Page 38 of A Bond of Fire and Roses

“I’d love to meet her.”

“Splendid. Now, Fynra did lay her egg recently, but I just fed her, so she should be quite tame.”

“Quite tame doesn’t quite settle my nerves.”

Zepheira laughs and pats my arm. “I like you already. Come, down this way.”

I let her steer me towards a huge opening in the cave wall. It leads to a tunnel which is much wider and taller than I expected it to be. Glowworms and bioluminescent flowers hang low from the ceiling. I can feel the heat pulsing around me off the walls, and even through my boots on the floor. The air is thick with that burning smell, so much like Erax’s scent, and it makes me a little dizzy.

I press my gloved fingers against the wall for support. Suddenly I feel Erax getting close to me. His body brushes against me as he slides around us and holds out his torch. He lifts it above his head, lighting the way. Not that we need more light. But then I realise why he’s doing that. The heat from the torch causes the flowers and plants to move away.

The same vegetation covers what looks to be an exit of some kind. Erax holds his torch out to them, and the vegetation shrinks away. My breath leaves me when I take in the view of the dragon keep that I saw last night.

Across the cavern, Cyrsí flies over to us. She lands smoothly and pulls in her wings before lowering her head to her rider. Erax presses his hand and face against her nose and closes his eyes. He whispers something to her that I don’t understand, yet deep inside I feel its meaning. Mutual respect and love for each other. A bond like no other.

“The day Cyrsí lost her grandmother, she lost her eggs too. So did her sister, and Evraas, and Shadowbane. So many eggs were lost that day. It was devastating.” She looks over at Erax, and her eyes have glazed over. “You think you know grief until you see a dragon mourn her babies. There is no grief greater than that. Except, perhaps, when a rider grieves for their dragon. That I would not wish on anyone.”

I follow her line of sight. Erax is stroking Cyrsí, who’s grumbling softly, which I figure is the dragon equivalent to a cat purring. Except it sounds more like thunder splitting across the sky after a storm. It’s still loud, but not as loud as her roars. There’s a softness to it I never thought a dragon capable of.

“What happened to the eggs, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Erax snaps at me, “You know what happened to them.”

I stare over at him, my mouth hanging open in shock. “I don’t. All I know about the dragons is that one day they were here and the next they were gone, until you found them again.”

Now he’s looking at me, and if I were close enough to the edge, I’m pretty sure he’d push me off. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen that hateful look on his face. But unlike the last time, the look doesn’t stay. Erax quickly softens his features and turns his attention back to the beast demanding pets from him.

“Erax brought me here for the truth,” I say, turning back to Zepheira. “I’m ready for it. Tell me what happened.”

Zepheira opens her mouth, but then an ice-cold wind blows through the cavern, followed by a deafening roar, and suddenly her mouth clamps shut again. Then her eyes widen, and she turns hastily away, her robes billowing behind her.

“The truth can wait,” she says, waving us to follow. “We must go now,”

“Grandmother—”

“It is time!”

Cyrsí pulls back and Erax watches her fly away again before turning around. He’s not glaring at me anymore, but he has that look in his eye again that says mine. How a look can make my heart beat faster and forget that we ever hated each other, I will never know. But it’s beginning to really scare me.

“Time for what?”

Erax makes his way down again, and I follow carefully, mindful of my steps.

“An egg is about to hatch,” he answers me. “When you’re bonded to a dragon you can sense these things. It’s rare without a rider. There are thirty-two riders in my army but no matter how many new people we bring in, none are drawn here and feel the pull anymore.”

At the bottom of the stairs, he offers me his hand to help me cross the gap.

“I guess this is what Zepheira meant by something spectacular,” I say, taking his hand.

He lifts me over effortlessly, but he doesn’t put me down straight away. He holds me in his arms and stares deeply into my eyes, into my very soul.

“Yeah,” he whispers, “I guess this is spectacular.”

My breath catches in my lungs. The way Erax said that makes me think he wasn’t talking about the dragon hatching. He was talking about me. He’s said absurd things to me before but nothing that makes my whole body turn weak in his arms.

“ERAX!”

Slowly he sets me down and takes my hand. He then shakes his head at his grandmother’s excited, albeit insistent, shouting of his name again. I have a feeling Zepheira is the only person in the entire kingdom allowed to talk to him this way. But then, she is his grandmother, and grandmothers are a different breed entirely.

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