He was dead.
Wailing, Adrissu curled around his body, his head settling in Kian’s blood-soaked lap. He had been so close,so close, to never losing his mate like this again. Now he was gone, and Adrissu was alone. Hewascursed, doomed to keep his mate coming back to him only to suffer and die a gruesome death again and again, and he had done it to himself. If he had just let the yellow hit him with his fiery breath, the dragon wouldn’t have been able to break free. Kian had transmuted the hunks of iron that killed him, but Adrissu brought him here in the first place. Kian had trusted him to keep him safe, and he failed, again, again,again.
He had no idea how long he lay there, but when he finally looked up again, the sun was setting. Mechanically, he collected the two gemstones that had fallen to the ground and carefully placed them in Kian’s rucksack. Then he gathered up the cold body into his arms—he did not know what he would do with him, but he knew he couldn’t leave Kian here—and took flight, heading east, toward their home.
Chapter Thirteen
WhenAdrissuarrivedinPolimnos, the sky still dark in the predawn hour, he was at a loss as to what to do with Kian’s body. He hadn’t had a plan when he’d gathered him up into his arms and flown through the night with him. He hated the thought of bringing the body to Kian’s family and doubted that they would want him, anyway. But neither could he simply bring his body to the mortician to be buried, not as mangled as it was—it would raise far too many questions, and he didn’t have time to formulate believable answers.
So, instead, he soared well north of Polimnos, until the skyline of the city was no longer visible and he was deep in the uninhabited woods. He would burn the body here; it wasn’t ideal, but it was all he could think of.
He found a rocky offshoot of the cliffs and placed Kian’s body upon it, where it wouldn’t risk setting the forest ablaze. Far below them, the ocean crashed relentlessly against the cliff side, making the dark waters bright with froth and foam.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice rough. “I’m so sorry. Next time I—I’ll make sure...” He trailed off, unsure of what he was promising. He hadn’t proven very good at keeping his promises so far. “I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let this happen again, never again.”
He sat with his words for a long moment, feeling woefully inadequate, but unable to speak further. What was the point? What could he say that would fix any of this? His mate couldn’t hear him now—anything he said would be for his own benefit, so there was nothing to be gained. Adrissu squeezed his eyes shut as they burned with emotion, so that he did not have to watch as he exhaled flame over his body. The fire blazed hot enough that he did not have to do it twice; the scent of smoldering flesh filled his nostrils, making his stomach churn. Still, he kept his eyes closed—unable to bear the thought of watching his mate’s face melt away—until the worst of the smell and smoke seemed to have faded, and fearfully, he opened his eyes again.
The body was mostly gone already, burning away effortlessly, as easily as his life had been snuffed out. Only the vague shape of him was visible now, all the features burned off, but Adrissu stood sentinel over the smoldering fire until it faded down into embers and all traces of his mate were gone. He beat his wings once and sent the remaining ash sailing off the cliffs and down to the dark, roiling waters below.
As he looked down to watch the ash disappear into the wind and the surf, the first rays of dawn were glinting off the surface of the water. For one miserable moment, Adrissu wanted to stay there until the sun rose, to fly back in the light of day and let the forces of Polimnos kill him. But then where would Kian’s soul go? What would happen to his own soul if his mate wasn’t alive to tether it? No, he had to live, if only to give Kian another chance to find him and finally shed the trappings of mortality that kept them in this cruel cycle.
Adrissu flew back to his lair in the dark, swooping through the narrow opening in the cliffs and making his way up into his tower, as a resigned numbness settled into his body. When he emerged in their sitting room, he felt more than saw Vesper uncoiling from where she lay on the chaise lounge, an uncertain sadness emanating from her.
Gone?she thought, and that was more than Adrissu could bear. He bit back a sob and collapsed onto the cushions next to her, letting her wrap herself around his limbs. Her grief radiated from the center of his chest, an echo of his own despair. The pillows still smelled like Kian.
Eris did not press when he told her that he would take a leave of absence from the school, citing a death in his family. She knew well enough not to ask questions when his tone was so cold and clipped, though she looked at him with an expression that was somehow curious and heartbroken all at once. He couldn’t bear to confirm the unspoken question in her gaze. He would deal with it later. For now, he wanted to disappear, and that was exactly what he did.
For the first time he could recall in his centuries of life, he had nightmares. The image of Kian’s ghostly pale face, as his eyes flickered down to his gruesome wound, was imprinted in his brain—the moment playing over and over in his dreams—and Adrissu woke sick to his stomach for weeks afterward. He had seen his mate die before, twice now, but even Volkmar’s death seemed peaceful in comparison. His wounds had been bandaged up, and he’d faded away slowly. Kian’s ribs had broken to shards in his hands, and he was gone in seconds. No, this was worse,farworse, and he doubted the nightmares would ever stop. The thought that the image could ever fade from his mind seemed impossible.
For several weeks, he did nothing but mope, either in his bed or down in his lair, where he could at least lay atop his hoard. What else was there to do but wallow in his misery? What else but to wait however many years it would take for his mate to come back to him?
He was unsure exactly how long had passed—no more than a month, but he couldn’t be certain even of that—when curled up on his hoard, the prickly awareness of another dragon near his lair woke him with a start. It was approaching from the north. He felt it stop, but it did not turn back. The awareness remained. He growled, irritated, but forced himself to rise from his resting place. Whatever dragon had come to bother him had picked a terrible time to do so.
The presence lingered like a thorn in the back of his skull as he crawled through his lair and soared out into the open, hissing at the late afternoon sun as it burnt his eyes, which were accustomed to the darkness of his hideaway. Once he could see, he swooped northward, passing high over the cliffs and the trees below. The road was empty, but as he flew further over the forest, he caught a glimpse of scales between the trees—not one, buttwodragons, he realized with a sneer.
He dropped down, and the two spotted him. One was black-scaled and red-eyed—Adrissu recognized him immediately as his father Mithantos, whom he had not seen since he’d established his own lair centuries ago. The other was small and yellow, unsettlingly familiar. If Adrissu had not been absolutely certain that the yellow dragon they’d killed was actually dead, he might have suspected it had somehow recovered and come to confront him.
He scowled, realizing the reason for the visit. The smaller yellow wyrm must have been a relative of the one that he’d killed, who had discovered its untimely demise and suspected the nearest dragon of being responsible. But instead of coming to confront Adrissu directly, it must have tracked down his father, as if that would somehow give it power over him. He almost couldn’t believe such infantile behavior, and he was sure it showed on his face as he snarled at both of them, landing heavily several yards away.
“Who are you?” he snapped, feeling all his spines bristling. He stood up to his full height, rage sparking in his throat; it was satisfying to watch the smaller yellow dragon instinctively crouch lower to the ground, its belly grazing the grass. His father, on the other hand, simply lowered his head politely.
“Zamnes,” Mithantos said, his voice quite calm, despite Adrissu’s open hostility and the yellow dragon’s near-palpable anxiety. “This is Atillath the Yellow. She’s come to me with some disturbing news, which we’d like to ask you about.” He turned to the smaller dragon, and she pushed herself back up into a standing position, though her eyes flickered rapidly between him and Adrissu. “Tell him what you told me.”
Atillath’s eyes settled on Adrissu, distaste crossing her face as she spoke. “My brother, my twin, Vantas—we set out on our own only a year ago. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks, so I went to see him, and he…” She snarled, looking away. Dragons could not cry the way mortals did, but her breath trembled and came rapidly, as if she were sobbing. “He was dead. He’d been burned and bitten. Another dragon must have killed him. And you—you’re the closest one to his lair.”
Adrissu growled. Twins were quite rare for dragons, but of course the yellow had been a twin, just to be a further thorn in his side. Clutchmates from separate eggs would slaughter each other until only one hatchling remained; but twins, always brother and sister, emerged from the same egg and would slay all their siblings, save each other. They were not quite like fated mates, but as two dragons that could not only tolerate but thrive alongside each other, there was some connection between twins that almost certainly shared the same magic. If she truly suspected him of slaying her twin, then she was notably level-headed to have not come alone, and to not try and kill him outright.
“I do not know this Vantas,” Adrissu replied coldly. After all, he hadn’t known the other dragon’s name. “So you think to implicate me in this just because I live nearby?”
“Who else?” she exclaimed, a shrill edge to her voice. “What other dragon would have sought him out? He would have moved if you’d told him he was too close to your lair. We’re not even ayearaway from our parents!”
“Atillath,” Mithantos said, interrupting her hysterics. Obediently she shrunk back, but still she glared at him with eyes full of hate. “Zamnes. You truly did not know of this? You weren’t involved?”
“No,” Adrissu snapped, scowling down at them. “You might know that I live quite peacefully in my lair, watching over Polimnos. The city is my hoard. I did not know this Vantas, and I didn’t care that his lair was nearby.”
“Liar,” Atillath hissed.
“What proof do you have, then?” he retorted. “Did you find some black scales there? Do I look injured to you?”
