Rosalia’s brows knotted close. “Lockdown?”
Horan nodded. “No one, not even merchants, is allowed in or out, and the king has sent soldiers marching to the southwest.”
“The tower!”
Again, the old man nodded.
“Have they already attacked?”
“At the time, they had not.” Elder Lillani sighed. “I felt the vibration of many thousands of soldiers in the sands, and by now they will have reached their destination. Whether it has come to a fight, I cannot say.”
“We need to return to the city, but…” Her mind went to Xavier, who hadn’t stirred since he slammed down outside of the community. If not for every able-bodied man within the tribe arriving to help relocate him to their village, he may have remained there.
Lillani’s ochre gaze gained a distant quality. “Your friend will awaken soon. Nothing has happened that is not fated by the divines. Trust in them and trust in yourself.”
Miriam smiled. “Fate brought us to you during your time of need. We will take you to the city.”
“But you’ve just come from Enimura!” Rosalia protested. “I couldn’t ask that of you.”
The elder woman chuckled. “Enimura may be closed for business, but we will take you as close as we can to the gates as we continue our trade routes. Besides, Sister Lillani is correct that we were destined to be in this precise place when we were needed most.”
When Xavier stirred, it was to the cool evening breeze and the scent of baking desert sand. The open skies of twilight stretched above him in hues of purple and pink, an amber glow on the horizon at the edge of his vision.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, he fought the pull tugging him under into sleep and focused on his returning senses. A bonfire, and the low murmur of many voices—
Rosalia!
His eyes flew open again as he jerked upward, finding strength he’d thought long spent. Rising placed weight on an injured limb, and it sang in protest. The tender, newly healed flesh of each long talon ached.
“Whoa!” a man cried.
“Easy, now,” said another voice, softer and feminine. “We mean you no harm.”
He lumbered around on unsteady legs and took in the dozens of villagers surrounding him. Several wore brilliant sun-hued robes, all gazing at him with kind faces and not a single weapon in sight.
“Welcome back to the world of the living. It was quite close a few times.” The same woman who spoke of meaning no harm to him gazed up at him with a smile. “Someone will be very happy to know you’ve finally opened your eyes.”
“Where’s Rosalia? How did I get here?” He flexed his claws and tested the joint of his right wing, rotating the extremity in the socket a few times without extending it to its full span. While stiff, the flesh didn’t pull or tug.
“Your companion prepares for the journey ahead of you. As for how you came to us, we brought you here when your own endurance failed you.”
Xavier ducked his head and sighed a long breath that sent curls of dark smoke from his nostrils. He’d failed her. Again. Time after time, he’d failed to perform as needed for her.
“Fear not, young dragon. You saved many lives. You may be strong, but you are not inexhaustible. Your soul is weary.”
“I don’t have time for weariness.”
“Perhaps not, but I sense you have pushed yourself to near death many times. What good will you be to her if you perish now?”
Xavier hated that the woman was right. He couldn’t afford to die and leave her unprotected. But he didn’t mind pushing himself beyond exhaustion and to the point of death, and he’d do it over and over again as long as it meant Rosalia didn’t have to.
The love he felt for her was as much a curse as it was a gift.
The woman smiled up at him then turned to the man on her left. They spoke for a time in their native tongue, then the man said something to the others and the group dispersed, leaving only the older fellow.
“Are you able to transform?” the kindly old gent asked.
“Possibly.”
The thought hadn’t crossed his mind yet. As his default state of being tended to be his weredragon body, it was easiest for him to assume that form when injured.
Apparently, the gassing of his lair hadn’t been enough to trigger the survival instinct of his body to drop into a coma. Or maybe he’d merely passed out before he had the chance. The magical properties of dragon’s bane were insidious but mostly unknown, as his kind had never studied it in-depth and acquisition of it proved difficult.
“Would you like to try?” the man asked, lifting a robe up to Xavier in offering.
“I suppose I must.”
Moving hurt. Joints screamed, and an ache radiated from within the marrow of every bone. Despite that, he pulled himself together and sat on his haunches. He shook out his head a bit, and glanced down to see the old man smiling.
“I would like to know the name of my caretaker so I may thank you properly.”
“Ah, pardon my manners. I am Jorah of the Red Iris Clan.” He dipped his head respectfully. “You are the first dragon in some years that I have had the honor of working on.”
“An honor?”
Xavier blinked. He thought his kind were hated by the Moritta for his grandfather’s actions, and he couldn’t blame them for it. Deplorable and self-serving actions by a greedy ancient wyrm had plunged the entire world into danger beyond comprehension.
He wondered if anything could ever make up for it, even if he knew guilt by association of bloodline was a ridiculous notion. He owed nothing simply for being related to the bastard.
“Yes.” Jorah held up the robe again and nodded.
As much as he dreaded the transformation, it couldn’t be put off forever. Xavier braced himself for the pain of shifting—a rare occurrence but expected when his joints had already been pushed to their limits—and let the change come over him.
Each muscle fiber may as well have been stripped from his bones. Agony pounded through tendons into his joints with the rage of a blistering inferno, and he bit back a scream even as the pain almost drove him to double over and vomit.
“Here.”
Linen landed around his shoulders.
A moment passed before he realized that the older man had placed the robe on him and fastened it.
“You’ll live, I think, and be stronger for it. Head into the house of healing for supper. A good meal will do more than any amount of rest.”
“Thank you.”
The hand on his back imparted a fatherly warmth he hadn’t experienced in some time, and the feeling lingered with him long after he parted from Jorah’s company and entered the adjacent building. As a dragon, he’d been too large for them to carry inside. Fragrant air greeted him once he escaped the arid desert, the interior aromatic from herbs, ointment, burning incense, and drying flowers.
Several cots stretched down the length of the room, some occupied by people he could scarcely tell were ill. Then there was Ahrak, his huge body reclining on a bed at the end of the room while a healer applied an ointment to his burns, which were numerous. Bandages wrapped around his muscular thigh.
“Ah, there’s our horned friend!” a woman called as she emerged from the next room with a steaming bowl of water and fresh bandages. She aimed a big smile that seemed too sunny to be just for Xavier’s sake. “Welcome back to the world of the living. Proper clothes as well as dinner await you.” Then she called another woman in the room and he recognized the name Rosalia among the torrent of foreign words that transpired between them. His heart leapt. He wanted to see her.
“Here. These are for you.” After setting aside the bowl and linens, she swept behind a desk and retrieved a set of folded clothing, as well as his boots from the floor. The clothes had been cleaned and refreshed, scented with desert lavender and sunlight. “Feel free to step into the next room to wash. The tub has been replenished, but the water isn’t hot. Although I’m sure you can manage that.”
<
br /> He nodded. “Thank you.”
He stepped into the next room, a quieter space with only a few beds. As promised, he found a bath filled just shy of its brim, heated it with a magical spell, then submerged and tried to soak away the long week of hell.
He emerged some time later to the sight of Rosalia approaching the door with hope in her features. Pure, exultant joy came over her features as she rushed to him.
“You’re okay!”
He took her in his arms the moment she came within reach, squeezing her tight. Her warmth and the softness of her skin, the sandalwood scent in her hair, encompassed him in a comfort he hadn’t realized he needed. “I am.”
Rosalia leaned back and peered into his face. She searched his eyes, then cupped his cheeks in both hands. “You scared me to death. When they told me you’d flown off with the wraith, I thought…” Her voice hitched.
“I couldn’t let it kill everyone.”
“So you offer yourself to it instead, Xavier? Foolish, brave dragon.”
When she hugged him again, in a moment almost too personal for the middle of the healing house, he could do nothing more than let her sink against him. He held her for a long moment, rubbing one hand down the center of her back until the subtle tremors of her body ceased.
“Foolish indeed,” Ahrak said from behind Rosalia.
Xavier glanced at the man to see him watching them, his features unreadable and stoic despite the ointment gleaming on the raw, pink skin of his arms and the disfiguring burns that spread down both of them.
Rosalia separated from him and turned to face the approaching man. Her jaw clenched, eyes narrowed with fire blazing in them. Before she could speak, Xavier discreetly squeezed her arm. He didn’t need or want her to fight his battles.
“What you did was damned foolish. Reckless,” the Moritta warrior said. He rose from the bed with a groan, fleeting pain contorting his face into a harsh grimace as he stepped forward. “You knew you aren’t fireproof.”
Xavier sighed. He didn’t drop his head or look away. He was accustomed to the anger and judgment of the Moritta and had begun to wonder if he deserved it after all. “I did.”
“But you took hold of the wraith anyway. You risked your life, risked everything.” Ahrak stopped short of them, standing a few feet away with the help of a walking staff gripped in one white-knuckled hand. “And I have never been more honored to be proven wrong by another. I owe you the deepest of apologies.”
Xavier blinked. An apology had been the last thing he expected from the proud warrior. “There were no other options.”
“You bear the spirit of a true warrior. Grandmother agrees that should you need our aid, our best fighters and I will be there to battle beside you. From this day forward, I consider you a friend of the Red Canyon clan.” Ahrak offered a hand that Xavier gratefully took.
“I did it because it was the right thing to do.”
“It was also brave, and were it not for your deed, we would have died. I was wrong to assume you are like the dark one who robbed us, and I am proud to have fought beside you. Forgive my ignorance, Xavier.”
“It’s forgotten.”
“I may not be in any condition to leave with you now for the city, but we will march soon to help you fight against this king. I give you my word. Watch for our eagle, and know we are coming.”
13
Graverobbed
Traveling through the hot desert in the cramped space of a trader’s wagon for almost six hours was high on Rosalia’s list of things she never wanted to do again, somewhere between climbing a volcano and tumbling into a refuse heap in the city. Retiring after saving the world from certain doom was, however, very high on her list of priorities, along with spending a lot of time with Xavier making the child he yearned to father.
His enthusiasm proved infectious. While he hadn’t brought it up again, she sensed a difference in him when he watched the Mori village children playing in the evening. His strength had been returning, and he was recovered enough that he’d indulged them in play and allowed one little girl to lead him by the hand and show him her favorite succulent garden.
Rosalia thought he’d be a great father—on par with the irreplaceable Hadrian, who had raised her with love.
For the first few days of their journey, they rode in the wagon with their hosts, dined with them, and slept on bedrolls spread over the floor while the lovely couple rode up front, guiding the dune crawlers along the southern trade route. The enormous desert basilisks moved quickly despite their low position to the ground, and they required little water and almost no rest throughout the day, as their wild kin remained in constant motion guarding their territory from rivals. The only caveat to their tremendous endurance and power? Their voracious appetites made them an illogical possession for city dwellers, as they fed greedily and deeply once or twice a week and were useless for several hours afterward.
The Moritta had a system that protected them: donning the wardrobe of the Saudonian people. It was a necessary deception that had served them well and allowed a select few to travel the desert unimpeded. She didn’t detect a hint of the same accent that she’d heard among the others in the Red Canyon clan. She wondered how long it had taken them to perfect their cover.
Then, six hours ago, they’d approached the city and come near enough that it was necessary to remain on guard, if not against highwaymen, then against the patrolling provincial guard—a corps of the royal guard who patrolled the roads in search of roadside thieves. But mostly, they took bribes and harassed travelers.
Then it became necessary for them to go into hiding in the smuggling port, a hold beneath the caravan wagon’s floorboards designed for secreting things and people within the city’s walls whenever they visited to offload their special goods.
“Your hair is tickling my nose again,” Xavier muttered, not for the first time in those six hours.
While they were fortunate to have someone to smuggle them in, they were unfortunate in regards to how damned small the space was. It was meant for one person, or two beings of average size, not a woman and an enormous, broad-shouldered weredragon.
Crammed together without wiggle room or even space to lift a hand and scratch her nose, their sweaty skin stuck together and Xavier breathed a little too loudly in her ear. Whenever his mind went to raunchy places, she knew the precise moment. Pointing that out had only encouraged him to suggestively ask if she wanted to handle it for him since his hands were pinned to her back and hers were nearer.
Rosalia adored the man, she really did, but the urge to stab him grew each passing second as her aggravation with the situation mounted.
If they could survive this final two-hour stretch, they could survive a marriage of…whatever duration of time they were both expected to live. It could be centuries, now that she knew of her half-djinn heritage.
“And I have to pee,” she snapped back. He fell silent for a moment, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“It’s awful when your body does things you have no control over, isn’t it?” he asked quite smugly.
Rosalia’s anger deflated.
He really couldn’t help it. But she had no intention of jerking him off in the casket-width space of a smuggler’s bounty beneath barrels of grain. She watched fragile slants of light pass between the cracks on the floorboards. The day faded fast. By the time they reached their destination, night would have fallen.
“I smell drugs,” Xavier murmured against her ear in an apparent attempt to keep the conversation from dying. “They’re smuggling in more than just us. Medicinal drugs of the variety the city doesn’t allow, as they prefer for their healing houses to have the monopoly.”
“I’m not surprised.” Rosa wiggled her toes, longing desperately to stretch out more comfortably. “What else is there?”
“Some illegal fruit, black powder, and…bird eggs.”
“Eggs?”
“Probably f
rom the desert. There are rich men in Enimura who will pay a hefty amount for such a delicacy. As I understand it, the Moritta take no more than what a clutch can afford to lose and continue to thrive.”
Time passed sluggishly, the light fading until Rosa couldn’t even see her own nose. She was half asleep when Xavier spoke again.
“I want to marry you.” He spoke the words so soft she almost didn’t hear him over the noise of cart wheels turning on the rough stand road. Rosalia could have feigned sleep if she hadn’t tensed up, air stuttering to a halt in her lungs as she stared unseeing.
Marry? If she were being honest, Rosa never thought she’d get married. She always kind of just assumed she’d work with the guild until she retired, rich and at peace with her life of thievery. She’d wanted a quaint cottage close to the library or perhaps at the edge of the warehouse district so she was less than a few minutes’ walk from the Salted Pearl. All of her future plans had come crashing down the night of the massacre.
Prior to Xavier, she’d never considered a future with marriage, and children had been out of the question. Motherhood, a distant and unwanted dream for a thief who loved her career and thought she’d continue swindling and conning until she turned gray.
The Rosalia of yesterday would have preferred to spend her days dancing each evening and stealing by night, sleeping in without a care in the world. The Rosalia of now, held intimately close in the arms of a weredragon on a wagon to the final leg of their journey, couldn’t help but wonder if a dragon child would have her gifts of luck and fire, or if it would merely take after Xavier.
An entire future unfolded before her, years passing in seconds, of their little one running down tree house halls, leaping into Xavier’s lap, and becoming recipient of the fatherly hugs she’d been denied from the mysterious man of her mother’s own past. Hadrian had done his best to fulfill that role. And for a while, she’d thought Lacherra did too.
Diamond in the Rough: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 3) Page 9