Athan’s brow tightened as he tried to focus on Garrett’s voice, but the sharp pain digging into his chest kept breaking his concentration apart. The raven witch’s strange weapon remained lodged there, beneath a wound that did not bleed. Athan wondered if perhaps this is what a broken heart felt like.
If it was, then it was no less than he deserved. The pain didn’t hold a candle to the ache he felt when he thought of the way she had looked at him. Dnara. She’d placed her trust in him, and he’d destroyed it. That he’d awakened alone inside the fallen tower came as no surprise to him, even if the truth of it stung. But the self-pity and surprise had quickly shifted into alarm. Where had she gone? What had happened to her?
He remembered moments of lucid awareness in the broken tower. Cold, damp fog. The smell of decay. Treven neighing in the distance. Garrett and Jenny appearing like ghosts through the mist. Being lifted, strapped to Treven’s saddle and taken from the grove. Jenny leaving to follow Dnara’s tracks. The sun rising then falling then rising again in uncounted succession.
The movement now rocking his prone body back and forth grew unsteady then jostled harshly, causing Athan to moan. A harder jolt stole away his breath as the object dug deeper into his chest. He struggled to catch the breath and ended up choking on his own mucus mixed with the bitter tinge of blood.
Garrett’s voice raised in pitch and ire as he tried to roll Athan onto his side. “Watch the ruts!”
“I’m trying!” came a harassed reply. “You want I should stop and fill them in first?”
Phineaus. Recognition of the voice came to Athan as he sputtered a spattering wet cough into a cloth held up to his mouth by Garrett. After Athan regained his ability to breathe, Garrett gently helped him settle back down on the cushioned bench in Phineaus’s wagon. With great effort, Athan managed to crack open the crust on his eyelids and squint past the headache to take in his surroundings.
Strips of colored cloth, strung glass beads and an unlit everbright lantern swayed above him from a wood beam arching overhead. The beads clinked against one another, along with a few metal chimes, giving each jostle of the wagon a musical accompaniment. In the wagon’s ceiling, a hatch had been raised to offer fresh air and sunlight into the room. And, the wagon’s interior did indeed look like a room, complete with a rug, dark blue drapes hung over a window, the wooden bench bed on which he rested and a foldable table next to the stool on which Garrett sat. An iron pot belly stove tucked into one corner made Athan blink, but he supposed it would make sense of Phineaus to have some source of heat if he did indeed live in this tiny portable house, which Athan had only before seen from the outside. Like the vibrantly painted outside, the inside’s decor and color palette was just as whimsical. It actually made Athan a bit dizzy.
As the room began to spin, Athan’s wandering gaze finally settled on Garrett. The blond headed man’s light blue eyes were watching Athan as if he might die at any moment. The deep worry adding lines to Garrett’s typically aloof, porcelain expression gave Athan the idea that death wasn’t an impossibility. It certainly felt like he could die, and in a way, death could be looked at as a relief to the pain, and the shame, he felt.
“It’s good to see you awake.” Garrett managed a weak smile. “How do you feel? Well, aside from the obvious.”
“Is it...” Athan struggled to take in the next breath but pushed through the knifing discomfort. “Is it that obvious?”
Garrett rolled his eyes and let out of heavy sigh. “Laying at Demroth’s doorstep, and still he makes jokes.”
“You-” Athan winced then exhaled as the pain momentarily passed. “You like my jokes.”
“I like you,” Garrett argued. “I put up with your horrible sense of humor.”
Athan smiled at Garrett’s admission, but the smile was short lived. Another hard bump had him coughing again and Garrett cursing at Phineaus’s driving. Athan watched the colored glass beads reflecting what sunlight was allowed to pass through the curtains covering the window and the raised hatch in the roof. The wagon settled back into a more gentle wobble while Garrett muttered about the crown spending too much of the people’s taxes on burning farms instead of maintaining roads.
Once the pain in his chest had subsided back to a more tolerable level, Athan finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Has there been any word of her?”
Garrett looked off to the side, and his long fingers fidgeted restlessly in his lap under the lacy frills edging burgundy silk cuffs. “No. At least, nothing confirmed.”
“And unconfirmed?” Athan pressed as Garrett went quiet.
Garrett frowned. “Best to not rely on rumors, Athan.”
Athan reached over and touched the man’s knee. Garrett stopped fidgeting and inhaled deeply before deflating into a sigh. What he said next came as news Athan never expected.
“Jenny returned from Haden’s Crossing this morning with rumors of a dragon.”
Athan blinked, certain the sharp knife in his chest had caused him to mishear. “A dragon?”
“Yes, a dragon,” Garrett replied flatly. “Which is why one does not give credit to rumor.”
Athan stared up at the dangling glass beads. A dragon wouldn’t exactly be the most unbelievable thing to have happened in the past two weeks. He could also tell by the way Garrett avoided meeting his eyes that the man had more than mere rumors to share. “Tell me everything Jenny said.”
Garrett opened his mouth, closed it again then scowled. “Well, she said your mule is actually your brother,” Garrett huffed, sounding offended at being
