Page 57 of House of Ashes

For now, this brief moment, all that unease had spilled out along with my tears.

“Okay,” he said, his voice rough. His claws caught in the woven crown of my hair, and though he smoothed the plaits gently, more tears rose, burning against my icy cheeks. “I can give you that. I’ll bring you home.”

Chapter

Twelve

Rhylan held me until I cried myself dry, stroking my hair and murmuring soothing things, but by the time the last of the tears fell I’d finally come back to my senses.

To realize that I was snuggled up against his bare chest, the heat of his skin keeping the worst of the cold at bay, and that I didn’t want to move away from him. That I was taking comfort from the same dragon I’d dreamed of revenging myself upon in a million terrible ways.

I sat up abruptly, smoothing back a few loose strands of hair as I avoided his gaze and wiped my face with the back of my gloves. “I need to stretch before we go. My legs are killing me.”

Rhylan made a gesture as if to help me to my feet, but I pushed myself up with my good arm and took a few steps, putting distance between me and him. It wasn’t enough, of course, but it was better than being within his arm’s reach.

Instead of snorting with derision, as I’d half expected, he remained silent and immediately shifted to dragon form, flattening a massive expanse of snow into boggy mud puddles.

He kept pace with me as I slogged through the snow, forcing feeling back into my numbed calves and calling myself a thousand kinds of stupid inside my head.

“You’re not all bad,” I admitted abruptly, watching his head swing my way from the corner of my eye. “You’re actually pretty…decent, when it comes down to it.”

He made a noise that I took to mean, “Exemplary compliment, Sera.”

“Yeah, don’t get used to it. Or this.” I aggressively wiped away another stray tear. “I’m not a crier. I just…need to go home. I need my Ascendant’s guidance, and I need to see it with my own eyes. Even if…even when I am Dragonesse, Varyamar will always be home to me.”

He bumped me with his snout, which was roughly like being run into by a galloping horse, and I almost fell over. A fresh, sharp pain jolted through my shoulder. Holding back a grimace, I reached out and patted his nose, feeling both the smoothness of scales and the roughness of bone spurs even through my gloves.

I sighed as he closed his eyes, almost like an oversized cat. “Let’s go back, then. Viros will want to go over the saddles and straps all over again.”

And this time the flight was a little easier. Rhylan avoided sharp banks and turns, flying like he was balancing a fragile glass statue on his back.

While the greater part of me appreciated that, a small, sour part noted that if we weren’t in this position, he wouldn’t have to do that. Not only did I feel suffocated by this arrangement, but surely Rhylan also felt that he was trapped in a box, his dragon side hemmed in by the constraints of his rider.

But he wouldn’t have asked you to play along if he didn’t think he could handle it, I thought, shaking out my stiff hands one at a time as we glided back over the Krysien range.

Which made me the only one here who was consistently whining. I sent up a prayer to Naimah of the Flame, asking for more patience, for much more fortitude, and for all the Houses to unite in our Court at the First Claim and end the war before it started.

That last one was a stretch, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.

When Rhylan dropped through Jhazra’s dragon door, landing so delicately it was like he was trying to avoid squashing a mouse, Viros was already there and waiting. I unhooked my right leg strap and slid down, holding out the strap that had ripped off.

“It came loose,” I told him, weariness crashing over me as soon as my feet touched solid ground. “I think we’ll need to find a way to reinforce them without making them any more obvious.”

Viros examined the bit of leather, brows drawing together in a frown. “Indeed. We can’t install any more safety lines or it’ll look too much like wyvern harnessing, but I’ll take a look at the stitching.”

He was staring at it so intently I wondered if something was wrong.

The poor man had been working around the clock to modify the saddle; a stitch had probably come loose, and I wasn’t going to blame him for it. In the end, nothing had happened that couldn’t be fixed.

I heard Rhylan shift and kept my gaze on Viros, even as the heavily-muscled dragon disappeared into the storage room to pull clothes on. It was easier said than done. Rhylan’s ass had to have been sculpted by the gods themselves. There was no other reasonable explanation for it.

Viros pulled at a thread, and finally Rhylan emerged in pants, still buttoning a white shirt.

“We need to find Kirana,” he said, watching Viros unspool the thread. “Sera’s arm was dislocated during the flight. I’ll meet you up here later and we can discuss the modifications.”

I was quite sure I didn’t miss the significant look between Rhylan and Viros then. They were communicating something with their eyes I wasn’t quite privy to, and neither of them made any effort to bring me into it before Rhylan gently took my elbow and led me away.

On another day, I might’ve ground my heels in and asked what the problem was, but everything hurt, and I would’ve killed a dragon with my bare hands for something to eat. I could always corner Viros alone later, and pry out whatever was worrying them.

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