Obsidian Wings (Soul of a Dragon Book 1)

by Clara Hartley

  “Medicinal brews?”

  “Master Rayse has a small stockpile of them should he need to use them urgently.”

  “Fetch them for me.” Constance’s breath came out in a level and controlled stream. She would have to choose the right ones based on what little Greta had shown her. Hopefully her years working with Eduard would help.

  She worked with steady and fast hands. Luckily, the medicines were similar to the ones for humans—they were simply imbued with magic to make them more potent. She found the two for binding and disinfecting wounds and mixed them in a small bottle. She didn’t think dragons were susceptible to infections, but better to be safe than sorry.

  She begun unbinding the makeshift bandages from Rayse’s torso and leg. The heat of his skin threatened to burn her.

  “Shen, can you help me lift him?” she asked. “He’s too heavy.”

  The warrior obliged without question.

  As she peeled the cloth off, the grotesqueness of his wounds sliced through her with merciless sharpness. His gut looked like a creature had ripped through it. His clavicle showed through his shoulder in a marred white. No one should be able to survive that wound. Half his leg had been bitten off, and if he were a human, she would have to amputate it to save his life. She trusted dragons had better healing abilities. With all her heart, she prayed they did, or Rayse would die.

  She commanded her mind to turn to steel, but couldn’t help but falter. “Wh-what happened?” A turbulence started in her. Anger and wrath at whoever had done this to him formed in her like violent lightning.

  Shen said with a black grimness, “We were outnumbered and Rayse let himself get ambushed. It’s unlike him, and his wounds should be halfway healed by now, but they’re not.”

  “It’s the mate bond?”

  The warrior’s jaw clenched. “It weakens him.”

  A dagger spiked through her chest. She wanted to collapse in a puddle of tears. It would be so easy to hide in a corner and pity herself for being such a terrible mate to Rayse, but there was no time for that. She shoved her emotions aside.

  She tried to see past the blood and the gruesomeness of his wounds. She inspected his body like an objective healer, as difficult as it was. Focus. If she failed, Rayse would die, and even though she had yet to truly love him, her soul cried out, demanding that he live. If she lost this man, she would lose something, someone important to her—a promising bliss she would never know.

  “I’ll need to sew some parts of him up,” she said. “Nanili, pass me the terravale liquid, needle, and sutures.”

  She tried to work as fast as she could, but even that felt too long. Rayse was bleeding out.

  She poured the medicine into her rag then pressed it to his shoulder. “Shen, do the same to his knee. The faster we can get his wounds treated, the better.”

  The rise and fall of Rayse’s chest slowed. She choked back a curse.

  “Stay with me, Rayse,” she begged. Her anxiety thundered. “A lot of his wounds require stitching. Wrap a temporary bandage around his knee while I work on his chest. Nanili, pass me the numbing bassillis.” Should Rayse survive this, his body would be marred by the severity of his injuries, a constant reminder of what weaknesses she gave him. She ignored that thought.

  Her fingers shook when she brought the sutures through his skin. She winced at the piercing of flesh. A groan rumbled from Rayse. She peered up, worried she had caused him pain, but moments later, his body relaxed into his previous labored, but rhythmic breathing. She could hear her own heart beating in her ears as she strained to stitch her mate back together.

  “Stay strong, Rayse,” she kept repeating. “You’ll be fine. I’ll make sure you are. Stay strong.”

  She uttered a prayer to the gods, even though the notion sounded silly. The dragons were supposed to be her gods. It was ludicrous to pray to Rayse while trying to save him. But she needed a prayer to something to get her through this.

  She stepped away from Rayse, set the instruments aside, then placed a hand over his. It was still warm. Burning, actually, but it was a sign of life. He fought to stay on Gaia. The thought of him dying impaled her. She wouldn’t let him go. When did she start caring so much for this man? She wanted to nurse him back to health as if her life depended on it.

  She breathed out softly. “I’ve done all I can. He should stabilize if all goes well.”

  Whatever happens, don’t let him die. I don’t know if there are gods, but if you can hear me, please…

  She might even sacrifice herself to keep him alive. She wanted to snort at the idea. Dying, for someone almost a stranger to her? Idiocy.

  But she truly considered the proposition.

  “When will he recover?” she asked Shen. “You were injured quite badly, too, albeit not as bad as this. You could walk out from the clinic in no time at all.” She imagined Rayse as he was less than a day ago, lifting her up with his strong arms into the starry sky. He was the embodiment of power and health then. He had withered so quickly.

  An apologetic look came over Shen’s features. “Two days, if he wasn’t impaired by the mate bond. But even when injured like this, his dragon won’t let his body and soul truly rest. He will heal perhaps as slowly as a human.”

  “But a human would most certainly perish from these wounds.”

  He hesitated, then continued, “I can’t say for sure if he will recover.”

  Every inch of her being clenched. She gripped Rayse’s hand tightly despite the scorching, reminding herself that he wasn’t gone yet and there was no use mourning now. She focused her angst and sadness into the need to heal him instead. She would learn everything she could about dragon healing by tomorrow, and with whatever knowledge she gathered, she would make sure Rayse stayed alive.

  “I’m so sorry,” Shen said. “My duty was to protect him.”

  “If there’s someone to blame, it’s whatever cursed divine power that paired Rayse and with someone with as much trouble as me. And myself, for being a part of this all.”

  Shen shook his head. “I shouldn’t have pressed him to investigate this matter. Most dragons aren’t supposed to confront difficult battles while courting a mate. It’s too dangerous. I needlessly divided his attention. I thought that because he was femrah, he had the strength to be there, that it was for the sake of the clan.” Shen sighed, still wearing his downtrodden look. “And now this.”

  “We can play this game all night, but it’s needless. What’s done is done. Now we have to find a way to fix it.”

  Shen dipped his head. “Be sure to not raise anyone’s suspicion to Rayse’s presence here. You should still go to the clinic as you normally do. Do not breathe a word of his predicament to anyone. Not even your closest friend. Once word escapes, it travels fast, and then there would be no one to protect him from the power-hungry subjects of this clan.”

  “I want to be here, by his side. He can’t be left alone.”

  “Instruct Nanili on how to care for him, then.”

  “But she’s just…” Constance couldn’t think of how to describe the mishram. A servant? No, normal servants could think for themselves. They had initiative. But Nanili wasn’t truly an object either. “She’s not fit to nurse. How about you? Can you stay with him?”

  “Without Rayse at the head, I’ll need to distract the other dragons and take temporary command.”

  “And Fraser?”

  “He will be outside to guard this house and redirect other dragons as need be.”

  “I can’t leave him alone.” What if she came home to his corpse?

  “If you raise suspicion, then his safety is guaranteed to be compromised.” Shen paused to think. “Go to the clinic for an hour or so tomorrow. Make up an excuse. Say you’re unwell then come home.”

  She sighed. “That will have to do.” But she didn’t want to leave him at all. Not even for an hour. She understood how fickle some illnesses could be. She had witnessed patients being completely normal one moment, and dead the next.<
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  She swallowed her worries.

  Constance walked into the clinic. Fraser and Marzia escorted her there. Her eyes met the back of a mishram. She stilled with shock. The creature’s back was complete torn and burned, reminding Constance of a gruesome version of minced meat.

  “What in heaven’s name?” she said.

  A dragon wife stood next to the mishram. The woman edged the servant forward, toward Greta. “My husband took out his bad temper on this one again. Can you fix her?”

  Greta gestured to the darker corners of the clinic. “Hm, another one? I think I’m a mishram tinkerer now, not a healer. Leave that one next to the others.”

  The woman nodded, then said to her creature, “Go wait there like Greta instructed. Listen to everything the healer says. I’ll pick you up at the end of the day.”

  The servant, without any indication of hurting despite her wounds, picked up her feet and shuffled to the row of other mishram standing in a straight line. Once the mishram got into place, her owner departed.

  Greta took out her spectacles and adjusted them over her face in an entirely unnecessary gesture. “You look surprised, pumpkin.”

  Constance gathered herself, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “That poor mishram’s injuries…”

  “They come like that every other day. They heal just as quickly as dragons, and don’t feel anything. There is little need to worry about them.”

  “But still… Why do such a thing?”

  “Who cares what happens to property?”

  Constance’s blood heated from her mentor’s harsh words. “Property? They’re living beings.”

  “Are they?”

  She fumbled, realizing she didn’t see them as such either. They had the face of a human, acted and talked like one, but showed little semblance of emotion, which seemed to be a prerequisite of life.

  The dragon lady spun around and went back to work, glasses still on. “They don’t have bright souls, only dull. A being needs two parts to its soul to be considered living.”

  “Only the dull…”

  “Surely you’ve sensed it, pumpkin? You’re so attuned to magic.”

  “I never thought to reach out to their souls.”

  “Try it, then.”

  Constance hesitated. The back corner of the clinic always seemed more shadowed than the rest of it. She deliberately avoided where the mishram stood whenever she walked across the room, even if she had to take a longer route.

  She must have paused for too long, because Greta said, “Go on. You look like you’re staring at the Dragon Mother’s wrath head-on. There’s nothing scary about the mishram.”

  She smoothed her fingers over her palm. Swallowing, she moved toward the dim corner, ignoring the beady, uncaring eyes of the bluish women.

  She lifted her hand. “What spell do I use?”

  “There is no spell for sensing souls. Just focus.”

  Nodding, she did as told. She closed her eyes and imagined herself uttering “es rea misreagou” and “kisla misreagou”—the calls to bright and dull souls. A dim well of power gathered in the mishram. Then it grew brighter and glowed. It resonated with Constance, but sang an off-key tune. The source of power was massive, but incomplete. She recognized the soul as dull. She searched for the bright soul, but it wasn’t there.

  Take it, a voice in her head said. The power belongs to you. It entered her mind loud and clear.

  Her eyes jerked open. The mishram was staring straight at her with… emotion? She couldn’t put her finger on what expression the creature held, but some sort of emotion definitely showed there.

  Startled, she withdrew her hand.

  “An emptiness shows when you search for the bright soul,” Greta said.

  Constance tore her gaze away from the mishram. “Um, yes.” That expression… she was imagining things. She tucked her suspicions away.

  “Come sit with me, pumpkin. Help me peel these fisslire nuts.”

  “Fisslire nuts? For sore throats?”

  “Dragons can get sore throats, too. Some of them use too much fire and strain their windpipes.”

  “Interesting.” She spun around, but not before doing a double take at the mishram. Did the creature still have eyes on her? A weight lifted off her chest when she saw the creature’s eyes staring into nothing, as usual. Just imagining things…

  Greta gestured at Marzia, who was whispering sweet nothings to Fraser. “Peach, come over here and help Constance out. You can’t be flirting all day.”

  As Constance’s fingers labored over the herbs—fisslire nuts were notoriously stubborn—her mind wandered to Rayse and his injured form. She needed to be at his side. She would have to act quite sick to take a few more days off, and she wasn’t adept at acting. Deliberately, she rubbed her head and neck multiple times, to give the impression she was unwell.

  Soon, the mild poison she’d eaten before walking here would kick in, and she’d be vomiting into a bucket. She’d use that as an excuse to head home. The effects should wear off less than an hour after they started.

  Boredom wrote itself all over Marzia’s face. “You still don’t have your mark yet,” she said.

  The words pierced Constance’s gut, reminding her of what her inability to trust had done to Rayse. “No, I don’t.”

  “Hm, that’s not normal. Fraser told me most couples finish their mark by the second day.”

  Her brows shot up. “That quickly?”

  “Don’t you feel it? The need to give yourself to him, trusting that you’re two halves of a soul. That sensation is impossible to ignore. I trusted him the moment our eyes met.” Marzia finally managed to pry off her first shell of a nut. She added it to Constance’s pile of ten.

  Constance sighed. “No… I think it’s my past blocking me from doing so.”

  “If you don’t get over it, you’re going to kill him,” Greta said.

  The harshness of their words sent a knife through her gut. Maybe she didn’t need poison to pretend being sick. Nausea from guilt clawed at her. “Greta, must the bond really be completed?”

  The old woman shot her an incredulous look. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what if I can never accept him, but I don’t want him to die? Is there some way to avoid completing the bond?” It hurt to think about ending her connection with Rayse, but that consideration fared better than simply allowing her mate to end his five hundred years by dying from exhaustion. It pained her to think he might perish because of her.

  Greta acted as if she’d seen a dragon with two heads. “Nonsense. Why would you not want to complete it? It’s a magical thing. Some dragons pass on without ever finding their mate. Finding your other half is something to be thankful for, not discarded.”

  “If I fail for too long, Rayse will die, as you said.”

  “You will complete it.”

  Constance wasn’t convinced. Her heart fell toward her stomach as she continued peeling those nuts.

  Greta pursed her lips, then glanced up and adjusted her spectacles. “There is a spell you can use…”

  “There is?” Constance wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear it. Choice could make one uncertain and unhappy. If she truly severed the bond, and Rayse looked at her without any love, would she be able to handle it?

  Greta ambled to her shelf of grimoires and picked a book up. The book made a huge thump on the desk when she set it down, as if it were a huge rock. Greta licked her forefinger, then flipped the pages.

  “This one,” Greta said. “Riska vin volote, iska nin proneur las von solis, renaron kismet iska vin volitan.”

  Constance’s mouth went dry. “It’s so long.”

  “Expensive, too. A couple medium-sized souls. Two rabbits, or hens, perhaps.”

  “I can manage that.” She picked up a quill from Greta’s desk and found an empty piece of parchment. Quickly, she copied the spell down. It was too long to memorize on the spot. “Just two hens? That’s all it takes to break a soul bond?” s
he asked as she scribbled. It seemed like such a small price to pay for such a grave decision.

  “And a considerable amount of magical talent,” Greta said. “I don’t think I could carry it out, but maybe you can. You need both Rayse’s blood and your own. Mix them together, then read out that spell. The next time you mate, it will be done.” The old woman exhaled a long breath. “Constance, are you sure about this? Little troubles my broken mind, but your eagerness to do this does.”

  Marzia added, “Honestly, what I have with Fraser is so special—why would you want to lose something like that?”

  They didn’t understand the new fear that gripped Constance. The knowledge of how Rayse slept unhealed and damaged in their home coiled around her like thorny vines. If she had power to change whatever fate she’d brought on him, then perhaps she could rid herself of this suffocating sensation. “It’s pre-emptive. Just in case I can’t complete the bond.”

  “You might regret this decision for the rest of your life,” Greta said.

  Constance dropped the quill and folded the paper. “That’s how decisions go. There’s always room to regret them.” Her mind spun, then set into place. She was almost certain she’d carry out this spell. Rayse looked little more than a dead man yesterday. She could never trust him. It wasn’t his fault; it was her inability to set aside her demons. She would rather break whatever little they had than force another axe so deep into him.

  Five minutes later, the contents of her breakfast rumbled, and her vision rocked. She reached for the nearest bucket and hurled.

  Chapter 17

  The Dragon Mother was awake.

  Rayse could sense her even though he’d been half-asleep for the last few days. The Mother’s calling played as a constant drumming at the back of his mind, summoning him. Every other dragon would experience it once in his lifetime, or so the stories said. The goddess only came once every thousand years. She called to all her brethren, demanding their attention and love, and despite his battered body, his soul reached out to the Mother.

  He was asleep, but not really. Claim her. Take her. Protect her. The thoughts relating to Constance never left him, despite his needing rest. His muscles and body burned due to the mate bond trigger, and his dragon wouldn’t concentrate his energies to what needed them the most. He sensed his surroundings, half aware of the sensations they brought on him. Even when Constance had sutured his wounds, he’d felt the piercing of the needle. Thankfully, she was careful enough to numb his skin before cleaning him up. Otherwise, he’d be screaming in his mind, his body as his prison.