Page 87 of A Matter of Destiny

“I mean, I figured that part out,” I continue. “And the elves backed up your story.”

“Elves?” she asks.

I frown, wondering exactly how disorienting those healing draughts were.

“The ones on the mountain,” I say. “They were hidden by some kind of illusion magic.”

“Ah,” Rayne says, sucking in a breath. “You found them.”

“It’s a good thing we did,” I continue. “They backed up your story, of course, every last detail. In front of the entire Council of the Iron Mountains. Greimbyss was livid. He claimed there was no way elven magic could open that rift, until the one with the fire eyes opened a new rift right under his claws, and—”

My voice fades. Rayne’s still frowning. She looks like she’s in pain, and Mothers above, how am I ever going to find the words to explain everything else that happened that night? I wave my hand between us, as though I could dismiss that concern along with everything else the Council has decided.

“At any rate, you have nothing to apologize for,” I say. “That’s all resolved. It’s all over.”

She spins away from me so quickly I’m almost afraid she’s going to leap off the side of the mountain. I raise my hand, reach for her shoulder, and then drop it back to my side. She’s going to need time, the healer told me. Time and space.

Rayne’s shoulders tremble as she draws another breath. When she turns back to me, fresh tears glitter on her lashes.

“It’s over,” she whispers.

She looks down at the mountainside, following its slope into the forest far below. And then, as if she’s dragging herself up that slope, she turns back to me.

“But,” she says, and it comes out like a gasp. “Doshir, I want you to know— I mean, I need to tell you—”

Her voice fails. My breath feels like it’s trapped somewhere in my chest, like the space around my lungs has turned thick as amber.

“I love you,” she whispers.

Rayne turns away as fireworks explode inside my skull. Her voice is hardly more than a whisper, and still, it makes the entire mountain tip beneath me. I close the distance between us, take her hands in mine, and kiss her.

I kiss her with all the fear and frantic worry of the past four days, all the nervous exhaustion of watching her chest rise and fall while the healers wrapped her wing in gauze, all the times I’d played this conversation over in my head, trying to rehearse what words I might use to capture the way I felt about her, this fiery dragon who’d changed my entire life. Never once did I imagine she would be the first to say it. Yet again, Rayne is more glorious than my wildest dreams.

I kiss her as the world spins beneath us, and she opens to me like she’s waited her entire life for this kiss. Our lips embrace and our tongues dance, until we’re both gasping, our bodies tangled together on the edge of the Iron Mountains. And it’s still not enough. It’s never going to be enough.

She pulls back, tears glinting in her lashes. I reach up to catch a wild strand of hair and tuck it back behind her ear.

“Whatever you decide,” I tell her. “Whatever you wish to do, after I’ve told you what I need to, I would be honored to be a part of your life. In any way.”

There. That’s more or less what I’d planned to say. She blinks at me with her brilliant blue eyes, and I kiss her again, light and soft, an echo of the first teasing kiss we shared.

“Because I love you too,” I finish.

And that wasn’t at all how I’d planned to say it. I was going to do something with the flowers, maybe getting down on one knee. Rayne trembles, and I pull her closer to my chest. She makes a soft sound, like a whimper tangled with a sigh. I kiss the top of her head as the wind dances around us. We stand together, arm in arm against the horizon, for so long that I’m sure the tea has gone cold inside its dwarven-crafted golden pot.

When Rayne finally pulls away, sighs, and runs her hand across her eyes, the clouds in the sky have multiplied, turning into a scurrying pack racing across the sun and casting flickering shadows over the mountain’s granite slope. I’m about to offer Rayne my cloak when she speaks.

“W-What,” she stammers, in a voice that’s still hardly more than a whisper. “What do you need to tell me?”

My throat feels tight. I sweep my hand back to the ledge, with its dancing pattern of dappled sunlight.

“Please,” I say. “Have a seat.”

She does, gathering her skirt around her as she nestles into the sun-warmed stone. I allow myself a brief flush of pleasure that the dress I ordered fits her as well as I’d hoped. Then I take a breath and try to remember how I was going to begin.

“So,” I say. “The Queensmoot. It’s when the dragons of the Iron Mountains, uh, choose their next Queen. Leader.”

Rayne frowns at me.

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