Page 85 of The Dragon Queen

Not long,I told him.It won’t take long. Draven knows how to do this. Brom will lend him his strength. They’ll get this damn thing out of you and?—

My stream of thoughts were cut off abruptly by the sound of Obsidian’s scream. It deafened me, echoing out through the forest as every bird within took flight. It was the sound of agony, of horror, of disbelief, and that had me holding on tighter as I felt agony explode in my shoulder.

Pippin!

Glimmer scrambled across Obsidian’s back, stopping when she came to the wound. A mess of bloodied flesh and black scales, it was a terrifying sight to see. I didn’t get long to dwell. The men tossed the now broken javelin haft aside, but when Draven went to jerk off his tunic and hold it against the wound, I was already there.

We will save him.

Glimmer had been gentle with me, I now realised. It was her will cracking like a whip across mine, forcing me to move. Jacket off, balled up and shoved against the wound, I pressed down hard, gritting my teeth as I felt how this just hurt him worse.Staunch the blood, I thought frantically.Stop it bleeding out.I threw that thought at Obsidian, trying to make him see. The dragon thrashed now, pain tearing at his control, something animal in him rising. One ready to tear what hurt him asunder.

“No, lad…!”

Brom spun around and threw himself forward, his hand landing on my arm, right as my spare hand slapped down on Obsidian’s neck.

I learned something. Glimmer’s voice was one of quiet confidence as the whole world seemed to stop still.When I healed you, I used too much of my own energy. It doesn’t have to be just mine. All pain, all confusion was driven out of me because it had to make way for the most perfect of golden light.

She filled us with light.

Glimmer…?

Our light, she informed me and that’s when I felt it.

I was joined to Obsidian, Darkspire, and Glimmer too, and Brom and Draven were connected to us. Each one of us fed energy into the injured dragon and as I watched wide eyed, my jacket fell away in time to see the flesh slowly knit together. Glimmer, Darkspire, they kept on singing, but Obsidian raised his head as well, his notes shaky and filled with a strange kind of sadness, right as my own lungs sucked in to join them.

I don’t know what I was doing, what we were, but Brom’s and Draven’s voices joined ours, and that’s when the magic happened.Not just healing Obsidian. The pain that Brom refused to recognise was also washed away, bruising and lacerations fading. It was a diffusing, broad, all-encompassing thing, this feeling. There was no room for pain, for discord within it. It went beyond us, skimming over the leaf litter, winding between the trees, brushing the minds of the tree cutters some miles away, their heads jerking up from their work in wonder. Beyond the forest, beyond the trees to them.

“Pippin…?”

I saw Ged look up, my eyes sucking in the familiar planes of his face, his wide-eyed look of wonder.

“Pippin?” Soren asked, striding over. “Where, lad? Where is our queen?”

Right here,I told him and his mouth fell open as he saw it all, everything he’d done, right as the final note of the song was sung. That’s when I fell back, forced to blink several times to see what was happening now.

Obsidian’s wings flapped open like a ship’s sail and his head jerked up as he roared out his response. He was better, more than better, filled with his queen’s power, right before he turned to Brom. My husband staggered closer, arms outstretched, and Obsidian nudged him, forcing him to wrap his arms around the big beast’s head lest he be shoved over.

“Lad… Lad…”

I knew why Brom stroked the planes of his dragon’s head. It was to persuade himself that his bondmate was whole, well again, though a chirrup from Glimmer soon put paid to that.

We must fight to retrieve the hatchlings,she chittered as she marched down his neck.We cannot do that if you allow yourself to be shot down by the traitor humans.

Obsidian’s head hung down as he received a lecture. Darkspire chuffed, the closest thing to a chuckle. That had my queen turning on him, squawking something at him, but I didn’t get a chance to find out what. The connection broke, right as another was reformed.

“You’ll never do that again.” Draven had his hands around the lapels of Brom’s jacket as he shoved him into Obsidian’s side. “Never, you hear me? I can’t… see you like that again, pale and unconscious on the ground. I… can’t.”

Both of them were sucking in breaths, faster and faster, but Brom broke the tension with a smile.

“Like the time you fell off the walls of the ruins around my family estate. You left me sobbing at your side for ten minutes before you came around, and you had a bump the size of an egg on your head for days. Then there was the time you raced your horse too fast through a forest and you were swept from the saddle by a low bough.”

“Gods, you remember every damn thing,” Draven said, shaking his head, ready to pull away, but Brom stopped him.

“I do.” There was some of the same tentativeness in his hand as he reached up. My breath felt like it stilled in my chest when Brom finally touched Draven. “I do, my prince, my king.”

“My love.”

That admission felt like it was torn from Draven’s chest. His eyes were wary as they stared into Brom’s. He expected to be slapped, pushed away. Instead, Brom nodded slowly, his head twisting sideways to bring his mouth right over the king’s.

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