I smile at the thought of her wearing these, scaling the steep cliffs around this village; hair loose, heart free. The most proficient brown bead I’ve ever met, yet she so rarely called on Bulder, preferring to move across his raw, jagged ridges as he himself intended them to be. Possibly the reason he respected her and so willingly bent to her ill-frequent requests.
I hold up the boots. “I have a feeling these will be just your size …”
Raeve stares at them for a long moment, meeting my eyes again. “Kaan, I don’t think I can—”
“She would be honored for you to use them. As am I.”
Raeve swallows. Finally reaches out and takes them, gaze cast on the boots as she runs her fingers up and down the crisscross laces.
Silence strums between us.
“Kaan …”
“Yours.”
She meets my gaze, and there’s a weight there. A vulnerability that pulls me back to the conversation we had just after our pins were removed. “I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything.” I tuck some of the tousled locks back from her face and wedge them behind her ear. “Always.”
“That you won’t intervene.” She searches my eyes, back and forth like a pendulum. “No matter what happens, I must do this myself.”
I practice my response in my head three times before I trust myself to say it aloud. “I know, Moonbeam.”
No words have ever tasted so bitter, dragging against the grain of my heart.
My soul.
But I know she’s right. There’s nothing more personal than a dragon bonding. And this moment … it’s not mine. Not ours.
It’stheirs.
I have to step aside. Lock down my protective instincts. My rabid fear of losing her …again. I have to put my heart on the hook of trust and pour every breath into believing that everything is going to be okay.
“That was too easy.” Her eyes narrow. “Say the words. Precisely.”
I lift my hand, cup her face.Revelin the way she leans into my palm. “So long as you allow me to prepare you a proper meal before you go, I’ll do whatever you ask. Even if that means standing by and watching you climb that fucking pillar into the clouds.”
The hint of a smile pulls at her lips. “Not a fan of Pyrok’s jerky stash?”
Leaning forward, I kiss the tip of her nose. “I can do better.” I plant another between her eyes, lingering before I murmur against her skin, “I’ll leave you up here to get ready.”
I make for the door before I say or do something stupid. Lean into my urges to ply her with advice until we’re both blue in the face.
That’s not what she needs, nor do I sense it’s what she wants, else she would’ve asked.
What she needs is for me to be the strong, supportive rock at her side. For me to snuff my own fears andbelieve in her …otherwise I’m just another shackle she has to contend with.
Anotherweight.
I move down the stairs, through the kitchen. Step out the back door into the cold, charging a fresh path through the snow until I’m hidden amongst a bunch of laden shrubs, safely out of sight before I fold forward and vomit.
The razah scurry across the crumbled ground on all fours, dragging limp corpses back into the molten blisters that spawned them. The gnarled, calloused abominations leave little more than splats of entrails and smoggy welts of cooling magma in their hurried descent back toward the world’s volcanic core.
All the while, the crowdroars—screaming formorebattles.
Moreblood.
Moredeath.
