Page 60 of Wings of Ice and Steel

Her dragon demanded it.

Melixanthe retired early after her meeting to rest and heal. Ariadnne wasn’t sure if her handler’s ability to shrug off serious wounds and keep going was an admirable trait, or sheer stubbornness. At least, for once, she was listening to her healers’ advice.

A little voice in the back of Ariadnne’s mind whispered that Melixanthe’s absence was fortuitous. The voice dripped with guilt. Melixanthe was too shrewd not to notice Ariadnne’s unrest, her distracted thoughts and the lightness in her step. There was no way Ariadnne could have summoned the composure to avoid her handler’s questions that afternoon.

She’d barely had a chance to dwell on the arrow. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Sol had been involved. There was something odd in the way his face had hardened at the sight of Melixanthe on the ground—she just couldn’t fathom why.

She wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if she could prove his guilt.

For now, though, she had a daring stunt to plan.

Sascha came and went with her dinner tray and Ariadnne stayed glued to her window. Her room looked straight out over the cliffs. Far below, cresting waves crashed against the rocky cliff-side, the waters wild and chaotic.

When she was a fledgling, and both significantly smaller and infinitely more reckless, she had tried to take the matter of freedom into her own hands once or twice. She had leapt from this window at night and shifted mid-air, catching the wind in her wings in the nick of time to escape a grizzly fate on the rocks below. Skimming over the waves she would imagine what would happen if she kept flying. She’d never made it far.

It had always been Lucius who caught her. And while he had always been gentle—infuriatingly so—Melixanthe’s threats of what the Council would do to her if they found out had soon put an end to the flights.

Lucius wouldn’t be able to catch her now, but the Guild would find her eventually, if the curse didn’t get her first. She would undoubtedly lose every privilege and semblance of freedom she had earned over the years.

They weren’t above hurting others to punish her, either. Like Sascha, or Nieve—

No, running was not an option, but she could still use her wings.

She had not attempted this feat for over ten years. Her inner voice berated her for considering it, but there was no other way out of the room unseen.

She licked her lips and eyed the rocks below. She was now a lot more dragon. It would take all her skill to pull this off.

Then there was the second hurdle—how to get back into the main yard without being noticed? She was somehow going to have to scale the cliff as a dragon and find a way to shift back before dropping into the yard. Many parts of her plan were foggy at present and there was a high chance the high she was riding wasn’t letting her think straight...

Eventually, the sun disappeared over the horizon and the sky filled with stars. Ariadnne took a deep breath. She removed her clothes, folding them on the arm of the couch. Then, she climbed onto the windowsill, the stone cold under her fingertips, breeze lifting her hair from her neck as she forced her shoulders through the narrow gap. As her heart pounded, a jangle of worry pinged through the bond. Nieve sensed her anxiety and was fretting. Ariadnne tried to send reassurance back, but she had no idea if Nieve felt it.

She banished the second thoughts creeping across the back of her mind. They didn’t affect her dragon, who uncoiled eagerly, excited by the prospect of imminent release.

With tightly coiled limbs, she sprung from the window into the chilly air and seized the shift, pushing the magic to work faster as she plummeted.

Mere metres from the rocks below, her wings unfurled, the tips brushing the jagged, rocky edges of the cliff. With an almighty backstroke she forced her domination over gravity just as her tail was drenched in spray. She almost swallowed her heart—it had come so far up her throat—as she glided along the base of the cliff.

Staying low, she skimmed the waves until she was beneath the wall to the yard. With a flick of her wings, she twisted her body so that her claws scrabbled against the cliff side for purchase. For a horrible moment she thought she was going to slide into the sea as every bit of rock she grasped broke away under her weight. Eventually, she found her footing and held on tight. As delicate as an eighty-foot beast could be, she edged herself up. Somehow, she also needed to scale the wall of the castle itself without crushing it. The brickwork was smooth with little for her talons to grip, and the sound of her scrabbling would surely bring guards.

With a sinking stomach, Ariadnne acknowledged she would have to shift back and pray to the gods she could hold on while doing so. She closed her eyes and muttered a promise to Dianea to be a better, more devout person as she tentatively pulled on her tendril of power.

Her stomach swooped as she fell against the cliff, grappling frantically for handholds as her arms formed. It was an ungainly scrabble, but the rocks were much easier to grip with hands and fingers and she didn’t fall far. She clung to a rocky outcropping and regretted her plan as she viewed the climb ahead.

Thirty minutes later, her arms trembling and bleeding from a multitude of scratches, she pulled herself over the lip of the wall above the training yard. Her bond tugged frantically at her chest. Nieve was beside herself with worry, experiencing every ounce of fear, pain, and exhaustion alongside Ariadnne; a two-way street of feelings that would take a lot of getting used to.

Ariadnne surveyed the drop into the yard below, fatigue making it seem like a long way to fall. She prayed it wasn’t high enough to do any serious damage as she lowered herself over the edge to hang from her fingertips, then let go. Landing with a grunt, she crouched in the shadow of the wall. The yard was empty, but Ariadnne felt very exposed and wished she’d had a way to bring clothes...

She followed the edge of the wall until she got to the stone archway leading to the barracks. Here there was more noise and Ariadnne was careful to stay in the shadows as she tried to find her companies’ building.

She stumbled against its rough brick, resting her limbs. Then, holding her breath, she crouched beside the first window and tilted her head to peer inside. Finnick. Damn. She ducked back before he could notice her and moved on, checking each window she passed until she finally found who she was looking for.

Nieve paced back and forth, pausing intermittently to run her hands through her hair in a frustrated gesture Ariadnne was getting to know. She was wearing a simple shirt and breeches and looked… beautiful.

Wishing she had something to wear, Ariadnne knocked on the window. She must look a state, covered in scratches from the climb and hair falling from her braids.

Nieve’s eyes darted to the window, widening as she saw Ariadnne. Within a heartbeat she was there and scrambling to open the panes.

‘Ariadnne! By the gods… I’ve been so worried for you. What in nine hells did you do…’ She paused, her breath catching. ‘You’re n—where are your clothes?’