Page 56 of House of Ashes

“Now.” Rhylan planted himself in front of me, clearly making an effort to keep his hands from curling into fists. “Why didn’t you say something?”

That little worm of fear took a bite from somewhere inside me, the fear that I’d once again irrevocably fucked up, that I had ruined everything.

“I tried,” I started, but one look at the flames dancing in the backs of his eyes made it clear that “I tried” was not an excuse in his book. “It happened so fast. By the time we were in the air, it’d already happened.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. His lips were pressed so tight they were flat.

“You couldn’t even hear me over that wind, even if I yelled, and…I couldn’t. We both knew this would come with risks without the mind-speech—”

“Acceptable risks!” he roared, cutting across me. “Not you choosing to sit there with a fucking dislocated shoulder and not saying anything about it!”

“What was the other option, then?” I demanded, my throat tightening. “Turning back? Ruining a whole day? We don’t have extra days! We have less than a week! And this is far from the worst thing that could’ve happened. I need to know how much I can handle, Rhylan, because I can’t fucking hear you and every time we fly, I’m at your mercy!”

His lips pulled back, baring sharpened fangs. Onyx scales had spilled over his shoulders and chest, creeping further down over his dark gold skin with every word I spoke until he was entirely covered.

“Do you think I don’t see the things you’re doing, Sera? Do you think Kirana didn’t tell me that you asked for extra portions of the starvation rations? Do you think Erebos doesn’t tell me every time you sneak down to the training rooms alone, or sit in your room and do exercises when no one else is around? Do you think Viros doesn’t report to me that you’re up at all hours of the night, creeping through the library and reading instead of sleeping? Do you think I don’t see you doing all these things with my own eyes?”

Ebony flames curled from his lips. His voice grew to a hoarse shout that echoed off the blank emptiness around us, his voice coming back to accuse me again and again.

The tightness in my throat was a choking knot as the accusations hit home, each one an arrow driven into my chest.

I wanted to scream back in his face, tell him that he didn’t have fear living in him like a creature, gnawing away at him piece by piece, but no words came.

“I asked you to get well, not drive yourself into the ground!” He took a step forward as he roared again, instantly melting a foot of snow. “What good are you as the Dragonesse if you’re hellbent on burning yourself to ashes?”

My nostrils flared as I opened my mouth to shoot back, to tell him that I had to be perfect, I had to be better than Yura, than Maristela, than any other draga slavering like wolves at my door—

And instead I choked on a sob.

It escaped before I could stop it, another wrenching its way past even as I slammed my hand over my mouth. Without thinking, I sank to my knees in the snow, huddling in the cold like it was a shield against Rhylan’s fiery wrath.

My chest ached as the tears I’d held at bay for days finally escaped, storming out of me in a flood I was powerless to stop. They were ugly sobs, torn from the very depths of me, an explosion I’d stored up for years and years and never given freedom.

“Sera, Sera, no.” Warm, strong arms encircled me, and I couldn’t fight off Rhylan as he pulled me against him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

I sobbed against his chest, hiding my face so he couldn’t see me twisted up as I gave vent to all the built-up terror and anxiety.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, stroking my hair over and over, letting his hand trail down over my back. I hadn’t felt such comforting gentleness since I was a child.

It only made me sob harder.

I couldn’t tell him about the creature in me, eating its fill until I was a mere fraction of myself. I couldn’t tell him about the bands of iron that surrounded my chest, waiting to squeeze my breath out when I least expected it. Those were my weaknesses, the damage that would never fully be undone, and in the end I was merely an impostor, not only pretending for Rhylan, but pretending I had any chance to return to my old life at all.

And even knowing that, I wouldn’t quit.

I had made a promise to him, and even if I wanted to break it, I couldn’t allow the thing that called itself my sister to take the throne and turn Akalla into one of the Nine Hells.

So I would have to find a way to live with it all. To live without breathing, and without a moment’s peace from fear and dread.

“Sera, what can I do?” Rhylan cupped my cheek, forcing me to look up at him, tear stains and all. “What do you need? What am I not giving you to help you through this?”

He sounded frustrated, gazing into my eyes like he could read the answers written there.

I sniffed, my throat raw and sore. Even my lashes felt gummy now; all of my frozen tears had melted against Rhylan’s warmth.

“Please…I just want to go home.” I rested my head on his shoulder, exhausted by the storm that had poured through me. “I need Varyamar, Rhylan. I need to know there’s something worth it at the end of all this. Please.”

He stroked my hair rhythmically, letting the silence hang over us. Sitting out in the open where any dragon could attack, and yet against the pure white snow and the quiet, the feeling of Rhylan curled around me, I felt a true sort of peace, the kind I hadn’t felt even in his eyrie.

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