Page 157 of House of Ashes

Horrified enough to swear to never allow another drop of dragon’s blood to touch my tongue.

What if I had cursed her with this existence?

“No.” Rhylan’s voice was fierce, loud. I was too tired to startle, though I didn’t remember speaking aloud. “I can’t lose her, too. No matter what she becomes, what she looks like, what she drinks, I don’t give a damn as long as she lives.”

“It’s more than what she looks like.” I rubbed my temples. The gut-wrenching horror of this entire night made me want to close my eyes for a hundred years, and not come out until it was all over.

Because I had not had time to tell Rhylan about my sister. The things I had remembered about her, that I had repressed so deeply they had become nightmares instead of memories.

That she had taken Kirana’s skin…to eat of her flesh.

I ran for the bathroom.

When I came back, my mouth tasting of herbal rinse instead of bile, Rhylan was sitting in a chair next to Kirana’s bed. He was dead asleep, his face pillowed on the mattress next to her leg.

I draped a woolen blanket over his shoulders, pressing a hand to his forehead. He was burning hot; he had gone deep into the dragon’s primitive protectiveness, burning everything he had in him to ashes to get home in time.

Just in time to save her life.

If we had been minutes later…I wasn’t sure that even dragon’s blood could have brought her back. And Rhylan would have been irrevocably destroyed. The House of Obsidian Flame would have ended with him.

Now they both had a chance. Kirana might hate me for it…but that was a risk I was willing to take to save her.

To save him.

I didn’t care anymore if the whole world hated me, as long as I lasted long enough to burn Yura to cinders, and send her back to whatever hellhole she’d been spawned from.

I gazed down at them for a moment, wondering if I…if I had destroyed their House with my actions tonight.

But that was a question for later. For now, I could rest knowing that she still lived.

“Sera.”

Her whisper was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. Only the slight movement of her jaw—and the eerie, nauseating movement of lips that were still reforming—brought my attention to her.

I knelt next to the bed, leaning in close to whisper. I couldn’t stand to wake Rhylan now. “I’m so sorry, Kirana.”

Her eyes remained closed—the black nubs of new lashes just now peeking through translucent, pale skin—but her mouth moved again. “Make…me…a promise.”

The words were soft and mushy, garbled by her injuries, but I could just make them out. “I’ll promise you anything.”

I owed her, after this. I owed her more than I could ever repay, because she had been given new life, but at what cost?

“If…I die…” She sipped in a shallow, pained breath.

“You won’t die. You’re going to be…to be all right, Kirana.” It was a lie. Perhaps death would be preferable to what was to come.

“If I die,” she insisted. Several gasps, her chest just rising and falling. “Tell Cai. I…wish I...hadn’t…run.”

I brushed the back of her hand, no more than the touch of a butterfly’s wing. “I swear it. I’ll tell him.”

She would be able to tell him herself soon enough…and I could only hope that if she had changed her mind, if the cold brush of Aurae’s wings had made her want to stop running, that Cai would be able to accept what she’d become.

But my promise settled her. She exhaled, her breathing becoming slow but regular, and I left, quietly closing the door.

Myst waited for me, curled on my bed. Her white forearm was unmarked; it was like I had never cut her at all.

I slumped to the floor, my back against the bed, and drew up my knees to rest my forehead against them.

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