The man on the ground coughed, the sound horrendous and bleak, but I kept my eyes on Aderyn, and sent the warmth inside me into him. All I loved in the world, I wanted to share with him, and the tingling in my fingers seemed oddly unthreatening, considering all my body had been going through the last few days.
I drew my hand away, and his skin stitched back together. The blood whisked away.
I grinned broadly, snatching his wrist up. The scar that ran down his arm where he’d offered me his blood had disappeared.
“How do you feel?” I asked, leaning in close.
“How did you—” Aderyn bit his lip, touching his neck with his fingertips, shrinking into his shoulders.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I—I never cared for might, but I do care for you, and you’re—” Overwhelmed, I blew out a long breath. “I wanted to spare you hurt.”
“You did,” Aderyn gasped. He threw his arms around my neck, and the weight of him twisted us both to the side. Our shoulders bumped against the coop, but I didn’t care. He was smiling like I’d feared I’d never see him smile again.
Another stranger approached, this one holding a bow, but it was pointed toward the ground, and I could only imagine he was our savior.
As he came closer, I realized his gait was uneven. He seemed wary of putting his full weight on one leg, and only came to the edge of the fence before he jerked his chin at the man on the ground.
“He dead?”
I nudged him with my foot. He flopped onto his back with a pained rasp. “Dying, I’d wager, if no one helps him.”
“He has no friends here, I’m afraid.” The archer looked up at Aderyn and me, finally, and raised a brow high. “You’ve grown, since Windy Pass,” he said, looking me over.
I shrugged. “It’s been a few years.”
We’d all had the long march back from Windy Pass to Merrick together, and while my focus had been on Aderyn, no doubt plenty of Llangardians had seen me that day.
Living out here, it was unlikely that they’d seen me since.
He looked at Aderyn. “And Ma says you’re the dragon—the little green one?”
Aderyn nodded. I squeezed him closer, but he didn’t flinch away from the moniker this time.
“Littlest beastie on the field that day. Right shame you were there.”
“A shame we all were,” I agreed, glancing down at his bad leg.
The man’s lips twisted. “Way I see it, everything happens for a reason. We got lucky. Luckier still that Ma’s got the pot on. Shall we head in?”
I held Aderyn’s hand as he stepped around the man on the ground, and we left him to die there with the chickens.
After all, the pot was on.
28
ADERYN
Tea.
Roland was alive and the Destovian was bleeding to death in the chicken pen and we were sitting down to tea.
I stared at my forearm, where only a few minutes earlier there had been a scabbed wound. It had barely been a few days since I’d cut it open with a jagged claw.
Healed.
Roland had healed me.
It had to have been him, right?
