Page 147 of Of Blood and Banes
An accident. A heart shattering tragedy.
Aaric took his eyes off her for a few minutes before she wandered off from the Stone Gods’ Garden to the hatching grounds. He didn’t get to her fast enough, and by the time he did, she had already passed.
The missed opportunity to meet her before the incident has been haunting my every waking breath and every wicked dream. Everything’s falling apart, right between my hands, and yet I can’t do a godsdamned thing to stop it.
Tears creep to my eyes, and my throat constricts to a hard-to-breathe tension. But everyone in the room is watching me, so I swallow back all the things I want to say and force my heartache back into a box I can unpack in a private setting. Away from all the spectators waiting for me to break, hungry for more excuses as to why I don’t deserve the throne. To usurp me.
I need peace.
I need order.
I need stability.
“Elara!” Aaric roars again for my answer. “A life for a life! Your dragon for my daughter!”
“He bites because he grieves,”Vue rumbles.“I did not mean to harm the child, I swear it. Had I known she was in the hatching grounds, I would have protected her.”
“I know, Vue,”I whisper sadly down our bond. She was caught in the crossfire.
I can’t explain to Aaric why I can’t kill Vue. Only those bonded to dragons know of how intrinsically linked we are as riders and dragons. Admitting it would only expose us. Nobody needs to know our lives are tied together.
So instead, I whisper, “It was an accident, Aaric?—”
Avice—his wife—is at his side, her fingers wrapped around Aaric’s arm. She whips around, staring at the people lining the room, her eyes wild and teary. “How can you all stand here and say justice won’t be served? She wasn’t even two!”
The crowd is still. Frozen in fear and horror and uncertainty.
Avice turns a deathly glare at me, pointing with a crooked finger. “You are a monster! It was on purpose!”
Aaric turns to her, stroking her arm and mumbling under his breath as he shakes his head.
“You know it!” Avice screams, batting Aaric off her as she lunges forward.
Several of my guards raise their weapons, pointing at them in silent warning. Aaric drags her back away from me.
“Tell them! Tell them it was all in retaliation!” Avice shrieks, still fighting Aaric to get closer to me. “If the Baydens didn’t revoke their dragonblades, she would still be alive! This is punishment for our marriage! That we would not agree to your annulment!”
The crowd gasps, wide-eyed exchanges pass between the rows of citizens, soldiers, and nobles who’ve been invited here for a customary meeting.
This is only getting worse. My panicked breath rises, my skin bubbling hot and slick with sweat as I wipe the back of my hand across my forehead. The room spins slowly until it catches a rhythm, and I fall out of my chair to the marbled tile with a hard thud.
“Queen Elara?” someone calls.
“Oh, Gods! Someone, quick! Get the healer!”
More black swarms my vision, pulling me into the shadowed depths away from all other sensation and thought.
A new wave of mixed panic and pain washes over me before the black gives way to the pattern of stacked stones. I’m racing for my life down a set of stairs, using the handrail attached to the exterior wall to pull me down faster.
Faster. I must get therefaster.
I clear the last few steps of the spiral staircase and dash across the bridge, through the dragonfire-lit hallways, the royal crypt, and the Stone Gods’ Garden. Vue roars, though this time it shakes the walls. Bits of dust and rock pelt me in the head and shoulders.
“I’m almost there, Vue!”
“Don’t bother. I’ll take care of this quickly,”he snarls.
“Don’t hurt her! She can’t die!’” I command through our bond. It’ll destroy Aaric more than he already is.“I’ll talk with her?—”
