“What is this?” I reached for it.
The fuzzy fibers of the knit tickled my fingers when I unwrapped the fluffy blanket. Green, red, and orange, it was possibly the brightest thing I’d ever seen in Alveari, and it was the warmest thing ever.
“It must’ve cost a fortune,” I muttered, immediately wrapping the blanket around my shoulders despite the daytime heat.
The soft knit felt like a warm hug around my body, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to give it up now, even if it’d been imprudent for Timur to splurge on it.
“I will get you a real bed one day,” Timur promised somberly. “But if you have to sleep on a grass rug, at least you should be a little warmer and more comfortable.”
“You know what? I wish we could sell the joy I’m feeling right now. It’d fetch a really good price.” I smiled, rubbing my cheek against the softness of the blanket.
“Keep it, Elaine. Not all joy has to be sold. This one is all yours to feel and keep.”
Nine
Timur
The dragon’s teeth have pierced my skin and muscles. His jaws are locked in my flesh. His obsidian skin is slowly paling already, with veins of white spreading from the blade of my dagger embedded into his brain through his ear.
The dragon is dead, but his teeth are in my thigh, and the poison is seeping into my blood.
I should be dead too. I probably will be. Soon. I can’t move my limbs already. Can’t feel anything, other than the searing pain from the dragon’s teeth slowly engulfing my body from the inside like liquid fire.
The agony is unbearable, but I can’t scream.
I can’t get up. I can’t even crawl.
But I’m still breathing. My chest is rising and falling with frantic, shallow gasps for air.
With my eyes still open, I can see, staring up into the pale morning sky.
And I still feel…
I feel Valeni’s weight on me. Her head is on my chest, with her long, thick braid snaking down my side, then over the black rocks of Ashgate Coast. We’ve been searching for Ashgate City, but all we’ve found was a nest of virutu dragons.
I want to call Valeni. I need to know if she’s still breathing too. I can’t feel her chest moving against mine, and that fills me with fear so cold, it even numbs pain.
Valeni is lying face down. Her nose is pressed into my skin. She can’t breathe like this.
Just a minute ago, we were both moving in the desperate, mind-obliterating passion of the mating fever when the dragon attacked. He bit her first, giving me a moment of warning, just enough time to pull my dagger out and strike.
A bite of a virutu dragon is always deadly. But I’m still alive. It gives me hope that Valeni still lives too.
“Valeni, Valeni, Valeni,” I chant in my head, willing her to move, waiting for a puff of her breath hitting the skin of my chest, for any sign that she’s still here, with me.
A movement appears around her head, and hope pulses stronger in my chest. This is not just her hair moving with the morning breeze. It must be her trying to lift her head. She can move. She’s alive. She’s…
A black thread separates from her braid. It rises and curls through the air, slowly dissolving into the morning light. Another one follows, then another… Thin long wisps of shadows lift from my lover’s body while my mating cluster is still inside her, the warmth of her is still on my skin.
“Valeni!” I scream in my head, but not a sound comes from my closed lips that I can no longer open.
All I could do is watch with my eyes that I can no longer close as my woman’s spirit is leaving this world. The body that I had been dreaming of touching for weeks is now dissolving into wisps of shadows.
The hair that I have run my hands through is turning to nothing.
Her rare dark eyes.
Her lips.
