Page 48 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

AMEIRAH

I’d found that if I hid out in a front room of the fortress, no one bothered me past sunset. I’d taken to curling up in a chair by the window, with a fire crackling in the stone fireplace and the light only bright enough for me to read another book pilfered from the small library on the first floor. I read a page, scanned the fortress grounds beyond the window, read another page, and repeated my search.

I’d done this for the last two nights, but tonight the hopelessness was so strong that by the time exhaustion wrapped around me and the sky was pitch outside, I stopped scanning the sky. He wasn’t coming back. My husband was gone.

“Fuck,” I said thickly, resting the book on my knee to wipe the sudden flow of tears from my face. My eyes stung viciously as another rush of tears fell. I tried so hard not to remember the too-short time we’d spent together, but memories assaulted me.

Do not mistake my feelings, Ameirah Saber. I want you so much it’s torture to be in a bedroom with you. It’s almostcomical that you believe I don’t want you when I have so many ideas of the things we could do on that bed behind us. Or perhaps on this dresser.

Ameirah Saber. I’d been allowed two days of being his wife, forty-eight hours of bearing that name with pleasant surprise and a bit of pride, a lot of hope. Two days. It was enough to make me resent fate. Was that all I was due? Two measly fucking days of being wanted?

An hour later, I scrubbed my face dry, ignored my sniffling nose, and hauled myself out of the chair. Tonight, I’d sleep restlessly, and tomorrow… I’d figure out a way to live here forever. From what I knew there was no permanent custodian of the fortress, only locals from nearby Willow Green who came every few weeks to refresh the food in the stores. Maybe I could convince the legion to let me stay and manage the house on a more permanent basis.

My brief idea of training for a legion died quickly when I realised I needed a wyvern to be a rider.

The fortress was hushed as I extinguished the fire and torches and made my way towards the staircase. I’d just reached the long hallway when the front door exploded open with a slam loud enough to echo through the whole damn fortress. A dark, hulking figure blotted out the starlight in the doorway, made of ink and night and obsidian.

My breath caught. A wave of ice-cold fear went down my spine and I froze there, staring at the shadowed figure, my heart hammering a thousand beats a minute. Rooted in surprise, it took me ten seconds to reach for the knife beneath my dress. The handle was cool in my palm as I whipped it free and pointed it at the intruder. Surely, the others must have heard the door slam. Surely they’d come to my rescue.

The panic was so severe that I forgot I could simply tear off my gloves and kill this bastard with my hands.

“The storm failed to kill me, so you’ve decided to stab me to death, have you, menace?”

The gravel-rough voice went through me like a whip strike and I lunged forward, casting the knife to the floor. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I was shaking too hard to move with any grace but I didn’t dare stop moving.

“Where the hell have you been?”I demanded, racing down the cold hallway to my husband. “We all thought you weredead!”

“I should be,” he replied, whatever humour had been in his voice a moment ago stripped bare, leaving only exhaustion and a sort of emptiness.

He trudged forward to meet me, leaving the door gaping wide. It had finally stopped raining this evening, even the slow drizzle drying up, but Varidian was soaked through. I winced when I pulled him into a fierce hug. The weight and pressure of him against my body was like a dagger to my heart. He nearly died. He was nearly lost in the storm, but now he washere,shaking and cold and real. Alive.

His arms came around me, gripping with a desperation that made my heart heavy, and his head dropped onto my shoulder. For a long moment it didn’t matter that I’d only known him for two days, and he’d been gone for longer than we’d spent together. He was my husband, and he needed my care.

Strength suffused my bones and straightened my back, driving off my shaky relief and the last scraps of panic.

“Come out of the cold,” I murmured, releasing him to close the door and usher him into the room I’d just exited. The fire had died, but warmth clung to the air. I pushed him into the chair by the window and busied myself building a fire back in the grate. “Is Makrukh okay?”

Varidian’s reply was quiet, a little rough. “As okay as he can be. He took a scrape to his side when rain drove us from the sky, but he’s healed from worse in the past.”

“And Fahad?” I asked, wiping my hands on the skirt of my dress as I stood.

Varidian didn’t reply. He just stared at the tapestry hung on the wall opposite, unmoving, barely breathing.

“Varidian?” I murmured, closing the distance between us, reaching out to run my fingers through his hair when he didn’t move.

“He’s—” His throat worked over a swallow. “The wind was brutal, even worse than the rain. The safe house is two miles from the wall, far enough that there was nothing to shelter us from the weather for that last hour. It was bad enough for everyone walking on the ground, but in the skies…”

I kept running my fingers through his hair, perching on the arm of the chair. “He didn’t make it?”

“No,” Varidian confirmed in a quiet, guttered voice. “His neck snapped the second he hit the ground. I knew it when his wyvern screamed. Mak tried to bring her back, to get her to fly with us, but she was inconsolable. She flew into the storm. I don’t know if—if she survived.”

I pulled Varidian closer, holding him fiercely as he shook, his breaths beginning to gasp. Whatever adrenaline had carried him through the storm would wane, leaving him wrecked by grief and exhaustion.

“I’ve known him my whole life. Fahad was a guard on the walls of the Red Star before he was conscripted. He’s married to one of ummi’s closest friends.”

Each word came raspier than the last. I held him tighter, stroking his hair, pain burrowing into my chest. I knew the pain of losing someone you loved, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, especially not my husband. It would be worse for Varidian.Fahad was killed by the storm but he survived. The guilt would sink its teeth into him soon. I didn’t have the right words of comfort. With a loss so keen and deep, therewereno right words.

I held him for long, long minutes, and with each one he leaned heavier against me, his hands coming up to grasp fistfuls of my dress. Raspy breaths turned to shuddering sobs that broke my heart, and I held him through them all. The fire offered a faint glow but the room was otherwise dark, the fortress silent in respect for Varidian’s loss. None of the others had heard the slam of the door after all, or else they thought it was Zaarib storming outside for another gruelling training session.

---