Page 5 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

“I look forward to getting to know you better,” King Bakshi said to me, the setting sun hitting the metallic embroidery on his kaftan in a way that made his whole chest blaze like purple and gold fire. “You’ll join us for the sun banquet next month, surely.”

“I—” I cast a look at Varidian, not for permission but for clarification. I’d never been to a banquet at the royal castle in Morysen before. Had never been inside the castle before.

Varidian snorted—not at me, at his father. “Yeah, we’ll see. Nice of you to show your face, Father.” He sketched a bow that bordered insolent. “I’d better get my new wife home before the guests riot at the delay to hermostimportant deflowering.”

I elbowed the bastard. It was probably bad practice to elbow one’s new spouse, but his sharp-honed amusement turned to something true when he looked down at me. Hehadto look down because the man was an absolute giant. I wasn’t particularly small for a woman, but Varidian must have been six-foot-three. I probably shouldn’t elbow a six-foot-three man I was now tied to for the rest of my life, but hedeservedthe elbow. And it made him grin, for a reason I couldn’t fathom.

“Come, dearling.” Varidian said, reminding me that his hand still wrapped around mine when it tightened. “Say your goodbyes and I’ll whisk you away to Red Manniston.”

Say my goodbyes? I glanced around the garden, the ache in my heart more for the places I’d retreated to read than the people within it. My brothers watched with veiled dislike and envy, not a single ounce of brotherly love in their bodies. Xiu, I was glad to leave behind. I didn’t care that her features were similar to mine; I didn’t look at her and see home, I saw a wicked woman who delighted in wounding me with her words.

The only person I would miss was already gone. Even Naila’s parents and brother didn’t cause a pang in my chest despite being my aunt, uncle, and cousin. They took their cues from Father and shunned me, too. That, or they despised me for the power in my fingertips. Or they feared me. It could have been any, or all, of the above. There was no love between us. No love between me and anyone, truthfully. I’d miss the kitchens that offered a warm haven in the dead of winter. I’d miss the windowseat in my room where I could watch Strava from a safe distance. I’d miss the library where new adventures could be found every month. But the people?

“Goodbye, Father,” I said, barely able to hide my relief and happiness to leave him far behind. I turned to my husband and said, “Done. Shall we leave?”

The look he gave me was both baffled and intrigued. I liked the latter more than I dared admit. It was his glossy hair; it had addled my mind.

“It was an honour to meet you,” I told the king, ignoring Varidian’s snort—louder than even the last one. “I hope we’ll meet again soon, and I look forward to getting to know you, too.”

There, that was something a literary heroine would say—competent, friendly, and mature. Wonders were truly possible when I didn’t speak my first, second, or third thought. My first had beenholy fuck, I’m talking to the king.Very inappropriate.

Did he know what my power was? He had to—most people in Strava knew I’d killed my sister and an innocent clergy. Surely word had reached the king. And yet he’d allowed me to marry his son.

“You’re a credit to our family,” King Bakshir said with a wide smile, stepping out of our path when I lifted a gloved hand to push a lock of hair from my face. “Varidian,” he said with a nod, his greeting frostier than mine.

“Give my love to Kamaal and Mihrunnisa,” Varidian replied, his glacial voice warming by a few degrees. “Tell them I’ll see them soon.”

“At the sun banquet,” King Bakshir replied in the same tone. My eyes bounced between the two men, one tall and muscular, the other shorter and dressed like a peacock, both scowling.

“If god wills it,” Varidian threw dismissively over his shoulder, already tugging me away from the king and my father,the stares of our guests sliding off him like water on wyvern scales.

“Well,” I murmured, my ears hot at all the stares. “You two certainly don’t get along.”

Varidian snorted loudly.“Howeverdid you guess?”

I cast him a dry, amused glance, and realised all at once how easy it was to smile around Varidian. “What happened?”

“A lot,” he replied cryptically, gesturing me onto the straight, paved path that led down the side of the villa to the wide plain of grass at the front—a luxury in the desert. As if father expected people to believe it had sprung up naturally, an oasis gifted by god, instead of him importing it from halfway across Ithanys.

“Your things have already been sent ahead of us,” Varidian told me, glancing down at me with that same baffled, intrigued look as earlier. “Do you want one last tour around your home? Maybe you could show me where you spent your childhood.”

“Maybe I could not,” I quipped before I could think. I winced, braced for a rebuke about the rudeness of girls and the peaceable maturity of grown women, but Varidian regarded me with something close to understanding. I didn’t like it. The urge to break the sudden sadness was so loud I opened my mouth to remark on the tightness of his kaftan—not a wise subject, but I was desperate. But the path took an abrupt right angle, leading us to the front of the house… where a white wyvern waited, hulking on the grass curled up with its head resting on a huge, scaly leg.

“Um.”

I stared at the wyvern, at every ivory scale on its body, every opalescent spike that ran between huge horns and all the way down its spine. It washuge, at least twice the size of Hajar, father’s grumpy wyvern. My stomach twisted into a coiled knot. I’d never been quite so close to a wyvern, despite almost everygentry in Ithanys being bonded to one. I’d never beenallowedclose to one.

Father’s voice rang through my head, hitting my chest with the precision and severity of a whip.You’re a hazard, Ameirah. A shadow in our kingdom of light. With that magic, you could kill every last person in Ithanys. What wyvern would even have you?

“Where are your riding leathers?” Varidian asked, approaching the wyvern and coming to an abrupt, jerking stop when I planted my feet, staring at the white wyvern with spiky panic. “My head of house Saabira couldn’t find them among your things.”

Misinterpreting my mounting stress, Varidian was quick to add, “I never told her to scour your possessions, but the woman has a stubborn will all her own. She doesn’t care for things like personal space and boundaries, but she’s good at heart. Do you know where your leathers are?”

All I could do was shake my head. Where were my riding leathers? I didn’t have any. I didn’t have a wyvern, so what would be the point?

“Don’t worry,” he said, closing the small bit of distance between us, his hand warm in mine. “It’s a temperate day, so the cold shouldn’t cut through you quite as badly. I have a spare coat you can borrow.”

“Thank you,” I managed to croak, eyeing the giant creature who slumbered on the lawn. The scent of iron and flame filled the air as the wyvern woke with a long stretch and a slow exhale, and I froze. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I forgot how to breathe. When the wyvern climbed to his feet, stretching his leathery white wings like a cat waking from a nap in the sunlight, I realised I’d been off in my estimation. He was easily three times Hajar’s height. Maybe four. He must have been twenty-five feet tall. He could probably see intomy third-storey bedroom with that long, spiked neck of his. I stumbled back a step and the creature marked the movement with narrowing red eyes.

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