“That’s yet to be figured out,” Auri says before any of the males have a chance to speak. She surveys the room and I see the born leader in her shining through. “You said it yourselves: Rowan never signed up to take up arms against her own people. So don’t put her in a position of having vital information that could save hundreds of human lives. Even if she keeps to the terms of your bargain, as you are so certain she will,” the stray gaze she gives me says she doesn’t share her brother’s certainty, “it will be a decision she has to live with for the rest of her life. One that will spill someone’s blood. Don’t put her in that situation.”
Kyrian studies my face, but there isn’t time to say whatever he is contemplating because just as Auri finishes her declaration, a horn sounds in the distance and lightning silhouettes the draken circling the field outside, making them look even more menacing.
“The scouts are back,” Kai says as the pelting rain rattles through my bones and the storm starts in earnest. “We need to go. Now.”
Chapter 26
Rowan
The weather is miserable. Rain lashes sideways, needling my face and trickling down my neck, cold as guilt. Thunder rolls so close and so often that it feels like the sky’s breathing down my spine. My cloak’s plastered to my skin, heavy enough to drag at my shoulders. If misery builds character, I’ll be a national monument by sundown. And I’m not the one about to go into battle. Everyone from the war camp is gone, marching and flying to intercept the Eryndor army two miles west, luring the battle to the terrain Kyrian’s soldiers have scouted and molded to their best advantage.
To be as far away from the draken field and the young egg as they can manage.
My being left behind in the same pocket of anonymous safety was a foregone conclusion not subject to debate or democracy.
The draken field isn’t much of a field anymore—just churned mud and glimmers of drowned grass trying to breathe through the water. There are five of us here—six, counting the egg, which is so gorgeously iridescent that it seems to glow beneath its mother’s wing despite the gloom. Me, the dam Lethara and her mate Rhaegor, Rhaegor’s rider Pherix, and another draken pair who stayed behind to provide security. All of us jammedinto a space maybe a hundred yards across, including the rocky overhang where Lethara and her youngling roost.
Under different circumstances, a hundred yards might feel generous. But when you share it with three draken who hate that you’re breathing and two riders who aren’t much fonder, it feels about the size of a broom closet.
The clouds shift, letting in a single ray of sunlight before closing again. The ray hits the egg, which changes color for a moment, like a purring cat. I can’t look away. There is magic in that egg. Maybe there is magic in all new life, but I can’t imagine it being as potent and precocious as the energy of this little one.
“He’s perfect,” I whisper.
Lethara crouches over her egg and exhales a torrent of smoke. Lightning flares just as the steam spills from her nostrils, the heat of it licking the rain to vapor.
“I didn’t mean…” I shake my head. “I guess there is nothing I can say to make this better, is there? To be fair, I’d not want me here if I were you either.” Stars, I already don’t want anyone who might bring danger around the egg, and I’ve only met it today.
Lethara just watches me in answer, unblinking, as if weighing whether to roast or dismember me first. Her mate, a blue-black bull that’s the largest of the three draken, pierces me with a slitted golden gaze and snaps the air.
I show the pair my palm and step back from the dam and her egg. I’d go farther, but where? And to do what? The draken are staying put on either side of the dam, and their riders—Pherix and Ilian—are fussing with foliage just outside the ward parameter Autumn has set up. Between one set of males and the other, the only thing I’m sure about is that I’m the least needed near the draken.
“Stars take me, she’s good,” Ilian says, squinting past the shimmer of Autumn’s illusion wards. Whatever he’s looking at, I can’t see it. From here, it’s all mud and miserable grass.
Pherix crouches, rearranging branches in some pattern that apparently matters, then hauls one thicker limb a few paces to the left.
“What—” I start
Pherix glares at me.
I shut my mouth and survey the tree line. I wonder if I’ll know when the battle starts. Whether the bonds inside me will pull or flare or just shift about to let me know that the males on the other end of the tethers are now in mortal peril. My stomach churns. I don’t want the males hurt. And I don’t want them to hurt anyone either. I’ve people I care for on both sides of this battle and there is nothing I can bloody do to stop them from trying to decimate each other.
A sharp red flare streaks up through the western sky, cutting through the gray. It burns bright for only a breath before the rain eats it, but that’s long enough for me to know that my question of moments before has just been answered.
“That’s an Eryndor signal,” I say, though the males probably know as much already. "There's an open engagement starting.”
Pherix straightens. Ilian swears softly under his breath. Then both riders resume their frantic landscaping, moving with urgency that says there is more work than time. But what’s the work exactly?
“I have hands and can help,” I offer. This mission at least, the one of keeping the egg safe, I can get behind. “Tell me what you need done.”
“I need for there tonotbe an Eryndor blood heir drawing Eryndor’s wrath right toward Lethara’s egg.” Pherix moves another branch, squints, and moves it again. “In fact, I need there to be no one near here who might inspire Eryndor to heroics.”
“Lovely. I can go hide in the trees, if you’d like. I don’t think I’ll be in any more danger there than here.”
“She stays with us,” Ilian calls. “Prince Kyrian’s orders.”
Pherix grunts. “You heard him. Stay put.”
The wind shifts, blowing straight from the west and carrying a draken’s roar to us.
