Page 6 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame (Heir of Wyvara #1)
CHAPTER FIVE
AMEIRAH
R ed Manniston was everything I expected—a hulking kasbah ringed in golden walls, the city itself chiselled from the great face of the region’s biggest mountain. The flat roofs of the Red Star strained their necks, like children peeking over a garden wall, but only the solid shape of the watchtowers managed to successfully rise above the wall from this angle. Straining my neck, I glimpsed an intricately detailed minaret at the heart of the city, and a villa made of silver and gold stone carved directly into the mountain, the riad’s structure one of harsh angles, sweeping curves, and a dozen different connected wings. From a distance the villa looked unsettlingly like a sprawling giant who’d laid down to rest and never moved.
I’d underestimated the city’s beauty. I hadn’t expected the particles in the brick that glittered like diamonds in the fading sun, or the bright vermillion and lapis that flashed from rooftops and archways, or the golden domes that drew my eye, promising comfort and salvation within the mosque’s walls. If Varidian was truly horrible, I could escape him during prayer. That thought held me firm to Makrukh’s back as he soared over the city, even if I desperately wanted to flee now there was no turning back.
Red Manniston was twice the size of Strava, as intimidating as it was awe-inspiring, the city made up of thousands of buildings. I followed the levels of the city up to that riad on its very top, silver and golden and almost as big as the palace at Morysen. His father’s palace. I’d never seen a fortress-city before. I’d severely underestimated the size of them. I also hadn’t expected to see so many trees clinging to the mountain, pressing against the smooth, straight-walled homes that spread out from a central square, poking branches above the walls. If nothing else, the Red Star was beautiful.
“Welcome home,” Varidian said, his voice a few degrees warmer than when I cried.
Home. No matter how big or overwhelming the kasbah was, this was my home now. I would live and die inside these walls.
“That must be your home,” I said, pointing to that huge villa. A hundred windows were cut into the stone, glass shining in the dying light. I dreaded to think how many people must live there, to manage a building so large. I wasn’t in the mood to socialise; the thought of being unable to escape even in my own home was a sour one. In Strava I knew all the hiding places; here, I’d have nowhere to retreat to.
“Our home,” Varidian corrected, his hand unfurling from its fist on my stomach, palm pressing flat to my borrowed leather coat. “I know it’s new to you, and everything must seem strange and intimidating, but this is your home. The people who live here are your people, the buildings all yours, too.”
I scoffed. “Hardly. Female gentry can’t own a house, let alone a kasbah.”
“Would you make a bet to that end?” he asked. Something in his voice made me decline, even though he was clearly delusional. I heard his smile when he added, “You’re my wife, which makes every little thing that belongs to me also belong to you.”
It didn’t work that way, but if he wanted to give me a kasbah, I wouldn’t deny him. There was some strange magic at work every time Varidian opened his mouth. He set my worries at ease and softened the sharp edges of my fear that I’d be as hated and unwelcome here as I was at home. The Red Star became less scary than it had been moments ago. I found when I looked at it, that sense of adventure I’d felt staring at the Torn Isle rekindled until my belly fluttered with excitement. What new treasures and secret wonders could be found here?
“Tell me about your city. Our city,” I corrected, sensing his interruption. “I want to know everything.”
Makrukh made a soft, throaty sound, commentary I wasn’t well-versed in wyvern responses enough to interpret.
“I said we were going home,” Varidian chided as his wyvern changed course, racing across the sky like a comet until I wanted to scream, but there was no real anger in his voice, only annoyance and humour. “But by all means, give Ameirah the grand tour.”
I held onto the sharp spike that thrust up from Makrukh’s ivory back for dear life when he wheeled around, and instead of flying directly to the palatial building at the top of the city, he flew west. Rooftops blurred beneath us. The clouds were close enough to touch, but I wasn’t brave enough to reach out and run my fingers through their substance.
“This is the Square of The Star,” Varidian told me when Makrukh slowed as suddenly as he’d burst into speed, a burr of a laugh in my husband’s voice that made me smile without meaning to. Warmth gathered in my chest again, even if my stomach unsettled at the manic flight. “Mak likes it because the paint used to dye the bricks red catches the light and sparkles like treasure.”
Makrukh grumbled, jerking his massive, horned head at the pristine square below us, where the bricks formed a red star in the very heart of the open space. At the edges of the square, olive trees formed a border, their leaves especially green against the golden stone of the surrounding buildings.
“He’s grumpy because the sun isn’t strong enough to see the sparkle,” Varidian murmured in my ear, sudden enough to make me jump, my heart thumping.
“We’ll come back to see it during the daytime,” I offered, stunned when Makrukh’s surly rumble silenced.
Apparently satisfied, he whipped around in the air so suddenly that I screamed, the wyvern flying like a shooting star. A sleek maroon wyvern leisurely crossing the city shrieked a fierce complaint as Makrukh flew close enough to throw it off course, its rider dropping flat to its back with her black hair flowing in the wind. My stomach knotted.
But a smile filled the rider’s face instead of the anger I braced for. She inclined her head at Varidian, gave me a curious glance, and arced gracefully out of our path. The maroon’s eyes lingered on Makrukh, and when I finally got my stomach to leave my throat, a smile tugged at my lips.
“I think the pretty maroon wyvern was admiring you,” I called over the rush of air as Makrukh flew in a determined swoop over the city.
Was it possible the wyvern’s stomach puffed up, his spine straightening?
“Don’t tell him that, he’s vain enough as it is,” Varidian laughed.
Makrukh muttered under his breath, something I learned a wyvern was capable of right then and there. I was so bewildered that I didn’t see where he’d led us until he circled in the air, swinging his long neck around to give us an arch look over his shoulder. My stomach flipped at those gleaming red eyes so close to my face, but my terror was softened by the exasperation I swore I saw within them.
Varidian snorted. “Keep your scales on. And make this tour quick, we need to get home for prayer.”
Makrukh grumbled but swung his head back to face—oh, he’d brought us to a vibrant, chaotically colourful souk, the market packed with stalls that jostled for space. Vendors hawked crimson silks embroidered with the twin vipers of House Marrakchi, others yelled prices for the mountains of spices piled on tables too small to hold them, a tall and glamorous woman sold handmade crafts so numerous they overflowed her stall and spread along the floor, glittering like stardust with metallic thread and sequins in an array of rainbow colours, and just beneath us, stacks of tagines and cooking pots towered like columns over the small, wrinkled man selling them.
Even hovering in the air, I could smell the fragrant waft of the souk—turmeric and anise, honey and figs, along with the less delightful reek of a hundred people packed into the same space. The volume of it was overwhelming but familiar. Even miles from Strava, here was a pocket of home.
I wanted to ask if there were bakeries and bookshops, but I didn’t have the nerve yet. Plus, as Varidian said the sun had very nearly set and we needed to get to his home for prayer. And food—it turned out riding a wyvern across the kingdom made a girl starve for food. Everything I’d eaten at the celebration was gone. I was lucky my stomach wasn’t growling; that would certainly have damaged any allure I had left after being blasted with wind, sand, and salt.
“House Marrakchi,” I murmured, my eyes drawn back to the silks. Bolts of many-hued fabrics were piled from the ground to the stall’s top, but that one banner was displayed with pride. Varidian was of House Saber, the royal house, and now so was I.
His fingers flexed on my stomach and I became so aware of him I swore I felt that touch through fabric and leather. “My mother’s house,” he explained. “My house.”
Right. There was no love lost between him and his father. I wanted to pry, to unearth just what the king had done to earn Varidian’s wrath, but it was too soon for personal questions. We’d met mere hours ago.
“To the riad, Mak,” Varidian said, shutting down any further questions. That was fine; I wasn’t eager to open up about my own family. Secrets suited me well.
Makrukh replied with a long, wheedling growl I could only describe as a whine, and a smile tugged at my wind-blasted cheeks.
“No, we can’t go see Zulaykha,” Varidian said with the exasperated patience of a father talking with a child or a very errant dog. “We’re going home. You can con the poor woman out of a gleaming coin tomorrow.”
Makrukh continued to complain, but he leapt higher in the air and shot like an arrow to the silver and gold villa that watched over the city. Wyvern liked to collect shiny things and coveted anything remotely like treasure; they hoarded large piles of it if my books were any indication. A shiny gold coin was certainly treasure. My smile grew—until Makrukh hit an insane speed.
My stomach leapt so far up my throat I worried it would fly out of my mouth. I gripped his spike so tightly I might have dented it, but I managed not to scream, and that was a feat worth celebrating.
My eyes stung at the speed we flew, tears rolling down my cheeks, pulling strands of purple hair from my scalp, but there was something so momentarily freeing about flying across the Red Star that butterflies tumbled through my nauseated stomach. Resentment burned like a coal inside me. I should have flown my own wyvern, should have at least sat astride a wyvern like it was the most natural thing in the world. I shouldn’t be on the verge of screaming, vomiting, and crying all at once.
I wanted it so badly—this freedom, the ability to see the world laid out below me like a gift, to fly anywhere and see anything. To see everything. No matter how scared I was to be so high, or how sick I felt at the abrupt turns Makrukh took to avoid colliding with other wyverns, I wanted what this flight had given me a glimpse of.
But no wyvern would have me.
“Welcome home, Ameirah,” Varidian said softly, his chin resting on my shoulder as Makrukh slowed, circling a grove of fig trees that led to the front entrance of Varidian’s riad—and my breath caught when I saw the garden that sat at the heart of the building, twice the size of the one at Strava, full of towering trees with glints of blue tile visible through breaks in the leaves. Up close, the windows of the villa shone like pure silver, the carvings and arabesque details telling me just how much money had gone into building this place.
It was like something out of a dream, beautiful and enormous and sweet with fragrant flowers. If the city was a red star, Varidian’s home was like a silver moon, but with all the warmth of the sun.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. The sound of trickling water met my ears when Makrukh landed with practised ease on a lawn at the back of the house. It was like a paradise, so quiet and calming compared to the madness of the souk we’d just left.
“I’m glad you like your new home,” Varidian said, squeezing me closer to him for a moment before he released me entirely. I fought a shudder as cool air rushed into my back when he put distance between us.
“Oh shit,” I whispered, freezing in place when Varidian left me atop the wyvern and slid effortlessly down Makrukh’s side, landing on two feet with all the grace and power of a warrior. He looked up at me expectantly. My stomach executes an elaborate somersault.
Panic made my breathing race, nausea returning. In a fit of fear, I said to the wyvern, “I have an especially beautiful piece of amethyst among my things. In the right light, it shines like purple starlight.”
He turned his pearlescent white head just slightly, interested.
“It’s yours if you help me get down to the ground without looking like a fool.”
His head tilted in clear confusion. My stomach thrashed with dread. But then Makrukh shoved Varidian aside with a giant foot, ignoring his rider’s barked complaint, and extended his leg. Right. Just slide down his leg. Easy. I wouldn’t die.
Probably.
“What are you doing, Mak?” Varidian called up.
I imagined the short, grumpy sound his wyvern retorted told him to shush.
I was out of time. It was getting weird. I was taking too long.
Please, don’t let me die.
I swung my leg over Makrukh’s back, avoiding the tall spikes, and pushed myself off before I lost my nerve. I locked my jaw against a scream and tried very, very hard not to look at the ground as I slid down Makrukh’s side so fast I couldn’t control my path. By chance, my body slipped along the leg he’d extended for me and I shot past rough scales and opalescent skin, nearing the ground at an alarming pace. It was like falling from a tree, except the tree had horns and scales and was twenty-five feet tall.
I was going to scream. I was going to break my ankle. I was going to—Varidian smiled as he caught me, saving me the embarrassment of melting into a heap on the ground. My brain rattled inside my skull. Oh, I was alive. I loved being alive and not a shattered mess on the ground.
Big, big fan of not being a shattered mess.
My legs were like jelly, my knees weak, but Varidian held me up. My head spun. But there was no suspicion in my husband’s eyes; I got away with it.
Oh, thank fuck. I nearly cried in relief. I didn’t want his intrigue to change to disappointment. I wanted my husband to think I was a capable, fierce wyvern-riding fae woman. Just once, I wanted someone to like me.
“I’ve never known you to be so chivalrous, Mak,” Varidian remarked, giving his wyvern a strange look.
“That’s unfair,” I cut in, a little breathless as I steadied on my jelly legs, stepping out of his hold. “Makrukh’s been nothing but chivalrous since we met.”
Makrukh’s massive face split in a toothy grin. Varidian was aware we were ganging up on him, but he only laughed, shaking his head. “Let’s get inside,” he said, squeezing my elbow, that smile still on his face as he guided us towards the villa. “Mak, don’t go harassing Zulaykha while my back’s turned.”
The wide-eyed look on Makrukh’s face was pure innocence. A smile curled my lips.
“Will there be many people inside?” I asked when Varidian led me across the flat expanse of grass to the back entrance to his home. Our home. It would take some getting used to. An arch tiled with white and gold mosaics framed the door Varidian swept open for me, and I entered with the same enthusiasm I’d walk into a viper’s pit.
“It’s not a busy household,” Varidian assured me, closing the door behind us. The chill of riding for hours was instantly soothed by a crackling fire across the large entryway, the floors every bit as beautiful as the arch outside, the silver and gold theme echoed everywhere I looked. “Just me, my family, and the few staff needed to manage a riad this large. I love the people of Ithanys, but after—well, you can understand why I’d like a quiet place to retreat to.”
“After you were exposed as harbouring a deadly magic,” I filled in, keeping my eyes on Varidian as he led me through the warm room into a long hallway.
“I’m the last person to judge you,” I said when he shot me a guarded look. “And I understand why you wouldn’t broadcast the truth of your power to every last person in the kingdom. But I know—very little about control magic.”
Very subtle, Ameirah. Top points for tact.
“You want to know if I can use it to manipulate you,” he guessed, his voice absent the warmth it had contained only moments ago. We walked so fast now, I could barely look at the home we sped through, but I got a sense of quiet, peaceful halls full of plants and art and the scent of saffron.
“It would be nice to know, either way,” I admitted. I didn’t tell him my father had likely married me to him in the hopes he could control me. I doubt my father would be too concerned if Varidian killed me, but I kept my eyes on my new husband, searching for sincerity or deceit as he answered.
“I only use my power on our enemies.”
“A pretty answer.” It wasn’t a compliment.
He cast me a sharp look. “It’s the truth. I’ve never used this magic on a friend or relative, and I don’t intend to start with my wife.”
I believed him. He was angry enough to tell me the truth. “Good,” I said. “Don’t control me, and I won’t kill you.”
His laughter was sudden and loud, echoing off the golden stone hallway we turned down. Very brave of him to laugh about murder when I could kill him with a single touch. “Noted,” he said, still smiling, his eyes creased in an annoyingly attractive way. “You’re in no danger from me, Ameirah. I give you my word.”
Hmm. We’d see about that. Fae vows were binding but who knew what freedoms his magic allowed him?
I finally looked around us when we emerged into another hall with rooms on either side of us, each doorway framed with delicate carvings, like lace made of stone. I supposed if I had to be taken anywhere to live the rest of my days, there were certainly worse places. The air was full of earthy spices and fragrant florals, and the quietude was worth all the gold in the world.
I startled when bells tolled from the city, distant but ringing with power that could only be magic, the ripples shuddering through my ribcage. “You have a bell tower?” I asked, giving Varidian a questioning glance.
He nodded, still unfairly attractive after a long ride. His hair was still gorgeous. That defied logic. “It became necessary when our muezzin was conscripted to a legion at the border.”
I frowned. I was aware of men leaving Strava every summer to fight our enemy along the Wall of Hydaran, but it seemed cruel to leave a city without someone to sing the call to prayer.
“Can’t you sing?” I asked him. “Surely you’re capable of more than brooding glances and looking pretty.”
Varidian laughed again, just as loud. “I’m a warrior often called to battle, Ameirah.” He sounded both astounded and delighted. He caught my wrist, his thumb sweeping over my pulse through the glove. I wondered if he felt the sudden uptick in its tempo. “But I’m pleased to know you find me pretty.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my wrist free of his grip, my skin tingling beneath the cotton, my face warming several degrees. “Don’t let it inflate your ego.”
“Oh, too late for that, dearling.” His eyes sparkled so brightly it was as if a jeweller had alchemised amber into irises. He snagged my wrist again, bringing it to his lips for a lingering kiss that made sudden heat flare down my throat. That pulse started again between my legs.
“This is a private prayer room,” he said against my skin, the words muddled in my mind. “I thought for your first night, you’d prefer not to meet the whole kasbah. They’ll be eager to meet you, to shower praise on your beauty and grace.”
What beauty and grace? I snorted.
“I’ll introduce you to them in the morning, when you’ve had time to become acquainted with the Diamond.”
“The what…?”
“That’s the name of our home. The Diamond of the South.”
I lived in a house that had a name. I felt like a princess. Oh god, I was a princess. I had people who wanted to meet me, who wanted someone with grace and beauty, not a woman who had to bribe a wyvern to help her dismount.
It was daunting enough that I barely noticed Varidian kissing my gloved wrist and slipping into a room beside the door I stood in front of.
Shaking myself out of it, I opened the beautiful door and ducked inside.
“I’m a princess,” I whispered to the dim room, blinking at the golden walls until I shook myself out for it, hurrying to the basin and jug set on a table before me.
If only I could cleanse my panic as easily as I cleansed my body.