“Maybe that’s why she’s Queen’s Rider,” the third guard whispered, nudging the small one.
“Mm,” murmured the small guard. “That and the way she can fly. Remember that?”
Ezaara retreated down the tunnels. Great, they’d believed her. Now for phase two of her plan.
§
After checking on Jaevin again, Ezaara returned to the mess cavern and pocketed some food. When she reached Roberto’s cavern, Adelina was nowhere to be seen. She glanced about for somewhere to hide her supplies.
“Ezaara,” Zaarusha’s voice nearly made Ezaara drop the food. Dashing to Roberto’s wardrobe, she stashed apples, smoked meat and bread among his clothes and slammed the door. The scent of his clothes conjured up his face, raven eyes tinged with sunlight, regarding her at the river. Loving her.
“Ezaara!” Zaarusha again.
Ezaara jolted the image away. “Yes, Zaarusha?”
“You’ve been gone a while. I wanted to check you’re all right.”
“I’ve been stretching my legs.” Well, that was true, she had traipsed back and forth between the mess, Jaevin’s, Erob’s holding pen and Roberto’s quarters.
“Come back soon. I’d like to see you settled before I go hunting.”
“On my way.”
When Ezaara returned to their quarters, Zaarusha was pacing in the den, hungry.
“You seem more energized,” the queen said.
“Eating helped.” It had helped Erob.
“Stay right here,” Zaarusha warned. “I know you were keen on going after Roberto earlier.”
Had the queen seen through her?
“But I’m glad you’ve seen sense,” Zaarusha continued. “Colluding with a traitor would strip you of your privileges. The last thing I want is to lose another Queen’s Rider.” A potent wave of sorrow enveloped Ezaara with that same memory of Anakisha falling into a seething mass of tharuks.
“What an awful way to die.” Ezaara squeezed her hands tight, her nails biting her palms. She didn’t want to lose Zaarusha.
“Not as bad as at the hands of a traitor.” Zaarusha glided off the ledge toward the hunting grounds.
Whichever path she chose, Ezaara would hurt someone she loved—the queen she’d pledged her life to, or the man she’d given her heart to. She sighed, walking with heavy feet through the archway to her cavern.
“Ezaara, the guards have let me go.” It was Erob. “I’ll meet you at midnight in my den.”
It was happening. In a few short hours, she was walking out on her life as Zaarusha’s rider. Walking out on everything she could ever dream of—except Roberto. She couldn’t stay here and let him die in the Wastelands. Life without Roberto would be like living in a dead and empty shell, walking on knife-sharp shards every day.
“I’ll be there.” Ezaara checked the supplies in her healer’s pouch and added more of the clean herb and bear’s bane she’d retrieved from the infirmary when she’d healed Roberto.
From what she’d gleaned in the mess caverns, the Wastelands were vast fierce deserts, inhabited by feuding tribes and rust vipers, four days’ flight from Dragons’ Hold. Roberto would be dropped off with a few mouthfuls of water, but no weapons or food. If she and Erob could leave tonight, they’d only be a few hours behind him—although it might take days to find him.
“Ezaara, I need your help!” a dragon’s voice called faintly, as if it was far away.
“Who are you?” Ezaara mind-melded.
“Septimor, a dragon with the blue guards. I have a young girl, attacked by tharuks, who needs healing.”
She had to leave. She had no time. “Master Fleur is in the infirmary.” Guilt rippled through her. Sending patients to Fleur went against her grain. Fleur’s healing was clumsy at best, her salves seemed useless, and Adelina was worried that Fleur would destroy the antidote to dragon’s bane. She couldn’t trust her with a master or a rider, but surely Fleur would heal a girl with a few cuts or scrapes.
“I can’t send her to Fleur,” Septimor answered. “I want her to survive.”
Ezaara didn’t miss the cynical edge to the dragon’s reply. Or the urgency. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Her arm’s been mutilated and infected with limplock, a tharuk poison. She’s dying.”
Dragon’s fangs and bones! “Bring her to me. When will you be here?”
“Soon. Master Roberto knows the remedy.”
Septimor obviously didn’t know Master Roberto had been banished.
Ezaara ran down the tunnels toward Adelina’s quarters. Being Roberto’s sister, maybe she knew the antidote too. “Erob, something urgent has come up. Someone’s dying and needs my help.”
“Yes,” his answer came, “Roberto in the Wastelands.”
“Come on, Erob. It’s four days’ flight, he won’t even be there yet.”
“True, but most die within two days of arriving. We can’t delay forever.”
“I have to help this girl. I can’t let her die.”
Erob melded again. “If you can’t come soon, I’ll have to leave without you.”
“Erob, please, I’m a healer. This is my duty.”
“And what of your duty to my rider?” Erob snorted. “I’ll give you one day. If you’re not done by midnight tomorrow, I’m going without you.”
§
Gret sheathed her sword and left the practice cavern. Adelina was leaning against the tunnel wall, her eyes red. “Hi, Adelina.”
“Erob wants to talk to you,” Adelina said, pushing off the wall.
“I’ve never melded with any dragons in the royal bloodline,” Gret replied. “Why would Erob want to talk to me?”
Adelina shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out. He’s on the ledge outside the mess cavern.”
Gret put an arm around Adelina’s shoulders. “Anything I can do for you?”
“I’m all right.” Adelina’s voice was brittle. “It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me.” She strode off.
That was true, but having your brother banished and sentenced to die must be tough.
The mess cavern was deserted, and Erob was the only dragon on the ledge.
