Page 95 of Wings of Frost and Fury
I step away from the wall, inhaling, testing the sensations in my body. There is pain, but I don’t think I’m broken anywhere. “Never better,” I rasp.
“Poor thing,” she croons, running her fingers through my hair. “I’ll give you a treat later.” She gives me a final pat on the cheek, then says briskly, “Time to dispose of the garbage, dragons. I assume you want him in the tower?”
Kyreagan and I glance at each other, then nod. It’s as good a plan as any.
“Good boys.” Thelise snaps her fingers in the direction of the steps leading inside. “Off you go.”
The two women follow us up the circular stairway to a room with a wooden cot and a couple of buckets. We place Rahzien’s insensate body on the cot. His hands are still shackled, although there’s a decent length of chain between them, enough to facilitate most normal functions should Kyreagan decide not to unshackle him. I notice a few rusted weapons nearby, so I gather them up and toss them out the window. They clatter all the way down the tower and smash into pieces on the hardened lava far below.
While I prowl the room to ensure there’s nothing else Rahzien shouldn’t have, Thelise and Serylla discuss the nature of the life-link between her and the King. Thelise is brilliant and resourceful, but with this particular type of magic, she seems to have met her match.
“Some magic simply cannot be undone, or it can only be unraveled in specific ways,” she explains to Serylla. “There’s no way around this, unfortunately, so we must keep him here. The good news is that his condition won’t affect you in any other way. If he breaks a bone, you’ll be fine. If he’s ill, you won’t feel it.”
“So we don’t have to keep him comfortable,” Kyreagan says. “We just have to keep him alive.”
“Yes… except he might grow tired of this existence and leap from the tower, killing both Serylla and himself.” Thelise purses her lips, walks over to Rahzien’s recumbent form, and plucks a few hairs from his head. “Give me some time and space, while I devise an appropriate spell to prevent that.”
Kyreagan and Serylla leave the room and descend the tower stairs, but I linger, certain that the dismissal did not apply to me.
Thelise mutters to herself, paces the room, then glares down at Rahzien for a while.
“How did you do that?” I ask. “How did you render him unconscious?”
“I messed with his heart a little,” she says absently. “Only a little, not enough to kill him. I wouldn’t endanger Serylla. Hush now, there’s a darling.”
“So you could stop my heart. Render me unconscious or dead in an instant.”
She glances at me, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve always known I could kill you easily, pet. That isn’t new information.”
I walk toward her slowly, my tongue tracing my lips. “I suppose I realized it afresh, how much power truly resides in this luscious body of yours.” I cup her shoulder, my thumb stroking her skin. Today she is wearing a blue dress with sleeves that hug her upper arms and leave her shoulders bare. “I like this dress on you.”
She smirks, her fingers trailing over the bulge between my legs. “You also like knowing that I could stop your heart.”
“I like feeling your power,” I whisper. “I like how you saved me from Rahzien.”
“You have saved me, too.” Her tone is soft, and there’s a sincere light in her brown eyes—love, gratitude, and a hint of sadness.
My hands clasp her waist, sweeping upward along her ribs to her breasts. She sucks in a swift breath and gently removes my hands from her body.
“Silly, insatiable dragon,” she says, her tone warm with affection. “I can’t play with you just now. I have a very important job to do.”
“I know. But later…”
“Later.” She kisses my mouth. “It’s a promise.”
It’s all I can do to refrain from touching her or myself, but I manage to expend the pent-up energy by climbing and descending the stairs several times. She asks me to engrave a spell for her on the underside of a loose paving stone in the floor. Once the spell is cast, we replace the stone, and Thelise artfully scatters dirt and dust in the cracks and over the surface so Rahzien won’t be able to tell it’s been dislodged.
“He’ll wake soon,” Thelise says. “I’d rather not be here when he does. Let’s go find Serylla and Kyreagan. I’m not sure they’ll be incredibly thrilled about what I’ve done, but it was the only way, I swear.”
“I listened to the spell as you were casting,” I reply. “It sounds as though you made him impervious to mortal harm.”
“Exactly. He can’t be killed, which means he can’t cause mortal harm to himself and thereby end Serylla’s life. It was the best solution.”
As she suspected, Serylla and Kyreagan are less than pleased when she explains the spell to them. They have no choice but to trust her judgment, though, and they both seem too exhausted to argue the point.
To my surprise, Kyreagan appoints me as Rahzien’s first guard. I am to watch over the Ashmount until he sends another dragon to replace me, while Thelise returns to Ouroskelle with Serylla.
There’s no question of Thelise staying with me. There is nothing for her here. Serylla brought some food and a few necessities for Rahzien, but it’s not enough to keep two humans comfortable, nor would Thelise want to share the tower room with the King of Vohrain.
