Page 92 of House of Ashes

“Let’s go home. If Kirana is going to the Wildlands in our stead, then we need to decide how to convince Chantrelle.”

But the look on their Lady’s face had already convinced me…she would never back us. Chantrelle would rather die alone and let Kirion Eyrie rot than back another’s claim to the throne. She’d come too close to victory to easily let go now.

And despite that, because we needed Tyria, we still needed to try.

Chapter

Twenty

“Rhylan.”

My entire body was sore from the flight; the dress representing Jenra’s highest efforts had been stuffed into one of the saddlebags, now crumpled during the long ride home. My stomach grumbled and my hair was a wind-snarled mess of knots.

But after I dismounted and my supposed mate shifted into male form, he stood staring out the windows of the eyrie at the distant mountains. His eyes were blank, empty; his body was here, but his mind wasn’t.

And I couldn’t bring myself to leave him here like that.

I reached out, hesitant at first, and touched his arm. He didn’t move, even as I stepped to his side.

“Come on, Rhylan.” I kept my voice gentle and soothing, and he moved like a marionette, still clearly far away, in another place and time. “Come downstairs.”

Without words, he let me lead him into the hall and down the spiral staircase, down to the door I had never so much as looked at before, let alone touched. I pushed it open without allowing myself to think about it.

For the first time, I laid eyes on Rhylan’s room, his territory. The first thing I noticed was the massive bed, surrounded by black heartwood posts, carved elaborately with Horde-style woodwork.

Nudging him along, I managed to get him to sit down. He sank slowly, eyes still distant, the corners of his mouth turned down…but he gripped my hand, and refused to release it.

I sat next to him, unable to free myself, and unwilling to try. He needed someone with him.

Instead I rubbed my fingertips over his knuckles, feeling the tough calluses there, tracing the lines of his fingers. I simply sat with him in silence, letting him come back from the dark place he’d gone to.

I knew as well as anyone that words would do nothing. Words did not fill the gaping pit in the heart of your being; all you could do was carefully step around it, praying you didn’t fall in, and it was better to sit with him and let him know that I was here than to try to plaster over the pit with hollow assurances.

Seeing Yura in the flesh before me had sent my mind into a screaming abyss—and I didn’t even remember exactly what she’d done to me.

I couldn’t fathom what seeing Tidas did to him.

Long moments passed in silence, and it was almost surprising when Rhylan broke it.

“I…we didn’t want to say anything. I never want to say anything. Sometimes I think if I don’t say it aloud, if I don’t think about it, it’s like it never happened. She can still be living in Sylvaene Eyrie. She can still be alive.”

I nodded, saying nothing. There were many times I had felt the same about my mother.

I knew that she was buried under cold stones on a barren shore…but if I didn’t think about that, I could pretend she was still there.

He sighed. “I thought I could do it, but Jaien…I should have known he would come. Sometimes I feel selfish, thinking of no one’s rage but my own. We both want Tidas dead, but who deserves it more? We’re Loralei’s family, we loved her first…but Jaien loved her enough to bond with her. They were two halves of the same soul. Who deserves it more?”

I swallowed past the tight knot in my throat. “There’s no right answer to that.”

“Did you see what it did to him?” Rhylan’s hand tightened convulsively over mine. “Did you see what a broken bond does to the one who’s left? It leaves nothing behind.”

Jaien had been…empty. Anyone with eyes could see it. The dragon he had been was shattered, leaving an empty, lifeless puppet in his place—he had only come alive with rage, but in the face of that emptiness, the rage couldn’t burn indefinitely.

For the first time, I understood Kirana’s choice not to bond with a dragon. Perhaps a dragon was a draga’s wings…but if he was lost, the draga would be destroyed. There would be nothing left.

But Rhylan had also seen the aftermath of a broken bond. And that must be why he had deliberately chosen me, knowing we would never form a bond of our own…like his sister, he ran from the same fate.

And I couldn’t blame him for it at all.

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