8. Vale

Chapter 8

Vale

“ R ethinking your decision?”

Yes, I might have been staring at Rune’s scales as if they held all the answers in the universe.

Yes, I was rethinking every single decision I had ever made in my life—especially the one that would soon have me riding a dragon across the fucking continent.

Would I tell Idris that?

Of course not.

A girl had to have her pride, right?

For some reason when I considered traveling to Everhold, not once did it cross my mind that it would involve flying. The last time I'd rode on Rune’s back I’d damn near died. In fact, two out of the three times I’d ridden with a dragon, I'd been on Orrus' doorstep ready to hop on over to the afterlife.

But if what Talek said was true— and that was a big if —Selene could be the key to me maybe not marrying a complete stranger in seven days. A few hours ago, I thought I was ready for this, but now?

How could I help convince anyone I would be able to break the curse if I didn’t believe it myself? I’d bitten off far more than I could chew, and I’d finally remembered who I was.

I wasn’t a queen.

I was a dirt-poor miner from Direveil.

I was a slave to the guild, clinging to the last scrap of hope that I wouldn’t fall to my death and leave Nyrah on her own.

Not so long ago, I’d been starving and near death, trying to find any way possible to keep my sister alive. I wasn’t prepared to act as an ambassador to a crumbling nation. But with the kingdom in disarray, and war at the front gate, it seemed like if we had a major player at our back, maybe Arden would settle down. Just like his son, he was a coward—preying on the weak, the scared, the hopeless.

Why else would he withhold food in exchange for Lumentium ?

But something about that had always irritated me. As a child, I’d asked my mother why the guild needed it, only to be met with a sharp reprimand and a sore cheek. Now that I was free, all the questions of my youth bubbled up to the surface.

What was he using it for other than weapons? I’d been mining all my life. There couldn’t be a use for that much Lumentium —not unless he planned on arming the entire continent ten times over.

But I didn’t have answers for any of it and had run out of people to ask.

Finally, I blinked back into reality to meet Idris’ golden gaze. “No. I’m just wondering if it’s necessary for me to go with you.”

So far, I’d managed to piss off nearly every council member, survived a handful of assassination attempts, and jumped off a cliff. Did I really need to risk falling off Rune’s back into a watery abyss? That seemed a little foolish on my part.

“You know better than that, my Queen. I wouldn’t let you fall,” Rune promised, his oath less than comforting. “There are too many monsters in the water. They’d gobble you whole and then I’d be stuck like this forever.”

I also hadn’t considered what was in the water I could be falling into. Fantastic.

“Somehow, you managed to make it worse. How is that even possible?”

Then the damn dragon chuckled, his huff of laughter echoing through my brain like a gong.

“It’s a gift.”

I’d been paying so much attention to Rune’s banter, that I missed the second Idris lost his patience. One second, he was three feet away, his mouth curved into a teasing line, and the next, he was in my space, backing me into his dragon’s side.

“Do you honestly think I would travel across the continent without my Queen by my side?”

But I wasn’t his Queen—not yet.

I had maybe less than a week before I was bound to Idris. Half of me resisted—the thought of marrying anyone at all so foreign that it was almost laughable. I had no clue how to break his curse let alone how to be a queen. I’d had a taste of it in that throne room, and all it had gotten me was a mind full of doubt.

The other half of me wondered what bonding to Idris would be like. How I could possibly share myself with not one, but three men. My core clenched at the memory of his voice in my head, begging to watch me come. Of the pleasure he could give me without laying a single finger on my skin.

But as much as my body seemed to want him, a part of me warned that this marriage was closer to a death trap rather than wedded bliss.

Idris dipped his head, staring into my eyes so intently, I could almost feel him rooting around my mind.

“If you’re not my Queen, then that must have been some other Luxa at my side a few hours ago, promising my council her very life to break the curse.” He tilted his head to the side, his irises glowing with his magic. “My mistake.”

Squinting, I fought off the urge to kick him in the shin. “Stop filching through my brain, you snoop. I didn’t say that out loud.”

“Where’s the fiery woman who shredded magically infused wood like it was tissue paper? Where’s the confident Luxa who stood tall in my throne room defying me in front of the very kingdom she refuses? Where is the witch who waited for no one and saved herself?”

Unshed tears stung my nose as I peeled my gaze from his. Was that how he saw me—a confident woman prepared to go to battle for a kingdom she barely knew? Or was I still that frail girl under the mountain just scraping by?

“She got told she had to ride hours on dragonback to Everhold, and she’s feeling a little out of her depth.”

That wasn’t quite it, but it was about as good as I could explain it.

“Says the girl who roared at a dragon like she was one. What if I promise I won’t let you go the entire way there? Not once.”

The plan had been for me to ride with Xavier and Idris to ride with Rune. Since I’d done it before, the plan made sense, but I’d barely survived the first ride with Xavier without puking and the second hadn’t been much better.

But I didn’t know if Idris was doing this to be kind or if this was just another manipulation, another bargaining chip up his sleeve, and I hated that I didn’t know better. I also hated that even if it was manipulation, it was working.

“Are you sure we can’t take a boat?” I’d never ridden in one of those either, but at least it was closer to the ground. Then again, it wasn’t like I could swim.

Idris banded an arm around my back, drawing me away from the safety of Rune’s side. “I’m sure. And as luck would have it, I do know how to swim. I won’t let you fall, my brave one. I promise.”

His promise echoed Rune’s so much it reminded me that they had once shared a mind. “Quit snooping.”

“It’s not snooping if you’re practically yelling at me.”

He had a point. My thoughts were loud even to me.

“Plus, I swore to you that you wouldn’t dream alone. I’m not leaving you to fend for yourself. That time in your life is over.”

Gritting my teeth, I ignored the way that statement made my insides ache. I ignored my welling tears, and the thread of comfort his heat brought me as the winter chill seeped into my bones. We were still on the ground, and I was already freezing. What would flying be like?

“I’ll keep you warm,” he murmured, unclasping the cloak at his neck and throwing it around my shoulders.

Shit.

It was getting harder and harder to dislike Idris—especially when he kept doing crap like this. How was I supposed to keep my wits about me when he was turning up the charm?

Nyrah .

Swallowing down my tears, I remembered my little sister. She was how I would stay grounded. She was how I wouldn’t get caught up in my feelings for Idris—how I wouldn’t fall so hard for all of them that I got distracted from my purpose. The sooner the curse was broken, the sooner I could find her—the sooner I could bring her home.

Wherever that is.

Idris clasped the cloak at my neck, his pensive expression telling me he’d heard every word in my mind. Footsteps echoed from the wide tunnel at our left as Kian and Xavier emerged into the frozen courtyard. Barely covered in cloaks, the pair of them were mostly naked, their clothing and weapons stowed in the bags they’d dropped in the snow at their feet.

Xavier’s mouth was drawn in a firm line, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he scanned the cloak around my shoulders. He’d been against this plan from the beginning and changing before we even left was not helping matters at all.

But the thought of riding by myself made me want to crawl out of my skin.

Nodding, Xavier unclasped the fastening at his neck. “Will Rune’s saddle fit you both?”

“Yes,” Idris murmured, “it will. I’ll keep her safe, old friend.”

His blue eyes flashed with unspent ire. “Yes, you will.”

That simple statement was more threat than agreement, but I figured that was about as good as we were going to get.

“Freya gave the council their marching orders,” Kian interjected, his amber gaze flicking from me to Idris to Xavier. “They will reconvene here in three days’ time. Hopefully, we’ll have some good news for them.”

Three days.

We had three days to convince the leader of Everhold that we were worth a damn. Three days to convince her to back us and not my parents’ murderer. Three days to hopefully turn the tide.

I hoped everyone assumed it was the cold rather than my nerves that had my teeth chattering.

Glad no one made a mention of it, I watched as Kian and Xavier shifted into their beasts. Now that I wasn’t shocked anymore, I got to admire the way the weak sunlight shimmered off of Xavier’s scales, the way their pale iridescent color matched his long tresses.

And where Xavier was light, Kian was pure darkness, his body made of shadow. Those amber eyes latched onto me as he approached, his looming figure coming so close, I could feel the heat of him in the air.

I hadn’t seen Kian’s dragon since we’d bonded, and it seemed the beastly side of him was very interested in my scent. His giant nostrils fluttered as he took me in, his gaze not breaking from me once as he inched closer.

“I love the way you smell, oroum di vita. My mating mark looks good on you.”

How he could see it while I was fully clothed was still a mystery, but that part didn’t exactly matter right then. Slowly, I started backing away to the safety of Rune’s side, the red dragon shaking his body as he began to stand. The glow from his throat did not spell good things. Idris moved in front of me, much to the displeasure of the black dragon.

“His animal is drawn to you, my Queen,” Rune murmured, positioning himself for a fight. “You might need to move away from him. But do it slowly. He will see you as prey if you run.”

Yes, I’d gathered that. What mattered more was if he planned on trying any funny business. I was open to new things in the bedroom, but fucking an actual dragon was not on my list of things to try.

Xavier’s tail struck Kian, breaking him from his trance, and Kian slowly blinked, coming back to himself. While he was still stunned, I crawled up Rune’s back, figuring I was safer on the back of a dragon instead of being pursued by one. The wide leather saddle was fitted with two pommels, the pair almost like a steering mechanism of sorts.

A few seconds later, Idris was at my back, his strong arm curling around my middle as he tugged me into the cradle of his thighs. I couldn’t miss the bulge pressing into the small of my back or the way his nose raked up the exposed skin of my neck as he placed a leather strap over my thighs. My heart was beating out of my chest, and I couldn’t tell if it was Kian’s pursuit, our impending trip, or the king at my back.

“He’s right, you know,” he rumbled in my ear, “you do smell wonderful. I wonder what you’ll smell like after I put my mark on you.”

Ignoring the way his voice tightened my nipples, I turned to stare at Idris. He didn’t meet my penetrating gaze, too focused on the buckle at my hip sinching us together. “You could hear him?”

The corner of his mouth lifted, and those gold irises met mine. “Like I said, your mind is a very loud place to be. Now, hang onto the pommels, brave one. Rune is known to be the fastest dragon on the continent.”

Eyes widening, I whipped back around as I latched onto the pommels with my gloved hands, a nervous sweat breaking across my brow despite the cold. Idris tightened his hold on my middle, and not a second later, we were airborne, the ground falling away from us so fast my stomach felt like it had been left behind.

Fighting off the urge to scream, I barely got a glimpse of Kian and Xavier trailing us before I squeezed my eyes shut, tremors of fear taking root. Freezing wind lashed at my face, the cold needling my very bones as I tried not to lose what was left of my sanity. Riding Xavier was nothing compared to the breakneck speed of Rune, his body knifing through the air faster than any arrow.

Idris clutched me closer, his warm breath barely making a dent, the frigid gusts carrying them away before they could ever hit my skin.

“Tell me about Nyrah,” he demanded, his voice in my head the only thing keeping me sane as I tried not to think about how far we were from the ground.

I shook my head, my braid nearly whipping me in the face as I tried to hang onto my sanity. Rune wouldn’t let me fall. He’d caught me before. I was strapped in, hanging on. I was safe.

When Nyrah would have nightmares, I’d stroke her hair and tell her she was safe over and over again. I would remind her that I would always be there, that I would keep her safe.

What a liar I turned out to be. She wasn’t safe and neither was I.

“Come on. You can do this. Tell me about your little sister. She’s why you’re doing all of this, right? Teach me about the person you’re fighting for.”

I didn’t know where to start—she was too precious, too special. She was a fragile flower blooming in the midst of Hell. How did I quantify my baby sister into terms he would understand?

“Tell me about when Nyrah was born. You were ten, yes?”

I managed a nod, and then the details spilled from my mind. Everything from the first time my mother placed her in my arms to the time I’d snatched her off the stone steps before she could fall like so many others. How she’d hated being tethered to me, but it had been the only way to keep her from wandering the caves.

I told him about her defiance, her strength, her sense of justice, and all the while, I kept my eyes closed, leaning back into his chest as I tried to forget where we were. I focused on his heat, his hold on my middle, the way he never let me go.

Before I knew it, Rune was dropping, the air warming around us, as the salty scent of the sea filled my nose. Squinting, I peeled my eyes open, revealing the sun falling behind a monstrous castle, the spires reaching like fingers into the sky.

Streaking over the brilliant blue water, Rune dropped lower, his talons just breaking the surface before he rose again. He climbed higher, over the trees and walls, circling the castle before picking a large courtyard to land in.

Dotted with impossibly large trees, we coasted into the open space, just missing a giant fountain that nearly rivaled Rune in size. At the center was an incredibly beautiful woman, her face tilted toward the sun as she held an iridescent orb close to her chest. Water bubbled from the orb, falling down her dress, her dainty feet playing just over the surface.

I was so mesmerized by the statue, that I didn’t notice the danger until it was already upon us. Idris stiffened at my back, clutching me tighter as Rune let out a bellow of a roar, the sound so loud I let go of the pommels to cover my ears.

Only then did I notice the figures that seemed to melt into the shadows of the trees, their forms wavering like ripples of the surface of a pond.

The fading light glinted off the wickedly sharp spears in their hands as Kian and Xavier landed on either side of us. Their minds were begging for us to flee, to run.

Because Xavier and Freya had been right all along.

This was a trap.

And we were surrounded.