“Stop,” the king commands, pushing through the haze, trying to reach for me.
I stumble away. The fury inside of me threatens to expand. I swallow it down. It expands again. Over and over, like steam building in a sealed pot, rattling a lid, threatening to explode.
My eyes water, blinding me, making me an easier target. The hold Reave manages to lock around my arm is crushingly, painfully tight, but it’s also the only thing that keeps me upright.
“You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’tstop.”
“What if I do?” I snarl. “What does it matter? You can just find another weapon to use, another sword to swing at your enemies.”
I jerk away. Hard. I’m dizzy, the world is tilting, and I end up on my hands and knees.
“I don’t want another one,” I hear Reave mutter as he kneels beside me—though I wonder if I’ve misheard him, because it seems like a stupid thing to say.
I’m nothing.
I’m no one.
I don’t know why any dragon would choose me. Why any king would waste their time on me. If the uncontrolled flames blazing around us are any indication, they clearly have the wrong woman.
My eyes close, and I sink to the ground, fervently wishing unconsciousness would just take me.
This isn’t what happens, though. As delirious as I am, I can still tell when the fires begin to recede. The king’s magic is suffocating them, slowly and methodically. Blight seems to be helping, too, letting out a low, resonant hum, each shift in her somber notes drawing more of the subdued flames back toward her.
At least these two seem to be working well together,I think, dully.
When I blink back into awareness, the dragon is crouched as close to me as her chains will allow, her golden eyes fixed on my face. When she sees I'm awake, relief floods through our bond.
Foolish,she says, but there's no real anger in it; only more relief.
She keeps still, oddly calm once more as the kingslips a hand under my back and carefully props me upright. I keep waiting for her to warn me of the danger this man is to me.
I vaguely wonder if Reave is somehow controlling her, keeping her from saying what she wants to. Then I remember that Mouren isn’t even a proper kingdom, that it’s never controlled any divine dragon. If she’s truly what she seems to be, then there’s no chance he has that sort of sway over her, is there?
But the alternative explanation—that she actually thinks I’m safe in his arms—doesn’t make sense, either.
I don’t get very far trying to puzzle these things out before pain pounds through my head, driving out all thought and reducing me to a miserable, whimpering heap.
Reave lifts me into his arms as if I weigh nothing at all. I would fight, but I can’t find the strength to move any part of my body.
We pass several servants as we rush into the palace. To one of them he says, “Have a healer meet us in my chambers.”
My chambers.
I see an astonished look flash across the woman’s face before she gives a hasty bow and scurries away. We hurry on in the opposite direction, and it vaguely registers that I’m being carried to the private bedroom of the King of Mouren.
Then I close my eyes and faint against his chest, trying to escape the growing urge to vomit.
Chapter Twenty-One
I’m spinning in a storm of competing elements—warmth and pain; soft sheets and rough hands; an intoxicating scent of winter and warm honey marred by alcohol and pungent medicinal herbs. Around and around it all swirls as I grip the sheets, trying to make it stop.
It doesn’t stop.
But it eventually slows, and bit by bit, I become more aware of my body, of something heavy and cold resting on my forehead. The weight of it makes me panic for some reason. I try to shake my head. The weight falls away, and I’m instantly hit with stabbing pain behind my eyes—which only makes me panicworse,because it feels entirely too much like the pain I felt when the sight was ripped away from my right eye. I can’t help the soft whimpers that escape me.
“Easy. You’re okay. Just don’t move.”
I obey, freezing only because I recognize the low voice as Reave’s, and everything that’s happened comes flooding back to me all at once.
