Ifold forward over Raeve’s too-limp body before we plunge, spearing through a clot of cloud. We shred free with a flick of Rygun’s wings, the jungle-encrusted mountains rolling by beneath us much slower than I’d like them to.
“Hast atan, gaft aka.”
Faster, my friend.
Rygun’s raging adrenaline churns in my chest, making me feel like I’m burning from the inside out.
“Hast atan, Rygun!”
He roars—blowing a plume of ruddy flames through a web of low-hanging clouds, dissolving them.
The mountain range comes to a lofty head, and he chases the updraft with a pump of his wings, slingshotting over the rounded peak crowned with the domed lookout housing several Sabersythes and a Moltenmaw. Their riders blow horns in sharp bursts to hail our arrival, and I finally sight the Loff stretched far as my eyes can see.
I consume the vast, unpredictable body of water like the welcomed relief it is, Rygun roaring to the constellation of spiked Sabersythe moons peppered above the glistening turquoise depths. To the Moltenmaw moons, too—though only a few.
Home.
Relief loosens some of the weight stacked inside my chest.
“Almost there,” I murmur close to Raeve’s hooded head as Rygun cuts so close to the lookout I’m certain his tail skims the roof. He tucks his wings and plummets down the cliff’s sheer face toward The Burn’s sheltered capital packed around the sloping shore. Like Bulder took a blade to the bulbous summit and sliced a cove wide enough to cradle the second-largest city in the world.
Sunshine batters the auburn dwellings rounded like the mountains they spawned from, folk yelling from the veined walkways—waving. Younglings jump up and down, arms stretched as they hoot and roar and pretend to soar across the cobblestones.
Rygun aims for the Imperial Stronghold that oversees it all, protruding from the mountain like a growth pocked with stained glass windows and open archways, clothed in vines heavy with the black ukkah blooms Mah loved so much.
Pah used to have them hacked back, but not me. They have my permission to swallow the city.
The entire kingdom.
Rygun lowers us toward a flat landing patch, the balmy air rich with the smell of salt and braised meat. I brace around Raeve as Rygun drops his weight upon the ground, packing so much heft a cleft forms in the stone I’ll have to patch up later.
I throw my leg over the saddle, my heart dropping when I see Veya jog through a domed doorway, her long brown hair tossed about by the wind. She’s garbed in her ever-present riding leathers I suspect she fucking sleeps in, wearing a broad smile that disappears the moment her stare cuts across the blood I’m wearing … the female tucked against my chest …
“Shit,” I murmur, working my way down the ropes.
I love her welcomes. Treasure them. But for the first time in my life, I would’ve happily gone without it just so I can get inside the door without—
“Who’s that?”
My salvation. And the very reason you’re probably going to gut me with your pocket blade before I even make it into the Stronghold.
I leap down the final few rungs and land upon the stone, scouring Rygun’s lathered hide. “Glatheiun de, Rygun. Hakar, glagh, delai.”
Thank you, Rygun. Bathe, replenish, rest.
He releases an ear-splitting screech and bounds into the sky, slamming us with a gust of wind that whips at Raeve’s thick black braid hanging free from the cloak I draped her in to protect her from the sun.
“Kaan, who’s in your Creators-damn arms?”
I turn, storming toward the doorway. “I love you, Veya, but I can’t do this here. I need Agni.”
Now.
I’m almost through when Veya screams at me from behind—her voice so shrill I picture a blade whirring toward me. “Kaan Llúk Vaegor. Tell me who that is, or I will fill your pallet with hurky beetles every slumber for the rest of your long, miserable existence, so fucking help me!”
I blow out a sigh and turn.
Cutting me another sharp look, she steps close, gaze dropping. She tugs back the hood, eases Raeve’s blood-soaked hair aside—
And gasps.
I look down, my heart dropping at the sight of Raeve’s face—her skin so pale it’s almost translucent.
My chest stirs full of flames.
Her features are too lax, thick lashes fanned across bruised cheeks, her plump lips barely parted.
Not pursed with rage.
Not peeling back with a lashing sneer.
Not battling a smile, as it did when I poked my tongue at her.
Veya’s trembling fingers dance around Raeve’s face, like she wants to touch her. Like she’s afraid she’ll disappear if she does.
A feeling I know too well.
I look to where a patch of dressing covers the deep gash in the side of her head. A gash that follows the same trail as the scar I saw via dragonflame.
More blood has seeped through the dressing since I checked last …
Fuck.
Perhaps finally noticing that some of the blood on Raeve’s body has been painted on, Veya cuts me a glance, then peels the cloak farther back, revealing Raeve’s red silk attire. Revealing my málmr draped around her neck, the carving rested upon her blood-slicked chest.
Veya stumbles back a step, her wide, tear-puddled eyes condemning me. “How—”
“She’s wounded,” I rumble, tucking the cloak back into place to protect her modesty for my impending charge through the halls. “I stopped by a mender’s hut on the way, but they only had the expertise to stabilize her for the journey here.”
Veya swallows, nods once, then dashes a tear off her cheek, not meeting my gaze as she rasps, “Come, I just passed Agni on her way to the feasting hall.”
Icharge through lofty tunnels lit with flaming sconces, Veya keeping pace. We storm past mercenaries who flatten themselves against the walls—right fists thumping against their chests.
“Hagh, aten dah,” many of them yell as we pass, packing the air with the clamor of welcome and respect.
We barrel down another lengthy tunnel, the Stronghold almost the size of the city itself—a city within itself—tunneling into the mountain range, spilling out in cleverly hidden clefts farther down the mountain range. Enough space to house the entire cavalry, their families, and the dragons of those who have charmed one.
There was a time when the entire place was maintained for the imperial family alone, but I filled it with enough noise to drown out the plague of silence after I tore Pah’s head from his shoulders and took the city haunted by the ghost of her. Blood rained, the Loff blushed, and Rygun feasted that dae.
I thought it would make me feel better.
It didn’t.
We round a corner, storming into the rowdy clatter and chatter of the feasting hall as Pyrok exits the wide-open doorway with a mug of Molten Mead in his big fist. His blaze of rebellious locks is a fucking mess as usual, hanging around his scar-riddled shoulders, black piercings through his nipples, lip, septum, and lobe.
He looks me up and down, whistles low, and spins, charging back into the hall. “Meal time’s over! Grab your plates and get the fuck out. Yes, you too. No, not you—you stay right where you are, Agni dearest. Your miraculous skills are required.”
Nice of him to be helpful for a change. Guess we look worse than I thought.
I barge through the doorway in time to see him reach over the long stone table, using his arm as a sweep to shove everything down the far end—copper plates, cutlery, and chalices clattering to the ground, splashing mead and meat and flaps of spiced dahpa bread all over the stone.
Folk scatter, exiting the vast hall in a silent riot I barely notice, heading for the half-empty table lit by a single jagged blade of sun slicing through the cleft in the roof. I lay Raeve’s listless body on it, directly before a wide-eyed Agni—her white Runi cloak such a contrast to her dark skin, more than twenty gold, silver, or diamond buttons lining the middle seam.
A boast of her vast accolades. Even more than her sister, Bhea.