Page 62 of The Dragon Queen

I turned to look at her.

“It’s okay to love someone even when they’re gone. I know she’ll always be a part of you—and that’s okay. Your love for her and Lena is one of the many reasons I fell so deeply in love with you.” She gave me a slight smile to show her sincerity.

I didn’t know how to respond to that, to feel such unconditional love from a woman I’d wronged. Her love for me was so pure that she didn’t know jealousy, didn’t care that a vigil for someone else remained in my heart.

She continued to smile at me. “I know your home doesn’t look the way it did before, but it’s beautiful. I’m sure in time you can rebuild it to be exactly as you remember. Assuming this is where you want to live.”

The insufferable pain had returned to my chest, the weight of the decision that affected everyone around me. I could hurt the two I loved most, or I could let someone else suffer instead.

“Talon?”

I turned back to her.

Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine. “Are you alright?”

No.

She continued to stare at me.

“Yes…I’m fine.”

She kept up her stare, and it was obvious she didn’t believe me. “What aren’t you telling me?”

I looked away. “Nothing.”

I stood in the courtyard alone, the torches ablaze, showing the stakes that had dried and withered. The bodies were still there, so charred it was hard to know what was flesh or bone. A breeze moved through my hair, and that was when I knew he was there.

Bahamut.

Most of the trees in the courtyard had been burned. It used to be a beautiful place where my father hosted his parties. Rosella would flirt with the men at court, and my mother would gossip with the women. Silas was never interested in royal affairs and hooked up with the servants in the storage room, as I had a couple of times myself.

Calista had gone to sleep in our tent, choosing to sleep on the hard ground rather than occupy the castle that still smelled like smoke. The place wasn’t my home anymore, and even though it was rightfully mine, it felt strange to invade it when Barron’s belongings were everywhere.

Bahamut came to me in the form of a handsome man, steel-blue eyes that were endless in their depths. He was so real that the breeze moved his hair, but he was visible only to me. “Was it everything you wanted, Talon Rothschild?”

It was. “Everything and more.”

“Then I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain.” The cruel smile wasn’t plastered on his face, like he had some ounce of humanity. “Now it’s time you fulfill yours.”

The dread had begun once I was forced to accept what Calista meant to me. That she healed old wounds and made my dead heart beat once again. I’d dragged my feet with every step I took, anxious to arrive at this moment but absolutely detesting it simultaneously. But time had passed within the blink of an eye, from Shadow Stone to Riviana Star to the beach in the Lands of Thalian. I’d fallen in love with the only woman capable of capturing my heart. And I loved another completely and utterly—a creature covered with hard scales that breathed fire.

“What have you decided?”

I felt a warm breeze through my hair, smelled the jasmine through the smoke, savored the feeling of home. It was different now and had been cursed by Barron and his family, but it would always be special to me.

He continued to stare at me, waiting for the answer I didn’t want to give. “How will it happen…if I don’t choose her?” I asked for information I didn’t want to know. Wanted to understand the horror that Calista and Khazmuda would discover if I didn’t betray Queen Eldinar.

“I’ll take your soul, here where you stand, and they’ll find your body at dawn.”

Now I wished I hadn’t asked.

“But you can avoid that, Talon Rothschild. Your dragon has agreed to serve you in this task.”

“How do you know that…?”

His smile came through. “Because I see everything—even when you don’t see me.” The smile reached his eyes, the possessiveness burning bright, his tendrils slowly hooking around my arms and legs to take me where I could never escape. An eternal damnation. “Queen Eldinar occupies a tent with her husband to the south of the city. Slit his throat. Knock her out. Carry her from the camp to the outskirts where Khazmuda can meet you. He can carry her to my lands while you remain behind. No one will suspect you, and no one will notice that Khazmuda is gone.”

“She’s the one you want, isn’t she?”