Mountain of Dragons and Sacrifice by Tara Grayce

Author:Tara Grayce [Grayce, Tara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sword & Cross Publishing
Published: 2024-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

I thought it had been faith to cling to what the village elders had taught growing up, despite seeing the truth from the dragon’s word.

But it took far more faith to believe the dragon’s word and light that candle.

The wick flared to life, and I lifted the candle high, shining the light onto the dragon’s face.

Evander stood there in his familiar blue tunic. Yet the wings fluttering behind his back were foreign to the Evander I knew. Something about his face was also sharper, more reptilian and less human. Or less fae, rather. Even his eyes were different. Still blue, but now streaked with amber.

Perhaps I should have been surprised, seeing him there where the dragon should be. But the sight of him was so strangely right even as it was so wrongly strange that there was no room for surprise.

His shoulders relaxed as he released a breath. “Finally.”

“So…nothing bad is going to happen, right?” My fingers trembled as I set the candle on the table beside the bed, a bitter tightness still quaking through me. As much as I wished, I couldn’t immediately banish that old fear from being taught that something bad would happen if I looked at the dragon’s face. It was a struggle to meet Evander’s gaze when everything in me wanted to squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m not about to get swept away to face tedious trials because I lit the candle? Or you’re not going to be called away because of some curse you’re under?”

“Nope. No curse. No tedious trials.” Evander’s mouth curved into his familiar, warm smile, his words holding a hint of his chuckle, though it was deeper and more growling in this form. A glimpse of fangs glinted in the candlelight as he spoke. “All that’s going to happen is that I’ll finally explain what’s going on.”

“Oh, good. I was hoping as much.” I crossed my legs and rested my hands in my lap, not sure what I felt. Mostly too numb and wrung out after the ups and downs of the night to feel much of anything besides the burning need for the truth.

“It’s a long story. Would you rather wait until daylight after you’ve had a full night’s sleep?” Evander gestured to me. “You’ve already had a tumultuous night.”

A part of me was shutting down, freezing, under the onslaught of the night. All I wanted to do was huddle under a blanket and hide as I’d done when I was first brought here. But there was no going back. I had to face the truths of this night.

“I’m not going to sleep anyway, so you might as well tell me.” I shifted on my bed. Should I offer Evander a seat, if the story was that long? The thought of facing him across my bed, him looking far too much a dragon, his wings hogging most of the space in the room, squeezed my chest and throat.

He was Evander, and yet he was the dragon.

“In that case, would

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