Page 19

Artek

I held my breath as I listened to the activity behind us while I gently guided Nala and the sled down the path I always took toward Thunder Rock Village.

Khawla was silent on his sled, sunk back against the padding and supplies, exhausted and sore.

Nala was also quiet, but her face was wreathed in a happy smile that made my gut twist. Did that smile mean she was happy to be at my side, or happy she’d met the others?

The last thing I’d expected was for Zathar to show up on the dragon.

I wasn’t quite used to it yet, the easy way the people at Haven could come to me through the sky.

What was a several-day journey on foot took only a short hour on the back of the dragon.

I should have known they’d want to come see for themselves that Nala was happy where she was.

And now I couldn’t help but wonder: Was she?

Really? Or had I coerced her, pressed her too much with my lust for her, the mate bond that pulled so sharply at our senses and instincts?

The dragon took off with a loud flapping of his wings, the rush of air chasing us down the mountain.

He roared as he swooped overhead, and all three of us stared after him as he swung around and arrowed back to Ahoshaga Peak.

It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself: “Wouldn’t you have rather gone with them? ”

Nala’s pretty brown eyes went wide with surprise.

Then, abruptly, she shook her head. Relieved, I drew my claws through her silky, shoulder-length hair.

Then I kissed her—just a quick press of my mouth to hers.

“Good,” I said, but I wondered if I’d come to regret that, and my choice to take her and Khawla in the direction of the village.

It would also bring us closer to the crashed and damaged skyship.

How far had those Krektar creatures ranged?

Levant had been more focused on the prisoners and the ship; he hadn’t followed their patrols and hunting parties.

That new fear hummed in my mind as we traveled all day.

I set the pace slower than Khawla liked—and slower than I would have on my own.

The scout didn’t complain, though, sleeping a healing sleep most of the day and watching Nala or the skies above us with his good eye when he wasn’t.

He understood that we were only going as fast as I deemed right for my mate, and he wouldn’t be able to push me on that matter.

Nala was pregnant, and though healthy after stasis, she was not a hunter or athlete like the scout and I were.

It might not have been what I was considered by the other males, but as Shaman, it wasn’t as if my food dropped out of the sky, I had to provide for myself.

My mate kept up all day, eyes wide as she took in every new sight with avid curiosity.

I answered all her questions—and there were many.

That delighted me: that insatiable need for answers.

Her focus had mostly been on the plants and their properties, of which I knew a great deal.

We talked about animals too, but that was much more Khawla’s purview, and he was silent.

By the time dark began to fall, my mate was clearly flagging.

There were only a few hours left to Thunder Rock.

At a faster pace, we might have made it, but I would not push her.

Khawla roused enough to protest about making camp, but when I told him I’d heal him further with my device if he ate his rations, he shut up.

He knew he was in no shape right now; another round of healing might see him upright when we reached the village tomorrow.

I set up a small tent for Nala—just cured skins and wooden poles—but I made sure to roll out a still-functioning heated bedroll.

She protested about getting a tent all to herself, but the space was clearly not big enough to fit a fully grown Naga.

This tent had once belonged to a much younger me, and I’d found it by sheer luck this morning, surprised my mentor had kept it.

By morning, I wasn’t feeling any more rested than I had yesterday.

Healing Khawla had taken it out of me, and the desire to keep watch through the night had done the rest. But I was satisfied with my choice, for a herd of Arazal on their elegant legs had passed in the twilight hours of morning, stalked by a pair of hungry predators I’d heard but not seen.

Khawla was much fitter, though, alert, cantankerous, and full of anxious energy to get moving.

We were so close to the village that we could already smell their cooking fires on the air.

He urged Nala and me to greater speed as we packed up the tent and passed out breakfast. Then I double-checked the hidden storage panels along the side of the sled, and the ancient Naga weapons I’d stored in them.

I had been trained to use them all, a secret skill all Shamans were required to learn, like flying the remains of our once-mighty fleet.

But I did not want to have to resort to using them.

It was a just-in-case, should we run into the Krektar out here.

Nala was silent this morning as we walked, her cheeks pink from the cold, as was the tip of her dainty little nose.

I worried that she was tired, or that she was getting sick, but I didn’t want to smother her by fussing.

I had my own worries about our approach to the town as well.

How far out were the scouts? Were they still fighting?

Was Khawla strong enough to continue on his own?

When we reached a bluff that allowed us a view from beneath the trees, we naturally came to a halt.

Khawla sighed, relieved to see his home, while Nala drew in a surprised gasp and leaned forward, precariously, to the edge to get a good look.

I tried to see what she saw, my tail slipping around her middle to anchor her to the ground so she could not accidentally slip and fall.

My sigils began a soft glow as she curled her fingers against my coils with gentle pressure.

An acknowledgment of my hold, but nothing more than that.

The town was surrounded by tall, wooded walls and located at the edge of the woods, where the land turned into gently rolling hills.

In one direction, those hills stretched into the edges of the wetlands that were home to Copper Tooth; in the other, the hills seemed to go on forever.

Somewhere beyond those soft, purple hills lay the wreckage of the fallen sky ship that had brought my mate.

We couldn’t see the ship itself from here, but something odd and silver did mar a hill much closer to the town.

There were a handful of blue-scaled hunters next to it, either guarding it or investigating, but the town itself was still sleepy and quiet.

A handful of younglings sat in a circle at the village square to be taught their letters, while craftsmen were on the other side, plying their trade.

The pavilion was empty, bare of even the colorful curtains that had always draped it under the last Queen’s rule.

Their absence made it obvious no replacement had been decided on.

If Sazzie had wanted the role, she could have had it, but the female Naga had chosen a more peaceful life with her human mate at Haven.

A wise choice, if the sound of combat coming from beyond the walls was anything to go by.

The remaining females were still fighting over the empty title.

The straw roofs had all turned gray from the weather, and the wood had paled in the sun.

Some artistic hands had painted or carved images onto the peaks or the door frames, but otherwise, the village looked glum and dreary.

Smoke plumes rose from only a handful of the houses, and it made my stomach twist to see so many of them empty.

Hunters were out—that was normal—and with the crashed ship, a likely focus.

But how many females had killed themselves on the claws of another in an effort to claim the title of Queen?

Succession for one of the Clans had never been this murky before.

“It’s...quaint,” Nala said eventually, her breath fogging in the cold early winter air.

“It’s eye-opening to see a town like this after living in your home, Artek.

I read the facts, and still… it hadn’t sunk in until I saw this.

” She gestured with her hand at the town, and her pale fingers trembled before she hurriedly slipped them back into the sleeves of her coat. She was cold and trying to hide it.

I slipped closer, tugging her under my arm and against the shelter of my body, tail coiling to hold her legs and draping over her boot-clad toes.

“It is a very humble village, and it is distressingly quiet.” I turned my eyes to Khawla, ready to ask him if he would be able to make it downhill through the last stretch of woods to the village gates without us.

The male had risen on the sled, his one good eye locked onto the village square, where the younglings were visible.

He was practically vibrating with tension, but not oblivious to his surroundings, as one might assume.

I had neither seen nor heard anyone approach, but Kwahla did not even move his eyes from the village as he barked out a name.

“Reshar, you can come out now,” he drawled.

Then the underbrush to our left parted, and a male shimmering with azure scales rose, spear at the ready—a brother of Zathar and Sazzie, son of the late Queen.

I did not know him well enough to determine whether he had any ambitions.