Page 79 of Wings of Ice and Steel

Ariadnne scoffed. ‘You’re trying to control me. And don’t talk to me about what the Guild is capable of. I know—’

‘You don’t.’ Melixanthe snapped. ‘You have no idea.’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Ariadnne growled. ‘She’s my mate.’

Stepping back, Melixanthe’s eyes widened, lips parting. ‘Ari—'

‘So don’t tell me that what you did was for me. There’s nothing you can say to make me forgive you,’ Ariadnne spat, stepping away as Melixanthe reached for her. Her handler’s sympathy meant nothing, a deluge of emotion cascading through her as she spun on her heel and stalked towards her bedroom, blinded by hot, angry tears.

‘I had a mate, once.’

Ariadnne froze. There was a raw sound behind her, a sucking of breath so broken it could have cleaved the world.

‘She was beautiful and smart and strong, but it didn’t end well. The Guild has a habit of destroying beautiful things.’

Ariadnne’s pulse thudded in the silence. There was a brush at her elbow as Melixanthe stepped past to lower herself onto the couch, keeping her injured leg straight. One hand unclasped the pendant at her neck, her thumb stroking its carved surface reverently.

‘Please. Sit.’ Her eyes flicked to the door. ‘There’s a story I’ve been forbidden to share with you.’

Ariadnne’s feet remained planted, but she tilted her head.

‘What story?’

She studied Melixanthe’s face, noting the slight tremor of her jaw.

‘Will you sit?’

‘No.’

‘Fine.’ Melixanthe sighed, tucking the pendant into her fist. ‘I need to go back for this to make sense. Once, believe it or not, I was young. I was also naïve and stupid, and headhunted by the Guild for my maternal lineage. Descended from dragons, my line has a habit of throwing varanyen young.’

This was new. Melixanthe had never shared her history with Ariadnne, preferring to maintain that line in the sand. Despite herself, her ears pricked.

‘I was honoured by their interest in me, blinded by their zeal and passion for the varanyen race. Your greatness and potential. For years, I did everything they asked, fought every battle, strove to become the best. Then, after a century of service, quite recently by our years, they approached with a different request. You see, I was ageing and had never chosen to have children of my own—something they had hoped for, circling like vultures. They asked if I would honour them and my ancestors by continuing my line and I, fool that I was, said yes.’

A faint rouge dusted Melixanthe’s cheeks.

‘They chose a partner from a good bloodline. It was a transaction, purely business, but our efforts were successful.’

Something like horror clawed at Ariadnne’s throat. Melixanthe had been coerced into exactly what Leth had threatened her with. Despite her anger, pity made her nauseous.

Melixanthe continued, oblivious to Ariadnne’s turmoil, ‘Shortly after I discovered I was pregnant, I was fortunate enough to meet my own mate. Zolif.’ Her voice cracked. Ariadnne looked at her. Having a mate and a child were major revelations. Her anger muted to a dull pressure in the back of her skull as she processed the new information.

Melixanthe lifted the stone in her hand. ‘This was the first gift she gave me.’ The ghost of a smile touched her lips. ‘I think she would have wanted me to share this story with you sooner.’

Ariadnne’s eyes followed the stone, which gleamed a dull grey in the faelight. It was hard to imagine Melixanthe with anyone in that way, soft and tender, or feeling even a fraction of how she felt for Nieve.

A curl of dread licked her as she asked, ‘What happened to her?’

Melixanthe shook her head. ‘I’ll get there—I have to tell it all.’ She leaned back. ‘I thought it would last forever, our time together. After the birth of my child, we raised her for those first few years, falling in love and forgetting the Guild’s claim. We assumed the chances of her being varanya were tiny. That we would be able to keep her.’

Ariadnne slumped into a chair, the wheels of her mind turning as a heavy stone settled in her stomach.

Her nightmare flashed before her eyes; being dragged screaming from loving arms.

‘We were so happy, Ariadnne. They let us move into the family wing with our baby. Oh, she was adorable. She had the most perfect round cheeks and grew into the fieriest toddler, but Zolif could calm even her wildest mood. I was always too stubborn. It was Zolif who knew when to bend and when to steady. Then, one morning our little girl’s eyes shifted to violet, and we knew I had bred true, that things would never be the same.

‘I have never felt so much fear as in that moment. It’s one thing to agree to produce a child when the idea of handing them over is an abstract concept. It is quite another to hold that child in your arms, to love her—only to have her ripped, screaming, from your grasp.