Page 17

Chapter 17

Tahlia

C ertainly disconcerting? Tahlia marched across the courtyard and pushed through the great hall doors. The rest-time festivities were ongoing like something insane hadn’t just occurred. First off, what kind of phrase was that— certainly disconcerting ? She growled and rolled her eyes. Second, that kiss had been far more than disconcerting. It had been…heart-rending. The way his arms had felt around her, the honey and clove scent of him, the urgency of his hands, and how he’d looked at her like she was the center of his world…

But Ophelia had spoken the truth, and now that the crystals had calmed and Tahlia could draw her mind away from that energy, she felt that truth. The kiss had been only a product of the breeding magic of the rose-hued crystals. It hadn’t been real. And it was good it wasn’t a true kiss. If the rumors were true, Marius was engaged. To Commander Gaius’s daughter, no less!

Tahlia rubbed her face and tried to forget the feel of his breath on her cheek and the press of his hard body against hers.

“Where in all the realms have you been?” Fara rushed up, wringing her hands. “After that announcement, I worried you’d run off with a stable hand.”

“Would have been a better choice, believe me.” Tahlia hurried toward the corridor that led to the baths. She had to clear her head and wash all of that distraction off of her.

“What are you talking about?”

“We kissed,” Tahlia whispered as they turned a bend.

A colored-glass sconce flickered with fire on the wall beside them.

Fara made a sound that made Tahlia wonder if she was about to turn inside out. “You, you what?!”

“You heard me.” Tahlia took another turn and began to descend the steps to the lower levels of the keep.

Fara was on her heels. “The High Captain?”

“Shh!”

“Shh is right!” Fara grunted, gasped, and muttered a string of curses. “Does this mean that his engagement is off?”

“Hush, please. No, it doesn’t. The crystals were the reason.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Lady Ophelia saw us.”

“May monkeys fly from my?—”

Tahlia spun and clapped a hand over Fara’s mouth. She smiled to soften the attack. “Please, let this go. I shouldn’t have even told you. It was nothing.”

Fara’s eyebrow twitched. “Your look says it was definitely something,” she mumbled through Tahlia’s hand. “He’s going to kick you out, isn’t he?”

Rolling her eyes, Tahlia continued into the bathing chambers. They were delightfully empty. “No, he wouldn’t do that. He’s a good male. I mean, I think he is. That whip is somewhat concerning… But I’d say he is a very good person.”

“And you know that because you two are so close?”

“I am not in love with your tone.”

“I’m not in love with you risking that scary female’s wrath for a quick roll in the hay with the most dangerous male on the mountain!” Fara whisper-shouted.

“Please with every cake in all the realms and every cherry created in the entire universe on top, stop talking.”

Squeezing her eyes shut momentarily, Fara nodded. “Fine. But if anyone tries to hurt you, I’m going to…to rip their heads from their shoulders and kick them off the cliffs and?—”

“Fara.”

She swallowed and took a breath. Pinching her lips with thumb and forefinger, Fara acted as if she were turning a lock and key.

“Thank you,” Tahlia said quietly. “I don’t think beheading Mist Knights should ever be on the to-do list.”

Fara grumbled but kept her threats mostly silent.

The female competitor chamber was also empty and Tahlia was soon in the hot-spring-fed water, attempting to wash away the event. Fara kept quiet as she too washed up, but the looks she cast Tahlia were loaded with fears. Her friend saw too much.

The sky was a haze of sundown-hued mist. The Seabreak under Tahlia flew like she was swimming, her spine rolling as she maneuvered within the formation of their battle team.

“Don’t let him blaze me!” Ophelia shouted at Tahlia.

Ophelia was only on Tahlia’s side of the mock sky battle because the commander had drawn names in the arena before takeoff. Perhaps it was a stroke of luck instead of the catastrophe the dark side of Tahlia’s mind suggested. Ophelia was amazing on her Green-flanked Terror, all confidence, decisiveness, and smooth maneuvers. But the way she directed her dragon was not good, and Tahlia had bitten her tongue more than once already, wishing she could tell her to stop with the harsh treatment.

Ophelia hammered a fist into the Terror’s shoulder. She had on these spiked gloves that even a dragon such as hers would suffer from. At some point, Tahlia would have to figure out a way to get those things from her when they landed and toss them off the side of the mountain.

The Terror shrieked but obeyed the command, turning sharply among the red-tinged clouds to face their mock enemies flying toward them in the distance—Marius, Titus, and numbers three, four, six, and seven.

Tahlia and Ophelia’s team consisted of the rest of the competitors—one, two, eight, and nine. Ten and eleven had dropped out quietly after seeing their flying scores. It was surprising that four and his Spikeback had returned. Admirable, certainly.

“Remember,” Ophelia called out to their team with her Mistgold voice, “five goes in for short bursts of flame to break their formation.”

Tahlia leaned over her Seabreak’s cyan-colored neck, aiming her voice for the dragon’s ears. “You ready, darling?” The dragon shuffled its second set of wings. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?” The Seabreak lifted its snout in recognition.

“One and two,” Ophelia continued, the wind tearing at her blue-green plaits, “you herd the half on the right side lower down while eight and nine herd the other half to a higher altitude. Keep them busy until I can blast them each with a mock stream that would take them out in a true fight.”

They were permitted to use sparks or third fire, a lesser flame that would wound but not kill in most cases.

Ophelia’s bright blue gaze found Tahlia, and Tahlia felt the look like a jab to the throat.

She swallowed. “Aye, Captain!”

The rest echoed Tahlia’s call and they increased speed, heading toward Marius and his team.

Ophelia gripped her dragon’s sides with the gold and copper claw-shaped tips of her terrible gloves. That had to hurt. Why did she feel she needed to control the dragon like that? Weren’t they properly bonded?

Oh, they weren’t. That brought reason to all of Ophelia’s behaviors—the striking and clawing and extreme vicious tone in her commands. Ophelia was afraid. Did the High Captain know? Was her father, the commander, aware?

“Stop daydreaming and get to it, five!”

Ophelia’s harsh shout shook Tahlia from her thoughts and she urged the Seabreak into a flight path just slightly above Marius’s team.

Marius’s gaze was steely and unblinking as she flew over his head.

“Merchant’s purse with a goat!” Marius called out to his team.

What in all the realms did that mean?

Before his team could react to the command, Tahlia had her Seabreak shoot sparks at Titus and his Spikeback. Titus and his dragon veered away from the formation as the others on the opposing team began breaking into three groups with one rider falling back—it was number three, a male on another Seabreak.

Turning her dragon, Tahlia urged the Seabreak to rain sparks in Marius’s direction.

He moved like a lightning strike, uncoiling his whip and lashing it toward Tahlia. She gasped and drew back, and the Seabreak reared in the misty sky. The tip of the whip had been mere inches from Tahlia’s face before she’d moved. He either had perfect aim and was careful not to cut her, or he had missed.

She didn’t think the great Shadow of the Shrouded Mountains tended to miss a target. So she winked in thanks for his mercy before blasting him—third fire only, of course. His eyes widened briefly before he steered his scarlet Heartsworn out of the way, flying low to face members of Tahlia’s team. Sparks filled the fighting area and lit the misty clouds as Tahlia drove the Seabreak toward another male on another Spikeback. It was number six, not number four, thankfully. She would feel bad attacking four after his and his dragon’s injury, but if she had to attack eventually, well, the situation was what it was. This was hardly a happy picnic up here and the weak had to be culled from the group no matter how tough that was to swallow.

The attacked Spikeback roared and Tahlia’s Seabreak lunged for the other dragon’s throat.

“Mock battle!” Tahlia called to the Seabreak even as her heart thundered in her ears.

But the Seabreak didn’t listen. She bit down on the Spikeback’s throat and soon both dragons, and their riders, were tumbling through the fighting. Tahlia gripped the saddle with every ounce of strength she possessed. Sparks singed her exposed forearms and her cheeks. Her stomach rose into her throat as they spun over and over.

She had to stop this.

“Call her off!” number six yelled from the Spikeback’s saddle.

“Trying!”

But she knew she had to do more than shout commands. She slid off the saddle and used the Seabreak’s slender neck spikes to climb along the dragon’s neck, her legs wrapped around the beast as best as possible. They didn’t have as many spikes as a Spikeback, but they had enough for this terrifying job. The dragon jerked. Tahlia lost hold with one hand. She gasped and clasped tightly with her legs, getting another grip on the dragon’s spikes. Once she reached the pressure point in the dragon’s throat, she pressed her fist into the Seabreak’s softer underside scales.

The dragon shrieked and fell back and Tahlia’s legs lost their hold. She dangled off the rearing Seabreak, grasping tightly to the spikes.

“I’m sorry! I had to. You forgot it was a mock fight. Come on, love. Calm down!”

The wind tore at Tahlia’s limbs and stole her breath as the Seabreak launched itself above all of the others.

“I have treats if you let me live through this, darling! Cake! So much cake!”

A snarl pealed from the dragon’s mouth and she tipped herself to the right. Tahlia scrambled onto the saddle and righted herself. Panting, she grasped the lashing reins and managed to steer the Seabreak back to the sky battle.

“You are getting so much cake!”

Tears of relief and joy burned Tahlia’s eyes. This was living. She could never go back to simply cleaning tack and trailing Fae with better blood around the Shrouded Mountains. No, she was well and fully hooked on the life of a Mist Knight.

Number six waved a thanks, his face haggard with fear.

“Get in front of me, five!” Ophelia crowed from the back of her Green-flanked Terror. “We only have Titus and Marius to beat now!”

Her dragon roared and blasted Titus with a spray of third fire intermingled with at least a smattering of fourth fire. Ophelia was pushing the boundaries of the mock status of this fight.

Marius and his Heartsworn rose from a bank of thick clouds and blazed sparks at Ophelia and Tahlia. Tahlia urged her Seabreak to fly below Marius and then had the dragon whip its tail upward to smack the underside of the Heartsworn. Marius’s dragon let out a broken snarl. A flurry of movement blurred before Tahlia’s eyes and suddenly Marius and his dragon were flying alongside her and her Seabreak. Marius’s whip slithered through the space between them and wrapped its end around Tahlia’s wrist.

Her blood ran cold. Did she truly know him? Of course, she didn’t. Fara had been right. He could rip her from her seat and toss her to the earth in a moment.

Keeping her legs tight on the Seabreak, Tahlia used her free hand to grab the whip and she twined it around her saddle’s pommel.

“Dive!” she ordered her dragon.

The Seabreak dove like a falling star toward the arena, dragging Marius and his Heartsworn with them.

Marius released the whip, and the handle bounced along the wind currents to lob the Seabreak in the side. She snorted and Tahlia pulled the dragon out of the dive and urged her back toward Ophelia. Marius, without his whip, had his dragon surge after Tahlia and the chase was on.

Heartsworns and Seabreaks were the two fastest types of dragons, so they were matched there. Heartsworns could only blaze flame a few times a day, while Seabreaks could blow fire twice as often even if the flames weren’t as powerful.

Since she had far less experience with tactics, this was Tahlia and her dragon’s only advantage.

Surely, Marius’s mount was out of fire for the day. In the rules read before the mock battle, she’d learned that the riders had to mimic true abilities. Marius couldn’t have his dragon blaze them if the dragon would normally be out of fire for the day.

Tahlia tugged a rein and pressed her leg into the dragon, turning sharply in the bracing wind. She bumped the Seabreak’s shoulder five times and the dragon let loose a shower of sparks that just kept going.

Marius’s Heartsworn was forced to fall back and act as if he had been seriously injured.

Ophelia cheered from above as she flew beside an obviously defeated Titus and the rest of the competitors still airborne.

Marius flew downward, toward the arena, but he glanced at Tahlia over his shoulder. “You owe me a whip!” His voice was harsh, but the corners of his lips twitched as if he was fighting a grin.

She wanted to be hopeful, but had her loss of dragon control ended her dream of becoming a Mist Knight? Controlling one’s mount was the most important part of the job, and number six’s Spikeback bore the evidence of her failure in a nasty, ragged bite along the beast’s throat. Granted, the dragon was still flying and the wound wasn’t bleeding too much. But would that be enough to claim the loss of control wasn’t significant? Though Tahlia was a determined optimist, even she knew that was doubtful.

They landed and Commander Gaius stormed toward Tahlia.