Page 94 of The Kingdom's Reckoning
Kallie followed her gaze. They had heard no screams or roars. But somewhere, Graeson was flying through the smoke that blanketed Borgania. She wondered if he was all right. Was he safe? Was he hurt?
"Do you think…will he…" Kallie swallowed the question, unwilling to voice it.
"Will he return to normal?"
Kallie shook her head. She didn’t care which form he took. To her, he was still Graeson. When he looked at her before he left, she could see it, seehim.Graeson shifting back was not her concern. Not at that moment, at least.
"Will he come back?"
Ellie cocked a brow. "Do you even have to ask?"
While it might have seemed obvious to Ellie, Kallie wasn’t so confident. Graeson had already viewed himself as a monster. What did he think now that he had taken the form of a dragon?
Ellie took off the thin armor and peeled up her shirt. Kallie grimaced at the sight of the dark bruises marking her skin. When Ellie poked one, her face twisted with agony. Tugging her shirt down, she lay on the ground, her movements stiff. "He was smart enough to take us far away from the fire and from possible threats. Although our horses are likely running back to Tetria as we speak, he’ll come back. He traveled across Vaneria twice for you, remember? Gray doesn’t give up that easily."
Behind Kallie, Nyrri released a soft exhale and shifted closer. Kallie smiled softly at the drakonis, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She scooted further down, trying to get comfortable. Tilting her head up, she watched the sky, hoping to see Graeson’s silhouette. Yet all that remained were twinkling stars, the smoke from the distant flames slipping slowly across them as it rose higher and higher.
He would come back, and if he didn’t, she would just have to go after him instead.
Chapter 38
GRAESON
Graeson shiveredas a breeze swept over him. He was cold. Freezing, actually. He attempted to move, to grab hold of a blanket or anything for some semblance of warmth, but every inch of his body cried out in protest. His bones hurt more than when Fynn had dared him to jump off a cliff into the Red Sea. Even the tips of fingers threatened to disintegrate the moment he dug his hands into the hard earth.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the frigid air and…smoke?
His eyes flung open. The early moments of dawn colored the tips of the trees. Or was the fire still hanging on?
His head spun. He wiggled his fingers, and blades of sharp grass poked his hand. When he lifted his hand, he didn’t see a paw with sharp claws buthishand.
He was himself, in his own body. Not some monster.
Was it another nightmare, then?
Slowly and carefully, he pushed himself up, his body heavy and arms shaking from the pain. He looked down at his chest, hisbarechest. Where the fuck were his clothes?
He barely had time to register his nakedness, though, when he noticed the ground around him. The surrounding field was either burned to ash or dried up. Hadhedone that?
Varying images crashed into him, one after another, wave after wave. It was like waking from a nightmare, but everything Graeson saw, everything he remembered, was real.
The flames spreading across the trees.
The wings tearing through the flesh between his shoulder blades.
The arrows flying at him—at Kalisandre and Ellie as he held them in his paws.
The thunderous roar that spilled from his mouth, and the blazing heat that followed.
The piercing, gut-wrenching screams of terror that sounded when Graeson had taken to the skies.
But most importantly, his mother’s life blinking out in front of him, her very soul slipping between his hands.
Graeson spun, panic making his movements frantic as he searched the area. He had carried her here, hadn’t he?
Graeson spotted Moris knocked out on the ground and his mother beside him. Anger spurred inside him at the sight of the traitor, but Graeson held it back. When he exhaled, he could have sworn he saw smoke rise from his mouth. His mother needed him. His mother?—
Was dead.
