Page 113 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

And then warm air ruffled my hair, and something enormous bumped against my head.

The green dragon had returned. I was preparing myself to be eaten, swallowed whole in one bite, when the low, rumbling sound of...pity made me open my eyes.

Freya's soft golden ones peered down at me.

"Hello," I said, wonderingly. I reached out to stroke the side of her face.

She made a rumbling sound that rolled through her whole body as she moved, sliding along the ground, lowering herself until the straps of her black leather saddle settled right in front of my eyes.

"Thank you, Freya. I should have known you would understand."

As Veles' soul-bonded mate, she would know what I was giving up to protect him.

I climbed onto her back, strapping myself in just as Io had always done. I felt no small amount of terror to be without the reassuring presence he had always provided at my back.

The ache of that longing for him chased away most of my anxiety.

The pain angled up my chest, sticking in my throat with a crushing weight as my mind wrapped around the knowledge that the broad chest that had always been at my back would never be there again—behind me, in front of me, or beneath my fingertips.

I bit my own lip to stifle that sob, feeling blood trickle down my chin.

I needed to get a hold of myself, or I would arrive in Orin with more than a cracked knuckle and a busted lip.

I wiped the blood away on my shoulder as I held on to the straps around Freya's body—for dear life.

She began to move, climbing up and out of the cavern. My heart was in my throat as she leapt smoothly off the mountain, her wings filling with air as she lifted us.

The Mountain Palace and the Reach passed beneath as Freya soared. I adjusted my grip and held more tightly to the straps as the icy wind cut through me like knives, sneaking in through the neck of my coat and setting my teeth to chattering.

The great silver-gray wings stretched out, the almost translucent skin catching the air with a whoosh and billowing out like sails as Freya rode the currents higher and higher into the sky—heading north.

The pale streak of Eroa’s reflective scales appeared on my right keeping pace with us. I knew she would come from wherever she had been. Even if I couldn’t sense her, she always seemed to know where I was.

The wind whipped my hair, making my eyes water. I turned to catch one last look at the mountains, the Reach, and everything I left behind.

I tried to commit to memory the sight of the valley between the tall peaks. It was so beautiful with its wash of colors under that dancing sky.

My memory would never do the Iyridian Valley justice, and in far too little time, it all fell away behind me—lost to all but my tortured remembrance.

I flew through the silent and unending world ahead—sure that I would never take another full breath again after what I had lost—what I had thrown away with those lies I laid down on that parchment.

I left everything behind me in the ashes of betrayal. He would never forgive me for leaving as he slept.

He would wake to find me gone...and I couldn't think of that. Not yet.

I had a duty to fulfill. A destiny that did not consider the broken heart of a mostly human girl when weighed against the crown that sat so heavy on her head. Or the man who was more important than all of it.

The world was much bigger than this aching, destructive hole in my chest. Somehow, I knew it was even bigger than the dragon mage I left behind me, who had so thoroughly entrenched himself inside my heart that only death would ease the pain.

There was work to do—an entire world to save from an enemy whose evil was beyond comprehension. And it all rested on the knife-sharp edge of the alliance for my worthless, reckless, stupid, little fucking hand.

I could sacrifice my happiness for the people—surely I could.

Liar, that hateful voice inside me screamed.

And I knew that voice spoke the truth, because I was not good. I was not benevolent. I could never have sacrificed him—even as the world burned around me and collapsed into shadows.

I had never been able to walk away—never been able to truly consider it...not until those tears had fallen onto my skin, and the sacrifice became his heart, his life, his family, his kingdom. Not until I realized that I had to do it because he could not.

Guilt and shame burned through me even as the thoughts soothed some part of me that would never be able to live with what I had done.

I walked away for him—so that he would never have the anguish of facing his brother on a battlefield; never have to force his cousin to choose between the king he served and his brother in Darkwatch.

But mostly, I walked away so that he would not die a bloody, pointless death on the fields of Windemere—in a fight he could not win for a queen who did not deserve the honor of his service.

If I left, he would heal. Even if it took him a hundred years. He had that much time and more. He would find his mate, and the bond would push me from his mind as thoroughly as if I had never been. He would heal because he would be alive to do it.

I knew I never would. I did not have quite so much time as that—and had no interest in ever removing that shattered, jagged piece of me left behind where I tore him free from my soul. It would be the only thing I had to remind me of what had been between us.

Freya flew towards that faint brightening in the sky, where I knew the day would dawn soon enough. The rest of the world lay beyond that sunrise, but I knew I left most of myself under the star-strewn night skies of Darkwatch.