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“He should be—proud, not necessarily miffed. Go on upstairs. Bollocks and I are going to have our dinner and call it an early night.”
Since Marco wasn’t there to scold her, she got her laptop and worked as she ate. She wanted to write down her impressions and thoughts on the day. Nothing she could use for the blog, she reminded herself. But maybe one day in a book. Or just something to remind her, if and when she needed it, what they fought for, what they fought against.
She tidied the kitchen, then worked a little longer, drafting out a blog for the next day. It would save time in the morning, so she could work more on Bollocks’s next book.
“Fallen behind on that,” she told him as he curled by the fire. “I guess I’m not going to have it finished by New York. And I shouldn’t be thinking about the next fantasy novel when I haven’t even sold the other. But it’s starting to push some. I guess that’s a good thing.”
She put everything away, retrieved the globe from her desk. She liked setting it beside the photo of her father and his bandmates when she went up for the night.
“It’s late, but I don’t think I can sleep yet.” As she closed the bedroom door, Bollocks went straight to his bed and his little stuffed lamb. “I guess you can.”
She lit the fire for him, then put away the pendant and the rest. After she’d changed, she picked up the book she’d borrowed from her grandmother, one full of stories on Talamhish lore.
She needed to know more.
She hoped reading would tire out her mind to match her body. Instead, the stories engaged it, and had her turning page after page.
When Bollocks’s head shot up with a soft woof, she was on her feet in a flash. One had reached for her sword, and the other lifted to grip power.
Keegan opened the door and stepped in. “Not sleeping then as you should be. It’s very late, and you’ve training tomorrow.”
She hadn’t spoken to him in days, but couldn’t find her annoyance with the greeting. Not when he looked exhausted.
“I didn’t expect you.”
“I needed to break away from the Capital.” He didn’t come to her, but walked to the windows, threw them open as if he needed air. “You rode well today, Daughter of dragons.”
“I— What?”
“They call you that now. Daughter of the Fey, of man, of gods, and now of dragons. I wasn’t there to see you call on Odran, to hear your vow, a blood vow at that, as you stood in carnage. They say the ground quaked even as he did.”
He glanced back. “And did it? Did he?”
“Yes.”
“So now they call you this.”
“Who does? I—”
“Well, the dragons, of course. I told you I can call them, and so it seems, they can call me. So hearing this, I knew what should be done today.”
He took off his sword, stood it beside hers.
“It was beautiful. It was right.”
“As right as it could be. You taunted him.” Now he reached out, touched his fingertips to her hair. “I’ve yet to decide if it was brave or foolish, so think both at once.”
It rushed back into her, the sights, the smells, the feelings.
“Their blood was all over me, Keegan. I held a dead baby in my arms and watched the light in its mother’s eyes go dim because I couldn’t help. And I couldn’t stand it.
“What about the prisoners? The two you captured?”
He turned away, and back to the window. “Dragon’s Law.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Quick, cruel, final. Could I have stopped it? I don’t know, and never will. But had I tried? At what cost to the bond we have, at what price the dishonor to the dead? Suicide it was for them.”
