Page 7 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

“That’s not fucking funny!” I snapped, too panicked to realise shouting at the third most powerful wyvern alive probably wasn’t the smartest idea.

“That wasnotan air current,” Varidian huffed behind me, his voice threaded with enough amusement to tell me he wasn’t afraid of how insanely high we were. Of course he wasn’t; he flew into battle, regularly patrolled the wall at the border, and had probably ridden a wyvern as soon as he could stand. “Stop being a dick. You’re fine, Ameirah, he wouldn’t unseat you. He’s just asserting his rank.”

“Right,” I said over the wind whipping around us. It eased up when Makrukh drifted into a smooth glide. Yep, he’d definitely tried to spook me on purpose. I wondered if he could sense how untried I was. Did he know I’d never ridden a wyvern? My stomach curdled.

I stayed quiet as we flew south, surprising me by avoiding the main route past the capital. Did Varidian dislike his father so much he wouldn’t even fly over Morysen? Thinking about their unexpectedly tense relationship kept my mind occupied through the next hour and distracted me from my terror at being fuck knows how many feet in the air. A fall from this drop would kill me instantly, the sand not much of a cushion at the force I’d hit it. I tried to keep my eyes fixed ahead instead of down, but with the air buffeting us and wyvern wings cutting the air with loud booms, it was impossible to forget how dependent I was on Makrukh.

There was a reason my father said no wyvern would have me; they could intuit things about people, sense what kind of person they were deep down. Makrukh must know I was a killer even if he didn’t know I’d never flown before. I waited for him to buck or roll to knock me off, but he just beat his wings, his head facing forward as we reached the plain of sandy grass that flowed all the way to the mountains in the south. The sky above us was shifting, no longer the bright blue of afternoon but tinged with pink that heralded sunset.

Why wasn’t Varidian speaking? Had the intrigue in his eyes shifted to disappointment now he’d seen me mount a wyvern? Or was speaking while riding simply not a done thing? I wanted to scream in frustration, but I bit back the sound. His kasbah would have a library, wouldn’t it? Most fortress houses did. I needed to find a book about wyvern riding the second I escaped my new husband.

My stomach fluttered when I thought of what was expected when we landed. Our wedding night. Consummation. All those thrilling things I read about in romance books Old Ali didn’t quite realise he’d stocked in the small, cluttered bookshop at home. No, not home. In Strava. My home was Red Manniston now. Or the Red Star as it was commonly known.

“Take the coastal path,” Varidian said after so long silent that I jumped. His laugh fanned over the back of my neck, disturbing my hair and sending an illicit shiver down my spine. I really should stop thinking about those books, where dashing heroes came well-endowed, with skilful fingers, filthy words, and mouths that knew just where to kiss, to suck.

A flush of heat moved through me, awakening parts of me I wished would stay asleep because we were seventy feet in the damned air. Varidian’s arm was banded across my waist to keep me steady on Makrukh’s back. I’d been aware of it andhimthe whole flight, but now a second heartbeat pounded between my legs and my stomach tingled every place he touched me.

Did people fuck on wyvern back?

Nope, I didn’t need to know the answer to that. I shouldn’t be thinking about it at all. And it was probably very rude to the wyvern. My face burned even whipped by cool air. I swallowed hard.

“Are you okay, Ameirah?” Varidian asked, his voice very close to my ear, low and gravelly. I locked my body to suppress a shudder and knew he felt the tension in me.

“I’m fine,” I squeaked out.

I was having extremely inappropriate thoughts about my husband. But if he was mine and we were married, were they really inappropriate?

“Just tired,” I added, scrambling for something normal to say.

“We’re almost there,” Varidian replied, his arms flexing around my waist, pulling my back flush to his chest.

God give me the strength to stay in my seat and not climb into my husband’s lap.

Heat crawled through me, shivery and taut. My breasts felt heavier than they’d been minutes ago, which was a little alarming. To mount Makrukh I’d had to pull my takchita up to my knees, and now even the caress of air against my legs was tantalising. How was it possible to be chilled and scorching hot at the same time?

“This is my favourite view in all Ithanys,” Varidian told me, his hand splaying on my stomach. “Just over the top of this mountain.”

Curiosity distracted me from the pulse between my thighs, and I caught my breath as Makrukh sailed over a jagged grey mountain and it seemed the whole world spread out before us. The mountain range thrust from the ground like the ridges down a wyvern’s back, winding in a messy path that grew closer and closer to the earth with every peak. The shortest mountains abutted a long stretch of sand that rolled all the way to the coast.

I’d seen the sea so little during my life that the scale and depth of it sent a wave of wonder through me, lifting all the fine hairs on my arms as we flew closer, hugging the undulating edge of the beach. The water was a rich turquoise closest to the beach, blending into sapphire where it clasped the irregular shapes of islands that jutted out of the ocean a few miles out.

“See that biggest island there,” Varidian said, his lips shiver-inducing where they brushed my ear.

“I see it,” I agreed, huskier than I intended.

“Do you know the legend of the Torn Isle?”

I wanted to look at him over my shoulder but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the ocean vista in front of me. The golden sand was as fine as silk, the ocean sparkling like precious topaz, the islands calling to me. I wanted to know what lay on each island, wanted to stand before the spires that thrust towards the cloudless sky. The Torn Isle my husband pointed out offered the biggest mysteries. It was easily the same size as Strava, the island covered in buildings and walls and bridges, the minaret of a mosque reaching for the sky, too dark to see the colour of its tiles.

“I know every legend of Ithanys,” I replied without much thought. “The Torn Isle once gripped the edge of Ithanys, once was part of our country, but the last dark queen started a war so terrible that the land broke off.”

“The Zalaam war,” he agreed, his voice pitched low. “Legend says the queen took her magic to this spit of land and severed it inch by inch, grain of sand by grain of sand, until she’d fashioned herself a dangerous home from which to rule. Not just over Ithanys—those stories are wrong. Ithanys and Kalder were united at that point, and the Zalaami warriors were our mutual enemy. She turned us against one another.”

“I’m sure the fact their tigers began mass slaughtering our people had nothing to do with it,” I said dryly, still staring at the ocean, the islands. Nine smaller ones were scattered across the water like toys thrown from a child’s careless hand, no sort of order to where they’d ended up. Had magic really done that, or was it a bedtime story meant to scare children? Part of what Varidian said was right; we had once been a united country, andwe’d gone to war. But a dark queen, empowered by a dangerous god? Really?

The only enemy Ithanysians had were those damn tigers and the heartless warriors who rode them across the wall to butcher our people.

“The slaughter was equal on both sides.”

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