“That’s for coming to get me.” She paused, seemed to remember the wyvern battle in the skies and stared at the smoke beginning to fade from the city, the thirty or so wyverns that remained. “Unless there’s another reason you’re here, with apparently more than one legion in tow.”
I shrugged a shoulder. Shut out the fire of pain from my wound as I gave her a slow smirk as I recovered my wits. “Needed to get my hair done. Look at how limp it’s become; there’s barely enough hair for a bun.”
“That certainly warrants multiple legions,” she agreed, stroking my cheek, the black flames vanishing from around us. “We can’t risk losing all that pretty hair.”
It had been hell without her, and the council would no doubt seek revenge for my father’s death, and even now the Zalaam queen’s dark forces lay poised to attack more cities, but even as an executioner’s blade hung over our necks, I couldn’t help but grin. Ameirah thought my hair was pretty.
Raheema shrieked a cry I knew was a very detailed death threat to all who got in her way, and then she was at the edge of the rooftop, her wings carving through the hazy air as she frantically scanned her rider from head to toe.
“I’m fine,” Ameirah rasped.
“She’s injured,” I countered, getting to my feet and helping Ameirah up too. She caught up something from the rooftop before she stood, but I didn’t get a good look at it. Whatever it was could wait. “Where’s Khalid?”
Raheema swung her long neck to indicate the remaining clash of wyverns fighting above the medina’s square. I didn’t spythe healer, but I did see Dahab, with Zaarib atop him using his magic to knock wyverns out of the sky.
“Raheema,” Ameirah choked out, rushing towards her heedless of the injury on her leg. I stayed close behind as she pressed her forehead to the blue wyvern’s snout, my eyes on the trickle of blood winding down her leathers.
“I’ll lift you up,” I offered, the sight of that blood like a burning itch. I needed her to get care right the fuck now. A quick glance showed Mak hovering nearby, one eye on us even as he blasted fire at a brown wyvern sneaking closer. I ignored his grumble about the gaping hole inmychest. “Raheema, make sure she doesn’t fall off.”
Raheema lifted her head, her chest puffed out with responsibility. I carefully helped Ameirah mount, ignoring another flash of pain, and gave one last glance to the king whose body grew cold on the rooftop before I climbed atop Mak and rose into the sky.
“Wait,” Ameirah shouted across the thump of wingbeats. “There’s something we need to do. He mentioned prisoners, people from Cirestia.”
“From where?”
“I’ll explain later. Follow me!”
Before I could caution her against it, my wild, brave-hearted wife guided Raheema away.
CHAPTER 32
AMEIRAH
By the time we flew across the wall around Red Manniston, I was exhausted and ready to collapse into bed. We spent an hour scouring the cells beneath the market where the Legion of Fyrevein blast a hole in the medina floor and helped free the seven women we found locked down there—only women, and all with pointed ears and wings who spoke a language that was only familiar because of this afternoon.
I was surprised when Kamaal’s legion followed us, along with the three legions who’d answered Varidian’s call for help.Khalid’sallies, apparently. There was much I didn’t know about my cousin it seemed.
I’d ponder all that later, along with everything that happened in Riverren, and the fact no one had seen hair nor hide of Kaazhim and his gentry henchmen since. Now, I slid down Raheema’s side to dismount, and smiled when Varidian’s handsbracketed my waist, his lips immediately finding my forehead, careless of the sweat there.
“Say it again,” he pleaded against my brow, his thumbs sweeping circles over my hipbones.
“I love you.” I’d taken one look at him, with his sleeves rolled up and jacket unzipped an inch as he toiled to remove rocks and debris from the dungeons, and blurted the words out. He was so gentle speaking to the prisoners when we found a way to open their cells, his compassion enough to settle their fear at least temporarily. It was impossible to keep those three words trapped in my chest; they gathered so much force, urgency, and emotion it hurt.
I looked at him now, gazed deep into his topaz eyes, and felt the last of my resentment float away, little more than dust on the wind. I’d make him grovel for sending me away, of course, but he didn’t need to know I looked into his pleading, adoring eyes and forgave him.
“I love you,” I repeated, and kissed him, the scent of oud, amber, and brimstone bathing my senses in warmth. “I love you more than anything.”
“You are the breath in my lungs and the blood that pumps through every vein in my body,” he said, utterly fanatic.
“Varidian,” I breathed, matching his tone as I stroked a lock of hair back from his face, “that’s really cliché.”
A laugh burst from him, the bright sound filling the lawn, filling my chest with pure light. “Harsh, menace.”
“Oh, you’re calling me menace again,” I observed. “Has the shine worn off our reunion already?”
“Not if you slap me again,” he replied, pulling me close and watching as his legion paused several feet away, giving us space. Shula grinned and mouthedgive him hellto me. “That was insanely hot, Ameirah. I’m getting hard just thinking of it.”
I nipped his bottom lip. “Don’t be so filthy with our friends just over there.”
