Page 9 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

“Tell me about your city. Our city,” I corrected, sensing his interruption. “I want to know everything.”

Makrukh made a soft, throaty sound, commentary I wasn’t well-versed in wyvern responses enough to interpret.

“I said we were goinghome,”Varidian chided as his wyvern changed course, racing across the sky like a comet until I wanted to scream, but there was no real anger in his voice, only annoyance and humour. “But by all means, give Ameirah the grand tour.”

I held onto the sharp spike that thrust up from Makrukh’s ivory back for dear life when he wheeled around, and instead of flying directly to the palatial building at the top of the city, he flew west. Rooftops blurred beneath us. The clouds were close enough to touch, but I wasn’t brave enough to reach out and run my fingers through their substance.

“This is the Square of The Star,” Varidian told me when Makrukh slowed as suddenly as he’d burst into speed, a burr of a laugh in my husband’s voice that made me smile without meaning to. Warmth gathered in my chest again, even if my stomach unsettled at the manic flight. “Mak likes it because thepaint used to dye the bricks red catches the light and sparkles like treasure.”

Makrukh grumbled, jerking his massive, horned head at the pristine square below us, where the bricks formed a red star in the very heart of the open space. At the edges of the square, olive trees formed a border, their leaves especially green against the golden stone of the surrounding buildings.

“He’s grumpy because the sun isn’t strong enough to see the sparkle,” Varidian murmured in my ear, sudden enough to make me jump, my heart thumping.

“We’ll come back to see it during the daytime,” I offered, stunned when Makrukh’s surly rumble silenced.

Apparently satisfied, he whipped around in the air so suddenly that I screamed, the wyvern flying like a shooting star. A sleek maroon wyvern leisurely crossing the city shrieked a fierce complaint as Makrukh flew close enough to throw it off course, its rider dropping flat to its back with her black hair flowing in the wind. My stomach knotted.

But a smile filled the rider’s face instead of the anger I braced for. She inclined her head at Varidian, gave me a curious glance, and arced gracefully out of our path. The maroon’s eyes lingered on Makrukh, and when I finally got my stomach to leave my throat, a smile tugged at my lips.

“I think the pretty maroon wyvern was admiring you,” I called over the rush of air as Makrukh flew in a determined swoop over the city.

Was it possible the wyvern’s stomach puffed up, his spine straightening?

“Don’t tell him that, he’s vain enough as it is,” Varidian laughed.

Makrukh muttered under his breath, something I learned a wyvern was capable of right then and there. I was so bewildered that I didn’t see where he’d led us until he circled in the air,swinging his long neck around to give us an arch look over his shoulder. My stomach flipped at those gleaming red eyes so close to my face, but my terror was softened by the exasperation I swore I saw within them.

Varidian snorted. “Keep your scales on. And make this tour quick, we need to get home for prayer.”

Makrukh grumbled but swung his head back to face—oh, he’d brought us to a vibrant, chaotically colourful souk, the market packed with stalls that jostled for space. Vendors hawked crimson silks embroidered with the twin vipers of House Marrakchi, others yelled prices for the mountains of spices piled on tables too small to hold them, a tall and glamorous woman sold handmade crafts so numerous they overflowed her stall and spread along the floor, glittering like stardust with metallic thread and sequins in an array of rainbow colours, and just beneath us, stacks of tagines and cooking pots towered like columns over the small, wrinkled man selling them.

Even hovering in the air, I could smell the fragrant waft of the souk—turmeric and anise, honey and figs, along with the less delightful reek of a hundred people packed into the same space. The volume of it was overwhelming but familiar. Even miles from Strava, here was a pocket of home.

I wanted to ask if there were bakeries and bookshops, but I didn’t have the nerve yet. Plus, as Varidian said the sun had very nearly set and we needed to get to his home for prayer. And food—it turned out riding a wyvern across the kingdom made a girl starve for food. Everything I’d eaten at the celebration was gone. I was lucky my stomach wasn’t growling; that would certainly have damaged any allure I had left after being blasted with wind, sand, and salt.

“House Marrakchi,” I murmured, my eyes drawn back to the silks. Bolts of many-hued fabrics were piled from the ground tothe stall’s top, but that one banner was displayed with pride. Varidian was of House Saber, the royal house, and now so was I.

His fingers flexed on my stomach and I became so aware of him I swore I felt that touch through fabric and leather. “My mother’s house,” he explained.“Myhouse.”

Right. There was no love lost between him and his father. I wanted to pry, to unearth just what the king had done to earn Varidian’s wrath, but it was too soon for personal questions. We’d met mere hours ago.

“To the riad, Mak,” Varidian said, shutting down any further questions. That was fine; I wasn’t eager to open up about my own family. Secrets suited me well.

Makrukh replied with a long, wheedling growl I could only describe as a whine, and a smile tugged at my wind-blasted cheeks.

“No,we can’t go see Zulaykha,” Varidian said with the exasperated patience of a father talking with a child or a very errant dog. “We’re going home. You can con the poor woman out of a gleaming coin tomorrow.”

Makrukh continued to complain, but he leapt higher in the air and shot like an arrow to the silver and gold villa that watched over the city. Wyvern liked to collect shiny things and coveted anything remotely like treasure; they hoarded large piles of it if my books were any indication. A shiny gold coin was certainly treasure. My smile grew—until Makrukh hit an insane speed.

My stomach leapt so far up my throat I worried it would fly out of my mouth. I gripped his spike so tightly I might have dented it, but I managed not to scream, and that was a feat worth celebrating.

My eyes stung at the speed we flew, tears rolling down my cheeks, pulling strands of purple hair from my scalp, but there was something so momentarily freeing about flying acrossthe Red Star that butterflies tumbled through my nauseated stomach. Resentment burned like a coal inside me. I should have flown my own wyvern, should have at least sat astride a wyvern like it was the most natural thing in the world. I shouldn’t be on the verge of screaming, vomiting, and crying all at once.

I wanted it so badly—this freedom, the ability to see the world laid out below me like a gift, to fly anywhere and see anything. To seeeverything.No matter how scared I was to be so high, or how sick I felt at the abrupt turns Makrukh took to avoid colliding with other wyverns, I wanted what this flight had given me a glimpse of.

But no wyvern would have me.

“Welcome home, Ameirah,” Varidian said softly, his chin resting on my shoulder as Makrukh slowed, circling a grove of fig trees that led to the front entrance of Varidian’s riad—and my breath caught when I saw the garden that sat at the heart of the building, twice the size of the one at Strava, full of towering trees with glints of blue tile visible through breaks in the leaves. Up close, the windows of the villa shone like pure silver, the carvings and arabesque details telling me just how much money had gone into building this place.

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