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“And would you bid your son farewell?” Rath gestured to Asha, and she gave him a lingering and cold glance that belied all the softness he’d ever expected from her.

“If I did, it’d only be to appease my own conscience. But if it would please you— Goodbye, Asha. Despite all, you were my favorite.” And she stepped away with a guard at her side, chin held high to gather her things, as they proclaimed, as she readied herself to take the fortune and leave.

“Please, mount Heckle and make yourself comfortable, my prince.” Rath’s words brushed against Asha’s ears like silk and gently trailing fingertips. “Are there any servants you wish to bring with you as company?”

“Not anymore. They hanged her this morning.” Asha cast his gaze downward and climbed atop the snowy wyvern and settled onto the saddle.

He never thought he’d be grateful to be in the company of a dragon, nor in servitude to one.

How casually his mother handed him over and the earl, so eager for gold.

He’d rather have never known what she was to him, for she abandoned all her children as easily, and the kind facade she’d put on for him at times.

A pair of socks or two a year and a copper on the eve of saints meant nothing to him.

At least the earl gave him silver, metal that bit and seared his skin, burning for days after. The bits still rattled in his pocket.

Rath sidled up to Heckle, patting the beast like an old friend, the cold in his eyes warming for a fraction of a second as he treated his beast to a fond gesture then stared up at Asha. “Do you know how to ride, Asha?”

The way he said Asha’s name made him shiver, and gooseflesh rise along his skin. “I can ride a horse, but never have I been allowed near a wyvern, Your Majesty.”

Wincing, Rath shook his head. “Rath, my prince.”

Asha had nothing to say in response, fearful of what the dragon may do to him taking such liberties.

For yet he still knew what Asha was good for, to him.

Monsmountian men were tall and sturdily built, while Asha, in comparison, was a svelte and lean man.

He was not scraggly as a new hen but rather cocksure and toned in the way a good groundskeeper was.

But even as toned from labor as Asha was, Rath was larger, taller by half a head, not including his horns, and had eyes so deep that he lost himself for a moment, gasping as Rath sprang up and onto his mount, pushing in behind Asha, reminding him of how he was every bit as solid as he appeared.

Powerful arms wrapped around Asha’s waist and heat like flames burned his cheeks, his cock twitching traitorously. He willed it away.

“It’ll be a cold ride. Do you have a coat?” Rath whispered over Asha’s shoulder.

Asha shook his head. “My friend took it to mend.”

“Is it the friend that the earl did away with?” Rath ran a deceptively soft hand over Asha’s arm and hand.

No words were fit for the moment, nothing he could say would equal his pain, and he fought a tear as he nodded.

“I can’t do much at the moment with prying eyes, diplomacy and all that, but I can cost him his wife, embarrass him.”

“Thank you,” Asha whispered, despite the bitterness he should have held for the dragons, the dragons that wouldn’t interfere with the war that he cared very little about, all of a sudden.

The only person that mattered in the whole kingdom met her end alone on a rope, and Asha could do nothing about it but fight off a single choking sob.

“Do you wish to see her grave? To say goodbye?”

Asha shook his head. “I don’t wish to witness the disrespect they pay her resting place.”

“You!” Rath pointed to the earl who glared at him with venomous ire.

“I cannot tell you how you run your keep. But I can make a demand. This is the Tippin valley, known for its whitestone fit for kings’ graves.

I will send an ombudsman in the spring, and I expect there to be a headstone fit for a noble on his companion’s grave.

” Rath stroked over Asha’s hand with an almost-loving gesture, a greater kindness than many had ever paid him.

“But she was only—” the earl attempted to argue but silenced at Rath’s raised hand.

“What would you wish it to say, Ashen one?” Rath’s low tones brought a soft peace to Asha.

“‘Beloved friend and keeper of the best gossip.’” Asha barely formed the words before Rath echoed them to the earl.

“Anything you wish to say?”

“I want to know who snitched.” Asha glanced among the girls that had bullied and shoved Lyss around for so long. Lyss may have lost the war, but every battle before, she walked free a victor.

“Adrianna,” the earl supplied helpfully.

Asha turned his miserable gaze to her and laughed.

“I’ll never tell you where Lyss hid your pearl comb, but rest assured, you never had a chance of being courted by me.

I find you repulsive.” He turned his head away from her fury and tensed in wait for a rebuttal, anything, but the barest shake of Rath’s chest hid a gentle chuckle.

His breath, scented of cloves, tickled Asha’s nose.

“We ride!” Rath raised a hand and wrapped his arms around Asha’s chest before taking the reins.

Asha didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t the sudden exhilarating rush, the pull of the earth’s magnetism to his stomach, or the sharp wind that whipped his hair about.

Heckle’s forearms, winged and powerful, clawed air beneath them, working to gain height.

With a soft gasp of wonder, Asha’s lungs filled with thin air and the warmth at his back, solid and reassuring all the way down.

“Are you not afraid of heights?” Rath choked up on the reins and wrapped his other arm more securely to Asha’s waist.

“Never have been.” Filled with misery, Asha couldn’t bring himself to laugh, but his spirit wondered at the new sights. “As a boy, I’d climb to the mines and scale the cliffs to see the world. My nursemaid had to fight to keep me out of the belfry.”

“You were made for sky.” Rath moved against him, adjusting in his seat as he pushed into the stirrups and jerked the reins to level Heckle’s flight path out.

The beast responded to Rath’s every whim, and when they leveled out and Rath seated, positioning Asha flush to him once more, a frightening hardness pressed into Asha’s back.

“Your Ma—” Asha paused. “Rath?”

“What is it, Ashen one?” Rath leaned in so as not to shout.

“Why me?”

“I’d ask you not to worry about it, to only enjoy yourself for now, but you’re a curious sort. Suffice it to say that we share a bond, you and me. Our minds spoke while you slept, recovering from the lashing and your ear…”

The words in Asha’s dreams, the soft-spoken warmth that comforted him… Rath . Distracted by Rath’s admission, Asha barely noticed him rearranging the reins to brush his stitched ear.

Asha focused on the cold air and the whipping wind, doing his best to not think of the dragon or his firm body or the maddening arousal he felt.

Dragons were impetuous creatures, self-righteous and pitiable gods that wanted the world to suffer beneath them.

They weren’t deities of lust or creatures of passion.

They lived thousands of years and had the demeanor of those that thought themselves too good to interfere in the squabbles of peasants.

But for every reason he wanted to dislike the man whose heat pressed into his back, making his shoulder blades tingle down his spine, another question replaced it.

For all the lies he’d been fed… His anger stemmed from poverty, abuse, and blame settled on dragons for the mother he never had, the mother that took one look at tarnished gold and turned her back on all of her children.

“I feel your struggle. Speak to me.” Rath’s hand spread as it tightened around his midsection, every hair’s breadth of touch making the thoughts slosh from Asha’s head like liquor’s stupor.

“I fear my questions may be discourteous and presumptive. You are a king, so I must bite my tongue.”

Rath’s grip slid, snakelike and firm, constricting as his nose touched Asha’s ear. “The only one that need bite your tongue is I. Speak openly, friend. You are companion, not servant.”

Asha attempted to respond, his lips forming a word, but all that escaped his mouth were the stifled remnants of a tender moan that left his cheeks burning hot even in the chapping cold breeze.

“Why have the dragons not aided Monsmount? Why do we suffer when you have plenty?”

Rath’s grip slackened and his lips pulled away.

“I forget myself and what you’ve been through, Ashen one.

Suffice it to say that there are many factors in war, and this is not a fight of the people but rather the wealthy bickering with your bodies.

Every coin put into this war results in more dead, and it will not be I that contributes.

We will help rebuild when the war has ended, but even my father before me showed me the ills of trade and the power of gold even long after ruined it. What would you have me do?”

“Stop people from dying needlessly, end the war?” As Asha said it, he realized the monumental weight of what he wanted.

“Easier said than done. It saddens me as well. My mother is Ramolian, and they too wanted us to intervene. It’s hard to pour our money into one side or the other knowing it will go to kill more people, fighting wars for the wealthy to grow wealthier.”

Asha stared down at the saddle, his hands, the pearlescent scales of Heckle’s mount. “But you could stop it. Attack those causing it—”

“And they’d take it as an attack to the country from the other and the dragons would be at war, too.

We do what we can by exporting from the poorest areas and trading things beside gold.

Fur for wheat—glass and salt for ore and coal.

Things the armies can’t take away that fast. Things others cannot hoard. ”

Asha furrowed his brow deeply, his breath heaving. “So, the Saurians didn’t attack an enclave bringing grain to the capital?”

“Nope. A Monsmount merchants’ guild wanted control of a port bordering the two countries and diverted the shipment and blamed it on Ramolian pirates.

They refused Monsmount ships to port as a result and increased the duty fees drastically, and sailors drowned trying to swim to shore because the ships couldn’t dock.

It was chance it or starve to death. They’ve been at war for years, and I think you’re clever enough to know who has profited from this war? ”

“Iron and steel. Lead and chain mail. Those dealing preserved goods?”

“And the merchants go through towns seizing the materials in the king’s name and selling them back to the crown for what little gold is in the coffers, and I’ll bet a cask of gold that the only reason they’ve not raided the Tippin valley is that they lack the labor to cart off the stone.

” Rath huffed, and the bitterness in his chest had a ring of truth.

“For the whitestone… L—Lyss… Thank you. She’d be thrilled to know she was marked with whitestone like a noble.”

“And if the earl doesn’t do it, I’ll spirit away all of his maidservants in the night to leave his bed cold and house untended.” Rath chuckled darkly. “Given a few coins, they could start a new life elsewhere so easily.”

“Given a few silver, they could. I’ve my life’s savings in my pocket.” Asha patted the bulge of silver and scoffed.