Poor Kaan. There’s nothing worse than hunting a rabid dragon. It’s hard to convince yourself that you’ve put a beast out of its misery when it falls to the ground rather than soars into the sky, curling up beside its ancestors.
For his sake—and for the sake of his massive, tender heart—I hope someone else has grounded the beast before he makes it there. Help folk rebuild their stone homes and you’re a hero. Slaughter a Sabersythe and you’re a fucking murderer, no matter how many pats on the back you get.
No matter how many folk you save.
Clearing my throat, I fold the lark in half and pass it back.
“I saw you lead … her toward your suite. Please tell me you didn’t take her to your shrine.”
Kaan pauses, then continues rearranging his pack as if I didn’t speak at all. He pulls the drawstring taut, knuckles blanched with tension as he knots the strips of leather.
Guess that’s a yes.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, eyes squeezed shut. “You said slowly ease …”
“I did.”
“This is not that.”
“It’s not.”
I sigh, opening my eyes. “I assume by your general demeanor that she didn’t throw herself into your arms before the corpse of her dead dragon and thank you for the missing piece of her mind puzzle?”
“No, Veya. She didn’t.”
“Shocker,” I say on a faux laugh, threading my hands through my hair, contemplating the possibility that his mind’s just as lost as the beast he’s flying off to slay. “So, what, you gave her enough gold to buy her safe passage across the Boltanic Plains so she can chase her welling bloodlust? Where there’s a big chance she’ll eventually be recognized by either of the twins, both of which have access to a certain tool. Perfect leverage to fold her into submission once they blow the lid off that jar. Lovely.”
Kaan stands, crosses his arms, and frowns down at me—his black and red riding leathers sculpting him into a larger, fiercer, more formidable form of our pah. Something I’m certain he despises every time he looks in the mirror.
“They get hold of her, we’re dead, Kaan. How long do you think it’ll be before they’re swarming our borders, ready to paint this city red and carve into our rich, untapped reserve of bloodstone? We’re living on borrowed time, and you fucking know it.”
“You done?”
I plant my hands on my hips, tossing my stare skyward.
Why is he calm? The kingdom he’s worked so hard to capture, protect, and grow is probably going to be ripped to shreds, all because he dropped the Elluin boulder on Raeve before we had a chance to assess the situation from all angles.
It’s a disaster.
“Yes. I’m done,” I mutter, realizing I need to track back down to the carter hutch. Tell the Moltenmaw riders they need to make themselves scarce—at least until I have a chance to make it to Arithia and back with her diary in hand.
Hopefully.
There’s no way she’s getting across the plains on her own. She’d sizzle like Slátra did.
“All going to plan, I should be back before The Great Flurrt to help raise the platforms.”
My gaze snaps to him so fast my head spins. “The miskunn predicted that’ll be in thirty aurora cycles …”
“Correct.”
“You’re leaving for thirty aurora cycles?”
“It’s a big kingdom, Veya. I can’t just fluff around here when there’s shit to do. I’ve been south for a while, and the kingdom doesn’t run itself.”
“Sounds like a convenient excuse to run away.”
He tips his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “You told me to tread carefully or she’ll incinerate herself. This is me treading carefully.” His stare softens a little. “She doesn’t want me around. I’m simply abiding.”
“You tossed her a sack of gold, Kaan. She’s probably halfway out the door. It’s only a matter of time before she’s wielded against us.”
“Dragon bloodstone,” he corrects, and I groan. “And she’s not halfway out the door. She walked straight past the carter hutch and headed for the western point.”
My heart stops, all the blood rushing from my face. Sharp prickles of emotion pierce the backs of my eyes.
“She’s still in there,” I whisper past the swelling pip in my throat.
Elluin.
Kaan nods—just once. “Somewhere.”
I swat a tear from my cheek.
He looks away, puts his fingers to his lips, and whistles loud.
Rygun releases a rumbling exhale that rattles my bones, followed by the scraping, creaking sounds of his immense body nudging free from his tight sleep space. The beast emerges from the darkness in world-trembling increments, cinder eyes glinting in the gloom, plumes of steam billowing from his flared nostrils—the curved tusks protruding from his boxy face a fearsome tribute to his size and age.
Kaan shoulders his pack and the trio of spears, stalking toward the emerging beast when he stills, looking back at me, then past me to my pack on the ground. “Where are you going, Veya?”
Crap.
“Well, you see …” I edge backward, swipe the bag off the ground, and swing it over my shoulder. “As I’m sure you recall, she used to write in a diary.”
“No.”
“Pfft. You know I feed off that word,” I boast. “Besides, I’m not just doing it for you. I need to know things she can’t tell me. It’s messing with my head now that she’s … alive again.”
“Then I’ll go.”
I snort-laugh. “While Cadok may be aloof enough to let you roam his kingdom unguarded, Tyroth is not. And he hates you. Fiercely. I can make myself unseen. You can’t.”
He levels me with a stare to match that of his beast barely protruding from the shadows at his back. A single look that makes me feel more valued than Pah ever did—even though he knows I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.
Sometime, I’ll thank him for that.
“You got rid of that bangle. You told me so.”
“I lied,” I say with stony precision.
I didn’t lie. It’s gone. Meaning I have to get it back. Not that I’m going to tell him that. He’ll blow a fucking artery if he knows where I tossed it.
His eyes narrow.
“Oh, and I intend to be gone awhile. Taste some delicacies on the way,” I say, waggling my brows.
He immediately breaks my eye contact, shuddering. “I don’t want to know about that, thank you very fucking much.”
No, but I need him to shuck this conversation like an itchy cloak. My insinuation that I’m going to prowl for a few good lays is a certain way to repulse him enough he’ll—
“Fine,” he growls, probably knowing I’d do it without his blessing but that it’d hurt me more than it’d hurt him.
Love him for that.
I flash him a smile. “Dear brother, are you worried about me?”
“Since the dae Pah shoved you in my arms—squirming, bloody, and screaming.”
Since he realized he was all I had.
He doesn’t need to say it. I can see it in his eyes. Our one good parent died bringing me into this world.
Hard for me to mourn someone I never knew, but I hate that I took her from him. That Kaan was forced to raise me because Pah didn’t care whether I lived or died.
The prick.
“I wish he had another neck to sever.”
“I wish he had three,” Kaan snarls, stalking deeper into the darkness, followed by the grunting sounds of his ascent onto Rygun’s saddle.
I frown after him, wondering what he means by—
“Oh …”
Shit.
Kaan can’t contain a secret for long before it gnaws through his gut. Eventually, he’ll have to tell Elluin what Pah somehow accomplished that terrible slumber over an eon ago when her life came crumbling down.
When she woke to find her entire family poisoned to death.
For someone already misted by the beginnings of bloodlust, that’s the sort of news that can paint your vision red. Plant you with an appetite that can only be quelled by revenge.
I’ve seen bloodlusting folk who’ve failed to satiate their savage desires, rabid like a tick-bit Sabersythe, the only cure their own swift and merciful death.
And with Pah already dead, slain by Kaan’s hand …
Rygun begins to edge forward like a mountain shifting from its perch, and I press myself flush against the wall—pack in hand.