Tempest slept—possibly for the first time since beginning this journey—entirely curled around Akieryon, as though protecting him even while deep within his own dreams. Every time Akieryon flinched or mumbled, Tempest tightened his hold on the angel. Longing clenched in Tharaiyelagh’s throat, and he looked away.
Here, alone in the dark, Tharaiyelagh could admit to himself how deep his envy ran. Everything looked so easy between the two of them. In the short time that they had known each other, Tharaiyelagh never imagined that Tempest would enjoy such casual intimacy with anyone, but here he saw the evidence before his eyes. And he wanted…
Well, Chancellor, what do you want?
If he thought he would get joined hands and warm embraces from a prince of his own, he was a fool. His most beloved lord simply did not engage in such behaviors. Tharaiyelagh’s fingertips strayed to the pendant, and in the lonely dark his thoughts returned to North. He considered the compelling way North had flirted, how it made no sense at all. Why should a dragon such as North take any interest in him? He should be flattered, if he weren’t so suspicious. After all, who else would flirt with a…
Tharaiyelagh swallowed hard, swallowed back the self derision, as he had practiced. A politician cultivated confidence; no one was born with it. Well. Maybe Ragheiyont had been, but his case was rare indeed.
What about Prince Van-Dal?
Why did traitorous thoughts always happen in the dark? Tharaiyelagh felt his cheeks warm at remembered flirtations. It hadn’t been real. How could it be? A prince of the Second Sphere simply could not want much with an orphan, a former thief, a—
Chancellor?
Well, yes, he had risen in station rather swiftly, but he had done so by hard work, out of his unflagging desire to show his devotion to his lord. Did he even want such a thing to impress Van-Dal? He shifted his shoulders, shifted his itching scabs against the fabric of his shirt. Wanting two princes for his own was bald ambition, and, given his origins, completely irrational. Besides, he craved something entirely different from Van-Dal’s solicitous glances and teasing flicks of his tail.
…Didn’t he?
Stifling a noise of frustration, Tharaiyelagh clutched at the pendant as though to throw it away from him, to cast it into the dark and turn his back on it. The stone pulsed in response to his grip. Before he could wonder at it, he found himself pulled back to that one perfect moment beneath the arch. He felt again the warmth of his lord’s skin, the heat of his breath, the scratch of fangs against his lip. In his vision, Lord Baleirithys had not pulled away from him. He had yielded. He had allowed the grubby little thief he had rescued to demand a kiss of him.
But Tharaiyelagh had always made demands, hadn’t he? Even when terrified. He gripped the stone tighter as his thoughts strayed to the first time Lord Baleirithys had asked for his blood. Tharaiyelagh had stood trembling in the antechamber, halfway certain that the death he had so narrowly escaped that morning would return then to claim him. The dagger and the chalice gleamed on the side table, but Tharaiyelagh could not make himself reach for them. He had tried to mask his dread with bravado, brazenly presenting his shoulder instead.
The way Lord Baleirithys’ breath had caught—startled, astonished, perhaps even disbelieving—the sound lived in Tharaiyelagh’s memory as though freshly heard. Then his lord had drawn him close with a light touch, first on his wrist, then his waist. Stepping forward was easier than reaching for the dagger. Are you certain? Lord Baleirithys had murmured the words directly into Tharaiyelagh’s ear, robbing him of any lingering impulse to flee. Fangs had pierced his flesh in time to the pounding of his heart. The mere memory weakened his knees afresh.
With that thought came others. Every day spent at his lord’s side yielded small reassurances: fingertips caressing his plumage, his horns, his shoulder; lingering scent marks upon his cheeks and the leading curves of his horns; murmured words of encouragement. What was he to his lord? A pet? A favorite project?
Did it even matter?
Lord Baleirithys did cherish him, and perhaps they shared a sort of intimacy after all. In quiet, private conversations, in the moments when his lord’s obsidian gaze softened to the velvet of the night sky, at those times Tharaiyelagh came fully alive. He clung to the memories, forcing the thought to warm him here in the lonely dark.
Lonely.
Right. Well, at least he had identified his problem. At Castle Seyzharel he had grown too accustomed to standing at the center of everything. He missed the swirl of activity, missed resolving matters and poring over paperwork. He missed Ceirithi’s shy smiles and Enci’s calculating glances, perhaps almost as much as he missed Lord Baleirithys himself.
Tharaiyelagh suffered a desperate dose of homesickness. He nibbled the inside of his own lip just for a reassuring taste of blood, much like a frightened child might, and he stared away into the dark. Had he ever felt homesick before? Hardly. What good would it have done him to miss the caves of his childhood? There he’d had nothing but Ragheiyont, and even Ragheiyont had abandoned him eventually.
Someday soon, Tharaiyelagh resolved, he would make his brother tell him why.
Chaighan reported for duty on the southwestern wall patrol, his first watch since retrieving Baaz. And Gavi. To his everlasting relief, Lord Baleirithys had welcomed Gavi, and even commended Chaighan for recovering another dragon. Half-dragon. Many people would make that distinction, but apparently not the prince.
“The hero returns.” Achlii, who was reporting for the southern leg of the watch, grinned and gave him a teasing salute. “How does it feel to walk among ordinary dragonfolk again?”
Chaighan toyed with the notion of a flippant reply. Instead, he turned and he gazed out across the scrubby plains. “It feels like home,” he said quietly. What else had ever felt like home to him?
“That girl you brought,” Achlii pried, “the one in the kitchens—”
“Her name is Gavi.”
“Right. Gavi.” Achlii’s grin broadened. “Does she bite?”
“Dare to dream,” Chaighan muttered before he could stop himself. Then, with a wry twist to his lips, he shook his head. “Don’t push her, though. She’s a former slave.” Like me.
“Oooh, protective?” Achlii gave Chaighan’s shoulder a playful nudge. In no mood to play, Chaighan simply pointed.
In the sky, two dragons winged swiftly toward them. Chaighan squinted, and as the two drew nearer, he made out the whiplike motion of long tails trailing after. Visitors from the Second Sphere. He looked to Achlii, who gave a slight nod. They should greet their guests.
A gust of wind caught them as they leapt skyward, tossing them in the direction of the visitors. Nearer now, Chaighan could see that they wore the smart black uniforms of Prince Van-Dal’s personal guard. Their masks hung loose at their throats, signaling a friendly visit. Small mercies. Chaighan kept his hands clear of his weapons.
“Well met, Seyzharel!” called out the nearer of the two. Her voice, pitched like a song, carried over the wind. Chaighan saluted, but waited until they had drawn a little nearer to return the greeting. The four guards circled one another in tight formation.
“What brings us guests from the Second Sphere?” Achlii gave the apparent leader of the two an appreciative eye. She acknowledged it with a haughty toss of her head.
“We need a word with our lord.”
Well, that presented a problem. “Prince Van-Dal is not currently in residence,” Chaighan informed them.
“What?” The two guards from the Second Sphere back-winged, coming to hover. “He said he would be here.”
Chaighan and Achlii exchanged a glance. How much information could they freely share? “He ventured forth with Lord Tempest,” Chaighan said. “They are expected to return soon.”
“That’s not fair!” wailed the spokesdragon, her professionalism shattered. “I want to play with Prince Tempest!”
“I’m sure you do,” her partner remarked dryly.
“I wouldn’t maul him much—“
“I swear, sister mine, you are going to cause an international crisis.”
Chaighan cleared his throat, and both siblings turned their most guileless expressions toward him. “If we should see your lord before you do,” he said, “what would you like for us to tell him?”
The long-suffering brother made a gesture of surrender. “Go on, Tamn.”
At that, Tamn puffed out her chest and cleared her throat. “‘He is to return home at once,'” she growled, in a clear imitation of someone else. Then, in her own voice she added, “The tremors, you see. Our king is most displeased, especially since the damage unleashed—”
“Tamn!”
“Right, right, details not necessary.” She flashed a bright, pointy grin at the Seyzharel guards. “So many pretty boys in this Sphere. It’s such a shame we can’t stay.”
Chaighan promised to deliver the message when the princes returned. The guards saluted each other a final time, then parted ways, with Tamn casting an appreciative glance behind her. Achlii gave her a cheeky little wave.
“What do you make of that?” Achlii said as they returned to their post on the wall. Chaighan gave a grim shake of his head.
Certainly nothing good.
The breeze tossed the branches of the tree against the impossible blue of the sky. Here its feathery needles danced, there its soft bark flashed russet in the sun. Ragheiyont gawked. He had seldom even seen scrubby shrubs that could barely qualify as trees. To stand before one of such grandeur made him feel small.
“Don’t touch it.”
Seikhiel’s voice jolted him out of his stupor of awe, and Ragheiyont realized that he had shuffled more than halfway up the hill toward the tree. “Learned my lesson, didn’t I?” He waved his bandaged arm. It twinged in reply, and he ground his teeth against the fresh pain.
“I don’t know.” Van-Dal sounded amused. “Have you?”
Ragheiyont harrumphed and flopped down on the grass beneath the branches of tree. Sunlight winked in and out between the needles far above. “Ain’t touchin’ that,” he grumbled, though he burned with curiosity. If he still had his Wardbreaker, maybe. “Sacred, isn’t it? I’m not stupid.”
A faint shuff at his side surprised him, and Ragheiyont turned his head to see Van-Dal sitting down, wings slightly raised to catch the sunlight. “Not stupid,” he agreed, his voice soft, almost wistful. “But perhaps a bit reckless.”
Ragheiyont followed the direction of Van-Dal’s gaze to where Seikhiel inspected a curiously rectangular pond at the foot of the hill. He propped himself up on his left elbow. “Never much mattered before,” he muttered. It mattered now, so much more than he ever could have imagined. Before, nobody had cared whether he lived or died. But now? He almost shook his head. How could he waste all of Seikhiel’s effort to keep him alive? Ungracious, that’s what that was.
“I’m sure it always mattered to Tharaiyelagh,” Van-Dal said quietly, as though hearing Ragheiyont’s thoughts.
“Tarali’s better off without me. Livin’ in a palace, wearin’ nice clothes, gettin’ fed regular.” Ragheiyont slanted a sly smile toward Van-Dal. “Catchin’ the eye of a prince.”
Van-Dal’s tail lashed in the low grasses. “None of that means he doesn’t care for his own brother,” he growled.
Having struck something of an exposed nerve, Ragheiyont turned away and focused on watching Seikhiel. Seikhiel who had apparently deemed the water safe. He filled their canteens, then carefully set aside his weapons, unbraided his hair, and began washing up. Perhaps watching Seikhiel was a bad plan after all.
Ragheiyont fell back flat on the grass. He squashed his eyes tightly closed, but he could still see the water glistening over Seikhiel’s golden skin. Something in his chest squeezed too tight, painfully tight, and he forced slow breaths past it. Was he dying? Had he poisoned himself by consuming too much angel blood?
“Raya.” Sorrow undercut Van-Dal’s voice, like an otherwise pleasant wind that tasted of storms to come. “When this business is ended, I can help you find a Clutch or a Harem to join.”
What did that even mean? Nothing good, judging by the sound of Van-Dal’s voice. Ragheiyont’s eyes snapped open, and he found himself staring at Seikhiel again. “Why would I want that?”
“Because dragons aren’t meant to be solitary.”
At the foot of the hill, Seikhiel squeezed water from his hair and began to twist it into a fresh plait. “I’m not lonely.” Not right now. He knew the feeling would never last, but for the moment he could pretend. Anyway, would he even live long enough to leave this place?
Van-Dal sighed. “Perhaps not, but now you’ve grown accustomed to having people nearby. What will you do when we’ve gone home?”
Home. The word twisted in Ragheiyont like a shard of Wardbreaker. He swallowed the ache inside him. “I’ll figure it out,” he insisted, perfectly aware how uncertain he sounded.
“I can help you,” Van-Dal repeated. He stood as Seikhiel started up the slope, and he headed down to take his own turn at washing.
Ragheiyont sat up to watch Seikhiel climb the last few strides to him. “Heyo,” he said, cringing inwardly at how weak his voice sounded.
Seikhiel knelt at his side. “I’ve never seen this much quillwort in one place,” he remarked in a conversational tone as he began loosening the ties of Ragheiyont’s shirt.
“Um…” Ragheiyont fumbled for basic comprehension. “What.” Yes, good. Brilliant.
“Quillwort.” Seikhiel brushed one hand over the grass. Not grass, apparently. “Technically, these are tiny trees.” He eased Ragheiyont out of his shirt, then took a wet rag—not blue; where had it come from?—and gently scrubbed dried blood from his skin. There was a lot of it. The dark of the caverns had apparently concealed much. His cheeks burning, Ragheiyont looked away.
When Seikhiel had finished the task at hand, he took out another, softer cloth. This one smelled faintly of his well-maintained swords. When he touched it to Ragheiyont’s plumage, Ragheiyont flinched away from him. Seikhiel hesitated. Ragheiyont gave him a wary look. Where had an angel—a Demonslayer—learned the proper way to maintain dragon plumage?
“Ah, may I?” Why did Seikhiel seem a little embarrassed?
Ragheiyont lifted his bandaged arm. “Might as well, jo.” He forced a grin. “I won’t be any good at it for a bit yet.”
Seikhiel leaned forward again to smooth and shine Ragheiyont’s plumage. He did it well, starting and the top and working the oils downward. Ragheiyont gazed up into warm amber eyes, and something wrenched deep inside him.
This.
This felt like home.
A ruined city broke the monotony of the inhospitable plains. The two guards cut a wide circle around it, making for one particular crumbling watchtower, in a roundabout way. For all her brash and intemperate nature, Tamn knew how to make travel between Spheres an inconspicuous affair.
Which is why it startled her to see someone poking around the site of their doorway home.
Both guards pulled up short, hovering, observing the intruder. He wore a beautiful blue uniform coat, and he carried a small glowing object in his cupped palm. He looked unhappy. Tamn glanced at her brother, weighing the consequences of engaging without orders.
“Don’t—” Rhel began, but Tamn had already tucked her wings close, dropping into a swift dive. Of course she had. Rhel could only follow, half-fastening his mask as he went. If his sister wanted a fight, he had her back. Always.
Tamn hailed the stranger, who tucked the glowing object away in his pocket and looked guilty. He cast furtive glances between the two guards, and some haunted shadows hung about his eyes.
“Tamn…”
She waved off his tone of concern. “Let’s see,” she said, addressing the stranger as she alighted on tiptoes. “Blue coat, three swords, dodgy look… Demonslayer?”
A muscle in the stranger’s jaw tensed. Rhel stood a step behind his sister, easing a slim dagger from his sleeve. He liked to think Tamn would not need his help, but Lord Van-Dal demanded that his guards make no assumptions. Assumptions get people killed. The wrong people.
The Demonslayer gave a brief nod, his distrustful gaze flicking to every shadowy corner. “You’re a little far from home.”
Tamn snorted, and the sound carried across the ruined rooftops. “That depends on your perspective, doesn’t it?” She grinned a sharp grin. “What’s your name, Demonslayer?”
“I don’t think I should—”
“I’m Tamn. This is my brother, Rhel.” She gestured, giving no indication that she could produce a blade before the Demonslayer could flinch. And he most certainly seemed likely to flinch at any moment. “We’re just on our way back to our king.” She beamed disarmingly. “Nice coat.”
A scowl dragged the angel’s features downward. “A miserable life choice,” he grumbled, and Tamn pounced upon the scrap of information.
“Do you not enjoy being a Demonslayer?” She coiled the end of her tail around her ankle, determined not to let it betray her thoughts. “Is it hard, thankless work? Are you tired of this barren Hell?”
The Demonslayer glared at her. “If your portal hadn’t thrown off my tracking spell, I never would have come near this ruin.”
Tamn gave an unapologetic shrug. “What are you tracking? Perhaps we can help.”
“I doubt you can.”
I doubt we should. Rhel kicked the sole of Tamn’s boot. Not that it would do any good.
“It can’t hurt to tell us,” Tamn insisted, smiling. “Perhaps we’ve seen something.”
Again the Demonslayer glanced about, as though he expected someone to be watching them. Rhel sensed nothing, no life in this part of the city other than the three of them.
“Come on, angel,” needled Tamn.
“Araschel,” the Demonslayer snapped, then paled, inexplicably terrified that he had given them the simple courtesy of his name. He drew a shuddering breath, looked away toward the horizon, and added in a whisper, “I’m sent to find Master Seikhiel.”
Rhel sucked a sharp breath through his teeth, but Tamn never did know when to curb her tongue. “You lost him?” she blurted, astounded. “The Sword of Heaven?”
Araschel mumbled something that sounded rather like “maybe.”
How in the world did Heaven manage to misplace its best Demonslayer? Rhel thought of the recent tremors, of the stars winking out, and he did not like it, not at all.
The king would not like it either.