Ashes And Grave
Page 22
“I think,” I said, when the last of our drinks was dry, “that it is time for us to return home.”
“Oh,” Vance said, waving a hand, “no, no. You should stay. For one thing, you shouldn’t fly drunk, and I know a drunk dragon when I see one.” He waved a finger at Nix.
“I’m not,” Nix assured him. “You’re seeing things.”
Vance leveled a serious look at him. “I can read your mind, you realize.”
Nix frowned. “Well... I might be a little buzzed, but—”
“But nothing,” Vance said. “You’re both staying here until morning. Besides, we’ve got an envoy from the cabal coming tomorrow. It would be good for her to see representatives from Emberwood here.”
“He is not wrong about that,” I had to admit. “Word will get around. People talk, and it is good that they will talk about the weyr being more... social.”
It was not my fault that I had become more political since settling in with Nix. There were more complicated matters between the weyrs, and between all the shifter groups, than I had realized before. So much hinged on who saw which pack member or dragon in which place, with whom, and under what circumstances. Shifters seemed to enjoy nothing so much as they did predicting what such things meant.
Consequently, I had begun to learn.
“We don’t want to intrude,” Nix said. “You and Tam have got to be aching for some privacy. At the very least, we could stay somewhere else.”
“First,” Tam said, placing his empty bottle on the table between us, “there’s nowhere else to stay. We had one open place, but then we also got a new pair of mates who were tired of keeping it quiet in their parents’ houses. And... everyone else was tired of them using the park late at night. Second—believe me, you won’t bother us. We’re careful around little ears. But you two are grown adults. So.”
Vance’s cheeks colored somewhat. I was inclined to join him. “Ah... well,” I said, “I suppose we cannot turn down such hospitality. For a variety of reasons, it appears.”
Tam waved Nix up. “Come help me, we’ll change the sheets.”
Nix stood, but cocked his head curiously to the side. “You don’t have to do all that.”
Vance cleared his throat. “Uh... we... were in a hurry before. You better change them out.”
Our dragons left us to see to it, and I watched them go before settling my gaze on my friend. “You are... getting along, I see.”
“Did you doubt it?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not in the slightest. I am glad to see that you are happy. And apparently quite busy.”
He snorted, leaning back on the couch. “Look, I’m not prying, I promise,” he said, “but, um... the two of you at least feel like you literally only have one thing on your mind.”
I put my hand up in mock defeat. “All right,” I said, “I am not judging.”
His expression gradually softened, and then fell slightly as he grew sober. “So... we haven’t talked about your brother.”
“Mm,” I agreed, and shrugged. “There is little to talk about.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said.
I squinted at him. “I think I liked it better when you did not have the full extent of your abilities.”
“I’m not digging,” he promised. “Just... something’s got you spooked. What is it?”
“Ivan was mad,” I said. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he muttered.
“But,” I said slowly, “he... made reference to something. To a rising power in the universe.”
“More abyssal cultist talk?” Vance wondered, sitting forward.
“That is what I thought as well,” I said. “But Ivan seemed almost dismissive of this. He would not tell me what it was—he said that I could not comprehend, as a... bacteria cannot understand a man.”
Vance’s brow furrowed. “There is a lot going on right now,” he said. “Is it possible he was speaking the truth?”
“I cannot know,” I said. “Even if it were not too dangerous to reconstitute him, the task would be very near to impossible. And I do not think that he would say more than he already had. He tried to recruit me, though. And he said that already there were thousands who had ‘joined the cause’. It could have been a tactic. To unsettle me, or make me reconsider.”
“He was begging for his life?” Vance wondered. “In a roundabout kind of way? Bargaining?”
I considered it for a long moment. Ivan had not been in a weak position at the time. At least, not that he was aware of. “I don’t think that is it,” I said finally. “He was earnest, even if he was mad. And he admitted to Nix that someone released him from Tartarus. He did not resurrect himself.”
I saw movement behind him, and a moment later, Nix emerged from the hallway near the stairs. He was troubled, frowning. Tam emerged behind me, seemingly worried as well. “What is the matter?”
“Ivan said there was some new power rising?” he asked.
I winced. I had not wanted to revisit the event with Nix, and we had been so busy immediately after. “It was nothing,” I said, dismissing the matter. “I do not believe—”
“Roland said something similar,” he said, stepping further into the living room. “He said there was a war coming. I thought it was just him being... well, him. Combative, ‘everyone’s an enemy’. But that seems more than coincidental.”
I had to admit, it was unsettling.
Vance looked from our mates to me. “So... what does it mean?”
“I do not know,” I said, contemplating the bottom of a drink that had begun to lose its effect on me as a chill crept along my spine. “But I do not think it is something we can ignore.”
Happiness. It seemed that we had gathered some part of it for ourselves—me and Vance, Tam and Nix. It was easy, once it was in our grasp, to believe that this was the end of our struggle.
But perhaps that was naive. There were no happy endings. Only happy journeys which, it may be, do not ever truly end.
And it seemed that our journey was only just beginning to reveal the turns in the road ahead.
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Ashes And Grave
Dragon Magic: Book 2
Jill Haven & Aiden Bates
© 2020
Disclaimer
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18)