Page 61 of A Heart of Ice and Shadow

“Fine,” Sirus told her. He didn’t wish to discuss it beyond that.

There was a touch of something sad in Levian’s expression before she looked away with a huff. “I suppose it was never going to be easy,” she observed. “But it’s good Gwen is safe.”

“Fuck all,” Barith hissed. “At least you can see Gwen in the Veil. I’ll probably never see her again!” Smoke and tiny flecks of embers fell from his mouth and nostrils.

Niah met Sirus’s eye with an unspoken warning. Not that it’d been needed. It was beyond obvious the dragon wasn’t himself. His time at The Prison had clearly put him on edge.

“Calm down,” Levian snapped. “She’s not imprisoned. I know this isn’t the farewell you expected, but it is what we wanted. Isn’t it? To make sure she was safely tucked away until this whole mess with the Nestra could be sorted?”

The dragon ran his hands through his matted hair. His wings suddenly appeared, and he stretched them out, an attempt to relieve his tension. “I know,” he growled. “I know it’s for the best.” He snapped his attention back to Sirus. “Did you at least ask her to come back?” the dragon snarled.

Sirus shifted from somewhat removed to hyperaware all in an instant. Barith wasn’t the only one on edge.

“Barith,” Levian warned, to shut him up.

The dragon threw a wing in her face. “You all told me to keep my mouth shut, and I did—but that was then.”

Levian made a pained face but said nothing. Niah’s expression remained blank.

The dragon stalked up to Sirus, fueled more by adrenaline than sense. “Are you really that big of an asshole, or are you too caught up in your vampire shite to see it?”

In the past, Sirus had been able to handle Barith’s hotheaded outbursts with ease, but at that moment, the dragon was lucky Sirus didn’t have his swords on him.

“Watch yourself, Barith,” Niah warned.

He paid her no mind at all. “How many women have you known who didn’t quake in their knickers at the sight of you, hm? Outside of the tarts who wanted to fuck you out of twisted curiosity.”

Niah pressed herself between them as Sirus’s blood began to run hot. He said nothing. He only glared into the dragon’s fire-laced eyes.

Sirus knew he could push this fight if he wished it. A part of him did. He wanted a battle to distract him from the void Gwendolyn left behind. He wanted to fill it with blood.

“She chose to go,” he said, ice dripping from every word. The dragon cocked a brow. “She will be happy in the Veil.”

He said it to convince himself as much as the others.

Barith stared him down, then snorted. “You might be the best fighter I’ve ever known, but you’re also the biggest eejit,” he grumbled. Then he turned to face Levian. “You need to rest.”

The mage scowled. “I’m fine. You’re the one who needs to stop stirring shit up.”

“Fine,” the dragon seethed. At that, he took off into the sky.

Levian watched Barith until he disappeared into the clouds. “He’s just pissed he didn’t get to say goodbye,” she said, gathering one of her unruly braids and shoving it back beneath her scarf. “And from being stuck in The Prison. Flying will calm him down.”

She sat heavily on the edge of the log where Iathana had perched herself. “Are you sure you’re alright, Sirus?” she asked.

The question was jarring. No one ever asked him if he was alright. Even after he’d been run through with swords. He was far from alright, but he could tell by the look on the mage’s face that there were other things to discuss. Sirus struggled to care, but he was also eager to distract himself from the gaping hollowness Gwendolyn had left behind. “What happened?” he asked them.

Niah and the mage shared a glance.

“Well, for one, you and the rest of the world were right,” Levian conceded with a great sigh. “My father is a far bigger bastard than I remembered.”

Chapter Seventeen

Gwen’s knees buckled as her feet hit solid ground. She managed to keep herself upright—barely. The sunlight was blinding, the warmth startling compared to the frigid cold of the snow she’d left. They stood amongst a rocky field of tall purple flowers against the backdrop of a grand lake nestled at the base of a mountain range.

It was breathtaking. Or it might’ve been if Gwen wasn’t too busy hyperventilating to take it all in. “What—” It’d all happened so fast. Too fast. She hadn’t been ready.

“I’ve always been fond of this place,” Iathana mused as she delicately brushed her finger along one of the vibrant blooms. “There is little natural magick here, but it is soothing all the same.”

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