Page 92 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Thirty-Two

We flew into the twilight as the sky darkened more and more. We headed toward a band of milky stars spread across the sky like flecks of paint splattered across a midnight blue canvas.

The sea was visible faintly as a dark, flat expanse beyond the ever-present mountains that edged the Twilight Gap. The rocky peaks disappeared only once as we flew north. They narrowed and lowered, ocean spreading out on either side before fading down to a point and disappearing into a snowy plain.

The sea was wild with huge white cap waves marching toward a frozen strip of land that couldn't have been more than a mile wide in some places.

Io told me the place where the sea met the Gap was called Breaker's Bay. Any ship that attempted to land there was broken apart on the underwater portions of the unnamed mountains. The massive mountain range didn’t end at all.

It continued running along the seafloor, creating those massive whitecaps.

The mountains returned quickly after the pass, no longer unnamed. The Iyridian Mountains rose gradually, spreading out into more long chains of jagged snow-capped peaks.

We followed the pass ever north until the land began to curve to the west.

“Wouldn’t it be quicker to fly straight north across the sea?” I asked.

“It would be, but dragons hate the sea. They will not willingly spend a great deal of time above it.”

“Does the water hurt them?” I asked, curious. The snow certainly never seemed to bother Veles.

“Not at all, and some dragons love swimming in fresh water. But they hate the ocean, and we don’t really know why—or whether it’s the salt or just the endless dark water.

It’s the only place in the world where they are not at the top of the food chain, though, so perhaps they fear the water less than the fearsome creatures who live in its depths. ”

The idea of a creature capable of scaring the enormous beast under us gave me chills. I thought of Vulcan’s kraken delaying the Black Fleet and realized I had no interest in sea travel of any kind.

Io’s arm around me tightened. He had his hand beneath the edge of my shirt, his fingers laid against the skin of my stomach. He curled them in response to my chill, and I laid my head back against him. It felt right to be with him, right to have hope finally that everything would come out right.

I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes, I saw the sky had darkened to full night. There were more stars than I had ever seen before. They were thrown across the sky, dense and bright. They lit the world around us with muted silver.

There were dark patches on the ground where lush, growing plants were interspersed with the endless white snow. They grew more and more numerous as we passed.

The temperature would be much warmer on the ground, I knew. Like in the mineral spring, the heat was created by the many volcanoes under Darkwatch. The lava that lay just under the surface, running through the kingdom, made the otherwise frozen land verdant and fertile.

The dark patches became widespread as the first of the aurora filled the sky. Deep purple grasses spread out under a wide swath of blue green—a band of diffuse light that streaked upward from the tops of the mountains.

We passed a tall peak, and I gasped as the full Iyridian Valley unfolded before Veles' dark head.

The sight took my breath away. A wide valley of deep purple grass and shadowy forests was spread out below towering snow-capped mountain ranges on either side.

A narrow, meandering river split the land in half. The water reflected the sky perfectly, so that all the colors were represented in a beautiful echo on the valley floor.

The entire landscape looked like a painting where the colors had been perfectly chosen to convey the beauty of the concept of night. It all lay beneath the most amazing sky that had surely ever been created—beautiful in a way that I had not been capable of imagining.

The stars strewn across the sky of Darkwatch must have been the same ones I’d seen my entire life.

There was the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone spinning the tapestry of fate.

There was the brightest of them all, the Dog Star and the Archer's flaming arrow with its halo of red pointed at the side of the King’s Royal Stag.

There was the Circle of Perses with its seven dancing sprites.

And of course, my favorite, Ashek's mighty blade held point down over the head of the Demon Queen.

But there were so many more—stars I had never seen before. They were vivid, multitudinous, and bright. They were every color from white to red and pale, ghostly green.

They seemed at once so distant one could not fathom such separation, and yet so near it seemed like I should be able to reach up and pluck one from the sky.

And they were scattered across a field of deep blue that was the exact match to their lord's dark eyes.

But the true wonder of the Darkwatch sky were those radiant auroras.

They were spread over the Iyridian Valley in vivid color—from deep purple to pale pink, bold greens, yellows, bright blues, and every discernible shade in between.

They stretched across the sky in great arcs and whorls or streamed out in long, straight swaths that raced across the sky from horizon to horizon.

The colorful lights pulsed and swayed overhead like a living creature in a dance to some music of the cosmos.

They bathed the kingdom in a muted brilliance, so that the world was never cast in shadow as I would have expected it to be. It was, instead, washed in the radiant colors of midnight.

Io tightened his arm around me again and I could almost feel his excitement.

I turned to look back at him, and the smile he gave me as he took in my features threw an ache of pure longing through my chest.

The green and gold of the aurora was reflected in his eyes. His skin and hair seemed to be made from the same night-kissed canvas, the colors becoming him and defining him as though that dimmed version of him from the other kingdom had been a lie.

I had never seen him look so open, so raw—so far away from his usual sardonic self.

This was his home—where his beating heart lay bare before me, and I struggled with the knot that formed in my throat at the idea that I could never be worthy of the honor he gifted me just by bringing me here.

If he was wrong about us being mates, he would pay for this. He would pay in blood, in family, in country, and then the choice would be my kingdom and all who lived there suffering under the yoke of the Shadowlands—or his life.

And dear gods, there was no choice for me at all. There never had been. I would see them all burn for him, for his happiness, for that look on his perfect face. The realization shamed me as it always had.

I closed my eyes as a tear rolled down my cheek. I turned away so that he would not see—so that he would believe I was still looking at the Iyridian Pass and the kingdom that unfolded before us.

But of course, he felt the tumult. I had no privacy in my mind when it came to intense emotions.

He leaned forward. "Trust me, Sera."

"Stop reading my mind," I shot back at him, feeling immediately guilty for the sharpness of my tone.

He only chuckled against my cheek. "I'm not doing it on purpose—not really."

I turned around and glared at him, but it didn't last long before my features softened. I leaned against him again as the cool wind he let through the shield dried my tears.

"I'll try," he said. "To not feel what you're feeling. I've been working on shielding against it."

"Thank you," I said, laying my arm across his.

Something caught my attention to the right. Eroa. I hadn’t seen her much since we left Aben and Britaxia. She had been soaring ahead of us, flying much faster than Veles—taking advantage of her riderless state.

She fit in perfectly in Darkwatch. Her reflective scales picked up the colors around her, transforming her into a reflection of the aurora. I had to remind myself that this was as much her homecoming as it was Io's. She had been hatched here.

I turned to look forward again and shock rippled through me at the castle fortress in front of us.

Fortress, castle—those words did not do the Reach justice. It was monumental, colossal, enormous—an entire mountain in our path.

I knew Dragon's Reach was large, but I could never have put the size into the necessary perspective.

It stretched across the valley from one mountain to its twin peak on the other side of the expanse. The main edifice was supported by rows of massive stone pillars marching across the valley floor.

It was said that Dragon's Reach was itself a mountain. It had been carved out of the rock—every stone chipped away until the fortress was left behind.

I didn't know if that was true, but it was easy to believe it as I looked at the enormous pale-gray stone castle with its thousands of towers topped by tall spires reaching into the heavens. "Fates, Io, that is enormous. That cannot actually be your home!"

"Our home," he corrected with pride in his voice.

"Of course," I said, feeling that familiar ache at how much I wanted it to be true.

"Stop it, Sera," he chastised.

"You stop it! You said you would not—"

"I said I would try. I am trying."

My attention was drawn by a roar in the distance. It echoed off the mountains, deep and primal.

Veles' answering roar vibrated through his body, sending shock waves through the air as the sound ripped the peaceful, silent valley in two.

A silvery gray dragon soared out from the fortress, heading in our direction with terrifying speed.

I tensed, but Io leaned down to my ear. "That's his mate, Freya."

"His mate?"

"They are soul-bonded—just as people bond with their mates. Freya's rider lives in Antiope, but Freya lives in Dragon's Reach because there is no world in which they could bear to be parted for long."

The silvery dragon had reached us. She wheeled around coming up alongside, and the pair roared at each other again.