Page 14 of The Wrath of Ashes
“You will in time. Come, Asha. There’s a home in wait for you, where you will be what you were meant to be. I have one final gift to give before I leave, though.” Rath tugged Asha by his hand, leading him from the cell past the masters of the last twenty years of his life. The earl and countess. They watched him with opposite expressions, one of seething anger and one of regret.
Being tugged along by Rath’s strong hand had Asha hypnotized with confusion. So many emotions twisted in him, his unease with dragons, an attraction that amounted to betrayal burning within him. Lost in thought, he blinked up. Rath’s eyes met his. “I asked if you’d ever ridden a wyvern before.”
“No, but why would a dragon ride a wyvern if he could fly?” Asha bit his tongue and flinched in wait for a strike, but relaxed at a soft chuckle that made Rath’s severe face go bright with mirth.
“Asha. Why would a human ride a horse if they could walk? Blessed, Ashen one. Come. I wish to introduce you to my mount. Heckle.”
Seated in the front lawn among the shorn grasses, tearing up sod, were an entourage of beautiful white wyverns, greater beasts than that of Wyverncrest’s boasting.
“Their scales have rainbows in them.” Asha gasped and caught the eye of one with pale-blue eyes. He canted his head,his pretty white tines for horns glinting. Everything in Asha’s heart had him bounding up to the beast without fear or even a shred of self-preservation. “Beautiful.”
Like the horses in the stables, Asha took the beast’s head against his chest and stroked his jaw, taking in the slightly sour smell of the creature as he situated his weight on his foreleg wings.
“It seems you knew the right one.” Rath’s soft voice caressed Asha, leaving him with a shiver and a traitorous pulse of want into his groin.For a dragon!
A smaller, more meek voice in his mind whispered,A dragon that loves flowers, that craves another man’s touch.
Asha dispelled the thought and stroked the wyvern’s face one last time before Rath tugged his sleeve and gestured to the humans with him. They unloaded three wooden casks.
“And you accepted payment, Earl Tippin?” Rath called out, pulling to his full height, twitching his head in an almost-purposeful way to jangle the chains.
“The payment is accepted. Begone with the boy.” The earl approached, that sour sneer affixed to his face, the one Asha knew all too well.
“And what we spoke about?” Rath gestured to Asha, and the earl seethed. “Kneel. Apologize.”
The earl balled his fists so hard he shook and stared at Asha with his watery, shrewish eyes. “I apologize for whipping you.”
Rath sighed. “I’m afraid that’s as good as you’re going to get.” The dragon strode forward to approach the countess as Rath’s human companions brought forward the three heavy casks and opened them to reveal the most tarnished and bitterly dull gold, paled in comparison to Rath’s stitching, or the gleam of his horns’ chain. “Countess Wyverncrest. Please come forth.”
The woman strode forward, head inclined, all the composure and regal air that Earl Tippin lacked. “Your Majesty?”
“Since the earl has accepted payment and I believe you’ve two sons and zero interest in the earl himself… Would perhaps you accept the remainder of the gold and an offer of escort back to your home kingdom with your endowments?” Rath grinned a toothy smile, and Asha blinked in surprise as the three heavy, laden chests slammed down before her. She gasped.
“Escort home?” She stared at the gold. “With my own… I’d forfeit my title…”
“I could send my seal with you. It may preserve something, since the earl has besmirched you.” Rath kept a calm and cool demeanor, and something boiled with satisfaction in Asha’s heart at the outrage that twisted the earl’s face.
“Now see here! That is my wife! What’s hers is mine and she willnotleave in your company nor will she—” Rath held a silencing hand aloft.
“She is Asha’s bearer and thus, the reward is hers to take. You accepted your tribute. As you’ve repeatedly violated the sanctity of your vows to one another—” Rath gestured toward the servants watching with wide eyes. “And failed to provide her with even the barest that a countess should deserve—” Rath gestured at the estate. “That with her having borne you an heir and a spare, her duties were fulfilled, and she can ask right of divorce. She fulfilled her bargain, and you failed yours.”
Countess Wyverncrest…Asha’s mother, glanced back at him for a lingering, cool moment before staring at Rath and nodding once. “I would like to go back to my homeland. Thank you.”
“Mother?” Leza called out from nearby and stared at her impassive face.
She turned to face him and sneered. “My duty to you is done. You and Bel were terrible sons.” Turning back, Rath nodded hishead once and flicked his hand in gesture to have the screeching earl restrained and the countess readied to fly out with two of his retinue.
“And would you bid your son farewell?” Rath gestured to Asha, and she gave him a lingering and cold glance that belied all the softness he’d ever expected from her.
“If I did, it’d only be to appease my own conscience. But if it would please you— Goodbye, Asha. Despite all, you were my favorite.” And she stepped away with a guard at her side, chin held high to gather her things, as they proclaimed, as she readied herself to take the fortune and leave.
“Please, mount Heckle and make yourself comfortable, my prince.” Rath’s words brushed against Asha’s ears like silk and gently trailing fingertips. “Are there any servants you wish to bring with you as company?”
“Not anymore. They hanged her this morning.” Asha cast his gaze downward and climbed atop the snowy wyvern and settled onto the saddle. He never thought he’d be grateful to be in the company of a dragon, nor in servitude to one. How casually hismotherhanded him over and the earl, so eager for gold. He’d rather have never known what she was to him, for she abandoned all her children as easily, and the kind façade she’d put on for him at times. A pair of socks or two a year and a copper on the eve of saints meant nothing to him. At least the earl gave him silver, metal that bit and seared his skin, burning for days after. The bits still rattled in his pocket.
Rath sidled up to Heckle, patting the beast like an old friend, the cold in his eyes warming for a fraction of a second as he treated his beast to a fond gesture then stared up at Asha. “Do you know how to ride, Asha?”
The way he said Asha’s name made him shiver, and gooseflesh rise along his skin. “I can ride a horse, but never have I been allowed near a wyvern, Your Majesty.”
