He stood beneath the splintered moonlight like a marbled sculpture, mist coasting past.
Bitter irony strangled her as Paul’s mother’s haughty voice echoed in her head,Not suitable.Not good enough for a future MP’s wife. Now she was entangled with actual royalty, someone infinitely beyond her reach.
“Oh, no,” Skaldr drawled. “He’s the rightfulking?—”
“Enough,” Attor barked, his slitted pupils flashing. “We have no time for ancient grudges.”
“Ancient?” Skaldr retorted, then jabbed a finger at Race. “Vaesarra would have made a worthy queen! She worshipped you—youdiscarded her like trash.”
One moment, Race was standing near Ash, and the next, he slammed into Skaldr, both of them crashing into a boulder. The rock splintered, rubble scattering like rain.
Ash shot to her feet, her heart pounding.
“You know fucking nothing.” He shoved away from Skaldr, his features tense and almost colorless beneath the moonlight.
“Maybe.” Skaldr straightened, wiping his bleeding mouth. “It doesn’t change the facts. You abandoned her, left her to that bastard, and ran. She loved you!”
Race spun and punched the basalt. Rock splintered.
Ash shuddered as something within her cracked.
I’m such a bloody fool.
No wonder there was so much anger in him. No wonder he kept his distance.
Vaesarra. The woman he loved was out there somewhere in this world. And now he was back. Her stomach churned.
“You run after a mere mortal and act as if you’ve suffered?” Skaldr stepped closer, baring his teeth, fangs flashing.
No, he wasn’t finished, and Ash wished the ground would swallow her.
He spat, “You haven’t lived the life we had to afteryouturned tail and ran!”
Race pivoted, his claret eyes blazing. “I should gut you for that. But I’ll let it pass—this once.”
She turned to Attor. “Please, can you take me to where we’re staying?”
The older dragon dipped his head, sympathy softening his golden eyes. “Aye, lass?—”
“I’ll take her,” Race snapped, stalking over.
“No.” She flung out a hand, stopping him, and his mouth tightened. “You stay here. You have unfinished business.”
She yanked her hood up over her head and followed Attor down the scree-covered slope. Each step away twisted her insides, like walking away from something she’d only just begun to want. And Race’s gaze burned her back as if willing her to return.
She didn’t—didn’t need the truth hammered into her head.
Cold wind stung her cheeks, stealing her warmth. Ash dug her chilled fingers into a nearby boulder, steadying herself asloose gravel slid underfoot. Behind her, raised voices clashed, but she kept going, one step, then another—because stopping would shatter her.
She refused to be that woman waiting to be chosen. Paul had failed her; she wasn’t prepared to go through it again, not with Race.
“Talonhold will give us some privacy,” Attor said once they reached the valley floor, shrouded in more ghost-pale forest, the trees’ branches rattling like bones in the increasingly bitter winds. “For food, we’ll need the inn or the street vendors.”
Ash simply nodded as they moved between the trees, their silver bark slick with frost.
The forest soon thinned, and a maze of blackened stone came into view. The angular roofs seemed sculpted by fire, the smoke-stained walls kinked at odd angles as though they’d melted and reset wrong.
They wound down into the web of scorched lanes, smoke from braziers turning the air acrid. Held in a chokehold of pain, Ash swallowed hard, keeping her breathing low. A few locals hurried past, heads down, cloaks drawn tight, their boots squeaking on the cracked stone.
