure because he’s a Thrasher too, and try to take my limb back from him. The gentle giant doesn’t let me reclaim my arm.
“Tell Pacey he’s needed. He can switch out with Daega,” Karis orders, turning to a Channeler in olive green scale armor.
The Channeler nods once and starts typing the command into the com fixed to the top of his hand. His brown hair is short but messy like he just rolled out of bed. The unruly scruff on his face only adds to that unkempt impression. The bump on the bridge of the male’s nose has me wondering how he got it and, better yet, why he kept it. The Horde’s Healers could have easily mended it, and yet the drake wears it like it’s an important part of his personality.
One of the Thrashers—Daega, I’m guessing—leaves just as Pacey strides purposefully through the door. His violet eyes immediately settle on the arm Karis refuses to give back, and his features sharpen with consideration.
I study the prominent dragon mark claiming the Healer’s throat, a black sun with flares that stretch into the shaved undercut of his pitch black hair.
“May I?” Pacey asks, nodding toward my arm as he draws closer.
Karis tries to hand off my limb before I can say anything, but the Healer doesn’t take it. He just stares at me like he’s genuinely waiting for my answer.
“If you don’t want me to heal it, I won’t,” he tells me when I still don’t respond.
The surprise must show on my face because Pacey takes a moment to really assess the situation. His violet eyes study the way Karis and Farrow are crowding me. Then his gaze drops to the blankets and pillow on the floor at my feet, before his attention darts to the made bed off to my left. Disquiet flickers across the Healer’s face, but the flash of emotion is gone by the time he looks back at me.
Interesting.
“You can fix it,” I tell the Healer, quickly tucking away my observation to look at later. “Thank you for asking.”
“Fenox, can you hear me?” Azo asks loudly, and I look over to see the human circling the metal disc he was messing with.
An image strobes above it for a few seconds before blinking out.
“You there, Nixy?” he asks again before he bends and fiddles with the apparatus again.
“I…here…an…you…hear…me? Nothing’s on my screen, Azo, but I can hear you.” Nixy’s voice suddenly rings clearly through the room.
“The sound is working, but it looks like the projector is on the fritz,” Azo tells her before he gives the device a good slap.
A full-sized semitransparent version of Nixy flares to life, just as the metal saucer that’s projecting it rises and starts to float about a foot off the floor.
“I can see you now,” the wyvern announces before her gossamer blue-hazel gaze moves around the room.
