Page 32 of House of Ashes

The homesickness burrowed into me so deeply it hurt.

“There was a dragon on Mistward,” I said abruptly. “Kalros, from the House of Bloodied Talons. He found me, he knew who I was. He was going to rape me, but Rhylan stopped him.”

It had just occurred to me that I hadn’t thanked Rhylan for saving me from that.

He wasn’t the one who’d been stupid enough to go get drunk in a tavern where all the dragons were gathering. He hadn’t given me away.

And if he was telling the truth, he’d tried to get me away from Mistward Isle. He’d spoken up on my behalf.

Kirana’s eyes became hard jewels. She reached across the table and took my hand, squeezing it tightly.

She didn’t have to say anything. I felt everything left unspoken in that tight grip.

It was a relief to escape everyone and be left alone in my room.

On Mistward Isle, I had spoken to almost no one. When my mother had finally died, succumbing to the lung infection that had settled in after two years of living in a cold, mist-filled cave, I went silent.

Even in Farpost, the shantytown I’d dared only when the foraging was useless and I was too hungry to go another day without eating, I hadn’t had to speak much.

In the poverty of the Isle, a half-moon spoke more eloquently than any words.

I’d lived most of my life there in silence. In the single day I’d spent in Jhazra Eyrie, I’d spoken more words than I had in the last two years.

It was exhausting.

I curled up at the head of the bed, staring at my dim room. Sleep wouldn’t come; I watched as the moonlight drifted over the walls, creeping bit by tiny bit.

It was too open, too exposed. I didn’t like the doors to the hall or bathroom, or the wardrobe hulking in the corner. The previous night I had been at the very dregs of my reserves, collapsing without a second thought.

Tonight, with clarity of mind, I could not summon that release into sleeping oblivion.

I found myself wondering where Rhylan was. What was my supposed mate doing?

Did he lie awake at night, or was he sleeping peacefully down the hall, undisturbed by night terrors?

When I forced myself to close my eyes and count wyverns, it was Rhylan’s face that popped into my mind. The sensation of his rough fingers woven through mine, the softness of his lips.

I didn’t want to think about those things.

This was all a ruse, and he’d made it clear that he’d thought I was a haughty bitch then, and something to be merely tolerated in order to achieve his goals now.

I counted sixteen wyverns before the memory of his thumb on my lip intruded again. My eyes opened to see the moonlight had crept another centimeter towards the door.

With a low growl, I ripped a blanket and pillow off the bed and dropped to my knees. The underside was just wide enough to accommodate me. I pushed in the blanket, hauling myself after it on my belly.

I made a nest against the wall, tucking myself into a corner. It was warm and dark under here, secure against intruders.

Rhylan still had not left my head when I managed to close my eyes and finally drift to sleep.

Chapter

Seven

Nilsa said nothing about my unusual sleeping arrangement the following morning, but I suspected she mentioned something about it to Rhylan while I was in my room, forcing down Kirana’s godsforsaken mixture and pacing back and forth near the toilet.

When I arrived at the eyrie’s dragon terrace, wearing simple, fleece-lined leathers that had been tailored to my frame, he had an odd look in his eyes as he took me in.

That look, which might have been misconstrued as sympathy by a less cynical draga, vanished as Viros joined us by kicking open the door to the storage room.