He’s barely left your side. Boutros made him move a little while ago to eat, and he dropped off immediately after.
It took time and effort, but I swung my feet over the side of the bed. I had to sit like that until my head stopped swimming and I registered the fact that I was stark rodding naked. A pair of blue linen trousers lay folded on the side. I didn’t know if they were mine or Ang’s, but I was guessing he wouldn’t be that worried. How I pulled them on without losing my balance wasanyone’s guess. Feeling the usual nip in the air that reminded me how far north Unkea was, I shuffled to the bathroom to find my bathrobe and my slippers. A thought that made me feel old.
Only then did I go to the bedroom door.
It wasn’t entirely shut and I stood there a moment, looking out through the crack to see Ang sitting in his usual chair by the fire. He looked so peaceful like that. So …
“By the Gods, I love that man.”
“Glad to hear you acknowledge it.”
Boutros’s voice made me jump. I finally opened the door fully and stepped up to the threshold. My head jerked back, posture stiffening to discover that there were more than three of us in the apartment. Gahunia, Jimny and Fenwick were all there too. At some point, the four chairs around my table had become six.
“Who’s manning the fortress?” I asked.
“This is our irregular dragon shit team meeting,” Gahunia announced with a smile as he pushed out the chair at the foot of the table. The chair nearest me. I wasn’t sure how to move to it. But I knew this wasn’t a single team or a regular meeting.
“And now, I think the Flight Captain should join us.” Jimny moved over and shook him.
Ang grunted awake and frowned at the younger man.
“Sir, look who woke up.”
Still fumbling for sense, Ang followed the route of Jimny’s hand, and his eyes fell on me. He stood so fast, the chair scraped back and he pushed Jimny out of the way, Then I was being crushed by a hug so fierce I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry from an overwhelm of emotion or pain.
“Don’t you ever rodding scare me like that again!” Ang ordered fiercely.
“Won’t be able to if you suffocate me.” I was almost laughing.
The pressure eased and Ang moved away, his hands still on my shoulders. “Are you well enough to be up?”
“Apparently,” I said. “Besides—” I wasn’t going to let him have everything his way. “—what’s all this about me scaring you? You flew your dragon underneath mine, a manoeuvre that is strictly barred by every Riders code there is, and got yourself crushed, which is the veryreasonit’s barred.”
As I spoke, I shifted the short distance to the chair Gahunia had offered because my legs were starting to quake. I didn’t know if the burning in my chest was anger or relief.
“I wasn’t letting you ditch,” Ang said as he moved to take the seat at the head of the table. Far too far away. “And if you think Lord Aurexian was going to allow Salvadora to pitch beneath the waves, you haven’t been paying attention, Flight Sergeant.”
I was back to Flight Sergeant. All was right with the world.
“Now,” Ang said, looking directly at me. “Flight Sergeant Segast. Can you advise what happened yesterday?”
A glance around the table showed me men I had known for years. Men I trusted. Could I trust them with this? I knew where their loyalties lay, but this was going to test those loyalties. For once, this was not the time to start at the beginning, they would need to be eased into this.
“When I went to collect Dora this morn — yesterday morning, she seemed … not herself. All the enthusiasm she’d had for coming home was gone. I asked the stable master there if he had anything that could counteract the effects of dragonbalm, because that was what it looked like to me, but he got angry, told me she hadn’t been given dragonbalm, that no one in his stable … all the usual bluster. I didn’t like it, didn’t believe it, but I figured it was only an hour back here, so it was worth the risk.We were fifteen, maybe twenty minutes into the flight, out over open water, when out of nowhere a fireball flashed past us.”
Not past.
“No, all right.” I refocused on those in the room. “Dora is reminding me it didn’t pass us, it hit her left wing. Burned the feathers and the skin beneath.” I looked at Fenwick. “How is that injury?”
“That injury is minimal,” he confirmed. “Did you heal her?”
“It was a surface wound,” I said.
“You’ve never healed a dragon to that extent before,” Fenwick pointed out.
“And,” Boutros added, “you’d only ever dealt with minor injuries until you healed Flight Captain Shi.”
“That was some dragon shit work you did out there,” Gahunia said. Ithinkthat was praise.
