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“I wonder what would have happened if I had called you all out from beneath the mountain sooner,” I murmur, tracing the flashes of gold over her scales. “Or if I’d never called you out at all.”
“Still fretting over the past, I see,” someone says with a click of her tongue. “Never called the dragons out? Yes, the people could have continued to be starved, beaten, and miserable if it wasn’t for you.”
Biddy Hawthorne is standing by the well with her hands clasped on her walking stick. I didn’t hear her approach. The old witch can be stealthy when she wants to be.
“Your tongue is as sharp as ever,” I mutter.
Biddy ignores me. “You’ve learned your first lesson as Queen of Maledin—there is always a price to pay. So what are you going to do? Squander these people’s sacrifice, or step up and do your duty?”
What does she think I’ve been doing these past few days in Amriste? Since I finally caught my mate’s scent? Since I accepted my dragon?
Shirking my duty?
I know my duty. There’s no going back for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not reeling from everything that’s happened.
“I had a vision in your cottage all those weeks ago,” I tell her. “It was of Zabriel, and he was…normal. No Scourge. No burning red eyes. What if that’s the future? What if he’s going to lose everything?”
“Become an ordinary man? Is that what you want?”
I don’t want anyone else to die horribly and violently. I’m haunted by the thought of Zabriel being killed in battle. Of Scourge and Esmeral cut open and theirriestasripped out like Damla’s was.
“I’m so afraid for Zabriel,” I confess. “He’s holding the country together on his own, and that means whoever wants to take it will kill him first. Why does it have to be him?”
Do you wish I was just Commander Zabriel, and you were Isavelle the village girl?
That other life for a different Zabriel and Isavelle seems very sweet right now.
“It’s a hard lot, being the Flame King,” Biddy muses. “It’s just as hard being the Flame King’s Omega. I have one question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Why are you here whining to an old woman when you could be with the man who worships the ground you walk on?”
I glare at her. “My dragon is exhausted.”
“Is she?”
Esmeral has awoken and she’s nibbling happily on my sleeve. Her eyes are bright, and I can feel that she’s ready to fly. She gets to her feet, crouching low so I can climb up onto her back.
After a moment’s hesitation, I turn back to the witch. “I never repaid you for the oil you gave me when Zabriel was hunting for me.” It’s not wise to be in a witch’s debt. They can call it in any time they choose, and woe betide you if you refuse.
Biddy sniffs and shakes her head. “You don’t owe me anything. I never intended for you to use it.”
My eyes widen. “Not use it? So what was its purpose?”
The witch doesn’t reply.
I frown at her, thinking. Biddy gave me one oil that would hide my mate from me, and the Temple Crone gave me another that would reveal him. The old woman is gazing at me with a crafty glint in her eyes.
“Oh, that’s why,” I whisper.
Biddy’s gift meant I had a choice, and I chose Zabriel.
“Be off with you, chit. Sorry,Ma’len’smate. Come back and visit an old woman when you’re ready to be a witch as well as a queen.”
* * *
The flare isrestless when Esmeral and I return, which is a telltale sign that something is up. Nilak is right up near the stone bridge, craning her neck anxiously, though there’s no sign of her rider.
