I had to summon up my own claws.
Last time I’d tried to touch the dragon inside me, it had hurt so much it had made my whole body convulse, and it hadn’t been all that long ago. No doubt I had not healed much in the intervening hours.
There was no choice now, though. I had to cut myself. Had to bleed for Roland.
I reached deep inside myself, and part of me instantly shied away, because my dragon was a huge ball of pain.
Absently, I wondered if I had done myself real, lasting damage by flying so far on an injured wing. Maybe I would never fly again.
That didn’t matter, though. Again: all that mattered was Roland. Roland, safe, back in Llangard, and most of all,not made of stone.
So instead of letting the dragon fall away as soon as the pain came, I grabbed it, demanding it come to me. Not the whole dragon, I promised myself. Just my claws. I had need of them.
I wrestled with myself for long, tense moments, sweat beading on my brow and the world seeming to grow hotter, but just as I feared I was going to explode trying, there it was. A single claw. Not even all of them, but it was enough.
I dragged it along my opposite forearm, making sure to draw blood, and not allowing myself to wince away from it. No, I didn’t like bleeding. I especially didn’t like drawing my own blood, let alone for this, but if it fixed Roland, that was all that mattered.
I turned my arm and let drops of blood fall, crimson and shining in the midday sun, across Roland’s alabaster lips. It dripped over them, bright and garish, like the color ladies at court sometimes used to make their lips seem bigger, sliding between the slightly parted lips, and...
Nothing happened.
I waited for long, excruciating minutes, counting to a hundred once, and then again, and still nothing.
The tears came again then, and I fell across his chest, sobbing. “No. You can’t do this. Not to... to Llangard. To Tris and Bet. To your aunt. Tome. Please Roland. I can’t—I can’t live without you. I”—I had to stop, to gasp for breath, my whole chest seizing up and trying to refuse to breathe at all—“I love you.”
I wiped the blood away from his lips, suddenly too dark and too garish and too much, because Roland’s lips were never meant to touch that. Roland’s lips should only touch good things.
Maybe... maybe if I’d been able to become a dragon again. Maybe what he needed was real dragon blood. Maybe it was all my fault, and I would never see his perfect blue eyes again.
Only the white nothing before me. Only stone.
Maybe it was all I deserved, for running away instead of facing my problems.
Leaning down, I pressed my lips to Roland’s cold, stone mask of a face.
That was it, then. I would lie down and stay beside him, forever. This was where we ended.
But then, his lips warmed beneath mine, and a moment later, he was kissing me back. When my eyes flew open, his were as well.
No shade of blue had ever been as perfect or as beautiful as the feathery vibrant blue of Roland’s irises. When he reached up to wrap his arms around me, no touch had ever been better.
I fell against him and cried again, this time because we weren’t going to die here. At least, not like this.
25
ROLAND
Aderyn was crying. I came to with wet cheeks and salty lips and the warm tingle of his kiss.
It was a much better feeling than the buzzing in the back of my skull, and as soon as I was aware of it, I slipped my fingers into the curtain of his sunshine-gold hair and kissed him deeply.
The sound he made was sharp and surprised when I pulled him in, but then he was clutching me tight, his weight pressing me into the ground, his elbow on my chest.
I didn’t care. We were kissing.
Aderyn had flown across the sea to come and get me.
Whatever I’d done, he didn’t hate me so completely that he let me go.
