Page 25 of Kingdom of Ashes & Bone
At least I wasn’t bleeding, right?
A large shadow descended down toward me and I passed out right as it reached me.
ChapterEight
Iopened my eyes.
Cloudless sky with no dome and no glittering stars greeted me, and it was quiet. Pain pulsed in waves through my side, but not as badly as before. I was half propped up on something warm, while something—or someone—else had their arms wrapped around me.
“Mari? Are you all right?”
I blearily tilted my head back, finding those silver eyes with a tinge of green. The queen’s silver scales flashed in my mind and I recoiled, remembering everything that had happened. Shame raced through my body, warming my cheeks. I’d given up and done nothing to help as she’d destroyed my entire quarter. Hot tears gathered in the corner of my eyes.
“Hey, it’s OK. Ssh.”
The arms around me tightened.
“She can cry if she needs to. Gods above, I would if it were me,” argued a second voice.
I turned into Zion’s chest and squeezed him, letting the emotions overtake me as I sobbed into him.
“It’s OK. Take your time. We’re here.”
I wanted to be mad at them. Or at least one of them. We’d argued the last time I’d seen Zariah. I knew logically it was unimportant now; that his actions had spoken far louder than his words that night in my rooms.
But they still hurt me, and he needed to know that.
“Zariah?” I asked, my voice raspy and dry.
He leaned closer into me, and I struck before he could react.
SMACK.
My hand collided hard with his cheek and he flinched back, shocked. Hot tears gathered in the corner of my eyes, all of the hurt and embarrassment rushing back as if he’d just said those awful words moments ago instead of a few days.
“You people always see the worst in everything. That’s why you’re slaves,”
Zion stood, jaw dropping in shock, muscles tense as if ready to spring into action. He froze, awaiting his brother’s response.
Zariah’s eyes wildly spun from silver to gold and back again, around and around as he visibly worked to control himself and his inner dragon.
My eyes narrowed and I ignored the sting in my hand, daring him to deny what he’d done or act in any way indignant.
A growl erupted from his throat and Zion jerked forward, but I put up my hand and kept my nasty look pinned on Zariah. Zion halted, his hands twitching as he held himself back.
Funny how he was the one with the most control of his human self, but not his dragon. Zariah was the opposite. If his dragonandhuman selves wanted to fight, we’d dance. I’d been in enough scraps in the mud quarter that I wasn’t afraid of him.
“You got something to say?” I spit at Zariah.
“She’s injured. You’re being an asshole. Apologize,” Zion said to his brother.
Zariah’s attention shifted to his brother, golden eyes large and challenging.
“You made her cry, from what you told me. You disparaged her people, our father, and yourself, you nitwit.”
Zion shot me a nervous look, then focused again on Zariah. Then it clicked: he was trying to shift Zariah’s anger onto him to protect me.
My ire deflated in an instant, my shoulders drooping as I leaned back against a hard, cold stone wall. With everything that had happened, how could I linger on a stupid fight? Yeah it hurt, but only because Zion and Zariah mattered to me. No one else in the mud quarter had, besides my mother and Shava.
