by Grace Draven
He left then, to join Halani and the others at the edge of the forest. Malachus rose, muffling a snarl at the pain shooting through his leg. A pain not nearly as awful as the one crushing his heart. Winosia called to him, those fair lands where dragas weren’t hunted and harvested, where he might heal and learn how to live within this new form that was more natural to him than the human one he’d worn for as long as he could remember. Winosia, where snows fell on the mountain monasteries in a shroud of white, and the farmers in the fields constructed household shrines and lit votive candles in the names of ancient dragas. Winosia, where Halani, the light of his soul, was not.
EPILOGUE
Winter came to the hinterlands of the Krael Empire on an angry howl of wind that chased away the last days of fall in a single evening, casting a bitter cold across the territories. The cold didn’t stop Kraelian noble families from slaughtering each other in a bid to claim Dalvila’s throne for themselves, leaving the Empire teetering toward chaos.
Worried at the growing anarchy within the Empire’s borders, Hamod had taken his free trader band and begged sanctuary for the winter within the Goban territories that bordered the Savatar pasture lands.
Even during the bitterest days, when breathing froze the lungs and everyone chipped the ice filmed over their washbowls just to reach the water in them, the mood in the camp was buoyant, and the free traders spent many nights swapping stories and dinner with the Goban farmers who lived nearby and reciprocated with invitations to every birth, wedding, and winter festival observed.
Halani adopted a cheery, smiling manner, especially when she was with Asil. Her mother had finally left the Dream Road and returned to the living world one autumn night while Marata told the story of the draga who attacked Domora. Most had proclaimed Asil’s return a blessing of the gods. Halani fell to her knees every night, thanking every deity whose name she could remember for her mother’s return. She thanked Malachus, too, his name soft on her lips when she said it, which was often.
She tried not to think of him too much, a fruitless endeavor, especially during the night’s small hours, when the memory of Domora kept her awake, either from nightmares or from the ache of missing Malachus so much her bones hurt from it. Had he made it to Winosia safely? And if so, where did he convalesce? Was he still a draga, or had he once more assumed the guise of a man so he might walk among other men? Did he remember her? Miss her the way she missed him? So many what-ifs and no answers to them. Sometimes she thought she might go mad from their spinning in her brain.
Those who knew her best, besides Asil, weren’t fooled, though they didn’t push her to drop the jovial facade or spill her loneliness on their shoulders. The very idea of it made her shudder.
Several months and two seasons had passed since his departure, and he still occupied nearly all of her waking thoughts, and every one of her dreams. Even with her efforts at presenting a jocund front to the others, Asil sensed something was wrong. She’d always groomed Halani’s hair and returned to the task with an enthusiasm that bordered on worship, stopping sometimes to silently hug her daughter and offer a comfort that was a balm to Halani’s lonely soul.
The gray winter days with their bleak skies and anemic sun didn’t help her mood, and the punishing cold only made her want to huddle in bed under the covers and not come out of the wagon until spring. But that was an indulgence granted only to the wealthy, who had armies of servants to attend them. Everyone in Hamod’s camp had chores that kept them busy from sunrise to sunset. Cold weather didn’t bring them to a halt; it just made the tasks more miserable.
Today, snow clouds had rolled in, bringing with them a whiteout of fat flakes that caught and stuck on everything standing outside. The wagons, the livestock, the horse herd huddled together as they nibbled at the bits of brittle grass buried under a shroud of crystalline white. Halani stood in front of the horse trough, breaking up the newest layer of ice that had formed across the water’s surface. A trio of horses stood on either side of her, waiting for her to complete the work, sometimes snorting and tossing their heads as if to encourage her to hurry it along. One of them was Batraza.
Except for a fuzzy winter coat, the easygoing mare looked no different from the first day she entered their camp and set the horses and other livestock to whinnying and stamping their feet in alarm at her nearness. Halani now knew why animals reacted so badly to Malachus and to Batraza, enchanted by his magic. He’d been forced to leave her behind, and Halani was grateful for one thing of his she could keep. Batraza became her mare, and she rode her every day, even if it was just an ambling walk around the camp’s perimeter. The other animals still shunned Batraza, until one day they didn’t, and Halani discovered the mare grazing contentedly amid their small herd as if she’d always belonged there and been accepted. Malachus’s spell was broken. Happy for the mare, Halani still wept over the loss.
She paused in breaking up the ice to pat Batraza’s withers. “Cold enough to freeze a brazier fire today, Batraza,” she said.
Suddenly, the other horses bolted, galloping away from the camp as fast as they could. Batraza stayed, watching the fleeing pair with only a forward flick of her ears to show her interest. Startled by their surprising reactions, Halani accidentally dropped her stick in the frozen water. She braced herself to plunge her hand in the frigid water and fish it out but stopped when she noticed that not only the horses near her had spooked. Every animal had. The entire horse herd, the goats in their pens, even the stolid oxen. Halani spotted Kursak coming toward her, club in hand. “Wolves?” she asked, though that seemed unlikely. Winter’s deprivation made the packs more aggressive, more desperate, but she’d never seen the bigger animals react this way to a hunting pack.
“I don’t think so, but that kind of skittishness didn’t spawn from a snowflake landing on someone’s nose.” He scanned the surrounding landscape, obscured by the heavy curtain of falling snow. “I don’t like it. Gather up any children and get them to the wagons. If you pass one of the men, send them my way so we can round up what’s run off.”
“Where’s Hamod?” Halani had just seen his favorite horse, Pippet, bolt toward a copse of winter-bare trees, two more mares following close behind her.
“Probably strapping on snowshoes to track down Pippet and bring her back.”
He’d just finished speaking when an enormous dark shadow passed over the pristine pasture, blocking out what little of the weak sun still managed to break through the cloud cover. Those animals that hadn’t spooked and fled with the first group did so now.
Hamod stomped toward Halani and Kursak in his snowshoes. “Everyone in the wagons now!” he ordered. His eyes narrowed on Halani. “Where’s your mother?”
Halani’s heart raced. “With Osun’s boys and girl. Snowball fight.” She scanned the heavy sky, blinking into the falling curtain of white. “Did you see what it was?”
“No. It might just have been a cloud, but something’s spooked every animal in a quarter league of this camp. I may not trust men, but I trust a horse’s instincts every time.” He clopped past her. “I’ll fetch Asil and the others.”
He didn’t get far before the same dark shadow suddenly pierced the heavy veil of clouds, diving fast toward the camp. People screamed and raced for the wagons. A few stood frozen in place, including Halani, Saradeen, and Kostan. Kursak nearly yanked her off her feet pulling her toward the nearest wagon. She jerked away, jarred out of the stupor that took hold of her at the sight of immense wings that stirred up the snow in a whirling shower as a familiar bronze-scaled draga landed in front of her. The snow was still settling when a vortex of bloody smoke consumed the creature, and in its place a black-haired man with unforgiving features and ink-dark eyes stared at her. Awed exclamations rose behind her, commands from one group to another to lower crossbows and put away swords. Not far from the stunned and disbelieving Halani, Saradeen casually brushed the snow off his clothes and addressed th
eir visitor. “You’ll have to go back where you came from and find some other monarch to eat,” he called out, startling a laugh from Halani. “They still haven’t chosen an emperor or empress to take the Kraelian throne.”
“I’ll never hear the end of it, will I, old man?” Malachus called back. “I didn’t eat the empress.”
His gazed again settled on Halani. He glided easily toward her through the snow, even without the benefit of snowshoes. His smile remained, but charged with an intensity that made Halani’s breath stall in her chest. He stopped a few steps away from her.
Hardly daring to believe her eyes, she stood rooted in place, blinking away the snowflakes that gathered and melted on her eyelashes. “Did you forget something, Malachus?” Her voice warbled, and she cleared her throat. A thousand miserable years had passed since she’d seen him, or so it felt to her. He was flesh and blood and real instead of a dream born of yearning.
Malachus’s smile faded. “No, I didn’t. I couldn’t, even had I tried. It’s why I’m here. Did you forget me, Halani of the Lightning?”
“No,” she said softly. “Never.” Some might say their separation had made her fanciful, but she’d insist to anyone that he’d grown more handsome. “You returned home safely. I’m glad. I was worried.”
A small frown creased a line between his eyebrows. “I returned to Winosia and to the monastery. The brotherhood took care of me while I healed and learned what it is to be draga.” He closed the distance between them, tipping her chin up with his thumb to bring her face closer to his. “I’m still learning, but I didn’t go home, Halani,” he said. “I’ve come home. If you’ll have me.”
The euphoria bursting through every pore of her body made her shake. She clasped his wrist, remembering the heady warmth of his skin. “This is a dangerous place for a draga.”
“It’s a dangerous place for witches, yet you’re here. It’s the perfect place for this draga.”
“You’ll have to sit by Asil during storytelling. She’ll insist on it.”
He grinned. “I can do that.”
“And sleep beside me every night. I’ll insist on it.”
The smile turned seductive. “I’m more than happy to share your bed. Is that all?”
She tapped a finger against her lip as if the question were a weighty one. “Take me flying one day.” What wonders might that hold, she thought to herself. See the world with a bird’s-eye view from the back of a draga. There was a story to tell.
Malachus gathered her into his arms, snow cascading off his shoulders. “Any day you wish.”
“On the day you bond with me,” she offered, holding her breath.
His eyes blazed bright. “That is a good day. The best of days.” He kissed her then, telling her without words that he’d pined for her as much as she had for him. “My gods, woman,” he said when they came up for air. “How I’ve missed you.”
She cupped his face with her palms. “You will always have a place among us, a place beside me, in life and beyond death when the earth sings us to dust and tells the wind of how Halani of the Lightning loved a draga and he loved her in return.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing is a solitary endeavor that takes place as much in the writer’s head as it does via the keyboard. Creating a book is a team effort. Sincerest thanks to all those who put in the work to package this tale into a book. Special thanks to my editor Anne Sowards, whose editorial guidance continues to make me a better writer; to Mel Sanders for her brilliance and advice in all things writing related; to Jeffe Kennedy, who made me laugh in the middle of some serious mental exhaustion; and to Sarah Younger, my agent, whom I fondly call Agent Badass and who lives up to the name.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Draven is a Louisiana native living in Texas with her husband, kids, and a big doofus dog. She is the winner of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Fantasy Romance of 2016 and a USA Today bestselling author.
CONNECT ONLINE
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