Her face flamed at the thought. Jarek had her gown made for exactly this reason: so she would need her new husband to undress her.
At that thought, Asha pulled Torwin’s coat tighter around her. She looked back, to where the skral knelt before his crackling kindling, blowing on the fragile flames. The silver collar around his throat caught the light.
Not so long ago, she’d thought they were nothing alike, her and this boy. Now she knew the only difference between them was he wore his bondage around his throat while hers was invisible to the eye. She’d thought her title, Iskari, was her greatest power. She’d thought hunting dragons in the Rift was her fiercest freedom. But the truth was: these things had never been anything more than a collar around her throat.
And now that they were both free, he was escaping the horror while Asha was marching right back into it.
How can I ask him to stay and fight?she thought.This isn’t his war.
Torwin had suffered enough. He deserved to be free.
She looked away from him. She didn’t dare ask for his help with the dress. Not after everything back in the camp. But with the sun gone, the temperature would drop. It was dangerous to be inadequately dressed in the Rift at night.
Trembling with cold, Asha made her way toward the fire, hoping the heat of the flames would be enough to dry her. Otherwise...
She didn’t want to think about the second option.
Thirty-Six
Asha sank down onto the log next to the struggling fire, shivering in her soaking-wet dress. Just beyond the firelight, Shadow stalked a sleeping Kozu. His forked tail thrashed. He lowered himself on his front legs, ready to pounce. Kozu opened one yellow eye, saw the dragon readying himself, and closed it again.
“Why are you sleeping out here?” Asha asked as Torwin fed more wood into the flames. “So far away from New Haven?”
A loud growl startled them. Asha peered into the darkness beyond the fire. Kozu’s scales rippled in the firelight as he pinned Shadow on his back. Kozu’s tail was in the younger dragon’s mouth as Shadow’s own thrashed happily.
Asha turned back to Torwin, her teeth chattering. She held her trembling palms out to the fire, letting the heat lick her clammy skin, trying to get warm. “There isn’t enough room in the camp?”
“I’ve spent my whole life in cramped quarters,” said Torwin,blowing into the flames, making them spread. “I prefer the open sky.”
Asha wanted to say she understood. Sleeping under the sky was one of the best parts of hunting. But her teeth clattered so hard, she could only clamp them together and hunch farther toward the fire.
Torwin fed it two more logs, and only when these caught and burned did he sink back on his heels and look up at Asha. His hands were streaked with ash.
An immediate frown creased his forehead.
“You’re still in your binding dress.”
She didn’t meet his gaze. Just waved her hand. “I’m fine.” Her whole body shook with shivers. “Really.”
“I promise the clothes are clean. They might not fit well, but you won’t freeze to death.”
When she said nothing in response, he rose a bit huffily. “Fine. Do what you want. That’s what you always do anyway.”
Asha threw him a look and found him struggling to pull her mother’s ring off his smallest finger. When it finally came free, he held it out to her. “Here. This belongs to you.”
Asha stared at the white circle of bone on his palm.
All those days ago in the Rift, she didn’t want to give it to him. So much had changed since then. Now that he held it out to her, she didn’t want to take it back. As if taking it back meant taking back everything else.
“I’m leaving in the morning,” he said. “I’ll probably never see you again. Take it.”
At those words, Asha pulled her hands away from the fireand placed them firmly on the damp log beneath her. “I can’t take it back.” She kept the scarred side of her face turned away from him. “We had a deal. I promised to fly you to Darmoor, and I didn’t. The ring belongs to you now.”
“I don’t care about that,” he said, stepping closer, holding it farther away from himself. “It was your mother’s, Asha. I think she’d want you to have it instead ofsome slave.”
Anger sparked in her then. How dare he say that—to her, of all people? Asha had risked her life for him. She’d risked even more than her life.
Rising, she narrowed her eyes on him. “I said,I can’t take it back.”
