Page 4 of A Reign of Roses
Gods damn it.
“No,” I growled.
And that hadn’t almost worked. It had only gotten me high enough into the air to spy the tiny stone cottage that topped the peak,observe the elderly sorcerer tending to a flourishing root vegetable garden, and then, as soon as I flew for him and through his wards, shift against my will midair and plummet to the ground.
That fall had yielded me one crushed kneecap, a concussion, and two dislocated shoulders. None of which had rivaled the experience of waiting days for my knocked-out teeth to grow back—nothing humbles a man quite like teething in adulthood.
My body shattering against packed snow hadn’t been all bad. In some ways, I’d welcomed the pain. It allowed me to feel what Arwen had felt—that same gruesome powerlessness. Sailing through the air, instincts screaming at me to fly despite my brain’s roaring that Icouldn’t—
“You’re not going to die.”That’s what I had told her.
A grimace twisted my face at the memory.
So I’d tried again the next day. And the next.
The second time I fell out of my dragon form, I’d broken my back in two places, and lost the use of my legs. I’d lain there for half a day, inside the White Crow’s wards, unable to heal, unable to move, untilthismouth breather had stumbled across my prone form and, upon my very clear instructions, dragged me back toward town until a tingling in my calves told me I’d started to heal.
I appraised him now as he stood expectantly with that yoke across his shoulders. The wrinkly, crumpled do-gooder was named Len and had a long face and thin lips that he used to smile far more often than necessary. A dishwasher in the town’s only tavern, Len climbed up the hill for fresh water from the well each morning, and once told me he was all too used to seeing sorry assholes like myself up here, trying and failing to reach the White Crow.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Len said, eyes crinkling. “It’s a feat when someone can even track the old nutter down.”
Pressing against my aching, splintered rib, I cut a glance at him. “On your way now, Len.”
The older man raised his hands in mock surrender.“All right, all right. Come down to the tavern if you need to refuel.”
“Will do.”
But I wouldn’t.
?“Fuck.” I grunted, sliding downthe face of the mountain, hands clawing for purchase against the rocks I’d driven into the smooth ice to serve as handholds. My chest slammed into one and I spasmed for air, landing hard against the snow. Through my blurred vision, I watched several brown rabbits scatter for the powdery brush.
“You’re going to kill yourself before you do whatever you came here to.”
“Why are you always here?” I croaked to Len through a mouthful of ice.
“This is where the damn well is!”
I craned my neck. Len gestured at the water source, yoke balanced across his back, twin pails spilling water from either shoulder. “Help me bring these down the mountain and I’ll buy you a pint.”
“There isn’t time,” I said, ragged, bearded cheek growing numb in the slush.
It had been months. If Lazarus had destroyed the blade already…then actually I’d have nothing but time. A miserable, aching eternity.
I swallowed a dry heave at the thought and sucked in more frigid air, rolling onto my back with a groan.
Don’t think like that.
That sick, wounded yearning took root in my chest as it always did when her voice resonated in my head. Like bells. Like sweet music.
Arwen would tell me that I couldn’t know anything for sure until I made it to Lumera and found out for myself. And I couldn’t do that, couldn’t confront my father until I, too, was full-blooded and had a chance of destroying him.
Which was why I had to get upthe fucking mountain.
Up there—where the impenetrable clouds met an icy summit.
I squinted. If there had been a sun to see, it would have sunk behind those peaks hours ago. I could tell by the dim, cerulean light dulling the snow, and the cold seeping into my bones.
In the first days of my journey to the Pearl Mountains, a few residents told me I’d just missed the bright, clear-skied summer. It was cold year-round in the floating kingdom—something about the altitude, or the magic that kept the city hovering among the clouds—but it was especially brutal in both fall and winter months, when there were fewer than eight hours of daylight and near-nonstop snowfall. It was even worse here in Vorst, the region that served as home to the White Crow.
