Without further ado, I feel it my duty to inform you that I interrupted Lord Aster a little while ago in serious contemplation of the water of the harbor. When I urged him not to consider the sea as a means of escape from his troubles, he admitted that had been his thought. He declined to promise not to consider it again.
We will be traveling across a deep and occasionally rough stretch of ocean, Sir Corin. And I can’t watch Lord Aster every moment of the day and night.
With all respect, you’re a fool, and an idiot, and also a selfish tosser.
No one wants Lord Aster to marry Sir Sigmund. I’d have said least of all you based on even our very short acquaintance, because you have all the subtlety of a foul-smelling boot kicking a fellow in the head, but I’m beginning to think it’s actually Lord Aster who wants it least of all, and that he will find another way out if none is presented to him.
Jules Aranceur
Madame Lizette
Orchid Alley
You owe her a lot of money, Sir Corin. Don’t be cheap, or she’ll give us both boils in awkward places. And you owemea fucking trumpet. Asshole.
Despite this feeling being completely new, Corin found that it was unmistakable: yes, definitely terror. The bone-chilling, nauseating kind. Corin had seen human men in this state: pale as milk, drenched in sudden cold sweat, wobbly on their watery knees.
Corin physically couldn’t turn white. And he couldn’t sweat. But it was a damn lucky thing that he hadn’t stood up before reading the letter.
Aster standing at the railing of a ship, gazing down, swaying with the motion of the wind and waves, bracing himself…and then not troubling to brace himself at all. He’d fall like a cut flower, eyes closing, red-blond hair disappearing beneath frothy green, one pale hand reaching…and then nothing but the cold and the dark and the nothingness of the depths of the sea.
Corin swallowed down bile, the letter crumpling in his fist, closing his eyes for a moment against a wave of vertigo.
He’d thought that washing himself with fire had given him clarity. More than that, he’d been operating under the assumption, natural to a man with a fair share of intellect and generally dependable judgment, that he knew what he wanted, what was important to him, what he could and couldn’t tolerate.
It had been clear to him that he couldn’t possibly apologize to the king for embarrassing him by cutting up the face of that idiot. He couldn’t possibly announce to the world that he’d been stupid enough to fall under the spell of not only one Cezanne—who’d humiliated him so thoroughly they’d still be laughing about it next century—but her brother, too. He couldn’t shake hands with Lord Cezanne, smile, and ask his permission to marry his son, this time.
Corin would rather die.
But he wasn’t the one whose life hung in the balance. And that life meant more to him than his own. More than his hoard. By comparison, he’d fling his sword into the deepest basin of the sea without a thought.
He opened his eyes and stared out at the night. The courtyard parapet, each stone as sharp as if it’d been limned with diamonds. The stars, piercingly bright.
No, the world had never been clear before.
Now, it had become so blindingly simple, like the moment before a battle when the planning and strategy had been gotten out of the way and all that was left was to level his spear and charge.
Corin’s heart raced more than it ever had before a battle, though. He wouldn’t use the wordfrantic. Orpanic. That would be…unbecoming of his dignity as a dragon and a knight. Neither knights nor dragons lost their nerve under pressure. They remained cool-headed and focused.
He sprang to his feet and strode for the door. Under other circumstances, not knowing how long he’d be gone, he’d have taken his hoard with him. As a second, barely acceptable option, he’d have hidden it in a cave in the eastern peaks, somewhere that no human could reach—dragons never touched each other’s hoards without permission, not unless they wanted to be hunted, ostracized, and disowned.
In this case, the cellar would do. The chest had misdirection magic on it, so good enough.
Aster would be halfway to the capital by now; by sea, the journey took less than three days, and the scrawled date in the corner of the letter had been yesterday’s.
If he’d made it that far, of course.
He had. He must have, because Corin would find him either way. He’d told Aster that water didn’t douse a dragon’s flames—but that was relative. If Corin dived from the zenith, plummeting down, down, wings folded, at a speed and from a height that would level a small city from the impact, he’d plunge hundreds of feet into the water before he even slowed. He might not suffocate or be crushed in the depths, not for a long time, anyway. But his flames would flicker and die. He’d sink slowly, drifting to the ocean floor, appearing to be nothing more than a strangely shaped rock to the fish that’d swim uncuriously by and the little barnacles that’d make their homes on his scales. Before long he’d be no more than the stone from which his kind had sprung.
He might not find Aster, precisely. But he’d be as close as he could get.
No. Aster had to be on that ship, worried and afraid and lonely, perhaps, but safe and well.
Waiting for Corin, whether he knew it or not. And Corin would come.
Carrying the chest down to the cellar took very slightly longer than it should have due to the crow flapping beside his head and squawking what sounded like suggestions for how he ought to get it around the turn of the stairs, but at last he shoved it into a corner. He didn’t bother to open it. Even Giant Dick could stay here. If he needed a sword, he’d find one. Carrying anything would only slow him down.
The same went for clothes. If anyone had a problem with him naked, they could fucking complain to the king—or to Corin’s face, if they dared.
