A thick silence descended upon the room, and I could feel Adara and Mavlyn’s eyes on us as they watched the exchange. Memories of being ambushed in the air by lightning riders, darting through the air they called wind and lightning to their fingertips, clouded my mind. I could smell the ozone in the air, feel the rage and fear as I watched them strike at the other dragons in my unit. Our iron hide was impervious to fae magic, but the thin membranes of our wings were a weak spot the air fae had exploited ruthlessly. The cloud familiars they rode were fast and wily, able to avoid our flames almost before we even shot them from our throats, and if more than three riders converged on any one dragon, it was usually a death sentence.
The only way to survive an ambush was to close ranks and keep them from isolating us. But even then, they would always catch at least one of us. I’d lost count of how many dragons I’d seen brought down by an air fae, wings mangled, forced to land on the ground for waiting earth fae soldiers to finish the job.
“I suppose you take great pride in having gotten your pound of dragon flesh back in the day,” I said woodenly as Mrs. Aeolan continued to fuss around my legs.
The air fae noble paused. “No,” she said, her voice grave as she looked up at me. “I always thought it a great travesty, that our two races were trapped into such a vicious cycle. You dragons are a magnificent race, and I hated that we were forced to kill so many of you.“
My gaze snapped to hers, and I was both surprised and incensed to see sadness welling in the depths of her silvery eyes. “Forced?” I echoed, my voice vibrating with anger. “You could have put down your weapons any time.”
“We tried,” Mrs. Aeolan said curtly. “We offered our princess to you in exchange for peace.”
“And we offered our prince, and instead youkilledhim.” Beyond furious, I ripped my leg from Mrs. Aeolan’s grasp and jumped off the makeshift stool. “You may sound like a dragon sympathizer, but you view us as curiosities, exotic beasts, and in the end you still didn’t hesitate to kill us.”
Mrs. Aeolan looked taken aback by my outburst. “Do you really hold it against me for not speaking up?” she asked. “If I had been alive when the wars had first started, I might have championed for peace, but after three millennia of war crimes committed on both sides, nothing I could have done or said would have stopped the fighting. Your people were taking more and more of our territory, stealing resources, killing any fae who crossed your path!”
“We were just trying to survive,” I snarled. Survive in a hostile land we’d been trapped in for centuries, through no fault or choice of our own. The fae have never once tried to understand our position. “Princess Olette was the only fae whoeverspoke up in defense of my people, and if she hadn’t been mated to one of us, I doubted even that would have happened.”
“Yes, and look what she had to show for it in the end,” Mrs. Aeolan said harshly. “Death and ruin and the end of her family line!”
I spat on the ground at Mrs. Aeolan’s feet, then turned on my heel and stormed out of the attic. Anger clouded my vision as I took the stairs two steps at a time, then burst through the rear entrance and into the back garden. Chest heaving, I sucked in gulps of cold mountain air, trying to get hold of my emotions. A firestorm churned in my gut, begging to be released, for me to spew fire and ash all over this peaceful plot of land, to incinerate the lovely mountain roses and reddish-gold paintbrush plants that added touches of color to the otherwise dormant garden. I paced in front of the small fountain in the center, listening to the soothing burble as I ignored the stone benches waiting patiently nearby.
What had I been thinking, coming to city filled with air fae?
“Einar.” Adara’s voice cut through the fog of anger, like a fresh rainfall clearing away a haze of ash. I turned to see her walking up the path, gravel crunching beneath her shoes as her hips swayed gently. She wore a simple white cotton dress, tight in the bust and waist, flowing from the hips to the ankles, her hair plaited in its usual fishtail braid. She looked pure as a fresh snowfall, and the beast inside me, already agitated, rumbled with carnal hunger. It wanted to defile that virginal sweetness, to stain it with our scent and seed so that there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that she belonged to us. Tome.
“Leave me alone,” I snarled, turning my back to her. I was in no mood to fight my inner beast. It was taking everything I had not to shift into dragon form and fly as fast and as far away from here as I could.
Adara sighed, and I heard her step falter for just a second before she continued. I thought she might try to touch me, but instead she sat down on the edge of the fountain, just a little off to my right.
“Youhavebeen left alone,” she said, matter-of-factly. “For over twenty years.”
She held my gaze, her cornflower blue eyes steady even as I bared my teeth at her. She showed no fear, no pity, no anger or frustration. Just looked at me, taking me in as I was, waiting for me to say something.
The beast inside me grumbled a little, then settled down. My shoulders slumped as its sharp claws retracted from inside my chest, and my next breath came softer, easier.
“You don’t know what it was like, knowing I was the last dragon left in Ediria,” I said, my voice as soft as the breeze gently playing with a few loose strands of Adara’s hair. I wanted to reach back and smooth them from her face, but instead I sat down next to her on the lip of the fountain, gripping the edges of the stone basin. Water lapped at my fingertips, the icy liquid bringing a rush of clarity to my brain. “I’d just lost my family, my best friend, my people, my homeland filled with the scent of death and ash shadow magic. There was nowhere I could go that was safe, nowhere I could live where I wouldn’t be surrounded by people whose hands were stained with dragon blood. Being put to sleep was the only way to escape the pain.”
“Who did it?” she asked. “Who put the sleeping spell on you?”
I fiddled with the cuff on my wrist as I pondered whether to answer that question, allowing the deep red stone to catch and reflect the light. Did I tell Adara about the Radiant who had opened a portal to a new realm for my people, who had used my blood and life force to seal it off so none could follow? Who had put me into the enchanted slumber afterward as a kindness, the one thing he could do to ease my pain since taking my own life was not an option?
“I can’t tell you that,” I finally said.
Hurt flashed in Adara’s eyes, but she nodded. “You don’t trust me,” she said in a resigned voice.
“No.” My throat tightened, a lump of longing and sadness swelling, threatening to cut off my voice. “But I wish I could.”
Adara turned away, her gaze fastening onto a pair of hummingbirds fluttering around a feeder hanging from a nearby tree. Their wings moved faster than the eye could follow, filling the air with a pleasant buzzing sound as they sipped from the well of nectar, their green and orange plumage adding a splash of color to the bluish-green mountain landscape. I wondered if the two of them were mates, if they had a nest somewhere waiting to be filled with tiny eggs in the coming springtime, and my heart ached a little at the thought.
“There was an old fae who lived in my village,” she said after a minute. “He, like many others, fought in the war, but unlike the other elder warriors who had retired to live out their days, the ghosts of his comrades haunted him. We often found him at the pub, drowning his memories in the bottom of a tankard. Mother used to make him a special draught that would numb the pain, make his days a little more bearable. She tried to get him to open up about the past, but he refused to talk about it, and the memories festered inside him until one night, he drank an entire bottle of the draught, then laid down to sleep and never woke up again.”
She turned to look up at me, and my breath caught in my throat at the soft, almost tender look in her eyes. “I can’t pretend to understand your pain,” she said quietly. “But I have seen where the road you’re on ends, and I don’t want that for you, Einar. You’re going to have to let somebody in someday. Everyone needs someone to talk to.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it, unsure of what to say. There was no one I could talk to, no dragon elders or fellow warriors I could feel safe to share my pain with. No fae would sympathize, except perhaps for Adara, and I couldn’t pour my heart out to her. We were already growing far too close, too intimate. Even now she tested the barriers erected around my heart, that open, honest gaze beseeching me to let her in, her lavender and sea salt scent enticing me to pull her into my arms and inhale until my heart settled and my inner beast purred with contentment.
But she wasfae. And as much as my inner dragon wanted her, I couldn’t allow it. If Daryan and Olette’s fate had taught me anything, it was that a union between a dragon and a fae was impossible. Even if we tried to create a future, it would only be a matter of time before someone targeted us and tore us apart. That was the natural order of things.
Dragon and fae were destined to be enemies. Never lovers, or friends.
