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“You look happy.” Rath’s fork paused halfway to his mouth as Char entered the kitchen. “She must be okay, then.”
“Yeah.” Char couldn’t keep from grinning. He took a seat and the plate of food the fairies pushed in front of him. They were zipping around with much more fervor this morning than they had yesterday.
“So, how did you get from her crying her heart out to… this?” Rath asked, gesturing at Char.
“I proposed.”
Rath’s fork hit the plate with a clatter, bounced onto the table, and landed on the floor. His jaw followed. “You what?”
“And she said yes.”
Rath sat back in his chair, stunned. The fairies darted over to set a clean fork next to his plate and retrieve the dirty one from the floor.
Char smirked. “Why are you so surprised? You were the one who said I was halfway to the altar.”
“Yeah, but—you’re marrying this idiot?” Rath interrupted himself when Iris walked into the room.
She darted a glance at Char as he stood to meet her. “Good morning to you, too. Um, Char—”
He couldn’t resist. He gave her a quick peck on the lips before he pulled her chair out, triggering an adorable, rosy blush to blossom in her cheeks.
“Cut that out, Char. This is serious,” Rath rebuked his beaming brother. “She barely even knows you!”
“We’ve been through a lot together,” Iris said, but Rath was already talking over her.
“He’s only shown you his good side. He’s really awful. Have you even had a fight yet?”
“I… We’ve disagreed…”
“No, no, no.” Rath put his face in his hands. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“I think I do.” Uncertainty was heavy in her voice. She looked at Char again, now sitting beside her, and he squeezed her hand under the table.
“Don’t listen to him. He’s just upset because I won’t have as much time for him anymore.”
“You wish! Iris, this jerk will up and leave you at the most random times, and you won’t even know where he went or when he’s coming back.”
Char sighed and shook his head, still smiling. “I won’t do that.”
“When you get into a fight, he’ll shut down and drink until he passes out.”
Char’s smile slipped. He cast a nervous glance at Iris. “That’s… I’ve never drunk until I passed out…”
“And he can’t cook. At all. If you get sick or something, you’ll just have to hope he calls Mother to take care of you, because otherwise, you’ll starve.”
“That one’s true,” Char admitted. He gave Iris a sheepish grin, and to his surprise, she giggled. The golden flecks in her eyes were dancing against their backdrop as she looked from one brother to the other.
“Rath, you wanted to kill me when we first met.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and dropped his guilty gaze to his plate.
“And Char was pretty rough on me in that cave.”
“I couldn’t let you get away and run into him,” Char muttered, also averting his gaze.
“Maybe I haven’t seen him in every situation, but I think I’ve seen the worst and the best, and I can manage the middle.”
“Hmph.” Rath’s blue eyes lifted to her, a frown line forming between his brows. “Well, if you end up regretting this, don’t come running to me. I tried to warn you.”
“I am not that bad,” Char protested.
“Thank you for your concern, Rath, but I think I’ll be okay,” Iris reassured him. “Char said we’re in a dwarven cave and we need to find a way out, right?”
Rath nodded. “Yeah. The crystal exploded after you passed out and caused a cave-in. We barely made it out of that tunnel alive.”
“We wouldn’t have made it out alive if it weren’t for the fairies deflecting boulders and pieces of that crystal,” Char added.
Rath cleared his throat.
Char smirked. “What?”
“Don’t you ‘what’ me.” Rath looked at Iris and pointed at himself. “I’m the one who transformed when we got out of the tunnel and shielded you two from all the flying rubble, not lover boy here. My side still hurts.”
He rubbed his ribs. Char rolled his eyes.
“Wrong side.”
“How do you know? It was flying in all directions.”
“I think I remember which part of your scaly hide was squishing me against a cave wall while I was trying to see if Iris was still alive.”
“Aha!” Rath pointed at Char, smirking. “So, you admit it!”
“Thank you both,” Iris intervened. “I heard you two… discussing whether to leave me behind or stay, and I wouldn’t have blamed you if you left, but I am glad you stayed.”
“You probably would have been fine,” Rath said, bringing his voice back to a casual, conversational tone. “I mean, you saved the king’s life. That had to count for something.”
“The king who sent an army into the throne room after us?” Char asked. “I don’t think he was too grateful.”
“Either way,” Iris said, rushing to get a word in before another argument could start, “we all made it out alive, and now we need to find a way out of here.”
“There are fireplaces in almost every room. Or ovens, in this case.” Rath nodded toward the combination oven and stove where the fairies were flitting around, refilling their plates. “So we’re pretty close to the surface. And we know which way we came from, so it may be as simple as following the tunnel in the opposite direction.”
“Unless the outlet is in one of the other tunnels branching off from that main cavern,” Char pointed out.
Rath shrugged. “No way to know without trying. Are we all going together, or am I exploring alone while you two…” The corner of his lips turned up in a smirk. “Do whatever?”
“Rath,” Char warned his brother.
Iris blushed again. Her brown eyes skidded away from the dragons and toward the fairies, which had just given her a cup of tea. “Or we could ask the fairies to help.”
“That would take the fun out of it,” Rath argued.
Char shook his head. “Well, I guess it’s up to you, Iris. Do you think you can travel yet?”
“Um… It seems like everything is healed, so…”
“Yeah, about that.” Rath leaned forward in his chair, head tilted to the side and sharp blue eyes studying her. “How come you healed so fast? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since you nearly killed yourself destroying that crystal. And I bet Micah didn’t take it easy on you before that, but you looked fine when Char found you.”
Char shot his brother a glare. Iris’ thick chestnut brown hair curtained her face and hid much of her expression, and although Char was curious, he had a feeling she’d rather not talk about it. Not yet.
“After Micah…” She hesitated, and Char's stomach twisted.
“If you don't—”
“It's fine,” she told Char. “The amulet felt…” She shrugged. “I just knew how to heal myself somehow. And when I walked into the throne room, I just… knew. Everything. Everything about Micah, the amulet, the crystal—everything. But I don’t know about after that. I think…”
She paused, fingering the handle of the teacup. Char hadn’t realized dwarves drank tea.
“In a way, I think Micah is the reason I survived that.”
Char frowned and exchanged a look with Rath. His brother also looked dubious. But Iris was still fixated on the tea, refusing to look at either of them.
“It was something he said about regulating the flow of magic during the extraction process. He said the magic wanted to rush out like water bursting through a dam, but if he let it do that, the subject would die before he could collect everything. He had to slow it down so he could get every drop. And… I think… Maybe it works the same way whenever someone is channeling magic.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and looked up at the dragons. “I’m not sure. But I think I used more of the amulet’s magic than my magic, so I had enough left over to heal myself.”
“Huh.” Rath sat back in his chair. “So, how much magic do you have left?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, we’ll follow the tunnel and see where it goes,” Rath decided. “We should bring supplies, too, just in case we find an outlet or get turned around. Once we get back to the surface, we’ll probably have to travel for a while before it’s safe to transform and fly home—oh. Problem.”
They all came to the same realization. Iris had always used the amulet to keep herself alive during flight, but without it…
“We’ll pack extra blankets,” Char reassured her. “We can try a short test flight, and if it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna work, we’ll just have to walk.”
Rath groaned. “Walk? All that way?”
“Well, you can fly ahead. You don’t have to stay back with us.”
“What about visiting the church?” Iris asked.
Rath and Char looked at her and then at each other.
“It isn’t safe for us to go back into the capital right now,” Rath told her. “Every soldier in the city must be looking for us. But Kelnor said we would attempt negotiations with the humans, so hopefully, we can come back when everything settles down.”
She nodded and looked down at her tea again. An awkward silence fell over the room.
“Mother will kill me,” Char finally said.
Rath raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Well, that wasn’t the best proposal. She gave me a lecture about making it memorable for Iris.”
Iris looked up at him and gave him a small smile. “I liked it.”
“Mother knew about this?” Rath sputtered. “Why did you tell her and not me?”
“She dragged it out of me.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I thought you’d react like this.”
“Darn right! First, you keep her a secret from me,” Rath said, ticking numbers off on his fingers, “then you lie to me about what she means to you, and now this?” He curled his fingers into a fist and punched Char’s shoulder.
“Ow! What was that for? And why do you have to always go for the bad shoulder?”
“For leaving me out, you idiot, and because there’s no other way to get anything through your thick skull! If you wanted a good proposal, I could have helped! Now she’s stuck with whatever lame thing you came up with—”
“It wasn’t lame,” Iris interjected.
“Stay out of this!” Rath told her. “You love him, so you’re giving him a break, but you deserve better.” Rath spun back to Char. “Don’t you dare laugh! This is serious! You didn’t even give her a ring, you jerk!”
“I’ll buy a ring when we get back. Iris can help me pick it out.”
“Absolutely not! Don’t you know anything about a proposal? It’s all supposed to be a surprise! The ring, the question, everything! Next, you’ll tell me you want to help her pick out the dress.”
“I don’t—”
“Look, Iris.” Rath cut Char off with a wave of his hand and turned to her. She had a hand over her mouth, trying to hide her giggling. “I’ll be his best man, so if you need me to beat him up, just let me know.”
“Who said you’ll be my best man?” Char countered, smirking.
Rath groaned. “Correction. I’ll be his best man—if I let him live that long.”
Char pressed his lips together and did his best not to laugh while Rath continued berating him, but Iris’ stifled giggles made it hard to keep a straight face. Rath, too, was fighting a smile. By the time their plates were empty, they were all laughing without restraint, and Char had almost forgotten his new worries about flying with Iris.
Almost.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡma26A8qaJb
