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After breakfast, Jonah gave Iris a tour of the tower, with Char trailing behind them. The central spiral staircase wound from the entrance at the bottom of the building to Jonah’s study at the top, with an occasional door in the outer stairwell wall to mark a room. It was simple and functional, nowhere near as luxurious as Elera’s home, or even Char’s hideout behind the waterfall. There were no decorations, furnishings were minimal, and one rather important room seemed to be missing.
“Um… what about the bathroom?” Iris asked.
Jonah laughed. “That is where you thank the fairies.” He snapped his fingers, and the golden lights whizzed around a corner, as if they had nothing better to do than answer his summons. “Fix Char’s room up for the lady. She’ll be staying for a while.”
The fairies zipped away, and Iris looked from Jonah to Char. “Do you two just go in the forest or something?”
“I don’t know what Char does. He rarely stays for more than a day. I have my own facilities in my room, courtesy of the fairies.”
Iris tilted her head to the side. “Why do they do everything for you?”
Jonah shrugged. “I don’t stick them in bottles for experiments. They appreciate that.”
“I’m sure they do.”
She wanted to wonder who in their right mind would do such a thing, but her recent experiences with mages made the idea all too plausible, and Jonah had said they were all hiding here from the king’s mage. Recalling that man’s frigid blue eyes was enough to make her shudder. She had no trouble believing Jonah’s claim that he performed experiments on other people and magical creatures. It wasn’t a thought upon which she wanted to linger.
“Do you just stay in this tower all the time, then?”
“For the most part. Not much to interest me outside of here.”
Not much to interest him? Or was this about hiding from the king’s mage, too? Was it safer not to venture out?
Iris needed to get her mind off of him.
“Remember all those camping trips you took me on?” she asked, forcing a smile to her face. “The things you taught me probably saved my life.”
Jonah raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I just took off running after the dragons attacked Little Rest, and I ended up wandering around in the wilderness for a couple of days before Char found me. Knowing how to build a fire and identify which plants were safe to eat and which were poisonous came in handy.”
“I wondered how you managed,” Char commented.
“Although I forgot most of the stuff about plants, so I just ate mushrooms for two days,” she admitted.
Jonah’s pale blue eyes widened, as if he were seeing her anew. “You remember all that from when you were five?”
She didn’t have to force the shy smile she gave him. “It really meant a lot to me.”
He smiled, too, his eyes narrowing with affection as he reached out to pat her head. “Sweet little Iris. I really hated leaving you, and I meant to come back and visit, but then I found out about the amulet…”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
In a way, she felt like a little girl again, now that she was with him. Years had passed since they’d last seen each other, but nothing had changed. He was still just like a big brother to her. It was a huge relief for her to have that familiarity after all the recent stress and uncertainty.
“Hey, Char, you still haven’t told me why you brought her here,” Jonah said. “Aren’t there mages among the dragons who can shield her?”
“You know human mages are a touchy subject among dragons,” Char replied.
Jonah winced. “Yeah, and the war probably hasn’t helped.”
“No. I wasn’t planning on bringing her anywhere near other dragons, but things got out of hand when the battle started, and I lost track of her. When I found her, Rath was with me, so I had to treat her like a prisoner of war. Then she ended up transferred to the magic school’s dungeons because of that amulet.”
“Why didn’t you keep it hidden?” Jonah asked her.
She opened her mouth to reply, but Char intervened.
“It wasn’t her fault. She had to use it to keep from freezing solid during the flight, so everybody saw it when we landed. The barriers our mage tried to put around it weren’t strong enough, anyway. She broke through a couple of times on her own.”
“Iris!” Jonah scolded.
She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even know what I was doing, just that I couldn’t stand by and let someone die if I could help them.”
Jonah sighed. “No, of course you couldn’t. And I don’t know any dragon mages, but I’m guessing they would’ve recognized that amulet right away.”
“She was unconscious when they took her to their dungeons, and she didn’t wake up until I got her out of there two days later. Is there any way of telling if they did something to her during that time?” Char asked.
Jonah screwed up his face in thought. “I can run a few tests, but I doubt they would have. The subject usually has to be awake for experiments to show anything.” He sighed and patted Iris’ head again. “You’ve had a rough time recently, haven’t you, Iris?”
“Not just me.” She hesitated, and then she looked up at him and said, “Jonah… the king’s mage said he killed Father John and the orphans.”
Jonah frowned. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but I also wouldn’t believe him. He’s a master of trickery and deception. And Father John’s pretty resourceful, so if there was a way for him to at least save the orphans, he would have done it.”
“And he knew the attack was coming,” Char added.
Iris’ surprised dark brown eyes turned to him.
“I wanted to give him a chance to get you all out of there before the battle, but he wouldn’t go. He promised to make sure you and Kayla were at the river at the right time. Maybe he planned something for the others.”
She stared at Char for a moment. “He… knew?”
Char nodded. “I guess that’s why he gave you the amulet.”
“And why he…” She trailed off, putting her hand over her mouth as her last conversation with Father John came back to mind. He had been acting a bit strange, but she hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Now, looking back, it seemed like he had been saying goodbye.
“Aw, Char, why’d you have to make her cry?” Jonah put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze. “You know, I think we can wait until tomorrow for the magic lesson. I’d like to do a bit of studying first, anyway. How about you check out your new room and take it easy?”
She nodded, sniffling and blinking back tears. The magic lesson probably shouldn’t wait, but she didn’t feel up to it right now. Everything was too overwhelming.
Jonah removed his arm from her shoulder and gave her a light push in Char’s direction. “She’s all yours, Char. Try to keep in mind she’s basically my kid sister, okay?”
Char smirked. “I’ll try.”
Jonah continued up the stairs to his study, and Char took Iris’ hand, leading her back down to the room that would now be hers. She swiped at her eyes, resolved to not spend the remainder of their time together crying. She’d done enough crying in front of him lately.
He lifted the iron latch and opened the door, and all her sad thoughts vanished with a gasp.
“Oh, wow.”
A circular dark green rug now covered the middle of the floor, the uniform color broken up by thin golden threads that joined at the edges to form golden tassels, and a matching sheer dark green canopy covered a rich oak four-poster bed frame, tied back at each post to reveal leafy green and gold blankets. The bureau, too, was now a dark, rich oak, and her pile of clothes had vanished from the top, sorted into the drawers, she assumed. A plush, forest green sofa standing on oaken clawed feet sat under the window, now framed by heavy green drapes with gold embroidery, and a claw-footed bathtub, a washstand, a chamber pot, and a stack of towels hid behind a dressing screen depicting a woodland scene.
“The fairies really do like you.”
She took it all in with wide-eyed wonder as Char led her to the sofa. “This is beautiful. Why do you think they picked these colors?”
He sat down and pulled her with him. “Easy. The green,” he pinched her skirt between his fingers, “the brown,” he tucked her hair behind her ear, “and the gold,” he finished, placing a light kiss at the corner of her eye.
She blushed, a shy smile coming to her lips. “My eyes are brown.”
He grinned. “With flecks of gold.”
His next kiss was on her lips. A nervous fluttering filled her stomach, and then he cupped her left cheek in his right hand, and she felt her skin warming further under his touch. She didn’t feel like a little girl with him. Not at all.
He pulled back, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “I thought you’d like Jonah, but I didn’t realize you knew each other.”
Suddenly, she wasn’t sure how to act or what to expect. Those sharp green eyes saw everything, and meeting them any longer was dangerous, but she couldn’t look away.
“He, um, said I reminded him of his little sister. She… died when his parents did.”
“He never told me he was an orphan.”
“Many of them don’t. They move on, get jobs, get married, and they put it all behind them.”
His hand left her cheek to comb through her hair. The tension in her stomach was both unbearable and pleasant.
“I don’t want to leave you, Iris.”
An inexplicable ache came to her heart. “Is the storm clearing up?”
He glanced at the window and nodded. “Looks like it.”
They hadn’t known each other for that long, she reminded herself. It shouldn’t be hard to say goodbye.
But she didn’t want him to leave, either.
He frowned. “Be careful, Iris.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You were a little girl the last time Jonah saw you. He must have been a teenager then. But now he’s a grown man, and you’re a beautiful young woman.”
How could a compliment like that roll off his tongue so easily? She felt more heat rush to her cheeks, but his expression of concern hadn’t changed at all.
“Are you… jealous?”
“You’re not his sister, Iris.”
“But he told you—”
“It’s been fourteen years. Things change.”
She shook her head. “This doesn’t. Besides, if anybody should be jealous, it’s me. As soon as you get back home, you’ll be swarmed with pretty girls begging you to dance with them.”
He smirked. “That’s assuming I’ll ever be allowed out of the barracks again.”
Iris’ smile faltered. “D… do you have to go back? I-I mean, won’t you get in a lot of trouble?” she added when she saw his smirk grow.
He shrugged. “The quicker this war ends, the better, and if I can keep tabs on the king’s mage, I can hopefully stay ahead of him and move you somewhere safer before he gets wise to you hiding here. Besides,” his eyes dropped to her lips and then met hers again, “I already know how I’ll explain being gone so long.”
Her eyes widened; her heart thudded in her chest. She licked her lips. “H-how?”
“Simple.” He leaned in until she felt his breath on her parted lips. “Rina’s a wild girl.”
This kiss wasn’t as innocent as before. His lips pressed in harder, and his hand settled on the far side of her waist, pulling her toward him as he shifted closer to her. His other hand came around to cradle the back of her head, and she gasped when she felt his tongue swipe across her lips.
“Char—”
He was already kissing her again, slipping his tongue into her mouth and stealing her breath to the point of dizziness. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on as he pushed her down to the sofa amidst an onslaught of heated kisses, one bleeding into another. He was a solid weight on top of her, all broad shoulders and experienced touch and melting passion. She barely heard the soft moan from the back of her throat, but suddenly, she was staring up at him, both of them panting for air, and his green eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them.
“Iris.” He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Another kiss on her forehead. “And when this is all over, I’m bringing you home with me.” A kiss on her cheek. “Wait for me, Iris.”
“I will.”
He grinned and gave her one last peck on her lips, and then he was gone. She sat up and opened her mouth to call after him, but when she saw him walking out the door, the word ‘goodbye’ died in her throat. She didn’t want to say it.
“Fly safely, Char.”
He glanced back at her and flashed her a confident smirk. “I’ll be fine.”
Then the door closed behind him, and she fell back onto the sofa, closing her eyes and putting her hands on her flushed cheeks.
When had she fallen in love with him?
Because that’s what this had to be, this relentless throbbing in her chest, this need to see him again, even though he'd been gone only a few seconds.
She sat up and peered through the window, watching the snowflakes drifting past the glass to the blanket of white down below. There was a clearing around the tower, a smooth layer of white separating the stone structure from the dark brown trunks and green leaves capped with snow.
She waited, and a man in black appeared down below, his booted feet leaving tracks in the snow, his black hair ruffled by a gust of wind. Then he was gone, and a massive black dragon leaped into the air, the downstroke of his wings bending the trees and scattering the snow, the upstroke sucking the flakes up into a flurry around him as he rose higher.
A single sharp green eye met hers through the window.
Then the reptilian head turned away, and she watched the ridge of hard black scales trailing from the top of his skull to the tip of his tail climb past her, carried by the strong beats of muscular wings up into the gray sky.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKgZCI1kdR9
