Page 2 of A Dragon of Black Glass (Moonfall #3)

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D AAL GUIDED HIS mount with gentle pressure from his knees. By now, his efforts were instinctual—more so than any of the other riders. Then again, he had helped refine the saddle they all used, tweaking its cinches from the Panthean tack and gear used to ride the orksos, the horned beasts that swam through the seas of the Crèche. Back home, he had been proud of his skill at hunting those waters from the backs of such magnificent creatures.

Only after Nyx and the others had crashed into their world beneath the ice had Daal come to understand his unique bond to the orksos. He had always known he carried Noorish blood, from a lineage that traced back to a group of Hálendiian explorers who had arrived centuries earlier and been stranded in the Crèche. The crew had traveled there by the very wyndship moored below. Over time, the Pantheans and Noorish people had learned to live in an uneasy alliance, resulting in mixed-blooded individuals like Daal.

But unlike most mixed-blooded descendants, Daal had inherited a special gift: his Noorish blood contained traces of bridle-song. That innate talent had allowed him to bond and control the orksos better than most. But the same blood-gift also drew the attention of others: the tentacled Oshkapeers, the godlike Dreamers of the Deep. Those ancient creatures had probed Daal, nearly drowning him, and honed his bridle-song into a great weapon, a font of raw energy, meant to serve as a wellspring of strength for another.

As Daal stared below, he felt that draw upon him even now. It tugged at his blood and quickened his heart. He had no trouble spotting the lodestone that called to him from below. He watched Nyx hurry toward the open stern door into the Fyredragon . He remembered how she had once described their unique bond.

You be my flashburn, I’ll be your forge.

Daal easily recalled what that felt like back at the Crèche, when the two melted into one, palms pressed, fingers clenched together. With each breath, his blood-borne font of power flowed into Nyx, allowing her access to that well of energy, to refine that force into purpose. In those moments, both were bare to each other, unable to keep any secrets, each knowing the other’s thoughts, wearing the other’s skin, feeling everything together. It was both unnerving and intoxicating.

Such intimacy had drawn them closer. How could it not? But months ago, just as they had reached the Eastern Crown, it had all abruptly ended. The arduous journey had taken its toll on everyone: the stress, the terror, the tension, had strained them all.

But that was not the true reason for their falling-out.

He watched Nyx vanish with Bashaliia into the ship. Only then did he lift an arm and whistle sharply into the wind, mimicking the cry of a kree-hawk, the hunting birds that nested in the ice cliffs at the Crèche. The other Panthean riders recognized that note from their homelands. So, too, did their raash’ke mounts, who had shared that cold world.

In such small ways did Daal keep his homelands alive in his heart. He refused to completely forsake the Crèche. He had already given up so much. To make this sojourn—to serve as a source of fuel to Nyx’s forge—he had abandoned his mother and father, along with his young sister. His parents had understood the necessity. Still, it did little to assuage his guilt, especially knowing his family’s fate should Nyx’s group succeed in setting the Urth to spinning again.

According to Shiya—based on ancient ta’wyn knowledge—the only way to cast the moon back into its proper place was to set the world to turning. This would prevent the planet’s destruction, but it would also lead to its own cataclysm, resulting in deaths beyond measure. Millions would die. With the world set to spinning, the Frozen Wastes would melt. The sunblasted Barrens would flood. The Crown would be torn apart by quakes, storms, and tides.

No corner of the Urth would be untouched.

Even my home.

His mother had faced this tragic fate with a resoluteness that still escaped Daal. Her words stayed with him: No one knows their end. The future remains a mystery until it’s written. We’ll live as if we have endless days ahead of us—and none. What else can any of us do?

His parents also recognized that if the moon crashed into the world, not only would the Crèche be destroyed, but all life on Urth would end.

Better some should live than none, his father had said, gripping Daal’s arm as they said their good-byes.

Daal closed his eyes for a single breath.

I must not fail them.

With this determination, he opened his eyes and guided the other riders toward the towering wyndship. Winds, lashed with hard rain, battered them. Lightning lanced in jagged arcs across the belly of the clouds. He smelled the power in the air, felt the energy dance across the small hairs of his bare arms. It was as if the storm were drawn to the well of strength hidden inside him.

He gritted his teeth and dove steeply, fleeing the storm’s reach—as much as Nyx now fled from him. He pictured the fall of her hair, so dark a hue that it could be misconstrued as black, but within its shadows hid golden strands, as if bridle-song had been braided into those tresses. Her skin was the color of warm honey, her eyes as blue as polished ice, with flecks of silver shining there, too.

Anger flamed through him, both at her abrupt rejection of him and at his continuing ache to rekindle what had been lost. He fought against reliving that moment from months ago when passion had turned to heartbreak.

Still, the memory burned brightly, fueled by the pain in his heart—and his forearms.

For Nyx had shattered more than just his heart.

Unable to stop himself, he fell back into that past.

A S THE F YREDRAGON crested high over the Ebyn Mountains, Daal ignored the crystalline glare off those icy peaks and gaped at the fiery orb sitting on the horizon. For the past half-moon, as the wyndship neared the edge of the Crown, leaving the Frozen Wastes behind, they had been traveling through a perpetual twilight. Each day, the pyre at the horizon had grown brighter and brighter, until the full breadth of the sun rose into view.

“It’s more wondrous than I’d ever imagined,” Daal whispered to Nyx.

She kept next to him, an arm around his waist, and smiled at the awe in his voice. “Welcome to your first true dawn,” she said, then added with a tired sigh, “We in the Crown take such a sight for granted. The sun never sets during our lives. It only makes a slow, small circle in the sky, one revolution per year.”

Fenn stood on his other side. “I wager you’ll get sick of the sight of the Father Above, especially after we head into the Barrens, where the sun will rise higher and higher until it’s hammering us with its unforgiving heat.”

Daal noted the sour turn to the navigator’s voice. Fenn had shown a clear and growing reluctance to cross this eastern half of the Crown. As the navigator kept vigil with them, the young man’s lips were drawn into bloodless lines. The emerald of his eyes was shadowed by heavy lids. His snowy-blond locks, though, reflected the sunlight, as if he were born out of mountain glaciers below, but Daal knew Fenn was actually from the Kingdom of Bhestya, one of the many lands on this side of the Crown.

Still, the navigator’s mood had darkened with every league closer to his homelands. According to Jace, Fenn had made sure their ship’s course stayed well north of Bhestya. Any inquiries about his past were met with a stern silence, a dismissive wave, or a muttered curse. He was clearly reluctant to talk about how he had come to leave his homelands and ended up as a navigator for a brigand like Darant.

“We should head below,” Nyx said. “You don’t want to stare too long at the sun.”

Daal disagreed. “I could look at it forever.”

But Fenn bolstered Nyx’s warning. “Once we crest over these mountains, the crosswinds will have us shaking wildly.”

As if reinforcing this, a strong gust struck the massive gasbag overhead and sent the ship into a hard roll. Daal clutched the rail to stay upright. Fenn simply balanced on both legs.

Nyx’s arm tightened on Daal’s waist. Even through the wool of her sleeve, he felt the cold burn of her skin as it sought to pull the heat from his body, reminding him of the bottomless hunger inside her. But he had hungers of his own and freed an arm to pull her closer.

“Maybe we should return to your cabin,” Daal suggested.

Nyx stared up at him. The silver glints in her eyes shone brighter with a mischievous gleam. “Then let us be quick about it—before we get tossed overboard.”

They waited until the ship’s rocking eased enough for them to cross the deck to the forecastle’s door. They clambered down to the middeck, where cabins lined a long passageway that ran from bow to stern.

Nyx had a room to herself nearest the wheelhouse at the front.

As they reached her door, another strong wind buffeted the ship. A hard roll of the deck tossed them across the cabin’s threshold. They stumbled together into her room, clutched together, both laughing.

Once the ship smoothed its flight, Nyx closed the door, her cheeks flushed.

Daal was still breathless from seeing the sun for the first time. Amazement kept his heart pounding. The blue skies, the shades of pink spanning the horizon, had seemed from another world, one foreign to all he understood. Even the stars—which had blazed continually in the skies of the Wastes—had vanished into obscurity, wiped away by the sunlight.

“What wonders you’ve shown me,” he whispered to Nyx. “How I wish Henna were here to see this, too.”

A pang of homesickness struck him as he pictured his exuberant younger sister, with her bright eyes and bottomless sense of wonder.

Nyx lowered her gaze, trying to hide a wince.

He inwardly kicked himself for his words. He knew Nyx carried a measure of guilt for dragging him from his home, from all he knew, from all he loved. He reached to her shoulders and drew her into an embrace.

“I will show her the sun one day,” he promised.

“I hope that’s true.”

Daal used a fingertip to raise her chin. “We’ll make it so.”

Despite his words, Nyx’s eyes remained haunted. It was her prophecy that set them on this course, a path that, even if successful, would lead to so many deaths, so much destruction.

He tilted his head to catch her gaze. “You’re not alone in this.”

To convince her of this, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. A now familiar fire ignited at that touch. She sighed into his kiss, sinking into him, blurring the line between them. As this happened, he sensed that dark well inside her. He allowed the heat of his bones’ marrow to flow and temper that hunger, which further drew them together, binding them even closer.

He again felt that dizzying fall into her. The softness of her lips stirred him, while simultaneously he felt the rough brush of his own stubble. After a time, his tongue probed deeper and became hers. Their breaths mingled, growing harsher. He hardened and pressed himself against her, but he knew she was already aware of his firming ardor, for he felt her own rising passion: the warming of her loins, the tender piquing of her nipples.

His hand rose to gently brush a thumb across that tenderness. The fire of that touch ran through him as much as her. Her gasp rose from his own lips. Her fingers reached to his swollen urgency and rubbed that fire into a pyre that burned through them both. Lost in each other, they fell to her bed. There, they explored each other, discovering the familiar balance of their shared senses.

Her desires, too, whisked through him, guiding him to where she wanted to be touched. Fingers fumbled with buttons until skin found skin. With each movement, he was rewarded in turn, as he experienced that exquisite tension himself. His tongue took the place of his thumb. With each teasing lick, fire flamed through his body, reflecting what she experienced.

Each gasp was the bellow of a forge, whetting their flames hotter.

They remained balanced on that fiery edge until the room vanished and time grew meaningless. Daal wanted more, knew she did, too, as they could hide nothing from one another, but they had also decided at the outset of this journey to temper their passion, to carry on no farther than this.

Fear, as much as restraint, firmed this line.

He drew his mouth from her breast and returned to her lips. It took all his strength to do so. He lifted his face to stare down at her. Her eyes remained closed, her body arched under him.

He whispered into that fire. “Nyx, we must stop—”

“No,” she moaned, that single word rife with bridle-song, full of command, along with a hint of a dark edge. “Don’t.”

She reached under his belt, cupping his length. Trapped by their combined lust, along with the bridling that linked him, he shuddered under her touch.

Unable to stop himself, he let his weight fall upon her, upon what she clutched, but he continued to fall, sinking ever deeper into the dark well inside her. Its hunger now stoked to a feverish ravening. With each stroke of her hand, with each unstoppable thrust of his hips, power flowed out of him.

He fought to hold it, to dam that tide.

Then came one stroke too far.

He cried out with the explosion. It emptied everything inside him, spilling forth between them, while bursting that dam within. He flailed down her well, carried by his torrent of energy, unable to escape.

Still, even then, he felt everything she did. She gasped as much as he had, experiencing the same explosion as if it were her own. Through her senses, he felt the power swelling into her.

He fought against losing himself, knowing that he risked death if too much was stolen from him. As he struggled, his hands found Nyx’s shoulders. He tried to push away from her, using all the strength in his arms.

As his energies flowed into her, a star appeared down deep in that well, fed by his power. He rushed headlong toward it. As it grew, the star formed a fiery sigil.

Nyx recognized it. So, of course, he did, too. In such moments, there were no secrets between them. Fleeting memories from Nyx shredded through him.

This sigil was a gift, one granted to Nyx by the raash’ke horde-mind before it was destroyed. It was a map to turn intent into purpose, to give bridle-song the strength of physical force.

Unable to help himself—perhaps fueled by Nyx’s own darkest desires—he reached to that star as he fell past it, like a drowning man grasping for anything to keep afloat. With the briefest touch, that sigil exploded into a sun, infinitely brighter than what shone in the skies.

The blast shattered the darkness, while shoving him away, too.

He flew back into his own body, into his own skin, but there was no escaping the backlash of power. It exploded out of Nyx as he hovered over her, holding her at arm’s length.

With his fingers still clutched to her shoulders, his forearms caught the brunt of that blast. Bones shattered under the force. He got thrown from the bed and crashed onto the hard floorboards. His head cracked, sending the world into a twirling confusion.

Nyx tumbled after him, landing on her hands and knees. “Daal…”

He tried to reach her, to console her, but his arms were bent at useless angles. Agony flared and shrank his world to pinpoints.

“I’ll get help,” Nyx called as he fell farther away.

She fled from his side, from him, maybe from herself. Her last words, guilt-ridden and tearful, followed him into oblivion.

“I’m sorry…”

D AAL ’ S MOUNT LANDED in the meadow with a hard jolt, shaking him back to the present. To either side, the other four riders alighted with buffeting sweeps of leathery wings. He leaned forward and rubbed the damp pelt of his bat’s neck.

“Thank you, Pyllar,” he intoned gratefully.

His mount tilted a large black eye toward him. The velvety ruffles surrounding Pyllar’s nostrils vibrated, accompanied by a soft keening. The contentment and pride could be felt as much as heard. The gift in Daal’s blood was strong enough to perceive all of this. He even spotted the slight glow in those dark eyes, shining with bridle-song.

Pyllar leaned back, offering an ear to be scratched.

Daal could not refuse. His fingers found those tender spots and dug nails until Pyllar rumbled with pleasure. As he did, Daal’s forearm ached. The splints had only come off a fortnight ago. This morning was the first time he had been deemed fit enough to take Pyllar aloft.

Daal regretted having to neglect his mount these past months, but he dared not risk his life by flying while impaired. It was with the same fearful reluctance that Nyx had withdrawn from him. The two of them had been careless, playing with a fire neither truly understood—not just the physical act, of stumbling over a threshold neither had been prepared for, but also the incendiary flow of powers between them.

Afterward, the anguish in Nyx’s words still wounded him: If I had broken more than just your arms…

Daal knew his death would have destroyed her. It was a guilt she could not have survived. Plus, his loss would be a blow to their cause. Nyx needed Daal for more than just his companionship. She needed the power welded into him by the Dreamers. He was a tool forged for her. And in the throes of passion, they had come close to shattering it.

Such an act could not be risked again.

Nyx had firmed this while he recovered: Our wishes are of no importance, not when balanced against all the lives of the world.

Daal had no way to argue against it, even if he had wanted to try. So, he had stayed silent, his tongue tied by fear as much as grief. He could still remember tumbling headlong into that darkness inside her. He could still feel the blast of fury that ignited from that blazing sigil. It had been branded into him, become calloused into his bones.

He knew his silence in that moment had hurt Nyx. She likely mistook his reticence as anger, but it was not that.

Daal stared toward the hold where Nyx had vanished.

She scares me.

Yet it was not the force of her power, or the depth of her passion, that he feared. He knew Nyx was not solely to blame for what had happened. It had not been bridling that drove him onward, to cross over that threshold with her.

I had wanted it as much as she did.

His gaze lingered on the door into the ship’s hold. He pictured Nyx’s eyes glowing in the dark, the warmth of her lips, giving himself fully to her.

It had taken him these past months to accept a harder truth.

I would do it all again.

And that terrified him most of all.