Page 84 of Ashborne: Defiance

When we’d been flying silently for a time, I finally gave voice to the questions echoing in my head.

“How did you become so fearless? If your life has been so restricted, so caged?”

Her head dropped forward, but her cheeks stretched into a smile. “I’m not fearless at all.”

“Grace, I just watched you launch yourself off dragonback the first time you were asked. Without hesitation. Trust me, that isn’t normal.”

Her smile faded immediately. “I’ve never been quite what I should be, it’s true,” she said quickly, without turning to meet my eyes.

“But, you clearly understand consequences—”

“I’d rather die falling out of the sky, than live caged in a dark, dusty castle,” she said firmly. And she did turn to look at me then.

Something strange panged in my chest.

She held my gaze for a breath, then turned back to Kham and sighed.

I chewed on what she’d said.

She was wealthy, powerful—or at least, from a powerful family. A patriarch that ran in circles with the king. I understood the sense of being imprisoned by one’s life, but…

“A dark, dusty castle?” I asked her, trying to keep my voice from twisting with skepticism. “That seems dramatic.”

She shook her head. “It was my fate. My parents attempted to delay the inevitable, but it truly was only days…”

Something shifted in her. Something alarming. I leaned, intending to turn her to look at me. But even from profile, I saw her brow furrowed, and face lined with all the fear that had been missing when her life was on the line, swinging wildly on the end of a strap, half a mile in the air.

I tried not to feel her, but it was impossible not to recognize the heaviness in her chest. The resonance with… well, with me.

I was quiet, trying to justify changing the subject, but if I was truly a leader, I couldn’t let her sit in that alone.

“Are you willing to die?” I asked carefully. “Or seeking to die? Because they’re different.”

Her head snapped around and she stared at me, shocked. “How do you even know to ask that?”

The words were right there. Right on the tip of my tongue. And the alarm on her features was underlined with hope. In my head, I suddenly saw myself telling her my story. Not all of it. But enough that she’d know I understood.

But the moment I opened my mouth, my body sang with caution and my instincts kicked in. I pushed the urge away.

“I have led many different kinds of men, for years,” I said hoarsely, something in my chest shrieking and dying when the little flame of hope died in her gaze. “I’ve learned a great deal about what drives them.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.”

But now she wouldn’t meet my eyes again. And that darkness in her chest was expanding.

I rushed on. “Personalities, strengths—we’re all different,” I pushed on. She nodded, but I wasn’t sure the words actually registered. “Some are courageous. Others are reckless with their lives because they don’t care if they die. They tempt death.”

She shook her head sadly. “I don’t want to die. But I would choose death over certain fates.”

And I understood that so deeply, it frightened me that she did too.

28. The Plan

SOUNDTRACK: Seconds from Forever by SHUNÉ

~ GRACE ~

After most of a day in ever deepening tension, the air growing oppressive, the storm finally broke. Thunder rolled among the distant mountains, but here, under the large tree with the dragons curled around us and their wings extended, we were warm and dry.