Page 92 of Fallen Nocturne

“She’s safe with me.” Arescaine’s voice softens. “I would never harm her.”

“Why? What are you to her?” I glance between him and Coral.

He looks at me for a long moment. I see him weighing his words, deciding what he can and cannot say.

“A friend,” he finally settles on.

Coral makes a soft sound and nuzzles against his leg. He absently scratches behind her jaw ridge again, and she practically melts.

“Coral,” I try one more time, my voice breaking. “Please. Come here.”

She looks at me with those soulful eyes that have watched me from the platform edge during every training session. The little wyvern turns away and rests her head back on her claws.

The rejection shouldn’t hurt this much. Coral has ignored me plenty of times before like a smug stray cat. But this feels different. This feels like she chose him over me.

“Your Highness—” Arescaine starts, and there’s something in his voice that sounds like sympathy.

“Don’t you dare pity me,” I snap. Tears gather behind my eyes, hot and humiliating. I blink them back and look at Coral’s bowed head, at the loose scales along her back and the wings dragging against the forge floor.

Perhaps she came here because I failed her. I taught her to watch other wyverns fly without ever finding a way for her to follow them. I kept promising she was perfect while she grew sadder beneath my care.

“I’m not pitying you.” He takes a step toward me, and I notice for the first time that he’s being careful. “Rhianelle—”

“Don’t call me that.” I have never cared much for titles. I am forever telling people to abandon the honorifics and simply call me Rhianelle. But hearing my name from Arescaine feels different and far too intimate. It slips beneath every defense I have raised against him.

“What should I call you then? Your Highness?” There’s the slightest edge to his voice now. “My queen?”

Something warm curls low in my stomach at the words. I hate that I like the sound of them in his voice.

My queen.

I hide the reaction behind a glare and pray he cannot see it.

Arescaine turns back to Coral. His hand moves toward her wing again, slower this time. He supports the weakened edge of the membrane with one palm and gently examines the cartilage with the other.

This time, I remain silent.

“I’ve been trying to help her,” he says quietly, still focused on her wing. “She started coming here a few weeks ago, after... after training got hard.”

His jaw tightens. “Coral realized she couldn’t do what the others could do.”

“Oh Coral.” My voice cracks.

Arescaine finally looks up at me, and the expression on his face makes my chest ache. “I made her something. Something that might help.”

“What?” Hope and suspicion collide inside me.

Instead of answering, the vampire turns back to his workbench. The metal he was shaping earlier sits there. It no longer glows, but it still radiates heat. He picks it up with his bare hand. Strigon, I remember. They still feel pain but they heal fast and easily.

Arescaine holds it toward the light.

I see what it is.

It resembles a harness, but unlike any harness I have ever seen. The delicate frame has moving joints and extending struts. It’s made specifically for small wings.

My breath catches.

“What is that?” I whisper again, stepping closer despite myself.