Page 27 of The Fire Dragon's Mate
“Do you want to spar?”
I looked up from where I sat to find Fatima holding two swords and a pair of daggers. Given the willingness of these women to fight, I probably shouldn’t hesitate to spar with Fatima. Gender didn’t equal skill. These women were not the pampered princesses I’d grown up with.
“Yeah, let’s.” I stood and then wasn’t sure what weapon to take. “Should we practice with daggers? For close combat? Phineas made it sound like stealth was still what we needed.”
Fatima shrugged. “We could also practice wrestling and punching. I know a few ways to disable someone without bloodshed.”
I perked up at the opportunity to learn something like that. “Teach me.”
While I’d trained in various forms of combat, I’d stayedaway from wrestling and restraint simply because I’d worried that such close contact might reveal my forbidden nature. Instructors had said arousal happened sometimes and could be from anger, fear, or simple friction. It had happened once, and I’d panicked and withdrawn from such activities. But now that we needed to be covert as well as deadly, I may need to know such techniques.
What Fatima knew was impressive. She taught me by making me her victim first and then having me come for her. The first hold she showed me had her putting one arm around my neck and using the pressure of that to nearly knock me unconscious. I couldn’t speak and was so focused on removing her locked arms that I didn’t consider reaching for a weapon.
She also showed me that a little extra pressure and a twist could break someone’s neck.
Another helpful lesson was Fatima showing me how I could get out of such a hold should someone do it to me. By then, we’d grown an audience of more than just those going on the mission. I thought perhaps everyone was feeling the need to know how to defend themselves and hated that for us all. I wanted our peace back.
I wanted my dragon back.
It was good to do something physical to pass the time, but when I went to bathe and change into the dark clothes I’d worn the night before, I found myself missing Cighyss terribly.
Why hadn’t I let myself tell him how I felt? I sat in the bath and hugged my knees and wallowed in the fact that I hadn’t said the words. Three little words, and he didn’t know them. Did he believe we loved him? Was that a comfort to him?
Would knowing I was in love with him have given him courage, strength, or hope?
I vowed then to make sure I told him.
“Get out of the bath, you twit,” Phineas snapped at me. “It’s my turn.”
I splashed at him, my melancholy temporarily done, and finished bathing.
Hours later, we crept down to the shoreline where the sailors had made camp. That they hadn’t spent the day bombing the mountain had made us wonder if they’d left or changed tactics. Had those two men Melita and I had killed been given a directive of some kind? Had their disappearance caused a problem? But the beach was full of soldiers still, every one of them seeming to be on some kind of leave. Several were sleeping, while others gossiped, drank, or fucked.
And that was when they began their next volley of attacks.
It was painful to watch each ship fire cannon after cannon at my home. I hated the fear I knew it was causing all the people still inside the mountain. But it did offer some additional cover for us. None of soldiers on shore paid us any mind and not one protested when we stole a launch and rowed toward the only ship that wasn’t shooting.
The hope was that the silent ship would have only a minimal crew aboard because they were the ones on shore. Why? I didn’t know and wasn’t sure the others did either. Maybe they were meant to scout the island? Like the two Melita and I came upon? But if they were there and hardly anyone was on the ship, we could steal it.
Someone on the ship threw the ladder over the side for us, we climbed up, and… Gods but Bromley didn’t hesitate to stab the sailor in the gut before throwing him overboard. When two more men came from below, Eglantine and Warfield dispatched them just as quickly. I gulped down bile and went below with Bromley and Phineas to search the ship for anyone else. Though I knew it was necessary if we were going to rescue Cighyss and save our home, I was still grateful that the three men had been the only ones aboard.
Hagen and Warfield knew how to sail and so led the rest of us in what to do to get the anchor hoisted, sails unfurled, and the ship out of the bay. It was grueling work that tore up my hands and made my back ache, but we managed it all and were soon sailing away from Dekestrian Island.
I tried very hard to believe I would see it again and with Cighyss by my side.
Hagen ordered us to take shifts so that we could sleep and be rested when we arrived in Xanthous some time tomorrow night. All this nocturnal activity was switching my days and nights around, so I volunteered to wait until morning to attempt sleep. Eglantine and Warfield stayed up with me.
Normally, I didn’t go on deck when on a ship. I’d been told too many times that I’d be in the way or that it was no place for a prince, so I always stayed in my berth. Seeing the vastness of open water with only a sliver of a moon and an abundance of stars was humbling. I’d lived my life being told I was important, but here I was at sea, one insignificant soul on a voyage to save a dragon. A dragon I loved.
Was I special?
“I think there’s a ship following us,” Eglantine suddenly said.
I turned to find she’d come down from the mast she’d climbed, and now she dragged me with her to where Warfield stood at the wheel. She told him the same, and we all stared behind us, trying to see what she’d seen from above.
“There was light for just a moment,” she said, “like someone lit a torch only to extinguish it right away.”
“Not a cannon,” Warfield added, “or we would’ve heard it.”
