Page 99 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
“It is how it must be.”
“I can’t ignore the Raven King when he’s in my book, when I feel...” I wrap my fist around the necklace. The dragon’s tear.“You’re wrong, Azrael. You must trustme.”
We stare at each other for a long time in nothing but a throbbing, painful silence. At an impasse. Neither of us willing togive an inch.
Fairy tales might be stories of princesses and dragons and people being saved by courage and love... but they are not withoutthe dark, the loss.
Maybe this is ours.
Maybe in this life, we survive, andthisis how I lose him.
“I will give the Riverwood my magic when the time comes, if I can,” he tells me, almost solemnly. “I will be the Riverwoodfabulae, but that is all. You must accept this.”
He’s so serious. So determined. And I do notunderstand.
“I guess you should take this back, then?” I slip the ring off my finger. My heart beats painfully against my chest. It’sa bluff. A desperate one. Because what if he takes the ring back? I don’t want that any more than I want him imprisoned here.
He stares at the ring but doesn’t immediately take it. The tight band around my lungs eases a little. He won’t do it. I calledhis bluff and—
Azrael reaches out then and takes the ring from my hand. He stares at it for a moment, then snaps his fingers. It disappears.
It’s just...gone.
I feel like I’ve beenimpaled. “So, that’s it?”
“If you insist on dealing with the crows? Yes. I will save you, if you will not save yourself.”
“No explanations? I don’t do what you want and you just decide our soulsdon’tbelong together.”
He studies me for a long time. “If that’s how you see it? Yes.”
His lack of emotion is maddening. It’s... unacceptable. It’s atragedy. “You are the most useless, selfish asshole of a fabulae or soulmate I could ever imagine.” He only looks at me like thesewords don’t matter in the least to him. “Have you ever cared about anyone else in your entire set of lives? Have you everbeen anything more than a selfish bastard?”
“No,” he says simply, his eyes too hot to bear.
Each accusation hurts me more than him, apparently. Everything hurtsme, and nothing hurts him.
And that’s fine. Better to know it now. And hey, he’s not pulling his Riverwood support, right? So what doesthismatter? Old souls meant to find each other—and we did.
Maybe all we’re really meant to do is die. Or break.
Maybe our fate is that instead of dying, we realize this was never meant to be.
“Emerson said the vote was getting close,” I tell him. I don’t sound like myself or anyone I recognize, but I can’t care aboutthat. I only care about the way I look at him now, pitiless just like him. “Should you be freed, don’t come to Wilde House.”
And then I fly away.
26
I keep my heartbreak to myself for the time being. It doesn’t help us any, and the solstice looms ever closer. We have noanswers, no matter how I want them, and even though the Joywood seems to simply be melting away in a horror show scene ofrotting corpses, I don’t trust that their end will be that convenient or have so little to do with us. Especially consideringCarol’s current resplendence.
So I will find the answers however I can. Even if that means consorting with a raven king.
I spend the night at Ellowyn and Zander’s, fussing over baby things and making them a dinner with my own two hands. I crashon their couch, and then in the morning, I go to the ferry with Zander and ride over the river on it like a human.
A highly protected human with a glowering Guardian watching over her.
When the ferry docks, I walk quickly away from the river and head toward the archives. Zander doesn’t start the ferry movingin the opposite direction until I am safely on the bricks. I can’t decide if I feel protected or smothered, but it’s too coldto ponder that one too closely.
