He was toying with the straps of his saddlebags when wind buffeted the courtyard. He turned, shielding his eyes, as Callamus rose back into the sky, Mariah, Signe, and Matheo seated on his back.
“She’ll be okay.”
Ciana stood beside him, her mare’s reins in her hands. She wore a cautious smile on her face. “And so will we.”
“Hey!” Quentin’s shout tore through the courtyard. Sebastian gritted his teeth. “We’re wasting sunlight. Let’s get going so we can try to get to the other side of the blasted continent before the Summer Solstice.”
Ciana noted Sebastian’s clenched jaw and laughed softly. “We’re coming!” she shouted back. She stepped to her mare’s side, hoisting herself into the saddle.
“Ready for another adventure, Seb?”
Sebastian shook his head, releasing some of the tension he’d been clinging to. “With you, Goldie? Always.”
Ciana’s cheeks flushed. She tapped her heels to her mare’s side, trotting away to join Quentin and Delaynie on their wagon. Sebastian mounted his gelding, forcing a deep breath.
He couldn’t help but feel like that deep red stain on the ground had formed a cloud of darkness that settled over them, lingering like a shadow as they started out again across the unending sands of Kreah.
Chapter 25
“Your thoughts are loud, Mariah.”
The wind whipped past her ears as Mariah pressed herself closer to Callamus’s indigo scales. Matheo huddled behind her, bracketed by the dragon’s massive, beating wings.
Signe, meanwhile, had her arms spread into the sky, eyes closed in pure joy. The priestess had been a helpful companion while in Kreah, helping to settle both the members of Mariah’s court and the refugees, but Mariah could tell that she was ready to return home.
Mariah turned her gaze out to the horizon. She swallowed, and for the first time since her loss at Khento, opened her mind to answer. “Maybe there’s a lot to think about.”
Something like understanding and acknowledgment rumbled from Callamus.
She blinked, a little shocked it had worked. With her magic silent, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to speak to the dragons the way she had before, and that uncertainty was why she was so hesitant to try. Perhaps there was something intrinsic in her, something that called out to the great beasts even when herpower was locked away from her. Something woven into the very fabric of her being.
At least, that’s what her father had said to her, no more than a few hours ago.
Mariah finally let a sad smile play across her lips.
They’d shed no tears as she’d said goodbye to her father and brother. Not even Ellan, though she could tell he was fighting them back by the haze lining his eyes.
Stay safe, she’d told them.
Don’t worry about us, her father had said.Do what you must. Find yourself again, and when you’re ready, you’ll set this world to rights. Just as your mother always knew you would.
She’d successfully fought back her tears then, but now…
Now she had to quickly bury her face in her forearm, wiping the moisture away.
She would see her father and brother again. One day, when this was all over, they would all settle in Verith, safe and happy and together.
She would see that future through. For her mother—and all the other women who’d come before her.
For all the women who would come after.
Mariah’s fingers slipped into the bag she’d tied around one of Callamus’s spines. Just enough to graze the soft binding of the gray leather book within. She’d finally found the nerve to touch it again, enough to slip it into her belongings. But not enough to open it, even though some instinct whispered to her that she should.
Even as she fell into desperate daydreams of a future that was balanced on the edge of fate’s blade, a part of herself reached for the piece that was still missing.
A figure of haunted ice and burning shadows. A soul who was the answer to all the universes whispered promises and threadbare assurances.
If she was one day to be a true queen, then she had no intentions of doing it alone.
