Let me take some of the weight with me, sir, the dissipating echo said. Let me do this for you and for Rysa.
Weight? Ladon thought.
The weight of your centuries.
When what Ladon knew moved sideways, the world burned hot and cold. His perception of Dragon fanned out, multiple takes playing at the same time again. He felt the physical edges of each possibility slide along his skin.
A memory echoed: You can’t hold so tight. Let it go.
Rysa held tight. Dragon became all colors and shapes and textures at once. He gleamed with the stars themselves. They stabilized what-is and what-will-be—the present and the future—and understanding the process of his reconnection wasn’t important. Only that he reconnected to them.
He clasped her hands in his. “Thank you.”
He would be fine.
With nothing—with everything—Ladon found his soul. Hot-cold power burst from his skin, leaving him new, transformed. He felt Rysa brace herself but she didn’t falter. She didn’t let go.
She steadied him so he would not drop to his knees. The beast steadied him as well, as did his brother-in-law. They helped him walk through the storm to his Nest.
When Rysa touched his cheek with her healing fingers, her jasmine under the moon scent settled his senses. This was real, this, here, with her. This storm. His woman. His beast.
Ladon sucked in his breath, not because he couldn’t breathe, but because his truth exploded in his head: Human was the only name he needed.
Chapter Thirty
The storm broke at three a.m. The copters appeared at four, two giant, blue-and-yellow flying transport machines, and landed on the service road in front of the hotel. A second security team disembarked, guns and several arrays of sensors out, and took over the mess left in the parking lot and in the restaurant.
Amir drove the bus up the drive and helped transfer the Dracos to one copter and the Dracas, plus Daisy and Gavin, to the other. Then he ran off to the hotel to tend to his injured wife and brother.
The Special Medical team who arrived on the copters immediately healed Cordelia, but ordered her to rest. They also used a nifty, high-tech imaging device that looked like a wired-up old iPad to peer at Gavin’s wounds. The glass splinter was now fused to his rib.
They wanted to poke at his wound and his ears and all his new abilities, but Rysa shooed them away. “I’m getting married in four days. This man is my bestie of honor.” Then she stared down three separate Praesagio underlings.
Gavin grinned and mouthed thank you.
They declared him fit to travel. He rode in the second copter with Derek, Anna, Sister-Dragon, and Daisy.
The Praesagio helicopter pilots made everyone wear ear protection, dragons included. The beasts’ coverings looked like old-fashioned swim caps with snapped chin straps. Both dragons did their versions of frowning and refusing, but the pilots, two large and friendly twin Scots named Dougal and Connor McJanison, said they wouldn’t lift off until they knew they would “not be responsible fer damagin’ th’ only dragons on God’s green Earth, missy!”
After a little coaxing, Rysa got Dragon to cooperate, and helped him maneuver the cap over his head crest.
The beasts did look ridiculous. Before liftoff, Sister-Dragon pulsed a steady stream of I am unhappy from the other copter. Gavin held his side and chuckled as he boarded, then dropped into his seat next to Daisy. They both waved as the pilots closed the copter doors.
They’d be home to the cave by sunrise. The pilots claimed they had the trip under control, and that Dmitri had given them a long list of specifics. Rysa only nodded, too tired to argue or to use her seers to spy or confirm. Trusting Praesagio’s people right now seemed the correct thing to do.
The copters’ engines spun up and they lifted off, first the one carrying the Dracas, then their copter, the one carrying the three halves of the Dracos. They left behind the buses and the unnamed triad. They left all the security personnel and the guns and the terrified normals. They left Billy and Adrestia out there, somewhere. They left the panic caused by the seemingly impenetrable layers of confusion and mystery, of violence both perpetrated and threatened, and by the corpses.
Aiden murdered an employee. There were two dead Fates in the parking lot, one of whom had been mauled by a Burner. They were lucky, to be honest, to have lost no one else.
Before they’d walked out of the lobby, Daisy had stood in the hotel’s sliding doors, her bag over her shoulder and Gavin by her side, staring at the arch leading to the restaurant area. Rysa didn’t pry. She didn’t past-see or ask questions, though she did offer a hug to both her friends.
They were in the air now, heading northwest. The first glow of the sun painted the tops of the eastern mountains bright and brilliant as it streaked the morning sky with golds and greens and reds.
In four days, the winter solstice would mark the change away from darkness. The day light returned to the world, and the day Rysa and Ladon planned to marry.
Ladon rested now, his eyes closed, tucked into the crook of his dragon’s front limb, shirt off, cast removed, and under a bright red, thick blanket. Rysa leaned against him, also shirtless and under the cozy blanket, to maximize skin-to-skin healing contact with her man and her dragon. The beast rolled slightly to accommodate his humans, and his ridiculously-adorned head rested on the copter’s floor next to Rysa’s knees.
“He says he doesn’t like helicopters. He refuses to ride in one again.” Ladon kept his eyes closed as he ran his soothing fingers up and down Rysa’s back. “He’s showing me his interpretation of the vibrations.” He opened one eye. “It’s not pretty.”
Rysa had healed Ladon’s frostbite and, she hoped, any damage from the seizures, but he was still acting oddly. Not un-Ladon-like, but not comfortable, either. She felt his always-on, ultra-high level of vigilance, but it felt hollow, as if his whys and his hows weren’t connecting up properly. He seemed to not know what to think or feel about the whole situation, like he was following a script.
Or protocols, the way the Praesagio lackeys had their rules.
He said he remembered Billy finding him in the tunnels under the high school in Texas, and helping him get to Wyoming. He remembered Adrestia finding them, and thinking that Daniel had returned, and hallucinating ghosts, and Cordelia tracking him down, out in a field, in the blizzard. His memories of needing to get to a place called “the base” seemed to completely confound both him and Dragon, as did the Nathaniel-person who, he said, took up residence in his head. He speculated that Nate was some type of residual ghost perhaps carried by the shard, and that the kid had felt out of his time, and not truly “here.” He’d thought Cordelia was his commanding officer, and that he knew an “official,” military-seeming Rysa.
And he’d been sure he’d never met a dragon before, though he knew about dragons.
It made no sense. She’d never been military, and didn’t plan on becoming so. Ladon, though, might have been picking up something about Cordelia she had not yet shared.
For all Rysa knew, in his fractured, seizing state, Ladon may have been accessing future notes being sent into the present via Fate radio, like the notes she’d sent herself via Gavin—or, she suspected, the manipulative, now-aborted notes to her that Aiden had used Daisy to send. But Ladon hadn’t gleaned useful information from his ghost passenger, so if Nathaniel really was some Fate trying to transmit understanding, he didn’t do a good job of it.
All Ladon seemed to pull from his passenger was that Rysa needed him.
Her past-seer yielded nothing, probably because for the entire time he’d been walking around with a ghost in his head, he’d been carrying the shard. They’d never know what really happened, no matter how she worked her past-seer or how many questions Ladon answered.
Some ghosts were always meant to be ghosts.
Ladon closed his eyes after that, obviously not wanting to talk about it. Nor did he want to talk about the Praesagio Fates recovering most of their i
nvisibility fabric and their black dagger when they collected Fina’s body, but not the Tsar’s ring or the sliver of Dragon’s talon Fina admitted to stealing.
Fina could have been lying about having the talon, but Rysa didn’t think so.
Nor did they recover Poke. No signs of Billy or Adrestia, either. The bloodhound enthrallers seemed to think they may have left together, but none of the Fates read anything. Either way, they were gone.
As was Aiden Blake. The psycho literally vanished in front of Gavin and Daisy’s eyes after imploding like a Burner.
Rysa didn’t blame Ladon for sticking with small talk. She didn’t want to think about what had happened, either. She had her man and her dragon back alive and safe, and that was enough for now.
Gently, her touch soft under their blanket, Rysa stroked Ladon’s shoulder.
His eyes still closed, he pulled her tighter against his chest, and dodging their ear-protecting headphones, pressed his lips against her hair.
He pulled away enough that she could see his hands. Nate was obsessed with you, he signed. Hearing each other involved the copter’s communications system, so for privacy, they signed.
Just what she needed—a ghost stalker. At least the Nate persona seemed like a good guy, unlike Aiden Blake.
Ladon touched her cheek. He picked that up from me. A blazing dragon cathedral followed, one full of smooth touches and needed kisses. Warm colors and cozy cuddles wove through its framework, along with a clear, sharp sense of wholeness.
I love you, too. Both of you. Rysa stroked Dragon’s snout at the same time she kissed Ladon’s chin. “My prince charming.” She followed the kiss with a small nip.
A real, at least somewhat happy chuckle rolled from Ladon and a real, honest smile followed.
Yes! Pinged from all three of her little buddies of past, present, and future, along with an endorphin rush from her healer. Her Fate and Shifter parts bounced and twirled as if they’d just won the “banish the melancholy” lottery.
For a split second, the arrogant dark Fate part of her said it was all worth it. Her inner Parcae insinuated that the terrors Ladon and Dragon just went through, the seizures and the pain and the messed-up memories, Derek’s pain, Gavin getting hurt again, Cordelia getting shot, the murder of that poor girl in the restaurant—all of it was justified now because it led to Ladon not moping anymore.
Sometimes she really hated being a Fate—even if, at least on some level, her dark Fate was correct.
Ladon’s smile vanished. What’s wrong? He glanced at Dragon. He says you are not happy.
What could she say? When Vivicus took you away from me, I manifested a rampage? Your sister held me back because she has the experience to understand a bad idea when she sees one, she thought.
If Rysa had caught Aiden, she would have ripped him apart. If she’d gotten to Ethne or Fina first, she would have killed them with her bare hands. Stuck her dark Fate blade into their heads and showed them just what it meant to be “spiked.” She would have scrambled their synapses to the point they wouldn’t have woken up.
She would have stepped back, dusted her hands, and felt no remorse at all. None. What needed doing would have been done.
Which is exactly what Trajan, or her uncle Faustus, or Vivicus for that matter, would have done. There might have even been just a touch of glee.
Rysa tucked her face against Ladon’s neck. I sometimes think my Fate heritage makes me act like an asshole, she signed. Or a sociopath, she thought.
A new, full and hearty laugh filled the space between them. Ladon pulled her close again. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said into the mic on his headset.
But she did. She worried about lines in the sand and interpretations of “necessary acts.” Vivicus had needed to die on the lawn of that high school. Aiden Blake needed to die now, wherever he was hiding. He needed to fall over dead and if it took her giving up her soul to make it happen, she would.
Her inner, dark Fate wiggled her shoulders. Yes, it seemed to say, give up your soul.
Rysa snuggled in close again and tried to stop thinking such thoughts. Ladon was right; they had many, many worse problems to worry about. Aiden was still out there. He’s suffering, her present-seer whispered. He lost both his triad mates.
The more he suffers, the better, she thought, fully aware that such admissions made her dark Fate revel in its arrogance. Disgusting motherfucker. Who better to be judge, jury, and executioner than a Fate? Especially a singular Fate.
No one.
Only her, the Fate-Shifter half-breed. Only Rysa Torres, the Prime who protected the dragons. Only the woman capable of manifesting a blade of new.
Ladon closed his eyes again. He leaned into his beast, but continued to stroke her back with his brilliant, soulful fingers.
Ladon, the human half of the Dracos, a man who, by virtue of his immortality, had become an expert on what it meant to be alive. He had the knowledge to make the judge, jury, and executioner decisions, not Rysa. She might have raw talent and belly full of rage and indignation, but she wasn’t yet a long immortal.
In the back of Rysa’s mind, the dark Fate used her energy blade to pick at her fingernails. “Remember what Aiden said about the new?” the dark Fate said. “About only the strong rising?”
Liars lie, she thought.
“You know better. You’re a Fate.”
The best of the best. The Prime of the Primes. The girl with ADHD, a chorus in her head, and a talking rampage trying to convince her of what “must be done.”
“Big picture,” her dark Fate said. “The what-was-is-will-be runs on weights and tallies.”
Engines and pulleys of avenge and revenge, she thought. The things that held her to the clouds in her acid-soaked visions seven months ago, where she rained death down on Ladon and Dragon.
“The world’s going to burn, pumpkin. Your purpose is to give its glorious clarity to the world,” her uncle Faustus once told her. He’d said it with the same reverence that Fina Blake had spoken of the new. The same shut-down, unthinking, glassy-eyed fervor.
Zealots, she thought.
“Come on over, young one,” her dark Fate said. “We have cookies.”
I hate myself, she thought, then pushed it away. She’d spent too many years understanding how much she hated her ADHD to not recognize what she was feeling for what it was: fear.
Fear that this piled-on addition to her stress would be what broke her. Fear that she couldn’t manage, or that she wouldn’t allow herself leeway to learn.
But this wasn’t acting out in class or missing homework assignments. This was life and death. Leeway was not an option.
Ladon’s breathing had dropped into the slow, shallow inhalations of sleep. Dragon, though not sleeping, had slowed his hide and his interactions into his resting phase.
She wouldn’t bother them with this. They needed to heal. She’d have to find someone else to help her figure things out.
How she wished Andreas was still alive. He trained the original Draki Prime. As the Dracae’s Second, he’d know what to do.
The sun peeked up over the mountains and poured golden light through the narrow opening into the pilot’s cabin. Warmth streaked across the blanket, to her face, and farther still, to Dragon.
Rysa closed her eyes. They were about twenty minutes from home. Time to clean up, rest, and be happy. She had a damn fine cookie right here, with her, on the side of joyous colors and patterns. She had Ladon and Dragon.
Time to marry the love of her life.
Chapter Thirty-One
Their helicopter had not been the first to land outside the cave this morning. “I don’t like this.” Why did they mark the Dragon’s Rock? Ladon pushed to his beast.
Dmitri’s people need to see where to land their obnoxious flying vehicles. Dragon snorted and rubbed against Rysa’s side.
Someone had cleared the top of the entire Rock—a huge drift of snow now formed a slope along the windward side—and rolled out
along the edges of the plateau long strips of fabric not unlike the vanishing material Vivicus stole. Their pilot had said it was invisible from the air until a copter with the right equipment pinged it. Then it lit up like a Christmas tree.
Lit up right here, right next to Ladon’s home as if it didn’t matter. As if he and the beast were permanently gone and the world needed to know where the wake was to be held.
Do not be so morose, Human. Dragon knocked his shoulder. You are alive. The beast raised his head and stretched his neck. We have survived many ordeals. This one was no different.
“No different?” He patted the beast’s neck. “I’d say it was different.” We were apart. We both had seizures. Ladon had an interloper in his head whose thoughts tangled with his own.
We both hallucinated. Dragon grunted. I do not enjoy hallucinating. He rocked and stretched his limbs. Derek’s memories of his childhood are not pleasant.
Ladon chuckled.
“What?” Rysa frowned. “I picked up an image of a lot of snow.”
Ladon took her hand. “He feels bad for putting Derek through his seizures.”
Her eyes narrowed and her seers darted out. But her back stiffened and she frowned again. “When my dad arrives, we’ll get him right as rain, okay?”
The beast nodded and ambled away, along the cleared path to the cave’s entrance. I am cold. I wish to go in.
A rope ladder hung down the side of the Dragon’s Rock and granted the world easy access to a place that should be difficult to reach. Pull that down for me, Ladon pushed.
The beast raised his head. Why?
“Because I do not wish to be open to the world.” It felt correct to remove the ladder. Anyone who lands on here should not have easy access to the cave.
Dragon nodded and, thankfully, did not argue. He unhooked the ropes from the spikes in the granite and carefully set it in a pile at the base of the Rock. Rysa watched, her face hard and her seers buzzing. “We should take it into the entrance antechamber.”
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