Kirion nudged my cheek, pulling me from the memory. My body stirred just thinking about it.
“Quiet, you,” I told the wyrmling.
Behind me, the heavy oak door clicked open. The hinges didn’t creak; the house had oiled them specifically for her arrival.
“Talking to the dragon again, Lord Stormgarde?” Lysa’s voice drifted in, accompanied by the scent of herbs. “People will say you’ve gone mad.”
“Let them talk,” I said, crossing the room to meet her. “I have everything I need right here.”
“Let’s take a walk, your lordship,” she said. I would have walked anywhere with her.
The sea breeze tearing over the cliffs had teeth, but for the first time in a decade, I didn’t brace myself against it. Beside me, Lysa walked with a bounce in her step that threatened to tow me along. Her hand was warm in mine, her grip firm.
“The East Wing stables,” she said, pointing toward the grey stone structure that had once been the grim heart of my confinement measures. “We start there. The ventilation is abysmal, Fenrik. If I’m to treat respiratory cases, I can’t have them breathing in damp stone-dust.”
“That structure was built to withstand the temper tantrums of wyrms,” I said, guiding her away from a particularly precarious patch of loose scree. “It prioritised structural integrity over airflow.”
“Well, it prioritizes gloom right now.” She released my hand to mime a grand sweeping motion, her shirt pulling taut across her chest as she reached.
I stopped walking. My gaze dropped, unbidden, tracing the curve of her waist and the way the linen shirt clung to her rising breaths. She was discussing renovations with the innocent fervor of an academic, oblivious to the fact that she was effectively undoing my composure with every enthusiastic stretch.
“We knock out the slit-windows,” she continued, turning back to me, her cheeks flushed from the wind. She tapped a finger against her chin, leaving a faint smudge of ink there from her earlier correspondence. “Replace them with reinforced glass. Floor-to-ceiling. Let the sun in. It shouldn’t be a prison, Fenrik. It should be a rehabilitation centre. People in Abberwyn are terrified of their own bonded companions when they get sick because they think the only option is...”
“Me,” I finished dryly. “Or what I used to be. The sin-eater at the bottom of the valley.”
“Exactly.” She stepped into my space, grabbing the lapels of my coat to shake me slightly. Her eyes were bright, catching the sunlight. “But if we open it up, officially, we teach them. I can’t do it alone, obviously. The sheer volume of intakes we’d get... I was thinking of taking apprentices. Maybe some of the dropouts from the Academy who were too ‘unconventional’ forthe professors.”
Her knuckles grazed my chest through the wool. It took a concerted effort of will not to lean down and bite the pulse jumping in her throat.
“You want to fill my ancestral home with rejected students and sick dragons,” I said, covering her hands with my own. “It sounds loud.”
“It sounds like life.” She grinned. “Are you telling me the great Lord Stormgarde, master of the terrifying cliffside estate, can’t handle a few teenagers and some wheezing drakes?”
“I can handle anything you throw at me, Lysa. Though I may draw the line at apprentices wandering into the private quarters.” I squeezed her fingers. “Speaking of noise... I unlocked the music room this morning.”
“You played?” she asked.
Now that I’d finally unlocked the room maybe I got to lure her into my passion for music.
“I composed.” The admission felt harder to voice than I expected. “I burned the old sheets. The dirges. They didn’t fit anymore.”
“And the new ones?”
I pulled her closer until her hips bumped against mine, needing the contact to anchor the confession. “Lighter. Less... minor key. Complexity without the agony.” I brushed a thumb over her ink-smudged cheek. “Something that sounds like you.”
We stepped through the main entrance, the heavy oak doors swinging shut behind us. The silence of the hall wasn’t thepressing stillness of the last decade, but a waiting quiet. The stone beneath my boots felt almost nimble.
Mrs. Crane stood at the foot of the magnificent staircase, a feather duster clutched in her hand like a sceptre. She watched us approach, her eyes darting from my wind-tossed hair to Lysa’s flushed cheeks.
“The silver is tarnishing,” she said, her tone clipping the air.
I paused, unbuttoning my coat. “I wasn’t aware silver tarnished from happiness, Mrs. Crane.”
“It tarnishes from vibration, sir,” she countered, though the corner of her mouth twitched. “The manor has been purring. The vibrations are rattling the cutlery in the drawers. I’ve had to re-stack the soup spoons three times since breakfast.”
Lysa stifled a laugh behind her hand. “I’m sorry, Helda. We can ask it to keep it down?”
“Oh, don’t mind me, my lady.” Mrs. Crane smoothed her apron. “It’s better than the screaming. Though I did find the linen closet rearranged this morning. All the best sheets, the silk ones from your grandmother’s dowry, sir, were moved to the front of the pile.” She gave the ceiling a pointed, knowing look. “Subtlety has never been a Stormgarde trait, it seems. Even in the architecture.”
