“Daegan, please,” I softly ask, touching his arm. He is nicely dressed this evening, a brown shirt with suns hand-stitched into his collar and tight dark trousers. The sun marking on his cheek seems to glow in the night’s darkness. His soft white-blond hair is pushed away from his face, and I wonder what it would be like to run my fingers through it.
Daegan sighs, slowly sliding his hand down my arm and linking our fingers. This close, he smells like nothing but vanilla. “I still believe you shouldn’t have to train, but I will leave it if you wish.”
My shoulders drop in relief, and for a moment, I feel bad. He was trying to protect me, and that isn’t a bad thing. He continues walking me up the staircase and towards the level with the greenhouse. It’s quiet, nothing but the sounds of pattering rain above on the glass as he leads me inside and the heat wraps around me. I breathe in the thick smell of the crops, the dampness of the water poured into the soil, and the sweet scent of the flowers.
Daegan touches my back, his hand feeling so close to my skin through the thin, yellow crop top I’m wearing. My tight leggings are from the Moon Dynasty, but I prefer them over the trousers from the Sun Dynasty. “I made sure it was empty for us. I want to show you my favourite part of the greenhouse, and there aren’t many places to take you for a date in this mansion.”
I smile at him. I’m happy to be back here, especially when it’s this quiet. We go through the thick vegetation, across the fields of hay and wheat, towards the fruit trees at the back. Right at the back of the greenhouse, there’s a small white table laid with silver trays and two benches on either side. “I love this view.” I can hear how much he likes it from his tone. “You can see the waterfall in the distance.” He points at it to show me, and just off in the corner, through the thick trees that surround every inch, I can see the waterfall of pure green, sparkling water. It pours down into a river whose stream disappears through the trees. It really is a beautiful place.
The thick fruit trees hang above us, filled with apples, and I try not to wince as I glance at the plates. “I know you probably brought food, but I’m not really hungry. Catherine surprised me with a massive lunch that her parents made for us. I think they like hearing she has a friend, and I couldn’t say no.” I clear my throat, wondering if he is going to get angry at me. Refusing anything is new to me, and a part of me will always fear a man’s reaction. “After training this morning and working in the library, I’m tired and full.”
“Then we don’t eat.” He leans into me. “I’m not hungry either.” He moves one of the benches, picking it up with one hand like it weighs nothing, and carries it to a tree near the glass. He pats the wooden bench. “Come and sit with me. Tell me more about what it’s like in his dynasty.”
I sit down at his side. “It’s almost like you want me to be a spy for you and tell you everything that happens there.”
He answers quickly and a little sharp. “I don’t. If you don’t want to tell me anything, that’s fine. I have more than enough spies everywhere in this place. Truthfully, I wanted to make sure you were well looked after, like he promised. I feel protective of you, and that’s new for me. I’ve never felt protective like this with any female…and I’m fumbling it all.”
Resting my hand on his, I tell him, “You’re not. Thank you for being protective of me. Truthfully, I feel like I’ve known you far longer than I actually have. It’s easy to be with you, and that’s strange for me. I grew up never trusting men or strangers.” He looks sad and I try to change the subject, answering him. “They’re different. They’re like a family. The Moon Dynasty wasn’t what I expected. Honestly, he kept me in a room most of the time I was there. I spent my time reading books that I’d been given at the library, so it was nice. The first one I read was about the dynasties and how they came to be, oh, and about the wars. I still need to go back to that book. I left it because I started reading a book on the romance of the first dragon rider.”
He grins. “A classic, even I’ve read that one.”
I shake my head, a classic? I’m not sure I would call it that. “It was a brilliant book with a terrible ending. She loved him, the dragon rider, so much, but I wouldn’t call it a romance. She killed him in the end, killing herself too. I admire that she made the choice to kill him when he went mad and started slaughtering their people, but she didn’t have to die. She could have brought her son up and told him about the good things along with the bad. It looks like because she died, she didn’t get that chance, and the notes at the end tell of how her son became a tyrant too. He made sure anyone who spoke of the deaths caused by the first dragon rider was silenced. It’s just a bit unromantic in the end.”
“You think sacrifice is unromantic?” He searches my eyes like the answer is important.
I turn to watch the forest, the trees that have lived longer than all of us. I’ve always wondered if books are how trees talk, how they pass on their tales. “Yes, if you end up dead.”
“Hmm. I think sacrificing your life can be the most romantic thing you can do for someone you love.” We will have to agree to disagree on that one. Daegan changes the subject so easily that I think he has been trained in the art of conversation among other kingly duties. “What other books have you read?”
I tell him about the others that Mazzis gave me this week. A classic. A fantasy book, a book on gardening and vegetation, which he was adamant about me learning, and another one on categorising the library. It’s helping me learn the library system, and I’m kind of getting my head around where all the different sections are now and where to retrieve books for the orders that come in. Otherwise, I end up running all over the place, still getting lost and having to ask Catherine to help me. She doesn’t seem to mind, but I would like to be able to do it on my own. He smiles at me when I’m done. “It suits you, working there. You seem happier since you got here.”
Life as anything but a slave is going to be happy for me. It cost me the world to be free, and I won’t give it up. Giving up would be an insult to Kyrell’s memory, and I won’t do that to his ghost. I don’t want to admit that some part of me has liked the isolation of the library, the quietness in my room in the Moon Dynasty. For so many years, being alone was always shadowed by the worry of when he would want me, when he would bite me, and if he would break any of my bones if he didn’t like the way I smiled or the way I braided my hair that day. Being here, it reminds me of when I was younger and felt safe with my mother, and nothing hurt me.
I have to admit I’ve begun to like training with Ziven, how my body already feels stronger, how in only three days, I’m running faster. I feel like my body was itching to do more, to run faster, and I didn’t really see him much outside of the training. He spends a good hour of the lesson flipping me over in the air and making me land on my back, just to prove that I’m really useless at attacking him. Apparently, I’m holding back…what, I don’t know. We’ve worked on more core strength training now, and I do feel stronger for it. “What about the book I gave you? I noticed that you left it behind in the library cart.”
I blink in surprise. How did he notice that? “Well, I did think about taking it back with me to the Moon Dynasty, but it was a gift from you, and I think Ziven is bitter enough to rip it apart if he saw it. Catherine said I could leave things in my cart, so I did. I’ve been reading bits of it here and there on my lunch. It’s getting a bit sad now. I feel like this woman had an arranged marriage to a Dawn Dynasty prince, and she didn’t love him.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t read further than page twelve,” he explains.
“But she had a relationship with the sun and moon. I think she means the princes or kings of the Sun and Moon Dynasty, if I had to guess.” I sigh. “But she is so cryptic about them, I’m not sure. The more I read, it’s like a puzzle. I hope it has a good ending.”
“Maybe that’s true, but I don’t think she had a relationship with both of them. Maybe just one of them,” he replies rather quickly.
“I don’t know, but she just feels like she’s trapped and sad. I imagine it’s what an arranged marriage would be like.” I smile at him, climbing to my feet and walking to the glass. “Romance in books is always like a fairy tale, like the tales my mother used to tell me of how she met and fell in love with my father. He was powerborn, and she is lessborn. It’s not allowed, but she said it was love at first sight for my father. He was a warrior, apparently, and he was assigned to her district. My mother hadn’t borne any children by the age of twenty-eight, which is seen as being defective, and they were going to send her to the workers. He made sure she could stay, and he lied for her. They fell in love, and I was her thirtieth birth year gift.”
“They were entwined mates, perhaps,” Daegan suggests, stopping at my side. He watches the forest with me. “That’s how it is for entwined mates. They are drawn to each other, but for males, it is love at first sight. They can’t touch anyone else, even think of anyone else, until their mate accepts or rejects the bond.”
“Maybe,” I whisper. It would make sense why they risked so much to be together.
He leans into me, tucking my braid behind my ear. “Story.” My name is softly spoken, and I turn to look at him just as he kisses me. I freeze as his lips softly brush mine before I can even register that he is kissing me. His lips are soft, gentle, as he weaves his hand into my hair, but he never pushes the kiss too far. He waits for me to react, to kiss him back, and I do after a second. He even tastes like sunlight and peppermint. There’s never anything more than a sweet kiss before he breaks away. “I’m sorry if I surprised you. I’ve just wanted to kiss you since I met you, Story. There’s something about you, I just…” He pauses. “I like you. That’s what I wanted to say. I make speeches all day long, and you make me stumble on my words.” My lips tilt up as I press my fingers to them. “I seem to want to talk to you for hours. There’s no one else like that in my life.”
I’m a bit speechless. “I wasn’t expecting that.” The kiss, it felt, I don’t know how it felt. He’s the second person that’s ever kissed me in my life. The first one, I ended up craving in the end and hating myself for it. But this was a kiss, a kiss that I could have rejected, a kiss that I could have said no to, and it was gentle and sweet. It’s not something I’ve ever experienced before. “It’s okay, I like you too.”
He smiles so brightly that I almost feel warm, like sunlight glowing over me. Daegan takes my hand, linking our fingers, and he walks me back down to our rooms. Before I go in, he goes to kiss me again, only a gentle brush. “We have plenty of time together, after tomorrow, and when the Decidere is done. You’ll need all the rest for tomorrow you can get, so I will leave you here. I’m sure it will be your last one; not many make it past this point and they turn back. You will know when you can’t go further. Thank you for a wonderful night, Story.”
“Thank you, Daegan. See you tomorrow.” He walks into his room as I go to mine, leaning on the door when it is closed. As I glance at my bed, the moonlight is shining through the window and onto my bed. Onto the book he gave me. It’s not in my cart anymore. Daegan must have had someone bring it back for me and leave it here. I pick the book up, lying back on the bed and looking at the moon outside. My first kiss, I felt like a silly teenager who didn’t know what I was doing, and my second kiss…it felt like I could finally be safe.
But not even Daegan can protect me from the dragons and the Decidere tomorrow.
Chapter Twelve
Page Twelve.
When I’m flying through the air, it doesn’t matter if it’s the night or the day…I am free. For a moment in time, I don’t belong to anyone but my dragon, and it makes the Decidere worth every tortured second.
“Happy birth year, little Tory!” Kyrell shouts, coming into the room, shutting the door behind him. His helmet is tucked under his one arm, and in the other is a small chocolate cake with a single candle on top, the fire flickering brightly in the darkness. It’s noon, and I haven’t done anything but crawl back into my bed to rot after the maids changed me.
I climb off my bed, trying to match his smile as I blow it out. It’s not his fault. None of this is his fault—it’s mine. The smoke drifts up in the air between us, but it does nothing to dim the smile on Kyrell’s face. “You shouldn’t have got me a cake. And little? I might be shorter than you, but not by much.”
A lot, actually. Being short doesn’t mean little though.
“Well, you rarely celebrate your birth year. You’re twenty years old. That’s amazing and you should celebrate it.” I frown at him, and he winces. “Maybe not all of today can be a celebration, though. I will bring you wine and snacks when it’s over. This year won’t be like the last one.”
Or the one before that. The prince always takes care to plan a party for my birth year, and it’s always a horror show.
I brush my hands down the silky red dress that I’m wearing as it falls from my shoulders all the way to the floor. The king is coming here today, the first time in all the years I’ve been here, and finally my birth year might not be as terrible as it usually is. I can’t help the sour tang in the back of my throat that lingers every time I see a birth year cake and it reminds me of my mother. It’s been so many years since I’ve seen or heard from her…and I dare not say her name in this castle. If the prince knew she was alive…I shiver. He would bring her here and use her to make me obey him without beating me. Not that I fight him very much anymore.
