Page 55 of House of Ashes

But it didn’t matter. I was still alive, albeit in pain, and now he was gliding gracefully north. I tilted my head to wipe the tears on my cheeks on my cloak, unwilling to let go even for a second.

My left arm was so much dead weight by the time Rhylan began a gentle descent towards the snowed-in valley far below.

Tears had frozen on my cheeks, my lower lip raw from biting it to avoid crying out. The pop in my shoulder had gone from fire to an intense, sharp pinpoint of pain over the hours, numbness creeping down my arm.

The numbed sensation was actually a blessed relief, even if that arm was now useless meat, my fingers frozen into a claw-like position around the reins.

I’d tried to distract myself with the view from the sky, taking in the line of demarcation where the black Krysiens gave way to shorter, squatter mountains, all of which were capped with thick layers of snow. The valleys between were marked with the wriggles of deep gray frozen rivers, and here and there the warm glow of oil lamps gave away the presence of a small village.

But those things had paled under the tension wracking my body, the mounting fear that I’d damaged something necessary.

Rhylan hadn’t slowed until the mountains were hills, and he was heading for a flat plain covered with fluffy drifts of snow. Agony wrenched my legs as I gripped him tightly again, preparing for the teeth-rattling landing, but he went in gently, his wingtips spraying snow as he wheeled and landed.

Not until all four of his feet were on the ground did I release my grip.

My hands were locked up, my fingers resisting every effort to stretch them out, and I had to shake out my right just to gain enough limberness to manually unclaw my left from the reins. My claws had left deep pockmarks in the leather saddle where I’d clung to it.

Fear lurched in my stomach again as my left arm swung to my side, the burning in my shoulder flaring back to life. I dismounted one-handed, sinking into snow halfway up my calves, and gripped my shoulder as another wave of pain brought dark spots to my vision.

Deep breaths of icy air cleared my head; I refused to pass out.

Then I just took a moment to be grateful that I was standing here, alive, and not gobbets of meat spattered down the side of Rhylan’s eyrie.

He crouched, shifting into his male form and ducking under the harness, but he froze as soon as he saw me. Deep inside I was already bristling that I’d have to answer to him, but I couldn’t bring myself to release the knot of agony even as he stalked towards me with narrowed eyes, gaze pinpointed on the hand clutching my shoulder.

“What’s this?” he demanded softly, in a tone of voice that promised trouble. “What happened? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“One question at a time, eh?” I blinked my third eyelids back, the tears that had crystallized on my lashes flaking down onto my cheeks. “One of the straps broke. I wasn’t expecting you to fling yourself backwards off the mountain. I think I pulled something in my shoulder, and I’m just…gods, I’m just glad I didn’t fall.”

To my intense shame, a hot, fresh gush of tears welled over, spilling down my cheeks and freezing almost instantly.

Rhylan growled low in his throat, taking two enormous steps to loom over me and practically ripping my cloak aside. He uncurled my fingers from my shoulder, and gently gripped it.

I couldn’t hold back the cry that escaped as new pain flared, and I couldn’t pull away. My arm wouldn’t raise by itself.

Rhylan released me almost immediately, putting two fingers under my elbow and lifting. It moved only a few inches before I stumbled away, gritting my teeth. “Stop moving it!”

He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, his eyes closed and brows clenched, and exhaled pure steam. “I think it’s dislocated. Now come sit down and hold still.”

“I’m not sitting in the snow.” Maybe he ran at a higher temperature than draga and was perfectly fine with standing out here naked, snow melting where it touched him, but I’d spent hours trying desperately not to fall, trying to predict any erratic movements, trying to ignore the pain of a damaged body.

I was not sitting in the snow for this.

“Sera.” There was that warning tone in his voice again, the one he took when he was about to snarl, and all I could hear was him calling me spoiled brat.

“Just let me stand for it,” I insisted, doing my best not to plead. “I can stand.”

“Fine,” he snapped, and exhaled another gout of steam. “I’m going to try to pop it back into place.”

I nodded, the river of tears cracking on my face, and allowed him to approach again. But the expression on his face was too much to take in, and I looked away, blinking at the blinding brightness of the pristine snow stretching as far as the eye could see.

Despite his obvious annoyance, he was gentle as he gripped my shoulder. I sucked my lip in again, tasting blood and feeling rough skin against my teeth as he carefully maneuvered my arm up.

“One, two, three,” he counted quietly, and then there was the monumental pressure of his hand forcing my arm into place, another horrible pop, and then…a reprieve from absolute pain.

It wasn’t perfect; the soreness had crept in until that was all I could feel, but now my arm was attached again, no longer useless meat hanging off me.

I gasped, curling my arm up towards my chest and cradling it. I was never taking my functional appendages for granted ever again.

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