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“We have not yet selected our queen,” Nyrgin finishes.
Chapter36
Rayne
Something pale and smooth moves rhythmically just above me, pulsing in and out, like the walls of a giant heart made of snow. I stare at it as it sways and try to determine if I’m still dreaming. Kings above, the dreams I’ve had. I dreamt I could fly, that I had wings and scales, claws and fire.
I dreamt I had a lover, someone brave and handsome, someone with a smile that felt like home and lips that tasted like frost wine. Someone sitting beside me as I slept, whispering that he loves me.
I smile, and the shimmering veil of white dances before me.
“Doshir,” I whisper.
My own voice sounds loud and distorted, almost like a growl. And then there’s another sound, like the scrape of feet on stone. Feet, or something else.
“No,” another equally strange voice replies. “But I daresay he’ll be back soon. He can’t seem to stay away, even when he’s told to.”
The voice sounds feminine, and friendly despite its growling rasp. Still, I can’t seem to find a name or a face to match it. My memories feel like a tuft of grass seed tossed into the wind. Someone is talking to me. Someone I don’t know.
Someone I can trust? A spike of fear traces a path down the back of my neck. I hold my breath, waiting to see if the speaker will reveal herself. The white gauze in front of me falls still. I frown, then exhale.
The white moves again, billowing outward. I frown, then hold my breath. It falls still. But, whatever this is, it’s huge. If this is a curtain, it must be the size of a room. How could I move this with my breath?
The soft chime of a bell rises through the air. The voice grumbles something I can’t quite understand, and then another series of scraping noises drift through the white gauze. Claws. That’s definitely the sound of claws on stone, and the gentle rasp of scales whispering together.
Why do I know that?
I close my eyes. Kings, I’m so tired. With another breath, I let my armsclawsrelax. My dreams. Maybe I can find my way back to my dreams.
The one where I’m a dragon.
The one where I’m loved.
* * *
“No, she’s not awake yet.”
The words cut through the air. I open my eyes, and find the strange wall of white. The light is different, lower and softer, almost golden. I exhale, and the wall billows out. Inhale, and it pulls toward me.
“The healing draughts can be very disorienting,” the voice continues. “It’s best if—”
The sounds drift away, fading as though the speaker turned down a long tunnel. A long stone tunnel. I remember it, that twisting path through the mountain. Someone carried me through that tunnel, nestled against warm scales. Like another dragon I once saw, rising off the ramparts of a place I once lived, his golden wings spreading against the night sky, a woman’s body in his arms.
I frown; white cloth ripples as I huff out a breath that carries a hint of smoke. That woman wasn’t me, the woman the golden dragon carried across the ocean. Golden dragon.
“Doshir?” I whisper.
My voice makes the white gauze puff like a sail, and I’m remembering standing on the deck of a ship as another dragon flew into the sky. Standing next to—
“Doshir?” I call again, my strange voice louder this time.
“I’m here.”
The reply comes from far away, echoing down the stone tunnel. But it comes. I sigh, then sink my headsnoutback onto the pillow. Claws scrape against stone.
“I’m here,” Doshir says again.
Warmth closes over myclawhand, and something ripples through the back of my mind. Wasn’t there something I was supposed to hide, some part of my body I wanted to keep hidden? Something ugly?
