The words landed and lingered, reminding me of smoke. I didn’t understand them all at once, but I understood enough to know they were a gift, an instruction and a confession braided together.
Her breath came ragged, like bellows winding down. The marsh air tasted of old rain.
I lowered my face closer until I heard the thud of her failing heart, small and stubborn. An ember that refused to die. I pressed my fingers gently against the ribs that rose beneath her fur. Her heart fluttered, then stuttered.
“Thank you, Leah. For everything,” I rasped. “Your courage and strength will be remembered throughout the ages to come.”
“My…family…calls. I…go…home.” Her breathing slowed. Silence didn’t so much fall as press inward, filling the space with a new weight. The voxhound’s eyes glazed; the crimson dulled to a washed-out wine. Her head lolled onto my lap with the soft inevitability of a setting sun.
“She’s gone,” I croaked, salt from tears I hadn’t meant to shed burning hot on my cheeks.
Chapter
Thirteen
Sometimes they need to stand in front likethey’rethe big, scary one. Don’t laugh.
-Humaning for Beginners: A Dragon’s Tale of Human Management
Taron slid to his knees beside me, his boots sinking into the mud. He bowed his head in a gesture that was almost reverent.
I welcomed his presence as sadness and fury collided in my chest. One man’s cruelty and another’s secrecy had extinguished a life of such beauty and wild, fierce grace.
Emotions I hadn’t dared let myself acknowledge surged to the fore. Inside me, a violent storm erupted. I wasn’t blameless in this. I’d been so occupied with my troubles, I’d lost sight of those of my people.
While I could do nothing to change the past, I could absolutely change the future and protect my queendom as never before. A list of tasks became as clear as my emotions were raw.
Kill Lorik, as I’d vowed.
Punish Councilman Roland for helping produce this tragedy.
Cut Taron from my life for good. Even if it meant sending him home and destroying the traveling stones myself.
Remind my people why loyalty mattered, so every traitor learned that betrayal would be paid in blood. If the skies must blaze, so be it. This should never have happened, and it would never happen again.
I sat in the dirt, my breath hitching in shallow bursts.
Taron gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. An unexpected comfort and wholly unbearable.
I flinched, not from pain, but from the threat of emotional collapse. Such a simple gesture shouldn’t have the power to crack me open, but here we were.
“She asked for protection,” he said low, as if to not wake Leah. “There must be a reason she waited for you, and it wasn’t to deliver Lorik’s message.”
