I’ve tried to leave.
(Creators, I’ve tried.)
But every time I’ve packed up my stuff and set out with the intention of catching a Moltenmaw across the plains so I can snap Rekk Zharos’s neck, I’ve instead returned with new towels.
Sheets.
A sewing kit to repair the ruined pallet.
An iron ring so I don’t cry with the rain.
With lengths of material and shears to craft new curtains, and then a roll of colk hide I used to patch up the chairs and seaters because apparently I’m crafty now.
Essi would be proud. I’m just … baffled. Haunted. Maybe a little crazy.
Maybe a lot crazy?
I’m not sure how to handle this strange part of me that seems determined to sing new life into this small forgotten home. The same part that seems unable to dislodge from this sense of belonging I’ve never felt before.
Not once.
Here, I’m more alone than I’ve ever been, completely cut off from the rest of the world. Yet somehow the opposite.
It’s been hard to turn my back on the me that thrived within these walls, like studying a slow-moving tragedy that slugs along at such a languid pace you never reach the painful part.
I’m living in the in-between. In the bubble of lust and buoyant hopes, drunk on the giddy feeling that flutters through my belly every time I see a flash of something so very … him and her.
Elluin and Kaan.
As the cycles flip by, I’ve come to the slow, uncomfortable realization that Kaan fell in love with a distant, bygone version of me that was probably softer.
Kinder.
A version of me that was brave enough (or perhaps stupid enough) to love.
I know this is dangerous. That I’ve spent my life trapped and starving, and now I’m a gluttonous escapee gorging on the ancient scraps of a happiness that belonged to somebody else. Because it was somebody else.
It certainly wasn’t me.
Call it morbid curiosity, but a pinch of me is desperate to know what pried me from this place, while every other part is certain I never want the answer to that poisonous question. Not even my lust for Rekk Zharos’s blood on my hands can pull me from this pocket of happiness right now, yet somehow I left. Somehow, I lost him.
Lost myself.
Lost a dragon who apparently loved me enough to sail me into the sky with her and calcify around me like a tombstone built for the both of us.
It’s hard to grapple that into a shape that doesn’t make me choke. Every angle I inspect, I feel like I’m only seeing the small rounded peak of something too big and heavy to bear.
Intuition tells me I don’t have the capacity to swallow all that sadness, which is why I’ve come to a decision. Now I just have to build up the courage to do it.
To let this go. For good.
But not now …
I’m not done imagining yet.
Icharge down the hall, using the back of my arm to swipe the sweat from my eyes, plowing around a corner to see Pyrok jogging toward me—shirtless, looking like he just rolled off his pallet at the sound of the lookout’s horns hailing my arrival.
“You look sober.”
Ish.
“The cycle is young,” he says, falling into step beside me. “Welcome home.”
“Take it Veya isn’t back yet?”
I’d hoped that, when I landed, she’d run out to greet me like she usually does. Feels weird without her dashing out with a thousand questions on her tongue, ready to sling them at me.
Feels …
Hollow.
“No. Last lark I received, she was almost at the wall but anticipated a few stops were going to slow her down. I’m guessing she’s almost at Arithia by now. Maybe even on her way back.”
I grunt, wanting to know nothing about these stops he speaks of.
“Why do you smell like sulfur?”
“Took Grihm to Gondragh,” I mutter as we charge around another corner.
“What?”
“Dropped his sorry ass off at the hatching hut so he can try and steal an egg from the Great Silver Sabersythe.”
A beat of pause as the two sentries standing guard over my office stamp their spears upon the ground at the sight of me, opening the doors.
“He’s going to die,” Pyrok mutters. “And he didn’t even wave goodbye. What the fuck is that?”
I don’t bother responding.
I’ve had a long time to work through these same emotions, and I’m now sitting somewhere close enough to acceptance that I no longer want to punch my fist through a wall or kick myself for letting him convince me to leave him there. Telling me he was going to do this by himself or not at all.
I get it. Going to raid a nest or charm an already grown beast is a deeply personal journey for those doing it for the right reasons …
Still chafes.
I charge into my office, the large space empty but for a stone desk and twin leather seats—appearing exactly as I’d left it all.
Moving toward the wall of curtains at the back, I rip them wide, scouring the view of the Loff beyond and filling the room with a blaze of light. Illuminating the char marks all over the walls.
The only embellishment this room deserves.
I think back to the shelves that used to line these walls, packed full of memorabilia from Pah’s reign. Think back to how good it felt watching it all burn after I stormed the Stronghold still splashed in his blood with his head hanging from my fist.
He put too much effort into this space and not enough into being a decent pah to Veya.
To me.
Now this room resembles a vacant chest cavity, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Anything more would be doing his memory a service he doesn’t deserve.
“I saw Grihm carrying runed boots into his sleepsuite,” Pyrok muses as he lumps into the leather seat opposite my own. “Makes a fuckload more sense now.”
Yes, it does.
I drop my saddlebags on the ground, scrubbing my hands over my face before I turn toward the desk.
“So what now?”
“If he makes it back to the hut, he’ll send a lark for one of us to collect him,” I say, lumping heavily into my seat.
Catching a waft of my shirt, I frown, pulling up the collar, drawing a sniff of sweat, sulfur, and ash.
Definitely need a bath. And a meal. And some fucking sleep—preferably on something other than sand or dirt with only the shield of Rygun’s wing to keep me from being mauled to death by predators. To be fair, I think he would’ve happily stayed north forever, basking in the heat and the vast smorgasbord of creatures that tried to skulk past him and snatch me while I slept.
I’m certain he’s grown.
“Collect him and his freshly hatched dragon,” Pyrok says.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I reach into my pocket, fishing around for all the parchment larks that’ve been flocking me over the past thirty slumbers I’ve been away. “It’s one thing to steal an egg. Hatching it is a different story.”
I dump around fifty crushed larks on the table, pinching the bridge of my nose as I glare at them.
“Behind on your paperwork, I see.”
“What do I pay you for again?”
“Certainly not that,” he chuffs.
I lift a brow, waiting. Genuinely curious. All I ever see him do is drink mead.
“To sit around and look pretty,” he finally says, flashing me a smile. “Roan’s the helpful sibling, remember? He got the brain, I got the hair. And the cordial nature. And I’m pretty fucking good with my tong—”
“Got it.”
His smile widens, and he crosses his ankle over his knee, playing with his bottom lip piercing. Making no move to help me sort through the notes.
I sigh, reaching across the table for the pile of pre-runed parchment squares and my black quill, flattening one of the larks and skimming the note, wincing when I see the date.
Poor Krove’s been waiting over twenty cycles to have his huttlecrab quota signed off for final approval.
I ink my quill and begin scratching out an apology. “Speaking of which, is Roan back yet?”
“Nope.”
I shake my head.
Might send someone to check on him. Make sure he’s alright.
“So … are you gonna ask about her?”
My blood chills, that stupid organ in my chest impaling itself on a rib.