“I would have confronted far worse for Briar. She’s my sister, essentially. You’re close to your siblings, so you understand what that’s like, don’t you? I imagine you’d be willing to kill for either of your brothers.”
She glances at me, as if to gauge how serious I am. Her eventual reply is chillingly casual. “I have,” she says. “And I would do it again.”
A shiver shoots down my back. I can’t seem to think of a reply, so we walk the rest of the way through the palace in silence. She leaves me at the back door, facing the path to the coliseum, but not before pausing to adjust her ruby-adorned circlet in front of one of the decorative mirrors hanging in the entryway.
“Your sister will be tended to,” she says, cutting one last glance toward me. “You don’t have to worry about her.”
But as is so often the case with her and the king, I can’t tell if she means it as a promise or a threat.
Chapter Eighteen
There's no one in the arena except Blight when I walk inside.
After what happened during our last session, approaching her feels…different. Disorienting. Whatever familiarity we'd started to build no longer seems accurate. It's like she opened my eyes in more ways than one yesterday, and I can't go back to looking at her as I did before, now that I know how she sees the world.
I know I heard her voice in my head, too, yet I still find it hard to believe that part wasn't just a dream.
Maybe Iwantit to be a dream.
Because admitting I heard her, admitting I connected to her in the way we did, means I can no longer deny the ties I have to dragons—or to what happened on Emberfall, and during the days leading up to it.
She lazily lifts her head as I approach, appraising me as I circle her and clean up the fallen feathers and scales around her, which has become a ritual at this point.
“Are we on speaking terms today?” I wonder aloud.
Her frill puffs and then flattens against her neck.
“Just listen, then.” I swallow several times, trying to clear the dryness in my throat. “I just…I wanted to thank you, again, for lending me your eyes yesterday. So we didn't look like complete fools during that trial.”
She studies me for a moment, her golden gaze unblinking. Then I hear her soft voice bleeding into my thoughts, bringing a tingling warmth with it.
Notwe. I never looked like a fool, she says.That was just you.
“Insults? Really?”
I'm merely speaking a language I know you understand.
I wince slightly, thinking of all the insults I've hurled her way since we met. “That's…fair, I suppose.”
She snorts, and I go silent and still at the realization that I'm having an actual conversation with adragon. Her voice is a strange combination of youthful and worldly. Lacking the confidence of a mature adult, yet naturally powerful, perceptive, penetrating…it's hard not to be intimidated by it. Hard to know what to say next.
We carry on in each other's presence for several wordless minutes.
Suddenly, her head snaps toward the entrance, and I feel a rush of emotions cascading over me—heremotions. Sharp panic that eases into prickly wariness.
Be careful. He's angry today.She exhales a breath hot enough to make the air between us shimmer.A deep anger, in this one.
I follow her gaze and find Gareth walking toward us. He doesn'tlookangry. Just stoic and grumpy, like he wishes he didn't have to waste his time dealing with me.
His usual appearance, in other words.
But Blight's warning settles like a stone on my chest,while she flexes her wings, only to fold them back at her sides, repeating this restless motion over and over again.
Gareth doesn't greet me. He busies himself with checking the chains that bind the dragon, inspecting the places where they might rub against her scales.
Without looking at me, he finally says, “It's come to my attention that you took it upon yourself to report to the king regarding our training progress.”
I tense, but my reply is even and unapologetic. “Yes. And it's a good thing I did, since apparently you didn't tell him about the success I had yesterday.”
