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34

Reyla

I dove to the side, rolling to come up near the mesh keeping the beast from escaping out into the enormous valley below.

“Now, now, stop that,” a soft female voice chided from inside the stall. “No need to scorch the inside of your gate.” I couldn’t see her, not with the glaring beast between her and me.

The gorgeous, gleaming, burnished red dragon stomped into the middle of the pen and stopped while the stable hand moved along with it, revealing herself placidly grooming at its side. Sunlight filtering through the high, open windows played across its scales in a deep crimson glow, as if molten fire pulsed beneath its hide. Each scale was perfectly polished, overlapping like intricate, armored tiles designed for beauty and battle alike. Its massive chest rose and fell with low, rumbling breaths, and steam huffed from its nostrils with every exhale. The smoke curled upward, a warning to anyone daring to test it.

Like me.

Molten-gold eyes gleamed like twin suns, the slitted pupils contracting as its eyes flicked between me and the stable hand. It stretched its mouth wide. Smoke spiraled from its maw, curling lazily past ivory teeth that looked sharp enough to shred steel. Its tail swished behind it, thick and muscled, ending in a sharp ridge that dragged across the sand, leaving jagged grooves. The tip twitched, a predator’s signal that it could snap like a whip if provoked.

The stable hand shifted her hips, humming under her breath, seemingly unaware I was near.

As I eased toward the gate, the beast’s gaze flicked in my direction, tracking me.

This was the wrong dragon to steal if I was going to escape.

Frustration boiled under my skin. I couldn’t afford a delay, not with the residents of the city screaming in pain, dying with every second I wasted here.

I grabbed onto the latch. My lungs squeezed, and my breathing came out too shallow.

The woman dressed in dark leather much like my own paused, her hand holding the brush still resting on the dragon's right front leg. She wore her medium blonde hair in a long braid down her back, and she looked about my age. Twenty-six or seven or so. Pretty, though that didn’t matter.

Her head snapped around, and she pinned me in place with her gaze, her eyes sliding from my face to the saddle in my hands.

“You can’t be inside this pen. Go.” She flicked her hand my way. “He nearly burned you. I assume it was you he was trying to swat away.”

“Swat? We call that frying where I come from.” I squeezed the leather strap on the saddle until my knuckles ached. “I’m going to ride that dragon.”

“No, you’re not.” With a roll of her eyes, she strolled toward me, her hand holding the brush dropping to her side. “Nice outfit. Pretty blades you’re wearing too.”

“I know how to use them,” I growled in warning.

“Stab me then.” She turned back to the dragon and strode to the left side where she started grooming again. The dragon curled its massive head around to nudge her side before glancing my way and huffing sparks. They flickered across my leather clothing before snuffing out on the sandy floor. “I’m still not going to let you ride him.”

“I need him to take me to the city.” It was more plea than a command, and the desperation of it tasted bitter on my tongue.

“The one under attack by the borgons, you mean,” she said.

“Why aren’t you there already, helping fight them off?” My face flamed as the words scraped my throat like shards. She was wasting time with brushes and scale oil while people died.

“I’m no soldier, and this dragon is old. He’s not trained for battle.”

Her calm tone spiked through me. My chest clenched, tightening around an ache that wouldn't let up. “I need this dragon.”

“You can't have him. I suggest if you’re that eager to die, you hurry to town on foot.”

“It would take too long to get there. I have to help them now.” The words ripped out. My heart thumped against my ribs, each beat reminding me that time was slipping away.

“Not with this dragon.” The infernal woman kept casually gliding the brush across the dragon’s scales while he wiggled his spine, clearly enjoying her touch. His contented rumble grated in my ears.

My throat burned. “Please? ”

I hated the word. I hated needing to beg for help anyone should be eager to give.

I could demand she let me use this magnificent beast. It belonged to the court, which meant it basically belonged to me, but that didn’t feel right. I would not act like Erisandra or some of the high lords and ladies in my court.

She sighed, her hand pausing on the dragon’s scales. “You don’t even know how to ride this dragon.”

“I grew up in a border fortress, training beasts like this.”

Her lips twisted as her gaze fell on the saddle I still held. “If you did, you’d have a bridle with you as well.”

The jab should’ve bounced off me, but it didn’t. “I use foot commands.”

“Which this dragon doesn’t understand.”

My teeth scraped together, my jaw bone spasming from the pressure. Each second wasted could mean one more life lost. Hundreds. I couldn’t stand it. They needed me, needed my strength and my blade.

Her gaze pierced me where I stood by the gate, fretting. “You’re the queen, aren’t you?”

The question made my heart stutter. “No crown,” I snapped, shifting the saddle on my shoulder.

“I could say I see your status in your bearing,” she said, wryness edging through her tone. “Or that I recognize you from the coronation.” Her gaze shifted to the dragon before returning to my face. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what in particular?” I’d done many things, some good, a few bad. Lord Zeiger could attest to the latter.

My pulse hammered against my ribs. Not far from here, people were screaming, fighting, dying. Inside this isolated aerie, a trainer chattered as if this was a normal day.

“Why did you give your ladies high status?” Her brows rose like she was curious, yet her hands kept working, adding to my frustration until I had to clench my free hand into a fist to hold back my shouts. “You put them above those they grew up with, those with status they’d held all their lives.”

“I want to do away with all that, but I need to take tiny steps, or I’ll disrupt the court.”

Her breath snorted out. “If any court needs disruption, it’s this one.”

“All of them, I imagine.”

“You’re probably right.” Her gaze lingered on me, peeling back layers to expose areas I didn’t want her to see, as if what was happening in the city wasn’t already slicing me open from the inside. “I heard you’re high born but that you’re not like any other.”

“I’m not special.” I dropped the saddle onto the sand with more force than was necessary and started toward the front of the dragon. “I grew up thinking I was an orphan.”

“Instead, you were miraculously revealed to be a high lady.”

I shrugged. “I’ve always been a dragon trainer from a border fortress. Nothing else.”

“A dragon trainer who married our king.”

“To solidify a treaty,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Why marry someone you’ve never met?”

I wanted to snap at her to get out of my way or threaten her until she backed off and let me steal the dragon from the aerie, not stand around chatting about my motivations. But she was a citizen of this court the same as me. And I couldn’t bring myself to brush off a fellow trainer.

The dragon coiled his head around and our gazes met.

I reached up to scratch him between the eyes, the place that pretty much made dragons roll over and thrust their feet into the air when you did it right .

“You do know dragons,” she said. “I’m Kian, by the way.”

“Reyla.”

“ Queen Reyla.”

I shrugged. “That came with the marriage.”

“There are few who’d say no to the king.”

“Then why didn’t he marry someone from here?”

“The curse kept them away.”

Before I could snap out a question, she stared blankly at the dragon’s side. A shiver went through her, and she shook her head and began grooming again.

I wanted to growl. Start flinging my blades at a door. But my need to get to the city overrode every other desire.

“I ran away,” I blurted out before I could shove the words down my throat. My free hand curled into a fist, my nails biting into my palm. “I thought if I ran far enough away from where the man I loved died, I’d be able to forget.”

“Have you?”

“No.” The word came out flat. I kept scratching the dragon while he wiggled like Farris when I rubbed his tummy. “You can’t run far enough away to escape something like that.”

Her hand stopped mid-brush, and the scrutiny of her deep blue eyes nearly impaled me. Clever. No blades, but there’d be no need to teach the aerie staff how to battle, right?

Her attention was unbearable, but I couldn’t stop the spill of words from my mouth.

“I didn’t care where I ended up,” I said. “Honestly, I didn’t think anyone would ever matter to me again, not even myself.” My voice cracked, but I forced steel into it. “But…”

“But?”

I scratched the dragon between the eyes a little harder, finding distraction in the slow sway of his head as he leaned into my touch .

Kian handed me a bottle of claw oil and a cloth, and I eased to the side and tapped the dragon’s leg. He obediently lifted it for me to apply the oil. I rubbed hard, working it in.

“The king’s special,” I said.

She paused, watching as I dropped the dragon’s leg and carried the bottle and cloth to work on another. “He’s gorgeous.”

Her response caught me off guard, and I let out a snort that startled even me. My tension didn't ebb, but the brief smile I cracked felt genuine. “He's that, too, and by the fates, doesn’t he know it.”

Her smile curled up. “I hope he’s not too arrogant.”

“He’s a nice balance.”

She nodded and moved to groom the dragon’s flank nearby. “If you want to keep him, you’ll have to break the curse,” she said, her hand freezing on the dragon’s side.

Like a slap, her words stilled everything.

I sucked in a breath. “Tell me about the curse. Everything!”

When she stared forward blankly again like everyone else had, my blood chilled. I grumbled and stomped around her to work on another hoof.

“There are layers,” she whispered, her focus drifting toward the dragon lazily exhaling plumes of smoke onto the sand. “Break the first if you can, but then you'll need to find…” Her face tightened. I froze, holding my breath. “Find them all. The final one will be the toughest. And while you’re doing it, you’ll need to watch out for…”

New information. It was trickling out so slowly, his birthday would arrive before I learned it all. How could I save him before the time ran out? My throat felt like it was full of splinters, and the ache in my chest stretched tighter.

Her behavior was new. When I’d questioned the others, they paused and then didn’t remember saying anything. Was the spell unwinding or were these moments of clarity tiny windows that opened only to slam shut before the most important details could escape?

Kian shivered again and continued grooming.

I tapped the dragon’s left shin, and he lifted it for me to work on his claws.

Silence echoed within the pen for long enough I suspected she’d revealed all she could force through the curse.

“How would you like to go flying, my pretty friend?” I crooned to the dragon, borrowing more sweetness from my friend, Tempest. “I don’t know how to bond with you, and I don’t believe I’d try even if I could recite the phrasing, but ride a dragon, I can do. And that’s what you are.”

He looked down at me with smoke coiling from his nostrils. His molten eyes swirled like embers poised to erupt into flames. If I didn’t take care, he’d kill me with one blast of fire, but this was a tame dragon. A well-tended creature too. The sand was clean underfoot and feed awaited his hunger in the trough.

A mesh strung across the opening in the back kept him penned, but I knew how to release it.

“I like you despite you being the queen,” Kian said.

“Thanks?”

“But I still won’t let you take him. However, I’ll fly you to the city and leave you. Would that be enough?”

“Thank you.” My voice came out hoarse, cracking under the weight of everything I couldn’t say.

“I like what you’re doing here at Evergorne Court. And I’d like you to keep doing it. It’s past time things changed here for the better of us all.”

Hopefully, I’d live long enough to see it happen.

I saddled the dragon while she secured his bridle. It took only a second to release the mesh and scramble up onto his back .

“You could stay here where it’s safe,” she said from behind me as she shifted the reins, urging the dragon toward the opening.

“And leave others to fight this battle for me?”

“Other queens would.”

“Not me.” Never me.

“And that’s why I’m helping you.”

At her command, the dragon leaped, and his wings snapped out to catch air. He spiraled down toward the ground but leveled, coasting over the forest and slowly turning to the right.

Ahead, the city smoked, and the wind caught their screams, slamming them into my face.

“I’m not heartless, you know,” Kian said. “But I’m just a stable hand working in an aerie almost no one ever visits. I don’t even own a dagger, let alone know how to use one. You’re lucky. At least you have the means and the know-how to defend yourself.”

“Can you do magic?”

“I’m lesser.” Her gaze slid from mine. “Lessers can’t do much magic, now can they?”

“You tell me.”

One eyebrow lifted. “I’m lesser. Just said that.” She guided the dragon closer, and the sight stabbed through my bones.

“If I make it out of here alive, I’ll come to the aerie and show you what I know, both with magic and a blade,” I said. “It takes time and lots of practice but maybe then you won’t feel defenseless.”

“You’re the queen. You won’t remember my name, and you certainly won’t remember to stop by the aerie to teach me anything.”

I could tell her all day long that I was different, but why would she believe me? I had no problem showing her she was wrong about me. If nothing else, I kept my word. “In between, get a nicely balanced pair of small blades and start throwing them at the back of a door.”

“Why a door?”

“Make a target and keep throwing them until you can hit it squarely.”

“I suppose I could do that.”

“Over there.” I pointed to the harbor that looked relatively quiet from here. I could make my way into the market area, where it appeared most of the battle was taking place. I suspected I’d find Merrick there.

The harbor gleamed like a patch of spilled ink, the water calm, a stark contrast to the madness spreading through the streets.

“They’re huge,” I hissed when I caught sight of the borgons lumbering through the city.

“I’d never seen one before myself.” Fear trembled through Kian’s voice. “They’re enormous.”

“Scales,” I whispered, the wind catching the word and stealing it from me. “They have scales.”

“I only see fur.”

Interesting.

Borgons swarmed the narrow alleys, moving as a writhing, fluid mass. The creatures were grotesque, their shadow-black scales glinting in the sunlight, their bodies a terrifying mix of sinew and claws. Some moved on all fours, racing around carts and through stalls with inhuman speed, sending everything scattering. Their tails lashed out, smacking into buildings and people alike.

Long, jagged fangs gleamed on their arm-length jaws. One bite would easily kill, and a gulp might swallow a person whole.

Kian coasted the dragon lower, angling the beast toward the harbor. “I wish I could help.” The pain in her voice wrenched through me. “I should’ve made someone teach me how to use a blade. How to command power.”

“It hurts to see our city this way.”

Buildings that once showed off their bright paints were now smudged with soot from fires that blazed unchecked. Some of the buildings had crumbled entirely, their wooden beams splintered, their walls collapsed into rubble. Crimson streaked the cobblestones. Whether it was blood from my people or the borgons, I didn’t know.

A woman dashed out of a shop clutching a child, her eyes wide with terror. She barely had time to scream before a borgon lunged, swiping its tail out to knock her sideways. She hit a wall and crumpled to her knees, shielding the child with her own body. I clenched my legs against the dragon's shoulders, my heart kicking hard against my ribs.

“Drop me here,” I shouted over the roar of the wind and the steady beat of the dragon’s wings.

Kian stilled behind me. “Are you insane? That thing will rip you to shreds before you can draw a blade.”

What did she think I’d planned to do here, shop at the market?

“They’re tearing my people apart.” I twisted in the saddle, meeting her gaze with a glare hard enough to rival the stone beneath us. “Get lower, or I’ll jump from here.”

She cursed but urged the dragon into a swift descent. He spiraled once before he tipped his chest up, his talons scraping across cobblestones, his flapping wings stirring plumes of dirt and smoke into the air.

I swung my leg over and leaped off his side, my boots striking the ground hard. I glanced back to see Kian urging the dragon to take flight again.

“Don’t…” She shook her head. “The fates protect you!”

The dragon let out a low growl, a rumbling warning that carried in the heavy, acrid air, and blasted flames at a borgon stretching its claws toward the dragon’s belly.

Kian didn’t fly far, hovering the dragon above me like she might swoop back to rescue me if I somehow survived.

The woman screamed, clutching the child to her chest, while the borgon let out a guttural snarl, a sound that crawled under my skin and twisted. Its body, hunched and covered in scales that gleamed like oiled obsidian, shifted closer to the woman. Each step sent cracks through the cobblestones beneath its clawed feet. Muscles rippled under its hide, its veins bulging like cords stretched too tightly. Its jaw, elongated and filled with jagged teeth, dripped with thick saliva. Its slit-pupil eyes locked onto the woman. It paused, looming over her, and cocked its head, a predator savoring the final moment before the kill.

The woman pressed herself back, her arms spread as far as they could go, shielding the trembling child huddled behind her against the scorched wall. The woman wasn't screaming. Her mouth was set in grim determination, though I could see the panic cutting lines into her face. Her eyes darted to mine for half a breath, a silent plea buried beneath layers of resignation. She thought she was going to die, but she wouldn’t go down without doing all she could to protect the child.

The borgon reared, its claws scraping the side of a building, and let loose a shriek that set my teeth on edge. My sword in hand, I surged forward, my boots pounding on the blood-speckled stone.

“Move,” I yelled as I launched myself between the woman and the beast, slashing out at the creature’s belly with my blade.

Its low growl vibrating through the air, and its stench hit me like a blow, clogged with scorched flesh and decay.

“Run. Hide.” My voice cut through the crackling of fires nearby and distant screams .

The woman slid out from behind me and clutching the child's arm, bolted, disappearing into a narrow alley.

The borgon lunged at me, its claws slashing downward. I twisted, my sword slamming into the hooked talons with a clang that reverberated up my arm. Sparks flew on impact. It struck again, forcing me to dance back a pace before it shoved its massive head toward me. One jagged claw snapped out, tearing a chunk from the building beside me as I darted to the side.

Its movements were brutish but fast, faster than it should’ve been for such a hulking thing. It lunged again, swiping wide, and I ducked low, slicing out at what passed for a foreleg. The blade bit into the tough flesh, but not deeply enough for my liking. Without giving it a chance to recover, I adjusted my grip and gouged toward its chest.

A roar burst from its throat, and it sprayed saliva across the front of my tunic. I jerked to my left to avoid the rest of the splatter. My heel slipped on blood-slick cobblestones, and I started to fall. The borgon lashed out, impacting my side hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs and fling me onto the street. My shoulder screamed as I tucked, rolling into a crouch and scrambling upright before it could finish its charge.

I arced my sword in a wide swing, catching it under its exposed jaw. It howled, a sound guttural enough to rattle my skull, but it dropped onto its front limbs, distracted by the pain. I surged forward before it could rise, switching my grip and slamming the blade downward with all the strength I had, aiming for the soft patch at the base of its skull.

The blade sank in with a sickening crunch, the vibration jarring up my arms. The borgon raked its hind legs, trying to twist itself away, but the weight of its head and the location of my strike worked against it .

One flail, two heavy gurgles, and it stilled on the cobblestones with a shudder.

I pulled the blade free, staggering a step back as blood pooled thick around the carcass. My breathing came hard and fast, but the sound of metal striking scales echoed from deeper within the city, catching my attention.

Turning in that direction, I ran.

I knew where I’d find Merrick—the place where the heat of battle burned hottest.

I would find him.

I would stand by his side.

And I would protect the people I loved.