Page 133 of Silver Claws, Crimson Tears
My gaze drifts to the infirmary window. Outside, dragons circle the fort’s perimeter, vigilant after the attack to the fort. I think about the Matron’s burning eyes, the impossible fire curling from her clawed hand, the way she invaded my mind, and wonder at her connection with Heratrix.
“What if we’re wrong?” I finally say, turning back to Vaylen. “What if we bring others in and it makes everything worse?”
“What if we don’t and everything falls apart anyway?” he counters, sounding so much like Phoebe.
I let out a frustrated breath. “I hate it when you’re reasonable.”
The corner of his mouth twitches upward. “I know.”
Something inside me cracks. Not breaking, but shifting. My entire life has been spent guarding secrets and surviving alone. But this is different. This risks more than only my life. It risks Embernia.
“Fine,” I say, the word feeling like surrender and strengthsimultaneously. “But I have final approval, and the moment anyone looks at me like I’m a monster that should be locked away, I’m done.”
Vaylen’s hand finds mine again. “Fair enough.”
“I must be losing my mind,” I mutter. “Or maybe it’s the pain medicine.”
“No,” he says softly. “I think it’s called personal growth.”
I swat at him. “Fuck you.”
He laughs, glances all around, and plants a quick kiss on my lips. A jolt of pleasure shoots to my core. And as he limps back to his bed, he gives me a look of hunger that promises ecstasy the next time we have some privacy.
44
Rhea
Another patrol. Another dusk falling over Embernia’s scarred landscape. Another group of Screechclaws determined to break through our lines.
Seven days since the Matron, and every night since, I’ve dreamed of her burning eyes and that voice slithering through my mind.Omneira. Awakening. Curse.
Not knowing what else to do, Zephyros and I attempted to search my mind again at the first chance I got, but it yielded a big, fat nothing. Of course.
Now, I twist my dragon into a spinning dive, drawing three screaming harpies away from South Pass. Wind tears at my hair as we plunge, my stomach lurching pleasantly. At the last possible moment, Zephyros pulls up sharply on a quick command through our bond, leaving the creatures confused just long enough for Nate to incinerate the last of them with a precise Fire Blast. Our enemy’s attacks have seemed halfhearted lately, as if they’re holding their breath the same way I am.
“Show-off,” he calls through the wind.
I flash him a vicious grin. “Jealous?”
Every patrol has been like this, routine skirmishes that feel like going through the motions. But my mind is elsewhere, caught between dread of our upcoming meeting and growing relief at finally sharing this burden with others.
Vaylen and I have argued every night this week. Where to meet. Who to tell first. What to reveal. How much danger I’m in if the wrong person learns what I am.
“Just Phoebe first,” I insisted last night, pressed against his chest in the shadows in our favorite door recess.
His lips brushed my ear. “We don’t know how long we have. The sooner we get a group on our side, the better.”
We’ve settled on tomorrow night, the old armory room next to the north tower. I have agreed to Phoebe, Nate, Dakar Cloudwalker, and Henry Cliffbecker. For now. My stomach knots thinking about laying myself bare to them, revealing that I’m the monster they’ve been warned to fear.
—You are not a monster, Zephyros rumbles in my mind.
—You don’t know that. We don’t know what the fuckOmneiraeven means.
—Just because he called you that it does not mean anything.
—The Matron did too.
He has no comeback for that.
