“Aeldryc the Ironstorm. My husband. My heart. My literal lawful life partner. You cannot saymostdragons don’t eat humans and consider that comforting. The wordmostis what’s spiking my anxiety, because if there’s a most, there’s also the few who break that rule.”
Aeldryc’s mouth had done the thing where the corner threatened to move and he was pretending it hadn’t.
Periwinkle held the pace beautifully, a testament to the lessons we’d been taking every morning for almost two weeks, since just after I’d walked my horse through the hedge maze. I shifted in the saddle, feeling the genius of the culottes I’d designed. They were cut on the bias for movement, with reinforced inner-thigh panels to avoid the chafing my usual shorts caused—a feature my husband would appreciate later.
I’d been working on them since I’d finished my wedding suit, a proper pair of riding garments, just a little longer than knee-length and quite beautiful. They flowed when I walked and gripped when I rode, and they were the prettiest dark blue, with silver embroidery down the outer seam. Lyriel had gushed over the design.
“You’re doing well, Pip.” Aeldryc’s voice interrupted my thoughts. It had gone soft around the edges the way it did when he thought no one was listening, even though Vaelith was thirty feet away and had ears like a fruit bat. “Your seat is much improved.”
“You’ve been watching me ride?”
“I am always watching. I find watching you bounce in a saddle to be quite… pleasing.”
“Because of my skill?” I asked.
“Of course, husband.”
“Why thank you, husband. I love saying that word. Don’t you?”
“I haven’t noticed feeling one way or another about it, husband.”
“And yet you say it quite a lot, husband.”
Aeldryc chuckled. “That must be a coincidence, husband.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, if either of you says the word husband again, I’m going to murder you both and use you as chum for the dragon,” Vaelith called.
I swallowed, hard. “Dragons need chum? Like sharks?”
“She’s fucking with you.” Aeldryc shook his head and did not, this time, manage to suppress the smile. It was small. The corner of his mouth, mostly. But it was there, and it was happening more frequently. Perhaps the muscle in his cheek was getting stronger.
The road climbed. We still had at least one more day’s ride to Stonedeep. What if we weren’t moving fast enough? Worry crept in around the edges every time I forgot to keep talking. The idea of Sky being kept captive anywhere for more than about forty-eight hours had always seemed implausible on its face.
But, factoring in pigeon transit time and our ride, it had been at least four days since the dragon had snagged him. I didn’t want to think about it.
“Aeldryc, how statistically rare?”
“I have known nineteen fire dragons in my life. Only one was a man-eater.”
“Aeldryc.”
“That is a favorable ratio. It’s even better if you count the ice dragons, who tend to be vegetarians.”
“That is not a favorable ratio. Even one in a hundred is not favorable if my best friend could be, at this very moment, being turned into some dragon’s stew.”
“I don’t think they bother to make a stew,” Vaelith said, snickering. “Hopefully he’s still alive, I’m looking forward to a good fight.”
“He’s fine,” Ilyndra said, in a way that made me wonder if she knew, magically somehow, or if she was just trying to ease my panic.
“Pip.” He’d slowed Bram fully and his hand found my thigh through the culottes. The contact was steadying, the way it always was. “Sky is your friend. We will get him out. The Grey Guard is the best of the best.”
I looked at him. He had that face on. The proposal-face. The wedding-face. The one that meant he had decided a thing and was Aeldryc the Ironstorm and his decisions were facts of the world now.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I believe you.”
He squeezed my thigh once and continued by my side, his booted foot brushing mine every now and then.
I rode in silence for a while. I tried to remember Sky’s laugh. The way he could not be still when music was playing. The fact that he was the only person in the world who had known me longer than three months and still answered the phone.
