We stood in silence, watching as Bowen shifted first. Normally, the whole little clan would ride on his back, but this time, Hafgan shifted too. He was an emerald slip beside the great gray boulder of a dragon with him, but I thought I understood why he’d want scales to fly away from here.
Had I claws and a chest full of fire to fight off my enemies when I felt threatened, I’d have done it.
Even as they flew away, and all of Bowen’s mass disappeared against the blanket of gray clouds, Rhys and I stood there, staring out the window.
“What happens if I stop?” I croaked at last, my voice rough from disuse and all the feelings I’d boxed up tight in my chest.
With a furrowed brow, Rhys turned my way. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Your family has some of the last magic in Llangard. I don’t know how that affects the blood, or what happens if you stop. If you want to try again?—”
“I do.”
Rhys grimaced.
It wasn’t as if anyone in the Spires had held me down and forced me to drink the blood. Nor had they passed goblet after goblet of it into the hands of a child king.
For a while after I’d recovered from poisoning, the moons had waned, and I’d felt fine, but when next the tides had risen, I’d been stricken with a fever. Shaking, sweating, and covered in scales, my condition had been apparent enough, and Rhys had been there, just as the first time.
I sometimes thought he was trying to protect Tristram, offering me his blood before my symptoms became so apparent. For as long as he’d been at the Spires, he had been soft-spoken, bookish, and kind, but there was a longing in his golden eyes when he looked at Tris for all the years they had lost, and—well, Rhys hadn’t been present for most of Tristram’s life, but he clearly cared for him now.
Moons above, maybe he was looking after me too, doing his best to keep the symptoms at bay.
“We can discuss it with Tristram,” Rhys said quietly. “He’ll... need to be prepared to take on more in the event that you require, ah, time to recover.”
He’d also need to agree, I suspected, for Rhys to support me, but—well, if push came to shove, none of them couldmakeme do this. I didn’t even think they would, no matter how ill I got.
I just needed their cooperation to stop me when the hunger got too great and I begged.
“And the Wind Clan will be back.” Rhys put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Give them time. You are good and you are kind, and they will remember it before long. This need is not all that you are.”
My next inhale jumped as sadness threatened to overwhelm me. He didn’t know what he was talking about. He hadn’t seen Aderyn in a cage, hadn’t had to leave him. Rhys had lived most of his life behind the walls of the Hudoliaeth, and it was presumptuous and uncharitable of me to think that they had been easy, but?—
But what did he know of forgiveness on this scale? Aderyn should flee for the mountains and never come back.
I didn’t want Rhys’s comfort, though, and speaking the truth would only gain me that. I shrugged out from beneath his arm. “I’m tired,” I mumbled, avoiding meeting his eye. “I think I’ll go lie down.”
I’d only made it a handful of steps before he stopped me.
“Roland?”
“Hm?” I—I couldn’t help turning back to look at him. The family I had now wasn’t one of blood, but it was family nonetheless, and Rhys was part of it.
“I’m sorry.” Rhys looked shockingly young, most days. It would’ve been easy to confuse him with Tris’s brother rather than his father. Right then, I could see the years writ in the lines around his eyes.
“There’s no need,” I said, forcing a little smile. “You saved my life. I’m grateful.”
“Are you?”
I thought about it for a moment, because—well, he had fair reason to doubt me in this.
But the only reason I’d ever known Aderyn, ever had the joys I’d had in the years since Windy Pass, was because of the choices Rhys and Tris and Bet had made. There was a moment on the field of battle when I’d helped Aderyn, perhaps even saved him, and that was worth—that was worth everything.
“Yes,” I said, once I could meet his eye steadily once more. “I am. Even if everything is ruined between the Wind Clan and me from this day forward, I’m still grateful.”
Rhys let out a little breath, tension seeping out of him, and, while he didn’t smile, he seemed more at ease. “I’m still sorry.”
I snorted. “And I must insist on using king’s privilege. If anyone’s to be morose and pitiful at the moment, it’s me. That’s my crown-given right.”
His lips twisted in amusement. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”
