Page 17 of The Mercy of Dawn

“I’ll admit, our situation isn’t exactly…usual.” Dion breathed a laugh that held little humor. “And yes, my lifestyle changed drastically after, well, everything. But that does not mean for a moment that I never wanted you around. I always have, and I always will.”

Dion was never so generous with his sentimental words. Cyril almost wanted to believe he felt an ounce of remorse for the earlier…incident. She would take what she could, anything to lessen the tension between them even a bit for the back half of their trip.

“I know,” she said quietly, and Dion eased his arm around her, rubbing the shoulder that ached from her collision with the cave wall.

“Go get some sleep, kiddo. We’ll be leaving in a few hours and our next day of riding won’t be easy.”

Even though it pained her to admit, Cyril was almost looking forward to making it to the palace. If only it meant she could spend a few days not being bumped around on the back of a horse.

Turned out Dion was right about one thing.

Bron had a knack for wrapping backs and Cyril was annoyed that no one thought to make mention of his handy little skill set sooner. Like, as soon as they left the estate.

They were halfway through the day and the thick cloth he bound around her lower back did wonders at easing the jarring jolts of pain she suffered through the days past. Not perfect by any means, but tolerable. Bron was even kind enough to dig out an extra blanket to pad his delicate little dove’s saddle with when she grumbled about how numb her ass still was.

All boons that Cyril would take, because Dion had not been kidding when he said their ride wouldn’t be easy today.

Ever since she and her cabal of uncles set out at dawn’s first light, a frigid, moisture-laced wind howled down the mountain channel at them from Reykr’s end of the rift. Where the bend in the passage had provided a welcome barrier to the elements the day before, today it only trapped and swirled the frosty gale right back at them from behind.

Cyril donned every damn bit of layers she’d packed in her saddlebag, and was naught but a strip of pale skin and golden eyes peering out from her hood by the time they departed. Of course, the weather hadn’t fussed her uncles.

It was laughable how fast Cyril had gone from dreading this entire trip to being eager to make it to the palace, if only for the worldly comforts she might have access to again.

The dried rations of jerky and fruit that made up their breakfast had been the furthest thing from satisfying, and Cyril hadn’t the gall to tell Dion she accidentally chugged back the rest of her waterskin when she was half asleep. Despite the abysmal turn of their evening, he seemed in good spirits today, and Cyril was determined to not ruffle that. She just had to hope they’d find a creek sooner rather than later.

As they rode, the howl of the wind left little room for conversation. So Cyril preoccupied herself in the best way she knew, and she let her eyes wander, studying the veining of obsidian through the rift.

In the absence of glittering sunlight, the veining looked like enormous splotches of wet ink on gray parchment, with grand sweeping whorls shooting out from them in all directions. Whorls that sometimes tapered and slipped away into nothing, while others expanded, warping and bursting into jagged bolts of black lightning.

Cyril decided, after countless hours, that she loved those bolts the most. They gave her a faint, yet warm, reminder of home.

Wicked and sweeping thunderstorms rolled through Helia’s southern flatlands often in the late summer and, ever since she could remember, Dion would always drag her outside to watch them. The covered terrace at the back of the estate often served as their impromptu theater box, or the stables did if they felt like braving a run in the rain to get to them.

Sometimes, they would spend hours out there. Just watching and listening as brilliant flashes of lightning tore through the sky and the thunder rattled everything around them, and it was something she realized might not happen at all this summer.

Cyril heard Reykr could be a wet and harshly cold place, especially compared to what she was accustomed to in Helia. But she hadn’t the faintest clue if they experienced the same sort of storms that rolled through to the south of the mountains. Not like Dion bothered to tell her much of anything useful about the damn place.

Maybe once they cleared the rift and these brutal winds, she could ask him what summer in Reykr would be like, and if the jagged veins of obsidian reminded him of anything from—

A petulant snort left Attie as she came to a jarring stop behind Dion’s horse. Cyril cursed as a twinge of pain ran up her spine.

“Daydreaming?” her uncle chuckled.

“I…”

Cyril’s rebuttal dissipated.

They had reached the end of the rift.

And, gods…

Dion grinned back at her as he said, “Welcome to Reykr.”

Chapter 5

Reykr was lush and green and beautiful for as far as Cyril’s dry and weary eyes could see. She couldn’t believe they were still in Carinae.

Even with a heavy, milk-white fog obscuring the finer details of her first view of the foreign land, Cyril knew it was unlike anything she had ever laid eyes on.