Dragon's Descent (To Kill a King Book 3) by Sam Burns & W.M. Fawkes

Author:Sam Burns & W.M. Fawkes [Burns, Sam & Fawkes, W.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FlickerFox Books
Published: 2023-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

Dima

I knew when Arkadii went to Danik. Through our bond, I could feel his relief rise like a gentle tide to sweep away the fear that’d spiked within him when he had forced his way from the dragon stables and flown to the palace rooftop to find me trapped in flames and stuck behind so much glass.

I learned later that it’d popped and shattered. If any plants had survived the fire—and they had not—they’d now been exposed to frost and the bitter Voronezh winds.

All that was left was the one potted lily, limp at my bedside but carefully tended. It felt like my very heartbeat was tied to the thing, that if it beat too swiftly, I threatened to steal the life from it forever.

But I appreciated Arkadii looking after Danik, who’d refused to leave the palace. The servants lamented the damage he was doing with his claws, the masonry he’d broken and loosened all over the ramparts as he tried to find a way to me. I couldn’t care about the damn palace.

It wasn’t quite the same thing as looking after me directly, but Arkadii was doing that too.

I didn’t know why—how I had gone from running him off to having him steadfastly at my side—but I wasn’t going to question it. I needed him. Whoever I was supposed to be had died in that fire, and now I wanted very little more than to lean on Arkadii’s arm and have him close.

I was terrified that, if I asked what he meant by it, he would clarify that it was nothing but guilt for letting this happen in the first place. And then he would leave again.

So I didn’t ask.

And I didn’t ask for him to leave. He slept in my room, usually in the chair, leaning over the bed so that his hair fell in golden tendrils over the cotton down. It would only be more perfect if he came closer, but—well, could I ask that? After everything, I wasn’t sure.

He talked to me about Danik, how he looked when clouds parted enough to let sunlight glint in an opalescent haze off his black scales. He didn’t say Danik was well or comfortable, but it was enough to know that he was safe and that he’d stayed.

I wasn’t as alone as I had imagined.

Far from it.

Not a day passed that Misha didn’t march through my room, growling his theories to Arkadii or Lev and looking for answers. Zoya came each day, draining herself and her magic for my sake.

It would have been so easy to let me die—no effort at all. And it had been a tremendous effort to save me, costing each of them something in pain or sacrifice or time.

And they . . . had. I never would’ve expected it, but they had.

The very thought was humbling, and if anything happened to me, I knew now that Voronezh would be in better hands than my own. Each of them were better than I could ever be.

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