Page 72 of Deadwood
“Don’t live the one life you get with regrets.”
Before I could reply, he walked past me. Raiden followed him out of the room, leaving me alone in the flickering lantern light.
His words couldn’t be for me. Not when I didn’t even get tolivethe life I had, no matter how that might be. What could I do with being stuck in a castle for the rest of my days? My father had already made it clear I wouldn’t be living with Lander, which proved that even the one relationship I could’ve had was a farce, and I wouldn’t even get to enjoy it if I wanted to.
I loved Taylin, and if she was the only friendship I got out of this life, I’d be grateful. But being out here, especially in Deadwood, gave me a sense of freedom I didn’t want to give up. I should’ve known this would happen, and yet, I’d been naïve.
Maybe the life I was already living was the right one for me. I clearly couldn’t make choices for myself or even so much as stand up for myself when it mattered. I was a puppet.
Grabbing a bandana from the basket on the table, I tied it behind my head and walked out into the night.
Tonight, I’d start making a change.
CHAPTER 24
BOWEN
Raiden stayed back by the door to the dining hall, giving me the space I needed. If I didn’t get it, I’d likely rip the heads from every being in this town clean off.
Paxon’s ego dripped off him like dew dropped off the stalactites in the mines, and I was already at my end with it. If Auria wasn’t here, I’d have gladly urged him to leave, to attempt to cross the mountain pass in treacherous conditions. He’d wind up dead, either from exhaustion or freezing, but when the elements claimed a soul, it was simply population control. Let fate have its way with the man.
But if Paxon left, he’d force Lander and Auria along. He claimed he was keeping them safe, but he seemed to be doing quite the opposite. It was a surprise he hadn’t gotten their entire group killed—hell, he nearly had. It didn’t slip my observation of their arrival in town that every single one of them was bruised, bleeding, and injured. All aside from Paxon. His chin stayed high, right along with his ego, and he had no patience for the pain his group felt.
If I hadn’t felt off about him before, I did now. He’d been content with leaving their guards behind, and that was a problem in itself. Would he have treated Auria the same had she been too injured to make it over the pass, leaving her in the snow to freeze to death?
The possibility of it made my veins surge.
Leaves crunched under my boots as I walked out of town, the wind blowing them into the air around me. The forest bordered the opposite side of Deadwood as the desert. I wasn’t in the mood to fight off sandwalkers, so I’d opted to disappear into the woods, though the dark, no matter the biome, held danger as well. It was just easier to detect among the rustle of the forest floor.
Vibrant flowers and mushrooms sprouted up from the trunks of various trees, adding color and dimension to the two-toned forest. The rings in the sky glowed a bright silver, despite the cloud cover, but with the canopy of the leaves, only certain areas of the forest were illuminated in an almost crystal-like glimmer. In the few old paintings my ancestors were able to save generations ago, there were no rings. Instead, two giant moons sat perched in the sky. One of them still floated in our atmosphere, while the other had been obliterated into millions of pieces and disappeared forever. The two rings left in its wake shifted with the orbit of the planet, following the rise and fall of the sun.
But the universe wasn’t the only thing that had changed when the moon exploded.
Bison were on the long list of beings thought to be extinct in some kingdoms. Before the trigger of the moon rupturing one hundred and fifty years ago, humans and fae lived peacefully among each other. They all worked in unison, keeping their civilizations afloat, but then dark magic was discovered in the mines. Shortly after it was harvested, humans found it could hurt the fae, weaken their powers, making them almost equal in strength with humans.
So naturally, they took advantage of it. Corrupt leaders ordered armies to use dark magic on fae, and in the fae’s weakened state, humans committed mass murders and burned entire villages to the ground in their wake.
Every power had a price when used in abundance, though, and dark magic had triggered what no one thought was possible.
After days of humans targeting the fae, killing thousands of faekind, the moon had exploded, and beasts fell from the sky. Dragons had had no choice but to flee their home on the floating rock, coming to the next closest refuge. In the beginning, dragons had thought we were the enemy. That they had to kill us in order to have a life here, as the one they knew was destroyed. Humans had taken advantage of that, leaving the dragons to rid the land of the fae while they hid in what was now the kingdom of Amosite.
While the humans had kept themselves locked away and protected, an alliance was formed, and what they now thought was extinct wasn’t truly after all.
Cresting the top of the small hill that breached the tips of the trees, I looked out over the land, admiring the silver gleam illuminating everything the light from the rings touched. A stronger gust of wind rustled the tops of the trees around me, then the earth vibrated under my feet.
“Hello, Vulcan,” I greeted blandly, my voice slightly muffled by the bandana wrapped tightly around my head.
The dragon huffed a hot breath of air by my shoulder as he settled his wings, but I didn’t bother looking back at him. His scales were midnight black, the tips of them shimmering a bright gold. The highlights flared brighter when he was pissed—or, in this case, irritated.
You stink of stress,Vulcan chastised rather loudly in my head. They had the option to speak aloud so everyone could hear them, but I assumed he kept this private so no one that might be lurking could listen.
I shook my head. Dragons weresopolite.
“You need to stay away for a few days,” I said. It was unwise to turn your back on a dragon, but Vulcan and I had been together since I was a kid. He had basically raised me, which meant attitude wasn’t unheard of between us.
He let out a snort.I do not need to hide from those humans.
I wiped my shoulder before turning to look up at him. “They won’t take kindly to dragons.”
