Page 69 of Ashborne: Defiance

I blinked. It took a moment to remember I’d told her that I wouldn’t stand in her way to being trained.

God, she was easy to please.

“Eat,” I said gruffly. “Then sleep as soon as you can. In a few hours, we’ll be flying again.”

She nodded quickly, then trotted to the very same tree I’d intended to sit against, sat down, and tucked into the meat, holding the bones with her delicate fingers and tearing mouthfuls off with her teeth.

There was a moment, standing there, when I forgot everything else and just watched her. She sat on the dirt, knees bent up to hold the plate, that cloak around her shoulders, eating with her fingers like a man—eagerly—and it made me smile. The image of her in her gowns and with her pompous airs, superimposed over this little wood-nymph who clapped when she was happy and ate meat off the bone with her straight, white teeth.

Then I caught myself grinning, and turned away, heart pounding, to sit near the fire, with my back to her, and breathe.

I shook my head as I tore into the meat myself—it was juicy, but chewy. I caught myself wondering how she felt about the darker, stronger meat of a wood hare. But I couldn’t ask.

I couldn’t speak.

I could barely think.

There was something very, very wrong with me. Something in my bones that sent me spiraling at the slightest excuse.

It wasn’t how I lived, and certainly wasn’t how I led.

Was this unsettled, erratic lack of control going to stick with me?

Why would God put me in this place, at this time, saddle me with this kind of responsibility, just when so many things were going so drastically wrong?

‘Sometimes, the only way to become stronger, is to struggle with the weight you cannot possibly lift alone.’

I wanted to curse at him—but I recognized the urge for the childishness it was. ‘We don’t set those we lead to a task they can’t possibly achieve. It gains nothing but a broken spirit.’

‘And yet, sometimes it’s only in failure that we recognize our need for others. Sometimes… sometimes we place those we lead to a task that isn’t insurmountable, but impossible alone.’

I knew what he was getting at, and didn’t like it. ‘A woman would not make me stronger. A mate would not make me more effective as a spy and leader of men! That’s the purpose I was given—you’ve always told me to aim for my purpose and trust the Creator to take care of the details over which I have no control.’

‘Yes. I have.’

I frowned into the coals of the fire. Because he said those words like he’d made a point.

But wasn’t he just proving mine?

23. Ask Me Anything

~ GRACE ~

The three days that followed were the most exhausting of my life.

Voski was less angry, and obviously trying to teach me. But he held himself so tight that I felt his tension like a weight on my shoulders.

And the few moments he wasn’t wound up like a lyre-string, I’d catch his gaze on me, and those sparks in my blood that had appeared when Koa was in heat, would spring to life and start a fire behind my navel.

Voski always tore his gaze away when I caught him. But he held himself on such a short leash, I worried he might actually explode.

Then again, we were both exhausted. The travel was never ending. We didn’t keep a schedule—we flew until our bodies needed to get off dragonback. We ate and rested, then immediately flew again. Morning. Night. Afternoon. None of it mattered.

And even though my body complained, I loved flying. Couldn’t wait until I could mount Koa on my own and we could fly together, without his heat burning at my back.

But that thought made me cold, too.

By the end of the fourth day since leaving Fyrehold, I was so tired, I didn’t have the energy to care if he wanted me, hated me, or planned to kill me. I stumbled through every instruction, ate what he placed in my hands. Slept the moment I could lie down. And then started the whole process again.