Page 10 of To Fight and To Fold

“The dragon Starspark… has not returned to his keep. He’s missing.”

Aaryn knew as much from the jittery unease in her very bones. Still, she hung her head and buried it in her hands.

Her fingertips were cold, and she pressed the pads of her fingers against her brow. “Great scales, why?”

Prince Jarrick dropped to his knee, gathering her hands in his own, and Aaryn swallowed another gasp. How dare the prince kneel before her?

“Your majesty—” she pleaded.

“Tethered Aaryn, we think Starspark was stolen.”

Aaryn could do little else with the information but blink as she stared down—down—at the prince.

“It seems the explosions were orchestrated as a distraction, so the person in question could escape on the back of Starspark.”

Tears welled in Aaryn’s eyes as disbelief swirled in her. Starspark had been taken? Why?

“By whom?” she asked, dashing her tears away. How pitiful to cry in front of the prince.

You’re Tethered. Act like it.

“Do you assume it was me? Is that why they’re here? Is that why we were heading toward the dungeons?” she asked, waving a hand at the guards. They didn't react, professionals.

The prince’s gaze softened further, and Aaryn beat back the anger sloshing within her. She did not require the gloves of a child. But he was not who she was angry with.

“I'll admit the guards acted a bit… hastily," he bit out, sending them a withering glare. "We have evidence pointing to a guard who is now missing. We assume she escaped on the back of Starspark.”

She.

The note from Thea burned hot in the folds of her skirts.

She felt very small, the room spinning around her as he continued, “We don’t know the motive behind the attack, but we do know that Thea Cyrus is responsible. And according to several employees of the crown, you two were close.”

The breath went out of her.

Thea had… stolen. Her dragon.

Was that it? Thea had given her a note, sent her away so she couldn’t interfere? So she would be helpless to watch as her dragon took to the skies with a stolen rider on his back?

Starspark had never liked Thea from the beginning. Instead of petty, endearing jealousy, like she had assumed, could it be that he knew something she hadn’t? Had he somehow sensed her motives when Aaryn could not?

The scar on her hand pulsed, and she clenched her fist.

“Does it hurt often?” Thea asked.

Aaryn glanced down to her hand, instinctively fisted to ward off the ache from her scar.

“Oh,” she breathed, and flexed her fingers free. “Sometimes I don’t even realize it.”

Thea shifted closer, the grass whispering beneath them, and she held out her hand.

Her hands were strong and lithe, veins prominent in an intricate shape. Her palms were a paler lavender, stained with callouses from the blood she’d spilled with her sword.

Yet when Aaryn lifted her hand and laid it in the one waiting, Thea’s touch was so gentle.

Her frown was severe as she studied the scar on Aaryn’s palm, dripping down her wrist.

“A brand,” she murmured, and stroked a thumb over her shiny skin. In her dark eyes there was a hint of something that made Aaryn nervous, and she couldn’t place a finger on why.