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But I’m also painfully aware of the limits of my own body, both human and draconic. I wasn’t going to make it to Cairncliff without food. We have no money, very few supplies, and I don’t even have any human clothes. Unless Mother wants me to walk stark naked into the nearest town and beg for scraps, our options are severely limited.
“Mom,” I stammer. “I’m sorry. I’ll make full restitution. You know I will.”
The livestock protection treaty demands three-fold reimbursement for the loss of any property due to draconic incidents. I’m already calculating what the appropriate amount would be, making a mental note of our surroundings, and trying to determine the best way to find that particular Vasque team again.
“Doshir?” Mother whispers.
I turn back to her. Her eyes seem to be losing their focus, and stars, I don’t care for the bluish tinge to her lips.
“Go,” she begins, in a halting rasp. “To the Iron Mountains. The Council… needs to know.”
“No,” I snap, shaking my head. “The Council does not need to know about this. No one needs to know. I’ll make restitution as soon as we’re back in Cairncliff. Mothers above, it was only three sheep!”
My mother gives me an expression that suggests she’s seriously considering using the last of her energy to smack me across the face.
“About Rensivar,” she growls.
Oh. Right. I swallow as my face burns.
“You can send them a letter,” I say, trying to salvage my wounded pride.
“No!” she growls, shaking her head on the moss. “Take me… there.”
I am not about to waste what’s left of my mother’s life energy arguing with her. I try to make a soothing sort of noise in the back of my throat and brush my fingers across her cheek.
“Get some rest, if you can,” I say. “We’ll leave soon.”
For Cairncliff, I think but do not say. For the one place in all the s where I know who to trust. Where I know you’ll be safe.
“Doshir,” she says, but the fire has gone out of her voice. It’s barely a whisper now.
When I turn back to her, her eyes are closed and her breath is slow and regular. I sigh, then let myself collapse on the moss beside her. Sleep pulls me under so suddenly it’s almost an act of violence.
Chapter3
Rayne
The scream cuts through the air, and I freeze. It comes late in the morning, so late I’d almost started to hope it wasn’t coming at all. I’d been stumbling around the practice yard, trying to look as bleary-eyed and hungover as the rest of the residents of the Valgros Royal Barracks, until I finally settled onto a bench in the shade to polish the rust off of a collection of neglected training daggers.
Until the scream. It’s loud and visceral, almost inhuman, and I jump even though I knew it was coming. The dagger leaps in my gloved hand, then bites my index finger when I grab for it. I bring my finger to my lips as every head in the courtyard turns to stare at the tower.
Ensyvir’s tower. There’s another scream, lower and deeper, almost a growl, and then a deep, thundering crash bellows out of the tower. My skin pulls tight, bracing against the shiver that races over my arms and across my back. This is the end, I think, with a deadly sort of calm. Everything in the courtyard slows, then comes into brilliant focus. A tiny white butterfly drifts through the air, dancing above the piles of straw heaped against the barracks walls. This is my death.
I stare at Ensyvir’s tower, wondering when my summons will come. Wondering if I’ve given Doshir and his mother enough time to reach wherever it is they think they can find safety. Cairncliff, of course, my mind absently reminds me. Doshir had said Cairncliff. Blood from the cut on my index finger spills across my tongue, hot and metallic, and I think of Doshir’s dragon form. His wings spreading across the night sky.
That’s what I’ve done with my life, then. I’ve given a dragon back her freedom. I’ve sent the man I love across the ocean. My chest feels tight, as if it’s being battered by all the words I’ll never have the chance to say to Doshir. All the things I should have told him, back when our bodies were twisted together in the narrow bed of his rented room above the Valorous Arms, when it seemed like the world was wide open and we had nothing before us but time.
There’s another booming crash from the tower. Someone snorts behind me, and I jump again, my body as tightly wound as an iron spring. The man who’s just walked out of the barracks stares up at Ensyvir’s tower, then spits onto the pile of straw.
“The fuck is that all about?” he sneers, narrowing his eyes at the tower.
I shrug as I pick up my sharpening stone with trembling fingers. And I wait for my summons.
It takes longer than I expect. All day, clerks and soldiers and court officials rush up and down the stairs to Ensyvir’s tower, sometimes chased by the sound of his bellowing screams. By the time Torold hobbles over to me, a scowl on his face and his limp even more pronounced than usual after the dozen or so trips he’s already taken up Ensyvir’s stairs, the sun has already sunk below the outer parapets of the castle, and every passing hour has helped a strange sort of hope blossom inside my chest.
Ensyvir must not know. If he knew who’d freed Doshir and his dragon mother, wouldn’t he have called me to his tower immediately? Or, hells, wouldn’t he have just marched down the stairs and executed me where I sit? Who would have argued with him, after all? Ensyvir is His Majesty’s Royal Advisor, and I’m less than nothing, now.
Torold doesn’t even give me his nasty, self-satisfied smirk as he tells me I’m to report to Ensyvir’s tower. He just spits the order, then limps off toward the dining hall, muttering obscenities under his breath. Surely that’s not the treatment a suspect would receive?
